,Instructor's Manual and Workbook
Chapter 1 – Introduction
The aim of this chapter is to introduce you to the analytical framework that you will encounter
throughout the textbook and the course as a whole.
Course text
As stated in the course information, this is not a typical organizational behaviour (OB) course, so it
is important that you understand how and why it is different. The main point of difference is that
each chapter comprises an overview of key contributions to the mainstream study of its topic,
followed by a reappraisal of those contributions from a more critical perspective.
What is organizational behaviour?
OB draws upon a range of social scientific disciplines.
Sociology examines behaviour in relation to social, political, psychological and economic
conditions that affect it, but in turn are reproduced or reproduced by it.
Psychology concentrates on how individuals think and behave.
Politics focuses on competitive struggles for political power andinfluence.
Economics examines how wealth is produced and distributed.
Each discipline produces a distinctive way of understanding organizations and the behaviour of
people in them. Most OB textbooks are dominated by a psychological perspective, which means
that core OB topics have tended to focus on individual and group processes (motivation,
leadership, teamwork, etc.). The textbook for this course incorporates the psychological view but
draws more heavily on sociological and political perspectives than typical OB courses. This gives an
appreciation of how seemingly ‘psychological’ factors are shaped by and embedded in social
relations that stretch beyond organizational members and the boundaries attributed to
organizations. For example, when considering a topic such as motivation, which draws heavily from
psychology, we are also invited to consider the economic and political conditions of work that
shape an individual’s motivation, as well as any relevant historical and cultural forces.
A common reaction to introductory courses in OB is it’s all just ‘common sense’. For instance, it is
‘common sense’ that effective managers require a high level of technical expertise, are able to plan
and organize well, are skillful communicators and team builders etc. One of the aims of this course
is not only to move beyond these ‘common sense’ understandings of organizations, but to
challenge ‘common sense’ itself. When something is considered to be ‘common sense’, we tend to
treat it as an unquestionable truth that leaves no room for debate and discussion. For example, it is
‘common sense’ that human nature means people will act in their economic self-interest. Many
theories in organization behaviour and in related disciplines such as economics are based on this
assumption. In this course, you are encouraged to challenge taken- for-granted knowledge such as
this. For instance, it can be argued that economic self- interest is not an essential quality of human
,nature, but rather an effect of how, in western materialistic societies, the individual and wealth are
elevated as key values. This has become so pervasive that it has created a ‘common sense’
understanding that humans are inherently economically self-interested. Once we are prepared to
challenge ‘common sense’, we can then begin to explore why human nature is identified in
particular ways that appeal to ‘common sense’.
What is the relevance of this to OB? Typical OB courses focus on providing ‘common sense’
techniques and prescriptions that claim to make people more effective managers, through such
things as better communication and planning. This approach is managerialist in that it assigns to
managers the exclusive power to define the goals of the organization and their means of
achievement. In its extreme form, it proposes that everything can be managed efficiently through
the application of the right techniques.
Knights and Willmott believe this approach is highly idealistic, fails to capture the complexities of
human behaviour in organizations and is therefore likely to be of little practical value. So, why do
most OB courses present a ‘common sense’ view of management? Knights and Willmott suggest it
presents a positive and glamorous imageof management that is attractive to students because it
portrays management as a responsible and respectable profession where the manager’s role is
‘simply’ to enable others to achieve the shared goals of the organization. They argue that this fails
to recognize the complexities and difficulties of managing. Often those being managed do not
share management’s goals for the organization and these people might have a very low opinion of
managers.
Activity
Think of examples from history where knowledge gained the status of ‘common sense’but was
later found to be deeply flawed (e.g., the view that the world was flat). Can you think of examples
related to managing organizations?
, What is an organization?
It is common in introductory chapters in OB textbooks to provide a definition for‘organization’.
Knights and Willmott provide three different ways in which ‘organization’ can be defined,
identified and analyzed.
In the entity view, organizations are unified entities consisting of a set of characteristics, such as
rules, structures and hierarchies. Attention is focused on aspects of organizing that coincide with
the concerns of senior management, with little attention given to conflicting interests of other
members of the organization. This view is criticized for being politically naïve and simplistic and
for constructing a ‘common sense’ view of OB.
In the process view, the focus is not on organizations as entities, but on processes of organizing
wherever organized activities occur, such in families, sports teams and so on. Organizations are
made up of processes of organizing, but these processes are not confined to organizations. These
processes give rise to the activities which the entity view describes as tasks, roles, structures etc.
Knights and Willmott prefer a concept view of organizing, which understands that ‘organization’ is
a word that can assume a variety of meanings and can exert a number of different effects. These
meanings are always partial and political. It is partial in the sense that it reveals only one aspect of
‘organization’ and political because it encourages people to see and organize the world in
particular ways. For example, there is a long tradition within management thinking of conceiving of
organizations as being like machines – with parts (departments) which take inputs (money, labour,
etc.) to produce outputs (products). These parts sometime breakdown (through poor
communication) and sometimes require heavy maintenance (restructuring), with new parts being
added or removed. From a concept view of organization, this is partial because it downplays the
significance of human emotions, anxieties etc. and political because it encourages us to think
about solving management problems and issues in particular ways. When a particular concept of
organizations becomes dominant, it becomes ‘common sense’.
Mainstream and critical perspectives on OB
The curriculum of OB courses usually gives priority to ideas that are conservative and pro-
managerial. For example, it is assumed that managers alone have the knowledge and the right to
determine how work should be organized. This perspective is the mainstream or orthodox view. It
is what most people currently recognize as a legitimate way of doing or thinking about
management and organization. It regards managing as a technical activity and organizations as a
neutral instrument for achieving shared goals. As a consequence, OB can become a technology of
control, with each topic (such as leadership, motivation) presented as an element of a control
toolkit.
Efficiency and profit are seen to inform everything that happens in organizations, while social and
moral responsibilities are forgotten, except when recognizing these responsibilities becomes a
profit-maximizing strategy (as is often the case with ‘corporate social responsibility’).
In each chapter of the text, the presentation of the mainstream approach is followed by a critical
perspective. Here ‘critical’ has a particular meaning of challenging received wisdom or orthodoxy in
some way. For example, whereas the mainstream focus is on shared goals in an organization, the
