Every era laments
about daunting challenges. However, even previous generations would
probably agree that effectively managing todays organizations is very
difficult. Ask anyone
todaymanagement professors, practitioners, or studentswhat the major
challenges are
in todays environment, and the answer will be fairly consistent: A
turbulent economy and
dangerous geopolitics preoccupy everyones concerns. However, at the
organization level,
understanding global competition and diversity, and trying to solve
ethical problems and
dilemmas come to the fore. These are unquestionably major issues facing
contempory
organizations and are given major attention in this text. However, the
basic premise and
assumptions of the field of organizational behavior in general, and of
this text in particular,
are that managing the peoplethe human resources of an organizationhave
been, are, and
will continue to be, the major challenge and critical competitive advantage.
Globalization,
diversity, and ethics serve as very important environmental or contextual
dimensions for organizational behavior. However, as Sam Walton, the
founder of Wal-Mart
and richest person in the world when he died, declared to this author over
lunch a number
of years ago when
asked what the answer was to successful organizationsPeople are the
key!The technology can be purchased and copied; it levels the playing
field. The people,
on the other hand, cannot be copied. Although it may be possible to clone
human bodies,
their ideas, personalities, motivation, and organization cultural values
cannot be copied.
The human resources of an organization and how they are managed represent
the competitive
advantage of todays and tomorrows organizations. A recent study of over
three hundred
companies for over 20 years provides evidence for this statement. The
researchers
found that management of human resources through extensive training and
techniques such
as empowerment resulted in performance benefits, but operational
initiatives such as total
quality management
or advanced manufacturing technology did not.
At first employees
were considered a cost, then human resources, and now are becoming
widely recognized as human capital2 what you knoweducation, experience,
skills.
Recent research indicates that investing in this human capital results in
desired performance
outcomes such as increased productivity and customer satisfaction.3 Even going beyond
human capital are more recently recognized social
capital4 who you
knownetworks,
connections, friends and positive psychological capital5 who you
areconfidence,
hope, optimism, resiliency and who you are in terms of confidence, hope,
optimism,
resiliency, and, more importantly, who you can become, i.e., ones
possible authentic self.
Although Chapter 7 will be specifically devoted to positive organizational
behavior in general
and psychological capital in particular, let it be simply noted here that
there is growing
research evidence that employees psychological capital is positively
related to their performance
and desired
attitudes.6 As the ultimate
techie Bill Gates astutely observed: The inventory, the value of my company,
walks out the door every evening.
Interestingly,
whereas the technology dramatically changes, sometimes monthly or even
weekly, the human side of enterprise has not changed and will not change
that fast. As noted
by well-known international management scholar Geert Hofstede, Because
management is
always about people, its essence is dealing with human nature. Since human
nature seems to
have been extremely stable over recorded history, the essence of
management has been and
will be equally stable over time.7 The nature of work and the workplace
itself,8 the traditional
employment contract,9 and the composition of the workforce10 are all dramatically
changing and given attention in this text. Yet, the overriding purpose of
the first edition, now
38 years ago, of
trying to better understand and effectively manage human behavior in
organizations
Remains the essence
of this twelfth edition.
This introductory
chapter gives the perspective, background, methodology, and evidence-based
approach to the field. After a brief discussion of the current
environmental challenges
and the paradigm shift facing management and why an evidence-based
approach is needed,
the historical background is touched on. Particular attention is given to
the famous
Hawthorne studies, which are generally recognized to be the beginning of
the systematic
study and understanding of organizational behavior. Next, an overview of
the methodology
used in the scientific study of organizational behavior is given. The
chapter concludes by
defining exactly
what is involved in organizational behavior and by providing a conceptual
model for the rest
of the text.
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