Organizational Behavior Terminology and ConceptsOrganizational behavior is defined as the study of human behavior in organizations. Organizational behavior is an interdisciplinary body of knowledge with strong ties to the behavioral sciences such as psychology, sociology and anthropology as well as to allied sciences. However, the goal of organizational behavior is to integrate the diverse insights of these other disciplines and applying them to real-world problems and opportunities.
The ultimate goal of organizational behavior is to improve the performance of people, groups and organizations (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 2005). Organizational culture is defined as the shared beliefs and values that influence the behavior of organizational members. The internal environments of organizations display an underlying respect for people and for workforce diversity. Diversity is the presence of individual-differences based on gender, race and ethnicity, age, able-bodiedness, and sexual orientation. Members of diverse organizations are skilled at working successfully with people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, of different ages and genders, different ethnic and national cultures, and different life styles (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 2005).
Organizational effectiveness is an indicator of how well organizations perform. The analysis of performance can be done from different perspectives. The first is the systems resource approach, which looks at the input side of the figure and defines effectiveness in terms of success in acquiring needed resources from the organization’s external environment. The internal process approach examines the transformation process and examines how efficiently resources are used to produce goods and services.
The goal approach looks at the output side to measure achievement of key operating objectives. Last, the strategic constituencies approach analyzes the impact of the organization on key stakeholders and their interests (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 2005). Organizational learning is the process of acquiring knowledge and using information to adapt successfully to changing circumstances. Organizations must be able to change continuously and positively while searching for new ideas and opportunities (Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, 2005). My place of employment is Sprint PCS.
I am a technical support representative and I am in charge of maintaining the functionality of these devices. I handle all aspects of the phones, PDA’s and wireless air cards from making sure that voice calls can be made to maintaining an internet connection to sending and receiving pictures. At my place of employment communication is a key ingredient to our team success. Without effective communication we would not be able to function as an efficient team or company. Culture at the workplace is very much the same across the board. We all share the same values and beliefs, for the most part.
We do have a diverse bunch; however. We have all types of people within our group. Our diversity varies between ethnicity, culture, gender, age and sexual orientation. Without the diversity to mix things up, the job would be very mundane and monotonous.
We learn new things everyday, whether it is a memo about a change in company policy to a solution to repairing a cellular device’s functionality by purely stumbling upon it. Everyday is something new and something learned. We have many different ways to measure our efficiency and effectiveness at work. The main way our upper management gauges this is through monitoring our calls to make sure we are hitting every required point and satisfying the customer’s needs to the best of our ability. Another way to monitor our success is via our call statistics.
If we are within normal guidelines the company makes a profit and stays in business. ResourcesSchermerhorn, John R, Hunt, James G, Osborn, Richard N. Organizational Behavior. Retrieved June 16, 2005, from the World Wide Web: at http://ecampus.phoenix.edu .
