Behavioural Perspective

Meaning of Behavioural Perspectives

The expanded, expanded, and modified versions of classical theory are human relation and behavioral science theories. Scientific management was condemned by employees, unions, social scientists, and psychologists for failing to adequately consider how people interact within businesses. According to these beliefs, an effective manager must be able to comprehend, influence, and work with people from a variety of cultures, backgrounds, perspectives, needs, and goals. While human relations and behavioral science theory placed more emphasis on social and psychological elements at work and emotions, classical theory concentrated on structure, order, formal organization, economic factors, work, and objective rationality.

By classifying these theories into the following two groups, they can be researched independently:

• Human relation approach which studies the importance of individuals within the organization, and
• Behavioral science approach which studies about the interpersonal relations and behavioral patterns of each worker.

Human Relation Approach

Interpersonal behavior theory is another name for human relation theory. It examines the value of people inside a business, as well as how people interact with one another and how each employee behaves. This hypothesis was developed by Mery Parker Follett and Elton Mayo. They emphasize that the human resource is the most important element within the company because it is a social system. The following two studies make up the human relations theory:

• Hawthorne Experiments
• Participative Management
   

Hawthrone Experiments

The true inspiration for the movement, however, stimulated from the Hawthrone experiments which were undertaken by Prof. Elton Mayo and his colleagues at the western Electric Company's factory in Cicero, Illinois, the USA from 1927 to 1932. To produce telephone equipment and spares, 29,000 people were employed at the plant.

There are four components to the Hawthrone experiment. Below is a quick discussion of these components:

• Illumination Experiment
  • In the Hawthrone Plant, this experiment was started in 1924 and ran for three years. The main goal of the study was to evaluate how lighting affected employees' productivity across various departments and areas of the company. Productivity increased under both scenarios, regardless of whether lighting was altered for one group of workers or maintained constant for another. The experiment revealed that encouraging social interactions among employees as group members could also increase productivity. This is in addition to creating better working environment.
• Relay Assembly Test Room Experiment
  • In this experiment, segregated rooms were used to house two groups of six female telephone relay assemblers. Their working conditions, such as hours worked, hot lunches, rest breaks, wage incentives, the type of monitoring, etc., underwent frequent modifications in one room while remaining unchanged in the other. Over a period of several years, despite the frequent changes in working conditions, production tended to rise; even so, it fluctuated wildly. The team's productivity and morale persisted even after the physical working conditions changes were discontinued. The researchers came to the conclusion that good worker productivity is mostly dependent on socio-psychological aspects including feelings of significance, acknowledgment, engagement, and non-directive supervision. The increased output looked to be a result of the strong morale.
• Mass Interviewing Program
  • In this phase, 20,000 workers were interviewed to learn more about their perspectives on the working world. Instead of emphasizing actual working conditions, this interviewing program concentrated on interpersonal relationships. After conducting the interviews, it was determined that informal relationships, social needs, and psychological requirements have a significant role in influencing employee behavior and productivity.
• Bank Wiring Observation Room Experiment
  • In this study, a small group of 14 male employees who worked in the bank wiring room were closely studied for seven months. The workers were working on putting together terminal banks for a phone exchange. The goal of the study was to conduct a more thorough analysis of the social dynamics within a workgroup. Researchers came to the conclusion from the experiment that workers would put in more effort if they felt that management cared about their wellbeing and that their supervisors gave them additional attention and care. Rather of following formal production guidelines, the workers were primarily guided by group production norms. Social elements like moral behavior and positive working relationships between management and employees can increase employee productivity.

Participative Management

Theorist Mery Parker Follet has put forth this hypothesis. According to participatory management philosophy, management is about using people to accomplish goals. The human factor is crucial in the workplace. Instead than demanding performance, managers should motivate it. Groups accomplish the organization's overall goals. Coordination should be used by management to establish unity. Better interpersonal relationships are facilitated by co-operation, unity, and self-control. This idea has advanced various management principles. The following are the main ideas:

• Coordination by Direct Contact
  • Regardless of where they are in the organization, the concerned parties must interact in person. In order to achieve coordination, horizontal communication is just as crucial as vertical chains of command.
• Coordination in Early Stages
  • Policy and decision-making should involve the relevant parties from the beginning rather than just informing them later. Increased motivation and morale will be obtained as a result of participation.
• Coordination by Reciprocal Relations
  • Coordination needs to take into account interrelationships. Environment needs to be prioritized.
• Coordination as Continuing Process
  • Several factors influence a decision. They have joint responsibilities. Instead of coming from a position, authority comes from a task. Continual coordination is required.

Contribution of Human Relation Theory

The Hawthrone study' findings were released in 1941. The outcomes have contributed to a greater understanding of workers and their jobs. The research were a turning point in the development of management theory and made a big difference in the effort to humanize organizations and management. Following is a summary of the important contributions made by Hawthrone studies:

• Money alone does not drive employees. Employee attitudes regarding their employment are motivated by a variety of personal and social factors.
• Setting and upholding group standards are crucial tasks performed by informal leaders.
• The significance of understanding the idea of "social man" became obvious.
• Management needs to comprehend and identify how employees interact with one another and with groups.
• Maintaining employee morale and productivity requires effective supervision.

Limitations of Human Relations Theory

The following are the main drawbacks of the human relations approach:

• The focus on work in human relations theory is insufficient. It places a strong emphasis on social interactions and unofficial groups.
• Human relations frequently overlook the financial component of job fulfillment.
• An anti-individualist movement is the human relations movement. The group's discipline merely takes the place of the boss's discipline.

Organizational Behavior's or Behavioral Science's Evolution

The study of human behavior in organizations, as well as its scientific examination and analysis, are all topics covered by behavior science. The human relations method ignored the group's behavioral patterns. The behavioral approach is interdisciplinary and multifaceted in character. An enhanced and more contemporary form of the human relations method is the behavioral science approach.

The behavioral sciences are divided into three primary subfields: psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Psychology is the study of the individual behavior of all members of the organization. The study of collective behavior is known as sociology. The study of physical, biological, and cultural impacts on people's behavior as both individuals and group members is known as anthropology.

Numerous behavioral scientists have significantly influenced management theory and practice. Abraham Maslow, Douglas McGregor, Fredric Herzberg, Mary Parker Follet, and others of note are among them.

Abraham Maslow: Need Hierarchy Theory

In 1943, human psychologist Abraham Maslow created his theory of human needs. He asserted that individuals had a diverse range of demands. He contends that after the lower level needs are met, the higher level needs take over as the primary motivators. A need at one level does not, however, have to be fully met before another need appears. Few people ever achieve self-actualization and the full satisfaction of their higher level desires. As a result, motivation always has a foundation. The order of human requirements is as follows:

• Physiological Needs
  • The fundamental requirements for survival, including as food, clothes, shelter, water, air, sleep, and sex, are known as physiological needs. These demands are met in companies by adequate pay and a positive working environment in general. To satiate physiologic demands, almost every organization formerly existed.
• Security Needs/ Safety Needs
  • Protection against lack, risk, and threat both on and off the job are all included in the concept of security need. Organizations satisfy the desire for security by offering a steady job with employment, medical, and retirement benefits.
• Affiliation/ Social Needs
  • Affection, belongingness, acceptance, and companionship are all social demands. High affiliation need workers enjoy being close to their coworkers. Employee unhappiness and low morale frequently manifest themselves in a variety of ways, including frequent absenteeism, poor productivity, stress-related behaviors, and emotional breakdowns, when a company does not meet the needs of its affiliates.
• Esteem Needs
  • Self-respect, autonomy, and attainment are examples of internal elements that contribute to self-esteem, as do external factors like status, recognition, and attention. People look for opportunities for success, power, promotion, prestige, and status in order to meet these requirements.
• Self-Actualization Needs
  • These requirements pertain to personal development, self-fulfillment, and reaching one's greatest potential. The goal of self-actualization is to become what one is capable of being.

A manager must determine each employee's needs in order to get the best work from them. Different workers have various needs. Consequently, a manager's biggest challenge in using this idea is figuring out what the employees' demands are.

Douglas McGregor: Theory X and Y

The management professor was Douglas McGregor. He noticed that certain people are compassionate, kind, and loving toward others. Others have proclivities toward cruelty, hate and destruction. McGregor introduced the idea of people having a dual nature to management philosophy. He came to the conclusion that managers' perceptions of human nature are based on either positive or negative group assumptions. He gave these opposing categories of presumptions the names Theory X and Theory Y. He asserts that theory Y is a collection of assumptions that are positive about human nature and theory X is a collection of assumptions that are negative about the worker.

The foundation of Theory X is the prevailing view of how people behave. The following is theory X's central premise:

• Workers are sluggish. They shun employment because they detest it.
• Employees must be reprimanded, regulated, or threatened with punishment because they detest their jobs.
• Employees like to be steered and directed, they dislike taking on responsibility, they seek safety, and they also lack ambition.
• Most employees lack ambition and choose security over all other aspects of their jobs.

Theory Y has a positive outlook on employees. It supports inner motivation that is constructive. Participatory management is portrayed by Theory Y. It is believed that managers, employees, and organizations assist one another. The following is a list of theory Y's fundamental presumptions:

• A natural activity for recreation or rest is work.
• Employees only fully commit to a task or a goal once they have been rewarded personally for achieving it.
• If people are committed to their goals, they will use self-control and self-direction.
• The normal person can learn to seek out responsibility as well as accept it.
• A large portion of the general populace is imaginative, inventive, and creative.

The behavior of individual employee as well as that of the group must be understood by managers as they delegate tasks to subordinates. Good working circumstances must be established by managers, and this is only feasible with an understanding of behavioral patterns.

Fredrick Herzberg: Two Factor Theory

The duo-factor hypothesis of work motivation was created by Fredrick Herzberg. He was one of the first behavioral scientists to examine employee motivation from unusual angles. This theory is based on the information from 200 engineers and accountants who participated in interviews. Herzberg and his colleagues asked participants to express job understandings that led to superior and inferior feelings about their jobs when conducting their research. He discovered two sets of demands or elements from his investigation, namely:

• Motivating Factor
• Hygiene Factor.

• Hygiene Factor
  • Dissatisfiers or maintenance factors are other names for hygiene factors. These are independent of the actual employment. Employees are not motivated by these variables, but rather, their existence results in unhappiness. When these elements are present, people won't be unhappy, but they also won't be satisfied. The hygiene factor is made up of things like business policies, supervision, peer relationships, personal relationships, relationships with subordinates, job security, status, and relationships with supervisors in addition to working conditions and pay. To keep the level of need satisfaction at a minimal, these elements are required.
• Motivating Factors
  • Other names for motivating elements are motivators, satisfiers, or job content considerations. These elements are focused on the job and have a direct connection to the work itself. High levels of motivation and job satisfaction are caused by the presence of motivating stimuli, whereas high levels of job discontent are not caused by their absence. These factors include achievement, recognition, advancement, work itself, the opportunity of personal growth, responsibility etc. Herzberg came to the notion that the secret to motivating workers is to give them enhanced employment.

To motivate employees to complete tasks, a manager must understand their behavior. He must be aware of a worker's psyche and handle him appropriately.

Contributions of Behavioural Science Theory

The following are the important contributions of behavioral science theory:

• The function of human components in an organization has been identified by this idea.
• It acknowledges that a key component of management success is the caliber of the leadership.
• It places a focus on non-monetary benefits.
• It places a strong emphasis on how important group dynamics and individual psychology are for organizational efficiency.
• The self-direction of subordinates through involvement in planning and decision-making has been stressed by this idea.

Limitations of Behavioural Science Theory

The primary drawbacks of behavioral science hypothesis are as follows:

• This theory ignores how important money is to job fulfillment.
• Situational factors weren't taken into account.
• It sees management as nothing more than behavioral science in practice.
• It lacks scientific validity and is clinically biased.

Reference

(Poudyal, S.R., Pradhan, G.M. and Bhandari, K.P. (2011). Principles of Management. Kathmandu: Asmita Books publishers and Distributors Pvt. Ltd.)