What Are the Problems Associated with Studying People's Behaviours in Organisations?
What problems are associated with studying people’s behaviour in organisations?
By Lovemore Murisa
1.0 Introduction
One of the biggest challenges in understanding human behaviour is that it addresses issues that aren’t obvious. Like an iceberg, behaviour has a small visible dimension and a much larger hidden portion. What we see when we look at people is their visible aspects: actions, attitudes, speech, acts, dress, language used and etcetera. But under the surface are other elements that we need to understand; elements that influence how people behave the way they do and how they work. This is the reason why studying people’s behaviour in an organisation is a complex task.
2.0 Definitions
2.1 Behaviour
Behaviour is how people act or react to internal or external stimuli.
The concept of behaviour refers to how, why, where and when people act and react to what goes on inside their bodies and outside their bodies.
2.2 Organisation
Formal organisations are social units deliberately formed by some members for specific purposes.
Another school of thought define an organisation as when two or more individuals are interacting with each other within a deliberately structured set up and working in an independent way to achieve goals and objectives.
2.3 Organisational behaviour
Roman J. Alday defined organisational behaviour as “a branch of the social science that seeks to build theories that can be applied to predicting understanding and controlling behaviour in work organizations”.
It has also been defined as the study of application of knowledge about how people act within organizations. It is a human tool for human benefit. It applies broadly to the behaviour of people in all types of organizations, such as business, government, school and service organizations.
3.0 Problems associated with studying people’s behaviours
One important nature of organisational behaviour is that it is dynamic rather than static. Its dynamics is reflected in
By Lovemore Murisa
1.0 Introduction
One of the biggest challenges in understanding human behaviour is that it addresses issues that aren’t obvious. Like an iceberg, behaviour has a small visible dimension and a much larger hidden portion. What we see when we look at people is their visible aspects: actions, attitudes, speech, acts, dress, language used and etcetera. But under the surface are other elements that we need to understand; elements that influence how people behave the way they do and how they work. This is the reason why studying people’s behaviour in an organisation is a complex task.
2.0 Definitions
2.1 Behaviour
Behaviour is how people act or react to internal or external stimuli.
The concept of behaviour refers to how, why, where and when people act and react to what goes on inside their bodies and outside their bodies.
2.2 Organisation
Formal organisations are social units deliberately formed by some members for specific purposes.
Another school of thought define an organisation as when two or more individuals are interacting with each other within a deliberately structured set up and working in an independent way to achieve goals and objectives.
2.3 Organisational behaviour
Roman J. Alday defined organisational behaviour as “a branch of the social science that seeks to build theories that can be applied to predicting understanding and controlling behaviour in work organizations”.
It has also been defined as the study of application of knowledge about how people act within organizations. It is a human tool for human benefit. It applies broadly to the behaviour of people in all types of organizations, such as business, government, school and service organizations.
3.0 Problems associated with studying people’s behaviours
One important nature of organisational behaviour is that it is dynamic rather than static. Its dynamics is reflected in