APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF ORGANIZATION

 Organizations are studied by scholars who belong to different sub- disciplines. These include the experimentalist, the sociometrist, and the dynamics, the clinical specialists, and the cultural anthropologists. These categories are rather arbitrary and even overlapping, but are broadly accurate.


EXPERIMENTALIST: There are two varieties of experimentalist. 
They agree rather absolutely on one thing and that is the need and feasibility of measuring the phenomena of human behaviour.


They are statistically and mathematically trained and they make a serious attempt to apply to the study of human behaviour the rigorous methodology of the natural sciences. One group which regards itself as the true experimenters creates its own experiments. An example is the familiar one where Bavelas re-arranged work-flow and layout for a small group which passed papers from one to another in a white collar operation.

The second type of experimentation is some times referred to as observation because it studies behaviour in existing organizations. It attempts to establish standards of effectiveness for the sub-units of the organization and compares the observed behaviour of the more effective with less effective sub-units. All organizations are confronted by individual members who are troubled, unstable and unhappy.

There are undoubtedly many people who are not by nature fitted to work in a team; others are vocationally misplaced and still others are victims of fortune beyond their control. All of this adversely affects their ability to perform their work. The new research in motivation is producing valuable insights into how hierarchical leaders should behave. But we are still largely helpless when faced with the necessity to change the behaviour of persons having basic personality defects.

Cultural Approaches
Organizations have individual cultures peculiar to themselves. The behaviour of people belonging to organizations is conditioned by their culture patterns. Some of these are the traditions, vocational modes of thought, methods of production, habitual manner of accomplishing tasks, the social structure of the people, and the group tensions which prevail.

Culture has in the past been the province of the anthropologist who has been primarily interested in isolated primitive people. There is happily developing a school of industrial anthropologists who are studying management cultures.

However, this need not be their exclusive hunting ground. What is needed is a realization of the importance of culture in determining human behaviour, even in technologically advanced industrial societies.

If workers feel closer to the union than to their employer, the cause is partly cultural. If policemen enforce the law against some and not against others, their motivations are also cultural in nature. Culture can be consciously changed but only if its roots and traits are understood by administrators.
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