Table of Contents
Introduction
The role of organizational behavior in organizations may be impacted by a variety of issues within the organization. Within the organization itself, there may be various cultural practices, traditions, or guidelines that impact organizational behavior. Organizational behavior refers to the actions and attitudes of individuals or groups toward one another and toward the organization as a whole, and its effect on the organization’s functioning and performance. Organizational behavior may examine employee behavior, behaviors regarding employees as a whole, or behaviors of the entire organization. How organizations impact the behaviors of their employees within the organization is a process that can be approached from many angles.
Often, employee behaviors are studied within the organizational environment, as well as the behavioral interactions between coworkers in a group. Other times, scientists examine the behaviors attributed to the entire organization and how it functions, its policies, its ethics, and its interactions with the community in which it resides, using various research methods. They may observe the employees and organization or simply use theoretical techniques and other experiments. There are numerous theories about organizational behavior. One theory surmises that organizational success relies on the employer and employee behaviors. This takes into consideration ethical codes, policies, and goals that direct behavior and the decision making process.
When employers incorporate this behavioral theory, they can structure their organizational behavior so that all employees at all levels are working to attain the same goal. The behaviors of the associates within the organization’s culture are guided by the organizational goals, ethics, or standards of the organization. Education, values, and beliefs can all affect the behavior within an organization. Motivation is also another element to consider when studying organizational behavior. Employees that are motivated to succeed within an organization are more likely to be effective and have organizationally aligned behaviors. Other factors that may impact organizational behaviors involve the structure of a company, managerial styles, stress levels, and their personality.
Understanding organizational behavior has helped many organizations produce effective management strategies, an inclusive, successful work environment. Research on organizational behavior has also helped organizations develop solutions to organizational needs, effective team building workshops, decision making models, motivational tools, and paths to performance success. With the help of organizational behavior research, organizations are moving towards a friendlier, more community oriented, and profitable future. Therefore, I have chosen three scholarly articles in which researchers have evaluated the role of organizational behaviors.
The article about ‘The People Make The Place’ refers to how the people within the organization defines the organization in which they work. Whereas, ‘Positive Organizational Behavior: Engaged Employees in Flourishing Organizations’ talks about how employees that are engaged in the workplace makes for a successful organization. Then there is the article, ‘People And Organizational Culture: A Profile Comparison Approach To Assessing Person-Organization Fit’, which talks about whether the person hired is a fit for the organization because the people determines the organization’s culture. All of these articles present sound information pertaining to organizational behaviors and provides varying views into organizational behaviors.
The People Make The Place
Paccar has a highly skilled workforce as a result of its successful intern, training, and learning programs. They have invested a large amount of resources into the training and development of its employees, which has resulted in a workforce that is not only highly skilled but also motivated to achieve more. Therefore, PACCAR has positioned its pay rate based on their surrounding competition in an effort retain its employees and to prevent employee turnover.
Positive Organizational Behavior: Engaged Employees in Flourishing Organizations
PACCAR has a performance appraisal program that is seen as very inconsistent in that there are not any clear or established deadlines, nothing in place to ensure mid-term evaluations are performed, and that feedback is provided to their employees. There are not any clear disciplinary action processes, employees are managed and disciplined on an it depends basis. This means, they are disciplined based on the situation and at the discretion of their manager. As a result of the changes in the recruiting technology, PACCAR has failed to update their recruiting system and their time of interview to hire can take years. This prevents them from hiring the more skilled employees, therefore causing them to have to take weeks to months to train the employees in which they hire.
People And Organizational Culture: A Profile Comparison Approach To Assessing Person-Organization Fit
As a result of PACCAR’s expertise in training and development of its employees, there is a great opportunity for PACCAR to open a training center that would allow them to attract a more skilled workforce and help them to identify potential employees faster. With the training center, they would be able to develop better pre-skills assessment tests and create a more technically savvy recruiting system that would help identify potential out of state employees as a result of the decreasing skilled labor in the area as a result of new companies that have entered the labor market.
Comparison Of Research Articles
As a result of the entry of new companies and the desire for skilled labor in the area, the rate for skilled labor is on the rise. As a result of technology and the constant changes in technology the desire for skilled labor is ever increasing as well as the need for updated recruiting software and systems. The constant entry of competitors into the labor market is fast reducing the market share PACCAR has to select their employees. Therefore, making the out of state recruiting process even more important.
Conclusion
Certain capabilities or factors of an organization can be both a strength and weakness at the same time. This is one of the major limitations of the SWOT analysis for PACCAR. For example, the changing of technology can be both a threat to the company, but it can also be an opportunity in a sense that it will enable the company to be on a level playing field or at advantage to competitors if it is able to develop their technology faster than their competitors. The SWOT analysis does not show how the company can achieve a competitive advantage, so it is not an end in itself. The analysis is only a starting point for the discussion on how certain proposed strategies can be implemented.
It only provided an evaluation window but not an implementation plan based on the strategic human resources management competitiveness of Paccar. As circumstances, capabilities, threats, and strategies change, the competitive environment may not be revealed as quickly. The SWOT analysis may also lead the company to overemphasize internal or external factors in developing their human resources strategies. Therefore, at first glance, it may appear that PACCAR’s human resources management skills are very weak, but in fact, as a result of their carefulness and slow hiring process, they tend to recruit employees that are not as quick to leave the company, reducing employee turnover rate and increasing their employee retention rates.
References
- Porter, M. E., Competitive Strategy(New York: Free Press, 1980)
- Chandler, A. D., Strategy and Structure (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1962).
- Williamson, O. E., Markets and Hierarchies(New York: Free Press, 1975).
- Wrigley, L., Divisional Autonomy and Diversification (PhD, Harvard Business School, 1970).
- White, R. E., Generic Business Strategies, Organizational Context and Performance: An Empirical Investigation, Strategic Management Journal7 (1986).