Mills A. J. Helms Mills J. Bratton J. An

ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR IN A
GLOBAL CONTEXT
OrgBehaviour_interior_20060810.i1 1
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ORGANIZATIONAL
BEHAVIOUR IN A
GLOBAL CONTEXT
ALBERT J.
MILLS
JEAN C.
HELMS
MILLS
CAROLYN
FORSHAW
JOHN
BRATTON
broadview press
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Copyright 2007 The authors

All rights reserved. The use of this publication reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means,
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an infringement of the copyright law.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Organizational behaviour in a global context / Albert J. Mills [et al.].
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-1-55193-057-2
ISBN-10: 1-55193-057-9
1. Organizational behaviourTextbooks. I. Mills, Albert J., 1945
HD58.7.O728 2006
658.3
C2006-904343-4
Broadview Press is an independent, international publishing house, incorporated in 1985. Broadview

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Broadview Press gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Government of Canada through the
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Printed in Canada.
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Jean Helms Mills and Albert J. Mills dedicate this book to the various workshop
coordinators and students of our organizational behaviour courses (MGMT 2383 and
MGMT 2384) who have taught us so much and have inspired us to write this book.
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Contents
Acknowledgements 9
Part I: Introduction
11
Chapter 1
Introducing Organizational Behaviour 13

Albert J. Mills
Chapter 2
Understanding Organizational Behaviour in Context 49

Albert J. Mills
Part II: Individual Behaviour and the Organizational Context
Chapter 3
Personality and Identity 91

Peggy Wallace
Chapter 4
Perception, Stereotyping, and Attribution 123

Elisabeth Wilson and Chris Rees
Chapter 5
Values and Attitudes at Work 149

Peter Chiaramonte
Chapter 6
Learning in Organizations 167

John Bratton and James D. Grant
Chapter 7
Motivation in Organizations 205

Scott MacMillan
Chapter 8
Organizational Stress 241

Kelly Dye
89
[ 7]
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Part III: Interpersonal Processes in the Workplace
265
Chapter 9
Groups and Teams in Organizations 267

John Bratton and Peter Chiaramonte
Chapter 10
Race, Ethnicity, and Workplace Diversity 295

Natalie Vladi
Chapter 11
Sex at Work 321

Albert J. Mills and Jean Helms Mills
Chapter 12
Organizational Communication 359

Carolyn Forshaw and Amy Thurlow
Part IV: Organizational Structure and Change
387
Chapter 13
Power and Organizational Life 389

Gina Grandy
Chapter 14
Organizational Culture 423

Albert J. Mills and Jean Helms Mills
Chapter 15
Organizational Structure and Design 455

Chapter 16
Leadership in an Organizational Context 483

Part V: Organizational Behaviour and the World Economy
Chapter 17
Globalization Antenarratives 505

David Boje
Glossary
551
Contributors
Index
503
585
589
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Acknowledgements
A book of this nature relies on so many people. The writing and production of the book
has been truly the result of a collective of academics, publishers, and editors. Our profound
thanks goes to Peter Saunders of Garamond Press who encouraged us to write the book.
From the beginning, Peter understood our vision of a textbook that spoke to both mainstream and critical educators who are interested in creating and learning from the synergies
involved. In a similar vein, our sincere thanks go to Michael Harrison and Broadview Press
for continuing the project when they acquired Garamond. Broadview has been so good in
moving the book along through its many stages of production. In the process, we would be
remiss if we did not thank our editor Anne Brackenbury for her advice and commitment.
It was Anne who discussed the editing process and helped us to develop a plan to bring
the book to publication in a relatively short space of time. Karen Taylor, our copy-editor,
deserves more than thanks, she deserves her name on the book. Quite simply, where the
writing in this book is at its best you can be sure that Karen (quite literally) had a hand in
it. Not only did she correct our various grammatical shortcomings but also she went above
and beyond in her suggestions and comments. Special thanks go to Amy McMurray and
Sheila Sutherland who, at a crucial point in the production process, saved the day with their
diligent and speedy proofing of the manuscript. Finally, a big thanks to the various students
of the Sobey PhD in Management for their help and advice on this project.
[ 9]
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part i
introduction
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chapter 1
Introducing
Organizational Behaviour
Organizational Behaviour (OB) is the study of the relationship between the
behaviour of people in organizations and organizational (e.g., effectiveness),
individual (e.g., self-esteem), and social (e.g., racial discrimination) outcomes.
chapter outline
learning objectives
Living in an Organizational World

Organizational Decision Making and Social
Outcomes
Managing the Successful Organization
Studying Organizational Behaviour
Alternative Approaches to the Study of
Behaviour in Organizations
Defining Organizational Behaviour
After completing this chapter, you should be

able to
1. Define organizational behaviour;
2. Critically assess the value of OB for
understanding behaviour in organizations;
3. Understand the relationship between
organizational behaviour and workplace,
individual, and social outcomes; and
4. Demonstrate an awareness of different
approaches to the study of OB.
key terms
Actionalist approach
Clinical approach
Comprehensive
key terms definition
of OB
Ethnographic approach
Feminist approach
Formal organizations
Hawthorne Studies
Managerialist approach
Organizational behaviour
(OB)
Postmodernist approach
Racioethnicity approach
Radical approach
Scientific management
Systematic soldiering
Taylorism
Time and motion study
This chapter was written by Albert J. Mills.
[13]
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[14]
part i Introduction
Organizational Behaviour and September 11th1
he story is well known. In the United States, on September 11th 2001, a group of terrorists
hijacked four commercial airliners. Two of the planes were deliberately crashed into the
twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, completely destroying the buildings and
killing close to three thousand people. One plane killed around two hundred people when it
was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The fourth plane, which became engaged in
a life and death struggle between the hijackers and the passengers, crashed in a Pennsylvania
eld, killing all on board.
Here are a few of the central questions that people have been asking since these events:
Who did this and why? How was it possible? Is a similar group capable of doing this again? Is
there any way we can guard against another such occurrence? Although these questions have
been couched in political terms and certainly have political ramications many of the answers
are rooted in questions of organizational behaviour.
To begin with, the hijackers gained from a number of common organizational problems.
In particular, large bureaucracies, such as the Immigration and Naturalization Service (USINS),
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Federal
Aviation Authority (FAA) failed to identify adequately and keep track of the hijackers as they
entered and operated within the USA. These agencies also failed to coordinate their antiterrorist activities or to share information. In addition, there is some evidence that, prior to
September 11th, surveillance of individual hijackers was thwarted due to conict within the FBI
and between the FBI, CIA, and other agencies.2 It has since been argued that there needs to be
closer cooperation between the various security and national defence agencies.
As early as January of 2001, Sandy Berger, the Clinton administrations National Security Advisor, was speculating that the new Bush administration would spend more time on terrorism
in general, and al-Qaeda in particular, than on any other subject.3 By the summer of that year,
there were sufcient intelligence reports to concern government agencies that a major attack
against US interests was imminent. That the attack was not averted was due, in the words of
one commentator, to a systematic collapse in the ability of Washingtons national security
apparatus to handle the terrorist threat.4 In February of 2001, future hijacker Hani Hanjour
raised suspicions with the instructors of the Arizona ight school where he was registered. He
was investigated by the FAA, which concluded that he was a legitimate student. Around the
same time, and in an apparently separate investigation, FBI agent Kenneth Williams began
probing the activities of suspected Islamic radicals enrolling in ying lessons at the Arizona
ight school. In July, he led a report of his suspicions that al-Qaeda may be attempting to
inltrate US aviation for terrorist purposes. He sent his report to FBI headquarters and, ironically, to the New York eld ofce. No action was taken. Williamss memorandum did not get past
mid-level unit heads. At the same time as Williams was preparing his report, two more of the
September 11 hijackers re-entered the US. Although the CIA knew these men to be members of
al-Qaeda, the agency failed to pass on the information to the USINS until the end of August.
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chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 1 5 ]

That month, the FBI bungled another potentially important break in the unfolding case. Tipped
off by suspicions from the manager of the Pan Am International Flight Academy in Minnesota,
FBI agents arrested a man who was involved in the planning of the September 11th attack.
Despite the potential signicance of this arrest, the case was never brought to the attention of
top ofcials in Washington. When local FBI agents applied to FBI headquarters for authorization to search the mans computer for information on his links to other suspected terrorists,
they were turned down.
The overall problems of these various agencies were due, in various parts, to bureaucratic,
structural, resource, and political constraints. All of these agencies are hierarchically structured
and require those in the eld to send special requests up the line to headquarters and top
ofcials. As in the September 11 situation, these requests often take months to get dealt with.
Ironically, the FBIs counter-terrorism activities were hampered in this case by a decentralization of its activities to its 58 eld ofces, which were discouraged from sharing information
with each other. In terms of resources, the FBI has been described as ill-equipped to deal with
the terrorist threat. It had neither the language nor the analytical skills to understand al-Qaeda.
[Its] information-technology dated to pre-internet days.5 Party politics affected communication as well: there is some evidence that a major report on terrorism was rejected by the Bush
administration because it was originally crafted for the Clinton government. Organizational
politics also played a part because of the bureaucratic process of dividing up areas of interest
and the creation specialisms. For example, there is some suggestion of a power play between
those government departments charged with functional responsibilities (such as terrorism)
and those charged with regional responsibilities (such as relations with Pakistan).
Moving beyond the intelligence agencies, we have the airport authorities. Despite the establishment of numerous routine security checks, the hijackers were able to take over no fewer
than four commercial airplanes from two major US airports, Logan (Boston) and Newark (New
Jersey/New York). Among the problems that have since been identied are that airport security services lacked national standards and that they employed poorly paid, often untrained
agents.
On board the planes were ight crews that had been trained to avoid conict with hijackers:
prior to September 11th, airline hijackings did not involve any deliberate attempt to crash the
plane. Sadly, this form of training allowed the hijackers to carry out their objectives without a
struggle. It was only in the fourth hijacked plane, where passengersthrough use of cellular
phoneswere aware of the fate of the other hijackings, that a struggle ensued. US aircrews
are now being training to resist all hijacking attempts.
Finally, despite the fact that it was known that a number of planes had been hijacked at the
same time, the US Air Force failed to respond quickly to intercept any in-bound Washington
ight that may have threatened the White House or the Pentagon. Two Air National Guard
planes from Otis Air Force base in Cape Cod, Massachusetts did manage to get to the airspace
above New York before the second plane hit, but they were hampered by lack of information.
Here the problem was both resource based and sensemaking. Because of the limited possibil-
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[16]
part i Introduction
ity of an air attack on the United States on September 11, there were only four ghter planes on
alert to protect the whole of the north-eastern part of the country. By the time the two planes
had reached New York, the rst of the hijacked planes had hit the World Trade Centre. Local
air trafc controllers witnessed this but did not immediately connect it to information that at
least one commercial airliner had been hijacked and was heading off course to New York. The
idea that a plane could be hijacked and own into a building just did not make sense on the
morning of September 11. It was unheard of so discounted. Instead, the situation was initially
reported as a light plane having crashed into the World Trade Centre. Thus, the ghter pilots
above New York were not aware that the hijacking and the World Trade Centre crashes were
connected. Had they known, they might have been able to nd the second hijacked plane that
was on course for the same destination.
In brief, a number of cumulative organizational problems allowed dedicated hijackers to
achieve their aim of inicting maximum damage on the United States.
But there were also positive organizational behaviours that prevented the tragedy from
being even greater. When evidence of hijacking rst became clear to Air Trafc Control rm
leadership ensured that the number of hijackings was minimized. Action was quickly taken to
ground all existing commercial planes throughout the US, to get a number of planes in the air
to land, and to divert all planes bound for the US from a foreign destination to land elsewhere.
There is some evidence that the hijackers may have targeted more than four planes. Hundreds
of planes landed safely that day without incident. On the ground, numerous towns and cities
responded quickly, efciently, and often with great warmth and affection, to organize food
and accommodation for the tens of thousands of stranded passengers. More than 250 aircraft,
carrying close to 44,000 passengers were diverted to Canadian airports alone. In the small
Canadian town of Gander (pop. 10,000), for example, thirty-eight aircraft were safely landed
and the 6,500 passengers accommodated and fed for several days.
In New York itself, the Mayor, Rudy Giuliani, had to exercise extraordinary skills to deal with
the crisis, and many have commented on the speed and efciency of the New York re service
and police departments in dealing with the immediate situation.
The events of September 11th have had a tremendous impact on organizational life for many
people in the period since. For one thing, numerous government agencies have restricted access to a range of information that was previously available,6 the government has established
a new Department of Homeland Security that is tightening control on activities that were
previously unrestricted, and, at airports throughout the world, numerous new and heightened
security measures have been introduced.
OB is not a panacea for dealing with organizational crises, but an examination of the events
of September 11, 2001 reveals that an understanding of organizational behaviour provides
insights into how such tragedies happen and how best to deal with them. The study of OB
can help us to understand where behaviour at work is problematic and where it is effective. It
can provide important clues to future action and help us to make informed decisions about
organizational directions. In short, OB involves the systematic study of behaviour at work that
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chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 1 7 ]

provides concepts, theories, and models to help us make sense of a range of activities from the
mundane to the critical.
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR is one of the most interesting and relevant subjects that you
will ever study. Why? There are several reasons: first, we live in an organizational world
where much of what we do takes place in organizations; second, many of the key decisions
that affect our lives occur in organizations; and third, the success of an organization depends
on the behaviour of the people involved.
Living in an Organizational World

The twentieth century was called the era of the organizational world.7 The twenty-first century may come to be called the cyberspace era. That does not mean that we are moving away
from organizational life, just that our ways of working together may be changing. More than
in any other time in history, people today rely on organizations for most of what they do. For
example, contrast the lives of eighteenth-century Europeans with the people of today. In the
last decades of the eighteenth century, ninety per cent of Europeans were dependent on the
countryside and what it could produce.8 Apart from the church, very few organizations had
an impact on a persons daily life. European peasant families arranged their lives according to
the seasons and the feast days of the Church.9 Work and home were not divided as they are
today. Families worked the land, planting, harvesting, tending cattle, and ploughing. Food and
clothing were made at home. Entertainmentsuch as feast dayswas also homemade. There
were no schools for the great majority of children, and university entrance was limited to the
sons of the elite.10
In todays world, we rely on FORMAL ORGANIZATIONS for almost everything that we do.
We are born in hospitals, and, when we die, the burial arrangements are made through a
funeral home. We are educated in schools that prepare us for jobs in other organizations.
If we are religious, we worship in a church, a mosque, a synagogue, or some other kind
of religious institution. For entertainment, we may go to a movie theatre, a concert, or a
sports event, or we may stay at home and be entertained by television, video games, or
Internet companies. We buy groceries and other necessities at stores or from Internet dealers.
We communicate through the services of telephone companies and Internet providers. To
travel, we use the service of automobile companies and dealers, bus companies, taxi firms,
and airlines. We exchange money through banks. We pay taxes to governments, and, in
return, we have our garbage collected and our roads maintained. If we are in trouble, we
may call on the police, a psychiatrist, a social welfare agency, a marriage guidance counsellor,
or a doctor. When it comes time to decide the political future of our country, we have the
opportunity to take part in elections.
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[ 1 8]
part i Introduction
Formal organizations have made a tremendous difference to so many aspects of our

lives that we have come to rely on them. As citizens, we expect our government agencies
to provide us with efficient services. For example, we expect our garbage to be collected
in a timely and regular fashion, and we expect the police department to ensure that our
neighbourhoods are safe. As consumers, we expect to obtain products and services that meet
a high standard of quality and delivery, often for a relatively cheap price. For example, we
dont expect to wait too long before we are served in a store or a restaurant, and we dont
expect the thing we buy to be damaged or faulty. We will often not buy a product or service
if we can find the same or a similar thing on sale elsewhere. In other words, we expect a
certain type of behaviour from the organizations that we deal with. We expect sales and
restaurant staff to be courteous and polite. We expect garbage collectors to be efficient and
on time. We expect certain producers to work in an efficient and economical fashion so
that we can obtain cheaper goods. We expect police officers to be knowledgeable at crime
prevention and detection.
Formal organizations also influence our own behaviour in a number of ways. They shape
our expectations of how people should behave. We expect waiters to be courteous and
friendly, but we expect police officers to be authoritative. Formal organizations also shape
our expectations of how we are supposed to behave as members of a particular organization.
Scenario 1.1 provides an example of how expectations of appropriate workplace behaviour
can influence a persons livelihood.
Scenario 1.1: Controlling Behaviour in

the WorkplaceWardair and the Earring Case
n 1987, Wardair International, a Canadian airline, attempted to force one of its male ight
attendants to stop wearing an earring at work. When he refused, the company red him. In
an attempt to regain his job, the ight attendant took legal action against the company, and
a court case followed. In court, the company argued that it took the action to protect business: it was Wardairs contention that the public would associate a man wearing an earring
with homosexuality and, by extension, with AIDS and that this would ultimately discourage
people from ying with the airline. Fortunately, this line of argument was not convincing and
the company lost the case but not before one of its employeesthe male ight attendant in
questionhad suffered an attack on his livelihood and his identity.
In the scenario, we can see that, because of the simple act of wearing an earring, a male
flight attendant lost his job. The resulting legal case indicates that those in charge of organizations are concerned to shape and control various aspects of their members behaviour. In this
case, company managers stepped over the line in their desire to control the sexuality of their
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chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 1 9]
male flight attendants. They attempted to ensure that male flight attendants did nothing to
suggest that they were homosexual. In this same period, the company faced another legal
challenge involving attempts to control the sexual imagery of female employees. This case was
brought to the Canadian Human Rights Commission on behalf of female flight attendants who
complained that the company regulated their dress, including their underwear, to make them
conform to a particular sexy image that the company had developed to sell seats on airplanes.
As these examples indicate, organizations can be places where we experience negative
outcomes such as stress, discrimination, sexual harassment, racism, powerlessness, lack of selfesteem, and numerous other reported problems. But organizations have also been associated
with positive outcomes such as a sense of pride, satisfaction, power, status, and a number of
other benefits. A lot depends on how an organization is structured and controlled.
Organizational Decision Making and Social Outcomes

In todays world, decisions made within organizations can have widespread implications
for customers, for local communities, for countries, and even for the world as a whole. In
Scenario 1.2, we can see how decision making in an airline had disastrous effects, leading to
the deaths of over three hundred people.
Scenario 1.2: The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents

Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 16311
n the evening of 19 August 1980, a Saudi Arabian Airlines ight took off from Riyadh airport bound for Jiddah with 287 passengers and 14 crew members on board. Shortly after
take-off, the crew was alerted to the presence of a small re in the aft cargo hold, and the plane
returned to Riyadh airport where the pilot successfully landed without injury to any of the passengers. However, by the time that rescue crews came to evacuate the plane, all 301 people on
board were deadkilled by either burns or smoke inhalation. What had gone wrong?
The inquiry into the accident revealed that a number of human errors had contributed to
the tragedy. To begin with, it took four and a half minutes to locate and carry out emergency
procedure checks and make the decision to return to Riyadh; this resulted in the ight being
a further 25 miles away from the airport. As they headed back to Riyadh, the captain failed
to properly utilize his rst and second ofcers, especially the rst ofcer, to whom he should
have delegated the function of ying the plane while he concentrated his attention on the
emergency at hand. This may have been because the rst ofcer had limited experience of the
type of aircraft. In any event, the rst ofcer failed to assist the pilot in monitoring the safety
of the ight. The second ofcer, on the other hand, was dyslexic, and this contributed to the
increasing level of confusion in the cockpit. He was also in a state of denial and repeatedly
assured the captain that the re was not serious. Faced with a stressful situation, the captain,
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[20]
part i Introduction
unable to respond to requests from the cabin crew to prepare for an emergency evacuation
upon landing, nally took the decision to order the crew to not evacuate. When the pilot
landed the plane, instead of breaking hard on the runway, he taxied to the end of the runway
and along the taxiway, coming gently to a halt with his engines still running. Before switching
off the engines, he asked the tower to conrm if they could detect re coming from the plane.
The tower reported that they could not see any re and asked the captain if he were ready to
shut down the engines. The captain was again indecisive, telling the tower to standby. By
now re was evident, and the tower reported this to the captain who reported that he was
shutting down the engines and preparing for evacuation. That was the last transmission from
the plane. Outside of the plane, the re-ghterswhose knowledge of aircraft doors ranged
from limited to non-existentwere inefcient and disorganized, and it took 23 minutes after
engine shutdown before even one door was opened.
Many human factors contributed to the tragedy of ight 163. All three ight crew members
suffered from learning difculties. The rst ofcer had failed his training program, but he was
later reinstated; the second ofcer suffered from dyslexia; and the captain was said to have difculty in adapting to changing circumstances. Indeed, what stands out in the whole situation
is the captains inability to make the right decisions. Management decision making was also
a contributing factor, and the inquiry pointed out that the reinstatement of terminated crew
members was an undesirable practice. In the wake of the disaster, the airline took its own remedial action by revising emergency check-lists and improving emergency evacuation training.
In the scenario, we can see that the hiring, training, and employment-monitoring practices of Saudi Arabian Airlines were inadequate. A captain who was unable to adapt to
change was put in charge of a Lockheed L-1011 Tri-Star aeroplane; the first officer who had
failed his training program was reinstated; and the flight crew and the fire-fighters were not
adequately trained in emergency evacuation procedures. The resultant loss of lives from the
inadequate practices at Saudi Arabian Airlines is, of course, an extreme example that serves
to show us that organizational decision making can have serious negative consequences
for customers and clients. Inadequate or inappropriate organizational behaviour can affect
clients and customers in numerous ways, from a letter that the Post Office fails to deliver, to
the injured child that a social-work agency fails to diagnose correctly; from the mechanical
problem in a car that the garage fails to fix, to the crash of a computer system due to insufficient technical back-up.
The fact that various organizational failures and disasters tend to occupy our attention
and capture the headlines is in large part due to the innumerable positive outcomes of
organizations. The fact that millions of letters are successfully delivered each day is so commonplace that we hardly even notice it; nor do we give much thought to the fact that
thousands of commercial airlines take off each day without incident or that the routine
operation of social-work agencies result in the protection and care of numerous children or
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chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 21]
that the development of computer systems has allowed us to process information at a speed
that was unthinkable even a decade ago.
Clearly, organizational behaviour can have a range of outcomes for customers and clients
and whether that outcome is positive or negative will depend on the structure, character,
and control of the organization.
Beyond the immediate clients and customers, the behaviour of organizational decision
makers can also affect local communities, nation states, and even world events. A local
community can benefit from a decision to locate or expand a business in the area, and it can
suffer from decisions that reduce or halt production in the area. The opening of the Westray
Mine in the eastern Canadian province of Nova Scotia in 1990 brought both benefits and
suffering to the local community in rapid succession. The opening of the mine brought
much needed work to Nova Scotias economically depressed Pictou County, and, with
millions of federal, provincial, and private capital being poured into the venture, the local
community began to prosper. However, a series of decisions and actions to speed up the
mines operation led to a disaster in 1992 in which twenty-six miners lost their lives in an
explosion that permanently closed the mine.12
The economy of a nation can also be affected by the decision making of major companies and other organizations, particularly when the nation is a developing country and when
the companies are large multinational corporations or organizations like the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) or the World Bank. In Mexico, for example, the establishment
of a number of US companies operating under special trading rules has influenced the
economy. Since the early 1970s, thousands of US plants have been opened in areas just
south of the US border; known locally as the maquiladora factories, these plants are generally low-wage labour-intensive assembly plants and manufacturing operations with special
privileges allowing duty-free entry of their products into the United States.13 The advent
of the maquiladoras has had a substantial impact not only on the Mexican economy but also
on parts of the US labour market itself. In Mexico, the maquiladoras have provided employment to over half a million people, but this has been achieved in a number of cases by US
companies closing down their US operations and relocating in Mexico, putting thousands
of American workers out of a job.14 While some have claimed that the maquiladoras have
contributed to the Mexican economy through the provision of desperately needed jobs and
economic development others have argued that they have actually contributed to a fall in
real wages.15
On the global stage, organizations such as the United Nations (UN) make decisions
that affect the lives of millions of people around the world. Sometimes these decisions
can be positive, as were the efforts of Rotary International in 1987 to raise money for the
eradication of polio from the world. Sometimes bad decision making and planning can
threaten the worlds health, as in the case of the Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster in
1985. The plant came close to a melt down and sent nuclear radiation into the atmosphere,
contaminating several areas of Europe and other parts of the world.
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[22]
part i Introduction
Managing the Successful Organization

The success of an organizationwhether it is a business, a social-work agency, or a church
depends in large part on how its people are organized and how they relate to one another,
to clients and customers, and to other associated people. In short, the behaviour of people in
an organization contributes to the ability of that organization to achieve its ends. As the next
scenario (1.3) indicates, the management of success often begins with the successful management of organizational behaviour.
Scenario 1.3: Putting People First

Culture Change at British Airways16
ritish Airways (BA) has a reputation as one the worlds most efcient and protable airlines.
In 1992, the company topped the list of the worlds most protable carrierswith the
lowest cost structure and biggest prots of any of Europes big airlines, a war chest brimming
with well over $1 billion, and a seasoned management. Yet a decade earlier, British Airways
had a different reputation. In the nancial year 1981-82, the company was losing money at the
rate of 200 per minute, it had a bureaucratic style of management, a bad industrial relations
record, and a poor reputation for customer service: to some customers the initials BA stood for
Bloody Awful.
So what made the difference? How was the company turned around? There is no simple
answer, but leadership and culture change played key parts in the process. In other words,
changes in organizational behaviour from the top of the company down made a signicant
contribution to the turnaround.
In February 1983, Colin Marshall was appointed Chief Executive of British Airwaysa company that was at that point under government ownership. It was Marshalls daunting task not
only to make the company protable but to prepare it for privatization. As part of the process,
Marshall set out to change the attitude of staff from one that was operationally driven to one
that was market led. Quite simply, Marshall had to change the behaviour of staff so that they
focused on the needs of the customer rather than on the needs of the company. To that end,
he introduced a widespread series of training programs including the Putting People First
campaign. In this program, every one of the companys twelve thousand customer-contact
staff members, in groups of 150-200, were put through a two day training course in which
employees were encouraged to put themselves in the customers shoes and see things from
that perspective. The next stage involved the development of Customer First Teams with
employees being formed into groups and encouraged to take the initiative in coming up with
ways of improving service. A further stage involved a weeklong residential program for managers, called Managing People First. In this program, managers were shown how to coach,
train, and support their subordinates.
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At the beginning of the change process, employee morale reached a new low point, and
many of the changes were treated with scepticism. However, within a period of ve years, many
commentators had noted a turnaround in attitudes and behaviour in the company. Since the
mid-1980s, British Airways has built a reputation for quality of service and high performance
standards. Beneath it all is a process of changed attitudes and behaviour that is a key to the
turnaround.
As we can see from the scenario, a number of factors affect peoples behaviour at work
and, in turn, the ability of the organization to be successful. At British Airways, behaviour
was affected by such things as a bureaucratic style of management, a poor reputation for
customer service, an inappropriate company strategy, and an unclear organizational culture that resulted in such things as poor customer service, bad industrial relations, and low
morale. British Airways resolved the problem through a process of culture change that
included a company-wide retraining program, the development of a market-led strategy,
and a newmore openstyle of leadership.
Studying Organizational Behaviour

The Managerialist or Mainstream Approach
The study of organizational behaviour developed from an interest by business managers in

improving workplace efficiency and profitability. The roots of the approach can be found in
the work of Frederick Taylor who, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, developed
a system for improving the efficiency of steelworkers.
Taylor was born in Philadelphia in 1856 and began work as an apprentice engineer. In
1878, he joined the Midvale Steel Company where he worked as a labourer and a machinist
before becoming gang-boss or foreman and, eventually, the chief engineer. It was here
that Taylor developed what he was to call his scientific approach to management.17
Taylor was unhappy about the inefficiencies that he saw in the steel company and believed that they could be improved through careful, or scientific, study. Taylor felt that
inefficiency was due to three factors: (i) the attitudes of the workers, (ii) the methods of
work, and (iii) the system of management control.
Work Attitudes
Through his experiences as a labourer and machinist, Taylor knew that employees deliberately restricted their output because they believed that higher levels of output would lead to
a need for fewer jobs. Taylor referred to this action as SYSTEMATIC SOLDIERING.18
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[24]
part i Introduction
Work Methods
The choice of work methods was left completely up to the employees themselves, and this,
in Taylors view, led to wasted efforts through the use of inefficient and untested rules. It
was the same unscientific rule or guesswork that managers used to establish piece-rates:
according to Taylor, the managers had no idea of the true capacities of the men or the
machines.19
Management Control
Taylor observed a lack of management control over the work process and felt that this
allowed employees to work slowly and inefficiently. He also noted that managers tended to
exercise personal and arbitrary control over employees, which led to further discontentment
and restricted output.20
Taylor set out to correct the behavioural problems at Midvale Steel. He did this
through
1. the redesign and standardization of routine tasks,
2. the scientific selection of employees to match the right person with each task,
3. the development of a system to encourage employees to use the new standardized work
methods, and
4. the establishment of a hierarchical system of authority to ensure that management decisions were properly carried out.
Work Design and Standardization
For this element, Taylor chose routine tasks that were being performed by a large number of
operatives. He asked this question: How long should it take to do any particular job in the
machine shop?21 Taylor measured a number of variables, including size of tools, height of
workers, and type of material worked. Taylor then experimented with different combinations of employee movements and methods to establish the one best way of performing
each task: to that end, he produced standardized ways of completing any task.
Employee Selection
Under the existing system, employees at the steel company were chosen for a particular task
on the basis of friendship or personal influence. Taylor advocated that employees be chosen
for their ability to do the job and then trained in the one best way of completing the tasks
involved.
Employee Motivation
Taylor recognized that the redesign of work and employee selection and training might not
be enough to deal with employee attitudes or systematic soldiering. Thus, he suggested that
employees should be encouraged to adopt new work habits through the introduction of
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a piecework incentive system whereby the worker received extra payment for producing
higher levels of output.
Hierarchical Control
Taylor believed that greater control of the workplace was necessary and could be achieved
through the development of a hierarchical system of management in which managers would
be bound by a system of rules and regulations instead of being allowed to exercise arbitrary
or personal authority.22 Also, managers would be involved in the design of work, the selection and training of employees, and decisions on incentives.
In Taylors ideas, we see many of the issues that have since become central to the study of
behaviour in organizationsissues of work attitudes, job design, the structuring of organizations, employee selection and training, motivation, and managerial control and style.
Taylor believed that all the different elements had to be applied as a complete package if a
company were to become fully efficient. At Midvale, Taylor had lacked the opportunity to
put his entire plan into operation, but he was given the chance in 1898 when the Bethlehem
Iron Company employed him as a management consultant.23
At Midvale, the sheer number and variety of machine tasks had made it difficult for Taylor
to determine accurate rates of pay effectively. For example, the amount of effort required for
a given task varied depending on the type of metal used. At the Bethlehem works, a large
section of the workforce was employed to do heavy labouring. This circumstance provided
Taylor with the opportunity to demonstrate the value of scientific work-study. Using the same
methods employed earlier, Taylor set up a plan for improving the efficiency of the companys
pig iron handlers who shovelled pig iron onto railroad cars. Taylors plan was so successful
that within three years the average cost of handling a ton of pig iron had fallen from $0.072
to $0.033, and the average tons handled per worker had increased from 16 to 59 tons per day.
The average earnings of the pig iron handlers had increased from $1.15 to $1.88 per day over
this period, and the number of yard labourers had been reduced from 500 to 140.24
Taylors success25 at the Bethlehem Iron Company encouraged other employers to adopt
elements of his scientific method26 and encouraged Taylor to promote his ideas in a book,
Principles of Scientific Management, which was published in 1911. Over time, the application
and refinement of Taylors ideas became known as TAYLORISM or SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT.
Its popularity as a method of improving workplace efficiency spread from capitalist business
enterprises in the United States to the state enterprises of the new Soviet Union and the
corporate enterprises of Mussolinis fascist Italy in the early 1920s.27
The success of Taylorism was largely a consequence of the industrial transformation that
the United States was undergoing at the turn of the century. This period saw a massive
growth in the countrys manufacturing base and in the number of its large factories and
corporations.28 In this era, the small workshop gave rise to the large factory, relationships
between employees and owners became increasingly remote, and industrial unrest was com-
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[26]
part i Introduction
monplace throughout many industries.29 The backyard workshop became a factory, and
the family firm a public company in which workforces were masses of labour power controlled through harsh supervision and increasingly mechanized tasks.30 Within this context,
employers were concerned to find ways to effectively co-ordinate and control the activities
of their burgeoning, and often undisciplined, workforces, and the scientific study of work
appeared to offer a solution.
webview
On Taylor and Taylorism
http://www.quality.org/TQM-MSI/taylor.html
In this era of rapid industrialization and economic growth, other management theorists
were developing their ideas of efficiency, including Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, Henry Gantt,
and Henri Fayol.
The Gilbreths developed Taylors method into a system of TIME AND MOTION STUDY and
produced studies of the elimination of workplace fatigue. They were so committed to time
and motion study that they applied it to many aspects of their family life.31
Gantts work was designed to improve on and humanize Taylorism through the
introduction of bonus systems and by encouraging foremen to lead by example rather than
merely overseeing the process. Fayol, a French industrialist, developed a scientific system
of administration by identifying fourteen principles of administration for managers to
follow.32
The work of Taylor, Gantt, the Gilbreths, Fayol, and others was developed throughout the 1920s and 1930s by a new generation of theorists whose shared backgrounds and
concerns shaped the foundation of Organizational Behaviour (OB), Organization Theory
(OT), and Management as fields of study focused on issues of efficiency. Many of these early
classical theories of workplace behaviour and management were developed by people
working within industry and reflected their business experiences and concerns:33 Taylor
and Gantt, for example, were both employed by the Bethlehem Steel company; Fayol was
the general manager of a mining combine; Frank Gilbreth was employed in bricklaying and
construction; James Mooney and Alan Reily34 were senior managers at General Motors;
Oliver Sheldon35 was an executive with the British chocolate manufacturer, Rowntree;
Chester Barnard36 was the President of the New Jersey Bell Telephone Company; and
Lyndall Urwick37 was a former colonel in the British Army, the director of the International
Management Institute in Geneva, and the head of a well-known firm of management consultants.
webview
Taylor and Fayol Compared
http://faculty.ncwc.edu/toconnor/417/417lect04a.htm
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The development of classical theories of workplace behaviour and management reflected the male dominance of the business world at the time. Nonetheless, two womenLillian Gilbreth and Mary Parker Follettmade important contributions to the field. Lillian
Gilbreths contribution has been generally overshadowed by that of her husband Frank yet,
as a psychologist, her knowledge and insights played a major role in the development of the
Gilbreths ideas.38 Together with her husband, Lillian established a management consulting
company to advise companies on time and motion efficiencies. Mary Parker Follett, educated at Harvard and Cambridge, was a political scientist who took an active interest in social
work. In Boston, she played a leading role in establishing evening classes and recreational
centres for young people and she helped to establish youth employment bureaus.39 It was
as a result of her experiences with the administration of social welfare organizations that she
developed an interest in management, and she is credited with encouraging management
theorists to pay attention to the social as well as the economic influences on behaviour.
webview
Mary Parker Follett
Lillian Gilbreth
http://www.onepine.info/pfollett.htm
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blGilbreth.htm
Despite Parker Folletts pioneering work,40 Roethlisberger and Dickson,41 writing at

the end of the 1930s, are credited with broadening the study of the relationship between
behaviour and efficiency by focusing on human relations factors. This human relations
approach emphasized the role of participation, communication patterns, and leadership
styles in affecting organizational outcomes,42 arguing that people are motivated by social
as well as economic rewards and that their behaviour and attitudes were a function of group
memberships.43
The work of Roethlisberger and Dickson arose out of studies at Western Electric
Companys Hawthorne Works in Chicago from 1924 to the early 1940s.44 The company
was concerned to improve labour productivity and hired various social scientists to study
employee behaviour and attitudes. The research at Western Electric later became known
as the HAWTHORNE STUDIES and involved two key studies of employeesthose normally
employed in the Bank Wiring department and an experimental group that was selected to
work in the Relay Assembly Test Room. Careful and long-term observation of these
two groups of employees indicated that human relations strongly influence workplace behaviour. In the Bank Wiring department, the employees developed informal rules about
productivityencouraging fellow employees to work beyond a certain minimal level of
productivity but discouraging them from working beyond certain levels of productivity.
Those who worked below or above the informal group norms were pressured by the group
to change their behaviour. In the Relay Assembly Test Room, the employees demonstrated
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[ 2 8]
part i Introduction
that workers respond to friendly supervision and increased autonomy with the development of group solidarity.45 The influence of group solidarity and informal group norms
led Roethlisberger and Dickson, and other Hawthorne researchers, to develop the Human
Relations approach.
The postwar development of the human relations approach contributed to the eventual establishment of Organizational Behaviour (OB). This new discipline was concerned
with systematic study of the attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups in organizations. The aim of the emerging discipline was to provide insights into effective management through knowledge and techniques designed to change organizational behaviour.46
In North America, many of the early studies of organizational effectiveness had included a
focus on organizational structure. However, the new discipline of Organizational Behaviour
was distinguished by a relatively small concern with the ... nature and structure of a social
organization,47 leaving those aspects to the newly emerging discipline of Organization
Theory (OT). The new discipline of OB, with its managerial focus and its concern with
efficiency and effectiveness, was established within university business schools.
webview
The Hawthorne Studies
http://www.accel-team.com/motivation/hawthorne_02.html
http://www.analytictech.com/mb021/Hawthorne.html
Alternative Approaches to the

Study of Behaviour in Organizations
Today, OB is a well-established discipline throughout business schools in North America,
Europe and other parts of the world. As a business school discipline, OB has remained
primarily concerned with managing and improving behaviour in business organizations.
Nonetheless, in recent years, a number of new theories of behaviour in organizations have
developed into schools of thought that focus on different areas of concern. The new schools
of thought include ACTIONALIST, RADICAL, FEMINIST, RACIOETHNICITY, and POSTMODERNIST
approaches and have contributed to a broader understanding of the way people behave in
organizations.
The Actionalist Approach
Beginning with the work of David Silverman in 1970,48 the actionalist (or interpretive)
approach focuses on the different viewpoints of the people involved in an organization.
Instead of being concerned with managing or improving attitudes and behaviour, the actionalist approach is concerned with comprehending how peoples beliefs and understandings of a situation help to create an ordered situation. The actionalist approach to the study
8/10/06 3:43:09 PM
of organizational behaviour is similar to that of anthropology, in which the behaviours of a

group of people are studied to contribute to our knowledge of human behaviour. While the
anthropologist tends to study aboriginal peoples, the actionalist researcher studies people in
modern organizations. Whereas a managerial OB approach would focus on analysing how
certain attitudes and behaviours contribute to an organizations efficiency, an actionalist OB
approach would focus on how certain attitudes and behaviours contribute to the construction and maintenance of organizational practices.
A good example of the actionalist approach can be found in the work of Karl Weick.
Weick focuses on how people make sense of what happens within organizations and on
how their sense of the organization influences outcomes.49 For example, Weick studied a
situation in which a group of fire-fighters lost their lives because they refused to drop their
tools and were thus unable to outrun the fire.50 The fire-fighters had been trained to look
after their tools, and doing so had become part of how they normally understood their
job. Sadly, in a crisis situation, the fire-fighters ingrained sense of how they should behave
cost them their lives. But sensemaking is not just about understanding crisis. In Making
Sense of Organizational Change, Jean Helms Mills demonstrates how an understanding of the
sensemaking process can provide us with important clues to the management of change. In
this study, Helms Mills reveals that organizational change is usually not an outcome of how
well a change program is implemented so much as how managers make sense of the need
for change in the first place.
webview
Karl Weick
http://www.onepine.info/pweick.htm
The Radical Approach
While the early management theorists, such as Taylor, Roethlisberger, Dixon, and Barnard,
were studying the relationship between organizational behaviour and efficiency, a group
of social scientists in Frankfurt, Germany were studying the impact of organizational arrangements on people, in particular on the relationship between the structures of capitalist
organizations and anti-human behaviour. Founded in Frankfurt in 1923, the Institute of
Social Research brought together a number of social scientists, including Max Horkheimer,
Theodore Adorno, Erich Fromm, Wilhelm Reich, and Herbert Marcuse. These researchers were interested in understanding and transforming the capitalist system of organization.
The work of these scholars has since become known as the Frankfurt School or critical
theory.51
Drawing on the theories of the German sociologists Karl Marx and Max Weber and
the psychoanalytical theories of Sigmund Freud, the Frankfurt scholars studied the impact
of production and consumption practices on the way people come to view themselves and
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[ 30 ]
part i Introduction
others; the influence of bureaucratic thinking on the way people relate to others; and the
relationship between capitalist organization and repressed personalities.
Consumption and Personality
Critical theorists argue that capitalism is a system of production that reduces products and
people to the level of things. Products and services are not produced for their intrinsic
worth (e.g., the joy of crafting a hand-carved chair), social value (e.g., peoples need for a
dental service), or social need (e.g., food to alleviate hunger and starvation) but as things to
generate profits. People are not primarily employed because of their personal characteristics
or needs but as a particular set of skills and abilities that are necessary to produce a profitgenerating product or service.
Bureaucracy and Personality
Critical theorists argue that bureaucracies are systems in which people are arranged hierarchically and relate to one another depending on a series of roles, rules, and levels in an organization. This system encourages people to think and act impersonally and unemotionally towards
other people and to behave only within a narrowly defined range of action. Over time, people
who work in this type of system lose their ability to think for themselves and are more inclined
to relate to people as position holders (e.g., assistant clerk, manager) than as human beings.
Repressed Personality
Critical theorists argue that, in capitalist organizations, human energy and activity focuses
solely on production through the repression of personal, familial, and sexual activities. In the
workplace, a person is expected to leave all personal, family, and sexual matters at home,
and, as a result, those concerns are repressed and may go unexpressed. Over time, people may
experience a loss of their ability to express their feelings, emotions, and even their sexuality.
The rise of Hitler in Germany in the 1930s led to the closing of the Frankfurt Institute and
drove many of its leading scholars to flee to the safety of the United States. This circumstance ended the first coherent attempt to study the impact of organizational arrangements
on people. A concern with the effects of organization on people has been the focus of
several studies in the postwar era,52 but it was not until the beginning of the 1980s that a
radical perspective emerged as a significant and coherent focus within OB.
Key works contributing to the emerging radical perspective include studies by Ilich,
Braverman, Dickson, Burrell and Morgan, and Clegg and Dunkerley. Ivan Illichs study of
the education system argues that schools contribute more to failure and a lack of self-esteem
than to success and confidence.53 Harry Bravermans study of modern work processes contends that management practices, particularly scientific management, leads to a deskilling
and a degradation of the work of employees.54 David Dicksons work on the impact of
technology argues that technology in capitalist society acts as a form of social control.55 The
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work of Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan56 and of Stewart Clegg and David Dunkerley57
serves to define the radical perspective by providing detailed outlines of its underlying
philosophy in contrast to other approaches.
In their concern with the impact of organization on the way people relate to themselves
(e.g., in terms of self-esteem) and to others (e.g., in terms of social relationships), radical
scholars have broadened the focus of OB to a variety of business and non-business organizations, including schools,58 social-work agencies,59 hospitals,60 government offices,61 law
courts,62 and state bureaucracies63 in capitalist and non-capitalist societies.
From the radical perspective, the situation described in Scenario 1.1 could be described
as one in which the dress, sexuality, and ultimately the self-esteem of the flight attendant
was subordinated to the narrow interests of profitability: in the interests of ensuring a profit,
the company attempted to control the image and thus the presentation of self of the flight
attendant.
webview
The Frankfurt School
http://education.yahoo.com/reference/encyclopedia/entry/FrankfurSc
http://www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/
The Feminist Approach
From its early beginnings until quite recently, the study of organizational behaviour ignored
or minimized the issue of gender. Studies of the behaviour of people at work have generally
failed to examine or question the male dominant character of workplace activities, they
have studied employees and managers as if they were gender-neutral people, and they have
ignored womentreating them as peripheral to the workplace.64
In the mid-1970s, feminist studies of organizational behaviour began to challenge the
neglect of gender, particularly the marginalization of women. Joan Acker and Donald van
Houten,65 for instance, re-examined the Hawthorne Studies and found that the researchers
had ignored the fact that the Bank Wiring employees were an all-male group and that the
Relay Assembly Test Room was composed of an all-female group. Acker and van Houten
questioned whether gender had any influence on the results given that it was the male group
that restricted output and the female group that had increased output. Further examination
revealed that, while the male employees were observed, in their normal work groups doing their usual work, the female subjects were individually and informally selected to take
part in an experimental work situation. While the female workers were young, single, and
of immigrant backgrounds, all the managers, supervisors, and researchers at the Hawthorne
works were older, white males. These factors led Acker and van Houten to comment that
These young, unmarried women from traditional families were brought in by the bosses
and asked if they wanted to participate; it is not surprising that they all agreed. Acker and
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[ 32 ]
part i Introduction
van Houten conclude that sex power differentials may have had a larger effect on the
research than the organizational variables.
In 1977, the path-breaking work of Rosabeth Moss Kanter gave prominence to the
study of gender and organizations.66 In a study of a large US corporation, Kanter found that
the structuring of the organization restricted female opportunity and potential commitment.
She found that males were far more likely to occupy positions of power and authority
than were females. This situation of inequity was reinforced and maintained by a number
of factors including the fact that male dominance of the positions served as an inequitable
opportunity structure, signalling to women that they were less likely to be promoted.
Potential female managers had few if any mentors to encourage and assist them to aspire
to management and few if any female role models to help them to adjust to the role of
manager if they did attain the position. The potential for women managers was bleak. As a
result of the limited number of females in similar management positions, female managers,
according to Kanter, tended to serve as tokens and, in consequence, suffered loneliness
and isolation.
The work of Kanter and others has since inspired new generations of feminist researchers
to study the impact of gender on organizational behaviour.67 Since the mid-1970s, feminist
research has examined the impact of gender and sexuality68 on recruitment and promotion,69 learning,70 perception,71 organizational structure,72 socialization,73 communication,74
motivation,75 organizational culture,76 leadership and power,77 strategy,78 stress,79 and numerous other areas of behaviour.80 Much of this research seeks to identify the root causes of
sexual discrimination and sexual harassment, but it is also concerned with improving our
understanding of organizational behaviour through an inclusion of gender issues. To return
to Scenario 1.1, feminist researchers would argue that this provides a useful example of how
gender affects management decisions. The male flight attendant was fired because those in
charge feared that his masculinity would be questioned by the public and, as a result, people
would stop flying with Wardair; gender issues were certainly to the fore in this case.
webview
On Feminism and Womens Studies
http://eserver.org/feminism/
http://feminist.com/
The Racioethnicity Approach81
Prior to 1975, studies of organizational behaviour had little or nothing to say about race or
ethnicity at work. Despite the fact that the United States has long prided itself as a melting
pot of different peoples, American studies of organizational behaviour, until quite recently,
treated people in organizations as if they were all the samehomogeneous: without gender,
ethnic, or racial differences. Yet, as Alderfer and Thomas have argued,82 in the United
8/10/06 3:43:12 PM
States, issues of race and ethnicity had acquired significance in organizational life during
the earlier part of the twentieth century. The Hawthorne Studies, for example, suggested
that employees acted on the basis of informal group norms and social solidarity, but, as
we saw previously, no attempt was made by the researchers to discuss the gender differences
involved, nor was there any attempt to discuss the implications of the fact that many of the
female workers were from first-generation Polish, Italian, Norwegian and Czechoslovakian
families83 or that the workforce as a whole comprised some sixty different nationalities.84
Subsequent studies have shown that race and ethnic differences can have a profound
influence on workplace behaviour.85
While issues of race, ethnicity, and the workplace had been discussed extensively in other
fields,86 it was not until the mid-1970s that they began to influence studies of organizational
behaviour. Fernandez87 in 1975 and American and Anderson88 in 1978 were among the earliest studies of black managers in American corporations. In 1980, Leggon extended the area
of study to black female professionals,89 focusing on of the complexity of race, ethnicity, and
gender in the lives of black women managers and professionals. Since then, a steady stream of
research has drawn attention to the effects of race and ethnicity on workplace behaviour.
As with all new developments, much of the work on racioethnicity has been focused
on explaining the need to include race and ethnicity in organizational behaviour studies. Alderfer and Thomas90 were among the first to challenge the ethnocentric biases in
organizational behaviour research, arguing that the development of OB was shaped by
white, middle-class, male researchers. According to Alderfer and Thomas, pioneering OB
researchers held to the prominent belief of their time that racial and ethnic differences
would be assimilated into existing (white-dominated) values and beliefs to create a culturally
uniform and homogeneous America. That race and ethnicity continue to be ignored within
mainstream studies of OB has led Canadian researcher Joy Mighty to classify the practice
of OB as a form of cultural imperialism91 and US researcher Stella Nkomo to characterize
it as a field of study that is framed by an ethnic paradigm.92 From this perspective, the
researchers argue for a more inclusive analysis of behaviour in organizations that will take
account not only of race and ethnicity but of the racist character of organizations and
theories of organization. More recent accounts of race and ethnicity have begun to question
whether OB as it is currently constituted is able to overcome ingrained ways of thinking.
Marta Cals, for example, argues that OB is a way of thinking with its own established
language, thought processes, and practices that are constructed out of Western humanistic
discourse: i.e., it values people and activities according to Western standards.93
Nkomo and Cox in the United States and Mighty in Canada have drawn attention to
the multiple impacts of race, gender, and immigration on peoples experiences in organizations.94 Building on the racioethnicity approach, Ella Bell has sought to draw attention to
the influence of racial stereotypes on the employment of female managers. She argues that,
in the United States, certain childrens stories tend to characterize black women as The
Mammy and white women as The Snow Queen and shape peoples expectations of
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[ 34 ]
part i Introduction
the capabilities of different women in society.95 The work of Bell and Nkomo, through
analysis of the different life cycles and opportunities that each group of women experience,96 has been instrumental in developing understandings of the differences that black and
white female managers face in the workplace. Bell and her colleagues have also studied the
way that organizational structures contribute to the reproduction of race relations within
organizations.97
In Britain, Sandra Wallmans work examines the issue of ethnicity at work by looking at
the ways in which particular groups of people organize their working lives, the symbols by
which they identify with their work and with each other, and the particular constraints to
which they must adapt;98 Phizackleas work has revealed that employment niches available
to black women are usually in the most vulnerable parts of the economy;99 focusing on
discrimination within organizations, work by Jenkins on recruitment,100 Iles and Auluck
on training,101 and Torrington et al. on management and multiracial workforces102 draws
attention to different aspects of race and ethnicity at work.
In North America, racioethnicity critiques of OB have had several important effects on
the field. In both the United States and Canada, management journals have devoted special
issues to the subject of race. In 1990, the US Journal of Organizational Behavior devoted an
entire issue to the subject of race and ethnicity; this event was so momentous that one leading
contributor commented, I am unaware of a mainstream journal in organizational behaviour
ever before devoting a special issue to the subject of race, authorizing a black scholar to be in
charge of the issue, and publishing a complete set of papers by black authors.103
In Canada, a 1991 issue of the Canadian Journal of Administrative Studies was devoted to
the theme of managing an increasingly diverse workforce, and included discussion of
issues of gender as well as race and ethnicity.
The issue of diversity and diversity management are themes that have developed
alongside the racioethnicity approach and have inspired, in recent years, numerous books
and articles on the subject. Unlike the racioethnicity approaches, which are primarily concerned with improving the opportunities and respect afforded to people of colour, the
management of diversity literature has mostly developed within a managerialist framework
in which the central concern is the improvement of organizational efficiency.
webview
On racioethnicity
http://digitalcommons.ilr.cornell.edu/key_workplace/117/
The Postmodernist Approach
The most recent approach to organizational behaviour, postmodernist theory, argues that
OB is a disciplinary practice. The postmodernist approach contends that OB is, in effect,
a powerful set of ideas rooted in assumptions about the nature of work and of people. These
8/10/06 3:43:13 PM
ideas and associated practices do not simply study organizational behaviour but serve to
define what is appropriate behaviour. Thus, for example, the postmodernist would argue
that a theory of motivation serves not only to inform managers of the best way to improve
the productivity of their subordinates but also to reinforce the idea that productivity is a
behaviour that is valued over other forms of behaviour. Motivation theory not only reinforces the idea that people should accept the power and authority of managers but also lends
authority to the actions of managers. It reinforces the notion that some behaviour is undesirable (e.g., an employee who is under producing). From this perspective, postmodernist
research has been concerned to expose the underlying assumptions of theories and practices
of management.
Specifically, some postmodernists contend that OB is a discipline that serves to control people at work by defining what is, and what is not, appropriate behaviour.104 It is
argued that disciplines such as Organizational Behaviour (OB), Organization Theory (OT),
Human Resources Management (HRM), and various other business subjects shape how
managers and employees alike develop ideas about the ideal or typical employee or
manager. These ideas come to have a powerful influence on who is hired, who is fired,
who is promoted, and who is passed over. For example, if we return to our three scenarios,
the postmodernist would argue that the flight attendant in Scenario 1.1 above was fired
because he did not fit the company image of a typical employee. About Scenario 1.2, the
postmodernist might argue that people died because of the pilots rigid reproduction of
expected (ideal-typical) behaviour. In Scenario 1.3, from a postmodernist perspective, the
culture change program can be viewed as designed to establish a new image of typical or
ideal behaviour, emphasizing that, in the future, the good employee would be someone
who was totally service oriented.
This viewpoint has as a central concern the exposure of the impact that theories of workplace behaviour have on peoples sense of self and on their ability or power to influence their
sense of worth, self-esteem, and identity. Roy Jacques, for example, examines the development of the notion of the employee in the United States105 and argues that it was shaped
by psychological, personnel, and management knowledge to take on a moral tone to rival
the notion of the good citizen. Like the good citizen, the ideal employee is a measure of
how a person comes to be valued. In a similar vein, Barbara Townley, focusing on Human
Resources Management, argues that personnel/HRM techniques play a crucial role in
constituting the self, in defining the nature of work, and in organizing and controlling the
workforce. According to Townley, Human Resources Management comprises a nexus of
disciplinary practicesa technology of poweraimed at making employees behaviour and
performance predictable and calculable, in a word manageable. 106
webview
Links to Critical Postmodern Organizational Science
http://www.zianet.com/boje/tamara/
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[ 36 ]
part i Introduction
Figure 1.1: Different Approaches to the Study of Organizational Behaviour

Approach
Focus
Concern
Denition
Managerialist
[also known as
mainstream,
functionalist,
or CLINICAL]
The manager
To understand
how behaviour
contributes to
organizational
improvement (e.g.,
productivity, job
satisfaction, growth,
survival)
OB is a eld of study that

investigates the impact that
individuals, groups, and structure
have on behaviour within
organizations, for the purpose of
applying such knowledge towards
improving an organizations
effectiveness [Robbins, 1995, p. 10]
Actionalist
[also known as
interpretive
or ETHNOGRAPHIC]
The
organizational
member
To understand
how behaviour
contributes to
the development
and maintenance
of a sense of
organization
OB is the study of how people

develop a sense of organization
through a series of behaviours and
negotiated meanings.
Radical
[sometimes
divided into
radical
humanist
and radical
structuralist]
The worker
To redress the
exploitation of
workers by exposing
how their behaviour
and thoughts
are shaped and
controlled by the
organization
OB is a managerial eld of study

that investigates the impact
that individuals, groups, and
structure have on behaviour within
organizations, for the purpose of
applying such knowledge to control
the behaviour of employees for
the achievement of managementdened ends.
Feminist
Women
To identify and
address processes
of sexual
discrimination
Feminist OB is a eld of study

that investigates the impact of
individual men, groups of men,
and masculinist values and ideas
on behaviour within organizations,
for the purpose of identifying and
addressing sexual discrimination.
Racioethnicity
People of
colour
To identify and
address processes of
racial discrimination
Racioethnicity OB is a eld of
study that investigates the impact
of race and ethnicity, racist and
ethnocentric values and ideas on
behaviour within organizations,
for the purpose of identifying and
addressing racial discrimination.
8/10/06 3:43:14 PM
Postmodernist
The subject
To expose the study

of organizational
behaviour as a set
of ideas rooted in
particular notions of
work and people
OB is a nexus of disciplinary
practices aimed at making
employees behaviour and
performance predictable and
calculable so that it can be
managed.
Source: Adapted from A.J. Mills, T. Simmons, and J. Helms Mills, Reading Organization Theory (Toronto: Garamond Press,
2005), p. 20.
Dening Organizational Behaviour

As we can see from Figure 1.1, different OB approaches generate different definitions of
the field of study. So which definition is valid? Which definition is the most useful? The
answer is that it depends on your viewpoint. No definition is more important than another.
The definition that is appropriate for any one person will depend on what she or he is
trying to achieve. The manager concerned with the relationship between behaviour and
organizational efficiency, for example, will likely find the managerialist definition the most
appropriate one. On the other hand, the person concerned to understand how organizational behaviour contributes to sexual discrimination may find the feminist definition more
appropriate. As Edgar Schein indicates,107 how organizational behaviour is studied can also
depend on whether the organization is paying for the study or whether it is undertaken in
the pure pursuit of knowledge. Schein refers to the clinical approach as one in which
a company pays you to show its members how to improve their behavioural patterns. He
refers to the ethnographic approach as one in which a person is undertaking research
on his or her own behalf in order to advance knowledge of how organizations work. The
clinical researcher would likely operate from a managerialist definition of OB while the
ethnographer would be more likely to operate from an actionalist definition.
For our purposes we believe that it is important to understand organizational behaviour
in order to improve the operation of organizations and to address the impact that organizations have on the way people feel about themselves (e.g., self-esteem) and others (e.g., racial
discrimination). To that end, we have developed a comprehensive definition of OB that
combines the concerns of several of the OB approaches:
OB is the study of the impact of behaviour in organizations on organizational
(e.g., effectiveness), individual (e.g., self-esteem), and social (e.g., racial discrimination) outcomes.
8/10/06 3:43:15 PM
[ 3 8]
part i Introduction
Organizations make an important contribution to various aspects of social and economic

life. At this stage of history, we rely on organizations for a range of things, including health
care (e.g., hospitals), goods and services (i.e., businesses), local and national protection (i.e.,
the police and the armed forces), entertainment (e.g., television companies), employment
(i.e., various employing bodies), education (e.g., universities), spiritual needs (e.g., churches),
and different forms of social assistance (e.g., social-work agencies). While some people want
organizations to operate in the most effective, efficient, and profitable ways possible, most
people have at least minimum expectations that organizations will operate in ways that
give them as few problems as possible. Some students, for example, may want their college
registrations to be processed in the quickest, most efficient way possible, but most students
expect that, at the very least, they will be dealt with in a way that gives them the least
hassle.
Whether we are young or old, a person of colour or white, man or woman, conservative or radical, we have certain minimum expectations of organizations, expectations that
knowledge of organizational behaviour can help us to attain or improve upon. Thus, it can
be argued, a concern with organizational improvement cuts across several OB approaches.
While the MANAGERIALIST APPROACH is explicitly concerned with organizational improvement, a similar concern is, at the very least, implicit in much of the writings of feminist and
racioethnicity scholars who seek to redress discrimination so that people can benefit equally
from organizational rewards. The radical approach, on the other hand, has sometimes been
accused of concentrating on a critique of capitalist organizations while paying little attention to the character of alternative, non-capitalist, organization. If the debate about the
inefficiencies and undemocratic character of organizations in communist countries tells us
anything, it is that radical theories of organization need to be more concerned about organizational improvement.
But organizations are also associated with stress, discrimination, environmental disasters,
accidents, and numerous other outcomes that affect the lives and the livelihoods of people
and their communities. A focus on efficiency alone will not only fail to address many of
the deep rooted individual and social problems that have been attributed to organizations
but may well exacerbate those problems.108 Thus, as actionalist, feminist, racioethnicity,
radical, and postmodernist researchers have argued, we need to examine not only the way
that organizations are constructed but also how they are conceived: we need to understand
the potential impact of ways of organizing on how people think, how they feel about
themselves and others, and on how communities develop and survive.
If OB as a field of study is to make an important contribution to social life, it needs to
help us understand how to produce our needs in a more efficient manner (managerialist),
how to comprehend what organizations mean to people (actionalist), and how to address
the impact that organizations have on peoples lives (feminist, racioethnicity, radical). It also
needs to encourage us to question how and why we study organizational behaviour and
how and why we think of organizations in the way we do (postmodernist).
8/10/06 3:43:16 PM
Study Break
The following questions are designed to strengthen your understanding of the chapter. Write
short notes in answer to each. The assignments are intended to encourage you to reflect on
what you have read so far.
Q.1
Organizational Behaviour is one of the most interesting and relevant subjects

that you will ever study. To what extent do you agree or disagree with this
statement and why?
Q.2
Below is a list of important types of organizational decisions. Pick two situations

from the list and discuss the main types of behaviour that should be studied to
deal with the problem.
the investigation of an organizational disaster (e.g., the explosion of the
Challenger space shuttle in 1986)
the decision to merge two companies (e.g., the merger of Air Canada and
Canadian Airlines in the late 1990s)
the investigation of an accident (e.g., the 1996 ValuJet airline crash)
a decision about whether to close a loss-making company (e.g., the potential
closure of the Stelco steel company in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia)
the appointment of a new organizational leader (e.g., Apples 1997 appointment
of Steve Jobs)
the development of an employment equity policy (e.g., Xerox Corporations
balanced work force goals)
resolving an industrial conflict (e.g., the widespread General Motors strike in
Canada and the United Sates in 1996)
dealing with a sexual harassment situation (e.g., the Tailhook convention of
1991)
changing the culture of the company (e.g., IBMs widespread culture change in
the mid-1980s)
Q.3
Many of the classical theories of workplace behaviour were developed by people

working within industry and reflected their business experiences and concerns.
How do you think this shaped the development of OB as a field of study?
Q.4
What did Taylor mean by the term systematic soldiering, and why did he
believe that scientific management could address the problem?
Q.5
According to Taylor, what three factors cause inefficiency in the workplace?
8/10/06 3:43:17 PM
[40]
part i Introduction
Q.6
What four key changes did Taylor introduce at the Midvale Steel Company to
deal with inefficiencies?
Q.7
Why do you think that Taylorism became popular not only in capitalist countries but in the socialist Soviet Union and fascist Italy?
Q.8
(i) What are the Hawthorne Studies,

(ii) how did they get their name, and
(iii) what two key groups of employees did they focus on?
Q.9
Match each of the following statements with one of the OB approaches listed
below:
managerialist
actionalist
feminist
racioethnicity
radical
postmodernist
i.
The concept of racism calls attention to the collective and often unconscious
forces in a society and its institutions that maintain the dominance of one racial
group at the expense of another ... Without conscious attention to the likely consequences of racism whenever racial issues are at stake, any organizationincluding
a research organizationis likely to show the very same effects. For this reason, we
believe that it is essential for researchers who work on the subject of race to address
explicitly their own stand on the subject of racism.
ii.
[The] question what motivates the worker has been treated as an adequate
formulation for research. A more appropriate question.... might be what motivates
the worker to do the task structured by others? The question of organizational
commitment has been structured largely as an obligation of the worker; what factors influence worker commitment? A more complete question might be what is
the quid pro quo the organization must provide in order to establish a relationship
of mutual commitment between the worker and the organization?
iii. Because the bureaucratic organization of public life directly controls the
work of most women who hold jobs outside the home and affects the entire society
in a way that is antithetical to the goals of feminist theory and practice, it is a crucial
target of feminist concern. Feminism and organizational theory need each other. In
8/10/06 3:43:17 PM
order for feminists to construct an adequate theory of domination and

liberation, we must deal with bureaucratic modes of power; in order
for analysts of modern organizations to develop an adequate critique of
bureaucracy, they need to consider a feminist perspective.
iv. The focus of this form of organizational analysis is on how individuals interpret and understand their experience and how these interpretations
and understandings relate to action. [T]he researcher seeks to examine the
basic processes by which groups of people come to share interpretations and
meanings for experience that allow for the possibility of organized activity.
The research agenda here is to document the creation and maintenance of
organization through symbolic action ... Theorists and practitioners alike
are concerned with such practical matters as how to achieve common interpretations of situations so that coordinated action is possible.
v.
As capitalism creates a society in which no one is presumed
to consult anything but self-interest, and as the employment contract
between parties sharing nothing but the inability to avoid each other
becomes prevalent, management becomes a more perfected and subtle
instrument. Tradition, sentiment, and pride in workmanship play an ever
weaker and more erratic role.... Like a rider who uses his reins, bridle,
spurs, carrot, whip, and reining from birth to impose his will, the capitalist strives, through management, to control. And control is indeed the
central concept of all management systems.
vi.
The problems that afflict modern organizations are not task
problems. They are process problems. The reason we are slow to deliver
results is not that our people are performing their individual tasks slowly
and inefficiently; fifty years of time-and-motion studies have seen to that.
We are slow because some of our people are performing tasks that need
not be done at all to achieve the desired result and because we encounter
agonizing delays in getting the work from the person who does one task
to the person who does the next one.... In short, our problems lie not in
the performance of individual tasks and activities, the units of work, but
in the processes, how the units fit together into a whole.
Q.10
Why is it important to include gender in the study of behaviour in

organizations?
8/10/06 3:43:17 PM
[42]
part i Introduction
Notes
1. Compiled from a variety of sources including Michael C. Ruppert, A Timeline Surrounding
September 11th, From The Wilderness Publications (2001), <http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/
ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html>; Michael Elliot, Secret Evidence, Sisyphus Press, <http://69.28.73.17/
commonsense/secretevidence.html> (accessed 26 July 2006); Ted Bridis, FBI Admits it missed suspected
terror e-mail, National Post (Canada), August 30, 2002, A10; Jim Defede, An oasis of community in a
world of upheaval, National Post (Canada), August 31, 2002, B1.
2. See for example the following website devoted to news coverage of events leading up to the crisis:
<http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html>.
3. Elliot, Secret History of the September 11 Failure.
4. Elliot, Secret History of the September 11 Failure, 14.
5. Elliot, Secret History of the September 11 Failure, 14.
6. See <http://ombwatch.org/>.
7. As long ago as 1981 Professor Robert Denhardt was making the point that in the modern world we
are living in the shadow of the organization. In the Shadow of the Organization (Lawrence, KS: Regents
Press).
8. Bonnie S. Anderson and Judith P. Zinsser, A History of Their Own. Women in Europe from Prehistory to
the Present (New York: Harper and Row, 1988) 1: 87.
9. Anderson and Zinsser, A History of Their Own, 1: 9394.
10. Females were generally excluded from university entrance until the late nineteenth century and well
into the twentieth century in many countries.
11. Compiled from reports of the accident by David Beaty, The Naked Pilot: The Human Factor in Aircraft
Accidents (Shrewsbury: Airlife, 1995), 95101; Davis Gero, Aviation Disasters: The Worlds Major Civil Airliner
Crashes since 1950 (Sparkford, Somerset: Patrick Stevens Ltd., 1994), 16265.
12. See Dean Jobb, Calculated Risk: Greed, Politics, and the Westray Tragedy (Halifax, NS: Nimbus Publishing, 1994).
13. Mel Hurtig, The Betrayal of Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto: Stoddart, 1992), 376.
14. Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1991.
15. Hurtig, The Betrayal of Canada, 220. See also the Wall Street Journal, April 18, 1991.
16. Compiled from reports by Kenneth Labich, Europes Sky Wars, Fortune International, November
2, 1992, 24; K. Labich, The Big Comeback at British Airways, Fortune International, December 5, 1988,
104; Charles Hampden-Turner, Corporate Culture: From Vicious to Virtuous Circles (London: Hutchinson,
1990), 91.
17. Michael Rose, Industrial Behaviour (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1978), 43; D.A. Buchanan and A.
Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour (London: Prentice Hall, 1985), 228.
18. Buchanan and Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour, 228; Rose, Industrial Behaviour, 43.
19. Rose, Industrial Behaviour, 43; Buchanan and Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour, 228.
20. Rose, Industrial Behaviour, 43; Buchanan and Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour, 228.
21. Quoted in Buchanan and Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour, 229.
22. Reinhard Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press,
1974), 278.
23. Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry; Buchanan and Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour.
24. Taylor, 1911 quoted in Buchanan and Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour, 233. Taylor, conscious of
employee concerns about the relationship between productivity and lay-offs, promised to have any worker
who was deemed unsuitable for the new work methods reassigned to other tasks in the yard. Nonetheless,
the local press at the time forecast that Taylors methods would eventually lead to a seventy-five per cent
reduction in the labour force. This poor publicity and the risk of labour trouble led the company management to order Taylor to slow down the pace of change (Rose, Industrial Behaviour, p. 47).
8/10/06 3:43:18 PM

25. Although Taylors methods were deemed successful, he himself was not so fortunate. He had
numerous disputes with higher management and was dismissed by the companyin a one-sentenced
letterin 1901 (Rose, Industrial Behaviour, pp. 4547).
26. In a number of cases, employers adopted the idea of work-study and job redesign but ignored
Taylors notion of linking this to improved piecework rewards. This partial application of Taylors work
led to a number of problems, particularly worker resistance and industrial unrest Rose (Industrial Behaviour;
Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry).
27. Rose, Industrial Behaviour, 42. It is interesting to read the comments of Lenin, the Soviet leader, in
this regard: The Taylor system, the last word of capitalism in this respect, like all capitalist progress, is a
combination of subtle brutality of bourgeois exploitation and a number of its greatest scientific achievements
in the field of analyzing mechanical motions during work, the elimination of superfluous and awkward motions, the working out of correct methods of work, the introduction of the best systems of accounting and
control, etc. The Soviet Republic must at all costs adopt all that is valuable in the achievements of science
and technology in this field (V.I. Lenin, quoted in Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry, pp. 20607).
28. Between 1870 and 1910, the percentage of employed people engaged in agriculture and other
primary production fell from 53.5% to 31.6% (Rose, Industrial Behaviour, p. 55).
29. Between 1897 and 1904, trade union membership in the United States grew by almost 500 per cent
(Rose, Industrial Behaviour, p. 56).
30. Rose, Industrial Behaviour, 56.
31. Writing of their childhood experiences in the Gilbreth home, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and his sister
Ernestine give us an impression of the impact of scientific management on their family life:
Dad always practiced what he preached, and it was just about impossible to tell where his
scientific management company ended and his family life began. His office was always full of
children, and he often took two or three of us, and sometimes all twelve, on business trips.
Frequently, wed tag along at his side, pencils and notebooks in our hands, when Dad toured
a factory which had hired him as an efficiency expert.
On the other hand, our house at Montclair, New Jersey, was a sort of school for scientific
management and the elimination of wasted motionsor motion study, as Dad and Mother
named it.
Dad took moving pictures of the children washing dishes, so that he could figure out how
we could reduce our motions and thus hurry through the task. Irregular jobs, such as painting
the back porch or removing a stump from the front lawn, were awarded on a low-bid basis.
Each child who wanted extra pocket money submitted a sealed bid saying what he would do
the job for. The lowest bidder got the contract.
From, Frank B. Gilbreth, Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey, Cheaper by the Dozen (New York: Thomas Y.
Crowell Co, 1963), 2.
32. F.B. Gilbreth and L. Gilbreth, Fatigue Study (New York: Sturgis and Walton, 1916); H. Gantt,
Organizing for Work (New York: Harcourt, Brace and Hove, 1919); Henri Fayol, General and Industrial
Management (London: Pitman Publishing Ltd., 1949).
33. Albert J. Mills and Tony Simmons, Reading Organization Theory (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1995),
69.
34. J.D. Mooney and A.C. Reily, Onward Industry (New York: Harper, 1931).
35. O. Sheldon, The Philosophy of Management (London: Pitman, 1924).
36. Chester Barnard, Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1938).
37. L. Urwick, The Functions of Administration (New York: Harper, 1943).
38. Buchanan and Huczynski, Organizational Behaviour, 236.
39. D.S. Pugh, D.J. Hickson, and C.R. Hinings, Writers on Organizations (Harmondsworth: Penguin,
1977), 102.
8/10/06 3:43:18 PM
[44]
part i Introduction
40. Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation (New York: Basic Books, 1977), 23. Although Parker Folletts work can be viewed as pioneering she did not receive due attention at the time, and
it is only recently that there has been a retrospective appreciation of her role (P. Sheriff and E.J. Campbell,
Room for Women: A Case Study in the Sociology of Organizations, in Gendering Organizational Analysis,
ed. Albert J. Mills and Peta Tancred [Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1992]).
41. F.J. Roethlisberger and W.J. Dickson, Management and the Worker (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1939).
42. Roethlisberger and Dickson, Management and the Worker.
43. Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, 23.
44. Rose, Industrial Behaviour, 107.
45. Joan Acker and Donald R. van Houten, Differential Recruitment and Control: The Sex Structuring of Organizations, in Gendering Organizational Analysis, ed. Albert J. Mills and Peta Tancred (Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 1992), 17.
46. Gary Johns and Alan M. Saks, Understanding and Managing Life at Work: Organizational Behaviour
(Toronto: Pearson Education Canada, 2001), 6.
47. E. Wight Bakke, 1959 quoted in Mason Haire, ed., Modern Organization Theory, 5th ed. (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 1967), 16.
48. David Silverman, The Theory of Organizations (New York: Basic Books, 1970).
49. As we shall see later, labels are sometimes difficult to pin on some theorists. Karl Weicks work lies
outside of any single approach, but his work on sensemaking comes closest to the actionalist approach.
50. Karl E. Weick, The Collapse of Sensemaking in Organizations: The Mann Gulch Disaster, Administrative Science Quarterly 38 (1993).
51. For a full and detailed discussion of critical theory, see D. Held, Introduction to Critical Theory (London: Hutchinson, 1980).
52. The work of Robert Merton, for example, studied the impact of bureaucracy on personality and on
the relationships between people in bureaucratic structures. See Robert K. Merton, Bureaucratic Structure and Personality, Social Forces 17 (1940); R.K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, IL:
Free Press, 1949).
53. Ivan Illich, Deschooling Society (London: Calder Boyars, 1981).
54. H. Braverman, Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1974).
55. D. Dickson, The Politics of Alternative Technology (New York: Universe, 1977).
56. Gibson Burrell and Gareth Morgan, Sociological Paradigms and Organizational Analysis (London:
Heinemann, 1979).
57. S. Clegg and D. Dunkerley, Organization, Class and Control (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1980).
58. Illich, Deschooling Society.
59. See, for example, Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (New York: Vintage
Books, 1979); G. Esland, Diagnosis and Therapy, in The Politics of Work and Occupations, ed. G. Esland
and G. Salaman (Milton Keynes: Open University, 1980); Ragnhild Banton, The Politics of Mental Health,
Critical Texts in Social Work and the Welfare State (Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan, 1985).
60. See, for example, Michel Foucault, The Birth of the Clinic (New York: Vintage, 1975); P. Armstrong
et al., Medical Alert: New Work Organizations in Health Care (Toronto: Garamond Press, 1997).
61. See, for example, Nicole Morgan, The Equality Game: Women in the Federal Public Service (19081987) (Ottawa: Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, 1988).
62. See, for example, W. Heyderbrand, Organizational Contradictions in Public Bureaucracies: Toward a Marxian Theory of Organizations, Sociological Quarterly 18 (1977).
63. See, for example, C.W. Mills, The Power Elite (London: Oxford University Press, 1968); Louis
Althusser, Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (London: New Left Books, 1971).
8/10/06 3:43:20 PM

64. For a useful review of the neglect of gender in studies of organization see Jeff Hearn and P. Wendy
Parkin, Gender and Organizations: A Selective Review and a Critique of a Neglected Area, Organization
Studies 4, no. 3 (1983).
65. Acker and van Houten, Differential Recruitment and Control.
66. Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation.
67. For an overview of the development of feminist organizational research, see Albert J. Mills and Peta
Tancred, eds., Gendering Organizational Analysis (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1992).
68. In addition to the study of gender, feminist research has examined the relationship between sexuality
and behaviour in organizations, including, more recently, studies of the way that men and masculinity
shape organizational dynamics. See, for example, Barbara A. Gutek, Sex and the Workplace (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1985); Jeff Hearn and P. Wendy Parkin, Sex at WorkThe Power and Paradox of Organizational Sexuality (Brighton: Wheatsheaf, 1987); Jeff Hearn et al., eds., The Sexuality of Organization (London:
Sage, 1989). For studies of men and masculinity at work see David L. Collinson, Engineering Humour:
Masculinity, Joking and Conflict in Shopfloor Relations, Organization Studies 9, no. 2 (1988); David L.
Collinson and Jeff Hearn, eds., Men as Managers, Managers as Men (London: Sage, 1996); M. Maier, The
Dysfunctions of Corporate Masculinity: Gender and Diversity Issues in Organizational Development,
The Journal of Management in Practice, Summer/Fall (1991); Mark Maier, We Have to Make a Management
Decision: Challenger and the Dysfunctions of Corporate Masculinity, in Managing the Organizational
Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity, ed. P. Prasad et al. (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1997).
69. See, for example, P. Dubeck, Sexism in Recruiting Management Personnel for a Manufacturing
Firm, in Discrimination in Organizations, ed. R. Alverez et al. (London: Jossey-Bass, 1979); Clare Burton,
Merit and Gender: Organizations and the Mobilization of Masculine Bias, in Gendering Organizational
Analysis, ed. Albert J. Mills and Peta Tancred (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992); David L. Collinson,
Banking on Women: Selection Practices in the Finance Sector, Personnel Review 16 (1987); David L.
Collinson, David Knights, and Margaret Collinson, Managing to Discriminate (London: Routledge, 1990).
70. See, for example, Fiona M. Wilson, Organizational Behaviour & Gender (London: McGraw-Hill,
1995), Chapter 3.
71. See, for example, Virginia E. Schein, The Relationship between Sex Role Stereotypes and Requisite Management Characteristics among Female Managers, Journal of Applied Psychology 57 (1973); Virginia
E. Schein, Relationships between Sex Role Stereotypes and Requisite Management Characteristics among
Female Managers, Journal of Applied Psychology 60 (1975); Virginia E. Schein, Sex-Role Stereotyping,
Ability and Performance: Prior Research and New Direction, Personnel Psychology 31 (1978); M. Swanson
and Dean Tjosvold, The Effects of Unequal Competence and Sex on Achievement and Self-Presentation,
Sex Roles 5 (1979); Deborah L. Sheppard, Women Managers Perceptions of Gender and Organizational
Life, in Gendering Organizational Analysis, ed. Albert J. Mills and Peta Tancred (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage,
1992).
72. See, for example, Kathy E. Ferguson, The Feminist Case against Bureaucracy (Philadelphia, PA: Temple
University Press, 1984); Graham S. Lowe, Women in the Administrative Revolution (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1987).
73. See, for example, S.P. Benson, Counter Cultures: Saleswomen, Managers, and Customers in American
Department Stores, 1890-1940 (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1986); Collinson, Engineering
Humour; M.G. Cox, Enter the Stranger: Unanticipated Effects of Communication on the Success of an
Organizational Newcomer, in Organization-Communication: Emerging Perspectives, ed. L. Thayer (Norwood,
NJ: Ablex Publishing Corp., 1986); Arlie Russell Hochschild, The Managed Heart (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1983).
74. See, for example, Linda Putnam, In Search of Gender: A Critique of Communication and Sex
Roles Research, Womens Studies in Communication, no. 5 (1982); Linda Putnam and G. Fairhurst, Women and Organizational Communication: Research Directions and New Perspectives, Women and Language
9, no. 1/2 (1985); Deborah Borisoff and Lisa Merrill, The Power to Communicate: Gender Differences as
8/10/06 3:43:21 PM
[ 46 ]
part i Introduction
Barriers (Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press, Inc., 1985); M. Meissner, The Reproduction of Womens
Domination, in Organization-Communication: Emerging Perspectives, ed. L. Thayer (Norwood, NJ: Ablex,
1986); Albert J. Mills and P. Chiaramonte, Organization as Gendered Communication Act, Canadian
Journal of Communications, 16, no. 4 (1991).
75. See, for example, Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation; A. Harriman, Women/Men, Management
(New York: Praeger, 1985); D. Cullen, Maslow, Monkeys and Motivation Theory, Organization 4, no.
3 (1997).
76. See, for example, Iiris Aaltio and Albert J. Mills, eds., Gender, Identity and the Culture of Organizations
(London: Routledge, 2002); I. Aaltio, Albert J. Mills, and Jean C. Helms Mills, Exploring Gendered
Organizational Cultures, Culture and Organization 8, no. 2 (2002); Albert J. Mills, Organization, Gender
and Culture, Organization Studies 9, no. 3 (1988); Morgan, The Equality Game: Women in the Federal Public
Service (1908-1987); Albert J. Mills and S. J. Murgatroyd, Organizational Rules: A Framework for Understanding Organizations (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991).
77. See, for example, L. Larwood and M. M. Wood, Women in Management (Lexington, MA: Lexington
Books, 1977); Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Power Failure in Management Circuits, Harvard Business Review
57, no. 4 (1979); Hearn and Parkin, Sex at Workthe Power and Paradox of Organizational Sexuality;
Gary Powell, Women and Men in Management (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1988); Glenn Morgan and David
Knights, Gendering Jobs: Corporate Strategies, Managerial Control and Dynamics of Job Segregation,
Work, Employment & Society 5, no. 2 (1991); Collinson, Knights, and Collinson, Managing to Discriminate.
78. See, for example, Cary L. Cooper and M.J. Davidson, High Pressure: Working Lives of Women Managers (London: Fontana, 1982).
79. See, for example, Harriman, Women/Men, Management; Powell, Women and Men in Management;
Fiona M. Wilson, Organizational Behaviour and Gender, 2nd ed., Innovative Business Textbooks (Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2003).
80. For useful reviews of the range of feminist research in organizational behaviour, see Harriman,
Women/Men, Management; Powell, Women and Men in Management; Wilson, Organizational Behaviour and
Gender; Paula J. Dubeck and Kathryn Borman, eds., Women and Work: A Handbook (New York: Garland
Press, 1996).
81. The term was coined by Taylor H. Cox, Jr., Problems with Organizational Research on Race and
Ethnicity Issues, Journal of Applied Behavioral Sciences 26 (1990).
82. Clayton P. Alderfer and D.A. Thomas, The Significance of Race and Ethnicity for Understanding
Organizational Behavior, in International Review of Industrial and Organizational Psychology, ed. C.L. Cooper
and I.T. Robertson (New York: Wiley, 1988).
83. Acker and van Houten, Differential Recruitment and Control, 18.
84. Roethlisberger and Dickson, Management and the Worker, 6.
85. For example, studies of job satisfaction, recruitment practices, and performance ratings indicate
that, in some situations, there are differences between white and black employees (see Mills and Simmons,
Reading Organization Theory, p. 175).
86. The sociology of work and industrial sociology, for example, had established literatures on race,
ethnicity and work prior to 1980.
87. John P. Fernandez, Black Managers in White Corporations (New York: Wiley, 1975). See also Christopher Beattie, Minority Men in a Majority Setting: Middle-Level Francophones in the Canadian Public Service
(Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1975).
88. R.F. American and R. Anderson, Moving Ahead: Black Managers in American Business (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 1978).
89. L. Leggon, Black Female Professionals: Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status, in The Black
Woman, ed. R. Rodgers (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1980).
90. Alderfer and Thomas, The Significance of Race and Ethnicity for Understanding Organizational
Behavior.
8/10/06 3:43:22 PM

91. E. Joy Mighty, Valuing Workplace Diversity: A Model of Organizational Change, Canadian
Journal of Administrative Sciences 8, no. 2 (1991).
92. Stella Nkomo, The Emperor Has No Clothes: Rewriting Race in Organizations, Academy of
Management Review 17, no. 3 (1992); Ella L. Bell, Racial and Ethnic Diversity: The Void in Organizational
Behaviour Courses, The Organizational Behavior Teaching Review 13, no. 4 (1989).
93. See Marta B. Cals, An/Other Silent Voice? Representing Hispanic Woman in Organizational
Texts, in Gendering Organizational Analysis, ed. Albert J. Mills and Peta Tancred (London: Sage, 1992). In
a similar vein Pushkala Prasad argues that Western ideas such as the protestant ethic and the myth of
the frontier frame the way that OB research views behaviour at work: see Pushkala Prasad, The Protestant Ethic and the Myths of the Frontier: Cultural Imprints, Organizational Structuring, and Workplace
Diversity, in Managing the Organizational Melting Pot, ed. P. Pradas et al. (Thousand Oaks: Sage, 1997).
Anshuman Prasad argues that OB has been shaped by a post-colonial lens whereby North American and
European understandings of former colonial peoples have been shaped by those former relationships
of power: A. Prasad, The Colonizing Consciousness and Representations of the Other: A Postcolonial
Critique of the Discourse of Oil, in Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of Workplace Diversity,
ed. P. Prasad et al. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).
94. Stella Nkomo and Taylor H. Cox, Jr., Gender Differences in the Upward Mobility of Black
Managers: Double Whammy or Double Advantage? Sex Roles 21 (1989); E.J. Mighty, Triple Jeopardy:
Immigrant Women of Color in the Labor Force, in Managing the Organizational Melting Pot: Dilemmas of
Workplace Diversity, ed. P. Prasad et al. (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).
95. Ella L. Bell, The Mammy and the Snow Queen (paper, National Centre for Management Research
and Development conference on women and management, Kingston, Ontario, 1989).
96. Ella L. Bell and Stella Nkomo, Re-Visioning Women Managers Lives, in Gendering Organizational Analysis, ed. Albert J. Mills and Peta Tancred (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992).
97. Ella L. Bell, T.C. Denton, and Stella Nkomo, Women of Color in Management: Towards an
Inclusive Analysis, in Women and Work: Trends, Issues and Challenges, ed. L. Larwood and B. Gutek
(Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1992).
98. S. Wallman, ed., Ethnicity at Work (London: Macmillan, 1979).
99. A. Phizacklea, Gender, Racism and Occupational Segregation, in Gender Segregation at Work, ed.
S. Walby (Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1988).
100. R. Jenkins, Racism and Recruitment (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
101. Paul Iles and Randhir Auluck, From Racism Awareness Training to Strategic Human Resource
Management in Implementing Equal Opportunity, Personnel Journal 18, no. 4 (1989).
102. Derek Torrington, Trevor Hitner, and David Knights, Management and the Multi-Racial Work Force:
Case Studies in Employment Practice (Aldershot, UK: Gower, 1982).
103. Clayton Alderfer, Reflections on Race Relations and Organizations, Journal of Organizational
Behavior 11 (1990): 493.
104. See D.M. Boje, Robert P. Gephart, Jr., and T.J. Thatchenkery, eds., Postmodern Management
and Organization Theory (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996); Mary Jo Hatch, Organization Theory: Modern
Symbolic and Postmodern Perspectives (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997); Gibson Burrell, Modernism, Postmodernism and Organizational Analysis 4: The Contribution of Jrgen Habermas, Organization
Studies 15, no. 1 (1994); M. Alvesson and S. Deetz, Critical Theory and Postmodernism Approaches to
Organizational Studies, in Handbook of Organization Studies, ed. S.R. Clegg, C. Hardy, and W. Nord
(London: Sage, 1996); John Hassard and Martin Parker, Postmodernism and Organizations (London: Sage
Publications, 1993); Stewart R. Clegg, Modern Organizations (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990).
105. R. Jacques, Manufacturing the Employee: Management Knowledge from the 19th to 21st Centuries
(London: Sage, 1996).
106. Barbara Townley, Reframing Human Resource Management: Power, Ethics and the Subject at Work
(London: Sage, 1994).
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[ 4 8]
part i Introduction
107. Edgar H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992).
108. See, for example, Charles Perrow, Normal Accidents: Living with High Risk Technologies (New York:
Basic Books, 1984).
8/10/06 3:43:26 PM

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ORGANIZATIONAL

Copyright 2007 The authors

Broadview Press is an independent, international publishing house, incorporated in 1985. Broadview

UK, Ireland, and

Australia and New Zealand

Introducing Organizational Behaviour 13

Understanding Organizational Behaviour in Context 49

Part II: Individual Behaviour and the Organizational Context

Personality and Identity 91

Perception, Stereotyping, and Attribution 123

Values and Attitudes at Work 149

Learning in Organizations 167

Motivation in Organizations 205

Organizational Stress 241

Part III: Interpersonal Processes in the Workplace

Groups and Teams in Organizations 267

Race, Ethnicity, and Workplace Diversity 295

Sex at Work 321

Organizational Communication 359

Part IV: Organizational Structure and Change

Power and Organizational Life 389

Organizational Culture 423

Organizational Structure and Design 455

Leadership in an Organizational Context 483

Part V: Organizational Behaviour and the World Economy

Globalization Antenarratives 505

Living in an Organizational World

After completing this chapter, you should be

This chapter was written by Albert J. Mills.

Organizational Behaviour and September 11th1

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 1 5 ]

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 1 7 ]

Living in an Organizational World

Formal organizations have made a tremendous difference to so many aspects of our

Scenario 1.1: Controlling Behaviour in

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 1 9]

Organizational Decision Making and Social Outcomes

Scenario 1.2: The Human Factor in Aircraft Accidents

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 21]

Managing the Successful Organization

Scenario 1.3: Putting People First

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 23]

Studying Organizational Behaviour

The study of organizational behaviour developed from an interest by business managers in

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 25]

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 27]

Despite Parker Folletts pioneering work,40 Roethlisberger and Dickson,41 writing at

Alternative Approaches to the

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 29]

of organizational behaviour is similar to that of anthropology, in which the behaviours of a

The Radical Approach

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 31]

The Feminist Approach

The Racioethnicity Approach81

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 33]

The Postmodernist Approach

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 35]

Figure 1.1: Different Approaches to the Study of Organizational Behaviour

OB is a eld of study that

OB is the study of how people

OB is a managerial eld of study

Feminist OB is a eld of study

chapter one Introducing Organizational Behaviour [ 37]