Organizational Behavior Trends

Organizational Behavior Trends

February 18, 2006

This paper covers how organizational behavior can be affected by any number of trends and in particular, discusses how ethical decision-making and the impact of technology on work related stress effect organizational behavior.

Organization behavior is an interdisciplinary field of study and practice, investigating the impact of individuals, groups, structure and environment on behavior within organizations. The primary concern of organization behavior is with people, what they do and how their behavior affects individual, group and organizational performance.

Ethics in decision-making

Life is full of decisions. Each day, people are faced with different problems requiring answers and solutions. Decision making is the process of defining problems and choosing a course of action from among alternatives. Decision making at best is a challenge for employees in general and managers in particular. For example, many decisions management faces turn out to be ethical decisions or have ethical implications or consequences. Once we leave the realm of relatively ethical-free decisions (such as which production method to use for a particular product), decisions quickly become complex, and many carry with them an ethical dimension.

Decision making in itself is not a simple process and is even more complicated when one thinks about the character and nature of decision-making that includes ethical dimensions. It would be nice if decision making was indeed a simple process and that a set of ethical principles was readily available for employees to "plug in" and walk away from, with a decision to be forthcoming. However, in reality that is not, nor will it ever be, the case when it comes to ethics and decision making. It is safe to say that decision making is one of the most important - if not the most important - of all individual and group efforts within an organization.

Ethics are the rules, principles, standards, or beliefs that commonly define right and wrong. Ethics are involved in all facets of business from decision-making to budgeting, from personnel issues to leadership. Today's managers must be able to see the ethical issues in the choices they face, make decisions within an ethical framework, and build and maintain an ethical work environment. Managers must be particularly sensitive to ethical issues because of their key role as a bridge between upper management and operating employees. For most employees, their manager is the only contact they have with middle and top management. As such, employees interpret the company's ethical standards through the actions and words of their managers. If managers take company supplies home, cheat on maintenance reports, or engage in other unethical practices, they set a tone for their work groups that is likely to undermine all the efforts by top management to create a corporate climate of high ethical standards. In a sense, therefore, managers must be even more ethical than their employees.

There are many stakeholders with interests in ethical decision making: the organization itself, corporate boards, middle and top management, managers, operating employees, customers and clients, suppliers, competitors, the industry at large, the community, and the nation. At one time or another, ethical decisions affect all of these constituencies, and ethical considerations may change based on the particular group of stakeholders affected. When an organization operates ethically, the people who manage that organization evaluate the organization's business practices in light of human values of morality. An ethical dilemma occurs when two or more values or goals (e.g., profit, growth, technological progress, desire to contribute to some basic good) conflict. The best solution to any problem almost always involves a cost of some kind.

Impact of technology on work related stress

The expansion of technology has resulted in higher expectations for productivity and speed. These expectations that go with technology has increased an individual to constantly be a high performance levels. Factory workers for example are under great stress to remain alert while operating machinery. Employees are under pressure and stress to constantly to keep up new technology and improvisations, which forces employees to learn new software and process with new technology.

Technology has been known to control workers.

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