Concepts In Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior is the study of the many factors that have an impact on how people and groups act, think, feel, and respond to work and organizations and how organizations respond to their environments. (George & Jones, 2005) Organizational behavior is particularly important to managers, who are responsible for supervising the activities of one of more employees.

A manager has four principal functions or duties of management. These include; the process of planning, organizing and leading an organizations human, financial, material, and others resources to increase its effectiveness. (George & Jones, 2005)

Planning involves establishing the organizations strategy and deciding how to best allocate and use resources to achieve organizational goals. Through organizing, managers establish a structure of relationships that dictates how members of an organization work together to achieve the organization's goals. Leading involves encouragement from managers for workers to do a good job and coordinate individuals and groups so that everyone is working to achieve the organizations goals. (George & Jones, 2005)

A manager must use these skills to address numerous areas, including:

- The Management of Ability

- Organizational Commitment

- Job Satisfaction

- Organizational Ethics

The Management of Ability

For managers, the key issue regarding ability is to ensure that employees have the abilities they need to perform their jobs effectively. There are three ways to manage ability in organizations to ensure this happens; selection, placement, and training. (George & Jones, 2005)

The fundamental work unit of the FMC Aberdeen organization is the work team. Teams ranging in size from three to sixteen manage virtually every aspect of the plant's work and reporting. Teams schedule work hours, purchase materials and tools, plan work schedules, coordinate with other teams, evaluate team member's performance, recommend salary increases, generate reports, and deal with virtually every problem that can arise in the running of the plant. (Clawson, 2005)

Every employee at Aberdeen is assigned to a team. A team leader is chosen by the team from among volunteers. Team leaders are an important part of team organization. One Aberdeen team leader describes the role in this way; "Team leaders facilitate. If there is a problem, you don't solve it, you get the team together in a meeting to solve it. Success is the team's responsibility, not the team leaders. One thing that works against this process is when people just don't want that responsibility and withhold from involving themselves." (Clawson, 2005)

FMC Aberdeen is working under the principle of self-managed teams. This type of management could also be utilized by the FMC Green River facility. Self -managed teams are groups of employees who are given the authority and responsibility to manage many different aspects of their own organizational behavior. (George & Jones, 2005) Despite the large number of workers employed by Green River this concept could still be useful as the number of teams would simply be increased.

Organizational Commitment

Organizational commitment relates to feelings and beliefs about the employing organization as a whole. Affective commitment exists when employees are happy to be members of an organization, believe in and feel good about the organization and what it stands for, and are attached to the organization, and intend to do what is good for the organization. (George & Jones, 2005) This type of commitment applies to FMC Aberdeen. The Aberdeen employees are happy to be part of a team, they feel good about going to work and they believe in their company. (Clawson, 2005)

Continuance commitment exists when employees are committed not so much because they want to be, but because they have to be when the costs of leaving the organization are too great. (George & Jones, 2005) This type of commitment applies to FMC Green River, which offers medical benefits, pensions, and high wages. (Clawson, 2005)

Affective commitment has more positive consequences for organizations and their members than continuance commitment. Employees with high levels of affective commitment are less likely to quit and may be more likely to perform organizational citizenship behavior. (George & Jones, 2005)

Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction is one of the most important and well researched work attitudes in organizational behavior. It has the potential to affect a wide range of behaviors in organizations and contribute to employee's levels of well-being. The four factors which affect the level of job satisfaction a person experiences are personality, values, the work situation, and social influence. (George & Jones, 2005)

The results of the Aberdeen system are impressive in respect to job satisfaction. Productivity has increased steadily at a fast rate, costs have been decreasing consistently and employee moral continues to be high. People comment on how much they appreciate being trusted by management. Pride in the plant's work and in being part of a team is high among employees.

One concern regarding future job satisfaction is with Aberdeen's reward structure. There are no annual bonuses, no profit-sharing plans, and no stock-option plans. Pay increase evaluations are given through a peer-review process. One must wonder whether job satisfaction will remain high under this system over an extended period of time.

It is hard to estimate the job satisfaction of Green River employees due to lack of information. Yet, manager Ken Dailey believes that his management style is very interactive, with a high level of trust for people. He believes he is relatively open and willing to give information as well as eager to drive decision making down into the organization. It is also noted that the Green River employee force, earning $18.00 per hour is the highest paid among all FMC employees. They have also received a great response of over 300 applicants for the last ten job openings that Green River advertised. (Clawson, 2005)

Organizations that aspire to creating a work environment that enhances job satisfaction may consider incorporating the following:

* Flexible work arrangements, possibly including telecommuting

* Training