Organizational behaviour: Politics at Work [antikvár]

PREFACE 'Organizational Behaviour' or 'OB' is not yet a neatly defined academic discipline. In the current literature it has a wide range of definitions and there is a confusing array of related subjects and alternative or overlapping names, including human resource management, organization theory, industrial psychology, industrial sociology, personnel management and human relations. In its broadest sense OB is the study of people in organizations. We do not propose to describe all the different emphases which the inquisitive student will find. It is easier if we just say what we propose to do. It will soon become clear to the reader that our treatment is not entirely the conventional textbook restatement, albeit in simplified form, of available material from specialist writers. We will be describing much fundamental OB theory, however, and will assume no prior knowledge. Where this book differs from many others is in the underlying framework used to analyse and build on OB concepts. By making assumptions about people and organizations which are different from those usually made we mean to throw new light on old topics, bringing them much closer to the fascinating reality of modern organizations. We believe the new approach to OB which is beginning to emerge in the literature, and which forms the basis of this book, will equip the future manager much better for the trials which lie ahead than the simplistic approach of most existing texts. So what is new about this book on OB? The newness stems from two things. First, the general perspective which we adopt has not been used before to develop a comprehensive textbook. This perspective is known as the political approach; it will be introduced in Chapter 2. Broadly, the organization is conceived of as a coalition of different interest groups which are competing and co-operating as they pursue a variety of ends. No prior right is given to any of the parties involved in the organization to have their own way. As Chapter I will show, previous perspectives have tended to be 'managerialist', concerned with some, often unspecified, measures of 'effectiveness' and 'efficiency' towards which the manager should be working for the good of the organization. We are concerned with what happens in practice. The second aspect of newness concerns the ideas about people which are built