7 Understanding Individual Behaviour

Geeta Sachdeva

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1.      Learning Objectives

 

2.      Introduction

 

3.      Factors Affecting Individual Behaviour

 

4.      Personal Factors Affecting Individual Behaviour

 

5.      Environmental Factors Affecting Individual Behaviour

 

6.      Organizational Factors Affecting Individual Behaviour

 

7.      Models of Man

 

8.      Summary

 

1.  Learning Objectives:

 

Basic objectives of this module are:

  • To understand the Personal factors affecting individual behaviour To know the Environmental Factors affecting individual behaviour
  • To understand the Organizational Factors affecting individual behaviour To know the different models of man

 

2.  Introduction

 

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Organizations are made of individuals and every individual is unlike from each other. The behaviour of every individual is influenced by numerous aspects. Each individual has specific purposes, motivations, observations and capabilities. To comprehend the human behaviour in organizations in an improved way, a vigilant study of all the factors which affect the human behaviour is a necessity. Each organization wishes to acquire the maximum probable efforts and assistances from its employees. The efforts and assistances of human beings are contingent upon their behaviour. Therefore, it is very significant for the organizers to recognize how the individual perform. Individual behaviour means how an employee or individual behaves, responds or replies in a certain environment. The factors which influence the human behaviour are person, environment and the organization itself.

 

So, individual behaviour is a function of person, environment & the organization.

 

3.  Factors affecting the individual behaviour The factors which influence the individual behaviour are:

  • Personal factors
  • Environmental factors
  • Organizational factors

 

4. Personal Factors: The personal factors which affect the individual behaviour could be categorized into two groups

 

4.1 Biographical Factors

 

4.2 Learned Factors

 

4.1 Biographical Factors: all the human beings have certain features which are hereditary in nature and are inborn. These are the talents which the individuals are born with. These are features which cannot be altered; at the maximum, these can be polished to some level. If the managers recognize about the inborn qualities & limitations of the individuals, they can use their organizational behaviour methods more efficiently. All these features are clarified in detail as follows:

 

Physical Characteristics: some of these characteristics are connected to height, skin, appearance, vision, form & size of nose, weight etc. All these have an influence on the performance of the persons. It is sometimes supposed that the eyes deceive the character of the being. Likewise, certain thoughts about the behaviour can be shaped on the base of whether the person is overweight, tall or slim. Tall & slim persons are probable to dress well & perform in a cultured manner and overweight people are supposed to be of a cheerful nature. Whether there is a relationship between body structure &behaviour has not been logically proven. Even if there is association between these two, it is very hard to comprehend which independent variable is & which dependent variable is.

 

Age: age is considered to be a hereditary characteristic because it is decided by the date of birth. The association between age and job performance is a subject of growing performance. Psychologically, younger people are probable to be more active, pioneering, adventurous, and determined and risk taking. While old people are supposed to be conventional, set in their own methods and less flexible. However it is improper to generalize all old people are inadaptable. Physiologically, performance rests on age, performance drops with progression of  age  because  older  people  have  less  energies,  remembrance  etc.  Younger  people  are probable  to  change  jobs  to  benefit  better  job  opportunities,  but  as  one  matures,  the probabilities of his leaving job are less. There is a connection between age and absence also. Older people incline to absent more from their jobs due to inevitable reasons like poor health, while, younger people absent themselves form job due to preventable reasons like going for holiday. However there is no clear cut differentiation between young age & old age but according to Lehman the highest of creative ability is amid people between the age 30 and 40.

 

Gender: Being a male or female is hereditary in nature and it is considered to be an inborn feature. Whether the woman does as well as in jobs as men do, is a subject which has started lot of debates, fallacies and thoughts. The traditional view was that man is tougher than woman  or  women  are  extremely  emotional  than  men.  But  these  are  some  stereotyped groundless conventions. Research has verified that there are few if any, significant differences between man and woman that will affect their job performance. Gender has its influence on absenteeism. The propensity to refrain from work is more in females than in men, because historically, our society has placed home & family accountabilities on the females.

 

Religion: however there are no logical studies to verify it and we cannot generalize it, but religion & religion based cultures play an imperative role in determining some facets of individual behaviour, particularly those facets which concern ethics, beliefs & code of conduct. The religion also regulates attitudes towards work & towards financial inducements. People who are extremely religious are supposed to have high moral values e.g. they are authentic, they do not tell lies or talk ill of others. They are supposed to be satisfied.

 

Marital Status: there are not sufficient studies to draw any inference as to whether there is any association between marital status and job performance. Research has constantly showed that as marriage levies enlarged responsibilities, to have a stable job becomes more valuable and significant. Married employees have less absenteeism, less turnover and more job satisfaction as compared to unmarried employees.

 

Experience: The influence of seniority on job performance is a matter which is subjected to a lot  of  misapprehensions  and  assumptions.  Work  experience  is  considered  to  be  a  good indicator of employee productivity. Research specifies that there is a positive relationship between  seniority  &  job  performance.  Besides  studies  also  indicate  that  a  negative relationship between seniority &job performance.

 

Intelligence: Usually, it is considered that intelligence is a hereditary quality. Some people are born intellectual and in other words intellectual parents produce intellectual children. But practical experience has exposed that sometimes very intellectual parents have less intelligent children  &  sometimes  normal  parents  have  very  intellectual  children.  Furthermore intelligence can be improved with efforts, hard work, appropriate environment & motivation. Intelligent people are normally not obstinate and stalwart, rather they are considered to be steady and expectable.

 

Ability: Ability states to the capacity or capability of a person to perform the numerous tasks in a job. It is the benchmark used to determine what a person can do.

 

4.2 Learned Factors: An individual is born with biographical characteristics which are difficult to change or modify. Thus, the managers lay much stress on studying, learning and forecasting the learned characteristics. Some of these characteristics are as follows:

 

Personality:

 

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It is as a vibrant concept describing the growth and development of a person’s complete psychological system. Rather than looking at the parts of the individual, personality looks at some collective whole that is bigger than the sum of its parts. It usually states to as dominance, aggressiveness, persistence, and other qualities reflected through an individual’s behaviour. Some personalities characters like physical built & intellect are biological in nature but most traits like patience, open mindedness, extrovertness, etc. can be learned. People who are open minded appear to work out better in bargaining agreements than people who are narrow minded. Likewise people who are extroverts and outbound are more probable to be successful as managers than those who are introverts.

 

Perception:

Source:http://mentalhealthandhappiness.com/wpcontent/uploads/2014/07/perception1.jpg

 

Perception is the perspective by which one understands a situation. It is the procedure by which information enters our minds and is interpreted in order to give some utilitarian meaning to the world around us. Psychology utters that diverse people see and sense the same thing in dissimilar ways. For instance, if a new manager perceives an employee to be a job shirker, he will give him less significant jobs, even though that employee is very talented person.

 

Attitude: It is just like perception but with frame of reference. It is a propensity to act in a certain way, either favourably or unfavourably regarding objects, people or events. For instance, if I say I am pleased with my job, I am stating my attitude towards my work. An attitude might be demarcated as the way a person feels about something, a person, a place, a thing, a situation or an idea. It expresses a person’s positive or negative feeling about some object. Most of our attitudes are such about which we are not aware.

 

Values: Values signify basic belief that a precise mode of conduct is personality or socially desirable to an opposite mode of conduct. Values carry a person’s ideas as what is right, good or desirable. All of us have a hierarchy of values that form our value system. This system is recognized by the relative importance we allocate to some values like freedom, self-respect, honesty, obedience, equality and so on. Values are carefully entrenched in the people that these can be detected from their behaviour. Individual values are influenced by the parents, teachers, friends and other external forces. Values differ from individual to individual because every individual learns in a diverse way and have diverse type of experience.

 

5.  Environmental Factors: the external environment is known to have a substantial influence on an individual’s behaviour. A brief explanation of the external factors as mentioned below:

 

Economic factors: the behaviour of an individual is affected to a great extent by the economic environment. A few economic factors which directly or indirectly influence the individual behaviour are elucidated below:

 

Employment level: the employment opportunities which are obtainable to the individuals go a long way in manipulating the individual behaviour. If the job opportunities are fewer, the individual will have to stick to a specific organization even though he does not have job gratification. He might or might not be faithful to the management but he will continue in the organization for financial benefits only.

 

Wage rates: the main contemplation of every employee who is working in the organization is his salaries. However job satisfaction is very significant but what a person will acquire in money terms is the main factor influencing the decision of a worker to stay in a specific organization or shift to another one which will pay more wages.

 

General Economic Environment: the employees who work in organizations which are severely affected by economic cycles, are exposed to layoffs and cost-cutting. For these employees job security and a steady income is the most significant factor.

 

Technological Development: though technology is not an economic factor, but we contain in the economic factors because of the influence it has on the persons’ job opportunities. The technological development has made the job more intelligent and advanced. Some workers will be dislocated unless they are well armed to work on new machines. For those, who pick up and apprise themselves with new technology the jobs will be rewarding and challenging.

 

5.2. Socio-cultural Factors: the social environment of an individual comprises his association with family members, friends, colleagues, supervisors and subordinates. The behaviour of other people not with the individual but in general is also a part of his social environment. Likewise individual has a cultural background which shapes his values & beliefs. Work ethics achievement need, effort-reward expectations and values are significant cultural factors having impact on the individual behaviour.

 

5.3 Political Factors: political environment of the nation would affect the specific behaviour not directly, but through some other causes. In a politically steady nation there would be a stable level of employment and high level of capital investment. Whereas corporations are unwilling to invest great sums of money in a politically uneven country.

 

5.4 Legal Environment: rules & regulations are formal and written standards of behaviour. Both rules & regulations are severely imposed by the legal system. Laws narrate to all the members of the society. Observing the laws willingly permits for expectedness of individual behaviour.

 

6. Organizational Factors: individual behaviour is predisposed by varied range of organizational systems & resources. These organizational factors are as elucidated below:

 

Physical Facilities: the physical environment at a work place is the planning of people & things so that it has an optimistic effect on people. Some of the aspects which effect individual behaviour are noise level, heat, light, airing, sanitation, nature of job, office furnishing etc.

 

Organizational Structure and Design: these are concerned with the method in which diverse departments in the business are set up. How are the lines of communication established amongst diverse levels in the business? The behaviour& performance of the employee is influenced by where that individual fits into the organizational hierarchy.

 

Leadership: the system of leadership is established by the management to offer direction, support, guidance and education to individuals. The human behaviour is influenced to a great level by the behaviour of the seniors or leaders. Behaviour of the leaders are more imperative than their qualities.

 

Reward System: the behaviour& the performance of the person is also influenced by the reward system established by the business to reward their employees.

 

7.   Models of Man: A number of models of man have been set in terms of his basic nature, his behaviour etc. A short explanation of a few models is explained as below:

 

7.1 Rational Economic Man: from the organizational viewpoint, managers had for a long time, observed their employees as rational beings who are mainly encouraged by money. They look at the “Economic Man &“Rational Man” approach to recognize and forecast the human behaviour. This model is grounded on classical organization theory. The scientific management drive was grounded on the faith that by rationally elucidating the one finest way to do things and presenting incentives to workers in the method of piece rates & bonuses, organizational productivity can be improved.

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McGregor’s assumptions of Theory X mirror this model. The elementary assumptions of the concept of ‘Rational Economic Man’ are as follows:

  • Persons are encouraged mainly by economic incentives. They would do things which get them the utmost economic gain.
  • As the organization controls the economic incentives, human beings are basically inactive agents, who are operated, encouraged and controlled by the organization.
  • The feelings of the persons are basically irrational & must be controlled to attain rationality and self-interest.
  • Organizations can and must be designed in such a way so as to neutralize and control people’s feelings & thus their unpredictable traits.

 

In this model, persons are encouraged to produce more by offering them with economic incentives. In this situation, there is no organization-employees conflict because both are satisfying their needs concurrently.

 

Drawbacks:

 

As this model is grounded on the classical theory, it suffers from the inadequacies intrinsic in that theory and do not outfit the present day organization.

 

  • The economic incentives can work till the man is not sensibly satisfied by the need of money.
  • So it can be specified that entire assumptions of Rational Economic man are not adequate in understanding and forecasting human behaviour.

 

7.1 Social Man: supporters of this school reflected the worker as a social man. They acknowledged that man is the part of social group, he is influenced by the social forces & gets satisfaction of the needs which are linked to the maintenance of his social relationships.

 

Eltan Mayo considered the concept of social man when he carried out Hawthrone studies during 1927-32. Form the reports of this studies the succeeding assumptions about human beings can be drawn:

 

a) Human beings are essentially encouraged by social needs & all their efforts focused towards getting this gratification by maintaining relationships with others.

 

b) A human group is more reactive to the pressures & permissions of his social group than to the incentives & controls of the management.

 

c) The quantity of work to be done by an employee is not determined by his physical capability or by the management but by the social norms.

 

d) Normally persons do not act or respond as individuals but as associates of a group.

 

e) Informal leaders have an imperative role in setting & imposing the group norms.

 

f)  Management should change & establish work in such a method that it offers more belongingness not only in terms of interpersonal & group relationships, but also man’s relationships with his job.

 

7.2 Organizational Man:

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it is an addition of social man. It was announced by William Whyte. He assumed that it is very significant for a person to be faithful to the organization & supportive with the fellow workers. Any individual who believes in this value system & actions in this method is an organization man. The basis of this idea is that every individual should sacrifice his distinctiveness for the sake of the group & the organization.

 

7.3 The self-Actuating Man:

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the concept of self-actuating man is an additional extension of social man & the organization man models. The social man concept accepts that the creation of social groups is the foundation of satisfaction for the persons. But as against the self-actuating man undertakes that man’s intrinsic need is to use his competences & skills in such a means that he should have the gratification of creating certain things. The earlier models do not permit him to satisfy his self-actuating needs.

 

7.4 Complex Man:

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Man-in-a-complex-maze-of-deep-thought-3d-conceptual-illustration–Stock-Illustration.jpg it gives the real image of human behaviour. All the earlier models make very simplistic assumptions  about  persons & their  behaviour.  Researchers have demonstrated  that these assumptions are not right as explicated below:

 

a) The initial models undertake that man would always behave as per the certain set patterns. But research has showed that there are numerous complex variables, which determine the human behaviour. These variables are pretty erratic. So the human behaviour which is grounded on these variables cannot trail as set pattern.

 b) The behaviour of the man can be understood & practiced in the given circumstances, contingent upon the assumptions made. But research has showed that even if cause-effect relationship is recognized between the variables &behaviour, it is not easy to comprehend & forecast the individual behaviour because of individual variances. It is not essential that everybody will behave accordingly.

 

Below are the assumptions about the complex man:

 

i) Persons are not only complex but also extremely variable. However their needs can be organized in a hierarchy, but this hierarchy is also not widespread. Diverse persons may have diverse hierarchies.

 

ii) Persons are proficient of learning new motives through their organizational experiences.

 

iii) Persons’ motivations in different organizations or different subparts of the same organization might be dissimilar.

 

iv) Persons can respond to numerous diverse kinds of managerial strategies.

 

8. Summary

 

However to understand the man is quite complex, human behaviour is not as simple as expected in the preceding models. Henceforth current thinking on the subject is to take an approach that different individuals have diverse needs and personality traits and if there is an appropriate match between these and the environment they operate in, functional behaviour will arise.

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