A Whole Person & Holistic Concept

Phoeza Espinosa-Villanueva, MPA 1 Dr. Sapia M. Abdulrachman

PA 213

Every discipline of study has certain set of fundamental concepts. They are the
foundation stones on which the entire edifice of the discipline is developed. In the discipline of
Accountancy the fundamental concept is “for every debit entry there will be a credit entry”. In
the natural sciences the fundamental concept is the concept of uniformity of nature. The
concept states that if a certain phenomenon takes place under certain situations in Philippines,
it should take place under the same situations anywhere in the world.

Before I will discuss about my report which is about A Whole Person and Holistic
Concept, I will first define what is Organizational Behavior. Organizational Behavior simply
stated means the study of human behavior in the organization. Having knowledge about human
behavior would be useful in improving organizations effectiveness. Organizational Behavior is
also based on a few fundamental concepts which revolve around the nature of people and
nature of organizations. According to Stephen P. Robbins, OB is defined as a field of study that
investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behavior within
organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving organizations
effectiveness.

The fundamental and basic concepts of organizational behavior are;

1. Individual Differences – Nature Vs. Nurture

2. Perception – the unique way in which each person sees, organizes and interprets things.
3. Motivated Behavior – Behavior of an employee is caused and not random.
4. Desire for Involvement – Hunger for a change to share what they know and to learn
from experience
5. Value of a Person – People want and should be treated differently from other factors of
production(land,capital and labor) because they are of a higher order in the universe.
6. A Whole Person -When studying organizational behavior, it is imperative to remember
that organizations are dealing with a whole person, not just his knowledge, skills and
abilities. An organization not only hires a set of hands of a worker but a complete
person with all his strengths and limitations. A person’s family life cannot be separated
from his professional life. It is for this reason that managers should try to make the
office a home away from home. When management applies the principle of
organizational behavior, it is trying to develop a better employee, but it also wants to
develop a better person in terms of growth and fulfilment, jobs shape people somewhat
as they perform them, so management must care about the jobs effect on the whole
person.

When the above six fundamental concepts of Organizational Behavior are place
together, a Holistic Concept emerges. This concept interprets people-organization relationship
in terms of the whole person, whole group, whole organization and the whole social system
(Davis and Newstorm, 1989).

Because of the subsystems of any organization are interdependent, managers must take
a holistic view of the organization in order to manage organizational behavior. A holistic view
encompasses the culture and the dominant coalition, as well as the people, tasks, structure and
information subsystems.

References:
http://egyankosh.ac.in/bitstream/123456789/21313/1/Unit-3.pdf
https://www.slideshare.net/gouravkottawar/organizational-behaviour-59424322