HISTORY OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

BY SHREST PATEL
The present state of an area or field or subject cannot be fully understood without some
awareness of the events that have preceded it. The reason being the past serves to
illuminate the present and predict the future. Keeping this fact in mind, an attempt has been
made in this chapter to delineate OB in its historical perspective. More precisely, the
chapter outlines the evolution and development of OB in a sequential manner.

EVOLUTION OF OB
It will not be less than correct to mention that beginning dates in any complex historical
study are not only hard to come by but often are impossible to establish also. History bears
no evidence for sequence of human behavior and thinking ever has had one point where it
clearly can be said to have started. At the same time, it is also true that attempts to
understand or explain the human behavior at individual and group levels undoubtedly have
been made as long back as man it has been in existence on this planet. What we usually
do is we make our educated guesses about the human relations among people from the
artifacts they left behind. We can say much about human behavior and relations inferring
from plans of our oldest cities, carving and paintings in our historical monuments and caves
and alike.

Thus, the fact remains that the human relationships have existed since the beginning
Of time and some concern for human (as workers) has also been in existence since ages.
In the early ages, people worked either alone or in such small groups that their work
relationships were easily handled. Then, it has been popular to assume that under these
conditions people worked in a Utopia of happiness and fulfillment. That is why the early
examples of written records on human behavior at work did not amount to a full
philosophical system encompassing most aspects of human behavior. They mainly
provided human behavior description of either actualities or normative guides. However,
the actual work condition was brutal and backbreaking. Workers worked from dawn until
dusk and that too under intolerable conditions of disease, filth, danger, and scarcity of
necessary resources. Too little concern and effort were devoted to their job satisfaction in
the early ages! There is no gainsaying the fact that the life of workers in the early ages was
miserable to say the least.

Although there are traces to the effect that behavioral approaches had existed in the
ancient Egypt as early as in BC 1700, its actual origin could not be traced beyond doubt.
Human behavior has often been caused. In this regard, Kolas a-opines that cause and
effect are, as always, hard to separate and identify. Suffice it to say that an interrelationship
exists. However, the behavioral scientists actually tried to chronicle the growth of the
subject i.e., OB only from the beginning of the nineteenth century. The hitherto
development in behavioral thought can be presented under various stages for the sake of
convenience of analysis: (1) industrial revolution, (2) scientific management, (3) human
relations movement, and (4) Hawthorne Studies. These are discussed one by one.
 INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION

The industrial revolution (1776) visited in the beginning of the last quarter of the eighteenth
century. It brought about materialism, discipline, monotony, boredom, job displacement,
impersonality, work interdependence, and other related behavioral phenomenal. Though in
the beginning the condition of people did not improve perceptibly, nonetheless at least the
seed was planted for potential improvement. The industrial revolution led to increase in
production that eventually gave workers increased wages followed by increased job
satisfaction and decreasing work hours. In this new but positive environment, Robert Owen,
a young Welsh Factory owner, about the year 1800, was one of the first to emphasize the
human needs of his employees. He refused to employ the young children, on the one hand,
and educated his adult workers about proper cleanliness and temperance, on the other. Of
course, this could hardly be called organizational behavior in the modern context, but it was
certainly a beginning towards modern organizational behavior. That is why he was called
the father of personnel administration' by an early writer Frank Pod more. In 1835, Andrew Urea, a
pioneering behavioral scientist, published his work on The Philosophy of Manufacturers.
Besides, the mechanical and commercial parts of manufacturing, Urea recognized a third
factor, i.e., human factor. He provided workers with hot tea, medical treatment, a fan
apparatus for ventilation, and sickness payments.
Our own land India did not remain untouched with human recognition of workers. Around
this time, J.N. Tata took a special interest in the welfare of his workers. The welfare
schemes included were installing humidifiers

And fire sprinklers, installation of pension fund, payment for accident compensation. His
experiments done in the Express Mill showed that not only profits but people/workers also
mattered to him.

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT

Then came there of scientific management. The interest in the behavioral aspects of
management was recognized. It was Frederick W. Taylor who inaugurated the interest in
people's behavior at work in the United States in the early 1900s. For introducing the
scientific thought in management, Taylor is often called 'the father of scientific
management.' What actually Taylor did is he converted broad generalizations into practical
and scientific manners which paved the way for later development of organizational
behavior. Taylor advocated the selection of right worker for right jobs, imparting them
adequately, and remunerating them handsomely. His work, thus, eventually tends to
improved recognition and produce trinity for industrial workers. He emphasized that as
there was a best machine for a job, so were there best ways for workers to do their work.
There is no denying of the fact that Taylor's main goal was technical efficiency, yet at least
he awakened the management to the importance of human resources which was so far
neglected. His major work was published in 1911.

Though Taylor laid down a scientific foundation in management thinking, his thought was
criticized on several counts. The important among the comments were its anti-social, anti-
democratic and psychologically unfair nature. He was much criticized for his belief in
rationalizing everything and assuming human behavior based on rabble hypothesis.

HUMAN RELATION MOVEMENT

Failure of scientific management gave birth to the human relations movement. It was
founded on more emphasis on workers cooperation and morale. In other words, under the
human relations approach, workers were distinguished from nonhuman factors such as
capital, machine, building, etc. Those workers have feelings, sentiments, rationality, and
ambitions were duly recognized. As a result, workers were involved in decision-making
process. Historically speaking, three factors contributed to the recognition of human as a
distinct factor amongst others in an organization. These were: the Great Depression, the
labor movement, and the Hawthorne Studies

The Great Depression is traced back to 1929 when the stock exchange in America
crashed. Wide-spread unemployment, declining purchase power, market collapse, and
lowering standards of living of people were some of the major consequences witnessed
world-wide. It is important to mention that the Great Depression was accompanied by some
positive consequences also. One of the positive outcomes of the Depression was that the
management began to recognize the importance of functional areas like finance, marketing,
and personnel to keep a business survive and grow. In sum, human relations received
increasing significance as an indirect effect of the Depression.

Though human relations got recognition in business, production still continued to claim
dominating place in business operation. Speaking truthfully, production still preceded
workers in order of its importance in business organization. Human aspects of work such
as decent hours of work, fair wages, and good working conditions were next to production.

HAWTHORNE STUDIES
We have stated earlier that F.W. Taylor through his experiments increased production by
rationalizing it. Elton Mayo and followers sought to increase production by humanizing it
through behavioural experiments popularly known as Hawthorne Experiments/Studies. The
fact remains that an exposure to the study of organisational behaviour will remain
incomplete without a mention of Hawthorne studies/experiments. Hence, what follows next
is the same.

In November 1924, a team of researcher-prosessors from the renowned Harward Business

School of U.S.A began investigating into the human aspects of work and working
conditions at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric Company, Chicago. The company
was producing bells and other electric equipments for telephone industry. Prominent
Professors included in the research team were Elton Mayo (Psychologist), Roethlisberger
and Whilehead (Sociologists), and William Dickson (company representative). The team
conducted four separate experimental and behavioural studies over a seven-year period.
These were

1- Illumination Experiments (1924-27) to find out the effect of illumination on

workers' productivity

2-  Relay Assembly Test Room Experiments (1927-28) to find out the effects of

changes in number of work hours and related working conditions on worker

productivity
3- . Experiments in Interviewing Workers (1928-30) to find out workers attitudes

and sentiments toward work

4- . Bank Wiring Room Experiments (1931-32) to find out social system of an

organisation

DEVELOPMET OF OB
The history of organisational behaviour begins with the work of Frederick Winslow Taylor
when he developed scientific management in 1890 at Midwale Steel Company

It progressed with significant events, discoveries, and contributions over time. One hundred
years of progress of organisational behaviour is summarized above

1890 ~ FREDERICK TAYLORS DEVELOPMENT OF SCINETIFIC MANAGEMENT

1900 ~ MAX WEBER CONCEPT OF BUREAURACY AND THE PROTESTANT ETHIC

1910 ~ WALTER CANNON DISCOVERY OF THE “EMERGENCY RESPONSE”

1920 ~ ELTON MAYO’S ILLUMINATION STUDIES IN THE TEXTILE INDUSTRY

~ THE HAWTHORNE STUDIES AT WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY

1930 ~ KURT LEWIN’S, RONALD LIPPITT’S AND RALPH WHITE’S EALRY LEADARSHIP
STUDEIS

1940 ~ ABRAHAM MASLOW’S NEED HIERARCHY MOTIVATION THEORY

~ B.F SKINEER FORMULATION OF THE BEHAVIOURAL APPROACH

~ CHARLES WALKER AND ROBERT GUEST STUDIES OF ROUTINE WORK

1950 ~ RALPH STOGDILL LEDARSHIP STUDIES