Human Behavior in Organization - Social System (Role, Mentor, Status) and Organization Culture

1. MR. NAJIBULLAH A. UMPA, RN, MBA, DBM (ON-GOING)
AY 2016-2017 (2ND TRIMESTER)

3. WHAT IS A SOCIAL SYSTEM?
A social system is a complex set of human
relationships interacting in many ways. Within
a single organization, the social system
includes all the people in it and their
relationships to one another and to the
outside world.

4. Two points stand out in the complex interactions among
people in a social system.
First, the behavior of one member can
have an impact, directly or indirectly, on
the behavior of any other. Although these
impacts may be large or small, all parts
of the system are mutually
interdependent.

5.  Simply stated, a change in one part
of a system affects all other parts,
even though its impact may be slight.

6. A second important point revolves
around a system’s boundaries.
Any social system engages in exchanges
with its environment, receiving input from it
and providing output to it.
 Social systems are, therefore, open
systems that interacts with its
surroundings.

7. SOCIAL EQUILIBRIUM
A system is said to be in social equilibrium
when its interdependent parts are in dynamic
working balance.
Equilibrium is a dynamic concept, not a static
one.
Despite constant change and movement in
every organization, the system’s working
balance can still be retained.

8. FUNCTIONAL AND
DYSFUNCTIONAL EFFECTS
If the effects of change are favorable for the system, it
has a functional effect.
When the action or change creates unfavorable effects,
such as a decline in productivity, for the system it has a
dysfunctional effect.

9. SOCIAL CULTURE
An environment of human-created beliefs,
customs, knowledge and practices is called
social culture.
Culture is the conventional behavior of society,
and influences all actions of a person even
though it seldom enters into conscious thought.

10. Social culture are often portrayed as consistent
within a nation, thereby producing a so-called
national culture.
At the simplest level, national cultures can be
compared on the bases of
how their members relate to each other,
accomplish work, and
respond to change.

11. Social cultures can have a dramatic
effects on behavior at work. Some of
the ways in which cultures differs
include:
patterns of decision making,
respect for authority,
treatment of females, and
accepted leadership styles.

12. Knowledge of social cultures is especially
important because managers need to
understand and appreciate the
backgrounds and beliefs of all members of
their work unit.
People learn to depend on their culture. It
gives them stability and security, because
they can understand what is happening in
their cultural community and know how to
respond while in it.

13. “However, this one-culture dependency may
also place intellectual binders on
employees, preventing them from gaining
the benefits of exposure to people from
other cultural backgrounds.”

14. CULTURAL DIVERSITY
Employees in almost any organizations
are divided into subgroups of various
kinds. Formation of groups is determined
by two broad sets of conditions.

15. First, job-related (organizationally created)
differences and similarities, such as:
type of work,
rank in the organization, and
physical proximity to one another,
sometimes cause people to align
themselves into groups.

16. A second set of non-job related conditions
(those related to culture, ethnicity,
socioeconomics, sex and race) arise
primarily from an individual’s personal
background; these conditions are highly
important for:
legal,
 moral, and
economic reasons.

17. This cultural diversity or rich variety of
differences among people at work, raises the
issues of fair treatment for workers who are
not in positions of authority.
Problems may persists because of a key
differences in this context between
discrimination and prejudice.
Discrimination is generally exhibited as an
action
Prejudice is an attitude.

18. VALUING DIVERSITY
A promising approach to overcoming
discriminatory practices actually attempts to
change the underlying attitudes.
Prejudicial stereotypes develop from unfounded
assumptions about others and from their
overlooked qualities. Differences need to be
recognized, acknowledged, appreciated, and
used for collective advantage.

19. SOCIAL CULTURE VALUES
Work ethic means, that they view work as
very important and as desirable goal in
life.
They tend to like work and derive
satisfaction from it.

20. They usually have a stronger
commitment to the organization and to
its goals than do other employees. These
characteristics of the work ethic make it
highly appealing to employers.
In spite of its prevalence, the work ethic is
a subject of continuing controversy.

21. Second, the general level of the work ethic
has declined gradually over many decades.
The decline is most evident in the
different attitudes between younger and
older workers.
According to research:
First, the proportion of employees with a
strong work ethic varies sharply among
sample groups. Differences depend on
factors such as personal background, type
of work performed, and geographical
location.

22. SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Every action that organization take involves
cost as well as benefits. In recent years there
has been a strong social drive to improve the
cost-benefit relationship to make it possible
for society to gain benefits from organizations
and for the benefits to be fairly distributed.

23. Social responsibility is:
 the recognition that organizations have
significant influence on the social system; and
 that this influence must be properly considered
and balanced in all organizational actions.
The presence of strong social values such as
social responsibility has a powerful impact on
organizations and their actions.

24. ROLE
A role is the pattern of actions expected
of a person in activities involving
others.

25. Role reflect a:
person’s position in the social system, with its
accompanying -
Rights
Obligations,
Power and
Responsibility.

26. • In order to be able to interact with one
another, people need some way of
anticipating other’s behavior. Role performs
thin function in the social system.
• A person has roles both on the job and away
from it. One person performs the
occupational role of worker, the family role of
parent, the social role of club president, and
many others. In those various roles, a person
is both buyer and seller, supervisor and
subordinate, and giver and seeker of advice.

27. Each role calls for different types of
behavior. Within the work environment
alone, a worker may have more than one
role, such as a worker in group A, a
subordinate to Supervisor B, a machinist, a
member of a union, and a representative on
the safety committee

28. ROLE PERCEPTION
Activities of managers and workers alike are
guided by their role perceptions, that is, how
they think they are supposed to act in their
own roles and how others should act in their
roles. Since managers perform many
different roles, they must be highly adaptive
(exhibiting role flexibility) in order to change
from one role to another quickly.

29. Supervisors especially need to change
roles rapidly as they work with both
subordinates and superiors, and with
technical and nontechnical activities.
When two people, such as a manager and
an employee, interact, each one needs to
understand at least three role perceptions.
For a manager, the three roles are as
follows:

30. First there is the manager’s role perception as:
1. Required by the job being performed.
2. Then there is the manager’s perception of the
role of the employee being contacted.
3. Finally there is the manager’s perception of his
or her role as likely to be seen by the
employee.
Obviously, one cannot meet the needs of
others unless one can perceive what they expect.

31. The key is for both parties to gain accurate
role perceptions for their own roles and for
the roles of the other.
Reaching such an understanding requires
studying the available job descriptions, as
well as opening up lines of communication to
discover the other’s perceptions.
Unless roles are clarified and agreed upon by
both parties, conflicts will inevitably arise

32. MENTORS
A mentor is a role model who guides another
employee (a protégé) by sharing valuable
advice on roles to play and behaviors to
avoid.
Mentors teach, advise, coach, support,
encourage, act as sounding boards, and
sponsor their protégés so as to expedite their
career progress.

33. The advantages of successful mentoring
programs include:
 stronger employee loyalty,
 faster movement up the learning curve,
better succession planning through
development of replacements, and
 increased level of goal accomplishments.

34. Some organizations actually assign
protégés to various mentors, but this practice
can create problems of resentment, abuse of
power, and unwillingness to serve. As a result,
other firms simply encourage employees to
seek out their own mentors

35. ROLE CONFLICT
When others have different perceptions or
expectations of a person’s role, that
person tends to experience role conflict.
Such conflict makes it difficult to meet one
set of expectations without rejecting
another

36. ROLE AMBIGUITY
When roles are inadequately defined or are
substantially unknown, role ambiguity exists,
because people are not sure how they should
act in situations of this type.
When role conflict and role ambiguity exist,
job satisfaction and organizational
commitment will likely decline.

37. On the other hand, employees tend to be
more satisfied with their jobs when their roles
are clearly defined by job descriptions and
statements of performance expectations.
A better understanding of roles helps people
know what others expect of them and how
they should act.
If any role misunderstanding exists when
people interact, then problems are likely to
occur

38. STATUS
Status is the social rank of a person in a group. It is a
mark of the amount of recognition, honor, esteem, and
acceptance given to a person. Within groups,
differences in status apparently have been recognized
ever since civilization began. Wherever people gather
into groups, status distinctions are likely to arise,
because they enable people to affirm the different
characteristics and abilities of group members.

39. Individuals are bound together in status
systems, or status hierarchies, which define
their rank relative to others in the group. If
they become seriously upset over their
status, they are said to feel status anxiety.
Loss of status – sometimes called “losing
face” or status deprivation – is a serious
event for most people; it is considered a
much more devastating condition, however,
in certain societies.

40. People, therefore, become quite
responsible in order to protect and
develop their status. Since status is
important to people, they will work hard to
earn it. If it can be tied to actions that
further the company’s goals, then
employees are strongly motivated to
support their company.

41. STATUS RELATIONSHIPS
High-status people within a group usually have
more power and influence than those with low
status. They also receive more privileges from
their group and tend to participate more in group
activities. They interact more with their peers
than with those of lower rank. Basically, high
status give people an opportunity to play a more
important role in an organization.

42. As a result, lower-status members tend to feel
isolated from the mainstream and to show more
stress symptoms than higher-ranked members
In a work organization, status provides a system
by which people can relate to one another as
they work. Without it, they would tend to be
confused and spend much of their time trying to
learn how to work together. Though status can
be abused, normally it is beneficial because it
helps people interact and cooperate with one
another.

43. STATUS SYMBOL
The status system reaches its ultimate end
with status symbols.
These are the visible, external things that
attach to a person or workplace and serve as
evidence of social rank. They exist in the
office, shop, warehouse, refinery, or wherever
work group congregate.

44. They are most in evidence among different
levels of managers, because each
successive level usually has the authority to
provide itself with surroundings just a little
different from those of people lower in the
structure.
Many organizations have a policy that
persons of equal rank in the same
department should receive approximately
equal status symbols.

45. There maybe some variation between
departments, such as production and sales,
because the work is different and rank is not
directly comparable.
In any case, managers need to face the fact
that status differences exist and must be
managed successfully. Managers have the
power to influence and control status
relationships somewhat. The organization
gives some status, and it can take some
away.

46. SOURCES OF STATUS
The sources of status are numerous, but in
atypical work situation several sources are easily
identified. Major sources of status:
Education, Job level, Person’s abilities, job skills,
type of work

47. Other sources of status are:
Amount of pay - gives economic recognition
and an opportunity to have more of the
amenities of life, such as travel.
Method of pay - (hourly versus salary) and
working conditions also provide important
status distinctions, such as distinguishing
blue-collar and white-collar work.

48. Seniority and Age - Seniority and age often
earn for their holder certain privileges, such
as first choice of vacation dates, or the
respect of co-workers for their longevity at
work.
Stock options - provide employees with the
opportunity to share the financial success of
the firm.

49. SIGNIFICANCE OF STATUS
Status is significant to organizational behavior in
several ways. When employees are consumed by the
desire for status, it often is the source of employee
problems and conflicts that management needs to
solve.
It influences the kinds of transfers that employees will
take, because they don’t want a low-status location or
job assignment.

50. It helps determine who will bean informal leader
of a group, and it definitely serves to motivate
those seeking to advance in the organization.
Some people are status seekers, wanting a job
of high status regardless of other working
conditions. These people can be encouraged to
qualify themselves for high-status jobs so that
they will feel rewarded

51. ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Social (national) culture creates the wide-
ranging context in which organizations
operate.
It provides the complex social system of laws,
values, and customs in which organizational
behavior occurs.

52. Employee behavior(B), according to social
psychologist Kurt Lewin, is a function of the
interaction between personal characteristics (P)
and the environment (E) around the person, or B
= f(P,E).
Part of that environment is the social culture in
which the individual lives and works, which
provides broad clues as to how a person with a
given background will behave.

53. Organizational culture is the set of:
assumptions,
beliefs,
values and
norms
that are shared by an organization’s
members. This culture may have been
consciously created by its key members, or it
may have simply evolved across time.

54. It represents a key element of the work
environment in which employees perform
their jobs.
This idea of organizational culture is
somewhat intangible, for we cannot see it
or touch it, but it is present and pervasive.

55. Like the air in a room, it surrounds and
affects everything that happens in an
organization. Because it is a dynamic
systems concept, culture is also affected by
almost everything that occurs within an
organization.

56. Organizational cultures are important to a
firm’s success for several reasons:
1. They give an organizational identity to
employees – a defining vision of what the
organization represents.
2. They are also an important source of
stability and continuity to the organization,
which provides a sense of security to its
members.

57. 3. helps newer employees interpret what
goes on inside the organization, by
providing an important context for events
that would otherwise seem confusing.
3. stimulate employee enthusiasm for their
tasks.

58. 5. Culture attracts attention, convey a
vision, and typically honor high-producing
and creative individuals as heroes.
5. By recognizing and rewarding these
people, organizational cultures are
identifying them as role models to
emulate

59. FUN WORKPLACES
Society encourages and provides many ways
in which people can play and have fun in their
recreational lives. Play typically has a number
of common elements – immersion in the
activity, surprise, variety, choice, experience
of progress, and the opportunities to make
personal contributions and to “win”.

60. A fun work environment is a unique and
increasingly popular organizational culture
in which supervisors encourage, initiate,
and support a variety of playful and
humorous activities.

61. A fun workplace culture has several key features:
-It is easily recognized (by observing the
presence of laughter, smiles, surprise, and
spontaneity)
-It means different things to various people
-It is relatively easy to create at work
-It elicits a broad range of personal and
organizational payoffs

62. REFERENCE
Chapter 4 - Social Systems and Organizational
Culture Uploaded by florenzs retrieved at
https://www.scribd.com/doc/33735438/Chap-4-
Social-Systems-and-Organizational-Culture