Foundations of Organisational Behaviour
Organisation
A collection of people who work together to achieve individual and organisational goals.
Organisational Behaviour (OB)
The study of factors which profoundly affect how people and groups act, think, feel, and respond to work and organisations, and how organisations respond to their environments.
Levels of Analysis
| Level | Focus |
|---|---|
| Micro | Individual and group dynamics in organisations |
| Macro | Whole organisations, how they adapt; their strategies, structures, contingencies |
| Meso | Power, culture, networks of individuals |
| Field | How entire populations of organisations interact |
OB enhances overall performance and improves individual and group performance, satisfaction, and commitment.
A school is not just a structure on a chart. It is a place where people behave in ways that the chart cannot fully predict. The field that studies how people actually behave inside organisations is called Organisational Behaviour, or OB. The foundations and how they apply to a school’s daily reality are the substance below.
What an organisation is
The handout defines an organisation in a slightly different way than the earlier chapter did:
An organisation is a collection of people who work together to achieve individual and organisational goals.
The key phrase is “individual and organisational goals”. An organisation succeeds when both kinds of goals are being met. A school where the institutional goals are met but the staff’s individual goals are not soon loses its staff. A school where individual goals are met but institutional goals are not loses its purpose.
A school head’s job is to align the two as much as possible. Where alignment is impossible, she manages the gap honestly.
What Organisational Behaviour is
The handout defines OB:
Organisational behaviour is the study of factors which profoundly affect how people and groups act, think, feel, and respond to work and organisations, and how organisations respond to their environments.
The definition is broad. OB covers a lot of ground:
- How individuals behave at work.
- How groups behave within organisations.
- How organisations behave as wholes.
- How organisations respond to external environments.
OB is interdisciplinary. It draws on psychology (individual behaviour), sociology (group behaviour), anthropology (culture), political science (power), and economics (incentives). No single discipline owns it.
For a school head, OB provides a vocabulary and a framework for understanding what is actually happening in the building beyond what the chart shows.
Why OB matters in a school
A school can have a perfect organisational chart and still function poorly. The chart shows the structure; OB explains the behaviour. Three reasons OB matters specifically in schools:
Schools are intensely social
A school has many staff, many students, and many parents interacting daily. Behaviour patterns shape everything: classroom culture, staffroom dynamics, parent-school relationships. OB gives a school head tools to understand these patterns.
Schools depend on motivated work
Teaching is not routine work. A demotivated teacher does mediocre teaching even if her contract requires more. A motivated teacher goes far beyond what the contract requires. The difference is OB.
Schools are stable but slow to change
A school’s behaviour patterns set in over years. Once a particular staffroom culture exists, it tends to perpetuate itself. Changing it requires understanding it first. OB provides the diagnostic tools.
The four levels of analysis
OB operates at four levels of analysis. Each is useful for different questions.
Micro: individual and group dynamics
The micro level looks at individuals and small groups inside the organisation. What motivates a particular teacher? Why does this group of teachers work well together while another does not? How does an individual’s personality shape her work?
For a school head, micro-level OB is most useful in day-to-day people management.
Macro: whole organisations
The macro level looks at organisations as wholes. How does the school as a whole behave? What is its overall culture? How does it adapt to changes?
Macro-level OB is useful when thinking about the school’s identity, its strategic direction, and how it compares to other schools.
Meso: power, culture, networks
The meso level looks at the in-between structures: power relationships, organisational culture, networks of individuals that cross formal lines.
Meso scale structures involve power, culture, and the networks of individuals in organisations.
For a school head, meso-level OB is often the most useful and the most neglected. The informal networks in a school often matter more than the formal chart. The senior teachers who informally influence the staffroom’s opinions on any new initiative are doing meso-level work, whether anyone names it or not.
Field: populations of organisations
The field level looks at how entire industries or populations of organisations interact. How do schools as a group adapt to government policy? What patterns recur across many schools?
Field-level OB is useful for system-level thinking: education policy, school reform movements, broad trends.
How OB analysis serves schools
The handout makes a useful summary:
Many factors come into play whenever people interact in organisations. Modern organisational studies attempt to understand and model these factors. Can play a key role in organisational development, enhancing overall performance. Also enhancing individual and group performance, satisfaction, and commitment.
A school head who uses OB tools deliberately can:
- Diagnose why something is happening. A team is underperforming; OB asks what individual, group, and structural factors are at play.
- Predict consequences. Before launching a change, OB asks how it will affect behaviour, motivation, and culture.
- Design interventions. Based on the diagnosis, OB suggests specific changes that are likely to shift behaviour in the desired direction.
A school head who does not use OB tools relies on intuition. Sometimes intuition is right; often it is wrong. OB makes the analysis explicit and testable.
OB is the study of how people and groups act, think, feel, and respond inside organisations.
It works at four levels: micro (individuals and small groups), macro (whole organisations), meso (power, culture, networks), and field (populations of organisations). Schools depend on OB because teaching cannot be commanded into existence and because behaviour patterns set in over years.
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