Page 48 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Unit 2: Development of Management Theories

the membership of different social groups for different purposes and thus social behaviour Notes
is patterned.
The interaction between individuals and the group are generally known as informal
aspect of the organisation which is the result of operation of socio-psychological forces.
Such interaction can be interpreted in terms of mutual expectancies. Informal group expects
certain type of behaviour from its individual member and in turn, individual has
expectancies of psychological satisfaction, he hopes form the association. In this an
individual modifies his behaviour according to group norms and the group modifies its
behaviours according to what is expected from it by its members.

Another group of elements in social sub-system consists of status, role, norms and values.
Status is a position determined as being important in the interpersonal relationship of the
group. Thus, it is a social rank, prestige, sentiments and feelings of a person in comparison
with a social system. Some members come to be more highly respected than others while
some others born to be followers.

Notes Role is a pattern of action, expected of a person in his position involving others.
Thus, it describes specific form of behaviour and develops originally from the task-
requirements. Different members have to play different roles assigned to them by the
group. Norm is that the general expectation demands character for all role incumbents of
a system or sub-system. Unwritten norms are followed by the members of the group.
Anybody not adhering to norms are reprimanded or punished. Value is the more
generalised ideological justification and aspiration. Value guides the behaviour of the
members.
3. Power Sub-system: Power behaviour of the people in an organisation plays a very
important role. As the organisation starts functioning, people realise the importance of
their job in relation to others in the organisation; the benefits of their experience to the
organisation; the benefits of their experience to the organisation; the crucial location of
their jobs, their personality characteristics; the fact of their access to the superior authority
holder. In this way, they have acquired power to some degree or the other, based on the
source of their power that influences the decision-making and regulate others behaviour.

Individual’s abilities to regulate the behaviour of others vary. Some persons are more
powerful and some others have powerful influence areas than others have. Consequently,
a power differentiation based on the amount of power enjoyed (which is again a function
of success achieved and attempts made to influence the behaviour of others) develops in a
power structure. It gives birth to politicking and people play opportunistic roles. Power
minded people have no norms. Generally, norms are decided by the individual’s interests
and the opportunity of serving those interests and, therefore, sheer expediency is the
norm. The power holder enjoys the status in accordance with his abilities to influence the
behaviour of others in order to carry out his wishes. This part of the system is known as
power sub-system.
All the three sub-systems discussed above have distinct operational field. But, in actual
practice, a clear-cut distinction among the three is very difficult to make and
disentanglement of one sub-system from the other poses a serious problem. The three
sub-systems are intertwined by considerable overlapping. Some behaviour patterns in
the organisation are part of two sub-systems; some others are part of all the three sub-
systems; some other activities are exclusive to a particular system; and still there are few
behaviours which do not fall in any of the sub-systems.

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