Custom «Organizational Behavior» Essay Paper Sample

This is a research paper on challenges and opportunities for organizational behavior.

It will detail the information relating to workforce diversity and improving ethical behavior. Organizational behavior is the study of individuals and their behavior in context of their organization in a work place. It focuses on sociology communication and management in a workplace (Catherwood 1). It specifies how individuals behave while alone and while relating to other people in the work place. It scrutinizes the individual behavior in an organizational setting and not that of the organization itself.

It is a field of study that aims at gaining an understanding on the factors that influence individual and group organizational setting so that individual or groups may become more efficient and effective in their workplaces. It purposes to build and improve relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational objectives and social objectives. However it is worth noting that the base of any organization rests with the management's vision, philosophy, values and goals. The workers only adopt it as a motivation to their work life. Organizational behavior affects the overall performance of an organization.

The research paper will link workforce diversity to organizational behavior. It will also link improving ethical behavior to organizational behavior. Hence, outlining the challenges and opportunities for organizational behavior in the context of a workplace setting.

Workforce Diversity

Workforce diversity is the similarities and differences among employees which may be in terms of age, sex, race, religion, physical abilities and disabilities and sexual orientation (Business 1). The effect of the concept of workforce diversity is very significant in an organization and there are variant benefits and opportunities attached to it. The significance will depend on the diversity management. When a group of diverse people come together for a common goal, they bring in different skills, perspectives and ideas .The diverse skills and ideas improve the quality of goods offered and services provided to and by the organization in relevance to other competing organizations otherwise known as competitive advantage creating opportunities for an organizational behavior. These opportunities are expressed in terms of social responsibility, capacity building strategy, marketing strategy business communication strategy and others. It gives an opportunity for innovation and productive creativity.

For example in the case of social responsibility, it creates employment for the minority and middle class. The diversity will embrace different philosophies, and methodologies of work which will work for the good of the organization by adding quality from the divergent ideas and skills. Similarly, before a unitary decision is reached in an organization, the divergent ideas and perspectives from the workforce will be considered hence only the best will prevail. These create a sober working environment hence improving the performance of the organization. It will also help the organization to sell its policies to different people represented in the diverse workforce hence creating opportunities. It is believed that workforce diversity is now yielding more benefits and opportunities and hence most managers source for a divergent workforce to better their organizational performance.

However there have been challenges to organizational behavior due to workforce diversity. Though having the same goals as an organization, the diversity in the workforce may limit the attainment of such goals if not managed properly.

For example, where managers have to change their philosophy of treating every one equally to a philosophy of recognizing differences and tackling those differences without fear or favor and in a way that ensures employees retention and maximum productivity. This may be too expensive for the organization as it may include different training programs for the same job, its time consuming and the change of philosophy may make the managers divert from the company's objectives. Social classes may even bar minorities from working in certain areas which challenges organizational behavior. People of different classes and sex will have different likes, working styles and even ideas. This will make it hard to implement organizational policies that propel performance, hence a challenge to organizational behavior.

The diverse workforce may lead to interpersonal conflicts, high turnover and obvious losses to the organization. People of different religions will tend to work on different days as they observe their holy days. Again, workers with different physical abilities and disabilities will work at different speeds and posses different needs in the workplace. As the company try to address their different needs some may feel neglected. This will negatively affect the relationship in an organization lowering production.

The interpersonal conflicts in an organization are a challenge to organizational behavior as there will be no cooperation in the work place and the working environment won't favor performance. The high turnover in a company will affect the social life of the workers as they will not have adequate time to know one another's weakness and strong point. Hence they will forever remain as strangers which will lower performance as it will be difficult to find teamwork. All these will lower efficiency in the organization due to lack of cooperation and consequently dent the goodwill of the organization (Omolewu 3).

Improving Ethical Behavior

Ethics is the study of morality. Ethical behavior is the appropriate conduct that is beyond reproach and is in accordance to the norms of a society, organization or institution (Traveler, 2010). However, this varies from one setting to another as what is considered as unethical may be honorable in another society. Notably is that if a behavior is not ethical, it can only be unethical. The unethical behaviors are from unsavory individuals that have no moral character. For example it is socially unethical to discriminate people on the basis of their sex, religion, or age:-the reverse is ethical. Other examples include; conflict of interest, collusion, improper use of company assets, insider trading and harassment (Omolewu 3).

According to various findings, the leading causes of unethical behavior are: pressure to meet unrealistic business objectives and deadlines, the desire to further one's career and the desire to protect one's livelihood (Omolewu 3). Ethical behavior follow good moral principles and people enjoy being around people with ethical behaviors as ethical behaviors command respect, honor and trust.

In the context of a workplace, this refers to the conduct that organizations expect their employees to uphold while at work which is usually set out as the code of conduct that entails the rules and regulations that need to be adhered to in the organization. Hence, an individuals' behavior and that of a group is very significant in an organization. It affects how people relate in the organization thereby directly determining the performance of the organization (Curtis 3).

Considerably, the application of the code of conduct is not limited to the employees but equally apply to the employers because it guides the relationship between the two in the workplace. It also controls the employers in exercise of their powers to the employees. Ethical behavior can all the same be improved via; managers hiring workers with high ethical standards, establish the code of ethics, defining job goals, performance appraisals, provide ethical training, conduct social audits and support individuals with difficult in ethics (Blurtit 20).

Programs can be adopted by the organization to reduce the unethical behavior of employees similar to those of improving ethical behavior. Improving ethical behavior improves employee relations and results in human resource opportunities through increased efficient recruitment, low turnover, better morale and loyalty to the organization. Consequently, it improves customer relations inform of increased customer loyalty and tiebreaker effects for customer purchasing decisions. It also improves the reputation of the organization (Cutis 5).

The hiring of workers with high ethical standards helps in improving ethical behavior in an organization as they transfer their individual ethics to company relationships. This creates opportunities for organizational behavior through improved sociology and communication which facilitates better performance in an organization. The established code of ethics or conduct in an organization creates and improves ethical behavior by defining the social and conduct limits in a workplace. This confines relationships to certain acceptable levels maintaining respect, trust and honor. Hence limiting conflicts, discrimination, misuse of powers and company resources. This creates a conducive environment for organizational performance bringing in benefits and opportunities.

Defining job goals keeps the workers and employers focused in achieving the common goals hence encouraging cooperation and limiting disagreements in an organization. This facilitates completion of assignments in time and in the right standards. Hence improving the reputation of the workers and of the organization as benefits and opportunities for organizational behavior trickle in. Provision of ethical training in an organization helps in a big way to instill and improve the ethical behavior of workers. This will henceforth create better working relations and at the same time improve performance bringing in material benefits and opportunities for organizational behavior (Traveller 2).

The help accorded to workmates with problems in ethics, will help them appreciate ethical behaviors for their own good and that of the organization. Performance appraisals will also help to improve ethical behaviors in that everybody will be focused to attain the set targets hence improving the performance of the organization. However, continued unethical behaviors should not be tolerated as they diminish the morale of fellow workers, destroy the working environment and generate conflicts. This would torment the reputation of the organization and plunge it into losses (Curtis 6).