Academicians and practitioners alike agree that change management skills, communication, decision making skills, motivation and human resource practices are the most important topic of all within the realm of
organizational behavior. It is probably the most significant characteristic people need to have to be effective in the job. Change management skills, communication, decision making, motivation and human resources practices could be the major strategic concern in the 21st century, as professed by management experts. In fact, Hicks (1998) pointed out that, an administrator’s qualifications, change management skills, decision making, motivation and human resource practices are vital success of the organizational system.
Today, managers on Southwest Airlines are contemplating the appropriate activities designed to improve the quality of life among academic personnel and career advancement. Furthermore, there is considerable evidence that have actually showed a significant contribution to quality of organization and professional enhancement. The possibilities in attaining these are through sessions held, attending conferences and conventions, participation club organizations and professional associations. Middlewood (1996) believed that academic staff development programs are one of the key areas to consider in the organization network for the development and productivity.
In the United States of America, change management skills, communication, decision making, motivation and human resource practices are dynamic profession which does not remain fixed but constantly changing, shifting and growing to cope with the fast changing demands of business institutions.
Giving this bleak scenario, organizational behavior according to Kanthak (1996) continues to provide quality business organization. In aiming quality, responsiveness and excellence, the business organization inspires to improve the internal efficiency and effectiveness of the management skills and one of these is the development program such as change management skills, motivation, decision making, human resource practices which inherently determines the success or failure of the organization.
Indeed, accomplishing such significant development is a very difficult venture and it is only when the pressure for change and development are great that it is likely to happen. Southwest Airlines business organization in particular should consider the forces of changing management and development of decision making, motivation and human resource practices in relation to the complex needs of the organization, (Pre, 2005).
In fact, management experts emphasized that organizational behavior in this century faces the paradox of being more critical than ever to society’s future while at the same time being under great pressure to prove its worth in educating professionals in higher learning to respond to the changing environment.
The focus of the research paper is on the organizational behavior – along the dimensions of change management, communication, decision making, motivation and human resource practices. It is hoped that this research paper will serve as a guide for mangers in transforming organization into relevant and responsive institutions that prepare individuals who will be effective leaders and better citizens participating in the development of the changing society.
This section includes principles theories, foreign and local literature of authorities that have bearing to the study. Likewise, other similar researches are also included to give sufficient background and information necessary for the realization of this research paper.
According to Nickols (2004), managing the kinds of changes encountered by and instituted within organizations requires an unusually broad and finely honed set of skills, chief among which are the following: political skills, analytical skills, people skills, system skills and business skills.
In European countries, the administrators/ managers, as a value model, should possess a constellation of desirable values in working with his subordinate. The people around him are keen observers of the way he loves his work and can easily be influenced by this behavior. His manifested values make profound effect on the environment of the organizational system. Values are an important part of business administration; without values, change management skills, decision making, motivation and human resource practices is impossible ( Newell ,1997).
According to Livingstone (1996) on the organizational perspective, it is not enough to simply increase the knowledge and skills of faculty and improve their academic behaviors, but their organizational efforts and management skills must result in performance improvement that will enhance competitiveness and efficiency of the organization.
Authorities in organizational behavior claim that experiences have considerable influence on the change management skills and motivational competence of an executive. According to Brockner (1998), an experienced leader is original, open to a wide variety of stimuli, has broad interests and is willing to take risks as opposed to being narrow minded and cautious. He is able to come up with new ides and may find risk taking and frequent change less stressful to the inexperienced leader.
Some of these change management experts claim to help clients manage the changes they face – the changes happening to them. Others claim to help clients make changes. Still others offer to help by taking on the task of managing changes that must be made. In almost all cases, the process of change is treated separately from the specifics of the situation. It is expertise in this task of managing the general process of change that is laid claim to by professional change agents ( Pre ,2002).
According to Nickols (2004), managing change refers to the making of changes in a planned and managed or systematic fashion. The aim is to more effectively implement new methods and systems in an ongoing organization. The changes to be managed lie within and are controlled by the organization. Perhaps the most familiar instance of this king of change is the change or version control aspect of information system development projects. However, these internal changes might have been triggered by events originating outside the organization, in what is usually termed “the environment”. Hence, managing change, namely, the response to changes over which the organization exercise little or no control (e. g. legislation, social and political upheaval, the actions of competitors, shifting economic tides and currents, and so on).
On the other hand, Kram (1995) specified that stemming from the view of change management, human resource practices and motivation as an area of professional practice there arises yet a third definition of organizational behavior. This consists chiefly off the models, methods and techniques, tools, skills, and other forms of knowledge that go into making up any practice. According to him, organizations are first and foremost social systems. Without people there can be no organization. Organizations are hotly and intensely political. Change agents dare not join in this game but they had better understand it. This is one area where you must make our own judgments and keep our own counsel; no one can do it for us.
From the same author, he pointed out that two particular sets of skills are very important here: (1) workflow operations or systems analysis, and (2) financial analysis. Change agents must learn to take a part and reassemble operations and systems in novel ways, and then determine the financial and political impacts of what they have done. Conversely, they must be able to start with some financial measure or indicator or goal, and make their way quickly to those operations and systems that, if reconfigures a certain way, would have learned a trade that will be in demand for the foreseeable future.
As stated by Nickols (2004), people are the sine qua non of organization. Moreover, they come characterized by all manner of sizes, shapes, colors, intelligence and ability levels, gender, sexual preferences, national origins, first and second languages, religious beliefs, attitudes toward life and work, personalities, and priorities – and these are just a few of the dimensions along which people vary. We have to deal with them all.
The skills most needed in this area are those that typically fall under the heading of the communication or interpersonal skills. To be effective, we must be able to listen and listen actively, to restate, to reflect, to clarify without interrogating, to draw out the speaker, to lead or channel a discussion, to plant ideas, and to develop them. More important, we have to learn to see things through the eyes of these other inhabitants of the organizational world. A situation viewed from a marketing frame of reference is an entirely different situation when see through the eyes of a systems person. Part of the job of a change agent is to reconcile and resolve the conflict between and among desperate (and sometimes desperate) points of view. Charm is great if you have it. Courtesy is better. A well-paid compliment can buy gratitude. A sincere “Thank you” can earn respect, (Certo, 1985).
Stoner and Wankel (1987) as cited by Nickols (2004) pointed out that people employed in today’s world of work do need to learn about computer-based information systems. For now, let’s just say that a system is an arrangement of resources and routines intended to produce specified results. To organize is to arrange. A system reflects organization and by the same token, an organization is a system.
A word processing operator and the word processing equipment operated form a system. So do computers and the larger, information processing systems in which computers are so embedded. These are generally known as “hard” systems. There are “soft” systems as well: compensation systems, appraisal systems, promotion systems, and reward and incentive systems (Barbon , 2000).
There are two sets of systems skills to be mastered. Many people associate the first set with computers and it is exemplified by “system’s analysis”. This set of skills, by the way, actually predates the digital computer and is known elsewhere (particularly in the United States Air Force and the aerospace industry) as “systems engineering”. For the most part, the kind of system with which this skill set concerns itself is a “closed” system which, for now, we can say is simply a mechanistic or contrived system with no purpose of its own and incapable of altering its own structure. In other words, it cannot learn and it cannot change of its own volition. The second set of system skills associated with a body of knowledge generally referred to as General Systems Theory (GST) and it deals with people, organizations, industries, economies, and even nations as socio-technical systems – as “open”, purposive systems, carrying out transactions with other systems and bent on survival, continuance, prosperity, dominance, plus a host of other goals and objectives, (Gempes, 2005).
Business primarily aims to satisfy the consumer’s basic and secondary needs. It can be achieved through the use of effective business marketing practices and strategies. Hence, business skills include the managing the work unit’s resources effectively, linking employment agencies to market the graduates and generating income through Income Generating Programs (George, 1999).
According to Foulkies (1986), a very useful framework for thinking about the change process is decision making and problem solving. Managing organizational behavior is seen as a matter of moving from one state to another, specifically, from the problem state to the solved state. Diagnosis or problem analysis is generally acknowledged as essential. Goals are set and achieved at various levels and in various areas of functions. Ends and means are discussed and related to one another. Careful planning is accompanied by efforts to obtain buy-in, support and commitment. The net effect is a transition from one state to another in a planned, orderly fashion. This is the planned change model.
Conclusions
Based on the assumption, people who enjoy working have the innate desire capacities for creativity and have the potential to work toward organizational objectives with minimum direction. This human resource model encourages an increased participation in decision making, change management, motivation and communication.
The term achievement motivation theory on Southwest Airlines is to describe a person’s drive to overcome challenges, to advance and to grow. People who are high in need achievement are highly motivated to strive for the satisfaction that is derived from accomplishing or achieving some challenging tasks or goals.
An organization based on concepts and democracy and independence develops a traditional structure of innate capacities in motivation, communication, decision-making that encourages work to learn better without close supervision.
Furthermore, management experts particularly of Southwest Airlines described motivation, change management, communication, decision making and human resource practices as models of participatory management asserted that the key element in the human relations approach is the objectives of making organizational members feel useful and important.
References
Barbon , R .M. (2000) Faculty development of state universities and colleges in region XI : Its relations towards faculty job performance. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Gregorio Araneta University Foundation, Malabon, Metro Manila Philippines.
Certo (1985). Management of Organizations and Human Resources. Jowa, WMC.: Brown Publishers.
Foulkies, U.T. (1986). Personal Administration and Resource Function. Illinois: Longmanns – Greene, Inc.
George, J.J, 2nd edition (1999). Organization Behavior. NJ: Pearson Educ. Inc.
Gempes, G.P. et. al. (2005). A model of Institutional Leadership in the Context of Change. University of Mindanao, Davao City Philippines: Unpublished Institutional Research.
Gioia, E.E., Anderson, A.L. (2001). Political Skills. Retrieved October 29,2005,fromhttps://www.google.co.in/search?q=political+skills+hl=en&lr=&sa=N
Gorospe, V.R. (1998). Planning and Management in Universities.Manila: National Bookstore, Inc.
Hicks, H.H. (1998). Educational Supervision in Principle and Practice. New York, USA: The Macmillan Co.
Kanthak, L. M. (1996). What makes high achieving middle school.
The Education Digest, 61,32-33.
Kram, K.E. (1995). Monitoring at Work: Development Relationship in Organizational Life. Scott-Forseman Inc.
Livingstone, H.C. (1996). The University: An Organizational Analysis. Glassgrow: Jossey-Bass Co.
Newell, C.A. (1997). Human Behavior in Educational Administration. Englewood Cliffer, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, Inc.
Nickol, F.L. (2004) Change management 101: a premier. Distance consulting, retrieved January 16, 2006, from https:// www. Home. att. Net/ nickels/change.htm
Pre, V.P.(2005).Organizational climate of graduate education in region XI: Its relation to institutional change. Ateneo de Davao University, Davao City Philippines: Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation.