Summary of Social System

Components
Organizations have physical structures , but these alone do
not define organizations. The social fabric-norms,roles and
cultures- is a significant influence on the conduct of
organization members.

Organization differ in their norms, roles and culture. Norms

influence behavior by increasing its consistency and
predictability. Roles prescribed the boundaries of acceptable
behavior and enhance conformity. These contracts help
produce uniformity and consistency in individual behavior,
which is necessary in part to ensure that all organizational
members are pursuing common goals.
 Organizations differ in culture just as individuals differ in
personality. Similarly, just as certain personality types are
better suited for some jobs, certain cultures foster certain
behaviors. These constructs define an organizations social

Global Organizations

Global organizations have all the properties of any

organization(in terms of structural and social components)
with the added feature that their physical locations and
employees are distributed throughout the world.
Global organizations are relatively new, emerging in
the 1990’s as a response to advances in computer
technology, new trade agreements among nations,
Marquardt believes these differences in values can be reduced to four
key dimensions that most affect the global organization:
Individuals identify on a personal level with the social network to
which they belong.

3.Communcations
The American Psychological Association(2003) recognizes
that organizations are now being designed that include wide cultural
variability.
Cross-Cultural I/O Psychology: Four dimensions
on which culture can differ

1. Power Distance
refers to the extent to which less powerful
members of an organization expect and accept power
that power is distributed unequally.

2. Individualism – Collectivism
Individualism- refers to the belief that people in a
society primarily look after themselves and their family
members.
Collectivism- is the belief that people in a society are
integrated into a strong, cohesive in-groups, which throughout
their lifetime protect them in exchange for unquestioning
loyalty .
4. Uncertainty Avoidance
the extent to which members of a culture fell threatened by
uncertain or unknown situations.

Organizational Change

Organizations are created to fulfill some purpose or objective.

They exist in larger environment that encompasses economic,
legal, and social factor.

Organization Development

I/O Psychology has an area of specialization devoted to

the study of facilitating organizations to develop or
change themselves in response to environmental
influences. It is called organization development(OD).
From the end of World war II(the mid- 1940’s) through the 1970s,
OD was instrumental in helping those organizations that were, in
effect, suffering from some “growing pains” in their own
development.
What is different now from 30 years ago is:

1. the greater strength of environmental pressures prompting

change
 Reorganizing and Downsizing
Reorganization
a process by which an organization reconfigures its
structure and processes to achieve greater efficiency
Downsizing
the process by which an organization reduces its
number of employees to achieve greater overall
efficiency.

-The term given to this process of cutting jobs includes

downsizing, reduction-in-force, and right sizing. The
term right sizing implies that there is a size for
organization that is “right” or correct for its
environment.
 Where do the eliminated jobs came from
within an organization?
• The greatest losses typically coming from the middle
line, technostructure, and support staff.

• Jobs can also be lost in the operating core as jobs are

automated or reassigned to other countries that pay
lower wages. The strategic apex may be reduced, but
generally the fewest jobs are lost at this level.

• Organization hiring its own employees to work in this

jobs, organizations may contract the services of this
people through other organizations, such as company
that offers security guards or food prepares to other
organization. These jobs have said to be outsourced.
 Outsourcing the services of this individuals is less costly to
the organization than hiring its own employees to perform
this services.

How can Organization Survive without

Middle Line?
By eliminating much of the middle line, the coordinating
mechanism shifts from direct supervision to standardization.
The coordination was formerly achieved through personal
contact with a supervisor is now achieved through a greater
standardization of the work processes, output or employee
skills.
 Top Part of an Organizational Chart Before
Downsizing
President

Regional Regional
Vice President Vice President

Vice President Vice President Vice President Vice President

Sales Production Sales Production Sales Production

Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager Manager

Production Sales
Manager Manager
 Top Chart Of an Organizational Chart After
Downsizing
President

Vice President

Sales Manager

Producti Producti Producti Producti

on on on on
Manager Manager Manager Manager
What consequences might we expect from this
reorganization?
• There would be less administrative control from the loss
of managerial jobs.
• There would be greater pressure on the organization’s
parts to coordinate with each other because of the loss of
direct supervision.
• There would be probably be more stress placed on the
surviving employees to work harder and find new ways to
do the work of the employees whose jobs where
eliminated.
• The organization would have fewer salary expenditures
associated with the elimination of eight jobs
 Empowerment

• The process of giving employees in an organization more

power and decision-making authority within a context of
less managerial oversight.
• The meaning of empowerment comes from “power”.

Four General Empowerment

1. Meaning
Individuals feels of sense of meaning when
an activity counts in his or her own value system.
Empowered individuals derive personal significance
from their work. They get energized about a given
activity and thus become connected through a sense
of meaning.
2. Competence
Empowered individuals have a sense of self-effectiveness
or personal competence. They believe that they have only
the needed skills abilities but also the confident that they
 Six Sigma
• Comprehensive approach to organizational change that
is based on the behavioral concepts and the used of
statistical information to aid in decision making.
• Derived from the statistical power of the normal
distribution.
• Sigma is the term associated with the standard
deviation, the statistical index that reveals the spread or
the variability of scores in a distribution.
• To understand how much variability exists in the quality
of the products or services a company offers and to
reduce the variability that results in customer
dissatisfaction.
• Method of improving business processes using statistical
information to achieve greater customer satisfaction.
 Five Critical Phases of Process Improvement
1. Define
first step is to define the organization’s customers,
their requirements and the key organizational processes
that affect them.
2. Measure
Many variables can be measured but the most critical
to the customer are the ones that should be measured.
3. Analyze
to determine why the processes is not performing as
desired.
4. Improve
organization should determine the potential solutions
to improve upon the processes that are causing customer
5. Control
last phase is to develop, document, and implement a
strategy to ensure that performance improvement remains
at the desire level.
Overcoming Organizational resistance to Change
Change introduces ambiguity into the environment, with the
concomitant effects of less predictabilty control.

Hedge and Pulakos(2002) noted that the reasons people

resist change in organization and varied.

Muchinsky(2004) found that in the order of organizational

interventions to be successful, the strategies to affect the
change have to be as rich and diverse as those design to resist
change.
Galagher,Joseph and Park(2002) described how
resourceful people can become when they don’t want to do
something.
Reasons for resistance to Organizational
Change
vested interest
Change affects the status quo and employees worry that
positions maybe eliminated or they maybe terminated or
resigned
Fear of uncertainty
establish a routine; they become familiar with the
expectations and responsibilities of the job.
Misunderstandings
are specially likely between higher management and
those on whom change is imposed.
Social disruption
comfortable patterns of communication and information
flow are established after working with other employees over
time.
Rejection of outsiders
when change is introduce by an external change agent,
there maybe resistance merely because the individual is
considered an outsider who cannot possibly know what is best
for the organization

3 types of Organizational Change

Self initiated vs. imposed change
with self initiated change the individual undertakes the
change as a result of his or her own initiative and volition.
Imposed change is initiated by others to which individuals
is forced to react.
Effect of Psychological Ownership or disposition
toward change as influence by type of change

Self initiated(+) Evolutionary(+)

Vs. Vs.
Imposed Revolutionary
Change(-) Change(-)

self Individuals
disposition
Psychological toward
ownership of the change of
organization organizati
on

Additive (+)
organization
Vs.
Subtractive
change(-)
Evolutionary vs. revolutionary change
evolutionary change involves incremental
modifications to the organization, and as consequence, it
does not suddenly alter the individuals understanding of,
or relationship to, organization.
revolutionary change challenges the individuals
understanding of the organization because the change
alters the organization’s existing structure.
Additive vs. Subtractive Change
changes may add things to the organization or take
them away