Based on my readings, I have developed the hunch that OB literature has focused overwhelmingly on the behavior of managers in corporations, neglecting other organizations and other types of employees. Is my hunch correct? Has any author studied this development?
my entire thesis was on implementation of public health programmes in the rural sector n india. as part of my thesis I looked at the behavior of managers managing such programmes. the structuring of decision making in such contexts is in many ways similar to what is seen in the corporations. all types of decision making models are visible. I actually found that there is no need to look at public organizations separate from private corporations. since the terminologies used are different we need to find equivalents. then findings in both spheres of activity can be compared.
The field of OB is concerned with far more than corporate managers. The majority of studies on most topics include front-line employees and not managers. A notable exception is the study of leadership. I haven't computed the percentage, but my impression is that most studies are in private-sector organizations, but there are many that have been conducted in the public and nonprofit sectors as well.
I believe OB of managers is often a reflection of their management styles. I have studied manager's management styles when such managers are governing a small or medium size manufacturing organization.
Some management styles are better than others.
The following paper describes those styles in more details. Take a look...
Article What Management Style is Considered Best for Team-Based Orga...
It is true that at one point of time OB researches focused mostly on the behavior of managers in corporations. But with the passage of time, the understanding and area of the term 'organization' also got widened. That is why now a days studies are also being conducted in other sectors also like social sector, education sector etc while using the pretested instruments on the behavior of managers in corporations. For example education sector is the pioneer here as the studies similar to those conducted on the behavior of managers in corporations have also been conducted in education sector.
OB is the study of how organizations interact with their internal and external environments, based on objectives and subject to social political, legal, economic and other realities. OB is also, an umbrella term used to cover a wide range of topics such as, change management, human individual & social behaviour, social psychology, group dynamics; human, financial and material resource exploitation; business processes and systems; within an organisational context. One objective is to better understand these concepts so as to more effectively manage them in the pursuit of producing goods and services both public & private.
I understand these ideas are very broad, but I hope the explanation or view helps. As for the original question, OB is designed to better understand how to get the most out of an organization and is resources. It has been my experience that older literature is more focused on managerial behaviors whereas newer literature is more decentralized in its orientation but leadership is still key.
Manager is at the hart of OB. But, many studies of OB focus on other fields in which the role of manager and also of employee is important like leadership, communication, conflict, organizational structure, ...
OB is not only concerned with the behavior of managers or their style of leadership. This focus on high-level managers is part of what James March calls 'the individual leaders' myth'. On the contrary, I believe that organizations face a large diversity of internal and external stakeholders which influence their actions and strategic choices : trade-unions, suppliers, public agencies, etc. More recently, the SAP (Strategy-as-Practice) field has pointed out that strategy whas also produced by middle and front-line managers in their everyday interactions.
External stakeholders are very important. They influence deeply strategic choices, and consequently OB. Conceptually, I think it would be very interesting to study the impact of external stakeholder on OB of both managers and employees.
The literature on for-profit and non-profit organizations is largely separate. Religious non-profit organizations (such as churches) are often separated in the literature from secular non-profits. Editors of OB journals sometimes prefer not to publish studies done in religious organizations because they believe they are too different from for-profit organizations. These observations are based on comments that I have received from editors concerning papers I have submitted.
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