1.10 Changing Concepts of Organizational Behavior

In addition to the three major currents in the early history of OB—namely, scientific management, the Hawthorne studies, and leadership research—there have been a number of other influences as well. For instance, in France in the 1930s, Henry Fayol1 (pronounced fie-ole ) designed for his fellow engineers a set of management principles that became widely accepted throughout western Europe. Fayol argued that (1) the role of a manager is to plan, organize, direct, and control; (2) each employee should report to only one supervisor ("unity of command"); and (3) functions should be specialized, so that experienced teams are responsible for human resources, research and development, marketing, and so forth. At the same time in the United States, social psychologist Kurt Lewin2 focused attention on group dynamicsThe influence of the group upon individual behavior., or the influence of the group upon individual behavior. Later, Richard Lazarus3 showed the need to understand how people perceived various situations and how their perceptions related to the experience of stress.

Robert Blake and Jane Mouton4, who were the first to suggest that managers can be trained, provided a diagnostic test called the managerial gridA grid that positions each leader along two axes, one addressing a concern for production or task completion and the other representing a concern with people and their feelings.. This grid positioned each leader along two axes, one addressing a concern for production or task completion and the other representing a concern with people and their feelings.

Table 1-1 lists key concepts of IOB that have developed over the past century or so.