Organizational Psychology

Organizational Psychology

Nimesha Samaratunge

PSYCH/570

August 03, 2015

Linda Whinghter

Organizational Psychology

An Organization was identified as a structured society that has been managed by humans to meet a purpose or goals (Jex & Britt, 2008). There are activities, responsibilities and authorities given to humans to carry out a task to achieve these goals.  According to Jex & Britt (2008), Organizational psychology has been considered as a scientific study on human behaviors in the organizations and the base of an organization was structured with the human behavior pattern. The indication of the structure depends on the behavior of the organizations individual. The job descriptions and policies of the organizations are the structure which was taken into consideration as the human behavior (Jex & Britt, 2008).

Organizations structure consists of a vision, mission, values, strategic goals, and strategies (Jex & Britt, 2008). The vision considers of the working process of the organization. The mission is the operations to achieve the overall purpose of the organization. Values are the priorities that allow to carry out daily activities. They can be personal, cultural and relevant to the organization. Strategic goals are how human can achieve goals, objectives according to the mission (Jex & Britt, 2008).

Organizational Psychology

According to Nord (1980), Organizational psychology can be divided into four processes when achieving the following objectives. Increasing performances, improving relationship and processes, increasing equity and growth in well-being (Nord, 1980). The organization context concentrates on individuals, groups, couples and combinations of above mentioned parties (Nord, 1980). In practical context organizational psychology starts with assessing the current situation, then designs that implements according to the assessment and the final stage is to evaluate and make the changes that have been assessed and developed (Nord, 1980). Once all stages have been performed, the expected outcome should be increasing the performance. According to Nord (1980), Organizational psychology is a practical aspect that was practiced in private, public and even non-profit organizations.

A formal organization requires to accomplish the purpose that has been documented or written and it also shows a flow of survival even after the founder members (Jex & Britt, 2008). Informal organizations purposes are obviously different to the formal organizations objectives and organizations that are business minded, government organizations, non-profit organizations or any organizations show the mentioned characters (Jex & Britt, 2008). There is no clear objective on informal gathering apart from leisure. Organizational psychology’s main concern is to learn about formal organization and how the staff or humans can be trained towards the main goal of performing towards the goal (Jex & Britt, 2008).

Evolution of the field of organizational psychology

Evolution of organizational psychology begins in the early twentieth century by pioneers in the industry who are namely, Hugo Munsterberg, Walter Dill Scott, and Walter Bingham (Jex & Britt, 2008). According to Jex and Britt, 2008, the evolution of organizational psychology has been contributed with a couple of influences with the Hawthorne experiment. The intention of this study was to identify the effect of environmental factors to organizational productivity. Based on the result the study concluded that changes in the organization has a positive effect on the human factor, but it may not last for a longer period (McMillan, Stevens, & Kelloway, 2009). The Hawthorne experiment contained the effect of groups and styles of leadership towards human behavior (McMillan, Stevens, & Kelloway, 2009). Unionization came into the picture in the same period that requested employee participation in the decision-making process to balance life and work in organizational psychology (McMillan, Stevens, & Kelloway, 2009). The next point discussed was on female contribution for traditional jobs and addressing this issue brought new points to organizational psychology (McMillan, Stevens, & Kelloway, 2009). Human resource aspect brought attitudes, personality, job satisfaction and family issues that effects stress of the people in the organization and the technology has been considered as another global issue that widen the horizons of organizational psychology (McMillan, Stevens, & Kelloway, 2009). Self- employment and project work has changed the careers that were done traditionally, and that is another evolution of organizational psychology (McMillan, Stevens, & Kelloway, 2009). Organizational psychology was not identified in this new area. However, the growth has made an impact on the growth of organizations and its changes around the world (McMillan, Stevens, & Kelloway, 2009).

Organizational psychology vs. Industrial psychology and organizational behavior

Organizational behavior has more emphasis on individual behavior in the organization and the relationship in between these aspects (Jex & Britt, 2008). The study of human behavior in an organization was not restricted to communication and relationship of the organization. The skill of identifying the behavior is an important factor for organizational behavior (Francis, 1979). Apart from human behavior, strategies and procedure that run the organization are important to take into consideration (Jex & Britt, 2008).   There are financial differences and psychological difference in-between the two disciplines. Organizational behavior was considered as higher payees that organizational psychology (Jex & Britt, 2008).