Organizational Behavior (OB) in Healthcare

MHA 510 Module 2 (Case): Organizational Behavior Paper
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Organizational behavior (OB) can be conceptualized as an applied behavioral science integrating perspectives from economics, political science, anthropology, sociology, and psychology. The discipline supports the evaluation of individual and group dynamics within an organizational context. It is anchored on the premise that complex factors interact as people integrate efforts toward a shared objective. The OB discipline contributes to understanding such interactions and how managers can leverage insights to elicit behavioral responses and thus manage emergent outcomes. This paper defines and rationalizes OB in the healthcare context, delineates the Hawthorne Studies, Lewin's Behavioral Study, and McGregor's Theories X and Y and their application in healthcare settings.
Defining and Rationalizing OB in Health Care
OB is defined as the study field that examines and explains individual and group behaviors in an organizational setting in order to predict how they will behave based on external and internal factors. This definition implies that OB supports healthcare leaders in managing employees’ behaviors to ensure they contribute their best efforts toward attaining organizational goals. OB is increasingly important in the healthcare industry because people with diverse cultural values and backgrounds must collaborate efficiently and effectively to augment population health (Borkowski, 2016a). In addition, different segments in the healthcare industry (e.g., rehabilitation facilities, home health, hospitals) include many health-associated occupations. Moreover, the various segments have distinct economic structures (not-for-profit, governmental, for-profit). In this vein, OB ensures healthcare managers are competent to communicate effectively, motivate, and guide diverse groups of people within the increasingly complex, dynamic, and vast industry. Leadership, motivation, and communication are central concepts in the OB discipline. The discipline is also relevant to health care because it helps managers understand workplace problems and how to address them in order to prevent unnecessary adverse implications (Borkowski, 2016b).
Explanation of Hawthorne Studies, McGregor's Theories X and Y, and Lewin's Behavioral Study
Hawthorne studies significantly contributed to the emergence of OB as a discipline as the researchers demonstrated that human factors influenced worker productivity. These experiments steered the advent of the contemporary Hawthorne Effect hypothesis. The Hawthorne Effect delineates bias deemed to be demonstrated when individuals are aware that they are the study subjects. The Hawthorne studies incorporate four stages: the illumination experiments, the relay-assembly group experiments, the interviewing program, and the bank-wring observation-room group studies (Borkowski, 2016a). Moreover, it should be noted that these studies were designed to establish the relationship between workplace conditions and employee performance.
McGregor's theory X represents managers with a pessimistic perception of their employees. Theory X managers believe that employees are lazy and unin...