Organizational Behavior relates to the relationship between employees and the employer in an organization. Both are working towards the realization of the goals and objectives of any organization.

There are 4 Approaches to Organizational Behavior studies;

1.Human resources approach.

2. Contingency approach.

3. Productivity approach.

4. Systems approach.

1. Human Resources Approach:

– This approach recognizes the fact that people are the central resource in any organization and that they should be developed towards higher levels of competency, creativity, and fulfillment.

– The human resources approach is also called as the supportive approach in the sense that the manager’s role changes from control of employees to active support of their growth and performance.

2. Contingency Approach:

– The contingency approach (sometimes called the situational approach) is based on the premise that methods or behaviors that work effectively in one situation fail in another. For example; Organization Development (OD) programs, way work brilliantly in one situation but fail miserably in another situation.

– The strength of the contingency approach lies in the fact it encourages analysis of each situation prior to action while at the same time discouraging the habitual practice of universal assumptions about methods and people.

3. Productivity Approach:

– Productivity which is the ratio of output to input is a measure of an organization’s effectiveness. It also reveals the manager’s efficiency in optimizing resource utilization.

– The higher the numerical value of this ratio, the greater the efficiency.

– Productivity is generally measured in terms of economic inputs and outputs, but human and social inputs and outputs also are important.

4. Systems Approach :

– The Systems Approach to OB views the organization as a united, purposeful system composed of interrelated parts.

– This approach gives managers a way of looking at the organization as a whole, person, whole group, and the whole social system.

– In so doing, the systems approach tells us that the activity of any segment of an organization affects, in varying degrees the activity of every other segment.

– The role of managers is to use organizational behavior to help build an organizational culture in which talents are utilized and further developed, people are motivated, teams become productive, organizations achieve their goals and society reaps the reward.