Year: 2020

Organizational behaviour refers to the study of individual, group performance, and activity within an organization. It is an attempt to create the business organization in a creative manner. It helps to provide an understanding to examine the factors that are necessary to create an effective organization.

Organizational Behavior is the identification, analyzing and application of knowledge about how individuals and groups act in organizations. It interprets people-organization relationships in terms of the person, group, organization, and whole social system. Objective of it is to build better relationships by achieving people objectives, organizational objectives, and social objectives. It encompasses a wide range of areas, such as human behavior, Training and development, change management, leadership, teams, Group behavior etc.

In the study of organizational behavior is helpful in gaining a complete understanding of the business. It is not the study of how organizations behave, but rather the study of individual behavior in an organization. This includes the study of how individuals be have alone as well as in groups.

The main focus of the organizational behavior is to obtain a greater understanding of those factors which influence individual and group dynamics in an organization. Therefore individuals and the groups and organizations to which they belong may become more efficient and effective. Organizational behavior research is ultimately focused at providing human resource management professionals with the information and techniques which they need to select, train, and retain employees in a fashion which gives maximum benefit for the individual employee and for the organization.

Organizational behavior is a modern interdisciplinary field. It draws most heavily from the psychological and sociological sciences and it also looks to other scientific fields. The interdisciplinary approach is used because the field of organizational behavior involves multiple levels of analysis, which are necessary to understand behavior within organizations as people influence their environment as well as people are influenced by their environment.

The business organization based on vales, missions , visions, objectives, goals and management philosophy which drives formal or informal organizations towards culture & social environment

The culture decides the type of leadership, group dynamics, communication, within the business organization. The employee perceives this as the quality of work type which leads their quantity of motivation, which will benefited to employee performance, individual satisfaction, and personal development and growth. The combination of all above elements will lead to build the model that the organization operates from. Following are the main features of the organization behavior

Organization behavior analyzing the relationship between organization, individual and the group.

It more concern about people attitudes, perception, feelings, learning capabilities and specific objectives goals.(Distinctly humanistic orientation)

It consists of different techniques, methods & theories to evaluate the performances.

It provides vital answers to questions which arise when managing organization.

It analyses the factors influence the performance of a organization and describe the way of improve the performance.

It uses the scientific method to analyze the performance which helps to identify the variables and relationships.

It creates to achieve the path of business needs as it is concern in understanding of organization processes and skills.

It is very important to study the Organizational behaviour. It gives the direction to an organisation and also helps to understand the organizational life.

Role of Organizational behavior (OB) in Today’s Business Organization

1. Skill development

Helps to develop the skills of the employees and gain of knowledge to enhance the performance of the employees. Employees should remain up to date with new technology and use existing one in a better way. Training also improves the required skills of the employees and teach them to perform the tasks independently.

2. Understanding customer behaviour

The behaviour of the customer helps the organization to decide what products and services to be offered. When an organization builds a strong connection with the customer, an organization will get an idea about the customer needs. For understanding the customer behaviour the organization must conduct surveys and one on one interviews.

3. Employee Motivation

Motivating your employees is not a big task. In fact, itschedule to have a conversation with them. It is the level of energy, commitment and the creativity that helps the organization. Use employee reviews on a regular basis to discuss the improvements.

4. Goals of Organizational behaviour

Every organization uses a structure that will help to promote the business performance. The organization guru Drucker has identified 8 key elements which will explain the goals of organization behaviour briefly.

5. Innovation

Innovation means the positive change in the implementation of organization by providing the relevant solutions to the customers or full fill their needs in the unique ways.

6. Productivity

Productivity is “anything that makes an organization function better.” It is one of the most important goal, i.e. to produce the large output with small inputs. It requires the active participation between the employer and employee on a regular basis.

7. Development and the management performance

Management training is important because it is the key to organizational success. Most of the activities within the company are organized for the development of an employee and organization. Some companies provide special training programs to the managers. IBM organises 15 days training management program every year.

An MIS is a system designed to provide selected decision oriented information needed by management to plan, control and evaluate the activities of the corporation. It is designed within a framework that emphasizes profit planning, performance planning and control at all levels.

A formal method of collecting timely information in a presentable form in order to facilitate effective decision making and implementation, in order to carryout organizational operations for the purpose of achieving the organizational goal.

Information processing beyond doubt is the dominant industry of the present century. Following factors states few common factors that reflect on the needs and objectives of the information processing:

• Increasing impact of information processing for organizational decision making.
• Dependency of services sector including banking, financial organization, health care, entertainment, tourism and travel, education and numerous others on information.
• Changing employment scene world over, shifting base from manual agricultural to machine-based manufacturing and other industry related jobs.
• Information revolution and the overall development scenario.
• Growth of IT industry and its strategic importance.
• Strong growth of information services fuelled by increasing competition and reduced product life cycle.
• Need for sustainable development and quality life.
• Improvement in communication and transportation brought in by use of information processing.
• Use of information processing in reduction of energy consumption, reduction in pollution and a better ecological balance in future.
• Use of information processing in land record managements, legal delivery system, educational institutions, natural resource planning, customer relation management and so on.
• MIS is very useful for efficient and effective planning and control functions of the management. Management is the art of getting things done through others. MIS will be instrumental in getting the things done by providing quick and timely information to the management.
• Reports give an idea about the performance of men, materials, machinery, money and management. Reports throw light on the utilization of resources employed in the organization.
• MIS is helpful in controlling costs by giving information about idle time, labour turnover, wastages and losses and surplus capacity.
• By making comparison of actual performance with the standard and budgeted performance, variances are brought to the notice of the management by MIS which can be corrected by taking remedial steps.
• MIS brings to the notice of the management strength (i.e., strong points) of the organisation, to take advantage of the opportunities available.
• MIS reports on production statistics regarding rejection, defective and spoilage and their effect on costs and quality of the products.

A management information system, or MIS, is any computer system used to collect and store information, with tools for analyzing that information so that you can monitor operations and make informed business decisions. Software that tracks sales data, produces weekly reports and expands on past sales to provide you with sales forecasts would be one example of a management information system. More sophisticated systems could track production in different departments, monitor inventory, keep track of costs and even monitor the company’s stocks.

In the past, MIS was often a system that ran independently of other company systems. At one time, it would be found almost exclusively on mainframe computers and the information it processed was used exclusively by management. Today, MIS is often used interchangeably with information systems (IS) as well as information technology (IT).

The Five Eras of MIS

In order to make sense of the evolution of management information systems, it’s helpful to break down the history into four or five eras.

First Era (mid-1960s to mid-1970s)

During the first years of computerized MIS, information systems were centralized and concerned solely with governance and the needs of management. Most information systems and their reports were under the control of accounting departments. Technology included third-generation mainframe computers, like the IBM 360. Languages included Assembler, Fortran, COBO and, Database e. Ethernet networks were developed during this time.

Second Era (mid-1970s to mid-1980s)

While MIS was still mainly concerned with governance and the needs of management, more departments were beginning to benefit from the technology. In many companies, steering committees and user-led initiatives determined the shape and scope of additional IS projects. Technology included the first personal computers (PCs), minicomputers and mid-range computers.

Third Era (mid-1980s to late 1990s)

During the third era, centralized information systems began to spread out and information became decentralized. Each department had its own computer system. Managing information was often referred to as “herding cats.” It was during this era that a new position emerged in many companies to oversee the acquisition and management of multiple information systems: the Chief Information Officer, or CIO. Technology during this era included internetworking and the beginning of the internet.

Fourth Era (late 1990s to today)

During the current era, information systems are still tightly tied to governance and management, however the systems are widely distributed, within the reach of nearly every employee who needs it across multiple platforms. Many information systems are integrated between different companies, so that a client business can readily access supplier information and their customers, in turn, can access that information. Technology now includes social media, search engines and ubiquitous computing through a variety of platforms including laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Fifth Era (today forward)

The increase in internet bandwidth over recent years has led to a substantial reliance on cloud computing. As a result, some maintain that this marks a new era in worker’s ascendancy and that we are now in a fifth era for management information systems. Today, practically any employee is now in a position to make informed decisions with tools that are readily available across multiple platforms. Furthermore, the line between who produces and who consumes MIS information is increasingly blurred.

Evolution of Management due to Technology

This could mark the end of controlling top-down management styles, which are being replaced by more autonomy of employees. Management expert Peter Druker predicted this as an inevitable back in 1954 in his theory on Management by Objectives. In this paradigm, top-down management can actually harm a company because, being in the trenches, employees are more and more likely to understand customer needs better than their supervisors and, being in specialized fields, may have more understanding of the nuts and bolts behind a business than those supervisors.

“Knowledge workers have to manage themselves,” Drucker said. “They have to have autonomy.”

Origin of Management Information Systems

The history of information management can be traced back to the industrial exhibition of Paris in 1801. There, Joseph Marie Charles Jacquard introduced the world to punch cards. These cards, which were similar to the computer punch cards used through much of the 20th century, were used in weaving looms to make intricate patterns in cloth.

The Creation of Punch Card Systems

At that time, looms were hand-operated and if you wanted to create a complex pattern in cloth, you had to know – and remember – the order that different color threads were to be weaved into the fabric. Jacquard’s punch cards had multiple rows of holes punched into them. Each card represented a single row of threads in the cloth. The cards, when strung together and inserted into the loom, would determine the pattern in the cloth.

If you changed the order in which the cards were inserted, you would change the pattern. If you used the same order every time, every piece of cloth would have the exact same pattern.

Thus, for the first time, Jacquard’s punch cards could automate the storage and management of the information used to specify how a loom was to be operated.

Evolution of Punch Cards

The use of punch cards expanded in the following decades and in the 1880s, punch cards were used to compile information. Cards were “programmed” with information by punch card machines and other machines would process these cards, tally them and print out the results.

By 1911, IBM emerged, then called the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company. By this time, punch cards were used for recording and storing all sorts of information, including time tracking and recording weights on scales. Even the U.S. Census was using punch cards to manage its information.

The Emergence of MIS in Computers

When computers began to emerge in the 1940s and 1950s, punch cards were still a big part of information systems. They continued to play a role until the 1970s when they were replaced by magnetic storage media like tapes and disks. These storage devices greatly increased the speed of calculating data Consequently, MIS began to develop for accounting. Calculating data and compiling it into reports could now be done in a fraction of the time it would have taken before.

MIS Developing Beyond Accounting

From the 1970s to the early 1990s, as computers became smaller, faster and more affordable, MIS developed beyond accounting to other business areas, like inventory systems, sales, marketing, manufacturing processes and engineering. Most of these systems ran independently of each other, each using different software on different computers. For a large company to get a complete picture of its progress, reports from different departments would be re-entered into another system, often in a mainframe computer. Small businesses simply didn’t have the resources to complete such an endeavor and would have to compile different reports manually, often on paper.

Even as computers could be connected in networks in the 1990s, the different software systems were often not compatible. Companies then began upgrading their systems so that different department systems could communicate with each other. By the end of the 1990s, even small businesses could afford integrated information systems and even connect different office systems together using the internet.

Translating the real concept of the MIS into reality is technically, an infeasible proposition unless computers are used. The MIS relies its ability to store, process, retrieve and communicate with no serious limitations.

The variety of the hardware having distinct capabilities make it possible to design the MIS for a specific situation. For example, if the organization needs a large database and very little processing, a computer system is available for such a requirement. Suppose the organization has multiple business locations at long distances and if the need is to bring the data at one place, process, and then send the information to various locations, it is possible to have a computer system with a distributed data processing capability.  If the distance is too long, then the computer system can be hooked through a satellite communication system.

Role of Computers in Management Information Systems

Computers play a central role in a business’s management information system, or MIS. In past decades, most companies had a few computers that served as information hubs. Today, a range of computing devices funnel important data from a variety of sources, from sales to time cards to inventory. The MIS software gathers the data and generates actionable information to guide the business.

1. Guiding the Business

Business doesn’t stand still. Internal and external circumstances change daily, and you need a road map of good information to guide you through the twists and turns. The whole purpose of MIS is to use the hard data of your business to inform day-to-day and long-term decisions. Computers ease the task of processing the data.

2. Capturing the Data

The most sophisticated computers in the world can’t help your business if they’re not “fed”. Before an MIS can provide useful information, data must first enter the system.

Sales and accounting systems, for example, typically capture data when a customer places an order. Workers on the factory floor can enter manufacturing data into tablets or PCs, or the production machines themselves can capture data automatically. These detailed, nuts-and-bolts numbers are the raw materials that eventually become useful management information.

3. Calculating, Sorting and Searching

Modern computers excel at repetitive number crunching, accurately processing many thousands of data items per second. To summarize a month’s business transactions by hand might take hours or days, while a computer can do this task in moments. Useful operations include arithmetic calculations, sorting data numerically or alphabetically and searching for a single record among thousands in a file.

4. Database Management Systems

Many MIS systems rely on database management systems to organize, process and protect data. The database is a special program that acts as a data warehouse, storing the raw data and also cataloging it. The database has levels of security to guard against unauthorized access. It gives the various MIS applications accounting, payroll, inventory management and others added efficiency, reliability and flexibility.

5. Reports for Managers

An MIS delivers information to managers in the form of reports. They may take many forms, including printed lists, informative screens or alerts by text or email. Generally, reports may have details, listing individual records sorted by date or other criteria, and summary figures that show totals and averages.

For example, a monthly sales report shows customer names and what they bought. The MIS may generate the reports on demand, on a schedule or when preset conditions are met.

6. Ad Hoc Reporting

Many of the reports in an MIS system are “canned”, as software developers wrote the specifications when the system was first created. Ad hoc (improvised) reports are also possible. In this instance, you can use database software to create a custom report.

For example, in a certain month, an item you make may have been painted the wrong color. An ad hoc report can pull useful information from the MIS, such as who bought the item and when or which production machine made the item. The manager may create the report herself from a menu-driven reporting system, or she may ask a data technician to do it for her.

7. Computer Storage and Big Data

With the falling price of computer hard drives, it’s now possible to store enormous amounts of information cheaply. Even small businesses can afford to keep reams of detailed records on hand and use them to study customer buying patterns, production quality statistics and the actions of competitors.

8. Garbage In, Garbage Out

With tongue in cheek, computer professionals use the term “garbage in, garbage out” to sum up how errors in data or mistakes in programming can lead to disastrous outcomes. Because computers deal with large amounts of information, it’s possible that small arithmetic errors, for example, may give wildly incorrect results. Savvy businesspeople must be aware of the potential pitfalls of relying too much on computerized reports.

The impact of MIS on the functions is in its management.  With a good MIS support, the management of marketing, finance, production and personnel becomes more efficient, the tracking and monitoring the functional targets becomes easy. The functional managers are informed about the progress, achievements and shortfalls in the activity and the targets. The manager is kept alert by providing certain information indicating the probable trends in the various aspects of business. This helps in forecasting and long-term perspective planning.  The manager” attention is brought to a situation which is exceptional in nature, inducing him to take an action or a decision in the matter. A disciplined information reporting system creates a structured database and a knowledge base for all the people in the organization. The information is available in such a form that it can be used straight away or by blending and analysis, saving the manager’s valuable time.

The MIS creates another impact in the organization which relates to the understanding of the business itself. The MIS begins with the definition of a data entity and its attributes. It uses a dictionary of data, entity and attributes, respectively, designed for information generation in the organization. Since all the information systems use the dictionary, there is common understanding of terms and terminology in the organization bringing clarity in the communication and a similar understanding of an event in the organization.

The MIS calls for a systemization of the business operations for an effective system design. This leads to streamlining of the operations which complicate the system design.  It improves the administration of the business by bringing a discipline in its operations everybody is required to follow and use systems and procedures. This process brings a high degree of professionalism in the business operations.

Since the goals and objective of the MIS are the products of business goals and objectives, it helps indirectly to pull the entire organization in one direction towards the corporate goals and objectives by providing the relevant information to the people in the organization.

A well designed system with a focus on the manager makes an impact on the managerial efficiency.  The fund of information motivates an enlightened manager to use a variety of tools of the management. It helps him to resort to such exercises as experimentation and modeling. The use of computers enables him to use the tools and techniques which are impossible to use manually. The ready-made packages make this task simpler. The impact is on the managerial ability to perform. It improves the decision making ability considerably.

Advantage of Computer-Based Management Information System

Compute-based Management information systems have been in widespread use since the 1990s in industry, non-profit organizations and government agencies. These systems provide fast, centralized access to databases of personnel information, reference reading, best practices and on-the-job training, and are easily customizable to meet an organization’s needs. With the Internet and technology boom of the early 21st century, use of computer-based information networks is growing faster each year.

1. Data Centrality

Access to data via a computer network information system is central, providing a “one-stop” location to find and access pertinent computer data. Most large-scale businesses and organizations use some sort of central database to manage user information, manage advertisement lists, store product information and keep track of orders. Examples of central database solutions are MySQL, PostgreSQL or Microsoft SQL database solutions, coupled with custom software which provides user interfaces.

2. Information Coverage

Central information systems provide organizations with the advantages of having large amounts of data, covering many different fields, all accessible via a central source. Information coverage is a huge advantage for any organization, because having vast amounts of useful data from every different department streamlines access and increases productivity. For users, having access to a networked information system is analogous to having a digital library of shared knowledge. Recent developments in database information systems link company information access with larger databases of academic and professional research, such as Google Scholar, to provide even more information capability to personnel.

3. Access Efficiency

Efficiency of access is a crucial advantage to networked information systems over more traditional information management systems, such as paper cataloging and filing. Computer-based information systems catalog and file documents in a set logical way, making data access very efficient and fast. Data can be manually categorized, and filters created to automatically file documents that match certain patterns. This increases employee productivity time by allowing workers to focus more on the task at hand rather than filing paperwork.

4. Extensibility

Computer-based information systems are completely extensible and customizable to an organization’s needs. Upon installation, customized computer information systems use configuration files that are tailor-made to an organization’s needs to file and categorize data. Computer software engineers frequently design custom database interfaces and information storage/recovery systems for enterprise clients. As a company grows, modifications and additions to this filing configuration allow easy extensibility. Computer information systems are not limited in scale or possibility. They are uniquely designed for maximum organizational benefit for each customer.

Disadvantage of Computer-Based Management Information System

1. Lack of common sense

Computer is only an electronic device. It cannot think. If we provide an incorrect data, it does not have the commonsense to question the correctness of the data. For overcoming this problem, several Software Specialists are engaged in the project of developing intelligence to the computer. To it, they have given name as Artificial Intelligence. They are willing to develop the feeling and inhumation in this device.

We hope that in near future the artificial intelligence will help this device to function in more interactive way. Today, software’s are available which may convert our speech into text. This is the beginning of an era where computer may be quite interactive with human beings. In addition, to execute the function, operator will give verbal instructions.

2. Memory without brain

Computer can store data in its memory. However, if a wrong instruction is provided, it does not have a brain to correct the wrong instructions

3. Slavery

A computer is a slave; it cannot execute the program by itself. It requires instructions to execute the program and generate information. Thus, we see that the computer cannot do anything by itself. It has a relationship of master and slave. Until master is not instructing, slave will not perform any function. In the same way computer does.