Understanding Organizational Behavior
Organizational behavior is the study of the behavior of humans and how it affects the organization. It also includes the structure of the organization, individuals and groups and how it affects the productivity of the organization. Organization behavior is meant to help the organizations to know how the employees and individuals in the organization will behave in different circumstances. Some factors shape the outcome and behavior of employees in the organization like their absenteeism, turnover, productivity and even job satisfaction. There are independent variables and dependent variables which are useful in understanding the behavior of the employees and individuals in the organization (Hancock, 2015). The dependent variables are those variables and factors which shape and affect the behavior of the employees of the organization. Those are the behaviors that the managers and the leadership often try to influence in the lives of the employees.
The reason for them improving the behaviors of the employees is to help them improve productivity, avoid absenteeism, among others to achieve the goals and objectives of the organization (McBride, Lovelock, Dirks, Welch & Shepherd, 2015). Examples of depended variables are absenteeism, turn over job satisfaction among others. The independent variables are those factors that help to shape the behavior of the employees like how they get absent, how they get job satisfaction among others. These variables are mostly beyond the influence and control of the leadership and management. Examples include individual variables of the employees, the group variables and also the variables that are organizational. The case study of Pike River mine took a different turn that was expected and was affected by the individual level variables of the independent variables of the organizational behavior (Pons, 2016). The purpose of this report will be to uncover the individual level variables of the organizational behavior that can be seen in the Pike River mine. Also, the group level variables that contributed to the disaster will be discussed and highlighted in the report.
In any given situation, individual level variables appear to look like they are given or rather fixed and in theory, managers have no control or influence over such variables. However, a smart manager will understand that they have the capacity to influence the way the employees and workers of the organization respond to the variables (Horberry, Xiao, Fuller & Cliff, 2013). The employee brings the variables to the place of work, and they are simply the characteristic which cannot be left behind. There is very little that a manager or a leader can do about the variables since they are part of the employee. The best way is to allow them to remain but also understand their role in the performance and output of the employee (McBride et al., 2015). The manager must be able to tell the extent to which the variables can influence the behavior of the employee and affect his record and performance in the organization. Some employees may be open to talking about the characteristics and how they can be controlled, however, that depends on the motivation given them by the leadership and management. In this report, there will be three individual-level variables of the human behavior among employees which shall be discussed with reference to the Pike River Mine incident (Kirsch, Harris, Shi & Cliff, 2014). The variables which shall be discussed in detail include perception, learning and decision making.
Individual Level Variables
When the employee is able to make sense of the information and promptings which are in the form of stimuli from the environment that is called perception. It involves how employees regard a situation, understand it and interpret the same to make sense of the events in their environment. Three things have influence over what people can perceive, the individual who is doing it, the setting or the environment from where the process is taking place and also the object or person who is being perceived. The individual who is the employee will be using the abilities like the eyesight or hearing, the attitudes, values, expectations or even the past experience to help him in the process of perception (Lawrence, Mauws, Dyck & Kleysen, 2005). The perceiver is meant to understand the perceptions depending on the complexity or simplicity of the surroundings. When the situation is seemingly familiar, the perception may be different. However, when the environment from where the perception is made is apparently unfamiliar, the individual will interpret that as threatening. Perceptions can change from time to time depending on the person who is being perceived or the object and also the place where the event or process is taking place (Lamare, Lamm, McDonnell & White, 2015). When someone is dealing with a stranger, his perception will be he will be not expecting anything friendly at first, and his guard will always be up all the time. He will interpret any event as threatening as long as he does not understand what it means.
Pike River mine is in New Zealand, and it was mine that exploded in the year 2010. The studies that have been carried out by many experts and investigations have revealed that besides the technical and engineering factors, the disaster was also caused by some aspects of human behavior. About 29 nine people who were underground were not so lucky, and they lost their lives (Pons, 2016). Those who were nearby were also hurt and sustained injuries. Perception has been one of the human behavior variables that were linked to the explosion and the vents that cane before and after. In the report, there was a finding that there were supposed to be ventilation which was to allow for air to enter and leave the mine (Panckhurst, Bell & Henry, 2012). That was overlooked, and no one in their imagination ever thought that it could lead to their destruction. Also, an emergency response to hazards of the organization did a sweep and uncovered vulnerabilities; however, their perception failed them. They never saw those vulnerabilities to be a cause for alarm. There is no report that anyone ever reported them; therefore, those who were working could not interpret the environment as dangerous and therefore continued working (Macfie, 2013). The management was supposed to show a great sense of perception having all the information about the vulnerabilities and yet none did anything. Therefore, because of the lack of perception which was intentional for the management and unintentional for the workers, the disaster happened.
Perception
Learning
Learning in an organization can happen and takes form in different forms. One can learn from another employee, manager or even from a book. Different individuals have different ways of acquiring information and using the same information (McBride et al., 2015). Learning must have a goal, and in most cases, people undertake learning for them to understand things they don’t and become better. In an organization, there are those individuals who can read things and get the concept, others prefer looking at what others are doing, and others prefer when they are given instructions (Gunningham, 2015). Whichever the method and means, learning always take place in the organization and it being part of the individual level variables it has an integral role in an employee’s life. Managers have come to understand that the learning that is effective in one employee is not the same in the other (Panckhurst, Bell & Henry, 2012). Therefore, this information helps them know the best way to pass on knowledge to the employees regarding work or new operation that is related to the goals of the organization. It is very critical and essential that managers should help the employees of their organization to learn and know how to use information for the good of both the organization and the employee (DuBrin, 2013). Employees must learn and be taught the right way of acquiring knowledge, evaluating the gathered data and also creating that same information. When employees have the right skills, their competencies will be improved and certainly their job satisfaction (Pons, 2016). The organization’s leadership must learn to find ways of helping the employees to learn how to utilize and interpret information as part of their responsibility.
For the case of Pike River mine explosion, the scarcity of this variable in the employees cost them dearly. The report about the mining incident also revealed that the drilling and mining were supposed to be more than 100 meters apart yet the workers in the mine were not preview to that information (Maunder, 2012). As a result of them not being given the right information they went on drilling at distances which were less than 100 meters making the mine vulnerable to risks. Learning helps employees make the best choices and know the right thing to be, but when that is denied them, then the worst is inevitable (Barrett & Thomson, 2012). Also, the information about the geological condition of the mine was not given correctly which made the miners to keep changing the standards of practice from time to time. As a result of that, the risk level in the mine was increased drastically (Macfie, 2013). The management did not bother to learn and get information that was accurate about the mine, they were obsessed with profits and financial gains and forgot the one ingredient that would help sustain those goals which were safety.
Learning
Additionally, Pike River mining Company did not train or offer information to the employees on the post-accident accident recovery mechanisms. The information would have made the employees in the mine aware of the dangers they were going to face and how to escape in the event the real dangers occurred (Panckhurst, Bell & Henry, 2012). As a result of that, the workers in the mine had very little information on the risks and the dangers around them in the mines (Pons, 2016). That was negligence on the part of the management which could have avoided the deaths. The employees also were not given any information on how to prevent risks which were essential for such underground mines. The miners were not experts in engineering but workers who were mining coal for an employer to make a living and provide food for their families. Because of their lack of information, they never saw the mistakes or things which were out of place as anything to worry about or danger.
Decision Making
Decision making involves the selection of the best course of action, or choose among many alternatives in a given situation. It is one of the variables that control the growth, success and the productivity of an organization. It is what drives the organization to victory or defeat. When decisions are made, there are always consequences, and it is usually essential that the decisions made be the one which can produce the best possible outcome for the organization. Decisions are made by people all the time, from the employees to the top management, and they affect the organization in many ways depending on the benefits one has to the organization. Decision-making can be done either by the intuition of the individual or by carefully evaluating the given options in the scenario or even both in some cases (Maunder, 2012). Decisions that are made out of intuition are not made from reality or any reasoning, they are a product of the experience people have been through at some point. It happens when one gets a strong feeling that the right course of action is what they have chosen or not chosen, they cannot explain it in real life. On the other hand, and reasoning comes with the use of facts and information that is admissible (Macfie, 2013). It ignores the emotional aspect of the mind and relies on the facts and the information given alone. Most people who make intuitive decisions are those who are in danger or do not have the luxury of time.
Decision Making
There are many barriers to effective decision making in an organization. First when the information that is to be used is not sufficient or when the information is too much. Also, when the number of people who are supposed to make the decisions is more, and they are taking more time to arrive at an agreement (Pinder, 2014). The management of Pike River mining Company failed in their decision making. The company had set high production targets, and the shareholders were mounting pressure on the management to get things done. As a result of that, the miners were asked to make shorter distances between the places where drilling was taking place. That was a bad decision on the part of the management which was taken by the workers of the mine. That decision put the lives of all the workers in the mines in grave danger. Another incident was the use of equipment which required experts. Hydro-mining is often done by experts and technicians who have the vast knowledge of mining. However, the decision to choose such a method of mining and use miners who were not experienced in the method was a bad decision that led to the incident (Pons, 2016). The best method of mining the coal would have been the open mine cast, but that was not possible because of the drastic effects it posed to the environment. The workers also are to blame for their lack of judgment, and the mine did not have sufficient ventilation, and yet they still went ahead and kept working in the area.
The workers had a decision to make, either to work in an environment that was not safe for them health wise and physically or to lose their jobs and remain jobless. Regardless of the financial conditions of the world, there is no excuse of going to a dangerous place because of money (Wright & Nishii, 2007). They know the place had no ventilation and that the system for getting the fumes of methane out was compromised, but no one reported the incident. They saw the violations of the safety procedures and still went ahead and worked in the dangerous mine. Besides that, the management of Pike made mistakes in assessing the risk of electricity (Macfie, 2013). The system was designed to help in delivering the products which were a wrong decision. The people who were evaluating the threats did not take time to study the information and carry out the right assessment of risk (Pons, 2016). For that reason, when the explosion came through, the efforts of saving or rescuing anyone were futile. If they had done another risk assessment, they would have got enough information that would have aided in making recurring and even perhaps preventing the explosion. The information that the management had was little, and that made them make the wrong decision.
Group Level Variables
Group level Variables
A group can be well defined as two or more people who are interacting together and are interdependent. Their sole purpose of interaction is to achieve the same goal and objective. The groups can either be formal or informal, and it all depends on the level of communication between the members of the group (Maunder, 2012). The analysis of the group takes the form of politics, power, the leadership, commitment to the cause and also effective group decisions. Group level analysis is also the key to the events that happen in the organization that has a bearing on organizational behavior. When groups work together in the organization by pooling their knowledge together, they raise their chances of success. However, the moment they take a different direction by allowing conflict and friction between them, the organization will inevitably fall. There are common issues that are related to the group level variables which affect the organizational behavior. There are the intra and intergroup communication, leadership and leadership styles that are applied and also, the authority of the group, power, and its politics (Pinder, 2014). The issues at the group level variables and analysis have a way they affect and influence individual behavior in the organization. When managers are making teams and workgroups, they must take into account the workings and the variables and how they affect the functioning of the teams.
Unlike the individual level variables, group level variables run more in-depth in the organization. Some of them may have stayed longer than the members themselves like the politics, power, and commitment to the cause among others (Pons, 2016). Pike River Mine Company has also seen a fair share of group level variables in the events that led to the explosion and even after.
The directors and the managers of the company must be willing to listen to the counsel and advice they are given. The basic rules of leadership are listening to everyone and being able to make your judgment after hearing what they say. The events leading to and after the explosion began and took root because of poor inter and intragroup communication in the company. Several preventive measures would have been put in place to avoid the explosion, and the loss of the 29 lives was communication channels open. The report suggested that the methane sensors that the company had received to expel the methane from the mine were not working and no one raised the issue with the leadership (Pinder, 2014). Even if there was a complaint from the mine about the sensors not working, the management did not pay attention to the information leading to communication breakdown. The supervisors who were responsible for relaying information from the mine to the management did not do their work and left the issue to escalate. Another incident of communication breakdown also was when the risk assessment team gave the management the risk report, and the management did not do or act on the report (Panckhurst, Bell & Henry, 2012). They did not initiate a further investigation into the safety of the mine as they were supposed to be doing. It is imperative that the management should take advice and listen to the opinion of other people especially if their lives depend on that.
Case Study: Pike River Mine
Power, Authority and Politics
Politics, the struggle for power and authority is another variable under the group level variables that are very important to organizational behavior. There are two kinds of power in an organization, positive and negative power (Wright & Nishii, 2007). Positive power is when the leadership and the management use their power and influence to encourage productivity in the organization. The management and leadership get this kind of power from employees by respecting them and accurately communicating with them. On the other hand, negative power is obtained through threats and coercion, and people work fearing that if they don’t work, they will lose their jobs or worse. People are often punished and threatened when they fail to do what the management wants. Positive politics is the kind of politics that allows for clear policies and directives like the chain of command where the employees have the confidence of being heard and listened to by the leadership (Pinder, 2014). While negative politics is the kind that allows for unethical and dishonest behavior from the leadership which eventually hurts the employees.
Politics, Power and Authority at Pike
Pike River Mine Company had its share of bad politics and negative power which affected and kept the workers in a state of fear. There were many indications that the mine was dangerous to the workers and their lives were in danger. However, the management did nothing to correct or deal with the issue (Zeiger. n.d.). From the analysis of the different reports, the workers would have been moved out of the mines, but the leadership was weak to make that move because it would have meant that they would have never met their target in production. They were afraid of the demands of the shareholders and the owners of the company more than they cared for the safety and welfare of the workers in those mines.
Leadership style also plays a significant role in the influencing of organizational behavior. When the leadership style is democratic, the employees will work by motivation, and they will be productive. However when the leadership is autocratic, the manager said, and the rest must fall in line, the organization will have fear and unmotivated workers. Lousy leadership style could be as a result of a lack of experience in the role a leader has been given, and therefore one uses fear and power to lead (Wright & Nishii, 2007). Therefore, the leadership failed to put into place the safety standards that are recommended for mines. That was a deliberate action which showed poor leadership style and skills which never set in place policies that were good for the people.
Perception in Pike River Mine
Pike’s Leadership Style
The leadership went on with the Pike project without doing more research on its safety and what were its vulnerabilities. There are claims that when the team was sent to conduct a risk assessment, it gave its findings and shared with the management of the dangers. However, the management did not consider the report but left it out in their decision (Zeiger. n.d.). Additionally, the management was aware of the risks it was exposing its workers, and yet they never looked back. They were leadership skills that were poor where they were only interested in what they had purposed. Anything that was getting in their way was being removed which was a heartless move by the leadership. They also contracted a manager to run the mine by the name George Mason who did not have any experience in Hydro-mining and had no qualifications that would warrant his appointment (2013). All this group level variables were the many of the reasons that led to the explosion and the death of lives.
References
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(2013). Retrieved from https://www.zeroharm.org.nz/assets/docs/case-studies/Pike-River-Case-Study.pdf
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