1. Autocratic Model:
The basis of this model is the power of the boss. Max Weber defined, power as, ―the probability that one actor, within a social relationship, will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance. Walternord defined power as, ―the ability to influence flow of available energy and resources towards certain goals as opposed to other goals. Power is assumed to be exercised only when
these goals are at-least partially in conflict with each other.
The essential features of this model are as follows:
- Organizations with an autocratic environment are authority oriented. This authority is delegated by the right of command over the people to whom it applies. The management believes that it is the best judge to determine what is better for the health of both the organisation and its participants and that the employees‘ obligation is to follow orders. It assumes that the employees have to be directed, persuaded and pushed into performance. Management does the thinking and employees obey the orders. This view of managing organisations has been developed by D. McGregor in his theory X. This conventional view leads to tight control of employees at work.
- Under autocratic model, the employee‘s orientation is obedience to the boss; they need not be respectful to him. The bosses have absolute power to hire fire and perspire employees.
- The employees depend upon the boss and are paid minimum wages for minimum performance. This theory of scientific management was developed by F.W. Taylor as the conventional view of management. The employees sometimes give minimum
performance, though reluctantly because they have to satisfy the subsistence needs of themselves and their families. Some employees give higher performance because of a drive to overcome challenges. According to the research of David C. McClelland of Harvard University, ―some people like to work under strong authority because they feel that their boss is a natural born leader. - The autocratic model has been successful in some situations where the workers are actually lazy and have a tendency to shirk work. It is also required in the situation? where the work to be done is time bound. The threat generally used by the managers is that the reward or wages will be withheld if the workers do not obey them.
- The leadership in an autocratic model is negative because the employees are uninformed, insecure and afraid.
- Nowadays, this model is not applicable in strict sense because there are minimum wages laws in most of the countries. Thus, the managers cannot threaten to cut down the wages or rewards of the workers. Moreover, the workers are educated and organised, thus they cannot be dictated to by the managers all the time.
2. The Custodial Model:
To overcome the shortcomings of the Autocratic model, the custodial model came into existence. The insecurity and frustration felt by the workers under the autocratic model sometimes led to aggression towards the boss and their families. To dispel this feeling of insecurity and frustration, the need was felt to develop a model which will improve the employer-employee relations. The custodial model was used by the progressive managers.
Some of the important features of this model are as explained below:
1. The success of the Custodial Model depends upon the economic resources because this model emphasizes the economic rewards and benefits. Since employee‘s physiological needs are already met the employer looks to security needs as a motivating force.
2. The employees under Custodial Model depend upon organisation rather than their boss. If the organisation has got good welfare and development programmes for the employees, they cannot afford to leave the organisation.
3. Under this model, the employees are satisfied and happy and they are not strongly motivated. So they give only passive cooperation. They do not work more vigorously than under the autocratic approach.
4. The main benefit of this model is that it brings security and satisfaction to the employees.
5. The difficulty, with this model is that it depends upon material rewards only to motivate the employees. But the workers have their psychological needs also. Due to the drawbacks of this method, a search began to find out the best way to motivate the workers so that they produce with their full capacity and capabilities.
3. The Supportive Model:
The supportive model has originated from the ‗Principles of Supportive Relationships.‖ According to Rensis Likert, ―The leadership and other processes of the organisation must be such as to ensure a maximum probability that in all interactions and all relationships with the organisation, each member will, in the light of his background, values and expectations, view the experience as supportive, and one which builds and maintains his sense of personal worth and importance.
The main features of this model are as follows:
1) The Supportive Model depends on leadership instead of power or money. Management, with the help of leadership try to create a favourable organisational climate in which the employees are helped to grow to the greater capacities and achieve things of which they
have the capability, in compliance with the goals of the organisation.
2) The leader assumes that the worker will take responsibility, make their contributions and improve themselves, if given a chance. It is assumed that the workers are not lazy and work
3) shirkers by nature. If properly motivated, they can be self-directed and creative to the organisation.
4) It should be the orientation of the management to support the employees‘ job performance, rather than simply giving them payments and benefits as in the custodial approach.
5) This model takes care of the psychological needs of the employees in addition to their subsistence and security needs. It is similar to McGregor‘s theory and the human resources approach to people.
6) This model is an improvement over the earlier two models. Supportive behaviour helps in creating friendly superior-subordinate interaction with a high degree of confidence and trust. This model has been found to be effective in affluent countries where the workers are more concerned about their psychological needs like high self-esteem, job satisfaction etc. But it has limited application in India, where the majority of the workers are below the poverty line. For them, the most important requirement is the satisfaction of their physiological needs and security. They are not much concerned about the psychological needs.
4. The Collegial Model:
The collegial model is an extension of the supportive model. The Dictionary meaning of collegial is a body of persons having a common purpose. As is clear from the meaning, this model is based upon the partnership between employees and the management.
The features of this model are as follows:
1) This model creates a favourable climate in the organisation as the workers feel that they are the partners in the organisation. They don‘t see the managers as their bosses but as joint contributors. Both the management and workers accept and respect each other.
2) The collegial model inculcates the team spirit in an organisation. The workers accept responsibilities because they find it their obligation to do so, not because that they will be punished by the management. This helps in developing a system of self discipline in the organisation.
3) In this kind of collegial environment, the workers have job satisfaction, job involvement, job commitment and some degree of fulfillment.
4) The collegial model is especially useful in research laboratories and similar work situations.
After studying all the four models it becomes very clear that there is no single model which is best suited to the requirements of all the organisations. The managers will have to make use of a combination of models depending upon the circumstances of the case. But keeping in view the emergence of professional management, we can say that the use of Supportive and Collegial will be more as compared to the Autocratic and Custodial Models.
5. Other Models:
Some models of organisational behaviour can also be classified by a number of approaches.
A few of these models are as explained below:
- Normative Models:
The normative models seek to find out that what should be done to produce optimum results. These models are concerned with the determination of optimum actions. Most of the management theories are comprised of the normative models, because while preparing the plans and policies the management is more concerned with what should be done or what should not be done by the managers and the employees. - Empirical Models:
While the normative models are concerned with what should be done, the empirical models describe the activities the employees actually perform. This model becomes an integral part of organisational behaviour because organisational behaviour is concerned with what is actually taking place in the organisations and how do people actually behave. - Ecological Models:
No business enterprise can exist in a vacuum. It has to continuously interact with the environment. All the functions of the organisation are affected by the environment as the environment supplies the inputs which are converted by the organisation into outputs. Through a process of feedback output causes the emergence of new inputs. This interaction between the organisation and environment is known as ecological interaction and this is the crux of ecological approach. Models which deal with the changes which take place in the environment and which understand the complexities of environment are ecological
models. - Non-Ecological Models:
As the name suggests this model is the opposite of ecological model. Whereas the ecological model accepts that the environment is complex and changes keep on taking place, the nonecological models assume stability in the environment and that everything will remain the same. This model does not help in generalizing that what will happen in future. In the modern day world, when the environmental factors are assuming a lot of importance, this model is not very useful. - Ideographic Models:
The models that are developed to deal with specific cases or unique situations are called ideographic models. This model deals with situations like single nation, single organisation, single group, individual, biography, historical episode etc. When the organisational behaviour is concerned with micro-level analysis this model is generally used. - Nomothetic Models:
These models deal with general situations. These are concerned with theory building on the macro level basis. These are concerned with generalizations, laws, hypothesis which indicates regularity of behaviour and correlation between variables. These models deal with situations like cross country, cross organisation, cross group, cross individual analysis of organisational system. To summaries, we can say that organisational behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour within an organisation and then the results of the investigations are applied to make organisations work more effectively.
Organisational behaviour uses systemic studies to improve predictions of behaviour that would be made from instructions of the management alone. But, because each organisation is different from the other one, we have to find organisational behaviour model which will suit that particular organisation. Organisational behaviour offers both challenges and opportunities for the
managers and it also offers guidance to the managers in creating an ethically healthy working environment.
