The psychology of organizations: what does it consist of?

Throughout the evolution of the study of work and the organizational area, organizational psychology has been adapting its definition. These changes go hand in hand with the need for organizations to renew themselves according to different factors, such as market demand or the legal labor framework.

In addition, its definition has also been adjusted based on technological advances. A very current example is teleworking, which allows you to do the same work, saving costs. In many organizations, this means reducing the economic but also ecological cost, in terms of effort.

Organizational psychology: a science that integrates several disciplines

To understand this branch, the psychology of organizations, it is necessary to know that it feeds and influences othersuch as economics, industrial psychology, neurology, psychiatry and social psychology. On the other hand, organizational psychology is a scientific discipline that deals not only with human beings and their experiences at work, but also with organizations as complex and global environments.

Its scientific nature has to do with its main objective: to describe, explain and predict work behavior, as well as the resolution of problems that arise concretely or spontaneously in the organizational area.

However, it is not just a component discipline. It also studies the human part of the organization; Well, at the end of the day, there are many organizations that depend more on the so-called human capital than on technological capital. Therefore, an individual psychology that promotes individual and organizational well-being is also necessary.

“The psychology” of organizations

In order to understand the functioning of each organization and its idiosyncrasies, There are several metaphors for organizations that we can differentiate based on their nature and objectives.. For example, if we understand the organization as a production machine, we find three study trends:

Taylor’s scientific work administration. Fayol’s universalist approach. Weber’s theory of bureaucracy.

While the first two aspects focused on solving problems at an individual level, Weber’s theory of bureaucracy was the first model capable of offering a structural vision of the organization and addressing its study at a global level.

Weber appealed to the importance of relationships between different structures and hierarchies, so he defined the characteristics of the democratic structure. From these characteristics, the organization takes the form of a bureaucracy destined or focused on efficiency. This translates into a more rational way of organizing and directing workers’ efforts.

However, understanding the organization as a machine and the workers as perfectly controllable robots is not enough. Thus, Faced with the approach of the organization as a machine, others emerged, such as the approach based on individual differences, the group approach and the motivational approach.

The organization as systems

The metaphor of understanding the organization as a system arises from the application of the principles of Von Bertalanffy’s well-known General Systems Theory in 1965. Authors, such as Katz and Kahn, place it in the organization in 1983.

It is based on an idea: workers, production and organization constitute three different systems that relate to each other. -failure in one element can lead to failure in the rest-. The systemic approach is conceived instead of an individual one.

Currently, there are many trends that exist in the study of organizations. For example, economic and consumer psychology. The objective of this is twofold: on the one hand it aims to study how the economy affects the general behavior of people; on the other hand, how people’s behaviors affect the economy. In the United States, it is associated with topics such as family savings, consumer expectations, and reactions to inflation.

Ergonomic psychology in the workplace

Ergonomics is also in the focus of organizational psychology.. The objective of this trend is multiple: from reducing work accidents, improving work systems, increasing work liveliness by avoiding routine, accommodating work tools, etc.

Definitely, There are many aspects studied by the discipline of organizations and work, especially this one, since not all jobs are understood within the framework of an organization. For example, self-employment.

In this sense, the perspective of the interdependent systems of general systems theory, which understands that each individual action gear is the cause – or consequence – of others. Promoting an environment of help in organizations in the face of difficulties has proven to have better results than focusing efforts on other points of interest.

Meta-analyses, as techniques that reevaluate results obtained, constitute the best tool to know which are the most established ideas in the current volume of research. They are based on the quantitative integration of other research – such as those carried out in the organizational field – and allow successes and errors to be evaluated.

Even so, it is important to address the aspects evaluated in the individual and motivational approach, like each worker having their needs covered according to Abraham Maslow’s pyramid of needs and that the work is adapted to the needs of the worker, in order to obtain better results.

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