We start from the basis that organizational behaviour is a set of actions made by a group of people. Thanks to these actions, projects are assumed and goals are reached as a result of team work. "Organizational" is a concept that aims at an abstract whole, at an artifice, because regardless of the number of material resources an organization has, or how defined an organisation’s processes are, without people there is no organization.
And let's go one step further: regardless of how structured the work is, or how programmed tasks are, or even a person’s place on the organizational ladder, the autonomy and freedom of whoever is playing the corresponding role will be at the epicentre of each decision. And ultimately, it will be this freedom that will allow different people to do different things in the same position.
No two people are the same, just as no two employees are. Each one will interact with their bosses, colleagues and collaborators in a different way. Their work habits -such as speed, resolution, analysis and attention to detail- as well as cooperation, motivation, creativity and the search for recognition and security inevitably vary between one person and another.
Even if two people have similar motivations, the way they achieve their purposes will be different. Therefore, if we want to explain the organizational behaviour including its productive dynamics, absenteeism, rotation and employee satisfaction, we need to recognize the importance of the influence of individual factors.
Organizational behaviour can be seen as a collection of actions carried out by an array of actors that will lead a company to take on projects and establish general objectives according to the capacity of these actors. Organizations must find an appropriate synchronization between their own procedures and the processes that need to be carried out. To this end, restrictions imposed on employee behaviours must be in line with the workplace’s discretionary levels. In this way, an employees’ autonomy is favoured, which results in greater diversity within the organization.
The collective of individuals forming part of an organization endow the later with an identity of its own, contrasting other organizations. Employees undertake tasks in various ways, where there may be differences in terms of work habits, in their levels of motivation and the degree of effort made, of creativity used and, finally, depending on the importance that they give to factors such as security and/or recognition. All these variants are explained through individual psychological characteristics such as values, attitudes, perceptions, motivations and personalities.
