This Millennium volume on “Human Factor in Management”: Organisational Behaviour, contains a very interesting chapter on Human Factor in Japanese Management sharing with the reader the experiences and experiments in Japan. The volume is a textbook planned and designed to meet the needs of students and faculty members as well as business managers and industrialists. The human factor is the most critical and dynamic factor in the management of organisation. The human factor is also a complex factor because as Einstein puts it, “Man is like a closed watch” and there is no watch to open to see inside how the complex mechanism works in order to take appropriate action to set it right. Most managers dealing with man are like people trying to build bridges without any understanding of engineering, since most managers do not have the knowledge to understand man and his personality. The problem becomes even more complex when the individual becomes a member of the group and this is rendered even more difficult when there is more than one group. The behaviour, performance and productivity of man is also influenced by the organisation and the organisational setting and organisational culture and climate and the leadership of the managers, and supervisors and union leaders. The motivation and morale of employees is also a determining factor.
Organisational behaviour is a study of people in organisations with a view to influencing the behaviour of people in order to achieve organisational goals. The communication of goals, policies, and programmes and budgets in the people is important in motivating people.
The text of the volume is based on research, experiments and experiences drawn from our country as well as from all parts of the world.
The second chapter deals with organisational behaviour highlighting the state of the art, meaning and definition and some problems in the field. The third treats exhaustively theories of human personality and defence mechanisms. In the fourth chapter, we have discussed the behaviour of individual as a member of group an inter-group effectiveness. Organisation and its concepts are discussed in the fifth chapter. The theories and practice of leadership are the concern of the sixth chapter. The process and theories of motivation, morale and communication are explained in the next two chapters. The ninth chapter highlights the on-going experiments of dealing with people and participative management drawn from various parts of the world.
The last but one chapter is a new chapter added in this revised volume explaining the interesting and stimulating experiments, research and experiences in the area of Human Factor in Japanese Management. No other country has made a more significant impact in the utilisation of Human Factor in Management as in Japan. We have added a personal account of developments in Matsushita.
Contents –
1. The Human Condition
2. Organisational Behaviour and Effectiveness
3. The Individual and the Human Personality
4. Groups and Inter-Group Processess
5. Organisational Concept and Effectiveness
6. Leadership
7. Motivational and Morale
8. Communication
9. Dealing with People
10.Human Factor and Japanese Management
11.Global Human Growth – The Vision and the Future
