Psychology Organizational Psychology Organizational Psychology Is a Essay

Psychology

Organizational Psychology

Organizational psychology is a discipline that sets out on understanding some of the facets of organizational performance and organizational behaviors and altitudes held by the organization's members in order to gain a level of understanding which can it turn be used to improve the performance of the organization in pursuit of organizational goals. Researchers apply the scientific method and rigorous methodologies in order to further the understanding of organizations. Some of the focus of this discipline is applied to issues such as leadership, job performance, employee motivation, organizational culture, ethics, group dynamics, and team composition as well as many more courses of research. Since humans are social creatures and are generally social animals and consequently members of one or more groups, the pursuit of understanding how groups operate is an endeavor with implications that affect nearly everyone. This paper will provide an brief overview of the field as well as provide an example of some of the products of this line of investigation.

Discussion

According to Jex and Britt (2008) "organizational psychology is a field that utilizes scientific methodology to better understand the behavior of individuals working in organizational settings" (Introduction of Organizational Psychology, p. 1, para. 2). An organization is a unit of people, systematically structured and managed to meet a need or to pursue collective goals on a continuing basis (Business Dictionary.com, 2011). Psychology is the study of mind and behavior of individuals. It is important for organizational psychology to study formal organizations, but informal organizations need to be studied as well such as friendships and groups. When some human behavior is patterned it is thought to be structured which implies that this is the essence of an organization. "Organizational psychologists use a systematic, data-based approach to studying organizational processes and solving organizational problems" (Jex & Britt, 2008). In order to be a successful organization, enhanced organizational effectiveness needs to be achieved and this can be done through organizational psychology.

The study of leadership provides an example of one of the most salient topics in Organizational Psychology. Leadership can be vaguely defined as the leader's ability to shift the group's behaviors and attitudes to something more in line with broader organizational goals. It follows that if a leader can effectively align individual goals with organizational goals then the group would be more likely to successful in regards to the reaching these shared goals. However, if a group cannot….....