Book Review-Organisational Behaviour

Abstract

Organisational Behaviour (OB) used to be a more modern name for Industrial
Psychology which studies human behaviour in organizations. The twenty first century
organizational behaviour is much different from the contrived discipline that drew its
knowledge base from some subjects falling under the broad umbrella of humanities and
social sciences. The subject OB, after the sea change that it has undergone, talks about
virtual teams instead of committees and replaces command – and – control supervision
with values and self leadership. As companies are looking for Organic Robots instead of
normal human beings in their employees, transforming human resources into
sophisticated machines that can think and feel, the field of OB widens beyond
imagination.
The book under review by McShane, Glinow, and Sharma is about this new age OB. The
latest edition, the fourth one, is written in context of these emerging workplace realities
and is about classical, the modern as well as the post modern OB. It talks about the
knowledge economy, the learning organization and appreciative enquiry providing a
handy prescription for organizational change.
The book is a comprehensive read that deals with all the essential issues of the subject
and is useful as a reference as well as a text book. Every chapter of this book carries
some real life examples that help the reader understand the concepts of OB making it
application oriented. The book not only links theory with reality it also provides food for
thought that may pave way for new theories. The case studies given in each of the
chapters help reader connect OB concepts to the emerging work place realities. An
important distinguishing feature of this book is ‘connections’ that provide linkage to OB
concepts with real organizational incidents.
The book in its coverage includes a wide range of industries – from software to
government and from small businesses to the fortune 500 companies. There is a strong
global orientation in this book which illustrates how OB concepts and practices are
relevant to companies in every part of the world. The book covers organizational
practices from US and Australia to India and China. It is useful not only for the managers
but also for all those who want to understand OB.

Name of the book : Organisational Behaviour
Name of the authors: Steven L McShane, Mary Ann Von Glinow, Radha R Sharma
Published by – Tata McGraw-Hill