Significance and function of managers' research and application of organizational behavior
First, the importance of organizational behavior
Modern management system believes that the most fundamental function of management is to make a system move from disorder to order, or from low-level order to high-level order. According to this theory, it puts forward a very serious topic for today's enterprise managers. In order to occupy a place in the increasingly fierce market competition, break through the limitations of enterprises in the process of internationalization and achieve international synchronization, managers of enterprises are required to improve their own quality in the management process and conduct scientific management based on systematic management knowledge and theory.
As the main component of modern management system and the main course of business administration, organizational behavior is a science that specializes in studying the psychological and behavioral laws of people who interact with certain organizations and environments. Strengthening the research and application of this science can improve the management level of managers, realize scientific prediction, guidance and control of subordinates' psychology and behavior, coordinate the relationship between enterprises, teams and individuals, give full play to people's subjective initiative and obtain the best economic and social benefits.
Through the study of this course, we can not only obtain systematic theoretical knowledge directly, but also realize that mastering this subject knowledge is the foundation and important guarantee for the success of life and even career through the combination of actual case analysis and actual work life.
Second, the case analysis
Nowadays, enterprises, especially high-tech and high-risk enterprises, pay special attention to managers' own management knowledge and level in the process of establishment and operation. If you lack management skills, do not pay attention to the study and supplement of management theory system, and do not understand people's psychology and needs, the result will inevitably be a serious failure in management, and it is difficult for enterprises to survive and develop.
Case 1: the bankruptcy process of Wang An Computer
Dr Wang An, the founder of Wang An Computer Company, is a legend. Wang An Computer Company, which he founded, has an annual turnover of $3 billion, and he was once ranked as the fifth richest man in the United States. However, on August 1990, Wang An Computer announced that it had filed for bankruptcy protection. This incident alarmed Wall Street and the whole world.
Once upon a time, Wang An Computer dominated the computer industry, with an annual turnover of more than $3 billion and employees of ***3 1000. If the growth pace in the early 1980s can be maintained, today it may have surpassed IBM in the United States and become the world's leading computer company with annual turnover exceeding 1000 billion US dollars.
The founder of the company, Wang An, was originally from Shanghai. He has extraordinary imagination and creativity since he was a child. 65438-0945, studying for a doctorate at Harvard University in the United States. Soon, he made his mark in scientific and technological inventions and became the first China technical consultant hired by American computer giant IBM. It was also because of the invention patent he authorized that IBM was able to develop computers and dominate the world at that time. Wang An was also the first Asian scientist to enter the American Hall of Fame, just like Bell who invented the telephone and Edison who invented the electric light.
The patent right of computer magnetic core memory brought Wang an a lot of money. 195 1 year, Wang An independently founded Wang An Computer Company in Boston. Wang An is a computer genius. He applied the small computer system to the office and opened the market of office automation at the most appropriate time. In the early 1970s, Wang An Company became the pioneer of office computers in the world, and its performance was booming. The desktop calculator, which is still selling well today, is the painstaking effort of Wang An 25 years ago.
But before 1990 Wang An died, Wang An Company had stopped paying dividends. The company's stock dropped from $40 in 1983 to $6 in 1989 and then to $3.75 in 1990. After Wang An died, the company was still in debt of $93 million.
Before the early 1980s, the turnover and net profit of Wang An Company increased by 20 times. Why did it plummet in a few years?
Unlike most China people living abroad, Wang didn't "force" his son to learn Chinese, but this doesn't mean that Wang has been completely westernized. Quot Kawako's strong consciousness can be clearly reflected from the fact that he handed over the power of the company to his son Wang Lie. There's an old saying in China: "You don't avoid relatives, you don't avoid enemies.". However, its premise is the word "saint". However, Wang ignored this premise and blindly passed on the word "zi", which made Wang's computer take the first step towards decline.
1986165438+10 In October, Wang An's 36-year-old son Wang Lie was appointed as the president of Wang An Computer Company by his father. This move first angered the sales experts who followed Wang An for 20 years, and then several backbone members resigned, which greatly hurt their management team. Although Wang Lie's work performance was extremely mediocre, his father's expectation for his son, coupled with the rapid deterioration of Wang's health, made Wang Lie a natural successor. However, when he took the place of his father as the acting chairman for the first time, he gave the bad impression that he had no idea what happened in the company. At that time, the company was in financial crisis, but Wang Lie still talked about how to improve management, which made the board of directors lose confidence in him and the company's financial situation went from bad to worse. 1989, the company's turnover decreased by $40 million, but its expenditure increased by $200 million. 1in August, 989, a vicious incident occurred in which the shareholders of the company jointly sued Wang An and his son. On August 4th, Wang An, who was in a wheelchair after the operation, announced to the press that Wang An Computer Company lost $424 million in the fiscal year 1988, and announced Wang Lie's resignation. But Ann and Wang's computers are terminally ill, and it's no use resigning.
1In August, 989, Wang An appointed Wen Yaoli as the chairman and CEO of Wang An Computer with a three-year contract and an annual salary of one million yuan. Wen Yaoli has a lot of records of bringing companies on the verge of bankruptcy back to life, but he doesn't know much about computer technology and has unrealistic expectations for the future. He failed to fire redundant employees in time and blindly sold profitable investment projects, but production and sales still didn't improve.
Since 1960s, Wang An Company has continuously introduced new products, and the office computer introduced in 1970s set a new record for office automation, which dominated 10 years. But at this time, personal computers have become more and more popular and favored by more and more customers. Wang An is proud of his product's advantages and reputation in design and technology. He can't see clearly the arrival of the transition period and can't keep up with the pace of market development. He still focuses on medium-sized computers and gradually loses the market.
From the convenience of use, a large number of computer customers require manufacturers to ensure that computers have unified technical standards to facilitate data exchange or interoperability between different models and data processing systems. In order to meet this requirement of customers, many companies have introduced personal computers compatible with IBM microcomputers. But Wang An's stubbornness made him make a fatal decision in 1985-insisting on developing high-priced products incompatible with IBM computers. This "ambition" not only runs counter to the trend of computer systematization and software standardization, but also cannot attract new customers. Moreover, because the cost of independent research and development of new products is too high, and the products and after-sales service are too high, old customers have doubts and switch to other computers, resulting in 1989, Wang An's computer debt is as high as 10 billion US dollars. It may be a common problem for scientists and inventors to be proud of the level of science and technology and ignore the changes in the law of supply and demand. The same is true of Wang An, who, in the words of a western critic, "forgot the customers".
1990 Wang An died and Miller took over as CEO. He is committed to cutting costs, improving operational efficiency and repaying $575 million in debt. After three years of painstaking efforts, due to the shortage of existing resources and liquidity, it is difficult to complete the reorganization and was forced to apply for bankruptcy protection.
This paper briefly analyzes the main reasons for the bankruptcy of Wang An Computer Company, and there are two main points:
First of all, there have been considerable mistakes in employing people. Because he can't correctly analyze and judge the talent of personnel, he made two serious mistakes in choosing successors. Wrong choice of his son to take over the company, without considering whether his son is capable of managing such a huge and world-class professional company, leads to the serious dissatisfaction of the upper level of the company-the board of directors with their father and son, which seriously dampens the enthusiasm of a large number of key elites in the company, which is undoubtedly fatal to an enterprise. Then, he mistakenly thought that Wen Yaoli, who had excellent performance, could save the company. However, he ignored industry barriers and his desperate hopes were dashed again.
Secondly, Wang An is a scientist, specializing in scientific and technological inventions, and does not have the qualities that an entrepreneur should have. The scientist's arrogance and paranoia made him make a fatal mistake in decision-making, which was seriously out of touch with market demand and violated market rules. Because he abandoned the market, the result must be completely abandoned by the market.
This case is related to Nobel Prize winner William, who was told by Professor Sun Tong in class. The situation in shockley is exactly the same. Professional and technical personnel do not understand management and people's psychology, which leads to the failure of management and operation.
Case 2: Bu Xinsheng's failure
Bu Xinsheng, a descendant of a tailor's family, is thin, sharp-eyed and looks quite capable. At that time, he was the director of Haiyan shirt factory. This factory, formerly known as Red Star Clothing Club, was established in 1956. It is a small cooperative factory with only over 30 employees. Until 1975, the net value of fixed assets of the whole plant was only a pitiful 22,000 yuan, all its own funds were less than 50,000 yuan, and the annual profit was more than 5,000 yuan. Since 1976 Bu Xinsheng became the factory director, the factory has changed from comprehensive clothing processing based on storefront processing to professional production of shirts. Since then, products such as "Shuang Yan" shirts for men and women, "Sanmao" children's shirts and "Tangren" advanced shirts have been developed one after another. By 1983, the factory has net fixed assets of1070,000 yuan and more than 600 employees. The total industrial output value of that year was/kloc-0.028 million yuan, and the profit was 528,000 yuan.
Bu Xinsheng succeeded, it was easy to start a business, but difficult to stay in business. BuXinSheng worry about big and small things in the factory, is exhausted, forget all about eating and sleeping. He likes eating fish. Once, there was no other food in the canteen, only fish, just to his taste. However, he only took a few bites. Because he spent too much time, he opened his mouth and spit out the stinging fish that had not been chewed. After eating three meals, he hurried to the office. He works fifteen or sixteen hours a day and never takes a nap. Every time I go on a business trip, I will take a break during the trip and get into work as soon as I arrive at my destination.
Bu Xinsheng often said to the workers in the factory: "When you go to work, you should show your strength in fighting tigers. If you are slow and muddle along, you can't run the factory well and you can't do business. " He presided over the formulation of the labor management system of our factory, and it is forbidden to be late and leave early, and the offender is hell to pay. A deputy factory director came back from a business trip and was three minutes late for work the next day. His salary was also deducted according to the regulations. Calculated by 1983, only 34 people in the whole factory were late. BuXinSheng own meeting, every minute counts. What he wants to do today will never be put off until tomorrow. Under his leadership, the whole factory has formed an efficient style. As long as the factory announces a meeting, all 30 middle-level and above cadres in the factory will arrive at the factory within two minutes, and the meeting time generally does not exceed 25 minutes.
1984, there was a "suit craze" in China. Bu Xinsheng was unmoved at first, then set up a tie workshop and finally made this important decision. Xiao Shen, deputy director, raised an objection after hearing the news: "We can't make a decision in such a hurry, but we must make a feasibility study plan? Quot But this opinion was taken away by the factory director: "What do you know, old three and old four? "."Deny. The annual output of 80,000 suits, the budget of $65,438+$800,000 and the application report of foreign exchange quota have been sent to the provincial authorities, where they have multiplied. 80,000 sets became 300,000 sets, and 6.5438+0.8 million dollars became 800,000 dollars. After layers of examination and approval, the 6,000-square-meter suit building quickly entered the construction, costing 2 million yuan.
But it didn't last long. The rapid cooling after the overheating of the macro economy led to the tightening of monetary policy. The country began to reduce the scale of infrastructure, and the suit building of Haiyan factory was forced to stop working. At the same time, the suits that were once very popular in the market also showed signs of unsalable sales. Prior to this, the printing and dyeing workshop of the factory was hastily put into operation, although it had cost 6.5438+0.3 million yuan, but it failed to bring at least economic benefits. The economic benefits of this factory's tie branch are also greatly reduced, and the commission of another manufacturer's tie has caused Haiyan Factory to lose 220,000 yuan for no reason. Bu Xinsheng started out as a shirt, with an annual output of 6.5438+0.2 million pieces. He is proud of having three shirt brands: Tangren, Sanmao and Shuang Yan. He once claimed to make the quality of shirts in our factory surpass American famous brands. At present, not only did we fail to catch up with American famous brands, but even the "Tangren" brand high-grade shirts representing our factory level were also unsuccessful in the national product appraisal of the same industry. In addition, due to poor cash flow, the finance department has been anxious several times: there is no money to buy shirt fabrics.
1985 Autumn, Bu Xinsheng was selected as a management major in Zhejiang University. He is not at ease about this, and the severe operating conditions of the enterprise make him uneasy. He often goes back and forth between the factory and the school, spending far more time in the factory than in the school. After half a year, he dropped out of school and returned to the factory, determined to save the decline of the enterprise in three years.
Bu Xinsheng is still smart and most of his assistants are very capable, but when he is busy dealing with major problems in the factory from morning till night, his assistants seem unable to participate. Bu Xinsheng experienced the hardships of starting a business, and was finally removed from the post of factory director because the enterprise was on the verge of bankruptcy.
"I didn't expect this ending," Bu Xinsheng said. He added, "I am committed to my career." Xiao Liu Ye, deputy director, made no secret: "Up to now, I dare say that Bu Xinsheng is still the most enthusiastic person in the factory."
Analyzing this case, the main reason is the serious mistakes of managers' decisions, which led to the failure of enterprises and their managers. For Bu Xinsheng, remarkable achievements have been made in the initial stage of the enterprise. However, after careful analysis, it is not difficult to find that its early development was accidental, and it did not use scientific and systematic management knowledge to guide its management behavior. In other words, Bu Xinsheng is not a modern entrepreneur and lacks the basic qualities of a modern entrepreneur. Therefore, failure is inevitable. First of all, in his management process, because he was not prepared for scientific decision-making, the biggest mistake appeared-decision-making mistake; Secondly, because of his lack of modern management knowledge, he didn't take the initiative to learn and improve, but only managed by experience. As a result, his management level was greatly limited and he could not meet the needs of the times. Another key point is that he is not good at exerting collective strength, distrusts workers and lacks the consciousness of democratic management. If he can attach importance to knowledge updating and ability training and have the opportunity to systematically study and study management knowledge, especially organizational behavior, he should clearly realize that a major decision must be democratic; In enterprises, we should attach importance to the role of staff officers, pay attention to decentralization, and give full play to the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of individuals in organizations. Only in this way can we achieve organizational goals more effectively and make enterprises succeed. The above two cases tell the lessons of failure, and the reasons for failure are obvious. Through the analysis of these cases, I fully realize that I have made many low-level mistakes in management before. Only by following scientific theory and combining it closely with practice can I successfully manage the enterprise in a disciplined way. All these are of great significance and far-reaching significance for a modern manager and entrepreneur to learn and apply management science such as organizational behavior. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to Professor Sun Tong of China Renmin University, the editor-in-chief and professor of Organizational Behavior, for the knowledge and enlightenment she and her works have brought us.