Managerial and Organizational Behavior - Office Space: A Case Study

Essay by dlphn501University, Master'sA+, August 2007

download word file, 20 pages 5.0

AbstractThere are four major influences that can impact an organization's structure. With the movie Office Space as an example, the way employees handle change, paradigms, power, and politics will be analyzed. Theories will be cited of what techniques can be initiated to ensure effective organizational management and behavior. Office Space is a great example of irrational management and bizarre human behavior. The executives at the fictitious company in the movie, Initech, do not demonstrate successful managerial organizational skills. Great respect is paid to the impact that organizational change can encompass.

Managerial and Organizational BehaviorOffice Space: A Case StudyOrganizational behavior can be defined as "individual behavior and group dynamics in organizations" (Nelson, Quick, 2006, p.4). Its study is predominantly composed of the psychosocial, interpersonal, and behavioral dynamics in organizations. Additionally, there are organizational variables that affect human behavior at work. These are also relevant to the study of organizational behavior (Nelson, Quick, 2006).

Office Space is a comedy that ridicules work life at a typical software company, Initech. The focus is on a handful of individuals who are fed up with their jobs and the excessive management. The film sympathetically portrays ordinary IT workers, but it also addresses themes familiar to office workers and employees in general. "Organizations have often been described as clockworks in which human behavior is logical and rational, but they often seem like snake pits to those who work in them" (Nelson, Quick, 2006, p.4).

Office Space is a comical, theatrical version of bizarre and irrational management and human behavior. Soon after the movie begins, two consultants, nicknamed The Bobs since they both have the same first name, are brought in to Initech to help with cutting expenses. The workers at Initech are then interviewed in order to determine which employees will be downsized or outsourced. When...