Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations

by Robert B. Denhardt, Janet V. Denhardt, Maria P. Aristigueta

The only text in management and organizational behavior to focus on public organizations, nonprofit organizations, and school systems, Managing Human Behavior in Public and Nonprofit Organizations fosters competency in critical management and leadership skills including communication, motivation, teamwork, group dynamics, and decision-making. Cases, self-assessment exercises, simulations, and evaluative instruments provide students the opportunity to experience the applied side of theories and to learn both cognitively and experientially. The Third Edition covers recent developments in the field including the emergence of "positive organizational behavior."

Genres: Nonfiction, Grad School, Leadership

544 pages, Paperback

First published August 21, 2001

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Grad school read. It needs more space or something to break up the text. It strains the eye seeing columns of tiny words not broken up.

[June · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dehardts defines organization behavior as the study of how people behave in public organizations. In organization behavior, the starting point is the individual. While organization behavior deals with the different areas of management and organizations, it views this study from the perceptive of people. This theory has five components - behavior is purposeful and can be managed by others; behavior is caused, not random, and if management studies patterns, they can gain insight to those individuals; behavior changes through learning; and people have value, regardless of their contributions to the organization. The remaining component is public service has its focus on serving others. This focus must realize people have a special calling to public service when observing organization behavior in public administration.

[Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

There wasn't anything earth-shattering in this book, and it spends most of its time rehashing existing theories and rubrics of everything from creativity to decision making to communication. It doesn't even seem particularly focused on public & nonprofit organizations, really, but appropriate for organizations of all kinds. What it does, though, is keep things simple, direct, and meaningful. Denhardt's characteristic writing style is clear without being overly folksy, yet endearing enough to be meaningful. It was a quick read, overall, and I did take away some important points from it, but mainly this felt like an exhaustive summary of other texts I've already had to read.

[Alexandra Chauran · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book had the most carryover from public management to business management, so I'll be recommending it a lot to friends. I can tell that at least one of the authors knew a little bit about pedagogy. Some of the activities and questions were actually really good. And I found some dynamite material to use in my dissertation.

[Katherine Korte · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a great book -- even outside a classroom. You can't manage people if you don't know who you are, and so there are a lot of self-guided quizzes that correlate to various topics in managing human beings: motivation, conflict resolution, task processes. A great read.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was awful, even by textbook standards. Dry and not interesting enough to read more than a few pages and I barely finished it because of that.
Tiny print and few charts or graphs to aid in comprehension.
If you have a choice, skip this one.