Organizational Behavior in the “Up in the Air” Film

Up in the Air Organizational Behavior Concepts

To begin with, it is necessary to introduce the story that provided the basis for the movie. The latter is the screen adaptation of the novel by Kirn that was written sixteen years ago. Viewers are told the story of Ryan Bingham who is a specialist supposed to fulfil quite an unpleasant task – he uses his talent of a psychologist and manager in order to inform employees in different cities of the country about the reduction of personnel in their companies.

To put it in other words, the principal character in the movie helps companies to mitigate negative consequences of termination of staff and placate their anger in order to reduce the risk of receiving claims for compensation from fired employees. Throughout the movie, the viewers can observe the way that the specialist performs his task and his life changes. The movie is called Up in the Air due to the fact that Ryan spends a lot of time flying and it gradually becomes his addiction (Young, Higham, & Reis, 2014).

Having analyzed the characters and the plot of the movie, it can be stated that there is a lot of links that can be drawn between the theories of organizational behavior and the experiences of the main characters. In order to better understand the motives of the characters, it may be necessary to refer to the concept of individual differences in connection with organizational behavior. As is clear from the concept, personality traits remain one of the types of individual differences that may define the behavior of a person within the organization (Kim, A., Kim, Y., Han, Jackson, & Ployhart, 2014).

According to the concept, one who is supposed to interact with different people should be aware of cultural and interpersonal differences between employees as the lack of knowledge related to this issue may have a negative influence on the overall effectiveness of the work. Thus, considering the fact that the duties of the main character of the discussed movie are strictly interconnected with communication, a lot of important observations related to the plot can be made. It is obvious that Ryan can be listed among the key employees of his company due to the fact that his work definitely helps to prevent possible conflicts related to the reaction of employees who are in difficult situation because of the reduction of personnel.

In fact, Ryan has a talent of a psychologist as he manages to get on the right side of every person he is supposed to work with. In the movie, there is a wide range of scenes when Ryan demonstrates his knowledge of the human psychology and the role of individual differences in organizational behavior. For instance, the primary character demonstrates his advanced skills during the conversation with Bob who is very disappointed and does not try to hide his feelings.

During the conversation, Ryan listens to his younger colleague’s attempts to explain the situation to the client, and then he understands that she needs help. Natalie was trying to use certain clichés, but they could not impress the client and make him scope out the big picture and see further opportunities for professional development. In order to improve the situation and convince the client to accept his employment termination without scandals, Ryan took into consideration personal features of this individual and decided to rely on the things that could be regarded as the supreme values for Bob.

Therefore, Ryan implemented his knowledge of personal differences in organizational behavior and started attracting Bob’s attention to the topics related to his children and the way they see their father. Thus, it is necessary to state that this approach has turned out to be effective and Bob agreed to leave his workplace and familiarize himself with the information provided by the agency. It is known that individual differences of employees remain the factor that refutes the arguments concerning the necessity of the universal rule that employers and managers should follow while communicating with members of staff. Personally, I suppose that the behavior of Ryan proves the coherence of this concept and highlights the importance of individualized approach to work.

Another concept related to organizational behavior that is infused with the movie is ethical and unethical behavior at work. In fact, there is a great number of theories explaining the nature of ethics. For instance, according to utilitarianism, the action can be regarded as appropriate from the point of view of ethics if it encourages more positive changes than other actions (Champoux, 2017).

This theory was developed a long time ago and it is often applied by managers and other people who are responsible for organizational processes within the company and collaboration of employees. To me, it seems that the ap