Organizational Dynamics: Ch. 1 What is Organizational Behavior?

Processes

(if inputs are like the nouns in OB then Processes are like verbs) -actions that individuals, groups and organizations engage in as a result of inputs and that lead to certain outcomes. -at the Individual level, processes include emotions and moods, motivation, perception and decision making. -at the group level, they include communication, leadership, power and politics and conflict and negotiation. - at the organizational level, processes include human resource management and change practices

Intuition

-"gut feeling" about -"Why I do what I do" -"What makes others tick" -If we all made decisions based on those, we would be working with incomplete information

Organizational Behavior

-A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization's effectiveness. -Applied behavioral science that is built upon contributions from a number of behavioral disciplines

Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

-Complements systematic study -Argues for managers to make decisions on evidence

Attitudes and Stress

-Employee Attitudes are the evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to negative, about objects, people or events -Stress is an unpleasant psychological process that occurs in response to environmental pressures. -satisfied employees are more productive

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Enhancing employee well-being at work

-The creation of the global workforce means work no longer sleeps, workers are on call 24 hours a day or working nontraditional shifts.

Interpersonal skills are important because....

-Understanding OB helps determine manager effectiveness -Leadership and communication skills are critical as a person progresses in his or her career -better interpersonal skills result in lower turnover of quality employees and higher quality applications for recruitment -good places to work have better financial performance

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Working in Networked Organizations

-becoming more pronounced -manager's job is fundamentally different in networked organizations. Challenges of motivating and leading "online" require different techniques.

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Responding to Economic Pressure

-in economic tough times, effective management is an asset -in good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy and retain employees is at a premium. -in bad times, issues like stress, decision making and coping come to the forefront.

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Responding to Globalization

-increased foreign assignments -working with people from different cultures -overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labor -adapting to differing cultural and regulatory norms

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Creating a positive work environment

-organizations like General Electric have realized creating a positive work environment can be a competitive advantage. -Postive Organizational Scholarship

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Improving Customer Service

-service employees include technical support representatives, fast-food counter workers, sales clerks, nurses, automobile repair technitians, consultants, financial planners and flight attendants. -employee attitudes and behavior are associated with customer satisfaction.

Management Roles

10 roles can be grouped as being primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships, transfer of information and decision making: Interpersonal Roles, Informational Roles, and Decisional Roles.

Organization

A consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. *Planning, organizing, leading and controlling

Human Skills

Ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups.

Systematic Study of Behavior

Behavior, generally, is predictable if we know how the person perceived the situation and what is important to him/her.

Task Performance

Combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks *Most important human output

Decisional Roles

Entrepreneur, Disturbance handlers, Resource Allocator, Negotiator Role

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Improving ethical Behavior

Ethical Dilemmas are situations in which an individual is required to define right and wrong conduct.

Interpersonal Roles

Figurehead, Leader, Liasion

Informational Roles

Monitor, Disseminator (a conduit to transmit information to organizational members and represent the organization to outsiders)

Predominant areas of OB

Psychology, Sociology, Social Psychology and Anthropology

Manager

Someone who get things done through other people in organizations

Management Skills

Technical, Human, Conceptual

Citizenship Behavior

The Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee's formal job requirements, and that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace

Technical Skills

The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people develop these skills on the job.

Survival

The final outcome. evidence that the organization is able to exist and grow over the long term.

Conceptual Skills

The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.

Managerial Activities (Luthans)

Traditional Management, Communication, Human Resource Management and Networking

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: Managing Workforce Diversity

Workforce Diversity: acknowledges a workforce of women and men; many racial and ethnic groups; individuals with a variety of physical or psychological abilities; and people who differ in age and sexual orientation

Model

an abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon -proposes three types of variables (inputs, processes, outcomes) at three levels of analysis (Individual, Group and Organizational). -proceeds from left to right, with inputs leading to processes and processes leading to outcomes.

Inputs

are the variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture that lead to processes

Social Psychology

blends the concepts of psychology and sociology

Productivity

highest level of analysis in OB is the organization as a whole. -if organization achieves its goals by transforming inputs into outputs at the lowest cost, requiring both effectiveness and efficiency. -return on investment, profit per dollar of sales and output per hour of labor.

Postive Organizational Scholarship

is an area of OB research that concerns how organizations develop human strength, foster vitality and resilience and unlock potential.

Outcomes

key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some other variables. -at the group level, cohesion and functioning are the dependent variables. -at the organizational level, we look at overall profitability and survival.

Manager's Job

managers need to develop their people skills if they are going to be effective and successful.

Challenges and Opportunities for OB: improving people skills

people skills are essential to managerial effectiveness

Group Functioning

refers to the quantity and quality of a group's work output

Withdrawal Behavior

set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization -showing up late, failing to attend meetings, absenteeism or turnover -can have a negative affect on an organization -absenteeism costs organizations significant amounts of money each year

Contingency variables

situational factors are variables that moderate the relationship between the independent and dependent variables

Sociology

studies people in relation to their fellow human beings

Group Cohesion

the extent to which members of a group support and validate one another at work

Psychology

the science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals.

Anthropology

the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities

Successful managers are defined as

those who were promoted the fastest