Organizational Behavior: Chapter 1 "What is Organizational Behavior?"
Intuition
"Gut feelings" about what makes ourselves and others "tick."
Contingency Variables
"We can say x leads to y, but only under conditions specified in z"
LO: Compare the three levels of analysis in this book's OB model.
Individual: Group: Organizational:
Group Cohesion
The extent to which members of a group support and validate one another at work.
Creating a Positive Work Environment
Although positive organizational scholarship does not deny the value of the negative (such as critical feedback), it does challenge researchers to look at OB through a new lens and pushes organizations to exploit employees' strengths rather than dwell on their limitations.
LO: Show the value to OB of systematic study.
Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and basing our conclusions on scientific evidence—that is, on data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous manner.
Group Functioning
Refers to the quantity and quality of a group's work output. What does it mean to say that a group is functioning effectively? In some organizations, an effective group is one that stays focused on a core task and achieves its ends as specified. Other organizations look for teams that are able to work together collaboratively to provide excellent customer service.
Improving People Skills
Ways to design motivating jobs, techniques for improving your listening skills, and how to create more effective teams.
Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices
Ability to identify right and wrong conduct. Fair treatment of employees in an economic downturn varies considerably across cultures. Managers and their organizations are responding to the problem of unethical behavior in a number of ways. 1) Writing and distributing policies/ethical codes 2) Training programs to improve ethical behaviors. 3) Protection mechanisms for whistleblowers.
Model
Abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real world phenomenon. Propose 3 variables (inputs, processes, outcomes) and 3 levels of analyses (individual, group, organizational).
Managing Workforce Diversity
Acknowledges a workforce of different genders, cultures, races, religious beliefs, etc. How can we leverage differences within groups for competitive advantage? Should we treat all employees alike? Should we recognize individual and cultural differences? How can we foster cultural awareness in employees without lapsing into political correctness? What are the legal requirements in each country? Does diversity even matter?
Processes
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. Finally, at the organizational level, processes include human resource management and change practices.
Productivity
An organization is productive if it achieves its goals by transforming inputs into outputs at the lowest cost. Thus productivity requires both effectiveness and efficiency.
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. Anthropologists' work on cultures and environments has helped us understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, and behavior between people in different countries and within different organizations.
Responding to Economic Pressures
Anybody can run a company when business is booming, because the difference between good and bad management reflects the difference between making a lot of money and making a lot more money. When times are bad, though, managers are on the front lines with employees who must be fired, who are asked to make do with less, and who worry about their futures. The difference between good and bad management can be the difference between profit and loss or, ultimately, between survival and failure.
Improving Customer Service
Because a majority of jobs (80%) in the U.S. is service-based, there is substantial customer interaction. Customer service is an organization's most important general responsibility. Management needs to create a customer-responsive culture. OB can provide considerable guidance in helping managers create such cultures—in which employees are friendly and courteous, accessible, knowledgeable, prompt in responding to customer needs, and willing to do what's necessary to please the customer
Evidence-based management:
Complements systematic study by basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence. Example: We want doctors to make decisions about patient care based on the latest available evidence, and EBM argues that managers should do the same, becoming more scientific in how they think about management problems.
Attitudes and Stress
Employee attitudes are the evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to negative, about objects, people, or events. Attitudes often have behavioral consequences that directly relate to organizational effectiveness. Ample evidence shows that employees who are more satisfied and treated fairly are more willing to engage in the above-and-beyond citizenship behavior so vital in the contemporary business environment.
Helping Employees Balance "Work-Life" Conflicts
Employees are increasingly complaining that the line between work and non-work time has become blurred, creating personal conflicts and stress. At the same time, today's workplace presents opportunities for workers to create and structure their own roles. Work-life conflicts came about due to globalization, increased networking, longer hours, and the rise of dual-career couples.
Coping with "Temporariness"
Employees find themselves constantly having to acquire new skills and working with new people in order to keep up with the demands of their company. Today's managers and employees must learn to cope with temporariness, flexibility, spontaneity, and unpredictability. The study of OB can help you better understand a work world of continual change, overcome resistance to change, and create an organizational culture that thrives on change.
LO: Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB.
Human beings are complex, and few, if any, simple and universal principles explain organizational behavior. Because we are not alike, our ability to make simple, accurate, and sweeping generalizations is limited. That doesn't mean, of course, that we can't offer reasonably accurate explanations of human behavior or make valid predictions. It does mean that OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions. For example: OB scholars would avoid stating that everyone likes complex and challenging work. Why? Because not everyone wants a challenging job. Some people prefer routine over varied, or simple over complex. A job attractive to one person may not be to another; its appeal is contingent on the person who holds it.
Improving Ethical Behavior
In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing productivity, and tough competition, it's not surprising many employees feel pressured to cut corners, break rules, and engage in other questionable practices. Today's manager must create an ethically healthy climate for his or her employees, where they can do their work productively with minimal ambiguity about what right and wrong behaviors are. Companies that promote a strong ethical mission, encourage employees to behave with integrity, and provide strong ethical leadership can influence employee decisions to behave ethically.
Responding to Globalization
Increased foreign assignments: Managers may be transferred. Once there, you'll have to manage a workforce very different in needs, aspirations, and attitudes from those you are used to back home. Working with people from different countries: What motivates you may not motivate your bosses, peers, and colleagues. To work effectively with people from different cultures, you need to understand how their culture, geography, and religion have shaped them and how to adapt your management style to their differences. Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labor: In a global economy, jobs tend to flow where lower costs give businesses a comparative advantage, though labor groups, politicians, and local community leaders see the exporting of jobs as undermining the job market at home. Managers face the difficult task of balancing the interests of their organization with their responsibilities to the communities in which they operate.
Stimulating Innovation and Change
Innovation and change allows an organization to keep up with current market trends and customer desires. It also allows the organization to continually refine their methods and to find new/better ways to operate. In addition, managers must stimulate a desire or at least tolerance for change in their employees. OB provides a plethora of ideas and creativity to aid in these goals.
Outcomes
Key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some other variables. Individual-level outcomes include attitudes and satisfaction, task performance, citizenship behavior, and withdrawal behavior. At the group level, cohesion and functioning are the dependent variables. At the organizational level we look at overall profitability and survival.
LO: Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace.
Leadership and communication skills come to the fore in distinguishing the managers whose careers really take off. Developing managers' interpersonal skills also helps organizations attract and keep high-performing employees. Companies with reputations as good places to work for consistently show superior financial performance. Social relationships between employees and employers were strongly related to job satisfaction. Positive relationships were also correlated with lower stress at work and lower intentions to quit.
LO: Describe the manager's roles, functions, and skills.
Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an organization, which is 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. 1) Planning: defining an organization's goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving those goals, and developing a comprehensive set of plans to integrate and coordinate activities. 2) Organizing: It includes determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made. 3) Leading: When managers motivate employees, direct their activities, select the most effective communication channels, or resolve conflicts among members, they're engaging in leading. 4) Controlling: To ensure things are going as they should, management must monitor the organization's performance and compare it with previously set goals. If there are any significant deviations, it is management's job to get the organization back on track. Interpersonal Roles: Figurehead, leadership, liaison, Informational Roles: Monitor, disseminator, spokesperson Decisional: Entrepreneur, disturbance handlers, resource allocators, negotiator Technical Skills: Technical skills encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. Human Skills: The ability to understand, communicate with, motivate, and support other people, both individually and in groups. Conceptual Skills: Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. Decision making, for instance, requires managers to identify problems, develop alternative solutions to correct those problems, evaluate those alternative solutions, and select the best one. Traditional management: Decision making, planning, and controlling. Human Resource management: Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training. Networking: Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders.
LO: Define Organizational behavior.
Organizational behavior (often abbreviated OB) is 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. It studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure. In addition, OB applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order to make organizations work more effectively. Emphasizes behavior as related to concerns such as jobs, work, absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human performance, and management. Core topics of motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group structure and processes, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, work design, and work stress.
LO: Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB.
Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science built on contributions from a number of behavioral disciplines, mainly: 1) psychology 2) social psychology 3) sociology 4) anthropology. Psychology contributes to individual behavior. Social Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology contribute to group behavior. Sociology and Anthropology contribute to the organization system.
Survival
Organizational survival, which is simply evidence that the organization is able to exist and grow over the long term. Includes productivity and how well it fits in its environment.
Psychology
Psychology seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals. Early industrial/organizational psychologists studied the problems of fatigue, boredom, and other working conditions that could impede efficient work performance. More recently, their contributions have expanded to include learning, perception, personality, emotions, training, leadership effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision-making processes, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee-selection techniques, work design, and job stress.
LO: Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have in applying OB concepts.
Responding to Economic Pressures Responding to Globalization Managing Workforce Diversity Improving Customer Service Improving People Skills Stimulating Innovation and Change Coping with "Temporariness" Working in Networked Organizations Helping Employees Balance "Work-Life" Conflicts Creating a Positive Work Environment Improving Ethical Behavior
Social Psychology
Social psychology, generally considered a branch of psychology, blends concepts from both psychology and sociology to focus on peoples' influence on one another. One major study area is change—how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its acceptance. Social psychologists also contribute to measuring, understanding, and changing attitudes; identifying communication patterns; and building trust. Finally, they have made important contributions to our study of group behavior, power, and conflict.
Sociology
Sociology studies people in relation to their social environment or culture. Sociologists have contributed to OB through their study of group behavior in organizations, particularly formal and complex organizations. Perhaps most important, sociologists have studied organizational culture, formal organization theory and structure, organizational technology, communications, power, and conflict.
Positive Organizational Scholarship (aka Positive Organizational behavior)
Studies how organizations develop human strengths, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential. Some key independent variables in positive OB research are engagement, hope, optimism, and resilience in the face of strain.
Task Performance
The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks is a reflection of your level of task performance. Task performance is the most important human output contributing to organizational effectiveness,
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 Provide performance beyond expectations.
Working in Networked Organizations
The manager's job is different in a networked organization. Motivating and leading people and making collaborative decisions online requires different techniques than when individuals are physically present in a single location. As more employees do their jobs by linking to others through networks, managers must develop new skills.
Withdrawal Behavior
The set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization. There are many forms of withdrawal, ranging from showing up late or failing to attend meetings to absenteeism and turnover. If the "right" people are leaving the organization—the marginal and submarginal employees—turnover can actually be positive.
Inputs
Variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture that lead to processes.
