OB Mid term 1
Pros and cons of group decision making
Advantages - accuracy/ creativity go up - larger breadth of information - diversity of opinion goes up - legitimacy of process goes up - acceptance of solution goes up Disadvantages - productivity per person goes down - time consuming - conformity pressure - domination by the few - ambiguous responsibility
Chain of command
An unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of the organization to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom Authority: the rights inherent in a managerial position to give orders and expect them to be obeyed Unity of command: a person should have one and only one superior to whom he or she is directly responsible, if broken employee might have to cope with conflicting demands or priorities from several superiors Fewer companies have a strict chain of command today
The Bureaucracy
Characterized by highly routine operating tasks achieved through specialization, very formalized rules and regulation, tasks grouped into functional departments, centralized authority, narrow spans of control, and decision making that follow the chain of command Advantages: performs standardized tasks highly efficiently, economies of scale, minimum duplication of personnel and equipment, and employees can talk "the same language" to their peers Disadvantage: obsessing over rules, slow decision making Only efficient as long as employees confront familiar problems with programmed decision rules
Matrix Structure
Combines functional and functional and product departmentalization Matrix attempts to get strengths of both without weaknesses. Breaks unity of command, employees have two bosses Advantages: ability to facilitate coordination between a number of complex and interdependent activities, information permeates the organization and reaches people more quickly, tends to prioritize organizational goals because of the dual lines of authority (people don't get wrapped up in protecting their own little worlds) Disadvantages: confusion, propensity to foster power struggles, and the stress it places on individuals because of the lack of unity of command; results in product managers fighting for best specialists
Team effectiveness model
Context, composition, and process feed into team effectiveness
Organic model
Cross-functional teams, cross-hierarchical teams, free flow of information, wide spans of control, decentralization, low formalization
Extraverted vs. Introverted
Extraverted people are outgoing, sociable, and assertive vs. quiet and shy
Mechanistic model
High specialization, rigid departmentalization, clear chain of command, narrow spans of control, centralization, high formalizaiton
Span of control
How many employees a manager directs, determines the number of levels and managers an organization has All things equal, the wider or larger the span the more efficient the organization Wider span is cheaper, however at some point managers won't have the time to provide the necessary leadership and support Cons of a narrow span: expensive, vertical communication is more complex, encourage overly tight supervision and discourage employee autonomy, fosters silos
Downsizing
Systematic effort to make an organization leaner by selling off business units, closing locations, or reducing staff - can cause stress to employees
Thinking vs. feeling
Thinking types use reason and logic to hand problems vs. relying on personal values and emotions
Bounded rationality
We construct simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity. We can then behave rationally within the limits of the simple model People tend to satisfice - seek solutions that are satisfactory and sufficient, tend to choose the first acceptable one we encounter rather than the optimal one
What are the six foundations of organization structure?
Work specialization, Departmentalization, chain of command, span of control, centralization and decentralization, and Formalization
Organization
a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common set of goals
Work group
a group that interacts primarily to share information and make decisions to help each member perform within his or her area of responsibility, performance is just the summation of each group member's individual contribution, there are no synergies
Emotional stability (converse is neuroticism)
a person's ability to withstand stress; high - tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure; low - nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure less negative thinking and fewer negative emotions, less hyper-vigilant --> higher job and life satisfaction, lower stress levels
Role
a set of expected behavior pattern attributed to someone occupying a given position in a social unit; people play many roles and different groups impose different role requirements on individuals
Virtual organization
a small core organization that outsources major business functions; highly centralized, with little or no departmentalization; e.g. movie making organization - collection of individuals and small companies come together to make movies project by project (disband after each movie) - lessens bureaucratic overhead because there is no organization to maintain - lessens long-term risks and their costs - very flexible -in state of perpetual reorganization (roles, goals, and responsibilities are unclear) - cultural alignment and shared goals can be lost - can be difficult to share information
Self monitoring
ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors high self monitors pay closer attention to others and are better at conforming (could be big difference public and private persona) Generally more mobile in their careers, receive more promotions, and occupy central positions
Norms
acceptable standards of behavior shared by their members that express what they ought and ought not to do under certain circumstances most common is a performance norm; provides explicit cues about how hard to work, level of output, how to do the job, etc. others are appearance norms, social arrangement norms, and resource allocation norms Hawthorne studies: groups that were isolated as special had higher productivity; - work groups have norms for how much to produce and how to do work to protect themselves and members (the slade company, bank example in book)
Openness to experience
addresses a range of interests and fascination with novelty; high - creative, curious, and artistically sensitive; low - conventional, find comfort in familiarity increased learning, more creative, more flexible & autonomous --> training performance, enhanced leadership, more adaptable to change especially susceptible to workplace accidents
Type A personality
aggressively involved in a chronic, incessant struggle to achieve more and more in less and less time, and, if required to do so, against the opposing efforts of other things or other persons Type B is the opposite Type A is more predictable, their responses to specific challenges barely vary; can make poor decisions to new problems
Person-organization fit
argues that people are attracted to and selected by organizations that match their values, and they leave organizations that are not compatible with their personalities
Rational decision-making model
assumes decision maker has complete information, is able to identify the relevant options in an unbiased manner, and chooses the option with the highest utility 1. define the problem 2. identify the decision criteria 3. allocate weights to the criteria 4. develop the alternatives 5. evaluate the alternative 6. select the best alternative
Self-serving bias
attributing own success to internal factors and blaming external factors for failure
Values
basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence what is right, good, or desirabe
Extraversion
captures our comfort level with relationships; extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet better interpersonal skills, greater social dominance, more emotionally expressive --> higher performance, enhanced leadership, higher job and life satisfaction more impulsive than introverts, riskier behavior
Command group
composed of the individuals who report directly to a given manager; e.g. a school principal and his teachers
Terminal values
desirable end-states e.g. prosperity and economic success, freedom, health and well being, world peace, social recognition, meaning in life
Halo effect
drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance
Personality-job fit theory
effort to match job requirements with personality characteristics; this theory presents six personality types Realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising, artistic
Personality traits
enduring characteristics that describe an individual's behavior, including shy, aggressive, submissive, lazy, ambitious, loyal, and timid
The Big Five Model
five basic dimensions that underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality - extraversion - agreeableness - conscientiousness - emotional stability - openness to experience
Hofstede's framework for assessing cultures
five work related values that Hofstede found pertain to managers and employees of different cultures original work is more than 30 years old and based on IBM employees
Groupshift
group members tend to exaggerate their initial positions, so group will tend towards a risky shift (riskier decisions) reasons for risky decisions: - group members feel more comfortable with each other - diffusion of responsibility - people take on extreme positions to show how they are different or how committed they are to their viewpoint recognize this phenomenon when working in groups
Groupthink
group pressures for conformity deter the group from critically appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views - no matter how strongly evidence contradicts their basic assumptions, members behave so as to reinforce them - members pressure those who express doubts - members minimize their doubts and avoid deviating from group decision - illusion of unanimity, abstention becomes a "yes" vote Causes: - high cohesion - autocratic leadership style - insulation from outsiders - time pressure - failure to follow structured decision-making process Solutions: - monitor group sizes - group leaders should play an impartial role, actively seek information from all members and avoid expressing their own opinions - someone should play devil's advocate - use exercises that stimulate discussion of diverse alternatives (talk about risks first)
self-managed working teams
groups of employees who perform highly related or interdependent jobs and take on many of the responsibilities of their former supervisors; fully self-managed teams select their own members and evaluate each other's performance don't handle conflict well, sometimes have higher absenteeism and turnover rates
Narcissism
having a grandiose sense of self-importance, requiring excessive admiration. having a sense of entitlement, and arrogant thinking you are better than you are, tend to be less effective than others at their jobs, especially when helping people tend to "talk down" to people
Proactive personality
identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs, compared to others who passively react to situation. Proactives create positive change in their environment, regardless of, or even in spite of, constraints or obstacles more likely to challenge the status quo or voice their opinion more likely to achieve career success
Stereotyping
judging someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he or she belongs
Judging vs. perceiving
judging types want control and prefer their world to be ordered and structured vs. flexible and spontaneous
The simple structure
low degree of departmentalization, wide spans of control, authority centralized in a single person, and little formalization it is a "flat" organization; it usually has only two or three vertical levels, a loose body of employees, and one individual in whom the decision-making authority is centralized fast, flexible, and inexpensive to operate, and accountability is clear; difficult to maintain in anything other than small organizations (tends to create information overload at the top), and risk because everything depends on one person
Conscientiousness
measure of reliability; high - responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent; low - easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable greater effort and persistence, more drive and discipline, better organized and planning --> higher performance, enhanced leadership, greater longevity\ don't adapt as well to changing contexts, generally performance oriented and have more trouble learning complex skills early in the training process because they focus on performance over learning; less creative
Long-term vs short term orientation
measures a society's devotion to traditional values looking to the future and valuing thrift, persistence, and tradition vs valuing the here and now, and accepting change more readily
Interacting groups
members meet face to face and rely on both verbal and nonverbal interaction to communicate
problem solving teams
members share ideas or suggest how work processes and methods can be improved; they rarely have the authority to unilaterally implement any of their suggestions
Organization size
organizations with 2,000 or more people tend to have more specialization and more departmentalization, more vertical levels, and more rules and regulations
Role perception
our view of how we are supposed to act in a given situation
Interest group
people affiliate to attain a specific objective with which each individual is concerned; e.g. employees band together for better working conditions
Core self-evaluation
positive - like themselves and see themselves as effective, capable, and in control of their environment, attain more complex jobs, perform better because they set more ambitious goals, better liked negative - tend to dislike themselves, question their capabilities, and view themselves as powerless over their environment
brainstorming
possible solution to groupthink, encourages any and all alternatives without criticism, can be inefficient if done as a group. Solution is the nominal group technique: brainstorming is done individually and then ideas are shared, then people vote individually on all ideas. Allows a group to meet formally but doesn't restrict independent thinking
Machievellianism
pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes ends can justify means, manipulate more and win more, are persuaded less, and persuade other more flourish when interacting face to face, the situation has a minimal number of rules and regulations, allowing latitude for improvisation, and when emotional involvement with details irrelevant to winning distracts low machs
Instrumental values
preferable modes of behavior, or means of achieving the terminal values e.g. self-improvement, autonomy and self-reliance, personal discipline, kindness, ambition, goal-orientation
Social
prefers activities that involve helping and developing others sociable, friendly, cooperative, understanding
Investigative
prefers activities that involve thinking, organizing, and understanding analytical, original, curious, independent
Artistic
prefers ambiguous and unsystematic activities that allow creative expression imaginative, disorderly, idealistic, emotional, impractical
Realistic
prefers physical activities that require skill, strength, and coordination shy, genuine, persistent, stable, conforming, practical
Conventional
prefers rule-regulated, orderly, and unambiguous activities conforming, efficient, practical, unimaginative, inflexible
Enterprising
prefers verbal activities in which there are opportunities to influence others and attain power self-confident, ambitious, energetic, domineering
Value system
ranking someones value by intensity, order of importance
Agreeableness
refers to an individual's propensity to defer to others; highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic. better liked, more compliant and conforming --> higher performance, lower levels of deviant behavior might be poor negotiators
Masculinity vs. femininity
seeing men as dominant and having different roles vs. seeing men and women as equal
Boundaryless Organization
seeks to eliminate the chain of command, have limitless spans of control, and replace departments with empowered teams - minimizes status and rank - done by implementing cross-hierarchical teams, participative decision-making practices, and the use of 360-degree performance appraisals
Sensing vs. intuitive
sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They focus on details vs. relying on unconscious processes and looking at the big picture
Risk taking
tendency to make more rapid decisions with less information (should consider for type of job; e.g. stock trader vs. accountant)
Centralization and decentralization
the degree to which decision making is concentrated at a single point in the organization centralization is better in a stable environment or time of crisis (one person can make decisions without taking the time to consult other people) decentralized - can act more quickly to solve problems - more people provide input - employees are less likely to feel alienated from those who make decisions that affect their work life - works better in dynamic and highly competitive environment
Formalization
the degree to which jobs within the organization are standardized; if a job is highly formalized, there is little discretion over what, when, and how to do it; results in consistent and uniform output; clearly defined procedures appropriate when jobs are relatively simple/routine and consistency is important
Individualism vs. collevtivism
the degree to which members act as individuals vs. acting as members of groups in which everyone is expected to look after each other
Cohesiveness
the degree to which members are attracted to each other and motivated to stay in the group reasons for cohesion: lots of time together, small size so high interaction, external threats bring members together performance depends on cohesion in combination with the performance norms of the groups Encourage cohesion: - make the group small - encourage agreement with group goals - increase the time members spend together - increase the group's status and perceived difficulty of attaining membership - stimulate competition with other groups - give rewards to the group rather than individual members - physically isolate the group
Power-distance
the degree to which people in a country accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed equally
Uncertainty avoidance
the degree to which people prefer structured over unstructured situations
Reference groups
the important groups to which someone belongs or hopes to belong and so they conform to the norms of these groups
Perception
the process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment
Personality
the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others; heredity (genes) seems to play a bigger role than the environment
Social loafing
the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than alone solutions: set group goals, increase intergroup competition, engage in peer evaluation, select members who have high motivation and prefer to work in groups, and if possible base group rewards in part on each member's unique contributions
Role expectations
the way others believe you should act in a given context
Group
two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives - formal: a group defined by the organization's structure, with designated work assignments establishing tasks - informal: natural formations in the work environment that appear in response to the need for social contact - command, task, interest, friendship
Fundamental attribution error
underestimating the influence of external factors and overestimating the influence of internal factors
Selective perception
we can't observe everything around us so we perceive what stands out --> can lead to an inaccurate picture
Contrast effects
we evaluate everything in terms of a comparison; our reaction to a person is influenced by other persons we have recently encountered
Role conflict
when compliance with one role requirement may make it difficult to comply with another
Organization's environment
- Capacity: the degree to which the environment can support growth - Volatility: the degree of instability - Complexity: the degree of heterogeneity and concentration among environmental elements scarce, dynamic, and complex --> organic structure abundant, stable, and simple -- > mechanistic structure
Five stage group development model
- Groups don't usually follow this model precisely - 1. Forming: uncertainty about groups purpose, structure, and leadership; complete when members begin to think of themselves as a group 2. Storming: intragroup conflict; members resist the constraints the group imposes, conflict over control; clear leadership after this stage 3. Norming: relationships develop and cohesiveness emerges; common expectations of group behavior after 4. Performing: structure is fully functional and acceptable; energy focused on completing the task at hand 5. Adjourning: only applies to temporary groups; wrapping up activities; some are happy with accomplishments, others are sad at disbandment
Estimating and forecasting traps
- Overconfidence: overly confident about the accuracy of their predictions, most people set too narrow a range of possibilities - Prudence: when faced with high-stakes decision, we tend to adjust our estimates "just to be on the safe side' - Recallability: We overestimate probability of rare but catastrophic events because they get more attention Solutions - Considering the extremes and then challenge those estimates - Always state your estimates honestly - Get actual statistics whenever possible
Why do people join groups?
- Security: individuals can reduce the insecurity of "standing alone." People feel stronger, have fewer self-doubts, and are more resistant to threats when they are part of a group - Status: get recognition and status by joining a group that is viewed as important by others - Self-esteem: can give group members increased feelings of worth - Affiliation: people enjoy the regular social interactions that come with group membership - Power: people can achieve more with others - Goal Achievement: might be necessary to pool talents, knowledge, or power in order to complete a job
Shortcuts in judging others
- Selective perception - Halo effect - Contrast effect - stereotyping
Attribution theory
- Tries to judge people depending on the meaning we give their behavior - Behavior can be caused by and external cause or internal cause - decide on external or internal based on distinctiveness, consensus, and consistency - high distinctiveness --> external - high consensus --> external - high consistency --> internal
work team
- a group that generates positive synergy through coordinated effort, accountability is individual and mutual, skills are complementary - the more complex a problem the more likely you want a team
Status
- a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others - derived from the power a person wields over others, a person's ability to contribute to a group's goals, and an individual's personal characteristics - people with high status are given more freedom to deviate from norms - high status people are more assertive in groups, they speak more often, criticize more, state more commands, and interrupt more - lower status members who might have valuable information are less likely to speak out and be utilized
Team composition
- abilities of members: need people with technical skills, problem solving and decision making skills, and good interpersonal skills. Skilled teams are better at solving complex problems and adapting to change and worse at simple tasks (must match ability to task) - personality of members: teams that rate higher on conscientiousness and openness to experience do better. Also if one member is highly disagreeable it can have negative effects. Better to have teams of unified personality attributes - allocation of roles: must allocate roles based on skills, experience, and preferences. Most able, experienced, and conscientious workers should play the most central roles on the team - Diversity of members: demographic diversity is unrelated to performance, diversity in function and expertise are positively related to performance but effect is small, leader matters, must share uniquely held information - size of teams: generally most effective teams have 5 to 9 members. Difficulty of coordination increases with larger teams, cohesiveness and accountability decrease - member flexibility - member preferences: whether employees prefer to work in a team or not
Context
- adequate resources: support from the organization - leadership and structure: agree on who does what and share the workload, especially important in multi-team systems - climate of trust: facilitates cooperation and reduces need to monitor - performance evaluation and reward systems: get teams to be both individually and jointly accountable
Intuitive decision making
- an unconscious process created from distilled experience; it's fast and usually engages the emotions - Least rational way of making decisions, can complement rational decision making though and improve decision making
Conformity
- as a member of a group you desire acceptance and so you conform to the groups norms (Studies by Solomon Asch with the lines of different lengths)
Overconfidence bias
- being overly optimistic in judging that we are correct in our answers - could keep you from planning for future problems
How to determine if you should use a team
- can the work be done better by one person? how complex is it - does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the people in the group that is more than the aggregate of individual goals - are the members of the group interdependent? the success of the whole depends on the success of each one, and each one depends on the others
Work specialization
- division of labor -the degree to which activities in the organization are subdivided into separate jobs - individuals specialize in doing part of an activity rather than the entirety Advantages: less time spent in changing tasks, putting away tools and equipment from a prior step and getting ready for another; makes the most efficient use of employees skills and even improves them through repetition Disadvantages: boredom, fatigue, stress, low productivity, poor quality, increased absenteeism, and high turnover
Keys to performance management
- do no harm, before making any changes make sure you understand how the business works so what the customer needs and what will motivate employees (not necessarily monetary) - make sure incentives are aligned with goals (e.g. if goal is long term growth don't just reward quarterly earnings) - evaluations should be two way and looking forward - explain reasoning for evaluation clearly - constant communication and honesty so no surprises
Three component model of creativity
- expertise - creative-thinking skills - intrinsic task motivation (desire to actually work on something because it's interesting, involving, exciting, satisfying, or personally challenging
Status quo trap
- favoring a decision that perpetuates the status quo Solutions - status quo is typically not your only option - identify other alternatives and use them as counterbalances - don't exaggerate costs of breaking from status quo - would you choose status quo if it wasn't the status quo?
Ways to reduce biases and errors
- focus on goals, helps eliminate decisions that are inconsistent with your interests - look for information that disconfirms your beliefs, look for ways you could be wrong - don't try to create meaning out of random events, don't create meaning out of coincidence or look for patterns that aren't there - increase your options, the more alternatives you have the better your final decision
Effectiveness and efficiency of group decisions
- generally decisions are more accurate than the average but not than the most accurate (wilderness exercise) - individuals are faster at making a decision - groups are more creative - groups are generally less efficient than individuals unless it has to do with gathering information
Shared/ unshared information in groups
- group members initially sample from shared information; as time passes, the probability of discussing unshared information rises
What can managers do to enhance team effectiveness?
- hire team players: options are to train, transfer, or fire (not hire) someone who is not; can't always just get best talent - Training: workshops to help employees improve problem-solving, communication, negotiation, conflict-management, and coaching skills - Rewarding employees for being good team players, at the same time don't forget about individual accomplishments
Manager
- individual who achieves goals through other people - must organize, plan, lead, control
Task group
- individuals working together to complete a job task - all command groups are task groups but not all task groups are command groups
Ways to reduce the negative effects of downsizing
- investing in high involvement work practices - communicate about it with employees - allow employees to participate (voluntary early retirement programs or severance packages) - assisting workers after they are laid off
Cross-functional teams
- made up of employees from about the same hierarchical level but different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task - an effective means of allowing people from diverse areas within or even between organizations to exchange information, develop new ideas, solve problems, and coordinate complex projects - early stages of development are long, members must learn to work with diversity and complexity, takes time to build trust and teamwork ways to make them work - make sure everybody recognizes the value that each department brings - if one department is dominating the process, bring the departments more into balance - have the two sides speak a common language (use layman's terms) - get out of your silos, reach out to other business units early in the process - focus on the consumer
Strengths of group decision making
- more complete information and knowledge - increased diversity of views - increased acceptance of a solution
Take-aways from hiring decision between the three candidates in the second class
- must set norms that members are open to different points of views - people fixate on negative information more than positive, it is more salient - all information should be put out on the table before any decision or vote is made
Organizational constraints on decision making
- performance evaluation - reward systems - formal regulations - system-imposed time constraints - historical precedents
Silo Effect
- result of departmentalization - "throwing it over the wall" - involving other groups too late in the process, other groups see project when your group is done - make judgement of other departments based on gossip - focus too much on departmental goals
Confirmation bias (confirming evidence trap)
- seeking out or accepting information that reaffirms our past choices and discounting or being critical of information that contradicts them Solutions: - don't ask leading questions - assign a devil's advocate or build counter arguments yourself - don't surround yourself with yes-men
Size
- smaller groups are faster at completing tasks and individuals tend to perform better in smaller groups, given an input smaller groups are more productive (7 members tend to be best for taking action) - large groups are better at problem solving because they are good for gaining divers input, better at fact finding
Friendship group
- social alliances, groups that develop because individuals have one or more common characteristics; e.g. support for a football team
escalation of commitment (sunk cost trap)
- staying with a decision even when there is clear evidence it is wrong - have already invested a lot (sunk cost) and don't want to admit they are wrong Solutions - seek out and listen to the views of people who were uninvolved in the earlier decisions - accept failures and move on, cultivate a learning culture
Innovative Strategy
- strives to achieve meaningful and unique innovations - need well developed communication channels, policies for enhancing long-term commitment, and clear channels of authority - want to attract top candidates and motivate them to take risks
Weaknesses of group decision making
- take more time to reach a solution - conformity pressure - decisions dominated by one or a few members - low and medium ability members can bring the group down - ambiguous responsibility
Punctuated equilibrium model
- temporary groups go through transitions between inertia and activity - about half way there is a large performance boost (time crunch); possible solution is milestones
availability bias
- tendency to base judgement on information readily available (could be more recent information or more exciting/ startling information e.g. plane vs. car crash)
Anchoring bias
- tendency to fixate on initial information and fail to adequately adjust for subsequent information - used in negotiation Solutions - think about problems on your own before becoming anchored by others - be open minded - seek information and opinions from a variety of people - avoid having anchors imposed upon you (e.g. negotiation)
Organizational demography
- the degree to which members of a work unit share a common demographic attribute, such as age, sex, race, educational level, or length of service - turnover will be greater among those with dissimilar experiences because communication is more difficult, conflict and power struggles are more likely and severe when they occur
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
- the most widely used personality assessment instrument in the world - 100 questions that ask how you feel or act in a particular situation - based on answers you are either extraverted or introverted, sensing or intuitive, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving - INTJ's are visionaries, ESTJs are organizers, ENTP type is a conceptualizer, innovative, individualistic, versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas - tends to be unrelated to job performance, bad because it forces you into one category or another
Hindsight bias
- the tendency to believe falsely, after the outcome is know, that we'd have accurately predicted it; after you see a solution thinking that it was obvious
risk aversion
- the tendency to prefer a sure thing over a risk outcome even if expected value is the same - can lead to stagnation
Framing trap
- the way a problem is framed can influence the choice we make Solutions - "Problem-solving is representing and re-representing a problem until the solution presents itself" - Seek out people with different frames
Cost minimization strategy
- tightly controls costs - pursue fewer policies meant to develop commitment among their workfors
Some problems with performance measurement
- universal performance criteria across all functions - highly subjective (has to do more with boss's opinion) - introduces behavior that may contradict organization goals - person being evaluated won't ask for help because it will lower evaluation
Virtual teams
- use computer technology to unite physically dispersed members and achieve a common goal - less social rapport and direct interaction among members - tend to be more task oriented - less satisfaction with the group interaction process - Management should ensure that there is trust, team progress is monitored carefully, and the efforts and products of the team are publicized throughout the organization
Ethical decision criteria
- utilitarianism (decisions made based on outcome) - emphasizing rights, respecting and protecting the basic rights of individuals - justice, impose and enforce rules fairly
Deviant workplace behavior (antisocial behavior or workplace incivility)
- voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and, in doing so, threatens the well-being of the organization or its members - increases turnover intentions, psychological stress, and physical illness - Will flourish if supported by group norms - the anonymity of a group causes people who would not normally engage in deviant behavior to do so, they become more confident they won't get caught
Departmentalization
-The basis by which jobs are grouped - functional: group activities by function, advantages: gain efficiencies from putting like specialists together (high specialization), little duplication of resources, large economies of scale in production, large organizations with multiple levels become possible Disadvantages: poor communication, one size fits all, preoccupation with departmental goals -by product or service: increased accountability for performance, because all activities related to a single product are under a single manager, facilitates coordination among specialties to achieve on-time completion and meet budget targets, provides clear responsibility for all activities related to a product but has duplication of activities and costs - Geographic: useful when customers are scattered over a large geographic area and have similar needs based on location - Process: divided by process, e.g. DMV - Customer: e.g. consumers, larger corporations, software developers, and small businesses Can have multiple forms of departmentalization in one company
team processes
-common plan and purpose: put a lot of time and effort into discussing, shaping, and agreeing on a purpose that belongs to them both collectively and individually; must determine mission, goals, and strategy; should reflect on (reflexivity) and adjust master plan when necessary - specific goals: successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable, and realistic performance goals; ambitious goals raise performance - team efficacy: effective teams have confidence in themselves; management should help the team achieve small successes to build confidence and provide training - mental models: knowledge and beliefs (a "psychological map") about how work gets done; team must have accurate and matching mental models - Conflict levels: relationship conflict is bad; task conflict stimulates discussion, promotes critical assessment of problems and options, and can lead to better team decisions. Should resolve conflict by explicitly discussing the issues - Social loafing: make team members individually and jointly accountable
Imitation strategy
-minimize risk and maximize opportunity for profit, moving new products or new markets only after proven viability
