Management and Organizational Behavior

Lesson 1. What Is Organizational Behavior?

1.1. The importance of interpersonal skills.
Interpersonal skills are important because companies known as good places to work have better financial
performance. They help organizations attract and keep high-performing employees, which is important since
outstanding employees are always in short supply and are costly to replace. There are strong associations
between the quality of workplace relationships and employee job satisfaction, stress, and turnover. They
foster social responsibility awareness.

1.2. Organizational behaviour (OB)

Manager- an individual who achieves goals through other people. 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. The work of managers can be condensed into four activities: Planning,
organizing, leading, and controlling.

Interpersonal roles.
 Figurehead. The symbolic head is required to perform several routine duties of a legal or social nature.
 Leader. Responsible for the motivation and direction of employees.
 Liaison. Maintains a network of outside contacts who provide factors and information.

Informational roles.
 Monitor. Receives a wide variety of information; serves as a nerve center of internal and external
information of the organization. A
 Disseminator. Transmit information to organizational membAers-. In addition, managers perform a
 Spokespersons. Transmit information to outsiders on the organization’s plans, policies, actions, and
results; serve as the expert on the organization’s industry.

Decisional roles
 Entrepreneur Responsible for initiating and overseeing new projects that will improve their organization’s
performance.
 Resource allocators. Responsible for allocating human, physical, and monetary resources.
 Negotiator. Responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations.

Still, another way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills they need to achieve their goals.
 Technical skills - 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- the mental ability to analyse and diagnose complex situations.

Fred Luthans and his associates found that all managers engage in four managerial activities:
 Traditional management. Decision-making, planning, and controlling.
 Communication. Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork.
 Human resource management. Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training.
 Networking. Socializing and interacting with outsiders.

1.3. The value of OB.

Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact individuals, groups, and structures
have on behavior within organizations to apply such knowledge toward improving an organization’s
effectiveness. Because OB is concerned specifically with employment-related situations, it examines behavior
in the context of job satisfaction, absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human performance, and
management.
Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study
The casual approach to reading others can often lead to erroneous predictions, but using a systematic
approach can improve the accuracy.
 Systematic study- Behavior generally is predictable if we know how the person perceives the situation and
what is important to him or her.
 Evidence-Based Management (EBM). Complements systematic study. Argues for managers to make
decisions based on evidence.
 Intuition. Systematic study and EBM add to intuition, or those “gut feelings” about “why I do what I do”
and “what makes others tick.” If we make all decisions with intuition or gut instinct, we’re likely working
with incomplete information.

Big Data
 Background: The use of Big Data for managerial practices is a relatively new area, but one that holds
convincing promise.
 Current Usage: The reasons for data analytics include predicting any event, detecting how much risk is
incurred at any time, and preventing catastrophes.
 New Trends: The use of Big Data for understanding, helping, and managing people is relatively new but
holds promise.
 Limitations: Use evidence as much as possible to inform your intuition and experience.

1.4. The major behavioural science disciplines that contribute to OB.

Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built upon contributions from several
behavioral disciplines: Psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology.

1.5. Why do few absolutes apply to OB?

Human beings are complex, and few, if any, simple and universal principles explain organizational behavior.
Two people often act very differently in the same situation, and the same person’s behavior changes in
different situations. 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
conditions. We can say x leads to y, but only under conditions specified in z—the contingency variables. The
science of OB was developed by applying general concepts to a particular situation, person, or group.

1.6. Managers’ challenges and opportunities in applying OB concept.

Responding to economic pressure. In tough economic 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.

Responding to globalization. Increased foreign assignments. Working with people from different cultures.
Overseeing the movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labor. Adapting to differing cultural and
regulatory norms.

Managing workforce diversity- organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, age,
race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and inclusion of workforce other diverse groups.

Improving customer service. Service employees have substantial interaction with customers. Employee
attitudes and behavior are associated with customer satisfaction. Need a customer-responsive culture.

Improving people skills. People skills are essential to managerial effectiveness. OB provides the concepts and
theories that allow managers to predict employee behavior in given situations.
Working in networked organizations. Networked organizations are becoming more pronounced. A manager’s
job is fundamentally different in networked organizations. Challenges of motivating and leading “online”
require different techniques.

Using social media at work. Policies on accessing social media at work. When, where, and for what purpose.
Impact of social media on employee well-being.

Enhancing employee well-being at work. Communication technology has provided a vehicle for working at
any time or any place. Employees are working longer hours per week. The lifestyles of families have changed-
creating conflict. Balancing work and life demands now surpasses job security as an employee priority.

Creating a positive work environment. Positive organizational scholarship is concerned with how
organizations develop human strength, foster vitality, and resilience, and unlock potential. This field of study
focuses on employees’ strengths versus their limitations, as employees share situations in which they
performed at their personal best.

Improving ethical behavior. Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices are situations in which an individual is
required to define right and wrong conduct. Good ethical behavior is not so easily defined. Organizations
distribute codes of ethics to guide employees through ethical dilemmas. Managers need to create an ethically
healthy climate.

1.7. Three levels of analysis in this text’s OB model.

1. Inputs
 Variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture lead to processes.
 Group structure, roles, and team responsibilities are assigned before or after a group is formed.
 Organizational structure and culture change over time.

2. Processes
 If inputs are like the nouns in organizational behavior, processes are like verbs.
 Defined as actions that organizations engage in because of inputs, and that lead to certain outcomes.

3. Outcomes. Key variables are affected by some other variables:

 Attitudes and stress. Employee attitudes are the evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to
negative, about objects, people, or events. Stress occurs in response to environmental pressures.
 Task performance. The combination of effectiveness and efficiency in doing your core job tasks reflects
your level of task performance.
 Organizational 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.
 Withdrawal behavior is the set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the
organization.
 Group cohesion is the extent to which members of a group support and validate one another at work.
 Group functioning refers to the quantity and quality of a group’s work output.
 Productivity. An organization is productive if it achieves its goals by transforming inputs into outputs at
the lowest cost. This requires both effectiveness and efficiency.
 Survival. The final outcome is organizational survival, which is simply evidence that the organization can
exist and grow over the long term.

Lesson 2. Diversity in Organization

2.1 Describe the two major forms of workplace diversity.
Demographics mostly reflect:
 Surface-level diversity- Differences in easily perceived characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age,
or disability, that do not necessarily reflect the ways people think or feel but that may activate certain
stereotypes.
 Deep-level diversity- Differences in values, personality, and work preferences that become progressively
more important for determining similarity as people get to know one another better.

2.2 Demonstrate how workplace discrimination undermines organizational effectiveness.

Although diversity presents many opportunities for organizations, diversity management includes working to
eliminate unfair discrimination. Discrimination is to note a difference between things. Unfair discrimination
assumes stereotypes about groups. Refusal to recognize individual differences is harmful to organizations and
employees. Stereotyping is judging someone based on our perception of the group to which that person
belongs. Stereotype threat describes the degree to which we agree internally with the generally negative
stereotyped perceptions of our groups. It can be combatted by treating employees as individuals and not
highlighting group differences. Stereotype threat has serious implications for the workplace. Employees who
feel it may have lower performance, lower satisfaction, negative job attitudes, decreased engagement,
decreased motivation, higher absenteeism, more health issues, and higher turnover intentions.
Type of Discrimination Definition Examples from Organizations
Discriminatory policies or Actions taken by representatives of Older workers may be targeted for
practices the organization that deny unequal layoffs because they are highly paid and
rewards for performance. have lucrative benefits.
Intimidation Overt threats or bullying directed at African-American employees at some
members of specific groups of companies have found nooses hanging
employees. over their work stations.
Mockery and insults Jokes or negative stereotypes; Arab-Americans have been asked at
sometimes the result of jokes taken work whether they were carrying
too far. bombs or were members of terrorist
organizations.
Exclusion Exclusion of certain people from job Many women in finance claim they are
opportunities, social events, assigned to marginal job roles or are
discussions, or informal mentoring; given light workloads that don’t lead to
can occur unintentionally. promotion.

Incivility Disrespectful treatment, including Female lawyers note that male

behaving in an aggressive manner, attorneys cut them off or do not
interrupting, or ignoring opinions. adequately address their comments.

2.3 Describe how the key biographical characteristics are relevant to OB.
 Age. Does job performance decline with increasing age? Studies show that turnover and absenteeism
rates are lower among older workers, and age is not associated with lower productivity.

 Race and ethnicity. Employees tend to favor colleagues of their race in performance evaluations,
promotion decisions, and pay raises. African Americans fare worse than Whites in employment decisions.

 Sex. There are no male-female differences in problem-solving ability, analytical skills, or learning drive.
However women earn less than men for the same positions and have fewer professional opportunities.
 Disabilities. Workers with disabilities receive higher performance evaluations but may have lower
performance expectations.

 Hidden disabilities are sensory disabilities, chronic illness, or pain, cognitive or learning impairments,
sleep disorders, and psychological challenges.

2.4 Explain how other differentiating characteristics factor into OB.

 Tenure.
 Cultural Identity.
 Religion. U.S. law prohibits discrimination based on religion, but it is still an issue, especially for Muslims.

 Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity. Federal law does not protect employees against discrimination
based on sexual orientation, though many states and municipalities do. Many Fortune 500 companies
have policies covering sexual orientation and about half now have policies on gender identity.

2.5 Demonstrate the relevance of intellectual and physical abilities to OB.

Ability is an individual’s current capacity to perform various tasks in a job. Two types:
 Intellectual abilities are abilities needed to perform mental activities – thinking, reasoning, and problem-
solving. General mental ability is an overall factor of intelligence as suggested by the positive correlations
among specific intellectual ability dimensions.

Dimension Description
Verbal comprehension Ability to understand what is read or heard and the relationship of
words to each other
Perceptual speed Ability to identify visual similarities and differences quickly and
accurately
Inductive reasoning Ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem and then solve the
problem
Deductive reasoning Ability to use logic and assess the implications of an argument
Memory Ability to retain and recall past experiences

 Physical abilities are the capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar
characteristics. Nine basic abilities related to strength, flexibility, and other factors are needed to perform
physical tasks.

Strength Factors

1. Dynamic strength Ability to exert muscular force repeatedly or continuously over time

2. Trunk strength Ability to exert muscular strength using the trunk (particularly abdominal)
muscles

3. Static strength Ability to exert force against external objects

4. Explosive strength Ability to expend a maximum of energy in one or a series of explosive acts

Flexibility Factors

5. Extent flexibility Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible
 6. Dynamic flexibility Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements

Other Factors

7. Body coordination Ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of different parts of the body

8. Balance Ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling off balance

9. Stamina Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged effort over time

2.6 Describe how organizations manage diversity effectively.

Diversity management is the process by which managers make everyone aware of the needs and differences
of others. Diversity is more successful when it is everyone’s business, not just for certain groups of employees.

 Attracting, selecting, developing, and retaining diverse employees. Target recruiting messages to specific
demographic groups. Some companies have been actively working toward recruiting less-hired groups.

 Diversity in Groups. Most people in groups need a common way of looking at and accomplishing major
tasks, and they need to communicate well with each other. Emphasize higher-level similarities among
people.

 Effective diversity programs. Teach managers about the legal framework for equal employment
opportunity and encourage fair treatment of all people. Teach managers how a diverse workforce will be
more effective at serving a diverse customer base. Foster personal development practices that bring out
the skills and abilities of everyone.

 Expatriate Adjustment. Organizations should select employees for international assignments who can
adjust quickly and ensure they have the support they need for their assignments.

Lesson 3. Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

Lesson 4. Emotions and Moods
Lesson 5. Personality and Values
Lesson 6, Perception and Individual Decision-Making
Lesson 7. Motivation Concept
Lesson 8. Motivation: From Concepts to Applications
Lesson 9. Foundations of Group Behavior
Lesson 10. Understanding Work Teams
Lesson 11. Communication
Lesson 12. Leadership
Lesson 13. Power and Politics
Lesson 14. Conflict and Negotiation
Lesson 15. Foundation of Organization Structures
Lesson 16. Organizational Culture
Lesson 17. Human Resources Policies and Practices
Lesson 18. Organizational Change and Stress Management