Lesson01: What Is

Organizational Behavior?
Management
and Organizational Behavior

• “the people make the place”

• Organizations are only as effective as the people who comprise
them.
• So shouldn’t we try to understand people in the workplace as well
as how we make decisions, communicate, and interact with one
another?
• Deloitte Global business trends report, organizations have figured
• out that they need to understand:
• what makes people join, perform well in, and stay with an
organization; who will likely be successful;
• who will make the best leaders;
• and what is required to deliver the highest-quality customer
service and innovation.
• In this text, we pay special attention to how the knowledge and
practice of OB can help you
• (1) think analytically and critically,
• (2) make better decisions,
• (3) communicate and collaborate more effectively with others,
and
• (4) act with a sense of social responsibility in the workplace.
• Research has demonstrated that these types of “employability
skills” are highly valued and desired by employers.
• A lack of these skills can lead to problems in the workplace.
• Incorporating OB principles into the workplace can also yield many critical
organizational outcomes.
• For one, companies known as good places to Work have been found to
generate superior financial performance due to their attention to OB.
• Second, developing managers’ and employees’ interpersonal skills helps
organizations attract and keep high-performing employees.
• Third, strong associations exist between the quality of workplace
relationships and employee job satisfaction, stress, and turnover.
• Fourth, an emphasis on OB can foster awareness for organizations’
environmental, social, and sustainability performance.
• Incorporating OB principles into the workplace can also help us
understand how to manage the negative aspects and outcomes of
work, such as unethical or deviant workplace behavior, violence,
stress, discrimination, sexual harassment, conflict, drug abuse,
incivility, and theft.
• Clearly, there are tremendous benefits to understanding people
and their behavior within organizations.
• To help managers, potential managers, and employees develop an
understanding of human behavior as individuals, members of
groups or teams, and workers.
Who’s Who in the World of Work

• worker An individual who contributes to the accomplishment of

work goals
• 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.
Management Activities

• planning A process that includes defining goals, establishing

strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities.
• organizing 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.
• leading A function that includes motivating employees, directing
others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and
resolving conflicts.
• controlling Monitoring activities to ensure that they are being
accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations.
Management Roles

• Interpersonal Roles All managers must perform duties that are

ceremonial and symbolic in nature.
• Informational Roles To some degree, all managers collect
information from outside organizations and institutions.
• Decisional Roles Mintzberg identified four roles that require
making choices.
Management Skills

• Another way to consider what managers do is to look at the skills or

competencies they need to achieve their goals.
• These skills are essential, and all are necessary to become a well-rounded
and effective manager.
• Technical skills encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or
expertise.
• People 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.
Effective Versus
Successful Managerial Activities

four managerial activities:

• 1. Traditional management. Decision making, planning, and
controlling.
• 2. Communication. Exchanging routine information and processing
paperwork.
• 3. Human resources (HR) management. Motivating, disciplining,
managing conflict, staffing, and training.
• 4. Networking. Socializing, politicking, and interacting with
outsiders.
• Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study investigating the
impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior
within organizations to apply such knowledge toward improving an
organization’s effectiveness.
• It focuses on three determinants of behavior in organizations:
individuals, groups, and structure and applies the knowledge to
make organizations work more effectively.
• To sum up our definition, OB is the study of what people do in an
organization And how their behavior affects the organization’s
performance.
OB includes these core topics:

• Performance, citizenship, • Groups and teams

deviance, and creativity • Communication and relationships
• Diversity and inclusion • Leadership and management
• Job attitudes, emotions, and • Power, politics, and corruption
moods
• Conflict and negotiation
• Personality and individual
differences • Organizational theory and structure
• Judgment and decision making • Organizational culture and climate
• Motivation • Organizational health, stress, and
safety
• Justice and ethics in organizations
Complementing Intuition with
Systematic Study

• Behavior is generally predictable, and the systematic study of

behavior is a way to make reasonably accurate predictions. When
we use the term systematic study, we mean looking at
relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and
basing our conclusions on scientific evidence. That is, we base our
predictions on data gathered under controlled conditions and
measured and interpreted rigorously.
• Evidence-based management (EBM) complements systematic
study by basing managerial decisions on the best available
scientific evidence. EBM argues that managers should do the
same, thinking more scientifically about management problems.
• But should we trust our guts? Systematic study and EBM add to
intuition, or those “gut feelings” about what makes others (and
ourselves) “tick.” Of course, the things you have come to believe
in an unsystematic way are not necessarily incorrect.
• intuition An instinctive feeling not necessarily supported by
research.
Building on Big Data
with Artificial Intelligence
• Data has been used to evaluate behavior since at least 1749.
• On this date, the word statistic was coined to mean a “description of
the state.”
• Statistics back then were used for governance purposes, but since the
data collection methods were clumsy and simplistic, so were the
conclusions.
• Big data—the extensive use of statistical compilation and analysis—did
not become possible until computers were sophisticated enough to store
and manipulate large amounts of information.
• persistent , giving relatively constant outcomes over time, and which
were
• predictive , showing steady causality between certain inputs and
outcomes
• “Fostering close ties with your lieutenants is the stuff that gets results.
You have to rally the troops. You can’t do it from a memo.”
• Management should, therefore, not substitute walking around for actual
management.
• The idea of requiring managers at all levels of the organization to
wander around their departments to observe, converse, and hear from
employees continues as a standard business practice.
• A three-year study also suggested that a modified form of MBWA may
significantly improve safety in organizations because employees become
more mindful of following regulatory procedures when supervisors
observe and monitor them frequently.
Disciplines That Contribute to OB

• Psychology it is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and

sometimes change humans and other animals’ behavior.
• Social Psychology, generally considered a branch of psychology,
blends concepts from psychology and sociology to focus on
people’s influence on one another.
• While psychology focuses on the individual, Sociology studies
people in relation to their social environment or culture.
• Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human
beings and their activities.
There Are Few Absolutes in OB

• contingency variables Situational factors or variables that

moderate the relationship between two or more variables.
• OB concepts must reflect situational or contingency conditions.
We can say x leads to y, but only under conditions specified in z—
the contingency variables.
Challenges and Opportunities

Workforce Diversity and Inclusion

• workforce diversity The heterogeneous characteristics of
organizations, work groups, and teams that recognize that their
workers vary in gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation,
and other characteristics.
• workforce inclusion The act of creating and maintaining
workplaces that support and leverage the diversity of their
members.
• An inclusive workplace is one in which workers feel that they are involved in
critical processes, feel welcomed and valued, and are treated as “insiders.”
Continuing Globalization
• globalization The process in which worldwide integration and
interdependence are promoted across national borders.
Increased Expatriate Assignments
• expatriate A person who works outside their native country.

Working With People From Different Cultures

Technology and Social Media
(Un)ethical Behavior
• ethical dilemmas and ethical choices Situations in which
individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct.
• (un)ethical behavior Any actions that violate widely accepted
moral norms.
• Conversely, ethical behaviors are any actions that meet or
exceed widely accepted moral norms.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
• corporate social responsibility (CSR) An organization’s self-
regulated actions to benefit society or the environment beyond
what is required by law.

Positive Work Environments

• positive organizational scholarship (also called positive
organizational behavior) An area of OB research that studies how
organizations develop human strengths, foster vitality, build
resilience, and unlock potential.
The Gig Economy
• Gig Economy, a new era of work in which many people work
independently and autonomously (“a company of one”) instead of
the highly structured employer–employee relations of the past.
• This transformation in the world of work has led to several
changes in the worker experience, such as financial instability, job
insecurity, autonomy, career path uncertainty, the transience of
work, and physical and relational separation.
OB During Crises
• This highlight how OB has helped contribute to our understanding
of the working world in times of crisis.
• This also describe how workers and managers can leverage what
we know to make the workplace a better place when times get
tough.
Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model

• model An abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of

some real-world phenomenon.
• inputs Variables like personality, group structure, and
organizational culture that lead to processes.
• processes Actions that individuals, groups, and organizations
engage in as a result of inputs and that lead to certain outcomes.
• outcomes Key factors that are affected by other variables.
Attitudes and Stress
• Employee attitudes are the evaluations that employees make,
ranging from positive to negative, about objects, people, or
events.
• For example, the statement “My job is great” is a positive job attitude, and
“My job is boring and tedious” is a negative job attitude.
• Stress is a psychological process that occurs in response to
environmental pressures.

• The belief that satisfied employees are more productive than

dissatisfied employees has been a fundamental tenet among
managers for years, though only now has research begun to
support it.
• The total value of your contributions to an organization through
your behaviors reflects your level of job performance over a
period of time.
• A significant component of one’s job performance is task
performance, or how well a worker accomplishes the specific
tasks that comprise their job or their responsibilities to the
organization that employs them.
• The discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s
formal job requirements and contributes to the workplace’s
psychological and social environment is called organizational
citizenship behavior (OCB), or simply citizenship behavior.

• Withdrawal behavior is the set of actions that employees take to

separate themselves from the organization.
• Team Performance refers to the quantity and quality of a team’s work
output.
• Productivity The highest level of analysis in OB is the organization. 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.
• effectiveness The degree to which an organization meets the needs of its
clientele or customers.
• efficiency The degree to which an organization can achieve its ends at a
low cost.
• organizational survival The degree to which an organization can exist
and grow over the long term.
Employability Skills
That Apply Across Majors

• Critical thinking & creativity involve purposeful and goal-directed

thinking used to define and solve problems, to make decisions, or to form
judgments related to a particular situation.
• Communication is defined as effective use of oral, written, and nonverbal
communication skills for multiple purposes (e.g., to inform, instruct,
motivate, persuade, and share ideas); effective listening; using
technology to communicate; and being able to evaluate the effectiveness
of communication efforts—all within diverse contexts.
• Communication is defined as effective use of oral, written, and nonverbal
communication skills for multiple purposes (e.g., to inform, instruct,
motivate, persuade, and share ideas); effective listening; using
technology to communicate; and being able to evaluate the effectiveness
of communication efforts—all within diverse contexts.
• Self-management is defined as the ability to intentionally and
strategically manage one’s behavior, effort, and emotions in the
pursuit of goals. It involves building skill in self-control, self-
monitoring, and self-regulation.
• Social responsibility includes skills related to both business ethics
and corporate social responsibility. Business ethics includes sets
of guiding principles that influence the way individuals and
organizations behave within the society that they operate in.
Corporate social responsibility is a form of ethical behavior that
requires that organizations understand, identify. and eliminate
unethical economic, environmental, and social behaviors.
• Social responsibility includes skills related to both business ethics
and corporate social responsibility. Business ethics includes sets of
guiding principles that influence the way individuals and
organizations behave within the society that they operate in.
Corporate social responsibility is a form of ethical behavior that
requires that organizations understand, identify, and eliminate
unethical economic, environmental, and social behaviors.
• Career management involves developing an understanding of the “
real-world” employment context along with the professional
acumen needed to successfully transition between jobs and
careers.