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Organizational Behavior MODULE - 1 Definition and Meaning 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. OB is the study of what people do in an organization and how their behavior affects the organization’s performance. OB includes the 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. Why study OB? Today’s challenges bring opportunities for managers to use OB concepts. In this section, we review some of the most critical issues confronting managers for which OB offers solutions—or at least meaningful insights toward solutions. Responding to Economic Pressures 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. 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 fore. Responding to Globalization The world has become a global village. The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s job has changed. All major automobile makers now manufacture cars outside their borders; Honda builds cars in Ohio, Ford in Brazil, Volkswagenin Mexico, and both Mercedes and BMW in South Africa. The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s job has changed.
Increased Foreign Assignments If you’re a manager and you are transferred to your employer’s subsidiary in another country, you have to manage a workforce having different needs, aspirations, and attitudes. Working with People from Different Cultures 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. It’s not by chance that many in the United States wear clothes made in China, work on computers whose microchips came from Taiwan, and watch movies filmed in Canada. Managing Workforce Diversity One of the most important challenges for organizations is adapting to people who are different. We describe this challenge as workforce diversity. Whereas globalization focuses on differences among people from different countries, workforce diversity addresses differences among people within given countries. Workforce diversity acknowledges a workforce of women and men; many racial and ethnic groups; individuals with a variety of physical or psychologicalabilities; and people who differ in age and sexual orientation. Improving Customer Service 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. Improving People Skills You’ll gain insights into specific people skills that you can use on the job. You’ll learn ways to design motivating jobs, techniques for improving your listening skills, and how to create more effective teams. Stimulating Innovation and Change An organization’s employees can be the impetus for innovation and change,The challenge for managers is to stimulate their employees’ creativity and tolerance for change. The field of OB provides a wealth of ideas and techniques to aid in realizing these goals.
LEARNING
INTRODUCTION
If a manager wants to explain and predict human behaviour, he/she needs to understand how learning occurs or how people learn. So, it is very necessary to know the nature, process and principles of learning. According to S.P. Robbins, “learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience.” LEARNING PROCESS/NATURE Theories of Learning: Learning is part of every one’s life. In our life, all complex behavior is learned. Learning is defined as any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience. Whenever any change occurs learning is taken place in the individual. If an individual behaves, reacts, responds as a result of experience which is different from others, a person has encountered some new learning experience in his life. This definition consists of the following four key elements: i) Change process : Learning involves some change in oneself in terms of observable actions explicitly shown to others or change in one’s attitude or thought process occur with oneself implicitly. Change may be good or bad or positive or negative from an organization point of view. If a person is happened to experience some negative incidents, that person will hold prejudices or bias or to restrict their output. On the contrary, if a person is encountering some good incident, that person is likely to hold positive attitude. ii) Permanent change : Due to whatever exposure a person encounters, the impact what it generates may be long lasting and permanent. Hence, the change must be of relatively permanent. If change occurs due to fatigue or alcohol consumption or temporary adaptation, it may be vanished once the goal is achieved. iii) Setting behavioral actions : Explicit changes occurring in behavior is the main goal of learning process. A change in an individual’s thought process or attitudes without any changes in many explicit behaviors will not be considered as learning process. iv) Need for meaningful experiences : Some form of experiences is necessary for learning. Experience may be acquired directly through observation or practice. If experience results in a relatively permanent change in behavior, one can confidently say that learning has taken place. Theories of Learning: There are three types of learning theories. These theories are classical conditioning, operant conditioning and social learning. FACTORS AFFECTING LEARNING
- Motivation of the learner
- Mental set of the learner
- Nature of Learning Material
- Practice
- Environment CLASSICAL CONDITIONING THEORY Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov developed classical conditioning theory. When he was doing a research on the chemical properties of saliva of dog, he noticed accidentally that the dog started salivating the moment hearing the sound of a door of cupboard clinging. Based on his observation, he wanted to do some experiment whether the dog can be conditioned to respond to any neutral stimuli. He used a simple surgical procedure to operate the salivary glands of a dog to measure accurately the amount of saliva. Pavlov’s Experiment: Pavlov conducted his experiment in three stages. Stage I: When Pavlov presented the dog with a piece of meat, the dog exhibited a noticeable increase in salivation. The meat is unconditional stimulus and salivation is unconditional response. Stage II: In this stage, the dog was not given a piece of meat but only exposed to a sound of ringing bell; the dog did not salivate to the mere sound of a ringing bell. Stage III: Pavlov decided to link both the presentation of meat and the ringing of a bell one after the other with an interval of 5 minutes. After repeatedly hearing the bell before getting the meat, the dog began to salivate as soon the bell rang. There is an association or link between meat and ringing a bell. After repeating the association between meat and ringing a bell, the dog started salivating merely at the sound of the bell, even if no food was offered. The dog is now conditioned to respond to a sound of a bell and started salivating. This is called classical conditioning process. Thus, classical condition is defined as the formation of S-R link (Stimulus-Response) or habit between a conditioned stimulus and a conditioned response through the repeated paring of conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. In this experiment, the meat is unconditioned stimulus, and the expected response that is, salivating to the meat is called as unconditioned response. The sound of a bell is a neutral stimulus which does not have any property to elicit salivation, is called as conditioned stimulus. Although it was originally neutral, if the bell was paired with meat (unconditioned stimulus) it acquired the same property as meat eliciting the salivation. The sound of a bell produced salivation when presented alone. This is called conditioned response, that is, now the dog is conditioned to respond to the sound of a bell. Learning conditioned response involves building up an association between a conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus. When the stimuli, one is natural and the other one neutral are paired, the neutral one becomes a conditioned stimulus and hence takes on the properties of the unconditioned stimulus.
and the increased rate of lever hitting or pressing that occurs when the response is followed by a pellet of food exemplifies operant conditioning. APPLICATION OF OPERANT CONDITIONING IN WORK LIFE If a sales person who hits the assigned target of sales quota will be reinforced with a suitable attractive reward, the chances of hitting further sales target in future will be exemplified. Skinner argued that creating pleasant consequences (giving attractive rewards) to follow specific forms of behavior (hitting sales target) would increase the frequency of that behavior. People will most likely engage in desired behaviors if they are positively reinforced for doing so. Rewards are most effective if they immediately follow the desired response. In addition, behavior that is not rewarded is less likely to be repeated. A commissioned sales person wanting to earn a sizeable income finds that doing so is contingent on generating high sales in his territory. COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY Cognition refers to an individual’s thoughts, knowledge, interpretations, understandings or views about oneself and his/her environment. Based on it cognitive theory argues that the person tries to form his/her cognitive structure in memory, which preserves and organizes all information relating to the events that may occur in learning situation. Here an experiment was conducted on a monkey by Kohler. Kohler presented two sticks to a monkey in a cage. Both sticks were too short to reach a banana lying outside cage. This produced an experience, or say, cognition, insight monkey. What monkey did without any prior exposure, joined both sticks together and pulled the banana inside the cage. Clearly learning took place inside the mind of monkey. Thus, the learning process involved in this case is putting or organizing bits of information in a new manner perceived inside the mind. This type of learning is very imp in organizational behaviour for changing attitudes by the individuals. SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY People learn through both observation and direct experience, which is called as social learning theory. Individual learn by observing what happens to other people and just by being told about something, as well as by direct experiences. By observing people around, us, mostly from parents, teachers, peers, films and television performers, bosses, we learn new behavior pattern. The following four processes are vital to determine the influence that a model will have on an individual. i) Attention Process: People learn from a model only when they recognize and pay attention to its critical features. People tend to be most influenced by models that are attractive, repeatedly available similar to us in our estimation. ii) Retention Process: A model’s influence will depend on how well the individual remembers the model’s action after the model is no longer readily available. iii) Motor Reproduction Process: After a person has seen a new behavior
by observing the model, the watching must be converted to doing. This process then demonstrates that the individual can perform the modeled activities. iv) Reinforcement Process: Individual will be motivated to exhibit they modeled behavior if positive incentives or rewards are provided. Behavior that is positively reinforced will be given more attention, learned better and performed more often.
Personality
Meaning and Definition
personality is defined as the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others.
Personality Determinants
An individual’s personality is the result of heredity and environment. Heredity refers to factors determined at conception. Heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes. Physical environment determines cultural development and to the extent, that culture in turn determines personality, a relationship between personality and environment becomes clear. Climate and topography determine to a great extent the physical and mental traits of a people. The people of mountains as well as deserts are usually bold, hard and powerful. PERSONALITY TRAITS Big Five Model gives five basic personality traits presented below. ● Extraversion. The extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet. ● Agreeableness. The agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. Highly agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. People who score low on agreeableness are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic. ● Conscientiousness. The conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person is responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable. ● Emotional stability. The emotional stability dimension—often labeled by its converse, neuroticism—taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. People with positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with high negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure. ● Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses range of interests and fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative,
Conscientiousness WHY IS IT RELEVANT?
- Greater effort & persistence
- More drive and discipline
- Better organized & planning WHAT DOES IT AFFECT?
- Higher performance
- Enhanced leadership
- Greater longevity
Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB
The other personality traits are Machiavellianism, narcissism, self-monitoring, propensity for risk taking, proactive personality, and other-orientation. core self-evaluation Bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their capabilities, competence, and worth as a person. Machiavellianism The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means.
narcissism The tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self-importance,
require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement. self-monitoring A personality trait that measures an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors. High risk-taking managers made more rapid decisions and used less information than did the low risk takers. Interestingly, decision accuracy was the same for both groups. proactive personality People who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs. Other-orientation , a personality trait that reflects the extent to which decisions are affected by social influences and concerns vs. our own well-being and outcomes. It appears that having a strong orientation toward helping others does affect some behaviors that actually matter for organizations.
PERCEPTION
Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. Factors That Influence Perception A number of factors influence perception. There are three factors influencing perception which are related to the perceiver , factors relate d to the target , Factors related to the situation. FACTORS RELATED TO THE PERCEIVER i)Projection: The perceiver tries to project his personality attributes in others is known as projection. ii)Mental makeup: The perceiver has preset notion in his mind about certain objects, events and people. The moment he has to deal or act upon those events, he already knows how to act or react as he has made his mental set up to deal with such situations. iii)Stereotyping: Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs_._ In organizations, we frequently hear comments that represent stereotypes based on gender, age, race, religion, ethnicity, and even weight. “Men aren’t interested in child care,” “Older workers can’t learn new skills,” “Asian immigrants are hardworking and conscientious.” iv) Halo Effect: When we draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, such as intelligence, sociability, or appearance, a halo effect is operating. v) First Impression: The perceiver forms an impression about the perceived when he meets him for the first time. First impression is normally difficult to change vi) Recency Effect: Recency effect is the effect that the recent event has on the perceiver. During performance appraisal, the employees are rated on the basis of their latest performance. FACTORS RELATED TO THE TARGET Characteristics of the target also affect what we perceive. Loud people are more likely to be noticed in a group than quiet ones. So, too, are extremely attractive or
For examples, if we happen to see a group of foreign nationals at an International seminar, Indians are grouped as one group, British as another, Americans as yet another based on the similarity of nationalities. Closure : In many situation, the information what we intend to get may be in bits and pieces and not fully complete in all respects. However, we tend to fill up the gaps in the missing parts and making it as meaningful whole. Such mental process of filling up the missing element is called as closure. For example, while giving promotions to the staff members, the managers will try to get full information to make an effective decision, in absence of getting complete information, managers try to make meaningful assumptions and based on that suitable decision will be made. Stage IV: Interpretation: Assigning meaning to data is called interpretation. Once the inputs are organized in human mind, the perceiver interprets the inputs and draws conclusion from it. But interpretation is subjective as different people interpret the same information in different ways. Stage V : Behavior Response or Action: In this stage the response of the perceiver takes on both covert and overt characteristics. Covert response will be reflected in the attitudes, motives, and feelings of the perceiver and overt responses will be reflected in the actions of the individual. IMPORTANCE OF PERCEPTION IN OB People in organisations are always assessing others. Managers must appraise their subordinate's performance, evaluate how co-workers are working. When a new person joins a department he or she is immediately assessed by the other persons. These have important effect on the organisation. Employment Interview : Employment interview is an important input into the hiring decision, and perceptual factors influence who is hired and vis-à-vis the Quality of an organistaions labour force. Performance Appraisals : Performance appraisal is dependent on the perceptual process. An employee’s future is closely tied to the appraisal—promotion, pay raises, and continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcomes. Assessing Level of Effort : In many organisations, the level of an employee's effort is given high importance. Assessment of an individual's effort is a subjective judgment susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias. Assessing Loyalty: Another important judgment that managers decide about employees is whether they are loyal to the organisation. Productivity: What individuals perceive from their work situation will influence their productivity. More than the situation itself than whether a job is actually interesting or challenging is not relevant. How a manager successfully plans and organises the work of his subordinates and actually helps them in structuring their work is far less important than how his subordinates perceive his efforts.
Therefore, to be able to influence productivity, it is necessary to assess how workers perceive their jobs. Absenteeism and Turnover : Absence and Turnover are some of the reactions to the individuals perception. Managers must understand how each individual interprets his job. and where there is a significant difference between what is seen and what exists and try to eliminate the distortions. Failure to deal with the differences when individuals perceive the job in negative terms will result in increased absenteeism and turnover. Job Satisfaction : Job satisfaction is a highly subjective, and feeling of the benefits that derive from the job. Clearly his variable is critically linked to perception. If job satisfaction is to be improved, the worker's perception of the job characteristics, supervision and the organisation as a whole must be positive. Understanding the process of perception is important because (1) It is unlikely that any person's definition of reality will be identical to an objective assessment of reality. (2) It is unlikely that two different person’s definition of reality will be exactly the same. (3) Individual perceptions directly influence the behaviour exhibited in a given situation. MOTIVATION
Nature and importance of Motivation :
We define motivation as the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal. Importance of Motivation To increase work efficiency To combine ability with willingness To reduce the rate of labour turnover To develop the leadership quality THEOREIS OF MOTIVATION Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs The best-known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Maslow hypothesized that within every human being, there exists a hierarchy of five needs:
Implications for Managers In Herzberg’s framework, these managerial reactions have focused primarily on the hygiene factors surrounding the job, which has resulted in bringing individual to the theoretical “zero point” of motivation. The two-factor theory would predict that improvements in motivation would only appear when managerial action focused not only the factors surrounding the job but on the inherent in most assembly line jobs and developing jobs that can provide increased levels of challenge and opportunities for a sense of achievement, advancement, growth and personal development. ERG THEORY: ERG Theory: Alderfer proposed a modified version of Maslow’s need hierarchy and labeled as ERG theory. Alderfer’s ERG refers to three groups of core needs – Existence, Relatedness and Growth(ERG). Existence Needs : These needs are various forms of physiological needs, such as hunger, thirst and shelter. In organizational settings, the need for pay, benefits, and physical working conditions are included in this category. This category is comparable to Maslow’s physiological and certain safety needs. Relatedness Needs : These needs include interpersonal relationships with others in the workplace. This type of needs in individuals depends on the process of sharing and mutuality of feelings between others to attain satisfaction. This category is similar to Maslow’s safety, social and certain ego-esteem needs. Growth Needs: These needs involve a person’s efforts toward personal growth on the job. Satisfaction of growth needs results from an individual engaging in tasks that not only require the person’s full use of his or her capabilities, but also may require the development of new capabilities. Maslow’s self-actualization and certain of his ego esteem needs are comparable to those growth needs. Implications of ERG Theory : Alderfer has proposed two sets of views on individual’s aspirations and fulfillment. One is satisfaction-progression and other frustration-regression. Satisfactionprogression is similar to Maslow’s model in which once an individual’s basic needs are satisfied, he/she will progress to the next level to satisfy the succeeding higher level to have them satisfied. Alderfer proposed yet another view of individual’s aspirations and fulfillment. If people eventually become frustrated in trying to satisfy their needs at one level, their next lower level needs will re-emerge and they will regress to the lower level to satisfy more basic needs. This is called as frustrationregression. For manages, ERG theory provides a more workable approach
to motivation in organization. Because of the frustration regression approach component, it provides the manager with the opportunity of directing employee behavior in a constructive manner even though higher order needs are temporarily frustrated. In summary, ERG theory argues that satisfied lower-order needs lead to the desire to satisfy higher-order needs; but multiple needs can be operating as motivators at the same time and frustration in attempting to satisfy a higher-level need can result in regression to a lower level need.
GROUPS
INTRODUCTION
Groups have been a central part of our everybody lives. At any given time, we are members in many different groups such as family, student association, workgroups, different clubs. A group is a collection of two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve a particular common objective. According to D.H.Smith, “A group is the largest set of two or more individuals who are jointly characterized by a network of relevant communication, a shared sense of collective identity and one or more shared disposition with associated normative strength. The above definition stresses the following points. Interaction Size Shared goal interest Collective Identity TYPES OF GROUPS Various methods are used to classify the types of groups that exist in our organizations. In organizations, the predominant operating groups are the functional groups, task or project groups and interest groups. In addition, groups are also classified as formal and informal groups. Formal groups: Formal groups are collections of employees who are made to work together by the organization to get the job done smoothly and efficiently. For example, if five members are put together in a department to attend to customer complaints they would be a formal group. The formal groups are those whose primary purpose is facilitating, through member interactions, the
Protection of common and individual Interest: By joining a group, members can reduce the insecurity of being alone. The membership will make them feel stronger, gaining resistant to threats, having fewer self-doubts etc. New employees are particularly vulnerable to a sense of isolation and turn to the group for guidance and support. Employees develop a sense of security at personal as well as professional front by joining groups. Status: Inclusion in a group that is viewed as important by others provides recognition and status for its members. Being a member of Rotary Club, the members feel pride and gain status and recognition. Self-Esteem: Groups can provide people with feelings of self-worth. That is, in addition to conveying status to those outside the group, membership can also give increased feelings of worth to the group members themselves. The self-esteem is bolstered when members are accepted by a highly valued group. Being assigned to a task force whose purpose is to review and make recommendations for the location of the company’s new corporate headquarters can fulfill one’s intrinsic needs for competence and growth. Affiliation: Groups can fulfill social needs. People enjoy the regular interaction that comes with group membership. For many people, these on-the-job interactions at work are the primary source for fulfilling their needs for affiliation. Power: For individuals who desire to influence others, groups can offer power without a formal position of authority in the organization. As a group leader he or she may be able to make requests of group members and obtain compliance without any of the responsibilities that traditionally go either formal managerial position. Goal Achievement: There are times when it takes more than one person to accomplish a particular task- there is a need to pool talents, knowledge in order to complete a job. In such instances, management will rely on the use of a formal group.
STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT:
i) Forming: At this stage, group members try to comprehend where they stand in the group and how they are being perceived by others in the group. The members are very cautious in their interactions with each other and the relationships among the group members are very superficial. Members’ seldom express their feelings in the group and the individual members who are trying to understand who they are in the group have concerns about how they will fit in the group as permanent group members. This is characterized by much uncertainty about group’s purpose, structure and leadership. Members are ‘testing the waters’ to determine what types of behavior are acceptable. This stage is complete when members have begun to think of themselves as part of a group. ii) Storming: At this stage, disagreement tends to get expressed among the group members, and feelings of anxiety and resentment are also expressed. Some power struggle may ensure at this stage to determine who should assume the informal leadership role in the group. This storming stage is also known as the sub-grouping and confrontation. This group is characterized by intra- group conflict. Members accept the existence of the group, but there is resistance to the control the group imposes on individuality. There is sometimes conflict over who will control the group. When this stage is complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of leadership within the group. iii) Norming: This stage is characterized by close relationships and cohesiveness. The group sets norms, tries to attain some degree of cohesiveness, understands the goals of the group, starts making good decision, expresses feelings openly and makes attempts to resolve problems and attain group effectiveness. At this stage, members’ roles get defined, and task and maintenance roles are assumed by group members. Group members also begin to express satisfaction and confidence about being members of the group. iv) Performing: This stage is characterized by collaboration and integration. The group members evaluate their performance so that the members develop and grow. The group relationships and structures are set and accepted. Group energy has moved from getting to know and understand each other, to performing the task at hand. Feelings are expressed at this stage without fear, leadership roles shared among the members, and the group members’ activities are highly co-coordinated. The task and maintenance roles are played very effectively. The task performance levels are high and member satisfaction, pride and commitment to the group also high. Both performance and members’ satisfaction are sustained indefinitely; v) Adjourning: This stage is characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather than task performance. The group prepares for its disbandment. High task performance is no longer the group’s top priority. Instead, attention is directed towards finalizing activities. As the group approaches the terminal phase, members break off their bonds of affection and stop interaction with each other. Responses of group members vary in this state. Some feel pride in what the group has accomplished. Others may be negative and critical of the way the organization has treated the group and others may be sad over the loss of friendship gained during the life of the work groups. These five stages of group development are only a suggestive and not prescriptive. Sometimes, groups do not always proceed clearly from one stage to the next. Sometimes, several stages go on simultaneously as when groups are storming and performing at the same time. Under some conditions, high levels of conflict are conducive to high group performance.
