Organizational Behavior: Introduction to Key Concepts and Theories | Lecture notes Organization Behaviour

Chapter 1: What is organizational behaviour?

In today’s increasingly competitive and demanding workplace, managers can’t

succeed in their technical skills alone. They also have to have good people

skills. This makes the workplace more pleasant, makes it easier to hire and keep

qualified people, and makes a good economic sense.

Managers: individuals who achieve goals through other people (administrators

in not-for-profit organizations).

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.

Henri Fayol wrote five management functions (today, commanding is left out):

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.

Henry Mintzberg concluded that managers perform 10 different, highly

interrelated roles – or

set of behaviours – attributable to their jobs.

Figurehead (interpersonal): symbolic head, required to perform a number of

routine

duties of a legal or social nature.

Leader (interpersonal): responsible for the motivation/direction of employees.

Liaison (interpersonal): maintains a network of outside contacts who provide

favours and information.

Monitor (informational): receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve

centre of internal and external information of the organization.

Disseminator (informational): transmits information received from outsiders or

from

other employees to members of the organization.

Spokesperson (informational): transmits information to outsiders on

organization’s

plans, policies, actions and results; serves as expert on organization’s industry.

Entrepreneur (decisional): searches organization and its environment for

opportunities and initiates projects to bring about change.

Disturbance handler (decisional): responsible for corrective action when

organization faces important, unexpected disturbances.

Resource allocator (decisional): makes/approves significant organizational

decisions.

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Chapter 1: What is organizational behaviour?

In today’s increasingly competitive and demanding workplace, managers can’t succeed in their technical skills alone. They also have to have good people skills. This makes the workplace more pleasant, makes it easier to hire and keep qualified people, and makes a good economic sense. Managers: individuals who achieve goals through other people (administrators in not-for-profit organizations). 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. Henri Fayol wrote five management functions (today, commanding is left out): 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. Henry Mintzberg concluded that managers perform 10 different, highly interrelated roles – or set of behaviours – attributable to their jobs. Figurehead (interpersonal): symbolic head, required to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or social nature. Leader (interpersonal): responsible for the motivation/direction of employees. Liaison (interpersonal): maintains a network of outside contacts who provide favours and information. Monitor (informational): receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve centre of internal and external information of the organization. Disseminator (informational): transmits information received from outsiders or from other employees to members of the organization. Spokesperson (informational): transmits information to outsiders on organization’s plans, policies, actions and results; serves as expert on organization’s industry. Entrepreneur (decisional): searches organization and its environment for opportunities and initiates projects to bring about change. Disturbance handler (decisional): responsible for corrective action when organization faces important, unexpected disturbances. Resource allocator (decisional): makes/approves significant organizational decisions.

Negotiator (decisional): responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations. Robert Katz has identifies three essential management skills. Technical skills: the ability to apply specialised knowledge or expertise. Human skills: the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people, both individually and in groups. Conceptual skills: the mental ability to analyse and diagnose complex situations, to rationally process and interpret information. Example: decision making. Fred Luthans found that it is not true that the managers who are the most effective in their jobs are also the ones who promoted the fastest. He found four managerial activities: Traditional management: decision making, planning and controlling.

Stimulating innovation and change: the challenge for managers is to stimulate their employee’s creativity and tolerance for change.
Coping with ‘temporariness’: because of change: globalisation, expanded capacity, and advances in technology.
Working in networked organisations: managers need to develop new skills (online).
Helping employees balance work-life conflicts. A number of forces have contributed to blurring the lines between employees’ work life and personal life: The creation of global organizations means their world never sleeps. Communication technology allows employees to do their work at home, or anywhere. Organisations are asking employees to put in longer hours. Fewer families have only a single breadwinner.
Creating a positive work environment. Positive organizational scholarship (or behaviour): an area of OB research that concerns how organizations develop human strength, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential. What’s good about organizations?
Improving ethical behaviour. Ethical dilemmas: situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct. Should they ‘blow the whistle’ if they uncover illegal activities? Should they follow orders with which they don’t agree? Etc. Model: an abstraction of reality; a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon. Three levels of analysis in OB, whereby each level is constructed on the previous level: individual level

group level

organization systems level. Dependent variable: a response that is affected by an independent variable. In OB:

o Number aptitude: speedy/accurate arithmetic o Verbal comprehension: understand what is read/heard o Perceptual speed: quickly/accurately identify visual differences/similarities o Inductive reasoning: identify logical sequence in a problem and solve it o Deductive reasoning: use logic and assess implications of an argument o Spatial visualisation: imagine how an object looks like if changed in position o Memory: retain and recall past experiences The above intelligence dimensions have positive correlations but aren’t perfect: people differ in their abilities. But they are high enough that there is a general/overall factor of intelligence: general mental ability (GMA). (It still recognizes the differences/specific abilities!) There has been a significant rise in the use of testing intelligence. The correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction is 0 because smart people have it better, but also expect more. Physical abilities: the capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics. o Strength factors: Dynamic strength: exert muscular force repeatedly/continuously Trunk strength: exert muscular force using trunk muscles Static strength: exert force against external objects Explosive strength: expend a maximum of energy in explosive acts o Flexibility factors: Extent flexibility: move trunk/back muscles as far as possible Dynamic flexibility: make rapid, repeated flexing movements o Other factors: Body coordination: coordinate simultaneous actions of different parts of the body Balance: maintain equilibrium Stamina: continue maximum effort requiring prolonged effort o There is little relationships among the above mentioned. o Managers must ascertain the extent to which a job requires each of these and then assure that employees have them, in order to get high performance. Many of the dependent variables (Ch. 1) are hard to assess. What can be easily assessed are the biographical characteristics: personal characteristics – such as age, gender, race, and length of tenure – that are objective and easily obtained from personnel records. Age. Important because (1) people believe that job performance declines with increasing age and (2) the workforce is ageing. But this is proven: (1) the older you get, the less likely you are to quit, (2) have lower rates of avoidable absence but

higher rates of unavoidable absence, (3) the older, the more productive OR stable, and (4) among professionals, job satisfaction and age have a positive relationship. Gender. There is no significant difference in job productivity. Differences are: (1) Women prefer part-time work, flexible work schedules and telecommuting; (2) Women show more absenteeism because of e.g. a child that is ill. Race: the biological heritage people use to identify themselves. Minorities are sometimes discriminated against in job interviews, and between colleagues underrepresentation in management less pay. Employment tenure: length of time spent with the same employer. It is a good predictor of employee productivity since there is a positive relationship between seniority and job productivity. It is good in explaining absence (negative), turnover (negative), future behaviour, and job satisfaction (positive). Religion. This has always been a great battle. Learning: a relatively permanent (ingrained) change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience. There are 3 theories that explain the process by which we acquire patterns of behaviour: Classical conditioning: a type of conditioning in which an individual responds to some stimulus that would not ordinarily produce such as response. It’s voluntary rather than reflexive. It is passive. o Unconditioned stimulus: something that invariably causes you to react in a specific way (e.g. meat for dogs) o Unconditioned response: the reaction on the unconditioned stimulus o Conditioned stimulus: artificial, it was originally neutral, but was paired with the unconditioned stimulus (e.g. meat), and eventually produced a response when presented alone (e.g. bell) o Conditioned response: the reaction on the conditioned stimulus, e.g. salivation because of the bell alone Operant conditioning: a type of conditioning in which desired voluntary behaviour leads to a reward or prevents a punishment. Behaviour is a function of its consequences. o Part of Skinner’s broader concept of behaviourism: a theory which argues that behaviour follows stimuli in a relatively unthinking manner (unawareness) Social-learning theory: the view that people can learn through observation and direct experience. You watch models. It is an extension of operating conditioning: it assumes that behaviour is a function of consequences AND it acknowledges the existence of observational learning and the importance of perception in learning.

OB Mod: the application of reinforcement concepts to individuals in the work setting. It follows a five-step problem-solving model: (1) identify critical behaviours; (2) develop baseline data (how many time does it occur); (3) identify behavioural consequences; (4) develop and implement an intervention strategy; and (5) evaluate performance improvement.

One problem with behaviourism is that thoughts and feelings immediately follow environmental stimuli, even those explicitly meant to shape behaviour. People weigh the value of these stimuli. This is contrary to the assumptions of behaviourism and OB Mod, which assume that people’s innermost thoughts and feelings in response to the environment are irrelevant. Operant conditioning and behaviourism have been superseded by other approaches that emphasise cognitive processes. Global implications: The structures and measures of intellectual abilities generalise across cultures. Biographical characteristics vary across cultures, but it is not known whether the relationships described above vary or generalise across cultures. It is not known whether the theories of learning generalise across cultures.

Organizational Behavior: Introduction to Key Concepts and Theories, Lecture notes of Organization Behaviour

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Chapter 1: What is organizational behaviour?