Chapter 1 What is Organizational Behavior? MRS. Shefa El Sagga. 1

Chapter 1
What is Organizational Behavior?
MRS. Shefa El Sagga.
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Learning Objectives
Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace.
Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills.
Define organizational behavior (OB).
Show the value to OB of systematic study.
Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB.
Demonstrate why there are few absolutes in OB.
Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have in applying OB
concepts.
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Compare
the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB model.
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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
What is interpersonal skills?.
 Understanding OB helps determine manager effectiveness.
1. Technical and quantitative skills are important.
2. But leadership and communication skills are CRITICAL.
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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
Why it is needed?.
Organizational benefits of skilled managers.
1. Lower turnover of quality employees.
2. Higher quality applications for recruitment.
3. Better financial performance.
It is very important but not enough … why?.
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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
It is very important but not enough … why?.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
International business and global Economy.
 Organization in the global area, Multinational corporations, High
technology, Culture and its impact.
Trends toward diversity.
 Participation of women, Racial differences, Childcare places, Elderly and
relatives places, Welfare programs.
Flexible, new working arrangements
 Flexible programs, Compress workweeks, Job sharing, Voluntary reduced
work time, Telecommuting flex-place.
New organizational forms creates by technology
 Leaner organizations, Outsourcing, Downsizing, Virtual corporation
The quality revolution
 TQM, Customer satisfaction.
Corporate social responsibility(the ethical organization).
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What Managers Do?.
Manager
They get things done 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:
1. Make decisions
2. Allocate resources
3. Direct activities of others to attain goals
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What Managers Do?.
Management Functions:
Planning:
A process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans
to coordinate activities.
As managers advance, they do this function more often.
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.
It is about PEOPLE!
Controlling:
Monitoring performance, comparing actual performance with previously set goals,
and correcting any deviation.
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Interpersonal Roles
Figurehead
Leader
Liason
Informational Roles
Monitor
Disseminator
Spokesperson
Decisional Roles
Entrepreneur
Disturbance
Handler
Resource
Allocator
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Negotiator
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Interpersonal Roles:
Figurehead: symbolic head; requires to perform a number of 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 favors and
information.
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Informational Roles:
Monitor: receives wide variety of information; serves as nerves center of
internal and external information of the organization.
Disseminator: transmits information received from outsiders or from other
employees to members of the organization.
Spokesperson: transmits information to outsiders on organizations plans,
policies, actions, and results; serves as expert on organizations industry.
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Decisional Roles
Entrepreneur: searches organization and its environment for opportunities and
initiates projects to bring about change.
Disturbance Handler: responsible for corrective action when organization
faces important, unexpected disturbances.
Resource Allocator: makes or approves significant organizational decisions.
Negotiator: responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations.
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What Managers Do?
Management Skills
Technical Skills
The ability to apply specialized 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 analyze and diagnose complex situations
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What Managers Do?
Management Skills
Technical Skills
Human Skills
Conceptual Skills
Decision-Making,
Time Management Skills
Top Managers
Conceptual Skills
Decision-Making,
Time Management Skills
Middle Managers
First Line Managers
Technical Skills
Human Skills
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What Managers Do?
Effective Versus Successful Managerial Activities
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What Managers Do?
Effective Versus Successful Managerial Activities.
Traditional management:
Decision making, planning, and controlling.
Communications
Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork.
Human resource management
Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and
training.
Networking
Socializing, politicking, and interacting with others.
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Enter Organizational Behavior
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.
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Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study
Systematic Study
Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects,
and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.
Evidence Based
Management
Basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific
evidence.
Intuition
A gut feeling not necessarily supported by research.
The three are complementary means of predicting behavior.
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Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study
Managers Should Use All Three Approaches.
The trick is to know when to go.
Intuition is often based on inaccurate information.
Evidence is prevalent in management.
Systematic study can be time-consuming.
Use evidence as much as possible to inform your intuition and
experience. That is the promise of OB.
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Disciplines that Contribute to the OB Field
The science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes
change the behavior of humans and other animals.
Psychology
Unit of Analysis:
Individual
Contributions to OB:
1. Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception.
2. Training, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction.
3. Individual decision making, performance appraisal attitude
measurement.
4. Employee selection, work design, and work stress.
An area within psychology that blends concepts from
psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of
people on one another.
Social
Psychology
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Unit of Analysis:
Group
Contributions to OB:
1. Behavioral change.
2. Attitude change.
3. Communication.
4. Group processes.
5. Group decision making.
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Disciplines that Contribute to the OB Field
The study of people in relation to their social environment or
culture.
Sociology
Unit of Analysis:
-- Organizational System.
Contributions to OB:
Formal organization theory.
Organizational technology.
Organizational change.
Organizational culture.
-- Group
Group dynamics.
Work teams.
Communication.
Power.
Conflict.
Intergroup behavior.
The study of societies to learn about human beings and their
activities.
Anthropology
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-- Group
Unit of Analysis:
-- Organizational System.
Comparative values.
Contributions to OB:
Comparative attitudes.
Organizational culture.
Organizational environment. Cross-cultural analysis.
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There are Few Absolutes in OB
Why there are few absolutes in OB?
Because of situational factors that make the main relationship between two
variables change … e.g., the relationship may hold for one condition but not
another.
Contingency Variables
Situational Factors
Variable that moderate the relationship between two or more other variables
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x
Contingency
Variables
y
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Challenges and Opportunities for OB
1
Responding to Globalization.
2
Managing Workforce Diversity.
3
Improving Quality and Productivity.
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Improving Customer Service.
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Improving People Skills.
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Stimulating Innovation and Change.
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Coping with “Temporariness”.
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Working in Networked Organizations.
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Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts.
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Creating a Positive Work Environment.
Improving
Ethical Behavior.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
A model
Abstraction of reality, or a simplified representation of some real-world
phenomenon.
Our OB model has three levels of analysis.
Each level is constructed on the prior level.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Independent Variables (X)
The Dependent Variables (Y)
1. The presumed cause of the change
in the dependent variable (Y).
1. This is the response to X (the
independent variable).
2. This is the variable that OB
researchers manipulate to observe
the changes in Y.
2. It is what the OB researchers want
to predict or explain.
3. The interesting variable!.
X
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Y
Predictive Ability
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Dependent Variables
The Independent Variables
Productivity
Individual – Level Variables
Absenteeism
Turnover
Group – Level Variables
Deviant Workplace Behavior
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Organization System – Level Variables
Job Satisfaction
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Dependent Variables
Productivity:
Transforming inputs to outputs at lowest cost. Includes the concepts of
effectiveness (achievement of goals) and efficiency (meeting goals at a low
cost).
Absenteeism:
Failure to report to work – a huge cost to employers.
Turnover:
Voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Dependent Variables
Deviant Workplace Behavior:
Voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and
thereby threatens the well-being of the organization and/or any of its
members.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior:
Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job
requirements, but that nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of
the organization.
Job Satisfaction:
A general attitude (not a behavior) toward one’s job; a positive feeling of
one's job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.
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The Independent Variables
The presumed cause of some change in the
dependent variable.
Independent
Variables
Individual-Level
Variables
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Group-Level
Variables
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Organization
System-Level
Variables
Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Independent Variables
Individual – Level Variables:
Biographical characteristics, personality and emotions, values and
attitudes, ability, perception, motivation, individual learning and individual
decision making.
Group – Level Variables:
Communication, group decision making, leadership and trust, group
structure, conflict, power and politics, and work teams.
Organization System – Level Variables:
Organizational culture, human resource policies and practices, and
organizational structure and design.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
Toward A contingency OB Model
Three Levels
Dependent
Variables (Y)
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Independent
Variables (X)
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