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|WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR? | LEARNING OBJECTIVES After studying this chapter, students should be able to: 1. Define organizational behavior (OB) 2. Describe what managers do 3. Explain the value of the systematic study of OB 4. List the major challenges and opportunities for managers to use OB concepts 5. Identify the contributions made by major behavioral science disciplines to OB 6. Describe why managers require a knowledge of OB 7. Explain the need for a contingency approach to the study of OB 8.
Identify the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB model CHAPTER OVERVIEW Managers need to develop their interpersonal or people skills if they are going to be effective in their jobs. Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within an organization, then applies that knowledge to make organizations work more effectively. Specifically, OB focuses on how to improve productivity, reduce absenteeism and turnover, and increase employee citizenship and job satisfaction.
We all hold generalizations about the behavior of people. Some of our generalizations may provide valid insights into human behavior, but many are erroneous. Organizational behavior uses systematic study to improve predictions of behavior that would be made from intuition alone. Yet, because people are different, we need to look at OB in a contingency framework, using situational variables to moderate cause-effect relationships. Organizational behavior offers both challenges and opportunities for managers.
It recognizes differences and helps managers to see the value of workforce diversity and practices that may need to be changed when managing in different countries. It can help improve quality and employee productivity by showing managers how to empower their people as well as how to design and implement change programs. It offers specific insights to improve a manager’s people skills. In times of rapid and ongoing change, faced by most managers today, OB can help managers cope in a world of “temporariness” and learn ways to stimulate innovation.
Finally, OB can offer managers guidance in creating an ethically healthy work climate. WEB EXERCISES At the end of each chapter of this instructor’s manual, you will find suggested exercises and ideas for researching the WWW on OB topics. The exercises “Exploring OB Topics on the Web” are set up so that you can simply photocopy the pages, distribute them to your class, and make assignments accordingly. You may want to assign the exercises as an out-of-class activity or as lab activities with your class.
Within the lecture notes the graphic will note that there is a WWW activity to support this material. The chapter opens introducing Michael Bowser who is a supervisor/team chief for the Department of Defense. The 13 to 18 people who report to him are technical specialists. Despite his technical background as a systems engineer, he states what his job really requires is “people skills. ” He has worked to develop his communication skills and learned ways of motivating his staff to meet their individual needs. CHAPTER OUTLINE What Manager’s Do |A.
Importance of Developing Managers’ Interpersonal Skills |Notes: | |Companies with reputations as a good place to work—such as Hewlett-Packard, Lincoln Electric, Southwest | | |Airlines, and Starbucks—have a big advantage when attracting high performing employees. | | | | | |A recent national study of the U.
S. workforce found that: | | | | | |Wages and fringe benefits are not the reason people like their jobs or stay with an employer. | | |More important to workers is the job quality and the supportiveness of the work environments. | | | | |Managers’ good interpersonal skills are likely to make the workplace more pleasant, which in turn makes it | | |easier to hire and retain high performing employees. | | |Definitions: | | | | | |Manager: Someone who gets things done through other people.
They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct | | |the activities of others to attain goals. | | | | | |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. | |B. Management Functions | | |French industrialist Henri Fayol wrote that all managers perform five management functions: plan, organize, | | |command, coordinate, and control. Modern management scholars have condensed to four: planning, organizing, | | |leading, and controlling. | | | | |Planning requires a manager to: | | | | | |Define goals (organizational, departmental, worker levels) | | |Establish an overall strategy for achieving those goals | | |Develop a comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activities. | | | | |Organizing requires a manager to: | | | | | |Determine what tasks are to be done | | |Who is to be assigned the tasks | | |How the tasks are to be grouped | | |Who reports to whom | | |Where decisions are to be made (centralized/decentralized) | | | | | |Leading requires a manager to: | | | | |Motivate employees | | |Direct the activities of others | | |Select the most effective communication channels | | |Resolve conflicts among members | | |B. Management Functions (cont. |Notes: | |Controlling requires a manager to: | | | | | |Monitor the organization’s performance | | |Compare actual performance with the previously set goals | | |Correct significant deviations. | | |C.
Management Roles | | |In the late 1960s, Henry Mintzberg studied five executives to determine what managers did on their jobs. He | | |concluded that managers perform ten different, highly interrelated roles or sets of behaviors attributable to | | |their jobs. | | | | | |The ten roles can be grouped as being primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships, the transfer of | | |information, and decision making. Exhibit 1-1) | | | | | |Interpersonal roles | | | | | |Figurehead—duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature | | |Leadership—hire, train, motivate, and discipline employees | | |Liaison—contact outsiders who provide the manager with information. These may be individuals or groups inside or| | |outside the organization. | | | | |Informational roles | | | | | |Monitor—collect information from organizations and institutions outside their own | | |Disseminator—a conduit to transmit information to organizational members | | |Spokesperson—represent the organization to outsiders | | | | | |Decisional roles | | | | |Entrepreneur—managers initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their organization’s performance | | |Disturbance handlers—take corrective action in response to unforeseen problems | | |Resource allocators—responsible for allocating human, physical, and monetary resources | | |Negotiator role—discuss issues and bargain with other units to gain advantages for their own unit | | |D. Management Skills | | |Robert Katz has identified three essential management skills: technical, human, and conceptual. | | | | |Technical skills | | | | | |The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many | | |people develop their technical skills on the job. | | | | |Human skills | | | | | |The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups, describes | | |human skills. | | |Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent. | | |D.
Management Skills |Notes: | |Conceptual skills | | | | | |The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations | | | | | |Decision making, for example, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives that can correct them, | | |evaluate those alternatives, and select the best one. | | |E. Effective vs.
Successful Managerial Activities | | |Fred Luthans and his associates asked: Do managers who move up most quickly in an organization do the same | | |activities and with the same emphasis as managers who do the best job? Surprisingly, those managers who were | | |the most effective were not necessarily promoted the fastest. | | | | | |Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers.
They found that all managers engage in four | | |managerial activities. | | | | | |Traditional management—Decision making, planning, and controlling. The average manager spent 32 percent of his | | |or her time performing this activity. | | | | | |Communication—Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork.
The average manager spent 29 percent of | | |his or her time performing this activity. | | | | | |Human resource management—Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training. The average | | |manager spent 20 percent of his or her time performing this activity. | | | | | |Networking—Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders.
The average manager spent 19 percent of | | |his or her time performing this activity. | | | | | |Successful managers—defined as those who were promoted the fastest: (Exhibit 1-2) | | | | | |Networking made the largest relative contribution to success. | | | | |Human resource management activities made the least relative contribution. | | |Effective managers—defined as quality and quantity of performance, as well as, commitment to employees: | | | | | |Communication made the largest relative contribution. | | | | | |Networking made the least relative contribution. | | | | |Successful managers do not give the same emphasis to each of those activities as do effective managers—it almost| | |the opposite of effective managers. | | | | | |This finding challenges the historical assumption that promotions are based on performance, vividly illustrating| | |the importance that social and political skills play in getting ahead in organizations. | |F. A Review of the Manager’s Job |Notes: | | | | |One common thread runs through the functions, roles, skills, and activities approaches to management: managers | | |need to develop their people skills if they are going to be effective and successful. | | Enter Organizational Behavior |Definition: | | | | |Organizational Behavior: 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. | | |A. Organizational behavior is a field of study. | | |OB studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure. | | | | |OB applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order to | | |make organizations work more effectively. | | | | | |OB is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and how that behavior affects the | | |performance of the organization. | | | | |There is increasing agreement as to the components of OB, but there is still considerable debate as to the | | |relative importance of each: motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group structure| | |and processes, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, work design, and work | | |stress. | | Replacing Intuition with Systematic Study |A.
Introduction |Notes: | |Each of us is a student of behavior: | | | | | |A casual or commonsense approach to reading others can often lead to erroneous predictions. | | | | | |You can improve your predictive ability by replacing your intuitive opinions with a more systematic approach. | | | | |The systematic approach used in this book will uncover important facts and relationships and will provide a base| | |from which more accurate predictions of behavior can be made. | | | | | |Behavior generally is predictable if we know how the person perceived the situation and what is important to him| | |or her. | | | | |While people’s behavior may not appear to be rational to an outsider, there is reason to believe it usually is | | |intended to be rational by the individual and that they see their behavior as rational. | | |A. Introduction (cont. ) |Notes: | |There are certain fundamental consistencies underlying the behavior of all individuals that can be identified | | |and then modified to reflect individual differences. | | | | |These fundamental consistencies allow predictability. | | |There are rules (written and unwritten) in almost every setting. | | |Therefore, it can be argued that it is possible to predict behavior. | | | | | |When we use the phrase systematic study, we mean looking at gathered information under controlled conditions and| | |measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous manner. | | | | |Systematic study replaces intuition, or those “gut feelings” about “why I do what I do” and “what makes others | | |tick. ” We want to move away from intuition to analysis when predicting behavior. | | Instructor Note: At this point in the lecture you may want to introduce the Myth or Science: Preconceived Notions vs. Substantive Evidence box found in the text. The purpose of the exercise is to replace popularly held notions with research-based conclusions. A suggestion for a class exercise follows the introduction of the material below. MYTH OR SCIENCE? Preconceived Notions vs. Substantive Evidence Assume you signed up to take an introductory college course in calculus. On the first day, you were asked: “Why is the sign of the second derivative negative when the first derivative is set equal to zero, if the function is concave from below? ” You reply, “How am I supposed to know? That’s why I’m taking this course. ” Now, you are in an introductory course in organizational behavior. Your instructor asks you: “Why aren’t employees as motivated at work today as they were 30 years ago? ” Reluctantly, you would begin writing. You would have no problem coming up with an explanation to this motivation question.
You enter an OB course with many preconceived notions that you accept as facts. OB not only introduces you to a comprehensive set of concepts and theories, but it also has to deal with many commonly accepted “facts” about human behavior and organizations that you have acquired over the years. But these “facts” are not necessarily true. The field of OB is built on decades of research. This research provides a body of substantive evidence that is able to replace preconceived notions. The boxes entitled “Myth or Science? ” throughout the text call attention to some of the more popular of these notions or myths about organizational behavior. Class Exercise: 1. Place students in groups of three-to-five.
Have them brainstorm a list of at least 3 popular “facts” or myths that they have heard about colleges, college students, and faculty. Example—college students are rebels; college “boys” (or girls) do not want to get their hands dirty on the job; those who can do, those who can’t teach; etc. 2. Record ideas on the board. Go round-robin; take one idea at time from each group in turn until groups contribute all their ideas. 3. Now have students brainstorm about what objective data exists or could be collected to counter each of these myths. Collect the information the same way, posting it on the board. 4. Close with a discussion of the importance of these misperceptions to students and faculty and why the parallel misperceptions about organizational behavior are important.
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field |A. Introduction |Notes: | |Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built upon contributions from a number of | | |behavioral disciplines. | | | | | |The predominant areas are psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political science. | | | | |Exhibit 1-3 overviews the major contributions to the study of organizational behavior. | | |B. Psychology | | |Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other | | |animals. | | | | |Early industrial/organizational psychologists concerned themselves with problems of fatigue, boredom, and other | | |factors relevant to working conditions that could impede efficient work performance. | | | | | |More recently, their contributions have been expanded to include learning, perception, personality, emotions, | | |training, leadership effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision making processes, | | |performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee selection techniques, work design, and job stress. | | |C.
Sociology | | |Sociologists study the social system in which individuals fill their roles; that is, sociology studies people in| | |relation to their fellow human beings. | | | | | |Their greatest contribution to OB is through their study of group behavior in organizations, particularly formal| | |and complex organizations. | | |D.
Social Psychology | | |Social psychology blends the concepts of psychology and sociology. | | | | | |It focuses on the influence of people on one another. | | | | | |Major area—how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its acceptance | | |E. Anthropology | |Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. | | | | | |Anthropologists work on cultures and environments; for instance, they have helped us understand differences in | | |fundamental values, attitudes, and behavior among people in different countries and within different | | |organizations. | | |F.
Political Science | | |Frequently overlooked as a contributing discipline. | | | | | |Political science studies the behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment. | | There Are Few Absolutes in OB |A. Introduction |Notes: | |There are few, if any, simple and universal principles that explain organizational behavior. | | | | |Human beings are complex. Because they are not alike, our ability to make simple, accurate, and sweeping | | |generalizations is limited. | | | | | |That does not mean, of course, that we cannot offer reasonably accurate explanations of human behavior or make | | |valid predictions. It does mean, however, that OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions. | | | | | | | |Contingency variables—situational factors are variables that moderate the relationship between the independent | | |and dependent variables. | | | | | |Using general concepts and then altering their application to the particular situation developed the science of | | |OB. | | | | |Organizational behavior theories mirror the subject matter with which they deal. | | Challenges and Opportunities for OB |A. Introduction |Notes: | |There are many challenges and opportunities today for managers to use OB concepts. | | |B. Responding to Globalization | | |Organizations are no longer constrained by national borders. | | | | |Globalization affects a manager’s people skills in at least two ways. | | | | | |First, if you are a manager, you are increasingly likely to find yourself in a foreign assignment. | | |Second, even in your own country, you are going to find yourself working with bosses, peers, and other employees| | |who were born and raised in different cultures. | | |C.
Managing Workforce Diversity | | |Workforce diversity is one of the most important and broad-based challenges currently facing organizations. | | | | | |While globalization focuses on differences between people from different countries, workforce diversity | | |addresses differences among people within given countries. | | | | |Workforce diversity means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, and | | |ethnicity. It is an issue in Canada, Australia, South Africa, Japan, and Europe as well as the United States. | | | | | |A melting-pot approach assumed people who were different would automatically assimilate. | | | | |Employees do n ot set aside their cultural values and lifestyle preferences when they come to work. | | | | | | | | |C. Managing Workforce Diversity (cont. ) |Notes: | |The melting pot assumption is replaced by one that recognizes and values differences. | | | | |Members of diverse groups were a small percentage of the workforce and were, for the most part, ignored by large| | |organizations (pe-1980s); now: | | | | | |47 percent of the U. S. labor force are women | | |Minorities and immigrants make up 23 percent | | |More workers than ever are unmarried with no children. | | | | | |Workforce diversity has important implications for management practice. | |Shift to recognizing differences and responding to those differences | | |Providing diversity training and revamping benefit programs to accommodate the different needs of employees | | Instructor Note: At this point in the lecture you may want to introduce the “Workforce Diversity” team exercise found in the text (and at the end of the lecture notes). (Allow 40-45 minutes for the exercise). |D. Improving Quality and Productivity |Notes: | |Total quality management (TQM) is a philosophy of management that is driven by the constant attainment of | | |customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational processes. | | | | |Implementing quality programs requires extensive employee involvement (Exhibit 1-4). | | | | | |Process reengineering asks the question: “How would we do things around here if we were starting over from | | |scratch? | | | | | |Every process is evaluated in terms of contribution to goals | | |Rather than make incremental changes, often old systems are eliminated entirely and replaced with new systems | | | | | |To improve productivity and quality, managers must include employees. | | |E. Responding to the Labor Shortage | | |If trends continue as expected, the U. S. will have a labor shortage for the next 10-15 years (particularly in | | |skilled positions). | | | | |The labor shortage is a function of low birth rates and labor participation rates (immigration does little to | | |solve the problem). | | | | | |Wages and benefits are not enough to keep talented workers. Managers must understand human behavior and respond | | |accordingly. | | |F.
Improving Customer Service and People Skills | | |The majority of employees in developed countries work in service jobs—jobs that require substantive interaction | | |with the firm’s customers. For example, 80 percent of U. S. workers are employed in service industries. | | | | | |Employee attitudes and behavior are directly related to customer satisfaction requiring management to create a | | |customer responsive culture. | | |People skills are essential to managerial effectiveness. | | | | |OB provides the concepts and theories that allow managers to predict employee behavior in given situations. | | |G. Empowering People |Notes: | |Today managers are being called coaches, advisers, sponsors, or facilitators, and in many organizations, | | |employees are now called associates. | | | | |There is a blurring between the roles of managers and workers; decision making is being pushed down to the | | |operating level, where workers are being given the freedom to make choices about schedules and procedures and to| | |solve work-related problems. | | |Managers are empowering employees. | | | | | |They are putting employees in charge of what they do. | | |Managers have to learn how to give up control. | |Employees have to learn how to take responsibility for their work and make appropriate decisions. | | |H. Coping with “Temporariness” | | |Managers have always been concerned with change: | | | | | |What is different today is the length of time between changes | |Change is an ongoing activity for most managers. The concept of continuous improvement, for instance, implies | | |constant change | | |In the past, managing could be characterized by long periods of stability, interrupted occasionally by short | | |periods of change. | | |Today, long periods of ongoing change are interrupted occasionally by short periods of stability! | | | | |Permanent “temporariness”: | | | | | |Both managers and employees must learn to live with flexibility, spontaneity, and unpredictability | | |The jobs that workers perform are in a permanent state of flux, so workers need to continually update their | | |knowledge and skills to perform new job requirements. | | | | | |Work groups are also increasingly in a state of flux. | | | | |Predictability has been replaced by temporary work groups, teams that include members from different departments| | |and whose members change all the time, and the increased use of employee rotation to fill constantly changing | | |work assignments. | | | | | |Organizations themselves are in a state of flux. | | | | |They reorganize their various divisions, sell off poor-performing businesses, downsize operations, subcontract | | |non-critical services and operations to other organizations, and replace permanent employees with temporaries. | | |I. Stimulating Innovation and Change | | |Successful organizations must foster innovation and the art of change. | | | | |Companies that maintain flexibility, continually improve quality, and beat their competition to the marketplace | | |with innovative products and services will be tomorrow’s winners. | | | | | |Employees are critical to an organization’s ability to change and innovate. | |J. Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts |Notes: | |The creation of the global workforce means work no longer sleeps. Workers are on-call 24-hours a day or working| | |non-traditional shifts. | | | | | |Communication technology has provided a vehicle for working at any time or any place. | | | | |Employees are working longer hours per week—from 43 to 47 hours per week since 1977. | | | | | |The lifestyles of families have changes creating conflict: more dual career couples and single parents find it | | |hard to fulfill commitments to home, children, spouse, parents, and friends. | | | | |Employees want jobs that allow flexibility and provide time for a “life. ” | | Instructor Note: At this point in the lecture you may want to introduce the OB IN THE NEWS: America’s World-Class Workaholics box found in the text. The purpose of the exercise is to help students better understand what their expectations are when balancing work and life. A suggestion for a class exercise follows the introduction of the material below.
Once you have completed the exercise, refer students to the ETHICAL DILEMMA: What’s the Right Balance Between Work and Personal Life? for another viewpoint—this time from the CEO perspective. A summary of the case and questions can be found at the end of this chapter. OB IN THE NEWS – America’s World-Class Workaholics From the late-1970s to the late-1990s, the average workweek among salaried Americans increased from 43 to 47 hours. Over the same years, the numbers of workers putting in 50 or more hours jumped from 24 to 37 percent. The U. S. has moved past Japan to become the longest working nation in the advanced industrial world. Managers and professionals work the longest hours.
These statistics are in stark contrast to many other places on the globe. For instance, in Norway or Sweden, ordinary workers get four to six weeks of vacation and up to a year of paid parental leave. In France, a 35 hour maximum workweek is the law of the land. Compared to the average Western European, Americans are working an average of eight weeks a year longer. Managers in Britain, however, are also working long hours. These statistics lead us to two conclusions. First, Americans are overworked relative to much of the world, making it harder to balance work and family responsibilities. Second, the problem is most prevalent among managers and professionals.
With technology expanding the number of professional jobs, we can expect an increasing proportion of the labor force to be complaining of long hours and difficulty in handling work-life conflicts. Class Exercise: 1. Ask students to individually write down the top three-to-five things they are looking for in their first career job. 2. On different sections of the board write categories labels such as: Salary, Family-friendly, Workweek, Office Arrangement, Atmosphere, Management, Perks, Other, etc. 3. Ask students to share their lists by coming up to the board and writing their desires under the category that applies, or create new categories if necessary. 4.
Note any patterns that emerge and ask the students to speculate why that is the case. 5. Now ask them to think about and brainstorm as a class what their parents looked for in their careers. A clue to this might be what their parents telling students look for in their first job. 6. As they share their ideas, create a second list on the board. Look at the two lists, and ask the students where they see similarities and differences. Check “(” those items that are similar. “X” those that are different. 7. Lead a discussion as to why the two lists are different. What has changed? What is different between the students and their parents’ career expectations? |K.
Improving Ethical Behavior |Notes: | |In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing worker productivity, and tough | | |competition, many employees feel pressured to engage in questionable practices. | | | | | |Members of organizations are increasingly finding themselves facing ethical dilemmas in which they are required | | |to define right and wrong conduct. | | | | |Examples of decisions employees might have to make are: | | | | | |”Blowing the whistle” on illegal activities | | |Following orders with which they do not personally agree | | |Possibly giving inflated performance evaluations that could save an employee’s job | | |Playing politics to help with career advancement, etc. | | | | |Organizations are responding to this issue by: | | | | | |Writing and distributing codes of ethics | | |Providing in-house advisors | | |Creating protection mechanisms for employees who reveal internal unethical practices | | | | | |Managers need to create an ethically healthy environment for employees where they confront a minimal degree of | | |ambiguity regarding right or wrong behaviors. | | Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model |A. Overview |Notes: | |A model is an abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon. Exhibit | | |1-6—the OB model) | | | | | |There are three levels of analysis in OB: | | | | | |Individual | | |Group | | |Organizational Systems Level | | | | | |The three basic levels are analogous to building blocks; each level is constructed upon the previous level. | | | | |Group concepts grow out of the foundation laid in the individual section; we overlay structural constraints on | | |the individual and group in order to arrive at organizational behavior. | | |B. The Dependent Variables |Notes | |Dependent variables are the key factors that you want to explain or predict and that are affected by some other | | |factor. | | | | |Primary dependent variables in OB: | | | | | |Productivity | | |Absenteeism | | |Turnover | | |Job satisfaction | | |A fifth variable—organizational citizenship—has been added to this list. | | |C. Productivity |Notes: | |It is achieving goals by transferring inputs to outputs at the lowest cost. This must be done both effectively | | |and efficiency. | | | | |An organization is effective when it successfully meets the needs of its clientele or customers | | | |