Organizational Behavior Quiz

Organizational Behavior: What It Is and Why It Matters

• Organizational behavior (OB) is a social science that describes, explains, and predicts human behavior in organizational contexts.
• OB draws on insights from many disciplines, including psychology, sociology, economics, political science, and strategic management. This makes it a hybrid field.
• OB skills are crucial for personal and career success.
• Major trends profoundly changing OB today include the virtual workplace, the gig economy, and the increasing use of temporary and contract workers versus full-time employees.

Learning Objectives

• LO1.1: Define organizational behavior.
• LO1.2: Explain how OB skills are linked to personal and career success.
• LO1.3: Identify major trends profoundly changing OB today.
• LO1.4: Distinguish between intuition and evidence in OB contexts.
• LO1.5: Explain the importance of thinking contingently about OB issues.
• LO1.6: Illustrate the knowing-doing gap in OB.

OB Topics Teaser

• This section provides an overview of different topics in organizational behavior with corresponding thought-provoking questions. The examples cover topics like workplace stress, problem-solving, organizational ethics, persuasive communication, conflict and negotiation, power and influence, leadership, teams, culture and diversity, organizational structure and design, and organizational change.

Organizational Success Focuses on People

• Google's Project Oxygen highlights the importance of people skills for organizational success.
• Developing people skills fosters job security.
• Positions requiring cognitive and social skills experience higher wage growth.
• A key element in Fortune 500 firm success is effective relationship management.
• MBA alumni identify interpersonal skills as a significant area needing further training.

Skill Gap Analysis

• MBA alumni studies show a gap in skills between those acquired in school and those used on the job after graduation.
• There is a need for training in areas such as interpersonal competence, understanding general business functions, managing decision-making processes, generative thinking, strategic thinking, and managing strategy and innovation.

Don't Wait to Learn People Skills

• Recruiters prioritize people skills as highly desirable attributes in graduates, but these skills are often lacking.
• Technological advancements will continue to automate many jobs; however, positions demanding interpersonal competency will show growth.

Technology Trends Affecting OB

• The virtual workplace and the "gig economy" are significant factors impacting OB.
• Job security is a major concern in the context of short-term employment.
• The rise of virtual workforces gives organizations greater access potential talent pools.
• Big data analysis of people behavior will be crucial to organizational success.

Globalization Trends Affecting OB

• Globalization compels companies to address diverse ethnic, cultural, and generational issues effectively.
• Managing increased workplace diversity will present a significant challenge for organizations.
• Traditional models of work and jobs need to be viewed through a modern lens.

Becoming a Great Manager through Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

• Evidence-Based Management (EBM) translates good scientific evidence into practical organizational practices.
• Many popular management books are not based on EBM, but on sensationalism, common sense, and half-truths.

Five Key Practices to EBM

• Learning cause and effect relationships: understanding how different factors relate to each other (e.g., monetary rewards and employee performance, diversity and team creativity).
• Isolating variations that affect desired outcomes: determining how the relationship between factors differ based on context (e.g., the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover in economically depressed times).
• Reducing the overuse, underuse, and misuse of specific practices: avoiding the ineffective use of methods (e.g., graphology as a predictor of managerial performance).
• Building decision supports to promote practices that evidence validates: developing strategies backed by evidence.
• Creating a culture of evidence-based decision making and research participation: fostering a culture of data-driven decisions and research.

OB: Evaluating and Using Evidence

• Beliefs are not always supported by research. Research is vital for challenging myths and improving decisions.
• Example: Beliefs that ibuprofen reduces pain have been proven by research to have a minimal effect.

Big E versus Little e Evidence

• Big E Evidence: generalizable cause-and-effect knowledge from systematic research.
• Little e evidence: local or organizational-specific data informed by a particular decision.
• Good leaders effectively find, assess, and properly use evidence.

A Framework for Making Evidence-Based OB Decisions

• Define the challenge.
• Identify relevant theories.
• Predict the best solution using evidence.
• Assess the resulting outcomes.

Learning to be a Contingency Thinker

• There is usually more than 1 optimal approach to any business problem.
• The best solutions are multifaceted and depend on various interacting forces.
• OB strategies that work in one setting may not work in others.

The Knowing-Doing Gap in OB

• Understanding concepts is often easier than performing the requisite skill.
• Proficiency depends on "knowing that" and "knowing how."
• People skills are improvable.