Organizational Behaviour: Key Concepts

Organization

• A structured social system comprised of groups and individuals working towards shared objectives.

Organizational Behaviour (OB)

• A field dedicated to expanding knowledge of behavior within organizational settings using a scientific approach.

Levels of Analysis in OB

• Individual
• Group
• Organizational
• Understanding human behavior in organizations requires equal consideration of each level.

Theories X and Y

• Theory X: Assumes employees are inherently lazy and require coercion to work effectively.
• Theory Y: Assumes employees are capable of self-direction and find productivity fulfilling under the right conditions.

Factors that Influence Job Performance

• Management and organizations
• Information technology
• Workplace design
• Value coherence
• Perceived organizational support
• Core self-evaluations

Core Assumptions in Organizational Behaviour

• Organizations are dynamic and continuously evolving entities.
• There is no one-size-fits-all approach to organizational behavior, effective strategies depend on the situation.

Organizational Structure

• The formal framework of how individuals and groups are arranged within an organization, including task allocation, responsibilities, and authority.

Organizational Design

• The process of aligning structural elements within an organization for optimal performance.

Key Elements of Organizational Structure: Hierarchy of Authority

• Tall hierarchies feature many levels of management.
• Flat hierarchies feature few levels of management.

Key Elements of Organizational Structure: Division of Labor

• Organizations divide tasks into specialized jobs
• Increased specialization leads to a narrower scope of individual tasks.

Key Elements of Organizational Structure: Span of Control

• Wide span of control: A manager oversees many direct reports; associated with flat organizations.
• Narrow span of control: A manager oversees few direct reports; associated with tall organizations.

Key Elements of Organizational Structure: Line vs. Staff Positions

• Line positions: Roles with decision-making authority.
• Staff positions: Roles that provide advice and recommendations (e.g., HR, Communications).

Key Elements of Organizational Structure: Centralization vs. Decentralization

• Centralization: Authority and decision-making are concentrated within a few individuals or groups.
• Decentralization: Authority and decision-making are delegated throughout the organization.

Types of Organizational Structures: Departmentalization

• Organizations are broken into coherent units
• Organizations can be divided by function, product, market or as a matrix.

Organizational Culture

• A shared cognitive framework of attitudes, values, norms, and expectations within an organization.

Aspects of Organizational Culture: Observable Artifacts

• Visible manifestations of culture such as office layout and dress code.

Aspects of Organizational Culture: Espoused Values

• Explicitly stated beliefs and values that the organization promotes.

Aspects of Organizational Culture: Basic Underlying Assumptions

• Deeply ingrained, often unconscious beliefs and values that guide behavior.

Dimensions of Organizational Culture

• Flexibility and discretion vs stability, order, and control.
• Attention to internal affairs influence vs external environment.

Types of Organizational Culture: Clan

• Focuses on employees, like a family
• Emphasizes trust, loyalty, teamwork, and commitment.
• Often found in startups and family owned companies.

Types of Organizational Culture: Adhocracy

• Emphasizes entrepreneurship, change, growth, adaptability, creativity, agility and innovation.
• Values individuality and encourages creative thinking.
• Often found in tech companies.

Types of Organizational Culture: Market

• Competition and results are oriented
• Achievement, objectives, rewards, customer focus, and market share are emphasized.
• Places focus on financial success and often involves multiple management levels
• Seen in large, industry-leading companies.

Types of Organizational Culture: Hierarchical

• Competition and results oriented
• Places emphasis on stability, roles, rules, process control, and efficiency.
• Traditional corporate structure with a clear chain of command.
• Often seen in energy companies, hospitals, and banks.

Communication and Decision Making

• Decision making: The process of selecting from various options.

Decision-Making Process

• Formulation: Define the problem.
• Consideration: Determine how to handle the problem.
• Implementation: Enforce the decision.

Decision Making Influences

• Decisions vary based on routineness, riskiness, and the decision makers.

Image Theory

• Decisions made in an automatic, intuitive manner.

Steps in Image Theory Decision Making

• Compatibility test: Eliminating options that conflict with values or goals.
• Profitability test: Evaluating the benefits and risks of remaining options.

Group Decision-Making: Potential Benefits

• Increased resources and expertise from various people
• Labor specialization within the group
• Greater acceptance of the decision

Group Decision-Making: Potential Problems

• Wasted time or group conflict
• Disruptive behaviors within the group
• Intimidation by group leaders

Decision Styles

• Individual decision styles vary along two dimensions
• Way of thinking (task or people orientation)
• Tolerance for ambiguity (structure vs. flexibility)
• Each style influences the decision-making process.

Framing Effects

• The way a problem is presented influences subsequent decisions.

Framing Biases

• Risky choice framing: People are risk-averse when a problem is positively framed but more likely to seek risks if it is framed negatively.
• Attribute framing: Evaluations are more positive when a characteristic is described in positive terms rather than negative terms.
• Goal framing: Negatively framed information can be more persuasive than positively framed information.

Biases in Decision-Making

• Implicit favorites: Favoring a certain option early in the process.
• Hindsight bias: Perceiving past events as more predictable than they were.
• Person sensitivity bias: Blaming others when things go poorly.
• Escalation of commitment: Continuing to support unsuccessful actions.

Organizational Communication

• The process by which a sender conveys information to a receiver.

Steps in the Communication Process

• Encoding: Translating an idea into a message.
• Channels (Media): Transmitting the message through a medium.
• Decoding: The receiver interprets the message.
• Feedback: Providing information about the message's impact
• Noise: Factors that distort message clarity.

Verbal Communication Effectiveness

• The appropriateness of the verbal medium is related to the ambiguity of the message.
• Rich media: Personal, two-way communication methods.
• Lean media: Impersonal, one-way communication methods.

Formal Communication

• Sharing messages related to official organizational work.

The MUM Effect

• Hesitancy to relay negative news.

Forms of Formal Communication

• Transmitting a message down the chain of command.
• Good news is highlighted and bad news is downplayed

Informal Communication

• The sharing of unofficial messages outside of formal channels.

Grapevine Communication

• Casual conversation, rumors, and gossip among organizational members.

Encoding the Message: AIDA

• Attention (awareness)
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

Encoding Communication Strategies

• WHY, HOW, WHAT: begins with the significance, then the necessary steps to achieve it, ending with the final result.
• START: provides a layout to deal with any type of situation with subcategories that are Situation, Task, Action, and Results
• STARBUCKS: similar to the START model but adapted for situations with subcategories that are Situation, Task, Action, Results, Benefits, Understanding, Challenges and Solutions.

HURIER Model

• It is the effective listening layout including the subcategories of hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating and responding.

Individual Differences

• Personality: Unique and stable behavior patterns, thoughts, and emotions.
• Interactionist perspective: Behavior arises from an interaction of personality and situational factors.

Measuring Personality

• Traits: Dimensions on a continuum (e.g., extraversion).
• Types: Categories comprised of multiple dimensions (e.g., MBTI, DISC).

The Big Five Personality Traits

• Extraversion: Seeking stimulation and enjoying company.
• Agreeableness: Compassionate towards others.
• Conscientiousness: Self-discipline toward competence and achievement.
• Neuroticism: Experiencing unpleasant emotions easily.
• Openness to experience: Enjoying new experiences and ideas.

Strengths and Weaknesses of the Big Five

• Strengths: Relatively simple and comprehensive.
• Weaknesses: Atheoretical and incomplete.

Core Self-Evaluations

• Fundamental evaluations of abilities, 4 elements:
• Self-esteem: Overall self-worth.
• Generalized self-efficacy: Beliefs about abilities to perform tasks.
• Locus of control: Beliefs about ability to control events.
• Emotional stability: Confidence, security and steadiness.

The Dark Triad

• Consists of narcissism, subclinical psychopathy, and Machiavellianism
• Associated with selfishness, manipulation, and low empathy.

McClelland’s Motivational Needs

• Achievement: Need for growth and development.
• Affiliation: Need for close relationships.
• Power: Need to influence others.

Goal Orientations

• Learning goal orientation: Desire to meet and master new skills.
• Performance goal orientation: Desire to show success
• Avoidance goal orientation: Desire to avoid the appearance of incompetence.

Abilities vs Skills

• Abilities: Mental and physical capacities.
• Skills: Expertise acquired through training and experience.

Work-Related Attitudes

• Relatively stable clusters of feelings, beliefs, and intentions toward specific objects, institutions or people.
• Cognitive: Beliefs.
• Evaluative: Feelings.
• Behavioral: Actions.
• Prejudice: Negative attitudes towards members of groups, solely based on group membership.

Groupthink

• High levels of consensus in groups discourages debate and damaging relationships.

Benefits of Diversity and Inclusion

• More innovative teams
• Better problem-solving
• Higher retention

Job Satisfaction

• Overall attitude toward one's job
• Two-factor theory: Satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise from different variables (motivators and hygiene factors).
• Dispositional model: Job satisfaction is a a stable disposition and characteristic that stays with people across situations
• Value theory: Satisfaction depends on the match of desired outcomes with perceptions of their availability.
• Social information processing model: People adopt attitudes and behaviors in line with cues from others.

Organizational Commitment

• The degree to which someone identifies with an organization and wants to remain a member.
• Continuance: Stays because they cannot afford to leave.
• Normative: Stays due to pressure from others.
• Affective: Stays because they want to.

Emotions vs Moods

• Emotions: Openly expressed reactions to events.
• Moods: Unfocused, mild feelings as a daily background experience.

Categorizing Emotions

• Six major groups: anger, fear, joy, love, sadness, and surprise.
• Self-conscious: Help regulate relationships with others
• Social emotions: What we towards others

Affective Events Theory

• Work environment influences positive and negative reactions.
• Reactions affect job satisfaction and performance.

Emotional Labor

• Managing and reading understanding owns and others’ emotions.

Sources of Workplace Stress

• Occupational demands
• Work-non-work conflict
• Role ambiguity
• Overload and underload
• Responsibility for others
• Lack of social support

Motivation

• Arousal, direction, and maintenance of behavior towards a goal.

Types of Motivation

• Extrinsic: Doing something for the external reward.
• Intrinsic: Doing something because you find it interesting.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

• Physiological: Basic survival needs.
• Safety: Security and protection.
• Social: Belonging and love.
• Esteem: Self-esteem and recognition from others
• Self-actualization: Fulfilling one’s potential.

Equity Theory (Adams, 1965):

• Motivation is impacted by one's perception of fairness.

Evaluation

• Equity: Belief of fair treatment relative to others.
• Inequity: The opposite of equity.
• Comparing Input/Output Ratios: Equity is assessed by comparing one’s ratio of inputs to outcomes with the ratio of a “referent other."
• Perceived Equity: occurs when ratio is equal
• Perceived Inequity: can result in anger or guilt

Reducing Inequity

• Motivation to restore equity
• By adjusting inputs or outcomes.

Vroom’s Expectancy Theory:

• Motivation depends on the belief that effort will lead to desired outcomes. Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence

Creating Motivation

• Designing motivating work environments and jobs is imperative.
• The overall idea is to provide challenging yet attainable goals that make success worth the work

Job Enlargement

• Adding a range of the same levels to horizontally add more.

Job Enrichment

• Allows an employee to vertical add more skilled and responsible jobs.

Hackman and Oldham’s Job Characteristics Model, 1975

• Provides a layout involving 5 core job dimension which result to 3 critical psychological states which yield relative work outcomes.

Dimensions of Models

• Skill variety
• Task Identity: Requiring one piece of work to happen
• Task Significance
• Autonomy: Autonomously carry out our work
• Feedback: Information about work