Organizational Behaviour PDF

**Course Name: Organizational Behaviour** **Module 1: Introduction** **[INTRODUCTION]** The study of Organizational Behaviour (OB) is very interesting and challenging too. It is related to individuals, group of people working together in teams. The study becomes more challenging when situational...

**Course Name: Organizational Behaviour** **Module 1: Introduction** **[INTRODUCTION]** The study of Organizational Behaviour (OB) is very interesting and challenging too. It is related to individuals, group of people working together in teams. The study becomes more challenging when situational factors interact. The study of organizational behaviour relates to the expected behaviour of an individual in the organization. No two individuals are likely to behave in the same manner in a particular work situation. It is the predictability of a manager about the expected behaviour of an individual. There are no absolutes in human behaviour. It is the human factor that contributes to the productivity hence the study of human behaviour is important. Great importance therefore must be attached to the study of human behaviour. Researchers, management practitioners, psychologists, and social scientists must understand the very credentials of an individual, his background, social framework, educational update, impact of social groups and other situational factors on behaviour. Managers under whom an individual is working should be able to explain, predict, evaluate and modify human behaviour that will largely depend upon the knowledge, skill and experience of the manager in handling large groups of people in diverse situations. Pre- emptive actions need to be taken for human behaviour forecasting. The value system, emotional intelligence, organizational culture, job design and the work environment are important causal agents in determining human behaviour. Cause and effect relationship plays an important role in how an individual is likely to behave in a particular situation and its impact on productivity. **DEFINITIONS** - **"Organizational behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and organizational structure have on behaviour within the organization, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an** **organizational effectiveness".** The above definition has three main elements; ***first*** organizational behaviour is an investigative study of individuals and groups, ***second**,* the impact of organizational structure on human behaviour and the ***third**,* the application of knowledge to achieve organizational effectiveness. These factors are interactive in nature and the impact of such behaviour is applied to various systems so that the goals are achieved. The nature of study of organizational behaviour is investigative to establish cause and effect relationship. Organizational behaviour involves integration of studies undertaken relating to behavioural sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics, social psychology and political science. Therefore, organizational behaviour is a comprehensive field of study in which individual, group and organizational structure is studied in relation to organizational growth and organizational culture, in an environment where impact of modern technology is great. The aim of the study is to ensure that the human behaviour contributes towards growth of the organization and greater efficiency is achieved. - Organizational behaviour can be defined as -- **"the study and application of knowledge about human behaviour related to other elements of an organization such as structure, technology and social systems** (LM Prasad**)**. - It has been observed that we generally form our opinion based on the symptoms of an issue and do not really go to the root cause of the happening. Science of organizational behaviour is applied in nature. Disciplines like psychology, anthropology and political science have contributed in terms of various studies and theories to the field of organizational behaviour. A leader should be able to communicate with his subordinates and keep them in picture so as to know about the happenings in the organization. People promote organizational culture for mutual benefit. - Organizational behaviour is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction, and control of human behaviour in organizations." --- Fred Luthans. - According to Keith Davis "Organizational Behaviour is the study and application of knowledge about how people act within organizations. It is a human tool for the human benefit. It applies broadly to behaviour of people in all type of organizations such as businesses, government, schools, etc. It helps people, structure, technology, and the external environment to blend in together into an effective operative system" **Scope of Organisational Behaviour** - Impact of culture on organizational behaviour - Management of change - Management of conflict and stress - Organizational development - Organizational culture - Transactional analysis - Group behaviour, power and politics - Job design - Study of emotions The field of the organizational behaviour does not depend upon deductions based on gut feelings but attempts to gather information regarding an issue in a scientific manner under controlled conditions. It uses information and interprets the findings so that the behaviour of an individual and group can be channelized as desired. Large numbers of psychologists, social scientists and academicians have carried out researches on various issues related to organizational behaviour. Employee performance and job satisfaction are determinants of accomplishment of individual and organizational goals. Organizations have been set up to fulfil needs of the people. In today's competitive world, organizations have to be growth-oriented. This is possible when productivity is ensured with respect to quantity of product to be produced with zero errors. Employee absenteeism and turnover has a negative impact on productivity. Employees who do not turn up for work frequently cannot contribute towards the productivity and growth of the organization. In the same manner, better employee turnover causes increased cost of production. Job satisfaction is a major factor for analyzing the performance of an individual towards his work. Satisfied workers are productive workers who contribute towards building an appropriate work culture in an organization. Organizations are composed of number of individuals working independently or collectively in teams, and number of such teams makes a department and that in turn creates a whole organization. It is a formal structure and all departments have to function in a coordinated manner to achieve organizational objectives. It is therefore important for all employees to have a positive attitude towards work. They need to function in a friendly atmosphere and accomplish assigned goals. It is also important for managers to develop an appropriate work culture. Use of authority, delegation of certain powers to subordinates, division of labour, efficient communication, benchmarking, re-engineering, job re-design and empowerment are some of the important factors with which an organization can function like a well-oiled machine. This is not only applicable to manufacturing organizations but also to service and social organizations. **Contributing Fields to Organizational Behaviour** - **Psychology:** Psychology is an applied science, which attempts to explain human behaviour in a particular situation and predicts actions of individuals. Psychologists have been able to modify individual behaviour largely with the help of various studies. It has contributed towards various theories on learning, motivation, personality, training and development, theories on individual decision making, leadership, job satisfaction, performance appraisal, attitude, job design, work stress and conflict management. Studies of these theories can improve personal skills, bring change in attitude and develop positive attitude in organizational systems. Various psychological tests are conducted in the organizations for the selection of employees which measure personality attributes and aptitude. Various other dimensions of human personality are also measured. These instruments are scientific in nature and have been finalized after a great deal of research. Field of psychology continues to explore new areas applicable to the field of organizational behaviour. Contribution of psychology has enriched the field of organizational behaviour. - **Sociology: The** science of sociology studies the impact of culture on group behaviour and has contributed to a large extent to the field of group-dynamics, roles that an individual plays in the organization, communication, norms, status, power, conflict management, formal organization theory, group processes and group decision-making. - **Political science:** Political science has contributed to the field of organizational behaviour. Stability of government at national level is one major factor for the promotion of international business, financial investments, expansion and employment. Various government rules and regulations play a very decisive role in growth of an organization. All organizations have to abide by the rules of the government in a particular place. - **Social psychology:** Working organizations are a formal assembly of people who are assigned specific jobs and play a vital role in formulating human behaviour. It is a subject where concept of psychology and sociology are combined together to achieve better human behaviour in organization. The field has contributed to manage change, group decision-making, communication and ability of people in the organization to maintain social norms. - **Anthropology:** It is a field of study related to human activities in various cultural and environmental frameworks. It understands difference in behaviour based on value system of different cultures in various countries. The study is more relevant to organizational behaviour today due to globalization, mergers and acquisitions of various industries. Managers will have to deal with individuals and groups belonging to different ethnic cultures and exercise adequate control or even channelize behaviour in the desired direction by appropriately communicating various cultural factors. Environment studies conducted by the field of anthropology aims to understand organizational human behaviour so that acquisitions and mergers are smooth. Organizations are bound by its culture that is formed by human beings. **BEHAVIOUR MODEL FOR ORGANIZATIONAL EFFICIENCY** - Organizational behaviour is a study and application of managerial skills and knowledge to people in the organization to investigate individual and group behaviour. Various concepts and models in the field of organizational behaviour attempt to identify, not only the human behaviour but also modify their attitude and promote skills so that they can act more effectively. This is done scientifically; therefore, organizational behaviour field is a scientific discipline. The knowledge and models are practically applied to workers, groups and organizational structure that provide tools for improved behaviour and dynamics of relationship. The field of organizational behaviour also provides various systems and models for international relationship that are applied to organizations. - Leaders must look for indicators (effects) of individual behaviour and of groups in any organization. Indicators have a root cause beneath. As a leader, it is that symptom, which must be evaluated, and cause of human behaviour established so that if the behaviour is good, the manager can establish the norms of behaviour. If the behaviour is not conducive to achieving the organizational objective then suitable alternative model can be applied to channelize individual behaviour towards an appropriate organizational value system and thus individual behaviour can be modified. An organization has three basic elements namely, people, structure and technology. An organization must have suitable organizational structure, with appropriate number of tier and reporting system properly explained. Principle of unity of command, delegation of authority and responsibility, formulation of objectives and its allotment to various groups is very important so that workers achieve a required level of job satisfaction. They must be trained to handle sophisticated machines and equipment. It is the people, their value system, and faith in the leadership that make an organization. Leader must be able to describe, understand, predict and control individual behaviour in the organization. This is explained in the succeeding paragraphs. - **Describe:** Study of organizational behaviour is based on scientific methods, which have been applied on human beings. It is a science, that analyses as to how people behave in different situations in the organization. A manager should be able describe the behaviour of each person under his command, identify attitude, and be able to pinpoint his behaviour so that the situation in the organization is under control. - **Understand:** Leaders must understand human behaviour as to why people behave in a particular manner and try to identify reasons so that corrective action can be taken. - **Predict:** By frequent closer interaction, a leader is in a position to identify the nature of workers. Some are more productive while the others are tardy and disruptive. In such situation, a leader should be able to handle each individual differently so that his or her actions can be channelized to higher productivity. - **Control:** Managers in the organizations should train their subordinates continuously; aim being development of skills, promotion of productivity and improvement of individual behaviour. It is a continuous process on the part of the manager. He must lay down control measures so that the energy of workers is diverted towards organizational objectives. Communication should be used to ensure that the behaviour of individual is controlled. Environment has a great impact on human behaviour. Appropriate internal environment would help organizations to build favourable work environment that will help individuals and groups within organizations to work effectively towards higher productivity. **[Individual and Cultural Differences]** To this point, we have focused on how the appearance, behaviours, and traits of the people we encounter influence our understanding of them. It makes sense that this would be our focus because of the emphasis within social psychology on the social situation---in this case, the people we are judging. But the person is also important, so let's consider some of the personal variables that influence how we judge other people. **Perceiver Characteristics** So far, we have assumed that different perceivers will all form pretty much the same impression of the same person. For instance, if you and I are both thinking about our friend Janetta, or describing her to someone else, we should each think about or describe her in pretty much the same way---after all, Janetta is Janetta, and she should have a personality that you and I can both see. But this is not always the case---you and I may form different impressions of Janetta, and for a variety of reasons. For one, my experience with Janetta is somewhat different than yours. I see her in different places and talk to her about different things than you do, and thus I will have a different sample of behaviour on which to base my impressions on. But you and I might even form different impressions of Janetta if we see her performing exactly the same behaviour. To every experience, each of us brings our own schemas, attitudes, and expectations. In fact, the process of interpretation guarantees that we will not all form exactly the same impression of the people that we see. This, of course, reflects a basic principle that we have discussed throughout this book---our prior experiences colour our current perceptions. One perceiver factor that influences how we perceive others is the current *cognitive accessibility* of a given person characteristic---that is, the extent to which a person's characteristic quickly and easily comes to mind for the perceiver. Differences in accessibility will lead different people to attend different aspects of the other person. Some people first notice how attractive someone is because they care a lot about physical appearance---for them, appearance is a highly accessible characteristic. Others pay more attention to a person's race or religion, and still others attend to a person's height or weight. If you are interested in style and fashion, you would probably first notice a person's clothes, whereas another person might be more likely to notice one's athletic skills. You can see that these differences in accessibility will influence the kind of impressions we form about others because they influence what we focus on and how we think about them. In fact, when people are asked to describe others, there is often more overlap in the descriptions provided by the same perceiver about *different* people than there is in those provided by different perceivers about the *same* target person. If you care a lot about fashion, you will describe all your friends on that dimension, whereas if I care about athletic skills, I will tend to describe all my friends on the basis of their athletic qualities. These differences reflect the differing emphasis that we as observers place on the characteristics of others rather than the real differences between those people. People also differ in terms of how carefully they process information about others. Some people have a strong need to think and understand about others. I'm sure you know people like this---they want to know why something went wrong or right, or just to know more about anyone with whom they interact. Need for cognition refers to *the tendency to think carefully and fully about social situations*. People with a strong need for cognition tend to process information more thoughtfully and therefore may make more causal attributions overall. In contrast, people without a strong need for cognition tend to be more impulsive and impatient and may make attributions more quickly and spontaneously. Although the need for cognition refers to a tendency to think carefully and fully about any topic, there are also individual differences in the tendency to be interested in people more specifically. For instance, Fletcher, Danilovics, Fernandez, Peterson, and Reeder found that psychology majors were more curious about people than were natural science majors. Individual differences exist not only in the depth of our attributions but also in the types of attributions we tend to make about both ourselves and others. Some people tend to believe that people's traits are fundamentally stable and incapable of change. We call these people entity theorists. Entity theorists tend to focus on the traits of other people and tend to make a lot of personal attributions. On the other hand, incremental theorists are those who believe that personalities change a lot over time and who therefore are more likely to make situational attributions for events. Incremental theorists are more focused on the dynamic psychological processes that arise from individuals' changing mental states in different situations. In one relevant study, Molden, Plaks, and Dweck (2006) found that when forced to make judgments quickly, people who had been classified as entity theorists were nevertheless still able to make personal attributions about others but were not able to easily encode the situational causes of someone's behaviour. On the other hand, when forced to make judgments quickly, the people who were classified as incremental theorists were better able to make use of the situational aspects of the scene rather than the personalities of the characters. Individual differences in attributional styles can also influence our own behaviour. Entity theorists are more likely to have difficulty when they move on to new tasks because they don't think that they will be able to adapt to the new challenges. Incremental theorists, on the other hand, are more optimistic and do better in such challenging environments because they believe that their personality can adapt to the new situation. You can see that these differences in how people make attributions can help us understand both how we think about ourselves and others and how we respond to our own social contexts. Cultural Differences in Person Perception The culture that we live in has a significant impact on the way we think about and perceive the world. And thus it is not surprising that people in different cultures would tend to think about people at least somewhat differently. One difference is between people from Western cultures (e.g., the United States, Canada, and Australia) and people from East Asian cultures (e.g., Japan, China, Taiwan, Korea, and India). People from Western cultures tend to be primarily oriented toward individualism, tending to think about themselves as different from (and often better than) the other people in their environment and believing that other people make their own decisions and are responsible for their own actions. In contrast, people in many East Asian cultures take a more collective view of people that emphasizes not so much about the individual but rather the relationship between individuals and the other people and things that surround them. The outcome of these differences is that on average, people from individualistic cultures tend to focus more on the individual person, whereas, again on average, people from collectivistic cultures tend to focus more on the situation. Michael Morris and his colleagues (Hong, Morris, Chiu, & Benet-Martínez, 2000) investigated the role of culture on person perception in a different way, by focusing on people who are bicultural (i.e., who have knowledge about two different cultures). In their research, they used high school students living in Hong Kong. Although traditional Chinese values are emphasized in Hong Kong, because Hong Kong was a British-administrated territory for more than a century, the students there are also acculturated with Western social beliefs and values. Morris and his colleagues first randomly assigned the students to one of three priming conditions. Participants in the *American culture* priming condition saw pictures of American icons (such as the U.S. Capitol building and the American flag) and then wrote 10 sentences about American culture. Participants in the *Chinese culture* priming condition saw eight Chinese icons (such as a Chinese dragon and the Great Wall of China) and then wrote 10 sentences about Chinese culture. Finally, participants in the *control condition* saw pictures of natural landscapes and wrote 10 sentences about the landscapes. Then participants in all conditions read a story about an overweight boy who was advised by a physician not to eat food with high sugar content. One day, he and his friends went to a buffet dinner where a delicious-looking cake was offered. Despite its high sugar content, he ate it. After reading the story, the participants were asked to indicate the extent to which the boy's weight problem was caused by his personality (personal attribution) or by the situation (situational attribution). The students who had been primed with symbols about American culture gave relatively less weight to situational (rather than personal) factors in comparison with students who had been primed with symbols of Chinese culture. In still another test of cultural differences in person perception, Kim and Markus (1999) analyzed the statements made by athletes and by the news media regarding the winners of medals in the 2000 and 2002 Olympic Games. They found that athletes in China described themselves more in terms of the situation (they talked about the importance of their coaches, their managers, and the spectators in helping them to do well), whereas American athletes (can you guess?) focused on themselves, emphasizing their own strength, determination, and focus. Taken together then, we can see that cultural and individual differences play a similar role in person perception as they do in other social psychological areas. Although most people tend to use the same basic person-perception processes, and although we can understand these processes by observing the communalities among people, the outcomes of person perception will also be determined---at least in part---by the characteristics of the person himself or herself. And these differences are often created by the culture in which the person lives. **Attributional Styles and Mental Health** How we make attributions about other people has a big influence on our reactions to them. But we also make attributions for our own behaviours. Social psychologists have discovered that there are important individual differences in the attributions that people make to the negative events that they experience and that these attributions can have a big influence on how they respond to them. The same negative event can create anxiety and depression in one individual but have virtually no effect on someone else. And still another person may see the negative event as a challenge to try even harder to overcome the difficulty. - A major determinant of how we react to perceived threats is the attributions that we make to them. Attributional style refers to *the type of attributions that we tend to make for the events that occur to us*. These attributions can be to our own characteristics (*internal*) or to the situation (*external*), but attributions can also be made on other dimensions, including *stable* versus *unstable*, and *global* versus *specific*. *Stable attributions* are those that we think will be relatively permanent, whereas *unstable attributions* are expected to change over time. *Global attributions* are those that we feel apply broadly, whereas *specific* attributions are those causes that we see as more unique to specific events. - You may know some people who tend to make negative or pessimistic attributions to negative events that they experience---we say that these people have a *negative attributional style*. These people explain negative events by referring to their own internal, stable, and global qualities. People with negative attributional styles say things such as the following: - "I failed because I am no good" (*an internal attribution*). - "I always fail" (*a stable attribution*). - "I fail in everything" (*a global attribution*). - You might well imagine that the result of these negative attributional styles is a sense of hopelessness and despair (Metalsky, Joiner, Hardin, & Abramson, 1993). Indeed, Alloy, Abramson, and Francis (1999) found that college students who indicated that they had negative attributional styles when they first came to college were more likely than those who had a more positive style to experience an episode of depression within the next few months. - *People who have extremely negative attributional styles, in which they continually make external, stable, and global attributions for their behaviour*, are said to be experiencing learned helplessness (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978; Seligman, 1975). Learned helplessness was first demonstrated in research that found that some dogs that were strapped into a harness and exposed to painful electric shocks became passive and gave up trying to escape from the shock, even in new situations in which the harness had been removed and escape was therefore possible. Similarly, some people who were exposed to bursts of noise later failed to stop the noise when they were actually able to do so. In short, learned helplessness is the tendency to make external, rather than internal, attributions for our behaviours. Those who experience learned helplessness do not feel that they have any control over their own outcomes and are more likely to have a variety of negative health outcomes (Henry, 2005; Peterson & Seligman, 1984). - Another type of attributional technique that people sometimes use to help them feel better about themselves is known as self-handicapping. Self-handicapping occurs when we make statements or engage in behaviours that help us create a convenient external attribution for potential failure. For instance, in research by Berglas and Jones (1978), participants first performed an intelligence test on which they did very well. - The participants were then given a choice---they could take a pill that was supposed to facilitate performance on the intelligence task (making it easier for them to perform) or a pill that was supposed to inhibit performance on the intelligence task, thereby making the task harder to perform (no drugs were actually administered). Berglas found that men---but not women---engaged in self-handicapping: They preferred to take the performance-inhibiting rather than the performance-enhancing drug, choosing the drug that provided a convenient external attribution for potential failure. - Although women may also self-handicap, particularly by indicating that they are unable to perform well due to stress or time constraints, men seem to do it more frequently. This is consistent with the general gender differences we have talked about in many places in this book---on average, men are more concerned about maintaining their self-esteem and social status in the eyes of themselves and others than are women. - You can see that there are some benefits (but also, of course, some costs) of self-handicapping. If we fail after we self-handicap, we simply blame the failure on the external factor. But if we succeed despite the handicap that we have created for ourselves, we can make clear internal attributions for our success. But engaging in behaviours that create self-handicapping can be costly because they make it harder for us to succeed. In fact, research has found that people who report that they self-handicap regularly show lower life satisfaction, less competence, poorer moods, less interest in their jobs, and even more substance abuse. Although self-handicapping would seem to be useful for insulating our feelings from failure, it is not a good tack to take in the long run. - Fortunately, not all people have such negative attributional styles. In fact, most people tend to have more positive ones---styles that are related to high positive self-esteem and a tendency to explain the negative events they experience by referring to external, unstable, and specific qualities. Thus people with positive attributional styles are likely to say things such as the following: - "I failed because the task is very difficult" (*an external attribution*). - "I will do better next time" (*an unstable attribution*). - "I failed in this domain, but I'm good in other things" (*a specific attribution*). - In sum, we can say that people who make more positive attributions toward the negative events that they experience will persist longer at tasks and that this persistence can help them. But there are limits to the effectiveness of these strategies. We cannot control everything, and trying to do so can be stressful. We can change some things but not others; thus sometimes the important thing is to know when it's better to give up, stop worrying, and just let things happen. Having a positive outlook is healthy, but we cannot be unrealistic about what we can and cannot do. Unrealistic optimism is the *tendency to be overly positive about the likelihood that negative things will occur to us and that we will be able to effectively cope with them if they do*. When we are too optimistic, we may set ourselves up for failure and depression when things do not work out as we had hoped. We may think that we are immune to the potential negative outcomes of driving while intoxicated or practicing unsafe sex, but these optimistic beliefs are not healthy. Fortunately, most people have a reasonable balance between optimism and realism. They tend to set goals that they believe they can attain, and they regularly make some progress toward reaching them. Research has found that setting reasonable goals and feeling that we are moving toward them makes us happy, even if we may not in fact attain the goals themselves. **[Perception and Job Attitudes ]** **What Causes Positive Work Attitudes?** What makes you satisfied with your job and develop commitment to your company? Research shows that people pay attention to several aspects of their work environment, including how they are treated, the relationships they form with colleagues and managers, and the actual work they perform. We will now summarize the factors that show consistent relations with job satisfaction and organizational commitment. **Personality** Can assessing the work environment fully explain how satisfied we are about the job? Interestingly, some experts have shown that job satisfaction is not purely environmental and is partially due to our personality. Some people have a disposition to be happy in life and at work regardless of environmental factors. It seems that people who have a positive affective disposition (those who have a tendency to experience positive moods more often than negative moods) tend to be more satisfied with their jobs and more committed to their companies, while those who have a negative disposition tend to be less satisfied and less committed. This is not surprising, as people who are determined to see the glass as half full will notice the good things in their work environment, while those with the opposite character will find more things to complain about. In addition to our affective disposition, people who have a neurotic personality (those who are moody, temperamental, critical of themselves and others) are less satisfied with their job, while those who are emotionally more stable tend to be more satisfied. Other traits such as conscientiousness, self-esteem, locus of control, and extraversion are also related to positive work attitudes. Either these people are more successful in finding jobs and companies that will make them happy and build better relationships at work, which would increase their satisfaction and commitment, or they simply see their environment as more positive---whichever the case, it seems that personality is related to work attitudes. **Person--Environment Fit** The fit between what we bring to our work environment and the environmental demands influences our work attitudes. Therefore, person--job fit and person--organization fit are positively related to job satisfaction and commitment. When our abilities match job demands and our values match company values, we tend to be more satisfied with our job and more committed to the company we work for. **Job Characteristics** The presence of certain characteristics on the job seems to make employees more satisfied and more committed. Using a variety of skills, having autonomy at work, receiving feedback on the job, and performing a significant task are some job characteristics that are related to satisfaction and commitment. However, the presence of these factors is not important for everyone. Some people have a high growth need. They expect their jobs to help them build new skills and improve as an employee. These people tend to be more satisfied when their jobs have these characteristics. **Psychological Contract** After accepting a job, people come to work with a set of expectations. They have an understanding of their responsibilities and rights. In other words, they have a psychological contract with the company. A psychological contract is an unwritten understanding about what the employee will bring to the work environment and what the company will provide in exchange. When people do not get what they expect, they experience a psychological contract breach, which leads to low job satisfaction and commitment. Imagine that you were told before being hired that the company was family friendly and collegial. However, after a while, you realize that they expect employees to work 70 hours a week, and employees are aggressive toward each other. You are likely to experience a breach in your psychological contract and be dissatisfied. One way of preventing such problems is for companies to provide realistic job previews to their employees. **Organizational Justice** The kind of treatment we receive influences our satisfaction level. People pay attention to the fairness of company policies and procedures, treatment from supervisors, and pay and other rewards they receive from the company. **Relationships at Work** Two strong predictors of our happiness at work and commitment to the company are our relationships with co-workers and managers. The people we interact with, their degree of compassion, our level of social acceptance in our work group, and whether we are treated with respect are all important factors deciding the positivity at work. Research also shows that our relationship with our manager, how considerate the manager is, and whether we build a trust-based relationship with our manager are critically important to our job satisfaction and organizational commitment. When our manager and upper management listen to us, care about us, and value our opinions, we tend to feel good at work. Even small actions may show employees that the management cares about them. For example, Hotel Carlton in San Francisco was recently taken over by a new management group. One of the small things the new management did created dramatic results. In response to an employee attitude survey, they replaced the old vacuum cleaners housekeepers were using and established a policy of replacing them every year. This simple act of listening to employee problems and taking action went a long way to making employees feel that the management cares about them. **Stress** Not surprisingly, the amount of stress present in our job is related to our satisfaction and commitment. For example, experiencing role ambiguity (vagueness in relation to what our responsibilities are), role conflict (facing contradictory demands at work), organizational politics, and worrying about the security of our job are all stressors that make people dissatisfied. On the other hand, not all stress is bad. Some stressors actually make us happier! For example, working under time pressure and having a high degree of responsibility are stressful, but they can also be perceived as challenges and tend to be related to high levels of satisfaction. **Work--Life Balance** In the 1950s, work was all-consuming. Employees went to work, worked long hours, and the rest of the family accepted that work came first. As society changed, the concept of always putting work first became outdated. In modern times, more employees expect to lead balanced lives, pursue hobbies, and spend more time with their children while at the same time continuing to succeed at work. The notion of work--family conflict is one cause of job dissatisfaction. This conflict can be particularly strong for women because of the time necessary for pregnancy and giving birth, but men struggle with it as well. When work life interferes with family life, we are more stressed and unhappy with our jobs. Research shows that policies that help employees achieve a balance between their work and personal lives, such as allowing telecommuting, are related to higher job satisfaction. For example, the medical resources group of the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca International does not have fixed working hours, and employees can work any hours they choose. Motorola's technological acceleration group also has flexible hours and can work from anywhere (home, office, or a coffee shop) at anytime. **Consequences of Positive Work Attitudes** Why do we care about the job satisfaction and organizational commitment of employees? What behaviours would you expect to see from someone who has more positive work attitude? - If you say "higher performance," you have stumbled upon one of the most controversial subjects in organizational behaviour. Many studies have been devoted to understanding whether happy employees are more productive. Some studies show weak correlations between satisfaction and performance while others show higher correlations (what researchers would call "medium-sized" correlations of 0.30) - It seems that happy workers have an inclination to be more engaged at work. They may *want* to perform better. They may be more motivated. But there are also exceptions. Think about this: Just because you want to perform, will you actually be a higher performer? Chances are that your skill level in performing the job will matter. There are also some jobs where performance depends on factors beyond an employee's control, such as the pace of the machine they are working on. Because of this reason, in professional jobs such as engineering and research, we see a higher link between work attitudes and performance, as opposed to manual jobs such as assembly line work. Also, think about the alternative possibility: If you don't like your job, does this mean that you will reduce your performance? Maybe up to a certain point, but there will be factors that prevent you from reducing your performance: the fear of getting fired, the desire to get a promotion so that you can get out of the job that you dislike so much, or your professional work ethic. As a result, we should not expect a one-to-one relationship between satisfaction and performance. Still, the observed correlation between work attitudes and performance is important and has practical value. **Assessing Attitudes in the Workplace** Given that work attitudes may give us clues as to who will leave or stay, who will perform better, and who will be more engaged, tracking satisfaction and commitment levels is a helpful step for companies. If there are companywide issues that make employees unhappy and disengaged, then these issues need to be resolved. There are at least two systematic ways in which companies can track work attitudes: through attitude surveys and exit interviews. Companies such as KFC Corporation and Long John Silver's Inc. restaurants, the SAS Institute, Google, and others give periodic surveys to employees to track their work attitudes. Companies can get more out of these surveys if responses are held confidential. If employees become concerned that their individual responses will be shared with their immediate manager, they are less likely to respond honestly. Moreover, the success of these surveys depends on the credibility of management in the eyes of employees. If management periodically collects these surveys but no action comes out of them, employees may adopt a more cynical attitude and start ignoring these surveys, hampering the success of future efforts. **[Learning and Reinforcement]** Learning can be defined as the permanent change in behaviour due to direct and indirect experience. It means change in behaviour, attitude due to education and training, practice and experience. It is completed by acquisition of knowledge and skills, which are relatively permanent. **Nature of Learning** Nature of learning means the characteristic features of learning. Learning involves change; it may or may not guarantee improvement. It should be permanent in nature, that is learning is for lifelong. The change in behaviour is the result of experience, practice and training. Learning is reflected through behaviour. **Factors Affecting Learning** Learning is based upon some key factors that decide what changes will be caused by this experience. The key elements or the major factors that affect learning are motivation, practice, environment, and mental group. Coming back to them let us have a look on these factors − **Motivation** − The encouragement, the support one gets to complete a task, to achieve a goal is known as motivation. It is a very important aspect of learning as it acts gives us the positive energy to complete a task. Example − The coach motivated the players to win the match. **Practice** -- We all know that practice makes us perfect. In order to be a perfectionist or at least complete the task, it is very important to practice what we have learnt. Example − We can be a programmer only when we execute the codes we have written. **Environment** − We learn from our surroundings, we learn from the people around us. There are two types of environment -- internal and external. Example − A child learns from the family at home which is an internal environment, but learns from the school which is an external environment. **Mental group** − It describes our thinking by the group of people we choose to hang out with. In simple words, we make a group of those people with whom we connect. It can be for a social cause where people with the same mentality work in the same direction. Example − A group of readers, travelers, etc. These are the main factors that influence what a person learns, the cause for our behaviour and everything we do is connected to what we learn. **How Learning Occurs?** Learning can be understood clearly with the help of some theories that will explain our behaviour. Some of the remarkable theories are − - Classical Conditioning Theory - Operant Conditioning Theory - Social Learning Theory - Cognitive Learning Theory **Classical Conditioning Theory** The classical conditioning occurs when a conditioned stimulus is coupled with an unconditioned stimulus. Usually, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is an impartial stimulus like the sound of a tuning fork, the unconditioned stimulus (US) is like the taste of food and the unconditioned response (UR) to the unconditioned stimulus is an unlearned reflex response like salivation or sweating. After this coupling process is repeated (for example, some learning may already occur after a single coupling), an individual shows a conditioned response (CR) to the conditioned stimulus, when the conditioned stimulus is presented alone. The conditioned response is mostly similar to the unconditioned response, but unlike the unconditioned response, it must be acquired through experience and is nearly impermanent.  **Operant Conditioning Theory** Operant conditioning theory is also known as instrumental conditioning. This theory is a learning process in which behaviour is sensitive to, or controlled by its outcomes. Let's take an example of a child. A child may learn to open a box to get the candy inside, or learn to avoid touching a hot stove. In comparison, the classical conditioning develops a relationship between a stimulus and behaviour. The example can be further elaborated as the child may learn to salivate at the sight of candy, or to tremble at the sight of an angry parent. In the 20th century, the study of animal learning was commanded by the analysis of these two sorts of learning, and they are still at the core of behaviour analysis. **Social Learning Theory** Social learning theory or SLT is the theory that people learn new behaviour through overt reinforcement or punishment, or via observational learning of the social factors in their environment. If people observe positive, desired outcomes in the behaviour, then they are more likely to model, imitate and adopt the behaviour themselves. Modern theory is closely associated with Julian Rotter and Albert Bandura. Social learning theory is derived from the work of Cornell Montgomery (1843-1904) which proposed that social learning occurred through four main stages of imitation: close contact, imitation of superiors, understanding of concepts, role model behaviour It consists of three parts observing, imitating and reinforcements. Julian Rotter moved away from theories based on psychosis and behaviourism and developed a learning theory. In Social Learning and Clinical Psychology (1954), Rotter suggests that the effect of behaviour has an impact on the motivation of people to engage in that specific behaviour. People wish to avoid negative consequences, while desiring positive results or effects. If one expects a positive outcome from a behaviour, or thinks there is a high probability of a positive outcome, then they will be more likely to engage in that behaviour. The behaviour is reinforced, with positive outcomes, leading a person to repeat the behaviour. This social learning theory suggests that behaviour is influenced by these environmental factors or stimulus and not psychological factors alone. Social learning theory outlines three requirements for people to learn and model behaviour include attention: retention (remembering what one observed), reproduction (ability to reproduce the behaviour) and motivation (good reason) to want to adopt the behaviour. **Cognitive Learning Theory** Cognition defines a person's ideas, thoughts, knowledge, interpretation, understanding about himself and environment. This theory considers learning as the outcome of deliberate thinking on a problem or situation based upon known facts and responding in an objective and more oriented manner. It perceives that a person learns the meaning of various objects and events and also learns the response depending upon the meaning assigned to the stimuli. This theory debates that the learner forms a cognitive structure in memory which stores organized information about the various events that occur. **Learning & Organizational Behaviour** An individual's behaviour in an organization is directly or indirectly affected by learning. Example − Employee skill, manager's attitude are all learned. Behaviour can be improved by following the listed tips − - Reducing absenteeism by rewarding employees for their fair attendance. - Improving employee discipline by dealing with employee's undesirable behaviour, drinking at workplace, stealing, coming late, etc. by taking appropriate actions like oral reprimands, written warnings and suspension. - Developing training programs more often so as to grab the trainees' attention provide required motivational properties etc. **Reinforcement** Reinforcement is the attempt to develop or strengthen desirable behaviour. There are two types of reinforcement in organizational behaviour: positive and negative. Positive reinforcement strengthens and enhances behaviour by the presentation of positive reinforcers. There are primary reinforcers and secondary reinforcers. Primary reinforcers satisfy basic biological needs and include food and water. However, primary reinforcers do not always reinforce. For instance, food may not be a reinforcer to someone who has just completed a five course meal. Most behaviours in organizations are influenced by secondary reinforcers. These include such benefits as money, status, grades, trophies and praise from others. These include such benefits as money, status, grades, trophies and praise from others. These become positive reinforcers because of their associations with the primary reinforcers and hence are often called conditioned reinforcers. It should be noted that an event that functions as a positive reinforce at one time or in one context may have a different effect at another time or in another place. For example, food may serve as a positive reinforcer for a person who is hungry, but not when the person, as stated above, has already a large meal. Clearly, a stimulus that functions as a positive reinforcer for one person may fail to operate in a similar manner for another person. Within itself, positive reinforcement has several principles. The principle of contingent reinforcement states that the reinforcer must be administered only if the desired behaviour has occurred. A reinforcer administered when the desired behaviour has not been performed becomes ineffective. The principle of immediate reinforcement states that the reinforcer will be most effective if administered immediately after the desired behaviour has occurred. The more time that elapses after the behaviour occurs, the less effective the reinforcer will be. The principle of reinforcement size stated that the larger the amount of reinforcement delivered after the desired behaviour, the more effect the reinforcer will have on the frequency of the desired behaviour. The amount or size of reinforcer is relative. A reinforcer that may be insignificant to one person may be significant to another person. Thus, the size of the reinforcer must be determined in relation both to the behaviour and the individual. The principle of reinforcement deprivation states that the more a person is deprived of the reinforcer, the greater effect it will have on the future occurrence of the desired behaviour. However, if an individual recently has had enough of a reinforcer and is satisfied the reinforcer will have less effect. In negative reinforcement, an unpleasant event that precedes behaviour is removed when the desired behaviour occurs. This procedure increases the likelihood that the desired behaviour will occur. Just as there are positive reinforcers, there are the stimuli that strengthen responses that permit an organism to avoid or escape from their presence. Thus, when we perform an action that allows us to escape from a negative reinforcer that is already present or to avoid the threatened application of one, our tendency to perform this action in the future increases. Some negative reinforcers such as intense heat, extreme cold, or electric shock, exert their effects the first time they are encountered, whereas others acquire their impact through repeated association. We see negative reinforcement in organizations and in personal life. Supervisors apply negative reinforcement when they stop criticizing employees whose poor performance has improved. By withholding the criticism, employees are more likely to repeat behaviours that enhance their performance. Negative reinforcement also occurs when parents give in to their children's tantrums- especially in public places, such as restaurants and shopping malls. Over time, the parent's tendency to give in may increase, because doing so stops screaming. Thus, both positive and negative reinforcement are procedures that strengthen or increase behaviour. Positive reinforcement strengthens and increase behaviour by the presentation of desirable consequences. Negative reinforcement strengthens and increases behaviour by the threat of and the use of an undesirable consequence or the termination or withdrawal of an undesirable consequence. Negative reinforcement is sometimes confused with punishment, because both use unpleasant stimuli to influence behaviour. However, negative reinforcement is used to increase the frequency of a desired behaviour, whereas punishment is used to decrease the frequency of an undesired behaviour. **Schedules of Reinforcement** Reinforcement, positive or negative, needs to be properly scheduled. Schedules of reinforcement determine when reinforcers are supposed to be applied. Psychologists have identified several different schedules of reinforcement. When reinforcement is administered uninterruptedly, it is called continuous reinforcement. Instead, in organizations, reinforcers are administered following partial reinforcement schedules. Four varieties of partial reinforcement schedules have great relevance to organizations. They are - Fixed interval schedule: It means providing reinforcement on a predetermined, constant schedule. The first desired behaviour to occur after the interval has elapsed is reinforced. Eg. monthly pay cheque. - Variable interval schedule: It also uses time as the basis for applying reinforcement, but it varies the intervals between reinforcements. - Fixed ratio schedule: Reinforcement is administered after the desired behaviour occurs a specified number of times. Eg. Piece rating. - Variable ratio schedule: In this a certain number of desired behaviours must occur before the reinforcer is delivered, but the number of behaviours varies around some average. This type of reinforcement schedule provokes most interest and is preferred by employees for some tasks. It tends to be the most powerful of all the reinforcement schedules. Slot machines and a number of gambling devices operate on a variable ratio schedule. Most of the time when people put a coin into the slot, they lose. But, after some unknown number of plays, the machine will pay off.