Organizational Behavior PDF

WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR? Prepared By: Mariel A. Dela Trinidad, MAPA LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. 2. Define organizational behavior (OB). 3. Show the value of OB to systematic study. 4. Identify the major behavio...

WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR? Prepared By: Mariel A. Dela Trinidad, MAPA LEARNING OBJECTIVES 1. Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. 2. Define organizational behavior (OB). 3. Show the value of OB to systematic study. 4. Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB. 5. Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB. 6. Identify managers’ challenges and opportunities in applying OB concepts. 7. Compare the three levels of analysis in this text’s OB model. 8. Describe the key employability skills gained from studying OB that are applicable to other majors or future careers. THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERPERSONAL SKILLS 1-1 Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. Incorporating OB principles into the workplace can yield many important organizational outcomes. Companies known as good places to work—such as Adobe, LinkedIn, Fast Enterprises, World Wide Technology, Facebook, Bain & Company, Google, the Boston Consulting Group, and others—have been found to generate superior financial performance. Developing managers’ interpersonal skills helps organizations attract and keep high-performing employees, which is important because outstanding employees are always in short supply and costly to replace. Strong associations exist between the quality of workplace relationships and employee job satisfaction, stress, and turnover. 1  Increasing the OB element in organizations can foster social responsibility awareness. MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR 1-2 Define organizational behavior (OB). Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals. An organization is 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. WHAT CAN BE INCLUDED OR EXCLUDED IN THE ORGANIZATION? What can be included in the What can be excluded in the Organization? Organization? Companies Tribes Schools Families Armies Friendship Groups Churches Hospitals Police Departments State MANAGER’S PRIMARY ACTIVITIES PLANNING: A process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities. ORGANIZING: Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made. 2 LEADING: A function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts. CONTROLLING: Monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations. MANAGEMENT ROLES (HENRY MINTZBERG) Exhibit 1-1: Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles Role Description Interpersonal Symbolic head; required to perform a number of routine duties of Figurehead a legal or social nature Leader Responsible for the motivation and direction of employees Maintains a network of outside contacts who provide favors and Liaison information Informational Receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve center of Monitor internal and external information of the organization Transmits information received from outsiders or from other Disseminator employees to members of the organization Transmits information to outsiders on organization’s plans, Spokesperson policies, actions, and results; serves as expert on organization’s industry Decisional Searches organization and its environment for opportunities Entrepreneur and initiates projects to bring about change 3 Decisional Disturbance Responsible for corrective action when organization faces handler important, unexpected disturbances Resource Makes or approves significant organizational decisions allocator Responsible for representing the organization at major Negotiator negotiations Source: H. Mintzberg, The Nature of Managerial Work, 1st ed., © 1973, pp. 92- 93. Reprinted and electronically reproduced by permission of Pearson Education, Inc., New York, NY. Management Skills Technical skills: Encompass the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. Human Skills: The ability to understand, communicate with, motivate, and support other people, both individually and in groups. Conceptual Skills: Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. Effective vs. Successful Managerial Activities "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?" Fred Luthans. 450 managers, are all engaged in four Managerial activities. Traditional management: Decision making, planning, and controlling. Communication: Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork. Human Resources Management: Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training. Networking: Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders. 4 This finding challenges the historical assumption that promotions are based on performance, and it illustrates the importance of networking and political skills in getting ahead in organizations. ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR (OB) 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. OB is the study of what people do in an organization and the way their behavior affects the organization’s performance. OB includes these core topics: Motivation Leader behavior and power Interpersonal communication Group structure and processes 5  Attitude development and perception Change processes Conflict and negotiation Work design COMPLEMENTING INTUITION WITH SYSTEMATIC STUDY 1-3 Show the value of OB to systematic study. Behavior is generally predictable, and the systematic study (looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence) of behavior is a way to make reasonably accurate predictions. Evidence-based management (EBM) complements systematic study by basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence. Systematic study and EBM add to intuition (an instinctive feeling not necessarily supported by research), or those “gut feelings” about what makes others (and ourselves) “tick.” BIG DATA Background: Online retailers began to track and act on information about customer preferences that was uniquely available through the Internet shopping experience, information that was far superior to data gathered in simple store transactions. Current Usage: Firms use data analytics to predict events, detect risk, and prevent catastrophes large and small. New Trends: Organizations are now focusing more on fast data, emphasizing actionable data that can guide business decisions in real time. 6  Limitations As technological capabilities for handling big data have increased, so have issues of privacy. The prudent use of big data, along with an understanding of human behavioral tendencies, can contribute to sound decision making and ease natural biases. What we are advising is to use evidence as much as possible to inform your intuition and experience. That is the promise of OB. DISCIPLINES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO OB 1-4 Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB. Psychology Psychology comes from the Greek word ‘psyche’ meaning soul or spirit which defined as the science of behavior. The science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals. It is concern with studying & attempting to understand individual behavior. Unit of Analysis: Individual Contributions to OB The psychological concepts relevant to organizational behavior include:- Perception Personality Motivation Values Attitudes Job satisfaction Leadership 7  Psychology studies behavior in various conditions- normal, abnormal, social, industrial, legal; childhood, adolescence, old age etc. It also studies processes of human behavior, such as learning, thinking, memory, sensation, perception, emotion, feeling and personality. Sociology Knowledge about man’s social behavior. It studies the way in which people act towards one another. It studies social groups, social behavior, social class, status, social mobility and prestige. While psychologists focus their attention on the individual, sociologist study the social system in which individuals fill their roles. Unit of Analysis: Group, Organization system Contributions to OB Group dynamics Teamwork Communication Power & politics Conflict Intergroup behavior Organization theory Organizational change Sociologist made their great contribution to Organization Behavior through the study of group behavior in organization. 8 Social Psychology An area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another. Unit of Analysis: Group Contributions to OB Behavioral change Attitude change Communication Group processes Group decision making Anthropology It combines the Greek words ‘Anthropo’ meaning man and the noun ending ‘logy’ meaning science. So it is defined as the science of man. The study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. It studies civilization, forms of cultures and their impact on individuals and groups, biological features of man and evolutionary pattern, speech and relationship among languages. It works on cultures & environment has helped to understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, and behavior between people in different countries and within different organizations. Unit of Analysis: o Organizational System o Group Contributions to OB Organizational culture Organizational environment Comparative values 9  Comparative attitudes Cross-cultural analysis Comparative values Anthropologist work on cultures and environment has helped us understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, behavior between people in different countries and within different organizations. 10 THERE ARE FEW ABSOLUTES IN OB 1-5 Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB. That doesn’t mean, of course, that we can’t offer reasonably accurate explanations of human behavior or make valid predictions. It does mean that OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions. We can say x leads to y, but only under conditions specified in z—the contingency variables (Situational factors or variables that moderate the relationship between two or more variables.) The science of OB was developed by applying general concepts to a particular situation, person, or group. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES 1-6 Identify managers’ challenges and opportunities in applying OB concepts. 11 Most critical issues confronting managers for which OB offers solutions—or at least meaningful insights toward solutions. Economic Pressure Continuing Globalization o Increased Foreign Assignments o Working with People from Different Cultures o Overseeing Movement of Jobs to Countries with Low-Cost Labor o Adapting to Differing Cultural and Regulatory Norms Workforce Demographics Workforce Diversity Customer Service Networked Organizations Social Media Employee Well-Being at Work Positive Work Environment Ethical Behavior COMING ATTRACTIONS: DEVELOPING AN OB MODEL 1-7 Compare the three levels of analysis in this text’s OB model. Inputs: These variables set the stage for what will occur in an organization later Processes: are actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs and that lead to certain outcomes. Outcomes: are the key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some other variables. 12 OUTCOMES: Attitude and Stress o Employee attitudes are the evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to negative, about objects, people, or events. Some people might think that influencing employee attitudes and stress is purely soft stuff, and not the business of serious managers, but as we will show, attitudes often have behavioral consequences that directly relate to organizational effectiveness Task Performance o The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks is a reflection of your level of task performance. Obviously task performance is the most important human output contributing to organizational effectiveness. 13  Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) o The discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, and that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace, is called organizational citizenship behavior (OCB), or simply citizenship behavior. Withdrawal Behavior o Is the set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization. There are many forms of withdrawal, ranging from showing up late or failing to attend meetings to absenteeism and turnover. Employee withdrawal can have a very negative effect on an organization. The cost of employee turnover alone has been estimated to run into the thousands of dollars, even for entry-level positions. Absenteeism also costs organizations significant amounts of money and time every year. Group Cohesion o Is the extent to which members of a group support and validate one another at work. In other words, a cohesive group is one that sticks together. When employees trust one another, seek common goals, and work together to achieve these common ends, the group is cohesive; when employees are divided among themselves in terms of what they want to achieve and have little loyalty to one another, the group is not cohesive. Group Functioning o refers to the quantity and quality of a groupʼs work output. In the same way that the performance of a sports team is more than the sum of individual playersʼ performance, group functioning in work organizations is more than the sum of individual task performances. Productivity o The highest level of analysis in organizational behavior is the organization as a whole. An organization is productive if it achieves its goals by transforming inputs into outputs at the lowest cost. Thus productivity requires both effectiveness and efficiency. 14  Survival o is simply evidence that the organization is able to exist and grow over the long term. The survival of an organization depends not just on how productive the organization is, but also on how well it fits with its environment. A company that is very productively making goods and services of little value to the market is unlikely to survive for long, so survival factors in things like perceiving the market successfully, making good decisions about how and when to pursue opportunities, and engaging in successful change management to adapt to new business conditions EMPLOYABILITY SKILLS 1-8 Describe the key employability skills gained from studying OB that are applicable to other majors or future careers. Employability Skills That Apply across Majors Critical thinking involves purposeful and goal-directed thinking used to define and solve problems and to make decisions or form judgments related to a particular situation or set of circumstances. It involves cognitive, metacognitive, and dispositional components that may be applied differently in specific contexts. Communication is defined as effective use of oral, written, and nonverbal communication skills for multiple purposes (e.g., to inform, instruct, motivate, persuade, and share ideas); effective listening; using technology to communicate; and being able to evaluate the effectiveness of communication efforts—all within diverse contexts. Collaboration is a skill in which individuals can actively work together on a task, constructing meaning and knowledge as a group through dialogue and negotiation that results in a final product reflective of their joint, interdependent actions. Knowledge application and analysis is defined as the ability to learn a concept and then apply that knowledge appropriately in another setting to achieve a higher level of understanding. 15  Social responsibility includes skills related to both business ethics and corporate social responsibility. Business ethics includes sets of guiding principles that influence the way individuals and organizations behave within the society that they operate. Corporate social responsibility is a form of ethical behavior that requires that organizations understand, identify, and eliminate unethical economic, environmental, and social behaviors. SUMMARY: Managers need to develop their interpersonal, or people, skills to be effective in their jobs. Organizational behavior (OB) investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within an organization, and it applies that knowledge to make organizations work more effectively. Implications for Managers Resist the inclination to rely on generalizations; some provide valid insights into human behavior, but many are erroneous. Get to know the person, and understand the context. Use metrics rather than hunches to explain cause and-effect relationships. 16  Work on your interpersonal skills to increase your leadership potential. Improve your technical skills and conceptual skills through training and staying current with OB trends like big data and fast data. OB can improve your employees’ work quality and productivity by showing you how to empower your employees, design and implement change programs, improve customer service, and help your employees balance work–life conflicts. 17