Organizational Behavior

Chapter 1: What Is Organizational

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 Chapter Learning Objectives
• After studying this chapter you should be able to:
– Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the
workplace.
– Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills.
– Define organizational behavior (OB).
– Show the value to OB of systematic study.
– Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that
contribute to OB.
– Demonstrate why there are few absolutes in OB.
– Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have
in applying OB concepts.
– Compare the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB
model.
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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
• Organizational benefits of skilled managers
– Lower turnover of quality employees
– Higher quality applications for recruitment
– Better financial performance

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 What Managers Do
• They get things done through other people.
• Management Activities:
– Make decisions
– Allocate resources
– Direct activities of others to attain goals
• Work in an organization
– A consciously coordinated social unit composed of
two or more people that functions on a relatively
continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of
goals.

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 Four Management Functions
• PLAN
– A process that includes defining goals, establishing
strategy, and developing plans to coordinate
activities.
• ORGANIZE
– 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.

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 Four Management Functions
• LEAD
– A function that includes motivating employees,
directing others, selecting the most effective
communication channels, and resolving conflicts.
• CONTROL
– Monitoring performance, comparing actual
performance with previously set goals, and
correcting any deviation.

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 Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles
Ten roles in three groups
• Interpersonal
– Figurehead, Leader, and Liaison
• Informational
– Monitor, Disseminator, Spokesperson
• Decisional
– Entrepreneur, Disturbance Handler, Resource
Allocator, and Negotiator.

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Katz’s Essential Management Skills
• Technical Skills
– The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise
• Human Skills
– The ability to work with, understand, and motivate
other people, both individually and in groups
• Conceptual Skills
– The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex
situations

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Luthans’ Study of Managerial Activities
• Four types of managerial activity:
– Traditional Management
• Decision-making, planning, and controlling.
– Communication
• Exchanging routine information and processing
paperwork
– Human Resource Management
• Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing and
training.
– Networking
• Socializing, politicking, and interacting with others.

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 Organizational Behavior
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.

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 Four Contributing Disciplines
• Psychology
The science that seeks to measure, explain, and
sometimes change the behavior of humans and
other animals.
– Unit of Analysis:
• Individual
– Contributions to OB:
• Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception
• Training, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction
• Individual decision making, performance appraisal, attitude
measurement
• Employee selection, work design, and work stress

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 Four Contributing Disciplines
• 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

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 Four Contributing Disciplines
• Sociology‫علم االجتماع‬
The study of people in relation to their fellow
human beings.
– Unit of Analysis:
– Organizational System – Group
– Contributions to OB:
– Group dynamics – Formal organization theory
– Work teams – Organizational technology
– Communication – Organizational change
– Power – Organizational culture
– Conflict
– Intergroup behavior
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 Four Contributing Disciplines
• Anthropology
The study of societies to learn about human
beings and their activities.
– Unit of Analysis:
-- Organizational System -- Group

– Contributions to OB:
– Organizational culture – Comparative values
– Organizational environment – Comparative attitudes
– Cross-cultural analysis

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Challenges and Opportunities for OB
• Responding to Globalization
• Managing Workforce Diversity
• Improving Quality and Productivity
• Improving Customer Service
• Improving People Skills
• Stimulating Innovation and Change
• Working in Networked Organizations
• Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts
• Creating a Positive Work Environment
• Improving Ethical Behavior

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 Challenges and Opportunities for OB
• Responding to Globalization
– Working with people from different cultures
– Increased foreign assignments
– Coping with anti-capitalism backlash
– Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labor
– Managing people during the war on terror
• Managing Workforce Diversity
– The people in organizations are becoming more heterogeneous
demographically (disability, gender, age, national origin, non-
Christian, race, and domestic partners(
– Embracing diversity ‫احتضان التنوع‬
– Management philosophy changes
– Recognizing and responding to differences

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 Developing an OB Model
• A model is an abstraction of reality: a
simplified representation of some real-world
phenomenon.
• Our OB model has three levels of analysis:
– Each level is constructed on the prior level
• Individual
• Group
• Organizational Systems

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 Interesting OB Dependent Variables
• Productivity
– Transforming inputs to outputs at lowest cost. Includes the
concepts of effectiveness (achievement of goals) and efficiency
(meeting goals at a low cost).
• Absenteeism
– Failure to report to work – a huge cost to employers.
• Turnover
– Voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an
organization.
• Deviant Workplace Behavior‫السلوك المنحرف فى مكان العمل‬
– Voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms
and thereby threatens the well-being of the organization and/or
any of its members.

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 More Interesting OB Dependent
Variables
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
– Discretionary behavior that is not part of an
employee’s formal job requirements, but that
nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of
the organization.
• Job Satisfaction
– A general attitude (not a behavior) toward one’s
job; a positive feeling about one's job resulting
from an evaluation of its characteristics.

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Summary and Managerial Implications
• Managers need to develop their interpersonal skills to
be effective.
• OB focuses on how to improve factors that make
organizations more effective.
• The best predictions of behavior are made from a
combination of systematic study and intuition.
• Situational variables moderate cause-and-effect
relationships – which is why OB theories are
contingent.
• There are many OB challenges and opportunities for
managers today.
• The textbook is based on the contingent OB model.
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`RWE