Overview of Organizational

Behavior

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Who is a Manager in an Organization?

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Describe the Manager’s Functions,
Roles, and Skills (1 of 4)
• Manager: Someone who gets things done through other
people in organizations.
• 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.
• Work of a manager:
– Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.
– Think about your work experience. What do each of
these terms mean?

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Describe the Manager’s Functions,
Roles, and Skills (2 of 4)
Exhibit: Minztberg’s Managerial Roles

Role Description
Interpersonal Blank
Figurehead Symbolic head; required to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or
social nature
Leader Responsible for the motivation and direction of employees
Liaison Maintains a network of contacts (internal or external) who provide favors
and information (e.g., Sales executive)
Informational Blank
Monitor Receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve center of internal
and external information of the organization
Disseminator Transmits information received from outsiders or from other employees to
members of the organization

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Describe the Manager’s Functions,
Roles, and Skills (3 of 4)
[Exhibit Continued]
Role Description
Spokesperson Transmits information to outsiders on organization’s plans,
policies, actions, and results; serves as expert on organization’s
industry
Decisional
Entrepreneur Searches organization and its environment for opportunities and
initiates projects to bring about change (e.g. MBA in analytics)
Disturbance handler Responsible for corrective action when organization faces
important, unexpected disturbances (e.g., layoffs/cross-training)
Resource allocator Makes or approves significant organizational decisions
Negotiator Bargain with other units (internal or external) to gain advantages

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.

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Describe the Manager’s Functions,
Roles, and Skills (4 of 4)
• Management Skills
– Technical Skills – the ability to apply specialized
knowledge or expertise (e.g., HR manager handling
labor issues).
– Human Skills – the ability to work with, understand,
and motivate other people (e.g., HR manager daily
work)
– Conceptual Skills – the mental ability to analyze and
diagnose complex situations (e.g., HR manager
designing and executing a talent assessment project)

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Effective Versus Successful
Managerial Activities
• According to you, who is a successful
manager or an effective manager? Or
both?

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Effective Versus Successful
Managerial Activities
• Luthans and his associates find that all managers engage
in four managerial activities:
– Traditional management (plan, make decisions, control)
– Communication (collect and transmit info)
– Human resource management (motivate, conflict handling,
training etc)
– Networking (socializing and politicking)
• What activity does a successful manager spend most time
doing?
• What activity does an effective manager spend most time
doing?
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Effective Versus Successful
Managerial Activities
Exhibit Allocation of Activities by Time

Source: Based on F. Luthans, R. M. Hodgetts, and S. A. Rosenkrantz, Real Managers (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger, 1988).

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Importance of Interpersonal Skills in
the Workplace
• According to researchers, in today’s competitive and
demanding workplace, managers can’t succeed on their
technical skills alone. They also have to exhibit good
“people” skills.
• Why do you think we need people skills?
• In what industries/jobs do you see it being more important?

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Importance of Interpersonal Skills in
the Workplace
• A survey of over 2,100 CFOs across 20 industries
indicated that a lack of interpersonal skills is the top
reason why some employees fail to advance.
• Developing interpersonal skills helps companies attract
and keep high performing employees.
• There is a strong association between the quality of
workplace relationships and job satisfaction, stress, and
turnover.

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What is Organizational Behavior?
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.

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Iceberg model of Human Behavior

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Identify the Major Behavioral Science
Disciplines That Contribute to OB
Exhibit Toward an OB
Discipline

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A Basic OB Model

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (1 of 10)
Exhibit Employment Options

Sources: Based on J. R. Anderson, E. Binney, N. M. Davis, G. Kraft, S. Miller, T. Minton-Eversole, . . . and A. Wright,
“Action Items: 42 Trends Affecting Benefits, Compensation, Training, Staffing and Technology,” HR Magazine (January
2013): 33; M. Dewhurst, B. Hancock, and D. Ellsworth, “Redesigning Knowledge Work,” Harvard Business Review
(January–February 2013): 58–64; E. Frauenheim, “Creating a New Contingent Culture,” Workforce Management (August
2012): 34–39; N. Koeppen, “State Job Aid Takes Pressure off Germany,” The Wall Street Journal, February 1, 2013, A8;
and M. A. Shaffer, M. L. Kraimer, Y.-P. Chen, and M. C. Bolino, “Choices, Challenges, and Career Consequences of
Global Work Experiences: A Review and Future Agenda,” Journal of Management (July 2012): 1282–1327.
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Challenges and Opportunities for OB
• What are some of the challenges and
opportunities managers have in applying OB
concepts?

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (2 of 10)
• Responding to economic pressures
– E.g., Covid-19 has created layoffs and pay cuts
– Effective management need of the hour
– In good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy,
and retain employees is at a premium.
– In bad times like the pandemic, issues like stress,
decision making, and coping come to the forefront.

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (3 of 10)
• Responding to globalization
– Organizations operate in an environment without
borders
– Increased foreign assignments
– Working with people coming from different cultures
– Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with
low-cost labor

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (4 of 10)
OB POLL Percentage of Men and Women Working

Sources: Based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Women in the Labor Force: A Datebook,” 2014,
www.bls.gov/opub/reports/cps/women-in-the-labor-force-adatabook-2014.pdf; and U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics,
“Economic News Release,” 2013, http://www.bls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t02.htm.

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (5 of 10)
• Improving customer service
– Service employees have substantial interaction with
customers.
– OB can tell you
▪ What behaviors and attitudes are relevant to
customer satisfaction?
▪ How can we manage emotions when dealing with
difficult/irate customers?
▪ How can we create a customer-responsive
culture?

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (6 of 10)
• Improving people skills
– People skills are essential to managerial effectiveness
and career advancement
– OB can tell you
▪ How to motivate employees by designing
interesting jobs?
▪ What kind of behaviors you need to exhibit to
create a good impression with supervisors?
▪ How can you get teams to work more effectively?

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (7 of 10)

• Have you heard this term “networked” organization?

• Working in networked organizations
– Networked organizations are becoming more
pronounced.
– A manager’s job is fundamentally different in networked
organizations.
▪ Control internal (face–to–face) and external
(virtual) relationships

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (8 of 10)
• Using social media at work
– One recent study found that subjects who woke up in a
positive mood and then accessed Facebook frequently
found their mood decreased during the day.
– So should policies on accessing social media at work
be established?

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (9 of 10)
• Enhancing employee well-being at work
– Globalization and technology means you are expected
to be available even after so-called “office timings”
– Employees are working longer hours per week (even in
COVID times)
– Eating up time spent with families/ managing health
and diet
– OB can tell you
▪ How to manage stress of employees?
▪ How can you design work so that employees can
maintain work-life balance?

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Identify the Challenges and
Opportunities of OB Concepts (10 of 10)
• Improving ethical behavior
– Intense competition leading to “cutting corners” “rule
breaking”
– Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices are situations in
which an individual is required to define right and
wrong conduct.
– OB can tell you
▪ What factors cause employees to behave
unethically?
▪ What actions can organizations/managers take to
ensure employees behave ethically?

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Implications for Managers
• Work on your interpersonal skills to increase your
leadership potential.
• Resist the inclination to rely on generalizations.
Remember the presence of “contingencies”
• Use “evidence” rather than “hunches” to explain
cause-and-effect relationships.
• 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.
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Diversity

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How diverse is your group?
• Putting that paper away, each person shares with the group his or her
answers to the following questions:
– Are you spiritual at all?
– Do you like to party?
– Where’s your favorite place on earth and why?
• Each group member then answers the following question on paper:
– How diverse is your group? (On a scale of 1–10, where 1 = very
dissimilar and 10 = very similar)

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Workplace Diversity

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What is Workplace diversity?
• https://youtu.be/XfFyhbtI87s

• diversity

• /dʌɪˈvəːsɪti/

• noun

• 1. the state of being diverse; variety:

• 2. the practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social
and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.:

Workplace Diversity can refer to any characteristic that makes people

different from one another

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Workplace Discrimination and
Organizational Effectiveness (1 of 3)
• Discrimination is to note a difference between things.
• Unfair discrimination assumes stereotypes about groups.
– Refusal to recognize individual differences is harmful to
organizations and employees.
• Stereotype threat describes the degree to which we
agree internally with the generally negative stereotyped
perceptions of our groups.
– Can be combatted by treating employees as individuals
and not highlighting group differences.

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Workplace Discrimination and
Organizational Effectiveness (2 of 3)
Exhibit 2-1 Forms of Discrimination
Type of Discrimination Definition Examples from Organizations
Discriminatory policies Actions taken by representatives Older workers may be targeted for
or practices of the organization that deny layoffs because they are highly paid
equal opportunity to perform or and have lucrative benefits.
unequal rewards for performance.
Sexual harassment Unwanted sexual advances and Salespeople at one company went on
other verbal or physical conduct of company-paid visits to strip clubs,
a sexual nature that create a brought strippers into the office to
hostile or offensive work celebrate promotions, and fostered
environment. pervasive sexual rumors.
Intimidation Overt threats or bullying directed African-American employees at some
at members of specific groups of companies have found nooses
employees. hanging over their work stations.
Mockery and insults Jokes or negative stereotypes; Arab-Americans have been asked at
sometimes the result of jokes work whether they were carrying
taken too far. bombs or were members of terrorist
organizations.

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Workplace Discrimination and
Organizational Effectiveness (3 of 3)
[Exhibit 2-1 Continued]

Type of Discrimination Definition Examples from Organizations

Exclusion Exclusion of certain people from Many women in finance claim they are
job opportunities, social events, assigned to marginal job roles or are
discussions, or informal given light workloads that don’t lead to
mentoring; can occur promotion.
unintentionally.
Incivility Disrespectful treatment, including Female lawyers note that male
behaving in an aggressive attorneys frequently cut them off or do
manner, interrupting the person, not adequately address their
or ignoring his or her opinions. comments.

Sources: Based on J. Levitz and P. Shishkin, “More Workers Cite Age Bias after Layoffs,” The Wall Street Journal, March
11, 2009, D1–D2; W. M. Bulkeley, “A Data-Storage Titan Confronts Bias Claims,” The Wall Street Journal, September 12,
2007, A1, A16; D. Walker, “Incident with Noose Stirs Old Memories,” McClatchy-Tribune Business News, June 29, 2008;
D. Solis, “Racial Horror Stories Keep EEOC Busy,” Knight-Ridder Tribune Business News, July 30, 2005, 1; H. Ibish and A.
Stewart, Report on Hate Crimes and Discrimination against Arab Americans: The Post-September 11 Backlash,
September 11, 2001–October 11, 2001 (Washington, DC: American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, 2003); A.
Raghavan, “Wall Street’s Disappearing Women,” Forbes, March 16, 2009, 72–78; and L. M. Cortina, “Unseen Injustice:
Incivility as Modern Discrimination in Organizations,” Academy of Management Review 33, no. 1 (2008): 55–75.

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Biographical Characteristics and
Organizational Behavior (1 of 6)
• Biological characteristics are personal characteristics
that are objective and easily obtained from personnel
records.
– Variations in these can be the basis for discrimination

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Biographical Characteristics and
Organizational Behavior
– Age: Does job performance decline with increasing age? Studies show that
turnover and absenteeism rates are lower among older workers, and age is
not associated with lower productivity.

– Sex: There is no consistent male-female differences in problem-solving ability,

analytical skills etc. Women earn less than men for the same positions and
have fewer professional opportunities.

– Race and Ethnicity: Employees tend to favor colleagues of their own race in
performance evaluations, promotion decisions, and pay raises.

– Hidden disabilities: Sensory disabilities, chronic illness or pain, cognitive or

learning impairments, sleep disorders etc.

– Disabilities: Workers with disabilities receive higher performance evaluations

but may have lower performance expectations.

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Biographical Characteristics and
Organizational Behavior
– Tenure: Tenure is a good predictor of employee productivity. Tenure and job
performance are positively related.

– Religion: Law prohibits discrimination based on religion, but it is still an issue

– Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity: Many Fortune 500 companies

have policies covering sexual orientation and about half now have policies on
gender identity.

– Cultural Identity: Need to accommodate and respect individual cultural

identities.

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Intellectual and Physical Abilities and
OB (1 of 5)
• Ability is an individual’s current capacity to perform
various tasks in a job.
• Two types
– Intellectual abilities
– Physical abilities

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Intellectual and Physical Abilities and
OB (2 of 5)
• Intellectual abilities are abilities needed to perform
mental activities – thinking, reasoning, and problem
solving.
– Most societies place a high value on intelligence.
– General mental ability is an overall factor of
intelligence as suggested by the positive correlations
among specific intellectual ability dimensions.

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Intellectual and Physical Abilities and
OB (3 of 5)
Exhibit 2-2 Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
Dimension Description Job Example
Number aptitude Ability to do speedy and accurate arithmetic Accountant: Computing the sales tax on a
set of items
Verbal comprehension Ability to understand what is read or heard Plant manager: Following corporate
and the relationship of words to each other policies on hiring

Perceptual speed Ability to identify visual similarities and Fire investigator: Identifying clues to
differences quickly and accurately support a charge of arson
Inductive reasoning Ability to identify a logical sequence in a Market researcher: Forecasting demand for
problem and then solve the problem a product in the next time period

Deductive reasoning Ability to use logic and assess the Supervisor: Choosing between two different
implications of an argument suggestions offered by employees

Spatial visualization Ability to imagine how an object would look if Interior decorator: Redecorating an office
its position in space were changed
Memory Ability to retain and recall past experiences Salesperson: Remembering the names of
customers

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Intellectual and Physical Abilities and
OB (4 of 5)
• Physical Abilities
– The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity,
strength, and similar characteristics.
– Nine basic abilities related to strength, flexibility, and
other factors are needed to perform physical tasks.

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Intellectual and Physical Abilities and
OB (5 of 5)
Exhibit 2-3 Nine Basic Physical Abilities
Strength Factors Blank
1. Dynamic strength Ability to exert muscular force repeatedly or continuously over time
2. Trunk strength Ability to exert muscular strength using the trunk (particularly abdominal)
muscles
3. Static strength Ability to exert force against external objects
4. Explosive strength Ability to expend a maximum of energy in one or a series of explosive acts
Flexibility Factors Blank
5. Extent flexibility Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible
6. Dynamic flexibility Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements
Other Factors Blank
7. Body coordination Ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of different parts of the body
8. Balance Ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling off balance
9. Stamina Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged effort over time

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Creeping in of Biases
• employee referral programs often result in "like me" referrals, where employees refer
candidates of the same race, religion, national origin or other class.

• a particular manager's department may be significantly less diverse, equitable or

inclusive than other departments

• apparent preferences toward pro-life, traditional marriage and other aspects often
associated with religious beliefs can repel candidates of differing beliefs or lifestyles

• employer with political signs and/or messages on its property may discourage individuals
with different viewpoints from applying.

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Describe How Organizations Manage
Diversity Effectively (2 of 6)

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Describe How Organizations Manage
Diversity Effectively (3 of 6)
• Attracting, selecting, developing, and retaining diverse
employees
– Target recruiting messages to specific demographic
groups.
– Some companies have been actively working toward
recruiting less-hired groups.

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Some Diversity initiatives..
Initiatives for women

• Vodafone: The aim behind the ReConnect programme was to bring women back into the workforce after a career
break. They also are looking at digital inclusion for underprivileged women.

• Nestle: Gives 24 weeks of paid maternity leave, 6 weeks of adoption leave, and also has ‘Project Harmony’ that
aims to increase diversity in business operations, factories, R&D Centres, as well as offices.

• Culture Machine: Was the first Indian company to introduce ‘period leave’. Women employees are allowed to
take leaves on the first day of their menstrual cycle.

Transgender inclusivity and LGBT initiatives

• IBM: In a first, IBM was named as the world’s most LGBT-inclusive company by Amsterdam based Workplace
Pride Foundation. As part of their endeavour, IBM India launched ‘Project Vayati’- aimed at employing members
from the marginalised transgender community. A spokeswoman for IBM India also said that they will include
gender affirmation surgery under their corporate health benefit plans.

• Kochi Metro Rail: The first government-owned company to employ staff from the transgender community. It was
part of Kerala state’s initiative to make the workplace more transgender-friendly.

Initiatives for disabled persons

• Lemon Tree Hotels: 22% of their staff are opportunity-deprived individuals, or ODIs with Down syndrome and
other disabilities like hearing and speech impairment. The aim to increase this to 40%.

• Aegis India: Its diverse staffing initiative includes 600 PwDs (Persons with disabilities) with disabilities like visual
impairment, locomotor disability and more

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Describe How Organizations Manage
Diversity Effectively (4 of 6)
• Diversity in Groups
– Most people in groups need a common way of looking
at and accomplishing major tasks, and they need to
communicate well with each other.
▪ Emphasize higher-level similarities among people.

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Describe How Organizations Manage
Diversity Effectively (5 of 6)
• Expatriate Adjustment
– Organizations should select employees for
international assignments who are capable of adjusting
quickly and ensure they have the support they need for
their assignment.

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Describe How Organizations Manage
Diversity Effectively (6 of 6)
• Effective diversity programs
– Teach managers about the legal framework for equal
employment opportunity and encourage fair treatment
of all people.
– Teach managers how a diverse workforce will be more
effective at serving a diverse customer base.
– Foster personal development practices that bring out
the skills and abilities of everyone.

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Ethical Imperative to Manage
Diversity
• Distributive Justice
– A moral principle calling for the distribution of organizational resources to be based
on meaningful contribution that individuals have made and not personal
characteristics over which they have no control.

• Procedural Justice
– A moral principle calling for the use of fair procedures to determine how to
distribute outcomes to organizational members.

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Diverse Workplace …
• means accepting, understanding and valuing differences among individuals.

• a workplace that seeks business ideas and innovations from a variety of backgrounds
and cultures.

• means having a diversity strategic plan for the workplace that helps your company
operate in a global marketplace

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Implications for Managers
• Understand your organization's anti-discrimination policies
thoroughly and share them with your employees.
• Assess and challenge your own stereotype beliefs to increase
your objectivity.
• Look beyond readily observable biographical characteristics
and consider the individual’s capabilities before making
management decisions.
• Fully evaluate what accommodations a person with disabilities
will need and then fine-tune a job to that person’s abilities.
• Seek to understand and respect the unique biographical
characteristics of your employees; a fair but individualistic
approach yields the best performance.

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