Organizational Behavior:

An Introduction

Dr. Saswat Barpanda

[email protected]
Agenda
Assumptions
Understanding Organization, Behavior, and OB
Fundamental Elements/Ideas
Level of study OB
Why does OB need to study
How OB and HRM are different
Applications
Challenges and opportunities
Emerging Concerns
Implications
Organization
Organizations can be defined as groups of people coming together to
achieve a common goal.
Planning, organizing, leading, controlling, and coordinating; are
considered to be the five functions of management, and organizing is
one important function of management.
What is organizing? Organizing is nothing, but arranging. So, what is
arranged within an organization? One, people are arranged, people
are given specific designations, and tasks are defined; for each
designation
Defined as a deliberate arrangement of people to accomplish some
specific purpose
An organization is a consciously coordinated social entity with an
identifiable boundary, that function on a relatively continuous basis to
achieve a common goal or set of goal
What is a behavior
• Response of the organization or system to
various stimuli or inputs, whether internal or
external, conscious or subconscious, overt or
covert, and voluntary or involuntary
Organizational Behavior
• Understanding Human Behavior at Work
• Systematic study of human behavior in an organizational setting

 What makes people motivated to work or

 What makes people perform better than others

Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact

that individuals, groups, and structures have on behavior within organizations
for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an
organization’s effectiveness. (Robbins)
• The definition of organization, the complexities of defining what is
an organization.
• Why it is important to understand the complexities;
• because students of organizational behavior need to understand
newer forms of organizations are emerging, and we cannot
generalize most or we cannot generalize one thing to all
organizations.
 Multidisciplinary Nature
• OB involves inputs from different disciplines; disciplines as psychology,
sociology, anthropology, management; economics,
• various fields contribute to organizational behavior as a discipline. In fact,
psychology is a major contributor to the field of organizational behavior.
• how to make people give 100 percent? So, basically, there are two different
ways to understand people’s behavior at work.
1. You need managers to push people to perform or people are inherently lazy in nature
and unless and until you push them, they may not perform.
2. Employees per se are motivated people to work; sometimes they may not work
because they do not feel meaningfulness or purpose in what they do.

Organizational behavior as a discipline, assume certain things to

be true and only based on those assumptions; other theories or
other models are built upon.
 Assumptions of OB

• Organization consists of People

• People are different wrt their attitudes, perceptions, and personalities
• Motivated People work effectively
• Disparity between individual and organizational goals
• Impact of policies and procedures on people is not always predictable.

Effectiveness is achieving a goal that is worth achieving or achieving the right kind of
goals.
Efficiency is achieving a certain goal with minimum effort or with optimal effort; the
goal may not be important.
• Will Motivation work or influence performance if the environment is not
conducive?
• The environment in which he or she worked is not conducive or if he or
she is not getting the right kind of tools or resources, then their
performance will not be good
• So, performance is a very questionable criterion, but in what ways does
motivate people to contribute
• motivated people contribute to extra role performance.
• If my company makes a lot of profit, but it does not provide me job security;
I will not be motivated towards helping the organization make large profits.
• When an organization achieves the larger goals, individual goals can be
achieved.
• Bringing a policy that favors all employees- eg Work from Home(Does all
employees favor it)
 Fundamental Idea/Elements from previous
assumptions
• Some of the basic concepts which OB uses to explain behavior
• Each individual is different
• Multiple roles of employees
• Motivation is the force behind the growth
• Respect human dignity
• when each individual is different; how can you generalize things? So, one answer to this is
acknowledging the fact that each individual is different itself is a knowledge that helps us understand
behavior through a certain context
• Context: Culture; Age; Gender etc.
• Organizational behavior as a discipline helps us understand not just individuals, but
also the surrounding context and through that understand individual behavior
• Role Vs Designation. The role is the social expectation on an individual; the
designation is a written position or a position that is given to you
• Role conflict –inter role vs intra role
• Work effectiveness is more important than work efficiency because effective
employees help the organization sustain its profits for a very long time
• People/employee are means or end
Levels of Organizational Behavior

Organizational Process: Change

management, Organizational Culture, and
climate

Group Process: Team Dynamics,

Conflict, Leadership, Individual Level

Group Level
Individual Process: Attitude, Perception,
Personality, Motivation
Organizational Level
Three Levels of Analysis in OB Model

A Basic OB Model
Why study OB

• Understand Employee Behavior

• Predict employee reactions
• Plans for effective interventions.
 OB and HRM
• Organizational behavior has a lot of application in
organizations, especially in the area of human
resource management
• The basic idea of selection is finding out the right person for the right
job. So, being the right person for the right job is not necessarily about
the kind of skill set you have kind of attitude one has, the kind of
personality attributes or the personality qualities of the employee all
these things are very important in recruitment; psychometry; -Person
Job fit
Application of OB
• Improving Quality of Work Life:
• quality of work-life it is not just people behavior in work,
• workspace and workplace
• workplace is the place where you work with people around you, the physical
infrastructure, the culture of the organization and things like that. Work space
is the area of work which means work is not necessarily which you leave after
you come back from your office or from your workplace; you carry the
influence of the work
• Improving Employee Performance
• When employee performance is better in long run; not necessarily tangible
performance, Performances like organizational commitment, extra-role
performance which is helping your coworkers, loyalty towards the
organization
• Improving Organizational effectiveness
History of OB
• Root in Psychology/Industrial Psychology (applying Psychological
techniques in Industrial setup)
• Walter Scott (1869-1955) applied psychology in advertising and selling
• Hugo Munsterberg’s (1863-1916) book on Psychology and Industrial
efficiency-: Motivation and Participation
• World war contributed a lot on the development of industrial psychology
• Scientific Management Movement (1856-1915) (
Frederick Taylor’s scientific management theory)
• Robert Owen (1771-1858)-: Worker’s welfare
• Hawthorne studies by Elton Mayo (1930)-; (Social environment): He
discovered that job satisfaction increased through employee participation in
decisions rather than through short-term incentives.
In Britain the Vulcan Motor Company was proud to film the way their workers
assemble cars slowly and carefully by hand. Craftsmen worked in their own way
at their own pace, the whole process took several weeks from start to finish. These
handmade cars were so expensive that a wide gulf separated those who built them
from those who bought them. But the days when cars were just luxuries for the
rich were drawing to a close. In 1908 one man’s vision would change
manufacturing and create a new market.

Henry Ford set out to make the simplest car ever, a car for rural America. A 20th
century equivalent of the horse and buggy. To produce the model T cheaply, Ford
knew he had to change the way cars were built; that meant changing the way his
workers worked. As he recognized his factory to turn out model T’s, he was
influenced by the efficiency expert Frederick Taylor. Taylor complained that
hardly a workman can be found who does not devote his time to studying just how
slowly he can work. And, then he devoted his life to speeding them up. When
Taylor was brought in, he first timed the workers with stopwatches and noted their
every movement.

At Ford’s factory Taylorism meant dividing automobile production into simple

repetitive steps.
 Describe the Manager’s Functions, Roles,
and Skills
• Management Skills
– Technical Skills – the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All
jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people develop their technical
skills on the job.
– Human Skills – the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people.
– Conceptual Skills – the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex
situations.

Skill Vs Competencies

Mintzberg managerial Role?

Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study

• Systematic Study of Behavior

• Behavior generally is predictable if we know how the person
perceived the situation and what is important to him or her.
• Evidence-Based Management (EBM)
• Complements systematic study.
• Argues for managers to make decisions based on evidence.
• Intuition
• Systematic study and EBM add to intuition, or those “gut
feelings” about “why I do what I do”
• If we make all decisions with intuition or gut instinct, we’re
likely working with incomplete information.
Big Data

• Background:
– The use of Big Data for managerial practices is a relatively
new area, but one that holds convincing promise.
• Current Usage:
• The reasons for data analytics include predicting any event,
detecting how much risk is incurred at any time, and
preventing catastrophes.
• New Trends:
• The use of Big Data for understanding, helping, and managing
people is relatively new but holds promise.
• Limitations:
• Use evidence as much as possible to inform your intuition and
experience.
Identify the Challenges and Opportunities of OB Concepts
Exhibit 1-4 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.
 Challenges and Opportunities of OB
• Responding to economic pressure
• In tough economic times, effective management is an asset.
• In good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy, and
retain employees is at a premium.
• In bad times, issues like stress, decision making, and
coping come to the forefront.
 Challenges and Opportunities of OB
Concepts
• Responding to globalization
• Increased foreign assignments.
• Working with people from different cultures.
• Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost
labor.
• Adapting to differing cultural and regulatory norms.
 Identify the Challenges and Opportunities
of OB Concepts
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.
 Identify the Challenges and Opportunities
of OB Concepts
• Managing workforce diversity
• Workforce diversity – organizations are becoming more
heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity,
sexual orientation, and inclusion of Workforce other
diverse groups.

• Improving customer service

• Service employees have substantial interaction with
customers.
• Employee attitudes and behavior are associated with
customer satisfaction.
• Need a customer-responsive culture.
 Challenges and Opportunities
• Improving people skills
• People skills are essential to managerial effectiveness.
• OB provides the concepts and theories that allow managers
to predict employee behavior in given situations.

Working in networked organizations

• A manager’s job is fundamentally different in networked
organizations.
• Challenges of motivating and leading “online” require
different techniques.
 Implications for Managers
• Resist the inclination to rely on generalizations; some provide
valid insights into human behavior, but many are erroneous.
• Use metrics and situational variables rather than “hunches” to
explain cause-and-effect relationships.
• 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.