Organizational Behavior and Management

By:
Gezahegn S (Ass.prof)
[email protected]
+251911981401
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 Course Objectives
 The course is designed to enhance the
participant’s working knowledge, skills, and work
values in leading people effectively in
organizations.
 Learning focus is progressively sequenced:
understanding and influencing positively the
individuals in the organization; the formation and
dynamics of various work teams; organization
development concepts and uses.

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Chapter Lecture Topics
One Introduction
• Organizational Behavior-meaning-scope-
foundations of OB and importance-Model of OB

Two Foundations of Individual Behavior: Perception, Attribution

and Decision-making, Learning, Motivation (self- study),
Personality, values and Attitudes.
Three Foundations of Group behavior: Group Dynamics-
groups and teams, Leadership (self-study),
Communication (self study).
Organizational Dynamics: the nature and goal of
organizations, Organizational design and culture,
Organizational culture, Organizational change
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management, Organizational politics, power,
Conflict management and negotiation.
Chapter Lecture Topics
Organizational Development: Goals of organizational
development: Principles underlying organizational
development, Ethical aspects of organizational
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development, and the process of organizational
development: Action research and organizational
development, Organizational development Interventions:
Organization-wide interventions, smaller group and inter-
group interventions, Individual interventions and various
OD Techniques.

Course • Class Room Lectures,

Delivery • Group and Individual discussions and presentations
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Method
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Assessment Method
Seminar or project Assignments/case study analysis reports-------------20%
Two-timed tests---------------------------------------------------------------------30%
Final Exam----------------------------------------------------------------------------50%
Total Marks-------------------------------------------------------------------------100%

References:
•Robbins S.P., Organization Theory, Prentice Hall, 2003.
•Robert Kreitner, Angelo Kinicki, Organizational Behavior, Richard D.
IRWIN Inc., 2nd ed. 1992.
•John M. Ivancevich, Michael T. Matteson, Organizational Behvaior and
Management, Richard D. IRWIN Inc., 2 nd ed. 1991.
•Fred Luthans, Organizational behavior, McGraw Hill Book Company 9 th
ed. 2002
•Newstrom W. John and Davis Keith, Organizational Behavior-Human
resource at work, 11th ed. TMH, New Delhi, 2003.
•Robbins S. P. and Judge T.A. Organizational behavior. PHI Learning
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Private Limited, Delhi, 2011.
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Brainstorming Questions

What is Organization?

what is Behaviour?

What is Organizational Behaviour

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1.1 What are Organizations?
• 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
• Organizations are structured process in which people
interact and influence each other in order to achieve goals or
objectives. It consists of:
•People •Structure
•Process
•Objectives
•Influence

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Importance of Organizations
Organizations are all around us and shape our lives in many ways.
But what contributions do organizations make? Why are they
important? Below figure indicates seven reasons organizations are
important to you and to society.

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 1.2 What is a Behavior?
 Behavior is the way in which someone
behaves.
 A behaviour is What people think, feel and
do.
 It refers to what people do in the
organization, how they perform and what
their attitudes are.
 The response of an individual, group, or
species to its environment.

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Cont’d

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Organizational behavior is the systematic study of actions and
attitudes that people exhibit within Organizations.
Systematic study: It is not based on intuition or gut feeling, it

uses scientific evidence, measurable and interpreted in a rational

manner. The examination of behaviour in order to draw conclusions,
based on scientific evidence, about causes and effects in relationships.
Actions: It studies actions such as productivity, absenteeism, and
turnover. Because the organizations studied are often business organizations, OB
is frequently applied to address workplace issues such as absenteeism, turnover,
productivity, motivation, working in groups, and job satisfaction.

Attitudes: It studies attitudes of people such as job satisfaction.

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OB considers that organizations are made up of levels, moving up
from the individual, to the group, to the entire organizational
structure. Each level contributes to the variety of activities that occur
in today’s workplace. Thus, OB is analysed from these three
levels and perspectives.

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Individual
• Value
• Attitude
• Personality Individual Level
• Perception

Group Level

Organizational Level

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Groups
• Group dynamics
Individual Level
• Communication
• Leadership
Group Level
• Conflict

Organizational Level

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Organization
• Power & Politics
• Organizational Individual Level
Design & structure
• Organizational Group Level
Culture
• Organizational
Change Organizational Level

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 Levels of OB Analysis
• Individual Level - people enter organizations with certain characteristics that
influence their behavior at work. Thus, at IL, OB considers characteristics and
behaviors of employees including thought processes such as motivation,
perception, personalities characteristics, attitudes, values and basic ability
levels.
• Group (Team) Level – people’s behavior when they are in groups is different
from their behavior when they are alone. The individual in groups are expected to
exhibit what the group considers to be acceptable standard of behavior and the
degree to which the group members are attracted to each other. At this level, OB
considers interaction of people, teams dynamics, decisions, conflict, and
leadership.
• Organizational Level- just as groups are more than the sum of their individual
members; so are organizations more than the sum of their member groups.
• OB focuses on how people structure working relationships and how
organizations interact with their environment, power, organizational politics,
culture and change.

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Sociology Psychology Social
Psychology
Anthropology Political
Science

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 Organizational Behaviour is not a totally independent area. It
draws heavily on other related disciplines and fields of study.
OB is an applied behavioural science that is built upon
contributions from a number of behavioural disciplines. It
integrates knowledge from various relevant disciplines.
OB is an interdisciplinary field that draws on the ideas and
research of many disciplines that are concerned with human
behavior and interaction. These behavioural sciences including
anthropology, psychology, sociology, and many others.
a.Psychology
Psychology is an applied science, which attempts to explain
human behavior in a particular situation and predicts actions of
individuals.
contributed towards various theories on learning, motivation,
personality, training and development, theories on individual
decision making, leadership, job satisfaction, performance
appraisal, attitude, ego state, job design, work stress and conflict
management.
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Psychology

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b. Sociology
Science of Sociology studies the impact of culture on group
behavior. Contributed to a large extent to the field of group-
dynamics, roles that individual plays in the organization,
communication, norms, status, power, conflict management,
formal organization theory, group forming processes and
group decision-making.

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Sociology

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c. Social psychology
Working organizations are formal assembly of people who
are assigned specific jobs and play a vital role in formulating
human behavior. It is a subject where concept of psychology
and sociology are blend to achieve better human behavior in
organization.
The field has contributed to manage change, group decision-
making, communication and ability of people in the
organization, to maintain social norms.

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Social Psychology

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d. Anthropology
It is a field of study relating to human activities in various
cultural and environmental frameworks. It understands
difference in behavior based on value system of different
cultures of various countries. The study is more relevant to
organizational behavior today due to globalization, mergers and
acquisitions of various industries.

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Anthropology

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e. Political Science

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Nature of OB
Organizational behaviour has emerged as a separate field of study.
The nature it has acquired is identified as follows:
1. A Separate Field of Study and not a Discipline Only
By definition, a discipline is an accepted science that is based on a
theoretical foundation. But, OB has a multi-interdisciplinary
orientation and is, thus, not based on a specific theoretical
background. Therefore, it is better reasonable to call OB a separate
field of study rather than a discipline only.
2. An Interdisciplinary Approach
OB is essentially an interdisciplinary approach to study human
behaviour at work. It tries to integrate the relevant knowledge drawn
from related disciplines like psychology, sociology and anthropology
to make them applicable for studying and analysing organizational
behaviour.

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 Cont’d
3. An Applied Science
The very nature of OB is applied. What OB basically does is the
application of various researches to solve the organizational problems
related to human behaviour. The basic line of difference between pure
science and OB is that while the former concentrates of fundamental
researches, the latter concentrates on applied researches. OB involves
both applied research and its application in organizational analysis.
Hence, OB can be called both science as well as art.
4. A Normative Science
OB is a normative science also. While the positive science
discusses only cause effect relationship, OB prescribes how the
findings of applied researches can be applied to socially
accepted organizational goals. Thus, OB deals with what is
accepted by individuals and society engaged in an organization.
Yes, it is not that OB is not normative at all. In fact, OB is
normative as well that is well underscored by the proliferation of
management theories. 33
 Cont’d
5. A Humanistic and Optimistic Approach
OB applies humanistic approach towards people working in the
organization. It deals with the thinking and feeling of human beings.
OB is based on the belief that people have an innate desire to be
independent, creative and productive. It also realizes that people
working in the organization can and will actualize these potentials if
they are given proper conditions and environment. Environment affects
performance or workers working in an organization.
6. A Total System Approach
The system approach is one that integrates all the variables, affecting
organizational functioning. The systems approach has been developed
by the behavioural scientists to analyse human behaviour in view of
his/her socio-psychological framework. Man's socio-psychological
framework makes man a complex one and the systems approach tries
to study his/her complexity and find solution to it.
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The goals of organizational behavior are to:

Understand
organizational
events

Organizational
Behavior
Research
Influence Predict
organizational organizational
events events 35
Why study OB?
Studying OB enables us to:
• Understand and Explain organisational events. To know
what, and why something happened in order to determine
if it was something to be prevented. Example: why did our
valued employees resign?
• Influence or Control of organisational events (come up
with ideas and recommendations for organisational
action). Example: What can I do to make my subordinate
to put out more effort on his job?
• Predict organisational events. It seeks to determine what
outcomes will result from a given action. Example: How
would my subordinates behave to the installation of a new
computer?
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Why to study Organizational Behaviour?
In general, the main reason for studying organizational
behaviour is that as most of us work in organization so we need
to understand predict and influence the behaviour of others in
organizational setting. so, organizational Behaviour facilitates
the process of explaining, understanding, predicting,
maintaining and changing employee behaviour in an
organizational setting.

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IM
PO
RT
AN
CE
OF
OR
GA
NIZ
AT
ION
AL
B EH
AV
IOR
 Importance of OB:

• It builds better relationship by achieving people’s, organizational,

and social objectives.
• It covers a wide array of human resource like behavior, training and
development, change management, leadership, teams etc.
• It brings coordination which is the essence of management.
• It improves goodwill of the organization.
• It helps to achieve objectives quickly.
• It makes optimum utilization of resources.
• It facilitates motivation.
• It leads to higher efficiency.
• It improves relations in the organization.
• It is multidisciplinary, in the sense that applies different 39
 Chapter Two

Foundations of
Individual Behavior
in Organizations
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• Although there are similarities among people,
they differ in many ways including age,
gender, and marital status; and basic ability
levels.
• Thus, each individual need to be studied and
today’s managers must be more broadly informed
and capable in recognizing and dealing with these
individual differences.

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Components of Individuals Difference
Concepts that help to study each individual
include:

Values Attribution

Attitudes Learning

Personality Ethics

Emotions Job Satisfaction

Perception Motivation
 9. Job Satisfaction

1. Perception 5. Values

2. Personality 6. Attribution

3. Attitudes
7. Learning

4. Emotions 8. Ethics

10, Motivation
 PHILOSOPHY OF PERCEPTION
“WE DON’T SEE THINGS AS THEY ARE,

WE SEE THINGS AS WE ARE.”

Explain how two people can see the

same thing and interpret it differently.
Perception is active mental process which involves the selection,
organization, structuring and interpretation of information in
order to make inferences and give meaning to the information.
Perception is the process by which individuals select, organize,
and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to
their environment. However, what we perceive can be substantially
different from objective reality.
Perception is the process through which the information from
outside environment is selected, received, organized, and
interpreted to make it meaningful. This input of meaningful
information results in decisions and actions.
It is a result of complex interaction of various senses such as
feeling, seeing, hearing, thinking and comparing with known
aspects of life in order to make some sense of the world around us.
Perception may result in different interpretation of the same thing by
different people because they might not have the same 45

perception about that thing.

For Example, What does the picture below describe?

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 PERCEPTION: INTRODUCTION
 It is a much more complex process by which: an individual selectively
absorbs or assimilates the stimuli in the environment, cognitively
organizes the perceived information in a specific fashion and then
interprets the information to make an assessment about what
people select, organize, and interpret or attach meaning to
events happening in the environment.
 Since perception is subjective process, different people may perceive
the same environment differently based on what particular aspects
of the situation they choose.
 For example, some employees may perceive the work place as great if
it has favorable working conditions, good pay.
 Others may perceive it as great if it has challenging assignments
and opportunity to grow.
Managers should sharpen their perceptual skills so that they are as
close to perceiving people, events, and objects as they truly are.
 When “misperception” occurs due to perceptual errors and
distortion, managers are bound to make poor or improper decision.

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Why Is Perception Important?

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Factors that influence perception in Organizations
What causes people to have different perceptions of the same
situation?
A number of factors affect perception (operate to shape and
sometimes distort perception).
These factors can be found in the perceiver, in the object or
target being perceived, or in the context of the situation in which
the perception is made. In general, there are many factors that
influence perception in organizations. The major ones are:
a. The characteristics of the perceiver
b. The characteristics of the perceived, and
c. The characteristics of the situation.

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1. Characteristics of the Perceiver.
 When an individual (“the perceiver”) looks at something
(“the target”) and tries to interpret what he/she sees, that
interpretation is heavily influenced by the perceiver’s
personal characteristics. Thus, a person’s/perceiver’s
needs, habits, motive, interest, self-concept, emotional
state, past experiences, ethics, cognitive structure,
values, attitudes and personality aspects, all strongly
influence the perception process/shape the way h/she
perceive an event/.
 For example, a person with high ego (self-esteem) needs
would look at other people or situations either as ego
satisfying or ego threatening, thus perhaps making the
perception inaccurate.
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2. Characteristics of the perceived /The Target/.
This is about the person, object, or event under perception. The ways
things are organized around us are greatly influencing the perceptual
process.
Characteristics of the target that is being observed can affect what is
perceived.
The observers might interpret an object differently because of its
characteristics. But the item remains the same.
 Some of the typical characteristics include bright colour, noise; novel
objects, bigger unusual size, moving objects, status, appearance, contrast,
intensity, repetition etc. Catch people attention.
For example, people have no the same perception for a person in neat
business suit and one in ordinary suit.
 Loud people are more likely to be noticed in a group than quiet ones.

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3. Characteristics of the Situation/setting
The context in which we see objects or events is important
Physical, social and organizational settings of the situation
or event can also influence perceptions.
 The time at which an object or event is seen can influence
attention, as can location, light, heat, or any number of
situational factors.
For example, you will behave with your boss differently at a
social function than in the office.

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 Perceptual Process
Five Stages in Perceptual Process
Perceptual process are the different stages of
perception we go through. The different stages
are:
1. Receiving/ Observation Phase
2. Selecting/ Selection of the Stimuli
3. Organizing
4. Interpreting
5. Behaviour Response
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1. Receiving: Receiving is the first and most important stage in
the process of perception. It is the initial stage in which a
person collects all information and receives the information
through the sense organs. It depicts the environmental stimuli
being observed by the fives senses of the perceived.
2. Selecting: Selecting is the second stage in the process.
Here a person doesn’t receive the data randomly but
selectively. A person selects some information out of all in
accordance with his interest or needs. The selection of data is
dominated by various external and internal factors.
 External factors − The factors that influence the perception
of an individual externally are intensity, size, contrast,
movement, repetition, familiarity, and novelty.
 Internal factors − The factors that influence the perception
of an individual internally are psychological requirements,
learning, background, experience, self- acceptance, and
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interest.
3. Organizing: Keeping things in order or say in a synchronized
way is organizing. In order to make sense of the data received, it
is important to organize them.
We can organize the data by
 Grouping them on the basis of their similarity, proximity,
closure, continuity.
 Establishing a figure ground is the basic process in
perception. Here by figure we mean what is kept as main focus
and by ground we mean background stimuli, which are not given
attention.
 Perceptual constancy that is the tendency to stabilize
perception so that contextual changes don’t affect them.
4. Interpreting: Finally, we have the process of interpreting
which means forming an idea about a particular object
depending upon the need or interest. Interpretation means that
the information we have sensed and organized, is finally given a
meaning by turning it into something that can be categorized.56
It
includes stereotyping, halo effect etc.
 Cont’d

5. Behaviour Response:
 In this stage the response of the perceiver takes
on both covert and overt characteristics.
 Covert response will be reflected in the attitudes,
motives, and feelings of the perceiver and overt
responses will be reflected in the actions of the
individual.

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 Perceptual distortions/Attribution Errors/
Barriers to Social Perception
Several factors lead to inaccurate impressions of others.
Some of the common perceptual distortions/ barriers to
perception are:
– Stereotypes.
– Halo effects.
– Selective perception.
– First Impression Error
– Projection.
– Contrast effects.
– Self-fulfilling prophecy.
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a. Stereotypes or prototypes.
Stereotyping is a generalization about a group of people. It is the
general inclination to place a person in some category according to
some easy and quickly identifiable characteristic such as age, sex,
ethnic member ship, nationality, or occupation and then attribute
the person as having qualities believed to be typical of members of
that category.
Stereotyping is judging someone on the basis of one’s
perception of the group to which that person belongs. For
instance; age - older people are resistant to change; all engineers are
good at Mathematics. It assumes that all people in a certain category
are assumed to have common characteristics. Stereotypes reduce
information about other people to a workable level and they are
efficient for compiling and using information. It can be accurate, and
when they are accurate, they can be useful perceptual guidelines.
Most of the time, however, stereotypes are inaccurate. 59
b. Halo effects
Halo effect is drawing a general impression of an

individual on the basis of a single characteristic such as

intelligence, likeability, or appearance.
It occurs when one attribute of a person or situation is
used to develop an overall impression of the individual
or situation.
Halo Effect - the assumptions that because a person has a

certain trait he or she automatically has other traits. In this

case, a particular trait is taken to be an indication that a
person also has a number of other traits. The halo effect can
lead to generalizations that are either positive or negative.
Two areas of organizational activity in which the halo effect
can have potentially adverse consequences are selection and
performance appraisal. 60
c. Selective perception.
 The tendency to single out those aspects of a

situation, person, or object that are consistent with

one’s needs, values, or attitudes, rather than the
whole package of characteristics..
 Selective perception is our tendency to choose
information that supports our view points. Individuals
often ignore information that makes them feel
uncomfortable or threatens their view points.
 Perception checking with other persons can help

counter the adverse impact of selective perception.

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d. Projection.
• The assignment of one’s personal attributes to
other individuals.
 For instance, if you want challenge and
responsibility in your job, you assume that others
want the same. Or you are honest and trustworthy,
so you take it for granted that other people are
equally honest and trustworthy.
• Projection can be controlled through a high
degree of self-awareness and empathy.

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e. Contrast effects.
Contrast effects is the concept that our reaction to one person

is often influenced by other people we have recently

encountered.
Occur when an individual is compared to other people on

the same characteristics on which the others rank higher

or lower.
E.g. when a manager interviews job candidates from a pool of

applicants, the evaluation of a candidate can be affected by his

or her place in the interview schedule. The candidate is likely to
receive a better evaluation if interviewed after a mediocre
applicant, and a worse evaluation if interviewed after a strong
applicant.
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f. First Impression Error - the tendency to form lasting
opinions about an individual based on initial perceptions. We
observe a very brief bit of a person’s behavior in our first
encounter and infer that this behavior reflects what the person
is really like. Primacy effects can be particularly dangerous in
interviews.

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g. Prejudice
Prejudice is an unfounded dislike of a person
or group based on their belonging to a
particular stereotyped group.
For instance, an individual may dislike people
of a particular religion, or state that she does
not want to work with someone of a particular
ethnicity.

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h. Self-fulfilling prophecy also called the “Pygmalion effect.”
self-fulfilling prophecy is a concept that proposes a person will
behave in ways consistent with how he or she is perceived by
others.
Self-fulfilling Prophecies - the situation in which our expectations
about people affect our interaction with them in such a way that our
expectations are fulfilled. Sometimes our expectations affect the way
we interact with others such that we get what we wish for.
–Managers should adopt positive and optimistic approaches
to people at work.
Eg. if a manager expects big things from his people, they are not
likely to let him down. Similarly, if a manager expects people to
perform minimally, they will tend to behave so as to meet those
low expectations.
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Managerial Implications of Perception
•Employment Interview
•Performance Evaluation
•Performance Expectations
•Employee Loyalty

Impression Management
Impression management is the process by which individuals try
to control the impression others have of them.
Some impression management techniques used in organizations
are:
1. Name-dropping
2. Flattery
3. Managing one's Appearance 67
 Methods to overcome such biases in perception
The biases listed above can be minimized by enhancing perceptual skills
by consciously putting effort in the following activities:
i) Knowing and perceiving oneself accurately
ii) Being empathic
iii) Having positive attitudes
iv) Enhancing one’s self-concept
v) Making a conscious effort to avoid the possible common biases in
perception
vi) Open communication
vii) Avoiding Attributions.
One of the ways in judging others and situations more accurately are by
knowing, perceiving and understanding ourselves accurately.
 The best way of achieving this objective is to obtain information on how
others perceive us from as many sources as possible
Eg. From supervisors, peers, subordinates and other colleagues.

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