ENGR201 Professional Practice and Responsibility ©

Lesson 5 Transcript: Organizational Behaviour

Organizational Behavior.
Organizational behavior can be simply defined as the study of what people think, feel,
and do, in and around organizations.
In your readings, McShane and Von Glinnow define organizational behavior as the
study of individual, team, including interpersonal and organizational level
characteristics, that influence behavior within work settings.
Accordingly, organizational behavior can be differentiated into three kinds of influences,
individual influences, group influences, and organizational level influences.
Click on any of the three tabs to hear a more detailed description of each kind of
influence.

Individual Influences
Individual influence.
Individual influences on a person's behavior in an organization can be differentiated into
four: motivation, role perception, ability, and situational factors.
Click on each of the tabs for a more detailed explanation of each factor.

Motivation
Motivation.
Motivation could be defined as the force within a person that affects their direction,
intensity, or persistence of voluntary behavior.
Motivation drives behavior. It is the force behind an individual's decision to commit or
not commit certain acts or behaviors.
Situations and contexts cause some people to be motivated to do their work while other
people are unmotivated by those very circumstances.
What makes us do the things we do? Why the two individuals in similar circumstances
choose two different options?
The answer in part is motivation.

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Role Perception
Role perception.
Roles are positions that people occupy within organizations. These positions come with
specific tasks, and associated duties and consequences for which we are accountable
when we occupy these positions.
Roles help define the behaviors we should exhibit and those we should not when we do
an assigned task.
Roles are important because they help us communicate responsibilities associated with
a particular position and they set expectations for appropriate responses to or from
others.
So as an individual working in an organization, we fill a particular role and this role
shapes how we behave within that organization.

Ability
Ability.
Ability refers to the natural aptitude and/or learned capabilities that individuals possess
to accomplish assigned tasks.
Those with a natural ability to perform an assigned task often show a higher comfort
level with regards to accomplishing tasks and this affects how they respond and behave
with other co-workers.

Situational Factors
Situational factors.
Situational factors are factors that can be either internal or external to the organization
that affect how individuals function within the organization.
Internal factors could include time, budget, work facilities, etc. These factors influence
how an individual does their work and so their behavior in the organization.
Similarly, external factors such as the current economic situation or consumer
preferences affect the expectations from individuals and therefore, influences their
behavioral responses.

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Group Influences
Group influences.
Three aspects influence behavior while working in groups, leadership, power and
influence, and team dynamics.
Click on each tab to learn more about each of these aspects.

Leadership
Leadership.
Leadership is the process of guiding and directing the behavior of people in the work
environment.
It is important to distinguish between the leader and the manager. While a leader is an
advocate for change and new approaches to problem solving, a manager is an
advocate for stability and the status quo.
Leadership is of two kinds: formal and informal. Formal leadership is when the
organization bestows the authority to a person to guide and direct a group.
Informal leadership is accorded unofficially when a person is granted the power to guide
by others.

Power and Influence

Power and influence.
Power is the ability to influence someone else's behavior, while influence is the process
of affecting the thoughts and behavior of another person.
In an organization, power and influence is frequently exercised to get other people to do
something that is in the interests of the organization or in the interests of a person.
Authority is the right granted by the organization to influence another person. Another
common means of influencing other people is through politics.
Politics is especially useful in order to influence people who have authority over others.
Politics is the use of power and influence to further personal interest, some are
acceptable, while others are not.

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Team Dynamics
Working in teams.
A team can be defined as a group of people with complimentary skills who are
committed to a common mission, performance goals, and approach for which they hold
themselves mutually accountable.
The structure of teams exert important influences on how individuals behave when
working in them.
For example, structural aspects of teams such as goals and objectives, operational
guidelines, assessment measures, and role distribution for team leaders and members,
play an important role in influencing behavior.

Organizational Influences
Organizational influences.
Organizational level influences on behavior can happen through two aspects:
organizational structure, and organizational culture.
Click on the tabs to learn in detail about each of these aspects.

Organizational Structure
Organizational structure.
Organizational structure could be defined as the division of labor and patterns of
coordination, communication, workflow, and formal power, that direct organizational
activities.
A common representation of organizational structure is the organizational chart that
conveys in a visual diagram the relations between different roles people occupy in an
organization.
Several factors differentiate the structure of an organization.
These include the span of control, which refers to the number of people who report to
any person, the degree of centralization, decentralization, or the number of people with
decision making authority in an organization, and the degree of formalization, or the
standardization of rules and procedures in an organization.

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Types of Organizational Structure
Different organizational structures.
Differences in organizational structures reflect how structures are departmentalized.
In other words, it specifies how employees and their activities are grouped together.
It also establishes a chain for the flow of commands and for the coordination of
information.
Organizational and management studies distinguish at least five major types of
organizational structures.
Click on each of the tabs to learn more about different kinds of organizational structures.

Line Organization
Line organization.
The line organization is the most hierarchical structure. The only departments in the
organization are those that accomplish the mission of the organization.
There are only direct vertical relationships among the different operations or line
departments within a firm.
There is little horizontal communication across different departments.

Line & Staff Organization

Line and staff organization.
This structure creates a parallel chain of line and staff. The staff provides advisory or
support role to the line departments.
A good example is that accounting office that reports to the president, it also provides
financial advice and support to the production and marketing departments.

Functional Organization
Functional organization.
This organizational structure has a type of departmentalization that organizes
employees around specific knowledge or resources.
Projects are divided into segments and assigned to relevant functional areas and/or
groups within functional areas.

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A disadvantage of this organizational structure is that employees develop a narrow
understanding of business and this results in poor coordination across different
functions.

Divisional Organization
Divisional organization.
In this type of organizational structure, employees are grouped according to the primary
source of environmental uncertainty, depending upon whether the company is selling in
multiple places, or to different clients, or if different products are sold across a country.
In other words, the structure is grouped around geographic areas, products, or clients.
The problem with this structure is that it results in the duplication of structure, personnel
and resources.

Matrix Organization
Matrix organization.
A matrix organization tries to combine the qualities of a functional and divisional
organizational structure.
In a matrix organization, employees are assigned to cross functional teams working on
specific projects.
They also belong to permanent functional units from where they are distributed to
projects.
This allows for optimum use of resources and expertise. A disadvantage of this
structure is that employees are accountable to two managers and this can create
ambiguity and conflict.

Organizational Culture
Organizational culture.
Organizational culture is a set of values and assumptions shared within an organization.
While values reflect the belief about what should be or should not be assumptions, our
deeply held beliefs and mental models that guide behavior and tell members how to
think about things.
Organizational culture is made visible through practices symbols and physical structures
of the organization.

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In other words, through actions that everyone in an organization does without thinking
like for example, wishing the boss “Good Morning” our practices in symbols of
organizational culture.
Similarly, physical structures like the nature of rooms, organization of office space, and
decoration on the walls, all reveal the culture of an organization.

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