Management

Thirteenth Edition

Chapter 15
Understanding
and Managing
Individual
Behavior

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Learning Objectives
15.1 Identify the focus and goals of individual behavior within
organizations.
15.2 Explain the role that attitudes play in job performance.
15.3 Describe different personality theories.
• Know how to be more self-aware.
15.4 Describe perception and factors that influence it.
15.5 Discuss learning theories and their relevance in shaping
behavior.
• Develop your skill at shaping behavior.

15.6 Discuss contemporary issues in organizational behavior.

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Focus and Goals of Organizational
Behavior
• Behavior – The actions of people.
– Organizational behavior – The study of the actions of
people at work.

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Exhibit 15-1 Organization as Iceberg
Visible Aspects
• Strategies
• Objectives
• Policies and Procedures
• Structure
• Technology
• Formal Authority
• Chain of Command

Hidden Aspects
• Attitudes
• Perceptions
• Group Norms
• Informal Interactions
• Interpersonal and Intergroup Conflicts

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Focus of Organizational Behavior
• Organizational behavior focuses on three major areas:
‒ Individual behavior including attitudes, personality,
perception, learning, and motivation.
‒ Group behavior including norms, roles, team building,
leadership, and conflict.
‒ Organizational aspects including structure, culture, and
human resource policies and practices.

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Goals of Organizational Behavior (1 of 3)
• The goals of OB are to explain, predict, and
influence behaviors such as
– Employee productivity – A performance measure of
both efficiency and effectiveness.
– Absenteeism – The failure to show up for work.
– Turnover – The voluntary and involuntary permanent
withdrawal from an organization.

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Goals of Organizational Behavior (2 of 3)
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) –
Discretionary behavior that is not part of an
employee’s formal job requirements, but which
promotes the effective functioning of the organization.
• Job Satisfaction – An employee’s general attitude
toward his or her job.

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Goals of Organizational Behavior (3 of 3)
• Workplace Misbehavior – Any intentional employee
behavior that is potentially damaging to the
organization or to individuals within the organization.

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Attitudes and Job Performance (1 of 2)
• Attitudes – Evaluative statements, either favorable or
unfavorable, concerning objects, people, or events.
– An attitude is made up of three components: cognition,
affect, and behavior.

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Attitudes and Job Performance (2 of 2)
• Cognitive Component – That part of an attitude
that’s made up of the beliefs, opinions, knowledge, or
information held by a person.
• Affective Component – That part of an attitude that’s
the emotional or feeling part.
• Behavioral Component – That part of an attitude that
refers to an intention to behave in a certain way
toward someone or something.

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Job Satisfaction
• A person with a high level of job satisfaction has a
positive attitude toward his or her job.
• A person who is dissatisfied has a negative attitude.
• Job satisfaction is linked to productivity, absenteeism,
turnover, customer satisfaction, OCB, and workplace
misbehavior.

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Job Involvement and Organizational
Commitment (1 of 2)
• Job Involvement – The degree to which an employee
identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it,
and considers his or her job performance to be
important to self-worth.
• Organizational Commitment – The degree to which
an employee identifies with a particular organization
and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in
that organization.

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Job Involvement and Organizational
Commitment (2 of 2)
• Perceived Organizational Support – Employees’
general belief that their organization values their
contribution and cares about their well-being.

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Employee Engagement
• Employee Engagement –
When employees are
connected to, satisfied with,
and enthusiastic about their
jobs.

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Cognitive Dissonance Theory
• Cognitive Dissonance – Any incompatibility or
inconsistency between attitudes or between behavior
and attitudes.
• Attitude Surveys – Surveys that elicit responses from
employees through questions about how they feel
about their jobs, work groups, supervisors, or the
organization.

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Exhibit 15-2 Sample Employee
Attitude Survey
Here are some sample statements from an employee
attitude survey:
• I have ample opportunities to use my skills/abilities in my job.
• My manager has a good relationship with my work group.
• My organization provides me professional development
opportunities.
• I am told if I’m doing good work or not.
• I feel safe in my work environment.
• My organization is a great place to work.

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Personality
• Personality – The unique combination of emotional,
thought, and behavioral patterns that affect how a
person reacts to situations and interacts with others.

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MBTI®
• MBTI® - A popular personality-assessment instrument.
– Classifies individuals as exhibiting a preference in four
categories:
▪ Extraversion or introversion (E or I)
▪ Sensing or intuition (S or N)
▪ Thinking or feeling (T or F)
▪ Judging or perceiving (J or P).

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Exhibit 15-3 Examples of MBTI®
Personality Types
Type Description
I–S–F–P (introversion, Sensitive, kind, modest, shy, and
sensing, quietly friendly. Such people
feeling, perceiving) strongly dislike disagreements and
will avoid them. They are loyal
followers and quite often are
relaxed about getting things done.
E–N–T–J (extraversion, Warm, friendly, candid, and
intuition, thinking, judging) decisive; also skilled in anything
that requires reasoning and
intelligent talk, but may sometimes
overestimate what they are capable
of doing.
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The Big Five Model
• Big Five Model – A personality trait model that
includes:
1. Extraversion
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Emotional stability
5. Openness to experience

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Additional Personality Insights (1 of 2)
• Locus of Control – The degree to which people
believe they are masters of their own fate.
• Machiavellianism – A measure of the degree to
which people are pragmatic, maintain emotional
distance, and believe that ends justify means.

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Additional Personality Insights (2 of 2)
• Self-Esteem – An individual’s degree of like or dislike
for him/herself.
• Self-Monitoring – A personality trait that measures
the ability to adjust behavior to external situational
factors.

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Other Personality Traits
• Proactive Personality – A trait belonging to people
who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action,
and persevere until meaningful change occurs.
• Resilience – An individual’s ability to overcome
challenges and turn them into opportunities.

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Emotions and Emotional Intelligence
• Emotions – Intense feelings that are directed at
someone or something.
• Emotional Intelligence (EI) – The ability to notice
and to manage emotional cues and information.

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Five Dimensions of Emotional
Intelligence (EI)
• Emotional Intelligence (EI) is composed of five dimensions:
1. Self-awareness: The ability to be aware of what you’re
feeling.
2. Self-management: The ability to manage one’s own
emotions and impulses.
3. Self-motivation: The ability to persist in the face of
setbacks and failures.
4. Empathy: The ability to sense how others are feeling.
5. Social skills: The ability to handle the emotions of others.

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Exhibit 15-4 Holland’s Personality–
Job Fit
Type Personality Characteristics Sample Occupations
Realistic. Prefers physical activities Shy, genuine, persistent, stable, Mechanic, drill press operator,
that require skill, strength, and conforming, practical assembly-line worker, farmer
coordination
Investigative. Prefers activities Analytical, original, curious, Biologist, economist, mathematician,
involving thinking, organizing, and independent news Reporter
understanding
Social. Prefers activities that involve Sociable, friendly, cooperative, Social worker, teacher, counselor,
helping and developing others Understanding clinical Psychologist
Conventional. Prefers rule- Conforming, efficient, practical, Accountant, corporate manager, bank
regulated, orderly, and unambiguous unimaginative, Inflexible teller, file Clerk
activities
Enterprising. Prefers verbal activities Self-confident, ambitious, Lawyer, real estate agent, public
that offer opportunities to influence energetic, relations specialist, small business
domineering Manager
Artistic. Prefers ambiguous and Imaginative, disorderly, Painter, musician, writer, interior
unsystematic activities that allow idealistic, emotional, Impractical decorator
creative Expression

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Perception
• Perception – A process by which we give meaning to
our environment by organizing and interpreting
sensory impressions.
– A number of factors act to shape and sometimes distort
perception including:
▪ Perceiver
▪ Target
▪ Situation

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Exhibit 15-5 What Do You See?

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Attribution Theory (1 of 2)
• Attribution Theory – How the actions of individuals
are perceived by others depends on what meaning
(causation) we attribute to a given behavior.
– Attribution depends on three factors: distinctiveness,
consensus, and consistency.

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Attribution Theory (2 of 2)
• Fundamental Attribution Error – The tendency to
underestimate the influence of external factors and to
overestimate the influence of internal or personal
factors.
• Self-Serving Bias – The tendency of individuals to
attribute their successes to internal factors while
blaming personal failures on external factors.

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Exhibit 15-6 Attribution Theory
Observation Interpretation Attribution of Cause
Does person behave this Yes: Low Internal attribution
way in other situations? distinctiveness External attribution
No: High
distinctiveness
Do other people behave Yes: High consensus External attribution
the same way in similar No: Low consensus Internal attribution
situations?
Does person behave this Yes: High consistency Internal attribution
way consistently? No: Low consistency External attribution

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Shortcuts Used in Judging Others
• Assumed Similarity – The assumption that others
are like oneself.
• Stereotyping – Judging a person on the basis of
one’s perception of a group to which he or she
belongs.
• Halo Effect – A general impression of an individual
based on a single characteristic.

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Learning
• Learning – Any relatively permanent change in
behavior that occurs as a result of experience.
– Two theories of learning:
▪ Operant conditioning
▪ Social learning

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Operant Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning – A theory of learning that
says behavior is a function of its consequences.
– Behaviors are learned by making rewards contingent to
behaviors.
– Behavior that is rewarded (positively reinforced) is
likely to be repeated.
– Behavior that is punished or ignored is less likely to be
repeated.

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Social Learning
• Social Learning Theory – A theory of learning that
says people can learn through observation and direct
experience.
– The influence that these models have on an individual
is determined by four processes:
1. Attentional processes
2. Retention processes
3. Motor reproduction processes
4. Reinforcement processes

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Shaping: A Managerial Tool
• Shaping Behavior – The process of guiding learning
in graduated steps using reinforcement or lack of
reinforcement.
– Positive Reinforcement: rewarding desired behaviors
– Negative Reinforcement: removing an unpleasant
consequence once the desired behavior is exhibited
– Punishment: penalizing an undesired behavior
– Extinction: eliminating a reinforcement for an
undesired behavior

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Contemporary Issues in
Organizational Behavior
• Managing Generational Differences in the
Workplace
– Gen Y: individuals born after 1978
▪ Bring new attitudes to the workplace that reflect wide
arrays of experiences and opportunities
▪ Want to work, but don’t want work to be their life
▪ Challenge the status quo
▪ Have grown up with technology

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Managing Negative Behavior in the
Workplace
• What can managers do to manage negative
behavior in the workplace?
– Screening potential employees for certain personality
traits.
– Responding immediately and decisively to
unacceptable negative behaviors.

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Review Learning Objective 15.1
• Identify the focus and goals of individual behavior
within organizations.
– Organization behavior (OB) focuses on three areas:
individual behavior, group behavior, and organizational
aspects.
– Behaviors include productivity, absenteeism, turnover,
organizational citizenship and job satisfaction.

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Review Learning Objective 15.2 (1 of 3)
• Explain the role that attitudes play in job
performance.
– The cognitive component refers to the beliefs, opinions,
knowledge, or information held by a person.
– The affective component is the emotional or feeling
part of an attitude.
– The behavioral component refers to an intention to
behave in a certain way toward someone or something.

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Review Learning Objective 15.2 (2 of 3)
– Job satisfaction refers to a person’s general attitude
toward his or her job.
– Job involvement is the degree to which an employee
identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it,
and considers his or her job performance to be
important to his or her self-worth.

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Review Learning Objective 15.2 (3 of 3)
– Organizational commitment is the degree to which an
employee identifies with a particular organization and
its goals and wishes to maintain membership in that
organization.
– Job satisfaction positively influences productivity,
lowers absenteeism levels, lowers turnover rates,
promotes positive customer satisfaction, moderately
promotes OCB, and helps minimize workplace
misbehavior.

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Review Learning Objective 15.3 (1 of 2)
• Describe different personality theories.
– The MBTI measures four dimensions: social
interaction, preference for gathering data, preference
for decision-making, and style of making decisions.
– The Big Five Model consists of five personality traits:
extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness,
emotional stability, and openness to experience.

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Review Learning Objective 15.3 (2 of 2)
– The five personality traits that help explain individual
behavior in organizations are locus of control,
Machiavellianism, self-esteem, self-monitoring, and
risk-taking.
– Other personality traits include Type A/Type B
personalities, proactive personality, and resilience.

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Review Learning Objective 15.4 (1 of 2)
• Describe perception and factors that influence it.
– Perception is how we give meaning to our environment
by organizing and interpreting sensory impressions.
– The fundamental attribution error is the tendency to
underestimate the influence of external factors and
overestimate the influence of internal factors.

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Review Learning Objective 15.4 (2 of 2)
• The self-serving bias is the tendency to attribute our own
successes to internal factors and to put the blame for
personal failure on external factors.
• Three shortcuts used in judging others are assumed
similarity, stereotyping, and the halo effect.

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Review Learning Objective 15.5
• Discuss learning theories and their relevance in
shaping behavior.
– Operant conditioning argues that behavior is a function
of its consequences.
– Social learning theory says that individuals learn by
observing what happens to other people.
– Managers can shape behavior by using positive
reinforcement, negative reinforcement punishment, or
extinction.

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Review Learning Objective 15.6
• Discuss contemporary issues in organizational
behavior.
– The challenge of managing Gen Y workers is that they
bring new attitudes to the workplace.
– Workplace misbehavior can be dealt with by
recognizing that it’s there; carefully screening potential
employees for possible negative tendencies, and by
paying attention to employee attitudes.

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Copyright

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