Chapter ONE

What is
Organizational
Behavior?
After studying this chapter, you should
be able to:
1. Describe what managers do.
2. Define organizational behavior (OB).
3. Explain the value of the systematic study
of OB.
4. Identify the contributions made by major
behavioral science disciplines to OB.
5. List the major challenges and
opportunities for managers to use OB
concepts.
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What Managers Do
Managerial Activities
Make decisions
Allocate resources
Direct activities of others
to attain goals
Managers (or administrators)
Individuals who achieve goals through other people.
Where Managers Work
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.
Management Functions
Planning Organizing
Leading Controlling
Management
Functions
Management Functions (contd)
Planning
A process that includes defining goals,
establishing strategy, and developing
plans to coordinate activities.
Management Functions (contd)
Organizing
Determining what tasks are to be done,
who is to do them, how the tasks are to
be grouped, who reports to whom, and
where decisions are to be made.
Management Functions (contd)
Leading
A function that includes motivating employees, directing
others, selecting the most effective communication
channels, and resolving conflicts.
Management Functions (contd)
Controlling
Monitoring activities to ensure they are being
accomplished as planned and correcting any
significant deviations.
Mintzbergs Managerial Roles
E X H I B I T 11 Source: Adapted from The Nature of Managerial Work by H. Mintzberg. Copyright 1973
by H. Mintzberg. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education.
Mintzbergs Managerial Roles (contd)
E X H I B I T 11 (contd) Source: Adapted from The Nature of Managerial Work by H. Mintzberg. Copyright 1973
by H. Mintzberg. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education.
Mintzbergs Managerial Roles (contd)
E X H I B I T 11 (contd) Source: Adapted from The Nature of Managerial Work by H. Mintzberg. Copyright 1973
by H. Mintzberg. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education.
Management Skills
Technical skills
The ability to apply specialized
knowledge or expertise.
Human skills
The ability to work with, understand,
and motivate other people, both
individually and in groups.
Conceptual Skills
The mental ability to analyze and
diagnose complex situations.
Effective Versus Successful Managerial
Activities (Luthans)
1. Traditional management
Decision making, planning, and controlling
2. Communication
Exchanging routine information and processing
paperwork
3. Human resource management
Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing,
and training
4. Networking
Socializing, politicking, and interacting with others
Allocation of Activities by Time
Enter Organizational Behavior
Organizational behavior (OB)
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 organizations
effectiveness.
Complementing Intuition with
Systematic Study
Systematic study
Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute
causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based
on scientific evidence.
Provides a means to predict behaviors.
Intuition
Gut feelings about why I do what I do and what
makes others tick.
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field
E X H I B I T 13 (contd)
Psychology
The science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes
change the behavior of humans and other animals.
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field
(contd)
E X H I B I T 13 (contd)
Sociology
The study of people in relation to their fellow human beings.
Contributing Disciplines to the OB
Field (contd)
E X H I B I T 13 (contd)
Social Psychology
An area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology
and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one
another.
Contributing Disciplines to the OB
Field (contd)
E X H I B I T 13 (contd)
Anthropology
The study of societies to learn about human beings and their
activities.
There Are Few Absolutes in OB
x
y
Contingency variables: "It
Depends!!!"
Situational factors that make the main
relationship between two variables change---
e.g., the relationship may hold for one
condition but not another.
Country 1
x y
Country 2
May be related to
May NOT be related to
In
In
Challenges and Opportunities for OB
Responding to Globalization
Increased foreign assignments
Working with people from different cultures
Coping with anti-capitalism backlash
Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-
cost labor
Managing people during the war on terror.
Managing Workforce Diversity
Embracing diversity
Changing U.S. demographics
Implications for managers
Recognizing and responding to differences
Domestic
Partners
Major Workforce Diversity Categories
Race
Non-Christian
National
Origin
Age
Disability
E X H I B I T 14
Gender
Challenges and Opportunities for OB
(contd)
Improving Quality and Productivity
Quality management (QM)
Process reengineering
Responding to the Labor Shortage
Changing work force demographics
Fewer skilled laborers
Early retirements and older workers
Improving Customer Service
Increased expectation of service quality
Customer-responsive cultures
What Is Quality Management?
1. Intense focus on the customer.
2. Concern for continuous improvement.
3. Improvement in the quality of everything
the organization does.
4. Accurate measurement.
5. Empowerment of employees.
E X H I B I T 16
Challenges and Opportunity for
OB (contd)
Improving People Skills
Empowering People
Stimulating Innovation and Change
Coping with Temporariness
Working in Networked Organizations
Helping Employees Balance Work/Life
Conflicts
Improving Ethical Behavior
Managing People during the War on
Terrorism
A Downside to Empowerment?
Basic OB Model, Stage I
E X H I B I T 1-6
Model
An abstraction of reality.
A simplified representation
of some real-world
phenomenon.
The Dependent Variables
x
y
Dependent variable
A response that is affected by an independent variable (what
organizational behavior researchers try to understand).
The Dependent Variables (contd)
Productivity
A performance measure that includes
effectiveness and efficiency.
Effectiveness
Achievement of goals.
Efficiency
Meeting goals at a low
cost.
The Dependent Variables (contd)
Absenteeism
The failure to report to work.
Turnover
The voluntary and
involuntary permanent
withdrawal from an
organization.
The Dependent Variables (contd)
Deviant Workplace Behavior
Voluntary behavior that violates
significant organizational norms and
thereby threatens the well-being of
the organization and/or any of its
members.
The Dependent Variables (contd)
Organizational citizenship
behavior (OCB)
Discretionary behavior that is not
part of an employees formal job
requirements, but that nevertheless
promotes the effective functioning
of the organization.
The Dependent Variables (contd)
Job satisfaction
A general attitude (not a behavior) toward ones job; a
positive feeling of one's job resulting from an
evaluation of its characteristics.
The Independent Variables
Independent
Variables Can Be
Individual-Level
Variables
Organization
System-Level
Variables
Group-Level
Variables
Independent variable
The presumed cause of some change in the dependent
variable; major determinants of a dependent variable.
Basic OB
Model,
Stage II
E X H I B I T 1-7