ORGANIZATION BEHAVIOR

By: Yitbarek Seyoum (PhD)

 CHAPTER ONE
AN OVERVIEW OF ORGANIZATION
BEHAVIOR
 1.1 What is Organizational Behavior?
• Organization: is a consciously coordinated social
unit, made up of a group of people, who work
together on common goals on a relatively continuous
basis.

• Behavior: Behavior refers to what people do in the

organization, how they perform, and what their
attitudes are.
• Organizational behavior (often abbreviated as OB)
is a field of study that investigates how:
 individuals,
 groups, and
 structure
• affect and is affected by behavior within
organizations.
• Organizational behavior is: field of study that
investigates the impact of individuals, groups, and
structure on behavior within organizations for the
purpose of applying such knowledge toward
improving an organization's effectiveness
• 1.2. The three basic units of analysis in OB
• three levels of analysis in OB. These are:
Individuals,
Groups,
Structure.
OB draws conclusion on causal relationships of
two (dependent and independent) variables.
• Dependent variables are the key factors we want
to explain or predict; and
• |Independent variables are the presumed causes
of some change in the dependent variables.
The primary dependent variables in OB are:
productivity,
absenteeism,
turnover, and
job satisfaction.

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• 1.3. Replacing intuition with systematic study
• Intuition: is a feeling not necessarily supported by
research.
• Systematic study: looking relationships, attempting to
attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions
based on scientific evidence.
• Examples:
 Everyone is motivated by money.
 Happy workers are productive workers.
 Everyone wants a challenging job.
• How many of these statements do you think are
true?
• 1.4. A review of a manager’s job and its
relation to the study of OB
• Managers: are individuals who achieve goals
through other people.
• For this study purpose the manager’s job will
be identified by:
 functions,
roles
skills.
 Management Functions
Organizing
Organizing
Planning
Planning

Management
Management
Functions
Functions Staffing
Staffing

Controlling
Controlling
Leading
Leading
• Managerial Roles
• Role is an organized set of behaviors that is
associated with a particular office or position.
• Managerial roles represent specific tasks that
managers undertake to ultimately accomplish
the five managerial functions.
• Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles
Interpersonal
Informational
Decisional
Role Description
Interpersonal
Figurehead Symbolic head; required to perform a number of routine duties of a
legal or social nature
Leader Responsible for the motivation and direction of employees
Liaison maintains a network of outside contacts who provide favors and
information
Informational
Monitor receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve center of
internal and external information of the organization
Disseminator Transmits information received from outsiders or from other
employees to members of the organization
Spokesperson Transmits information to outsiders on organization’s plans, policies,
actions, and results; serves as expert on organization’s industry
Decisional
Entrepreneur Searches organization and its environment for opportunities and
initiates projects to bring about change
Disturbance Responsible for corrective action when organization faces important,
handler unexpected disturbances
Resource allocator Makes or approves significant organizational decisions
Negotiator Responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations
Management Skills
• 1.5 Characteristics of OB
• major characteristics of Organization behavior:
1. Interdisciplinary. Organizational behavior has interdisciplinary orientation that
integrates behavioral sciences in understanding behavior and performance.
2. Behavioral Science Foundation. The behavioral sciences—psychology, sociology
and anthropology have provided the basic philosophy, characteristics of science,
and principles that are so freely borrowed by the field of organizational behavior.
3. Scientific Method Foundation. OB had inherited the tradition of scientific method
in its investigations from its parent disciplines.
4. Three Levels of Analysis. The OB is unique in its approach to behavior because it
encompasses three levels of analysis, individual, group, and formal organization.
5. Contingency Orientation. The term contingency orientation reflects the need to
consider the situation and individuals involved before drawing conclusions about
behavior.
6. Concern for Application. The OB researcher must always be concerned with
understanding real events in actual organizations and with communicating results
in a meaningful fashion to practicing managers.
• 1.6 Development of organizational behavior
• The major contributors to the theory of
organizational behavior are :
classical schools of management theory,
behavioral theory,
contingency theory.
• 1. Classical Schools of Management
• This school of thought is made up of two
branches:
classical scientific
classical administrative,
• A. Classical scientific school
• This branch arose because of the need to increase:
 Productivity and
 Efficiency.
major contributors including :
Frederick Taylor,
Henry Gantt, and
Frank and Lillian Gilbreth.
• B. Classical administrative school
• The emphasis is on the development of
managerial principles rather than work
methods.
• Contributors
Max Weber and = theory of Bureaucracy
Henri Fayol= management principles/functions

• These theorists studied the flow of information

within an organization and emphasized the
importance of understanding how an
organization operated.
• 2. BEHAVIORAL MANAGEMENT THEORY:
• emphasizes improving management through the psychological
makeup of people.
• The behavioral approach is sometimes referred to as the human
resources approach because of the focus on making optimum use
of workers in a positive way, such as making jobs motivational
• The proponents
 George Elton Mayo,
 Abraham Maslow,
 Douglas McGregor.
• Hawthorne studies conducted by G.E. Mayo can be thought of as
the first, founding step in organizational behavior, and it gave
rise to a new school of management thought, the, Human
Relations Movement.
• 3. CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT
THEORY
• there is no one best way of managing or
managerial technique universally applicable in
all situations; rather, it depends upon a given
set of circumstances.
• The idea is that what works in one situation
may not work in another situation.
• 1.7 Disciplines that contributed to organizational
behavior
• The significant ones are :
 psychology, - learning, motivation , decision making, perception
etc..
 social psychology – Group decision making, behavioral change
 Sociology - Group dynamics
 Anthropology – R/p b/n Individuals & their env’t
 political science – Power & Plitics
• Psychology's contribution has been mainly at the individual
or micro level of analysis.
• However, the other disciplines have contributed to the
understanding of macro concepts such as group processes
and organization.
• 1.8 Organizational Behavior in the 21st
century
• The Realities of the New Workplace
• Here are some of the realities of the new
workplace.
Managing Workforce Diversity:
Responding to Globalization
Changing workforce (workforce is changing):
Consumer expectations are changing:
Changing organizations (organizations are changing
Managers must change
• 1.9 Ethics and Organizational Behavior
• Ethics is the study of moral values or principles that
guide our behavior and inform us whether actions are
right or wrong.
• Ethical behavior is that accepted as morally “good” and
“right,” as opposed to “bad” or “wrong,” in a particular
setting.
• Ways of thinking about ethical behavior
• At least four ways of thinking about ethical behavior in
and by organizations can be identified.
Utilitarian view:
Individualism view
Moral-rights view
Justice view:
• Utilitarian view: considers ethical behavior to be,
that which delivers the greatest good to the greatest
number of people.
• Individualism view: considers ethical behavior to be,
that which is best for an individual’s long-term self-
interests.
• Moral-rights view: considers ethical behavior to be,
that which respects fundamental rights shared by all
human beings.
– This view is tied very closely to the principle of basic
human rights, such as those of life, liberty, and fair
treatment by law.
• Justice view: considers ethical behavior to be, that which is
fair and impartial in its treatment of people.
– It is based on the concept of equitable treatment for all concerned. In
OB, two issues address this view of ethical behavior.

Procedural Justice is the degree to which the rules and

procedures specified by policies are properly followed
in all cases under which they are applied.

Distributive justice is the degree to which all people

are treated the same under a policy, regardless of race,
ethnicity, gender, age, or any other demographic
characteristic.
• 1.10 ORGANIZATIONAL SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
• Is the obligation of organizations to behave in ethical and
moral ways as institutions of the broader society.

• This concept suggests that members must ensure that their

ethical frameworks extend to the organization as a whole.
THANK YOU