OB
What is Organizational Behaviour?
A field of study that investigates the impact of individuals, groups and structure on behaviour within organizations; its purpose is to apply such knowledge toward improving an organization's effectiveness.
OB Has a Few Absolutes
Human beings are very complex, humans are not alike, which limits the ability to make simple, accurate, and sweeping generalizations.
Contingency Approach basically...
Depends on the situation = To explain their actions must also consider the context or situation.
Systematic study?
Looks at relationships attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.
Evidence-based management ( EB M)
Is an approach that emphasizes making managerial decisions based on the best available evidence from multiple sources, including scientific research, organizational data, and stakeholder inputs.
What is intuition?
An instinctive feeling not necessarily supported by research. also called "Gut feeling"
Disciplines that contribute to the OB field: The Building blocks of OB
- Psychology
- Social Psychology
- Sociology
- Anthropology
Understanding Workforce Diversity? What is Workforce Diversity?
The mix of people in organizations in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, ability, sexual orientation, age, and demographic characteristics such as education and socio-economic status.
Customer service:
OB can increase the success of these interactions by showing how employee attitudes and behaviour influence customer satisfaction.
Working in Networked Organizations: (C and O)
Allow people to communicate and work together even though they may be located elsewhere.
Social Media (C and O)
Employees have been fired for inappropriate tweeting. Recruitment can be influenced by social media. Access to social media throughout the day can influence employee mood and decrease performance.
Enhancing employee well-being at work.
Employees are increasingly complaining that the lines between work and private life have blurred and this has led to more personal conflicts and stress.
Creating a positive work environment: Positive organizational scholarship. (C and O)
An area O B research that concerns how organizations develop human strengths, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential.
Ethnical behaviour: Ethical dilemmas and ethical choises
are situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct.
- Pressured to cut corners, break rules, engage in other questionable practices,
A Basic O B Model: Coming attractions
Inputs
Processes
Outcomes
Individuals level
group level
Organizational level
What is perception??
The process by which individuals organize and interpret their impressions to give meaning to their environment.
= Behaviour is based on perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.
3 factors influencing perception
- The perceiver
- The target
- The situation
Perceptual Errors: 5
- Attribution Theory
- Selective Perception
- Halo effect
- Contrast Effects
- Stereotyping
Positive Attribution Theory Example (External and Internal)
Internal: They believe their success is due to their intelligence or hard work
External: They might think they are lucky, or that the test was easier than expected.
Negative Attribution Theory Example (External and Internal)
Internal: Not smart enough, didn't study enough.
External: Blame the teacher for a unfair exam or for the difficulty of the test
To determine whether behaviour is internally or externally caused. Three rules about behaviour?
1. Distinctiveness
2. Consensus
3. Consistency
Distinctiveness Example (Low and high - External and Internal)
High: Someone who is always on time every day but is late once you may consider external factors (traffic, personal issues)
Low: If someone is late to everything, you might attribute the behaviour to internal factors, like being disorganized.
Consensus Example (High and Low - External and Internal)
High: When the whole group misses the deadline (the reason being, there too much workload?) external
Low: only one person misses the deadline (Poor time management...) Internal
Consistency Example (High and Low - External and Internal)
High: Someone participating in everything, always answering questions in class, being very confident. This is considered an internal factor
Low: When that someone stops participating in situations, this is an external. Maybe he is sick, or the topic was outside the interest. The lack of consistency
Fundamental Attribution Error (Example)
you witness a coworker, Lisa, making a mistake during a presentation, such as misreading a key statistic...
Fundamental Attribution Error: You might think, “Lisa is careless and not competent in her job.” This judgment focuses on her personality (internal factors) rather than considering situational factors that might have affected her performance, like being under pressure, having a family emergency that morning, or not getting enough sleep.
Self-Serving Bias (Success and Failures)
Success: If someone aced a test that person might think "I did well because I studied hard and I'm smart" Internal Factors.
Failure: Someone who didnt do well might say "“The test was unfair,” or “The teacher didn’t explain the material well.” Blames the external factor.
Selective Perception:
Peoples selective interpretation of what they see based on their interests, background, experience, and attitudes.
Halo Effect:
Positive Halo effect: Someone being very nice, coworkers might think she's a hard worker even if they haven't seen her perform. They might overlook her mistakes.
Negative Halo effect: conversely, if she was being unfriendly. coworkers might think she's not a team player or lacks in skills even if her work is solid. Their negative impression of her behavior might cloud their judgment about her abilities.
Contrast effect:
The concept that our reaction to one person is often influenced by other people we have recently encountered
Perceptual Error, Stereotyping:
Judging someone based on one perception of the group to which that person belongs.
Perceptual Error, Heuristics: (Example)
Judgement shortcuts in decision making.
Example: Someone watching Jaws and now being scared to swim in the water
Why do perception and judgement matter?
Most obvious applications of judgement shortcut in the workplace:
- Employment interview
- Performance expectation
- Performance evaluations
what is Personality?
Personality is the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others.
Personality Determinants
- Heredity
- Environmental factors
- Situational conditions
What's personality traits?
Personality traits are enduring characteristics that describe an individual's behaviour.
Personality - The big five model?
1. Extraversion
2. Agreeableness
3. Conscientiousness
4. Emotional stability
5. Openness to experience
What is the dark triad - Personality
The Dark Triad is a group of negative personality traits consisting of:
- Machiavellianism
- Narcissism
- Psychopathy
Emotions are...
Intense feelings that are directed at someone or something
Moods are...
feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that lack a contextual stimulus.
Why should we care about emotions in the workplace?
Affective events theory (AE T) is a model that suggests that workplace events cause emotional reactions on the part of employees, which then influence workplace attitudes and behaviours.
Emotional intelligence is..
the ability to detect and manage emotional cues and information
- Refers to an individuals ability to:
1. Perceive emotions in self and others (Conscientiousness)
2. Understand the meaning of these emotions (Cognitive)
3. Regulate ones emotion accordingly in a cascading model (Emotional stability)
The two frameworks for understanding values:
- Milton Rokeachs value survey (RV S)
- Kent Hodgson's general moral princples
Hofstede's Framework for assesing culture
- Power Distance
- Individualism vs collectivism
- Masculinity vs femininity
- Uncertainty avoidance
- Long-term vs short-term orientation
- Indulgence vs restraint
The GLOBE framework for assessing cultures
Global
Leadership
Organizational
Behaviour
Effectiveness
8 Generations
1. Builders
2. Boomers
3. Gen X
4. Xennials
5. Millennials (Gen Y)
6. Zennials
7. Gen Z
8. Gen Alpha
Attitudes are...
Are positive or negative feelings concerning objects, people or events.
Components of an attitude:
Cognitive: The component is the opinion or belief segment
Affective: The component is the emotion or feeling segment
Behavioural: the component is an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something
The important attitudes that affect organizational performance
- Job satisfaction
- Organizational commitment
- Job involvement
- Perceived organizational support
- Employee engagement
How employees can express dissatisfaction:
Exit (E): Actively attempting to leave
Voice (V): Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions
Loyalty (L): By passively waiting for conditions to improve
Neglect (N): Passively allowing conditions to worsen
Counterproductive Work behaviour (CW B)
Are actions that actively damage the organization, including sealing, behaving aggressively toward co-workers, or being late or absent.
Organizational commitment is...
the degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization
Three types of organization commitment
Affective commitment - Emotional attachment
Normative commitment - Obligation to stay with an organization
Continuance commitment - Stay with the organization based on the perceived costs of leaving the organization
Managing Diversity in the workplace. (Surface-level diversity)
Is differences in easily perceived characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, gender, or disability
Managing Diversity in the workplace (Deep-level diversity)
Is differences in values, personality and work preferences that become progressively more important for determining similarity as people get to know one another better
Cultural intelligence (C Q)
Is the ability to understand someone's unfamiliar and ambiguous gestures in the same way as would people from his or her culture.
Motivation is the
Process that accounts for an individuals intensity, direction and persistence of effort directed toward reaching a goal
The needs theories all propose a similar idea:
Individuals have needs that, when unsatisfied, will result in motivation
Expectancy theory show..
that individuals act based on an evaluation of whether their effort will lead to a good performance, followed by whether it will achieve a given outcome, and whether that outcome is attractive.
Self-efficacy theory indicates that..
Indicates that specific and difficult goals, combined with feedback, lead to higher performace
Equity Theory:
Asserts that individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes with those of others and then respond to eliminate any inequities
Organizational justice is an overall..
Perception of what represents fairness in the workplace, and it is composed of distributive, procedural, informational and interpersonal justice
Self-determination theory:
Is concerned with the beneficial effects of intrinsic motivation and the harmful effects of extrinsic motivation
organizations have an obligation to..
provide employees with honest communication, fair and respectful treatment. intellectual challenge, independence in determining work methods, participation in decision-making, moral development, and fair compensation
Variable pay programs include:
Individual-based incentives
Piece-rate wages
Merit-based pay
Bonuses
Flexible benefits allow employees too
to put together a benefits package tailored to their own needs and situation
The job characteristics model (JC M) states that any job can be described in terms of five core job dimensions:
Skill variety
Task identity
Task significance
Autonomy
Feedback
Alternative work arrangement includes:
Flextime
Job sharing
Telecommuting
Participative management means..
that employees share in decision-making with immediate superiors, while representative participation means a small group of representative employees participate in organizational decision-making
Four basic emotional drives guide individuals:
Drive to acquire
Drive to Bond
Drive to comprehend
Drive to defend