Instructor Manual For Essentials of Organizational Behaviour Third Canadian Edition

INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL Michael Halinski Ryerson University Essentials of Organizational Behaviour Third Canadian Edition Stephen P. Robbins San Diego State University Timothy A. Judge University of Notre Dame Katherine E. Breward University of Winnipeg ISBN 978-0-13-731781-3 Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc., Toronto, Ontario. All rights reserved. This work is protected by Canadian copyright laws and is provided solely for the use of instructors in teaching their courses and assessing student learning. Dissemination or sale of any part of this work (including on the Internet) will destroy the integrity of the work and is not permitted. The copyright holder grants permission to instructors who have adopted Essentials of Organizational Behaviour by Robbins/Judge/Breward, to post this material online only if the use of the website is restricted by access codes to students in the instructor’s class that is using the textbook and provided the reproduced material bears this copyright notice. Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. Contents Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? 1-1 Chapter 2 Organizational Culture 2-1 Chapter 3 Diversity in Organizations 3-1 Chapter 4 Attitudes, Emotions, Moods, and Stress Management 4-1 Chapter 5 Personality and Values 5-1 Chapter 6 Perception and Individual Decision Making 6-1 Chapter 7 Motivation 7-1 Chapter 8 Foundations of Group Behaviour 8-1 Chapter 9 Understanding Work Teams 9-1 Chapter 10 Communication 10-1 Chapter 11 Leadership 11-1 Chapter 12 Power and Politics 12-1 Chapter 13 Conflict and Negotiation 13-1 Chapter 14 Organizational Change 14-1 Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-1 Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Chapter Overview This chapter introduces the concept of organizational behaviour. The focus of the text is that coupling individual understanding of behaviour gained through experience with that gained through systematic OB analysis will help managers become more effective. Many of the important challenges being faced by today’s managers are described, as are the three levels of OB study. The outline of the text is described in relation to these three levels. Chapter Objectives After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: 1.1 Define organizational behaviour (OB) and discuss why the interpersonal skills learned through its study are important. 1.2 Assess the importance of using a scientific approach to OB. 1.3 Identify the major behavioural science disciplines that contribute to OB. 1.4 Explain why few absolutes apply to OB. 1.5 Describe the challenges and opportunities managers face when applying OB concepts in their workplaces. 1.6 Compare the three levels of analysis in this text’s OB model. Suggested Lecture Outline I. ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR AND THE IMPORTANCE OF INTERPERSONAL SKILLS A. Until the late 1980s, business school curricula emphasized the technical aspects of management, focusing on economics, accounting, finance, and quantitative techniques. 1. Course work in human behaviour and people skills received relatively less attention. 2. During the past three decades, however, business faculty have come to realize the role that understanding human behaviour plays in determining a manager’s effectiveness, and required courses on people skills have been added to many curricula. B. Developing managers’ interpersonal skills also helps organizations attract and keep high-performing employees. 1. Regardless of labour market conditions, outstanding employees are always in short supply. 2. Companies known as good places to work have a big advantage. 3. A recent survey of hundreds of workplaces, and over 200,000 respondents, showed the social relationships among co-workers and supervisors were strongly related to overall job satisfaction. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-2 a. Positive social relationships also were associated with lower stress at work and lower intentions to quit. b. Having managers with good interpersonal skills is likely to make the workplace more pleasant, which in turn makes it easier to hire and keep qualified people. c. Creating a pleasant workplace also appears to make good economic sense. Companies with reputations as good places to work have been found to generate superior financial performance. 4. We have come to understand that in today’s competitive and demanding workplace, managers can’t succeed on their technical skills alone. a. They also have to have good people skills. b. This resource has been written to help both managers and potential managers develop those people skills. C. We’ve made the case for the importance of people skills. But neither this resource nor the discipline on which it is based is called “people skills.” D. The term that is widely used to describe the discipline is organizational behaviour. 1. Organizational Behaviour (OB) studies the influence that individuals, groups, and structure have on behaviour within organizations. The chief goal of OB is to apply that knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness. 2. OB studies three determinants of behaviour in organizations: a. individuals b. groups c. structure 3. OB applies the knowledge gained from this study to make organizations work more effectively. 4. This text will focus on: a. motivation b. leader behaviour and power c. interpersonal communication d. group structure and processes e. attitude development and perception f. change processes g. conflict and negotiation h. work design II. COMPLEMENTING INTUITION WITH SYSTEMATIC STUDY A. People develop intuitive understandings of the behaviours of other people through experience. This experiential, common sense method of “reading” human behaviour can often lead to erroneous predictions. B. You can improve your predictive ability by taking the systematic approach to the study of human behaviour. C. The fundamental assumption of the systematic approach is that human behaviour is not random. There are fundamental consistencies that underlie the behaviour of all individuals, and these fundamental consistencies can be identified and then modified to reflect individual differences. 1. Scientific study of behaviour means: examining relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and basing our conclusions on scientific evidence – that is, on data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous manner. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-3 2. Evidence-based Management (EBM): This complementary approach to systematic study involves basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence. Managers must become more scientific about how they think about managerial problems and not rely on instinct. 3. Intuition: your “gut feelings” about “what makes others tick.” This natural ability to guess how people will react is most accurate when coupled with systematic thinking and evidence-based management. D. Our goal is to teach you how to use the scientific study of OB to enhance your intuitive understanding of behaviour and improve your accuracy in explaining and predicting behaviour in the workplace. E. Big data now makes effective decision making and managing human resources easier. Managers use big data to define objectives, develop theories of causality, and test the theories to determine which employee activities are relevant to the objectives. III. DISCIPLINES THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE OB FIELD A. Organizational behaviour is an applied behavioural science built on contributions from a number of behavioural disciplines, mainly psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology, and increasingly, political science and neuroscience. 1. Psychology’s contributions have been mainly at the individual or micro level of analysis, while the other disciplines have contributed to our understanding of macro concepts such as group processes and organization. 2. Exhibit 1-1 is an overview of the major contributions to the study of organizational behaviour. B. Psychology: seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change behaviour of humans and other animals. 1. Those who have contributed and continue to add to the knowledge of OB are: a. learning theorists b. personality theorists c. counselling psychologists d. industrial and organizational psychologists. 1) Early industrial/organizational psychologists studied the problems of fatigue, boredom, and other working conditions that could impede efficient work performance. 2) More recently, their contributions have expanded to include learning, perception, personality, emotions, training, leadership effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision-making processes, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employeeselection techniques, work design, and job stress. C. Social psychology: generally considered a branch of psychology; blends concepts from both psychology and sociology to focus on peoples’ influence on one another. 1. One major study area is change—how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its acceptance. 2. Social psychologists also contribute to measuring, understanding, and changing attitudes; identifying communication patterns; and building trust. 3. Finally, they have made important contributions to our study of group behaviour, power, and conflict. D. Sociology: studies people in relation to their social environment or culture. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-4 1. While psychology focuses on the individual, sociology studies people in relation to their social environment or culture. a. Sociologists have contributed to OB through their study of group behaviour in organizations, particularly formal and complex organizations. b. Perhaps most importantly, sociologists have studied organizational culture, formal organization theory and structure, organizational technology, communications, power, and conflict. E. Anthropology: the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. 1. Anthropologists’ work on cultures and environments has helped us understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes, and behaviour between people in different countries and within different organizations. 2. Much of our current understanding of organizational culture, organizational environments, and differences among national cultures is a result of the work of anthropologists or those using their methods. 3. As anthropology as a discipline emerged out of a colonial mindset and tradition that viewed non-Western societies as ‘primitive’, many of the insights provided by anthropological studies maintain similar biases that over-estimate the value of Western business practices. F. Political Science: Political science is the study of systems of government but also political behaviours and activities. As such, it provides insight into the distribution of power and resources, and how those distribution decisions are influenced. G. Neuroscience: Neuroscience is the study of the structure and function of the nervous system and brain. Neuroscientists have recently begun contributing to OB by studying topics such as the impact of hormone levels on risk-taking in business contexts, the influence of pheromones on team behaviours, and the underlying cognitive structures and neural processes that contribute to inadvertent prejudice and associated skill discounting and underutilization of workers. IV. A BRIEF HISTORY OF OB A. Organizational behaviour as a distinct discipline started when scientific approaches to management began to indicate that behavioural considerations were important predictors of productivity. The famous Hawthorne studies were conducted between 1924 and 1932 at Hawthorne Electrical Company. The scientists involved were trying to discover the optimal temperature, lighting levels, and work pace to maximize productivity. Instead, they discovered that being observed and having people pay attention to the efforts of workers increased productivity regardless of temperature, lighting, etc. This helped launch an entire area of study devoted to motivation and teams. B. In the 1950s, the Carnegie School headquartered at Carnegie Mellon University was influential in directing attention to the integration of decision analysis, management science, and psychology. This resulted in the development of important concepts such as bounded rationality. C. The 1960s and 1970s saw many developments in organizational behaviour, with important discoveries being made in the areas of motivation, team behaviour, and leadership. D. The 1980s and 1990s saw more focus on organizational culture and organizational change. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-5 E. More recently, research inspired by the anthropological approach has focused on, among other things, situational models of leadership. V. THERE ARE FEW ABSOLUTES IN OB A. Laws in the physical sciences—chemistry, astronomy, physics—are consistent and apply in a wide range of situations. 1. They allow scientists to generalize about the pull of gravity or to be confident about sending astronauts into space to repair satellites. 2. Human beings are complex, and few, if any, simple and universal principles explain organizational behaviour. a. Because we are not alike, our ability to make simple, accurate, and sweeping generalizations is limited. b. Two people often act very differently in the same situation, and the same person’s behaviour changes in different situations. c. Not everyone is motivated by money, and people may behave differently at a religious service than they do at a party. B. That doesn’t mean that we can’t offer reasonably accurate explanations of human behaviour or make valid predictions. It does mean that OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions. 1. We can say x leads to y, but only under conditions specified in z—the contingency variables 2. The science of OB was developed by applying general concepts to a particular situation, person, or group. 3. For example, OB scholars would avoid stating that everyone likes complex and challenging work (the general concept), because not everyone wants a challenging job. a. Some people prefer routine to varied, or simple over complex. b. A job attractive to one person may not be to another; its appeal is contingent upon the person who holds it. C. As you proceed through this resource, you’ll encounter a wealth of research-based theories about how people behave in organizations. 1. But don’t expect to find a lot of straightforward cause-and-effect relationships. There aren’t many! 2. Organizational behaviour theories mirror the subject matter with which they deal, and people are complex and complicated. VI. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR OB A. Understanding organizational behaviour has never been more important for managers. B. Take a quick look at the dramatic changes in organizations. 1. The typical employee is getting older. 2. The workforce is becoming increasingly diverse; corporate downsizing and the heavy use of temporary workers are severing the bonds of loyalty that tied many employees to their employers. 3. Global competition requires employees to become more flexible and cope with rapid change. 4. As a result of these changes and others such as the rising use of technology, employment options have adapted to include new opportunities for workers. Exhibit 1-2 details some of the options. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-6 C. Responding to Economic Pressures. 1. In 2020, the Canadian economy experienced significant uncertainty. The global coronavirus pandemic abruptly changed consumer spending habits and forced entire industries to take a break from commercial activities. The apprehension this created rippled throughout the Canadian economy, particularly in the tourism, hospitality, manufacturing, and agricultural sectors. Only slightly earlier, major energy-related projects were encountering massive public resistance, forcing some companies out of projects entirely. New real estate regulations in Ontario and British Columbia fundamentally shifted those markets, particularly for foreign investors. When things like this happen, managers are on the front lines with employees who fear being fired, who are asked to make do with less, and who worry about their futures. 2. The difference between good and bad management can be the difference between profit and loss, or ultimately, between survival and failure. 3. Managing employees well when times are good can be just as hard, if not harder, than when times are bad. 4. But the OB approaches sometimes differ. In good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy, and retain employees is at a premium. In bad times, issues like stress, decision making, and coping come to the fore. D. Dramatic Increases in Remote Work. 1. The 2020 global pandemic had an extremely rapid and unprecedented impact on how people work, which had resulted in many office employees and knowledge workers starting to work virtually at home. 2. Remote work creates efficiencies. a. Reduced stress from reduced commuting. b. Many workers have fewer distractions at home. 3. Remote work creates challenges. a. There can be process uncertainty working from home. b. Asynchoronous forms of communication are not optimal for communicating about challenging problems. c. Issues surrounding trust can magnify when individual contributions are less visible. 4. The manager’s job in an organization where employees work virtually is different than in an organization where employees work on-site. Motivating and leading people and making collaborative decisions online require techniques and skills that are different from those required when individuals are physically present at a single location. E. Responding to Globalization. There are many challenges faced by managers that can benefit by the use of OB concepts, including: 1. Increased foreign assignments. Managers increasingly find themselves working overseas dealing with a workforce that may hold different needs, aspirations, and attitudes. 2. Working with people from different cultures. Even if the manager stays in the domestic environment, the workers that the manager deals with may come from different cultures and backgrounds. Motivational techniques and managerial styles may have to be modified to remain effective. 3. Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labour. Outsourcing tasks and jobs to low-labour-cost countries may make economic sense, but such decisions are not without local ramifications. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-7 a. Managers must be able to deal with unions, government, and the public, who see outsourcing as a threat to their livelihood. b. Balancing the needs of the company with the needs of the community is at the heart of a firm’s concerns over social responsibility. 4. Adapting to differing cultural and regulatory norms. a. Managers need to know the cultural norms of the workforce in each of the countries in which they do business. b. Managers also need to consider local and country regulations. Violating these can have implications for operations in the country and also for political relations between countries. c. Managers also need to be cognizant of differences in regulations for competitors in the country; many times, the laws will give national companies significant financial advantages over foreign subsidiaries. F. Managing Workforce Diversity. 1. One of the most important challenges for organizations is workforce diversity. a. Whereas globalization focuses on differences among people from different countries, workforce diversity addresses differences among people within given countries. 2. Workforce diversity acknowledges a workforce of women; men and transgendered persons; many racial and ethnic groups; individuals with a variety of physical or psychological abilities; and people who differ in age and sexual orientation. a. Managing this diversity is a global concern. 3. Though we have more to say about workforce diversity in a later chapter, suffice it to say here that it presents great opportunities and poses challenging questions for managers and employees in all countries. G. Improving Customer Service. The majority of the workforce in developed nations works in service jobs. 1. These jobs require substantial interaction with the organization’s customers: poor service experiences can lead to organizational failure. 2. Managers must create customer-responsive cultures whose employees are: a. Friendly and courteous b. Accessible c. Knowledgeable d. Prompt in responding to customer needs e. Willing to do what is necessary to please the customer H. Improving People Skills. 1. As you proceed through the chapters of this resource, we’ll present relevant concepts and theories that can help you explain and predict the behaviour of people at work. 2. In addition, you’ll gain insights into specific people skills that you can use on the job. 3. For instance, you’ll learn ways to design motivating jobs, techniques for improving your management and communication skills, and how to create more effective teams. I. Enhancing Employee Well-Being at Work 1. The typical employee in the 1970s or 1980s showed up at a specified workplace Monday through Friday and worked for clearly defined 8- or 9-hour chunks of time. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-8 a. That’s no longer true for a large segment of today’s workforce as even the definition of the workplace has been expanded to include anywhere a laptop or smartphone can go. Even if employees work from home or from half a continent away, managers need to consider well-being at work. b. One of the biggest challenges to maintaining employee well-being is that organizations are asking employees to put in longer hours, either in the office or online. 1) Employees are increasingly complaining that the line between work and non-work time has become blurred, creating personal conflicts and stress. c. Second, employee well-being is challenged by heavy outside commitments. 1) Millions of single-parent households and employees with dependent parents have even more significant challenges in balancing work and family responsibilities. 2. Recent studies suggest employees want jobs that give them flexibility in their work schedules so they can better manage work–life conflicts. a. Organizations that don’t help their people achieve work–life balance will find it increasingly difficult to attract and retain the most capable and motivated employees. b. As you’ll see in later chapters, the field of OB offers a number of suggestions to guide managers in designing workplaces and jobs that can help employees reduce such conflicts. J. Creating a Positive Work Environment. 1. A real growth area in OB research is positive organizational scholarship (also called positive organizational behaviour), which studies how organizations develop human strengths, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential. a. Researchers in this area say that too much of OB research and management practice has been targeted toward identifying what’s wrong with organizations and their employees. In response, they try to study what’s good about them. b. Some key independent variables in positive OB research are engagement, hope, optimism, and resilience in the face of strain. 2. Positive organizational scholars have studied a concept called “reflected bestself” – asking employees to think about when they were at their “personal best” in order to understand how to exploit their strengths. 3. Although positive organizational scholarship does not deny the value of the negative, it does challenge researchers to look at OB through a new lens and it pushes organizations to exploit employees’ strengths rather than dwell on their limitations. K. Improving Ethical Behaviour. 1. In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing productivity, and tough competition, it’s not surprising many employees feel pressured to cut corners, break rules, and engage in other questionable practices. 2. Increasingly they face ethical dilemmas and ethical choices in which they are required to identify right and wrong conduct. a. What constitutes good ethical behaviour has never been clearly defined, and, in recent years, the line differentiating right from wrong has blurred. b. Employees see people all around them engaging in unethical practices— Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-9 elected officials pad expense accounts or take bribes; corporate executives inflate profits so they can cash in lucrative stock options; and university administrators look the other way when winning coaches encourage scholarship athletes to take easy courses. 1) When caught, these people give excuses such as “Everyone does it” or “You have to seize every advantage nowadays.” 2) Determining the ethically correct way to behave is especially difficult in a global economy because different cultures have different perspectives on certain ethical issues. 3) Fair treatment of employees in an economic downturn varies considerably across cultures, for instance. 3. Today’s manager must create an ethically healthy climate for his or her employees, where they can do their work productively with minimal ambiguity about what right and wrong behaviours are. a. Companies that promote a strong ethical mission, encourage employees to behave with integrity, and provide strong ethical leadership can influence employee decisions to behave ethically. b. In upcoming chapters, we’ll discuss the actions managers can take to create an ethically healthy climate and help employees sort through ethically ambiguous situations. VII. COMING ATTRACTIONS: DEVELOPING AN OB MODEL This resource will follow the three levels of OB analysis, building from the individual to the organizational perspectives. Each level builds upon the levels before it. See Exhibit 1-3. A. Three Levels of Analysis. OB can be examined at three levels, each with its own unique perspective. 1. Individual level. Examines foundations of individual behaviour: personality, values, perception, decision making, motivation, emotions, and moods (Chapters 2–8). 2. Group level. Group behaviour is more than the sum of the behaviours of the individuals within it; additionally, individuals act differently when in groups. The next section of the text (Chapters 9-14) explores group behaviour by providing basic group concepts and examining what makes teams effective: communication, leadership, power, politics, conflict, and negotiation. 3. Organization system level. Organizational behaviour, while composed of both individual and group behaviours, is more than the sum of its parts. Chapters 15- 17 describe how an organization’s structure and culture affects individual behaviour. The text finishes with change practices in organizational settings. VIII. SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS A. Managers need to develop their interpersonal, or people, skills to be effective in their jobs. 1. Organizational behaviour (OB) investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behaviour within an organization, and it applies that knowledge to make organizations work more effectively. B. Here are a few specific implications for managers: Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-10 1. Use scientifically validated information about human behaviour to help improve your interpersonal skills in the workplace. This will increase your leadership potential. 2. Use metrics and situational variables rather than hunches to explain cause-andeffect relationships. 3. Improve your technical and conceptual skills through training and staying current with organizational trends like big data. 4. Organizational behaviour can improve your employees’ work quality and productivity by showing you how to empower your employees, design and implement change programs, improve customer service, and address the worklife balance conflict. 5. Use caution when applying OB research in international contexts; some of the underlying cultural norms and expectations may vary, altering results. 6. Recognize that human behaviour in the workplace is influenced by factors at three different levels: individual, group, and organizational. Paying attention to relevant factors at all three levels rather than focusing on just one can improve management effectiveness. Mini Case Discussion Questions Case 1: Managing Group Behaviour without Formal Power 1. Part A: What insights might Chiamara gain about group functioning by looking at individual levels of analysis? (Remember to consider what she might be able to learn about herself and the impact of her own behaviours!) At an individual level of analysis, Chiamara would look at the impact of each group member’s communication style, personality, attitudes, and motivation on group functioning. She would consider issues such as perceptual (attribution) errors and reflect on how those issues may interfere with effective team work. She would also use scientific evidence to better understand how to correct and address things like stereotyping and cross-cultural communication barriers. Examining her teammates as well as her own personality, behaviours, and motivations may help Chiamara to better understand the otherwise puzzling responses that others have to her during group interactions. For example, she states that she wants to own a business so that she can run things “her way.” What does this attitude suggest for how she interacts with others and critiques their ideas? She cannot control the behaviour of others but she can control her own and she can leverage influence. Perhaps she needs to be especially mindful to allow others to express their opinion, for example. That one change, in and of itself, might improve her group experience. Part B: Which of the disciplines that contribute to OB help us to better understand individual behaviour? Justify your answer. Psychology and neuroscience both focus more on individual cognitive processes; as such, they provide the most insight at individual levels of analysis. Other disciplines, such as sociology and anthropology, generally focus more on group and organizational levels of analysis, although there can be significant overlap between disciplines. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-11 2. What insights might Chiamara gain about group functioning at the group level? Be specific about how organizational behaviour insights at this level of analysis can improve group functioning. At the group level of analysis, Chiamara would consider how the group functioned as a whole rather than focusing on individual behaviours within that group. The two levels of analysis do overlap on occasion, for example, when assessing the impact of extreme personalities on group dynamics. She may consider issues including how the group is structured, motivated, and how decisions are ultimately made (consensus or a vote, for example). Chiamara may also assess how the particular mix of people influences ability to voice. Is she, for example, the only immigrant in her group, or the only woman? If so, does that affect how the rest of the group collectively responds to her ideas? Chiamara would then assess how these factors influenced group functioning and effectiveness. 3. Is the organizational level of analysis relevant to this case? Why or why not? Explain your answer. The organizational level of analysis is relevant to this case because it would assess how the university’s broader culture and policies influence group functioning. A university that awards its scholarships purely on GPA, for instance, should expect group work to generate more conflict than universities that award scholarships based on a mix of community involvement, demonstrated leadership, and GPA. That is because, in the first scenario, the potential negative impact associated with a single poor grade is heightened, increasing tensions when a student fears having their marks negatively impacted by group work. There are many other examples of organizational policies, practices, and culture influencing student experiences. Case 2: Surviving COVID Through Kindness: The Diversity Food Services Story 1. How do each of the sub-disciplines that contribute to OB help us to understand and interpret this mini case? For example neuroscience could help us predict perceptions and attributions made about actions such as laying off some workers since it deals with how we process fear, risk, and perceptions of threat. What do the other sub-disciplines offer? Psychology and Sociology provide different lenses to analyze this case. From a Psychology perspective, it appears that individuals responded positively to the pandemic-enduced change. For example, while workers were distressed from losing their employment, they were able to cope with these losses due to the support provided by their employer. These supports provided them with additional resources to navigate the pandemic. From a Sociology perspective, it may be found that group dynamics played a role as community partners stepped up to support Diversity Foods. For example, increased community support was found through purchasing product from their new grocery store or ordering from their new catering business. 2. One of the reasons there are few absolutes in OB relates to the relevance of contingency variables – situational factors that change the effectiveness of a given response. (For example a reward, such as free tickets to a sporting event, may motivate someone or not depending on contingencies such as whether they believe the assigned task is achievable and whether they like attending sporting Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-12 events.) What contingency variables impacted Diversity Foods’ ability to respond to the COVID crisis and what does that teach us about best practices managing other organizations? The social justice mandate was a critical factor in allowing Diversity Foods to adapt to its environmental changes and pivot its service offering. The social justice mandate forced Diversity Foods to develop relationships with local partners, such as farmers, benefits providers, and service agencies. The long-term relationships established through this social justice mandate motivated the partners of Diversity Foods to step up throughout the pandemic, such as by sending food hampers to families or helping laid off workers fill out employment insurance paperwork, when Diversity Foods needed help the most. What does this example teach us about best practices managing other organizations? This case illustrates the importance of developing and maintaining long-term relationships with partners. You don’t know when you’ll need them; but when you do, you are in a better position to adapt to environmental changes when you have them. 3. Use the OB Model to describe the inputs and processes that led to the outcome of “organizational survival” for Diversity Food Services. There are several inputs that should be considered with Diveristy Food Services. At the individual level, the workers were marginalized members of the community. At the organizational level, the culture of the organization was very community focused, such as having community development goals. These inputs allowed Diveristy Foods to embed themselves in the community and foster long-term relationships with key partners that later helped them survive. The key processes that took place during this case involve at the group and organizational level. At the group level, leadership made key decisions which allowed Diversity Foods to pivot its offering, and retain many employees despite going through a pandemic. At the organizational level, they changed their practices from simply offering food to students to opening up a grocery store and catering business. These processes and specific process changes allowed Diversity Foods to mitigate the negative impact of the pandemic on its overall business. Exercises 1. Self-analysis. What do you hope to gain from the study of OB? How well do you think you currently understand human behaviour in organizations? Have you ever been surprised by the actions or reactions of another person? Why? Describe what actually happened and what you were expecting to happen. What do you think may have caused the difference? 2. Web Crawling. Using an Internet search engine of your choice, find an article in either the popular press or a professional journal that relates to OB. Describe the key points of the article and detail how OB was used or should have been used in the situation. 3. Current Event. In a small group (four or fewer people per group), discuss a current event that was influenced by, or could have been positively influenced by, a clear understanding of OB. Prepare a ten-minute group presentation that concisely describes Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-13 the current event and what the team believes to be the impact of OB. Discuss the team’s results with the class. 4. Three-Minute Elevator Introduction. Have students introduce themselves by giving their name and any other information you deem appropriate, and by offering one short one- to three-minute story about an experience they had with an organization. Give students several minutes to think about their story. Keep time, and stop students who go too long. Tell them to imagine that they are new employees introducing themselves to co-workers met in an elevator. 5. Experiences with Managers. Divide the class into groups of three and have them discuss their experiences with managers. They may discuss items such as their last performance appraisal, a job interview, or a customer service issue. Use this as a starting point to discuss the importance of "people" in an organizational context. 6. Where Do You Want to Work? Lead a class discussion on what makes good organizations and what makes bad organizations. Create two lists on the board (good and bad) and write the ideas as the students brainstorm them. Once the class has given 10-20 answers on each list, stop them, and start grouping their responses into relevant key ideas. Point out how these key ideas are the primary topics of OB studies. 7. Learn from Experience. If you have older adult students, have them share their experiences regarding how the workplace used to look. Examine such issues as the demographic make-up of the organization, and the attitudes of workers toward management. Emphasize how new the field of OB is, based upon these anecdotes. 8. Analyzing Your Organization (Cumulative Project). This is an on-going activity that will help the student better understand his or her organization, or, if the student is not currently working, the organization for which he or she would like to work. This cumulative “hands-on” project will build on the concepts of each chapter. The point of the exercise is to take the OB theories and concepts and apply them to real organizations. There are many ways you can use this project. For example, it could serve as homework to be turned in each week, or a project to be built upon each week and turned in at the end of the class as a term paper/project. You could also use the exercise as a class discussion item, selecting students to do short discussion starter presentations several times per term. Still another use is to have them summarize their findings in small groups, and have each group report a summary to the class. Most of these activities will involve interviewing someone who has knowledge of the topic. While interviewing someone in the subject organization is preferable, you may wish to allow students to interview outside experts to gain a greater understanding of the concepts. Use the questions provided after each chapter of the Instructor’s Manual as a guideline, but be sure to adapt them to the student’s needs. It is desirable for students to obtain written approval from their manager or supervisor early on in the process. Because OB deals with potentially sensitive issues, it is best if the students detail the project to the relevant parties early on in the process. You may choose to have the written approval as part of the first deliverables in this project. Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behaviour? Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 1-14 Suggested Assignments 1. Have the students discuss your course syllabus, including a description of the project, with their supervisor (or the person who will be their primary contact in cases where the student is not working for the organization to be studied in Analyzing Your Organization, No. 8 above). Submit the written approval. 2. Have the students briefly describe their chosen organization, discussing what goods or services are produced, how many employees it has, what the structure looks like, and a general overview of how the organization of study is managed. Ensure students include their relationship to the organization (they are employees, job seekers, or simply interested parties). Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-1 Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Chapter Overview This chapter examines organizational culture: the effects culture has on members within the organization; how members learn the culture; and how it can be changed. Chapter Objectives After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: 2.1 Describe the common characteristics of organizational culture. 2.2 Compare the functional and dysfunctional effects of organizational culture on people and the organization. 2.3 Identify the factors that create and sustain an organization’s culture. 2.4 Explain how culture is transmitted to employees. 2.5 Demonstrate how an ethical cultures and cultures of innovation can be encouraged and fostered. 2.6 Describe both positive and toxic organizational cultures. 2.7 Assess how national culture can affect the way organizational culture is interpreted. Suggested Lecture Outline I. INTRODUCTION A. In Chapter 5, we found that individuals have relatively enduring and stable traits that help predict their attitudes and behaviours. B. Organizations also have personalities, which are referred to as “cultures.” Organizational cultures govern how that organization’s members behave II. WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE? A. Diversity in the Canadian Context: Multiculturalism as a Guiding Principle and Formal Policy B. Organizational Culture. 1. A system of shared meaning held by members that distinguishes the organization from other organizations. 2. This is a shared medium that consists of a set of seven key characteristics of the organization values. a. These characteristics are measured on a continuum from low to high and provide a composite picture of an organization's culture. b. This becomes the basis for the feelings of shared understanding that members have about the organization, how things are done in it, and the way members are supposed to behave. c. They are: 1) Innovation and Risk Taking. The degree to which employees are encouraged to be innovative and take risks. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-2 2) Attention to Detail. The degree to which employees are expected to exhibit precision, analysis, and attention to detail. 3) Outcome Orientation. The degree to which management focuses on results or outcomes rather than on the techniques and processes used to achieve those outcomes. 4) People Orientation. The degree to which management decisions take into consideration the effect of outcomes on people within the organization. 5) Team Orientation. The degree to which work activities are organized around teams rather than individuals. 6) Conflict tolerance/Aggressiveness. The degree to which aggressive and competitive behaviours are viewed favorably combined with the degree to which employees are encouraged to address conflicts openly and directly. 7) Stability. The degree to which organizational activities emphasize maintaining the status quo in contrast to growth. 8) Control. The degree to which formal rules, policies, and direct supervision are used to oversee employees. C. Culture Is a Descriptive Term. 1. Organizational culture describes how employees perceive the characteristics of an organization’s culture, not whether or not they like those characteristics. It is a descriptive term. 2. Job satisfaction seeks to measure affective responses to the work environment: it is concerned with how employees feel about the organization. It is an evaluative term. D. Do Organizations Have Uniform Cultures? 1. Culture is a system of shared meaning; therefore, individuals of dissimilar backgrounds or at varying levels in the organization should describe the organization's culture in similar terms despite their differences. a. This doesn't mean, however, that an organization's culture is completely uniform. 2. Dominant Culture. a. This is the overall organizational culture as expressed by the core values held by the majority of the organization's members. b. When people are asked to portray an organization's culture, they normally describe the dominant culture: a macro view that gives an organization its distinct personality. 3. Subcultures. a. These subsets of the overall culture tend to develop in larger organizations to reflect the common problems, situations, or experiences that are unique to members of certain departments or geographical areas. b. The subculture retains the core values of the dominant culture but adds to, or modifies, them to reflect their own distinct situation. E. Strong versus Weak Cultures. 1. Strong cultures have a greater impact on employee behaviour and are more directly related to reduced turnover. 2. Strong Culture. a. This exists when an organization's core values are both intensely held and widely shared. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-3 b. The greater the number of members who accept the core values and the greater their commitment to these values, the stronger the culture is. c. A strong culture creates an internal climate of high behavioural control and builds cohesiveness, loyalty, and organizational commitment, which, in turn, reduces turnover. 3. Weak Culture. a. In this case, the organization's core values are not widely held or intensely felt. b. These cultures have far less impact on member behaviour. F. Culture versus Formalization. 1. Since strong organizational culture increases behavioural consistency, strong culture can act as a substitute for formalization. 2. Strong culture achieves the same ends as formalization, but without the need for written documentation. 3. Thus, they are two means to the same ends: predictability, orderliness, and consistency. III. WHAT DO CULTURES DO? A. The Functions of Culture. 1. Overall, culture benefits organizations by increasing organizational commitment and the consistency of employee behaviour. 2. It also aids employees by reducing ambiguity. 3. There are five basic functions of culture that help achieve these benefits: a. Defines Boundaries. Culture creates distinctions between one organization and another. b. Identity. Culture conveys a sense of identity for its members. c. Commitment. Culture generates commitment to something that is larger than one's own self-interest. d. Social Stability. Culture is the social glue that helps hold the organization together by providing appropriate standards for socially acceptable employee behaviour. e. Control Mechanism. Culture serves as a sense-making and control mechanism that guides and shapes the attitudes and behaviour of employees. 4. Today’s trend toward decentralized organizations makes culture more important than ever, but ironically it also makes establishing a strong culture more difficult. a. When formal authority and control systems are reduced, culture’s shared meaning points everyone in the same direction. b. However, employees organized in teams may show greater allegiance to their team and its values than to the values of the organization as a whole. 5. In virtual organizations, the lack of frequent face-to-face contact makes establishing a common set of norms very difficult. Strong leadership that communicates frequently about common goals and priorities is especially important in innovative organizations. 6. Individual–organization “fit”—that is, whether the applicant’s or employee’s attitudes and behaviour are compatible with the culture—strongly influences who gets a job offer, a favourable performance review, or a promotion. a. It’s no coincidence that Disney theme park employees appear almost universally attractive, clean, and wholesome with bright smiles. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-4 b. The company selects employees who will maintain that image. c. On the job, a strong culture, supported by formal rules and regulations, ensures they will act in a relatively uniform and predictable way. B. Culture Creates Climate. 1. If you’ve worked with someone whose positive attitude inspired you to do your best, or with a lackluster team that drained your motivation, you’ve experienced the effects of climate. 2. Organizational climate refers to the shared perceptions organizational members have about their organization and work environment. 3. This aspect of culture is like team spirit at the organizational level. a. When everyone has the same general feelings about what’s important or how well things are working, the effect of these attitudes will be more than the sum of the individual parts. b. The same appears true for organizations. 1) One meta-analysis found that across dozens of different samples, psychological climate was strongly related to individuals’ level of job satisfaction, involvement, commitment, and motivation. 2) A positive overall workplace climate has been linked to higher customer satisfaction and financial performance as well. 4. Dozens of dimensions of climate have been studied, including safety, justice, diversity, and customer service, to name a few. a. A person who encounters a positive climate for performance will think about doing a good job more often and will believe others support his or her success. b. Someone who encounters a positive climate for diversity will feel more comfortable collaborating with co-workers regardless of their demographic background. 5. Climate also influences the habits people adopt. a. If the climate for safety is positive, everyone wears safety gear and follows safety procedures even if individually they wouldn’t normally think very often about being safe. C. Culture as a Liability. 1. Culture enhances organizational commitment and increases the consistency of employee behaviour. 2. From an employee’s standpoint, culture is valuable because it spells out how things are done and what’s important. 3. But we shouldn’t ignore the potentially dysfunctional aspects of culture, especially a strong one, on an organization’s effectiveness. a. Institutionalization. 1) When an organization undergoes institutionalization and becomes institutionalized—that is, it is valued for itself and not for the goods or services it produces—it takes on a life of its own, apart from its founders or members. 2) It doesn’t go out of business even if its original goals are no longer relevant. 3) Acceptable modes of behaviour become largely self-evident to members, and although this isn’t entirely negative, it does mean behaviours and habits that should be questioned and analyzed become taken for granted, which can stifle innovation and make maintaining the organization’s culture an end in itself. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-5 b. Barriers to change. 1) Culture is a liability when the shared values are not in agreement with those that further the organization’s effectiveness. 2) This is most likely when an organization’s environment is undergoing rapid change and its entrenched culture may no longer be appropriate. 3) Consistency of behaviour, an asset in a stable environment, may then burden the organization and make it difficult to respond to changes. c. Barriers to diversity. 1) Hiring new employees who differ from the majority in race, age, gender, disability, or other characteristics creates a paradox. 2) Management wants to demonstrate support for the differences these employees bring to the workplace, but newcomers who wish to fit in must accept the organization’s core cultural values. 3) Because diverse behaviours and unique strengths are likely to diminish as people attempt to assimilate, strong cultures can become liabilities when they effectively eliminate these advantages. 4) A strong culture that condones prejudice, supports bias, or becomes insensitive to people who are different can even undermine formal corporate diversity policies. d. Barriers to acquisitions and mergers. 1) Historically, when management looked at acquisition or merger decisions, the key factors were financial advantage and product synergy. 2) In recent years, cultural compatibility has become the primary concern. 3) All things being equal, whether the acquisition actually works seems to have more to do with how well the two organizations’ cultures match up. 4) The primary cause of failure is conflicting organizational cultures. IV. CREATING AND SUSTAINING CULTURE A. How a Culture Begins. 1. The ultimate source of an organization's culture is its founder(s). Founders have a vision of what the organization should be and they are unconstrained by previous customs or ideologies. 2. The new organization's small size facilitates the founder’s imposition of his or her vision on all organizational members. Founders create culture in three ways: a. Employee Selection. Founders hire and keep only those employees who think and feel the same way the founders do. b. Socialization. Founders indoctrinate and socialize their employees toward the founders’ way of thinking and feeling. c. Modelling. 1) The founder acts as a role model and encourages employees to identify with him or her and to internalize the founder’s beliefs, values, and assumptions. 2) Any organizational success is attributed to the founder’s vision, attitudes, and behaviour. 3) In a sense, the organization becomes an extension of the founder’s personality. B. Keeping a Culture Alive. 1. Once a culture exists, practices within the organization serve to maintain it by giving employees a similar set of experiences. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-6 2. These practices include the selection process, performance evaluation criteria, training and development activities, and promotional procedures: those who support the culture are rewarded and those who do not are penalized. 3. Selection. a. The selection process needs to identify and hire employees with relevant knowledge, skills, and abilities; one of the more critical facets of this process is ensuring that those selected have values that are consistent with those of the organization. b. Employees whose values and beliefs are misaligned with those of the organization tend to not be hired, or self-select out of the applicant pool, thereby protecting the existing organizational culture. 4. Top Management. a. The verbal messages and actions of top management establish norms of behaviour throughout the organization. b. These norms include the desirability of risk taking, level of employee empowerment, appropriate attire, and outlining successful career paths. 5. Socialization. a. New employees must adapt to the organizational culture in a process called socialization. b. While socialization continues throughout an employee's career, the initial socialization is the most critical. c. There are three stages in this initial socialization shown in Exhibit 16-1. The success of this socialization will affect employee productivity, commitment, and turnover. 1) Prearrival stage. a) This encompasses all the learning that occurs before a new member joins the organization. b) Each individual arrives with his or her own unique set of values, attitudes, and expectations both surrounding the work and the organization. c) That knowledge, plus how proactive their personality is, are the two critical predictors of how well the new employees will adjust to the new culture. d) The perception of being able to “fit in” is critical in the hiring process. 2) Encounter stage. a) This is when the new employee sees what the organization is really like and confronts the possibility that expectations and reality may diverge. b) If the employee's expectations prove to be reasonably accurate, the encounter stage merely provides a reaffirmation of the perceptions gained earlier. c) But when expectations and reality differ, new employees must undergo socialization that will detach them from their previous assumptions and replace them with another set the organization deems desirable. d) At the extreme, a new member may become disillusioned with the actualities of the job and resign: an indication of the failure of the selection process. e) The greater the number of friendship ties a newcomer has in the organization, the more likely he or she is to be committed. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-7 3) Metamorphosis stage. a) In this final stage, relatively long-lasting changes take place as the employee has adjusted to the work itself and internalized the work group’s values and norms. b) The more management relies on socialization programs that are formal, collective, fixed, serial, and emphasize divestiture, the greater the likelihood that the newcomer’s differences and perspectives will be stripped away and replaced by standardized and predictable behaviours. c) Successful metamorphosis should have a positive effect on new employee productivity, organizational commitment, and turnover, as the employee has internalized the norms of the organization and their work group. See Exhibit 16-2. (1) Bringing about desired metamorphosis. (2) Formal versus Informal. Formal programs segregate the employees from ongoing work and differentiate them in some way as a newcomer. Informal programs simply put the new employee to work. (3) Individual versus Collective. Socialization can occur on an individual or group basis. (4) Fixed versus Variable refers to the time scheduled when newcomers make the transition from outsider to insider. A fixed schedule establishes standardized stages of transition, such as probationary periods. Variable schedules give no advance notice of transition timetables. (5) Serial versus Random. Serial programs use role models to train and encourage the newcomer, such as in apprenticeship programs. In random programs, role models are deliberately withheld and employees must learn to figure things out on their own. (6) Investiture versus Divestiture. Investiture socialization assumes and confirms that newcomers have the necessary qualities and qualifications for success. Divestiture programs try to strip away certain characteristics of the recruits to reshape them into the proper role. C. Summary: How Cultures Form. 1. Exhibit 16-3 provides a simple model of how an organization's culture is established and sustained. 2. The original culture is derived from the founder's philosophy, which in turn strongly influences the criteria used in hiring. 3. The actions of top management set the general climate of what is acceptable behaviour. 4. How well employees are socialized will depend on management’s selection of socialization method and the closeness of the new employees’ values to those of the organization. V. HOW EMPLOYEES LEARN CULTURE A. Culture is transmitted to employees in a number of forms: stories, rituals, material symbols, and language. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-8 B. Stories. 1. Stories typically revolve around key events such as rule breaking, unlikely successes, workforce reductions, reactions to past mistakes, and methods of organizational coping that involve the organization's founders or other key personnel. 2. These stories anchor the present in the past and provide explanations and legitimacy for current practices. C. Rituals. 1. These are repetitive sequences of activities that express and reinforce the key values of the organization. They highlight what goals are most important: which people are important and which are not. D. Symbols. 1. Material symbols such as the size of offices, the elegance of furnishings, perquisites, awards and trophies, and the attire worn, all convey to employees who is important, the degree of egalitarianism desired by top management, and the kinds of appropriate behaviour. E. Language. 1. Specialized languages, acronyms, or jargon serve as a means to identify and segregate members of a culture or subculture. 2. Once assimilated, the specialized language acts as a common denominator that unites members of a given culture or subculture. VI. CREATING ETHICAL AND INNOVATIVE ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES. A. Ethical cultures. 1. The organizational culture most likely to shape high ethical standards among its members is one that’s high in risk tolerance, low to moderate in aggressiveness, and focused on means as well as outcomes. 2. This type of culture also takes a long-term perspective and balances the rights of multiple stakeholders, including the communities in which the business operates, its employees, and its stockholders. 3. Managers are supported for taking risks and innovating, discouraged from engaging in unbridled competition, and guided to pay attention not just to what goals are achieved but also to how. 4. If the culture is strong and supports high ethical standards, it should have a very powerful and positive influence on employee behaviour. 5. Principles for managers that encourage development of an ethical culture include: a. Be a Visible Role Model. 1) When senior management is seen as taking the ethical highroad, it provides a positive behavioural guideline for all employees. b. Communicate Ethical Expectations. 1) The creation and use of an organizational code of ethics helps reduce ethical ambiguities and enforce the organization's primary values. c. Provide Ethical Training. 1) Training acts to reinforce the organization’s standards of conduct, clarifies ethical practices, and addresses possible ethical dilemmas. d. Visibly Reward Ethical Acts and Punish Unethical Ones. 1) Performance appraisals must include how decisions made measure up against the organization’s code of conduct. Chapter 2 Organizational Culture Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc. 2-9 2) Review the means taken to achieve goals as well as the ends themselves. 3) Visibly reward those who act ethically. Just as important, unethical acts should b