Chapter 1
Introduction to the field of
organizational behavior
The field of organizational behavior
Organizational behavior: Study of what people think, feel and do in and around
organizations.
Organisations: Groups of people who work interdependently but organized toward some
purpose.
Historical foundations:By late 1940s first course ‘organizational behavior’ → experts in
other fields have been studying organizations for many centuries.
Why study organizational behavior?:
Comprehend and predict workplace events
Adopt more accurate personal theories
Influence organizational events
Organizational behavior is for everyone
Contemporary developments facing organizations
Technological change: Innovations dramatically boost productivity, but also displace
employees and occupational groups that are no longer necessary.
Pro: Information technology gives employees a stronger voice through direct
communication with executives and broader distribution of their opinions to coworkers
and beyond.
Con: Tethering people to their jobs for longer hours, reducing their attentions spans
at work and increasing techno-stress.
Globalization: Economic, social and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the
world.
Pro: Larger markets, lower costs and greater knowledge and innovation.
Con: Increasing work intensification, reduced job security, poor work-life balance.
Emerging employment relationships: Due to technology and globalization employment
relationships in most countries altered.
Con: 24/7 connected to work due to technology and different time zones due to
globalization.
Work-life balance: Degree to which a person minimizes conflict between work and
nonwork demands.
Telecommuting: Working from home one or more days per month rather than
commute to the office.
o Pro: Better work-life balance, higher productivity and reduced greenhouse gas
emissions.
o Con: Social isolation, less promotional opportunities, less workplace relations,
weaker organizational culture
Workforce diversity: Deep-level diversity is the difference in perceptions and attitudes
about the same situation.
Pro: Different perspectives and information benefit decision making and creativity,
more representative of most communities.
Con: Conflict, problems with communication.
,Anchors of organizational behavior knowledge
Systematic research anchor: States that OB knowledge should be based on systematic
research, consistent with evidence-based management.
Multidisciplinary anchor: States that the field should welcome theories and knowledge from
other disciplines, not just form its own isolated research base.
Contingency anchor: States that OB theories generally need to consider that there will be
different consequence in different situations.
Multiple levels of analysis anchor: States that OB topics may be viewed form the
individual, team and organization level of analysis.
Perspectives of organizational effectiveness
Organizational effectiveness: Describing, understanding and recognizing the four
perspectives on organizational effectiveness.
Open systems perspective: Organizations depend on the external environment for
input, affect that environment through their output, and consist of internal subsystems
that transform inputs to outputs.
o Fit with environment: Input, processes and output align with resources, needs
and expectations of external environment.
Adapt to environment: Configuring internal subsystems to align more
closely within the shifting environment.
Influence environment: Actively trying to influence the environment.
Move to more favorable environment: When can’t adapt or
influence to survive.
o Effective transformation:
Efficiency: Producing more goods or services with less labor,
materials and energy.
Adaptability: Ability to adapt to external environment.
Innovativeness: Designing products and work processes that are
superior to what competitors can offer.
Coordination: Organizations rely on coordinating mechanisms to
maintain the effects.
Organisational learning perspective: Organizational effectiveness depends on the
organization’s capacity to acquire, share, use and store valuable knowledge.
o Intellectual capital: Stock of knowledge.
Human capital: Knowledge, skills and abilities that employees carry
around in their heads.
Structural capital: Knowledge captured and retained in an
organization’s systems and structures -> documents and products.
Relationship capital: Value derived from an organization’s
relationship with customers, suppliers and others.
o Organizational learning processes:
Acquiring: Bringing in knowledge from the external environment as
well as through discovery.
Sharing: Distributing knowledge throughout the organization → formal
and informal communication.
Using: Only an advantage when applied to improve organizational
processes.
Storing: Process of retaining knowledge → organizational memory.
High-performance work practices perspective: Effective organizations incorporate
several workplace practices that leverage the potential of human capital.
o Involvement & autonomy: Motivation, decision making, responsiveness and
adaptability.
, o Competency: Recruitment, selection and training.
o Rewards: Financial and non-financial rewards.
Stakeholder perspective: Offers more specific information and guidance by focusing
on the organization’s relationship with stakeholders.
Internal stakeholders: Employees, managers and owners.
External stakeholders: Customers, suppliers and society.
o Values: Evaluative beliefs that guide a person’s preferences for outcomes or
courses of action in a variety of situations.
o Ethics: Moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or
wrong and outcomes are good or bad.
o Corporate social responsibility (CSR): Organizational activities intended to
benefit society and the environment beyond the firm’s immediate financial
interests or legal obligations → beyond stockholders and customers →
economic, social and environment.
, Chapter 2
Individual behavior, personality, values
MARS model of individual behavior and performance
Motivation: What people want → forces that affect voluntary behavior.
Direction: Path along which people steer their effort towards goal.
Intensity: Amount of effort invested for the goal.
Persistence: The length of time that the effort toward the goal remains.
Ability: What people can → capabilities required to successfully complete a task.
Competencies: Characteristics that result in superior performance.
o Aptitudes: Natural talents.
o Learned capabilities: Skills and knowledge acquired.
Role perceptions: What people know → degree to which person understands job duties
assigned or expected.
Understanding duties or consequences for which accountable.
Understanding priority of tasks and performance expectations.
Understanding preferred behaviors or procedures for accomplishing tasks.
Situational factors: Work environment → any context beyond employee’s control.
Work context constraints or facilitates performance.
Situations provide cues that guide and motivate people.
Types of individual behavior
Task performance: Voluntary goal-directed behaviors contributing to organisation.
Proficient: Performing work efficiently and accurately → above expected.
# Conscientiousness and extraversion.
Adaptive: Modifying thoughts and behavior to align or support changing environment.
# Emotional stability, extraversion and openness to experience.
Proactive: Taking initiative to anticipate and introduce new work patterns.
# Extraversion and openness to experience.
Introduction to the field of
organizational behavior
The field of organizational behavior
Organizational behavior: Study of what people think, feel and do in and around
organizations.
Organisations: Groups of people who work interdependently but organized toward some
purpose.
Historical foundations:By late 1940s first course ‘organizational behavior’ → experts in
other fields have been studying organizations for many centuries.
Why study organizational behavior?:
Comprehend and predict workplace events
Adopt more accurate personal theories
Influence organizational events
Organizational behavior is for everyone
Contemporary developments facing organizations
Technological change: Innovations dramatically boost productivity, but also displace
employees and occupational groups that are no longer necessary.
Pro: Information technology gives employees a stronger voice through direct
communication with executives and broader distribution of their opinions to coworkers
and beyond.
Con: Tethering people to their jobs for longer hours, reducing their attentions spans
at work and increasing techno-stress.
Globalization: Economic, social and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the
world.
Pro: Larger markets, lower costs and greater knowledge and innovation.
Con: Increasing work intensification, reduced job security, poor work-life balance.
Emerging employment relationships: Due to technology and globalization employment
relationships in most countries altered.
Con: 24/7 connected to work due to technology and different time zones due to
globalization.
Work-life balance: Degree to which a person minimizes conflict between work and
nonwork demands.
Telecommuting: Working from home one or more days per month rather than
commute to the office.
o Pro: Better work-life balance, higher productivity and reduced greenhouse gas
emissions.
o Con: Social isolation, less promotional opportunities, less workplace relations,
weaker organizational culture
Workforce diversity: Deep-level diversity is the difference in perceptions and attitudes
about the same situation.
Pro: Different perspectives and information benefit decision making and creativity,
more representative of most communities.
Con: Conflict, problems with communication.
,Anchors of organizational behavior knowledge
Systematic research anchor: States that OB knowledge should be based on systematic
research, consistent with evidence-based management.
Multidisciplinary anchor: States that the field should welcome theories and knowledge from
other disciplines, not just form its own isolated research base.
Contingency anchor: States that OB theories generally need to consider that there will be
different consequence in different situations.
Multiple levels of analysis anchor: States that OB topics may be viewed form the
individual, team and organization level of analysis.
Perspectives of organizational effectiveness
Organizational effectiveness: Describing, understanding and recognizing the four
perspectives on organizational effectiveness.
Open systems perspective: Organizations depend on the external environment for
input, affect that environment through their output, and consist of internal subsystems
that transform inputs to outputs.
o Fit with environment: Input, processes and output align with resources, needs
and expectations of external environment.
Adapt to environment: Configuring internal subsystems to align more
closely within the shifting environment.
Influence environment: Actively trying to influence the environment.
Move to more favorable environment: When can’t adapt or
influence to survive.
o Effective transformation:
Efficiency: Producing more goods or services with less labor,
materials and energy.
Adaptability: Ability to adapt to external environment.
Innovativeness: Designing products and work processes that are
superior to what competitors can offer.
Coordination: Organizations rely on coordinating mechanisms to
maintain the effects.
Organisational learning perspective: Organizational effectiveness depends on the
organization’s capacity to acquire, share, use and store valuable knowledge.
o Intellectual capital: Stock of knowledge.
Human capital: Knowledge, skills and abilities that employees carry
around in their heads.
Structural capital: Knowledge captured and retained in an
organization’s systems and structures -> documents and products.
Relationship capital: Value derived from an organization’s
relationship with customers, suppliers and others.
o Organizational learning processes:
Acquiring: Bringing in knowledge from the external environment as
well as through discovery.
Sharing: Distributing knowledge throughout the organization → formal
and informal communication.
Using: Only an advantage when applied to improve organizational
processes.
Storing: Process of retaining knowledge → organizational memory.
High-performance work practices perspective: Effective organizations incorporate
several workplace practices that leverage the potential of human capital.
o Involvement & autonomy: Motivation, decision making, responsiveness and
adaptability.
, o Competency: Recruitment, selection and training.
o Rewards: Financial and non-financial rewards.
Stakeholder perspective: Offers more specific information and guidance by focusing
on the organization’s relationship with stakeholders.
Internal stakeholders: Employees, managers and owners.
External stakeholders: Customers, suppliers and society.
o Values: Evaluative beliefs that guide a person’s preferences for outcomes or
courses of action in a variety of situations.
o Ethics: Moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or
wrong and outcomes are good or bad.
o Corporate social responsibility (CSR): Organizational activities intended to
benefit society and the environment beyond the firm’s immediate financial
interests or legal obligations → beyond stockholders and customers →
economic, social and environment.
, Chapter 2
Individual behavior, personality, values
MARS model of individual behavior and performance
Motivation: What people want → forces that affect voluntary behavior.
Direction: Path along which people steer their effort towards goal.
Intensity: Amount of effort invested for the goal.
Persistence: The length of time that the effort toward the goal remains.
Ability: What people can → capabilities required to successfully complete a task.
Competencies: Characteristics that result in superior performance.
o Aptitudes: Natural talents.
o Learned capabilities: Skills and knowledge acquired.
Role perceptions: What people know → degree to which person understands job duties
assigned or expected.
Understanding duties or consequences for which accountable.
Understanding priority of tasks and performance expectations.
Understanding preferred behaviors or procedures for accomplishing tasks.
Situational factors: Work environment → any context beyond employee’s control.
Work context constraints or facilitates performance.
Situations provide cues that guide and motivate people.
Types of individual behavior
Task performance: Voluntary goal-directed behaviors contributing to organisation.
Proficient: Performing work efficiently and accurately → above expected.
# Conscientiousness and extraversion.
Adaptive: Modifying thoughts and behavior to align or support changing environment.
# Emotional stability, extraversion and openness to experience.
Proactive: Taking initiative to anticipate and introduce new work patterns.
# Extraversion and openness to experience.
