Summary midterm exam Organizational Behavior
Week 1
Lecture 1a
Chapter 1
What is organizational behavior?
The study of individuals and how they behave at work
Central idea: a scientific approach can be applied to the management of workers
Interdisciplinary and multi-level research (psychology, cultural anthropology, communication, economics
and sociology)
Hawthorne studies
Focus on human behavior in organizations
- Results
o Workers are more responsive to social factors than other factors
o Workers are highly responsive to additional attention from their managers and the
feeling that their managers actually cared about, and were interested in, their work.
Hawthorne Effect: workers are being more productive once they participate in a research, because they
get the feeling that the manager sees him. And although financial motives are important, social issues are
equally important factors in worker productivity
5 disciplines contributing to OB
- Individual differences (personality) → psychology
- Individual reactions to work (emotions, attitudes) → psychology
- Motivation theory → psychology and economics
- Decision making (economic theory)
- Research on leaders as influencers and motivations (social psychology)
Applied social psychology = the study of how people interact in groups
4 goals of science
- Description: what does the process look like?
- Prediction: will the process occur again? And when?
- Explanation: why is this happening?
- Control: can we change whether or not this happens?
Evidence-based management
= making decisions about the management of employees, teams, or organizations through the
conscientious, explicit and judicious use of four sources of information:
1. Scientific evidence
2. Organizational evidence
3. Experiential evidence
4. Organizational values and stakeholders’ concerns
EBM standards:
- Stop treating old ideas as if they were brand new
- Be suspicious of ‘breakthrough’ studies and ideas
- Develop and celebrate collective brilliance
- Emphasize drawbacks as well as virtues
- Use success and failure stories to illustrate sound practices
- Adopt a neutral stance toward ideologies and theories
1
,Critical thinking
Glaser (1941); Critical thinking calls for persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of
knowledge in the light of evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends.
- Process has 3 interrelated parts:
o Elements of thought (reasoning)
o Intellectual standards that applied to the elements of reasoning
o Intellectual traits
→ think about fake news
- Critical thinking skills:
o Rationality
o Self-Awareness
o Honesty
o Open-mindedness
o Discipline
o Judgement
→ critical thinkers are by nature skeptical
*Asking the right questions (Mitroff)
The five most common pathways to errors are:
- Picking the wrong stakeholders
- Selecting too narrow a set of options (by overlooking better, more creative options)
- Phrasing a problem incorrectly, failing to consider at least one ‘technical’ and one ‘human’
variation in stating a problem
- Setting the boundaries of a problem to narrowly, by ignoring the system
- Failing to think systemically, ignoring the connections between parts of the problem and its
whole
→ what questions should we ask than? = basic questions as ‘what businesses are we in’ etc
Scientific method
Making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from the conjectures as logical consequences, and
then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions.
5 Outcome variables in OB
(Leader appreciation is the independent variable)
- Performance productivity (or job performance)
Can be measured or rated by supervisors
2
, Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB): the worker’s willingness to go above and
beyond what is required
- Work-related attitudes
Can be split in job satisfaction and organizational commitment
- Employee well-being
Such as emotional exhaustion and physical health symptoms
- Motivation
Extrinsic (rewards as bonuses) and intrinsic (value of the work itself) motivation
- Employee withdrawal
Research about why employees quit, turnover intentions and actual turnover. And about
absenteeism
5 Levels of analysis in OB + How OB increases employee performance
Processes at different levels in the organization may influence individual behavior
Level Example organizational behavior hypothesis
1. Individual level The personality characteristic of
conscientiousness is positively related to
employee performance
2. Dyad (or two-party) level High-quality relationships with bosses lead to
higher employee performance
3. Team level Team conflict is negatively related to employee
performance
4. Organizational level A strong, positive organizational culture is
positively related to employee performace
5. Industry level Employee performance is higher in the financial
services industry compared with government
organizations
Theory X and Theory Y
Leader behaviors are influenced by fundamental assumptions and beliefs about human nature. Most
managers are not aware of their underlying assumptions that thus, their influence on behavior is
pervasive, yet hard to detect
Theory X:
- People are lazy, don’t like to work and avoid responsibility
→ this type of manager’s directive, engaging in surveillance and coercion
Theory Y:
- People are internally motivated, like to work and will accept responsibility
→ this type of manager’s allow discretion, participation and the encouragement of creativity
on the job
Week 1
Lecture 1b
Chapter 6
What is leadership?
“Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done
and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared
objectives.”
Difference between being a manager and being a leader
3
Week 1
Lecture 1a
Chapter 1
What is organizational behavior?
The study of individuals and how they behave at work
Central idea: a scientific approach can be applied to the management of workers
Interdisciplinary and multi-level research (psychology, cultural anthropology, communication, economics
and sociology)
Hawthorne studies
Focus on human behavior in organizations
- Results
o Workers are more responsive to social factors than other factors
o Workers are highly responsive to additional attention from their managers and the
feeling that their managers actually cared about, and were interested in, their work.
Hawthorne Effect: workers are being more productive once they participate in a research, because they
get the feeling that the manager sees him. And although financial motives are important, social issues are
equally important factors in worker productivity
5 disciplines contributing to OB
- Individual differences (personality) → psychology
- Individual reactions to work (emotions, attitudes) → psychology
- Motivation theory → psychology and economics
- Decision making (economic theory)
- Research on leaders as influencers and motivations (social psychology)
Applied social psychology = the study of how people interact in groups
4 goals of science
- Description: what does the process look like?
- Prediction: will the process occur again? And when?
- Explanation: why is this happening?
- Control: can we change whether or not this happens?
Evidence-based management
= making decisions about the management of employees, teams, or organizations through the
conscientious, explicit and judicious use of four sources of information:
1. Scientific evidence
2. Organizational evidence
3. Experiential evidence
4. Organizational values and stakeholders’ concerns
EBM standards:
- Stop treating old ideas as if they were brand new
- Be suspicious of ‘breakthrough’ studies and ideas
- Develop and celebrate collective brilliance
- Emphasize drawbacks as well as virtues
- Use success and failure stories to illustrate sound practices
- Adopt a neutral stance toward ideologies and theories
1
,Critical thinking
Glaser (1941); Critical thinking calls for persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of
knowledge in the light of evidence that supports it and the further conclusions to which it tends.
- Process has 3 interrelated parts:
o Elements of thought (reasoning)
o Intellectual standards that applied to the elements of reasoning
o Intellectual traits
→ think about fake news
- Critical thinking skills:
o Rationality
o Self-Awareness
o Honesty
o Open-mindedness
o Discipline
o Judgement
→ critical thinkers are by nature skeptical
*Asking the right questions (Mitroff)
The five most common pathways to errors are:
- Picking the wrong stakeholders
- Selecting too narrow a set of options (by overlooking better, more creative options)
- Phrasing a problem incorrectly, failing to consider at least one ‘technical’ and one ‘human’
variation in stating a problem
- Setting the boundaries of a problem to narrowly, by ignoring the system
- Failing to think systemically, ignoring the connections between parts of the problem and its
whole
→ what questions should we ask than? = basic questions as ‘what businesses are we in’ etc
Scientific method
Making conjectures (hypotheses), deriving predictions from the conjectures as logical consequences, and
then carrying out experiments or empirical observations based on those predictions.
5 Outcome variables in OB
(Leader appreciation is the independent variable)
- Performance productivity (or job performance)
Can be measured or rated by supervisors
2
, Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB): the worker’s willingness to go above and
beyond what is required
- Work-related attitudes
Can be split in job satisfaction and organizational commitment
- Employee well-being
Such as emotional exhaustion and physical health symptoms
- Motivation
Extrinsic (rewards as bonuses) and intrinsic (value of the work itself) motivation
- Employee withdrawal
Research about why employees quit, turnover intentions and actual turnover. And about
absenteeism
5 Levels of analysis in OB + How OB increases employee performance
Processes at different levels in the organization may influence individual behavior
Level Example organizational behavior hypothesis
1. Individual level The personality characteristic of
conscientiousness is positively related to
employee performance
2. Dyad (or two-party) level High-quality relationships with bosses lead to
higher employee performance
3. Team level Team conflict is negatively related to employee
performance
4. Organizational level A strong, positive organizational culture is
positively related to employee performace
5. Industry level Employee performance is higher in the financial
services industry compared with government
organizations
Theory X and Theory Y
Leader behaviors are influenced by fundamental assumptions and beliefs about human nature. Most
managers are not aware of their underlying assumptions that thus, their influence on behavior is
pervasive, yet hard to detect
Theory X:
- People are lazy, don’t like to work and avoid responsibility
→ this type of manager’s directive, engaging in surveillance and coercion
Theory Y:
- People are internally motivated, like to work and will accept responsibility
→ this type of manager’s allow discretion, participation and the encouragement of creativity
on the job
Week 1
Lecture 1b
Chapter 6
What is leadership?
“Leadership is the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done
and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared
objectives.”
Difference between being a manager and being a leader
3
