Organisational Behaviour
Week 1
Lecture 1 - Introduction
Organizational Behavior - Understanding human behaviour at work to
improve effectiveness of the organization.
➔ Psychology
◆ measure and explain behavior of humans
➔ Social Psychology
◆ blends sociology (group decision making)
➔ Sociology
◆ Studies people in their environment
➔ Anthropology
◆ Biology of humans
Evidence-based management - We need systematic evidence to understand
causes and effects of behaviour. We cannot only use intuition. 1. Pose a question
2. Search for evidence
3. Apply the relevant information to your question
Challenges in organizational behaviour
Contingencies affect general predictions - depending on priorities and
situations the factor for changing behaviour will be different. Two people act
completely different in the same situations.
Globalizations effects on employees and organizations - Flexibility and
adaptation. Creates a more complex environment. Changes on work places.
Changing psychological demands.
Workforce demographics effects on employees and organizations - people live
longer and are healthier with improving socio economic conditions.
Organisations can focus more on technology. Working over-time. People have
children later and later. Older population will stay in labor longer.
Social media and technology effects on employees and organizations - Difficulty
to separate private life from work.
Workforce diversity effects on employees and organizations - Understand
different societies better. Can be challenging if there is a conflict, how do
you satisfy all parties?
Ethical behaviour effects on employees and organizations - What is right or
wrong? How do we make decisions?
Three levels of analysis in OB Model
,Inputs: Variables that lead to
outcomes Processes:
Outcomes : Variables that you want to explain
Chapter 1 - Introduction
OB is the study of what people do in organizations, and the effect of structure
on behaviour in order to make organizations more effective. It examines
behavior in the context of job satisfaction, absenteeism, employment turnover,
productivity, human performance and management.
- Motivation
- Leader behavior and power
- Interpersonal communication
- Group structure and processes
- Attitude development and perception
- Change processes
- Conflict and negotiation
- Work design
The importance of Interpersonal skills:
➔ Developing managers’ interpersonal skills helps organizations
attract and keep high-performing employees.
➔ There are strong associations between the quality of workplace
relationships and employee job satisfaction, stress and turnover.
◆ employees that find their managers with supportive dialogue and
proactivity find that their ideas are endorsed more often.
➔ Increasing the OB element can foster social responsibility awarness
◆ Uni’s has started to implement CSR
Management and Organizational Behaviour
Manager: get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate
resources and direct activities. The role of managers can be condensed to four
activities.
- planning: need for planning increases the most as managers move from
lower-level to mid-level management.
- organizing: designing their work units’ structure.
- leading: direct and coordinate people.
- controlling: monitoring, comparing and potential correcting.
Organization: coordinated social unit, achieve common goals.
★ Management roles
○ Mintzberg: managers perform 10 different, highly interrelated
roles or sets of behaviours and serve a critical function in
organizations.
, ■ Interpersonal: Figurehead (symbolic), Leader
(motivation and direction), Liaison (networking)
■ Informational: (monitor role) Spokesperson,
represent the organization. Collect information
from the outside.
■ Decisional: overseas new projects, allocates resources,
corrective action.
★ Management skills
○ Technical Skills: specialized knowledge
○ Human skill: be able to communicate, motivate and support other
people.
○ Conceptual skills: analyze complex situations, identify
problems, develop solutions.
★ Effective versus successful managerial activities
○ Fred Luthans: do managers who move quickly in an organization
do do the same activities with the same emphasis as managers
who do the best job?
■ Traditional management: Decision making, planning and
controlling
■ Communication: Exchanging routine information and
processing paper work.
■ Human resource management: Motivating, disciplining,
managing conflict, staffing and training.
■ Networking. Socializing, politicking and interacting with
outsiders.
○ Successful: (Speed of promotion within their organization)
Networking made the largest contribution to success.
○ Effective: (Quantity and quality of performance) Communication
made the largest impact.
Complementing intuition with systematic study
Systematic approach → Behaviour is not random → Allow predictability
Systematic study = looking at relationships, attempting to attribute cause
and effect to make conclusions.
Evidence Based management: basing decisions on scientific
evidence. Relying on intuition is bad because we tend to
overestimate.
Big data: Collecting data → predicting events → preventing catastrophes
→ making effective decisions. Issues: Privacy. There are too many
variables going into human behavior, management is more than the sum
of data. Trust your gut feeling as well.
Disciplines That contribute to the OB Field
★ Psychology
○ Learning, motivation, personality, job satisfaction.. etc.
★ Social Psychology
○ Behavioral, attitude change. Communication, group decision making.
★ Sociology
○ Communication, conflict, organizational (culture, change, technology)
★ Anthropology
, ○ Values, attitudes, org culture and environment.
All of the four contribute to the individual, group and organization system.
Week 1
Lecture 1 - Introduction
Organizational Behavior - Understanding human behaviour at work to
improve effectiveness of the organization.
➔ Psychology
◆ measure and explain behavior of humans
➔ Social Psychology
◆ blends sociology (group decision making)
➔ Sociology
◆ Studies people in their environment
➔ Anthropology
◆ Biology of humans
Evidence-based management - We need systematic evidence to understand
causes and effects of behaviour. We cannot only use intuition. 1. Pose a question
2. Search for evidence
3. Apply the relevant information to your question
Challenges in organizational behaviour
Contingencies affect general predictions - depending on priorities and
situations the factor for changing behaviour will be different. Two people act
completely different in the same situations.
Globalizations effects on employees and organizations - Flexibility and
adaptation. Creates a more complex environment. Changes on work places.
Changing psychological demands.
Workforce demographics effects on employees and organizations - people live
longer and are healthier with improving socio economic conditions.
Organisations can focus more on technology. Working over-time. People have
children later and later. Older population will stay in labor longer.
Social media and technology effects on employees and organizations - Difficulty
to separate private life from work.
Workforce diversity effects on employees and organizations - Understand
different societies better. Can be challenging if there is a conflict, how do
you satisfy all parties?
Ethical behaviour effects on employees and organizations - What is right or
wrong? How do we make decisions?
Three levels of analysis in OB Model
,Inputs: Variables that lead to
outcomes Processes:
Outcomes : Variables that you want to explain
Chapter 1 - Introduction
OB is the study of what people do in organizations, and the effect of structure
on behaviour in order to make organizations more effective. It examines
behavior in the context of job satisfaction, absenteeism, employment turnover,
productivity, human performance and management.
- Motivation
- Leader behavior and power
- Interpersonal communication
- Group structure and processes
- Attitude development and perception
- Change processes
- Conflict and negotiation
- Work design
The importance of Interpersonal skills:
➔ Developing managers’ interpersonal skills helps organizations
attract and keep high-performing employees.
➔ There are strong associations between the quality of workplace
relationships and employee job satisfaction, stress and turnover.
◆ employees that find their managers with supportive dialogue and
proactivity find that their ideas are endorsed more often.
➔ Increasing the OB element can foster social responsibility awarness
◆ Uni’s has started to implement CSR
Management and Organizational Behaviour
Manager: get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate
resources and direct activities. The role of managers can be condensed to four
activities.
- planning: need for planning increases the most as managers move from
lower-level to mid-level management.
- organizing: designing their work units’ structure.
- leading: direct and coordinate people.
- controlling: monitoring, comparing and potential correcting.
Organization: coordinated social unit, achieve common goals.
★ Management roles
○ Mintzberg: managers perform 10 different, highly interrelated
roles or sets of behaviours and serve a critical function in
organizations.
, ■ Interpersonal: Figurehead (symbolic), Leader
(motivation and direction), Liaison (networking)
■ Informational: (monitor role) Spokesperson,
represent the organization. Collect information
from the outside.
■ Decisional: overseas new projects, allocates resources,
corrective action.
★ Management skills
○ Technical Skills: specialized knowledge
○ Human skill: be able to communicate, motivate and support other
people.
○ Conceptual skills: analyze complex situations, identify
problems, develop solutions.
★ Effective versus successful managerial activities
○ Fred Luthans: do managers who move quickly in an organization
do do the same activities with the same emphasis as managers
who do the best job?
■ Traditional management: Decision making, planning and
controlling
■ Communication: Exchanging routine information and
processing paper work.
■ Human resource management: Motivating, disciplining,
managing conflict, staffing and training.
■ Networking. Socializing, politicking and interacting with
outsiders.
○ Successful: (Speed of promotion within their organization)
Networking made the largest contribution to success.
○ Effective: (Quantity and quality of performance) Communication
made the largest impact.
Complementing intuition with systematic study
Systematic approach → Behaviour is not random → Allow predictability
Systematic study = looking at relationships, attempting to attribute cause
and effect to make conclusions.
Evidence Based management: basing decisions on scientific
evidence. Relying on intuition is bad because we tend to
overestimate.
Big data: Collecting data → predicting events → preventing catastrophes
→ making effective decisions. Issues: Privacy. There are too many
variables going into human behavior, management is more than the sum
of data. Trust your gut feeling as well.
Disciplines That contribute to the OB Field
★ Psychology
○ Learning, motivation, personality, job satisfaction.. etc.
★ Social Psychology
○ Behavioral, attitude change. Communication, group decision making.
★ Sociology
○ Communication, conflict, organizational (culture, change, technology)
★ Anthropology
, ○ Values, attitudes, org culture and environment.
All of the four contribute to the individual, group and organization system.
