Chapter 1: What is Organizational Behavior?
Managers get things done trough other people. They make decisions, allocate resources and direct
the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an organization, a consciously
coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous
basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.
Henri Fayol said that all managers perform five management functions: Planning, organizing,
commanding, coordinating and controlling.
Today we have condensed them into:
- Planning: defining goals, establishing an overall strategy and developing plans to coordinate
activities.
- Organizing: determine what task are to be done, who is to do them, how etc.
- Leading: direct and coordinate the people.
- Controlling: monitoring, comparing and potential correcting.
Mintzberg concluded that managers perform ten different, highly interrelated roles-or sets of
behaviors. They can be grouped as being primarily:
1. Interpersonal roles: the figurehead, leader and liaison (contacting outsiders who provide
information).
2. Informational roles: monitor, disseminator (conduit to transmit information to
organizational members) and spokesperson.
3. Decisional roles: entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator.
Researchers have identified a number of skills that differentiate effective from ineffective managers:
- Technical skills: ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.
- Human skills: ability to understand, communicate with, motivate and support other people,
but individually and in groups.
- Conceptual skills: mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.
Managers all engage in four managerial activities (Luthans):
1. Traditional management
2. Communication
3. Human resource management
4. Networking
Organizational behavior: field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and
structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge
towards improving an organization’s effectiveness. For instance it includes motivation and work
design.
Systematic study: looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects and basing our
conclusions on scientific evidence.
Evidence based management (EBM): basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific
evidence.
Systematic study and EBM add to intuition, the gut feelings.
Organizational behavior: applied behavioral science that is built on contributions from a number of
behavioral disciplines. The predominant areas are:
- Psychology: science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change the behavior of
humans and other animals.
Managers get things done trough other people. They make decisions, allocate resources and direct
the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an organization, a consciously
coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous
basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.
Henri Fayol said that all managers perform five management functions: Planning, organizing,
commanding, coordinating and controlling.
Today we have condensed them into:
- Planning: defining goals, establishing an overall strategy and developing plans to coordinate
activities.
- Organizing: determine what task are to be done, who is to do them, how etc.
- Leading: direct and coordinate the people.
- Controlling: monitoring, comparing and potential correcting.
Mintzberg concluded that managers perform ten different, highly interrelated roles-or sets of
behaviors. They can be grouped as being primarily:
1. Interpersonal roles: the figurehead, leader and liaison (contacting outsiders who provide
information).
2. Informational roles: monitor, disseminator (conduit to transmit information to
organizational members) and spokesperson.
3. Decisional roles: entrepreneur, disturbance handler, resource allocator and negotiator.
Researchers have identified a number of skills that differentiate effective from ineffective managers:
- Technical skills: ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.
- Human skills: ability to understand, communicate with, motivate and support other people,
but individually and in groups.
- Conceptual skills: mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.
Managers all engage in four managerial activities (Luthans):
1. Traditional management
2. Communication
3. Human resource management
4. Networking
Organizational behavior: field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and
structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge
towards improving an organization’s effectiveness. For instance it includes motivation and work
design.
Systematic study: looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects and basing our
conclusions on scientific evidence.
Evidence based management (EBM): basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific
evidence.
Systematic study and EBM add to intuition, the gut feelings.
Organizational behavior: applied behavioral science that is built on contributions from a number of
behavioral disciplines. The predominant areas are:
- Psychology: science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change the behavior of
humans and other animals.
