Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior-What
is it?
 OB Involves the study of process-how
people in social systems function with
each other to get work done.
 OT deals more with the structural
elements of organizations.
 How to put the pieces together to facilitate
the process

Process involves managers
and managing
 Managers, a structural component of
organizations, interacts (process
component) with others to accomplish
work.
 Make decisions, allocate resources, direct
activities.
 Accomplish organizational and personal
goals

Process involves managers
and managing – cont’d.
 Managers work in organizations
 Combination of structural and process
components.

Manager’s
interpersonal skills
are important.
Why?

Manager’s interpersonal skills
are important. Why?
 Because the way that managers view
organizations is changing.

How do we frequently view
Organizations and People in
them?
 Classical Paradigm-a structural approach
 Organizations are machines
 Machines consist of components e.g.
equipment, people, buildings, cash, raw
materials.
 Managers job is to fit the components of the
machine together in the most efficient way

What’s New?
 Human Relations/Systems Paradigm
 Organizations are social systems
 Systems consist of elements, a boundary
and the relationship among the elements
 Social systems consist of the
relationships (process) among
individuals within a given structure

What is a System?

Organizational Behavior
 OB is a field of study that
investigates the impact that
individuals, groups, and structure
have on behavior within
organizations for the purpose of
applying such knowledge toward
improving an organization’s
effectiveness and efficiency.

Effectiveness vs. Efficiency
 Open Systems vs. Closed Systems

Organizational Behavior
 OB is concerned with the study of what
people do in an organization (social
system) and how that behavior affects the
performance of the organization (its
effectiveness and efficiency).
 Individual Behavior
 Individual and group behavior
 Organizational structure

What do managers do?
 Plan, organize, lead and control
 Process components
 Fill Certain Roles (sets of behaviors)
 Interpersonal
 Informational
 Decisional

What kind of skills do
managers need?
 Technical
 Human
 Conceptual

Activities managers perform
that makes them “successful”
 Depends on what success is.
 Getting promoted
 Human Resources and networking
 Achieving Organizational Goals
 Decision making, planning, controlling,
communicating
 These two sets of activities frequently
work against each other.

Contributing Disciplines
to the OB Field
From where does OB draw its
expertise?

Introduction
 Organizational behavior is an applied
behavioral science that is built upon
contributions from a number of behavioral
disciplines.
 The predominant areas are psychology,
sociology, social psychology,
anthropology, and political science.
 Exhibit 1-3 overviews the major
contributions to the study of
organizational behavior.

Psychology
 Psychology is the science that seeks to
measure, explain, and sometimes change
the behavior of humans and other animals.
 Early industrial/organizational
 fatigue, boredom, and other factors relevant to
working conditions that could impede efficient
work performance.
 More recently,
 learning, perception, personality, emotions,
training, leadership effectiveness, needs and
motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision-
making processes, performance appraisals,
attitude measurement, employee selection
techniques, work design, and job stress

Sociology
 Sociologists study the social system in
which individuals fill their roles; that is,
sociology studies people in relation to
their fellow human beings.
 Their greatest contribution to OB is
through their study of group behavior in
organizations, particularly formal and
complex organizations

Social Psychology
 Social psychology blends the concepts
of psychology and sociology.
 It focuses on the influence of people on
one another.
 Major area—how to implement it and how
to reduce barriers to its acceptance.

Anthropology
 Anthropology is the study of societies to
learn about human beings and their
activities.
 Anthropologists work on cultures and
environments; for instance, they have
helped us understand differences in
fundamental values, attitudes, and
behavior among people in different
countries and within different
organizations.

Political Science
 Frequently overlooked
 Political science studies the behavior of
individuals and groups within a political
environment.

Why is the study of organization
behavior important?

Why is the study of organization
behavior important?
 Viewing organizations as closed
systems is no longer valid
 Components are no longer
homogeneous – Work Place diversity
 Globalization makes hierarchical
communications too slow
 Information Technology gives power
and information to the one who can use
it best.

Why is the study of organization
behavior important?
 The environment is changing rapidly
making adaptation and change crucial
to survival- organizations as closed
systems isn’t a valid model.
 Improving Quality and Productivity
 Improving ethical behavior

Now, do successful
organizations put people
first?
A Debate

Pro side
 Yes they do because organizations
are social systems and the care and
feeding of people and their relationships
is crucial to the organizations being able
to be effective

Con side
 No, most organizations are social
systems secondarily. Their first need is
to be efficient and to make money.
Managers need to be plugged into the
outside environment but minimizing
resources such as people is crucial to
the success of the enterprise.

Foundations of
Individual Behavior
Biographical, Ability and Learning
Variables

Chapter 2 looks at three individual
variables that affect organizational
behavior.
 Biographical Characteristics
 Ability
 Learning

Biographical characteristics
 Age
 Gender
 Tenure
 Marital Status

Ability
 Intellectual
 Physical
 Ability-fit

Learning
 Three theories
 Classical conditioning
 Pavlov’s dogs
 Operant conditioning
 Reward/punishment
 Social learning
 Observationand perception
 Use of models

Shaping
 Molding learning in graduated steps
 Reinforced at each step by
 Positive or negative reinforcement
 Punishment
 Extinction