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Lectures organizational behaviour
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This document contains notes from all lectures of the course Organizational Behaviour.
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Organizational behaviour lecture 1OB: a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on
behaviour within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an
organization’s effectiveness.
Two main classes of outcomes:
-> task performance (effort, productivity, creativity)
Job performance -> citizenship behaviour (helping, boosting, voice)
-> counterproductive behaviour (theft, incivility, sabotage)
Organizational commitment (identification with organization and its goals and desire to maintain
membership) -> less withdrawal (turnover, tardiness, cyberloafing, daydreaming, absenteeism)
Why bother studying OB?
Managers do P-O-L-C (planning, organising, leading and controlling)
Planning: to set a direction. Decide where you want to go and decide the best way to go about it.
Organising: to create structures
Leading: to inspire effort
Controlling: to ensure results. Measure performance and take corrective action.
Successful managers focus most of the time on networking.
Effective managers focus most of the time on communication.
Understanding OB helps to determine manager effectiveness. Technical, quantitative, and analytical
skills are important, but leadership and communication skills are essential. OB also gives
organisational benefits of skilled/experienced managers:
Great employees remain within the organisation = less turnover, great employees are
selected/recruited and there are better financial (bottom-line) performance
Intuition Systematic study
Gut feeling Looks at relationships
Individual observations Scientific evidence
Common sense
Systematic study -> evidence-based management = basing managerial decision on the best available
scientific evidence. You must think like scientists. First, pose a managerial question. The, search for
the best available evidence. Finally, apply relevant information to case.
Is our intuition/gut feeling effective? It depends
‘’The trick is to know when to go with your gut’’ (Jack Welch, 1990s)
Intuition is often based on faulty/incomplete/little information, but systematic study also takes a lot
of time (time is money). In OB do we use evidence as much as possible to inform the intuition and
experience.
The core values of science are: accuracy, scepticism, open-mindedness and objectivity.
,Theory
There is an integrated set of principles that specifies how variables are related, why variables are
related and under what conditions variables are related. A good theory effectively summarizes a
wide range of observations and makes clear predictions.
Hypotheses
Hypotheses are predictions derived from theory. They test the theory. It’s direct research and it are
practical implications of theories.
Data
There are two different data collection methodes:
1. Systematic Observation (Correlational): it allowed for the study of variables we can’t manipulate.
Practical variables are race, gender, organization and team. Ethically variables are sabotage and
turnover. Systematic observation allowed us to examine the (cor)relationship between several
variables at once.
2. Experimental Method: it allows us to draw conclusions about causality and it allows us a great deal
of control over the variables being studied.
Verification
Verification is interpreting study results. You evaluate statistical and practical signifance.
How to interpret correlations?
Small (.10) – moderate (.30) – large (.50)
If you want to look at the correlation between X and Y, X need to come before Y in time. There
should no alternative explanations be for relationship between X and Y. There should be experiments
with random assignment to conditions, natural experiments and statistical controls.
Interpreting study results (verification):
You should evaluate statistical and practical significance. You should also keep in mind that
correlation is no evidence for causality. You should also evaluate implications for theory. Meta-
analyses are needed. Meta-analyses are quantitative synthesis of multiple studies on a topic.
Summary:
OB focuses on how to improve factors that make organizations more effective. Managers need to
develop their interpersonal skills to be effective. The best predictors of behaviour are made from a
combination of a good theory, systematic study and some intuition.
,Organizational behaviour lecture 2
Diversity = Differences between individuals on any dimension that may lead to the perception that
other persons are different from the self.
Examples of such dimensions are: ethnicity. Gender, age, national origin, sexual orientation, religion,
political views, educational, background, professional expertise.
Two levels of diversity
Surface level: visible characteristics such as gender, age, ethnicity
Deep level: invisible characteristics such as expertise, values, personality, work preferences, ability
Why does diversity matter for organizations?
Main reasons given by HR executives from Fortune 100 companies.
1. Better/specific knowledge of the marketplace.
2. Better utilization of talent
3. More creativity, innovation, and problem solving
Those 3 reasons are on surface and deep level. All those arguments are in a way idealistic. They
express the potential of diversity, but you should also actually make it work.
Inclusion (Miller and Katz (2002)): ‘’… a sense of belonging: feeling respected, valued for who you
are, feeling a level of supportive energy and commitment from others so that you can do your best.’’
Inclusion should be reflected in the culture, the practices, and the relationships of an organization
that are in place to support a diverse workforce.
Diversity is the mix, inclusion is getting the mix to work well together.
Diversity management: the process and programmes by which managers make everyone more aware
of and sensitive to the needs and differences of others.
Summary of introduction:
Diversity includes differences on visible and invisible characteristics. Organizations can reap benefits
of a diverse workforce through good diversity management practices.
Intelligence/cognitive ability
Ability to grasp and reason with abstractions and solve problems.
We are talking about an whole set of abilities: numerical aptitude, verbal comprehension, perceptual
speed, inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, spatial visualization and memory.
We can measure intelligence by different types of tests. What we see when we measure intelligence,
is that all of these different aptitudes are correlated within individuals. There is a general intelligence
factor that fits in all those different abilities (IQ).
The IQ
The result of an IQ test must be compared with other results to be able to say something about the
intelligence (relative to the norm sample).
Intelligence and job performance
Intelligence has a strong relation with job performance. We can further improve our prediction of job
performance.
Emotional intelligence:
‘’… set of abilities that includes the ability to perceive emotions in the self and others, use emotions
to facilitate performance, understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and regulate emotions in
the self and others.’’ (mayer and Salovay (1997))
, Measuring emotional intelligence (EQ)
Self-report (e.g. ‘’EQ-I’’)
- ‘’I am good at reading other people.’’
- ‘’I care about other people’s feelings.’’
- ‘’When I wake up in the morning, I look forward to the day.’’
- ‘’It’s easy for me to make friends.’’
This can be criticised, because it’s hard for the people to answer those questions.
Ability test (mainly ‘’MSCEIT’’)
- Identify emotions in photos
- Relate emptions to different perceptions (e.g. colors)
- Respond to questions about how emotion influence behaviour
- Evaluate how effective different emotion regulation strategies will be in different situations.
This can be criticised, because some people can just use emotional strategies when such a situation
takes place.
Research argues about how important Emotional intelligence is. The claim in the literature is that
your EQ is responsible for an huge part of your job performance.
The evidence
Positive but modest effects, once we take other predictors into account. There are weaker effects
with better measures.
Study by Cote and Miner (2006): Emotional intelligence did not play a big role in predicting
performance for individuals with high cognitive intelligence, but it was decisive for individuals with
low cognitive intelligence.
Summary:
Intellectual ability is one of the most important predictors of job performance. Emotional intelligence
adds a modest amount of the prediction and may be more important for some groups of individuals
than for others.
Personality: the sum of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others; described in
terms of the measurable traits a person exhibits.
Trait: stable behavioural tendency across a variety of situations
Usually we talk about personality dimensions rather than types.
How do we measure personality?
There a multiple different models of personality:
1. Big 5 – best research foundation
2. MBTI – widely used in practice, problematic validity. (It is quite shaken when it comes to validity,
because it classifies people in different types).
The big 5:
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