MGT 320
Collective objectives of management/leadership processes - ANS 1. Where to go (Strategy)
2. Get there effectively and efficiently (Operational Effectiveness)
3. Assemble the capabilities that allow the organization to realize 1 & 2 (A-S-R or A-S-A;
Training & Development, Dynamic Capabilities)
What do ___ do? - ANS Leaders: Strategic Change (Future)
Managers: Operational Effectiveness (Today)
Organizational Behavior (OB) - ANS a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and
ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations;
predict it
Organization -> Group -> Individual
Strategic Management - ANS focuses on the product choices and industry characteristics that
affect an organization's profitability
OB is built upon contributions from a number of behavioral disciplines - ANS 1. Psychology:
science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change human behavior
2. Social psychological: blends the concepts of psychology and sociology
3. Sociology: sociologists study the social system; people in relation to their fellow human
beings
4. Anthropology: the study of societies to learn about humans and their activities
Organizational Behavior is the study of - ANS -people in organizations
-organizations of people
-processes of organizing
Should MGT 320 matter to me? - ANS A 2006 the Graduate Management Admission Council
survey of 1,270 employers found that "soft skills" were most attractive to recruiters, both also
most lacking
And this effect grows with time....
-For Stanford MBA's, 4 out of 14 courses focus on management (29%)
-For Stanford Executive Education, 15 out of 21 courses focus on management (71%)
-Courses cost $3,300 - 16,000, so learning this stuff now may save you money!
Does MGT 320 matter for organizations? - ANS In a study of 958 companies in all major
industries, improving management practices by one standard deviation is associated with..
,per employee:
-7.05% decrease in turnover
-$27,044 increase in sales
-$18, 641 increase in market value
-$3,814 increase in profits
Evidence-based management (EBM) - ANS Involves harnessing systematic research and
translating it into organizational practices
Isn't management just common sense? Don't managers go on "gut instinct"? - ANS Systematic
study and EBM add to intuition or those "gut feelings" about "why I do what I do" and "what
makes others tick".
-Managers who make decisions using intuition or gut instinct are often working with incomplete
or inaccurate information. People are complex, behavior is contingent on situation
-Behavior is generally predictable if we know what is important to him or her and how the person
perceives the situation (systematic study of behavior)
-EBM: Argues for managers to make decisions on evidence. Leverages systematic study.
Three types of skills attributed to managerial activity - ANS 1. Technical Skills
2. Human (Interpersonal) Skill
3. Conceptual Skill
Technical Skills - ANS -The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise
-All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people develop their technical skills on
the job
Human (Interpersonal) Skills - ANS Ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people,
both individually and in groups, describes human skills
Conceptual Skills - ANS The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations
Strong interpersonal skills result in.. - ANS -Positive work outcomes for the manager including:
Increased managerial effectiveness/ Leadership and communication skills that are critical as a
person progresses in a career
-Positive work outcomes for the organization including:
lower turnover of strong employees/ improved recruitment pools for filling employment positions/
a better bottom line (financial performance)
What must both managers & leaders do? - ANS -Plan, Organize, Lead and Control
-Influence the behavior of others in the organization and direct their behavior toward the
achievement of organizationally relevant goals
, -To be an effective leader or manager you must be able to get things done through the effort of
other people
Intrapersonal - ANS -Dispositions (Distal): personality, style, values
-Attitudes & Intentions (Proximal)
-Behavior: behavior of others
-Work Outcomes
Underpinnings of human behavior - ANS Hierarchy top and down: personality, culture, human
nature
Personality: Specific to individuals/ inherited and learned
Culture: Specific to groups/ learned
Human Nature: Universal/ Biological
Interactionist perspective - ANS Distal (broad): culture
Proximal (specific): climate
Goes under attitudes and intentions in intrapersonal.
According to the interactionist perspective, behavior is a function of the person and the situation
interacting with each other.
Important work behaviors - ANS -Job performance: general mental abilities, how we are treated
at work, stress (-), positive work attitudes, personality
-Citizenship: how we are treated at work, personality, positive work attitudes, age of the
employee
-Absenteeism: health problems, work/life balance issues, positive work attitudes (-), age of the
employee (-)
-Turnover: poor performance, positive work attitudes (-), stress, personality, age and tenure of
the employee (-)
*Negative relationships: (-)
General Mental Ability - ANS -Broadly encompasses ability to learn, remember and use new
information, to solve problems and to adapt to novel situations.
-Has been found to be associated with higher performance in teams as well as individual jobs
Cognitive abilities structure - ANS