Instructor’s Manual
With
(Case Notes)
For
Essentials of
Organizational Behavior
Fifteenth Edition, Global Edition
By
Stephen P.
Robbins Timothy
A. Judge
,Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behavior? Page 1
Chapter 1
What Is Organizational Behavior?
Chapter Overview
This chapter introduces the concept of organizational behavior. The focus of the text is that
coupling individual understanding of behavior gained through experience with that gained
through systematic organizational behavior (OB) analysis will help managers become more
effective.
Many of the important challenges being faced by today’s managers are described, as are the
three levels of OB study. The outline of the text is described in relation to these three levels.
Chapter Objectives
After studying this chapter, the student should be able to: PPT 1.2
1-1. Define organizational behavior (referred to as OB
throughout the text).
1-2. Show the value of systematic study to OB.
1-3. Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB.
1-4. Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB.
1-5. Identify managers’ challenges and opportunities in applying OB concepts.
1-6. Compare the three levels of analysis in this text’s OB model.
1-7. Describe the key employability skills gained from studying OB that are applicable
to other major or future careers.
Suggested Lecture Outline
I. INTRODUCTION
A. Until the late 1980s, business school curricula emphasized the technical aspects of
management, focusing on economics, accounting, finance, and quantitative
techniques.
1. Course work in human behavior and people skills received relatively less
attention.
2. During the past three decades, however, business faculty have come to realize
the role that understanding human behavior plays in determining a manager’s
effectiveness, and required courses on people skills have been added to many
curricula.
B. Developing managers’ interpersonal skills also helps organizations attract and keep
high-performing employees.
1. Regardless of labor market conditions, outstanding employees are always in
short supply.
2. Companies known as good places to work have a big advantage.
Copyright ©2022 Pearson Education, Ltd.
,Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behavior? Page 2
3. A recent survey of hundreds of workplaces and over 200,000 respondents
showed the social relationships among coworkers and supervisors were
strongly related to overall job satisfaction.
a. Positive social relationships also were associated with lower stress at work
and lower intentions to quit.
b. Having managers with good interpersonal skills is likely to make the
workplace more pleasant, which in turn makes it easier to hire and keep
qualified people.
c. Increasing the OB element in organizations can foster social responsibility
awareness.
4. We have come to understand that in today’s competitive and demanding
workplace, managers can’t succeed on their technical skills alone.
a. They also have to have good people skills.
b. This book has been written to help both managers and potential managers
develop those people skills.
II. MANAGEMENT AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR PPT 1.3, 4
A. The roles of a manager — and the necessary skills to perform
as one — are constantly evolving.
1. Yet, more than ever, individuals are placed into management positions without
management training or informed experience.
2. Furthermore, a Gallup poll found that organizations chose the wrong candidate
for management positions 82 percent of the time.
B. Effective versus Successful Managerial Activities.
1. What makes one manager more effective than another? To answer the question,
Fred Luthans, a prominent OB researcher, and his associates looked at what
managers do from a unique perspective.
2. Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers. All engaged in four
managerial activities:
a. Traditional management. Decision making, planning, and controlling.
b. Communication. Exchanging routine information and processing
paperwork.
c. Human resources (HR) management. Motivating, disciplining, managing
conflict, staffing, and training.
d. Networking. Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders.
3. Among managers who were successful (defined in terms of speed of promotion
within their organizations), networking made the largest relative contribution
to success and HR management activities made the least relative contribution,
which is the opposite of the average manager.
C. Organizational Behavior (OB) Defined.
1. Organizational behavior (OB) studies the influence that
individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within PPT 1.5
organizations. The chief goal of OB is to apply that knowledge toward improving
an organization’s effectiveness.
2. OB studies three determinants of behavior in organizations:
a. individuals
b. groups
c. structure
3. OB applies the knowledge gained from this study to make organizations work
Copyright ©2022 Pearson Education, Ltd.
, Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behavior? Page 3
more effectively.
4. This text will focus on:
a. motivation PPT 1.6
b. leader behavior and power
c. interpersonal communication
d. group structure and processes
e. attitude development and perception
f. change processes
g. conflict and negotiation
h. work design
III. COMPLEMENTING INTUITION WITH SYSTEMATIC STUDY
A. People develop intuitive understandings of the behaviors of other people through
experience. This experiential, common sense method of “reading” human behavior
can often lead to erroneous predictions.
B. You can improve your predictive ability by taking the
systematic approach to the study of human behavior. PPT 1.7
C. The fundamental assumption of the systematic approach is
that human behavior is not random. There are fundamental consistencies that
underlie the behavior of all individuals, and these fundamental consistencies can be
identified and then modified to reflect individual differences.
1. Systematic study of behavior means: examining
relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, PPT 1.8
and basing our conclusions on scientific evidence — that
is, on data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted
in a reasonably rigorous manner.
2. Evidence-Based Management (EBM): This
complementary approach to systematic study involves PPT 1.9
basing managerial decisions on the best available
scientific evidence. Managers must become more scientific about how they think
about managerial problems and not rely on instinct.
3. Intuition: your “gut feelings” about “what makes others tick.” This natural
ability to guess how people will react is most accurate when coupled with
systematic thinking and evidence-based management.
D. Big Data.
1. Big data is the extensive use of statistical compilation and analysis—didn’t
become possible until computers were sophisticated
enough to both store and manipulate large amounts of PPT 1.10
information. The use of big data began with online
retailers but has since permeated virtually every business.
2. Current Usage: The reasons for data analytics include: predicting events,
detecting how much risk is incurred at any time, and preventing catastrophes
large and small.
3. New Trends: The use of big data for understanding, helping, and managing
people is relatively new but holds promise. A manager who uses data to define
objectives, develop theories of causality, and test those theories can determine
which employee activities are relevant to the objectives. Big data has
implications for correcting management assumptions and increasing positive
performance outcomes.
Copyright ©2022 Pearson Education, Ltd.
