Summary

Summary Organizational Behavior - Telfer, uOttawa

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Course
ADM 2336 (ADM2336)

Institution
University Of Ottawa (U Of O )

- What is Organizational Behavior?: What are Organizations/Companies?, OB defined, The Role of Management Theory, ..., How do we know what we know about OB? - Job performance: Task Performance, Citizenship Behavior (OCB), Counterproductive Behavior (CWB), Goal Setting - Organizational Commitment:...

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Uploaded on June 14, 2024
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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Ch.1 – What is Organizational Behavior?
What are Organizations/Companies?
- Social inventions  creations focused on coordinating presence of people,
- Purpose to achieve common goals,
- Through group effort.
OB defined
- Predicting organizational behavior and events: you can tell that something is going to happen, but you don’t
necessarily know why,
- Explaining OB and events in organizations,
- Managing/improving OB: when you’re able to predict and explain the behaviours that are going to happen, then
you can work on managing them => preventing negative events or make happen more positive ones.
Organizational Behaviour (OB) = Field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving
the attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups in organizations.
 Human resources management = Field of study that focuses on the applications of OB theories and principles in
organizations  takes the theories and principles studies in OB and explores the “nuts-and-bolts” applications of
those principles in organization => compensation strategies.
 Strategic management = Field of study devoted to exploring the product choices and industry characteristics that
affect an organization’s profitability => looks outwards (OB looks inwards the organization).
The Role of Management Theory
- Scientific management: Using scientific methods to design optimal and efficient work processes and tasks 
Frederick Taylor (1856 – 1917: beginning of the Industrial revolution => factory work & military was informed
and formalized)  use scientific methods to study how to optimize performance of any task => increase
productivity.
- Bureaucracy: An organizational form that emphasizes the control and coordination of its members through a
strict chain of command (authority hierarchy), formal rules and procedures, high specialization, and
centralized decision making at the top of the organization  Max Weber (1864 – 1920).
- Human relations movement: Field of study that recognizes that the psychological attributes of individual
workers and the social forces within work groups have important effects on work behaviours  Hawthorne
studies: increase or decrease light and illumination to see how it affected productivity. Being observed, increased
this level, since they were motivated to do so => Focus on flexibility and adaptability.
- Today, contemporary management theory recognizes the dependencies between the classical and the human
relations approaches  an appropriate management stall depends on the demands of the situations.
What do we know about OB?

Correlation (r):
- Describes the statistical relationship between 2 variables,
- Can be positive or negative and range from 0 (no statistical relationship)
to  1 (a perfect statistical relationship: really difficult) – which can be
positive or negative (both variables go up or down).
 Theories that are validated by the Scientific Method (Sir Francis Bacon,
1600s): get data and submit it to scientific analysis => allows you to
confirm or disconfirm a hypothesis.

The method begins with theory, defined as a collection of assertions – both verbal and symbolic – that specify how
and why variables are related, and the conditions in which they should and should not be related.
Theories are often summarized with diagrams, and must be tested to verify that predictions are accurate.
 Hypotheses = written predictions that specify relationships between variables => Correlations.
Casual inference: concluding that one variable really does cause another:
1. 2 variables are correlated,
2. The presumed cause precedes the presumed effect in time,
3. No alternative explanation exists for the correlation  experiments.

,  Meta-analysis: A method that combines the results of multiple scientific studies by essentially calculating a
weighted-average correlation across studies (with larger studies receiving more weight).
 Evidence-based management:
A perspective that argues that scientific findings should form the foundation for management education.
 Analytics: The use of data (rather than just opinions) to guide decision making.
Is OB Common sense?
What is the best motivator for employees?
1. Pay
2. Promotion
3. Supervision
4. Co-worker
5. Work itself
Common sense will only get you so far…
 There are right and wrong answers,
 There is a large volume of material in this course:
COMMON SENSE can be deceiving.
 Key to do well, focus on: UNDERSTANDING + RECALL.

Relationships we will explore

3 levels of analysis:
1. Individual: factors that direct to
individual employees themselves
 motivation (each employee);
2. Teams and dyads (Relationships):
groups of people or two people 
leadership, communication,
power, negotiation, …
3. Organization: structure of org.
(e.g., small flat or burocracy),
culture, change, …
1. INDIVIDUAL OUTCOMES:
Job performance and
Organizational commitment are
the most important aspects
(Individual outcomes).
Most employees and managers
have 2 primary goals: perform
their jobs well (maximize it) and
retain employees (remain
members of org.) for a significant
length of time.
2. INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS
AND MECHANISMS: directly affect
job performance and
organizational commitment.
3. RELATIONAL MECHANISMS:
Employees do not work alone but have to effectively interact and coordinate with others => what factors improve
job performance and organizational commitment.
4. ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT: individuals and groups function within a broader organizational context.
o Organizational structure: dictates how the units within the firm link to and coordinate with other units
 centralized decision-making authority or decentralized.
o Organizational culture and change: from time to time, it has to change, and the process must be
reviewed.

, OB Internationally
Changes in technology, communications, and economic forces have made business more global and international
than ever <= GLOBALIZATION.
- Cross-cultural differences,
- International corporations, with both foreign and domestic operations,
- Expatriation = an employee who lives outside their native country,
- Managing diversity: members of different cultural backgrounds.
Building a Conceptual Argument
Resource-based view:
A model that argues that rare and inimitable resources help firms
maintain competitive advantage (more valuable).
It describes what exactly makes resources valuable (create long-term
profits).
History = A collective pool of experience, wisdom, and knowledge that
benefits the organization.
Socially complex resources = Resources created by people, such as
culture, teamwork, trust, and reputation  not clear how they come to
be, though it might be clear which organizations do and do not possess
them.
The effective management of OB requires a belief that several different
practices are important, along with a long-term commitment to
improving those practices => the Rule of One-Eight = The belief that at
best one-eighth, or 12%, of organizations will actually do what is required to build profits by putting people first.
How do we know what we know about OB?
Philosophers have argued that there are several different ways of knowing things:
 Method of experience: people hold firmly to some belief because it is consistent with their own experience and
observations.
 Method of intuition: people hold firmly to some belief because it “just stands to reason” – it seems obvious or
self-evident.
 Method of authority: people hold firmly to some belief because some respected official, agency, or source has
said it is so.
 Method of science: people accept some belief because scientific studies have tended to replicate that result
using a series of samples, settings, and methods.

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