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Summary Exam 1 Work & Organizational Psychology UvA Year 1
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Summary of Work & Organizational Psychology Exam 1 as part of the course Work and Organizational Psychology & Social Psychology
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By: lottepeerdeman • 8 months ago
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W1.1CHAPTER 1 (MCSHANE & VON GLINOW) – INTRODUCTION TO THE FIELD
OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Organisational behaviour: The study of what people think, feel and do in and around
organisations
- Looks at employee behaviours, decisions, perceptions and emotional responses
- Examines how individuals and teams in organisations relate to one another and to their
equals in other organisations
- Involves the study of how organisations interact with their external environments,
particularly in the context of employee behaviour and decisions
- Systematic study on multiple levels of analysis:
1. The individual
2. The team (including interpersonal)
3. The organisation
Organisations: Groups of people who work interdependently toward some purpose
1. Collective entities that interact in an organised manner – Requires communication,
coordination and collaboration
2. The members have a collective sense of purpose – Direction or unifying force
HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR
Organisational behaviour has been in existence for a long time, but was organised into a
unified discipline around World War II when researchers began describing their research as
organisational:
- 500 B.C. → Confucius: Praised the virtues of ethics and leadership
- 400 B.C. → Plato: Wrote about the essence of leadership
- 1770s → Smith: Discussed the benefits of job specialisation and division of labour
- 1900s → Weber: Wrote about rational organisations, work ethic and leadership
- 1900s → Taylor: Proposed systematic ways to organise work processes and motivate
employees through goal-setting and rewards
- 1920s → Follett: Offered new ways of thinking about constructive conflict, team
dynamics, power and leadership
- 1930s → Mayo: Established the ‘human relations’ school of management, which
pioneered research on employee attitudes, formal team dynamics, informal groups and
supervisor leadership style – Employee productivity and motivation can be increased
through positive social bonds in the workplace and acknowledgement of the worker as
a unique individual
- 1930s → Barnard: Wrote insightful views regarding organisational communication,
coordination, leadership and authority, organisations as open systems and team
dynamics
,WHY ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR IS IMPORTANT
Organisational effectiveness: An ideal state in which an organisation has a good fit with its
external environment, effectively transforms inputs to outputs through human capital and
satisfies the needs of key stakeholders – ‘Ultimate dependent variable’
- Open system: The view that organisations depend on the external environment for
resources, affect that environment through their output and consist of internal
subsystems that transform inputs to outputs – Permeable relationship – Dependence
- ‘Good fit’ = When an organisation’s inputs, processes and outputs are aligned
with the resources, needs and expectations available in the external
environment
- Human capital: The knowledge, skills, abilities, creativity and other valued resources
that employees bring to the organisation → Ways in which human capital can enhance
effectiveness:
1. Developing employee skills and knowledge improves individual behaviour and
performance
2. Human capital improves adaptability as employees are better at performing diverse
tasks in unfamiliar situations when they are highly skilled and have more freedom
3. Developing human capital means a company is investing in and rewarding its
workforce, which enhances motivation in employees
- Stakeholders: Entities that affect, or are affected by, the organisation’s objectives and
actions (E.g.: customers, stockholders, governments etc.) – Organisations are more
effective when they understand, manage and satisfy stakeholder needs and
expectations
- Factors that that influence the prioritisation of stakeholders:
1. Stakeholder power
2. How executives perceive the organisation’s environment
3. The organisation’s culture
4. The personal values (= relatively stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our
preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety of situations) of
the corporate board and executive team
- Corporate social responsibility: Taking responsibility for the impact of the
business operation on people, the environment and society – Organisational
activities intended to benefit society and the environment beyond the firm’s
immediate financial interests or legal obligations – Companies with a positive
CSR-reputation tend to have better financial performance, more loyal
employees and better relations with customers, job applicants, and other
stakeholders
↓
Triple-bottom-line philosophy: The view that companies have a contract with
society, in which they must serve stakeholders beyond stockholders and
customers:
1. People – Maintaining or improving conditions for society
2. Planet – Reducing the ecological footprint
3. Profit – Surviving and being profitable in the marketplace
,ANCHORS OF ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR KNOWLEDGE
Key features of organisational behaviour knowledge:
- Systematic research anchor – Involves forming research questions, systematically
collecting data and testing hypotheses against those data
↓
Evidence-based management: The practice of making decisions and taking actions
based on research evidence – How to create more evidence-based organisations:
embracing expertise and being critical of popular trends
- Practical orientation anchor – Ensuring that OB theories are useful in organisations
- Multidisciplinary anchor – Importing knowledge from different disciplines
- Contingency anchor – Understanding that different circumstances may affect the
effectiveness of an action
- Multiple levels of analysis anchor – Understanding events from the levels of analysis
WORKPLACE LANDSCAPE
Four significant recent changes in the workplace landscape:
1. Diversity and inclusive workplace (= a workplace that values people of all identities
and allows them to be fully themselves while contributing to the organisation)
- Surface-level diversity: The observable demographic or physiological
differences in people
- Deep-level diversity: The differences in the psychological characteristics of
employees, including personalities, beliefs, values and attitudes
Multigenerational workforce: Brings together a greater mix of workers at all ages –
Has both surface-level and deep-level characteristics
2. Work-life integration: The degree that people are effectively engaged in their various
work and non-work roles and have a low degree of conflicts – Not separate domains!
↓
Strategies to maximise work-life integration:
- Integrating two or more roles (E.g.: conducting meetings during an exercise
walk or taking dogs to work)
- Flexible work scheduling
- Ensuring that work and non-work roles are aligned with personal
characteristics
- Engaging in some degree of ‘boundary management’ across roles
3. Remote work – Telecommuting: The practice of working from home, making use of
the internet, email, and the telephone
- Advantages: Better work-life integration; attractive benefit for job applicants;
low employee turn-over; higher productivity; reduced greenhouse gas
emissions; reduced office costs
- Disadvantages: More social isolation; lower team cohesion; weaker
organisational structure; reduced work-life integration
4. Employment relationships – Direct employment (= when a company hires and
employs workers instead of using subcontractors) may actually result in lower turn-
over, higher commitment and more involvement in the company than outsourced
employment
, MARS MODEL OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR AND PERFORMANCE
Different models of direct predictors of individual behaviour and performance:
- Performance = Person × Situation
- ‘Skill-and-will-model’: Performance = Ability × Motivation
- AMO model: A model depicting three variables that directly affect a person’s
performance – Recently a fourth direct predictor has been identified: role perceptions
(= the individual’s expected role obligations)
1. Ability
2. Motivation
3. Opportunity
- MARS model: A model depicting four variables that directly influence an individual’s
voluntary behaviour and performance – All factors are critical for proficient
performance
1. Motivation: The forces within a person that affect his or her direction, intensity
and persistence of voluntary behaviour – Goal-directed, effortful and lengthy
2. Ability: The natural aptitudes and learned capabilities required to successfully
complete a task
- ‘Aptitudes’: The natural talents that help employees learn specific tasks
more quickly and perform them better
- ‘Learned capabilities’: The physical skills, mental skills and knowledge
that is acquired
↓
- Competencies: Characteristics of a person that result in superior
performance – Aptitudes and learned capabilities are the main elements
3. Role perceptions: The degree to which a person understands the job duties
assigned to or expected of them
1. An understanding of the specific duties or consequences for which one can be
held accountable
2. An understanding of the priority of various tasks and expectations
3. An understanding of the preferred procedures for accomplishing tasks = Role
ambiguity
4. Situational factors: Any context beyond the employee’s immediate control –
Influences:
- The work context constrains or facilitates behaviour and performance (E.g.:
time, budget, physical work facilities etc.)
- The work environment provides cues to guide and motivate people (E.g.:
warning signs or barriers)
TYPES OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOUR
Categories of individual behaviour:
1. Task performance: The individual’s voluntary goal-directed behaviours that contribute
to organisational objectives
1. Proficient task performance: Performing the work efficiently and accurately
2. Adaptive task performance: How well employees modify their thoughts and
behaviour to align with a changing environment
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