Organizational behavior
Chapter 1: welcome to the world of organizational behavior
Organizational behavior is a field of study that investigates the impacts individuals, groups,
and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such
knowledge toward improving an organization's effectiveness. It examines behavior in the
context of job satisfaction, absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human
performance, and management.
The core of organizational behavior includes motivation, leader behavior and power,
interpersonal communication, group structure and processes, attitude development and
perception, change processes, conflict and negotiation, and work design.
Luthans on effective versus successful managerial activities:
There are four managerial activities:
o Traditional management: decision making, planning and controlling
o Communication: exchange routine information processing paperwork
Human resources management: motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing
and training.
o Networking: socializing, politicking and interacting with outsiders.
The research conducted was about how much time managers spent on each of these
managerial activities. Successful managers made the largest contribution with networking.
The average manager spends more time on HR management. Effective managers spend the
most time on communication.
Systematic study: looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and
drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.
Evidence-based management: the basing of managerial decisions on the best available
scientific evidence, this supports the systematic study.
Systematic study and evidence-based management add to intuition à an instinctive feeling
not necessarily supported by research.
Big data: The extensive use off statistical compilation and analysis.
o Current usage: there is much more space for data
o New trends: the use of big data for understanding, helping and managing people is
relatively new but holds promise.
o Limitations: as technological capabilities for handling big data have increased, so have
issues of privacy and inappropriate application
Disciplines that contribute to the OB field: exhibit 1-1 P37
o Psychology: the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the
behavior of humans and other animals.
o Social psychology: an area of psychology that blends concepts from psychology and
sociology to focus on the influence of people on each other.
o Sociology: the study of people in relation to their social environment or culture
o Anthropology: this studies societies to learn about human beings and their activities.
Contingency variables: situational factors or variables that moderate the relationship between
two or more variables.
,Challenges and opportunities for organizational behavior
o Continuing globalization: working with people from different cultures and adapting to
differing cultural and regulatory norms.
o Workforce demographics
o Workforce diversity: the concept that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous
in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics.
o Social media
o Employee well-being at work
o Positive work environment: a growing area in organizational behavior research is
positive organizational scholarship. This is an area of organizational behavior
research. It concerns how organizations develop human strength, foster vitality and
resilience, and unluck potential.
o Ethical behavior: managers face ethical dilemmas and ethical choices; these are
situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conducts.
Developing an organizational behavior model
o Overview: a model is an abstraction of
reality, a simplified representation of some
real-world phenomenon.
o Inputs: variables like personality, group
structure, and organizational culture that
lead to processes.
o Processes: actions that individuals, groups,
and organizations engage in as a result of
inputs and that lead to certain outcomes.
o Outcomes: key factors that are affected by
some other variables:
o Attitudes: evaluative statements or
judgments concerning objects, people or events.
o Stress: an unpleasant psychological process that occurs in response to
environmental pressures.
o Task performance: the combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing
core job tasks.
o Organizational citizenship behavior: discretionary (voluntary) behavior that
contributes to psychological and social environments of the workplace.
o Withdrawal behavior: the set of actions employees take to separate themselves
from the organization.
o Group cohesion: the extent to which members of a group support one another
while at work.
o Group functioning: to quantity and quality of a groups work output.
o Productivity: the combination of the effectiveness and efficiency of an
organization.
§ Effectiveness: the degree to which an organization meets the needs of
its clientele or customers.
§ Efficiency: the degree to which an organization can achieve its ends at
a low cost.
o Organizational survival: the degree to which an organization is able to exist
and grow over the long term.
,Chapter 2 attitudes
Attitudes: evaluative statements or judgements concerning objects, people, or events.
o Cognitive components: the opinion or belief segment of an attitude.
o Affective components: the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.
o Behavioral components: an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or
something.
Cognitive dissonance: any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior
and attitudes. The desire to reduce dissonance depends on importance, influence and rewards.
Job attitudes
Job satisfaction: a positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics.
Job involvement: the degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively participates in it,
and considers performance important to their self-worth.
o Psychological empowerment: employees’ belief in the degree to which they affect
their work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their
perceived autonomy in their work.
Organizational commitment: the degree to which an employee identifies with a particular
organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership of the organization.
Perceived organizational support: the degree to which employees believe an organization
values their contribution and cares about their well-being.
o Power distance: a national culture attribute that describes the extent to which society
accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.
Employee engagement: an individual's involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm
for the work he or she does.
Measuring job satisfaction
o Single global approach: a response to one question:
§ All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?
o Summation of job facets identifies the key elements of a job (type of work, promotion
opportunities and culture for example).
What causes job satisfaction?
o Job conditions: The intrinsic nature of the work is most important (social interactions
and supervision). You have to like what you do.
o Personality: people who have positive core self-evaluations belief in one's inner world
and basic competence. These people are more satisfied with their jobs.
o Pay: Money motivates people, but it is not necessarily what makes us happy.
o Corporate social responsibility: an organization self-regulated actions to benefit
society or the environment beyond what is required by law.
Outcomes of job satisfaction
o Job performance: individuals with higher job satisfaction perform better, and
organizations with more satisfied employees tend to be more effective than those with
fewer.
o Organizational citizenship behavior: people who are more satisfied with their job are
more likely to engage in citizenship behavior. This is because of trust, support and
positive feedback.
o Customer satisfaction: satisfied employees appear to increase customer satisfaction
and loyalty.
, o Life satisfaction: our attitudes and experiences in life spillover into our job approaches
and experiences. Life satisfaction decreases when people become unemployed.
The impact of job satisfaction
The exit voice loyalty neglect framework:
o Exit response: dissatisfaction expressed through behavior directed towards leaving the
organization.
o Voice response: dissatisfaction expressed through active and constructive attempts to
improve conditions.
o Loyalty response: dissatisfaction expressed by passively waiting for conditions to
improve.
o Neglect response: dissatisfaction expressed through allowing conditions to worsen.
Counterproductive work behavior: intentional employee behavior that is contrary to the
interests of the organization. Dissatisfied employees often choose one or more specific
behaviors due to idiosyncratic (eigenzinnig) factors.
Absenteeism: there is a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism,
but this relationship is moderate to weak. When numerous alternative jobs are available, and
employees are not satisfied, employees have high absence rates. But when there are few
alternatives, these unsatisfied employees have the same rate of absence as satisfied
employees, which is low.
Turnover: the relationship between job satisfaction and turnover is stronger than between
satisfaction and absenteeism. If the climates within employee’s immediate workplace is one
of low job satisfaction leading to turnover, there will be a contagion effect. Lower job
satisfaction is the best predictor of intent to leave.
o Job embeddedness: the extent to which an employee's connections to the job and
community results in an increased commitment to the organization.
