Week 1
Takeaways
Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study of individual and group behaviors within workplaces,
with a focus on applying scientific knowledge to enhance management decisions and reduce
judgment errors. It emphasizes evidence-based management (EBM), which involves using the
best available evidence from scientific literature, practitioners, internal organizational data, and
stakeholder concerns to guide decision-making, systematically evaluate outcomes, and improve
processes. Key topics in OB include personality traits (e.g., the Big Five), person-environment
fit, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and perceived organizational support (POS),
which all influence employee performance, motivation, and well-being, highlighting the
importance of alignment between individuals and their work environment for optimal results.
Core Topics
● Organizational Behavior (OB)
○ Definition: Study of individuals and behaviors in workplaces
■ Interdisciplinary → focus on applied social psychology
○ Focus: Evidence-based management vs. organizational legitimacy
■ Using scientific knowledge as the basis for management decisions
■ Reduces judgement error in decisions making
■ Managers dont do this often enough
■ Organisational legitimicacy: assumption that its actions are desirable,
proper or appropriate based on the widespread belief that they are just
and valid
● Agile-working: independent of place (or time)
○ Science research shows a few benefits
○ People do not like flex spaces → organisations keep using
flex spaces because others do it as well
■ EBM:
● Selecting the best available evidence: extensive study of social
and psychological literature, conversations with employees and
supervisors
, ● Systematic decision-making: group-decision making technique,
decision to make changes in application procedures, installation
works council
● Re-evaluating and adapting: Evaluation through systematic
qualitative study, decision to consolidate or make additional
changes
■ Four kinds of evidence in EBM
● Scientific literature (empirical studies)
● Practicioners (professional expertise)
● Organization (internal data)
● Stakeholders (values and concerns)
○ Hawthorne Effect: Early studies on human behavior in organizations
■ Occurs when a participant's behavior changes as a result of being
observed, rather than as a result of an intervention
● Critical Thinking in Organizations
○ Definition and skills required
■ Logic → rely on reason, weigh evidence
■ Reflection → examine assumptions, recognise biases
■ Dual processing → consider different viewpoints, start over when
necessary
■ Attention to detail → study many sources thorough
■ Decision-making plans → Develop contingency plans
○ Importance in management and decision-making
● Personality and Person-Environment Fit
○ To be or not be born as a leader?
■ Twin study
■ 24% genetic component in predicting leadership role
■ Shared environment is not an important predictor if someone occupies a
leadership role
○ Leadership style
■ Transformational leadership vs transactional
■ Identical twins were more likely to share a leadership style than
non-identical twins
○ Key concepts:
,○ Personality → has been defined as “regularities in feeling, thought and action that
are characteristic of an individual
■ Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and criticisms
● Most administered personality test
○ Introversion (I) vs Extraversion (E)
○ Sensing (S) vs Intuition (I)
○ Thinking (T) vs Feeling (F)
○ Judging (J) vs Perceiving (P)
● Limitation:
○ MBTI assumes dichotomies, instead of continuous traits
○ Whether people are classifiable into the 16 categories is
questionable
○ Judging vs perceiving is new, not based on Jungian theory
○ If you take the test again, you may not get the same result
(test-retest 61%-90% reliability)
○ Claims to expose your (unconcious) ‘true personality type’
based on (conscious) self-reported answers to questions
○ In the extended version MBTI asks users to self-verify their
result and users can pick a different personality type if they
disagree
■ The Big Five Personality Traits
● Better scientific foundation
● 5 dimensions:
○ Conscientiousness
○ Openness to experience
○ Extraversion
○ Agreeableness
○ Neuroticism
● Importance of conscientiousness
○ Conscientiousness → reliable predictor of job performance
○ Conscientiousness, Opennes to experience, Neuroticism,
and Agreeableness predict entrepreneurship
○ Conscientiousness predicts deviant behavior
, ○ Conscientiousness, Extraversion, Openness, and
Agreeableness predict turnover
○ Person-Organization Fit and Person-Job Fit
■ Person-Environment (PE) fit: when an individual’s personality is aligned
with their environment, it results in job satisfaction, organisational
commitment, and better performance on the job
■ PO → match between a person’s individual values and those of the
organisation they work for
● Selection by the organisation as well as the employee
● Results in increased job satisfaction and performance
■ PJ → Job characteristics are aligned with employees’ personality ,
motivations, and abilities, two forms:
○ Demand abilities (DA) fit → what you can and what the job
requires
○ Needs supplies (NS) fit → if the job fulfills your needs for
finding meaning in your work
● Poor fit results in burnout, good fit results in higher salary
● Attitudes and Job Satisfaction
○ Outcome variables OB
■ Performance and productivity
● Quality and quantity of work
■ Motivation
■ Work related attitudes
● Organisational commitment
● Job satisfaction
● Engagement
■ Employee wellbeing
■ Employee withdrawal
○ Components:
■ Definition of attitudes and job satisfaction
● Attitude → psychological tendency expressed by evaluating a
particular entity with some degree of favour or disfavour
● Cognitive (belief about job). Affective (how you feel about your
job), Behavior (intention)
