Summary Behaviour and Communication in Organizations P4
College 1 – Introduction behaviour and communication in organizations
H1 t/m H4
Inhoud college:
A historical perspective of OB (H1)
Scientific Management (H8, p.226)
The internet and social media revolution (H1, p.12)
Diversity (H2)
Defining diversity (H2, p.35)
The positive and negative effects of diverse work environments (H2, p.50)
Organizational culture (H3)
Defining organizational culture (H3, p.62)
Layers of organizational culture (H3, p.63)
International OB (H4)
Understanding cultural differences (H4, p.97)
Expatriates and cultural shock (H4, p.109)
Organization: system of consciously coordinated activities of two or more people.
4 common denominators (H17, p.496):
1. Coordination of effort: achieved by policies, rules, and regulations
2. A common goal
3. Division of labor: individuals perform separate but related tasks to achieve the
common goal
4. Hierarchy of authority: chain of command dedicated to make sure that the right
people do the right things at the right time -> often reflected in an organizational chart.
Organizational behavior (OB): interdisciplinary field dedicated to better understanding and
managing people at work. Both research and application oriented.
➢ 3 basic levels of analysis in OB: individual, group and organizational.
OB indeed draws on knowledge from different disciplines. Including communication science
and organization science. Studied by a lot of different views.
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,But is it really interdisciplinary? Does it analyze, synthesize and harmonize links between
disciplines into a coordinated and coherent whole?
Not really -> In reality it is a hodgepodge of various subjects; a collection of loosely related or
even unrelated streams of scholarly and not-so-scholarly research. It is neither a discipline or
interdisciplinary, perhaps multidisciplinary (Wood in Buchanan & Huczynski, 2008).
A historical perspective of OB
Scientific Management (H8, p.226) –1880-1930-> so discredited that it is not even mentioned
in Chapter 1.
The Human Relations Movement (H1, p.8)–1930-1970
The Quality Movement (H1, p.10)–1980’s
The internet and social media revolution (H1, p.12)–1990’s
Scientific Management
= Creating standards established by facts or truths gained through systematic observation,
experiment, or reasoning to improve organizational efficiency.
➔ Also referred to as “Taylorism”:
- Frederick Taylor (1856- 1915) is seen as founder
- Negative connotation because its association with mass production, the assembly
line, and negative perception of workers -> see McGregor’s Theory X (Human
Relations Movement)
However, some principles of scientific management were groundbreaking:
- Scientific selection and training of people
- Scientific job redesign based on time- motion research
➢ Reducing tasks to basic elements or motions and subsequently redesigning tasks to
reduce the number of elements and motions
The Human Relations Movement
HR movement opened the door to more progressive thinking about human nature. Rather
than continuing to view employees as passive economic beings, managers began to see them
as active social being and took steps to create more humane work environments.
McGregor’s Theory Y and Theory X
Theory X: pessimistic and negative: typical of how managers traditionally perceived
employees.
Theory Y: modern and positive set of assumptions about employees being responsible and
creative.
The Quality Movement
Total quality management: an organizational culture dedicated to training, continuous
improvement, and customer satisfaction. Improving the quality of both goods and services.
The internet and social media revolution
Makes virtual organizations possible
= Organizations where people work (partly) independent of location supported by ICT
Examples:
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, - Teleworking in contact with central office
- Organizations without an office
- “New World of Work” -> based on memo by Bill Gates (Microsoft) in 2005 -> people
work independent of time and location supported by ICT and special office design
- VB: Microsoft Austria.
Not only work from home -> but people can start where they want.
E-business: running the entire business via the internet and managing virtual teams.
➢ Shift user-generated content: empowering for the individual consumer, employee etc.
The need to build human and social capital.
Human capital: the productive potential of one’s knowledge and actions.
Social capital: the productive potential of strong, trusting and cooperative relationships.
21st- century managers
Management: process of working with and through others to achieve organizational
objectives, efficiently and ethically amid constant change.
Contingency approach: using management tools and techniques in a situationally appropriate
manner; avoiding the one-best-way mentality.
Diversity
= Represents the multitude of individual differences and similarities that exist among people.
➢ Based on 4 different layers
1. Personality
2. Internal (surface-level) dimensions
3. External (secondary) dimensions
4. Organizational dimensions
The positive and negative effects of diverse work environments
Two perspectives:
1. Diversity is good for workgroups: Information/Decision-Making Theory
2. Diversity is bad for workgroups: Social Categorization Theory
1. Diversity is good: Information/Decision-Making Theory
Proposes that diverse workgroups should outperform homogenous workgroups because of
more informational diversity.
- Diverse groups are expected to do a better job in earlier phases of problem solving -
because they are more likely to use their diverse background to generate a more
comprehensive view of a problem
- The existence of diverse perspectives can help groups to brainstorm or uncover more novel
alternatives during problem-solving activities
➔ Research on decision making provides evidence for this position.
Diversity is bad for workgroups: Social categorization theory
Proposes that similarities and differences are used as a basis for categorizing self and others
into groups, resulting in group dynamics with negative consequences for workgroups.
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, - Creates “us (ingroup)” vs. “them (outgroup)” mentality
- Linking ingroup members, disliking outgroup members
- Ingroup bias/favoritism and outgroup discrimination
- Conflict between ingroup and outgroup members
➔ Research on group dynamics provides evidence for this position (for example,
research with the so-called minimal group paradigm).
Minimal group paradigm
- Two groups are formed based on an arbitrary criterium for example, preference for painters
- Group members are then asked to divide outcomes among ingroup vs. outgroup member
A process model of diversity
The negative effects of group dynamics are stronger when “fault lines” are more salient
making social categorization more likely.
Fault line
= Hypothetical dividing lines that may split a group into subgroups based on one or more
attributes (i.e., dimensions of diversity)
Managing diversity by cross-categorization and strengthening the overarching identity.
➢ Make fault lines less salient by team composition.
➢ Strengthen the overarching identity of the team.
Social categorization theory: similarity leads to liking and attraction.
Information/ decision-making theory: diversity leads to better task-relevant processes and
decision making.
Diversity climate: employees’ aggregate perceptions about an organizations’ policies,
practices and procedures pertaining to diversity.
Organizational culture
= Set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit assumptions that a group holds and that
determines how it perceives, thinks about and reacts to its various environments
- Passed on to new employees through the process of socialization
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