Robbins & Judge

Organizational Behavior13th Edition

Chapter 5: Perception and Individual Decision Making

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Chapter Objectives• Upon completion of this chapter you will be able to:– Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the

workplace.– Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills.– Define organizational behavior (OB).– Show the value to OB of systematic study.– Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that

contribute to OB.– Demonstrate why there are few absolutes in OB.– Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have

in applying OB concepts.– Compare the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB

model.

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What is Perception?

• A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

• People’s behavior is based on their perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.

• For factors that influence perception – see Exhibit 5-1

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PerceptionPerception

You can see a white vase as figure against a black background, or two black faces in profile on a white background

What do you see?

Now what do you see?

AMBIGUOUS FIGURES

CAN BE SEEN IN DIFFERENT WAYS TO MAKE DIFFERENT IMAGES. BEST KNOWN AMBIGUOUS FIGURE IS “OLD WOMAN/YOUNG WOMAN,” BY E. G. BORING

Müller-Lyer Illusion– The two lines above are the same length, but the

diagonals extending outward from both ends of the lower line make it look longer than the upper line

Attribution Theory: Judging Others– When individuals observe behavior, they attempt to determine

whether it is internally or externally caused.• Internal causes are under that person’s control.• External causes are not – person forced to act in that way.

• Causation judged through:– Distinctiveness

• Shows different behaviors in different situations.– Consensus

• Response is the same as others to same situation.– Consistency

• Responds in the same way over time.

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Errors and Biases in Attributions• Fundamental Attribution Error– The tendency to underestimate the influence of

external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others

– We blame people first, not the situation

• Self-Serving Bias– The tendency for individuals to attribute their own

successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors

– It is “our” success but “their” failure

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Frequently Used Shortcuts in Judging Others

• Selective Perception– People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of

their interests, background, experience, and attitudes.

• Halo Effect– Drawing a general impression about an individual on the

basis of a single characteristic

• Contrast Effects– Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are affected

by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics

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Another Shortcut: Stereotyping

Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs – a prevalent and often useful, if not always accurate, generalization

•Profiling– A form of stereotyping in which members of a

group are singled out for intense scrutiny based on a single, often racial, trait.

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Specific Shortcut Applications in Organizations

• Employment Interviews

• Performance Expectations

• Performance Evaluations

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Decision Making in Organizational Context

• Decision making is the essence of management. It’s what managers do (or try to avoid).

• All managers would like to make good decisions because they’re judged on the outcomes of those decisions.

• Managers at all levels and in all areas of organizations make decisions.

• Top-level managers make decisions about their organization’s goals, where to locate manufacturing facilities, or what new markets to move into.

• Middle and lower-level managers make decisions about production schedules, product quality problems, pay raises, and employee discipline.

Decision Making in Organizational Context

Decision Making

• Decision - making a choice from two or more alternatives.

EX: Friends Get together, Lunch

The Decision Making Process

1. Identifying a problem and decision criteria and allocating weights to the criteria

2. Developing, analyzing, and selecting an alternative that can resolve the problem

3. Implementing the selected alternative

4. Evaluating the decision’s effectiveness

Exhibit 7-1: Decision-Making Process

Step 1: Identifying a Problem

• Problem - an obstacle that makes it difficult to achieve a desired goal or purpose.

Neon Sign

Step 2: Identifying Decision Criteria

• Decision criteria are factors that are important (relevant) to resolving the problem, such as:

• Memory and Storage capabilities, • Display Quality, Battery• life, warranty, and carrying weight are the

relevant criteria in our example.

Step 3: Allocating Weights to the Criteria

• Decision criteria are not of equal importance:– Assigning a weight to each item places the items

in the correct priority order of their importance in the decision-making process.

Exhibit 7-2: Important Decision Criteria

Step 4: Developing Alternatives

• Identifying viable(Workable) alternatives– Alternatives are listed (without evaluation) that

can resolve the problem.

Exhibit 6-3: Possible Alternatives

Step 5: Analyzing Alternatives• Evaluate each alternative’s strengths and

weaknesses.

• Ask others & their Experiences.

• Googling

• Market Search

Step 6: Selecting an Alternative

• Choosing the best alternative– The alternative with the highest total weight is

chosen.

– or the one that generated the highest total in Step 5

Step 7: Implementing the Alternative

• Putting the chosen alternative into action

• put the decision into action by conveying it to those affected and getting their commitment to it.

• We know that if the people who must implement a decision participate in the process, they’re more likely to support it than if you just tell them what to do.

Step 8: Evaluating Decision Effectiveness

• Feedback loop

• The soundness of the decision is judged by its outcomes.– How effectively was the problem resolved by

outcomes resulting from the chosen alternatives?

– If the problem was not resolved, what went wrong?

How Managers Make Decisions• Four Perspective

1: Rational Decision-Making - which is when individuals use analysis, facts and a step-by-step process to come to a decision.

Example: Decision Making Process

• Bounded Rationality - decision making that’s rational, but limited (bounded) by an individual’s ability to process information.

• Bounded rationality is the idea that when individuals make decisions, their rationality is limited by the information they have, the cognitive limitations of their minds, and the time available to make the decision.

• Satisfice - accepting solutions that are “good enough.”

How Managers Make Decisions

• Intuitive decision- making– Making decisions on the basis of experience, feelings, and

accumulated judgment.

– a natural ability or power that makes it possible to know something without any proof or evidence : a feeling that guides a person to act a certain way without fully understanding why

How Managers Make Decisions

Example• Let's see this ability in action. Ali is a manager at the Subway

fast food restaurant. He has noticed that Meat balls are disappearing at a faster rate than the sales. There are some ways that Ali can investigate the missing Meatballs.

• Ali does not have the time in her business managerial schedule to spend a long time investigating the Meatball mystery. He is losing money daily and must fire the individual responsible. He has relied on his intuition in the past, and it has successfully rewarded him into management positions. He uses patterns of behavior, cues and body language.

Example (Cont.)

• For example, Ali has noticed that his newest employee, Imran, has been avoiding him and not making eye contact. He has a gut feeling that he may be his Meatball thief. In addition, he has noticed that he disappears for a very long bathroom break so he surmise that he is eating the meat balls in breaks.

Exhibit 6-6: What Is Intuition?

Evidence-based management (EBMgt)•The systematic use of the best available evidence to improve management practice.

•Example: Suppose a Research says Women can not be a good banker.So banks can make this study evidence for not hiring women.

How Managers Make Decisions

Programmed Decisions vs. Non-programmed Decisions

• Programmed Decision - a repetitive decision that can be handled by a routine approach.

Example: A server spills a drink on a customer’s coat. The customer is upset and the manager needs to do something. Because it’s not an unusual occurrence, there’s probably some standardized routine for handling it. For example, the manager offers to have the coat cleaned at the restaurant’s expense.

• Non-programmed Decisions - unique and nonrecurring decisions that require a custom-made solution.

• In the business world, the makers of the earliest personal computers had to make programmed decisions regarding the type of marketing to use to attract customers who possibly had never used a computer in the past.

• Fast-food companies also had to make an non-programmed decision regarding consumer concerns about high fat contents and lack of healthy menu options.

Programmed Decisions vs. Non-programmed Decisions