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Chapter 1
What is Organizational Behavior?
MRS. Shefa El Sagga.
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Learning Objectives
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.9/2/2011 OB9/2/2011 OB
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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
What is interpersonal skills?.
Understanding OB helps determine manager effectiveness.1. Technical and quantitative skills are important. 2. But leadership and communication skills are CRITICAL.
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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
Why it is needed?.
Organizational benefits of skilled managers.1. Lower turnover of quality employees.2. Higher quality applications for recruitment.3. Better financial performance.
It is very important but not enough … why?.
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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
It is very important but not enough … why?.
1. International business and global Economy. Organization in the global area, Multinational corporations, High
technology, Culture and its impact.2. Trends toward diversity.
Participation of women, Racial differences, Childcare places, Elderly and relatives places, Welfare programs.
3. Flexible, new working arrangements Flexible programs, Compress workweeks, Job sharing, Voluntary
reduced work time, Telecommuting flex-place.4. New organizational forms creates by technology
Leaner organizations, Outsourcing, Downsizing, Virtual corporation5. The quality revolution
TQM, Customer satisfaction.6. Corporate social responsibility(the ethical organization).
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We must act in Organizational behavior.
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What Managers Do?.
Manager
Organization
They get things done through other people.
A consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.
Management Activities:1. Make decisions2. Allocate resources3. Direct activities of others to attain goals9/2/2011 OB9/2/2011 OB
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What Managers Do?.
Planning: A process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities.As managers advance, they do this function more often.
Organizing:
Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.
Leading: A function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.It is about PEOPLE!
Controlling:Monitoring performance, comparing actual performance with previously set goals, and correcting any deviation.
Management Functions:
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Interpersonal Roles
Informational Roles
Decisional Roles
Figurehead Leader Liason
Monitor Disseminator Spokesperson
EntrepreneurDisturbance
HandlerResource Allocator
Negotiator9/2/2011 OB9/2/2011 OB
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Interpersonal Roles:
Figurehead: symbolic head; requires to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or social nature.
Leader: responsible for the motivation and direction of employees.
Liaison: maintains a network of outside contacts who provide favors and information.
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Informational Roles:
Monitor: receives wide variety of information; serves as nerves center of internal and external information of the organization.
Disseminator: transmits information received from outsiders or from other employees to members of the organization.
Spokesperson: transmits information to outsiders on organizations plans, policies, actions, and results; serves as expert on organizations industry.
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What Managers Do?
Management Roles
Decisional Roles
Entrepreneur: searches organization and its environment for opportunities and initiates projects to bring about change.
Disturbance Handler: responsible for corrective action when organization faces important, unexpected disturbances.
Resource Allocator: makes or approves significant organizational decisions.
Negotiator: responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations.
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What Managers Do?
Management Skills
Technical Skills
Human Skills
Conceptual Skills
The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise
The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups
The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations
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What Managers Do?
Management Skills
Technical Skills Human Skills
Conceptual SkillsDecision-Making ,
Time Management Skills
Top Managers
Middle Managers
First Line Managers
Conceptual Skills Decision-Making ,Time Management Skills
Technical Skills Human Skills
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What Managers Do?
Effective Versus Successful Managerial Activities
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What Managers Do?
Effective Versus Successful Managerial Activities.
Traditional management:Decision making, planning, and controlling.
CommunicationsExchanging routine information and processing paperwork.
Human resource managementMotivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training.
NetworkingSocializing, politicking, and interacting with others.
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Enter Organizational Behavior
A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.
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Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study
Systematic Study
Evidence Based Management
Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.
Basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence.
Intuition A gut feeling not necessarily supported by research.
The three are complementary means of predicting behavior.
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Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study
Managers Should Use All Three Approaches.
The trick is to know when to go.
Intuition is often based on inaccurate information.
Evidence is prevalent in management.
Systematic study can be time-consuming.
Use evidence as much as possible to inform your intuition and experience. That is the promise of OB.
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Disciplines that Contribute to the OB Field
Psychology
Social Psychology
The science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals.
Unit of Analysis:Individual
Contributions to OB:1.Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception.2.Training, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction.3.Individual decision making, performance appraisal attitude measurement.4.Employee selection, work design, and work stress.
An area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another.
Unit of Analysis:Group
Contributions to OB:1.Behavioral change.2.Attitude change.3.Communication.4.Group processes.5.Group decision making.
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Disciplines that Contribute to the OB Field
Sociology
Anthropology
The study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.
Unit of Analysis:-- Organizational System.
Contributions to OB:Organizational culture.Organizational environment.
The study of people in relation to their social environment or culture.
Unit of Analysis:-- Organizational System.
Contributions to OB:Formal organization theory.Organizational technology.Organizational change.Organizational culture.
Group dynamics.Work teams.Communication.Power.Conflict.Intergroup behavior.
-- Group
-- Group
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Comparative values.Comparative attitudes.Cross-cultural analysis.
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There are Few Absolutes in OB
Why there are few absolutes in OB?
Because of situational factors that make the main relationship between two variables change … e.g., the relationship may hold for one condition but not
another.
Contingency Variables
Situational FactorsVariable that moderate the relationship between two or more other variables
ContingencyContingencyVariablesVariables
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Challenges and Opportunities for OB
1 Responding to Globalization.
2 Managing Workforce Diversity.
3 Improving Quality and Productivity.
4 Improving Customer Service.
5 Improving People Skills.
6 Stimulating Innovation and Change.
7 Coping with “Temporariness”.
8 Working in Networked Organizations.
9 Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts.
10 Creating a Positive Work Environment.
11 Improving Ethical Behavior.9/2/2011 OB9/2/2011 OB
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
A model
Abstraction of reality, or a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon.Our OB model has three levels of analysis.
Each level is constructed on the prior level.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Independent Variables (X) The Dependent Variables (Y)
1. The presumed cause of the change in the dependent variable (Y).
2. This is the variable that OB researchers manipulate to observe the changes in Y.
1. This is the response to X (the independent variable).
2. It is what the OB researchers want to predict or explain.
3. The interesting variable!.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Dependent Variables The Independent Variables
Productivity
Absenteeism
Individual – Level Variables
Organization System – Level Variables
Turnover
Deviant Workplace Behavior
Organizational Citizenship Behavior
Job Satisfaction
Group – Level Variables
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Dependent Variables
Productivity:Transforming inputs to outputs at lowest cost. Includes the concepts of effectiveness (achievement of goals) and efficiency (meeting goals at a low cost).
Absenteeism:Failure to report to work – a huge cost to employers.
Turnover:Voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Dependent Variables
Deviant Workplace Behavior:Voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and thereby threatens the well-being of the organization and/or any of its members.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior:Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, but that nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of the organization.
Job Satisfaction:A general attitude (not a behavior) toward one’s job; a positive feeling of one's job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.9/2/2011 OB9/2/2011 OB
The Independent VariablesThe Independent Variables
IndependentIndependentVariablesVariables
IndependentIndependentVariablesVariables
Individual-Level Individual-Level VariablesVariables
Individual-Level Individual-Level VariablesVariables
OrganizationOrganizationSystem-LevelSystem-Level
VariablesVariables
OrganizationOrganizationSystem-LevelSystem-Level
VariablesVariables
Group-LevelGroup-LevelVariablesVariables
Group-LevelGroup-LevelVariablesVariables
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The presumed cause of some change in the dependent variable.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
The Independent Variables
Individual – Level Variables:Biographical characteristics, personality and emotions, values and attitudes, ability, perception, motivation, individual learning and individual decision making.
Organization System – Level Variables:Organizational culture, human resource policies and practices, and organizational structure and design.
Group – Level Variables:Communication, group decision making, leadership and trust, group structure, conflict, power and politics, and work teams.
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Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model
Toward A contingency OB Model
Independent Variables (X)
Dependent Variables (Y)
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