Organizational behavior lecture notes unit 1 OB

Unit slide text Slide Explain Explain The following management functions can be used to classify the manager’s job Planning means defining an organization’s goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving these goals, and developing comprehensive plans to integrate and coordinate activities Organizing includes determining what tasks must be done, who will them, how the tasks will be grouped, who will report to whom, and where decisions will be made Leading includes motivating and directing employees, and communicating and resolving conflicts Controlling means monitoring performance, comparing results and goals, and making corrections In the 1960s, Henry Mintzberg concluded that managers perform ten roles that can be grouped around three themes: interpersonal relationships, information transfer, and decision making Managers perform three types of interpersonal roles: • Figureheads perform ceremonial or symbolic roles • Leaders train, motivate, and discipline employees • Liaisons contact external information sources Managers perform three types of informational roles: • Monitors collect marketplace information from outside sources • Disseminators transmit information to organizational members • Spokespersons represent their organizations to outsiders Managers perform four types of decisional roles: • Entrepreneurs initiate and oversee new projects to improve organizational performance • Disturbance handlers take action to respond to unforeseen problems • Resource allocators control human, mechanical, and monetary resources • Negotiators bargain with others to gain advantage for their own units Effective managers must exercise the following three essential skills: • • • Technical skills refer to specialized knowledge or expertise Conceptual skills refer to the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations Human skills encompass the ability to work with, understand, and motivate people, both individually and in groups Fred Luthens and his associates studied over 450 managers and found that they all engaged in four managerial activities: Traditional management Decision making, planning, and controlling Communication Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork Human resource management Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training Networking Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations The purpose of investigating these elements is to apply such knowledge toward improving the effectiveness of an organization OB includes the core topics of motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group structure and processes, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, work design, and work stress These need to balance Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built upon contributions from a number of behavioral disciplines Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of individuals The following areas of psychology have contributed to the knowledge base of OB: learning and personality theorists, counseling psychologists, and industrial and organizational psychologists Sociology, the study of people in relation to their fellow human beings, has contributed to OB in the following areas: group dynamics; design of work teams; organizational culture, theory, structure, and technology; and power, communications, and conflict Social psychology blends concepts from psychology and sociology to focus on how people influence one another Social psychologists have made significant contributions in the areas of measuring, understanding, and changing attitudes; communication patterns; the ways in which group activities can satisfy individual needs; and group decisionmaking processes Anthropology is the study of societies to learn more about human beings and their activities Much of our current understanding of organizational cultures and environments, and the differences among national cultures is the result of the work of anthropologists Political science is the study of the behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment Specific topics of concern include structuring of conflict, allocation of power, and how people manipulate power for individual self-interest The global world! The Big D The packages Not necessary Discuss by region Discuss motivation controversy Not necessary Explain In a workplace characterized by cutbacks, intense global competition, and expectations of higher worker productivity, it is not surprising that many employees feel pressured to cut corners, break rules, and engage in other questionable activities So members of organizations are often faced with ethical dilemmas, in which they must define right and wrong conduct But ethical behavior is tough to define, especially when employees can find evidence of unethical behavior at all social and organizational levels Organizations are responding to this problem in a number of ways Writing and distributing codes of ethics to guide employees through ethical dilemmas Offering seminars, workshops, and training to improve ethical behaviors Providing in-house advisers who can assist with ethical issues Creating protection mechanisms for employees who reveal internal practices that are unethical Ask question What is dependant variable Ask question What is independent variable Unit In classical conditioning, an individual responds to some stimulus that would not ordinarily produce such a response This theory grew out of Pavlov’s experiments to teach dogs to salivate in response to the ringing of a bell When Pavlov gave a dog a piece of meat, the dog would salivate The meat was an unconditioned stimulus; the salivation of the dog was the unconditioned response The bell, on the other hand, was a conditioned stimulus that was originally neutral Pavlov paired the bell with the meat, which caused the dog to associate the sound of the bell with being fed Over time, the sound of the bell alone produced a conditioned response by making the dog salivate Classical conditioning is passive Something happens, and we react in a specific way As such, it can explain simple, reflexive behaviors In operant conditioning, desired voluntary behavior leads to a reward or stops a punishment This theory argues that behavior is a function of consequences Operant behavior is learned or voluntary, not reflexive or unlearned B F Skinner argued that creating pleasing consequences to follow specific forms of behavior would increase the frequency of that behavior He said that rewards are most effective if they immediately follow the desired response and that behavior that is not rewarded, or is punished, is less likely to be repeated Social-learning theory proposes that we can learn through observation and direct experience This theory is an extension of operant conditioning and assumes that behavior is a function of its consequences It also acknowledges the role of perception in learning The use of models is central to the social-learning theory, and the following four processes determine how a model will influence an individual: retention, attention, motor reproduction, and reinforcement Shaping behavior involves systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves an individual closer to the desired response There are four ways in which to shape behavior Positive reinforcement is following a response with something pleasant Negative reinforcement is following a response with the termination or withdrawal of something that is unpleasant Punishment is causing an unpleasant condition in an attempt to eliminate an undesirable behavior Extinction is the elimination of any reinforcement that is maintaining behavior A continuous reinforcement schedule reinforces the desired behavior every time it is demonstrated While not every incident of the desired behavior is reinforced in an intermittent schedule, reinforcement is given often enough to reinforce the behavior An intermittent reinforcement can be of a ratio or interval type In ratio schedules, the individual is reinforced after giving a certain number of specific types of behavior Interval schedules depend upon how much time has passed since the last reinforcement In fixed-interval types, rewards are spaced at uniform time intervals In variable-interval types, reinforcements are unpredictable In a fixed-ratio schedule, after a fixed number of 10 responses are given, a reward is initiated When the reward varies relative to the behavior of the individual, he or she is on a variable-ratio schedule Because continuous reinforcement can lead to early satiation, behavior weakens rapidly when reinforcers are withheld Continuous reinforcers are appropriate for newly emitted, unusual, or low-frequency responses Since intermittent reinforcers preclude early satiation, they are appropriate for stable or high-frequency responses In general, variable schedules lead to higher performance than fixed schedules Unit Values represent basic convictions that a “specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.” Milton Rokeach created the Rokeach Value Survey (RVS) which consists of two sets of values: terminal values or desirable end-states of existence and instrumental values, preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving the terminal values The following are some examples of terminal values: a world of peace, a sense of accomplishment, a world of beauty, equality, freedom, and salvation The following are some examples of instrumental values: capable, cheerful, courageous, imaginative, logical, loving, and responsible Several studies confirm that RVS values vary among groups People in the same occupations or categories, such as corporate executives, union members, or community activists, tend to hold similar values The variance in RVS values among such groups is significant because they all have a vested interest in what corporations Workers who grew up influenced by the Great Depression, World War II, U.S leadership in world manufacturing, the Andrews sisters, and the Berlin blockade entered the workforce from the mid-1940s to the late 1950s They believe in the Protestant work ethic Once hired, they tend to be loyal to an employer They are likely to value family security and a comfortable life Employees who entered the workforce from the 1960s to the mid-1970s were influenced by John F Kennedy, the civil rights movement, the Beatles, and the war in Vietnam They brought with them a large measure of the “hippie ethic” and existential philosophy Quality of life is more important to them than money and possessions They value autonomy, freedom, and equality Those who entered the workforce from the mid-1970s through the mid-1980s reflect society’s return to more traditional values but with a greater emphasis on achievement and material success They were influenced by Ronald Reagan conservatism, the defense build-up, dual-career households, and $150,000 starter homes As pragmatists, they believe that the ends can justify the means A sense of accomplishment and social recognition rank high for them The lives of the members of Generation X have been shaped by globalization, the fall of Communism, MTV, AIDS, and computers They value flexibility, life options, job 11 satisfaction, family, and relationships Money is important as an indicator of career performance, but they are less willing to trade off leisure time for increases in salary, titles, security, and promotions One of the most widely referenced approaches for analyzing variations across cultures was done by Geert Hofstede After surveying 116,000 IBM workers in 40 countries, he found that managers and employees differ on the following five value dimensions of national culture: Power distance This is the degree to which people accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally The range is from relatively equal (low power distance) to very unequal (high power distance) Individualism is the degree to which people in a country prefer to act alone rather than as members of groups Collectivism is the equivalent of low individualism Quantity of life is the degree to which people value assertiveness, competition, and the acquisition of money and possessions Quality of life is the degree to which people value relationships and show sensitivity and concern for others Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which people prefer structured over unstructured situations People who score high on uncertainty avoidance have an increased level of anxiety People in long-term orientation countries look to the future and value thrift and persistence A short-term orientation values the past and present and emphasizes respect for tradition and social obligations Most of the concepts that make up the body of knowledge called organizational behavior have been developed by Americans using subjects within domestic contexts Therefore, not all OB concepts and theories are universally applicable to managing in a global context, especially in countries where work values are considerably different from those in the United States So cultural values should be considered when trying to understand behavior Individuals seek consistency Cognitive dissonance occurs when there are inconsistencies between two or more of a person’s attitudes or between a person’s attitudes and behaviors The theory of cognitive dissonance suggests that people try to minimize dissonance and the discomfort it causes Several moderating factors suggest that individuals who are experiencing dissonance will not necessarily move directly toward a reduction of the dissonance (consistency) If the elements creating the dissonance are relatively unimportant, the pressure to correct the imbalance will be low Also, the degree of influence that one has over the elements involved will affect how he or she reacts to dissonance Rewards also influence the degree to which individuals are motivated to reduce dissonance 12 Recent research has demonstrated that attitudes significantly predict future behavior and that the attitude-behavior relationship can be enhanced by taking moderating variables into account Three powerful moderators are the importance, specificity, and accessibility of the attitude In addition, the existence of social pressures and whether a person has direct experience with the attitude are also strong moderators Employee dissatisfaction can be expressed in four types of responses which differ from one another along two dimensions: constructive/destructive and active/passive Exit Behavior directed toward leaving the organization, such as looking for a new position or resigning Voice Actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, such as suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and some forms of union activity Loyalty Passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, such as speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism and trusting the organization and its management to “do the right thing.” Neglect Passively allowing conditions to worsen, such as chronic lateness or absenteeism, reduced effort, and increased error rate 13 ... politicking, and interacting with outsiders Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations The... design, and work stress These need to balance Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built upon contributions from a number of behavioral disciplines Psychology is the science... ethical behavior is tough to define, especially when employees can find evidence of unethical behavior at all social and organizational levels Organizations are responding to this problem in