Organizational Behavior

Chapter 01
What is Organizational behavior?
 Introduction
• Organizational behavior is the academic study of how
people interact within groups. The principles of the study of
organizational behavior are applied primarily in attempts to
make businesses operate more effectively.

• The study of organizational behavior includes areas of research

dedicated to improving job performance, increasing job
satisfaction, promoting innovation, and encouraging leadership.
Each has its own recommended actions, such as reorganizing
groups, modifying compensation structures, or changing
methods of performance evaluation.
 LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills

in the workplace.
2. Describe the manager’s functions
3. Define organizational behavior (OB).
4. Identify the major behavioral science disciplines
that contribute to OB.
5. Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB.
The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
•Developing managers’ interpersonal skills also helps
organizations attract and keep high-performing
employees.

•Positive social relationships also were associated with

lower stress at work and lower intentions to quit.

•We have come to understand that in today’s

competitive and demanding workplace, managers can’t
succeed in their technical skills alone. They also
have to have good people skills.
LO2: Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills

Manager An individual who achieves goals through other

people.

Managers get things done through other people. They make

decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others
to attain goals. Managers do their work in an organization.
organization 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 Functions
• planning A process that includes defining goals, establishing
strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities.
• 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.
• controlling Monitoring activities to ensure they are being
accomplished as planned and correcting any significant
deviations.
 Management Roles
LO2: Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills

• Management Roles In the late 1960s, Henry Mintzberg, then a

graduate student at MIT, undertook a careful study of five
executives to determine what they did on their jobs. On the
basis of his observations, Mintzberg concluded that managers
perform ten different, highly interrelated roles—or sets of
behaviors.
• these ten roles are primarily
• (1) interpersonal,
• (2) informational, or
• (3) decisional.
 Management Skills
LO2: Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills

•technical skills The ability to apply specialized

knowledge or expertise.

•human skills The ability to work with, understand, and

motivate other people, both individually and in groups.

•conceptual skills The mental ability to analyze and

diagnose complex situations.
 Effective versus Successful Managerial
Activities
LO2: Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills

• Luthans and his associates studied more than 450

managers. All engaged in four managerial activities:
• 1. Traditional management. Decision making,
planning, and controlling.
• 2. Communication. Exchanging routine information and
processing paperwork.
• 3. Human resource management. Motivating, disciplining,
managing conflict, staffing, and training.
• 4. Networking. Socializing, politicking, and interacting with
outsiders.
Effective versus Successful Managerial
Activities
LO2: Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills
LO3: Define organizational behavior ( OB )
•organizational behavior (OB) 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.
• Understanding Human Behavior (two categories of human behavior models)

•The internal perspective looks at workers’ minds

to understand their behavior. It is
psychodynamically oriented and its proponents
understand human behavior in terms of the
thoughts, feelings, past experiences, and needs
of the individual
• Understanding Human Behavior (two categories of human behavior models)

•The external perspective, on the other hand,

focuses on factors outside the person to
understand behavior. People who subscribe to
this view understand human behavior in terms of
the external events, consequences, and
environmental forces to which a person is
subject
Disciplines that contribute to OB
LO4: Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB.
• Psychology seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes
change the behavior of humans and other animals. Those who
have contributed and continue to add to the knowledge of OB
are learning theorists, personality theorists, counseling
psychologists, and, most important, industrial and
organizational psychologists.
• Social psychology, generally considered a branch of
psychology, blends concepts from both psychology and
sociology to focus on peoples’ influence on one another. One
major study area is change— how to implement it and how to
reduce barriers to its acceptance
Disciplines that contribute to OB
.
• Sociology While psychology focuses on the individual, sociology
studies people in relation to their social environment or culture.
Sociologists have contributed to OB through their study of
group behavior in organizations, particularly formal and
complex organizations
• Anthropologyis the study of societies to learn about human beings
and their activities. Anthropologists’ work on cultures and
environments has helped us understand differences in fundamental
values, attitudes, and behavior between people in different
countries and within different organizations
 challenges and opportunities applying OB
LO5: Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB

• Responding to Economic Pressures

• Responding to Globalization
• Increased Foreign Assignments
• Working with People from Different Cultures
• Overseeing Movement of Jobs to Countries with Low-Cost Labor
• Managing Workforce Diversity
• Improving Customer Service
• Improving People Skills
• Stimulating Innovation and Change
•Improving Customer Service
• Many organizations failed because their employees
failed to please customers. Management needs to create a
customer-responsive culture. OB can provide considerable guidance
in helping managers create such cultures—in which employees are
friendly and courteous, accessible, knowledgeable, prompt in
responding to customer needs, and willing to do what’s necessary to
please the customer.
•Stimulating Innovation and Change
• Today’s successful organizations must foster
innovation and master the art of change, or they’ll
become candidates for extinction. Victory will go to
the organizations that maintain their flexibility,
continually improve their quality, and beat their
competition to the marketplace with a constant
stream of innovative products and services.
•Coping with “Temporariness”
• Workers must continually update their knowledge
and skills to perform new job requirements.
Production employees at companies such as
Caterpillar, Ford, and Alcoa now need to operate
computerized production equipment. That was not
part of their job descriptions 20 years ago.