CHAPTER 1

WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR?

Table of Contents
Interpersonal Skills ........................................................................................................................................ 3
Its Importance ........................................................................................................................................... 3
What Managers Do ....................................................................................................................................... 4
Organizational benefits of skilled managers.............................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Management Functions ............................................................................................................................ 4
Planning................................................................................................................................................. 4
Organizing ............................................................................................................................................. 5
Commanding ......................................................................................................................................... 5
Coordination .......................................................................................... Error! Bookmark not defined.
Controlling............................................................................................................................................. 5
Management Roles ................................................................................................................................... 5
Interpersonal......................................................................................................................................... 5
Informational ........................................................................................................................................ 5
Decisional Role ...................................................................................................................................... 5
Management Skills .................................................................................................................................... 5
Technical Skills ...................................................................................................................................... 6
Human Skills .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Conceptual Skills ................................................................................................................................... 6
Management Activities: ............................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined.
Effective and Successful Managerial Activities ......................................................................................... 6
Defining Organizational Behavior ................................................................................................................. 7
Intuition and study ........................................................................................................................................ 7
Intuition..................................................................................................................................................... 7
Systematic Study ....................................................................................................................................... 7
EBM ........................................................................................................................................................... 8

What is Organizational Behavior? Chapter 1

Four Contributing Disciplines ........................................................................................................................ 8
1.

Psychology ........................................................................................................................................ 8

Unit of Analysis: ............................................................................................................................ 8

Contributions to OB: ..................................................................................................................... 8

2.

Social Psychology .............................................................................................................................. 8

Unit of Analysis: ............................................................................................................................ 8

Contributions to OB: ..................................................................................................................... 8

3.

Sociology ........................................................................................................................................... 9

Unit of Analysis: ............................................................................................................................ 9

Contributions to OB: ..................................................................................................................... 9

4.

Anthropology .................................................................................................................................... 9

Unit of Analysis: ............................................................................................................................ 9

Contributions to OB: ..................................................................................................................... 9

Few Absolutes in OB ................................................................................................................................... 10

Challenges and Opportunities for OB ......................................................................................................... 10
Challenges and Opportunities for OB ......................................................................................................... 10
Responding to Globalization ................................................................................................................... 10
Managing Workforce Diversity ............................................................................................................... 11
Developing an OB Model ............................................................................................................................ 11
Types of Study Variables ............................................................................................................................. 11
Independent (X) ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Dependent (Y) ......................................................................................................................................... 11
Dependent Variables .................................................................................................................................. 12
1.

Productivity ..................................................................................................................................... 12

2.

Absenteeism ................................................................................................................................... 12

3.

Turnover .......................................................................................................................................... 12

4.

Deviant Workplace Behavior .......................................................................................................... 12

5.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB) ..................................................................................... 12

6.

Job Satisfaction ............................................................................................................................... 12

The Independent Variables ......................................................................................................................... 12

1.

Individual......................................................................................................................................... 12
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What is Organizational Behavior? Chapter 1

2.

Group .............................................................................................................................................. 12

3.

Organization System ....................................................................................................................... 12

OB Model ................................................................................................................................................ 13
Questions for Review .................................................................................................................................. 13
1.

What is the importance of interpersonal skills? ............................................................................. 13

2.

What do managers do in terms of functions, roles, and skills? ...................................................... 14

3.

What is organizational behavior (OB)? ........................................................................................... 14

4.

Why is it important to complement intuition with systematic study? ........................................... 14

5.

What are the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB? ................................... 14

6.

Why are there few absolutes in OB? .............................................................................................. 14

7.

What are the challenges and opportunities for managers un using OB concepts? ....................... 15

8.

What are the three levels of analysis in this books OB model?..................................................... 15

Ch#1 - What is Organizational Behavior?

Interpersonal Skills
The skills used by a person to properly interact with others. It generally refers to an employee's
ability to get along with others while getting the job done.
Interpersonal skills include everything from communication and listening skills to attitude and
behavior. Good interpersonal skills are a must for many positions in an organization.

Its Importance

Lower turnover of quality employees

Higher quality applications for recruitment
Better financial performance

"Interpersonal skills" refers to character traits possessed by an individual rather than skills that
can be taught in a classroom.

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What is Organizational Behavior? Chapter 1

Within an organization, employees with good interpersonal skills are likely being more
productive than those with poor interpersonal skills, because of their propensity to project a
positive attitude and look for solutions to problems.
Because nothing is more important to the survival of a company than the relationship between
its workers and its manager, it is of uttermost importance that a business finds a manager who
has the ability to be an excellent communicator, make friends easily, delegate tasks efficiently
and has no trouble making decisions.

What Managers Do
They get things done through other people. A manager has the following duties:

Make decisions
A manager is supposed to take decisions on behalf of an organization. These decisions involve
risks and need experience, intuition and skills to be made.
Allocate resources
Allocating resources can be a high time job; a manger should be capable of maximum utilization
of the current resources to increase efficiency and hence allocation of resources in the right
place is of a lot of significance.
Direct activities of others to attain goals
Manager should be able to assign duties to the individuals in an organization based on their
skills and capacity.

Management Functions
Management has to perform 4 Functions which are discussed below:

Planning
A process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate
activities.

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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.

Commanding
A function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting the most effective
communication channels, and resolving conflicts.

Controlling
Monitoring performance, comparing actual performance with previously set goals, and
correcting any deviation

Management Roles
A manager has a set of goals that are classified under three groups

Interpersonal
1. Figurehead
2. Leader
3. Liaison

Informational
4. Monitor
5. Disseminator
6. Spokesperson

Decisional Role
7. Resource Allocators
8. Negotiator Role
9. Disturbance Handlers

Management Skills
Below listed are some Essential Management Skills
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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 and Successful Managerial Activities

There are four types of managerial activity

Traditional Management
WHAT IS TM>>

1. Decision-making
2. Planning
3. Controlling

Communication
WHAT IS

1. Exchanging routine information

2. Processing paperwork

Human Resource Management

WHAT IS

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1. Motivating
2. Disciplining
3. Managing conflict
4. Staffing
5. Training

Networking
WHAT IS

1. Socializing
2. Politicking
3. interacting with others

Organizational Behavior
Studies impact of
Individual
Structures
Groups
on behavior within organizations to improve effectiveness

Intuition and study

Intuition

Gut feelings

Individual observation

Common sense

Systematic Study

Looks at relationships

Scientific evidence

Predicts behaviors
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The two are complementary means of predicting behavior.

An Outgrowth of Systematic Study

Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

EBM
WHAT IS

Four Contributing Disciplines

Psychology
The science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other
animals.

4. Unit of Analysis:
Individual

5. Contributions to OB:
Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception
Training, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction
Individual decision making, performance appraisal, attitude measurement
Employee selection, work design, and work stress

Social Psychology
An area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that
focuses on the influence of people on one another.
6. Unit of Analysis:
Group

7. Contributions to OB:

Behavioral change

Attitude change

Communication

Group processes

Group decision making

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Sociology
The study of people in relation to their fellow human beings

8. Unit of Analysis:
Organizational System

9. Contributions to OB:

Group dynamics
Work teams
Communication
Power
Conflict
Intergroup behavior
Formal organization theory
Organizational technology
Organizational change
Organizational culture

Anthropology
The study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities

10. Unit of Analysis:

Organizational System
Groups

11. Contributions to OB:

Organizational culture

Organizational environment

Comparative values
Comparative attitudes
Cross-cultural analysis

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Few Absolutes in OB
Situational factors that make the main relationship between two variables changee.g., the
relationship may hold for one condition but not another.

Contingency Variable (Z)

Independent Variable

Dependent Variable (Y)

(X)
In American Culture

Boss Gives Thumbs Up

Understood as

Sign

Complimenting

In Iranian or Australian

Boss Gives Thumbs Up

Understood as Insulting -

Cultures

Sign

Up Yours

Challenges and Opportunities for OB

Responding to Globalization
Managing Workforce Diversity
Improving Quality and Productivity
Improving Customer Service
Improving People Skills
Stimulating Innovation and Change
Coping with Temporariness
Working in Networked Organizations
Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts
Creating a Positive Work Environment
Improving Ethical Behavior

Challenges and Opportunities for OB

Responding to Globalization

Increased foreign assignments

Working with people from different cultures
Coping with anti-capitalism backlash
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Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labor

Managing people during the war on terror

Managing Workforce Diversity

The people in organizations are becoming more heterogeneous demographically (disability, gender, age,
national origin, non-Christian, race, and domestic partners) Exhibit 1-4

Embracing diversity
Changing U.S. demographics
Management philosophy changes
Recognizing and responding to differences

Developing an OB Model
A model is an abstraction of reality: a simplified representation of some real-world
phenomenon.
Our OB model has three levels of analysis:
Each level is constructed on the prior level

Individual
Group
Organizational Systems

Types of Study Variables

Independent (X)
The presumed cause of the change in the dependent variable (Y).
This is the variable that OB researchers manipulate to observe the changes in Y.

Dependent (Y)
This is the response to X (the independent variable).
It is what the OB researchers want to predict or explain.
The interesting variable!
Interesting OB Dependent Variables

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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.

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 (OCB)

Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employees formal job requirements, but that
nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of the organization .

Job Satisfaction
A general attitude (not a behavior) toward ones job; a positive feeling about one's job resulting
from an evaluation of its characteristics.

The Independent Variables

The independent variable (X) can be at any of these three levels in this model:

Individual
Biographical characteristics, personality and emotions, values and attitudes, ability, perception,
motivation, individual learning and individual decision making.

Group
Communication, group decision making, leadership and trust, group structure, conflict, power
and politics, and work teams.

Organization System
Organizational culture, human resource policies and practices, and organizational structure and
design.

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OB Model
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Questions for Review

What is the importance of interpersonal skills?
It is important to practice and improve interpersonal skills because they are the foundation of
building relationships with others. I do not believe there is such a thing as the perfect set of
interpersonal skills. I do believe, however, that everyone can and has the ability to practice to
further develop their skill set. Here are a few tips on how you can improve your skills:
1. Be an active listener- Take the time to listen and show others that youre listening and
understand their perspective-even if it is not in line with yours.
2. Body language- I dont know many people who enjoy being around unhappy individuals
or those who appear to be unhappy in any given moment. Make sure to smile, stand
tall, make eye contact and do your best to give off a good vibe. Your body language
introduces you to those around you before you even open your mouth.
3. Empathize- Try putting yourself in someone elses shoes and understand their
perspective. This will allow you to better respond to their feelings and it will show
them that you care.
4. Humor- It is not all about business. After all, we are all human. Be spontaneous and say
something at an appropriate time that you think will make the other person smile. If
they smile, you know theyre probably working on their interpersonal skills, too.
5. Optimism- Be optimistic, open minded and have an overall positive attitude. Positive
attitudes are contagious to those around you. Everyone knows someone who has a
negative attitude and you definitely do not want to be that guy.

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6. Think on your feet- It is important to be sharp, pick up on, and react to both verbal and
nonverbal cues of others.
7. Be patient- Not everyone processes and understand concepts in the same way. Take
the time to make sure that whoever youre talking to understands what youre saying.
8. Practice, practice, practice- The more interactions you have with others, the more
progress youll make.

What do managers do in terms of functions, roles, and skills?

A MANAGER must think like scientists:

Pose a managerial question

Search for best available evidence

Apply relevant information to case

Managers Should Use All Three Approaches

Intuition is often based on inaccurate information

Faddism is prevalent in management

Systematic study can be time-consuming

What is organizational behavior (OB)?

ANSWER

Why is it important to complement intuition with systematic study?

ANSWER

What are the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB?
ANSWER

Why are there few absolutes in OB?

ANSWER

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What are the challenges and opportunities for managers un using OB

concepts?
ANSWER

What are the three levels of analysis in this books OB model?

ANSWER

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