INTRODUCTION

There are many definitions of Organizational Behavior (OB). In order to develop

a personal operating definition of OB, I read several definitions to help form a
framework of what OB means to me. The definitions I read ranged from the
very complex to the very simple. Along with many OB definitions, there are also
many different types of research. Mole noted four assumptions that are used in
all OB research (2002).

1. Behavior is predictable
2. Behavior is caused
3. Behavior has many causes
4. Generalities can be made

Personal Operational Definition

With the above assumptions, as well as the concept that OB is a
combination of different fields of behavioral sciences, I developed the
following operational definition of OB. The study of Organizational Behavior
is to observe, analyze and learn, what variables influence individual
behavior, at both the individual and group levels, and understand how it
affects the behavior of the organization.

I will use this operating definition in my organization as we plan to make a

major software change. The process is underway to replace the maintenance
software system with an updated software so that a purchasing package can
be procured that will integrate the two. By observing the behavior of the
employees, I will be able to better understand the cause of their resistance
to change. I will recommend a cross functional team to address all the
concerns and determine what features of the old software are important and
should be included in the new purchase. Through this group, I will be able
to learn what are the variables that are behind their behavior, and share
with them those of the procurement department. In the end we should be
able to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution.

The Importance of Organizational Behavior

OB is important because it focuses on the most important aspect of an
organization, the individual person. Management must understand and be
able to predict individual behavior in order to identify ways to change the
cause of the behavior, and therefore change the behavior itself. (Dordrecht,
Nijhof, & Riedijk, 1997) This would apply to situations where an individual,
or a group's behavior requires change, or if the organization as a whole
needs to change.

Behavior is more predicable when certain rules, both formal and informal
are in place, because they provide a guide for people to follow. For example,
if the rule is that everyone begins work at 8:00 a.m. or else pay is docked,
 then one can reasonably predict that individuals will begin work on time. If
on the other hand, no rule existed as to the start time, employees would
come in at any time and the organization would be less effective. The
performance of the organization could become inconsistent and
unpredictable. In order to predict the actions and success of the
organization it is important to be able to predict the actions of the
individuals.

Life without OB
Imagine working in an organization that does not apply OB techniques. The
employees are unmotivated, but management does not know why.
Production drops because the employees work only as individuals, not as a
team. Skill assessments are not conducted, as a result employees are
mismatched with the tasks they are assigned.

Management needs to care about how employees feel about their jobs and
their work environment. The employee's attitudes help create the corporate
culture. The more effective employees are the more effective the
organization, so attention needs to be paid to the individual.

The Power of OB
One of the tools for analyzing behavior is the Antecedent-Behavior-
Consequence (ABC) analysis. Dordrecht, Nijhof, & Rietdijk, explain this tool.
Their research focused on ethical behavior, it can be used for other areas of
concern.

An antecedent prompts a behavior which is followed by a consequence.

Behavior therefore is a function of antecedents that precede it and
consequences that follow it. We need to understand the way these elements
interact in order to analyze ethical problems, take corrective actions, and
design work environments and management systems in which ethical
behavior will occur.

This summarizes what the benefits of OB are. Practicing OB techniques will

only strengthen the organization. It does require time and effort on the part
of management, even more so in times of change, but the organization will
receive long term benefits, not short term fixes.
Research suggests that personal power is more effective than formal power.
Personal power can be further broken down into two categories, expertise and
the respect and admiration of others. Expert power occurs when an individual
has the ability to influence others as a result of expertise, special skills or
knowledge. Referent power is based on identification with a person with
desirable resources or personal traits.
Formal power can be in the form of coercive power, reward power and
legitimate power. Coercive power is based on fear of the negative results from
failing to comply. Coercive power is effective through uses such as threat of
infliction of pain or frustration through restriction of movement. Reward power
is the opposite of coercive power; it is based on the idea that compliance
produces positive and valuable benefits. Legitimate power is one of the most
common powers, it involves the authority to control and use organizational
resources because of structural position in the organization.
Conflict is the “process that begins when one party perceives that another
party has negatively affected, or is about to negatively affect, something that
the first party cares about” (Robbins & Judge, 2011 p. 454). Conflict can
generate both positive and negative influences on an organization.
Communication, structure and personal variables are three potential sources
of conflict within an organization.
Individuals have the tendency to communicate in very different ways.
Variations in communication can be influenced by personality, past
experiences, and culture. Communication is vulnerable to misunderstandings
and misinterpretations. What one person is communicating is not always what
another is receiving.
Organizational structure as a potential source of conflict is based on variables
such as size, degree of specialization in tasks assigned, and jurisdictional
clarity. Also included in organization structure conflicts are member-goal
compatibility, leadership styles, reward systems and the degree of dependence
between groups. The last category of potential sources of conflict is concerning
personal variables including, personality, emotions, and values.
Conflicts within an organization can be handled by a myriad of techniques
including problem solving, super ordinate goals, and expansion of resources,
authoritative command, and altering human the variable. Problem solving
technique of conflict resolution involves a face-to-face meeting of the conflicting
parties. During the meeting, the problem is identified and resolved through an
open discussion.
Creating a shared goal that can’t be accomplished without the cooperation of
the conflicting parties is the conflict resolution technique of super-ordinate
goals. Expansion of resources involves a conflict caused by the scarcity of a
resource such as money, opportunities, or office space. This resolution
technique attempts to create a win-win solution of both parties. Authoritative
command technique occurs when management uses formal authority to resolve
conflict and communicates the desires to the parties involved. Altering the
human variable technique for conflict-resolution is the use of behavioral
change techniques, such as human relations training, to alter attitudes and
behavior that cause conflict.
Effective leadership and management are important for the success of meeting
organizational goals. Managers and leaders within an organization have to
understand and use power in a way that’s suitable for the organization. When
conflicts arise, organizations, specifically their leaders need to have the skills to
identify conflicts and address those conflicts using an appropriate conflict
resolution technique.

Robbins, S. P., & Judge, T. A. (2011). Organizational Behavior (14th ed). Upper
Saddle River,
NJ: Prentice Hall.
Organizational Behavior:
The term organizational Behavior consists of two words, a. organization, b.
behavior which gives the idea that the behavior is performed in organization is
organizational Behavior. Behavior can be showed as the following a function of
organism and Environment.
B = f (O, E)
Behavior = f (organism, Environment)
Organizational Behavior can be defined as the understanding, predicting, and
management of human behavior in organizations.
The relationship of Organizational Behavior to other discipline:
There are four closely related discipline in an organization those are a.
Organizational Theory (OT), b. Organizational Behavior (OB), c. Organizational
Development (OD), and d. Human Resource Management (HRM)
Introduction
Organizational behavior is the study of how organizations can be structured
more effectively, and how events in outside situations effect organizations.
Learning about organizational behavior in today’s business environment could
help managers build up a better work related understanding of themselves and
their subsidiary.
Within the past four chapters I am starting to understand why Organizational
Behavior is so important to becoming a manager. Understanding the culture
and environment where one works or lives is essential in understanding how to
manage people effectively. In today’s business world we are all connected;
people in the United States work with people in India or China. We need to
understand how different countries and people operate in order to effectively
relate and communicate ideas and procedures as a manager.
The following sections will include examples and concepts learned from the
first four chapters of our Organizational Behavior book by Mr. Kreitner and Mr.
Kinicki. The activities in class not only helped me to see the concepts come to
life but to see how they are applied to an actual business world.
Chapter One: The Quest for a People-centered Organization and Ethical
Conduct
Chapter one had nine different learning outcomes that needed to be fulfilled.
This first chapter revealed the very basic definition and understanding of
organizational behavior and how businesses need to change their mind set to
include the emotions and culture of people. This chapter also goes over social
responsible companies, as well as, ethical behavior that is important to
remember in business dealings.
Organizational Behavior Problem Analysis
Critical Analysis
Good ethical behavior continues to be an issue that employees and leaders are
faced with. Competition, cutbacks, and productivity are leading causes of why
members of organizations feel pressured to take shortcuts, break the rules, and
use other forms of questionable methods (Robbins & Judge, 2009). The
ethical issues are prevalent in many organizations and range from a variety of
unethical practices such as: officials padding their own bank accounts,
engagement in bribes, inflation of profits to increase and cash in stock options,
to name a few. The excuses provided for these unethical behaviors are
“everyone does it” or “you have to seize ever advantage nowadays” (p. 26).
Unethical actions can lead to decrease in employee morale, lack of trust,
employees mimicking the same unethical behaviors, loss of productivity and
employee turn-over. With these types of attitudes, it has become increasingly
more difficult for managers to create ethical climates for employees.
For these reasons, this paper seeks examines how ethical leader behaviors
manifest in employee behavior and affect the organization.

Rational For Topic

The increase of unethical behaviors has led to leaders’ implementation of
creating ethically healthy climates with the use of ethical codes, guides to
assist employees with faced with dilemmas, and training. Personal
achievement, in many cases, seems to overpower ethical behavior leaving
companies with a lack of stewardship over leaders. Ethical motivation is on
the decline, leaving employees questioning what the benefits of doing the right
thing are. The role of leaders is more than just a role to promote ethical
employee behavior, it is now a role of creating employee perceptions of leaders’
behavior to determine employee outcome or, in simpler terms, to create a link
between leadership behaviors and individual trust and commitment to the
organization.
Term Paper on Organizational Behavior

Wednesday, Sep. 22nd 2010

Understanding organizational behavior is a vital step for generating cooperative
and encouraging environment within an organization. By creating awareness
regarding organizational behavior, leadership and management can easily reap
benefits of team work. Employees after understanding what actually
organizational behavior is can easily realize their responsibilities and can
significantly contribute for the best environment of the company. This term
paper on organizational behavior, focus on impacts of organizational behavior
on company’s growth and development.
Progress of a company completely depends upon employees, leadership and
management. If the organizational behavior is not good the three pillars of an
organization cannot fully sustain the work load. Organizational behavior really
matters a lot in learning process of employees. Companies having motivating
organizational behavior usually have enormous growth. Organizational
behavior is the study of individuals and groups in an organization and their
reactions in various situations. It is an established fact that encouraging
organizational behavior makes learning process more convenient for employees.
Nowadays there is a really vital evolution ion the structures of companies.
The prime objective of this term paper on organizational behavior is to create
awareness regarding behaviors and responses exhibited by various groups and
individuals in a company. Most of the successful companies usually try to
promote culture of love, understanding, respect, encouragement and immense
support for their employees. In this era conventional style of hierarchical
organization is completely eliminated from the society. The main drawback of
this style is that the true potential of employees gets concealed under the
dominating personalities of supervisors and managers.
The result is that most of the deserving employees do not get incentive of their
hard work. Organizations by promoting health organizational behavior can help
their employees to be more productive. Employees due to supporting
organizational behavior start to work diligently and sincerely. Company can
rely on staff for discussions and ideas. As a result companies having good
organizational behavior have a broad horizon of ideas and thoughts for their
best interest.
Good organizations plays significant role in increasing the progress pace of
organization for achieving common goals.