Chapter 1
Organizational Behavior
What is Organizational behavior?
“Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study of how people think, feel, and behave in an organization and
how their behavior affects the organization’s performance.”
Importance of Interpersonal Skills
Interpersonal skills are the abilities that help a person communicate and interact effectively with other
people.
Better Communication: Interpersonal skills help people express their ideas clearly and understand
others properly.
Strong Relationships: These skills help in building good relationships with colleagues, managers, friends,
and family.
Teamwork Improvement: In organizations, employees must work in teams. Interpersonal skills help
people cooperate and work well together.
Better Leadership: Leaders need strong interpersonal skills to motivate, guide, and manage employees
effectively.
What Managers Do?
Managers are responsible for planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the work in an organization
to achieve its goals.
Management Activities:
Make decisions
Allocate resources
Direct activities of others to attain goals
What is an organization?
An organization is a group of people who work together in a structured way to achieve common goals or
objectives.
Main Functions of Managers:
Planning
Organizing
Leading
Controlling
Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles
Henry Mintzberg discovered ten managerial roles that managers perform in organizations.
Separated into three groups:
Interpersonal
Informational
Decisional
1. Interpersonal roles
These roles involve interaction with other people.
Figurehead: Manager performs ceremonial and symbolic duties.
Leader: Manager guides, motivates, and manages employees.
Liaison: Manager builds relationships and contacts with people inside and outside the organization.
2. Informational Roles
These roles involve collecting and sharing information.
Monitor: Manager gathers information related to the organization.
Disseminator: Manager shares important information with employees.
Spokesperson: Manager represents the organization and gives information to outsiders.
3. Decisional Roles
These roles involve making decisions for the organization.
Entrepreneur: Manager develops new ideas and improvements.
Disturbance Handler: Manager solves problems and conflicts.
Resource Allocator: Manager decides how to use resources like money, time, and staff.
Negotiator: Manager negotiates with other people or organizations.
Essential Management Skills
Managers need different skills to manage employees and achieve organizational goals effectively.
1. Technical Skills: The ability to use knowledge, tools, and techniques related to a specific job.
2. Human Skills: The ability to work, communicate, and interact effectively with other people.
3. Conceptual Skills: The ability to understand complex situations and see the organization as a whole.
Luthans' Study of Managerial Activities
Four types of managerial activity:
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 others.
Organizational Behavior: “Organizational Behavior (OB) is the study of how people think, feel, and
behave in an organization and how their behavior affects the organization’s performance.”
Contributing Disciplines
Many behavioral sciences have contributed to the development of Organizational.
Psychology
Social Psychology
Sociology
Anthropology
1. Psychology
Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans
and other animals.
Unit of Analysis
Individual: Psychology mainly focuses on understanding the behavior of a single person.
Contributions to OB:
Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception
Training, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction
Employee selection, work design, and work stress
2. Social Psychology
Social psychology is the study of how people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are influenced by the
presence of others.
Unit of Analysis
Group: Social psychology studies the behavior of people in groups or social settings, rather than just
individuals.
Contributions to OB:
Behavioral change
Attitude change
Communication
Group decision making
3. Sociology
Sociology is the study of people in relation to their fellow human beings.
Unit of Analysis
Organizational System: Sociology focuses on how people interact within organizations, groups, and
social systems.
Contributions to OВ:
Group dynamics
Work teams
Communication
Formal organization theory
Organizational technology
Organizational change
Organizational culture
4. Anthropology
Anthropology is the scientific study of humans — their origins, development, behavior, cultures, and
societies, both past and present.
Unit of Analysis:
Organizational System (how people behave and interact within organizations)
Contributions to OB:
Organizational culture
Organizational environment
Comparative values
Comparative attitudes
Challenges and Opportunities for OB
Responding to Economic Pressures
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
Responding to Economic Pressures
Economic pressure means when businesses face financial problems or difficult economic conditions.
Sometimes managers have to do difficult tasks, such as:
Reducing employees (firing workers) when the company cannot afford many workers.
Motivating employees to work harder.
Helping employees deal with stress, because many workers worry about their jobs and future.
Organizational Behavior (OB) helps managers understand:
Employee stress
How to make good decisions
How people cope with difficult situations
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
Workforce diversity means employees in an organization are different from each other. They may have
different age, gender, culture, religion, education, or background.
Managing workforce diversity means treating all employees fairly and respecting their differences.
Managers must:
Respect different cultures and ideas
Treat everyone equally
Create a friendly and fair work environment
Use the different skills and ideas of employees for better results
Developing an OB Model
Developing an OB model means creating a simple system to study and explain employees’ behavior at
work.
An OB model usually studies three main things:
Organizational system level
Group level
Individual level
Types of Study variables
Independent Variable (IV): The factor you change on purpose in a study to see its effect.
Dependent Variable (DV): The factor that changes as a result of the independent variable.
Interesting OB Dependent Variables
Productivity
It means doing work in the best and cheapest way.
It includes effectiveness (achieving goals) and efficiency (achieving goals with low cost).
Absenteeism
It means not coming to work without good reason.
It creates big problems and costs for employers.
Turnover
It means employees leaving the organization.
It can be voluntary (by choice) or involuntary (fired or forced to leave).
Deviant Workplace Behavior
It means bad behavior that breaks workplace rules.
It can harm the organization or other employees.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
It means doing extra work that is not part of the job.
It helps the organization run better.
Job Satisfaction
It means how happy a person feels about their job.
It is a feeling based on how they see their job and its features.
Independent Variables
Independent variables are the factors that affect behavior and results in an organization.
They can be at three levels:
1. Individual Level
These are things related to a single person.
Examples:
Personal details (age, gender, etc.)
Personality and emotions
Values and attitudes
Ability and skills
Learning and decision making
2. Group Level
These are things that happen when people work in groups.
Examples:
Communication between members
Group decision making
Leadership and trust
Group structure (roles and positions)
Teamwork
3. Organizational System Level
These are factors related to the whole organization.
Examples:
Organizational culture (values and environment of the workplace)
HR policies and practices (rules, hiring, training, etc.)
Organizational structure and design (how work is arranged)