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Organizational Behavior (OB) is a field of study that examines how individuals, groups, and
structures influence behavior within organizations, with the goal of applying this knowledge
to improve an organization's overall effectiveness. Understanding OB is crucial for
workplaces because better interpersonal skills and high-quality relationships lead to improved
financial performance, lower employee turnover, and higher job satisfaction.
The Role and Skills of a Manager Managers are individuals who achieve goals by working
through other people, and their core functions include planning, organizing, leading, and
controlling. According to Mintzberg, managerial roles fall into three main categories:
interpersonal (such as acting as a figurehead or leader), informational (such as monitoring and
disseminating information), and decisional (such as allocating resources, negotiating, and
handling unexpected disturbances). To succeed, managers must develop technical skills
(specialized knowledge), people skills (understanding and motivating others), and conceptual
skills (the mental ability to diagnose complex situations). Interestingly, research shows that
"successful" managers who get promoted quickly spend most of their time networking,
whereas "effective" managers who achieve the best organizational results focus primarily on
communication.
Systematic Study and Behavioral Sciences Rather than relying exclusively on intuition or
"gut feelings," OB encourages the systematic study of behavior and Evidence-Based
Management (EBM) to make informed, predictable decisions. This increasingly includes
utilizing Big Data to predict events, manage risks, and understand employees. As an applied
behavioral science, OB draws from several disciplines: psychology (focusing on the
individual), social psychology and sociology (focusing on group dynamics and social
environments), and anthropology (focusing on broad organizational systems and cross-
cultural values). Because human behavior is highly complex, OB relies on contingency
variables—meaning there are few absolute, universal rules, and outcomes often depend
heavily on specific situational factors.
Modern Challenges and Opportunities Today's managers use OB concepts to navigate
numerous contemporary workplace challenges. Key focus areas include:
• Diversity and Globalization: Managing workforce diversity and inclusion, and
working with people from different cultures or on expatriate assignments.
• Technology: Adapting to social media use at work, managing the "always-on" culture
of virtual workplaces, and helping employees achieve work-life balance.
• Ethics and CSR: Fostering ethical behavior and practicing Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) by focusing on the "triple bottom line" of people, planet, and
revenue.
• New Work Models: Creating a positive work environment based on employee
strengths, adapting to autonomous workers in the Gig Economy, and managing
organizational crises effectively.
The OB Model The study of OB is structured around three levels of analysis: the Individual,
the Group, and the Organization. The basic OB model operates through three main stages:
1. Inputs: The initial variables that lead to processes, such as individual personality,
group roles, and organizational culture.
2. Processes: The actions resulting from inputs, such as individual motivation, group
communication, and organizational human resource practices.
3. Outcomes: The key variables the organization wants to explain or predict. At the
individual level, this includes attitudes, stress, job performance, withdrawal behavior,
and Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)—which is discretionary behavior that
contributes to the social environment. Ultimately, these lead to group team
performance and organizational productivity and survival.
By studying OB, individuals develop essential employability skills like critical thinking,
collaboration, and self-management, while managers learn to evaluate their intuition critically,
apply evidence-based solutions, and improve their people skills to build a highly productive
and positive work environment.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in Organizations This chapter focuses on
understanding workplace diversity, the negative impacts of prejudice and discrimination, the
psychological theories behind bias, and how organizations can effectively manage diverse
teams and cross-cultural dynamics.
Understanding Levels of Diversity Diversity in the workplace is generally categorized into
two main forms:
• Surface-level diversity: These are easily observable, biographical characteristics such
as age, race, ethnicity, and gender identity. These visible differences can lead to
systemic issues like the gender pay gap, the "glass ceiling," and the "glass cliff".
• Deep-level diversity: These are less visible differences that become apparent over
time as people get to know each other, such as an individual's values, personality, and
work preferences.
Prejudice and Discrimination Prejudice refers to broad, generalized attitudes and feelings
that maintain a hierarchy between groups. When a prejudice is hidden outside of conscious
awareness, it is known as implicit bias. Discrimination occurs when these prejudices turn into
actions that reinforce one group's advantage over another. This can happen through disparate
treatment (intentional discrimination) or disparate impact (unintentional discriminatory effects
of a policy). In the workplace, discrimination takes many harmful forms, including sexual
harassment, intimidation, mockery, exclusion from opportunities, and everyday incivility.
Theories Behind Diversity and Bias People naturally use social categorization to make
sense of the world, dividing people into "ingroups" and "outgroups". This often leads to
stereotyping, which can trigger "stereotype threat"—a situation where employees are overly
concerned with being judged negatively based on a stereotype. The text also explains several
deeper theories and concepts regarding how identity and bias operate:
• Stigma: This represents attributes that are not readily visible and can be concealed,
but which convey an identity that is devalued in certain social contexts.
• System Justification Theory: This theory suggests that group members often accept,
rationalize, legitimize, or justify their own experiences with inequality, prejudice, and
discrimination compared to other groups.
• Social Dominance Theory: This theory proposes that prejudice and discrimination
are based on a complex social hierarchy, where one dominating group enjoys
privileges that are not afforded to the subordinate group.
• Intersectionality: This is the idea that multiple identities interact to form different
meanings and experiences, sometimes causing "double jeopardy" for individuals
belonging to multiple marginalized groups.
Diversity Dynamics and Faultlines When building diverse teams, managers must consider
how group composition affects dynamics. A major side effect in diverse teams is the
emergence of fault lines. Fault lines are perceived divisions that split a group into two or
more subgroups based on individual differences such as sex, race, age, work experience,
language, and education, which can disrupt team cohesion.
Cross-Cultural Organizational Behavior To manage global diversity, organizations rely on
frameworks like Hofstede’s and the GLOBE framework. These models compare cultural
values across dimensions such as power distance (acceptance of unequal power),
individualism versus collectivism, and uncertainty avoidance. To succeed internationally,
workers must develop Cultural Intelligence (CQ), which is the ability to function effectively
in culturally diverse settings, and organizations must properly support expatriate adjustment.
Implementing Diversity Management Effective diversity management requires evidence-
based strategies that leverage the workforce's differences, relying on three distinct pillars:
• Diversity: Celebrating rather than denigrating differences.
• Equity: Striving to provide equal access to opportunities by recognizing that some
workers face unique barriers and obstacles while others have privileges.
• Inclusion: Creating a welcoming environment where all people feel valued and
included.
Organizations can promote these by focusing on what unites workers (common ingroup
identity) and encouraging positive interactions among diverse backgrounds (contact
hypothesis). Best practices include targeted diversity recruitment, tailored DEI training, and
promoting equity through clear policies.
Implications for Managers Managers play a critical role in assessing their own personal
biases and rooting out both overt and subtle discriminatory practices. Instead of relying on
readily observable traits, managers should focus on individuals' true capabilities. By
understanding cross-cultural norms and implementing evidence-based diversity initiatives,
leaders can build a positive "diversity climate"—a workplace where employees feel safe
contributing as their authentic selves. However, managers must ensure these efforts are
authentic, as superficial gestures like "tokenism" can be highly detrimental to the
organization.
Job Attitudes and Their Components Attitudes are evaluative statements or judgments—
either favorable or unfavorable—about objects, people, or events that reflect how we feel
about something. An attitude is made up of three closely related components:
• Cognitive (Evaluation): The belief or evaluation aspect, such as thinking a supervisor
is unfair.
• Affective (Feeling): The emotional segment, such as disliking the supervisor.
• Behavioral (Action): The intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or
something, such as looking for a new job or complaining.
The Relationship Between Attitudes and Behavior Generally, the attitudes people hold
determine what they do, as individuals naturally seek consistency among their different
attitudes and between their attitudes and behaviors. When there is an incompatibility between
two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes, it creates "cognitive dissonance".
The relationship between attitude and behavior is moderated by variables such as the attitude's
importance, its accessibility, its correspondence to a specific behavior, the presence of social
pressures, and whether the person has direct personal experience with the attitude. The
relationship is much stronger when the attitude is based on direct personal experience.
Major Job Attitudes The text identifies several distinct but highly overlapping job attitudes:
• Organizational Identification: The extent to which employees (and even gig
workers) define themselves by the characteristics of their organization.
• Job Satisfaction: A positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its
specific characteristics.
• Job Involvement & Psychological Empowerment: Job involvement is how much a
person identifies with their job, participates in it, and ties their self-worth to their
performance. Psychological empowerment is an employee's belief in their autonomy,
competence, job meaningfulness, and influence over their work.
• Organizational Commitment: Identifying with a particular organization and its goals
while wishing to maintain membership. Highly committed employees display a sense
of organizational loyalty and are less likely to withdraw from work, even if
dissatisfied.
• Perceived Organizational Support (POS): The degree to which employees believe
the organization cares about their well-being and values their contribution. This is
boosted by fair rewards, inclusive decision-making, and supportive supervisors, and is
particularly important in countries with lower power distance.
• Employee Engagement: An individual’s deep involvement, satisfaction, and
enthusiasm for their work.
• Gig Economy Attitudes: In modern work setups, job attitudes are influenced by
assignment characteristics, work stability, and the workers themselves.
Understanding Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction can be measured using two popular
approaches: a single global rating or the summation of multiple job facets. Research shows
that employees in the United States and most developed countries are generally satisfied with
their jobs, though satisfaction varies by economic conditions, race, culture, and the specific
job facet being evaluated.
The main causes of job satisfaction include:
• Job Conditions: The intrinsic nature of the work, supervision quality, and social
interactions are crucial predictors of well-being and satisfaction.
• Personality: Individuals with positive core self-evaluations—meaning they believe in
their basic competence and inner worth—experience higher job satisfaction.
• Pay: While pay matters, high pay alone is unlikely to create a fully satisfying work
environment.
Outcomes of Job Satisfaction When employees are satisfied, organizations benefit in several
ways:
• Job Performance: Happy workers are generally more productive.
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB): Satisfied employees are more likely to
engage in discretionary, positive behaviors that help the organization.
• Customer and Life Satisfaction: Satisfied employees boost customer loyalty and
satisfaction. Furthermore, job satisfaction is positively correlated with an individual's
overall life satisfaction.
Responses to Job Dissatisfaction When employees are dissatisfied, they generally respond in
one of four ways, categorized by whether the response is active/passive and
constructive/destructive:
1. Voice: Active and constructive (trying to improve conditions).
2. Exit: Active and destructive (leaving the organization).
3. Loyalty: Passive and constructive (waiting optimistically for conditions to improve).
4. Neglect: Passive and destructive (allowing conditions to worsen).
Dissatisfaction often leads to Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB), which includes
actions that actively damage the organization, such as stealing, aggression, tardiness, or
absenteeism. Furthermore, a pattern of lowered job satisfaction is the single best predictor of
an employee's intent to leave (turnover).
Implications for Managers Despite all this evidence, managers often fail to understand the
importance of job attitudes. To succeed, managers must realize that job satisfaction is the best
single predictor of employee behavior. Managers should objectively and regularly measure
employee attitudes, paying close attention to them to prevent turnover, absenteeism, and
withdrawal. Finally, rather than relying solely on high pay, managers should raise satisfaction
by evaluating the fit between an employee's interests and the intrinsic parts of the job, striving
to create work that is both challenging and interesting.
Emotions and Moods in Organizational Behavior This chapter explores the distinct nature
of emotions and moods, where they come from, and how they impact employee performance,
decision-making, and overall organizational dynamics.
Differentiating Emotions and Moods Affect is a broad term encompassing a wide range of
feelings that people experience, which can manifest as either emotions or moods.
• Emotions are caused by specific events, are very brief in duration (lasting seconds or
minutes), and are highly specific. There are six universally recognized
emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise. Emotions are
usually accompanied by distinct facial expressions. Additionally, there are moral
emotions (like guilt or sympathy) that have moral implications based on our instant
judgment of a situation; these develop during childhood and differ across cultures.
• Moods have a more general or unclear cause, last much longer than emotions (hours
or days), and are generally not indicated by distinct facial expressions. Decision-
making is ultimately a combination of both thinking and feeling.
Sources of Emotions and Moods Several factors dictate how we feel on a daily basis:
• Personality: Emotions have a trait component. Affect intensity describes how
strongly different people experience their emotions.
• Time and Days: People are generally happier during the midpoint of their daily
awake period and toward the end of the week.
• Stress and Sleep: Even low levels of constant stress can worsen moods, and poor
sleep quality significantly increases negative affect.
• Social Interactions: Negative interactions at work can "spill over" and negatively
affect family life.
• Exercise: Physical activity improves mood, particularly for people who are depressed.
• Weather and Gender: Weather has an "illusory correlation" and does not actually
affect mood. Meanwhile, stereotypical gender perceptions persist in the workplace,
inaccurately labeling women as 'emotional' and men as 'angry'.
Emotional Labor and Emotional Dissonance Emotional labor refers to an employee’s
expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work.
This requires employees to manage two types of emotions: felt emotions (their actual inner
feelings) and displayed emotions (the appropriate emotions required by the job). Employees
regulate this through surface acting (hiding true feelings and expressions to meet rules)
or deep acting(trying to actively modify true inner feelings to match the rules). When there is
a chronic inconsistency between the emotions people feel and the ones they must project, it
creates emotional dissonance, which is a strong predictor of job burnout, declining job
performance, and lower job satisfaction.
Affective Events Theory and Emotional Intelligence Affective Events Theory
(AET) posits that employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work, and
these emotional reactions directly influence their job performance and satisfaction. Because
these emotional events accumulate over time, managers and employees shouldn't ignore them,
even if they appear minor. To navigate this, Emotional Intelligence (EI) is critical. The
cascading model of EI involves three abilities:
1. Perceiving emotions in oneself and others (driven by conscientiousness).
2. Understanding the meaning of these emotions (driven by cognitive ability).
3. Regulating one's emotions accordingly (driven by emotional stability).
Emotion Regulation Strategies Emotion regulation involves actively identifying and
modifying the emotions you feel. Techniques include surface acting, deep acting, emotional
suppression, cognitive reappraisal, and social sharing, though their effectiveness varies.
Regulating emotions raises ethical questions: some argue it is unethical because it requires a
degree of "acting" or hiding one's true self, while others argue all emotions should be
controlled to maintain a dispassionate perspective. Research also notes that diversity in work
groups can actually help us regulate our emotions more consciously and effectively.
Application to Specific OB Issues Emotions and moods intersect with numerous workplace
functions:
• Selection and Leadership: EI should be a hiring factor, especially for social jobs, and
positive emotions are vital for getting employees to accept messages from
organizational leaders.
• Decision Making, Creativity, and Motivation: Positive emotions lead to better
decisions, increase flexibility and creativity, and boost an individual's expectations of
success.
• Customer Service: Authentic emotions influence customer satisfaction and repeat
business. Through emotional contagion, customers can actually "catch" the emotions
of the employee.
• Negative Outcomes: Negative emotions can lead to unethical, deviant workplace
behaviors, increase work-life conflict, and even cause safety issues—employees
should not do dangerous work when in a bad mood.
Implications for Managers Good management does not mean creating an emotion-free
environment; emotions are natural. Because emotional experiences are volatile, managers
must realize they are often the "catalyst" for affective events when announcing new policies,
and they should anticipate how employees will emotionally react. Managers should know that
surface acting and emotional suppression are generally ineffective; instead, they should
encourage deep acting, natural emotional expression, and cognitive reappraisal. Finally,
managers must model positive emotions authentically to foster creativity and motivation, and
encourage positive emotional displays in service sectors to improve customer interactions.
Person–Job and Person–Organization Fit The text begins by examining how individuals fit
into their professional environments. Personality-job fit theory, based on John Holland’s
Typology, proposes six distinct personality types: Realistic, Investigative, Artistic, Social,
Enterprising, and Conventional. The theory argues that the fit between an employee's
personality type and their occupational environment dictates their job satisfaction and
likelihood of turnover. Similarly, person-organization fit theory suggests that people are
attracted to, selected by, and stay with organizations that match their personal values, while
leaving those that do not. Other important dimensions include person-group fit and person-
supervisor fit.
Defining and Measuring Personality Personality represents the sum of ways an individual
reacts to and interacts with the world, characterized by enduring traits that describe their
behavior. To make effective hiring decisions and forecast job suitability, managers must
measure personality. The most common method is the self-report survey. Data indicates that
personality assessments are predominantly used for higher-level positions, being utilized for
32% of Executives and 28% of Middle Managers, compared to only 17% of Hourly Workers.
Major Personality Frameworks The text evaluates several frameworks used to categorize
personality traits:
• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI): The most widely used framework,
classifying individuals as Extroverted/Introverted, Sensing/Intuitive,
Thinking/Feeling, and Perceiving/Judging. For example, INTJs are considered
visionaries, ESTJs are organizers, and ENTPs are conceptualizers.
• The Big Five Model: This is the most widely supported and recommended framework
for business. It consists of Conscientiousness (driving effort, discipline, and
performance), Emotional stability (reducing negative thinking and stress),
Extroversion (enhancing interpersonal skills and leadership), Openness to experience
(boosting learning and creativity), and Agreeableness (making individuals more
compliant and liked).
• The Dark Triad: This focuses on negative personality manifestations:
Machiavellianism (being pragmatic, maintaining emotional distance, and believing the
ends justify the means), Narcissism (arrogance, entitlement, and requiring excessive
admiration), and Psychopathy (a lack of concern for others and an absence of guilt
when causing harm).
• Other Frameworks: The DiSC framework visualizes traits on a proximity circle,
while the HEXACO model incorporates an additional trait—honesty-humility—into
the Big Five structure.
Other Relevant Traits Beyond these models, organizational behavior focuses on three
specific traits:
1. Core Self-Evaluation (CSE): The bottom-line conclusions individuals make
regarding their own capabilities, competence, and self-worth.
2. Self-Monitoring: An individual's ability to adjust their behavior to fit external,
situational factors.
3. Proactive Personality: Individuals who actively identify opportunities, show
initiative, and persevere until they achieve meaningful change.
The Role of the Situation Whether an individual's personality predicts their actual behavior
depends heavily on the environment. Situation strength theory states that behavior is
dictated by the strength of the situation—specifically, the clarity, consistency, constraints, and
consequences of the norms and standards present. Furthermore, Trait Activation Theory
(TAT) predicts that certain situations, events, or job requirements will "activate" specific
traits more than others; for example, a job requiring high detail orientation will heavily
activate and rely on the conscientiousness trait.
Intellectual and Physical Abilities Ability is defined as a person's current capacity to
perform the various tasks required in a job.
• Intellectual abilities are needed for mental activities and are often assessed via
General Mental Ability (GMA) tests like the Wonderlic. They consist of seven
dimensions: number aptitude, verbal comprehension, perceptual speed, inductive
reasoning, deductive reasoning, spatial visualization, and memory.
• Physical abilities involve the capacity to perform tasks demanding stamina, dexterity,
and strength. There are nine basic physical abilities, categorized into strength factors
(dynamic, trunk, static, explosive), flexibility factors (extent, dynamic), and other
factors (body coordination, balance, stamina).
Values and Generations Values are fundamental convictions regarding what is right, good,
or desirable, and an individual's value system ranks these convictions by intensity. Terminal
values refer to desirable end-states of existence, while Instrumental values represent the
preferred modes of behavior used to achieve those terminal values. The text outlines
perceived dominant work values across generations: Baby Boomers (loyalty, duty),
Generation X (flexibility, work-life balance), Millennials (achievement, uniqueness), and
Generation Z (diversity, innovation). However, research shows that actual generational
differences are not well-supported and relying on them can lead to ageist climates and
discriminatory stereotyping.
Implications for Managers Managers are advised to actively evaluate jobs and workgroups
to ensure optimal personality and value alignment. When assessing candidates, managers
should critically evaluate the instruments used, heavily favoring the Big Five model due to its
robust empirical support. Managers must also account for how situational factors and
organizational policies can encourage or suppress the display of certain traits. Finally,
managers must exercise extreme caution when assessing applicants' abilities to avoid
"disparate impact" (unintentional discrimination), ensuring they only test for intellectual or
physical abilities that are strictly necessary for the job, and they should completely avoid
grouping employees into generational categories.