What is Organisational
Behaviour
Week 1
Objectives
Define Define organisational behaviour
Explain Explain why organisations exist
Discuss Discuss the role of managers in organisations
Discuss Discuss some of the key issues affecting organisations today
Explain why managers, and organisational members generally, need a
Explain thorough understanding of organisational behaviour principles
Organisational
Behaviour Definition
Organisational Behaviour (OB) is the study of individuals
and groups in organisations.
Importance of OB
• Multidisciplinary basis (behavioural and social sciences): Draws on insights from psychology,
anthropology, sociology, political science, economics.
• Applied focus: OB seeks to help individuals and organisations achieve high performance productivity
in their work, along with deriving satisfaction from their work contributions and experiences.
• Contingency orientation: Rather than assume there is a ‘one best way’ in which to manage people
and organisations, OB adopts a contingency approach. This means that we recognise that that
behaviour may vary systematically depending on the unique circumstances and the people involved.
E.g. Culturally-specific management approaches.
• Emphasis on scientific inquiry: OB uses scientific methods to develop and empirically test
generalisations about behaviour in organisations.
How to measure
Performance
Job Performance = Attributes X Work Effort X
Organisational Support
All three factors (attributes, work effort and
organisational support) must be present and
maximised in order to achieve high performance.
What or
Organisations
• Organisations exist because individuals are limited
in their physical and mental capabilities.
• Organisations are mechanisms through which
many people combine their efforts and work
together to accomplish more than any one person
could alone
Managers
• Managers are responsible for work that is accomplished through performance
contributions of others.
• Work teams or units are task-oriented groups that include a manager and his/her direct
reports.
What is an effective manager?
An effective manager is one whose work unit achieves high levels of task accomplishment
and maintains itself as a capable workforce over time.
How to be an
Effective
Manager?
• Task performance: the quality
and quantity of the work
produced.
• Human resource maintenance:
the attraction and continuation
of a capable workforce over time
How to Manage
Managing task performance:
• Productivity: A summary of task performance that also
accounts for resource use.
• Value-added managers: Managers enabling work units to
achieve high productivity and improvements in ‘bottom line’
performance
Managing human resources:
• Quality of work life (QWL)
Psychological contract
– Contributions = Inducements
Dealing with Change
Among the biggest challenges that managers must deal with are:
• globalisation
• the changing nature of work
• the changing nature of the workforce
• the changing nature of the relationships between employers and employees.
These, in turn, create another challenge: that of managing change itself.
One approach is process re-engineering, formally defined as ‘the fundamental rethinking and
radical redesign of business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical contemporary
measures of performance such as cost, quality, service and speed’.
• Globalisation is not a new concept. Globalisation is the
process of becoming more international in scope,
influence or application. In practice, globalisation is
characterised by networks that bind countries,
institutions and people in an interdependent global
economy.
Globalisati • Success in the increasingly global business environment
will depend on a new breed of ‘global manager’ with
on global management skills and competencies.:
- Understanding international business strategy
- Cross-cultural management and Asian languages
- Global finance, economics, marketing, and trade
- Managing e-business and the virtual workplace
Nature of Work
• Technology: This has emerged as an ever-
present, dominant force in our lives.
• Continuous change in process, information
and communications technology has massive
implications for workers, managers and
organisations alike.
• It is causing both people and organisational
structures to change old habits and adopt
new ways of doing things.
• E.g. email has fundamentally changed the
way individuals communicate within and
across organisations.
Nature of
• Knowledge-based economy: Another major
driver of organisational change is the growth of
the knowledge-based economy in which
Work prosperity is built on ‘intellectual capital’ – the
use of information in people’s minds – rather
than on physical resources.
• The rise of the knowledge-based economy means
that knowledge management is now a crucial
organisational capability. Knowledge
management focuses on processes designed to
improve and organisation’s ability to capture,
share and diffuse knowledge in a manner that
will improve business performance.
Brian Drain
Workers are increasingly
An important facet in Such movement across
mobile and are taking their
knowledge management is national boundaries is
knowledge with them to
retaining valuable commonly referred to as
their new workplaces
knowledge workers. brain drain.
across the globe.
Workforce Diversity
The composition of the workforce is changing. Today’s managers must be skilled
in managing workforce diversity, which refers to the presence of demographic
differences amongst any members of a give workforce. As we shall see in the
following sides, this means accommodating differences in culture, age and
gender.
New Approach
• The contemporary workforce is increasingly multicultural as a result of migration and
transnational workforces. It is important to recognise that styles of leadership, motivation
and decision-making and other management roles can vary substantially across countries.
• Leadership: Substantial differences in leadership styles despite similar technology, types of
jobs, skills required and basic operations.
• Motivation: Managers cannot assume all people will be motivated by the same things, and in
the same ways they are.
• Decision-making: Different attitudes to power and authority, eg. Latin American employees
may feel uncomfortable with too much delegation. An Australian is more likely to decide that
a workplace problem exists and that something should be done about it.
Changes in Workforce
• Age
– Possible labour shortage
– Loss of organisational memory
– Generational differences: different values, less loyalty, greater mobility, changing
technical skills.
• Gender
– Increasing number of women entering workforce
– Increasing numbers of women in senior positions
– Breaking down of traditional idea that some jobs are gender specific.
New Relationships
• Work-life balance: Workers increasingly seeking balance between work and the other aspects
of their lives. Progressive organisations recognise the need to support their workforce to
minimise stress levels and burnout, and to maximise work performance. (E.g. creating a
family-friendly workplace; job sharing, permanent part-time work, telecommuting, paid
maternity/paternity leave, supported childcare facilities).
• Outsourcing: Countries and people around the world are increasingly interconnected. Job
migration (the transfer of jobs from one country to another) and global outsourcing (the
replacement of domestic jobs with contract workers in another country) are popular. With
increasing use of virtual workspaces enabled by communications and information technology,
it is easy to contract for many types of work anywhere in the world, at the lowest price.
New Relationships
• Casualisation of the workforce: The number of casual workers and casual jobs has increased
greatly in Australia in recent years – there are downsides for both employer and employees,
eg. employees suffer a loss of job security and predictability of income, and may have less
loyalty to their employer, and they may be less likely to invest in new skills or knowledge that
could benefit the employer.
• Telecommuting: Working from a location other than the organisation’s offices – often refers to
working from home. This has become increasingly feasible due to technology (eg. mobile
phones, email, that allow easy communication with the office and co-workers) but also has its
downsides (e.g. social isolation, missed opportunities for promotion).
Ethics
• Ethical behaviour is behaviour
that is morally accepted as
‘good’ and ‘right’ as opposed to
‘bad’ and ‘wrong’ in a particular
social context
• Corporate social
responsibility
• Ethical dilemmas
Why Successful 21st century managers will have to make
the behavioural and attitudinal adjustments
necessary in dynamic times.
learn OB
The End