MGT 321: Organizational Behavior
CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS OB?
L E C T U R E R : TA S N U VA C H A U D H U RY
(TCY)
SPRING 2015
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
 Understand the importance of interpersonal skills
 Roles of managers and management skills
 Define and understand organizational behavior
 Show the value to OB of systematic study.
 Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute
to OB.
 Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have in
applying OB concepts.
 Compare the three levels of analysis of the OB model.
Importance of Interpersonal Skills
 Technical and Quantitative skills are important
 Leadership and communication skills are crucial to distinguish
managers
Organizational benefits of positive social relationships
 Developing manager’s interpersonal skills attract high performing
employees
 Low turnover and low work stress
 Strong correlation to overall job satisfaction
 Superior financial performance
Role of Managers
What do managers do?
 They get things done by other people to achieve organization’s goals
 Oversee activities of others
 Make decisions
 Allocate resources
What is an organization?
 A consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people
that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common
goal or set of goals.
Management Functions
Managers
Plan
Organize
- What tasks to be
- Define roles
done
- Establish
-Who should do
strategy
them
- Develop plans to
-Who reports to
coordinate
whom
activities
-Where decisions
are to be made
Lead
Control
-Motivate
Employees
-Monitor activities
-Directing others to ensure they are
as per plan
-Selecting most
effective
-Correct any
communication
deviations
channels
-Resolve conflict
Management Roles
 Interpersonal Roles
 Figurehead, Leader, Liaison
 Informational Roles
 Monitor, Disseminator, Spokesperson
 Decisional Roles
 Entrepreneur, Disturbance handler,
Resource allocator, Negotiator
Management Skills
 Technical Skills
 Specialized knowledge or expertise learned through extensive formal
education, training programs or on the job
 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
Managerial Activities
 Fred Luthans and his associates looked at 4 types of managerial
activities from a somewhat different perspective.

Traditional Management


Communication


Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork
Human Resource Management


Decision making, planning, and controlling
Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training
Networking

Socializing, politicking, and interacting with others
Effective vs. Successful Managerial activities
Average Managers
Successful Managers
Networking
19%
32%
Networking
13%
Human Resource
Management
Human Resource
Management
48%
Communication
Communication
28%
20%
Traditional
Management
Traditional Management
29%
11%
Effective Managers
19%
11%
Networking
26%
Human Resource Management
Communication
Traditional Management
44%
Organizational Behavior
 OB: A field of study that investigates the impact
that individuals, groups, and structure have on
behavior within organizations, for the purpose of
applying such knowledge toward improving an
organization’s effectiveness.
Complementing intuition with systematic study
Intuition
• Gut feelings
• Individual observation
• Common sense
• Looks at relationships
• Scientific evidence
Systematic
• Predicts behaviors
Study
Evidence Based Management
Evidence Based Management (EBM)
 Basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific
evidence
 Pose a managerial question
 Search for best available evidence
 Apply relevant information to case
Intuition
 Intuition – “gut feeling”
 Intuition can be based on incomplete information
 Company can be ‘at the right place at the right time’ and
without reliance of any empirical evidence
 Systematic study can be time consuming
 Evidence should be used as much as possible to form
intuition and experience
Other Disciplines
Psychology
Social
Psychology
Sociology
Anthropology
Toward an OB Discipline
Exhibit 1-3
Challenges and Opportunities of OB
 Challenges and Opportunities of OB:
 Responding to Economic Pressures
 Responding to Globalization
 Managing Workforce Diversity
Some other challenges and opportunities include:








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
Effective management is important during hard economic
times.
 Managing employees is difficult during hard times.
 Managers need to understand and handle how to reward,
satisfy and retain employees
 Managers also need to handle issues such as stress, decision
making, and coping during difficult times.

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
Embracing diversity
 Changing demographics
 Changing management philosophy
 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
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
-It is what the OB
researchers want to
predict or explain
Dependent Variables in OB
 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.
Dependent Variable contd.
 Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
 Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job
requirements, but that nevertheless promotes the effective
functioning of the organization.
 Job Satisfaction
 A general attitude (not a behavior) toward one’s job; a positive
feeling of one's job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.
Independent Variable
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

OB Model (Exhibit 1-5)
Summary
 Managers need to develop their interpersonal skills to be





effective.
OB focuses on how to improve factors that make organizations
more effective.
The best predictions of behavior are made from a combination of
systematic study and intuition.
Situational variables moderate cause-and-effect relationships.
There are many OB challenges and opportunities for managers
today.
OB Model