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Organizational Behaviour
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1
Introducing organizational
behaviour
Transitions and new beginnings
Why read this introduction?
This chapter answers two key questions.
1. What am I studying? The chapter will give you an overview of the key themes within
organizational behaviour (OB) to help you understand what they are and how they
connect. This chapter aims to give you a good understanding of the key theories you
will cover, and the underlying disciplines that they are based on.
2. How do I study OB? Studying OB is not simply taking in a series of theories that can then
be reproduced in an essay or an exam. To gain a higher grade and really understand OB
requires the ability to think critically, to question your own assumptions, and to apply
the theories to real life contexts. Throughout this chapter we will look at some of these
skills and how you can develop them, including the importance of critical thinking, the
transition to degree level, and some top tips that will help you succeed in this subject.
Introducing organizational behaviour
Running case: transitions and new beginnings—Simon Chance starts his reign
It is 7:45 am and Simon Chance, the newly installed Chief Executive of Junction Hotel and President of
Second-Chance Consortium, sits at his desk surveying his group’s latest acquisition.
The Second-Chance Consortium has just bought Junction Hotel, an upmarket, city-centre hotel with a
proud heritage of strong customer service and a traditional approach. In its heyday people would flock to the
hotel for its high-class service, great food, and friendly but formal style. Those days, however, are long gone and
the hotel has undergone numerous changes of ownership and attempts to revive it. With paint peeling off the
walls, worn carpets, and an antiquated computer system, Junction Hotel is in need of some real investment.
Chance’s office is a bit like Junction Hotel—faded glory. A dark green leather chair from the 1940s sits in
the corner—stylish but uncomfortable. Instead, Chance decides to use a chair from IKEA—not the most
elegant design, but far more practical. The room is oak-clad, but some of the wooden panels are loose and
a couple now have gaps in between them. ‘I must fix that,’ Chance muses. ‘This place is a mess, nothing
works properly, but I am sure we can turn it around.’
The Second-Chance Consortium is a venture capitalist company specializing in turning failed businesses
into profitable enterprises. Simon Chance, a former footballer who retired early because of injury, reinvented
himself as a business entrepreneur. Teaming up with his former agent and self-styled business guru Phil
Weaver, Chance has led the consortium for six years, starting with the local football team and gradually building up a portfolio of successfully transformed firms. Chance feels confident that he can make the hotel a
success. ‘They just need strong leadership and a good strategy,’ he thinks. ‘I am sure that we can succeed here.’
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Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
At first glance, running an organization might seem straightforward. Television programmes such as Dragons’ Den often give the impression that all you need is the right product, marketing, and finance to be successful. Equally, you might look at your own boss or
the manager of a football team you support and think, ‘why don’t they just tell them to get
on with it? If I were in charge we could quickly sort it out.’ Yet, in practice, running organizations is more complicated.
Organizations can be difficult, challenging places, largely because they involve people.
People can be unpredictable and complex as they have their own agendas (e.g. the desire to
be seen as a success, fear of failure, etc.), beliefs (e.g. this is the right way to do things), identities (e.g. I am an accountant and this is how I do things), practices, and habits, all of which
shape how they act.
To manage, or even work alongside, people you need to be able to understand how they
think, what motivates them, what increases their commitment, how to organize them, and
how to ensure they act in an ethical and sustainable way (Figure 1.1). Working with and
managing people, therefore, is likely to be one of the most difficult and challenging things
that you do.
People are, therefore, are at the heart of this book; in particular we focus on how they
are managed, motivated, trained, and led, and how they communicate. At the individual
level we examine their personality, motivation, and learning; at the group level, how
they are managed through teams and groups; and, at the organizational level, how they
are led, impacted by power and politics, and affected by the organization’s culture.
Figure 1.1 The way
individuals are
managed.
The rational organization
• Bureaucratic procedures—
following rules and regulations
• Taylorism—following set work
procedures
• Rational organization today
—Rational principles spread
throughout society
Contemporary trends
•
•
•
Globalization—working in
a global world
The service sector—emotional
and aesthetic labour
Corporate social responsibility
—acting ethically
Managing the organization
•
•
•
•
01-KingandLawley-Chap01.indd 2
Change—top-down change
Leadership—following the leader
Power and politics—power games
Communication—top-down
communication
The Social Organization
Ways in which
the individual
is managed
• Social organization—power
of peer pressure
• Groups and teams—managed
through teamwork
• Organizational culture—
changing hearts and minds
Managing the individual
• Individuals and personalities—through
personality tests
• Motivation—becoming self-motivated
• Knowledge and learning—training and
developing the individual
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3
OB is also about how organizations are structured and run through systems and procedures, as well as how they relate to the wider, globalized world. Furthermore it is
about society—or, more precisely, the impact that organizations have on the people
that work for them, the communities around them, and society as a whole. It examines
how organizations operate globally and also impact, for good and ill, society and the
planet.
To study OB, therefore, is to really begin to understand how and why things happen at
work, what is the most effective way of achieving things, and what impact this has on the
people that work for organizations and the societies in which they operate.
Running case: understanding the complexity—our fictional case study,
Junction Hotel
From:
Sent:
To:
Subject:
Phil Weaver
2 September
Simon Chance
Junction Hotel Report
Hi Simon
I have done a full survey of the hotel, looking back at its accounts for the last five years and surveying the
building, kitchen, and staff. Having stayed in the hotel overnight as part of the mystery shopper exercise
I found the staff courteous and friendly, but the systems slow and cumbersome. Checking in took
20 minutes as they had lost my registration details, and we had to walk to the restaurant in order to pay
my bill as the ‘machine was not working’. The rooms were comfortable and fairly clean, but did seem to
be of an inconsistent standard. I must say that the food at the restaurant was excellent and shows real
class, but service was slow.
Overall, this hotel shows potential but there is much to improve. They are quite disorganized, some staff
seem unmotivated and unclear in their tasks, and the service, while polite and professional, is not what you
would expect.
Speak soon
Phil
Chance turns to the main report. The Second-Chance Consortium always create a comprehensive report
when they take over a failing venture and collect good management data so that they can work out what to
improve. Chance reads about the hotel’s history and is interested to learn that back in its heyday, Junction
Hotel hosted some stars from the stage and screen, its restaurant won awards, and it had successful conference facilities. As he reads more of the report, however, his mood changes. ‘This won’t be a quick fix,’ he
thinks, looking in detail at the problems that Weaver identified: poor systems, unmotivated staff, erratic
schedules, no clear identity or purpose to the hotel, and running at a loss for the last five years. ‘We need to
sort this place out,’ Chance thinks, staring out of the window. ‘I’ll get Weaver on the phone and work out
our plan.’
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Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
What do you think are the key challenges that Simon Chance faces in transforming Junction Hotel?
Visit the Online Resource Centre to read the full report.
The complexity of organizations is often best understood in the context of familiar situations. In this book we will do this through our innovative fictional running case study,
Junction Hotel. Instead of seeing theories as dry abstract models, in this book we use them
as ways to make sense of the challenges the characters face. Through this case study we will
learn about the hotel’s characters, their personalities, backgrounds, and experiences, and
the dilemmas they face. We will see their emotions, reactions, and different interpretations
of the same event.
Applying theory to real situations is suggested by learning theorists, such as Kolb and
Gibbs, to be far more effective. It helps us understand real dilemmas and challenges
that managers, workers, or society face. Just think of it this way: a manager does not try
to motivate their staff because a textbook says that they should do it; rather, they look
at ideas surrounding motivation because they are facing a problem that they need to
solve. The theories covered in this book were largely produced in response to challenges in real life. So, as you read the theory in this book try relating the theories to your
own experiences—cases you know from real life—and to our fictional case, Junction
Hotel.
What is organizational behaviour?
So, what is involved in running and working in organizations? This book will be divided
into five themes, each with their own focus and issues.
1. The rational organization.
2. The social organization.
3. Managing the individual.
4. Managing the organization.
5. Contemporary trends.
As we will see, these themes offer us a different perspective on what goes on within organizations and different ideas about how to manage them (Figure 1.2).
Theme 1: The rational organization
Chapter 2: Rational organizational design and bureaucracy
Chapter 3: Rational work design
Chapter 4: Rationalization in contemporary organizations
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Figure 1.2
Key themes in
organizational
behaviour.
Managing the organization
• Communication
• Power and politics
• Leadership
• Change
Contemporary trends
Managing the individual
•
•
•
Individuals and personality
Motivation
Knowledge and learning
The social organization
• The social organization
• Groups and teams
• Organizational culture
5
Ways in which
the individual
is managed
• Globalization
• The service sector
• Corporate Social
Responsibility
The rational organization
• Bureaucracy
• Taylorism
• Rationalization today
Running case: 8:15 am Phil Weaver discusses his report with Simon Chance
‘We need systems and procedures,’ Weaver states boldly to Chance, ‘like we had at the football club, to
make this place run like clockwork.’ Weaver animatedly discusses his plans with Chance. ‘I’ve been looking
at the booking-in procedure. I’m sure we could make it run quicker by streamlining it. Also, the cleaners
seem to be getting away with murder—working slowly without set targets or procedures,’ he continues,
hardly taking a breath.
Getting out a grid drawn on a sheet of A3 paper, Weaver lays out targets for every individual and department, with measurements for every aspect of the hotel—from customer satisfaction through to room
cleanliness. ‘It’s another Weaver masterplan,’ Chance declares excitedly. Impressed, Chance picks up a
document entitled ‘Streamlining food production,’ which has detailed step-by-step guides to peeling carrots through to cooking chicken. ‘I’ve only just started,’ Weaver states. ‘I think we should work on the cleaners first. I’m sure that we could come up with detailed ways of doing everything in this hotel to make it run
more efficiently.’
For well over 100 years, managers have dreamed of creating rational, logical, and efficient
organizations. As we will examine in Chapter 2, by creating bureaucratic procedures, policies, and practices, they aim to create standardized, predictable, and efficient organizations
so that management gain maximum control over, and efficiency from, workers.
This ambition for control was exemplified by Fredrick Taylor. As we will see in Chapter 3,
Taylor (1911) believed that through scientific analysis he could discover the one best way
of performing every task and through this approach create a more efficient, productive, and
rational way of working.
01-KingandLawley-Chap01.indd 5
Bureaucratic Describing
the process of
bureaucracy, sometimes
used in a derogatory
sense.
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McDonaldization (of
society) The principles
of efficiency,
calculability,
predictability, and
control by which fastfood restaurants are
managed and
organized, as applied
by Ritzer to other
contemporary
organizations.
Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
As we will examine in Chapter 4, such an approach continues to underpin so much of
what we do today, from fast-food chains, such as McDonalds, and hotels such as Travelodge
to the way in which you take out your library books. This rational approach has come to
dominate the thinking of much of Western capitalism. Indeed, sociologist George Ritzer
(2015) has described our society as McDonaldized, where the principles of the fast-food
restaurant, and therefore rational production, have come to dominate more and more parts
of society.
This approach has brought with it many positive features, with vast improvements in
productivity enabling mass production, and has dramatically cut the cost of most consumer goods, making cars, televisions, clothes, and furniture affordable to many
people.
But while these techniques of organization design achieve efficiencies, they are not without human costs—they can be boring, predictable, and routinized, and an imbalance of
power between management and workers is created. This approach also transfers knowledge and power from the workers to the managers, creating systems that reduce the worker
to a small cog in a very large machine. As Marxist theorist Harry Braverman (1974) argued,
this rational approach deskills the workers and leaves them dehumanized in the process.
Theme 2: The social organization
Chapter 5: Discovering the social organization
Chapter 6: Managing groups and teams
Chapter 7: Organizational culture
Running case: 8:20 am Meg Mortimer prepares herself for the board
meeting
Meg Mortimer sits at her desk in the little cubbyhole-cum-office behind the reception desk busying herself
in readiness for the new day. ‘I’ve seen it all before,’ she thinks, as she prepares herself for the staff-wide
meeting that morning. ‘These new owners will come in with their grand plans and new procedures and try
to lay their mark on the hotel, but they are not going to take us away from what we really are,’ she thinks to
herself, ‘a caring and considerate hotel based on traditional quality service.’
Mortimer, the second-longest-serving member of the Junction Hotel team, started life as a cleaner and
has worked through every position in the hotel to eventually become one of the senior managers. ‘Owners
come and go,’ she thinks, ‘but the Junction Hotel way will outlive any of them.’
Hawthorne studies A
series of studies which
ran from 1924 into the
late 1930s. Widely
credited with
discovering the human
side of the
organization.
01-KingandLawley-Chap01.indd 6
While the principles and practice of the rational or formal organization continue to be
highly popular, over the last eighty years there has been increasing recognition of the influence that the informal side of the organization has on actual practice. The informal organization sits beneath the surface, impacting what goes on in quite powerful, but often
invisible, ways.
We will start with the Hawthorne studies in Chapter 5 and examine how they claimed to
have ‘discovered’ that people are social beings who are influenced by the social norms of
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their peer group. Elton Mayo (1949) proposed that organizations should be seen as social
spaces rather than machines, full of people with feelings and desires.
Chapter 6 will develop this view, illustrating how groups and teams have become increasingly important ways of managing people and increasing productivity. However, teamwork
can be challenging, as it often fails to work as effectively as it might. Models such as Belbin’s
theory of group membership (2010) present techniques to make teams more effective.
Finally, in Chapter 7 we look at the social phenomenon of organizational culture—the
behaviours, language, stories, and symbols of an organization that are enacted through the
groups and teams within the organization. Again, we will see that culture is something that
organizations seek to manage, but some argue that it is to a large degree beyond their
control.
7
Group A collection of
people with a sense of
shared identity and
something in common
but not with a shared
purpose.
Team A group who
meet together with a
common purpose and
some degree of mutual
interdependence.
Theme 3: Managing the individual
Chapter 8: Personality and individual differences
Chapter 9: Motivation and the meaning of work
Chapter 10: Knowledge and learning
Running case: 8:30 am Linda Wilkinson, Domestic Manager, arrives at work
Linda Wilkinson makes her way hurriedly across the car park of Junction Hotel, grabbing hold of her briefcase. ‘Flipping traffic,’ she mutters under her breath, ‘the school run will be the death of me.’ As she rushes
past the boardroom window, she notices a man in his mid-50s staring into the distance. ‘Is that Simon
Chance,’ she wonders to herself, ‘the new owner of Junction Hotel, and who’s he with?’, looking at a smaller,
earnest man pointing aggressively at some charts. As she does so, she catches a glimpse of herself in the
window. Tall, blonde, and still quite elegant—or so her friends tell her—the forty-something mother of two
notices the vomit stain left on her jacket’s left shoulder by Sam, her youngest, as she dropped him off at
nursery this morning. ‘Grrrrh,’ she declares, slightly louder than she had intended. ‘This is the last thing I need
today,’ she mutters. Her slight outburst alerts the man, who looks up at her. Trying to subtly hide her shoulder, Wilkinson smiles positively at him even though today she feels anything but positive. ‘This is a big day,’
she thinks to herself, ‘I need to make a good impression and present myself as the manager-in-waiting.’
In the third theme we focus our attention on individuals within the organization and how
they are managed. We begin in Chapter 8 by looking at theories of personality—what are
the traits that make us all different, and can they be measured? We see how managers use
such theories to create ‘personality tests’ that are used in procedures such as recruitment
and appraisal.
Seeing people as having differences is also important when examining what motivates
people to work harder; what motivates workers is the subject of Chapter 9. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1943) is a familiar tool for analysing human motivation, but we discover that
motivation is, in fact, a much more complex phenomenon—individual differences can
relate not only to factors of personality, but also to the social factors that they bring in from
their life outside the workplace.
01-KingandLawley-Chap01.indd 7
Personality A set of
characteristics and
behaviour displayed by
any individual.
Motivation The will
and desire that a
person has to engage
in a particular
behaviour or perform a
particular task.
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Knowledge and
learning An aspect of
organizational
behaviour which
emphasizes the
importance of
information,
understanding and
practical skills for
organizational success.
In particular it
examines the capacity
of the organization to
share this knowledge in
effective ways.
Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
Finally, we turn our attention to knowledge and learning in Chapter 10. We will see that
in the knowledge-intensive economy how knowledge is developed, captured, and distributed is an increasingly vital aspect that differentiates successful firms from those that fail.
What, though, do we mean by knowledge? Is it a set of facts that can be learned or is it
something that we acquire through experience?
Theme 4: Managing the organization
Chapter 11: Changing the organization
Chapter 12: Leadership
Chapter 13: Power and politics in organizations
Running case: 10:00 am Simon Chance meets all the staff
Chance, followed closely by Weaver, walks purposefully into the conference room, reaches the podium,
and surveys his expectant audience. All the staff of Junction Hotel are gathered, somewhat nervously, to
hear from the hotel’s new owner and Chief Executive Officer.
Chance starts by introducing himself and his consortium and explaining why they bought the hotel. He
says that it has a proud tradition of quality customer service, but the world is changing and the hotel needs
to change with it. He, with all their help, is going to transform this place, to bring it back to its former glory.
‘Junction Hotel is going to feel like a new place,’ he goes on to say, ‘a new culture where hard work gets
rewarded and the best people succeed. This is a clean slate for everyone and I am going to set the hotel on
a new course.’
‘This is an exciting time for all of us,’ Chance continues, warming to his theme, ‘but let’s be under no illusions, it is going to be challenging. Some of you are going to find the changes that we put in place difficult.
Some of you might not even want to come with us in this new direction. I respect that. But we have a direction,’ he warned, ‘and we will not be blown off course.’
‘Over the next few months we will all need to pull together. Working together, I’m sure we can make
Junction Hotel great again.’
Weaver then gets up, unravels his A3 sheets, and starts laying out the new direction for Junction Hotel.
Change The process
by which an
organization changes
in practices, processes,
culture, etc. in a
planned or emergent
fashion.
Leadership The
process of leading or
influencing the
behaviour of others. In
the broadest definition,
it can be carried out by
anyone in the
organization.
01-KingandLawley-Chap01.indd 8
Our fourth theme focuses on how the organization as a whole is managed. In a sense, the
whole book is about organizational change, but we particularly focus on this topic in
Chapter 11. We will see through that chapter that there are two major models of change:
the emergent and planned approaches. While these focus predominantly on the role of
the senior managers in organizations, we will see that how the rest of the staff respond to
that change is critical in the organization’s success. We also look at how theories of individual learning and development contribute to successful change and development on an
organizational scale.
This brings us on to the issue of leadership and followership in Chapter 12. Leaders are
seen as powerful people, vital for the success of the organization. While numerous theories
have sought to identify what makes a great leader, recent theory has focused on the importance of followers for organizational success.
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Far from the rational organization that we begin the book with, our final chapter in this
theme will examine the more messy realities of organizational life, where organizational
decisions are products of power games and politics between competing people (e.g. senior
managers) or interest groups (e.g. workers and managers).
Theme 5: Contemporary trends
Chapter 14: Information, communication, and technology
Chapter 15: Globalization
Chapter 16: The service and leisure economies
Chapter 17: Corporate social responsibility, sustainability, and business ethics
9
Power games and
politics The process
where one individual
or group tries to gain
advantage or get
another individual or
group to do things that
they might otherwise
not intend to do.
Running case: 10:48 am the meeting ends and all the staff leave the
conference room
As they file out of the meeting, Graham Effingham, Junction Hotel’s award-winning chef, goes on his phone
and posts a quick blog post on his site. This is where he goes undercover and says what is really going on in
the hotel, but without ever saying exactly where it is.
Just come out the staff meeting with our new owners—arrrgh what a load of old clap-trap. I won’t
say the name of the new owners but all I can say is I think they have no chance.
They gave us all this talk about transforming the business, making it a place that people will be proud
to come to and we would all feel excited by working for it. How it would be a hard journey, but if we all
stick together (which I read as following what they say) then we will all be a success.
Nonsense—we’ve all been through this before with the last owners; it won’t last. This lot, though, say
they have a plan. The owner’s side-kick had all these charts and tables about how we compare to other
hotels—the man has an obsession with graphs and stuff, I can tell you. He kept on comparing us to more
‘efficient’ hotels, like Travelodge, saying that we can learn from them, or this European one Etap. It
seems like a race to the bottom, I can tell you. Sounds like they are trying to turn us into a sweatshop!
Then, as we all left, we were given our department’s A3—a set of targets that we are meant to
achieve over the year. Mine is to cut the cost of the food by 30% and make it 23% quicker. 23%
quicker, what the hell does that mean? I have to come back in a few weeks with a plan as to how we will
do this and keep the costs ‘reasonable,’ otherwise they are going to look into getting our food from one
of these catering suppliers. They only do processed food, not the direction we want to go!
In the final theme we turn our attention to the contemporary issues that face organizations.
We start, in Chapter 14, by exploring communication. We will see that communication is
fraught with difficulty and represents a major challenge to effective organization. We will
also discover that further issues emerge when technologies such as the Internet and mobile
technologies are used to carry out communication. In Chapter 15, we examine globalization. As the recent global recession has demonstrated, we live, perhaps more than ever, in a
highly interconnected and integrated world. Large multinationals have grown to become
hugely powerful—in some cases bigger than many countries. However, the globalized
economy brings with it its own challenges for management. As Hofstede (1980) noted,
01-KingandLawley-Chap01.indd 9
Globalization Defined
in many different ways,
globalization is where
activities take place on
an increasingly global
scale.
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Service sector Nonmanufacturing
industries, such as
retail, leisure, transport,
finance, and media.
Corporate social
responsibility A
contested term with
different
interpretations but
generally taken to be
the social and
environmental
responsibility
corporations have
towards their
stakeholders.
Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
national culture presents multinational companies with significant challenges in managing the differences between cultures.
Chapter 16 looks at the rising service sector, which, in some senses, represents a continuation and, indeed, intensification of the rational approach we saw in the first theme. However, because it is customer-facing it carries the additional challenge of emotional and
aesthetic labour in which employees have to manage their feelings and appearances, putting on an act in front of customers.
The recent financial crisis and corporate scandals have put the spotlight on our final
theoretical chapter, corporate social responsibility (CSR). We will see some of the key ethical
challenges that organizations face, how they respond to them, and the criticisms that campaigners and activists have about these responses.
Organizational behaviour—
an interconnected discipline
Running case: 11:15 am Weaver and Chance meet again in the boardroom
‘Well, that went well,’ says Weaver in a confident way, ‘I think we really hammered home our message.
This place needs a good shake-up and we’re the people to do it. With our new targets and management
practices Junction Hotel is going to be a very different place in a year’s time when we have transformed
them.’
Meanwhile, Linda Wilkinson is less jubilant as she talks to Meg by reception. ‘They talk very positively,’
Linda says with a sense of despondency, ‘but they cannot just come here and impose their views on us like
that.’
In our final chapter we draw all the issues together and look forward to the future
challenges that face organizations. We will see that, while we have discussed all these
topics as discrete entities, in practice they are highly interconnected and rely on each
other.
It is, therefore, important to be aware of the connections between the themes as you read
the chapters and prepare to write your essay or answer your exam questions.
Key underlying theories
As will be apparent from the discussion, OB covers a wide range of issues. To do this it draws
on a wide range of underlying disciplines (Figure 1.3).
• Sociology explores how society shapes people. It helps us understand that no action
takes place in a social vacuum and helps us appreciate how individual experiences are
part of broader society.
• Psychology seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change human behaviour. It is
often considered the science of the mind.
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Behavioural science
Psychology
Social psychology
Contribution
Learning
Motivation
Personality
Emotions
Perception
Training
Leadership effectiveness
Job satisfaction
Individual decision making
Performance appraisal
Attitude measurement
Employee selection
Work design
Work stress
Introducing organizational behaviour
Output
Unit of analysis
11
Figure 1.3 The
disciplines that
underlie the study of
organizational
behaviour.
Source: Robbins, Stephen P.; Judge, Timothy
A., Essentials of Organizational Behaviour, 10th
Edition © 2010, p. 5. Reprinted by permission of
Pearson Education, Inc.,
Upper Saddle River, NJ.
Individual
Behavioural change
Attitude change
Communication
Group processes
Group decision making
Communication
Power
Conflict
Intergroup behaviour
Group
Study of
organizational
behaviour
Sociology
Formal organization theory
Organizational technology
Organizational change
Organizational culture
Comparative values
Comparative attitudes
Cross-cultural analysis
Organization
system
Anthropology
Organizational culture
Organizational environment
Power
Political science
• Social psychology bridges sociology and psychology, and tries to understand the
impact the group has on the outlook of the individual.
• Anthropology examines rites and rituals that shape how groups and cultures work.
• Political science examines the role of power within organizations.
Visit the Online Resource Centre for deeper analysis of the underlying theories.
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It is important as you read through the book to be aware of the significance of these
underlying theories and how they shape OB theories. As you gain more understanding of
OB you will be able to distinguish between these underlying theories.
The importance of critical thinking and
multiple perspectives
Why there are no right answers in
organizational behaviour
The different theoretical disciplines within OB all make a variety of attempts to explain
human behaviour. However, it is difficult to offer a definitive answer as to which view is
correct because human behaviour is complex and subjective.
First, people do not act in predictable ways, share the same outlook, nor always behave
as we would expect. Secondly, it is difficult to measure human behaviour scientifically because it is not controllable like, for instance, chemicals; people are not standardized or
predictable. Thirdly, the different theoretical traditions each have their own questions and
debates that interest them and, consequently, tend to focus on different features of organizational life. Finally, the ‘right answer’ depends on beliefs about whose interests organizations should serve—either managers/shareholders or employees/society (we have more to
say about this in the following sections).
Consequently, within OB there are no right answers. This does not mean that the theories presented here are incorrect or that they are based on poor reasoning. In fact, there are
many fascinating and insightful accounts of the subject. Rather, there are no definitive
answers to the issues that we discuss. This makes OB a fascinating, although potentially
somewhat complex, subject.
Real life case: the CEO who raised his firms’ minimum wage to £45,000
but is now being sued by his brother
In April 2015 Dan Price took a very controversial decision. He raised the minimum wage of all his
employees to $70,000 (£45,000) within three years (Cohen, 2015a) and also gave unlimited paid time
off (Gravity Payment, 2015). This would result in 70 out of the 120 employees getting pay rises, with 30
having their salaries almost doubled (Torabi, 2015).
The co-founder of Gravity, a Seattle-based payment processing company, told the New York Times
(Cohen, 2015a) that he decided to do it after reading an article on happiness. The article was on the
links between well-being and pay, which argued that emotional well-being rose progressively until it
reached $75,000. While above $75,000 a year brings pleasure, it does not increase happiness (Kahneman
and Deaton, 2010).
The article made a deep impression on Price. He had heard many stories from his employees
about how difficult it was to live off $40,000 a year, and he wanted to make a difference. Price stated
he felt there was a ‘moral imperative to actually do it … I want everybody that I’m partnered with ▲
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▲ at Gravity to really live the fullest, best life that they can’ (cited in Torabi, 2015). To achieve this he
decided to cut his own salary from just under $1 million to $70,000 (Torabi, 2015) stating that the
‘market rate for me as a CEO compared to a regular person is ridiculous, it’s absurd’ (cited in Cohen,
2015a). He also felt it made business sense. ‘I honestly believe that removing that distraction [of living
from pay cheque to pay cheque] will significantly increase our ability to take care of our clients’ (cited
in Torabi, 2015). This has been reflected by some of the employees, who say that they are now working harder. For instance, one employee stated that they are willing to put in more hours. ‘I never
thought I would go to a job where I would want to work extra hours, but this is something that I, and
everyone else, want to do,’ said Ortiz, one of the employees. ‘It’s really inspirational to see so many
people dedicating most of their day to this job’ (cited in Elkins, 2015). Some also felt it was the start of
a movement that aimed to reduce the differences between high and low earners. As Dan Price states,
‘Income inequality has been racing in the wrong direction . . . I want to fight for the idea that if someone is intelligent, hard-working and does a good job, then they are entitled to live a middle-class
lifestyle’ (cited in Cohen, 2015b).
Yet a couple of months later, Dan Price was sued by his brother because as a minority shareholder
he believed the increased wages of the staff were reducing the firm’s profits. Dan Price was also struggling financially: he had to cut his own salary and rent out his house. He also faced criticism on Facebook, in letters, and in phone calls (Cohen, 2015b). Some customers left, feeling it was a political
statement. Some employees also left. For instance, a former financial manager told the New York
Times: ‘He gave raises to people who have the least skills and are the least equipped to do the job, and
the ones who were taking on the most didn’t get much of a bump’ (Cohen, 2015b). Others did not like
the fact that the gap between the higher- and lower-paid was reduced, and some even questioned if
they were really worth the increased salary.
Time will tell if Dan Price’s experiment will prove successful and if he will repair the relationship with his brother. The case raises further organizational behaviour issues that we
will cover in this book.
The gap between highest- and lowest-paid
As co-founder and CEO of Gravity, Dan Price was earning around $1m a year, about 25 times
more than the lowest-paid employee (who earned $36,000). Not only did Price say that it
was difficult for the lowest-paid to live on $36,000 (approximately £23,275), but the gap
between rich and poor was too high. As we will see in Chapter 17, this interest in inequality
has been reflected more broadly, with critical theorists arguing that the importance of chief
executive officers is overestimated and their pay is disproportionate for what they do. Critics
of high executive pay argue that these executives are paid, on average, some 120 times more
than their employees, 35 times more than hospital consultants and 162 times more than the
average teacher (High Pay Commission, 2011). This gap between rich and poor creates
higher levels of crime and even health problems (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2010). One possible solution to this issue is being tried in the USA, where companies are going to be forced to
disclose the gap between the pay of CEOs and the rest of the workforce (Kasperkevic, 2015).
An alternative perspective argues that while Dan Price’s position might be seen as a noble
gesture, it is not a sustainable one. This perspective argues that getting high-quality senior
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managers is a significant challenge and, as we will see in Chapter 12, many leadership theories see the CEO as vital to increasing the long-term profits of the company. It is often
argued there is a ‘war for talent’ (Peacock, 2010), with top people able to travel anywhere in
the world; therefore, firms have to pay competitive salaries and bonus packages in order to
attract and retain the best people. Furthermore, in a related argument, supporters of shareholder capitalism would argue that Dan Price did not have the right as CEO to make this
decision alone because effectively he was spending shareholders’ money (through the
increase in wages), which was not (solely) his choice to make. Theorists such as Milton
Friedman (see Chapter 17) therefore argue that it is immoral to spend shareholders’ money
on something just because you as a manager believe it is ethical.
Motivation
Dan Price makes an interesting claim that having a minimum wage of around £45,000 will
increase motivation and customer service. One argument drawn from psychology and behavioural economics, particularly the work of Daniel Kahneman, is that increases in feelings of well-being only continue up until around £48,000, and therefore a salary of this
level will produce the maximum well-being for everyone.
However, does pay increase motivation? As we will see in Chapter 9, the link between pay
and motivation is a highly controversial area. Indeed, it could be argued that far from increasing motivation, it might demotivate. This can be explained by Adams’s Equity Theory
(Adams, 1963), which argues that individuals will calculate the ratio of their inputs (time,
effort, and skill) against the outputs (e.g. pay, job security). People compare their ratio of
inputs to outputs with those of others, and if they feel someone is receiving greater levels
of output in relation to their input then this will cause dissatisfaction. Therefore, highly
skilled Gravity employees might experience the change as unfair because even though they
received an increase in their wages, it was a smaller increase than the less skilled workers
were receiving in proportion to their skill level.
As we have seen, many of the issues that organizational behaviour investigates are contested on grounds of either morality (‘it is wrong to have too large a gap between rich and
poor’ versus ‘it is wrong to spend shareholders’ money’) or effectiveness (‘increasing satisfaction will increase productivity’ versus ‘the new wage structure will increase feelings of
inequity between skill and wages’). Ultimately authors will take different positions on these
debates because they hold fundamentally different assumptions about the world. Your job,
therefore, in conducting this analysis is to understand these underlying assumptions first
and then make a judgement based upon them. It is only by actually understanding these
assumptions that it is possible to really make a judgement on the validity of the positions
that theorists hold.
The importance of analysis
It would be easy to read the preceding section and think ‘well, anything goes in this subject.
If there are no right answers, then it is just about opinion and all I need to do is put forward
my opinion, as it is as valid as anyone else’s.’ While tempting, we believe such a perspective
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is dangerous for a number of reasons. Firstly, the ideas developed in this book are based upon
years of research built up through numerous investigations, theoretical reflections, and
analysis, and argued through many lectures, articles, and books. They are, therefore, more
than simply opinions: they are built on reasoned arguments and investigations into actual
practice. Secondly, they draw on (as we have seen in the preceding section) a variety of different underlying perspectives that are built on deep theoretical foundations. These are
more than simply personal opinions or gut reactions, but reasoned arguments based on
fundamentally different ways of thinking about and discussing the world. Finally, as we
will explore in more detail in the following sections, these perspectives are built on wider
theoretical reflections about the nature of societies and the roles that organizations should
play in them.
Study skills: the difference between personal opinion and
an academically-informed perspective
My opinion
• uses my own taken-for-granted assumptions
• is based on gut reaction and personal opinion
• may often contain sentences such as ‘I think that . . . ’
An academically-informed perspective
• challenges received opinion and taken-for-granted assumptions
based on theoretical reasoning, evidence, academic literature, and evaluation of competing
• isperspectives
• is based on the evidence
• may often contain sentences such as ‘Research shows that . . .’
Therefore, while at first glance informed critical analysis might seem like simply stating
your own opinion, in practice developing an academically-informed perspective is more
rigorous, thoughtful, and evidence-based. While your personal opinion might, therefore,
be a starting point, it begins with common-sense assumptions rather than evidence and
theory and so you should be prepared to reconsider these views. Indeed, often the best
essays are by students who have changed their view on a subject having read and really
engaged with the academic arguments.
Because there are no set answers, we sometimes call this approach a ‘contested’ view.
There are multiple perspectives because the issues that we are interested in cannot be
‘solved’ in any straightforward way and, consequently, it is an area of constant debate.
The skill of a good analyst is to uncover these underlying assumptions and to see how
they inform the research and how this perspective differs from alternatives. One of the
central study skills that you will need throughout your time studying OB (and at university as a whole) is to be able to uncover the key underlying assumptions that inform the
theories.
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The need to develop critical thinking
Developing your critical thinking skills is a long-term process of acquiring skills and also a
mindset of approaching the world in a different way. As we can see from the real life case
here, such an approach can be highly beneficial as it helps you to think more deeply and to
be more innovative—something that employers throughout the world are increasingly
looking for.
Real life case: innovative thinking in Singapore
In recent years the education systems of Singapore and China have come under increasing attention.
Both countries have been praised for heading up the international league tables, with fifteen-year-old
students from Singapore, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, and Shanghai around ten months ahead of
UK students in English (Barber, 2012). This success is attributed to a highly-scripted teaching style and
high levels of discipline and commitment from the students.
On the other hand, the focus on always being right and finding the right answers is increasingly
being criticized in countries such as Singapore, who are actually changing their education approach
(Ng, 2014). While for a long time their approach has been hugely successful in attracting multinational
firms and making the country prosperous because ‘Singaporeans are hardworking, loyal, and welleducated’ (Economy Watch, 2011a), as the economy has developed questions are increasingly being
raised about Singaporeans’ ability to undertake more creative and innovative jobs. Recently, Steve
Wozniak (Apple’s co-founder) suggested that a rigid education system could stifle creativity and innovation: ‘Singapore, teachers and employers are caught up with “the right answer,” instead of the
journey to get there and the creative solutions to other problems.’ Wozniak’s statement suggests that
their education system, which praises students when they get the right answers, is, therefore, less able
to prepare them for the more innovative thinking that creative jobs require. Being innovative and
being able to solve complex problems (which people often produce) requires the ability to be prepared to think differently, to question one’s assumptions, and to cope with uncertainty and doubt.
One of us (Daniel) discovered this when teaching in Singapore. At the end of a week of intensive
teaching of OB to a group of Singaporean undergraduates, one of them came over to say that they
both loved and hated the course. It made them think differently and question what they knew, and at
the same time made them feel uncertainty and doubt. Studying OB can get us all to feel this way.
Source: Economy Watch (2011a, 2011b).
So how do I develop critical thinking skills?
Teaching yourself to question things and also to learn in a different way can be a difficult,
but exciting, process. At university your lecturers will want you to demonstrate a higher
level of critical analysis than you may have encountered before and also a different approach to thinking. Rather than simply recounting the strengths and weaknesses of particular theories, they will be expecting you to look at the wider implications for our
understanding of broader issues in society. This requires deeper thinking and engagement,
opening yourself up to competing perspectives and interpretations of the world, and a
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readiness to engage in complex ideas. This can be particularly challenging given that, on
the surface, OB seems little more than ‘common sense’.
One example of the value of critical and analytical thinking is that it encourages us to go
beyond these general assumptions to really examine the implications of these theories, not
just for management practice but for society as well. This moves us to ask not only pragmatic questions, such as how things are done, but also wider ones, such as in whose interest
they are conducted. This requires alternative ways of thinking.
Real life case: thinking outside the box
One of our students describes how she has struggled with wanting to find the right answer.
I am a bit of a perfectionist really and I want to know the answers. At A-level I studied History—where there
were a lot of dates and facts, Law—where there were many cases, and Business (where there was a lot of accounting)—where there were right answers. At university, studying organizational behaviour, I have realized
that there are no right answers and I need to think outside the box.
You might find studying OB difficult and challenging, particularly if you come from a scientific or mathematics background, which tend to have ‘correct’ and ‘true’ answers. For
many students, this desire for the right answers and anxiety about getting the wrong answer leads them to want to memorize and learn facts about theories, as these seem more
certain and understandable. For instance, we have seen countless students put in details
about when key theorists were born and when they died, or long descriptions of a theory,
presumably believing this is the ‘correct information’. However, it demonstrates very little
understanding and often has a negative impact on their grade.
To really develop critical thinking requires asking different types of questions and focusing on different areas (Figure 1.4).
At the surface level is description (Figure 1.5). At this level you simply describe the theory,
giving details of what it is, how it works, and its basic concepts. You will discuss the basic
facts, models, or theories, and you will need to show familiarity with the theories, but little
more. However, this level largely involves repeating back the theory. You do not need to do
much thinking as you are merely reproducing what you have been told in lectures or in this
book. You need this level as it is the foundation for the subject, but you need to remember
that it is not enough at degree level.
Description A piece
of writing that
describes the theory or
case study with little
attempt at providing
analysis. Often
considered more
superficial and
therefore in student
coursework results in
lower grades.
Description
Recalling and describing the theory: multiple choice questions, facts, recall, definitions, and models
Explanation
Applying to real life and own experience, and what the theory means for organizations in practice
Analysis
Considering strengths and weaknesses, exploring alternative viewpoints and the underlying assumptions
Critical analysis
How the theory challenges our fundamental understanding of OB. In whose interest is the theory?
Figure 1.4 Levels of critical thinking.
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Figure 1.5 The critical
thinking iceberg.
Description
Explanation
Evidence
General theme
Description of theory
Identification of
points in theory relevant
to question
Analysis
Strengths and
weakness
Theory
in whose
interest?
Critical
analysis
Impact on
practice
Evaluate and
weigh-up
Application
and examples
Comparison
with other
theorists
Alternative
perspectives and
theorists
Implications
Bigger picture
Fundamental understanding assumptions
Answering the question by developing a perspective
based on reason and evidence which challenges the
underlying assumptions
Explanation In
academic writing, the
ability to explain a
theory or perspective.
Evidence In academic
writing, support for
claims made.
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The next level down is explanation, comprehension, and evidence. At this level you show
that you really understand the theory and its relevance to the question and to real life practice. To do this you can apply the theory to an organization and show the implications for
organizational practice. You can also identify the relevant points of the theory to the actual
question asked. This shows a far deeper level of understanding, as it takes a stronger appreciation of what the theory entails in order to apply it to practice.
Within this level is also the application of theory. This is where you link what you have
learned to actual organizational examples. In this book, this might either be to real life examples or to examples from the Junction Hotel running case. The idea here is to show that
theories are not simply words on a page. They are tools that can both explain what happens
in real life organizations and, furthermore, make recommendations for how organizations
might solve particular management issues.
Application is based on what you know about the theories, including their strengths and
weaknesses. For example, in Chapter 3 we introduce Taylorism, which outlines a way of designing work to make it more efficient. We sometimes ask our students to apply this to our running
case. A very simplistic answer that we often hear is that ‘Junction Hotel should introduce Taylorism because it would increase efficiency’. This is too simplistic and vague—it isn’t good
enough as an answer. Imagine if you presented something like this to a board of a company.
They would rightly ask questions like ‘how would it increase efficiency in our organization specifically?’, ‘what problems might its implementation cause for us?’, or ‘can you show evidence
that it has worked in similar organizations?’ Applying a theory thus moves from talking about
general theoretical ideas to presenting them in the context of a specific organizational setting.
While this level shows a greater level of insight, it does little to question the assumptions
that underpin the theories. It simply takes things for granted and does not show the deeper
level of thinking that is necessary to make judgements about a theme.
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Dropping below the surface is where we begin to analyse the theory. This level looks at
the theory’s strengths and weaknesses, identifying the advantages and disadvantages of the
theory or the benefits and drawbacks that the theory offers. This form of analysis is common at post-16 qualifications (e.g. A-level) and demonstrates a stronger appreciation of the
theory itself and how it works in practice.
The deepest level of critical analysis includes synthesis, comparison, evaluation, and creativity. It requires a much higher level of thinking because it does not merely assume that
the theory is correct but looks as much at what the author does not say and who it impacts.
Because of its greater complexity and more advanced level of understanding, this approach
often gets higher marks. To achieve this you need to really understand the theory and its
implications, read between the lines, and not accept things at face value but question everything. This also involves judgement, weighing-up of the relative merits of the theory, and
then drawing conclusions to see if the perspective offered is fair and valid.
To develop your critical thinking, the following questions are useful when reading
academic theory:
19
Analyse Widely
associated with deeper
intellectual thinking, it
is the process of
breaking things down
into their constituent
parts, investigating the
underlying cause or
basic principles.
Critical analysis To
question the
underlying
assumptions of a
perspective. In OB this
may have particular
emphasis on how
power and inequality
occur.
• What are its strengths and weaknesses?
• How does it compare with other theories?
• What evidence is it based on and is it reliable?
• What are the implications of the theory for practice?
• What are the underlying assumptions?
• Whose interest does it serve?
• What is its implication for answering the question?
As we can see, to really get to the heart of the issue and understand its significance we need to
go beyond merely describing a theory and seek to understand its underlying assumptions.
Throughout this book are questions to get you thinking. ‘Stop and think’ questions appear throughout the chapters. They invite you to reflect on what you have just read and to
put it in the context of your own thoughts and experiences. There are also review questions
within the chapters. These have been structured to take your thoughts from simple description (at the top of the critical thinking iceberg) towards much deeper levels of critical analysis, which will be useful in your essays and exams. These review questions have been labelled
‘describe’, ‘explain’, ‘analyse’, and ‘apply’, as outlined in Table 1.1.
Table 1.1 The structure of the review questions
Describe
These are the most basic questions. They invite you to recall and describe theory,
providing basic facts, definitions, and models.
Explain
These go beyond basic definitions, explaining what theories actually mean, or why they
are important for the study of organizations and management.
Analyse
Here you are invited to go much deeper, considering the strengths and weaknesses of
theories, exploring alternative viewpoints and underlying assumptions, and showing how
theories may have challenged existing and widely accepted viewpoints.
Apply
Here you are comparing theory with organizational examples, from both real life cases
and the Junction Hotel running case. You may be asked to find evidence of theories in
these examples, or even act as a consultant and make recommendations to organizations
based on the theory that you have learned.
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Degree-level analysis
Throughout this discussion you may have thought that much of this talk of analysis is familiar to you, as you have heard the terms ‘analysis’, ‘evaluation’, and ‘application’. While
post-16 (A-level) uses these terms, we require deeper and more engaged thinking to do well
at degree level.
For instance, at post-16 analysis often consists of describing the strengths and weaknesses of a particular theory, and may compare it to other theories; at university, we are after
a deeper examination of the implications of the theory to the fundamental assumptions of
the discipline. Table 1.2 summarizes these differences.
Ultimately, at degree level, the emphasis for answers in essays and exams is on making an
argument, based on theory, which responds directly to the question asked.
Real life case: making the transition to degree-level analysis
Having recently received back comments on her assignment for her OB module, one of our students
has come to realize that the type of analysis required at degree level is deeper than she had previously
been asked to do for A-level. ‘Having read the assignment I thought that I was doing analysis by listing
the strengths and weaknesses as we were asked to do at A-level. I now see that this was only part of
what analysing means and you want us to think a lot deeper at degree level.’
The central intention here is that you will become independent critical thinkers who are able to
develop arguments through critical analysis of others’ positions.
Table 1.2 The differences between post-16 and degree thinking
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Post-16
Degree level
How you use
the theory
Reproduce material taught and show you
understand which theorists are relevant
Digest the material and demonstrate
understanding of its implications
What markers are
looking for
Correct answers to hit the mark scheme
A critical response to the literature
Use of theory
Show understanding of the theory and both Making an argument by writing within
sides of the argument
a school of thought, using accepted
concepts and theoretical tools
Analysis is
Strengths and weaknesses of a theory
Questioning the underlying assumptions
and their implications for the question
Evaluation is
Demonstrating understanding, comparing
and weighing-up of both sides of the
argument
Poviding own response to the question
based on the theories in question
Material used
Given specific texts to investigate
Go out and undertake your own research
Paragraph
structure
Key points, quote to back up, and then
evaluate
Links together to make an overall
argument that fully answers the question
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Critical thinking: mainstream and critical views
Critical thinking can also mean a political view that asks you to question the underlying
assumptions and values of theories for the purposes of understanding and challenging
their impact on society—e.g. workers, the environment—and that is seen in opposition to
mainstream theory. (Used in this sense, this is often called the ‘critical management studies
perspective’.)
The mainstream, or dominant view, represents the general established thinking about
management. It is primarily interested in creating theory that helps to understand management practice better and generally to improve it. The mainstream perspective assumes
that organizations exist to make profit and that the goal of management theory is to
achieve performance, efficiency, productivity, order, and control. Furthermore, it supports hierarchy, managers’ right to manage, and the idea that firms exist primarily for
shareholders.
The critical view argues that these mainstream views systematically favour elite interests at the expense of disadvantaged groups, for instance managers over workers; men
over women; profit over society; and economic growth over the environment—arguing
that this limits freedom of all (Grey and Willmott, 2005). The critical perspective suggests that there is a ‘dark side’ to organizations that these mainstream accounts rarely
discuss.
While the critical perspective might seem negative, its proponents would argue
that it is aiming at a more positive society. The critical perspective argues that organizations should exist for freedom and fulfilment, creativity and expression, and for the
benefit of society, not just for shareholders. Critical perspectives therefore aim for
emancipation (freedom from slavery). This form of critical thinking can be hard—it
challenges many of our basic assumptions of the world—but it can also be highly
transformative.
Mainstream The
dominant or accepted
view that emphasizes
managers’ right to
manage and the central
objective of
organizations to make
profits for shareholders.
Critical (as in ‘critical
management studies’)
A critical perspective,
among other things,
draws on Marxist
theory and seeks to
challenge the
assumptions of
mainstream
management theory
by stressing the impact
that it has on
employees and society.
For whose benefit should the theory of OB be written? Management? Shareholders? Employees?
Customers/Clients? Society?
Study skills: questioning taken-for-granted assumptions
When reading a theory, instead of taking the ideas for granted, the following questions can give you a
more critical perspective.
What are the underlying perspectives presented in the text?
•
• What are the taken-for-granted assumptions contained (but not expressed) in the theory?
• Whose interests are being served by this perspective?
• What issues are being glossed over or downplayed?
• What are the implications for power and control?
• What are the effects of the theory on people, society, and the planet?
• What other perspectives have been downplayed or ignored by this theory?
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Organizational Behaviour
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Thomson Digital
01 Mar 2016
22
Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
Employability skills: the importance of critical thinking
Most people who study business and management degrees do get a job. Yet often we do not really
consider what we need to do in order to achieve this. As an employer has stated in a fairly recent report:
‘Academic qualifications are the first tick in the box and then we move on. Today we simply take them
for granted’ (Brown et al., 2003: 120). Therefore, while getting a good degree is essential, on its own—in
this increasingly competitive market—it is not enough.
So, what is it that employers are looking for? While there can never be a definitive list, some of the
common requirements of graduate recruiters are:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
professionalism or work ethic
oral and written communication skills
teamwork and collaboration skills
critical-thinking or problem-solving skills
generic skills rather than subject-specific skills
abstraction (theorizing; using models, metaphors, and formulae)
systems thinking (seeing the part in the context of the wider whole)
experimentation (intuition and analysis)
collaboration (communication and teamwork skills)
Reich (1991, 2002)
You might be reading this and be thinking, ‘but I have just got to university—why should I be thinking
about this now?’ Our experience, having been students ourselves and talking to thousands of students through teaching, is that your time at university goes by very quickly. While the next three or
four years may seem a long way off, this time will fly by and you will wonder what you did with your
time at university. Our key advice is that you start thinking about which skills you can improve now.
You will find that your first year will pass very quickly and you will miss a golden opportunity that this
first year at university presents: to begin to acquire the skills, experiences, knowledge, and selfawareness that will help develop you as a person and as a future employee. There are countless
things that you could be doing to boost your experiences so that you are a step ahead when it comes
to getting a job.
So how do you start building your employability? Throughout this book we will have a number of
employability prompts to get you started thinking about these issues. You should then follow them up
with material found in the Online Resource Centre, which will point you in the direction of further
reading, activities, and advice that will enable you to construct your CV and gain skills and experience
to help you get ahead. These include:
• self-test questionnaires
• video interviews with employers, students, and recent graduates
• employability tips
–things to be thinking about now
–short exercises to do now
• much more advice, and pointers to other websites and material.
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Customer
Book Title
Stage
Supplier
Date
OUP
Organizational Behaviour
Revise 1
Thomson Digital
01 Mar 2016
Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
23
The links between study skills and
employability skills
While we often think that the skills we need to study are different from those that we will use
in a work situation, the links between the two are surprisingly similar, as we can see in Table 1.3.
Therefore, as you go through your university career it is valuable to develop these study
skills as they are often transferrable to a work situation.
Table 1.3 The similarities between study skills and employability skills
Study skill
Employability skill
Time-management
Many assignments due at the same time
A lot of study time and therefore
personal responsibility
Juggling paid employment, studying, clubs
and societies, and personal responsibilities
Working on numerous projects in which
you have to manage your own time and
that of others
Synthesis of a
lot of complex
information
Reading dozens of academic articles and
pulling out the key themes, arguments,
and positions of the authors
Reading numerous reports, background
briefings, and market research, and being
asked to make sense of them
Working with
ambiguous briefs
Getting an assignment brief and needing
to work out what you need to do to get a
good grade
Being given a loosely-defined task and be
told to ‘get on with it’
Writing for different
audiences
Studying different modules with their
various approaches to academic work
such as referencing, analysis, and styles
Writing for different managers, for your
staff, and to clients—all of which have
different requirements
Visit the Online Resource Centre for more information on transferable skills.
Employability and study skills: keeping a journal with evidence and
examples of the skills you have developed at university and outside, and
a diary to reflect on what you are learning
When you apply for most graduate jobs you will need to fill in an application form which will ask you
for evidence that you have hit a number of requirements, such as teamwork, taking initiative, or project
management. One way that you can significantly improve your chances is to keep a record of actual
examples of you meeting any of these criteria. This could be through assignments at university—teamwork, working with different nationalities; or external activities, such as being involved in the football
club (planning and organizing as you arrange matches and transport).
Studying OB is particularly useful in this regard, as the subject matter deals with many of the key skill
areas that you will need at work. Therefore, as you read on topics such as motivation, leadership, and
teamwork, consider your own experiences and how you can demonstrate examples of actual practice.
Throughout this book we will also offer study skills that give you opportunities to develop your abilities
as a student. As you go through your course, it is really helpful to keep a diary in which you can honestly and
openly reflect on what you would like to achieve in your working life and how you would like to get there.
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Customer
Book Title
Stage
Supplier
Date
OUP
Organizational Behaviour
Revise 1
Thomson Digital
01 Mar 2016
24
Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
Chapter summary
Running case: the day draws to a close
Simon Chance’s office (5.50 pm)
As early evening approaches, Simon Chance opens his diary and starts making a few notes to himself about
his reflections on his first full day at Junction Hotel. The staff seemed friendly and generally professional, and
seemed to take the meeting well. That chef, though (Effingham, he thinks he’s called), looked a bit of a
livewire and will need keeping an eye on. Everything here feels slightly chaotic, unmanageable even,
Chance considers. Everyone goes about their jobs OK, but from where he is sitting they are not working
effectively. It will take some doing to kick this lot into shape.
The bar (10.00 pm)
As the kitchen staff’s shift ends, Effingham, Josh, and Toby are sitting round the bar enjoying their evening
‘nightcap’. ‘What do you think about this new owner?’ Josh asks Effingham. Effingham snorts, ‘Same old
management clap-trap, if you ask me. They come out with all these phrases and buzz words, “blue sky thinking, A3s, gold standard customer service”, but they don’t have a clue what it’s really like.’ Toby butts in, ‘Yeah,
I’d love to see him prepping for evening service or doing the breakfast run, then tell me all that management
speak really means anything.’ ‘Yes,’ Josh smiles, ‘it’s us who run the show really.’
As we have seen, organizations are fundamentally about people, and people can be complex and make organizational life messy. Rather than being rational and logical places, as
we often like to believe, they can be full of emotion—pain, joy, excitement, disappointment, hope, fear, and anxiety—competing ambitions, and different perspectives. In view
of this, instead of seeing the theories as abstract and separate from real life, OB is best
understood by relating and applying it to concrete experience and practice. Our running
case study, Junction Hotel, will give you an insight into how theories can play out in
practice.
To sum up, there are no right answers within OB as it is a subjective discipline, born
out of various theoretical disciplines and subject to different social and political perspectives. Therefore, to study OB effectively requires critical thinking and questioning:
the ability to understand different perspectives and to seek to challenge your own
assumptions.
It is also heavily linked to real practice. The employability and study skills therefore bring
some of these issues to life as you develop your abilities for your university and employment career. Keeping a diary and working through the exercises in the book and the Online
Resource Centre will help you to maximize your experience and gain a fuller understanding
of the subject.
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Customer
Book Title
Stage
Supplier
Date
OUP
Organizational Behaviour
Revise 1
Thomson Digital
01 Mar 2016
Chapter 1
Introducing organizational behaviour
25
Further reading
Cottrell, S. 2011. Critical thinking skills: Developing effective analysis and argument. Palgrave Macmillan:
Basingstoke.
This popular study skills book gives some really useful material on the importance of critical thinking and offers
practical, as well as theoretical, ideas on how to improve in this area. Reading this will be useful, not only in studying
this subject but also to other subjects on your degree course.
Bowell, T., and Kemp, G. 2002. Critical thinking: A concise guide. Routledge: London.
Another popular study skills book that stresses how to develop and build arguments. It looks at how to assess the
strengths of an argument and how to develop your own.
Gallagher, K. 2010. Skills development for business and management students. Oxford University Press: Oxford.
This study skills guide provides useful ideas on how to develop your all-round skills as a business and management
student, including teamwork, presentation, and reading skills.
References
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High Pay Commission 2011. Cheques with balances: Why
tackling high pay is in the national interest. Final report
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