Study Guide: Organizational Behavior – Exam 1
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How to Use This Guide
• Set up a schedule: Review 1 or 2 chapters per day.
• Active recall: After reading the chapter summary, try to write from memory some of the
key terms or draw diagrams.
• Use the sample questions here as mini quizzes.
• Flashcards are very helpful (key terms, models, definitions).
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Study Tips / What Instructors Often Expect
• Definitions are frequently tested; being precise helps.
• Diagrams or models: If you can draw the Job Characteristics Model or Expectancy
Theory and label components, that often gains you points.
• Examples: Applying the theory to real or hypothetical organizations helps show
understanding.
• Compare and contrast: Many exam questions ask how two models/theories are different
or when one is more applicable than another.
• Don’t just memorize: Understand under what conditions theories hold, and what their
limitations are.
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Key Terms to Master
Here’s a list of terms/concepts you should know by heart (definitions, examples, implications).
• Organizational Behavior
• Managerial roles & functions (e.g. Mintzberg roles)
• Attitude components (cognitive, affective, behavioral)
• Job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, psychological
empowerment, employee engagement
• Cognitive dissonance
• Big Five personality traits; MBTI; core self-evaluations; proactive personality; locus of
control
• Personality vs values; terminal vs instrumental values; Hofstede’s cultural dimensions
• Perception: attribution theory; selective perception; halo effect; stereotyping; contrast
effect
• Decision making models: rational, bounded rationality, intuitive
• Motivation theories: Maslow, ERG, McClelland; Equity; Expectancy; Goal Setting; Job
Characteristics Model
• Intrinsic vs extrinsic motivation; job design; reward systems
• Emotions vs moods; emotional labor; affective events theory; mood regulation; emotional
intelligence
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Chapter-by-Chapter Review + Sample Questions
Below are the main ideas, what you must know, and sample questions. Pay special attention to
definitions, models/frameworks, and how they link together.
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Chapter 1: What is Organizational Behavior?
Key Concepts / What to Know
• Definition: Organizational Behavior (OB) = the study of how individuals, groups, and
structure affect behavior in organizations so as to improve effectiveness.
• Levels of OB analysis: individual, group, organization.
• Why OB matters for managers: helps predict, understand, influence behavior; improves
effectiveness; helps with interpersonal skills.
• Managerial roles & functions:
o Functions: planning, organizing, leading, controlling.
o Roles (Mintzberg): interpersonal (figurehead, leader, liaison), informational
(monitor, disseminator, spokesperson), decisional (entrepreneur, resource
allocator, disturbance handler, negotiator).
• Skills needed by managers: technical, human, conceptual.
• Evidence-based management: using systematic study, not just intuition.
• Some challenges/opportunities for OB: workforce diversity, globalization, technology
change, ethics, employee well-being etc.
Sample Quiz Questions
1. Define Organizational Behavior and explain the three levels at which it operates.
2. Which of the Mintzberg roles involves resolving conflicts and disturbances (disturbance
handler)?
3. Why is conceptual skill important for top managers? Give an example.
4. Name two challenges facing managers in modern organizations and explain how OB
helps
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Chapter 3: Attitudes and Job Satisfaction
Key Concepts
• Attitudes: evaluative statements about objects, people, events. Components of attitude:
1. Cognitive (beliefs, what one thinks)
2. Affective (feelings/emotions)
3. Behavioral (intentions, actions)
• Link between attitudes & behavior: attitudes influence, but not always; there are
moderating variables (e.g. specificity, social pressures, direct experience).
• Cognitive dissonance: conflict between behavior and beliefs/attitudes; leads to
discomfort, which people try to resolve.
• Major job attitudes:
o Job satisfaction
o Job involvement
o Organizational commitment
Psychological empowerment
Employee engagement
• What causes job satisfaction: nature of the work (intrinsic factors), pay & benefits,
supervisor and coworker relationships, growth opportunities, personality (e.g. core selfevaluations).
• Outcomes of job satisfaction: performance, organizational citizenship behavior, lower
absenteeism/turnover, life satisfaction, etc.
• Responses to dissatisfaction:
o Exit (leave)
o Voice (attempting to improve situation)
o Loyalty (wait for the situation to improve)
o Neglect (allow things to deteriorate)
Sample Quiz Questions
1. What are the three components of attitudes, and how might each play out in a job-related
scenario?
2. Define job satisfaction. How is it measured (global vs facet approach)?
3. What is cognitive dissonance? Give an example of how an employee might experience
dissonance.
4. Which job attitude(s) might most strongly affect turnover? Why?
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Chapter 4: Emotions and Moods
Key Concepts
• Definitions:
o Affect = broad range of feelings people experience; includes emotions & moods.
o Emotions are intense, short, specific; Moods are less intense, more general and
diffuse.
• Sources of emotions and moods: events at work, personality, time of day, weather, stress.
• Emotional labor: managing emotions to fulfill job roles (surface acting vs deep acting).
• Affective events theory: how day‐to‐day events cause affective reactions which then
influence job satisfaction, performance, etc.
• Positive affect & negative affect; mood regulation.
• Implications for managers: emotional intelligence, creating supportive contexts; helping
employees with emotional regulation.
Sample Quiz Questions
1. What is emotional labor, and how does deep acting differ from surface acting? Which is
more exhausting?
2. Explain affective events theory. Provide an example of how a daily event at work can
influence performance or satisfaction.
3. How do moods differ from emotions? Why does that distinction matter?
4. How might a manager help employees manage negative moods?
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Chapter 5: Personality and Values
Key Concepts
Personality: the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with
others.
• Determinants of personality: heredity, environment, situation.
• Measures/frameworks:
o Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) – strengths & weaknesses.
o Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion,
agreeableness, neuroticism.
• Other traits: core self-evaluations, locus of control, self-monitoring, proactive personality,
etc.
• Values: stable life goals that people have (terminal vs instrumental values). Values vary
by culture and generation.
• National culture frameworks (Hofstede’s dimensions: power distance, individualism vs
collectivism, masculinity vs femininity, uncertainty avoidance, long- vs short-term
orientation).
• Fit:
o Person-job fit: matching personality to job
o Person-organization fit: matching individual values to organization’s culture
Sample Quiz Questions
1. Explain the Big Five personality traits; for each, give an example of how it might affect
behavior at work.
2. What is the difference between terminal and instrumental values? Give examples.
3. Describe how generational (or cultural) values might impact behavior in a multinational
company.
4. What is proactive personality and why might employers want it?
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Chapter 6: Perception and Individual Decision Making
Key Concepts
• Perception = process by which individuals organize and interpret sensory impressions to
give meaning to their environment.
• What influences perception: the perceiver, the target, and situation/context.
• Person perception: how we attribute causes to someone’s behavior. Attribution theory:
internal vs external causes; factors: distinctiveness, consensus, consistency.
• Errors and biases in perception: selective perception, halo effect, contrast effect,
stereotyping.
• Decision making:
o Rational decision-making model (steps, assumptions).
o Bounded rationality – people satisfice rather than optimize.
o Intuitive decision making – when intuition works, when it’s risky.
• Common barriers to good decision making: bias, heuristics, overconfidence, escalation of
commitment, framing effects, etc.
Sample Quiz Questions
1. Define attribution theory: what are the causes of internal vs external attribution? Use
distinctiveness, consensus, consistency.
2. What is bounded rationality? How does it differ from the “ideal” rational model?
3. List and explain two perceptual biases and give real-life examples.
4. When might intuitive decision making be better than rational decision making?
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Chapter 7: Motivation Concepts (Theories of Motivation)
Key Concepts
• Definition of motivation: the processes that account for an individual’s intensity,
direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.
• Major content (needs) theories:
o Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (physiological → safety → social → esteem →
self-actualization)
o ERG Theory (Existence, Relatedness, Growth)
o McClelland’s Need Theory (need for achievement, affiliation, power)
• Process theories:
o Equity Theory (perceptions of fairness; comparing inputs/outputs).
o Expectancy Theory (motivated when expectancy × instrumentality × valence are
high).
o Goal Setting Theory (specific & difficult goals + feedback → higher
performance).
• Job Design approaches: Job Characteristics Model (skill variety, task identity, task
significance, autonomy, feedback → psychological states → outcomes).
• How motivation theories apply: incentive systems, performance management, meaningful
work design.
Sample Quiz Questions
1. Compare Maslow’s theory and ERG theory; how are they similar, how do they differ?
2. What is the expectancy theory of motivation? Describe with an example.
3. What are the core job characteristics in the Job Characteristics Model, and why do they
matter?
4. Suppose a manager is considering giving greater autonomy to employees. Which
motivation theory supports that, and what should the manager ensure so the change is
effective?
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Chapter 8: Motivation: Applications
Key Concepts
• Applying motivation theories in real settings:
o Pay, bonuses, and other rewards as motivators.
o Performance appraisal systems; linking outcomes to rewards.
o Employee recognition.
• Nonfinancial motivation: meaning of work, work‐life balance, job enrichment, redesign.
• Motivating specific groups: cross-cultural considerations; motivating remote workers; job
rotation, flexible work.
• Challenges in motivation application: individual differences, what motivates one person
may not motivate another; risk of extrinsic rewards crowding out intrinsic motivation;
fairness perceptions.
Sample Quiz Questions
1. How can job enrichment (or job design in general) increase motivation?
2. What are the potential downsides of reward systems based purely on financial incentives?
3. Describe how cultural differences might affect what motivates people.
4. Design a reward system for a sales team using both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
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Integrative Questions (Test your understanding)
1. How do personality traits (Ch 5) interact with job design / structure (Ch 7 & 8) to affect
job satisfaction and performance?
2. Imagine you are a manager in a cross-cultural company where one culture rates power
distance high and another low. How might that affect how you motivate employees (Ch
7), how they perceive decisions (Ch 6), and their values (Ch 5)?
3. Describe a situation where an employee experiences cognitive dissonance (Ch 3) and
explain how that might lead to certain behavior (exit, voice, etc.).
4. Design a small survey (3-5 items) to measure employee attitudes (job satisfaction,
commitment, involvement), link those measures back to likely outcomes (performance /
turnover), and explain what factors you would examine as predictors (personality, job
design, rewards, perception).
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Summary Table
Here’s a quick summary table to see how the chapters link up:
Chapter
Central Focus
Key Theories / Models
Outcomes + Managerial Implications
Helps managers understand what to study;
OB as a field; levels;
Managerial roles, functions; OB model;
1
importance of interpersonal skills, adapting to
managerial roles, skills
evidence-based management
changes
Components of attitude; job attitudes;
Influence on turnover, performance, citizenship
Attitudes, job satisfaction,
3
cognitive dissonance; job satisfaction
behavior; how managers can monitor & improve
responses to dissatisfaction
measurement
attitudes
Understanding emotional dynamics at work;
Affect, emotional labor, affective events
4
Emotions & moods
managing emotional labor; employee well-being;
theory; mood regulation
leadership’s role in mood
Who people are: personality Big Five, MBTI, core self-evaluations; Helps in hiring, team composition, leadership style
5
and values
values; culture; fit
adaptation, cross-cultural effectiveness
Attribution theory; perceptual biases;
Helps predict misjudgments; improve decision
Perception & decision
6
rational vs bounded vs intuitive decision processes; reduce bias; more fair and robust
making
making
decisions
Motivational theories (why Needs theories; process theories; job
Guides how to structure jobs, rewards, goal setting,
7
people try)
design
fairness, etc.
Reward systems; job redesign;
Applying motivation in
What works and doesn't; trade-offs; managerial
8
motivating different people; cultural,
practice
levers for motivation
individual differences
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