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CALIFORNIA STATE POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY, POMONA
College of Business Administration
Undergraduate Expanded Course Outline (ECO)
Course Title:
Organizational Behavior
Subject Area/Catalogue # :
MHR 318
Units:
4
CS #:
Component:
C2
Lecture/discussion
Grading Basis
Graded
Preparation:
January 2014
Prepared By:
Carlos B. González, Preeti Wadhwa,
Jeanne Almaraz, Zeynep Aytug, James
Bassett, and Nirmal Sethia
Date of last revision: 1/27/2015
I. Catalog Description
MHR 318 Organizational Behavior (4)
Introductory experiences in the basics of organizational behavior. Emphasis is given to the application
of scientific knowledge coming from different social sciences including psychology, social psychology,
sociology, communications, political science and cultural anthropology to understand and manage
human behavior in organizations. Topics discussed: individual differences, perception and attribution,
diversity, organizational culture, motivation, leadership, power and conflict, teamwork, group behavior,
and ethics as they apply to the management of contemporary organizations. 4 lecture-discussions.
Prerequisites: Upper division status; Completion of General Education Area A, and Sub-areas 1, 2,
and 3 of Area D. Meets General Education requirement in Area D4.
II. Required Background or Experience
Completion of courses in Area A, and Sub-areas 1, 2, and 3 of Area D
III. Expected Outcomes
By successfully completing the course students will be able to meet the following educational objectives:
1.
Identify the meaning and importance of behavior in organizations in the current, dynamic
workplace.
2.
Explain the scientific and interdisciplinary nature of organizational behavior.
3.
Identify the various social science disciplines students studied in lower division courses, and
explore their relevance in understanding organizational behavior.
4.
Describe issues of personality and individual differences.
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5.
Communicate the impact of perception for managing diversity, along with reporting on
diversity’s many dimensions via written or oral reports.
6.
Name the dimensions of organization culture and identify the impact culture has on
organizational performance.
7.
Describe the stages of group development through the development in the project teams.
Identify the expected impact of norms and roles on group performance.
8.
Assess the role of leadership and explain the importance of the leader in the development of a
motivated workforce, including the role of the leader in addressing: employee’s needs,
rewards distribution, organizational justice, equity, and expectancy.
9.
Analyze the complexity of organizational conflict and its relationship with organizational
communication and organizational politics.
10.
Explain the importance of ethical behavior in organizations.
IV. Texts and Readings
Recommended textbooks: Organizational Behavior – text(s) will be drawn from:
Organizational Behavior, 7th Edition, by McShane and Von Glinow (2015), McGraw-Hill Irwin.
ISBN-13 9780077862589
Organizational Behavior, 10th Edition, by Kreitner and Kinicki (2013), McGraw-Hill Irwin. ISBN-13
9780078029363
Organizational Behavior: Key Concepts, Skills, and Best Practices, 5th Edition (2012), by Kreitner
and Kinicki. The McGraw-Hill Companies. ISBN-13 9780078137204
Organizational Behavior, 13th Edition, by Uhl-Bien, Schermerhorn, and Osborn (2014), John Wiley &
Sons, Inc.
Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior (2012) Jennifer M. George; Gareth R. Jones,
Prentice Hall.
Recommended practitioner oriented primary sources:
Harvard Business Review
California Management Review
Academy of Management Perspectives
Ivey Business Journal
Business Horizons
Recommended academically oriented sources: The following are suggested readings students will be
asked to choose from. Students will use these readings in conjunction with a textbook. It is expected for
the students to synthesize both sources of information in their written assignments.
Organizational Behavior
Taylor, Frederick Winslow. (1916) The Principles of Scientific Management
Follett, Mary Parker. (1926) The Giving of Orders
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Roethlisberger, Fritz J. (1941) The Hawthorne Experiments
Coch, Lester and John R.P. French. (1948) Overcoming Resistance to Change
McGregor, Douglas. (1957) The Human Side of Enterprise
Motivation and Performance
Maslow, Abraham H. (1943) A Theory of Human Motivation
McClelland, David C. (1966) Achievement Motivation
Herzberg, Frederick. (1967) One More Time: How do you Motivate Employees?
Alderfer, Clayton P. (1969) Existence, Relatedness, and Growth Model
Campbell, John P., Dunnette, Marvin D., Lawler, Edward E., and Karl E. Weick. (1970) Expectancy
Theory
Kerr, Steven. (1975) On the Folly of Rewarding A, While Hoping for B.
Latham, Gary P. and Edwin A. Locke. (1979) Goal Setting – A Motivational Technique that Works
Interpersonal and Group Behavior
Gouldner, Alvin W. (1957) Cosmopolitans and Locals
Maier, Norman R. (1967) Assets and Liabilities in Group Decision Making
Cartwright, Dorwin and Alvin Zander. (1968) Origins of Group Dynamics
Schein, Edgar H. (1970) Group and Intergoup Relationships
Janis, Irving L. (1971) Groupthink.
James, Muriel and Jongeward, Dorothy. (1971) Transactional Analysis
Hall, Jay. (1973) The Johari Window
Harvey, Jerry B. (1974) The Abilene Paradox: The Management of Agreement
Tuckman, Bruce W. and Mary Ann Jensen. (1977) Stages of Group Development
Stayer, Ralph. (1990) Self-Directed Work Teams
Leadership
Blake, Robert and Jane Mouton. (1964) The Managerial Grid
Tannenbaum, Robert and Warren H. Schmidt. How to Choose a Leadership Pattern
Vroom, Victor and Arthur C. Jago. (1974) Leadership Decision Making
Blanchard, Kenneth H. (1984) One Minute Manager
Kouzes, James M. and Barry Z. Pozner. (1987) Fundamental Leadership Practices
Kotter, John P. (1990) Management and Leadership
Greenleaf, Robert K. (1991) Servant Leadership
Hersey, Paul. (2001) Situational Leadership
Bennis, Warren and Robert Thomas. (2002) Crucibles of Leadership.
Power and Influence
Machiavelli, Niccolo. (1513) Is it Better to be Loved or Feared?
French, John R. and Bertram Raven. (1961)The Bases of Social Power
Etzioni, Amitai. (1961) Position Power and Personal Power
Salancik, Gerald and Jeffrey Pfeffer. (1977) Who Gets Power – and How They Hold On To It
Burns, James MacGregor. (1978) The Power of Leadership
Hersey, Paul, and Walter E. Natemeyer. (2001) Situational Leadership and Power
Organizations, Work, Processes, and People
Weber, Max. (1946) Bureaucracy.
Argyris, Chris. (1957) The Individual and the Organization
Burn, Tom and G.M. Stalker. (1961) Mechanistic and Organic Systems
Likert, Rensis. (1967) Management Systems 1 – 4
Odiorne, George S. (1969) Management by Objectives
Lawrence, Paul R. and Kenneth H. Blanchard. (1974) What’s Missing in MBO?
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Hammer, Michael and James Champy. (1993) Reengineering Work Processes.
Increasing Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness
Katz, Robert L. (1955) Skills of an Effective Administrator
Drucker, Peter F. (1966) Leadership Effectiveness Can Be Learned
French, Wendell. (1969) Organization Development
Peters, Thomas J. and Robert H. Waterman. (1982) In Search of Excellence
Senge, Peter M. (1990) The Learning Organization.
Hamel, Gary and C.K. Prahalad. (1994) Competing for the Future
Goleman, Daniel. (1998) Emotional Intelligence.
Collins, Jim. (2001) The Level 5 Leader.
Goldsmith, Marshall. (2002) Feedforward
V. Minimum Student Materials
Course Textbooks, supplemental reading packets of original sources, writing materials
VI. Minimum College Facilities White boards, overhead screen, computer projector, DVD Player,
moveable furniture, Blackboard
VII. Instructional Methods
A variety of instructional methods will be used to help students achieve expected course outcomes.
They include the following:
1. Lecture
2. Discussion of assigned readings
3. Small group activities
4. Experiential learning
5. In class and online presentations
6. Student feedback on in class and online presentations
There may be a Blackboard/on-line component to this course. If so, students will be expected to check
Blackboard regularly, contribute to online discussions, and get course information and submit course
work through the site.
VIII. Methods of Evaluating Outcomes:
The course aims at developing intrapersonal, interpersonal and group competencies contributing to
effectiveness in contemporary organizations. Instructors must help students learning as they are
exposed to concepts and ideas coming from different social sciences. To achieve this, there is a focus
on experiential learning in which class lectures are complemented by a wide range of activities aimed
at the application of course material and content to solve organizational problems.
Class methods are contingent to the pedagogical objectives to be achieved in each lesson. Therefore,
instructor will serve as facilitators, who through expert knowledge, will use lectures, the Socratic
method, simulations, exercises, videos, movies, social media, and internet based exercises to assist
students’ learning process.
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Matrix of Methods for Evaluating Outcomes
Outcomes
Identify the meaning and importance
of behavior in organizations in the
current, dynamic workplace.
Explain the scientific and
interdisciplinary nature of
organizational behavior.
Identify the various social science
disciplines students studied in lower
division courses, and explore their
relevance in understanding
organizational behavior.
Describe issues of personality and
individual differences.
Communicate the impact of
perception for managing diversity,
along with reporting on diversity’s
many dimensions via written or oral
reports.
Research
Paper,
Research
Questions
X
Exams
Class
Participation
Quizzes
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Describe the stages of group
development through the
development in the project teams.
Identify the expected impact of
norms and roles on group
performance.
Analyze the complexity of
organizational conflict and its
relationship with organizational
communication and organizational
politics.
Group
Presentations
X
Name the dimensions of
organization culture and identify the
impact culture has on organizational
performance.
Assess the role of leadership and
explain the importance of the leader
in the development of a motivated
workforce, including the role of the
leader in addressing: employee’s
needs, rewards distribution,
organizational justice, equity, and
expectancy.
Experiential
Exec. Class
Reports
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
5
X
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Explain the importance of ethical
behavior in organizations.
X
X
X
X
X
X
IX. Topics Covered
Week #
1
Theme/Topic
Overview of Organizational Behavior (OB)





Definition of OB
Importance of OB for organizational effectiveness.
Scientific nature of OB
Social sciences that inform OB
Overview of the course and topics to be discussed
Personality and individual differences

2




Definition of personality and discussion of personality within a scientific context (Big five
personality types or MBTI)
Importance of understanding personality to manage individual differences at work.
Emotional intelligence
Feelings, emotions, and emotional work at the workplace
Introduction to active listening
Perception, attribution and the managing of diversity
3







The nature of perception
Principles of Gestalt Psychology such as: similarity, figure ground, etc,
Selective perception and the limits of perception (self-fulfilling prophecies, etc)
Attribution Theory
Stereotypes
Diversity discussion
Importance of managing diversity in organizations.
Motivation and job design
4






The meaning of motivation in organizations
Content and process theories of motivation
The impact of job design on motivation
The relationship of job satisfaction and motivation
How goal setting influences motivation
Importance of job design
Group dynamics
5



Different models of group dynamics (e.g., Tuckman’s 5 stages of group development,
Punctuated Equilibrium Model, etc.).
Group roles and norms , time management, behaviors of effective groups
Threats to group effectiveness
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Culture in organizations
6
7
8






Organizational culture
Values, beliefs, assumptions
Meaning creation
Socialization
National culture
The multicultural organization
Basic concepts of culture as they relate to international management (e.g. Hofstede)
Leadership


Definition of leadership
Different approaches to the study of leadership (e.g. Trait and behavioral theories of
leadership, charisma, transactional leaders, substitutes for leadership, etc.)
The importance of leadership as managerial function
Power and political behavior







Nature of political behavior in organizations
Power in organizations
Sources of power
Functional and dysfunctional uses of power
Persuasion methods/tactics? (E.g. Robert Cialdini’s work, etc)
Careerism
Conflict, conflict management and negotiation
Ethics in organizations
9
10




Definition of ethics
Ethical dilemmas
Model for ethical decision making
Synthesis of the course and discussion of the ethical imperative for the management of
OB (e.g. ethics in motivation, job design, diversity management, organizational
politics, etc.)
Group presentations
X. Evaluation of Outcomes
A. Student Assessment
1. A minimum of two of exams. The exams’ objective is to achieve the remembering,
understanding, and applying goals within Bloom’s Taxonomy.
2. Written assignments – Students will write at least two response papers. Instructors will grade
the assignments and provide developmental feedback to the students. This is a specific form
of writing in organizational behavior known as a Personal Application Assignment, or PAA
(Kolb, 1984). In such assignments, students will engage with the wide range of social
science disciplines that inform organizational behavior (please see course description) to
understand organizational realities they have encountered in their personal or professional
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lives. The main objective of these exercises is the integration of knowledge to personal
experience, thus achieving the analyzing, evaluating, and creating objectives in Bloom’s
Taxonomy.
The PAA satisfies the meaningful requirement for a D4 course for several reasons. First,
students are expected to apply information and knowledge they have already been exposed to
and solve an organizational situation of their choosing. For example, students will first
describe in detail a specific situation they confronted while working in an organization and
will apply specific topics discussed in the course to better understand the situation. Lastly,
students explain how to handle the situation by incorporating insights coming from course
material. In other words, students are expected to synthesize and summarize all relevant
knowledge and apply this knowledge to solve specific situations. The purpose is to put the
students in the place of an expert providing discipline based advice to solve specific
organizational problems.
Secondly, the PAA meets the meaningful requirement given the amount of writing required.
Usually students have to write several drafts until the document evidences a good
understanding of concepts and their application to solve specific organizational situations.
This demands that the faculty spends extraordinary amounts of time reading and providing
detailed feedback to each student.
3. A group presentation based on the analysis of an organization or on a published case study.
This assignment should also serve as an opportunity for students to apply the knowledge they
have acquired in the course. In the presentation, students will show the ability to use the
basic knowledge they acquired in the lower division social science courses to analyze the
complexity of human behavior within organizations.
4. Participation in discussion of the course topics and readings (both in class and online).
B. Course Assessment
The course will be evaluated using the Management and Human Resources Department standard
course evaluation tools. Historically, this has been done at the MHR Department and Cal Poly in
general via student questionnaires of instruction, and the faculty peer evaluations, which assess
syllabi and course teaching methodologies. Other evaluative tools could also be implemented
such as a questionnaire pertaining to whether the students perceived that this course fulfilled the
objectives of a synthesis course in Area C or a short paper in which students assess the merits of
the course as an Area C GE synthesis course.
C. Goals and Measurable Outcomes
Students who complete MHR 318, Organizational Behavior, will meet the following General
Education (GE) goals:
I. Acquire foundational skills and capacities.
a. Write and speak effectively to various audiences: The main objective of the written
assignments is to help students analyze a specific organizational problem they faced and
integrate research based data to explain and understand their situations. This kind of exercise
will help students develop the communication skills necessary to analyze and explain
complex organizational realities. In addition, students will have to do at least one oral
presentation to report their findings.
c. Construct arguments based on sound evidence and reasoning to support an opinion or
conclusion. The PAA will allow students to use the information coming from different social
sciences to analyze complex organizational situations and provide informed opinions based
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on reputable information and rigorous argumentation.
II. Develop an understanding of various branches of knowledge and their
interrelationships.
c. Analyze the concepts, theories, and methods pertaining to cultural, economic, historical,
political, or social institutions.
An important aspect of organizational behavior is its scientific nature. As such, a crucial goal
of the course is to help students differentiate between subjective opinion and empirically
tested knowledge obtained through the use of the scientific method. Consequently, through
the course, students are exposed to knowledge that is generalizable and can be used for the
analysis of multiple social institutions.
In specific, the academic study of organizational behavior has the creation and development
of effective, efficient and ethical organizations as its main disciplinary purpose. For this
reason, the field is tailored to institutional analysis. Which is, the knowledge coming from the
multiple social sciences that inform the field, along with the knowledge created in
organizational behavior research, is used to analyze economic institutions (i.e. corporations,
universities, etc.), political intuitions (i.e. a cultural analysis of the US Congress), or social
institutions (i.e. helping a church or a non-for profit achieve efficiency). Therefore,
organizational behavior, is perhaps better located than most social sciences to use the
concepts, theories, and methods from multiple institutions for the understanding of
contemporary societies and the organizations they create. This is something the field has been
doing since its inception.
d. Integrate concepts, theories, and examples from more than one field of study to identify
problems, draw conclusions, and construct original ideas.
As described in the course description, organizational behavior is by its nature an
interdisciplinary field of knowledge, incorporating insights coming from different social
sciences to understanding complex human behavior in organizations. For example:
i. From psychology (a field from which organizational behavior borrows heavily) has
come the study of perception and personality. Concepts such as the Myers-Briggs Personality
Indicator, which is informed by Carl Jung’s psychoanalytic theories, are used to understand
and manage human behavior in organizations and to control organizational conflict.
ii. From cultural anthropology, the study of organizations as cultures and the importance
of organizational culture in determining the ethos and the kind of behaviors that are
acceptable or unacceptable in organizations. Seeing organizations through an anthropological
lens is perhaps one of the most important societal changes in the last thirty years.
iii. From social psychology, the study of the human groups in organizations. Social
psychology is used in organizational behavior to understand group dynamics and to manage
effective teams and groups. Also, the study of stereotypes and diversity is highly influenced
by social psychology.
iv. From political science, the study of organizations as political systems where different
groups and/or individuals are always trying to advocate for their own agendas and the
conflicts that political maneuvering creates in organizations.
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These are just some of the concepts the field deals with, as discussed above, organizational
behavior is by its very nature an interdisciplinary field of knowledge. Integrating different
disciplines of social inquiry and applying their insights for the betterment of organizations.
III. Develop social and global knowledge.
b. Apply principles, methods, value systems, and ethics to social issues confronting local and
global communities.
An important objective of MHR 318 is to help students to understand ethics, diversity and
cross-cultural elements of the organizations in which they will work. The aim is to provide
students with the knowledge and skills they will need to survive in contemporary
organizations.
IV. Develop capacities for integration and lifelong learning.
a. Analyze the behavior of individuals within the context of the social and natural environment,
human sexuality, physical and mental health, and stages of life.
c. Explain the importance of active engagement in communities for the betterment of personal and
public life
An important pedagogical objective in organizational behavior is the teaching of human diversity
in organizations; this includes the study of sexuality in contemporary organizations. Specifically, how
organizational practices engage with the needs of employees based on their sexual orientation. For
example, spousal hires, benefits such as health insurance, organizational practices such as leave of
absence to take care of a spouse, organizational culture and heterosexism, etc.
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