McGraw-Hill/Irwin
Chapter Two
Environmental Context:
Information, Technology,
Globalization, Diversity, and Ethics
© 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved .

• Examine the role of information technology.
• Present developments in knowledge management and human capital/intelligence.
• Discuss the impact of globalization.
• Identify the meaning of diversity and its importance.
• Discuss the meaning of ethics and major factors of ethical behavior.
• Describe major areas of ethical concern and steps taken to effectively address it.
• Examine specific ethical issues.

• Environmental context for organizational behavior is markedly different from past.
• Management is forced to rethink approaches to operations and human resources because of:
– Information technology, globalization, diversity, and ethics.
• Organizations are now more responsive to both external and internal environments.

• E-business
– Still portrayed as a recent phenomenon and is almost equated with today’s Internet.
• Knowledge management
– Tangible knowledge assets captured and retained in organization structures and systems.
– Intangible knowledge or intelligence possessed by employees and other stakeholders.
• Human/Intellectual capital
– Can be thought of as investors in the business expecting a return on investment.

• Third phase of globalization - Friedman.
– Fueled by information technology available to everyone in the world.
• Implications for organizational behavior are profound and direct.
– Cultures around the world impact the organizational behavior of managers and employees quite differently.

Major Reasons for Increasing Diversity

Continued
• Developing the multicultural organization
– Reflects the contributions and interests of diverse cultural and social groups.
– Acts on a commitment to eradicate social oppression.
– Includes the members of diverse cultural and social groups.
– Follows through on broader external social responsibilities.

Continued
• Individual approaches to managing diversity
– Learning
– Empathy

• Most common techniques include:
– Testing
– Training
– Mentoring
– Work/Family Programs

• Factors determining ethical behavior:
– Individuals and groups
– Cultural
– Organizational
– External environment
• Other factors leading to ethical problems in organizations:
– Peer pressure on people to be less ethical.
– Difference in views from one person to another.

Continued
• The impact of ethics on “bottom-line” outcomes
– Increasing evidence that ethics programs and being ethical pays off for organizations.
• Employee privacy issues
– Computer technology
– Mandatory drug testing
– Efforts of organizations to control the lifestyles of their employees.