Organizational Behavior – Prelim Exam Review

86 question-and-answer flashcards covering key concepts from Organizational Behavior lecture notes: OB foundations, management functions, competitive strategy, diversity, globalization, ethics, attitudes, perception, stress, and more.

What three elements does the field of Organizational Behavior seek to understand?

Human behavior in organizational settings, the organization itself, and the individual–organization interface.

List the four basic management functions.

Planning, Organizing, Leading, Controlling.

Define the management function of Planning.

Deciding future organizational goals and the best means of achieving them.

What does Organizing involve in management?

Designing jobs, grouping them into units, and establishing authority patterns.

Describe the Leading function.

Getting members to work together toward organizational goals.

What is the Controlling function in management?

Monitoring and correcting actions to keep the organization on track toward its goals.

Name the four main categories of organizational resources managers use.

Human, Financial, Physical, Information.

Identify the four critical management skill areas.

Technical, Interpersonal, Conceptual, Diagnostic skills.

What is Human Resource Management (HRM)?

Organizational activities directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective workforce.

Define competitive advantage.

An organization’s edge over rivals in attracting customers and defending itself against competition.

Give four common sources of competitive advantage.

Innovation, Speed, Cost, Quality (others include Service, Branding, Distribution, Convenience, First-to-market).

What is a Cost Leadership business strategy?

Striving to be the lowest-cost provider through operational excellence.

How does a Differentiation strategy create advantage?

By offering unique or high-quality products/services through innovation.

Describe a Specialization strategy.

Focusing on a specific customer group and building loyalty with customized offerings.

What is the main goal of a Growth strategy?

To expand the company, often by adding employees and markets to increase earnings.

Who introduced Scientific Management and what was its primary focus?

Frederick Taylor; it focused on productivity through time-and-motion studies and task standardization.

What phenomenon inspired the Human Relations Movement?

The Hawthorne effect—behavior changes simply from being observed.

Explain the Systems perspective of organizations.

Views the organization as an interrelated set of elements converting inputs into outputs while interacting with the environment.

Contrast the Universal and Situational perspectives in OB.

Universal assumes one best way; Situational argues effectiveness depends on contextual variables.

What does the Interactionist perspective emphasize?

Continuous interaction between individuals and situations in shaping behavior.

Define productivity in an OB context.

A narrow efficiency measure: outputs produced per unit of input.

What is organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)?

Voluntary actions beyond job requirements that contribute to organizational effectiveness.

List three examples of dysfunctional behaviors in organizations.

Absenteeism, Turnover, Theft/Sabotage (others include harassment, workplace violence, rumors).

What is strategic execution?

How well managers and employees understand and perform actions needed to achieve strategic goals.

Why does OB rely on the scientific method?

Because intuition and common sense can be wrong; systematic study yields reliable knowledge.

Differentiate between independent and dependent variables.

Independent variables are manipulated or set; dependent variables are measured outcomes.

What range can a correlation coefficient take, and what does 0 mean?

Between –1 and +1; 0 indicates no relationship.

What is meta-analysis?

A technique that combines results of many studies to draw broader conclusions.

Name five major environmental forces changing business today.

Globalization, Diversity, Technology, Ethics & Corporate Governance, New employment relationships.

Define surface-level diversity.

Observable differences such as race, gender, age, ethnicity, and physical abilities.

What is deep-level diversity?

Differences in goals, values, personalities, decision styles, and abilities that are not immediately visible.

Explain intersectionality.

Simultaneous membership in more than one demographic category influencing experiences.

State the ‘like-me’ bias.

Preference for associating with people perceived as similar to oneself.

What U.S. law (and year) prohibits employment discrimination based on protected classes?

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (amended 1991).

Define ethnocentrism in a workplace context.

Belief that one’s own culture, norms, or language is superior to others.

What is reciprocal mentoring?

Pairing a senior employee with a diverse junior employee so both learn from each other.

Provide Hofstede’s five main cultural dimensions.

Individualism–Collectivism, Power Distance, Uncertainty Avoidance, Masculinity (Assertiveness), Long- vs Short-Term Orientation.

What is cultural competence?

Ability to interact effectively with people from different cultures through awareness, attitude, knowledge, and skills.

Distinguish manufacturing from service organizations.

Manufacturing produces tangible goods; service organizations create intangible outputs and time/place utility.

What is corporate governance?

Oversight of a corporation by its board to act in shareholders' and stakeholders' best interests.

Define corporate social responsibility (CSR).

Businesses acting for the common good, valuing human dignity, and integrating social concerns into operations.

Who are knowledge workers?

Employees who add value primarily through what they know (e.g., engineers, scientists).

Differentiate outsourcing from offshoring.

Outsourcing hires external firms for tasks; offshoring moves those tasks to another country.

What is a contingent worker?

Someone working on a non-permanent basis, such as contractors or temps.

Explain the psychological contract.

Unwritten expectations between employee and organization regarding contributions and inducements.

List the three structural components of an attitude.

Cognition, Affect, Intention.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Conflict between attitudes or between attitude and behavior, causing discomfort.

Name three ways to reduce cognitive dissonance.

Change behavior, change attitude, or seek information justifying one side.

Define job satisfaction.

A positive attitude and feeling about one’s job, influenced by personality, values, and work itself.

Identify the three types of organizational commitment.

Affective, Normative, Continuance commitment.

What is employee engagement?

Heightened emotional and intellectual connection motivating discretionary effort at work.

Differentiate terminal and instrumental values.

Terminal: desired end-states (e.g., prosperity); Instrumental: preferred means to achieve ends (e.g., honesty).

What is intrinsic vs extrinsic work value?

Intrinsic relates to the work itself; extrinsic to outcomes (pay, status).

Define affectivity.

Tendency to experience certain moods—positive or negative affect.

Give two common perception errors.

Halo effect and selective perception (others: stereotyping, contrast effect, projection).

What is the attribution process?

Determining whether behavior is caused by internal factors (ability/effort) or external factors (luck/resources).

Explain self-fulfilling prophecy in OB.

Expectations influence treatment of others, leading them to behave in ways that confirm the expectations.

List three forms of organizational fairness.

Distributive, Procedural, Interactional fairness.

How does trust influence workplace relationships?

It is the expectation others will not exploit you, fostering cooperation and commitment.

Define stress.

Adaptive response to a stimulus placing excessive psychological or physical demands.

Name the three stages of General Adaptation Syndrome (GAS).

Alarm, Resistance, Exhaustion.

Differentiate eustress from distress.

Eustress is positive, motivating stress; distress is negative and harmful.

Provide four categories of organizational stressors.

Task demands, Physical demands, Role demands, Interpersonal demands.

What is burnout?

A feeling of exhaustion from prolonged stress with too few sources of satisfaction.

Give two individual coping strategies for stress.

Exercise and Time Management (others: relaxation, role management, support groups).

Name one institutional and one collateral organizational stress program.

Institutional: workload management or flexible schedules; Collateral: employee fitness or stress-management workshops.

What is work–life relationship?

Interrelationship between a person’s work responsibilities and personal life.

Why can too little stress be problematic?

It may cause boredom, apathy, and low performance.

Describe positive vs negative affect.

Positive: high energy, enthusiasm; Negative: feelings of upset, fear, distress.

What is selective perception?

Filtering information that contradicts our beliefs or makes us uncomfortable.

Explain the halo effect.

Forming an overall impression based on a single positive trait.

What is procedural fairness?

Perceived fairness of the methods used to make decisions and allocate outcomes.

Define self-handicapping.

Creating obstacles to one’s own success to protect self-esteem if failure occurs.

How can reverse mentoring address generational differences?

Younger employees teach seniors technical skills while learning organizational wisdom in return.

What is cycle time in operations?

The duration needed to complete a recurring activity (e.g., order processing).

List two advantages and two disadvantages of social media use in organizations.

Advantages: increased collaboration, leaner structures. Disadvantages: less personal communication, urgency overload.

Why is a global perspective essential for modern managers?

To understand and work effectively across cultures, markets, and diverse workforces.

What are the main components of cultural competence?

Self-awareness, open attitude, cultural knowledge, cross-cultural skills.

Summarize the business case for diversity.

Diversity boosts creativity, decision quality, innovation, and overall firm performance.