chapter 1 Management 110 lecture

Organizational behavior (OB)

The social science that describes, explains, and predicts how people act in workplaces.

Individual, group, and organizational levels

The three levels at which OB examines people and workplace effectiveness.

Describing, explaining, and predicting behavior

The three main purposes of studying how people act in workplaces.

Hybrid field

An area of study that combines ideas from several other disciplines.

Psychology, sociology, economics, political science, and strategic management

The five fields named in the chapter as sources of OB knowledge.

People as a competitive advantage

Employees' unique abilities can help a business succeed because competitors cannot exactly copy its workforce.

Organizations win with people

The chapter's central idea that businesses succeed when their employees succeed.

People skills (interpersonal or social skills)

Abilities that help someone work well with others, build relationships, and handle human interactions.

Technical or functional skills

Specialized abilities needed to perform work in areas such as accounting, finance, marketing, or information technology.

Technical skills help secure a first job; people skills help earn promotions

The chapter's main comparison of specialized expertise and the ability to work well with others in career progress.

Cognitive skills

Mental abilities used to think, reason, learn, and solve problems.

Empathy

Understanding another person's feelings or point of view.

Emotional support

Helping another person feel understood and cared for during difficulties.

Career derailment

Falling off the path toward higher leadership positions despite being viewed as having strong potential.

Failure to meet business objectives

The career problem that occurs when a manager repeatedly does not achieve required results.

Inability to build and lead a team

The career problem that occurs when a manager cannot organize and guide a group toward shared goals.

Inability to develop, change, and adapt

The career problem that occurs when a manager cannot adjust as circumstances and demands shift.

Narrow functional or technical orientation

The career problem that occurs when someone focuses only on specialized expertise despite holding broader management responsibilities.

Problems with interpersonal relationships

The career problem that occurs when a manager consistently struggles to work well with other people.

Five causes of career derailment

Missing business goals, failing to build a team, failing to adapt, focusing too narrowly on technical work, and struggling with relationships.

Center for Creative Leadership study

The research that followed promising professionals for 20 years to understand why some failed to reach top executive positions.

Combined cognitive and social abilities

The skill combination associated with stronger wage growth than mathematical or analytical training paired with weak interaction abilities in the research described.

David Deming

The Harvard researcher discussed in the chapter whose work connects social abilities with employment and wage outcomes.

MBA skills gap

The difference between what graduate business programs teach and the abilities graduates report needing at work.

Interpersonal skills, decision making, creative thinking, and human capital management

The areas in which MBA alumni reported needing considerable additional development.

Generative thinking

Producing fresh ideas and creative possibilities.

Human capital management

Developing and using employees' abilities to help a business succeed.

High use and high need for training

The skills-gap chart's upper-right category, identifying abilities frequently needed at work but requiring more development.

Interpersonal skills, leadership, communication, and adaptability

The four abilities rated highly desirable but scarce in graduates by the 1,300 recruiters discussed in the chapter.

Demonstrated skills

Abilities shown through actual performance, which the chapter's Sheryl Sandberg example values over merely claiming prior experience.

Automation

The use of machines or software to perform tasks previously done by people.

Human-machine complementarity

The idea that technology can assist workers and create new roles while replacing some tasks.

Managing and developing people, decision making, planning, and creative work

The activities identified in the chapter as especially difficult for the technology of that time to take over.

Setting goals, interpreting results, and checking solutions

The human responsibilities that remain important when robots perform clearly defined tasks, according to the chapter.

Zume Pizza

The chapter's company example that used robots for kitchen tasks and ovens in delivery trucks.

Reinvesting automation savings in workers

Using money saved through technology to improve pay, benefits, or education for employees, as described in the pizza-company example.

IBM Watson

The computer system that beat two former Jeopardy! stars in 2011 in the chapter's example of expanding machine capabilities.

Chicago Cubs example

The visible sports case in which Theo Epstein evaluated players' ability to work with others alongside baseball ability.

Globalization and technology

The two major forces the chapter identifies as driving changes in jobs and businesses.

Four major trends affecting OB

The gig economy and virtual workplace, big data and analytics, worldwide business expansion, and workforce diversity.

Gig economy

A work system built around short-term assignments, freelance projects, or contracts instead of only ongoing employment.

Independent contractor or contingent worker

A person hired to provide services or complete assignments without becoming a regular permanent employee.

Virtual workplace

A setting in which people use technology to work together without sharing one physical location.

Cloud computing, remote-work tools, and digital platforms

The technologies described as helping short-term and location-independent work grow.

Uber, Lyft, Airbnb, TaskRabbit, and Upwork

The five platform examples the chapter uses when discussing short-term work arrangements.

Access to talent when needed and lower fixed costs

Two business advantages of using a worldwide workforce on flexible arrangements.

Fewer benefits and less job security

Two worker disadvantages associated with contract-based arrangements in the chapter.

Building loyalty and collaboration among nonemployees

A management challenge that arises when businesses rely on workers outside traditional permanent employment.

Job satisfaction

How positively a person feels about their work.

Employee engagement

A person's involvement in and commitment of effort to their work.

Employee loyalty

A worker's attachment and commitment to the business they work for.

Organizational citizenship behaviors

Voluntary helpful actions that support coworkers or the workplace beyond basic job requirements.

Innovation

Creating or applying useful new ideas, products, or ways of working.

Big data

Very large collections of information generated by activities such as purchases, online clicks, and other economic participation.

Data analytics

Examining information to find patterns and guide decisions.

People analytics

Using information about employees and work to improve hiring, development, retention, and other workforce decisions.

Predictive models

Tools that use available information to estimate future results, such as staffing needs or employee departures.

Employee retention

Keeping workers from leaving the business.

Employee turnover

The departure of workers from a business, often followed by hiring replacements.

Supervisor relationships

The factor more strongly linked to keeping top performers than increased pay in the McKinsey findings described.

Identifying, recruiting, developing, and retaining suitable workers

The staffing goals that the chapter says predictive analysis can support.

Big E evidence versus big data

The distinction between broadly supported scientific findings and the size of an information collection; a large dataset alone does not establish broad scientific support.

Globalization of business

The expansion of companies, markets, workforces, and competition across national borders.

Cross-cultural OB

The study of how differences between national cultures affect workplace actions and practices.

Cultural context

The shared values and practices of a society that can shape leadership, motivation, teamwork, and decisions.

Standardization versus local adaptation

The choice between applying the same policies across countries and adjusting them to fit each society.

Workforce diversity

Differences among people within a country or workplace, including background, identity, age, and physical or psychological characteristics.

Gender, race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, and physical and psychological characteristics

The dimensions of workforce differences specifically listed in the chapter.

Globalization versus workforce diversity

The distinction between differences across countries and differences among people within a country or workplace.

Generational differences

Perceived or actual differences in experiences, work styles, and priorities among age-based groups.

Baby boomers

The older age cohort described in the chapter as retiring in record numbers at the time it was written.

Millennials

The cohort described in the chapter as having its oldest members in their mid-30s at the time it was written.

Generation Z

The youngest worker cohort in the chapter, described there as roughly including those born after 1995.

Caution about generational stereotypes

The chapter's point that widespread beliefs about age-group differences may exceed the evidence supporting them.

More women in the workforce

The major U.S. labor-force change the chapter identifies for the second half of the twentieth century.

Changing racial and ethnic composition and an aging workforce

The major U.S. labor-force shifts highlighted for the first half of the twenty-first century.

OB competence

The ability to apply knowledge about workplace behavior and produce practical results.

Intuition

A judgment based on a gut feeling or personal impression rather than careful examination of research.

Evidence-based management (EBM)

Using the best available scientific findings thoughtfully to guide workplace decisions and practices.

Evaluating evidence, using frameworks, and closing the knowing-doing gap

The three learning goals the chapter identifies for becoming better at research-guided management.

Learning about cause-and-effect connections

The first EBM practice: examining how workplace factors influence one another over time and across settings.

Isolating variations that affect desired outcomes

The second EBM practice: identifying conditions that strengthen or weaken a relationship between workplace factors.

Reducing overuse, underuse, and misuse of practices

The third EBM practice: matching methods to supported purposes and adjusting how often they are used based on research.

Building decision supports

The fourth EBM practice: creating tools and routines that help people consistently use methods supported by research.

Creating a culture of evidence-based decisions and research participation

The fifth EBM practice: encouraging employees to ask questions, gather information, analyze findings, and use them in action.

Fewer alternative jobs during an economic downturn

The condition that can weaken the link between dissatisfaction and employees leaving their jobs in the chapter's example.

Cognitive ability tests

Assessments of reasoning and related mental abilities that the chapter gives as an example of a useful selection tool.

Self-reported personality traits

Information people provide about their own characteristics that the chapter cautions against relying on to identify good managers.

Quality-control teams

The example of employees meeting regularly to study production problems, collect information, and make research-guided improvements.

Research quality

How trustworthy a study's methods and findings are; this must be checked before accepting a claim that science supports a practice.

Big E evidence

Broadly applicable knowledge about cause-and-effect relationships built through systematic scientific study across many people and settings.

Little e evidence

Information collected locally or within one business to guide a specific decision, with limited usefulness outside that setting.

Systematic research

Investigation that is planned and methodical rather than based mainly on opinions or isolated stories.

Generalizability

The extent to which findings apply beyond the original people, organization, or setting studied.

Meta-analysis

A study that combines findings from multiple other studies to summarize the overall results.

Scientific literature review

An organized examination of existing scholarly studies on a topic.

SMART goals

Targets that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-specified.

Goal setting as Big E evidence

The chapter's example of decades of broadly applicable research showing that well-designed targets improve employee performance.

Six Sigma

The quality-improvement approach named as a source of local information for business decisions.

Limits of copying another organization's success

A practice that works in one business may fail elsewhere because the conditions differ.