Chapter 1 - What is organizational behavior?

Manager

Individual who achieves goals through other people

Organization

Consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals

4 management functions

Planning, organizing, leading and controlling

Planning

Defining goals, establishing strategy and developing plans to coordinate activities

Organizing

Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom and where decisions are to be made

Leading

Motivating employees, directing others, selecting most effective communication channels and resolving conflicts

Controlling

Monitoring activities to ensure that they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations

3 management roles

Interpersonal roles, information roles and decisional roles

Figurehead

Symbolic head; required to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or social nature

Leadership

Responsible for the motivation and direction of employees

Liaison

Maintains a network of outside contacts who provide favors and information

Monitor

Receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve centre of internal and external information of the organization

Disseminator

Transmits information received from outsiders or from other employees to members of the organization

Spokesperson

Transmits information to outsiders on organization’s plans, policies, actions and results; serves as expert on organization’s industry

Entrepreneur

Searches organization and its environment for opportunities and initiates projects to bring about change

Disturbance handler

Responsible for corrective action when organization faces important, unexpected disturbances

Resource allocator

Makes or approves significant organizational decisions

Negotiator

Responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations

3 management skills

Technical, human and conceptual

Technical

Ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise

Human

Ability to work with and understand and motivate other people, individually and in groups

Conceptual

Mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations

Organizational behavior (OB)

Field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization's effectiveness

Systematic study

Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects and drawing conclusions from scientific evidence

Evidence-based management (EBM)

Basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence

Intuition

Gut feeling not necessarily supported by research

Psychology

Science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change behavior of humans and animals

Social psychology

Area of psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and focuses on the influence of people on one another

Sociology

Study of people in relation to their social environment or culture

Anthropology

Study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities

Contingency variables

Situational factors: variables that moderate the relationship between two or more variables

Workforce diversity

Organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation

Positive organizational scholarship

Area of OB research concerning how to develop human strength, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential

Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices

Situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct

Model

Abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real world phenomenon

Inputs

Variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture that lead to processes

Processes

Actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs and that lead to certain outcomes

Outcomes

Key factors that are affected by some other variables

Attitudes

Evaluations employees make about objects, people or events

Stress

Unpleasant psychology process that occurs in response to environmental pressures

Task performance

Combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks

Citizenship behavior

Discretionary behavior that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace

Withdrawal behavior

Set of actions employees take to separate themselves from the organization

Group cohesion

Extent to which members of a group support and validate one another while at work

Group functioning

Quantity and quality of a work group's output

Productivity

Combination of the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization

Effectiveness

Degree to which an organization meets the needs of its clientele or customers

Efficiency

Degree to which an organization can achieve its ends at a low cost

Organizational survival

Degree to which an organization is able to exist and grow over the long term