BU288 - Midterm 1 & 2 Content

Organizations

Consciously coordinated social unit composed of a group of people which functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals

Organizational Behaviour

studies the impact of individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour in order to improve an organizations effectiveness

Personaility

Stable set of psychological characteristics that influence the way individuals interact with their environment or how they think and behave

Dispositional Approach

-Focuses on individual dispositions and personality
-Individuals have stable traits that influence behaviours within various situations
-Individuals are predisposed to behave in a certain way*

Situational Approach

Characteristics of the organizational setting influence attitudes and behaviours
EX. Job satisfaction related to situational factors like work tasks

strong situation

roles, rules and contingencies are more defined Personality has less of an impact

weak situation

Personality is a moderator/interactor

Trait Activation Theory

Trait Activation Theory: Traits lead to certain behaviours only when the situation makes the need for the traits silent

Personality influences behaviour only when the situation calls for the trait

Conscientiousness

-Organization, dependability, thorough, achievement oriented
-Measure of reliability
-Positively related to job performance

Low --> unreliable, unorganized, unpredictable
High --> perseverance, responsible, organized, diligent, dependable

Agreeableness

Ability to get along with others and avoid conflict
Positively related to performance in service jobs
Too much or too little can negatively effect performance

Low --> focused on own needs, irritable, less need to be liked by others
High --> forgiving, good natured, cooperative, trusting

Neuroticism

-Inability to handle stress, lack of emotional stability (mood swings)
-Minimum threshold required for performance

Low Neuroticism --> calm, self confident, content about themselves
High Neuroticism --> anxious, insecure, sensitive, angry, depressed

Openness to experience

-Capacity to entertain new ideas and change with new information
-Positively related to training

Low --> cautious, narrow minded
High --> curious, creative, playful, open minded

Extraversion

-Being comfortable with relationships, degree of sociability
-Positively related to performance when social interaction required

Low --> reserved, quiet, solidary
High --> talkative, expressive, assertive

Locus of Control

A set of beliefs about whether or one's behaviour is controlled mainly by internal or external forces

High internal Control: Self -initiative, personal actions, free will
High external control: Fate, luck, powerful people

Self Monitoring

Extent to which people observe and regulate how they appear in social settings and relationships

High self Monitors: adaptive, flexible, emerge as leaders
Low Self Monitors: do not fit with situation around them

Self Esteem

Degree of positive self evaluation and favourable self images

Behavioural Plasticity Theory

Behavioural Plasticity Theory People with low self esteem more susceptible to external and social influences

Events within organization have more impact

Positive Affectivity

propensity to view the world including oneself and other people in a positive light

Negative Affectivity

Propensity to view the world including oneself and other people in a negative light

Proactive behaviour

taking initiative to improve current circumstances or creating new ones

Proactive Personality

A stable personal disposition that reflects a tendency to take personal initiative across a range of situation to effect positive change in ones environment

Unconstrained by situational forces
Act to change and influence their environment

General Self efficacy

General trait that refers to individuals belief in thier ability to perform successfully in challenging situations

Core self Evaluations

Broad personality concept that consists of more specific traits that reflect the evaluations people hold about themselves and their self worth CSEs are related to job satisfaction over time

Learning

-Relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of practice or experience
-Increasing desired behaviours and decreasing undesired behaviours
-Key issue in performance and leadership

Law of Effect

People repeat behaviours that bring satisfaction and pleasure and discontinue those that bring dissatisfaction and pain

positive reinfrocement

-Positive stimulus is applied
-Desire an Increase in behaviour

Negative Reinforcement

-Unpleasant (negative) stimulus withdrawn
-Increases/maintains behaviour

Punishment

-Negative stimulus applied
-Decreases or stops bad behaviour

Extinction

-Pleasant Stimulus removed
-Decreases or stops bad behaviour

Continuous Reinforcement

reward follows each display of behaviour Fast Acquisition

Partial Reinforcement

only some responses are rewarded Persistence

Using Rewards Effectively

-Reward applies to the specific person
-Don't reinforce undesirable behaviours
-Don't reward behaviour just after punishment
-New Behaviours --> use continuous reinforcement
-Established Behaviours --> partial reinforcement
-Reward tied directly to behaviour

Using Punishment Effectively

-Deliver punishment immediately
-Be consistent
-Communicate reasoning and what should be done to fix response

Problems using punishment

-Does not demonstrate what behaviour should replace punished response
-Only indicates what is not appropriate --> does not tell what you should do
-Only temporarily supresses unwanted behaviour
-Can provoke a strong emotional reaction

Effective Training

-Well defined behaviours to be learned
-Models that display effective use of behaviours
-Opportunity to practice behaviours
-Feedback and social reinforcement

Perception

-Process used to organize and interpret sensory impressions to give meaning to the environment
-Basis fir understanding behaviour and others
-Drives all other behaviour but is often biased

Factors that influence perception

Perceiver
-Attitudes, experiences, needs, social identity
Perceptual defence against bad emotions
Context
-Time, work or social setting
Target
- Size, background, proximity, motion

Social Identity theory

-Form perceptions based on personal characteristics and memberships in social categories
-Self Categorize to possess multiple identities

Primacy and recency Effect

Primary - rely on early cues and first impressions to form perception

Recency - rely on last impressions or recent cues to form perception

Selective Perception

Only see things based on our own frame of reference
-See only what we choose or want to see

Halo/Horn effect

Halo - good at one thing must be good at other things
Horn - bad at one thing must be bad at other things

Projection

Apply own thoughts and feelings to other and other situations

Stereotypes

Generalizing people by using an over generalized belief about a category of people

Fast Thinking

Non Conscious Thought (fast)
-Happens quickly
-Efficient
-More biased (unconscious biases)

Slow Thinking

Conscious Thought ( Slow)
-More rational
-less biased

Attribution Theory

Observing behvaiour as internally or externally caused

Attribution Theory - Distinctiveness

Does individual act the same way in other situations

Attribution Theory - Consensus

Does person act the same as others in the same situation?

Attribution - Distinctiveness

Does the person act the same way in other situations?

Fundamental Attribution Error

underestimate external factors (dispositional) and overestimate internal factors (situational) when making judgements

Actor Observer effect

actors vs. observers viewing actors behaviour differently
-Actors - situational
-Observers - dispositional

Self-Serving Bias

attribute own success to internal factors, failures to external factors

Take credit for success deny responsibility for failure

Confirmation Bias

Only seek what we know not what we don't know
Find what is right not what is wrong

Avoiding Bias

-Knowledge and awareness
-Using rational thought
-Use systems that decrease chance of implicit bias
-Use object and valid measures
-Check assumptions by increasing interaction

Attitudes

A fairly stable tendency to respond consistently to some specific target

-Less stable than values
-Evaluation based on specific targets ---> attitude influences behaviour

Attitude towards behaviour

Can be positive or negative

Subjective Norm

percieved social pressure to engage in behaviour

Percieved Behavioural Control

perception of ability to perform certain behaviour

Intention

readiness to perform given behaviour

Actual Behavioural Control

whether a person has skills, resources to perform the behaviour

Self perception Theory

People make reasonable inferences about their attitudes based on perceptions of behaviour

Cognitive Dissonance

-When behaviour or attitudes are inconsistent
-Can lead to anxiety and attitude changes

Values

Broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others

Preference = what we think is good or bad

Motivational = how we should/should not behave

Broad = general, do not predict behaviour in specific situations

Job Satisfaction

A collection of attitudes workers have about thier jobs

Facet Satisfaction

tendency for employee to be less satisfied with various facets of the job

Overall Satisfaction

summary indicator of persons attitude for the job that spans across all facets

Distributive Fairness

receiving outcomes employees deserve Pay raise, promotion, benefits etc

Procedural Fairness

process to determine outcomes is fair

Interactional Fairness

-interpersonal fairness (how you are treated)

Interpersonal: respect and dignity
Informational: adequate explanation, reasoning etc.

Equity Theory

Individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes to those of others to eliminate inequities

Affect

A broad range of feelings people experience

Emotions

Intense, short lived feelings directed at a target or caused by an event

Mood

Less Intense and lack a target of stimulus

Evidence Based Management

Practices that are based on scientific evidence

-Increases predictability
-Increases odds of success
-Increases your value to the organization

Hypotheses

predictions of relationships between variables

Theory

based on the results: explains why, how and when variables are related

Theory is based upon evidence not just a prediction

Independent Variable

predictor variable

Dependent variable

outcome that varies as a function of the independent variable

Mediators

variable that explains why or how a relationship operates

Moderator

explains when a relationship b=occurs
Effects the strength of another relationship ---> interaction

Reliability:

index of consistency of a research subjects response to what it is supposed to measure

Low Reliability is BAD
Less reliability = more random error

Validity

how much a measure truly reflects what it is supposed to

Convergent Validity - Strong relationship between different measures of the same variable

Discriminant validity - weak relationship between measures of different variables

Internal Validity

extent that a researcher can be confident that changes in a dep variable are due to the ind variable

Cause and Effect

External Validity

extent the results of a study generalize to other samples and settings, can you apply it to another setting

Greater when results are based on large random samples

case Studies

Investigate Specific case, Qualitative

High Internal Validity

Suspect External Validity (Cannot always be applied to other cases)

Observational

Observation of behaviour in a natural setting

Participant: researcher takes part

Direct: assessment without active participation of the researcher

Low internal Validity
Medium to Low External validity

Correlational

Can be self reported or other reported with multiple measurements over time

Surveys, interviews, existing data

Low Internal Validity
High External Validity

Experiment

-Lab or field
-must have randomly assigned participants
-manipulation group and control group

Low External Validity
High Internal validity - manipualtion to variable is the only change