Organizational Behavior

personality

characteristics that describe an individual's behavior.

personality traits

characteristics that describe an individual's behavior in a large number of situations

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)

A personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies Behavior

Big Five Model

A personality assessment model that taps five basic dimensions. extraversion, agreeableness, openness, conscientiousness, and neuroticism.

extraversion

A personality describing someone who is sociable and assertive (confident and forceful )

agreeableness

A personality that describes someone who is good natured, cooperative, and trusting.

conscientiousness

A personality that describes someone who is responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized.

emotional stability

A personality that characterizes someone as calm, self-confident, and insecure.

openness to experience

A personality that characterizes someone in terms of imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity.

core self-evaluation

Bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their capabilities, competence, and worth as a person.

Machiavellianism

The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means.

narcissism

The tendency to be arrogant, self-importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement.

self-monitoring

where an individual's has ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors.

proactive personality

People who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs.

values

Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.

value system

A hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual's values in terms of their intensity.

terminal values

Desirable end-states of existence; the goals a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime.

instrumental values

Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one's terminal values.

personality Job-fit theory

A theory that identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover.

power distance

where society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally.

individualism

where people prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups.

collectivism

A national culture attribute that describes a tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them.

masculinity

where culture favors traditional masculine work roles of achievement, power, and control.

femininity

indicates little differentiation between male and female roles; where women are treated as the equals of men in all aspects of the society.

uncertainty avoidance

A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them.

long-term orientation

A national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift, and persistence.

short-term orientation

A national culture attribute that emphasizes the past and present, respect for tradition, and fulfillment of social obligations. people value the here and now; they accept change more readily and don't see commitments as impediments to change.

heredity

factors determined at conception; one's biological, physiological, and inherent psychological makeup.

Perception

A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment.

attribution theory

An attempt to determine whether an individual's behavior is internally or externally caused.

fundamental attribution error

The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others.

self-serving bias

The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors and put the blame for failures on external factors.

selective perception

The tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on the basis of one's interests, background, experience, and attitudes.

halo effect

The tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic.

contrast effect

Evaluation of a person's characteristics that is affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.

stereotyping

Judging someone on the basis of one's perception of the group to which that person belongs.

self-fulfilling prophecy

A situation in which a person inaccurately perceives a second person, and the resulting expectations cause the second person to behave in ways consistent with the original perception.

decisions

Choices made from among two or more alternatives.

problem

A discrepancy between the current state of affairs and some desired state.

rational

Characterized by making consistent, value-maximizing choices within specified constraints.

rational decision-making model

A decision-making model that describes how individuals should behave in order to maximize some outcome.

Steps in the rational decision-making model

1. Define the problem. 2. Identify the decision criteria. 3. Allocate weights to the criteria. 4. Develop the alternatives. 5. Evaluate the alternatives. 6. Select the best alternative.

bounded rationality

A process of making decisions by constructing simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity.

intuitive decision making

An unconscious process created out of distilled experience.

anchoring bias

A tendency to fixate on initial information, from which one then fails to adequately adjust for subsequent information.

confirmation bias

The tendency to seek out information that reaffirms past choices and to discount information that contradicts past judgments.

availability bias

The tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is readily available to them.

escalation of commitment

An increased commitment to a previous decision in spite of negative information.

randomness error

The tendency of individuals to believe that they can predict the outcome of random events.

risk aversion

The tendency to prefer a sure gain of a moderate amount over a riskier outcome, even if the riskier outcome might have a higher expected payoff.

hindsight bias

The tendency to believe falsely, after an outcome of an event is actually known, that one would have accurately predicted that outcome.

utilitarianism

A system in which decisions are made to provide the greatest good for the greatest number.

whistle blowers

Individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to outsiders.

creativity

The ability to produce novel and useful ideas.

three-component model of creativity

The proposition that individual creativity requires expertise, creative thinking skills, and intrinsic task motivation.

Motivation

The processes that account for an individual's intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

1. Physiological 2.Safety 3. Social 4. Esteem 5. Self-actualization

hierarchy of needs

Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of five needs—physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization—in which, as each need is substantially satisfied, the next need becomes dominant.

lower-order needs

Needs that are satisfied externally, such as physiological and safety needs.

self-actualization

The drive to become what a person is capable of becoming.

higher-order needs

Needs that are satisfied internally, such as social, esteem, and self-actualization needs.

Theory X

The assumption that employees dislike work, are lazy, dislike responsibility, and must be coerced to perform

Theory Y

The assumption that employees like work, are creative, seek responsibility, and can exercise self-direction.

two-factor theory

A theory that relates intrinsic factors to job satisfaction and associates extrinsic factors with dissatisfaction. Also called motivation-hygiene theory.

hygiene factors

Factors—such as company policy and administration, supervision, and salary—that, when adequate in a job, placate workers. When these factors are adequate, people will not be dissatisfied.

McClelland's theory of needs

A theory that states achievement, power, and affiliation are three important needs that help explain motivation.

McClelland's 3 needs

1. Need for achievement (nAch) 2. Need for power (nPow) 3. Need for affiliation (nAff)

Need for affiliation (nAff)

The desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships.

Need for power (nPow)

The need to make others behave in a way in which they would not have behaved otherwise.

Need for achievement (nAch)

The drive to excel, to achieve in relationship to a set of standards, and to strive to succeed.

self-determination theory

A theory of motivation that is concerned with the beneficial effects of intrinsic motivation and the harmful effects of extrinsic motivation.

cognitive evaluation theory

A version of self-determination theory which holds that allocating extrinsic rewards for behavior that had been previously intrinsically rewarding tends to decrease the overall level of motivation if the rewards are seen as controlling.

self-concordance

The degree to which peoples' reasons for pursuing goals are consistent with their interests and core values.

job engagement

The investment of an employee's physical, cognitive, and emotional energies into job performance.

goal-setting theory

A theory that says that specific and difficult goals, with feedback, lead to higher performance.

management by objectives (MBO)

A program that encompasses specific goals, participatively set, for an explicit time period, with feedback on goal progress.

self-efficacy

An individual's belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.

reinforcement theory

A theory that says that behavior is a function of its consequences.

behaviorism

A theory that argues that behavior follows stimuli in a relatively unthinking manner.

social-learning theory

The view that we can learn through both observation and direct experience.

equity theory

A theory that says that individuals compare their job inputs and outcomes with those of others and then respond to eliminate any inequities.

distributive justice

Perceived fairness of the amount and allocation of rewards among individuals.

organizational justice

An overall perception of what is fair in the workplace, composed of distributive, procedural, and interactional justice.

procedural justice

The perceived fairness of the process used to determine the distribution of rewards.

interactional justice

The perceived degree to which an individual is treated with dignity, concern, and respect.

expectancy theory

A theory that says that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual.

Group

Two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives.

Formal Group

A designated work group defined by an organization's structure.

Informal Group

A group that is neither formally structured nor organizationally determined; such a group appears in response to the need for social contact.

Social Identity Theory

Perspective that considers when and why individuals consider themselves members of groups.

Ingroup Favoritism

Perspective in which we see members of our ingroup as better than other people, and people not in our group as all the same.

Important characteristics of a social identity.

Similarity, Distinctiveness, Status, Uncertainty reduction

five-stage group-development model

The five distinct stages groups go through: forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

Five stages of group development

Forming, storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning

Forming Stage

The first stage in group development, characterized by much uncertainty.

Storming Stage

The second stage in group development, characterized by intragroup conflict.

Norming stage

The third stage in group development, characterized by close relationships and cohesiveness

Performing stage

The fourth stage in group development, during which the group is fully functional

Adjourning stage

The final stage in group development for temporary groups, characterized by concern with wrapping up activities rather than task performance.

punctuated-equilibrium model

A set of phases that temporary groups go through that involves transitions between inertia and activity.