UNC Busi 405 Midterm 1 Practice

Organizational behavior

A field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving human behavior in organizations

Does OB matter? (Empirical evidence)

decrease in turnover, increase in profits

Rule of one-eighth

1/2 of organizations won't believe the connection between how they manage their people and the profits they earn

**1/2 of those who do see the connection will try to make only a single change to solve their problems

****1/2 of the firms making comprehensive changes do not persist with their practices long enough to actually derive economic benefits

Methods of knowing

Experience

Intuition

Authority

Science

Descriptive science

what do people do?

Interpretive science

how and why does it happen?

Prescriptive science

what should people do, and how can we make it happen?

Model of individual behavior

Personality traits

Habitual pattern of cognition, affect, behavior

Enduring: Stable over time

Implications of personality

Implications for both ability and motivation

Personality trait continuum

Each trait lies on a continuum

*We can describe people has being low, average, or high on different personality dimensions

*Many people fall in the middle

Factors shaping our personality

Heredity (Nature) + Environment (Nurture)

Born with predispositions, then shaped by our environment

"Big 5" Personality Dimensions

OCEAN

Openness to new experiences

Conscientiousness

Extraversion

Agreeableness

Neuroticism

Openness

*how easy to judge?

BROAD-MINDEDNESS

Moderately easy to judge

costs/benefits of openness

Benefits:

Originality

Diversity of interests

Breadth of experiences

Costs:

Losing touch with reality

Losing sight of core values

6 facets of openness

Imagination

Artistic interest

Emotionality

Adventurousness

Intellectual curiosity

Liberalism

Conscientousness

*how easy to judge?

DEPENDABILITY

Moderately easy to judge

costs/benefits of conscientiousness

Benefits:

More likely to set, pursue, and achieve goals

Greater attention, dedication, vigilance

Less likely to make mistakes and cause accidents

High integrity

Generally perform at higher levels in the workplace

Costs:

Less likely to be flexible and creative

More likely to blindly follow rules

More likely to be irritated by less conscientious people

6 facets of conscientiousness

Competence

Orderliness

Dutifulness

Achievement striving

Self-discipline

Deliberation/Cautiousness

Extraversion

*how easy to judge?

Sociability and sensitivity to stimulation

Easiest to judge

costs/benefits of extraversion

Benefits:

Comfort in social situations

Broad network of relationships

Positive emotions

More likely to become leaders

Costs:

Impulsivity

Reliance on external stimulation

Driving introverts crazy - When does this matter at work?

Trouble focusing

6 facets of extraversion

Friendliness

Gregariousness

Assertiveness

Activity level

Excitement-seeking

Cheerfulness

Agreeableness

*how easy to judge?

Prosocial orientation

Difficult to judge

costs/benefits of agreeableness

Benefits:

Favorable image

Getting along with others

Health

Costs:

Being taken advantage of

Sacrificing principles

Conflict avoidant

Less likely to become effective managers - why? What can be done?

6 facets of agreeableness

Trust

Morality

Altruism

Cooperation

Modesty

Sympathy

Neuroticism

*how easy to judge?

Opposite of emotional stability

Difficult to judge

costs/benefits of Neuroticism

Benefits:

Critical thinking

Preparation

Strong emotions

Costs:

Health risks

Negative emotions

Avoiding social interactions

Interpersonal conflict

6 facets of neuroticism

Anxiety

Anger

Depression

Self-consciousness

Immoderation (not being able to avoid "extremes," lack of restraint)

Vulnerability

Which big 5 personality traits are good predictors across occupations? Which vary?

Conscientiousness and extraversion strong predictors; other vary

which personality traits have a positive/negative relationship with task performance?

help: conscientousness, extraversion (sometimes)

harm: neuroticism

which personality traits have a positive/negative relationship with contextual performance?

Positive: conscientiousness, agreeableness, extraversion, openness

Negative: neuroticism

which personality traits cause counterproductive behaviors?

Conscientiousness

which personality traits have a positive/negative relationship with turnover?

Positive: neuroticism

Negative: Agreeableness, conscientiousness

which personality traits have a positive relationship with safety?

Conscientiousness, neuroticism

Personality fit in the workplace

Poor personality-organization fit produces poor outcomes (e.g., dissatisfaction, turnover)

Look for personality fit in recruitment ads and during interviews

attitude

An evaluation of a person, situation, or object

ex: I am satisfied with my job

I am committed to my organization

I am engaged in my work

components of attitude (3)

Cognitive = Evaluation

* Ex: My supervisor is unfair

Affective = feeling

* Ex: I dislike my supervisor

Behavioral = action

* Ex: I've complained

(All lead to negative attitude towards supervisor)

examples of job attitudes

organizational commitment- values & goals of org

job satisfaction - features of the job itself

work engagement- self0investment in the work itself

affective

relating to the emotions

Why create positive attitudes?

-task performance

-contextual performance

-counterproductive work behavior

-turnover

-well being

-motivation

-customer satisfaction

task performance

the combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks

Satisfied workers are more productive AND more productive workers are more satisfied!

contextual performance

activities performed by employees that help to maintain the broader organizational environment

More helping behavior, going above and beyond in their jobs

Treadway Tire Case (problems, org. environment, recommendation)

High turnover & job dissatisfaction

Underlying problems: poor training, lack of authority, low morale

High pressure environment

Recommendation:

recruiting

training

notivation

job design

Costs of turnover

recruiting

screening, interviewing, evaluation

training

separation costs (HR staff, unemployment expenses, legal fees)

Solving morale problems: 4 steps

1. Identify the problem

2. Identify root causes (Exit interviews, focus groups...Look for causes in more than one place (culture, job design, supervisors))

3. Create solutions that target the specific problems and establish benchmarks

4. Set targets and implement solutions

Phineas Gage

severe brain injury dramatically changed his personality and behavior; case played a role in the development of the understanding of the localization of brain function

emotions

physiological and psychological experiences toward a person or object

function of emotions

to create a state of readiness

fear: fight or flight

happiness: awareness of opportunities

moods

diffuse feelings that are either positive or negative and tend not to be focused on a specific cause

affect vs emotions vs moods

affect: defines broad range of feelings (emotions or moods)

emotions: caused by specific events; brief; less stable; action-oriented; distinct facial expressions

moods: caused by general/unclear events; lasts for hours/days; less action-oriented

Dispositional Affect

Individual characteristic, or personality trait referring to a person's relatively stable, underlying tendency to experience positive and negative moods

*positive or negative

Russell's circumplex model

valence: pleasure / displeasure

arousal: high / low

Why pay attention to emotions?

1. Emotions drive thinking

2. Emotions motivate

You: Getting 'psyched' yourself

Others: Transformational leadership

Leaders aren't successful only because they have good ideas

Emotional Intelligence (OQ/EI)

Ability to perceive & express emotions accurately

*People prefer to be with managers who can read their moods and judge those people as better managers

Emotional aperature

Distribution of emotions in a group...

ability to recognize and read patterns of collective or group-level emotions, rather than focusing on just a single individual's feelings

Emotional regulation + goal

ability to regulate emotions in both ourselves and others

goal: experience the most appropriate emotional state for the task at hand (smooth interactions with others)

Improving emotional intelligence: identifying emotions

pay attention, listen, observe, ask questions

improving emotional intelligence: using emotions

determine how these feelings influence thinking; change your mood/group mood

Improving emotional intelligence: understanding emotions

consider reasons for feelings, how they will likely change depending on what happens next

Improving emotional intelligence: managing emotions

don't minimize feelings, don't blow them out of proportion; include emotion & rationale for decision-making

Perception

process of receiving information about and making sense of the world around us

process of perception & attribution

Environmental stimuli → attention → organization of info → info interpretaion & retrieval

environmental stimuli

Emotions

Sounds

Vision

Smells

Tastes

Touch

Components of Perception

Perceiver: you

Target: another person, group, an event, situation, idea, noise, or anything that the perceiver focuses on

Situation: the context in which perception takes place - committee meeting, office, hallway etc.

Errors in Perception

Selective attention: conscious & unconscious

Confirmation bias

Primacy effect - first impressions

Recency effect - what have you done for me lately?

Selective attention

We attend to information that is important to us (and miss other important info)

Influenced by:

Size

Intensity

Motion

Repetition

Novelty

Perceptual errors

We can't always trust what we think we see/hear

predispositions to misperceive others that interfere with making completely accurate judgments

We are cognitive misser, we take shortcuts to full processing

This helps us understand the world without being overwhelmed....but we make errors and have predictable biases

Confirmation Bias

We attend to information that supports our decisions, beliefs, and choices

Discredit info that contradicts, Seek out info that fits

Result? We see what we expect to see

**Most common type of fallacy of selective attention

examples of confirmation bias

making political judgements:

Using internet for research & news:

-search websites that fit your view (i.e. fox news vs NBC)

asking leading questions:

-"you agree with me, don't you?"

seeing expected characteristics in job applicants

-"why do you prefer to work alone?"

Instagram algorithm

Primacy effect

first impressions

The initial pieces of information that a perceiver has about a target have an inordinately large effect on the perceiver's perception and evaluation of the target

Recency effect

What have you done for me lately?

The last pieces of information that a perceiver has about a target have an inordinately large effect on the perceiver's perception and evaluation of the target

3 hardest words in the english language

"I don't know"

Stereotypes

Beliefs that members of specific groups share similar traits and are prone to behave in the same way

Dangers of using stereotypes in organizations

False inferences about individual people

Unintentional discrimination

Prejudice: Intentional discrimination

Heuristic thinking

automatic thinking that you do outside of consciousness.

attribution process

why a person acts

process through which individuals attempt to determine causes behind others'behavior

Causes of behavior (internal vs external explanations)

Internal: when the behavior is thought to be under the control of the person

external: when behavior is the result of situational constraints - e.g., chance, rules, custom, task difficulty, luck

Attribution rules

consistency, distinctiveness, consensus

consistency (attriubution rules)

Behaves this way in the same situation over time

Every time this situation arises, the person acts this way = INTERNAL

Distinctiveness (attriubution rules)

Shows different behaviors in other situations

If the behavior is unusual in general for the person = EXTERNAL

consensus (attriubution rules)

Other people also responded this way in the situation = EXTERNAL

fundamental attribution error (FAE)

tendency to attribute other's actions to internal causes while largely ignoring external factors

In general, we tend to blame the person first, not the situation

causes of fundamental attribution error

We want to understand the world

We misunderstand the power of situations

It is easier to make dispositional attributions

Correspondent inferences

judgments about people's dispositions, traits, and characteristics that correspond to what we have observed of their actions

WHO a person is

Halo effect

tendency for overall impressions of others to affect objective evaluations of their specific traits

often vased on a single characteristic, such as socialability or appearance

important in job interviews: Most interviewer's decisions are formed in the first 4-5 minutes

positive halo

good impression causes us to view what the person does in favorable terms

negative halo

bad impression results in consistently low ratings

self-serving bias

the tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors

Got an A? "I studied hard"

Got a C? "The test was unfair"

Perception and Attribution at work

Employment interview and hiring

Performance expectations

Performance evaluations

Employee effort

Ethnic/racial/gender biases and biases against other protected classes

motivation

Psychological forces that cause people to invest effort into action...

direction, intensite, persistence

When people are motivated they have a desire to expend effort

This often results in outcomes of higher:

Performance: quality of work produced

Productivity: quantity of work produced

Intrinsic motivation

Due to the nature of the work itself, such as its inherent interest or challenge

Addressed by Job Characteristics Theory

Extrinsic motivation

Due to rewards that come from the organization, such as pay and promotion

Addressed by Expectancy Theory, Goal Setting, Rewards and Equity Theory

EPO model (extrinsic motivation)

Effort -> performance-> outcome

expectancy theory of motivation

How do employees decide what to work hard at?

(1) Effort → Performance: "expectancy"

(2) Performance → Outcomes: "instrumentality"

(3) Outcomes are Valuable: "valence"

expectancy theory equation

motivation = expectancy x instrumentality x valence

Hummingbird Health

Angela's mistakes:

Lack of alignment between organization's needs and team performance

Failed to actively establish trust with District Manager (Boyar) to open communication and understanding

Has not invested in training/career management for sales team

Action plan for Angela:

Meet with District Manager and then with sales team and follow through on commitments

Use rewards to encourage sharing of ideas/innovation

Work with senior managers to address problems with the current sales plan

Ensure that the process used to arrive at the sales plan is seen as fair

Applying EPO: Strengthen E-P beliefs

Provide more opportunities to use skills

Increase ability (appropriate resourcing & skills training)

Define P clearly (clear goals and expectations)

Communicate how E leads to P

Give appropriate feedback

Applying EPO: Strengthen P-O

Have clear metrics for evaluating performance

Make rewards contingent on P (on what you really want)

Make procedures for earning rewards transparent, consistent and fair

Applying EPO: Strengthen O

Identify and provide what people value—both intrinsic & extrinsic:

rewards (salary, incentives, bonuses, benefits)

reputation (image, respect, appreciation, feedback)

responsibilities (variety, autonomy, challenge, promotions, learning)

rest & relaxation (flexibility, hours, scheduling, travel, location)

relationships (supervisors, coworkers, clients, customers, community)