Organizational Behavior - Chapter 1 Review Flashcards

Flashcards to review key concepts from Chapter 1 of Organizational Behavior, 14th Edition by Griffin/Phillips.

Organizational Behavior

The field that attempts to understand human behavior in organizational settings, the organization itself, and the individual-organization interface.

Management Functions

The basic functions include planning, organizing, leading, and controlling resources to efficiently and effectively attain organizational goals.

Planning

Determining an organization’s desired future position and the best means of getting there.

Organizing

Designing jobs, grouping jobs into units, and establishing patterns of authority between jobs and units.

Leading

Getting the organization’s members to work together toward the organization’s goals.

Controlling

Monitoring and correcting the actions of the organization and its members to keep them directed toward their goals.

Technical Skills

The skills necessary to accomplish specific tasks within the organization.

Interpersonal Skills

The ability to effectively communicate with, understand, and motivate individuals and groups.

Conceptual Skills

The ability to think in the abstract and to consider the “big picture”.

Diagnostic Skills

The ability to understand cause-and-effect relationships and to recognize the optimal solutions to problems.

Human Resource Management (HRM)

The set of organizational activities directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective workforce.

Competitive Advantage

An organization’s edge over rivals in attracting customers and defending itself against competition.

Cost Leadership

Striving to be the lowest-cost producer for a particular level of product quality.

Differentiation

Developing a product or service that has unique characteristics valued by customers.

Specialization

Focusing on a narrow market segment or niche and pursuing either differentiation or cost leadership within that segment.

Growth

Company expands organically or through mergers/acquisitions; response to investor preference for rising earnings; success depends on finding the right number/types of employees to sustain growth.

Scientific Management

First formal study of OB (1890s), Maximized productivity; led to monotonous, dehumanizing conditions and replace rule-of-thumb work with scientifically studying the tasks using time-and-motion studies, scientifically select, train, and develop all worker, managers provide detailed instructions and supervision to workers, divide work nearly equally between workers and managers.

Human Relations Movement

Inspired by the Hawthorne effect, viewed organizations as cooperative systems, treated workers’ orientations, values, and feelings as important parts of organizational dynamics and performance, created a new era of more humane, employee-centered management and highlighted the importance of people to organizational success and was hampered by unsound research methods.

System

An interrelated set of elements that function as a whole—inputs are combined/transformed by managers into outputs from the system

Situational Perspective

Recognizes that most organizational situations and outcomes are influenced by other variables, approaches to problems and situations are contingent on elements of the situation.

Interactionalist Perspective

Focuses on how individuals and situations interact continuously to determine individuals’ behavior and attempts to explain how people select, interpret, and change various situations.

Productivity

Narrow measure of efficiency: number of products or services created per unit of input

Performance

Broader concept made up of all work-related behaviors

Commitment

The degree to which an employee feels a true member of the organization, overlooks minor sources of dissatisfaction, and intends to stay with the organization

Employee Engagement

The extent to which employees understand and embrace their role in the organization

Organizational Citizenship

Behaviors that make a positive overall contribution to the organization, encompasses factors outside the strict requirements of the job

Dysfunctional Behaviors

Behaviors that detract from, rather than contribute to, organizational performance

Strategic Execution

The degree to which managers and their employees understand and carry out the actions needed to achieve strategic goals

Theory

a collection of verbal and symbolic assertions that specify how and why variables are related, and the conditions under which they should and should not relate

Hypothesis

a written prediction specifying expected relationships between certain variables

Independent Variable

The variable the researchers set

Dependent Variable

The variable the researchers measure

Correlation

Strength of the relationship between the two variables, ranges between −1 and +1

Meta-analysis

Used to combine the results of many different research studies done for a variety or organizations and jobs