Business 107: Organizational Behavior Studying for Business 107

Organizing in Management

A managerial function that requires individuals to delegate work and create a structure to carry out a plan.

Evidence-Based Management Study

This is the most precise method of organizational behavioral study. It requires controlled observations.

Upward Communication

A type of communication that enables employees to contact members of management.

Technical Skills in Management

Managerial skills that are used when trying to complete a task.

Conceptual Skills in Management

Analytical abilities and problem-solving capabilities are involved in this type of managerial skill.

Interpersonal Roles

A managerial role that involves dealing with employees. Includes the roles of figurehead, liaison and leader.

Low-Level Management

Management at this level involves dealing with individual employees and is characterized by interpersonal requirements.

The Hawthorne Experiment

Occurring in 1927, this experiment tested the connection between worker psychology and their production output. It led to the Hawthorne Effect and fueled the human relations movement.

Top-Level Management

This level of management includes senior executives and other individuals who hold a lot of power in the company.

Decisional Roles

Managers in this role will act to make decisions and try to find ways to improve the company. Entrepreneurs, negotiators and resource allocators provide examples of this role.

Advantages of positive organizational scholarship

• Increased focus on employee strengths

• Creation of an ethical work environment

• Positive impact on a company's organizational structure

Skills needed by managers

• Technical

• Human

• Conceptual

Leading in Management

Managers carry out this function when they communicate, motivate and otherwise positively interact with their subordinates.

Controlling in Management

This is the final managerial function and occurs when managers evaluate the outcome of their plan.

Middle-Level Management

Managers at this level can lead departments but still serve under higher level management.

External Perspective

An organizational behavior perspective that believes outside events and factors impact employee performance.

Intuition Study

This method for studying the behavior of employees relies on gut feelings and common sense and can lead to incorrect observations.

The Western Electric (Hawthorne Works) Studies

Conducted from 1923-1933, these studies developed into the factors that affected worker accomplishment and worker support in the face of poor management.

The Industrial Revolution

This event greatly increased the number of people working in factories and increased the importance of understanding organizational behavior.

Disciplines that shaped organizational behavior

• Psychology

• Anthropology

• Sociology

• Medicine

• Management

Systematic Study

A form of employee observation that looks at behaviors and tries to find specific evidence.

Internal Perspective

This perspective of organizational behavior focuses on considering the feelings and thoughts of employees in order to understand behavior.

Henry Mintzburg

A man who spent a lot of time studying the behavior of managers. He concluded that managers can act in 10 clear roles that can be sorted into three categories.

Staffing in Management

This function of management is not always agreed upon. It involves finding the right employees for necessary jobs.

Groups / Teams

An element of human relations that improves employee productivity by increasing socialization.

Human Skills in Management

These skills allow managers to successfully work and communicate with their employees.

Informational Roles

This role in management deals with finding and sharing information. Monitors, disseminators and spokespeople are examples of this role.

Planning in Management

This managerial function involves coming up with a plan that may need to be specialized to fit the requirements of the company. Typically this function is ongoing.

Good Leadership

Involving good communication and sound decision making, this is an important element of organizational behavior.

Type B personality

A person with this personality type exhibits relaxed, laid back, unstressed, and flexible tendencies.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Instrument (MBTI)

A tool used in the business world for career counseling, conflict management, team building, and developing ideal management styles. It assesses employees in four scales.

Type A personality

A person with this personality type exhibits aggressive, ambitious, work-intensive, controlling, highly competitive, and impatient tendencies.

Surface acting

A type of emotional labor involving the faking of emotions in order to meet certain work or social expectations

Moderate risk stance

A risk-taking strategy involving compromise and flexibility. In risk-takers this generally entails being cautious with risk, while in risk averse individuals, it involves taking smart, well-researched risk.

Self-concept

A personality trait that affects employee behavior and workplace success. It refers to the manner in which a person views himself or herself based on personal skills, habits, and temperament.

Conscientiousness

A trait in the Big Five Personality Model, characterized by work ethic, organization, and dependability

Scales of the MBTI

Include the following four areas: extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judging/perceiving

Intuitive decision making

A decision reached through one's gut instinct rather than through facts

Components of self-concept theory

These include traits, values, and competencies.

Steps of the rational decision-making model

In order, these include defining a problem, identifying decision criteria, allocating weights to the criteria, developing alternatives, evaluating alternatives, and choosing the best alternative.

Intellectual abilities

Mental capacities that organizations view as highly desirable among employees. These include excellent memory, reasoning, analyzing, verbal comprehension, and problem solving.

The rational decision-making model

Six steps that determine the best path in finding a solution to a given problem. It relies on facts, analysis, and a step-by-step process.

Physical abilities

Qualities such as strength, stamina, coordination, flexibility, psychomotor skills, and sensory skills. Organizations deem such qualities as highly valuable among employees.

High Machs

Individuals are highly manipulative, difficult to persuade, excel in face-to-face settings and exhibit a high degree of Machiavellianism. This type of individual would likely do well in commission-based sales.

Four styles of decision making

These include conceptual, directive, behavioral, and analytical styles.

Self-monitoring

The ability to shift one's behavior based on the actions or cues of others

Sensory skills

Skills involving an individual's five senses, utilized in jobs such as speech pathology and music composition. This is one of many skill sets associated with physical abilities.

Autocratic decision II

A leadership model that involves consulting with group members separately prior to making a decision by oneself. It is also referred to as consult individually.

Narcissism

An overestimation of one's own abilities and accomplishments, coupled with an underestimation of the abilities and accomplishments of others. Narcissists tend to act in a self-serving manner.

Anchoring bias

A form of information-type bias in decision making. It involves relying too heavily on a single piece of information when making a decision.

The Vroom-Yetton Leader Model

A model which posits five forms of leadership decision making. These include autocratic decision I (decide), autocratic decision II (consult individually), consult group, facilitate, and delegate styles.

Self-esteem

A personality trait that affects employee behavior and workplace success. It refers to an individual's positive or negative attitudes and views about himself or herself.

The Big Five Personality Model

Five sectors of observable personality traits, represented by the acronym 'O.C.E.A.N.' They include openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Emotional contagion

A way that emotions in one employee are transferred to another employee nonverbally

Emotional intelligence

A characteristic involving the ability to understand, adjust, and facilitate emotion in the workplace, in both oneself and others

Rational decision making

A decision reached through facts and analysis rather than through one's intuition

Machiavellianism

A personality trait characterized by the use of manipulation in order to achieve power. It is sometimes simply referred to as 'Mach'.

Realistic personality type

Individuals who fall into this category are shy, inner-directed, and prefer physical activities requiring coordination. It is one of six employee personality types.

Conceptual decision making

A decision-making style that emphasizes long-term results. An individual with this style likes to address problems creatively and brainstorm options and is also open to taking risks.

Emotional dissonance

A negative feeling a person gets when he or she views an emotion as potentially conflicting with his or her identity

Abuse of Property

Employees demonstrating this kind of deviant workplace behavior are likely to take advantage of company property in some way. Taking workplace materials is an example of this kind of behavior.

External Attributes

These attributes are related to behaviors influenced by situational causes.

Factors that influence perception

Individual experiences // The setting itself // The individual or object being perceived

Selective Perception

This shortcut is characterized by only perceiving what you want to see or hear and ignoring the information that doesn't support what you want to believe.

Job Satisfaction

A term used to describe an individual's relative contentment in his or her current career; this factor can be tied to job performance, though the exact linkage is not certain

Monochronic Time Culture

These cultures view time as very precise and tend to value staying on task. Germany is one example of this type of culture.

Stereotyping

A perceptual shortcut in which individuals, based on an aggregrate belief, develop ideas about certain groups of people as a whole

Methods for measuring job satisfaction

Surveys // Interviews // Performance monitoring

Attribution Theory

This theory deals with the ways that individuals view events happening around them. This theory has three aspects: consistency, distinctiveness and consensus.

Causes of Job Satisfaction

• Lack of career growth opportunities

• Loss of interest in the career field

• Being underpaid

• Working with poor management

Fundamental Attribution Error

This form of error occurs when someone determines blame without considering all external factors that impacted the event.

Internal Attributes

Attributes related to behaviors caused by a person's thoughts or actions

Distinctiveness

An aspect of attribution theory that involves considering the ways people act in various situations

Attitudes

This term is used to describe how people think and relate to the world around them.

Exit Response

This response to job dissatisfaction occurs when employees quit to look for different employment.

The Halo Effect

A shortcut that involves applying an initial impression of an individual or a situation to other circumstances where it might not actually apply

Polychronic Time Culture

Cultures with this view of time typically mix personal time into work time and see them as interconnected.

Perciever

This term refers to the individual who notes a situation with his or her senses.

Affective Workplace Attitude

Individuals using this component of attitude focus on their feelings about a particular person or circumstance, such as hate or fear

Consistency

This aspect of attribution theory looks at assessing the behavior of individuals when they are faced with the exact same situation multiple times.

Neglect Response

A job dissatisfaction response that occurs when employees no longer care about their job or the company

High Context Culture

A type of culture where people use assumptions while communicating, and count on others to understand what they're discussing

The Central Tendency

This shortcut occurs when people only consider the average results of a group, instead of looking at individual results.

Unproductive Behavior

This form of deviant workplace behavior occurs when employees behave in ways that waste time, such as spending time away from their work.

Loyalty Response

Employees experiencing this response to job dissatisfaction will stay in their career hoping things will improve.

Self-Serving Bias Error

A type of bias error that involves people crediting positive outcomes to their own actions while believing negative outcomes are caused by external events

Aggressive Behavior

A type of deviant workplace behavior that involves hostility or intimidation. This behavior can also include sexual harassment.

Voice Response

A way of responding to job dissatisfaction that involves speaking about changes and trying to bring them about

Workplace Attitudes

Cognitive // Affective // Conative or Behavioral

Low Context Culture

Individuals in this type of culture provide lots of specific information when they're communicating and focus on clearly detailing the issues they're discussing.

Behavioral/Conative Workplace Attitude

This component of attitude deals with how individuals want to act toward someone or something.

Cognitive Workplace Attitude

A component of attitude that encompasses an individual's thoughts, ideas or beliefs. Generalities can be a form of this kind of attitude.

The Contrast Effect

Individuals use this shortcut when they contrast items or people while trying to work on a comparison decision.

Attributional Bias

Individuals display this bias when they form assumptions without considering all the necessary information.

Perceived

A term used to describe the object, person or situation that is being considered during perception

Intrinsic Rewards

These rewards are internal and don't depend on other people. Examples include a sense of accomplishment or professional growth.

Autonomy in Self-Determination Theory

Individuals achieve this need when they feel they have control over what they do. This occurs when a manager gives employees the chance to determine how they will complete a job.

Behavioral Management

In this theory of management, managers try to increase productivity by ensuring that employees are satisfied and have good working conditions. It replaced the classical leadership theory.

The order of importance in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

This theory states that people have to meet lower levels of needs before they can fulfill higher levels. For example, an employee must satisfy the need to eat before working on other needs.

Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory

States that employees who are given challenging goals, tools to achieve them, and positive feedback, will experience satisfaction and want to meet harder goals if rewards also increase