Midterm Organizational Behavior

What is Organizational Behavior (OB)?

The study of understanding and managing people at work.

Why is OB not just common sense?

Common sense can lack rigor and objectivity and rely too heavily on hindsight.

What are the two major factors influencing behavior?

Person factors and Situation Factors

What is an ethical dilemma?

A situation where neither choice provides a fectly ethical resolution.

What are the three goals of OB?

Explain, predict, and influence behavior

What are the three levels of OB analysis?

Individual (Micro), Group/Team (Meso), Organization (Macro)

What is the contingency appraoch?

The best management approach depends on the situation; no one best way exists.

What are person factors?

Personal characteristics that make individuals unique.

What are situation factors

External influences that affect beavior and outcomesW

What is the OB organizing framework?

Inputs → Processes → Outcomes

Why is ethics important in business?

Unethical actions damage trust, cooperation, loyalty, and performance.

Why study business ethics?

To recognize ethical challenges and make better decisions beyond legal requirements.

What is motivated blindness?

Ignoring unethical behavior when doing so benefits you.

What is motivated blindness?

Ignoring unethical behavior when doing so benefits you.

What is the slippery slope in ehtics?

Gradually accepting increasing unethical behavior.

What is cognitive dissonance?

Psychological discomfort caused by conflicting beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors.

What are personal values?

Stable ideals that guide thinking and behavior across situations.

What are personal attitudes?

Feelings or opinions about people, places, or objects.

What is the differnec ebtween values and attitudes?

Values are broad guiding beliefs; attitudes are evaluations of specific things.

What are the three components of attitudes?

Affective, Behavioral, Cognitive

What is the affective component?

Feelings and Emotions — “I feel”

What is the behavioral component?

Intended actions — “I intend”

What is the cognitive component?

Beliefs and ideas — “I intend”

How can cognitive dissonance be reduced?

Changing attitudes or behaviors, minimize conflict, or find supporting beliefs

What is organizational commitment?

Identifying with an organization and its goals.

What is employee engagement?

Giving physical, cognitive, and emotional effort to work.

What is perceived organizational support (POS)?

Believing the organization values your contributions and well-being.

What is the difference between OCBs and CWBs?

OCBS help organizational functioning: CWBs harm employees or the organization.

What is the difference between nature and nurture?

Nature refers to inherited traits; nurture refers to environmental and situational influences.

What is personality?

Stable, unique patterns of traits and behaviors that shape identity.

What did the twin study suggest about personality?

About 40% inheritance and 60% environmental/situational factors.

What are the Big Five personality traits?

Openness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, extraversion, agreeableness.

Which Big FIve Trait best predicts job performance?

Conscientiousness.

What is Proactive Personality?

Someone who identifies opportunities and takes action to create change.

What is self-efficacy?

Belief in one’s ability to accomplish a task.

What is the difference between task and generalized self-efficacy?

Confidence in a specific task versus confidence across situations

What is an internal locus of control?

Believing your actions influence outcomes and accepting responsibility.

What is an external locus of control?

Believing outcomes are controlled mainly by external forces

What are core self-evaluations?

Generalized self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, emotional stability.

How do anger and fear differ in time orientation?

Anger looks backward at past events; fear looks forward to possible events.

What is the fundamental attribution error?

Overemphasizing someone’s personal characteristics while overlooking situational factors influencing their behaviors.

What is perception?

The cognitive process of interpreting and understanding surroundings.

What three factors shape perception?

Perceiver, Target, and Situation

Why does perception matter in business?

It influences hiring, leadership, evaluations, and decision making.

What is stereotyping?

Beliefs about the characteristics of members of a group.

What is attribution theory?

Explaining the causes of observed behavior.

What are the three dimensions of Kelley’s model?

Consensus, distinctiveness, consistency

What pattern suggests an internal attribution?

Low consensus, Low distinctiveness, High Consistency.

What is self-serving bias?

Crediting personal factors for success and external factors for failure.

How can managers reduce biased decisions?

Structured interviews, multiple evaluators, objective measures, and training

What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?

Intrinsic comes from internal satisfaction; extrinsic comes from external rewards.

What are the three parts of Vroom’s expctancy theory?

Expectancy, instrumnetalty, and valence.

What is motivation?

Psychological processes directing the direction, intensity, and persistenc eof behavior.

Why does the difference between content and process theories?

Content: what motivates people.

Process: how motivation occurs.

What does McGregor’s Theory X assume?

Employees dislike work and need close supervision, rewards, or punishment.

What does McGregor’s Theory Y assume?

Employees can be responsible, creative, committed, and self-directed.

What are Maslow’s five needs, lowest to highest?

Physiological

Safety

Love/Belonging

Esteem

Self-Actualization

What does Maslow’s theory suggest about satisfied needs?

Satisfied needs lose much of their motivational potential.

What are McClelland’s three acquired needs?

Acievement, affiliation, and power.

What motivates someone with a high need for achievement?

Challenges, accomplishment, adn demonstrating ability.

What motivates someone with a high need for affiliation?

Social relationships, belonging, and cooperation.

What motivates someone with high need for power?

Influencing, leading, or directing others.

What are the three needs in self-determination theory?

Competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

What does Herzberg’s theory distinguish?

Hygiene factors prevent dissatisfaction; motivators create satisfaction.

What does equity theoryexplain?

Poeple compare their inputs and outcomes with others to evaluate fiarness.

What are the three main forms of organizational justice?

Distributive, procedural, and interactional.

What does distributive justice mean?

Fairness of rewards and resource distribution.

What does procedural justice mean?

Fairness of decision-making processes.

What does interactional justice mean?

Fairness and respect in interpersonal treatment.

What does expectancy theory propose?

Motivation depends on expectancy x instrumentality x valence.

What are the five core job characteristics?

Skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, feedback.

What is performance management?

Defining, monitoring, measuring, evaluating, and responding to perfomrnace.

What are the two functions of feedback?

Instructional and motivational.

What makes feedback effective?

Timely, specific, relevant, honest, constructive, and controllable.

What should managers avoid when giving feedback?

Punishment, embarrassment, irrelevant comments, delays, and uncontrollable issues.

What are sources of performance feedback?

Supervisors, peers, subordinates, customers, self-evaluations, and task results.

What is halo effect?

Letting an overall impression bias ratings of specific characteristics

What is central tendency bias?

Rating everyone near average rather than using the full rating scale.

What is recency bias?

Giving recent performance too much weight.

What is Thorndike’s Law of Effect?

Favorable consequences encourage repetition; unfavorable ones discourage behavior.

What is Positive OB focused on?

Developing positive psychological resources and behaviors at work.

What does HERO represent?

Hope, Efficacy, resilience, and optimism

What is the difference between willpower and waypower?

Willpower is determination; waypower is finding paths to a goal.

What is resilience?

Bouncing back from adveristy and continuing through challenges.

What is mindfulness?

Purposeful, present-moment, nonjudgmental awareness.

What are ways to increase workplace positivity?

Build connections, practice kindness, develop distraction, challenge negative thoughts.

What does PERMA stand for?

Positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, achievement

What are the five stages of Tuckman’s group development model?

Forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.

What is the difference between a group and a team?

Teams share purpose, complementary skills, and mutual accountability

What happens during forming?

Members meet, learn roles, and experience uncertainty.

What happens during storming?

Conflict, testing authority, and disagreements occur.

What happens during norming?

Members establish norms, cohesion, and cooperation.

What happens during perofrming?

Members effectively toward goals and solve problems.

What happens during adjourning?

Work ends, members separate, and lessons are reviewed.

What is a self-managed team?

A team with responsibility for planning, scheduling, and monitoring its work.

What is a cross-functional team?

Members from different functional areas working together.

What are the three forms of trust

Contractual (Character)

Communication (Disclosure)

Competence (Capability)

What are the three C’s of effective teams?

Charters and strategies, composition, and capacity.

What is positive reinforcement?

Adding a desirable consequence to increase behavior/

What is negative reinforcement?

Removing an unpleasant condition to increase behavior.