Organizational Behavior Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards for Organizational Behavior.

Manager

Someone who gets things done through other people in organizations.

Organization

A consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Technical Skills

The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.

Human Skills

The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups.

Conceptual Skills

The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.

Organizational Behavior (OB)

A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.

Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

Complements systematic study and argues for managers to make decisions based on evidence.

Contingency Variables

Situational factors are variables that moderate the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.

Workforce Diversity

Organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and inclusion of other diverse groups.

Positive Organizational Scholarship

Is concerned with how organizations develop human strength, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential.

Ethical Dilemmas and Ethical Choices

Situations in which an individual is required to define right and wrong conduct.

Inputs

Variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture that lead to processes.

Processes

Actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs, and that lead to certain outcomes.

Outcomes

Key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some other variables.

Employee Attitudes

The evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to negative, about objects, people, or events.

Stress

An unpleasant psychological process that occurs in response to environmental pressures.

Task Performance

The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior

The discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, and that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace.

Withdrawal Behavior

The set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization.

Group Cohesion

The extent to which members of a group support and validate one another at work.

Group Functioning

Refers to the quantity and quality of a group’s work output.

Productivity

Achieves its goals by transforming inputs into outputs at the lowest cost; requires both effectiveness and efficiency.

Organizational Survival

Simply evidence that the organization is able to exist and grow over the long term.

Personality

The pattern of relatively enduring ways that a person feels, thinks, and behaves

Nature

Biological heritage

Nurture

Life experiences

Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) Framework

Individuals with similar personalities tend to be attracted to an organization (attraction) and hired by it (selection) and individuals with other types of personalities tend to leave the organization (attrition)

Extraversion (Positive Affectivity)

Personality trait that predisposes individuals to experience positive emotional states and feel good about themselves and the world around them

Neuroticism (Negative Affectivity)

Personality trait that reflects people’s tendency to experience negative emotional states, feel distressed, and generally view themselves and the world around them negatively

Agreeableness

Personality trait that captures the distinction between individuals who get along well with other people and those who do not

Conscientiousness

Personality trait that describes the extent to which an individual is careful, scrupulous, and persevering

Openness to Experience

Personality trait that captures the extent to which an individual is original, open to a wide variety of stimuli, has broad interests, and is willing to take risks as opposed to being narrow-minded and cautious

Internal Locus of Control

Describes people who believe that ability, effort, or their own actions determine what happens to them

External Locus of Control

Describes people who believe that fate, luck, or outside forces are responsible for what happens to them

Self-monitoring

The extent to which people try to control the way they present themselves to others

Self-Esteem

The extent to which people have pride in themselves and their capabilities

Type A Personality

Individuals have an intense desire to achieve, are extremely competitive, have a sense of urgency, are impatient, and can be hostile

Type B Personality

Individuals are more relaxed and easygoing

Ability

What a person is capable of doing

Emotional Intelligence

The ability to understand and manage one’s own feelings and emotions and the feelings and emotions of others

Attitudes

Evaluative statements—either favorable or unfavorable—about objects, people, or events.

Cognitive Dissonance

Any incompatibility an individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes.

Job Satisfaction

A positive feeling about the job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

Job Involvement

Degree of psychological identification with the job where perceived performance is important to self-worth.

Psychological Empowerment

Belief in the degree of influence over one’s job, competence, job meaningfulness, and autonomy.

Organizational Commitment

Identifying with a particular organization and its goals and wishing to maintain membership in the organization.

Perceived Organizational Support (POS)

Degree to which employees believe the organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being.

Employee Engagement

The degree of involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the job.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Self-regulated actions to benefit society or the environment beyond what is required by law.

Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)

Actions that actively damage the organization, including stealing, behaving aggressively toward coworkers, or being late or absent.

Figurehead

Symbolic head; required to perform a number of routine duties of a legal or social nature

Leader

Responsible for the motivation and direction of employees

Liaison

Maintains a network of outside contacts who provide favors and information

Monitor

Receives a wide variety of information; serves as nerve center of internal and external information of the organization

Disseminator

Transmits information received from outsiders or from other employees to members of the organization

Spokesperson

Transmits information to outsiders on organization's plans, policies, actions, and results; serves as expert on organization's industry

Entrepreneur

Searches organization and its environment for opportunities and initiates projects to bring about change

Disturbance handler

Responsible for corrective action when organization faces important, unexpected disturbances

Resource allocator

Makes or approves significant organizational decisions

Negotiator

Responsible for representing the organization at major negotiations

Big Data

Relatively new area, but one that holds convincing promise in managerial practices.

Extravert

Energetic, enthusiastic, sociable, talkative

Introvert

Retiring, reserved, silent, cautious

High Neuroticism (Negative Affectivity)

Nervous, high-strung, anxious

Low Neuroticism (Negative Affectivity)

Poised, composed, calm

High Agreeableness

Good-natured, cooperative, trusting, helpful

Low Agreeableness

Uncooperative, irritable, suspicious

High Conscientiousness

Careful, well-organized, self-disciplined, responsible, precise

Low Conscientiousness

Careless, disorganized, undependable, impulsive

High Openness to Experience

Original, open to a wide variety of stimuli, has broad interests, and is willing to take risks

Low Openness to Experience

Narrow-minded and cautious

Importance of Interpersonal Skills in the Workplace

Good places to work have better financial performance.

Benefits of Interpersonal Skills

Better interpersonal skills result in lower turnover of quality employees and higher quality applications for recruitment.

Workplace Relationships and Job Satisfaction

There is a strong association between the quality of workplace relationships and job satisfaction, stress, and turnover.

Interpersonal Skills and Social Responsibility

Fosters social responsibility awareness.

Manager’s Functions

Planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Intuition

Systematic study and EBM add to intuition, or those “gut feelings” about “why I do what I do” and “what makes others tick.”

Challenges and Opportunities of OB Concepts

Responding to economic pressure, responding to globalization, managing workforce diversity, improving customer service, improving people skills, working in networked organizations, using social media at work, enhancing employee well-being at work, creating a positive work environment, improving ethical behavior.

Responding to Globalization

Increased foreign assignments, working with people from different cultures, overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost labor, adapting to differing cultural and regulatory norms.

Improving Customer Service

Service employees have substantial interaction with customers, employee attitudes and behavior are associated with customer satisfaction, need a customer-responsive culture.

Improving People Skills

People skills are essential to managerial effectiveness, OB provides the concepts and theories that allow managers to predict employee behavior in given situations.

Working in Networked Organizations

A manager’s job is fundamentally different in networked organizations, challenges of motivating and leading “online” require different techniques.

Using Social Media at Work

Policies on accessing social media at work, when, where, and for what purpose, impact of social media on employee well-being.

Enhancing Employee Well-Being at Work

The creation of the global workforce means work no longer sleeps, communication technology has provided a vehicle for working at any time or any place, employees are working longer hours per week, the lifestyles of families have changed — creating conflict, balancing work and life demands now surpasses job security as an employee priority.

Improving Ethical Behavior

Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices are situations in which an individual is required to define right and wrong conduct, good ethical behavior is not so easily defined, organizations distribute codes of ethics to guide employees through ethical dilemmas, managers need to create an ethically healthy climate.

Inputs

Variables like personality, group structure, and organizational culture that lead to processes.

Processes

If inputs are like the nouns in organizational behavior, processes are like verbs, defined as actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs, and that lead to certain outcomes.

Outcomes

Key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some other variables.

Attitudes and Stress

Employee attitudes are the evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to negative, about objects, people, or events, stress is an unpleasant psychological process that occurs in response to environmental pressures.

Task Performance

The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks is a reflection of your level of task performance.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior

The discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, and that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace, is called organizational citizenship behavior.

Withdrawal Behavior

Withdrawal behavior is the set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization.

Group Cohesion and Functioning

Group cohesion is the extent to which members of a group support and validate one another at work, group functioning refers to the quantity and quality of a group’s work output.

Productivity and Survival

An organization is productive if it achieves its goals by transforming inputs into outputs at the lowest cost. This requires both effectiveness and efficiency, the final outcome is organizational survival, which is simply evidence that the organization is able to exist and grow over the long term.

Personality

Personality is the pattern of relatively enduring ways that a person feels, thinks, and behaves.

Determination of a Leader

The conscientiousness, determination, self-discipline, sociability, and affectionate behavior of Indrawn Nooyi, CEO of PepsiCo.

Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) Framework

Individuals with similar personalities tend to be attracted to an organization (attraction) and hired by it (selection) and individuals with other types of personalities tend to leave the organization (attrition).

Extraversion

Personality trait that predisposes individuals to experience positive emotional states and feel good about themselves and the world around them

Neuroticism

Personality trait that reflects people’s tendency to experience negative emotional states, feel distressed, and generally view themselves and the world around them negatively

Agreeableness

Personality trait that captures the distinction between individuals who get along well with other people and those who do not