Chapter 1: What is Organizational Behavior?

Worker

an individual who contributes to the accomplishment of work goals.

Manager

an individual who achieves goals through other people.

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.

Planning

a process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities.

Organizing

determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.

Leading

a function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.

Controlling

monitoring activities to ensure that they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations.

Technical skills

the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.

People 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 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.

Systematic study

looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.

Evidence-based management (EBM)/Evidence-Based Decision-Making (EBDM)

basing management on decisions on the best available scientific data.

Intuition

an instinctive feeling not necessarily supported by research.

Psychology

the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals.

Social psychology

an area of psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology to focus on the influence of people on one another.

Sociology

the study of people in relation to their social environment or culture.

Anthropology

the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.

Contingency variables

situational factors or variables that moderate the relationship between two or more variables.

Workforce diversity

the heterogenous characteristics of organizations, work groups and teams, that that recognize that their workers vary in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics.

Workforce inclusion

the act of creating and maintaining workplaces that support and leverage the diversity of their members.

Globalization

the process in which worldwide integration and interdependence are promoted across national borders.

Expatriate

a person who works outside their native country.

Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices

situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct.

(Un)Ethical behavior

any actions that violate widely accepted moral norms. Conversely, ethical behaviors are any actions that meet to exceed widely accepted moral norms.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

an organization's self-regulated actions to benefit society or the environment beyond what is required by law.

Positive organizational scholarship

an area of OB research that studies how organizations develop human strengths, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential.

Model

an abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon.

Inputs

valuables 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 factors that are affected by other variables.

Stress

a psychological process that occurs in response to environmental pressure.

Job performance

the total value of a worker's contributions to an organization through their behaviors over a period of time.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)

discretionary behavior that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace.

Withdrawal behavior

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

Team performance

the quantity and quality of a team's work output.

Productivity

the combination of the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization.

Effectiveness

the degree to which an organization meets the needs of its clientele or customers.

Efficiency

the degree to which an organization can achieve its ends at a low cost.

Organizational survival

the degree to which an organization is able to exist and grow over the long term.