2025_03_07_OPP_3

Introduction to Organizational Behavior

• Definition: Organizational Behavior (OB) studies the impact of individuals, groups, and structure on behavior within organizations aiming to improve organizational effectiveness.

• Importance: Understanding OB helps explain what people do in organizations and how their behaviors affect organizational performance.

• Key Areas of Focus:

  • Management's influence on behavior

  • Attitudinal impacts on behavior

  • Social influences on behavior

Formation and Control of Workplace Behavior

• Behavior Conditioning and Reinforcement: Uses principles of conditioning to shape employee behaviors.

  • Positive Reinforcement: Financial rewards linked to specific behaviors can enhance productivity (Luthans & Stajkovic, 1999).

  • Praise and Social Recognition: Can also serve as effective reinforcers.

  • Negative Reinforcement: Involves the removal of an unpleasant stimulus to increase desired behavior.

  • Punishment: Introducing unpleasant outcomes in response to undesired behavior.

  • Extinction: The discontinuation of reinforcement for certain behaviors, leading to a decrease in that behavior's occurrence.

• Learning in the Workplace:

  • Social Modeling: Learning by observing others' behaviors and their consequences.

  • Cognition: Involves learning and automating work processes.

Research Insights

• Influence of Supervisors and Leaders: Employee behaviors are heavily impacted by their managers.

• Effective Reinforcement: Conditional reinforcement (rewards contingent on performance) is most effective.

• Performance Improvement Findings:

  • Financial rewards: +23% performance improvement.

  • Feedback: +17% improvement.

  • Social recognition: +10% improvement.

  • Combination of all three leads to +45% improvement.

• Role of Money: Money in itself may not be an effective motivator as it lacks feedback on performance.

• Feedback's Role: Clarifies expectations and enhances motivation.

Attitudes and Behavior

• Definition of Attitudes: Evaluative statements or beliefs about people, objects, or events that influence perceptions positively or negatively.

• Components of Attitudes (Breckler, 1984):

  • Cognitive Component: Thoughts and beliefs regarding the job.

  • Affective Component: Emotional responses to the job.

  • Behavioral Component: Intentions to act in certain ways.

• Key Theories Related to Work Attitudes:

  • Cognitive Dissonance Theory (Festinger)

  • Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen)

Importance in Work and Applied Research

• Health-Related Behavior and Organizational Research: Attitudes toward safety and risk significantly affect employee conduct.

• Examples of Research:

  • Traffic Violations (Castanier, Deroche & Woodman, 2013)

  • Online Safety (Bruns & Roberts, 2013)

  • Medication Safety in Healthcare (Lapkin, Levett-Jones & Gilligan, 2015)

• Methods of Measuring and Managing Attitudes:

  • Attitude Surveys

  • Job Design

  • Employee Selection

  • Change Management

Work Attitudes and Job Satisfaction

• Definition of Job Satisfaction: Overall feelings about the job and the extent to which one feels positively or negatively about their job.

• Components: Incorporates cognitive evaluations of the job and emotional conditions.

• Key Influencing Factors:

  • Personality and dispositions (e.g., extraversion, emotional stability)

  • Job characteristics (e.g., autonomy, job variety, feedback)

  • Perception of fairness (distributive and procedural fairness)

• Organizational Commitment Types:

  • Affective Commitment: Emotional attachment to the organization.

  • Normative Commitment: Obligation to stay with the organization.

  • Continuance Commitment: Staying due to perceived costs of leaving.

Dimensions of Organizational Commitment

• Affective vs. Normative vs. Continuance Commitment: Different types of commitment affect employee behavior and retention.

• Indicators of Withdrawal: Includes turnover and absenteeism linked to varying types of organizational commitment.

• Factors Influencing Commitment:

  • Personality, socialization, investment in the organization, work experiences, and alternative job opportunities.

Research on Job Satisfaction and Performance

• Collegial Relationships: Not essential for job satisfaction, but poor relationships can be detrimental.

• Performance Impact: Relationship between job satisfaction and performance is modest.

  • Historical research: Correlation = 0.12; Meta-analysis: Correlation = 0.30.

• Ambition and Job Satisfaction: Achieving high status enhances satisfaction, but high satisfaction does not guarantee low turnover.

• Absenteeism Trends: High job satisfaction correlates with lower absenteeism.

• Quality of Life Links: Health outcomes show a relationship between job satisfaction and overall well-being (Faragher et al., 2005; Bowling et al., 2010).

Organizational Commitment Research Findings

• Ambiguous Relationships: Mixed results regarding job satisfaction's effect on performance.

• Negative Behavior Insights: Low satisfaction can lead to counterproductive behaviors like absenteeism and turnover.

• Organizational Commitment Benefits: High job satisfaction correlates with customer satisfaction, profitability, productivity, low turnover, and fewer workplace injuries (Harter, Schmidt & Hayes, 2002).

Conducting Employee Surveys

• Steps for Survey Design:

  1. Define the survey topic.

  2. Identify key indicators.

  3. Formulate questions.

  4. Test the survey.

  5. Implement and analyze results.

  6. Take action based on findings.

• Types of Results:

  • Absolute results

  • Internal and external results (benchmarking)

  • Longitudinal results

Survey Preparation and Follow-Up

• Preparation Steps:

  • Planning

  • Preliminary study

  • Survey design

  • Communication campaign

• Execution:

  • Survey administration

  • Result analysis

  • Report creation

• Follow-Up Actions:

  • Feedback to participants

  • Action planning (e.g., workshops)

  • Implementation and evaluations

Examples of Common Questionnaires

• Job Descriptive Index: Measures job satisfaction.

• Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire: Assesses overall job satisfaction.

• Allen and Meyer Organizational Commitment Scale: Evaluates organizational commitment levels.

Survey Results Overview

• Engagement Index: Current metrics indicate engagement levels and satisfaction scores within the organization.

• Satisfaction Indicators: Ratings provide insight into clarity of expectations, recognition, resources, and growth opportunities.

Social Influences on Behavior

• Social Loafing: Tendency for individuals to exert less effort when working in groups as compared to individual performance (Karau & Williams, 1993).

• Conformity: Changes in perception or behavior due to group pressure.

  • Perception distortion where individuals believe the group is correct.

• Obedience to Authority: A significant topic in management, where adherence to authority can shape employee behavior.

• Social Identity: Group membership (in-group vs. out-group) affects behavior and attitudes, influencing responses to organizational changes.