ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

AND MANAGEMENT
What is an Organization?
An organization is a collection of people who work together to achieve individual and
organizational goals.

What is Organizational Behavior?

Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of factors that affect how individuals and groups act in
organizations and how organizations manage their environments.
What is management?
Management is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling an organization’s human,
financial, material, and other resources to increase its effectiveness.

Managerial Roles

• Manager: Any person who supervises one or more subordinates.

• Role: A set of behaviors or tasks a person is expected to perform because of the position he or
she holds in a group or organization.
• Managerial roles identified by Mintzberg (see Table 1.1):
Figurehead Leader
Liaison Monitor
Disseminator Spokesperson
Entrepreneur Disturbance handler
Resource allocator Negotiator

Managerial Skills:
• Conceptual Skills: The ability to analyze and diagnose a situation and distinguish between cause
and effect.
• Human Skills: The ability to understand, work with, lead, and control the behavior of other
people and groups.
• Technical Skills: Job-specific knowledge and techniques.
Challenges for Organizational Behavior
and Management

• Using new information technology to enhance creativity and organizational learning.

• Managing human resources to increase competitive advantage.
• Developing organizational ethics and well-being.
• Managing a diverse work force.
• Managing the global environment.
Challenge 1:
Using New Information Technology to Enhance Creativity and Organizational Learning

• Information technology: The computer systems and software that organizations use to speed the
flow of information around an organization and to better link people and subunits within it.
• Creativity: The decision-making process that produces novel and useful ideas that lead to new or
improved goods and services or to improvements in the way they are produced.

New Ways to increase performance

• Reengineering: A complete rethinking and redesign of business processes to increase
efficiency, quality, innovation, or responsiveness to customers.
• Restructuring: Altering an organization’s structure (e.g., by eliminating a department) to
streamline the organization’s operations and reduce costs.
• Outsourcing: Acquiring goods or services from sources outside the organization.
• Freelancers: Independent individuals who contract with an organization to perform specific
services.
Challenge 3
Developing Organizational Ethics and Well-Being

• Ethics: Rules, beliefs, and values that outline the ways in which managers and workers should
behave when confronted with a situation in which their actions may help or harm other people
inside of or outside an organization.
• Well-being: The condition of being happy, healthy, and prosperous.
• Social responsibility: An organization’s moral responsibility toward individuals or groups
outside the organization that are affected by its actions.