Introduction to the Field of

Organizational Behavior
 What are Organizations?

 Groups of people who work

interdependently toward
some purpose
 Structured patterns of
interaction
 Coordinated tasks
 Work toward some purpose
Why Study Organizational Behavior

Understand
organizational
events

Organizational
Behavior
Research

Influence Predict
organizational organizational
events events
 Trends: Globalization

 Economic, social, and cultural connectivity with

people in other parts of the world
 Effects of globalization on organizations:
 Greater efficiencies and knowledge sources
 Ethical issues about economies of developing countries
 New organizational structures and communication
 Greater workforce diversity
 More competitive pressure, demands on employees
 Trends: Information Technology

Blurs temporal and spatial boundaries between

employees and organizations
Re-designs jobs and power relationships
Increases value of knowledge management
Supports telecommuting
Supports virtual teams
 Telecommuting

An alternative work arrangement where employees

work at home or remote site, usually with a
computer connection to the office
Tends to increase productivity and empowerment,
reduce stress and costs
Problems with lack of recognition, lack of social
interaction
 Trends: Changing Workforce

Primary and secondary diversity -- but concerns

about distinguishing people by ethnicity
More women in workforce and professions
Different needs of Gen-X/Gen-Y and baby-boomers
Diversity has advantages, but firms need to adjust
 Trends: Employment Relationship

Employability
 “New deal” employment relationship
 Continuously learn new skills
Contingent work
 No contract for long-term employment
 Free agents, temporary-temporaries
 Minimum hours of work vary
 Employability vs Job Security

Job Security Employability

• Lifetime job security • Limited job security

• Jobs are permanent • Jobs are temporary

• Company manages career • Career self-management

• Low emphasis on skill • High emphasis on skill

development development
 Trends: Workplace Values & Ethics

 Values are long-lasting beliefs about what is

important in a variety of situations
 Define right versus wrong --guide our decisions
 Values relate to individuals, companies, professions,
societies, etc.
 Importance values due to:
 Need to guide employee decisions and actions
 Globalization increases awareness of different values
 Increasing emphasis on applying ethical values
 Ethics -- study of moral principles or values
 Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate Social Responsibility
 Organization’s moral obligation toward its
stakeholders
Stakeholders
 Shareholders, customers, suppliers, governments
etc.
Triple bottom line philosophy
 Economic, Social & Environmental
 Organizational Behavior Anchors

Multidisciplinary
Anchor

Systematic
Open Systems Organizational Research
Anchor Anchor
Behavior
Anchors
Multiple Levels
Contingency
of Analysis
Anchor
Anchor
 Open Systems Anchor of OB

Feedback Feedback

Subsystem Subsystem

Inputs Organization Outputs

Subsystem Subsystem
Knowledge Management Defined

Any structured activity that

improves an organization’s
capacity to acquire, share,
and use knowledge for its
survival and success
 Intellectual Capital

Knowledge that people possess

Human Capital
and generate

Knowledge captured in systems

Structural Capital
and structures

Relationship Values derived from satisfied

Capital customers, reliable suppliers, etc.
 Knowledge Management Processes

Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge

acquisition sharing use

• Grafting • Communication • Awareness

• Individual learning • Communities of • Empowerment
practice
• Experimentation
 Organizational Behaviour

 . . . a field of study that investigates the impact

that individuals, groups and structure have on
behaviour within organizations, for the purpose of
applying such knowledge toward improving an
organization’s effectiveness.
The Importance of Organizational Behavior
 People as organizations
 People as resources
 People as people
The Nature of Organizational Behavior
Challenges at Workplace
Organizational Level
• Productivity
• Developing Effective Employees
• Global Competition
• Managing in the Global Village

Group Level
•
•
Working With Others Workplace
Workforce Diversity

Individual Level
• Job Satisfaction
• Empowerment
• Behaving Ethically
 The Rigour of OB

OB looks at consistencies

 What is common about behaviour, and helps predictability?

OB is more than common sense

 Systematic study, based on scientific evidence

OB has few absolutes

OB takes a contingency approach
 Considers behaviour in context
 Beyond Common Sense

Systematic Study
 Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and
effects and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence
Behaviour is generally predictable
There are differences between individuals
There are fundamental consistencies
There are rules (written & unwritten) in almost every setting
 Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field

Psychology
Sociology
Social Psychology
Anthropology
Political Science
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field
(cont’d)
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d)
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d)
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d)
 Summary and Implications

 OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that

individuals, groups, and structure have on behaviour within
an organization.
 OB focuses on improving productivity, reducing
absenteeism and turnover, and increasing employee job
satisfaction and organizational commitment.
 OB uses systematic study to improve predictions of
behaviour.
 The Historical Roots of Organizational
Behavior

 Scientific Management Era (early 1900s)

 Frederick W. Taylor
Studied the efficiency and productivity of individual workers.
Systematically studied jobs to eliminate soldiering.
Promoted standardized job performance methods.
Implemented piece-rate based incentive pay systems.
Taylor’s innovations boosted productivity markedly.
 Other Pioneers
 Frank and Lillian Gilbreth
 Henry Gantt
 Harrington Emerson
 Scientific Management

 Positive Attributes
 Facilitated job specialization and mass production.
 Demonstrated to managers their role in enhancing
performance and productivity.
 Negative Attributes
 Labor opposed scientific management because its explicit goal
was to get more output from workers.
 Critics argued that Taylor’s methods and ideas would
dehumanize the workplace and reduce workers to little more
than drones.
 Theorists later argued that Taylor’s views of employee
motivation were inadequate and narrow.
 The Historical Roots of Organizational
Behavior

Classical Organization Theory

 This perspective was concerned with structuring organizations
effectively.
 Whereas scientific management studied how individual
workers could be made more efficient, organization theory
focused on how a large number of workers and managers
could be organized most effectively into an overall structure.
 Major Contributors to Classical
Organization Theory

 Henri Fayol
 French executive and engineer.
 Lyndall Urwick
 British executive.
 Max Weber
 German Sociologist.
 Proposed a “bureaucratic” form of structure based on logic,
rationality, and efficiency that was assumed to be the most
efficient (universal) approach to structuring for all
organizations.
 The Emergence of Organizational Behavior
 Legacy of Scientific Management and Classical
Organizational Theory
 Rationality, efficiency, and standardization were the central
themes of both scientific management and classic organization
theory.
 The roles of individuals and groups in organizations were
either ignored or given only minimal attention.
 The Hawthorne Studies (1927–1932)
 Focused attention on the role of human behavior in the
workplace.
 Led directly to the emergence of organizational behavior as a
field of study.
 The Hawthorne Studies (1927–1932)

 Involved two studies conducted by Elton Mayo at Western

Electric’s plant near Chicago:
 The effects of lighting on productivity.
 The effectiveness of a piecework incentive system.
 The studies yielded surprising results:
 In the lighting study, productivity went up because the
workers were singled out for special treatment.
 In the incentive system experiment, social pressures caused
the workers to vary their work rates.
 As a result of the Hawthorne studies, researchers concluded
that the human element in the workplace was more important
than previously thought.
The Emergence of Organizational Behavior

 The Human Relations Movement

 People respond primarily to their social environment.
 Motivation depends on social, not economic needs.
 Satisfied employees work harder than dissatisfied employees.
 Douglas McGregor – Theory X and Theory Y
 Abraham Maslow – Hierarchy of needs
 Toward Organizational Behavior: The Value of People
 Organizational behavior reached maturity as a field of study in
the late 1950s .
Contextual Perspectives on Organizational
Behavior

The Systems Perspective

 A system is an interrelated set of elements that function
as a whole.
The Systems Approach
 Provides a framework for understanding how the
elements of an organization interact among themselves
and with their environment.
 Contextual Perspectives on Organizational
Behavior

The Universal Perspective

 Suggests that whenever a manager encounters a
problem, a universal approach exists that will lead to the
desired outcome.
The Contingency Perspective
 Suggests that whenever a manager encounters a
problem, the approach to use is contingent on other
variables.
The Systems Approach to Organizations
Contextual Perspectives on Organizational
Behavior
Interactionalism: People and Situations
 First presented in terms of interactional psychology, this view
assumes that individual behavior results from a continuous
and multidirectional interaction between the characteristics of
the person and the characteristics of the situation.
 Interactionalism attempts to explain how people select,
interpret, and change various situations
There Are Few Absolutes in OB

x Contingency
Variables y
 The Independent Variables

Independent
Variables

Individual-Level Group-Level Organization

Variables Variables System-Level
Variables
The Dependent Variables

x
The Dependent Variables (cont’d)
The Dependent Variables (cont’d)
The Dependent Variables (cont’d)
The Dependent Variables (cont’d)