CHAPTER 1:
Communities of practice: Informal groups bound together by shared expertise and passion for a particular activity or interest.

Contingency approach: The idea that a particular action may have different consequences in different situations; that no single solution is best in all circumstances.

Contingent work: Any job in which the individual does not have an explicit or implicit contract for long-term employment, or one in which the minimum hours of work can vary in a nonsystematic way.

Employability: The "new deal" employment relationship in which the job is viewed as a temporary event, so employees are expected to keep pace with changing competency requirements and shift to new projects as demand requires.

Environmental scanning: Receiving information from the external and internal environments so that more effective strategic decisions can be made.

Ethics: The study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or wrong and whether outcomes are good or bad.

Globalization: Occurs when an organization extends its activities to other parts of the world, actively participates in other markets, and competes against organizations located in other countries.

Grafting: The process of acquiring knowledge by hiring individuals or buying entire companies.

Intellectual capital: The knowledge that resides in an organization, including its human, structural, and relationship capital.

Knowledge management: Any structured activity that improves an organization's capacity to acquire, share, and use knowledge in ways that improve its survival and success.

Network organization: An alliance of several organizations for the purpose of creating a product or serving a client.

Open systems: Organizations and other entities with interdependent parts that work together to continually monitor and transact with the external environment.

Organization: A group of people who work interdependently towards some purpose.

Organizational behavior (OB): The study of what people think, feel, and do in and around organizations.

Organizational learning: An organization's capacity to acquire, disseminate, and apply knowledge for its survival and success.

Organizational memory: The storage and preservation of the organization's knowledge (i.e., its intellectual capital).

Organizations: Groups of people who work interdependently towards some purpose.

Scientific method: A set of principles and procedures that help researchers to systematically understand previously unexplained events and conditions.

Stakeholders: Shareholders, customers, suppliers, governments, and any other groups with a vested interest in the organization.

Telecommuting: Working from home or another location away from the office, usually with a computer connection to the office. (also called teleworking)

Virtual teams: Cross-functional teams that operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries with members who communicate mainly through electronic technologies.
CHAPTER 2:
360-degree feedback: Performance feedback is received from a full circle of people around the employee.

Ability: The natural aptitudes and learned capabilities required to successfully complete a task.

Absorptive capacity: Employees must have a sufficient level of related knowledge to be aware of and make sense of information outside the organization.

Action learning: A form of on-site, experiential-based learning in which participants investigate an organizational problem or opportunity and possibly implement their solution.

Behaviourism: A perspective that focuses entirely on behaviour and observable events, rather than on a person's thoughts.

Competencies: The abilities, individual values, personality traits, and other characteristics of people that lead to superior performance.

Continuous reinforcement: A schedule that reinforces behaviour every time it occurs.

Extinction: Occurs when the removal or withholding of a consequence decreases the frequency or future probability of the behaviour preceding that event.

Feedback: Any information that people receive about the consequences of their behaviour.

Fixed interval schedule: A schedule that reinforces behaviour after it has occurred for a fixed period of time.

Fixed ratio schedule: A schedule that reinforces behaviour after it has occurred a fixed number of times.

Implicit learning: The experiential phenomenon of acquiring information about relationships in the environment without any conscious attempt to do so.

Intellectual capital: The knowledge that resides in an organization, including its human, structural, and relationship capital.

Job satisfaction: A person's attitude (beliefs, assessed feelings, and behavioural intentions) regarding the job and work context.

Knowledge management: Any structured activity that improves an organization's capacity to acquire, share, and use knowledge in ways that improve its survival and success.

Law of effect: States that the likelihood that an operant behaviour will be repeated depends on its consequences.

Learning: A relatively permanent change in behaviour (or behaviour tendency) that occurs as a result of a person's interaction with the environment.

Motivation: The internal forces that affect the direction, intensity, and persistence of a person's voluntary choice of behaviour.

Negative reinforcement: Occurs when the removal or termination of a consequence increases or maintains the frequency or future probability of the behaviour preceding that event.

Organizational behaviour modification: A theory that explains learning in terms of the antecedents and consequences of behaviour.

Organizational citizenship: Employee behaviours that extend beyond the usual job duties. They include avoiding unnecessary conflicts, helping others without selfish intent, gracefully tolerating occasional impositions, being involved in organizational activities, and performing tasks that extend beyond normal role requirements.

Organizational learning: An organization's capacity to acquire, disseminate, and apply knowledge for its survival and success.

Positive reinforcement: Occurs when the introduction of a consequence increases or maintains the frequency or future probability of the behaviour preceding that event.

Punishment: Occurs when the introduction of a consequence decreases the frequency or future probability of the behaviour preceding that event.

Role perceptions: A person's beliefs about what behaviours are appropriate or necessary in a particular situation, including the specific tasks that make up the job, their relative importance, and the preferred behaviours to accomplish those tasks.

Self-efficacy: A person's belief that he or she has the ability, motivation, and resources to complete a task successfully.

Shaping: The strategy of initially reinforcing crude approximations of the ideal behaviour, then increasing reinforcement standards until only the ideal behaviour is rewarded.

Situational contingencies: Environmental conditions beyond the employee's immediate control that constrain or facilitate employee behaviour and performance.

Social learning theory: A theory stating that learning mainly occurs by observing others and then modelling the behaviours that lead to favourable outcomes and avoiding behaviours that lead to punishing consequences.

Social responsibility: A person's or an organization's moral obligation towards others who are affected by its actions.

Tacit knowledge: Subtle information, acquired through observation and experience, that is not clearly understood and therefore cannot be explicitly communicated.

Task performance: Goal-directed activities that are under the individual's control.

Variable interval schedule: A schedule that reinforces behaviour after it has occurred for a variable period of time around some average.

Variable ratio schedule: A schedule that reinforces behaviour after it has occurred a varying number of times around some average.