The value of organizational behavior is that it isolates important aspects of the manager’s job and offers specific perspectives on the human side of management.
Organizational behavior is a field of study, an applied field, and a study of what people do in organizations
The field of organizational behavior attempts to understand human behavior in organizational settings, the organization itself, and the individual organization interface.
Managers need to plan, organize, lead, and control
Manager roles – interpersonal, informational, and decision-maiking.
Manager skills – technical skills, interpersonal, conceptual, and diagnostic.
Process approach – includes scientific management which used scientific methods to define the “one best way” for a job to be done.
Human relation – focuses on the importance of the attitudes and feelings of workers
Quantitative approach- includes applications of statistics, models
System approach – provides useful framework for understanding how the elements of an organization interact among themselves
Contingency approach – fit between organizational processes and characteristics of the situation.
Three levels of analyses – individual processes (work attitudes), group processes (communication), and organizational processes (structure)
Perception – set of processes by which an individual becomes aware of and interprets information about the environment.
Perception influences – interpretation, spoken words, and visual images
Perceptual biases (errors) – similar tone, harshness leniency, average tendency
Schemas – abstract knowledge structures that are stored in memory and make possible the organization and interpretation of information about targets of perception.
Schemas – make sense of confusing situations, choose what info to pay attention to, and guide their perception to information they confront.
Work values – a worker’s personal conviction about expected outcomes (long lasting)
Terminal values – end-state of existence (equality, freedom, and salvation)
Instrumental values – means of achieving terminal values (capable, cheerful, courageous)
Work attitudes – short lasting, change over time due to work situations. Feelings and beliefs about ones job and organization
Important organizational attitudes – job satisfaction, job involvement, and organizational commitment
Job satisfaction consequences can affect productivity, absenteeism, and turnover.
Productivity is not strongly related to job satisfaction
Absenteeism has a weak negative relationship with job satisfaction.
Turnover has a weakly to moderate negative relationship to job satisfaction
Employee dissatisfaction has four types of responses which are exit, voice, loyalty, and neglect.
Cognitive dissonance – anxiety a person experiences when simultaneously possessing two sets of knowledge or perceptions that are contradictory or incongruent
Big five personality traits are agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, and extraversion
Personality attributes are locus of control, self esteem, Machiavellianism, and type A/B
Self monitoring – someone who closely monitors their audience to ensure appropriate public approach
Machiavellianism – being pragmatic, maintaining emotional distance, believing ends can justify
Attributions are determinants of behavior, perception, and interactions
Internal attributions – caused by some characteristics of the target
External attributions – behavior assigned to factors
Attribution theory – when we observe an individual’s behavior we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused.
Distinctiveness – refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations High external – low internal
Consensus – people respond the same way to a situation High external – low internal
Consistency –does the person respond the same way over time High internal – low external
Fundamental attribution error – leads managers to attribute subordinates behavior to personal characteristics
Actor-observer effect – arises from knowledge of our own external pressures and a lack of awareness
Self-serving attribution – bias perceptions of friends, family, or organizations.
Optimists – make external (not their fault) unstable and specific attributions for bad events Lower turnover rates, perform better
Pessimists – make internal (own fault) stable and under mind everything they do Low self esteem, depressions