Organizational Behavior Study Guide Essay

Organizational Behavior – is the understanding of how organizations work and how to have people perform efficiently. It is extracted from different areas of study, and is interested in how these fields are integrated into workplace behavior. Basic Leadership Model – knowledge of OB x behavioral skills = leadership effectiveness Organizational Behavior – 1) individual level is where members make sense of the world and derive motivation. 2) how teams function. How they deal, ethical decision making, and power politics. 3) Organizational level – how the firm is structured, selecting developing talent, creating sustaining a culture, manage change. Behavioral skills – facilitate team decision making, effective communication, effective negotiation, use power wisely, and managers organization change. Organization change over time – theories become more complex and and yet more accurate but they are harder to apply since they are all based on the situation and culture limits the applicability of these theories also. Pre 20 century – work was done from home/crafts, orgs were military and church, Adam Smith division of labor and theories of use of machinery to save labor costs. 1900 – industrialism and mass production using division of labor. 1920 – scientific management fred taylor: cult of efficiency task analysis, standardization, pay by performance, training, and systemic selection. Classical management: Henry Fayle: PODSC: planning, organizing, directing, staffing, and controlling. Unity of command: one leader, specialization: doing one activity and people got good at it so replacing was easy. Scalar chain: the yields of an output TxC input multiplied by constant. Span of control: how many subordinates under control. During this time was 5 to 7 now its over 20. 1930 – Hawthorne studies by Elton mayo. Findings were that interaction in the test group had increased productivity; feelings and supervision had big effect in production. Informal groups also were formed due to interaction. 1940 –group dynamics: when teams made their own decisions they required more information to be shared with employees and yet this was complex but made them have a sense of commitment to the job. Bureaucracy with Max Weber: job descriptions, specific responsibility, written rules, right of appeal, fair and equal treatment and managing became a profession to learn. 1950- Task leaders were only concerned with accomplishing the task. Social leaders were concerned with employees. Limits to rationality suffice rather than maximize. There is a limit of how much info. You can absorb. Gordon Howell: it asked for professionalism and more scientific knowledge. 1960,1970-Systems thinking environment and organization explaining and predicting behavior. Contingency thinking variables on factors. Leadership is contingent on many factors. 1980 and now – Mckribbin porter studies asked for more communication, and social skills and cultural diversity. Leader-awareness will make a better leader. Biographical traits, personality, attitudes and values, ability influences your perception and motives. And perception and motivation influence productivity, absence, turnover, and satisfaction. When hiring: skills, attitudes and values, and personality are looked at if you fit in the organization and see how well you work in teams. People who don’t fit in will have low performance high absenteeism/turnover. Age-older people are less likely to be absent for avoidable reasons and more likely to be absent for unavoidable reasons. (such as illness). Older people have les employment opportunities. Their job provides them with higher wages and pension benefits. Productivity there is no relation with age. Positive satisfaction 60+. Gender- no gender differences and no differences in productivity. Women are more likely to be absent because of children. Marital status- in general married people are more stable, brings job to be more valuable, fewer absence and turnover rates, more satisfied. Tenure – people who have been around for a long while are likely to stay and there is decreased turnover. Tenure on previous jobs help predict employees future turnover. Promotes conveys loyalty. Extra experience leads to increased productivity. Ability – skills that individual posses. Intellectual ability: mental activities, thinking, reasoning and problem solving. Those individuals who have a high intellectual ability and work at jobs that do not challenge them become bored and lack motivation. Physical ability: require physical traits for some jobs. Emotional intelligence: self awareness becoming aware of yourself and your areas of strength. Self management working without constant supervision. Self motivated ability to persist if there is setbacks or failures, social skills the ability to deal with others and their emotions, empathy ability to sense how others are feeling. Emotional intelligence affects job performance as employees can relate to each other. Cultural Values – experiences learned that shape our behavior. High low power distance: how equal or unequal you are between others in your society, u.s is low/democratic. Uncertainity avoidance: preferring structure than unstructured. Cognitive dissoance: when there is a conflicting emotion or tension after making a decision. Refers to any incompatibility than an individual might perceive between two or more if his or her attitudes, or between his or her behavior and attitudes. Personality – heredity, environment, situations determine personality. Locus of control: the degree to which people believe they are masters of their own fate. When we succeed we take credit for it, but when we fail, we blame others. Internals: in control of our destiny and are more satisfied and fewer absences. Externals: believe their lives are controlled by outside forces higher absences and less satisfaction. Extroversion: social, assertive. Introverted: reserved, timid. Machiavellianism: pragmatic, emotional distant, ends justify means, aggressive tactics. High mach’s: less persuaded, win more, manipulate more, flourish face to face and when there’s no rules. Self esteem: more confidence, higher risk takers. Self monitoring: ability to adjust to external behavior and situations. High Self monitors: aware of outside cues, and put on faces. Perceptions-input gives meaning to surrounding. Influenced by perceiver: attitudes, motives, interests, experiences, expectations. Target: motion, size, background, similarity. Situation: time, work, social. We judge people to find a behavior based on motives and interests. Attribution Theory- Attribution theory- Tries to explain the ways in which we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a given behavior. We attempt to determine if a given behavior is internally or externally caused. Assessed by 3 factors: Distinctiveness- whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations. Consensus- is his response unique or expected from everyone in a similar situation? Consistency- does the person respond the same way over time? Fundamental attribution error- The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the internal factors when making judgments about others’ behaviors. Self-serving bias- The tendency for individuals to atribute their own successes to internal factors and blame failures on external factors. Frequently used shortcuts in judging others: Selective perception- The tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on the basis of one’s interest, background, experience, and attitudes. Halo effect- the tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on a basis of a single characteristic. â€Å"he is all good and nothing bad† or vice versa. Contrast effect- Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that is affected by comparison with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristic. Ie. Someone being assessed right after an expert or someone that does a bad job will affect how you view that person. Stereotyping- Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs.Profiling/Stereotyping- A form of stereotyping in which a group of individuals is singed out- typically on basis of race, ethnicity- for intensive inquiry, scrutiny, or investigation.Self- fulfilling prophecy- a situation in which a person inaccurately perceives a second person, and the resulting expectations cause the second person to behave in ways consistent with the original perception. Motivation- how much effort an individual puts forth to achieve organizational goals. Performance = motivation, ability, opportunity. Learning Theory – environment determines an individuals behavior. Law of Effect(operant conditioning, or reinforcement theory) behavior is a function of its consequences. People got to learn to behave a way to get what the want. Shaping Behavior- individuals behavior is shaped by rewarding each successive step that moves them closer to a desired response. Positive reinforcement: following a desired response with something pleasant, negative: following a response by termination or withdrawal of something unpleasant. Punishment: causing an unpleasant condition to eliminate an undesirable behavior. Extinction: eliminating any reinforcement that maintains behavior. Applied: Well pay vs sick pay, lotteries, and recognition programs. Need Theory- the individual is in control of changing behavior and not the environment. Maslows Hierarchy: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. From Low to high. 1. Physiological- food, water, shelter, bodily needs 2. Safety- protection from emotional and physical harm 3. Social- affection, belongingness, friends 4. Esteem- self respect, autonomy, recognition, attention 5. Self actualization- achieving full potential, growth As each need becomes satisfied the next need becomes dominant. A substantial satisfied need no longer motivates. High order needs: internally satisfied such as social , esteem, and self actualization. Low order needs: externally and psycho and safety needs. Extrinsic rewards such as pay tends to decrease motivation for something that was intrinsically rewarding. Extrinsic rewards given to someone performing an interesting task causes interest in the task. Two factor theory: intrinsic factors such as advancement, recognition, responsibility, and achievement, are related to job satisfaction and extrinsic factors such as supervision, pay, company policies, and working conditions are associated with dissatisfaction. Hygiene factors – these factors are conditions surrounding the job â€Å"low order needs† and people complain about and in order to motivate people on the job hertzburg suggests to emphasize characteristics that people find intrinsically rewarding. Equity Theory- comparison of outcomes such as rewards and promotions, to inputs such as effort, skills, experience, and knowledge to others in the organization and then respond to eliminate any inequities. Inequity (under rewarded) low performance and over rewarded performance will increase. Job enrichment (vertical)- is the vertical expansion of jobs, increasing the degree to which the worker controls the planning, execution, and evaluation of his or her work. Expanding jobs vertically gives employees the opportunities, responsibilities, and controls that were previously reserved for management. Autonomy, feed back results, feedback channel, and recognizes individuals desire to grow. Job enlargement (horizontal)- is the idea to expand jobs, more tasks to work with, broaden the job. Skill variety, task identity: seeing the job getting fully done, task significance allows employees to form natural work units where asks they perform create meaningful whole. Employee Involvement Programs- allows orgs to focus on areas their workers know best. Gives sense of belonging, power, information, attitudes/values, and rewards move down the org, allows high needs to be satisfied, becoming motivated, committed, performance up, and satisfied. Line of sight: things way too far away that decreased motivation. Expectancy Theory- belief that an employee will be motivated to exert effort when it will lead to good performance then reward and hence satisfy its goals. Developed by Victor Vroom. Expectancy (effort – performance) belief That effort will lead to good performance. Skills experience and performance clarity is satisfied. Instrumentality (performance – reward) belief that good performance will lead to desired outcomes. Valence (reward – personal goal) the degree to which org. rewards will satisfy your needs and how attractive they are intrinsic and extrinsic. Effort to perform = expectancy, instrumental, valance. Gain Sharing- a formula based on group incentive plan. Focuses on productivity cost saving rather than profits. Relies less on extrinsic factors. Gain can happen without profit. Skill based pay- pay levels are based on how many skills employees have. Technical, managerial, and social. Provides flexibility to perform diff. tasks and skills are interchangeable. Facilitates communication between people to gain better understanding of the jobs. Downside, no promotions and there are limitations to how much you can learn before you top out. Timed training rotation: periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another. When employee becomes not challenged the employee is changed to maintain motivation levels high. Trait Theory- differs leaders from non-leaders. By looking at personal qualities to traits. Works well when in no structure or ambiguous teams. Leaders are born not made. Emergence of leadership rather than the leaders effect on performance. They have to be ambitious, energy, honesty, integrity, high self monitors. However, the theory may not work because fails to clarify the importance of different traits. Not a clear cause and effect relationship. Behavior Theories- assumes that leaders can be trained and the goal here is to develop potential leaders. The problem with these theories is that effective behaviors do not generalize across situations. Ohio studies: 2 dimensions: initiating structure: extent to which a leader is likely to define goals and expectations. Leaders focus is task. Consideration: the extent to which a leader has a relation with employees, trust, respect for ideas, and feelings. The leader is people oriented and focused on the employees.