Learning Objectives Chapter 1 PDF

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Learning Objectives OB 1 Chapter 1 1. Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace. Developing interpersonal skills help org. to attract and keep high-performance employees. Social relationships among co-workers and supervisors were strongly related to overall job satisfaction. Lower stress and lower intention to quit job. Employees feel that their ideas are more endorsed. Good workplaces have a direct connection to higher financial income/situation. Not only technical skills count but also people skills. 2. Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills. Managers make decisions, delegate, and allocate resources. Organization is a consciously coordinated social unit, two or more people. Functions of a manager: Planning is defining the org. goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving those goals and develop plans. Organizing means defining what task are to be done, who does the task, and how are they grouped, where decisions are made…basically the org. structure. Leading is another function and involves: motivate employees, direct their activities, and resolve conflicts. Controlling: monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations. Roles there are 3 roles: interpersonal roles, informational roles and decisional roles. Interpersonal roles: All managers have a figurehead role, they are required to perform duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature. Leadership role, this includes: hiring, training, motivating and disciplining employees. Managers also have to contact others who provide them with infos, called liaison role. Informational roles: Managers collect infos from outside org. and institutions, scanning news and talking to people. This is called the monitor role. Managers also act as a conduit to transmit information to org. members. Disseminator role is it called. They are furthermore a spokesperson, representing the company. Decisional role: Making choices. The entrepreneur role, managers initiate new projects that will improve performance. As disturbance handler, managers take corrective action for problems. As resource allocators, they are allocating human, physical and monetary resources. In a negotiator role they discuss and bargain with other units. Skills Technical skills involve the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. They are normally learned through education. Human skills are the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people both individually and in groups. Conceptual skills are the mental abilities to analyze and diagnose complex situations. E.g. decision making. Managers engage in four activities: Traditional management (decision making, planning, and controlling), Communication, Human resource management and Networking.

3. Define organizational behavior (OB) OB is a field of study that investigates the impact individuals, groups and structure have on behavior within org. for improving an org. effectiveness. OB applies knowledge gained and the effect of structure on behavior. 4. Show the value to OB of systematic study. Behavior is not random. It is rather something consistent. And that allows us predictability. So behavior is predictable and systematic study of behavior is a means to making reasonably accurate predictions. In systematic studies we look at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and basing our conclusions on scientific evidence. Evidence-based management is the systematic study by basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence. Systematic study and EBM add to intuition. Intuition is not wrong but if we base all decisions on gut feelings we are likely working with incomplete information. 5. Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB. Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built upon contributions from a number of behavioral disciplines. 1. Psychology: seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals. 2. Social psychology: An area of psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another. In this area you try to measure, understand and change attitudes. E.g. group behavior. 3. Sociology: The study of people in relation to their social environment or culture. Mainly focusing on group behavior. 4. Anthropology: The study of societies to learn about human being and their activities. They work on cultures and enviroments. 6. Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB. Human being are complex, and few, if any, simple and universal principles explain OB. Making generalizations is limited. Two people act differently when compared, everybody has different motivations. We can say X leads to Y but only under conditions specified in Z, the contingency variables: situational factors, variables that moderate the relationship between 2 or more variables. 7. Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have in applying OB concepts. Responding to economic pressure

Mangers have to understand how to reward employees in good times and how to make decisions and cope with stress in bad times. Responding to globalization As a manager you have to manage employees all around the world, with different needs, attitudes and culture. There are also other regulations than you know from back home. Managing workforce diversity But not only people from different countries differ but also people within the same country: sex, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion etc. Improving customer service Managers have to show their employees how to behave with a customer to influence satisfaction. Improving people skills Working in networked organizations Employees can work together over long distances, and it can be difficult to lead people over the internet for example. Enhancing employee well-being at work Employees are now more available than in earlier years, so they tend to want more time off. Creating a positive work environment The work place has to be modern with nice people and you have to feel positive working there. A real growth is positive organizational scholarship is concerned with how organizations develop human strength, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential. It looks on what is good in the org. and the employees. Improving ethical behavior Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices are situations in which an individual is required to define right and wrong conduct. Managers must create an ethically healthy climate for his or her employees, where they do not have to think a lot about is it right or wrong. 8. Compare the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB model Inputs: they are the variables like personality, group structure and organizational structure. Many are determined in advance of the employment relationship. Group structure, roles, and team responsibilities are typically assigned immediately before or after a group is formed. Organizational structure and culture change over time. Processes: If inputs are like the nouns in organizational behavior, processes are like verbs. Defined as actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs, and that lead to certain outcomes. Outcomes: Defined as the key variables that you want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some other variables. There are a lot of outcomes: Attitudes and stress: Employee attitudes are the evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to negative, about objects, people, or events. Stress is an unpleasant psychological process that occurs in response to environmental pressures. Task performance: The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks is a reflection of your level of task performance. Citizenship behavior: The discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, and that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace, is called citizenship behavior. It is performance that is beyond expectations. E.g. volunteer for extra work. Withdrawal behavior: Withdrawal behavior is the set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization. E.g. employees showing up late or failing to attend meetings. Group cohesion: Group cohesion is the extent to which members of a group support and validate one another at work. A cohesive group is one that sticks together.

Group functioning: Group functioning refers to the quantity and quality of a group’s work output. A good group is one that stays focused on a core task and achieves its ends as specified. Productivity: An organization is productive if it achieves its goals by transforming inputs into outputs at the lowest cost. This requires both effectiveness and efficiency. Survival: The final outcome is organizational survival, which is simply evidence that the organization is able to exist and grow over the long term....