Organisational Behaviour and Analysis - Lecture notes PDF

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Lecture 1: IntroductionWhat is ‘organisation’?“A social arrangement for achieving controlled performance in pursuit of collective goals” (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010) Social arrangements Collective goals Controlled performance ####### Examples of organisations: Automotive factory Smith fa...

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Lecture 1: Introduction What is ‘organisation’? “A social arrangement for achieving controlled performance in pursuit of collective goals” (Buchanan & Huczynski, 2010) • Social arrangements • Collective goals • Controlled performance

Examples of organisations: • • • • • • • • • • •

Automotive factory Smith family next door Royal Surrey County Hospital Street gang A primary school Surrey Business School Your local squash club Amnesty International A terrorist cell A native tribe Mobile library

Other distinguishing features of organisations • • • • • •

Continuity Legality Instrument rationality Employment relations Division of labour Hierarchy

Why focus on organisations? Organisations are the dominant institutions in the modern world. The nature of society is shaped by them, and in return they are shaped by the world in which they exist. Although organisations exist in many forms, for the last 400 years they have tended to become larger, more complex and more specialized in what they do. Hence, focusing on them in modern society is crucial.

‘The sun never sets on the golden arches…[they] reveal the kind of power that lies in the hands of the largest corporations They have the power to change the landscape of business, the way we work, the way we eat and the way we live’ (Fleming & Spicer, 2007: 1)

Why study organisational behaviour? Given the demanding nature of organizing and managing people it is not surprising that OB is widely regarded as the foundation of management studies. Within the notion of ‘behaviour’, we include thinking and feeling as well as acting. OB aspires to have relevance for understanding the behaviour of people working at all hierarchical levels — from the workers employed part time on the shop floor to the most senior executive. Each is involved in processes of organizing and being organized, and managing and being managed. In principle, studying OB should enable to: • Help people to better understand how and why people are organised • Identify and assess the likely consequences of making changes • Introduce changes in ways that anticipate and minimize counter-productive effect.

Predicting

Influencing

Explaining

What is organisational behaviour? OB draws up on elements from a wide range of social scientific disciplines: • Sociology • Psychology • Social psychology • Anthropology • Politics • Economics Each discipline generates a distinctive way of conveying of ‘organization(s)’ and interpreting behaviour in them.

Analysing organisational behaviour Alternative perspectives Managerialist In the 1800s-1900s, organisational behaviour theories was very managerialist-based. This was first developed by Frederick W. Taylor, who created the scientific management theory. His theory was based on the concept that money is the only motivator for employees. Later on, more theorists began expanding on Taylor’s theory, which all were managerialist, structural-functionalist and mainstream. Critical However, coming on the 1900s-2000s, more principles emerged and theorists began basing their organisational behaviour theories on more modern aspects of society. These were focused on aspects such as workerism, feminism and ecology.

Alternative philosophies Positivism versus interpretivism

• • • •

Is this even real? (ontology) How do we know about this? (epistemology) Theory or practice first? (research approaches) Numbers or narratives? (research methods)

Metaphors Morgan (1989) draws attention to the idea that there are a number of competing metaphors for organisations. Because metaphors provide a distinctive way of perceiving an object and make us aware that some features are considered more important than others, they can be very useful. However, because each metaphor provides a different an sometimes competing insight or perspective, none of them is inherently tight or wrong. Each one is only a partial view that draws attention to those features of organisations that the user of the metaphor considers to be the most important or interesting.

Levels of analysis There are three levels of analysis in a basic OB model:

Challenges at individual level • Individual differences • Job satisfaction • Motivation • Empowerment • Behaving ethically Challenges at group level • Working with others • Workforce diversity Challenges at the organisational level • Productivity • Developing effective employees • Putting people first • Global competition • Managing and working in a multicultural world

Lecture 2: Perception Perception Definitions • “Perception is the dynamic psychological process responsible for attending to, organizing and interpreting sensory data” — Buchanan and Huczynski (1997) • “Perception refers to the process by which we create subjective meaning from the stimuli received by our senses” — Gabriel et al (2000) • “Perception is a cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings” — Krietner (2000)

Coping with masses of sensory data Sensory apparatus itself places limitations on sensations experienced. People with the best hearing cannot hear like bats, or those with the best sight see like owls. Most often, perceptual processing is an unconscious exercise, meaning that the person doesn’t even realize that it is analysing the information that it is receiving. Selective attention concentrates on particular elements in sensory data to exclusion of others.

The senses • • • • • •

Sight Sound Smell Taste Touch In any cases where there may be gaps of knowledge, this is where intuition comes in.

Visual perception

Iconic Memory

Short-Term Memory

Long-Term Memory

Implications for the management of people in organizations Perceptions: • How do you choose who to recruit? • How do you choose who to reward and how much to reward? • What about development?

Individuals tend to respond in a particular way • • • • • •

Bias in perception Selectivity Projection Halo and rusty halo (or horns) effects Stereotyping Attribution error

Perceptual processes The significance of individual differences is particularly apparent when focusing on the process of perception. We all see things in different ways. We all have our own, unique picture or image of how we see the ‘real’ world and this is a complex and dynamic process. We do not passively receive information from the world; we analyse and judge it. We may place significance on some information and regard other information as worthless; and we may be influenced by our expectations, so that we ‘see’ what we expect to see or ‘hear’ what we expect to hear. Perception is the root of all organisational behaviour, any situation can be analyzed in terms of its perceptual connotations.

Perceptual organisation The search for pattern and order in the organism’s (person’s) environment is called: Perceptual organisation — the process through which stimuli are patterned and ordered. The process of perception is innately organised and patterned. It describes the process as one that has built-in field effects. In other words, the brain can act like a dynamic, physical field in which interaction among elements is an intrinsic part. The Gestalt School produced a series of principles, which are still readily applicable today. Some of these include: • Foreground/background • Grouping • Closure Foreground/background This principle states that figures are seen against a background. The figure does not have to be an object; it could merely be a geometrical pattern. These types of relationships are often reversible as the popular example shown to the right. The figure-ground/foreground-background principle has applications in all occupational situations. It is important that employees know and are able to attend to the significant aspects (the figure) and treat other elements of the job as context (background). Managerial effectiveness can also be judged in terms of chosen

priorities (the figure). Stress could certainly occur for those employees who are uncertain about their priorities and are unable to distinguish between the significant and less significant tasks. They feel overwhelmed by the ‘whole’ picture. Grouping The grouping principle refers to the tendency to organise shapes and patterns instantly into meaningful groupings or patterns on the basis of their proximity or similarity. Parts that are close in time or space tend to the perceived together. Tax firms often use the idea of grouping to display their telephone number. For example, in the figure below, in figure a workers are more likely to be perceived as nine independent people, whereas in figure b, because of the proximity principle, workers may be perceived as three distinct groups.

Closure There is also a tendency to complete an incomplete figure — to fill in the gaps (mentally) and to perceive the figure as a whole. This creates an overall and meaningful image for the individual rather than an unconnected series of lines or blobs. According to Gestalt theory, perceptual organisation is instant and spontaneous. We cannot stop ourselves making meaningful assumptions about our environment. The Gestaltists emphasized the ways in which the elements interact and claimed that the new pattern or structure perceived had a character of its own, hence the famous phrase ‘the whole is more than the sum of its parts’.

Selectivity in attention and perception The first stage in the process of perception is selection and attention. Why do we attend to certain stimuli and not to others? There are two important factors to consider in this discussion. Firstly, internal factors relating to the state of the individual and secondly, the environment and influences external to the individual.

Internal factors Our sensory systems have limits — we are not able to see for ‘miles and miles’ or hear very low or very high pitched sounds. All our senses have specialist nerves that respond differently to the forms of energy that are received. For instance, our eyes receive and convert light waves into electrical signals that are transmitted to the visual cortex of the brain and translated into meaning. Our sensory system is geared to respond to changes in the environment. This has particular implications for the way in which we perceive the world and it explains why we are able to ignore

the humming of the central heating system, but notice instantly a telephone ringing. The term used to describe the way in which we disregard the familiar is ‘habituation’. Sensory limits or thresholds Without eye glasses some people wouldn't be able to read a car’s number plate at the distance required for safety. People differ not only in their absolute thresholds, but also in their ability to discriminate between stimuli. For instance, it may not be possible for the untrained to distinguish between different types of wine, but this would be an everyday event for the trained sommelier. We are able to learn to discriminate and are able to train our senses to recognise small differences between stimuli. It is also possible for us to adapt to unnatural environments and learn to cope. We may also differ in terms of the amount of sensory information we need to reach our own comfortable equilibrium. Some individuals would find loud music at a party uncomfortable or unpleasant, whereas for others the intensity of the music is the part of the total enjoyment. Likewise, if we are deprived of sensory information for too long this can lead to feelings of discomfort and fatigue. Indeed, research has shown that if the brain is deprived of sensory information then it will manufacture its own and subjects will hallucinate. It is possible to conclude therefore that the perceptual process is rooted in the sensory limitations of the individual. Psychological factors These internal factors, such as personality, learning and motives, will give rise to an inclination to perceive certain stimuli with a readiness to respond in certain ways. This has been called an individual’s perceptual set (diagram on the right) Differences in the ways individuals acquire information have been used as one of four scales for the MyersBriggs Type Indicator. They distinguish individuals who ‘tend to accept and work with what is given in the hereand-now, and thus become realistic and practical’ (sensing types) from others who go beyond the information from the senses and looks the possible patterns, meanings, and relationships. These ‘intuitive types’ grow expert at seeing new possibilities and new ways of doing things. The value of both types are important for a successful enterprise, especially their complementary skills and variety. Personality and perception have also been examined in the classic experiments with Witkin et al, on field dependence/independence. Field-dependent individuals were found to be reliant on the context of the stimuli, the cues given in the situation, whereas field-independent subjects relied mainly on their internal bodily cues and less on the environment. These experiments led Witkin to generalize to other settings outside the psychological laboratory and to suggest that individuals use, and need, different information from the environment to make sense of their world. The needs of an individual For example, a manager deeply engrossed in preparing an urgent report may screen out ringing telephones, the sound of computers, people talking and furniture being moved in the next office, but will respond readily to the smell of coffee brewing. The most desirable and urgent needs will almost certainly affect an individual perceptual process. The ‘Pollyanna Principle’ claims that pleasant stimuli will be processed more quickly and remembered more precisely than unpleasant stimuli. However, intense internal drives may lead to perceptual distortions of situations or people.

Learning from experiences has a critical effect throughout all the stages of the perceptual process. It will affect the stimuli perceived in the first instance, and then the ways in which those stimuli are understood and processed, and finally the response which is given. The learning gained from experiences colors what is seen and processed.

External factors The knowledge of, familiarity with, or expectations about a given situation or previous experiences will influence perception. External factors refer to the nature and characteristics of the stimuli. There is usually a tendency to give more attention to stimuli which are, for example: • • • • • • • •

Large Moving Intense Loud Bright Novel Repeated In strong contrast to their background

Any number of these factors may be present at a given time or in a given situation. The use of these stimuli is a key feature in the design of advertising. It is the total pattern of the stimuli together with the context in which they occur that influence perception. For example, it is usually a novel or unfamiliar stimulus that is more noticeable, but a person is more likely to perceive the familiar face of a friend among a group of people all dressed in the same style uniform.

Selection and attention

“I wonder which

word

will get your particular attention in this sentence?

What about this one? And

this one?

What about this?” What information do we select and why? The social situation consists of both verbal and nonverbal signals. The non-verbal signals include: • • • • •

Bodily contact Proximity Orientation Head nods Facial expression

• • • • •

Gestures Posture Direction of gaze Dress and appearance Non-verbal aspects of speech!

1971: Phillip Zimbardo — The Stanford prison experiment • 18 young middle class white men were randomly allocated to the role of guards and prisoners for 6 days • Experiment was prepared as if it was a play or a film but the dramatization became quickly believable — a mock prison was created in the basement of the university • When the prisoners rebelled, the guards’ perception of the prisoners changed so it was no longer just an experiment. The guards saw the prisoners as troublemakers and out to get them. • Therefore the experiment was stopped after 6 days rather than 2 weeks

Attribution theory It seems that part of the process of perceiving other people is to attribute characteristics to them. We judge their behaviour and their intentions on past knowledge and in comparison with other people we know. It is our way of making sense of their behaviour. This is known as attribution theory. Attribution is the process by which people interpret the perceived causes of behaviour. The initiator of attribution theory is generally recognized as Heider, who suggests that behaviour is determined by a combination of perceived internal and external forces: • Internal attribution — personal attributes such as ability, skill, amount of effort or fatigue (inside control). • External attribution — environmental factors such as organizational rules and policies, the manner of superiors or the weather (outside control). Behaviour at work may be explained by the locus of control, that is whether the individual perceives outcomes as controlled by themselves or by external factors. Judgements made about other people will also be influenced strongly by whether the cause is seen as internal or external.

Attribution error Differences in perception result in different people seeing different things and attaching different meanings to the same stimuli. Every person sees things in their own way and as perceptions become a person’s reality this can lead to misunderstandings. The accuracy of interpersonal perception and the judgements made about other people are influenced by: • The nature of the relationship between the perceiver and the other person • The amount of information available to the perceiver and the order in which information is received • The nature and extent of interaction between the two people This error leads to stereotyping, the halo effect, perceptual defence, projection and self-fulfilling prophecy.

Two types of attribution error Fundamental attribution error When poor sales performance is blamed on the laziness and incompetence of workers rather than related to product innovations of competitors.

Self-serving bias Individuals will tend to attribute their own successes to things like their ability (internal attribution), while features will be attributed to bad luck or inadequate equipment (external attribution).

Projection Attributing, or projecting, one’s own feelings, motives or characteristics to other people is a further distortion which can occur in the perception of other people. Judgements of other people may be more favourable when they have characteristics largely in common with, and easily recognized by the perceiver. Projection may also result in people exaggerating undesirable traits in others that they fail to recognise themselves. Projection is distorted by feelings and emotions. Projection may be used as a means of attempting to externalize difficult or uncomfortable feelings. For example, a manager who is concerned about possible redundancy may perceive other managers to be even more concerned. However, projection may also be used to externalize positive feelings onto other members of staff by attempting to create an overstated and unrealistic level of expectations and performance. Projection is a way in which we protect ourselves from acknowledging that we may possess undesirable traits and assign them in exaggerated amounts to other people. Indeed, all “mental defense mechanisms” can play a part in distorting perception.

Halo and horns effects (Throndike, 1920) Halo effect The halo effect is the process by which the perception of a person is formulated on the basis of a single favourable or unfavorable trait or impression. The halo effect tends to shut out other relevant characteristics of that person. For exa...