Introduction to Organizational Behavior

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Introduction to Organizational Behavior

• MGMT 360H
• Organizational Behavior
• Instructor Marie S. Mitchell

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Agenda

• Part I Whats OB?
• Part II What are current trends in OB?
• Part III What are the course requirements?

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Part I Whats OB?
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Organizational Behavior Defined

• Organizational Behavior (OB)
• The study of what people thin, feel and do in and
  around organizations
• Organizations
• Groups of people who work interdependently toward
  some purpose
• Structured patterns of interactions
• Coordinated tasks
• Work toward some purpose

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Organizational Behavior in Context
Value System
Organizational Behavior
Personality
Emotions
Behavior
Perceptions
Motivation
Learning Styles
(Micro)
Physical Attributes
Cognitions
KSAOs
Conflict
Teams
(Meso)
Leadership
Stress
Structure
Organizational Development
Culture
Organizational Theory
Industry Environment
Organizational Change
(Macro)
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Why Study Organizational Behavior
Understand organizational events
Organizational Behavior Research
Predict organizational events
Influence organizational events
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Organizational Behavior Anchors
Multidisciplinary Anchor
Organizational Behavior Anchors
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Multidisciplinary Anchor
Traditional Disciplines Relevance to OB Topics
Psychology Drives, perception, attitudes, personality, stress, conflict, emotions, leadership
Sociology Teams, roles, socialization, communication, power, structures
Anthropology Culture, structure, intergroup conflict, coalition formation, power and politics, decision-making, organizational environments
Economics Decision-making, negotiation, power
Industrial engineering Job design, productivity, work measurement
Emerging Disciplines
Communications Knowledge management, e-mail, socialization
Information systems Team dynamics, decision-making, knowledge management
Marketing Knowledge management, creativity, decision-making
Womans studies Power, perceptions, diversity
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Organizational Behavior Anchors
Multidisciplinary Anchor
Organizational Behavior Anchors
Systematic Research Anchor
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Systematic Research Anchor

• Scientific Method
• Understand, predict and control
• Provide precise and operational definitions
• Use reliable and valid measures
• Follow systematic methods
• Ensure results are cumulative
• Grounded Theory Approach

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Organizational Behavior Anchors
Multidisciplinary Anchor
Organizational Behavior Anchors
Systematic Research Anchor
Contingency Anchor
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Contingency Anchor

• It depends factors
• Idea that a particular action may have different
  consequences in different situations and with
  different individuals
• Discovering
• Which conditions apply to understand behavior
  and organizational events

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Organizational Behavior Anchors
Multidisciplinary Anchor
Organizational Behavior Anchors
Systematic Research Anchor
Contingency Anchor
Multiple Levels of Analysis Anchor
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Multiple Levels of Analysis Anchor
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Organizational Behavior Anchors
Multidisciplinary Anchor
Organizational Behavior Anchors
Systematic Research Anchor
Open Systems Anchor
Contingency Anchor
Multiple Levels of Analysis Anchor
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Open Systems Anchor

• Open systems
• Organizations that take their sustenance from the
  environment and, in turn, affect that environment
  through their output

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Open Systems Anchor of OB

• Need to monitor and adapt to environment
• External environment -- natural and social
  conditions outside the organization
• Receive inputs from environment transform them
  into outputs back to the environment
• Stakeholders anyone with a vested interest in
  the organization
• Organizations consist of interdependent parts
  (subsystems) that need to coordinate

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Open Systems Anchor of OB
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Purpose of OB Intellectual Capitol

• Human Capital
• KSAOs of employees (e.g., knowledge, education,
  experience, skill, abilities)
• Social Capital
• Relationships of employees (e.g., networks,
  connections, friends)
• Structural Capital
• Knowledge captured and retained in organizational
  systems and structures

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Knowledge Management

• Defined
• Structuring activity to improve organizations
  capacity to acquire, share and use knowledge in
  ways that improve its survival and success

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Knowledge Management
Knowledge acquisition

• Awareness
• Freedom to apply

• Communication
• Communities of practice

• Hiring talent
• Acquiring firms
• Individual learning
• Experimentation

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Organizational Memory

• The storage and preservation of intellectual
  capital
• Retain intellectual capital by
• Keeping knowledgeable employees
• Transferring knowledge to others
• Transferring human capital to structural capital
• Successful companies also unlearn

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Part II Trends in Organizational Behavior
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Trends in OB

• Globalization
• Information Technology
• Changing Workforce
• Emerging Employment Relationships
• Workplace Values and Ethics

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Globalization

• Defined
• Economic, social, and cultural connectivity with
  people in other parts of the world
• Effects of globalization
• New organizational structures
• Different forms of communication
• More diverse workforce.
• More competition, mergers, work intensification
  and demands for work flexibility

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Changing Workforce

• U.S. Descriptive Statistics within 50 years
• 14 African American
• 1 of 4 employees will be Hispanic
• 8 Asian American
• 50 of paid workforce women
• Age issues
• Older staying, younger coming in
• Clash of generational ties!

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Changing Workforce and Diversity
First language
Life experiences
Religion

• Workforce has increasing diversity along several
  dimensions
• Primary categories
• gender, age, ethnicity, etc.
• Secondary categories
• some control over (e.g. education, marital status)

Geographic location
Occupation
Race
Ethnicity
Mental/physical ability
Marital status
Sexual orientation
Behavioral style
Gender
Age
Parental status
Education
Work style
Income
Work experience
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Changing Workforce Implications

• Leverage diversity advantage
• Adjust to the new workforce

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Employment Relationships

• Work-life balance
• Number one indicator of career success
• Priority for many young people looking for new
  jobs
• Contingent work
• No explicit or implicit contract for long-term
  employment, or minimum hours of work can vary in
  a nonsystematic way
• Employability
• New deal employment relationship
• Continuously learn new skills

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Employability vs Job Security
Employability
Job Security

• Limited job security
• Jobs are temporary
• Career self-management
• High emphasis on skill development

• Lifetime job security
• Jobs are permanent
• Company manages career
• Low emphasis on skill development

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Virtual Work

• Using information technology to perform ones job
  away from the traditional physical workplace
• Telecommuting (telework)
• Working from home, usually internet connection to
  office
• Virtual teams
• Operate across space, time, and organizational
  boundaries with members who communicate mainly
  through electronic technologies

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Focus on Values and Ethics

• Values
• Stable, long-lasting believes
• Guide decisions and actions
• Organizational culture
• Shared assumptions, values, and beliefs
• Govern the way employees think and act
• Framed by
• Individual norms, beliefs, culture
• Demographic culture
• Industry culture
• Knowledge culture

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Ethics

• Ethics
• Moral principles or values that determine whether
  actions are right or wrong
• Corporate social responsibility (CSR)
• Organizations moral obligation
• Influenced by
• Stakeholders
• Economics
• Society
• Environment

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Values and Ethics

• More to come

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Part III Course Requirements
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Individual Assignments

• Exam 1 100 points
• Exam 2 100 points
• Exam 3 100 points
• Self assessments
• (5_at_10 pts) 50 points
• Class participation 100 points
• Total points 450
  (58 overall grade)

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Exams

• Format
• Multiple choice, true/false, short-essay, essay
• Graded Exams
• Must be returned to the instructor or students
  will receive a zero as a grade
• Will review exams in-class

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Self-Assessments

• Build awareness about yourself
• Help you become a better self-manager and build
  upon your talents and traits
• 1-3 paragraph assessment
• Your computed assessment score
• A description of what that score means
• An explanation of whether or not you believe the
  assessment is accurate
• Justify your point with examples

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Class Participation

• Actively engage in class discussion
• Showing up to class is not participating
• See Syllabus for metric used for assessing class
  participation

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Team Assignments

• Simulations (2_at_50pts)
  100 points
• Manager Hot Seat Evals (2_at_50pts) 100 points
• Report and presentation
  125 points
• Total points
  325 (41 overall grade)

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Simulations

• Team fictional company
• Must have 50 employees
• Team members must be familiar with
  product/service
• Conducted in class
• Evaluate scenario provided using simulated
  company
• Only have space and time provided in-class
• Graded based on
• Evaluative skills
• Use of innovative and creative ideas
• Inclusion of class discussion/readings
• Application to teams business and problem
  scenario
• Solutions that dont cause more problems

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Manager Hot Seat Evaluations

• Interactive software
• See syllabus for how to acquire it
• Software provides real manager in a problem
  situation
• Team must evaluate the managers actions
• Out-of-class team assignment

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Manager Hot Seat Evaluations

• Must include
• Teams name and each team member in attendance
  for the activity
• 1 paragraph Problem Statement
• Describe the scenario and issues involved
• Grade the managers performance (0-100 scale)
• Provide an explanation for manager grade
• What did manager do correctly/incorrectly or
  good/bad?
• How team respond to each question and why?
• What were the differences in how manager
  responded and team responded and which was best
• What did the team learn, based on course
  material?

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Case Report and Presentation

• The Report
• Write a case study, based on actual research
• Evaluate your case study, based on standard case
  study evaluative criteria
• 50 points
• The Presentation
• 15 minute presentation, summarizing the report
• 50 points
• Questions to a Presenting Team
• Must ask one other presenting team (TBA) 2
  questions
• 25 points

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Case Studies

• Defined
• Written representations that simulate business
  situations
• Include
• A significant business issue or issues
• A sufficient amount of info to base conclusions
• No stated conclusions
• Basic Team Requirement
• Define the situation
• Provide analysis of the situation
• Draw conclusions about the situation

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Case Study Situational Types

• Problems
• Define problem and explain why it occurred
• Decisions
• Describe decision (scope, consequences) and
  analyze it (decision options, criteria for how it
  was derived)
• Evaluations
• Judge the worth, value or effectiveness of
  performance, actions, or outcomes based on
  evidence and criteria

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Effective Case Analyses

• Individual Requirement
• Read the case before class
• Think and evaluate while reading
• Take notes on your thoughts to discuss with your
  team
• Team Requirement
• Synergize thoughts into team evaluation during
  class

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Team Case Study Write-Up

1. Identify the situation
2. Generate a position statement
3. Provide evidence to support the position
   statement
4. Provide an action plan regarding how the team
   would respond to next steps

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1. Identify the Situation

• Is the situation a problem, decision or
  evaluation?
• Whats the problem, decision or evaluation in
  case reading?
• What are the causal paths that lead to the
  problem, decision or evaluation or how did it
  happen?

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Questions to Consider to Evaluate the Situation

• Who/whats the involved?
• Whats the problem, decision or evaluation?
• Whats the significance of it?
• Whos responsible for it?
• Whats at stake?
• Whats possible criteria for the problem,
  decision or evaluation?
• What might be the most important criteria for
  this situation?
• Are any of the important criteria mentioned in
  the case?

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2. Generate a Position Statement

• Organize the case study essay
• Express a conclusion
• Provides the reader with your intention about the
  organization of the rest of the essay (i.e., your
  justification for your position)

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3. Evidence for the Position Statement

• Most crucial part of the case essay
• Provides qualitative and quantitative evidence to
  support
• Merely citing numbers is not persuasive its a
  catalog of events
• Use results or outputs as evidence of conclusion
• Carefully select facts dont just list
  everything
• Combine facts with inferences that connect to the
  conclusion
• Combine facts with inferences to support your
  conclusion

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Action Plans Based on Situations
Case Situation Argument Action Plan
Problem Prove cause-effect relationships that account for problem Solve problem fix weaknesses and reinforce or increase strengths
Decision Recommend best decision Implement decision show the best pathway to achieve desired outcome
Evaluation Provide detailed evaluation of performance, act or outcome Improve performance or outcome implement or change decision
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4. Action Plan

• Elements of an Action Plan
• Set goals based on the argument
• Address the actionable content of the argument
• Consist of specific steps
• Has realistic short- and long-term steps
• Identifies and responds to the major risk to the
  plan

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Report Content The Evaluation

• 3-4 page evaluation
• Include the 4 basic case study evaluation
  components
• Identify the situation
• Generate a position statement
• Provide evidence to support the position
  statement
• Provide an action plan regarding how the team
  would respond to next steps
• Integrate concepts from course to justify
  evaluation

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Report Semantics

• Typed and in 12-point, Times Roman font
• Written in Executive Summary format
• Provide overview of the situation
• Evaluate the situation based on course topics and
  materials
• Provide team recommendation
• Follow American Psychological Association (APA)
  format
• See http//apastyle.apa.org
• Due on the date of the presentation no later

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Presentation Semantics

• Should include
• brief summary of the situation in the case study
• the teams evaluation
• Can be no longer than 15 minutes
• I will stop you and will not grade anything past
  15 minutes
• Must be professional
• Content
• Team appearance
• Integrate appropriate visual aids (e.g.,
  PowerPoint)

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Questions to Other Presenting Team

• Instructor will assign each team to another
  presenting team
• Must ask the presenting team 2 questions
• Questions must be relevant to presentation
• Example types
• Questions addressing important clarifications
• Questions addressing areas that were overlooked
• Questions that might strengthen teams
  recommendation

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Peer Reviews and Evaluations

• Evaluate other team members performance
• Team grade received will be weighted based on
  team evaluations
• Peer reviews
• mid-semester performance check
• does not impact grade
• provides team members feedback on how to improve
  as a team member
• Peer evaluations
• end of the semester evaluation on each team
  member
• evaluation averages will be basis of individual
  team grade received

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Questions?