Organizational Behavior

EMBA Spring Semester 2008

Nasreen Wadud
Course Instructor
1. Definition of organizational behaviur (OB)
2. Goals
3. Forces of OB
4. The Nature of People
5. The Nature of Organization
6. What do managers do?
7. What do Organizations do?
8. Functions of Management
9. Management Role by Henry Mintzberg
10. Management Skills
11. Effective Managers vs. Successful Managers
12. Managing Work Force Diversity
13. Improving Quality and Productivity
CHAPTER 1
What is Organizational Behavior?
Organizational behavior (OB) is the study and
application of knowledge about how people as
individual and as groups - acts within organization.
It studies three determinants of behavior in organizations
Individuals
Structure
Groups
In order to make organization work more effectively.
It is concerned with the study of what people do in an
organization AND how that behavior affects the
performance of the organization.
Behavior related to job
Work
Absenteeism
Employment
Turnover
Productivity
Human performance
Management
It is concerned with employee related situations as;
Organizational behavior
To identify ways in which people can act more effectively
The behavior of individuals,
Their interpersonal relationship,
Group dynamics and
The system as a WHOLE
It helps the managers to understand:
Organizational behavior
Goals
Four goals of OB are to:
Describe
Predict
Understand
Control
Describe: how people behave under a variety of
conditions.


Understand: Why people behave as they do, the
underlying explanations of human behavior in
organizational settings.


Predict: predicting future employee behavior:
capacity to predict which employee might be
absent, tardy, or disruptive so the managers could
take preventive actions.


Control: control human activity at work.
Forces of OB
A complex set of forces affects the nature of organization
They are:
Technology
Environment
Structure
People
People: people make up the internal social system of
organization as individuals and groups. People have their
own unique way of behaving. Individuals form a group.
Groups are dynamicthey form, change and disband.

Structure: the relationship of the people in the organization.
There are manages, employees, accountants and
assemblers. They are related in some structural way to work
effectively.

Technology: it provides the resources, which people work,
and affects the task they perform. It has a significant
influence on working relationship.

Environment: organizations operate within an internal and
external environment. Government, family, society, other
organizations, unions etc, are part of environment.
The Nature of People
There are six basic concepts of PEOPLE
1. Individual difference
2. Perception
3. A whole person
4. Motivated behavior
5. Desire for involvement
6. Value of the person


Individual difference: each person is different from all othersthey are unique.
Billions of brain cells make billions of combinations. This is known as Law of
Individual Difference.

Perception: People see things differently. Two people may view the same object in
different ways. People tend to pay attention to those features of their work
environment that fulfil their expectations. This process is known as selective
perception.

A whole person: organizations hire a whole person not only a persons skill. Skill
doesnt exist apart from background, knowledge, home life, and emotional
conditions. People function as a total human being.

Motivated behavior: people work to satisfy their motives. Every action of human is
goal directed.

Desire for involvement: people wish to feel good about themselves. They have
self-efficacy the belief that one has the necessary capabilities to perform task,
fulfil role of expectations, and make a meaningful contributions or to meet a
challenging situation successfully.

Value of the person: they deserve to be treated differently from other factors of
production e.g. land, capital, technology.
The Nature of Organizations
The three key concepts of organizations are: -
Ethics
Mutual
interest
Social
system
Social system: formal (official) social system
and informal social system. Social system is
dynamic.


Mutual interest: organizations need people,
People need organizations. They are formed and
maintained on the basis of some Mutuality of
Interest.


Ethics: Social system needs ethical treatment to
succeed.
When the organizations goals and actions are
ethical, mutually creates a triple reward system
in which individual, organizational and social
objectives are all met.
Triple Reward System
Employee goals
Organizational goals
Ethics
Super ordinate
goal of mutual interest
Mutual
accomplishment
of goals
Employee
Organization
Society
Behind the success or failure
of a company its the people.
What do managers do?
They make decision

Allocate resources

Direct the activities

Do their work in the organization
What do Organizations do?
Coordinated social units of two or more people

They work in a relatively continuous basis in order to
accomplish common goal or a set of goals.
Functions of Management
1.Planning
2.Organizing
3.Leading
4.Controlling

Controlling
Planning
Leading
Organizing
Planning: defining organizations goal, establishing strategy
to achieve these goals, developing a comprehensive
hierarchy of plans to integrate AND coordinate activities.


Organizing: determination of what tasks are to be done,
who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who
reports to whom, where decisions are to be made.


Leading: motivates employees, direct the activities of
others, select the most effective communication channels,
and resolve conflicts among members.


Controlling: monitoring performance, comparing and
potential correcting.
Management Role by
Henry Mintzberg
Informational Role
Decisional Role

Interpersonal roles


Figurehead: symbolic head: require performing duties of a
legal or social nature.
Example- handles ceremonies, status request, and
solicitations.

Leadership: includes hiring, training, motivating, and
disciplining employees.
Examples performs virtually all-managerial activities
involving subordinates.

Liaison: contracting others who provide the manager with
information.
Examples - Acknowledges mail, external board work.
Interpersonal roles
Monitor role: information from organizations and
institutes outside their own.
Examples; handles all mails and contacts categorized as
concerned primarily with receiving information.

Disseminator role: channel to transmit external and
internal information to organizational members.
Example: Fworards mail into organization for
informational purpose: makes verbal contacts involving
information flow to subordinates such as review sessions.

Spokesperson: represents organizations to outsiders on
organizations plans, policies, and actions and results:
serves as an expert.
Example: Attends board meetings: handles contacts
involving transmission of information to outsiders.
Informational Role
Entrepreneur role: initiate and oversee new projects that will improve
their organizations performance.
Example: Holds review sessions involving initiation or design of
improvement projects.

Disturbance handler: is responsible for corrective action when
organization faces important, unexpected disturbances.
Example: Holds strategy and review sessions involving disturbances and
crisis.

Resource allocator: Make or approves significant organizational
decisions.
Example: Handles scheduling: requests for authorization: budgeting: the
programming of subordinates work.

Negotiator: is responsible for representing the organization at major
negotiations.
Example: handles contract negotiation.
Decisional Role
Management Skills
Conceptual skills

Technical skills

Human skills

Technical skills: The ability to apply specialized
knowledge or expertise


Human skills: To communicate, motivate and
delegate
The ability to work with people, to understand
them both individually and in group

Conceptual skills : Mental ability to analyze and
diagnose complex problems
Its a result of managers good experiences
Effective Managers vs. Successful Managers
Four functions of both these category as
proposed by Fred Luthans
Traditional management
Communication
Human resource management
Networking
Traditional management: decision making, planning
and controlling

Communication: Exchanging routine information
and processing network

Human resource management: motivating,
disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training

Networking: Socializing, politicking, and interacting
with outsiders.
Successful managers
Defined in terms of promotions
High networking
Low HRM

Findings of effective vs.
successful managers
Effective managers:
Defined in terms of the quality of their
performance and employees
satisfaction and commitment.
High communication
Low networking
Average managers:
32% time in traditional management
activities
29% time in communicating
20% time in HRM
19% time in networking
Managing Work Force Diversity
Workforce diversity: among people within
given countries, the increasing heterogeneity
of organization with the inclusion of different
groups e.g. focuses on differences among
people from different countries, differences
among people within given countries.
Improving Quality and Productivity
Total Quality Management (TQM)
Re-engineering
What is TQM?
Intense focus on the customers
Concern for continuous improvement
Improvement in the quality of everything
the organization does
Accurate measurement
Empowerment of employees
Total Quality Management (TQM):
Customers satisfaction through the
continuous improvement of all
organizational processes.

Re-engineering: it reconsiders how
work would be done and the
organization structure if they were
being created from scratch.

Efficient- using resources wisely and in a
cost effective way

Effective- making the right decision and
successfully implementing them