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Summaries per chapter with the 3rd edition of Essentials of Organizational Behavior: An Evidence-Based Approach by Scandura - Bundle
What is organizational behavior? - Chapter 1
Organizational behavior (OB) refers to the study of individuals and their behavior at work. Organizational behavior refers to a multidisciplinary and multilevel research field that finds its origins in applied psychology, cultural anthropology, communication and sociology. In this summary, all areas are considered, yet there is a focus on applied social psychology. Applied psychology is the study of how people interact in groups. In addition, research in the areas of sociology and anthropology help us understand organizational culture and leading change.
When and how did the study of organizational behavior emerge?
OB is a relatively young research field that originated in the human relations movement ignited by the Hawthorne studies, which led to a focus on the role of human behavior in organizations. The Hawthorne studies refer to two studies that were conducted by Elton Mayo between 1927 and 1932. In his first study, he experimented with the effects of lighting in power plants on worker productivity. Surprisingly, they found that productivity increased rather than decreased despite the lights being dimmed. The researchers decided to interview the workers. They learned that the workers appreciated the attention of the research team and felt that they were receiving special treatment. Productivity declined after the researchers left the plant. This is now called the Hawthorne effect, referring to a positive response in attitude and performance when researchers pay attention to a particular group of workers.
The second study aimed to investigate a new incentive system. However, instead of the incentive system increasing workers' production, the social pressure from peers took over.
Peer pressure had far more impact on the productivity of the workers than salary increases. Workers formed small groups and set informal standards for production, requiring coworkers to reduce their production, so pay was more equal among the group members.
The researchers of the Hawthorne studies concluded that the human element in organizations is more important than previously thought. The researchers found that workers want attention. Based on these Hawthorne studies, the human relations movement followed and OB emerged as a distinct field of studies in the 1950s. In 1957 the term organizational behavior first appeared in a book by Chris Argyris.
How to go from theory to practice?
OB is an applied science. First, the goals of science are as follows:
- Description: what does the process look like?
- Prediction: will the process occur again? And if so, when?
- Explanation: why is it happening?
Does personality matter? - Chapter 2
Personality refers to the regularities in feeling, thought and action that are characteristic of an individual. Understanding your own personality and that of others is critical for an effective workplace. This is because the following two reasons:
- Personality and other individual differences are rather stable over the life course.
- Personality is linked to social behavior in organizations. It may affect our work habits and how we interact with colleagues.
However, it is important to be aware that personality and most individual differences are not like other areas of OB, where the manager can influence the outcomes by some sort of intervention. Instead, individual differences are aspects of OB that must be understood. Leaders must work with them rather than trying to change the people.
- Is personality hereditary?
- What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?
- Which of the factors of the Big Five theory predicts job performance best?
- Does stress kill?
- How do other relevant personality traits influence employees?
- What is psychological capital?
- Why is person-environment fit important for employees?
- What should leaders of an organization do?
Is personality hereditary?
Are personality traits innate or learned? Can a brilliant scientist who is introverted, change his personality to become an extraverted visionary leader? The role of genetics for personality has been studied by the famous Minnesota twin studies. Different studies showed that 40% of the variation in choice of work and work motivation is due to genetics. The implications for a leader are that, although personality might change (a bit), it is a relatively stable individual difference. A leader should try to learn about personality differences, understand how different personalities operate at work, and then learn to work effectively with different types.
Exercise: think about the following question. Are leaders born or made? In other words, is leadership born (hereditary) or learned (through, for instance, training)? Motivate your opinion. If leadership is both hereditary and learned, as some researchers believe, what do you think is the best way to identify leadership potential?
What is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator?
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most frequently administered personality test that is used for non-psychiatric populations. This test is based on four general personality preferences:
- Introversion (I) vs. extraversion (E): extraverts tend to be outgoing; introverts tend to be shy.
- Sensing (S) vs. intuition (N): sensing types tend to be practical; intuitive people tend to be 'idea people'.
- Thinking (T) vs. feeling (F): thinking types tend to use logical; feeling people tend to use emotion.
- Judging (J) vs. perceiving (P): judging types tend to make quick decisions; perceiving people tend to be more flexible.
One limitation of the MBTI is that there is limited research support
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How do emotions and mood influence employees? - Chapter 3
This chapter discusses the role that emotions and moods play in the workplace. In early OB literature, emotions and moods were largely ignored. It was assumed that employees left their feelings at home when they came to work. However, in the mid-1980's and the 1990s, organizational researchers began examining the effects of emotions and moods. The study of emotions and moods has revolutionized thinking about OB. In fact, by 2003, scholars referred to this research as the affective revolution in OB. Nowadays, it is argued that emotions and mood play an important role in the workplace. The remainder of this chapter focuses on how this is the case.
How are emotions and mood related?
Affect is defined as the range of feelings that employees experience at work. Affect consists of both emotions and mood. You can visualize this as a triangle, with affect on top and emotions and mood at the bottom. An arrow is drawn from affect to emotions and from affect to mood. State affect refers to feelings that are experienced in the short term. They fluctuate over time. In contrast, trait affect refers to stable individual differences. Emotions are triggered by specific events. They are short, but intense enough to disrupt a person's thinking. Emotions last only seconds or minutes. Some emotions are internal to a person, such as pride or love, whereas other emotions emerge in relationship with others, such as shame and guilt. Moods, on the other hand, are general feeling states that are not connected to a specific event. In addition, they are not intense enough to disrupt regular thought patterns or work. Emotions are more fleeting than moods. A felt emotion, for instance anger at your boss, may pass. Emotions are directed at another person or situation. Obviously, emotions and moods are related. For instance, being in a good mood can result in the experience of feeling happy (an emotion).
What are the characteristics of the Affective Events Theory?
The Affective Events Theory (AET) provides a useful framework for the material that is covered in this chapter. The work environment, events, personality, and moods combine to evoke emotional responses, which can be both positive and negative. The AET can be visualized as follows:
A review of AET resulted in the following statements of what we know about affective events at work:
- Satisfaction is not an emotion.
- Events cause emotions.
- Affect-driven behaviors are different from judgment-driven behaviors.
- Affective experiences change over time.
How do attitudes and job satisfaction influence the workplace? - Chapter 4
Feeling part of the 'larger mission' of the organization increases workers' meaning in their work and their organizational commitment. This chapter discusses the importance of attitude and job satisfaction in the workplace. For a leader, the implication is as follows: create meaning at work.
What is an attitude?
An attitude is defined as a psychological tendency that is expressed by evaluating a particular entity with some degree of disfavor. In other words, attitudes are a person's evaluation of something else. These evaluations have three components:
- Cognitive (belief): "My job is boring"
- Affective (feelings): "I do not like my job"
- Behavioral (intention): "I will spend more time on Facebook during working hours"
This three-part conceptualization helps us to understand that attitudes are a complicated construct; it is not just that we think something and believe it to be true. We also experience feelings that are related to our beliefs and contemplate thinking actions based on those feelings. These components thus are all related to one another.
Cognitive dissonance is defined as the incompatibility between two or more attitudes and behavior. This causes stress for the individual, and that person will be motivated to resolve the stress by making a change in one or both of the other components. Thoughts, feelings, and actions need to be aligned. Question: how can the theory of cognitive dissonance be used to change the attitude of an employee?
Why is the measurement of attitudes important for the workplace? Attitudes can be studied both as outcome and predictor variables in organizational behavior. Attitudes make a difference in employee behaviors such as job performance. The importance of an attitude and the relationship between the attitude and the behavior increases the prediction of behavior. Social pressure may also enhance this relationship.
What is job satisfaction, and what are the consequences of dissatisfaction?
Job satisfaction is defined as a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one's job or job experience. Job satisfaction may change over time, resulting in (in the event of positive change) better job performance. Job satisfaction has many different facets. It is possible that a person is satisfied with one aspect of their work, but dissatisfied with others. One of the most commonly known measures of facet satisfaction is the Job Descriptive Index (JDI), measuring satisfaction with: pay, promotions, supervision, coworkers, and the work itself.
Job satisfaction is the most frequently studied work attitude. Each year, the Society
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Why do people not see eye to eye? - Chapter 5
People in organizations may see things differently, because they make perceptual errors. Perceptual errors are flaws in perception due to mental shortcuts that people make to simplify information that is processed. There errors have several implications on the workplace. They effect interpretations of the behavior of leaders and coworkers, they effect how job applicants are seen in interviews and they effect performance appraisals. Therefore, leaders need to be aware of these perceptual biases and guard against them.
- What are the most studied biases in workplace studies?
- How do self-fulfilling prophecies influence the application process?
- Which four roles do managers have in decision making?
- How to make decisions according to the rational decision-making model?
- What is the prospect theory?
- How does intuition influence decision making?
- What are the three major decision traps?
- What is creative problem solving?
- What are the implications for leaders?
What are the most studied biases in workplace studies?
The most studied biases in workplace settings can be remembered by the acronym PRACH, which stands for primacy, recency, availability, contrast and halo. Each of these will be discusses briefly below.
The primacy effect or belief perseverance refers to the first impression. It refers to the well-known statement "you never get a second chance to make a first impression". Indeed, first impressions do matter. They matter a lot. Stereotypes play an important role in these first impressions one has about for instance a job applicant. What can be done to address the primacy effect? Research has demonstrated that when people are asked to justify their decisions to others, they are more likely to process all the information that is available to them. Thus, accountability influences a person's vigilance and improves processing of all the information that is presented. Second, the leader should be willing to hit the reset button and look at a situation as if they had no prior exposure to it.
Not only do people remember what they experience first, they also remember the most recently presented items or experiences. This is referred to as the recency effect. For instance, if you hear a long list of names, you probably forget the ones in the middle, but you will remember those at the end. In a job interview for example, it is important to end on a positive note by showing the interviewer appreciation for their time. People can however improve their short-term memory by employing control processes that affect how information is stored and retrieved. Two of those techniques are rehearsal (repetition of information) and imaging (linking verbal information to visual images).
Availability bias is a form of bias in which a person's judgement is based upon what most readily comes into a person's mind. For example, when a person hears a list of names with 19 famous women and 20 less famous men, this
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What makes a good leader? - Chapter 6
In most studies, it is assumed that leadership is something that is learned. Leaders' behaviors can be divided into two broad categories: initiating structure and consideration. A takeaway of this chapter is that leaders need to be flexible and adapt to both followers and the situation they are in. In order to addapt to the situation, leaders should follow the next steps:
- Assess the individual differences of your followers in terms of abilities and motivation.
- Assess the situation.
- Pay attention to follower behaviors and take corrective actions and apply rewards as suggested by the full-range model of leadership.
- Assess the moral component of every leadership decision you make.
- What is leadership?
- Is leadership innate or acquired?
- What is the path-goal theory?
- Should a boss treat everyone alike?
- What is the cause of behavior?
- What is meant by mentoring?
- Is trust important?
- What are the characteristics of the full-range leader development model?
- How is ethics involved in leadership?
- How to apply critical thinking to leadership?
What is leadership?
Leadership refers to the process of influencing others to understand and agree about what needs to be done and how to do it, and the process of facilitating individual and collective efforts to accomplish shared goals. Leadership is an influence process. It involves directing others (individuals and groups) toward organizational goals.
Leadership is different from management. A manager administers, a leader innovates. A manager maintains, a leader develops. A manager is a copy, a leader is an original. A manager does things right, a leader does the right thing. A manager has his or her eyes on the bottom line, a leader's eye is on the horizon. In other words, leadership involves inspiring a vision. Management involves controlling the operations. There is, however, some overlap between leadership and management: managerial leadership refers to adapting to situational demands.
Is leadership innate or acquired?
In the trait approach, it is assumed that leaders are born with the talent and ambitions for leadership. In contrast, many other leadership theories propose that leadership can be learned. When the trait approach was largely dismissed in the 1940s and 1950s, researchers turned their attention to what leaders do using behavioral approaches. Following a research program in the 1950s, it was found that the things leaders do, can be divided into two categories. First, initiating structure refers to defining tasks for employees and focusing on goals. Second, consideration refers to the degree to which the leader shows trust, respect, and sensitivity to employees' feelings.
What is the path-goal theory?
A leader should be flexible and adapt their
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How to use power in an organization? - Chapter 7
Four guidelines have been proposed for leaders to use power effectively in an organization. First, recognize that every organization has varying interests. The leader needs to first diagnose the political landscape. Second, figure out what point of view various individuals and units have on issues of concern. Third, understand that to get things done, you need power, so you need to understand where power comes from and how the sources of power can be developed. Fourth, understand the strategies and influence tactics through which power is developed and used in organizations.
What are the characteristics of power?
Power is the potential of one person or one group to influence another person or group. Having power does not mean one has to actually exercise it. For instance, it is an officer's potential power to write you a ticket and not the actual behavior of writing a ticket that slows you down. Influence, on the other hand, is the exercise of power to change the behavior, attitudes and values of an individual or group. In other words, influence is the power in use.
There are five bases of power in organizations. The first three are position power, they come from a person's position in the hierarchy. The last two are personal power, they come from the personal characteristics of the person and may have no relation with one's position in the organization.
- Coercive power: the ability to push. It may include threats. Most leaders claim to have this power, although they rarely use it.
- Reward power: the ability to provide incentives of other things that are valued, for instance pay raises, bonuses and promotions.
- Legitimate power: the ability to make a request and get a response due to the nature of the roles between two people. Legitimate power is based upon the structural level in the organization and/or a feeling of obligation.
- Expert power: the ability to influence others due to knowledge or a special skill set or expertise.
- Referent power: the ability to influence based upon other people's identification with the individual and the desire of the follower to emulate them. Referent power is based upon liking, respect and admiration.
Three possible reactions of followers may result from these power bases.
- Commitment (internalization): a strong effort made and enthusiastically carries out the request. Both attitudes and behavior change.
- Compliance: willingness to complete the request, but in an apathetic manner, putting in minimal effort. Only behavior changes.
- Resistance: refusal to do it. No change in behavior and attitude toward the request.
Common pathways are as follows: follower engagement level
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How is motivation related to performance? - Chapter 8
Leaders play a major role in how motivated their followers are to perform at high levels. Leaders should assure that followers understand their goals and are committed to them. In addition, leaders can design more motivating work or allow followers some discretion to craft their own work. Lastly, leaders strengthen the expectations of followers that they can perform at a high level (expectancy) and that they will receive rewards that they value for performing (instrumentality). Holding high expectations might enhance the positive effects of a Pygmalion effect (self-fulfilling prophecy) on follower motivation.
What is motivation?
Motivation refers to what a person does (direction), how hard a person works (intensity) and how long a person works (persistence). The motivation process describes three stages of motivation.
- Energizing behavior: a leader must energize their followers' behavior by activating underlying needs and drives.
- Directing behavior: once energized, the leader then directs the energized behavior toward goals that are important to the follower and the organization.
- Sustaining behavior: this is often done through the provision of rewards that followers value, for instance pay raise.
For motivation to be effective, feedback is needed in order for the process to stay on track. Feedback is a core element in various theories of motivation, including goal setting.
What are the characteristics of common need theories?
Early theories of motivation focus on the first part of the motivation process: energizing behavior. They focus on what needs or drives motivate people. A well-known theory on need motivation is the Maslow hierarchy of needs, consisting of the levels psychological needs, safety needs, social needs, esteem needs and self-actualization (the drive to meet our fullest capacity). This theory was the first to point out that there are individual differences in motivation. Even though this theory is appealing due to its simplicity and intuitive appeal, it is not supported by research evidence.
Another need theory considers three fundamental needs:
- Need for achievement (nAch): the drive to succeed at high levels).
- Need for power (nPow): the need to influence others to do what you want.
- Need for affiliation (nAff): the need for close personal relationships.
Another theory, the two-factory theory connects lower- and higher-order needs to job satisfaction. This theory is also called the motivator-hygiene theory. What do people really want from their work? When people think about this question, they think of things like supervision, pay, company policies and so one. These are called hygienes.
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How to motivate employees? - Chapter 9
The previous chapter discussed how motivation is related to work performance. In this chapter, the topic of motivation is extended by discussing concrete motivation applications. Leaders may, for example, use the reinforcement theory by adding pleasant events (positive reinforcement) or removing unpleasant events (negative reinforcement). Both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards can be used. These may even be combined via mechanisms such as extrinsic in service of intrinsic or motivation-work cycle math. Money may be used as a reward, but only if the following guidelines are followed:
- Define and measure performance accurately.
- Make rewards contingent on performance.
- Reward employees in a time manner.
- Maintain justice in the reward system.
- Use monetary rewards.
What are the characteristics of the reinforcement theory?
The reinforcement theory (also known as operant conditioning) is based upon the law of effect: past actions that led to positive outcomes tend to be repeated, while past actions that led to negative outcomes tend to diminish. This law of effect led to the development of the reinforcement theory, in which individual personality, thoughts, and attitudes do not motivate behavior. Instead, the psychologist B.F. Skinner found two kinds of reinforcers that increase behavior. First, positive reinforcement is a favorable event or outcome presented after the behavior. For example, praise or a bonus. Second, negative reinforcement is the removal of an unpleasant event or outcome after the display of a behavior. For example, ending the daily criticism when an employee shows up for work on time.
In contrast, punishment is the presentation of an adverse event or outcome that causes a decrease (instead of an increase) in the behavior. There are two kinds of punishment. First, punishment by application is the presentation of an unpleasant event or outcome to weaken the response it follows. For example, writing a letter to an employee's file for failing to meet a deadline. Second, punishment by removal is when a pleasant event or outcome is removed after certain behavior occurs. For example, withholding praise when an employee underperforms.
To sum up:
- Positive reinforcement = pleasant event + event is added.
- Punishment by removal (extinction) = pleasant event + event is removed.
- Punishment by application = unpleasant event + event is added.
- Negative reinforcement = unpleasant event + event is removed.
The schedules of partial reinforcement refer to how often an applied reward (or punishment) predicts learning and motivation. The schedules are based on time (interval) or the number of times the response is given by the worker (ratio). In addition, the schedule can be fixed or variable (random). These two dimensions result in the following four possible outcomes:
- Fixed
How to empower a team? - Chapter 10
Research has shown that effective teams have a shared purpose. It is of key importance to set proper team goals. In addition, team members need to feel connected to the team. They should feel a sense of cohesion. Nowadays, the focus of team leadership has shifted from the leader to the team. This is called team-centric leadership. A team-centric leader creates a tight climate for a team, which in turn increases followers' empowerment. Leadership climate is effective when a team leader gives its team many responsibilities, asks the team for advice when making decisions, is not too controlling, allows the team to set goals, stays out of the way when the team works on its performance problems, tells the team to expects a lot from itself and trusts the team.
- What is the difference between a working group and a team?
- What is the relationship between team purpose and performance?
- What are the differences and similarities of the five-stage and team performance curve models?
- What are the three main aspects of team effectiveness?
- How is team creativity good for innovation?
- How to assess the cohesion of a team?
- What are the differences and similarities between consensus decision making and the nominal group technique (NGT)?
- How can a team leader reduce social loafing?
- What are the challenges and benefits of team diversity?
What is the difference between a working group and a team?
A team is defined as a small number of people with complementary skills, who are committed to a common purpose, performance goals and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
Another definition of team is two or more individuals who socially interact, possess one or more common goals, are brought together to perform organizationally relevant tasks, exhibit interdependencies with respect to workflow, goals and outcomes, have different roles and responsibilities and are embedded in an encompassing organizational system, with boundaries and links to the broader system context and task environment.
A work group interacts primarily to share information with other members. For example, members of a work group attend a monthly staff meeting and share what they are working on. They are not responsible for a collective work effort, or their individual contributions can be added up to create something.
In a work team, on the other hand, members depend on each other. They must interact to create something that they couldn't create as individuals. There is synergy in the team, meaning that the mean can produce something beyond the sum of individual member contributions.
What is the relationship between team purpose and performance?
Setting goals is just as important for a
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What are the costs of workplace conflict? - Chapter 11
Conflict reduces team performance. However, a little bit of conflict is good. In fact, Duarte and Davies (2003) point out an optimum level of conflict, characterized by constructive debate, improved decisions and high performance. Being emotionally intelligent is critical for resolving conflict and effective negotiation. In order to do this, a leader needs to be able to see the situation from the other party's point of view. This is also known as perspective taking, defined as the cognitive process in which an individual adopts another person's view to better understand their preferences, values and needs.
- What are the causes of conflict in organizations?
- Is conflict always bad?
- What are other causes of conflict?
- What are the five conflict resolution styles?
- How does team conflict effect team performance?
- How to resolve conflict across cultures?
- How can third-party interventions reduce conflict?
- What are the characteristics of the negotiation process?
- What is important for leaders during conflict?
What are the causes of conflict in organizations?
Conflict is defined as the process that starts when one party perceives that he is negatively effected by another party. Conflict depends on perception. It does not always line up with reality.
There are three sources of organizational conflict:
- Substantive conflict: this occurs when people have different opinions on key issues in the organization that effect them.
- Affective conflict: a type of conflict that engenders strong emotions, such as anger or disgust. This may be due to personality differences or arguments.
- Process conflict: sometimes, people disagree about the course of action to pursue, or the best way to operate even after a decision has been made. Process conflict reduces team performance.
Some specific examples of where conflict in organizations may originate are personality (differences), sensitivity or hurt, differences in perception and values, differences about facts, differences about goals and priorities, differences over methods, competition for scarce resources, competition for supremacy, misunderstanding and unfulfilled expectations.
Is conflict always bad?
Conflict isn't always a bad thing. In fact, Duarte and Davies (2003) found that there is a curvilinear relationship between task conflict and performance. They pointed out an optimum level of conflict, characterized by constructive debate, improved decisions and high performance. On the other hand, too little conflict is characterized by apathy and poor performance. Too much conflict is characterized by disruption and poor performance.
What are other causes of conflict?
Task versus relationship conflict
Task conflict focuses on the importance to keep in mind that the organization's goals and ensuring that unproductive conflict is resolved before
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How may communication affect organizations? - Chapter 12
Communication is of key importance to organizations, as it is related to both job performance and job satisfaction. Talking is the basis of the work of a manager. Without a doubt, spoken communication is a powerful way to influence others. In addition, nonverbal communication can be used for various different purposes. Yet, it is important to be aware that leaders cannot not communicate. Even not communicating is interpreted (for instance, remaining silent or not showing up for a meeting).
- What are the characteristics of the communication process?
- How does communication apprehension affect the communication process?
- What are the characteristics of the different forms of communication networks?
- What are the advantages and disadvantages of electronic communication?
- How to communicate effectively across cultures?
- What is the significance of nonverbal face-to-face communication?
- Why do employees remain silent or withhold information and how to address this?
What are the characteristics of the communication process?
Organizational communication refers to the process in which individuals stimulate meaning in the minds of other individuals by means of verbal and nonverbal messages in the context of a formal organization. Positive organizational communication is related to both job performance and job satisfaction.
To understand the two-party communication process, it is important to understand the Shannon-Weaver model of communication. The elements of this model are:
- The sender: the source transmission who selects a desired message (written, spoken, pictures, music, or a combination).
- Encoding: the transformation of the message into the signal (transmitter > communication channel > receiver).
- The channel: the medium that transmits the message.
- Decoding: translating the message by what is seen and heard into an understanding of the message. This is not a perfect process, because there is noise in the communication process that affects this decoding process. Noise is defined as any communication barrier that may affect how a person interprets the message. Examples are perceptual bias, language barriers and cultural differences.
- The receiver: the person who receives the message.
How does communication apprehension affect the communication process?
As is mentioned at the decoding process, there may be barriers, blocking effective communication. Some people are uncomfortable communicating with others, this imposes a significant barrier to their success as a leader. Communication apprehension (CA) refers to an individual's level of fear or anxiety with either real or anticipated communication with other people. In other words, CA is anxiety or fear of an individual of either actual or anticipated communication, with a group or a person, that can profoundly affect their oral communication, social skills and self-esteem.
Words may have different meaning to different people, even if they are communicating in the same language. Due to noise and communication barriers, it
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What is the impact of diversity on organizational behavior? - Chapter 13
Diversity refers to differences between individuals at work on any attribute that may evoke the perception that the other person is different from the self. Diversity poses unique challenges for organizational behavior. In fact, these differences between individuals pose a challenge for leaders who must unite their followers in the pursuit of a common goal. Leadership is not possible outside of a community that is defined by shared values and vision. Nowadays, the millennials are the largest group in the general population. Due to their numbers and impact, employers need to transition from a boomer-centric workplace to a millennial-centric workplace.
- What are the similarities and differences of surface-level and deep-level diversity?
- How will millennials affect organizations?
- Why is culture important for understanding organizational behavior?
- What are the key findings from the GLOBE study of leadership effectiveness?
- Why is it important to develop global leaders?
- How to cope with the symptoms of a culture shock?
What are the similarities and differences of surface-level and deep-level diversity?
Surface-level diversity are the demographic attributes that we typically think of when we think of diversity, because they are observable to people. Surface-level diversity refers to differences among group members in overt, biological characteristics that are typically reflected in physical features. Examples are sex, race and age. Research shows that these attributes have mixed results in the prediction of job performance and work attitude. sometimes they are related to performance and sometimes they are not.
Deep-level diversity refers to differences among the attitudes, beliefs and values of individuals. Prior studies showed that diverse groups had poor outcomes. However, recent research indicated that this finding should be interpreted with caution. This is because when deep-level diversity is considered, diversity may actually contribute positively to work group functioning and effectiveness. In fact, the values and attitudes of employees may matter more than surface characteristics.
Finally, an interesting diversity feature is age. Different generations have been shown to have different underlying mind-sets and this may be a source of conflict at the workplace.
How will millennials affect organizations?
Generational differences have a key impact on the organization. They affect everything, including recruiting, building teams, dealing with change, motivating, managing, and productivity. Nowadays, four generations are at the workplace.
First, the traditionalists (born before 1943), of which most but not all are retired, are also known as veterans, the World War II generation and the silent generation. They typically spend a lifetime career with one company (build a legacy). Their career goals are security and fair rewards. They have a part-time schedule and they prefer support in maintaining a work-life balance.
Second, the boomers, born just after the
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How does culture impact an organization? - Chapter 14
Organizational culture refers to a set of shared meaning that people in organizations have with respect to how to adapt to the environment and cope with change. Organizational culture is about innovation and risk taking, people orientation, team orientation, stability and so on. Culture is not just one aspect of the game, it is the game. An organization is more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. Three key managerial tools for leaders for leveraging culture for performance change are the following. First, recruiting and selecting people for culture fit. Second, managing culture through socialization and training. Third, managing culture through the reward system.
- What are the characteristics of organizational culture?
- What are the differences and similarities of market bureaucracy and clan cultures?
- What is the relationship between national culture and organizational culture?
- When is a culture a strong culture?
- What are the steps of the socialization process?
- How do employees learn organizational culture?
- What are the two differences between organizational culture and climate?
- How can leaders change organization culture?
- Use symbols, ceremonies, socialization, and stories to reinforce culture.
What are the characteristics of organizational culture?
Organizational culture refers to the pattern of basic assumptions that a group has invented, discovered or developed in order to cope with problems of external adaption and internal integration. The assumptions have worked well enough to be considered valid, and therefore to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think and feel in relation to those problems. It refers to a set of shared meanings that people in organizations have with respect to adapting to the environment and cope with change. Norms are based on the organizational culture.
Culture can be described in artifacts and creations, values and assumptions.
The seven characteristics of organizational culture are:
- Innovation and risk taking
- Attention to detail
- Outcome orientation
- People orientation
- Team orientation
- Aggressiveness (easygoingness reversed)
- Stability
What are the differences and similarities of market bureaucracy and clan cultures?
Organizational cultures can be examined by the mechanisms that are used for control when they are faced with goal incongruence and performance ambiguity. Goal incongruence occurs when organizational members do not agree on what the goals of the organization are or should be. Performance ambiguity occurs when revenue streams are unpredictable or uneven. Generally, there are three ways that organization address these issues.
Market control occurs when prices determine how social interactions between people are formed. For instance, you and your friends go for beverages and you choose the bar that has the best happy-hour prices. Social interaction requirements focus on reciprocity and exchange. Information
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How does change affect the organization? - Chapter 15
When faced with organizational change, employee reactions may vary from resistance, compliance or commitment with change. Resistance to change has been associated with negative health, including insomnia and lower well-being. Leadership makes a difference: A study of planned organizational change in a hospital system found that authentic leadership influenced the processes of unfreezing, change and refreezing (Lewin's Three-Step Model of Organizational Change). For leaders, compassion is key, which refers to noticing, feeling, and understanding the suffering of a follower. Based upon this understanding, the leader takes action to alleviate the person's suffering. Leaders should promote compassionate organizational practices such as the prevention interventions that are discussed later in this chapter.
- What are the forces driving organizational change?
- Why is planned organizational change necessary?
- What is organizational development?
- How to overcome resistance to organizational change?
- Which models for leading organizational change are there?
- What is stress and how does it relate to organizational change?
- How can roles cause stress?
- How to cope with stress during change?
- Which organizational interventions and policies are there to help employees cope with stress?
What are the forces driving organizational change?
There are many forces that may drive organizational change, such as:
- Workforce diversity: sex, race or ethnicity, cultural differences, LGBTQ, age or generation.
- The economy: recession, government policy, rising health care costs.
- Technology: mobile devices, social media, internet, security, robotics.
- Globalization: multinational corporations, political instability, fair trade, sustainability, outsourcing, emerging markets.
- Competition: global competition, mergers and acquisitions, customer standards, time to market.
- Life-threatening events: natural disasters, terrorism, pandemics.
Why is planned organizational change necessary?
The forces for organizational change have resulted in the need for organizations to be proactive instead of reactive in reading the environment they operate in. Planned organizational change can have a number of targets, including structure, technology, processes, teams and people.
There are four types of planned organizational change:
- Incremental and reactive: putting out small fires, solve problems on a daily basis, quick fixes to short-term concerns.
- Incremental and proactive: tweaking, anticipate and plan, improve current ways of doing things, fine tune, guided evolution.
- Radical and reactive: stop the bleeding, crisis management, industry shakeups, economic turmoil, financial shocks.
- Radical and proactive: transformation, do things fundamentally differently, change of basic assumptions, revolution.
Planned organizational change involves four organizational subsystems: formal organization, social factors, technology and physical setting.
What is organizational development?
Organizational development (OD) is a collection of social psychology methods that are employed to improve organizational effectiveness and the well-being of employees. Examples of organizational development interventions are survey feedback, workout, process consultation,
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What is the scientific method in organizational behavior? - Appendix 1
What is the scientific method?
In OB, researchers apply critical thinking in a very systematic method to find ways to improve organizations. The scientific is an ongoing process and these are phases that are part of the process:
- Make observations
- Think of interesting questions
- Formulate hypotheses
- Develop testable predictions
- Gather data to test predictions
- Refine, alter, expand, or reject hypothese
- Develop general theories
What are the different types of research?
- Qualitative and quantitative research: Qualitative research involves interviewing people in organizations and gathering detailed information transcriptions of the interviews. Quantitative research involves collecting data through organizational surveys containing measures of OB concepts.
- Experimental and quasi-experimental studies: Experimental studies are the best way to determine what causes behavior in organizations. There is a control and experimental group, whereby the control group is not the focus of the study. The groups are randomly assigned. Experimental studies can draw conclusions about causality and can maximize study control in laboratory. But, it may nog accurately reflect organizational context. With quasi-experimental studies, the group is not randomly assigned. Here, it is more difficult to justify causality than in true (laboratory) experiments.
- Correlational field study: Data is gathered through surveys and then the data is analyzed using statistical methods. However, there is less control than experiment and it is difficult to rule out alternative explanations for findings.
- Case study: It is a description of a situation in an organization. It provides in-depth understanding of real organizational problems, but it is difficult to generalize findings to other organizations.
- Action research: Action research is the process of problem specification followed by interventions until the researcher understands how the intervention is affecting the organization. This requires a lot of commitment from the organization being studied, so it is generally not accepted by the research community.
- Mixed methods research: Some researches choose to combine qualitative and quantitative methods. Therefore, you can take advantage of the strengths of qualitative and quantitative research. A downside of this that it is time-consuming.
- Meta-analysis: It is a quantitative approach to a literature review on a topic. Researches gather numerous studies and therefore they can draw generalizable conclusions. But, there may be a bias because most studies published show significance. Therefore, unpublished research must be find.
What does the organizational structure look like? - Appendix 2
This chapter provides an overview of organizational structure. Organizational structure refers to the rules, relationships, communication channels, and duties that allow members to work toward shared goals. Jobs are the building blocks of organizational structure. A job is defined as "a set of task elements grouped together under one job title and designed to be performed by a single individual." To obtain the most positive outcome, social and technical aspects of jobs in organizations must be optimized. This is socio-technical system design called. This way, jobs can be designed so that people are more motivated and satisfied, as well as perform better.
What are the different types of organizational structures?
Once jobs are specified, employees also need to understand reporting relationships and communication. Organizational charts provide important information about the power relationships and lines of communication built into an organization's structure. The most common organizational charts are:
- Functional organization: This structure organizes work into different functional areas or departments based upon specialized expertise. It organizes people into human resources, finance, accounting, marketing, and information systems. Large organizations have a chief executive officer (CEO) as well as a chief operating officer (COO). Vice presidents of the functional areas report to the CEO and COO. Because each area specializes in its work, this can cause silo mentality, where integration across functional areas is difficult.
- Product organization (service or brand organization): This structure organizes work into units that are responsible for producing specific products or services. This type of structure is often seen in large organizations with very different products known as conglomerates. Within each product area, there are managers and employees in the functional areas (human resources, finance, accounting, marketing, and production). Also, decision-making is faster. A disadvantage is that there is a lot of duplication of effort, because each product line has its own functional areas.
- Geographical organization: Such an organization organizes itself in different regions so that they are close to the customers. Disadvantages of this type of structure is that there is also a lot of duplication of effort and communication across units may be problematic.
- Matrix organization: Here, functions and projects are combined. This structure is well-suited for organizations that are engaged in research and development (R&D), advertising, or management consulting. There is less duplication of effort and employees are exposed to both projects and functions, as a result of which skills and knowledge of the organization expands. However, there may be conflict between the horizontal and vertical departments, because employees have to report to two managers. A matrix organization is therefore difficult to manage, and can be costly.
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