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What IsWhat IsOrganizationalOrganizational

Behavior?Behavior?

Chapter 1

1-2

What is Organizational What is Organizational Behavior?Behavior?

• A field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations

1-3

1-4

Buying the TextbookBuying the Textbook

• Aside from your local bookstore, the book is available on Amazon

• There is a Kindle version

1-5

Does OB Matter?Does OB Matter?

• Do firms who do a good job managing OB concepts become more profitable as a result?

1-6

Does OB Does OB Matter?Matter?

• The resource-based view of the firm

1-7

Does OB Matter?Does OB Matter?

1-8

Does OB Matter?Does OB Matter?

Retention

Sales/employee

Market value

Profitability

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So WhatSo What’’s So Hard?s So Hard?

๏ The Rule of 1/8:

๏ “One must bear in mind that 1/2 of organizations won’t believe the connection between how they manage their people and the profits they earn. 1/2 of those who do see the connection will do what many organizations have done--try to make a single change to solve their problems, not realizing that the effective management of people requires a more comprehensive and systematic approach. Of the firms that make comprehensive changes, probably only about 1/2 will persist with their practices long enough to actually derive economic benefits.”

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How Do We Know Things About How Do We Know Things About OB?OB?

• Where does the knowledge in this textbook come from?

• Understanding that requires an understanding of how we know things, in general

1-11

How Do We Know Things about How Do We Know Things about OB?OB?

• Methods of Knowing

๏ Experience

๏ Intuition

๏ Authority

๏ Science

• What are the benefits of the last one, relative to the other three?

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How Do We Know Things about How Do We Know Things about OB?OB?

• Scientific method

1-13

How Do We Know Things about How Do We Know Things about OB?OB?

• Theory

๏ A collection of assertions (both verbal and symbolic) that specify how and why variables are related, as well as the conditions in which they should (and should not) be related

1-14

How Do We Know Things How Do We Know Things about OB?about OB?

• To test our theory we gather data on the variables included in our hypotheses

• We then use variants of the correlation coefficient to test hypotheses, to see if they verify our theory

1-15

How Do We Know Things How Do We Know Things about OB?about OB?

• The correlation

๏ Perfect positive relationship: 1

๏ Perfect negative relationship: -1

๏ Strength of the correlation inferred from judging the compactness of a scatterplot of the X-Y values

๏ More compact = stronger correlation

๏ Less compact = weaker correlation

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The CorrelationThe Correlation

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The CorrelationThe Correlation

1-18

The CorrelationThe Correlation

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The CorrelationThe Correlation

• Important Disclaimer

๏ Correlation does not prove causation

• Proving causation requires:

๏ Correlation

๏ Temporal precedence

๏ Elimination of alternative explanations

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How Do We Know Things about How Do We Know Things about OB?OB?

• The correlations from multiple studies get averaged together using a technique called meta-analysis

• Meta-analyses can then form the foundation for evidence-based management--the use of scientific findings to inform management education and practice