Introduction tothe Field ofOrganizational Behavior

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

McShane/Von Glinow OB

5eCopyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

reserved.

John Lassiter

Chief Creative Officer

of Pixar and Disney

Pixar Animation Studios

OB practices have helped

Pixar Animation Studios to

become the world’s most

successful animation studio

• Employee competencies

• People-centered

• Teamwork and org learning

• Constructive conflict

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John Lassiter

Chief Creative Officer

of Pixar and Disney

Organizational Behavior and Organizations

Organizational behavior

• The study of what people think,

feel, and do in and around

organizations

Organizations

• Groups of people who work

interdependently toward some

purpose

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OB Foundations

Distinct field around the 1940s

OB concepts discussed for more

than 2,000 years

Some pivotal scholars before OB

formed include:

• Max Weber

• Frederick Winslow Taylor

• Elton Mayo

• Chester Barnard (shown)

• Mary Parker Follett

Chester Barnard

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Why Study OB?

Satisfy the need to understand and predict

Helps us to test personal theories

Influence behavior – get things done

OB improves an organization’s financial

health

OB is for everyone

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Old Perspective ofOrganizational Effectiveness

Goal oriented -- Effective firms achieve their stated objectives

No longer accepted as indicator of org effectiveness

• Could set easy goals

• Some goals too abstract to evaluate

• Company might achieve wrong goals

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Four Perspectives of Organizational Effectiveness

Stakeholder Perspective

High-Performance WP Perspective

Organizational Learning Perspective

Open Systems Perspective

NOTE: Need to consider all four perspectives

when assessing a company’s effectiveness

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Open Systems Perspective

Organizations are complex systems that “live”

within (and depend upon) the external

environment

Effective organizations

• Maintain a close “fit” with changing conditions

• Transform inputs to outputs efficiently and flexibly

Open systems perspective lays the foundation for the other three perspectives or organizational effectiveness

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Open Systems Perspective

FeedbackFeedback

FeedbackFeedback

Environment

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Organizational Learning Perspective

An organization’s capacity to acquire, share, use, and store valuable knowledge

Need to consider both stock and flow of knowledge

• Stock: intellectual capital

• Flow: org learning processes of acquisition, sharing, and use

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Intellectual Capital

Relationship

CapitalValue derived from satisfied customers,

reliable suppliers, etc.

Structural CapitalKnowledge captured in systems and

structures

Human

CapitalKnowledge that people possess and

generate

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Organizational Learning Processes

Applying knowledge to organizational processes in ways that improves the organization’s effectiveness

Distributing knowledge throughout the organization

Extracting information and ideas from its environment as well as through insight

KNOWLEDGE

ACQUISITION

KNOWLEDGE

SHARING

KNOWLEDGE

USE

Examples in practice

Hiring skilled staff Posting case studies on intranet

Giving staff freedom to try out ideas

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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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High Performance Work Practices (HPWPs)

HPWPs are internal systems and structures

that are associated with successful companies

1. Employees are competitive advantage

2. Value of employees increased through specific

practices.

3. Maximum benefit when org practices are bundled

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High Performance Work Practices

No consensus, but HPWPs include:

• Employee involvement and job autonomy (and their combination as self-directed teams).

• Employee competence (training, selection, etc.).

• Performance-based rewards

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Stakeholder Perspective

Stakeholders: any entity who affects or is affected by the firm’s objectives and actions

Personalizes the open systems perspective

Challenges with stakeholder perspective:

• Stakeholders have conflicting interests

• Firms have limited resources

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Stakeholder Perspective

Lockheed Martin is rated by

engineering students as an

“ideal” employer

• Pays attention to its many

stakeholders

• Relies on values and ethics to

guide decisions

• Strong emphasis on corporate

social responsibility (e.g. photo

shows clean-up after hurricane

Katrina)

Lockheed Martin

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Stakeholders: Values and Ethics

Values and ethics prioritize

stakeholder interests

Values

• Stable, evaluative beliefs, guide

preferences for outcomes or

courses of action in various

situations

Ethics

• Moral principles/values,

determine whether actions are

right/wrong and outcomes are

good or bad

Lockheed Martin

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Stakeholders and CSR

Stakeholder perspective

includes corporate social

responsibility (CSR)

• Benefit society and environment

beyond the firm’s immediate

financial interests or legal

obligations

• Organization’s contract with

society

Triple bottom line

• Economy, society, environment

Lockheed Martin

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Types of Individual Behavior

Organizational

Citizenship

Contextual performance – cooperation

and helpfulness beyond required job

duties

Task PerformanceGoal-directed behaviors under

person’s control

more

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Types of Individual Behavior (con’t)

Maintaining Work

AttendanceAttending work at required times

Joining/staying with

the Organization

Agreeing to employment relationship;

remaining in that relationship

Counterproductive

Work Behaviors

Voluntary behaviors that potentially

harm the organization

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Globalization

Economic, social, and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the world

Effects of globalization on organizations

• New structures

• Increasing diversity

• Increasing competitive pressures, intensification

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Increasing Workforce Diversity

Surface-level diversity

• Observable demographic and other overt differences in people (e.g. race, ethnicity, gender, age)

Deep-level diversity

• Differences in psychological characteristics (e.g. personalities, beliefs, values, and attitudes)

• Example: Differences across age cohorts (e.g. Gen-Y)

Implications

• Leveraging the diversity advantage

• Also diversity challenges (e.g. teams, conflict)

• Ethical imperative of diversity

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Employment Relationships

Work/life balance • Minimizing conflict between work and nonwork

demands number one indicator of career success

Virtual work• Using information technology to perform one’s job away

from the traditional physical workplace

• Telework – issues of replacing face time, clarifying employment expectations

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Organizational Behavior Anchors

Multidisciplinary anchor

• Many OB concepts adopted from other disciplines

• OB develops its own theories, but scans other fields

Systematic research anchor

• OB researchers rely on scientific method

• Should apply evidence-based management, but…

- Bombarded with theories and models

- Challenge translating general theories to specific situations

- Swayed by consultant marketing

- Perceptual biases -- ignoring evidence contrary to our beliefs

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Organizational Behavior Anchors (con’t)

Contingency anchor• A particular action may have different consequences in

different situations

• Need to diagnose the situation and select best strategy under those conditions

Multiple levels of analysis anchor• Individual, team, organizational level of analysis

• OB topics usually relevant at all three levels of analysis

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Introduction tothe Field ofOrganizational Behavior

McGraw-Hill/Irwin

McShane/Von Glinow OB

5e

Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

reserved.

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