Introduction to
the Field of
Organizational
Behavior
McGraw-Hill/Irwin
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e Copyright © 2010 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
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
John Lassiter
Chief Creative Officer
of Pixar and Disney
1-2
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
1-3
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
1-4
Old Perspective of
Organizational 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
1-5
Four Perspectives of Organizational
Effectiveness
Open Systems Perspective
Organizational Learning Perspective
High-Performance WP Perspective
Stakeholder Perspective
NOTE: Need to consider all four perspectives
when assessing a company’s effectiveness
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Open Systems Perspective
Environment
Feedback Feedback
Feedback Feedback
1-7
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
1-8
Intellectual Capital
Human Knowledge that people possess and
Capital generate
Knowledge captured in systems and
Structural Capital structures
Relationship Value derived from satisfied
Capital customers, reliable suppliers, etc.
1-9
Organizational Learning Processes
KNOWLEDGE
KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE
KNOWLEDGE KNOWLEDGE
KNOWLEDGE
ACQUISITION
ACQUISITION SHARING
SHARING USE
USE
Extracting information Distributing Applying knowledge
and ideas from its knowledge to organizational
environment as well throughout the processes in ways
as through insight organization that improves the
organization’s
effectiveness
Examples in practice
Hiring skilled staff Posting case Giving staff
studies on intranet freedom to try out
ideas
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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
1-11
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
1-12
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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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
1-14
Types of Individual Behavior
Goal-directed behaviors under
Task Performance
person’s control
Contextual performance – cooperation
Organizational
and helpfulness beyond required job
Citizenship
duties
more
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Types of Individual Behavior (con’t)
Counterproductive Voluntary behaviors that potentially
Work Behaviors harm the organization
Joining/staying with Agreeing to employment relationship;
the Organization remaining in that relationship
Maintaining Work
Attending work at required times
Attendance
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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
1-18
