Organisation Behaviour 15 May 2010 revision notes

Manager works with people, coordinate, integrate their work activities to accomplish organisational goals.

Organisation = corporation, firm or company

It is a consciously coordinated social unit
compose of 2 or more ppl,
functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal

Conceptual skills, the ability to think and conceptualise about abstract and complex situations, being able to see the big picture. Eg decision making

Technical skill, specialised expertise in a given field

emphasis the downside as well as the upside, of current decisions and future plans. employee gets e clearer picture as well as the whole picture. they know what is going to happen to dem

openly discuss worst case scenario, it is almost never as anxiety provoking than the unspoken fantasy.


Human, people or interpersonal skill, the ability to work well with people or group.
Communicate, motivate and delegate.

4 managerial activities that successful managers engage in

Traditional management, decision making, planning and controlling

Human resource management, Motivate, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing and training

Communication, exchanging routine information and processing paper work

Networking, Socializing, politicking and interacting with outsiders.

Respectively, 13%-11%-28%-48%

Managers need to develop people skill if they are going to be effective and successful.


OB is a field study that investigate the impact of individual, group and structure have on behaviour withing organisations, for the purpose of applying knowledge to improve an organisation effectiveness


Systematic study
-look at relationship
-attribute causes and effect
-draw conclusion based on scientific evidence
This provides a means to predict behaviours

Intuition
-Gut feeling, why i do what i do and what makes others tick.

By supplementing our intuitive opinion with systematic approach, we can improve our predictive ability.


Objective of OB is EPIC

Evaluate employee behaviour
Predict employee behaviour
Improve employee performance
Control employee behaviour


Model is an abstraction of reality,
it is a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon
model = theory

Individual level--> Group level--> Organisation level


Dependent variable, a response affected by an independent variable. OB researcher tries to understands this;

1)Productiviy, a performance measure that includes effectiveness and efficiency.

Efficiency, meeting goals at low cost

Effectiveness, Achievement of goals

2)Absenteesim, the failure to report to work

3)Turnover, the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organisation

4)Unacceptable workplace behaviour, Voluntary behaviour that violates significant organisation norm, thereby threaten the well-being of the organisation or its member.

5)Organisation citizenship behaviour, discretionary behaviour that is not formally part of job requirement but nonetheless promotes the effective functionng of the organisation.

6) Job satisfaction, is a general attitude towards one's job and is a positive feeling that resulted from an evaluation of the job's characteristics



Independent variable

The presumed caused of some change in the dependent variable


3 different model

1) Individual level variable (physical and emotional frame)
2) Group level variables
3) Organisation system level variables





Learning is any relatively permanent change of behaviour that occurs as a result ofexperience.
principles of learning can be used to shape behaviour

Classical conditioning, associating a natural reaction with a neutral reaction.

Operant conditioning, good behaviour get reward, no reward no repeat of good behaviour.

Social Learning, learning through observation or experience.


Shaping Behaviour, attempting to mould an individual by guiding their learning in graduated steps such that they learn to behave in a way that is most beneficial to the organisation

Key Concepts
1) reinforcement is required to change behaviour
2) some rewards are more effective than others
3) the timing of rewards affects learning speed and permanence

Types of reinforcement
1) Positive reinforcement, i do this to get that
2) negative reinforcement, i do this to avoid that
3) Punishment, causing an unpleasant condition in an attempt to eliminate an undesirable behaviour
4) extinction, not reinforcing a response will lead to the extinction of the response

Positive and Negative reinforcement result in learning, they strengthen a response and increase the probability of a repition.

Punishment and extinction weakens behaviour/response and decrease its subesequent frequency.

Schedules of reinforcement
1) Continuous reinforcement, every time, leads to early satiation

2) Intermittent reinforcement, sometimes and random, prevents/preclude early satiation

3) Fixed interval schedule, after a specific time, bonus, reward are not link to performance, a matter of time, thus lower or normal performance

4) Variable interval schedule, random unknown reinforcement, pop quiz, due to the unknown suprise element, employee are more alert. spot check



OB Mod, the application of reinforcement concepts to individual in the work setting.

Five step problem solving model

1) Identify critical behaviour, the should be behaviour
2) Develop baseline data, the number of times this behaviour occurs
3) Identify behavioural consequences, why this happens and what maintains it
4) Develop and apply intervention, change the reward structure, work, technology, the ways things works
5) Evaluate performance improvement, what is e improvement, rate profit?

Emery Air Freight

1) identify critical behaviours - freight packer using container whenevery posible

2) develop baseline date - determine the number of time the identified behaviour is occurring under present conditions. in this case it is 45% of the shipments were containerised.

3) identify behavioural consequences - social norms and greater difficulty in packing containers. social acceptance and escaping more demanding work

4) develop and apply intervention - change some element of the performance-reward linkage structure, processes, technology, groups or task, with the goal of making high level performance more rewarding. The work technology was altered to requre the keeping of a checklist. The checklist plus the computations at the end of the day of a contaier-utilization rate acted to reinforce the desirable behavior of using containers.

5) evaluate performance improvement - immediate increase in container utilisation rate demonstrated behavioural change took place. that it rose to 90% and held at that level further indicated that learning took place. that is the employees underwent a relatively permanent change in behavior.




Personality - the unique combination of psychological characteristic (measureable traits) that affect how a person reacts and interact with others.

Personality Traits - Enduring characteristic that describe an individual behaviour.


Major Personality Attributes influencing OB

1) Self esteem,
the dgree to which people like or dislike themselves.
- high self esteem people, will take more risk, more confident and trust themself better, ppl with low self esteem are more susceptible to external influence, more dependent on the reciept of positive evaluations from others. thus in managerial position, they will tend to be concern with pleasing others

2) Locus of control (core self-evaluation),

internal locus of control - people believe that they are the master of their own fate
-search more actively for information before making a decision, more motivated to achieve and make a greater attempt to control their environment. initiative and independent.

external locus of control - people believe they are pawns of fate and cannot change their destiny.
-compliant and willing to follow directions, do well on job that are well structured and routine, in which success depends heavily on complying with direction of others.


3) Machiavellianism (Mach) use any means to get his goal

Pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, believes that ends can justify means.
deals better face to face than indirectly, works better in situation with minimal rules and regulation becos of more room for improvisation. emotional involvement with details irrelevane to winning distracts low mach.

4) Narcissism

people with a grandiose sense of self-importance, requires excessive admiration, has a sense of entitlement and arrogant. Wants to gain admiration of others and receive affirmation of their superiority. tends to talk down others and treat them as if they are inferior. selfish, exploitive and believe others exist for their benefit.

5) Self-Monitoring

refer to an individual ability to adjust his or her behaviour to external, situational factors.

high self-monitoring person are highly sensitive to external cues and can behave differently in different situation. capable of presenting striking contradictions between their public persona and their private self.

Low self-monitoring person tends to display their true disposition and attitudes in every situation


6) Risk propensity
the propensity to assume or avoid risk has been shown to impact on how long a manager takes to make a decision and also how much information is required. high risk taking manager tends to make a decision faster and based on lesser information. jobs such as stock trader would be more suitable for a high risk taking manager, where else low risk taking manager would be more suitable for being an accountant that does auditing.

7)Personality Types A and B

type A - hurried, feeling an urgency in doing things, set deadlines for themselves, impatient, multi tasking, obsessed with numbers , measuring their success with how much or how many thing they acquire.

type B - opposite of type A, rarely hurried and always at ease and relax.

Type A tends to fare well in interview because of the sense of urgency in getting things done, high drive, competence and success motivation

8) proactive Personality

proactives identify problems, show initiatives, take action and perservere until meaning change occurs. create positive change in their environment despite obstacle, likely to be seen as leader. they are ppl who most likely to challenge status quo and also voice their displeasure when things are to their likings.




Personality-job fit theory

- an employee's job satisfaction and likelihood of turnover depends on the compatibility of the employee's personality and occupation.

there are differences in personalities that will be suitable for different job, the right fit will result in high job satisfaction, low absenteeism and low turnover and vice versa.

Person Organisation fit Theory

-compactible fit between an individual'a value and value and culture of the organisation they are working for. this predicts job satisfaction, commitment to the org and reduced turnover


Perceptiopn

-A process by which individual organise and intepret their sensory impressions in order to give sense to their environment.

-people's behaviour is based on their perceive reality not the reality itself.

-The world as it is perceived is the world that is behaviourally import


Factors that influence perception

The perceiver can be influence by past experience, motives, interest, expectation, attitdues and personal characteristic and traits as to how he or she perceive things.
eg a policeman is perceive as authorative, young man is perceive as lazy

The target itself can also influence how a person perceive it. The size, background, look, shape, color, sound, motion, similarity proximity.
eg a beautiful woman is more noticeable, attractive. someone who is loud is more likely to be noticed. distinguishable characteristic are often perceive to be alike in other, unrelated way. gender or people of colour.

The situation can affect how the perceiver see things, you might not notice a young guest who 'dress to nines' in a night club, but certainly the very same person with the very same attire would get your attention in a monday class. The person and attire have not change, only the situation has change.



Attribution Theory - tries to explain the way in which we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a given behavior. when we observe an individual behaviour, we attempt to attribute it to internally caused or externally caused.

Internal - within the person's control, eg late becos of overslept

External - the person's action is caused by external or situational factor, eg late becos of traffic jam

3 factor that will determine the outcome:

1) Distinctiveness
- is whether an individual display different behaviour in different situation. is the employee e say person which always shunt from tough job. if it is unusual then we are likely to attribute it to externally caused, if it is NOT unusual then we are likely to attribute it to internally caused

2) Consensus
- is whether everyone who faces similar situation reacts in the same way. Eg if everybody who take that route is late for work, it means a high consensus, external.
if every one who took e same route can come on time, it means a low consensus, and it more likely to be attributed to internally caused

3) Consistency
- is the employee consistantly late? high consistency = internal, low consistency = external



Shortcuts used in judging others

Selective perception - we see what we want to see. eg we are more likely to see cars that are similar to e one we drive, my handphone is a touch screen, i m more likely to notice a touch screen phone. most of the sales executive found that e sales aspect is important, most of the production worker noted, the production and quality aspects are more important. because we cant take in all information, we selectively that in those that relevant to us, it could be similar to our goal, interest, background, experience and attitute. selective perception allows us to 'speed read' others but not without the risk of drawing an inaccurate picture.


Halo Effect

- is when we draw a general impression of a person based on the basis of one single characteristic such as intelligent, sociablility or appearance. allowing a single trait to influence their overall impression of the person. eg classic test descript a person given he is warm intelligent determined.

Contrast halo

- our reaction to the person is influence by other people we have recently encounter
eg, a candidate is likely to receive a more favourable evaluation if preceded by mediocre applicant, and a less favourable evaluation if preceded by strong applicant.

Sterotyping

-judging someone by the basis of the perception of the group that he or she belongs to
most of the terrorist attack carried out are done by the muslim but not all muslim are terrorist. eg profiling a manifestation of sterotpying



Types of Attitudes

1) Organisation Commitment
- it is a state in which employee identifies with a particular organisation and its goals and wishes to maintain membership with the organisation.

A) Affective commitment
- emotional attachment to organisation and belief in its values. eg An animal love might be affectively commited to working in Pet Lovers shop because if its involvement with animals

B) Continuance commitment
- it is the perceive economic value of remaining with the organisation compared to leaving it. eh high pay, might hurt the family standard of leaving if he resign

C) Normative commitment
- obligation to remain with the organisation because of moral or ethical reason. eg, if an employee is spearheading a new initiatives or project, he or she might remain at the organisation because he or she would felt that he is leaving the employer in lurch if he left.

In general, affective commitment seems more strongly related to organisation outcomes such as performance and turnover, compared to the other 2 types of commitment.

2) Employee engagement

-it is an individual involvement with, satisfaction with and enthusiasm for the work she does.

Highly engaged employee felt a connection with the organisation and passionate about their work. this leads to high level of customer satisfaction, more productive, increase profit and had lower turnover and accident.

disengaged employee are morely to 'check out', meaning putting the time but not energy and attention into their work.

3) Job involvement
- the degree to which a person identifies with a job and actively participates in it, and consider performance important to self-worth

4) Job Satisfaction

- a positive feeling about one's job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

An employee satisfaction with the job makes up of different job element, eg pay, job scope, co worker. it is the satisfaction of the summation of different job element that makes up his satisfaction level with the job.

2 method to measure it:

1) single global rating method, takes a response to 1 question, such as, all things being equal, how satisfied are you, answer 1-5, 1 being very satisfied, 5 being very unsatisfied.

2) summation of job facets, identify key job elements and ask for employee's feelings, eg nature of job, present pay, promotion opportunities,supervision, relations with coworker. respondent rate them on a standard scale and researchers add the rating to form an overall job satisfaction score.

each method has its own pro and cons, for eg single global rating is less time consuming thus allowing the manager more time to address other issue. on the other hand summation of job facets allows the manager to zero in on where the problem exist, making it easier to deal with unhappy employee and solve problems faster and more accurately.

Both methods show that both are as valid.



Generally people are satisfied in their jobs. it also depends on which facet we are talking about. for instance people tends to be less satisfied with pay and promotion opportunities.

Personality can influence job satisfaction, negative people are usually less satisfied with their job.

people with positive core self-evaluations believe in their inner worth and basic competence are more satisfied with their job.

recent studies show that the correlation between job satisfaction and job performance is moderately strong

correlation is higher for complex jobs

satisfied employee tends to talk positively about the organisation, help others, go beyond the normal expectation in their job. satisfied employee might be more prone to go beyond the call of duty because they wan to reciprocate their positive experience.
- consistent with this thinking, evidence sugguest that job satisfaction is moderately correlated with OCBs.

Fairness or fair treatment, outcome and procedure also explain the relationship between satisfied emloyee and OCBs, when an employee perceive his boss or company procedures or policies as fair, trust developed, and an employee trust an employer, they are more likely to voluntarily engage in behaviours that go beyond the formal job requirements

satisfied employee tends to be friendly, upbeat and responsive, these are qualities that customer appreciate.
becos satisfied employee are less prone to turnover, customer are likely to encounter familiar face, and receive experience service. In the long run, these qualities build customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Happy employee makes happy customer vice versa
Unhappy employee makes unhappy customer
unhappy customer also makes unhappy employee

job satisfaction vs absenteeism is moderate to weak

job satisfaction vs turnover is stronger den above
bad performer = bad satisfaction = no recognition from organisation
satisfaction is not so much of an important factor here, job performance seems more important



A group is 2 or more individual, interacting and interdependent, coming together to achieve a particular goal or objective.

Formal group - designated work group define by organisation's structure

Informal group - a group that is neither formally structured or organisationally determined. it is usually form in response to need for social contact

command group - a group of individual who report directly to a given manager

Task group - a group of individual working together to complete a job.

Interest group - those working together to attain a specific objective, with which each is concerned.

Friendship group - those brought together because they share one or more common characteristics



5 stage model of group development

Forming - great uncertainty in the group structure and leadership, the emphasis is still on the individual. people interact with one another and know more about each other, at a safe distance. member will also be at its best behaviour and they will also test the water to determine what type of behaviour is acceptable. this stage is complete when member think themselves as part of the group

Storming - characterise by intra group conflict, conflict to gain control of the group and position. Potention leader will emerge. this stage is completed when a clear hierachy is drawn

Norming - Everyone has accepted their own roles and responsibilty in the group, close relation is form, trust and bond is build. there is now a strong sense of group identity. This stage is complete when the group has assimilated a common set of expectation as to the accepted behaviour

Performing - the group now is fuly functional accepted, group energy has shifted from getting to know each other to focussing on performing the task at hand.

Adjourning - is the stage where the group is preparing for its disbandment, attention is directed at wrapping up activities. Response of the group member may vary, some might be upbeat, basking in the group's accomplishment, but some are depress over the lost of camaraderie and the friendship gain in the work group's life.

group 4 is generally consider to be most effective but under some situation, high level of conflict might produce high group performance. groups do not always proceed from 1 stage to another, some time several stage can proceed concurrently, eg storming and performing at the same time. Some time the group might even regress because of personel reshuffle or change of task. the five stage model also ignore the organisational context, eg 3 stranger pilot had fly together for the first time, had become a high performance group. they did not go tru the 5 stage because the task, role and information, rules had been provided.

Roles - a set of expected behaviour pattern attributed to someone occupying a given position in a social unit.

role identity, role perceive, role expectation, role conflict. zimbardo's prison experiment

Norm - acceptable behaviour within the group that are share by the groups member.
eg, employee don't critise his boss in the public, golfer dun speak while their partners are putting the green.

performance norm, there is always a group norm about how work should be done, how much output and what level of tardiness is appropriate. the employee might be able to produce more output but due to the group norm he has to scale down his output
appearance norm - dress code, looking busy

Status - a socially defined position or rank given to the group or group member by others.

What determine status?

1) the power a person weild over others - control group resource, controlling outcome through power

2) abiliy to contribute to the group goals - people who contribution is critical to the success of the group tend to have higher power

3) individual personal characteristic - someone who's personal characteristic is positively value by the group, good look, intelligent, money, friendly personality.

high status people are given more freedom to deviate from the norms than other member. high status ppl can also resist conformity pressure better than their lower status peer.

Size - large group is good at gaining diverse input, such as fact finding. Small group are better at doing something productive with that input and smaller group tends to be more effective for taking action.

when working at a big group there is a tendency to rely on others, social loafing, they expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually.

Cohesivebess - the degree to which group members are attracted to each other and motivated to stay in the group

PN - performance norm

high PN HC = high productivity
Low PN HC = loq prs
LC Hpn = moderate
LC LPN = moderate to low



Motivation is the process that accounts an individual direction, intensity and persistency in attaining a goal

ability-opportunity-motivation and performance are all link



sessp

Physiological, basic needs, hunger, shelter, food, sex, thirst
safety, security and protection from physical and emotional harm
social, affection, belongingness,acceptance and friendship
esteem, internal factor - self respect and achievement
external- status and recognition
self actualisation - drive to become what one is capable of fulfilling, including growth and realising potential and self fulfillment


skill variety - number of skill required eg high owner-operator of garage, meet customer, rebuild engine, electrical repair, does body work and interacts with customer. low = accountant

task identity - the degree in which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work. eg high cabinet maker low factory worker who specialise in make the table leg.

Task significance the degree to which the job has a substantial impact in the lives or work of other people. eg high nurse low cleaner

Autonomy the degree to which the job provides substantial freedom, independence and discretion in scheduling the work and determining the approach to carry out the work.

eg high sales person, plan own schedule, use his own sales approach without supervision
low sales person follow sales lead, follow script. no control.

feedback the degree in which the job carried out enables the person to obtain result and clear information about his or her own performance.
eg high factory worker after assemble check if e ipod is working
low factory worker after assemble send to qc officer.

Job rotation, cross train , shifting employer from one task to another. train in different department

Job enlargement, increasing the job horizontally, including more task, sort out mail + deliver mail

Job enrichment, increasing the job vertically, giving more freedom, responsibility and independence.

communication is the transference and understanding of meaning.

forster motivation
outlet for release of emotional expression
provide information for decision making
control behaviour, rules

Sender - message to be send and encoding - channel - msg receive and decoding
in between noise. last link feed back

sender initiates a messenge through encoding a thought, the physical form of the message is the product of the encoding. eg write = writing is message gesture = movement of hands and body or facial expression is message.

channel is the form medium through which the channel travel. formal and informal. establish tru organisation, transmit msg that are related to professional activity of members. informal are social or personal, spontaneous.

receiver is e person receive the message and be4 message can be receive, the signal and sign or symbols must be decoded.

noise represents the communication barriers that distort the clarity of the message

perceptual problem, culture differences and information overload.

feedback refer to checking on the message send, whether it is understood as it is originally intended.

Grapevine - not under the control of management
- perceive by most employee as more reliable and believable than formal communication
- largely use by those to serve the self-interest of those who use it

implication for manager,
give manager a feel of the morale of organisation, identify issues that employee consider important, help taps into employee anxiety. it also serve employee's needs, small talks create a sense of closeness and develop friendship.

management cannot eliminate rumours but can minimize the negative impact of rumour by, annoucing timetable for making important decision, deadline to let employee no tis or that

explain decision that are inconsistent or secretive. clarify and avoid any misunderstanding or interpreting