C. Prediction
1. The goal of prediction focuses on future events to determine what outcomes will result
from a given action.
2. There are various ways to implement a major change, so the manager is likely to assess
employee responses to several change interventions. Such information can be used in
making the decision as to which change effort to use.
D. Control
1. The most controversial goal is to control behavior because most of us live in democratic
societies, which are built upon the concept of personal freedom.
2. OB does offer technologies that facilitate the control of people.
a) Whether those technologies should be used in organizations becomes an ethical
question.
III.
a) The bulk of the pre-1980s workforce was male Caucasians working full time to
support a non-employed wife and school-aged children.
b) Currently, 46.6 percent of the U.S. labor force are women. Minorities and immigrants
make up 23 percent.
2. Workforce diversity has important implications for management practice.
a) Managers need to recognize differences and respond to them.
(1) Diversity, if positively managed, can increase creativity and innovation in
organizations as well as improve decision making by providing different
perspectives on problems.
H. Improving Quality and Productivity (18)
1. Managers are facing constant challenges to improve quality and productivity. To do this,
they are implementing programs such as quality management and process reengineering,
which require extensive employee involvement. (19-20)
a) See Exhibit 1-3, What Is Total Quality Management?
2. Process reengineering asks managers to reconsider how work would be done and how
would their organization be structured if they were to start over.
I.
a) The field of OB provides a wealth of ideas and techniques to aid in realizing these
goals.
N. Coping with Temporariness
1. Managers have always been concerned with change. What is different is the amount of
time between change implementations.
2. Today, change is an ongoing activity for most managers. The concept of continuous improvement, for instance, implies constant change.
3. Managing used to be characterized by long periods of stability interrupted occasionally
by short periods of change.
a) That is reversed today.
4. Managers and employees face a world of permanent temporariness.
a) Workers need to continually update their knowledge and skills to perform new job
requirements.
b) Work groups are also increasingly in a state of flux. In the past employees were
assigned to a specific department, and that assignment was relatively permanent.
c) Organizations themselves are in a state of flux. They continually reorganize their
various divisions, sell off poorly performing businesses, downsize operations, and
replace permanent employees with temporaries.
5. Todays managers and employees must learn to learn to live with flexibility, spontaneity,
and unpredictability.
I.
J.
SUMMARY (24-25)
1. Organizational behavior (OB) is the systematic study of the actions and attitudes that people exhibit
within organizations.
2. Organizational behavior is applied behavioral science. The predominant contributing disciplines are
psychology, sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political science.
3. The three primary goals of OB are to explain why an individual or a group of individuals do something; to predict future eventsto determine what outcomes will result from a given action; and to
control behavior, the most controversial goal of the three. OB does offer technologies that facilitate
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the control of people. Whether those technologies should be used in organizations becomes an ethical
question.
4. The major challenges and opportunities for managers to use OB concepts occur in the areas of
customer service, improving quality and productivity through the use of quality management,
reengineering and other techniques; improving people skills; managing workforce diversitya key
challenge since organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, and
ethnicity; responding to globalization; empowering people by the reshaping of the relationship
between managers and those theyre supposedly responsible for managing; stimulating innovation
and change; coping with temporariness as the workforce becomes more part time and contingency
based; dealing with declining employee loyalty; and improving ethical behavior.
5. The plan of the book is built on a building-block approach. Chapters 2 through 6 deal with the
individual in the organization. Chapters 7 through 12 address group behavior. Chapters 13 through 16,
discuss how an organizations structure, work design, and technology affect behavior, the effect that
an organizations human resource management policies and practices have on people, how each
organization has its own culture that acts to shape the behavior of its members, and the various
organizational change and development techniques that managers can use to affect behavior for the
organizations benefit.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Define organizational behavior (OB).
Answer - Organizational behavior is the systematic study of the actions and attitudes that people
exhibit within organizations. There are three key parts. Systematic study is the use of scientific evidence gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous
manner to attribute cause and effect. Systematic study of actions (or behaviors) and attitudes occurs in
three areas: productivity, absenteeism, and turnover. Systematic study within an organizationOB is
specifically concerned with work-related behaviorand that takes place in organizations. A fourth
type of behavior, organizational citizenship, has been added as a determiner of organizational
effectiveness.
2. Identify the primary behavioral disciplines contributing to OB.
Answer - Organizational behavior is applied behavioral science. Psychology is the science that seeks
to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals. Sociology
studies people in relation to their fellow human beings. Greatest contribution was through their study
of group behavior in organizations, particularly formal and complex organizations. Social Psychology
is an area within psychology, blending concepts from psychology and sociology. It focuses on the
influence of people on one another. Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. This has helped us understand differences in fundamental values, attitudes,
and behavior between people in different countries and within organizations. Political science, the
study of the behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment, is frequently
overlooked.
3. Describe the three goals of OB.
Answer Explanation, which seeks to answer why an individual or a group of individuals did something. It is the least important of the three goals, from a management perspective, because it occurs
after the fact. Prediction focuses on future events to determine what outcomes will result from a given
action. Control is the most controversial goal because most of us live in democratic societies, which
are built upon the concept of personal freedom. OB does offer technologies that facilitate the control
of people. Whether those technologies should be used in organizations becomes an ethical question.
4. List the major challenges and opportunities for managers to use OB concepts.
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Answer - Improving quality, customer service, and productivity through the use of quality
management, reengineering and other techniques; improving people skills; managing workforce
diversitya key challenge since organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender,
race, and ethnicity; responding to globalization; empowering people by the reshaping of the
relationship between managers and those they are supposedly responsible for managing; stimulating
innovation and change; coping with temporariness as the workforce becomes more part time and
contingency based; dealing with declining employee loyalty; and improving ethical behavior.
5. Explain the key elements in quality management.
Answer - See Exhibit 1-3, What Is Quality Management?
6. Discuss why workforce diversity has become an important issue in management.
Answer - Workforce diversity means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of
gender, race, and ethnicity. It encompasses anyone who varies from the norm. In addition to the more
obvious groupswomen, African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americansit also
includes the physically disabled, the elderly, and so on. Traditional melting pot approach to
differences in organizations assumed that people who were different would somehow automatically
want to assimilate. Traditionally, diverse groups were such a small percentage of the U.S. workforce.
Currently, 46 percent of the U.S. labor force are women. Minorities and immigrants make up 23
percent.
7. Discuss two ways in which globalization affects a managers people skills.
Answer First, a manager will likely find himself in a foreign assignment in which he will be
managing a workforce, which is likely to be very different in needs, aspirations, and attitudes from
the ones back home. Second, even in their own countries, managers could likely find themselves
working with bosses, peers, and employees who were born and raised in different cultures.
8. A number of forces have contributed to blurring the lines between employees work and personal
lives. Discuss four of these forces.
Answer First, the creation of global organizations means the work world never sleeps. Second,
communication technology allows employees to do their work anywhereat home, in their cars, on
the beach. Third, organizations are asking employees to put in longer hours. Fourth, few families
have only a single breadwinner, requiring married employees to find the time to fulfill commitments
to home, spouse, children, parents, and friends.
9. Explain how managers and organizations are responding to the problem of employee ethical
dilemmas.
Answer Managers and organizations write and distribute codes of ethics to guide employees
through ethical dilemmas. They offer seminars, workshops, and similar training programs to try to
improve ethical behaviors and provide in-house advisors, who can be contacted, in many cases
anonymously, for assistance in dealing with ethical issues. They create protection mechanisms for
employees who reveal internal unethical practices. Todays managers need to create an ethically
healthful climate in which their employees can do their work productively and confront a minimal
degree of ambiguity regarding what constitutes right and wrong behaviors.
EXERCISES
A.
Have students introduce themselves by giving their name, and any other information you deem
appropriate, and by offering one short one- to three-minute story about an experience they had with
an organization. Give students several minutes to think about their story, keep time, and stop
students who go too long. Use the stories to introduce the importance of OB to them.
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B.
Divide the class into groups of three to five students each. Have each group identify a current news
story from the popular press such as newscasts, newspapers, journals, and so on, which involve
management and/or organizational behavior. These stories/situations can be local, domestic, or
international. Give the groups several minutes to discuss the story details, and have each group
evaluate how the current managers handled the situation. Then have each group orally provide a
brief (three to four minute) critique of the current managers response. Suggested topics might be a
current business merger, the implementation of the euro, a local plant closing or relocation, an
article or story about a diversity issue or work/family balance.
C.
Divide the class into groups of three, and have them discuss their experiences with managers. They
may discuss items such as their last performance appraisal, a job interview, or a customer service
issue. Use this as a starting point to discuss the importance of "people" in an organizational
context.
D.
If you have older adult students, have them share their experiences regarding how the workplace
used to look. Examine such issues as the demographic make-up of the organization, and the
attitudes of workers towards management. Emphasize how new the field of OB is, based upon
these anecdotes.
describe their chosen organization, discussing what goods or services they produce, how many
employees it has, what the structure looks like, and a general overview of how the organization is
managed.
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