Présentation PowerPointOrganization?
An Organization is a formal gathering of people coordinating themselves towards pursuing stated, common goals
An organization consists of individuals and groups
An analysis of individual attributes is termed micro level of analysis
An analysis of group attributes is termed group level of analysis
An analysis of organizational attributes is termed macro or organizational level of analysis
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Formal & Informal Organizational Structure?
Formal organizational structure refers to formal operational design and reflects how individuals and groups formally accept to coordinate themselves towards pursuing organizational goals
Informal organizational structure refers to organizational culture/climate and reflects how individuals and groups think & feel that they informally agree, to actually coordinate themselves towards pursuing organizational goals
Be aware that formal and informal organizational structure may or may not be in agreement
…We will discuss in further detail these 2 concepts in the 2nd part of the session…
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
Sources of OB
studies & estimating population values
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Internal & External Organizational Context
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Show the complexity of the organization and the necessity of a good strategic vision of all the forces acting upon the organization, its groups and the employees.
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
So, what determines people behavior?
Is it…
The person: personal attributes of the individual which distinguish one from another → individual differences?
(The personological position envisaged by personologists)
Or…
(The situational position envisaged by situationists)
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
So, what determines people behavior?
Or is it…
(The interactional position envisaged by interactionists)
The overwhelming majority of the best available empirical evidence points to the fact that behavior is determined by an interaction of personal attributes and situational characteristics
It seems that a causal supremacy is awarded to personal attributes due to the overarching fact that individuals self-select themselves, remain in the long term and are socialized into contexts with characteristics that fit to their personal attributes
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
Individual Differences (attributes of the person)?
personality: the psychological construct that predicts (informs) a person’s behavior in a given situation (Cattell, 1943)
As we will see in the next sessions personality integrates a series of psychological variables from needs, traits (relatively enduring patterns of thoughts, feelings and behavior) and attitudes, to values, beliefs, interests, motives and goals
Most commonly assessed by special tests in the form of self-reports (in the majority of the cases assessing traits and/or subtraits)
Although traditionally personality and abilities are conceptually distinguished the latest conceptualizations of personality integrate also abilities
Personality (in terms of traits) has a strong genetic component (it is inherited to a certain degree: 50% of the variance explained) and during adulthood exhibits slow & incremental development for the population in average, but is also subject to some significant development (more than 1 standard deviation across adulthood) on an individual basis
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
Abilities?
The individual capacity to perform the various tasks of a given activity
Mental abilities: the capacity of thinking, reasoning and problem solving
The most frequently used mental ability in OB is general mental ability (GMA) or “g” more widely known as intelligent quotient (IQ) and it integrates basic quantitative and verbal abilities assessed by special tests
GMA has a stronger genetic component than personality traits → 85% of the variance explained above 18 years old and appears not to be subject to further significant development beyond that age, although recently this finding has started to be questioned
Physical abilities: the capacity to perform tasks that require speed, dexterity, stamina, strength and other similar qualities
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
Biographical/Demographic Attributes?
Personal attributes that are easily and objectively obtained by personnel records and/or CV’s
Age
Gender
Race
Type & Length of Tenure
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
But how people make sense & interpret themselves and the situation in order to determine their behavior?
Through individual perception: the continuous psychological process that people go through in order to make sense & interpret themselves and the environmental stimuli they experience
Individual perception of the self and of the environment in the long term determines individual cognition: the long term psychological process by which we determine our knowledge of the self and our environment
Be aware that both perception and cognition as psychological processes integrate both mental and affective processing
Affection includes both intense and short term feelings (seconds or minutes), termed emotions and relatively less intense and longer term ones (hours or days), termed moods
Be aware that when it comes to behavior it is not the actual situation that counts but how the situation is perceived by individuals and groups (as well as how they perceive themselves)
Human Resources, Law and Management Department - September 2009
Is Individual Perception Free of Biases & Errors?
We are full of perceptual biases & errors and individual judgment informed by experience is not objective at all
Cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957)
Selective perception
Recency error