ORGS - Chapter 1

7/27/2019 ORGS - Chapter 1

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Chapter 1 What is OB?

OB is a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving theattitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups in organizations

An organization is a structured social system consisting of groups and individuals workingtogether to meet some agreed-upon objectives.

Organizations are open systems-- that is, they are self sustaining systems that use energy totransform resources from the environment into some form of output.

Scholars in mgmt departments and scientists in business orgs conduct research on OB Contrasts with human resource mgmt (which takes theories and principles of OB and explores

the nuts and bolts applications)

OB study might explore the relationship between learning and job performance, whereas an HRmgmt study might examine the best ways to structure training programs to promote employee

learning

Strategic mgmt focuses on the product choices and industry characteristics affect anorganizations profitability. They will study the relationship between firm diversification and firm

profitability Role of management theory Theories and concepts in OB have also been heavily influenced by the popular mgmt approaches

of the day, such as Frederick Winslow Taylors theory of scientific management, where he

focused on designing optimal and efficient work processes. (optimize performance of any task)

Bureaucracy is another important contributor to the classical approach to mgmt was MaxWeber, an organizational form that emphasizes the control and coordination of its members

through a strict chain of command, formal rules and procedures, high specialization, and

centralized decision making

Superior form of organizing, coordinating, and controlling human work activities Human relations movement emerged as mgmt scholars began to recognize that the

psychological attributes of individual workers (needs, attitudes) and social forces within work

groups had important effects on behaviours

Fundamental to contingency approach is the idea that there is no one-best, universalprinciples and same is true for OB

Integrative model of OB Two Primary individual outcomes the right-most portion of the model, two employees have 2

primary gals for their working lives: to perform their jobs well and to remain a member of the

organization that they respect. Likewise, most managers have two primary goals for their

employees: maximize performance and to ensure that they stay with the firm for a significant

length of time

o Job Performanceo Commitment (Retention and Withdrawal Behaviours)o Starting points

Individual Mechanisms Linked to Outcomes (they affect job performance and commitmentDIRECTLY)


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o Job Satisfaction captures what employees feel when thinking about their job and dailywork

o Stress reflects employees psychological responses to job demands that exceed theircapacities

o Motivation captures energetic forces that drive employees work efforto Trust, Justice, and Ethics reflect the degree to which employees feel that their company

conducts business with fairness, honesty, and integrity

o Learning and Decision Making deals with how employees gain job knowledge and howthey use that job knowledge to make accurate judgments on the job

The Relation between the Individual Mechanisms and Outcomes occur within an Individual,Group and Organizational Context (influence individual mechanisms and individual outcomes)

o Personality, Cultural Values and Ability influence how we behave at work and kinds oftasks that interest us, and might account for our responses to events that happen on the

job

o Team Characteristics and Processes shape individual mechanisms like motivation, wherewe explore the structure of effective work groups, such as their norms, roles, and the

way members depend on one another

o Power and Influence summarizes the process in which individuals attain authority overothers

o Leadership Styles and Behaviours are what individuals use to take influence others atwork

o Organizational Structure centralized vs decentralizedo Organizational Culture captures the way they are in the organization rules, norms,

values that shape attitudes and behaviours of employees


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Does OB matter? Does a firms ability to manage OB have any bearing on its bottom-line profitability? Maybe, since if a firm has a good enough product, effective OB can keep the product good over

the long term and also help the product get better over the long term, if it is currently a bad

enough product.

Building a conceptual argument

Might affect bottom line profitability Consider this question from a resource-based perspective. Examples of a firms resources that

are related to OB:

Knowledge, decision-making, ability, wisdom of the workforce as well as its image, and culture Resource based view is a model that argues that rare and inimitable resources help firms

maintain competitive advantage

Describes what exactly makes resources valuable that is, what makes them capable of creatinglong term profits for the firm. A firm`s resources include financial (rev and equity) and physical

(buildings, machines, technology) resources, but they also include resources related to OB, suchas the knowledge, decision making, ability, and wisdom of the workforce, as well as the image,

culture and goodwill of the organization

This view suggests that the value of resources depends on several factors Resource is more valuable when it is rare (in short supply). Ex: diamonds, oil, etc are al

expensive because they are hard to find. Good people are also rare and hard to find. If good

people are rare, then effective mgmt of OB should prove to be a valuable resource

The resource based view also suggests that a resource is more valuable when it is inimitablemeaning that it cannot be easily copied. Ex: good people cannot be or very difficult to imitate

o 3 reasons why people are inimitableo People create history a collective pool of experience, wisdom, and knowledge that

benefits the organization

o Numerous small decisions capture the idea that people make many small decisions dayin and day out

o Big decisions can be copied and are visible to competitors and observable by industryexperts and analysts.

o To successfully mimic a competitor, it would be necessary to take into consideration allthe day to day decisions and trade offs that employees make every day. Ex: watching a

flight attendant spontaneously use humour to attract inattentive passengers to safety

instructions, or observing a ticket agent use his discretion to make an anxious passenger

smile (all of which are INVISIBLE to competitors)o Socially complex resources - people are the source of these, like culture, teamwork,

trust and reputation

o termed socially complex because it is not always clear how they came to develop,though it is clear which organization do (and do not possess them)

o LEADERSHIP, culture and teamwork cannot be easily copied


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ORGS - Chapter 1