AN INTRODUCTION TO

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
 What Managers Do?

Managers are the individuals who achieve goals

through other people.

Managerial Activities:

• Make decisions
• Allocate resources
• Direct activities of others to attain goals
What is an Organization?

A consciously coordinated social unit, composed of

two or more people, that functions on a relatively
continuous basis to achieve a common goal or a set
of goals, and where people have:

People have:
• Structured patterns of
interaction
• Coordinated tasks
• Work toward some
purpose
Management Functions

Planning Organizing

Management
Functions

Controlling Leading
 Management Functions (cont’d)

• Planning. Planning includes defining goals,

establishing strategy, and developing plans to
coordinate activities.
• Organizing. It refers to determining what tasks are
to be done, how tasks are to be grouped, who reports
to whom, and where decisions are to be made.
 Management Functions (cont’d)

• Leading. It includes motivating subordinates,

directing others, selecting the most effective
communication channels, and resolving conflicts.

• Controlling. It refers to monitoring activities to

ensure they are being accomplished as planned and
correcting any significant deviations.
Different Roles of Managers

Interpersonal Informational
Informational

Decisional
 Interpersonal Role
ROLE DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE

 Figurehead A symbolic head; performs a Handles ceremonies,

number of duties of legal/ social status requests,
nature. solicitations

 Leader Is responsible for motivation & Performs all managerial

direction of subordinates. activities involving
subordinates

 Liaison Maintains a network of outside Acknowledges mail,

contacts to get favor & external board work.
information.
 Informational Role
ROLE DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE

 Monitor Receives wide variety of Handles all mail &

information; acts as centre contacts related to receipt
of internal/ external of information.
information.

 Disseminator Transmits info received Disseminates info to all

from outsiders or internally & makes verbal
subordinate members of contacts for it.
the organization.

 Spokesperson Transmits info to outsiders Attends board meeting;

on org plans, actions, handles contacts to
policies, results. transmit info to outside.
 Decisional Role
ROLE DESCRIPTION EXAMPLE
Entrepreneur Searches organization and Holds ‘strategy and review’
its environment for sessions involving initiation
opportunities and initiates or design of improvement
projects to bring out change. projects.

Disturbance Is responsible for corrective Holds ‘strategy and review’

handler action when organization sessions involving
faces important, unexpected disturbances and crisis.
disturbances.
Resource Makes or approves Handles scheduling;
Allocator significant organizational requests for authorization;
decisions. budgeting; the programming
of subordinates’ work.

Negotiator Is responsible for Handles contract

representing the negotiations.
organization at major
negotiations.
 Skills That Managers Need

Technical Conceptual Human

 Skills That Managers Need (Contd…)

• Technical Skills. The ability to apply specialized

knowledge or expertise.

• Conceptual Skills. The mental ability to analyze and

diagnose complex situations.

• Human Skills. The ability to work

with, understand, and motivate
other people, both individually
and in groups.
 Effective Versus Successful Managerial
Activities (Luthans)
Successful Managers. Defined as those who were
promoted the fastest:

• Networking made the largest relative contribution

to success.
• Human resource management activities made the
least relative contribution.

Successful managers do not give the same

emphasis to each of the four activities as do
effective managers
 Effective Versus Successful Managerial
Activities (Luthans)

Effective Managers. Defined as those who are high

achievers in terms of quality and quantity of
performance, as well as their commitment to
employees:

• Communication made the largest relative

contribution.
• Networking made the least relative contribution.

This finding challenges the historical assumption

that promotions are based on performance.
 Organizational Behavior (OB)
OB is a field of study that investigates the impact
that individuals, groups, and structure have on
behavior within organizations for the purpose of
applying such knowledge toward improving an
organization’s effectiveness.

• OB studies three determinants of behavior in

organizations - individuals, groups, and structure.

• OB is concerned with the study of what people do

in an organization and how that behavior affects
the performance of the organization
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field
• OB is an applied behavioral science that is built
upon contributions from a number of behavioral
disciplines:

• Psychology. It is the science that seeks to

measure, explain, and sometimes change the
behavior of humans and other animals.

• Sociology. It is the study of the social system in

which individuals fill their roles; that is, sociology
studies people in relation to their fellow human
beings.
Conti…
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field

• Social Psychology. It blends the concepts of

psychology and sociology. It focuses on the
influence of people on one another.

• Anthropology. It is the study of societies to learn

about human beings and their activities.
Anthropologists work on cultures and
environments; for instance, they have helped us
understand differences in fundamental values,
attitudes, and behavior among people in different
countries and within different organizations.
Conti…
Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field

• Political Science. Frequently overlooked as a

contributing discipline, Political Science studies the
behavior of individuals and groups within a political
environment.
 Challenges and Opportunities for OB
• Responding to Globalization
• Managing Workforce Diversity
• Improving Quality and Productivity
• Responding to the Labor Shortage
• Improving Customer Service and People Skills
• Empowering People
• Coping with “Temporariness
• Stimulating Innovation and Change
• Helping Employees Balance Work-Life Conflicts
• Improving Ethical Behavior
 Developing a Basic OB Model

• A model is an abstraction of reality, a simplified

representation of some real-world phenomenon. There
are three levels of analysis in OB:

 Individual level
 Group level
 Organizational Systems Level

• The three basic levels are similar to building blocks;

each level is constructed upon the previous level.
Developing a Basic OB Model
 Dependent Variables
• Productivity. A performance measure including
effectiveness and efficiency.
 Effectiveness. Achievement of goals. Doing the
right things.
 Efficiency. The ratio of effective output to the input
required to achieve it. Doing the things right.
• Absenteeism. Failure to report to work.

• Turnover. Voluntary & Involuntary permanent

withdrawal from the organization.
 Dependent Variables (Cont’d)
• Job satisfaction. A general attitude toward one’s job;
the difference between the amount of rewards workers
receive and the amount they believe they should receive.
 The Independent Variables

Independent
Variables

Individual-Level Group-Level Organization

Variables Variables System-Level
Variables
 The Independent Variables (cont’d)
1. Individual-level Variables. There are four other
individual-level variables that affect employee behavior:
• Perception
• Individual decision making
• Learning
• Motivation

2. Group-level Variables. People behave differently in

groups and group behavior is more than the sum total
of all the individuals acting in their own way. People in
groups are influenced by:
• Acceptable standards of behavior by the group
• Degree of attractiveness to each other
• Communication patterns
• Leadership and power
• Levels of conflict
 The Independent Variables (cont’d)
3. Organization System-level Variables. The design
of the formal organization, work processes, and jobs;
the organization’s human resource policies and
practices, and the internal culture, all have an impact
on the dependent variables.
THANKS