Introduction

The field of Organizational Behavior deals with the behavior of individuals and groups within
organizations, and investigates the development of the effectiveness of an organization’s human
resources in order to achieve organizational goals. ( Prof. Roberta Cuel (University of Trento –
Italy)

Example topics of OB study include personality/dispositions, emotion and affect, motivation,

social concept and identity, decision making and cognition, justice and trust, organization and
work attachment, leadership, groups and teams, and organizational culture and climate.

Example topics in HR encompass job analysis, recruitment, selection, training and development,
performance appraisal, compensation, quality of work life, workforce diversity, and strategic
human resource management.

The best known of the results is called the Hawthorne Effect, which describes the way test
subjects' behavior may change when they know they are being observed. Researchers are taught
to consider whether and to what degree the Hawthorne Effect is skewing their findings on human
behavior.

Organizational behavior was not fully recognized by the American Psychological Association as
a field of academic study until the 1970s. However, the Hawthorne research is credited for
validating organizational behavior as a legitimate field of study, and it's the foundation of
the human resources profession as we now know it.

In this assignment I try to get some practical example and give you a better understanding that
how importance of the organizational behaviors in the real world.
 A. When an organization is planning to intake new recruits

The common understanding about the concept/ theory call personality in terms of how they
appear to people around them. According to Gibson (2003) personality is a relatively stable set
of characteristics, tendencies and temperament that have been significantly formed by
inheritance and by social, cultural and environmental factors. Personality is differing by person’s
heredity, environment or situation wise.

Organization is planning to intake new recruits to achieve their business goals: expand or change
the business, what skills are required to accomplish this objective?

From there, should establish specific recruitment goals. One goal will be attracting the best
people to work in your business. The best people will make a direct difference to your bottom
line, helping to raise your service and quality level. People who are less than dedicated to your
business can compromise customer experiences.

Some other recruitment goals may be:

 Attracting a higher standard of candidate

 Attracting a candidate who has skills you currently do not have in your organization
 Promoting your company as a dynamic place where people want to work

Determine your overall recruitment needs through having well established business goals.

To recruit right person in to the right position at the right time is the major and foremost duty of
the HR management in the organization. Overall job proficiency is divided into two components:

1. task performance
2. contextual performance
there are different types of personalities. When organization wants to recruit a new blood they
should match the personality with the job description of the person. For instance, some people
can be described as "high" in venturesomeness, e.g., willing to accept the risk of doing
something new or different, such as skydiving or mountain climbing, whereas others can be
described as "low" in venturesomeness, e.g., afraid to buy a really new product. Therefore, the
personality of marketing manager and legal officer should be different.

Myers briggs type indicator(MBTI)

This is a one of the famous personality framework which we use to identify the employees
personalities in the organization.
 Extraversion/introversion (E /I)
 Sensing/ intuiting (S/I)
 Thinking/feeling (T/F)
 Judging/ perceiving (J/P)

INTJs are Visionaries

They usually have original minds and great drive for their own ideas and purposes. They are
characterized as skeptical, critical, independent, determined, and often stubborn.
ESTJs are Organizers
They are realistic, logical, analytical, decisive, and have a natural head for business or
mechanics.They like to organize and run activities.

ENTP Type is Conceptualize

He or she is pioneering, individualistic, versatile, and attracted to entrepreneurial ideas. This
person tends to be resourceful in solving challenging problems but may neglect routine
assignments.
A recent book that profiled 13 contemporary businesspeople who created super successful firms
including Apple Computer, Federal Express, Honda Motors, Microsoft and Sony found that all
13 are intuitive thinkers.
This result is predominantly interesting because intuitive thinkers represent only about 5 percent
of the population.
More than 2 million people a year take the MBTI in the United States alone. Organizations using
the MBTI include Apple Computer, AT&T, Citicorp, Exxon, GE, 3M Co., plus many hospitals,
educational institutions, and even the U.S. Armed Forces.
The Big Five Model

MBTI may be deficient in valid supporting evidence, but that can‘t be said for the five-factor
model of personality ‗more typically called the Big Five.
In contemporary, an impressive body of research supports that five basic dimensions. motivate
all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality .
The Big Five factors are:

Extra-version: This dimension captures one ‘s comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend
to be gregarious, assertive, and sociable. Introverts tend to be reserved, timid, and quiet.
Agreeableness: This dimension refers to an individual ‘s tendency to defer to others. Highly
agreeable people are cooperative, affectionate, and trusting. People who score low on
agreeableness are cold, disagreeable, and antagonistic.
Conscientiousness. This dimension is a measure of reliability. A highly conscientious person is
responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Those who score low on this dimension are
easily distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
Emotional stability: This dimension taps a person ‘s ability to bear up stress. People with
positive emotional stability tend to be calm, self-confident, and secure. Those with highly
negative scores tend to be nervous, anxious, Depressed, and insecure.
Openness to experience: The final dimension addresses an individual ‘s range of interests and
fascination with novelty. Extremely open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive.
Those at the other end of the open-ness category are conventional and find comfort in the
familiar.

Markerting Manager Legal Officer

ESTP – Your charming, unfaltering they can think critically about a

salesman that can and WILL sell set of data and consider its
you anything implications.
ENTP – Your persuasive, inventive They pay an enormous attention to
and entrepreneurial marketer who detail by nature, and can skillfully
comes up with the innovations that apply these details to factual and
will change the world. hypothetical situations.
ENFP – Your inspiring and INTJ - be well suited as lawyers.
enthusiastic marketer who will go to
incredible lengths to sell their vision
to the world, and make their
fantastical dreams a reality.
marketer who comes up with the
innovations that will change the
world.
ENTJ
INFJ 

According to above theories and characteristics when XYZ Company select a new marketing
manager and legal officer they have to recognize above characteristics of the candidates. Not
only paper qualifications but personality, behaviors and attitudes also important when new blood
join into organization.

We all know that first impressions matter.  So when a candidate is being introduced to your
organization, you want to make sure their first impression is a good one.
Candidates may already have a perception of your organization, either from reputation or name
recognition. Or, they may just be discovering your organization for the first time.  In either case,
it is during the recruitment process that people further develop their perception of your
organization. 

In the 2014 article The Importance of Applicant Perceptions When Recruiting Employees to

Teams, researchers Earnest and Landis infer that applicants derive perceptions based on the
information they are provided, and that their perception affects their beliefs about an
organization.

“We all know that, when it comes to recruiting candidates, no tool works better than a
well-managed employee referral program. But what few people seem to acknowledge is
that your own workforce could sabotage your best recruiting efforts. Employers often
believe that for the most part their employees are satisfied with their jobs, their managers,
and the office environment. But in many cases, that isn’t what they would tell a friend.”

(Article by Dr. John Sullivan and Master Burnett) 

Therefore, perception also one of the main important theory which use to select best candidate
into the organization.
We all want to have successful recruiting programs, and we all want to be doing things that make
others in the organization recognize our achievements. It’s human nature to crave recognition.
Organizations need to stop worrying about what people don’t say and arm them with great
stories to tell so we know what they do say. Understanding and managing the perceptions of
your employees will have a profound impact on the success of organizational recruiting
programs, especially those that involve a great deal of human interaction. Managing
perceptions is about metrics, and it’s also about elevating the HR profession. It’s time to stop
being the administration people, and start being the results people.
B)When unions see the management as being unfair
In an organization there are different types of conflicts between individuals & individuals,
individuals & management, trade unions & management.
Basically when there are conflicts regarding their demands by management. Most probably
unions attempt to think that management has being unfair regarding their demands and issues.
From the definitions of attitudes is shows clearly. “An attitude is a way of thinking or feeling
about something, a certain state of mind at the time.” On the other way around Behavior is
defined as the way one acts towards themselves and others around them. Therefore, this issue is
regarding attitudes and behaviors of the unions and management.
According to organizational behavior there is a negative attitude by unions towards the
management that’s why they think management has been unfair towards their demands. On the
other hand, there can be negative attitudes by management towards the employees. Those are
two hypotheses that we can make.
Analysis can be done through the main 3 components of the attitudes.

Affective – unions feel that management has taken some unfair decisions regarding employees’
union actions. (feelings of an attitude)
Behavioral – therefore unions going to take actions towards that issue. (Predispositions to act
towards an attitude)
Cognitive – they believing that management is unfair towards them. (Thoughts about an attitude

cognitive=evaluation
our management doesn't give attention to the union demands.our
attitude management is unfair.

affective = feelings
we dilike our management
that is

behaviour = action
we are going to take actions against management
negative

Let’s assume that the following items constitute an ascending scale of stimulation of attitude
arousal for a person who has an unfavorable attitude toward labor unions:
1. Seeing a group of people in working clothes;
2. Seeing a group of laborers entering a union hall;
3. Seeing a group of laborers picketing in an orderly manner;
4. Seeing a group of laborers milling about, jeering, and overturning a company truck.
For a person who has a weakly unfavorable attitude toward labor unions, perhaps only items ‘D’
would produce much of an attitudinal reaction. On the other hand, for a person who has an
intensely anti-union attitude, item B and even A would be capable of arousing the attitude. The
stronger one’s attitude, the greater the probability of arousal of the attitude. Or the wider the
range of stimulus situations which are capable of arousing it, for example, those who have strong
attitudes, either favorable or unfavorable, in regard to untouchability are likely to be aroused by a
wider range of situations than are those who have weak attitudes.

An aroused attitude consists of three categories of internal (implicit, covert) responses. These
consist of affective (emotional), reactions, cognition’s (thoughts, perceptual reactions,
judgements), and action tendencies.

The latter are actually motives for doing particular things.

Ex - suppose that we consider someone’s internal reactions to situations involving higher

education. He likes (affective reaction) the company of well-educated people, enjoys (affective
reaction) spending time in the university library, believes (cognition) that industrial society
depends upon what universities do, judges (cognition) that college professors are capable people,
and wants (action tendency) to contribute to a campaign to raise the university endowment. Thus
an aroused attitude can be regarded as having affective, cognitive, and action components.

To change this attitude, I suggest that we can use cognitive discordance theory in organization.
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas
simultaneously. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational
drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors, or by justifying or
rationalizing them. It is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social
psychology
According to above theories unions can change them believes by changing their attitudes toward
the management. Then the issues between management and unions will reduce.
C)When feels that they need to do something to change attitudes of their subordinates

Every organization there are number of employees with different personalities, attitudes and
behaviors. Therefore, management should be mindful about the changers of the employee’s
attitudes within the organization to provide efficient and effective outcome.

Ex- According to an IMD global study of 500 executives, managers believe that only one in
two attempts to change employee behavior is successful. 

Stereotyping

Strong performers Weak performers

More motivated, proactive, More defensive, parochial, critical of

Manager’s
innovative, big picture thinkers, innovation, prone to hoard
better leaders, positive, agile and information and disrespect authority,
perception
open-minded unlikely to go beyond the call of duty
Explains “what and why,” open to
Tells “how,” pushes own ideas,
Manager’s their ideas, act as sparring partners,
monitors actions and results, focuses
available, shares more, assigns more
on KPIs, less patient, more directive,
behavior challenging tasks, more personal
less delegation
interest, invests in them

Before changing the attitudes of subordinates’ management has to learn behaviors of subordinate

 The right context is one of the most important yet undervalued factors in sustaining
behavior change. Managers can bring out the best in people by paying more attention to
the recruitment process and making relationship a priority during onboarding.
 Be careful with labels, including inherited labels, as they can create a self-fulfilling
prophecy. Managers should solidify their own opinion about their direct reports and be
careful about intuitively deciding on high vs. low performers.
 Hold positive expectations about employee performance, since in most cases this helps
them deliver more.
 The MAPS model – motivation, abilities, psychological capital and social environment –
provides a systematic approach to changing employee behavior sustainably.
 Appealing to individual preferences for autonomy, mastery or connection can
increase intrinsic motivation, which is vital for sustaining behavior change.
 Managers can strengthen employees’ psychological capital – self-belief and grit – by
support and the type of work environment they create, which includes physical
environment, team dynamics and organizational culture.
 Tackle problems as they emerge, by asking not telling – “How do you think the
presentation went?”
 Ex – in ABC Company there is an employee call Sunil (marketing executive) and his
marketing group. Sunil is a 40 years old married person and he has 20 years’ experience
in apparel industry. When HR Manager check the performance appraisal of the Sunil and
his subordinates in the last year their target achievements are lower than other employees.
Thus the issue is backward attitude within last year performance. Therefore, Management
wants to find the reasons and change negative attitudes to the positive side.

Then management found the reason to this negative attitude.

The new technology and system base software that newly introduced to every
marketing executive.
Basically there are three components of attitudes
 Affective
 Behavioral
 Cognitive

we don't like to we wants to be old one is more

use new traditional and use efficient and easier
technology old one than new one

Attitude Behavioral Cognition

However, the process of changing attitude is not an easy thing. There are number of barriers
which overcome when we try to change somebody’s attitudes. There are two major categories of
barriers come in the way of changing attitudes.

1. Prior commitment – when people feel a commitment towards a particular course of action
that have already agreed it hard to change new way.
2. insufficient information – some people simply see any reason to change their attitudes
due to unavailability of adequate information.

Thus there are some possible ways to change above attitudes

 providing new information

management can provide new training program or supply guide lines to use new
software.
 Use of fear
  Resolving discrepancies

 Influence of friends and peers

 Co – opting

In organizational level there are some attitudes that we should focus on-

Attitude vs. Behavior

During the conversation with subordinates, you should be able to determine whether the
employee's general mindset can be perceived as a poor attitude. Some employees just aren't
happy with their jobs and even employees who are satisfied just have sour attitudes that reflect
their personalities. Tell the employee that you're concerned that he might be perceived as having
a poor attitude in the workplace and that you'd like to understand if it's simply a personality
trait or if there's something you can do to improve the way the employee feels about work.
Refrain from chastising the employee for what appears to be an attitude problem. Instead, give
concrete examples of the employee's behavior that lead you to believe the employee has a bad
attitude.

For example, that you notice the employee demonstrating during staff meetings that give the
impression that he's dissatisfied with new system and process of the organization. Focus on
objective observations of behavior instead of the highly subjective interpretations of a person's
attitude.

In clarifying your expectations for employee behavior, get buy-in from the employee about
appropriate workplace behavior. Since the purpose of meeting with the employee is to encourage
improvement, end the conversation with your willingness to help the employee improve her
behavior. Ask for the employee's help in identifying ways you can assist subordinates by giving

1.proper training and development about the new system

2.motivate them by reward system and minimize their monthly targets until they recover.

Encourage a two-way conversation in devising a plan to monitor and improve behavior and
schedule a follow-up meeting with the employee to discuss improvements and progress.
Reference

1.https://www.imd.org/research-knowledge/articles/how-can-you-motivate-employees-to-
change-their-behavior/
2.social psychology hand book (university of peradeniya)
3.https://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html