Lesson 1

Lesson Proper:

What Managers Do?

Let’s begin by briefly defining the terms manager and the place where managers work-the organization. Then let’s look at the manager’s job; specifically,
what do managers do?

Management Functions

In the early part of the twentieth century, a French industrialist

by the name of Henri Fayol. Wrote that all managers perform
five management functions: They plan, organize, command,
coordinate, and control. Today, we' have condensed those down
to four: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling.

Since organizations exist to achieve goals, someone has to

define those goals and the means by which they can be
achieved. Management is that someone. The planning function
encompasses defining an organization’s goals, establishing an
overall strategy for achieving those goals, and developing a
comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate
activities. Managers are also responsible for designing an
organization’s structure. We call this function organizing. It
includes the determination of what tasks are to be done. Who is
to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to
whom, and where decisions are to be made.

Every organization contains people, and it is management’s job

to direct and coordinate those people. This is the leading
function. When managers motivate employees, direct the
activities of others, select the most effective communication
channels, or resolve conflicts among members, they are
engaging in leading.

The final function managers perform is controlling. To ensure that

things are going as they should, management must monitor the
organization’s performance. Actual performance must be
compared with the previously set goals. it there are any
significant deviations, it’s management’s job to get the
organization back on track. This monitoring, comparing, and
potential correcting is what is meant by the controlling function.

So, using the functional approach, the answer to the question, What do managers do? is that they plan, organize, lead, and control.

Management Roles

In the late 1960s, a graduate student at MIT, Henry Mintzberg, undertook a careful study of five executives to determine what these managers did on their
jobs. On the basis of his observations of these managers, Mintzberg concluded that managers perform 10 different, highly interrelated roles, or 'sets of
behaviors attributable to their jobs.8 As shown in Exhibit 1-1, these 10 roles can be grouped as being primarily concerned with interpersonal
relationships, the transfer of information, and decision making.
Management Skill

Still another way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills or competencies they need to successfully achieve their goals. Robert Katz has
identified three essential management skills: technical, human, and conceptual.
Conceptual Skills Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. These tasks require conceptual skills. Decision
making, for instance, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives that can correct them, evaluate those alternatives, and select the best one.
Managers can be technically and interpersonally competent yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and interpret information.

Effective vs. Successful Managerial Activities

Fred Luthans and his associates looked at the issue of what managers do from a somewhat different perspective. They asked the question: Do
managers who move up most quickly in an organization do the same activities and with the same emphasis as managers who do the best job? You would
tend to think that the managers who were the most effective in their jobs would also be the ones who were promoted fastest. But that’s not what appears to
happen.

Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers. What they found was that these managers all engaged in four managerial activities:

1. Traditional management. Decision making, planning, and controlling

2. Communication. Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork
3. Human resource management. Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training’
4. Networking. Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders

The "average" manager in the study spent 32 percent of his or her time in traditional management activities, 29 percent communicating, 20 percent in human
resource management activities, and 19 percent networking. However, the amount of time and effort that different managers spent on those four activities
varied a great deal. Specifically, managers who were successful (defined in terms of the speed of promotion within their organization) had a very different
emphasis than managers who were effective (defined in terms of the quantity and quality of their performance and the satisfaction and commitment of
their employees). Among successful managers, networking made the largest relative contribution to success, and human resource management activities
made the least relative contribution. Among effective managers, communication made the largest relative contribution and networking the least.

There is increasing agreement as to the components or topics that constitute the subject area of OB. Although there is still considerable debate as to the
relative importance of each, there appears to be general agreement that QB includes the core t0pics of motivation, leader behavior and power,
interpersonal communication, group structure and processes, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, work design, and
work stress.

Like any other courses, let’s acquaint ourselves first with these important terms that you will be encountering throughout this module.

Definition of Terms:

Organization – a consciously coordinated social unit composed of two or more people that function on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common
goal or set of goals.

Behavior – the activities or processes that can be observed objectively such as the organized patterns of responses as a whole.

Organizational Behavior
- studies about the behavior of the individual, groups and structure.
- the study and application of knowledge about how people act and behave within the organization.
- concerned with describing, understanding, predicting, and controlling human behavior in an organization.
- a level of analysis helps managers to look at the behavior of an individual within the environment.

OB is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and how that behavior affects the performance of the organization.
OB is specifically concerned with employment-related situation.
- behavior as related to jobs, work, absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human performance and management.
 Examples of work-related behaviors:

1. Happy workers are productive workers.

2. All individuals are most productive when their boss is friendly, approachable and trusting.
3. Everyone wants a challenging job.
4. You have to scare people a little to get them to their job.
5. Everyone is motivated by money.
6. The best leaders are those that exhibit consistent behavior, regardless of the situation they face.

Goals of Organizational Behavior:

1. To describe, systematically how people behave under a variety of conditions – achieving this goal allows managers to communicate
about human behavior at work using a common language.

2. To understand, why people behave as they do – managers must be able to find reason behind the action of workers

3. To predict, future employee behavior – managers must have the capacity to predict which among employees are dedicated and productive
or which ones might be tardy so that they take preventive actions.

4. To control, at least partially, and develop some human activity at work – managers are held responsible for performance out comer – being
able to make an impact on employee behavior, skill development, team effort and productivity.

Remember It!

organizational excellence begins with the performance of people

it is what people do or do not do that ultimately determines what the organization can or cannot become.
it is our job as an I.E. to develop and promote behavioral patterns that are consistent with the achievement of goals

Key Forces Affecting Organizational Behavior (OB)

There are four (4) key forces affecting Organizational Behavior. These include the following:

1. PEOPLE (Individual, group or larger group) - make up the internal social system of the organization. They are the living, thinking, feeling
beings who work in the organization to achieve their objectives. Organizations exist to serve people, rather than the people exist to serve
organization. Their diversity presents challenges for management to resolve and managers need to be turned into these diverse patterns and
trends and be prepared to adapt to them.

Question: How do people affect OB?

Answer: diversity of workforce – which means people bringing a wide array of educational backgrounds, talents,
and perspective to their jobs.

2. STRUCTURE (Jobs, relationships) - define the formal relationships and use of people in organizations. Flat and tall structures, mergers,
acquisition, new ventures.
3.TECHNOLOGY (machinery; computer hardware and software)- provides the resources with which people work and affects the task that they
perform.
Examples: Increasing use of robots an automated control systems. Widespread of the information (interact). Technological
advancements place increased pressure on OB to maintain the delicate balance between technical and social systems.

4. ENVIRONMENT (government; competition; societal pressure) - a single organization does not exist Individual organization cannot escape being
influenced by both internal and external environmental forces.

Internal External

Competition Government

Investors Family

Labor union Other organization

Consumer
 Question: How does the environment affect OB?

Answer: The environment influences the attitudes of people, affects working condition and provides competitions for resources and power and so OB
is affected.

Basic Approaches of OB

1. Human Resource (supportive) Approach– Developmental, employee growth and development are supported. “Give a person a fish, and you feed
that person for a day. Teach a person to fish, and you feed that person for life”.

2. Contingency Approach - Different behaviors are supported by different environments for effectiveness. “no one best way”.

3. Results-Oriented Approach – OB program ate assessed in terms of their efficiency

TQM – attempts to improve the quality of a firm’s products through a variety of techniques and training.

It focuses on creating high customer satisfaction, building relationships, searching for continuous improvement training employees.

System Approach

All parts of an organization interact in a complex relationship.

Nature of People

Managers have to be effective in handling their people. They must be aware of the attitudes and behavior of their employees to be able to understand
how they act when performing their roles and jobs. The following are some of the nature of people managers have to be aware of.

1. Individual differences -Every person is different from the others. Science-each person is different from all others. Psycho-from the day of birth, each
person is unique. Means that management can motivate people but by treating them differently.

People come from different places, have their own family orientations, possess their own culture, belief, religion, ethnicity, educational
background and many more. The challenge for management is on how to handle different kinds of people within the organization. How do managers
treat each and every unique individual to bring out the best of him/her?

Law of Individual Differences - the belief that each person is different from all others.

2. Perception -Unique way in which a person sees, organizes and interprets things. It is the unique way in which person sees, organize, and
interpret things.
- having unique views in another way in which people insist on acting like human beings rather than rational machines. People tend to act on
the basis of their protection.

3. Selective Perception - people tend to pay attention to those features of their work environment which are consistent or which reinforce their own
expectations.

How people perceive things is different. Male and female employees have a different line of interests. Young and old employees have
different attitudes in the workplace. For example, men may seem to be more authoritative than women. The young employees especially the millennials
are fond to explore things, fond of trying new things. So, they are more likely to look for new work or new business, causing them to leave anytime from the
organization as compared to the old employees who are more of establishing their security in the work. How will managers address these issues?

4. Motivated
behavior -turn
on the power to
start and to keep
the organization
running
effectively.
People are
motivated not
by what they
ought to have but
what they want.
Motivation
turns on the power to
start and keep the
organization running effectively.
 Employees feel more comfortable in the workplace if they feel that they are given importance. Thus, involving them in any decision-making activities may
help them bring out what is expected of them in the workplace.

5. Desire for involvement - Can be achieved through employee empowerment. People tend to feel good about themselves. This is reflected in their
desire for self-efficacy.

Self Efficacy - that belief that one has the necessary capabilities to perform a task, role expectation, make meaningful contributions or meet a challenging
situation successfully.

This simply calls for good interpersonal relationships among the people within the organization. Managers must treat its employees as human beings and not
as machines.

6. Value of the person- respect, people deserve to be treated differently from other factors of production because they are of a higher order in the
universe. Employee wants to be valued for their skills and abilities and be provided with opportunities to develop themselves.

Nature of Organization

1. Social System - Organizations are social systems therefore activities therein are governed by social laws as well as psychological laws. All parts are
interdependent. Activities of organizations are governed by social laws. The behavior of people is influenced by their group as well as their
individual driver. All parts of the system are interdependent.
2. Mutual Interests - Organization needs people and people needs organization. Organizations need people, and people need organizations.
3. Treat Employees Ethically - It has to treat people in an ethical manner. Ethical treatment is necessary to attract and retain valuable employees.

Limitations of Organizational Behavior

1. Behavioral bias- overlooking the broader perspective. People who lack system understanding give them a narrow viewpoint of emphasizing the
satisfaction of employee experiences while overlooking the broader system of the organization in relation to all its publics.

Lack of consensus on:

Unit of analysis

Greatest need

Focus

OB Mod Program

1. Identifying Critical Behaviors

2. Developing Baseline Data

3. Identifying Behavioral Consequences

4. Developing and Implementing An Intervention Strategy

5. Evaluating Performance Improvement

 FOUNDATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR

Evidence indicates that employers hold mixed feelings. They see a number of positive qualities that older workers bring to their jobs:
specifically, experience, judgment, a strong work ethic, and commitment to quality. But older workers are also perceived as lacking flexibility and as
being resistant to new technology. And in a time when organizations strongly seek individuals who are adaptable and open to change, the negative
perceptions associated with age clearly hinder the initial hiring of older workers and increase the likelihood that they will be let go during downsizing.
Now let's take a look at the evidence. What effect does age actually have on turnover, absenteeism, productivity, and satisfaction?

The older you get, the less likely you are to quit your job. That conclusion is based on studies of the age-turnover relationship. Of course, it should
not be too surprising. As workers get older, they have fewer alternative job opportunities. In addition, older workers are less likely to resign than are
younger workers because their long tenure tends to provide them with higher wage rates, longer paid vacations, and more attractive pension benefits.

It’s tempting to assume that age is also inversely related to absenteeism. After all, if older workers are less likely to quit, won’t they also demonstrate
higher stability by coming to work more regularly? Not necessarily! Most studies do show an inverse relationship, but close examination finds that the
age- absence relationship is partially a function of whether the absence is avoidable or unavoidable. In general, older employees have lower rates of
avoidable absence than do younger employees. However, they have higher rates of unavoidable absence, probably due to the poorer health associated with
aging and the longer recovery period that older workers need when injured.

How does age affect productivity? There is a widespread belief that productivity declines with age. It is often assumed that an individual’s skills-particularly
speed, agility, strength, and coordination-decay over time and that prolonged job boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation all contribute to reduced
productivity. The evidence, however, contradicts that belief and those assumptions. For instance, during a three-year period, a large hardware chain staffed
one of its stores solely with employees over 50 and compared its results with those of five stores with younger employees. The store staffed by the over-
50 employees was significantly more productive (measured in terms of sales generated against labor costs) than two of the other stores and held its own
with the other three. Other reviews of the research find that age and job performance are unrelated. Moreover, this finding seems to be true for almost all
types of jobs, professional and nonprofessional. The natural conclusion is that the demands of most jobs, even those with heavy manual labor
requirements, are not extreme enough for any declines in physical skills due to age to have an impact on productivity; or, if there is some decay due to age,
it is offset by gains due to experience.

Our final concern is the relationship between age and job satisfaction. On this issue, the evidence is mixed. Most studies indicate a
positive association be’ tween age and satisfaction, at least up to age 60. Other studies, however, have found a U-shaped relationship.l0 Several
explanations could clear up these results, the most plausible being that these studies are intermixing professional and nonprofessional employees.
When the two types are separated, satisfaction tends to continually increase among professionals as they age, whereas it falls among nonprofessionals
during middle age and then rises again in the later years.
 Given the significant changes that have taken place in the last 25 years in terms of increasing female participation rates in the workforce
and rethinking what constitutes male and female roles, you should operate on the assumption that there is no significant difference in job
productivity between men and women. Similarly, there is no evidence indicating that an employee’s gender affects job satisfaction.

One issue that does seem to differ between genders, especially where the employee has preschool children, is preference for work schedules.
Working mothers are more likely to prefer part-time work, flexible work schedules, and telecommuting in order to accommodate their family
responsibilities.

But what about absence and turnover rates? Are women less stable employees than men? First, on the question of turnover, the evidence
is mixed. Some studies have found that women have higher turnover rates; others have found no difference. There doesn’t appear to be
enough information from which to draw meaningful conclusions. The research on absence, however, is a different story. The evidence consistently
indicates that women have higher rates of absenteeism than men do. The most logical explanation for this finding is that the research was
conducted in North America, and North American culture has historically placed home and family responsibilities on the woman. When a child is ill
or someone needs to stay home to wait for the plumber, it has been the woman who has traditionally taken time off from work. However, this
research is undoubtedly time- bound.16 The historical role of the woman in caring for children and as secondary breadwinner has definitely
changed in the last generation, and a large proportion of men nowadays are as interested in day care and the problems associated with child care in
general as are women.

3. MARITAL STATUS

There are not enough studies to draw any conclusions about the effect of marital status on productivity. But research consistently indicates that
married employees have fewer absences, undergo less turnover, and are more satisfied with their jobs than are their unmarried co-workers.

Marriage imposes increased responsibilities that may make a steady job more valuable and important. But the question of causation is not clear. It
may very well be that conscientious and satisfied employees are more likely to be married. Another offshoot of this issue is that research has not
pursued other statuses besides single or married. Does being divorced or widowed have an impact on an employee's performance and satisfaction?
What about couples who live together without being married? These are questions in need of investigation.

4. TENURE

The last biographical characteristic we’ll look at is tenure. With the exception of the issue of male-female differences, probably no issue is more
subject to misconceptions and speculations than the impact of seniority on job performance. Extensive reviews of the seniority-productivity
relationshiphave been conducted. If we define seniority as time on a particular job, we can say that the most recent evidence demonstrates a positive
relationship between seniority and job productivity. So tenure, expressed as work experience, appears to be a good predictor of employee productivity.

The research relating tenure to absence is quite straightforward. Studies consistently demonstrate seniority to be negatively related to absenteeism. In
fact, in terms of both frequency of absence and total days lost at work, tenure is the single most important explanatory variable.

ABILITY
Contrary to what we are taught in grade school, we aren’t all created equal. Most of us are to the left of the median on some normally
distributed ability curve. Regardless of how motivated you are, it is unlikely that you can act as well as Meryl Streep, run as fast as Michael Johnson,
write horror stories as well as Stephen King, or sing as well as Whitney Houston. Of course, just because we aren't all equal in abilities does not
imply that some individuals are inherently inferior to others. What we are acknowledging is that everyone has strengths and weaknesses in terms of
ability that make him or her relatively superior or inferior to others in performing certain tasks or activities. From management’s standpoint, the issue
is not whether people differ in terms of their abilities. They do! The issue is knowing how people differ in abilities and using that knowledge to
increase the likelihood that an employee will perform his or her job well.

What does ability mean? As we will use the term, ability refers to an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job. It is a
current assessment of what one can do. An individual’s overall abilities are essentially made up of two sets of factors: intellectual and physical abilities.

In1t.ellectual ability – requires doing mental activity.

Dimensions:

Number aptitude – ability to do speedy and accurate arithmetic.

Verbal comprehension - Ability to understand what is read or heard and the relationship of words to each other.

Perceptual speed - Ability to identify visual similarities and differences quickly and accurately.

Inductive reasoning - Ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem and then solve the problem.

Deductive reasoning - Ability to use logic and assess the implications of an argument.

Spatial visualization - Ability to imagine how an object would look if its position in space were changed.

Memory - Ability to retain and recall past experiences.

 2. Physical Ability - requires doing tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength and similar characteristics.

Nine Basic Physical Abilities

These physical abilities are necessary in the field of work that requires physical presence.

Flexibility Factors:

5. Extent flexibility – ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible.

6. Dynamic flexibility – ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements.

7. Body coordination – ability to coordinate the simultaneous actions of different parts of the body.

8. Balance – ability to maintain equilibrium despite forces pulling off balance.

9. Stamina – ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged effort over time.

Other factors:

LEARNING

All complex behavior is learned. If we want to explain and predict behavior, we need to understand how people learn. In this section, we define
learning, present three popular learning theories, and describe how managers can facilitate employee learning.

A Definition of Learning

What is learning? A psychologist’s definition is considerably broader than the layperson’s View that “it’s what we did when we went to school.” In
actuality, each of us is continuously going “to school.” Learning occurs all of the time. A generally accepted definition of learning is, therefore, any
relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience. Ironically, we can say that changes in behavior indicate that learning has
taken place and that learning is a change in behavior.

Theories of Learning
 SUMMARY AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS

This module looked at three individual variables-biographical characteristics ability, and learning. Let’s now try to summarize what we found and
consider their importance for the manager who is trying to understand organizational behavior.

Biographical Characteristics

Biographical characteristics are readily available to managers. For the most part, they include data that are contained in almost every employee’s person

Ability

Ability directly influences an employee's level of performance and satisfaction through the ability-job fit. Given management’ 5 desire to
get a compatible fit, what can be done?

First, an effective selection process will improve the lit. A job analysis will provide information about jobs currently being done and the abilities
that individuals need to perform the jobs adequately. Applicants can then be tested, interviewed, and evaluated on the degree to which they
possess the necessary abilities.

Second, promotion and transfer decisions affecting individuals already in the organization’s employ should reflect the abilities of candidates. As
with new employees, care should be taken to assess critical abilities that incumbents will need in the job and to match those requirements with the
organization’s human resources. Third, the fit can be improved by fine-tuning the job to better match an incumbent’s abilities. Often modifications can
be made in the job that while not having a significant impact on the job’s basic activities, better adapts it to the specific talents of a given employee.

Learning

Learning

Any observable change in behavior is prima facie evidence that learning has taken place. What we want to do, of course, is to ascertain if
learning concepts provide us with any insights that would allow us to explain and predict behavior.

Positive reinforcement is a powerful tool for modifying behavior. By identifying and rewarding performance-enhancing behaviors, management
increases the likelihood that they will be repeated.

Our knowledge about learning further suggests that reinforcement is a more effective tool than punishment. Although punishment eliminates
undesired behavior more quickly than negative reinforcement does, punished behavior tends to be only temporarily suppressed rather than
permanently changed. And punishment may produce unpleasant side effects such as lower morale and higher absenteeism or turnover. In addition,
the recipients of punishment tend to become resentful of the punisher. Managers, therefore, are advised to use reinforcement rather than punishment.

Finally, managers should expect that employees will look to them as models. Managers who are constantly late to work, or take two hours for
lunch, or help themselves to company office supplies for personal use should expect employees to read the message they are sending and model
their behavior accordingly.

Below are examples of Organizational behavior