CHAPTER 1: An Overview of Organizational Behavior

I. Organizational Behavior - is the study of human behavior in organizational settings, of the

interface between human behavior and the organization, and of the organization itself

a. How Organizational Behavior Impacts Personal Success

b. How Organizational Behavior Impacts Organizational Success

II. The Managerial Context of Organizational Behavior

a. Basic Management Functions and Organizational Behavior

i. Planning, the first managerial function, is the process of determining the

organization's desired future position and deciding how best to get there. 

ii.  organizing—the process of designing jobs, grouping jobs into

manageable units, and establishing patterns of authority among jobs and
groups of jobs.

iii. Leading, the third major managerial function, is the process of

motivating members of the organization to work together toward the
organization's goals. 

iv.  controlling, is the process of monitoring and correcting the actions of

the organization and its people to keep them headed toward their goals.

b. Critical Management Skills and Organizational Behavior

i. Technical skills are skills necessary to accomplish specific tasks within

the organization. 

ii.  interpersonal skills to communicate with, understand, and motivate

individuals and groups.

iii. Conceptual skills are the manager's ability to think in the abstract. 

iv.  Diagnostic skills allow managers to better understand cause-and-effect

relationships and to recognize the optimal solutions to problems.

c. Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management

i.  Human resource management (HRM) is the set of organizational

activities directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective
workforce. 

III. The Strategic Context of Organizational Behavior

a. competitive advantage, which exists any time an organization has an edge over
rivals in attracting customers and defending itself against competition.
 i. Innovation: developing new products, services, and markets and
improving current ones

ii. Distribution: dominating distribution channels to block competition

iii. Speed: excelling at getting your product or service to consumers quickly

iv. Convenience: being the easiest for customers to do business with

v. First to market: introducing products and services before competitors

vi. Cost: being the lowest-cost provider

vii. Service: providing the best customer support before, during, or after the
sale

viii. Quality: providing the highest-quality product or service

ix. Branding: developing the most positive image

b. Types of Business Strategy

i. Cost Leadership - Striving to be the lowest-cost producer for a

particular level of product quality

ii. Differentiation - Developing a product or service that has unique

characteristics valued by customers

iii. Specialization - Focusing on a narrow market segment or niche and

pursuing either a differentiation or cost leadership strategy within that
market segment

iv. Growth - Company expansion organically or through acquisitions

IV. History of Organizational Behavior

a. Scientific Management: Maximize productivity

b. Human Relations Movement: people improve some aspect of their behavior or
performance simply because they know they are being assessed

V. Contemporary Organizational Behavior

a. System - people improve some aspect of their behavior or performance simply

because they know they are being assessed
The Situational Perspective

b. Situational Perspective - Recognizes that most organizational situations and

outcomes are influenced by other variables

c. The Universal Model - Presumes a direct cause-and-effect linkage between

variables
d. Interactionalist Perspective - Focuses on how individuals and situations interact
continuously to determine individuals’ behavior
VI. Managing for Effectiveness

a. Individual behaviors:

i. Productivity: Narrow measure of efficiency: number of products or services

created per unit of input

ii. Performance: Broader concept made up of all work-related behaviors

iii. Commitment: The degree to which an employee considers herself a true

member of the organization, overlooks minor sources of dissatisfaction, and
intends to stay with the organization

iv. Organizational citizenship: The behavior of individuals that makes a

positive overall contribution to the organization
v. Dysfunctional behaviors: Behaviors that detract from, rather than contribute
to, organizational performance

vi. Strategic execution: The degree to which managers and their employees
understand and carry out the actions needed to achieve strategic goals

vii. theory is a collection of verbal and symbolic assertions

viii. hypothesis is a written prediction specifying expected relationships between

certain variables

ix. independent variable is the variable the researchers set

x. The dependent variable is the variable the researchers measure

xi. Correlation: Ranges between -1 and +1