Introduction to

Organisational Anos C
anosc@dut.ac.za
Behaviour 074 406 4807
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Learning outcomes

After studying this chapter, students should be able

to:
a) Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace
b) Describe the manager’s function, roles and skills
c) Define organisational behaviour (OB)
d) Show the value to OB of systematic study
e) Identify the major behavioural science disciplines that contribute to
OB
f) Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have in applying
OB concepts
g) Compare the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB model
h) Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB

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Key topics

1. Importance of interpersonal skills

2. Managers’ skills, roles and functions
3. Organisational behaviour as a field of study
4. Disciplines that contribute to the OB field
5. Challenges and opportunities for OB

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The importance of interpersonal

skills
Understanding human behavior plays an important role in managers’ effectiveness

Leadership and communication skills are a defining feature of successful managers

Developing managers’ interpersonal skills helps organisations attract and retain high-
performing employees

Social relationships among co-workers and supervisors have been found to be strongly
related to job satisfaction
Pleasant work environments have been found to lead to better performance and
productivity

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What managers do

Manager: Someone in an organisation who gets things done

through other people.

Organisation:
• A consciously coordinated social unit,
• composed of two or more people,
• that functions on a relatively continuous basis
• to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

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Management functions

• Planning
• Defining an organisation’s goals
• Establishing a strategy for achieving these goals
• Developing a set of plans to integrate and coordinate activities

• Organising
• Determining what tasks are to be done and who will do them
• Determining how tasks are grouped
• Determining who reports to whom and where decisions are to be made

• Leading
• Motivating employees
• Directing others
• Selecting most effective communication channels
• Resolving conflicts

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Management functions

• Controlling
• Monitor organisation’s performance
• Compare performance with previously set goals
• Correction of deviations between performance and goals if necessary

Recent research positioned coaching within the broader framework of general

organisational management practices and is therefore seen as a role function to
facilitate individual and organisational change.

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Management roles
Henry Mintzberg’s managerial roles:
• Interpersonal
• Informational
• Decisional

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Management roles

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Management skills

Skills or competencies managers need to achieve their goals:

• Technical skills
• Ability to apply specialised knowledge or expertise
• Can be learned through formal education, or on the job
• Human skills
• Ability to understand, motivate, support and communicate with other people,
individually and in groups
• Managing conflicts
• Conceptual skills
• Mental ability to analyse and diagnose complex situations
• Ability to integrate new ideas with existing processes
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Organisational behaviour

Organisational behaviour:
• A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals,
groups and structure;
• have on behaviour within organisations;
• for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an
organisation’s effectiveness.

• It is the study of what people do in an organisation and how their

behaviour affects the organisation’s performance.

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Organisational behaviour

• It is a systematic study (looking at relationships, attempting to attribute

causes and effects and basing conclusions on scientific evidence), which
allows one to make reasonably accurate predictions
• Systematic study is complemented by Evidence-based Management (EBM),
basing managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence
• Systematic study and EBM help to better inform a manager’s intuition and
experience

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Disciplines that contribute to the

OB field

Psychology: Study that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes

change, the behaviour of individuals.

Social psychology: A branch of psychology focusing on peoples’

influence on one another.

Sociology: The study of people in relation to their social

environment or culture.

Anthropology: The study of societies to learn about human

beings and their activities.

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Managing workforce diversity

Workforce diversity is the concept that organisations are

becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation and inclusion of other diverse groups.

• It is a global concern
• Most significant recent change in labour force is the increase of female
workers (41% of South African labour force)
• Women and other minorities still face many barriers to success in
business
• Presents great opportunities, but also challenging questions, for
managers and employees globally

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Improving ethical behaviour

Ethical dilemmas and ethical choices are situations in which

individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct.

• Good ethical behaviour has never been clearly defined; the line
between right and wrong has become increasingly blurred
• Unethical conduct is rife globally and locally
• Different cultures also have an effect on what is viewed as ethically
correct behaviour
• Managers and organisations are increasingly responding to the problem
of unethical behaviour through codes of conduct, seminars, workshops
and training programmes designed to improve ethical behaviours

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Chapter 1: What is organisational behaviour?
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Organisational Behaviour model

Inputs: Variables that

lead to processes.

Processes: Actions that

individuals, groups and
organisations engage in
as a result of inputs and
that lead to certain
outcomes.

Outcomes: Key factors

that are affected by
some other variables.

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Summary

• Managers must develop their interpersonal skills to be

effective in their jobs
• Organisational behaviour investigates the impact that
individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour
within an organisation. It applies this knowledge to
make organisations work more effectively
• OB focuses on how to improve desirable behaviours
(productivity, job satisfaction) while minimising
undesired behaviours (absenteeism, turnover)
• OB therefore has far-reaching implications for
managers
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Chapter 1: What is organisational behaviour?
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Implications for managers

• Systemic study improves predictions of human
behaviours over mere intuition, which may be
erroneous
• OB uses situational variables to explain cause-and-
effect relationships. A contingency framework is
necessary because people are different
• OB insights help managers improve their people
skills
• OB helps managers understand and appreciate
value of workforce diversity
• OB can improve quality and employee productivity
by showing managers how to empower staff, design
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 Thank you!!!

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