Organizational Behaviour and

Management
Lecture 3: Organizational Behaviour and
Management

Dr Mohamed Khalefa

Lecturer at Cairo University

MSc University of Hull, UK
PhD University of Birmingham, UK
 What Are Organizations?

• Organizations are social inventions for accomplishing

common goals through group effort.
• Key characteristics of organizations:
1. Social inventions
2. Goal accomplishment
3. Group effort
 Social Inventions

• An essential characteristic of organizations is the

coordinated presence of people, not things.
• The field of organizational behaviour is about
understanding people and managing them to work
effectively.
 Goal Accomplishment

• All organizations have goals.

• Organizational survival and adaptation to change are important goals.
• The field of organizational behaviour is concerned with how
organizations can survive and adapt to change.
• Certain behaviours are necessary for survival and adaptation.
• Innovation and flexibility are especially important for organizations.
 Group Effort

• Organizations are based on group effort – the interaction

and coordination among people to accomplish goals.
• Much of the intellectual and physical work done in
organizations is performed by groups.
• The field of organizational behaviour is concerned with
how to get people to practise effective teamwork.
 What Is Organizational Behaviour?

• The attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups

in organizations.
• How organizations can be structured more effectively.
• How events in the external environment affect
organizations.
 What Is Human Resources Management?

• Programs, practices, and systems to acquire, develop,

motivate, and retain employees in organizations.
• Recruitment, selection, compensation, and training and
development are common human resources practices.
• Knowledge of organizational behaviour will help you
understand the use and effectiveness of human resource
practices.
 Why Study Organizational Behaviour?

• Organizational behaviour:
• Is Interesting. It is about people and human nature, and
explains the success and failure of organizations.
• Is Important. It has a profound impact on managers,
employees, and consumers.
• Makes a difference. It affects individuals’ attitudes and
behaviour as well as the competitiveness and effectiveness
of organizations.
Personality
 What Is Personality?

• The relatively stable set of psychological

characteristics that influences the way an individual
interacts with their environment and how they feel,
think, and behave.

• People have a variety of personality characteristics.

What Is Personality?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QvJ9zTUb65o
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
• In fact, after the
Second World War,
the use of personality
tests for the selection
of military personnel
became widespread.

• In the 1950s and

1960s it became
popular in business
organizations.
 Personality and Organizational Behaviour

• Personality has a long history in organizational behaviour.

• The role of personality in organizational behaviour has often been
debated in what is known as the “person-situation debate”

• This has led to three approaches:

• The dispositional approach
• The situational approach
• The interactionist approach
 1- The Dispositional Approach

•Focuses on individual dispositions and personality.

•Individuals possess stable traits or characteristics
that influence their attitudes and behaviours.

•Individuals are predisposed to behave in certain

ways.
 2- The Situational Approach

• Characteristics of the organizational setting such as

rewards
and punishment influence people’s feelings, attitudes and
behaviour.

• Many studies have shown that job satisfaction and other work-
related attitudes are largely determined by situational factors
such as the characteristics of work tasks.
 3- The Interactionist Approach

• Organizational behaviour (individuals’ attitudes and

behaviour) is a function of both dispositions and the
situation.
• To predict and understand organizational behaviour, we
need to know something about an individual’s
personality and the work setting.
• The interactionist approach is the most widely accepted
perspective within organizational behaviour.
 Funny personality test
(Which Minion Are You?)

•https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y92Pp7HabIs
The Five-Factor Model of Personality
O.C.E.A.N.
 Summary:
Five Factor Model of Personality: O.C.E.A.N.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCwHV9HCxH0

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.

Perceptions
 Different
Perceptions
 What Is Perception?

• The process of interpreting the messages of

our senses to provide order and meaning to
the environment.
• People base their actions on the interpretation
of reality that their perceptual system
provides, rather than on reality itself.
 Perception GAMES!
Brain Games- Perception of Shadows and Gray Box
Illusion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKfS37IvIYY

Sensation and Perception

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rWxZgdPK08g

7 Riddles That Will Test Your Brain Power

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpLLst4-3fw

What Do You See? | Brain Games

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSnI6QuaDDw
 Components of Perception

• Perception has three components:

1. A perceiver
2. A target that is being perceived
3. Some situational context in which the perception is occurring
• Each component influences the perceiver’s impression or
interpretation of the target.
Factors that Influence Perception
 Basic Biases in Person Perception

• The impressions we form of others are susceptible to

a number of perceptual biases:
1. Primacy and recency effects
2. Reliance on central traits
3. Implicit personality theories
4. Projection
5. Stereotyping
 1- Primacy and recency effects:
Primacy Effect

• The reliance on early cues or first impressions is known

as the primacy effect.
• Primacy can have a lasting impact.
• Primacy is a form of selectivity and its lasting effects
illustrate the operation of constancy.

Brain Games- Primacy Effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhCRzYBIzLA
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
 1-Primacy and recency effects
Recency Effect

• The tendency for a perceiver to rely on recent cues

or last impressions is known as the recency effect.
• Last impressions count most.

Game demonstrates the recency effect

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tqgt45hGkoA

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.

 2-Reliance on Central Traits

• People tend to organize their perceptions around

central traits.
• Central traits are personal characteristics of a target
person that are of particular interest to a perceiver.
• Central traits often have a very powerful influence on
our perceptions of others.

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.

 2- Reliance on Central Traits (continued)

• Physical appearance is a common central trait

in work settings.
• Conventionally attractive people fare better
than unattractive people in terms of a variety
of job-related outcomes (e.g., getting hired).

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.

 2- Reliance on Central Traits (continued)

• Physical height is an obvious aspect of physical appearance

that is related to job performance, promotions, and career
success.
• Individuals who are overweight tend to be evaluated
negatively on a number of workplace outcomes.

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.

 3- Implicit Personality Theories

• Personal theories that people have about which personality

characteristics go together.
• Perhaps you expect hardworking people to also be honest, or
people of average intelligence to be friendly.
• If such implicit theories are inaccurate, they provide a basis
for misunderstanding.

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.

 4- Projection

• The tendency for perceivers to attribute their own thoughts

and feelings to others.
• In some cases, projection is an efficient and sensible
perceptual strategy.
• Projection can lead to perceptual difficulties and can serve as a
form of perceptual defence.

Self-Perception Bias- Projection

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_cfUHpOcAtA
 5- Stereotyping

• The tendency to generalize about people in a social category

and ignore variations among them.
• Categories on which people might base a stereotype include
race, religion, age, gender, ethnic background, social class, and
occupation.

Social Psychology Videos: Stereotypes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YfIM6HTJas
Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
 5- Stereotyping (continued)

• There are three specific aspects to stereotyping:

• We distinguish some category of people.
• We assume that the individuals in this category have certain traits.
• We perceive that everyone in this category possesses these traits.
 5- Stereotyping (continued)

• People can evoke (recall) stereotypes with incredibly

little information.
• Stereotypes help us develop impressions of ambiguous
targets.
• Most stereotypes are inaccurate, especially when we use
them to develop perceptions of specific individuals.

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.

 Why Do Stereotypes Persist (continue firmly)?

• Several factors work to reinforce inaccurate stereotypes.

• Even incorrect stereotypes help us process information about
others quickly and efficiently.
• Inaccurate stereotypes are often reinforced by selective
perception.

Does Your Brain Force You To Stereotype?

Copyright © 2017 Pearson Canada Inc.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p75eE3N_dk
Organizational Change
 The Concept of Organizational Change

• Organizational change can have a profound impact on

organizational members and customers.
• The way that changes are implemented and managed is
crucial to both organizational members and customers.
• Why must organizations change?
 Why Organizations Must Change

• All organizations face two basic sources of pressure to change:

• External sources
• Internal sources
• Environmental changes must be matched by organizational
changes if the organization is to remain effective.
• Change can also be provoked by forces in the internal
environment of the organization.
 Why Organizations Must Change (continued)

• Change entails some investment of resources and almost

always requires some modification of routines and processes.
• The internal and external environments of various
organizations will be more or less dynamic.
• As a result, organizations will differ in the amount of change
they display.
 Why Organizations Must Change (continued)

• Organizations in a dynamic environment must generally

show more change to be effective than those operating in a
more stable environment.
• Change in and of itself is not a good thing, and organizations
can exhibit too much change as well as too little.
• Most CEOs see their organizations as being poor at
executing change.
 What Organizations Can Change

• What can organizations change?

• There are several specific domains in which modifications
can occur.
• The choice of what to change depends on well-informed
analysis of the internal and external forces signalling that
change is necessary.
What Organizations Can
Change (continued)

1. Goals and strategies

2. Technology
3. Job design
4. Structure
5. Processes
6. Culture
7. People
 Goals and Strategies

• Organizations frequently change their goals and the

strategies they use to reach these goals.
 Technology

• Technological changes can vary from minor to major.

 Job Design

• Companies can redesign individual groups of jobs to

offer more or less variety, autonomy, identity,
significance, and feedback.
 Structure

• Organizations can be modified from a functional to a

product structure or vice versa.
• Formalization and centralization can be changed as can
tallness, spans of control, and networking with other
firms.
 Processes

• The basic processes by which work is accomplished can

be changed.
 Culture
• One of the most
important and difficult
changes that an
organization can make
is to change its culture.
• Changing an
organization’s culture
is considered to be a
fundamental aspect of
organizational change.

4 Culture Types in Competing Values Framework

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik2dWi9Ny_I
 People

• The actual content of the membership can be changed

through a revised hiring process.
• The existing membership can be changed in terms of skills
and attitudes by various training and development
programs.
 What Organizations Can Change (continued)

• Two important points about the areas that

organizations can introduce change:
• A change in one area very often calls for changes in
other areas.
• A change in most areas will require people changes.
 What Organizations Can Change (continued)

• Any new skills required and favourable

attitudes should be fostered before other
changes are introduced.
 The Change Process

• Change involves a sequence of events or a

psychological process that occurs over time.
• Kurt Lewin suggested that this sequence or
process involves three basic stages:
• Unfreezing
• Changing
• Refreezing
 Unfreezing

• Unfreezing refers to the recognition that some current

state of affairs is unsatisfactory.
• Crises are especially likely to stimulate unfreezing.
• Unfreezing can also occur without crises.
• Employee attitude surveys, customer surveys, and
accounting data are often used to anticipate problems
and initiate change before crises are reached.
 Change

• Change refers to the implementation of a program or plan to

move the organization or its members to a more satisfactory
state.
• Change efforts can range from minor (e.g., skills training
program) to major (e.g., job enrichment).
• In order for change to occur, people must have the capability
and the opportunity and the motivation to change.
 Refreezing

• Refreezing is the condition that exists when newly

developed behaviours, attitudes, or structures become an
enduring part of the organization.
• The effectiveness of the change is examined and the
desirability of extending change further can be considered.
• Refreezing is a relative and temporary state of affairs.
Than you