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What Is Organizational
Behavior?

Dr. Imran Hameed

Course Coordinator

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Learning Objectives
After studying this chapter you should be able to:
◦ Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace.
◦ Describe the manager’s functions, roles, and skills.
◦ Define organizational behavior (OB).
◦ Show the value of systematic study in OB.
◦ Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to
OB.
◦ Demonstrate why there are few absolutes in OB.
◦ Identify the challenges and opportunities managers have in applying
OB concepts.
◦ Compare the three levels of analysis in OB model.

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The Importance of Interpersonal Skills
Understanding OB helps determine manager effectiveness
◦ Till late 1980’s business schools curricula emphasized more on technical
skills
◦ Technical and quantitative skills are important
◦ But leadership and communication skills are CRITICAL

Organizational benefits of skilled managers

◦ Lower turnover of quality employees
◦ Higher quality applications for recruitment
◦ Better financial performance

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1- Management and OB
Defining terms Manager and Organization:
Managers get things done through other people.
Management Activities:
◦ Make decisions
◦ Allocate resources
◦ Direct activities of others to attain goals

They work in an organization

◦ 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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Continued…
• More than ever, a manager is someone placed into the position without
management training or informed experience.
• According to a large-scale survey, more than 58 percent of managers reported
they had not received any training and 25 percent admitted they were not
ready to lead others when they were given the role.
• Added to that challenge, the demands of the job have increased: the average
manager has seven direct reports (five was once the norm), and has less
management time to spend with them than before.
• Considering that a Gallup poll found organizations chose the wrong candidate
for management positions 82 percent of the time,
• more you can learn about people and how to manage them, the better
prepared you will be to be that right candidate. OB will help you get there.
Let’s start with identifying the manager’s primary activities.

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Google’s Project Oxygen
For the sixth year (2017), Google landed the top spot on Fortune’s list of the
country’s Best Companies to Work For.
Back in 2008, an internal team of researchers launched Project Oxygen – an
effort to determine what makes a manager great at Google.
From this research, they identified eight behaviors that were common among
their highest performing managers and incorporated them into their
manager development programs.
By publicizing and training managers on these eight behaviors, they saw an
improvement in management at Google and team outcomes like turnover,
satisfaction, and performance over time.

Two more behaviors were added later on in 2018.

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 The 10 Oxygen Behaviors of
Google's Best Managers
1) Is a good coach
2) Empowers team and does not micromanage
3) Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-
being
4) Is productive and results-oriented
5) Is a good communicator — listens and shares information
6) Supports career development and discusses performance
7) Has a clear vision/strategy for the team
8) Has key technical skills to help advise the team
9) Collaborates across Google
10) Is a strong decision maker

SOURCE: HTTPS://REWORK.WITHGOOGLE.COM/BLOG/THE-
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EVOLUTION-OF-PROJECT-OXYGEN/
Management Functions

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Management Functions: Plan

A process that includes defining

goals, establishing strategy, and
developing plans to coordinate
activities.
As managers advance, they do this
function more often.

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Management Functions:
Organize

Determining 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.

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Management Functions: Lead

A function that includes

motivating employees, directing
others, selecting the most
effective communication
channels, and resolving
conflicts.
It is about PEOPLE!

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Management Functions:
Control

Monitoring performance,
comparing actual performance
with previously set goals, and
correcting any deviation.

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Mintzberg’s Managerial
Roles
Mintzberg concluded that managers perform 10 different, highly
interrelated roles, or sets of behaviors, and serve a critical function in
organizations.

Separated into three groups:

◦ Interpersonal
◦ Informational
◦ Decisional

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Mintzberg’s Managerial
Roles: Interpersonal

Source: Adapted from The Nature of Managerial Work by H. Mintzberg. Copyright ©

1973 by H. Mintzberg. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education.

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Mintzberg’s Managerial
Roles: Informational

Source: Adapted from The Nature of Managerial Work by H. Mintzberg. Copyright ©

1973 by H. Mintzberg. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education.

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Mintzberg’s Managerial
Roles: Decisional

Source: Adapted from The Nature of Managerial Work by H. Mintzberg. Copyright ©

1973 by H. Mintzberg. Reprinted by permission of Pearson Education.

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 Katz’s Essential Management
Skills
Technical Skills
◦ The ability to apply specialized knowledge or
expertise

Human Skills
◦ The ability to work with, understand, and motivate
other people, both individually and in groups

Conceptual Skills
◦ The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex
situations

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Luthans’ Study of Managerial
Activities
Is there a difference in frequency of managerial activity between
effective and successful managers?

Four types of managerial activity:

◦ Traditional Management
◦ Decision-making, planning, and controlling.
◦ Communication
◦ Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork
◦ Human Resource Management
◦ Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing and training.
◦ Networking
◦ Socializing, politicking, and interacting with others.

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Successful vs. Effective
Allocation by Time

Managers who promoted faster (were successful) did different things than did effective
managers (those who did their jobs well)

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Continued…
This finding challenges the historical assumption that promotions
are based on performance.

It illustrates the importance of networking and political skills in getting

ahead in organizations.

Now that we’ve established what managers do, we need to study how
best to do these things.

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 Organizational Behavior

A field of study that investigates the impact

that individuals, groups, and structure have on
behavior within organizations, for the purpose
of applying such knowledge toward improving
an organization’s effectiveness.

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 Learning from the Best
Practices
Jason Jennings is one of the most successful and prolific
business authors in the world. He has delivered more than
1,200 motivating and inspirational keynote speeches and
seminars around the world and has authored several
bestselling books.
It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small – It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow 

Think BIG – Act Small,

Hit the Ground Running – A Manual for Leaders

The Reinventors – How Extraordinary Companies Pursue Radical Continuous

Change

The High Speed Company – Creating Urgency and Growth in a Nanosecond Culture

Video…

SOURCE: HTTP://FORTUNE.COM/BEST-COMPANIES/2019 1-23

2-Intuition and Systematic
Study
Whether you’ve explicitly thought about it before or not, you’ve been
“reading” people almost all your life by watching their actions and
interpreting what you see, or by trying to predict what people might do
under different conditions.
The casual approach to reading others can often lead to erroneous
predictions, but using a systematic approach can improve your accuracy.
Systematic approach here is the belief that behavior is not random.
We can identify fundamental consistencies underlying the behavior of all
individuals and modify them to reflect individual differences.
These fundamental consistencies are very important. Why?

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Complementing Intuition
with Systematic Study

The two are complementary means of predicting behavior.

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 An Outgrowth of Systematic
Study…
Evidence-Based Management (EBM)

Basing managerial decisions on the best available

scientific evidence

Must think like scientists:

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Managers Should Use All
Three Approaches
The trick is to know when to go with your gut.
– Jack Welch
Intuition is often based on inaccurate information
Faddism is prevalent in management
Systematic study can be time-consuming
Use evidence as much as possible to inform your intuition and experience.
That is the promise of OB.
We find a similar problem in chasing the business and popular media for
management wisdom. The business press tends to be dominated by fads.

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3-Contributing Disciplines
Many behavioral sciences
have contributed to the
development of
Organizational
Behavior

See E X H I B I T 1–3 for details

See E X H I B I T 1–3 for details

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Psychology
The science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the
behavior of humans and other animals.

Unit of Analysis:
◦ Individual

Contributions to OB:
◦ Learning, motivation, personality, emotions, perception
◦ Training, leadership effectiveness, job satisfaction
◦ Individual decision making, performance appraisal, attitude measurement
◦ Employee selection, work design, and work stress

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Social Psychology
An area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and
sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another.

Unit of Analysis:
◦ Group

Contributions to OB:
◦ Behavioral change
◦ Attitude change
◦ Communication
◦ Group processes
◦ Group decision making

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 Sociology
The study of people in relation to their fellow human
beings.
UNIT OF ANALYSIS:
-- Organizational System -- Group
Contributions to OB:
◦ Group dynamics ◦ Formal organization theory
◦ Work teams ◦ Organizational technology
◦ Communication ◦ Organizational change
◦ Power ◦ Organizational culture
◦ Conflict
◦ Intergroup behavior

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 Anthropology
The study of societies to learn about human beings and
their activities.
UNIT OF ANALYSIS:
-- Organizational System -- Group

Contributions to OB:
◦ Organizational culture ◦ Comparative values
◦ Organizational environment ◦ Comparative attitudes
◦ Cross-cultural analysis

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4-Few Absolutes in OB
Situational factors that make the main relationship
between two variables change—e.g., the relationship
may hold for one condition but not another.

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5- Challenges and
Opportunities for OB
Economic Pressures
Continuing Globalization
Managing Workforce Diversity
Improving Customer Service
Improving Quality and Productivity
Working in Networked Organizations
Improving People Skills
Social Media
Employees Wellbeing and Work-Life Balance
Creating a Positive Work Environment
Improving Ethical Behavior

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 Managing Workforce
Diversity
The people in organizations are becoming more heterogeneous
demographically
◦ Embracing diversity
◦ Changing demographics
◦ Changing management philosophy
◦ Recognizing and responding to differences

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 6-Developing an OB Model
A model is an abstraction of reality: a simplified representation of some
real-world phenomenon.
Our OB model has three levels of analysis
◦ Each level is constructed on the prior level

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 Types of Study Variables
INPUTS/INDEPENDENT (X)
◦ The presumed cause of the change in
the dependent variable (Y).
◦ This is the variable that OB researchers
manipulate to observe the changes in
Y.
OUTCOMES/DEPENDENT (Y)
◦ This is the response to X (the
independent variable).
◦ It is what the OB researchers want to
predict or explain.
◦ The interesting variable!
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Interesting OB Outcomes
Productivity
◦ Transforming inputs to outputs at lowest cost. Includes the concepts of
effectiveness (achievement of goals) and efficiency (meeting goals at a low
cost).

Absenteeism
◦ Failure to report to work – a huge cost to employers.

Turnover
◦ Voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization.

Deviant Workplace Behavior

◦ Voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and thereby
threatens the well-being of the organization and/or any of its members.

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 Interesting OB Outcomes
Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
◦ Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job
requirements, but that nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of the
organization.

Job Satisfaction
◦ A general attitude (not a behavior) toward one’s job; a positive feeling of one's
job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.

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The Inputs
The input (X) can be at any of these three levels in this model:
Individual
◦ Biographical characteristics, personality and emotions, values and attitudes,
ability, perception, motivation, individual learning and individual decision
making.

Group
◦ Communication, group decision making, leadership and trust, group
structure, conflict, power and politics, and work teams.

Organization System
◦ Organizational culture, human resource policies and practices, and
organizational structure and design.

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OB Model

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