Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Topic 1:
Introduction to the Field of OB
Learning Objective
• Define organisational behaviour and
organisations, and discuss the importance of
this field of inquiry
• Compare and contrast the four current
perspectives of organisational effectiveness
• Debate the organisational opportunities and
challenges of globalisation, workforce diversity
and emerging employment relationships
• Discuss the anchors on which organisational
behaviour knowledge is based
Organisational Behaviour and
Organisations
What is Organizational
Behavior?
What is
Organization?
Organization’s
capacity to acquire,
share, use, and store
valuable knowledgec
Intellectual
Capital
Knowledge
Knowledge Knowledge
Knowledge Knowledge
Knowledge Knowledge
Knowledge
Acquisition
Acquisition Sharing
Sharing Use
Use Storage
Storage
•• Learning
Learning •• Communication
Communication •• Awareness
Awareness •• Human
Human memory
memory
•• Scanning
Scanning •• Training
Training •• Sensemaking
Sensemaking •• Documentation
Documentation
•• Grafting
Grafting •• Info
Info systems
systems •• Autonomy
Autonomy •• Practices/habits
Practices/habits
•• Experimenting
Experimenting •• Observation
Observation •• Empowerment
Empowerment •• Databases
Databases
Organisational Memory
• The storage and preservation of intellectual
capital
• Retain intellectual capital by:
Keeping knowledgeable
employees
Transferring knowledge
to others
Transferring human capital
to structural capital
• Successful companies also unlearn
3. HPWP Perspective
• Workplace practices that leverage the potential
of human capital
• Four HPWPs (likely others)
Employee involvement
Job autonomy
Employee competence (training, selection)
Reward performance and competencies
• Need to ‘bundle’ practices because they work
best together
4. Stakeholder Perspective
• Stakeholders: entities who affect or are affected
by the firm’s objectives and actions
• Personalises the open systems perspective
• Challenges with stakeholder perspective:
Stakeholders have conflicting interests
Firms have limited resources to satisfy all
stakeholder needs
Stakeholders: Values and Ethics
• Values and ethics prioritise stakeholder
interests
• Values
Relatively stable, evaluative beliefs, guide
preferences for outcomes or courses of action in
various situations
• Ethics
Moral principles and values, determine whether
actions are right or wrong and outcomes are
good or bad
Stakeholders and CSR
• Stakeholder perspective
includes corporate social
responsibility (CSR)
Benefit society and
environment beyond the
firm’s immediate
financial interests or
legal obligations
Organisation’s contract
with society
• Triple bottom line
Economy, society
environment
Contemporary Challenges for
Organization
• Globalization
• Workforce Diversity
• Employment Relationship
Globalisation
• Economic, social and cultural connectivity with
people in other parts of the world
• Improved communication and transportation systems
have increased globalisation
• Effects of globalisation on organisations
Cost efficiencies, innovation, knowledge
Increasing diversity
Increasing competitive pressures, intensification
Increasing Workforce Diversity
• Surface-level vs. deep-level diversity
• Implications
Better knowledge, decisions, representation,
financial returns
Manage challenges
of diversity (e.g.
teams, conflict)
Ethical imperative
of diversity
Emerging Employment
Relationships
• Work–life balance
Minimising conflict between work and non-work
demands
• Virtual work
Using information technology to perform one’s
job away from the traditional physical workplace
Teleworking: issues of social isolation, emphasis
on face time, employee self-leadership
Organisational Behaviour
Anchors
• Systematic research anchor
OB knowledge is built on systematic research
Evidence-based management: decisions and
actions based on research evidence rather than
fads, hype and untested assumptions
• Multidisciplinary anchor
Many OB concepts adopted from other
disciplines
OB develops its own theories, but scans other
fields
Organisational Behaviour
Anchors continued
• Contingency anchor
A particular action may have different
consequences in different situations
Need to diagnose the situation and select best
strategy under those conditions
• Multiple levels of analysis anchor
Individual, team, organisational level of analysis
OB topics usually relevant at all three levels of
analysis
Organizational Behavior
Topic 1:
Introduction to the Field of OB