1

Introduction to the Field of

Organizational Behavior
McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Google and OB

AP/Wide World Photos

Google has leveraged the power of organizational behavior

to attract talented employees who want to make a
difference in the Internet world.

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-2 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 What are Organizations?

AP/Wide World Photos

• Groups of people who work interdependently toward

some purpose
– Structured patterns of interaction
– Coordinated tasks
– Have common objectives (even if not fully agreed)

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-3 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Why Study Organizational Behavior

Understand
organizational
events

Why study
organizational
Influence behavior Predict
organizational organizational
events events

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-4 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trends: Globalization

• Economic, social, and cultural connectivity (and

interdependence) with people in other parts of
the world
• Effects of globalization on organizations:
– New organizational structures
– Different forms of communication
– More diverse workforce.
– More competition, mergers, work intensification and
demands for work flexibility

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-5 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trends: Changing Workforce

– Workforce has increasing

diversity along several
dimensions

– Primary categories
• gender, age, ethnicity,
etc.

– Secondary categories
• some control over (e.g.
education, marital
status)

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-6 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trends: Changing Workforce

• Current trends
– Increased racial and ethnic diversity
– More women in workforce
– Generational diversity
– New age cohorts (e.g. Gen-X, Gen-Y)

• Implications
– Leverage diversity advantage
– Adjust to the new workforce

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-7 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trends: Employment Relationships

• Work-life balance
– Number one indicator of career success
– Priority for many young people looking for new jobs

• Employability
– “New deal” employment relationship
– Continuously learn new skills

• Contingent work
– No explicit or implicit contract for long-term
employment, or minimum hours of work can vary in
a nonsystematic way

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-8 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trends: Virtual Work

Using information technology to perform one’s job

away from the traditional physical workplace.
– Telecommuting (telework)
• working from home, usually internet connection to office
– Virtual teams
• operate across space, time, and organizational
boundaries with members who communicate mainly
through electronic technologies

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-9 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Values-based Leadership in Dubai

The Department of Economic

Development (DED) in the Emirate
of Dubai recently devoted several
months to identifying the agency’s
core values: accountability,
teamwork, and continuous
Department of Economic Development, Government of Dubai improvement. DED also organized
a series of workshops (shown in
photo) to help employees recognize
values-consistent behaviors.

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-10 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trends: Values/Ethics Defined

Long-lasting beliefs about

what is important in a variety
of situations
– Define right versus wrong --guide
our decisions

Ethics
Department of Economic Development, Government of Dubai
– Study of moral principles or
values that determine whether
actions are right or wrong and
outcomes are good or bad

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-11 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Trends: Why Values are Important

1. Need to guide employee decisions

and actions
2. Globalization increases awareness
of different values
3. Increasing emphasis on applying
ethical values

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-12 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Corporate Social Responsibility

• Corporate Social Responsibility

– Organization's moral obligation toward its
stakeholders

• Stakeholders
– Shareholders, customers, suppliers, governments etc.

• Triple bottom line philosophy

– Economic, social & environmental

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-13 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Organizational Behavior Anchors

Multidisciplinary
Anchor

Systematic
Open Systems Organizational Research
Anchor Anchor
Behavior
Anchors
Multiple Levels
Contingency
of Analysis
Anchor
Anchor

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-14 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Organizational Behavior Anchors

• Multidisciplinary anchor
– Many OB concepts adopted from other disciplines
– OB develops its own models and theories, but also needs
to scan other fields for ideas

• Systematic research anchor

– OB researchers rely on scientific method
– OB also adopting grounded theory and similar qualitative
approaches to knowledge

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-15 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Organizational Behavior Anchors (con’t)

• 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

– OB issues can be studied from individual, team, and/or
organizational level
– Topics usually relate to all three levels

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-16 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Open Systems Anchor

• Need to monitor and adapt to environment

• External environment -- natural and social
conditions outside the organization
• Receive inputs from environment; transform
them into outputs back to the environment
• Stakeholders – anyone with a vested interest in
the organization
• Organizations consist of interdependent parts
(subsystems) that need to coordinate

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-17 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Open Systems Anchor
Environment

Feedback Feedback

Feedback Feedback

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-18 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Knowledge Management Defined

Any structured activity that

improves an organization’s
capacity to acquire, share, and
use knowledge for its survival
and success

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-19 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Intellectual Capital

Knowledge that people possess

Human Capital and generate

Structural Knowledge captured in systems

Capital and structures

Relationship Value derived from satisfied

Capital customers, reliable suppliers, etc.

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-20 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Knowledge Management Processes

Knowledge Knowledge Knowledge

acquisition sharing use

• Hiring talent • Communication • Awareness

• Acquiring firms • Communities of • Freedom to
practice apply
• Individual
learning
• Experimentation

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-21 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Organizational 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

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-22 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 1

Introduction to the Field of

Organizational Behavior
McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 1

Chapter One
Extras
McGraw-Hill/Irwin © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.
 Job Security vs. Employability

Job Security Employability

• Lifetime job security • Limited job security

• Jobs are permanent • Jobs are temporary

• Company manages • Career self-

career management

• Low emphasis on skill • High emphasis on skill

development development

McShane/Von Glinow OB4e Slide 1-25 © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.