Commerce 1BA3

Organizational Behaviour
Week 1

Dr. Teal McAteer

Winter 2023

DegrooteSchool.ca 1
Agenda • Introduction
- About your instructor
• Review Course Outline
• TA & Professor Office Hours
• Course Delivery Format
• In-class Assignments (Team-based)
• Midterm & Final Exams
• Resume Writing
• Introduction to Organizational
Behaviour

2
Course Overview

Text: Format:
Organizational Behaviour: Understanding Weekly PowerPoint slides
and Managing Life at Work (11th Edition) 3x50-min classes (in person) per week
by Johns and Saks, 2020
Three In-class Assignments (Team based)
Mid-term and Final Exams

3
 In-class Assignments
(3x10%=30%)

Grading Midterm Exam – week 8 – 35%

Final Exam – 35% (not

cumulative)

4
 Course Overview (cont’d)

PowerPoint slides for each Review the assigned text Exams will be based on text,
weekly topic will be posted chapters in course outline PowerPoint slides; and anything
on Avenue to Learn (A2L) BEFORE each week’s classes discussed in class.
begin

5
Course Topics
• Intro to OB
• Personality, Values & Attitudes
• Perception
• Motivation Midterm Topics
• Communication
• Individual Decision Making
• Group Dynamics & Decision-Making

• Culture & Socialization

• Leadership
• Power, Politics & Ethics Final Exam Topics
• Conflict & Stress
• Environment, Strategy, Structure
• Organizational Change 6
OB Consulting Tools

Internal Consulting External Consulting

(eg. you are a manager in (eg. you are hired by an
an organization confronting organization to provide
any issues pertaining to any advice on any of the 1BA3
of the 1BA3 topics) topics)

7
OB Consulting Basics

What are “Organizations are social

inventions for accomplishing
organizations? common goals through group
effort” (Johns & Saks, 2020)

8
ORGANIZATION ORGANIZATION ORGANIZATION
1. Individuals in pursuit of goals 2. Interacting teams, groups and 3. Whole Organization
departments

9
 Introduction to OB

What do you know about Organizational Behaviour?

10
True or False?
1. A happy worker is a productive worker.

2. Decision makers tend to continue supporting a course of action even though information suggests that the decision is ineffective.

3. Organizations are more effective when they prevent conflict amongst employees.

4. It is better to negotiate alone than as a team.

5. Companies are most effective when they have a strong corporate culture.

6. Employees perform better when they don’t experience stress.

7. The best way to change an organization is to get employees to identify and focus on its current problems.

8. Female leaders involve employees in decisions to a greater extent than do male leaders.

9. Male business students today have mostly overcome the negative stereotypes of female managers that existed 20 years ago.

10. Top-level executives tend to exhibit Type-A behavior pattern (eg. hard-driving, impatient, competitive, short tempered, strong sense of
time urgency). 11
True or False?
11. Employees usually feel over-reward inequity when they are paid more than co-workers who perform the same work.

12. Nearly all workers prefer stimulating, challenging jobs.

13. Managers have a very accurate idea about how much their peers and supervisors are paid.

14. Workers have a very accurate idea about how often they are absent from work

15. Pay is the best way to motivate employees and improve job performance

16. People who graduate in the upper third of their university class tend to make more money during their careers than do average students.

17. People are definitely either introverted or extroverted.

18. Smokers take more sick days than do non-smokers.

19. If you have to reprimand someone for a misdeed, it is best to do so immediately after the misdeed occurs.

20. Highly cohesive groups are also highly productive.

12
 OB: The attitudes and behaviours of
individuals and groups in organizations

Attempt to understand, predict, explain

and manage how people behave at work
Introduction
to OB
Thermostat Analogy

Closely related topic -- Human Resource

Management

13
The Evolution of OB
Classical/Traditional Views
• Early 1900s
• High specialization of labour (each department tends to its own business, and decision
making is centralized)

Bureaucracy
• Early to Mid 1900s
• Max Weber
• Strict chain of command, detailed rules, high specialization, centralized power,
and selection and promotion based on technical competence

Scientific Management
• Also early 1900s
• Frederick Taylor
• Use of careful research to determine degree of specialization
14
The Evolution of OB (cont’d)
Human Relations Movement:

Hawthorne Studies – research conducted at the Hawthorne

plant of Western Electric in the 1920s that examined how
psychological and social processes affect productivity

Advocates management styles that are more participative and

oriented towards employee needs
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
McGregor’s Theory Y

15
The Evolution of OB (cont’d)
Human Resources Perspective:

“Beyond Human Relations”

Participative management
- Workplace democracy
- Fostering autonomy
- Employees contributing to productivity

16
The Evolution of OB (cont’d)
Where are we today???

The Contingency/Systems Approach:

No one best way to manage

Management style depends on the demands of the situation

17
 What do Managers do?
(Managerial Roles according to Mintzberg)
Informational Interpersonal Decisional
Roles Roles Roles
• Monitor • Figurehead • Entrepreneur

• Disturbance Handler
• Disseminator • Leader
• Resource Allocator
• Spokesperson • Liaison
• Negotiator

18
What do Managers do?
Managerial Activities according to Managerial Agendas according to
Luthans et al Kotter

Routine Communication Agenda Setting

Traditional Management Agenda Implementation

Networking Networking

Human Resources Management

19
Managerial Minds
(Simon & Isenberg)
Intuition

Situational sensing Rapid mental

processing/analysis

Synthesizing Analyses (Data Analytics)

20
Trends Managers are Facing Today
(Common Consulting Areas)
Diversity Management (local & global)

Employee Health & Well-Being (Workplace Spirituality; Positive Organizational

Behavior )

Talent Management & Employee Engagement

Focus on Corporate Social Responsibility

21
Then versus Now….
Job Security Employability

Lifetime Job Security Limited Job Security

Jobs are permanent Jobs are temporary

Company manages career Career self-management

Low emphasis on High emphasis on

Skill development Skill development
22