Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior Securing Competitive Advantage Thomson South-Western Wagner & Hollenbeck 5e

Chapter One Organizational Behavior Thomson South-Western Wagner & Hollenbeck 5e

Chapter Overview • This chapter examines the following topics: • Defining Organizational Behavior • Micro Organizational Behavior • Meso Organizational Behavior • Macro Organizational Behavior • Contemporary Issues • Workforce Diversity • Team Productivity • Organizational Adaptability • International Growth and Development • Putting Organizational Behavior Knowledge to Work • Diagnosis • Solution • Action • Evaluation • Becoming an Active Problem Solver • Overview of the Text

Introduction • Throughout the world, workplace productivity has grown steadily for more than a decade, allowing standards of living to rise significantly without the threat of significant economic inflation • With recent technological advancements in such areas as information systems, manufacturing processes, inventory management, and service delivery, the current trend of increasing productivity ,may extend well into the future • Nonetheless, individual companies sometimes run into productivity problems

Ford Motor Company Example • This company currently faces problems as a result of: • Fierce competition in the automotive manufacturing industry • Aggressive discounting by domestic manufacturers • Attractive pricing by international competitors • CEO William Clay “Bill” Ford, Jr. faces the undaunting tasks of: • Cutting up to $4.5 billion in expenses • Updating aging product lines • Shoring up falling quality

Ford Motor Company ExampleWhat Would You Do If…… • …you were a manager in a company like Ford Motor Company? • How would you improve employee productivity in the face of unacceptably high production costs? • …initial assessments indicate that productivity lapses are due to poor employee motivation, what would you do to solve this problem?

The Ford Motor Company Case Indicates… • …the know-how needed to solve motivational productivity problems can be found in the field of organizational behavior • The management of people through the application of knowledge from the field of organizational behavior is a primary means through which competitive advantage can be created and sustained

Organizational behavior is a field of study that endeavors to understand, explain, predict, and change human behavior as it occurs in the organizational context There are three important considerations underlying this definition: Organizational behavior focuses on observable behaviors Organizational behavior involves the analysis of how people behave both as individuals and as members of groups and organizations Organizational behavior assesses the behavior of groups and organizations per se Defining Organizational Behavior

Defining Organizational Behavior • The field of organizational behavior traces its roots back to the late 1940s when researchers in psychology, sociology, political science, economics, and other social sciences joined together in an effort to develop a comprehensive body of organizational research • It is now divided into three distinct subfields

Micro Organizational Behavior • Micro organizational behavior is concerned mainly with the behaviors of individuals working alone • Three subfields of psychology were the principal contributors to the beginnings of micro organizational behavior: • Experimental psychology: provided theories of learning, motivation, perception, and stress • Clinical psychology: furnished models of personality and human development • Industrial psychology: offered theories of employee selection, workplace attitudes, and performance assessment

Meso Organizational Behavior • Meso organizational behavior is a middle ground, bridging the other two subfields of organizational behavior • It focuses primarily on understanding the behaviors of people working together in teams or groups • In addition to sharing the origins of the other two subfields, meso organizational behavior grew out of research in the fields of communication, social psychology, and interactionist sociology

Macro Organizational Behavior • Macro organizational behavior focuses on understanding the behaviors of entire organizations • The origins of macro organizational behavior can be traced to four disciplines: • Sociology: provided theories of structure, social status, and institutional relations • Political science: offered theories of power, conflict, bargaining, and control • Anthropology: contributed theories of symbolism, cultural influence, and comparative analysis • Economics: furnished theories of competition and efficiency

Contemporary Issues • The three subfields of organizational behavior offers valuable information, insight, and advice to managers facing the challenge of understanding and reacting to a broad range of contemporary management issues • Today’s managers find four of these issues especially important

Contemporary Issues: Workforce Diversity • Within the societal cultures of the United States and Canada, subcultural differences once ignored by many managers now command significant attention and sensitivity • Historically, the North American workforce has consisted primarily of white males; however today white males make up only about 15% of business new hires in the U.S., whereas women, African American, Hispanic, and Asian men account for increasingly large segments of the U.S. workforce • Knowledge about the workplace consequences of these differences, drawn from the subfield of micro organizational behavior, can provide managers with help in this regard

Contemporary Issues: Team Productivity • Management is becoming less of a process relying on top-down command and control • For various reasons organizations now use greater amounts of empowerment • Often empowerment is accomplished by grouping employees into teams, then giving those teams responsibility for self-management activities • Guidance from the meso organizational behavior precepts can help managers establish realistic expectations about the implementation difficulties and probable effects of team-based empowerment

Contemporary Issues: Organizational Adaptability • In today’s business world, emphasis is shifting from mass production of low-cost, interchangeable commodities to the production of high-quality goods and services, made individually or in small batches and geared to meet the specific demands of small groups of consumers • Companies are reacting by implementing programs that require new ways of dividing an organization’s work into jobs and coordinating the efforts of many employees • Implementations of this sort benefit from insights derived from macro organizational behavior

Contemporary Issues: International Growth and Development • Fewer firms today limit their operations to a single national or cultural region than was once the case • Multinationalism or even statelessness has become the norm • The resulting globalization is changing the way business is conducted and it promises to continue to do so at an increasing pace • All three subfields of organizational behavior have valuable advice to offer managers confronted with this challenge

Putting Organizational Behavior Knowledge to Work • Putting theoretical knowledge from the field of organizational behavior to practical use requires that managers develop skills in using such knowledge to identify and solve problems in an effective manner • The process of problem solving can be simplified and made more effective by breaking it into four stages

Problem solving begins with diagnosis, aprocedure in which managers gather information about a troublesome situation and try to summarize it in a problem statement Information gathering may require direct observation of events in and around an organization Summarizing information in a problem statement requires that managers use the mix of theories, experience, and intuition they have amassed to construct a statement of what is wrong Solution is the process of identifying ways to resolve the problem identified during the diagnosis phase Managers prescribing solutions must resist the urge to satisfice – choosing the first alternative that seems workable- and must instead push themselves to consider several potential solutions and choose the best available alternative Putting Organizational Behavior Knowledge to Work: Diagnosis and Solution

Action is setting a proposed solution into motion Mangers must first stipulate the specific activities they believe are needed to solve a particular problem, then oversee the implementation of these activities Sometimes it is possible to implement a step-by-step program that was developed earlier to solve a similar problem encountered previously or in another organization Problem solving concludes with evaluation, the process of determining whether actions taken to solve the problem had the intended effect Managers must identify in advance the indicators they will use to measure success and collect measures of these indicators as the action stage proceeds The evaluation process highlights any differences between the intended results of a particular solution and the actualresults Putting Organizational Behavior Knowledge to Work:Action and Evaluation

Becoming an Active Problem Solver • To sharpen your skills as a problem solver, study each theory presented in this book to develop a basic understanding of the variables and relationships it describes • You should practice following the theories applied during problem definition to their logical conclusions • You should also practice specifying the actions required to implement and assess your proposedsolution

Overview of the Text • This textbook focuses on providing conceptual frameworks that will prove helpful in the future as you solve problems and manage behaviors in organizations • What you learn now will serve later as a valuable source of competitive advantage for you and your firm

Organizational Behavior