Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior

Toward Explaining and Predicting Behavior • Organizational Behavior (OB) Defined: • The study of the actions of people at work • The Focus of OB • Individual behaviors • Personality, perception, learning, and motivation • Group behaviors • Norms, roles, team-and conflict • The Goals of OB • To explain behavior • To predict behavior © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Behaviors of Interest to OB • Employee Productivity • The efficiency and effectiveness of employees • Absenteeism • The election by employees to attend work • Turnover • The exit of an employee from an organization • Organizational Citizenship • Employee behaviors that promote the welfare of the organization © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Understanding Employees • Attitudes • Valuative statements concerning objects, people, or events • Cognitive component • The beliefs, opinions, knowledge, and information held by a person • Affective component • The emotional, or feeling, segment of an attitude • Behavioral component • An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Job-Related Attitudes • Job Satisfaction • An employee’s general attitude toward his or her job. • Job Involvement • The degree to which an employee identifies with his or her job, actively participates in it, and considers his or her job performance important for self-worth. • Organizational Commitment • An employee’s orientation toward the organization in terms of his or her loyalty to, identification with, and involvement in the organization. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory • Cognitive Dissonance • Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes • Inconsistency is uncomfortable and individuals will seek a stable state with a minimum of dissonance. • Desire to reduce dissonance is determined by: • The importance of the elements creating the dissonance. • The degree of influence the individual believes he or she has over the elements. • The rewards that may be involved. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Fostering Positive Job Attitudes • Managers can reduce dissonance by: • Creating the perception that the source of the dissonance is externally imposed and uncontrollable. • Increasing employee rewards for engaging in the behaviors related to the dissonance. • Satisfied workers are not necessarily more productive workers. • Assisting employees in successful performance of their jobs will increase their desired outcomes and lead to increased job satisfaction—focusing on productivity as a means rather than an ends. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personality and Behavior • Personality • Is the combination of the psychological traits that characterize that person. • Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) • A method of identifying personality types uses four dimensions of personality to identify 16 different personality types. • Big Five Model • Five-factor model of personality that includes extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) • Extroversion versus Introversion (EI) • An individual’s orientation toward the inner world of ideas (I) or the external world of the environment (E). • Sensing versus Intuitive (SN) • An individual’s reliance on information gathered from the external world (S) or from the world of ideas (N). • Thinking versus Feeling (TF) • One’s preference for evaluating information in an analytical manner (T) or on the basis of values and beliefs (F). • Judging versus Perceiving (JP). • Reflects an attitude toward the external world that is either task completion oriented (J) or information seeking (P). © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

What Is Emotional Intelligence (EI)? • Emotional Intelligence (EI) • An assortment of noncognitive skills, capabilities, and competencies that influence a person’s ability to cope with environmental demands and pressures. • Dimensions of EI • Self-awareness own feelings • Self-management of own emotions • Self-motivation in face of setbacks • Empathy for others’ feelings • Social skills to handle others’ emotions © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personality Traits And Work-related Behaviors • Locus of Control • A personality attribute that measures the degree to which people believe that they are masters of their own fate. • Machiavellianism (“Mach”) • A measure of the degree to which people are pragmatic, maintain emotional distance, and believe that ends can justify means. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personality Traits And Work-related Behaviors (cont’d) • Self-Esteem (SE) • An individual’s degree of life dislike for him- or herself • Self-Monitoring • A measure of an individual’s ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors • Propensity for Risk Taking • The willingness to take chances—a preference to assume or avoid risk © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Key Points of Holland’s Model • There do appear to be intrinsic differences in personality among individuals. • There are different types of jobs. • People in job environments congruent with their personality types should be more satisfied and less likely to resign voluntarily than people in incongruent jobs. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personality Characteristics of Entrepreneurs • Proactive Personality • High level of motivation • Internal locus of control • Need for autonomy • Abundance of self-confidence • Self-esteem • High energy levels • Persistence • Moderate risk taker • Problem solver © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Perception • Perception • A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Personal Characteristics Attitudes Personality Motives Interests Past experiences Expectations TargetCharacteristics Relationship of a target to its background Closeness and/or similarity to other things The context in object is seen Other situational factors. Influences on Perception © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

How Do Managers Judge Employees? • Attribution Theory • A theory based on the premise that we judge people differently depending on the meaning we attribute to a given behavior. • Internally caused behavior is believed to be under the control of the individual. • Externally caused behavior results from outside causes; that is, the person is seen as having been forced into the behavior by the situation. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Interpreting Behavior • Distinctiveness • Whether an individual displays a behavior in many situations or whether it is particular to one situation. • Consensus • If the individual responds in the same way as everyone else faced with a similar situation responds. • Consistency • The individual engages in the same behaviors regularly and consistently over time. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Judgment Errors • Fundamental Attribution Error • The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others. • Self-Serving Bias • The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors while putting the blame for failures on external factors. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Learning • Learning Defined • Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience. • Operant Conditioning (B. F. Skinner) • Argues that voluntary, or learned, behavior is a function of its consequences. • Reinforcement increases the likelihood that behavior will be repeated; behavior that is not rewarded or is punished is less likely to be repeated. • Rewards are most effective if they immediately follow the desired response. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Learning (cont’d) • Social Learning Theory • The theory that people can learn through observation and direct experience; by modeling the behavior of others. • Modeling Processes • Attentional processes • Retention processes • Motor reproduction processes • Reinforcement processes © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Shaping Behavior • Shaping Behavior • Systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves an individual closer to a desired behavior • Ways To Shape Behavior: • Positive reinforcement • Negative reinforcement • Punishment • Extinction © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Foundations Of Group Behavior • What is a Group? • Two or more interacting and interdependent individuals who come together to achieve particular objectives • Basic Concepts of Group Behavior • Role • A set of expected behavior patterns attributed to someone in a given position in a social unit • Norms • Acceptable standards (e.g., effort and performance, dress, and loyalty) shared and enforced by the members of a group © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Foundations Of Group Behavior (cont’d) • Status • A prestige grading, position, or rank within a group • May be informally conferred by characteristics such as education, age, skill, or experience. • Anything can have status value if others in the group admire it. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Group Effects • Size • Size is a benefit or a hindrance depending on the criteria considered. • Social loafing: the tendency of individuals in a group to decrease their efforts when responsibility and individual achievement cannot be measured. • Group Cohesiveness • The degree to which members of a group are attracted to each other and share goals • Size, work environment, Length of time in existence, group-organization, and goal congruency affect group cohesiveness. © 2008 Prentice Hall, Inc. All rights reserved.

Foundations of Individual and Group Behavior