Semester II- BCourse: Organisational Behaviour

Instructor: Fezeena Khadir

Module IOrganizational basis for behaviour − contributing disciplines to the OB field − Why managers require a knowledge of OB − Need for a contingency approach to the study of OB − Emerging challenges and opportunities for OB − The organization as a system − System approach to organizational behaviour − Managerial functions − The organization and people

What Managers Do

What are Managerial Activities ?• Make decisions• Allocate resources• Direct activities of others to

attain goals

What are Managerial Activities ?• Make decisions• Allocate resources• Direct activities of others to

attain goals

Managers (or administrators)Individuals who achieve goals through other people.

Where Managers Work?Organization•A consciously coordinated social unit,

• composed of two or more people,

•that functions on a relatively continuous basis

•to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Management Functions

ManagementFunctions

ManagementFunctions

PlanningPlanning OrganizingOrganizing

LeadingLeadingControllingControlling

Management Functions (cont’d)PlanningA process that includes

•defining goals,

•establishing strategy, and

•developing plans to coordinate activities.

Management Functions (cont’d)Organizing•Determining what tasks are to be done,

• who is to do them,

•how the tasks are to be grouped,

•who reports to whom, and

•where decisions are to be made.

Management Functions (cont’d)LeadingA function that includes

•motivating employees,

•directing others,

•selecting the most effective communication channels, and

•resolving conflicts.

Management Functions (cont’d)Controlling•Monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and

•correcting any significant deviations

Management SkillsTechnical skillsThe ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.

Human skillsThe ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups.

Conceptual SkillsThe mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.

Organizational BehaviorOrganizational behavior (OB)A field of study that investigates

•the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on

• behavior within organizations,

• for the purpose of applying such knowledge

•toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.

Basic OB Model: Stage I

The Independent Variables

IndependentVariables

IndependentVariables

Individual-Level Variables

Individual-Level Variables

OrganizationSystem-Level

Variables

OrganizationSystem-Level

Variables

Group-LevelVariables

Group-LevelVariables

Independent variableThe presumed cause of some change in the dependent variable.

The Dependent Variables ProductivityA performance measure that includes effectiveness and efficiency.

EffectivenessAchievement of goals.

EfficiencyThe ratio of effective output to the input required to achieve it.

Absenteeism

The failure to report to work.

Turnover

The voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization.

Job satisfaction

A general attitude toward one’s job, the difference between the amount of reward workers receive and the amount they believe they should receive.

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)

Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, but that nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of the organization.

Basic OB Model, Stage II

Toward an OB Discipline

Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field1. PsychologyThe science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals.

Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d)

2. SociologyThe study of people in relation to their fellow human beings.

Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d)

3. Social PsychologyAn area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another.

Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d)

4. AnthropologyThe study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.

Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field (cont’d)

5. Political ScienceThe study of the behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment.

Why managers require a knowledge of OB?

• Organizations exist to achieve goals• Organizations include people who work towards

the common goals of the organization• Managers achieve goals through other people.• So in the highly competitive environment,

managers require people skills also – apart from the basic technical managerial skills – to manage, control and coordinate people

…contd…

…contd…

• For retaining high performing employees- depends on managers’ interpersonal skills

• To ensure satisfaction and commitment of employees• To understand the individual, the group and the structure

of the organization so that this knowledge can be applied for effective functioning

• To predict behaviour more accurately• To identify and resolve conflicts and problems within

individuals and groups in the organisation• For effective decision making

Need for a contingency approach to the study of OB

• The contingency approach refers to situational factors that are variables which moderate the relationship between the independent and dependent variables.

• Situational factors: variables that moderate the relationship between two or more other variables and improve the correlation.

• There are four key dependent variables (productivity, absenteeism, turnover, and job satisfaction)

• and a large number of independent variables (for example, motivation, leadership, work processes)

• Because of the large number of independent variables, the study of OB is complex and

• requires a systematic approach within organizations as we seek to predict the behavior of people at work.

• The appropriate managerial action or behavior in any given situation depends on the elements of the situation

• a universal rule cannot be applied in certain cases, – because no two individuals are the same and

different people posses different ideologies

Emerging Challenges and Opportunities for OB (1)

• Responding to Globalization– Increased foreign assignments– Working with people from different cultures– Overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low-cost

labor (eg: US outsourcing to India)• Managing Workforce Diversity– Embracing diversity– Changing workforce demographics– Women managers– Implications for managers

• Recognizing and responding to differences

Major Workforce Diversity Categories (2)

CasteCasteReligionReligion

NationalOrigin

NationalOrigin

AgeAge

Disability (PHP)Disability (PHP)

GenderGender

Challenges and Opportunities for OB (3)

• Improving Quality and Productivity– Quality management (QM)– Process reengineering

• Responding to the Labor Shortage– Changing work force demographics– Fewer skilled laborers– Early retirements and older workers

• Improving Customer Service– Increased expectation of service quality– Customer-responsive cultures

What Is Quality Management? (4)1. Intense focus on the customer.

2. Concern for continuous improvement.

3. Improvement in the quality of everything the organization does.

4. Accurate measurement.

5. Empowerment of employees.

Improving Quality and Productivity (5)

• Quality management (QM)– The constant attainment of customer satisfaction through

the continuous improvement of all organizational processes.– Requires employees to rethink what they do and become

more involved in workplace decisions.• Process reengineering

– Asks managers to reconsider how work would be done and their organization structured if they were starting over.

– Instead of making incremental changes in processes, reengineering involves evaluating every process in terms of its contribution.

Challenges and Opportunity for OB (6)

• Improving People Skills• Empowering People• Stimulating Innovation and Change• Working in Networked Organizations• Helping Employees Balance Work/Life

Conflicts• Improving Ethical Behavior

Organsiation as a system

• Helps managers to view organisations from a broader perspective

• Earlier, individual departments were considered self-sufficient• Now, managers are recognizing the various parts of the

organization, and their interrelations, e.g., the coordination of central offices with other departments, engineering with manufacturing, supervisors with workers etc.

• Managers now focus more attention on matters of ongoing organization and feedback.

• Managers now diagnose problems, not by examining what appear to be separate pieces of the organization, but by recognizing larger patterns of interactions

System approach to OB: Various inputs are transformed into outputs with important feedback from the environment

The systems approach (contd..)

• How organisations import resources from the external environment (money, materials, knowledge, innovation, machines)

• convert them into more useful goods and services (products, profit, satisfaction and improved quality of life)

• and export them to the markets

The organisation and people

End of module I

References:• Fred Luthans• Stephen P. Robbins• Ashwathappa