TOPIC 1 What is OB.ppt

Editor's Notes

• #3: Welcome to this Organizational Behavior course that uses the 15th edition of the textbook, Organizational Behavior by Robbins and Judge. This is considered among the most widely used OB textbooks in the world. Robbins and Judge are recognized as definitive aggregators of OB concepts, applications and practices. The course and this book will provide you with a resource that will benefit you throughout your degree program and your professional life.
• #4: The first chapter entitled “What is Organizational behavior,” begins by defining eight learning objectives for the chapter. These lay a foundation understanding for the origins of OB and its applications in management and organizational existence. You should focus on this chapter to ground yourself effectively as a starting place for the more complex and significant concepts through the book. We will take each of these objectives and concentrate on its presentation to ensure your acquisition of base knowledge and competencies in OB.
• #5: Managers need a whole cadre of skills to create a productive workplace, including technical and quantitative skills. However, leadership and communication skills are critical to organizational success. When managers have solid interpersonal skills, there are positive work outcomes for the organization. These outcomes include lower turnover of strong employees, improved recruitment pools for filling employment positions, and a better bottom line.
• #6: A Manager is someone in the organization who gets things done through the efforts of other people. It is important to keep in mind that an organization is defined as a social entity comprised of two or more people and can be found at any level within the organization. Henri Fayol of France originally defined the functions of management that became the cornerstone for management study for almost 100 years. These functions are currently defined as planning, organizing, leading and controlling. When thinking about these functions one realization comes forward. They all involve the interpersonal skills of communication for their effective implementation. And. Henry Mintzberg, no you do not have to be named Henry to be a management theorist, looked at management differently when he defined the 10 roles of managers. Again, think on these roles and you will find that they again involve implementation through the interpersonal skills of communication.
• #7: In fact, if you look at the three categories of roles suggested by Mintzberg following his research, you’ll note the distribution of communication and interpersonal skills such as tact, diplomacy, and the like, focusing on both internal and external audiences in the role’s activities. For this reason, developing the interpersonal skills introduced in this course are essential to the professional development of young professionals. It is essential to managerial success.
• #8: A study published in the Harvard Business Review in 1960 and in continuing studies throughout the 1980s, three types of skills were attributed to managerial activity. These skills were found to be applied in different ratios depending on the managerial level in the organization. The underlying message here is that young professionals are hired for what they do and veteran professionals are hired for what they think. This is why we have the phenomenon of a CEO from one industry’s company being hired as the CEO of a company in a completely different industry.
• #9: Organizational behavior is a field of study that includes effects at all levels in the organization. An organization is comprised of sub-organizations and downward, depending on the size of the firm, to the individual level. When the concept and practices of OB are internalized and applied, they contribute to the manager’s accomplishing worthwhile outcomes for the benefit of the organization and those who work for it.
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• #13: Many people say that the ideas and concepts of OB are common sense. However, the systematic study of OB has come closer to finding ways to predict the behavior of individuals and groups with an understanding of the situation and composition of the people. Evidence-based management suggests that the scientific method of research can be applied to OB to find the effective relationships of predictable variables to find the probability or independent variables, the person and his or her behavior. Of course intuition is a decision-making and activity approach advocated by numerous managers and pundits. In reality, the contents of “intuition” are the results of experience and learning that are based-on facts and experiences. EBM and the systematic study of behavior enhance the understanding of these internal contributors to organization behavior.
• #14: During economic difficulties, the need for effective managers is heightened. Anyone can manage during good times; it is much tougher to manage through economic struggles. Often when there are economic pressures, managers are forced to make decisions based on resource constraints. These situations may include laying off employees, motivating employees when there are limited resources, and encouraging employees when they are stressed about their futures.
• #15: Organizations now exist in an environment with no national borders. As a result, the manager’s job has changed. They need to have a broader perspective when making decisions. As foreign assignments increase. you will need to be able to manage a workforce that is different than what you may be used to and may bring different needs, aspirations and attitudes to the workplace. You will also have individuals coming to work in your own country that come from different cultures and you will need to find ways to accommodate their needs and help them assimilate to your workplace culture.
• #16: As the borders are disappearing, we are seeing more and more heterogeneity in the workplace. Managers today need to embrace diversity and find ways to manage it effectively. The changing demographics have shifted management philosophy in a way that recognizes and utilizes differences to create productivity, profitability, and welcoming cultures.
• #17: Jobs world wide have begun to focus on service industries such as retail, banking, insurance, and communications. These jobs are different from manufacturing jobs in the basis for what makes them attractive to people to perform well. OB helps to identify the characteristics and situations that can be managed to make employees and managers more sensitive to customer satisfaction, the essential outcome to successful service delivery.
• #18: Organizations are comprised of people. Organizations cannot achieve desired outcomes without people. So skills to manage people successfully are essential to the effectiveness of anyone in a managerial or leadership role. OB provides the concepts and theories that help predict behavior to create a more effective organization, accomplishing desired goals.
• #19: Today’s volatile economy and business environments mean that organizations and the people that comprise them must adopt innovation and change to counter major disruptions, modifications, and changes in the operational environment. Employees or managers in the operational core are closes to the firm’s policy implementation, process operation and output characteristics. They are best suited to suggestion innovation and change to improve the organization, its people, processes and products to successfully meet the challenge of the operational environment.
• #20: The volatile operational environments lead to a sense of “temporariness” in today’s organization. Responding effectively and efficiently to these modifications means that managers and leaders of the organization must learn to cope with the uncertainty and ambiguity of temporariness. They must adopt and practice flexibility, spontaneity and unpredictability to meet environmental challenges. OB is key to the skills needed to reduce resistance to change and to create successful organizational cultures.
• #21: Networked organizations are proliferating. These are organizations that are spread over geographic, time, or other boundaries that are overcome by connecting the places, people, and processes by technology. Managing and leading people who never see each other but who must work together in successful teams is a challenge to adopt skills different from traditional applications in management and leadership.
• #22: Because of the expansion of networked business to global competition, time is no longer a definable boundary of organizational activity and personnel responsibility. Managers and leaders of organizations must shoulder the responsibility to help employees to balance work and life roles to ensure they remain effective and viable members of the team. Lacking such concern by leaders and managers can allow employees to believe they must work twenty-four hours a day to cover global time. This can lead to personnel burn-out, ineffectiveness, and dissatisfied employees.
• #23: Creating a positive work environment has been found to be a basis for employee satisfaction, increased productivity, and longevity of skilled personnel. Responsibility for positive work environments is not a part of traditional management practice but as the work environment has changed in terms of characteristics and behaviors of younger generations the focus on making work a good place to be is important to success.
• #24: Increased scrutiny by society and governmental entities has increased business concern with ethical behavior. Lapses in ethical behavior have resulted in everything ranging from public sanctions against businesses to legal penalties against a firm and its managers. Manager and leaders must focus on leading by example what constitutes appropriate ethical behavior by the organization and its people.