4. Figure 1.1 What is Organizational Behavior? Insert Figure 1.1 here
5. Figure 1.2 Levels of Analysis Group Level Individual Level Organizational Level
6. Figure 1.3 Components of Organizational Behavior Understanding organizational behavior requires studying Individuals in Organizations Group and Team Processes Organizational Processes
In an open system, an organization takes in resources from its external environment and converts or transforms them into goods and services that are sent back to that environment, where they are bought by customers. The activities of most organizations can be modeled using the open-systems view. Consider asking students to apply the open systems model to a company’s processes. The system is said to be open because the organization draws from and interacts with the external environment to secure resources, transform them, and then sell the products created to customers.
4 Figure 1.1 illustrates how organizational behavior concepts and theories allow people to correctly understand, describe, and analyze the characteristics of individuals, groups, work situations, and the organization itself.
Organizational behavior can be examined at 3 levels: organizational, group, and individual. OB is particularly important to managers.
Figure 1.3 illustrates how the text covers the three levels of organizational behavior. Part I includes chapters 2-9. Part 2 includes chapters 10-15. Part 3 includes chapters 16-18.
The first challenge is the changing social and cultural environment. Forces in the social and cultural environment are those that are due to changes in the way people live and work – changes in values, attitudes, and beliefs brought about by changes in a nation’s culture and the characteristics of its people. National culture is the set of values or beliefs that a society considers important and the norms of behavior that are approved or sanctioned in that society. Over time, national cultures change and this affects the values and beliefs of each nation’s members. Ethics scandals have hit many companies recently including Tyco, Adelphia, Enron, and Arthur Andersen. An organization’s ethics are the values, beliefs, and moral rules its managers and employees should use to analyze or interpret a situation and then decide what is the most appropriate way to behave. Ethical organizational behavior affects the well-being (happiness, health, and prosperity) of a nation, an organization, citizens, and employees. Metabolife International’s use of ephedra in its supplements is used as an example in the text. Ethics also define an organization’s social responsibility – its obligations toward people or groups outside the organization that are directly affected by its actions.
Figure 1.6 illustrates the characteristics used to define the bases of diversity.
Diversity is differences resulting from age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background, and capabilities/ disabilities. The increasing diversity of the work force presents three challenges for organizations and their managers: a fairness and justice challenge, a decision-making and performance challenge, and a flexibility challenge. A goal to increase diversity can strain an organization’s ability to satisfy the aspirations of at least part of its work force. Actively recruiting and promoting minorities can lead to difficult equity issues. How can organizations benefit from the attitudes and perspectives of people with diverse backgrounds? The third diversity challenge is to be sensitive to the needs of different kinds of employees and to try to develop flexible employment approaches that increase their well-being. Examples include new benefits packages customized to needs of different groups of employees (e.g., domestic partner benefits), flextime, job sharing, and mentoring.
Diversity is differences resulting from age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic background, and capabilities/ disabilities. The increasing diversity of the work force presents three challenges for organizations and their managers: a fairness and justice challenge, a decision-making and performance challenge, and a flexibility challenge. A goal to increase diversity can strain an organization’s ability to satisfy the aspirations of at least part of its work force. Actively recruiting and promoting minorities can lead to difficult equity issues. How can organizations benefit from the attitudes and perspectives of people with diverse backgrounds? The third diversity challenge is to be sensitive to the needs of different kinds of employees and to try to develop flexible employment approaches that increase their well-being. Examples include new benefits packages customized to needs of different groups of employees (e.g., domestic partner benefits), flextime, job sharing, and mentoring.
Information is a set of data, facts, numbers, and words that has been organized in such a way as to provide its users with knowledge. Knowledge is what a person perceives, recognizes, identifies, or discovers from analyzing data and information. IT consists of the many different kinds of computer and communications hardware and software and the skills designers, programmers, managers, and technicians bring to it. IT is used to acquire, define, input, arrange, organize, manipulate, store, and transmit facts, data, and information to create knowledge and promote organizational learning. Organizational learning occurs when members can manage information and knowledge to achieve a better fit between the organization and its environment. Intranets are networks of IT inside an organization that links its members. Creativity is the generation of novel and useful ideas. Innovation is an organization’s ability to make new or improved goods and services or improvements in the way they are produced.
Downsizing is the process by which organizations lay off managers and workers to reduce costs Empowerment is the process of giving employees throughout an organization the authority to make important decisions and be responsible for their outcomes. Self-managed team are work groups who have been empowered and given the responsibility for leading themselves and ensuring that they accomplish their goals. Contingent workers are people who are employed for temporary periods by an organization and who receive no benefits such as health insurance or pensions. Outsourcing is the process of employing people and groups outside the organization to perform specific jobs or types of work activities that used to be performed by the organization itself. This is accomplished sometimes by freelancers – independent individuals who contract with an organization to perform specific tasks.
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