Organizational Behaviour

Introduction

What are organizations?

• Social inventions for accomplishing goals through group effort.– Social inventions: There is a fundamental

requirement the presence of people. People interacting.

– Goals accomplishment: Organizations exist to achieve goals. One overriding goal is survival.

– Group effort: Individuals in organizations are coordinated to achieve goals efficiently, the result is a group effort.

What is Organizational Behaviour?

• A general term referring to the attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups in organizations.

• The field of organizational behaviour involves the systematic study of these attitudes and behaviours.– Goals:

• Prediction• Explanation• Managing

Organizational behaviour - common sense?

1. Workers who are more satisfied with their jobs tend to be much more productive than those who are less satisfied.

2. Effective organizational leaders tend to possess identical personality traits.

3. Workers prefer stimulating, challenging jobs.

4. Managers have a very accurate idea about how much their peers and superiors are paid.

Curious contradictions in common sense:

• Look before you leap BUT He who hesitates is lost.

• Better safe than sorry BUT Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

• Two heads are better than one BUT If you want something done right, do it yourself.

Our knowledge or lack of knowledge is created by:

• Direct experience and overgeneralization

• Indirect experience (e.g. popular press) and fads

• Values

The historic progression of organizational behaviour theory -

from yesterday to today

• Classical view – Scientific Management – Bureaucracy

• Human relations movement – Hawthorne studies

The historic progression of organizational behaviour theory - from yesterday to today (cont.)

• The contingency approach (contemporary)– No simple principle can be applied to all

situations– There is no one best way, but one way is

not as equally effective as another. The best way depends on the situation.

Working with the concept of contingency:

• Consider how closely managers should supervise the work of their subordinates.

– Get together with the people to your right and left to form a group of 3. Come up with some factors upon which the closeness of supervision might be contingent. E.g. what factors will determine how closely a supervisor will monitor the work of an employee (5 minutes)