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PEOPLE AND THEIR BEHAVIOR:Why to work in organizations?, The Goals of Organizational Behavior

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Human Resource Management (MGT501)
VU
Lesson 4
PEOPLE AND THEIR BEHAVIOR
After studying this chapter, students should be able to understand:
A. Concepts of people working together
B. Organizations and human behavior
LESSON OVERVIEW
As we discussed in the earlier lectures that human resource management is the management of human as
important resources of organization. Each human is different from one another. This difference is due to
the difference of behavior of each employee. In order to manage the humans well, managers need to know
the behavior of people in order to take the best out of them. Today we will be discussing some basic
concepts of the Organizational Behavior. We will have detail discussion on individual behaviors and the
factors influencing the individual behavior.
A. Concepts of people working together
Why to work in organizations?
People can be more productive when working in groups than when working alone. What Managers can do
and what Managers cannot do while managing people,
organizations and society is the myths of management.
People Working Together
Basic purpose of the working or existence of
organization is:
·  Link individuals into relationships
·  Allocate the tasks to fulfill the objective
·  Allocate authority to perform individual tasks
·  Coordinate the objectives and activities of separate
units
·  Facilitate the flow of work
Organizational Behavior
·  OB is concerned specifically with the actions of
people at work. Managers need to develop their interpersonal or people skills if they are going to be
effective in their jobs. Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that
individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within an organization, and then applies that
knowledge to make organizations work more effectively. Specifically, OB focuses on how to improve
productivity, reduce absenteeism and turnover, and increase employee citizenship and job satisfaction.
We all hold generalizations about the behavior of people. Some of our generalizations may provide
valid insights into human behavior, but many are erroneous. Organizational behavior uses systematic
study to improve predictions of behavior that would be made from intuition alone. Yet, because people
are different, we need to look at OB in a contingency framework, using situational variables to
moderate cause-effect relationships.
·  OB addresses some issues that are not obvious, such as informal elements. It offers both challenges and
opportunities for managers. It recognizes differences and helps managers to see the value of workforce
diversity and practices that may need to change when managing in different situation and countries. It
can help improve quality and employee productivity by showing managers how to empower their
people as well as how to design and implement change programs. It offers specific insights to improve
a manager's people skills. In times of rapid and ongoing change, faced by most managers today, OB can
help managers cope in a world of "temporariness" and learn ways to stimulate innovation. Finally, OB
can offer managers guidance in creating an ethically healthy work environment.
Focus of Organizational Behavior
OB looks at individual behavior, which includes personality, perception, learning, and motivation. It is also
concerned with group behaviors specifically in areas of norms roles, team building, conflicts and
negotiation.
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Human Resource Management (MGT501)
VU
The Goals of Organizational Behavior
1.
The emphasis will be on employee productivity, reduce absenteeism, and turnover.
2.
Organizational citizenship--a fourth type of behavior becoming important in determining employee
performance.
3.
Attitudes are evaluative statements--favorable or unfavorable--concerning objects, people, or events.
4.
An attitude is made-up of three components:
cognition, affect, and behavior.
Components of Attitudes
5.
The cognitive component consists of a
person's beliefs, opinions, knowledge, and
information held by a person.
6.
The affective component of an attitude is the
Cognitive -- thinking
emotional, or feeling, segment of an attitude.
7.
The behavioral component of an attitude
Affective -- feeling
refers to an intention to behave in a certain
Behavioral -- doing
way.
8.
The  three  most  important  job-related
attitudes are job satisfaction, job involvement,
and organizational commitment.
Contribution of OB to effectiveness of
Organization:
Wouldn't a Manager's job be easier if he or she could explain and predict behavior? This is the focus of
organizational behavior (OB), the study of the actions of people at work. The goal of OB is to explain and
predict behavior of employees at work.
Understand
OB focuses on both individual behavior and
organizational
group behavior. Managers must understand
events
behavior in both the formal and informal
components of an organization. Managers are
particularly concerned with three types of
Organizational
employee behaviors: productivity, absenteeism,
Behavior
and turnover. A fourth type of behavior,
Research
organizational citizenship, is emerging as a vital
concern.
Predict
Influence
organizational
organizational
Managers must also be attentive to employee
events
attitudes. Attitudes are value statements, either
events
favorable or unfavorable, concerning people,
events, or objects. Attitudes of special interest to managers pertain to those related to job satisfaction, job
involvement, and organizational commitment. Can you think of ways in which your personal attitudes
(values) have impact on your behavior at work?
Sometimes an individual experiences an inconsistency between two or more attitudes or between behavior
and attitudes. Are happy workers productive workers? The answer to this question is not as simple as it
might appear. Review the relationship between employee happiness and productivity and see what you
think. Many researchers now believe that managers should direct their attention primarily to what might
help employees become more productive.
Five specific personality traits have proven most powerful in explaining individual behavior in
organizations. These are locus of control, Machiavellians, self-esteem, self-monitoring, and risk propensity.
Review these traits so you can be prepared to predict practical work-related behaviors.
Sometimes different people will hear or witnesses the same situations yet interpret them differently. This
happens because of differences in perception. Perception is the process of organizing and interpreting
sensory impressions in order to give meaning to the environment. Managers need to recognize that
employees react to perceptions, not to reality (if there is such a thing as "reality"). Thus, managers must pay
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Human Resource Management (MGT501)
VU
close attention to how employees perceive both their jobs and management practices.
We constantly learn from our experiences. Sometimes we learn from rewards and punishments that are a
consequence of our behavior. We learn to behave in order to get something we want or to avoid something
we do not want. This is called operative conditioning. An extension of operant conditioning is social
learning theory. Social learning theory emphasizes that we can learn through observation as well as direct
experience. Managers can influence an employees learning through the rewards they allocate and the
examples they set. Does this advice seem equally applicable to parenting?
The behavior of individuals in groups is not the same as the sum total of all of the individuals' behavior.
Individuals often act differently in groups than when they are alone. This means that managers must also
understand the elements of group behavior. This chapter describes the basic concepts of group behavior.
It is clear that the ability to understand and predict employee behavior is a powerful tool for managers. To
illustrate, a movie director must often "get into the mindset" of characters in a script. Understanding a
character's perceptions and motivation can help the director guide actors toward an award-winning
performance. Managers, too, can serve as a guide and coach, helping employees meet organizational goals.
B. Organizations and human behavior
Variables Influencing the Individual Human Behaviors:
In simple word behavior is the function of Person and Environment in which he/she is working.
The following two factors mainly influence the individual behaviors...
1. The Persons
2. The Environment of the Organization
The Person
The PersonsNo single measure of individual
The Environment
· Skills & abilities
differences can provide a complete understanding of
· Personality
· Organization
an individual or predict all the behaviors of an
· Perceptions
· Work group
individual. It is therefore more useful to consider a
· Attitudes
· Job
variety of differences that explain aspects of
·Values
· Personal life
employee behavior. These can be
· Ethics
·  Skills & Abilities
·  Personality
Behavior
·  Perceptions
B = f(P,E)
·  Attitudes
·  Values
·  Ethics
Skills & Abilities:
Mental and physical capacities to perform various tasks. This comes from knowledge, learning, and
experiences.
Personality:
Research has shown five major dimensions to be
consistent components of personality. The Big Five
personality
dimensions
are
conscientiousness,
Personality
extroversion/introversion, and openness to experience,
Attitudes
Self-concept
emotional
stability,
and
agreeableness.
Emotions
Behavior
Internal
Conscientiousness - defined as being reliable and
Abilities
processes
dependable, being careful and organized, and being a
Values
person who plans - is the dimension most strongly
correlated to job performance.
Extroversion/introversion refers to the degree to which
a person is sociable, talkative, assertive, active, and
ambitious. Openness to experience is the degree to
which someone is imaginative, broad-minded, curious, and seeks new experiences. Emotional stability is the
degree to which someone is anxious, depressed, angry, and insecure. Agreeableness refers to the degree to
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Human Resource Management (MGT501)
VU
which a person is courteous, likable, good-natured, and flexible. Managers must remember that the
relevance of any personality dimension depends on the situation, the type of job, and the level at which a
person is working.
Four personality traits that have been consistently related to work-related behavior are locus of control,
Type-A behavior, self-monitoring, and Machiavellianism. Locus of control indicates an individual's sense of
control over his/her life, the environment, and external events. Those with an internal locus of control
believe that their actions affect what happens to them, while those with an external locus of control believe
that outside factors affect what happens to them. People who exhibit Type-A behavior try to do more in
less and less time in an apparently tireless pursuit of everything. Type-A people feel great time urgency, are
very competitive, try to do many things at once, and are hostile.
Self-monitoring, the fourth personality trait is the degree to which people are capable of reading and using
cues from the environment to determine their own behavior. Strong self-monitoring skills can help
managers and employees read environmental and individual cues quickly and accurately and adjust behavior
accordingly. People with elements of a Machiavellian personality put self-interest above the group's interests
and manipulate others for personal gain.
Perceptions:
We use the mental process of perception to pay attention selectively to some stimuli and cues in our
environment. There are two types of perception. Social perception process is the process of gathering,
selecting, and interpreting information about how we view themselves and others. In contrast, physical
perception focuses on gathering and interpreting information about physical objects rather than people.
Closure permits us to interpret a stimulus by filling in missing information based on our experiences and
assumption.
Attitudes:
Attitudes are comprised of feelings, beliefs, and behaviors. One important work-related attitude is job
satisfaction, the general attitude that people have toward their jobs. Main five factors contribute to job
satisfaction: pay; the job itself; promotion opportunities; the supervisor; and relations with co-workers. The
relationship between job satisfaction and work performance is complex and influenced by multiple
organizational and personal factors. Managers have more influence over job satisfaction than any other
individual difference discussed in this chapter.
Values:
Values are long-lasting beliefs about what is important, worthwhile, and desirable. A person's value system
is the way he/she organizes and prioritizes values. Terminal values are goals for behavior or for a certain
result that someone wants to achieve. Instrumental values are the means--the instruments--that people
believe they should use to attain their goals. Cultural values can affect personal valuesETHICS. A key
work-related value is the employee's ethics. Those who hold a relativist's view of ethics believe that what is
right or wrong depends on the situation or culture. Those with a Universalist's view believe that ethical
standards should be applied consistently in all situations and cultures. Value conflict occurs when there is
disagreement among values that an individual holds or between individual and organizational values. To
avoid value conflict, managers should work toward integrating and fitting the values of different employees
with the values of the organization.
The Environment Of Organization
· Work group
· Job
· Personal life
Inside the organization, the work group or the relationship between the group members can affect the
individual behavior. Organizational culture can also have impact on the individual behavior.
Cultural values indicate what a cultural group considers important, worthwhile, and desirable. People share
the values of their culture, which form the basis for individual value systems composed of terminal values
and instrumental values. A key work-related value is a person's ethics. Value systems affect ethical behavior
in organizations. Managers must be most concerned with interpersonal and person-organization value
conflicts. Interpersonal value conflicts occur when two or more people have opposing values, which can
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prevent co-workers from working together effectively. Person-organization value conflicts occur when
someone's values conflict with the organization's culture, causing frustration and possibly disrupting
personal performance.
The factors that influence job satisfaction are pay; the job itself; promotion opportunities; supervisors; and
co-workers. The link between job satisfaction and work performance is complex and influenced by multiple
organizational and personal factors. The link appears to be stronger for professionals than for employees at
higher organizational levels.
The Basic OB Model
The basic OB model suggests study of the organization at
following three levels:
1. Organization
2. Group
3. Individual
The purpose of understanding organizations from all three
levels (individual, group, and organization) is to develop a
well-rounded view that will prepare us for the challenges that managers face in today's business
environment. Focusing on the individual level allows us to understand individual differences, perception,
motivation, and learning. Focusing on the group level shows us how more than two people can work
together in groups or teams within an organization. Focusing on the organization level allows us to see the
effects of the organizational environment, technology, strategy, structure, and culture.
Key Terms
Organizational Behavior:
OB is concerned specifically with the actions of people at work
Cognitive component:
The cognitive component consists of a person's beliefs, opinions,
knowledge, and information held by a person.
Skills & Abilities:
Mental and physical capacities to perform various tasks. This comes from
knowledge, learning, and experiences.
Personality:
The unique combination of psychological traits that describes a person.
OR behaviors or trends that influence other people.
Perceptions:
Perception is the mental process to pay attention selectively to some
stimuli and cues in our environment.
Attitudes:
Attitudes are comprised of feelings, beliefs, and behaviors.
Values:
Basic convictions about what is right and wrong.
Ethics:
Rules and principles that define right and wrong conduct.
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Table of Contents:
  1. INTRODUCTION TO HRM:Growing Importance of HRM, Road Map of the Course
  2. ESSENTIALS OF MANAGEMENT:Concepts and Essential of Management, Manager’s Roles
  3. ORGANIZATION AND COMPONENTS OF ORGANIZATION:Open versus Closed Systems, The Hawthorne Studies
  4. PEOPLE AND THEIR BEHAVIOR:Why to work in organizations?, The Goals of Organizational Behavior
  5. INDIVIDUAL VS. GROUP BEHAVIOR:What Are Roles?, Problem solving Team
  6. PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT:Records and Administration, Competitive Advantage
  7. HRM IN A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT:Productivity, New Trends at Work Place
  8. How organization Cultivate a Diverse Workforce, STEPS TOWARD MANAGEMENT OF DIVERSITY
  9. FUNCTIONS AND ENVIRONMENT OF HRM:Compensation and Benefits, Safety And Health, Interrelationships of HRM Functions
  10. LINE AND STAFF ASPECTS OF HRM:Authority, Line versus Staff Authority, Staff Manager
  11. LEGAL CONTEXT OF HR DECISIONS:Doing the Right Thing, Affirmative Action, Unintended Consequences
  12. HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING (HRP):Benefits of HR Planning, Forecasting Human Resource Availability
  13. STRATEGIC PLANNING AND HRIS:HR’s Strategic Role, Human Resource Information System, Common HRIS Functions
  14. JOB ANALYSIS:Purposes of the job Analysis, Questions Job Analysis Should Answer
  15. JOB ANALYSIS:Methods of Collecting Job Analysis Information, Observation, Source of Data
  16. JOB ANALYSIS (CONTD.):SURPLUS OF EMPLOYEES FORECASTED, Diversity through Recruiting Efforts
  17. SOURCES OF RECRUITMENT:ALTERNATIVES TO RECRUITMENT, Quantity of the Applicants, Quality of the Applicants
  18. SELECTION:Initial Screening, Advantages of Successful Screening
  19. SELECTION TESTS:Characteristics of Properly Designed Selection Tests, Guidelines for Conducting an Interview
  20. SELECTION PROCESS… CONTD:Background Investigations, Physical Exam, Selecting Managers
  21. SOCIALIZATION:Compensation and Benefits, Team Membership, Stages in socialization Process, Training and Development Trends
  22. TRAINING AND DEVELOPMENT:Learning, Phases of Training, Why Transfer of Training Fails
  23. MAXIMIZING LEARNING:Following up on Training, Repetition, Feedback, Purposes of T & D
  24. CAREER MANAGEMENT:Individual career planning, Career Planning and Development Methods
  25. PERFORMANCE:Determinants of Job Performance, Why is performance measured?, Performance Management
  26. PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL:What to Evaluate, The Appraisal Interview, PROBLEMS IN PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL
  27. JOB EVALUATION AND PRICING:THE APPRAISAL PERIOD, Ranking method,
  28. COMPENSATION SYSTEM:Pay, Job Pricing, Compensation: An Overview, Compensation Surveys
  29. BENEFITS:Total Compensation, Discretionary Benefits (Voluntary), Workplace Flexibility
  30. ROLE OF MONEY IN PERFORMANCE OF EMPLOYEES:Types of Pay-for-Performance Plans, Empower Employees
  31. MOTIVATION:The Motivation Process, Motivational Theories, Challenges of motivating employees
  32. OCCUPATION, HEALTH & SAFETY:Physical Conditions, Accident Investigation, Smoking in The work place
  33. STRESS MANAGEMENT:Symptoms of Stress, Managing Stress,
  34. COMMUNICATION IN ORGANIZATION:Burnout, Social Support at Work & Home, Communication in organization, Meetings
  35. TRADE UNIONS:Collective Bargaining, The HRM Department in a Nonunion Setting, Phases of Labor Relations
  36. CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATION:Transitions in Conflict Thought, Individual Conflict Management Styles
  37. POWER AND POLITICS:Sources of Power, Advantages and Disadvantages of PowerPower and Politics in Context
  38. EMPLOYEE RIGHTS AND DISCIPLINE:Contractual Rights, Management Rights, Disciplining Employees,
  39. DISCIPLINE (CONT...):Factors to Consider when Disciplining, Disciplinary Guidelines, Employee Separations
  40. LEADERSHIP:The Leader’s Behavior, Situational Theories of Leadership, Becoming a Leader
  41. REVISION (LESSON 12-21):Plans, Job Specification, Human resource planning, Selection Process, Corporate Culture
  42. REVISION (LESSON 22-26):Training, Case Study Method, Training, Performance
  43. REVISION (LESSON 27-35):Classification Method, Compensation, Empowerment, Mediation
  44. INTERNATIONAL DIMENSIONS OF HRM:Global Corporation, Type of staff members, Approaches to Global Staffing
  45. CONCLUSION & REVIEW:Strategies for Gaining Competitive Advantage, High-performance Work System