Ethical Dilima | Course Paper

Chapter 1: What Is Organizational Behaviour?

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Organizational Behaviour Concepts, Controversies, Applications, Eighth

Canadian Edition, 8E Nancy Langton, Stephen P. Robbins, Timothy A.

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CHAPTER OUTLINE

The Importance of Interpersonal Skills

Defining Organizational Behaviour

What Do We Mean by Organization?

OB Is for Everyone

Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study

Big Data

Disciplines That Contribute to the OB Field

The Building Blocks of OB

The Rigour of OB

OB Has Few Absolutes

OB Takes a Contingency Approach

Challenges and Opportunities in the Canadian Workplace

Economic Pressures

Continuing Globalization

Understanding Workforce Diversity

Customer Service

People Skills

Networked Organizations

Social Media

Enhancing Employee Well-Being at Work

Creating a Positive Work Environment

Ethical Behaviour

Coming Attractions: Developing an OB Model

An Overview

Chapter 1: What Is Organizational Behaviour?

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Inputs

Processes

Outcomes

Summary

OB at Work

LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Demonstrate the importance of interpersonal skills in the workplace.

2. Define organizational behavior (OB).

3. Show the value to OB of systematic study.

4. Identify the major behavioral science disciplines that contribute to OB.

5. Demonstrate why few absolutes apply to OB.

6. Identify managers’ challenges and opportunities in applying OB concepts.

7. Compare the three levels of analysis in this text’s OB model.

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS

This chapter demonstrates the practical value of OB concepts, defines the field, and identifies

current topics in OB. The chapter begins by citing evidence that the workplace of the twenty-first

centuries requires individuals who will take on more responsibility and who also want more out

of their jobs. The chapter also presents evidence showing that managing well makes a difference.

The authors discuss how the systematic study of OB uses scientific evidence to attribute causes

and effects. OB studies individuals, groups, and structure to understand human behaviour and its

link to organizational effectiveness. The chapter takes a detailed look at the current challenges in

the Canadian workplace. The chapter concludes with a general model that defines the field of

OB.

STUDY QUESTIONS

It is impossible to cover all the material contained in the chapter during one or two lectures. To

deal with this problem, I present my students with a list of study questions to indicate what

material they will be responsible for on exams. I tell them that they will be responsible for these,

even if the material is not covered in class. I have found that this reduces anxiety overall, and I

find it helps to make students aware that not everything in a chapter is required material. I realize

instructors vary in their approach, so this is simply my approach.

My study questions for this chapter are:

• What is OB?

• How does OB make sense of behaviour?

• What is empowerment?

Chapter 1: What Is Organizational Behaviour?

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• What does it mean to say that OB takes a contingency approach?

• What are the challenges for OB in the 21st century?

• Skills for the New Workplace

• What is the “Competing Values Framework”?

What kinds of skills does the Competing Values Framework suggest are useful for

individuals to have?

• How do these skills link up with the activities and needs of today’s organizations?

SUGGESTED TEACHING PLAN

I spend two days covering this material.

On the opening day of class, I mainly take the students through the syllabus, outlining topics,

expectations and test (and other important) dates. I introduce them to the basics of OB. I then ask

the students to form groups of about 6. These small groups are instructed to develop interview

questions that they will then pose to me. After giving the students 15 minutes to develop their

questions, the interviews begin. Each group asks one question, and when all of the groups have

asked one question, round two begins. Students are told that they may ask any and all questions

about anything, and I will try to answer. We continue the rounds until the questions run out. The

students ask a mixture of course-related and “personal” questions, though they have always been

respectful. I like the exercise because it signals openness at the very start of the term. I remind

them the next day that no one fainted when they asked questions, so they should continue to

participate in class.

On the second day of class, I continue with the introduction to OB material, emphasizing the

Competing Values Framework, which is covered in From Concepts to Skills at the end of the

chapter. Half of my class time would be devoted to doing the Experiential Exercise to help

students understand the Competing Values Framework. I do this to highlight the importance of

acquiring interpersonal skills in order to be a successful employee. Our course has a defined

interpersonal skills component to it, thus the emphasis at the beginning of the course for why

these skills are important.

Be sure to check the Supplemental Material section for additional material that can be used in

class or assigned as homework.

SAMPLE LECTURE OUTLINE

The Importance of Interpersonal Skills

In today’s increasingly competitive and demanding workplace, individuals need to have good

people skills.

Managers may get by on their technical skills for a while, but leadership and communication

Chapter 1: What Is Organizational Behaviour?

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skills affect career success.

Teaching Tip: This is a good place to turn to the Experiential Exercise: Developing Interpersonal

Skills. Students could be assigned homework reading of pp. 32-34.

Chapter 1: What Is Organizational Behaviour?

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Defining Organizational Behaviour

Organizational behaviour is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups,

and structure have on behaviour within organizations; its purpose is to apply such knowledge

toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.

OB is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and how that behaviour

affects the performance of the organization.

OB includes the topics of motivation, leadership, power, interpersonal communication, group

structure and processes, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes,

conflict, work design, and work stress.

Teaching Tip: Spend some time with the students trying to explain to them why studying this

material is really important to them. I do this by reminding them they will be working in groups

during the term, and that they will learn a variety of concepts that will help them deal with group

issues. I also remind them that almost everything they do—school, church, work, volunteer

activities—gives them opportunities to see OB in action.

What Do We Mean by Organization?

A consciously coordinated social unit composed of a group of people, which functions on a

relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Manufacturing and service firms are organizations, and so are schools, hospitals, churches,

military units, retail stores, police departments, volunteer organizations, start-ups, and local, state

and federal government agencies.

Organizations can be located in the public sector or the private sector, they can be unionized or

not, they can be publicly traded or they can be privately held.

If organizations are publicly traded, senior managers typically are responsible to a board of

directors, which may or may not take an active role in the how the firm is run.

If the firm is privately held, it may be run by the owners or the managers report to the owners.

Firms can also operate in the for-profit or the non-profit sector.

All of these facts, taken as a whole, should suggest that when one thinks of an organization, the

likelihood that it is a “typical” organization is small.

Teaching Tip: The main point you want to make here is that when students think of

organizations, they’re often thinking of large organizations. But, the material applies to

organizations of any size, and most people work in small organizations.

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OB Is for Everyone

As employees are asked to move beyond their traditional function of providing labour and play a

more proactive role in achieving organizational success, the roles of managers and employees are

becoming blurred in many organizations.

Managers are increasingly asking employees to share in their decision-making processes rather

than simply follow orders. Therefore, organizational behaviour is not just for employees or

managers.

OB applies equally well to all situations in which you interact with others: on the basketball

court, at the grocery store, in school, or in church.

Teaching Tip: OB emphasizes in all kinds of ways that it is not just for managers, but for

everyone. I take this approach because I once asked my second year OB students, on the first day

of class, how many wanted to be managers “when they grew up.” Few raised their hands. All of

a sudden I realized that the reason their eyes glazed over every time I explained something as

“when you’re a manager you’re going to want to…” was that they never pictured themselves as

managers. Instead, I frame the material in terms of things like: when you’re working with team

members, or while working at your job, these are things that are helpful because they will make

you a more skilled and informed group member or employee.

Complementing Intuition with Systematic Study

Each of us is a student of behavior. The systematic approach used in this book will uncover

important facts and relationships and will provide a base from which more accurate predictions

of behavior can be made.

Behavior, generally, is predictable if we know how the person perceived the situation and what is

important to him or her.

Evidence-Based Management (EBM) Complements systematic study. And argues for managers

to make decisions on evidence.

Systematic study and EBM add to intuition, or those “gut feelings” about “why I do what I do”

and “what makes others tick.”

If we make all decisions with intuition or gut instinct, we’re likely working with incomplete

information.

Big Data and the use of big data for managerial practices is a relatively new area, but one that

holds convincing promise.

The reasons for data analytics include predicting any event, detecting how much risk is incurred

at any time, and preventing catastrophes.

The use of Big Data for understanding, helping, and managing people is relatively new but holds

promise. Managers use evidence as much as possible to inform intuition and experience.

Chapter 1: What Is Organizational Behaviour?

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Disciplines That Contribute to the OB Field

The Building Blocks of OB

A variety of disciplines have contributed to the study of OB (see Exhibit 1-1 Toward an OB

Discipline).

Psychology

Psychology is the science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behaviour of

humans and other animals. Psychologists concern themselves with studying and attempting to

understand individual behaviour.

Social Psychology

Social psychology is an area within psychology, but it blends concepts from psychology and

sociology. It focuses on the influence of people on one another.

Sociology

Psychologists focus on the individual, whereas sociologists study the social system in which

individuals fill their roles. That is, sociology studies people in relation to other conditions faced