Chapter 1

Organizational Behavior: is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and
structures have on behaviors within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards
improving an organizations effectiveness.

Basically, means OB is the study of what people do in an organization and how their behaviors affect the
organizations performance.

OB is not an exact science, there are many variables because people and their personalities are
individually unique.

BASIC OB MODEL
(diagram collected from OB book)

The basic OB model has inputs, processes and outcomes on the individual, group and organizational
level.

1. Inputs: the variables that lead to the process. Most are determined in advance during the hiring
process
2. Processes: the actions that individuals, groups and organizations take part in as a result of inputs
and lead to certain outcomes.
3. Outcomes: the most important section of the model.

Each individual outcome is discussed in detail below

1. Attitudes and stress

i. Stress is an unpleasant psychological process that occurs due to environmental pressure
ii. Attitudes: evaluations employees make, ranging from positive to negative
iii. Good attitude + low stress = goals being met or exceeded
iv. Necessary precursor for behavior
2. Task performance
i. The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing one’s core job reflects task
performance
ii. Basically, means what someone is expected to do
iii. Most important human output contributing to organizational effectiveness
3. Organizational citizenship behavior
i. This is the discretionary behavior that is not a part of an employee’s formal job
requirements, and that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the work
place
ii. Basically, means working beyond expectations
iii. Examples of good citizenship behaviors include
a. Helping others in the team
b. Volunteer for extra work
c. Avoid unnecessary conflict
d. Respect the spirit and rules of the organization
iv. May not include monetary reward
v. Dimensions of OCB
a. Altruism
b. Courtesy
c. Conscientiousness
d. Civic virtue
e. Sportsmanship
vi. Pitfalls/problems with OCB
a. Giving extra effort without any monetary or otherwise significant reward may become
the norm and be expected
4. Withdrawal behavior
i. This is a set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization
ii. There are many types of withdrawal behavior
a. Showing up late
b. Failing to attempt meetings
c. Absenteeism
d. Turnover
e. Violate policy or norm of organization
f. Subtle or strong sabotage
iii. Assembly line production organizations are badly affected by absenteeism
iv. Absenteeism has direct implications on the organizations effectiveness and efficiency
v. High rate of turnover is an issue if knowledgeable and experienced people leave the
organization
vi. Turnover isn’t always a bad thing. If poor employees leave the organization, it brings in
scope for better employees and new fresh ideas
vii. Employees withdraw from work because
a. Negative job attitude
b. Negative emotions and moods
c. Negative interactions with coworkers and supervisors
 viii. Pitfalls/problems of withdrawal behavior
a. Sunk cost, the money spent on hiring and grooming employee is wasted
b. More cost on hiring and grooming replacement

Each group level outcome is discussed below

1. Group cohesion
i. Is the extent to which members of a group support and validate each other
ii. A cohesive group is one that sticks together
iii. The group is cohesive when
a. Employees trust one another
b. Seek a common goal
c. Work together to reach common ends
iv. Cohesive groups are more effective
v. To increase cohesion, organizations usually do the following things
a. Icebreaking sessions
b. Picnics
c. Parties
d. Outdoor adventure team retreats
2. Group functioning
i. Refers to the quantity and quality of a groups work output
ii. Group cohesion leads to group functioning
iii. “2+2>4”

Each organizational level outcome is discussed below

1. Productivity
a. An organization is productive if it achieves goals by transferring inputs into outputs at
the lowest costs
b. Productivity requires both effectiveness and efficiency
2. Survival
a. This is evidence that the organization will be able to exist and grow in the long run
b. Depends on how the organization fits into the environment
c. Survival factors in the following things
i. Perceiving the market successfully
ii. Making good decisions about how and when to pursue opportunities
iii. Engaging in successful change management to adapt to new business conditions
 Chapter 3
Attitude: evaluative statements or judgements concerning objects, people or events.

There are 3 components to attitude-

1. Cognitive
a. The opinion or belief segment of an attitude
b. A worker may have an opinion that his pay is low
2. Affective
a. The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude
b. A worker may feel angry over his low wage
3. Behavioral
a. The intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something
b. A worker looking for a new job because he’s angry about the low pay at current job.

(diagram collected from OB book)

How the 3 components of attitude work together are shown in the above figure. The figure uses the
example of an employee not liking his manager.

Cognitive dissonance: refers to the state of discomfort or tension created by the conflict between an
individual’s attitude and behavior or between 2 sets of attitudes.

The following things factor whether or not someone will choose to try and reduce cognitive dissonance

1. Importance (of the initial attitude/belief)

2. Influence (how much control one believes he has over the situation)
3. Rewards (for changing an attitude or behavior)

There are 3 reduction mechanisms to reduce cognitive dissonance

1. Change attitude
2. Change behavior
3. Rationalize
a. Telling oneself that the behavior in question is okay due to external factors
b. Basically, means to come up with excuses
Ajzens model of planned behavior (diagram collected from “OB handout on attitude”)

Incentive: this can be defined as the following

1. The link between attitude and behavior

2. The readiness to perform a given behavior

Ajzens model can only predict behavior under an individual control and not due to circumstances
beyond one’s control.

According to Ajzens model, there are 3 determinants of intention

1. Attitude towards the behavior: refers to the degree of favorable or unfavorable evaluation or
appraisal to the behavior in question
2. Subjective norm: refers to the perceived social pressure to perform or not perform a certain
behavior
3. Perceived behavioral control: perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior
a. This can also reflect the past experiences of the employee
b. This can also reflect anticipated impediments and obstacles
There are 3 important job-related attitudes

1. Job satisfaction
a. A positive feeling about a job, resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics
b. The following are the factors of job satisfaction. Managers should aim to increase these
to improve job satisfaction
i. Need fulfillment
ii. Discrepancies: expectations vs reality/ what you expected the job would be vs
what the job actually is
iii. Equity: input-output ratio (getting what you deserve), transparency when
allocating rewards
iv. Value attainment: a fit between organization and job values with the
employee’s personal values
1. Person-organization fit
2. Person-job fit
v. Personal characteristics
2. Organizational commitment
a. The extent to which an employee identifies with the organization and its goals, and
wishes to remain a part of it
b. There are 3 parts to organizational commitment
i. Continuance: staying in the organization because costs of leaving is too high
compared to benefits of leaving organization. The reasons could be
1. Lack of alternatives
2. Investments made to get the job already
ii. Normative: moral obligation of staying in an organization. Reasons for moral
obligation could be
1. Socialization: friends and networks you’ve already made in the
organization
2. Psychological contract
iii. Affective: staying in an organization because you want to. Reasons you want to
stay in an organization may be
1. Personal characteristics
2. High value congruence
c. To increase organizational commitment
i. Continuance
1. Good rewards and compensation
2. Progressive opportunities (chances for promotions)
ii. Normative
1. Trust, transparency, fairness
2. Social network (lunch, sports events, picnics)
iii. Affective
1. Good work environment
2. Chance for empowerment, autonomy
3. Recruit people who have the right fit with organization attitude and
culture
 3. Job involvement
a. The extent to which an individual is immersed in his or her job
b. Can also be defined as how deeply one connects to work on a psychological level
c. Intrinsic motivation: motivation from internal factors
d. Extrinsic motivation: motivation from external factors
e. To increase job involvement, managers must increase intrinsic motivation
f. Intrinsic motivation can be increased in the following ways
i. Skill variety
ii. Task variety
iii. Importance of the job to organizational goals

If an employee is dissatisfied with his job, he exhibits the following responses (table collected from Roza’s notes)

The behaviros are as follows

1. Voice: advocating for change

2. Neglect
a. Slow withdawl
b. Ultimately leads to exit
3. Exit
a. Leaving the job
b. Not always destructive
4. Loyalty
a. Waiting for things to get better
b. Worker could not want to show job dissatisfaction because
i. Subjective norms against it
ii. Low percieved behavioral control
 Chapter 5
Personality: the enduring charactaristics of an individual which determines the ways in which he/she
reacts or interacts with others.

We measure personality because it is helpful during hiring decisions.

Personality is usually measured in two ways

1. Self reporting surveys

a. Most common method of measuring personalities
b. Conducted via questionare
2. Observed reporting surveys, this is the most accurate way
a. Most accurate method of measuring personalities
b. Conducted via peers/supervision

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) (table collected from slides “personality and values”)

There are 16 combinations of the above and each of them have a name combined with respective
charactaristics. 2 examples are as follows

• Organizers (ESTJ) realistic, logical, analytical, bussinesslike

• Conceptualizers(ENTP) entrepreneurial, innovative, individualistic, resourceful

It is important to note that

• MBTI is a good tool for self awareness and counseling

• Should NOT be used for hiring decisions or selection tests for candidates
• Model does not predict success of a job
 The Big Five Model

1. Extraversion
a. Refers to socialable and assertive individuals
b. Usually leads to a good manager but it mostly depends on the job
2. Agreeableness
a. Refers to cooperative and trusting individuals
b. Agreeable people usually tend to take part in OCB
c. Being too agreeable is never a good thing, usually depends on the job though
3. Conscientiessness
a. Refers to dependable, responsible, persistent and organizaed individuals
b. Overly conscientiess managers could harm the job as they always seek for perfection
and forget the big picture
4. Emotional stability
a. Positive- calm, self confident, secure under stress
b. Negative- nervous, depressed, insecure under stress
c. Positive emotional stability always preffered in a manager
5. Openess to experiences
a. Refers to curious, imaginative, artistic and senstive individuals
b. More flexible to adjusting to new situations
c. Could change jobs easily

Other personality traits

1. Machivellianism
a. People who believe ends justify means, even if reaching goals means breaking rules and
ignoring morals and ethics
b. Are usually very pragmatic and remain at an emotional distance
c. Can easily influence others
d. Has a great need for power
e. They work best when
i. Interact face to face with others
ii. Situation has minimal rules
iii. Emotional involvement of low machivellians give high machivellians the
advantage
f. Are very good as sales persons and negotiators
g. Must be closely monitored
2. Proactive personality
a. These people tend to do the following things to get desirable outcome or until desirable
outcome is obtained
i. Indentify opportunities
ii. Show initiative
iii. Take action
iv. Preserve
 b. Make sure the organization doesn’t get stuck in a rut by challenging the status quo
c. These people have entrepreneual skill, so might start their own organization(high
turnover)
3. Self monitoring
a. Refers to individuals ability to adjust behavior to external factors or situaltions
b. High self monitoring people are
i. Sensitive to external cues
ii. Behave differently in different situations
c. Low self monitoring people are their true selfs all the time
d. Hight self monitoring individuals may be less trusted due to “chameleon” effect
4. Self concept
a. Refers to perception of oneself, has 2 parts
i. Self esteem: how worthy one thinks he is
ii. Self efficacy: how confident one is in his own abilities to achieve certain
outcomes
b. The two parts are related, if one is high, the other tends to be high as well

Improving Self Efficacy

(diagram collected from Wasemas notes)

1. Prior experiences
a. Positive prior experiences can lead to high self efficacy
b. This is the most important antecedant
c. Prior experience doesn’t have to be from exact same situation in the past
2. Behavior models
a. Basically, means the outcomes and past experiences of other people around you
3. Persuation from others
a. Positive reinforcement can lead to high self efficacy
 4. Physical/emotional state

High self efficacy patterns

1. Taking constructive active steps

2. Tries to bring situation in favor

Low self efficacy patters

1. Passive steps
2. Not doing anything when situation not in favor

To improve self efficacy,

1. Set appropriate goals using SMART

a. Specific
b. Measureable
c. Attainable
d. Relevant
e. Time Bound
2. Supportive supervision
a. Constructive criticism in case of failure
b. Appreciation in case of success
3. Monitoring, coaching, trainging and developing
4. Reinforcement of desirable behavior