Chapter 2

Foundations of
Individual Behavior

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
S T E P H E N P. R O B B I N S
E L E V E N T H E D I T I O N
© 2005 Prentice Hall Inc. WWW.PRENHALL.COM/ROBBINS PowerPoint Presentation
All rights reserved. by Charlie Cook
 Organizational Behavior (OB)

Organizational Effectiveness

Individual- Group-level Organizational

level Behavior Behavior structure

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Biographical Characteristics

Biographical Characteristics
Personal characteristics—such as age, gender, and
marital status—that are objective and easily
obtained from personnel records.

These characteristics have some impact on employee

• productivity
•absence,
• turnover and
• satisfaction.
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Biographical Characteristics

Age:The relationship between age and job performance

What effect does age actually have on turnover,
absenteeism,productivity and satisfaction?
Less turnover with older age and vise versa (inversely
related)
More absenteeism with older age and Vise versa (inversely
related)
Less productivity with older age and vise versa (inversely
related)
Mixed reaction regarding job satisfaction

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Biographical Characteristics

Positive sides of older workers:

•Experience
•Judgement
•Strong work ethics
•Commitment to quality
Negative sides of older workers:
•Resistance to new technology
•Avoid changes

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Biographical Characteristics

Gender:Some factors relating to the gender issue influence

the job performance like family resposibilities.
Female with more turnover
Female with more absenteeism
Female with equal or most of the time high performance
Female with high satisfaction

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Biographical Characteristics

Marital Status:
Marriage process increased responsibilitries that may
make a steady job more valuable and important
•Fewer absence
•undergo less turnover
•more satisfied with the jobs of married workers.

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Ability

Ability
An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks
in a job.

Intellectual Ability
The capacity to do mental activities.

Number aptitude, verbal comprehsnsion, perceptual speed,

inductive reasoning, deductive reasoning, spatial
visuatization and memory

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Ability

Physical Abilities
•The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina,
dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics.
•Nine basic physical abilities are categorised under
three factors
Strength factors
Flexibility factors
Other factors

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Learning

Learning
Any relatively permanent change in behavior
that occurs as a result of experience.

Learning
• Involves change
• Is relatively permanent
• Is acquired through experience

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Theories of Learning

Classical Conditioning
A type of conditioning in which an individual
responds to some stimulus that would not
ordinarily produce such a response.

Key Concepts
• Unconditioned stimulus
• Unconditioned response
• Conditioned stimulus
• Conditioned response

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Theories of Learning (cont’d)

Operant Conditioning
A type of conditioning in which desired voluntary
behavior leads to a reward or prevents a punishment.

Key Concepts
• Reflexive (unlearned) behavior
• Conditioned (learned) behavior
• Reinforcement

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Theories of Learning (cont’d)

Social-Learning Theory
People can learn through observation and direct
experience.

Key Concepts
• Attention processes
• Retention processes
• Motor reproduction processes
• Reinforcement processes

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Shaping Behavior

Systematically reinforcing each successive

step that move an individual closer to the
desired response

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Types of Reinforcement
 Positive reinforcement
– Providing a reward for a desired behavior.
 Negative reinforcement
– Removing an unpleasant consequence when the
desired behavior occurs.
 Punishment
– Applying an undesirable condition to eliminate an
undesirable behavior.
 Extinction
– Withholding reinforcement of a behavior to cause its
cessation.

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