Organizational Behavior Chapter Summaries

CHAPTER 1 What is Organizational Behavior

1. Why OB matters?
a. Significant role interpersonal skills play in determining a manager’s effectiveness.  managers
can’t succeed on their technical skills alone.
b. Lack of interpersonal skills is the top reason why some employees fail to advance.
c. Developing manager’s interpersonal skills helps organization attract and keep high-performing
employees  important as outstanding employees are always in short supply and are costly to
replace.
d. Can help transform a workplace from good to great, with a positive impact on the bottom line.
e. Strong associations between the quality of workplace relationships and employee job
satisfaction, stress and turnover.
f. Foster social responsibility awareness.
2. OB is a field of study that investigate the impact individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior
within organizations, for the purpose of such knowledge toward improving an organization’s
effectiveness.
3. OB studies 3 determinants of behavior within organizations: individuals, groups, and structure.
Applies the knowledge gained about individuals, group and the effect of structure on behavior in
order to make organizations work more effectively.
4. OB is the study of what people do in an organization and the way their behavior affects the
organization’s performance. Examine behavior in the context of job satisfaction, absenteeism,
employment turnover, productivity, human performance, and management.
5. 4 managerial activities:
a. Traditional management: decision making, planning and controlling.
b. Communication: exchanging routine information and processing paperwork.
c. Human Resource Management: motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and
training.
d. Networking: socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders.
Among managers who were successful (based on speed of promotion), networking made the largest
relative contribution to success and HR management activities made the least relative contribution
 WHICH IS THE OPPOSITE OF AVERAGE MANAGER.
For effective managers (in terms of quantity and quality of performance and
satisfaction/commitment of their employee)  communication made the largest relative
contribution and networking the least.
6. Behavior is not random, instead, it is generally predictable.
7. Systematic study of behavior is a means to making reasonably accurate predictions  looking at
relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and basing our conclusions on scientific
evidence.
8. Evidence-based management (EBM)  complements systematic study by basing managerial
decisions on the best available scientific evidence.
9. Systematic study and EBM  add to intuition or those “gut feelings” about what makes others
“tick”.
10. Disciplines that contribute to the OB field: psychology, social psychology, sociology, and
anthropology. Look at the exhibit on page 37 for details.
11. OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions. Contingency variables 
situational factors or variables that moderate the relationship between two or more variables.
12. Challenges & Opportunities of OB:
a. Continuing Globalization
i. what motivates you may not motivate them
ii. Straightforward and open communication style may be uncomfortable and threatening for
others
iii. Need to understand how their culture and background have shaped them and how to adapt
your management style to fit any differences.
b. Workforce Demographics
What factors lead employees to make various choices and how their experiences affect their
perceptions of their workplaces.
c. Workforce Diversity
Organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of employees’ gender, age, race,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, and other characteristics. Diversity presents great opportunities
and poses challenging questions for managers and employees.
d. Social Media
Subjects who woke up in a positive mood and then accessed Facebook frequently found their
mood worsened during the day. Access FB frequently over 2-week period  reported a
decreased level of satisfaction.
e. Employee Well-Being at Work
Reality that many workers never get away from the virtual workplace. Another challenge is that
organizations are asking employees to put in longer hours. Employee well-being is challenged
by heavy outside commitments.
f. Positive Work Environment
Positive organizational scholarship (POS)  studies how organizations develop human
strengths, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential.
g. Ethical Behavior
 In an organizational world characterized by cutbacks, expectations of increasing productivity
and tough competition; it’s not surprising many employees feel pressured to cut corners, break
rules, and engage in other questionable practices.
Manager must create an ethically healthy climate for employees in which they can do their
work productively with minimal ambiguity about right and wrong behaviors.
13. A Basic OB model:

a. 3 types of variables: input, processes, and outcomes

Input: consists of 3 levels, individual, group, and organizational
Individual diversity, personality, and values are shaped by a combination of an individual’s
genetic inheritance and childhood environment. Group structure, roles, and team
responsibilities are typically assigned immediately before or after a group is formed. Finally,
organizational structure and culture are usually the result of years of development and change
as the organization adapts to its environment and builds up customs and norms.

Processes: actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs
and that lead to certain outcomes.
At the individual level, processes include emotions and moods, motivation, perception, and
decision making. At the group level, they include communication, leadership, power and
politics, and conflict and negotiation. Finally, at the organizational level, processes include
human resource management and change practices.

Outcomes: key variables that we want to explain or predict, and that are affected by some
other variables.
 Attitudes and Stress
Attitudes: evaluation employees make, about objects, people, or events.
Stress: an unpleasant psychological condition that occurs in response to environmental
pressures.
Attitudes often have behavioral consequences that directly relate to organizational
effectiveness.
 Task Performance
 combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing the core tasks. Performance relate
to the core duties and responsibilities of a job and are often directly related to the functions
listed on a formal job description.
  Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
 discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job requirements, and
that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace.
Successful organizations have employees who do more than their usual job duties  such
employees outperform those that don’t.
 Withdrawal Behavior
 set of actions that employees take to separate themselves from the organization,
ranging from showing up late or failing to attend meetings to absenteeism and turnover.
 Group Cohesion
 the extent to which embers of a group support and validate one another while at work.
A cohesive group is one that sticks together  trust one another, seek common goals, and
work together to achieve these common ends.
 Group Functioning
 quantity and quality of a group’s work output  is more than the sum of individual
task performances.
 Productivity
Requires both effectiveness and efficiency.
Effective  when it attains its sales or market share goals.
Efficiency  the degree to which an organization can achieve its end at a low cost.
 Survival
 the degree to which an organization is able to exist and grow over the long term.
Depend not just on how productive the organization is, but also on how well it fits with its
environment.
b. 3 level of analysis: individual, group, and organizational

CHAPTER 2 Attitudes

1. Attitudes: evaluative statements about objects, people, or events. Attitudes are complex. To fully
understand attitudes, we must consider their fundamental properties or components.
2. Attitudes have 3 components:
a. Cognition = evaluation
 description of or belief in the way things are
Ex: My pay is low.
Cognition sets the stage for affective component (b).
b. Affect = feeling
 emotional or feeling segment of an attitude.
Ex: I am angry over how little I’m paid.
Affect can lead to behavioral outcomes ©.
c. Behavior = action
 intention to behave a certain way toward someone or something.
Ex: I’m going to look for another job that pays better.
3. Although we think that cognition causes affect, which then causes behavior, in reality these
components are difficult to separate.
Early research  attitudes determines behavior.
Other researcher  attitudes follows behavior. Attitudes predict future behavior.
4. Cases of attitude following behavior illustrate the effects of cognitive dissonance (any incompatibility
between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes).
Any form of inconsistency is uncomfortable, and individuals will therefore attempt to reduce it, will
alter either the attitudes or the behavior, or they will develop a rationalization for the discrepancy.
5. No individual can avoid dissonance. The desire to reduce dissonance depends on 3 factors:
importance of the elements creating dissonance, the degree of influence we believe we have over
those elements, the rewards of dissonance.
6. The most powerful moderators of the attitudes relationship are the importance of the attitude, the
presence of social pressures, and whether a person has direct experience with the attitude.
7. Job attitudes: job satisfaction, job involvement and organizational commitment. Other important
attitudes include perceived organizational support (POS) and employee engagement.
a. Job satisfaction: a positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics. High job satisfaction  positive feeling about work.
b. Job involvement: the degree which people identify psychologically with their jobs and consider
their perceived performance levels important to their self-worth.
c. Psychological Empowerment: employee’s beliefs regarding the degree to which they influence
their work environment, their competencies, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived
autonomy.
d. Organizational commitment: emotional attachment to an organization and belief in its value is
required. The defree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals,
and wishes to maintain membership in the organization. High committed  less likely to engage
in work withdrawal, even if they are dissatisfied.
e. Perceived Organization Support (POS): degree to which employees believe an organization
values their contribution and cares about their well-being.
People perceive their organizations as supportive when: rewards are deemed fair, employees
have a voice in decisions, employees see their supervisors as supportive. POS is a predictor of
employment outcomes, but there are some cultural influences (countries with low power distance
VS high power-distance countries).
f. Employee Engagement: an individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for
the work he or she does. Highly engaged employees have a passion for their work and feel a
deep connection to their companies; disengaged employees have essentially checked out, putting
time but not energy or attention into their work.
2 top reasons for engagement: having a good manager they enjoy working for; feeling
appreciated by their supervisor.
8. Measuring job satisfaction  there are 2 approaches.
a. Single global rating: a response to one question.
b. The summation of job facets (type of work, skills needed, supervision, present pay, promotion
opportunities, culture, and relationship with coworkers)  is more sophisticated.
Both methods are equally valid and helpful.
9. Job satisfaction rates tend to vary in different cultures worldwide. Based on study  highest job
satisfaction are in Mexico and Switzerland, the lowest level is in South Korea.
10. What causes job satisfaction:
a. Job conditions: training, variety, independence, control, feedback, social support, interaction
with coworkers outside the workplace, managers, managers attentiveness; responsiveness; and
support increase the employee’s job satisfaction.
Job conditions are important predictors of job satisfaction.
b. Personality
People who have positive core self-evaluations (CSE) [who believe in their inner worth and
basic competence] are more satisfied with their jobs than people with negative CSE.
c. Pay
Pay does correlate with job satisfaction and overall happiness, but effect can be smaller once an
individual reaches a standard level of comfortable living.
d. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Organization’s commitment to CSR increasingly affects employee job satisfaction.
 CSR  through environmental sustainability initiatives, nonprofit work, charitable giving, and
other globally attuned philanthropy.
Relationship between CSR and job satisfaction  particularly strong for millennials.
11. Outcomes of Job Satisfaction:
a. Job Performance
Happy workers = productive workers (perform better)
b. Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
Job satisfaction, feeling of being supported by coworkers, personality, receiving positive
feedback on OCBs from peers  more likely to engage and continue their citizenship activities.
c. Customer Satisfaction
For frontline employees  satisfied employees increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
d. Life Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is positively correlated with life satisfaction  for most individuals, work is an
important part of life.
12. The impact of job dissatisfaction:
a. Exit-Voice-Loyalty-Neglect Framework

Constructive Destructive

EXIT : Dissatisfaction expressed through

VOICE : Dissatisfaction expressed through active
behavior directed toward leaving the
and constructive attempts to improve conditions.
Active organization.

LOYALTY : Dissatisfaction expressed by passively NEGLECT: Dissatisfaction expressed through

Passiv waiting for conditions to improve. allowing conditions to worsen
e

b. Counterproductive Work Behavior (CWB)

 intentional employee behavior that is contrary to the interests of the organization.
 CWB doesn’t just happen  the behaviors often follow negative and sometimes long-
standing attitudes  if we can identify the predictors of CWB, we may lessen the
probability of its effects.
 CWB can be varied  company should see to correct the source of the problem (the
dissatisfaction), rather than try to control the different responses.
 How to lower CWB  poll employee attitudes, identify areas for workplace
improvement, tailoring tasks to a person’s abilities and value, creating strong teams,
integrating supervisors with them, providing formalized team policies, introducing team-
based incentives.
 Job embeddedness (connection to the job and community that result in an increased
commitment to the organization)  can be closely linked to employee job satisfaction and
probability of turnover. If job embeddedness HIGH  probability of turnover
DECREASES, particularly in COLLECTIVIST (group-centered) cultures.
 CHAPTER 3 Emotions
1. Affect Vs Emotions Vs Moods
Affect encompasses emotions and moods.
Emotions are more likely to be caused by a specific event and are more fleeting than moods, may be
more action-oriented.
Moods may me more cognitive.
2. 6 universal emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust, and surprise. Facial expression have
proved one of the most difficult to interpret  because (1) emotions are too complex to be easily
represented on our faces, (2) people may not interpret emotions from vocalizations the same way
across cultures, (3) the way we experience an emotion isn’t always the same as the way we show it.
3. Cultural differences regarding emotions can be apparent between countries that are individualistic
and collectivistic.
4. 2 classification of emotions: positive and negative.
See exhibit 3-2 (page 63).
Positive affect  High: excitement, enthusiasm, and elation; Low: boredom, depression, and fatique
Negative affect  High: nervousness, stress, and anxiety. Low: contentedness, calmness, and
serenity.
5. Positivity offset  the tendency of most individuals to experience a mildly positive mood at zero
input (when nothing in particular is going on).
Different cultures  different emphasize (japan & Russia: embrace negative emotions; others
emphasize positive emotions and expressions).
Individualistic Vs Collectivistic countries  difference in the value of negative emotions.
6. Function of emotions  critical to an effectively functioning workplace.
Employees with more positive emotions demonstrate higher performance and organizational
citizenship behavior (OCB), less turnover and counterproductive work behavior (CWB).
7. Sources of emotions and moods :
a. Personality
b. Time of day
c. Day of the week
d. Weather
e. Stress
f. Sleep
g. Exercise
h. Age
i. Sex
8. Emotional Labor
 a situation in which an employee expresses organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal
transactions at work.
 Is a key component of effective job performance.
 Felt emotions Vs displayed emotions
 Surface acting  hiding inner feelings and emotional expressions in response to display rules.
Daily surface acting  leads to exhaustion, fewer OCB, increased stress, and decreased job
satisfaction, higher level of withdrawal.
 Deep acting  trying to modify our true inner feelings based on display rules.
Surface acting deals with displayed emotions, while deep acting deals with felt emotions.
Deep acting is less psychologically costly than surface acting  because we are actually trying
to experience the emotion, so we experience less emotional exhaustion.
Deep acting  can have positive impact in the workplace, has positive relationship with job
satisfaction and job performance.
9. Emotional dissonance  inconsistencies between the emotions that people feel and the emotions they
project.
Long-term emotional dissonance  predictor for job burnout, declines in job performance, and lower
job satisfaction.
10. Mindfulness  objectively and deliberately evaluating the emotional situation in the moment.
Negatively correlated with emotional exhaustion and positively affected job satisfaction.
Increase the ability to shape our behavioral responses to emotions.
11. Affective Events Theory (AET)
a. Emotions provide valuable insights into how workplace events influence employee performance
and satisfaction
b. Employees and managers shouldn’t ignore emotions or the events that cause them, even when
they appear minor, because they accumulate.
12. Emotional Intelligence
 a person’s ability to: (1) perceive emotions in him or herself and others. (2) understand the
meaning of these emotions. (3) regulate his or her own emotions accordingly.
13. Emotion Regulation  the process of identifying and modifying felt emotions.
Technique: emotional suppression  blocking or ignoring initial emotional responses to situations.
Drawback: its effect varies.
Thus, it’s better to recruit positive-minded individuals, train leaders to manage their moods, job
attitudes and performance.
14. OB applications of emotions and moods:
Our understanding of emotions and moods can affect many aspects of OB.
a. Selection
b. Decision making
c. Creativity
d. Motivation
e. Leadership
f. Customer service
g. Job attitudes
h. Deviant workplace behaviors
i. Safety and injury at work

CHAPTER 4 PERSONALITY FACTORS

WHAT IS PERSONALITY?
- Personality is the sum of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others
- Personality traits is enduring characteristics that describe an individual’s behavior (someone exhibits
these characteristics in a larger number of situations and relatively enduring overtime).
- Research found that heredity has stronger impact on personality than environment.; The
ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located on
the chromosomes.
- Heredity refers to factors determined at conception; biological, physiological, and inherent
psychological makeup
PERSONALITY FRAMEWORKS
1. MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) : Personality test that taps 4 characteristics and classifies
people into 1 of 16 personality types. The 4 characteristics are as follow:
o Extraverted (E) versus Introverted (I). Extraverted individuals are outgoing, sociable, and
assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy.
o Sensing (S) versus Intuitive (N). Sensing types are practical and prefer routine and order. They
focus on details. Intuitive rely on unconscious processes and look at the “big picture.”
o Thinking (T) versus Feeling (F). Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems.
Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions.
 o Judging (J) versus Perceiving (P). Judging types want control and prefer their world to be
ordered and structured. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous.
MBTI weakness:
o The model forces people into one type or another, no in-between
o The measure not quite reliable (different results for retake test)
o Difficult of interpretation
o The results are not related to job performance

2. Big Five Personality Models: a personality assessment model that taps 5 basic dimensions:
o Conscientiousness dimension is a measure of reliability. High conscientious person is
responsible, organized, dependable, and persistent. Low conscientious person is easily
distracted, disorganized, and unreliable.
o Emotional stability dimension taps a person’s ability to withstand stress. Positive emotional
stability person tends to be calm, self-confident, and secure. The negative one (neuroticism)
tends to be nervous, anxious, depressed, and insecure.
o Extraversion dimension captures our comfort level with relationships. Extraverts tend to be
gregarious, assertive, and sociable; Introverts be reserved, timid, and quiet.
o Openness to experience. The openness to experience dimension addresses range of interests
and fascination with novelty. Open people are creative, curious, and artistically sensitive. Non-
open are conventional and find comfort in the familiar.
o Agreeableness dimension refers to an individual’s propensity to defer to others. Highly
agreeable people are cooperative, warm, and trusting. Low agreeable people are cold,
disagreeable, and antagonistic.
3. The Dark Triad: constellation of negative personality traits consisting of:
o Machiavellianism: the degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance,
and believes that ends can justify means
o Narcissism: the tendency to be arrogant have a grandiose sense of self-importance, require
excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement.
o Psychopathy: the tendency for a lack of concern for others and a lack of guilt or remorse when
actions cause harm
OTHER PERSONALITY ATTRIBUTES RELEVANT TO OB
- Core Self Evaluation (CSE): Conclusions of individuals about their capabilities, competence, and
worth as a person. Positive core self-evaluations like themselves and see themselves as effective,
capable, and in control of their environment. Negative core self-evaluations tend to dislike
themselves, question their capabilities, and view themselves as powerless over their environment.
- Self-Monitoring: Ability to adjust his/her behavior to external, situational factors. High self-monitoring
people are highly sensitive to external cues and can behave differently in different situations,
sometimes presenting striking contradictions between their public persona and their private self. Low
self-monitors tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in every situation.
- Proactive Personality identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until
meaningful change occurs.
PERSONALITY AND SITUATIONS
- Situations Strength Theory propose the way personality translates into behavior depends on the
strength of the situation.
- Situation strength is the degree to which norms, cues, or standards dictate appropriate behavior;
Strong situation shows what right behavior, pressure us to exhibit it; Weak situation is conversely
“anything goes”
- Component of situation strength:
1. Clarity: degree to which cues about work duties and responsibilities are available
2. Consistency: extent to which cues are compatible with one another
3. Constraints: extent to which freedoms are limited by forces
4. Consequences: the degree to which decision or actions have implications to the organizations,
member, clients, etc.
- Trait Activation Theory predicts that some situations, events, or interventions “activate” a trait more
than others.
VALUES
- Values represent basic convictions that “a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is
personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of
existence.
- Value System: a hierarchy based on ranking if an individual’s values in terms of their intensity.
- Terminal value refers to desirable end-states. These are the goals a person would like to achieve
during his or her lifetime.
- Instrumental value refers to preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving the terminal
values. Examples: Prosperity and economic success, Freedom, Health and well-being, World peace,
Social recognition, and Meaning in life.
LINKING INDIVIDUAL’S PERSONALITY AND VALUES TO THE WORKPLACE
Person-Job Fit: Personality-Job Fit Theory is a theory that identifies six personality types and proposes
that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover.

Person-Organization Fit essentially means people are attracted to and selected by organizations that
match their values, and they leave organization that are not compatible with their personalities.
Other Dimensions of Fit: Person-group fit, Person-supervisor fit, etc.
CULTURAL VALUES
Hofstede’s Framework five dimensions of national culture:
- Power distance describes the degree to which people in a country accept that power in institutions
and organizations is distributed unequally.
- Individualism versus collectivism . Individualism is the degree to which people prefer to act as
individuals rather than as members of groups and believe in individual rights above all else.
Collectivism emphasizes a tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of which
they are a part to look after them and protect them.
- Masculinity versus femininity. Masculinity is the degree to which the culture favors traditional
masculine roles such as achievement, power, and control, as opposed to viewing men and women as
equals. Femininity is the degree culture sees little differentiation between male and female roles and
treats women as the equals of men in all respects.
- Uncertainty avoidance. The degree to which people in a country prefer structured over unstructured
situations defines their uncertainty avoidance.
- Long-term versus short-term orientation. People in long-term orientation look to the future and
value thrift, persistence, and tradition. In a short-term orientation, people value the here and now;
they accept change more readily and don’t see commitments as impediments to change.

CHAPTER 5 PERCEPTUAL PROCESS

WHAT IS PERCEPTION?
- Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in
order to give meaning to their environment.
- Factors that influence Perceptions:
o Perceiver: Interpretation is influenced by personal characteristics
o Target: Characteristics of the target
o Context: time, place, and situational at which we see an object or event can influence our
attention
PERSON PERCEPTION: MAKING JUDGMENTS ABOUT OTHERS
Attribution Theory: attempt to determine whether an individual’s behavior is internally or externally
caused. Try to explain they ways we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a
behavior.
It was determined by three factors: distinctiveness, consensus, consistency.
Internal & External Causation. Internally caused behaviors are those we believe to be under the
personal control of the individual. Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the situation forced
the individual to do.
1) Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual displays different behaviors in different situations.
2) Consensus If everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way
3) Consistency: Does the person respond the same way over time?

Errors & Biases distort attribution.

- Fundamental attribution error is the tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors
and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of
others.
- Self-serving bias is the tendency for individual to attribute their own successes to internal factors
and put the blame for failures on external factors.
Shortcuts in Judging others:
- Selective perception is the tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on basis of one’s
interests, background, experience, and attitudes.
- Halo effect is the tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on basis of a single
characteristic.
- Contrast effect is evaluation of a person’s characteristics that is affected by comparisons with
other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.
- Stereotyping is judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that
person belong.
However, we deal the unmanageable number of stimuli of our complex world by using stereotypes or
shortcuts called heuristics to make quick decision
LINK BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND INDIVIDUAL DECISION MAKING
Decision is choices made from among two or more alternatives. Ideally decision making would be an
objective process, but they are largely influenced by their perceptions. Decision occurs as a reaction to a
problem. Problem is a discrepancy between current state of affairs and some desired state.
DECISION MAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS
There are 3 generally accepted constructs of decision making each of us employ to make determinations:
rational decision making, bounded rationality, and intuition.
 1. Rational Decision Making is a decision-making model that describe how individuals should
behave in order to maximize some outcome. We often think the best decision maker is rational
and makes consistent, value-maximizing choices within specified constraints. It assumes that the
decision maker has complete information, can identify all the relevant options in an unbiased
manner and chooses the option with the highest utility. It consists of 6 steps:
a. Define the problem.
b. Identify the decision criteria.
c. Allocate weights to the criteria.
d. Develop the alternatives.
e. Evaluate the alternatives.
f. Select the best alternative
2. Bounded Rationality is a process of making decisions by constructing simplified models that
extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity. This model is
used because of our limited information-processing capability makes it impossible to assimilate
and understand all the information necessary to optimize.
3. Intuition is the least rational way of making decision. It is an unconscious process created out of
distilled experience.
Common biases and errors in decision making are:
- Overconfidence bias: tend to be overconfident about our abilities and the abilities of others.
- Anchoring bias: tendency to fixate on initial information and fail to adequately adjust for
subsequent information.
- Confirmation bias: tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is readily
available to them.
- Availability bias: tendency to base judgments on information readily available.
- Escalation of commitment : an increased commitment to a previous decision, in spite of
negative outcome or information.
- Randomness error: tendency to believe we can predict the outcome of random events.
- Risk aversion: tendency to prefer a sure thing over a risky outcome, even if the riskier outcome
might have higher expected payoff
- Hindsight bias: tendency to believe falsely, after the outcome is known, that we’d have
accurately predicted it.
INFLUENCES ON DECISION MAKING
Factors that influence how people make decisions and the degree to which they are susceptible to errors
and biases consist of individual differences and organizational constraints.
- Individual Differences (personality) also could create deviations from rational model. These are
including: personality, gender, general mental ability, cultural differences, and nudging (easiness
to draw attention).
- Organizational Constraints consist of: performance evaluation system, reward systems, formal
regulations, system imposed time constraints, historical precedents.
ETHICS IN DECISION MAKING
Three Ethical Decision Criteria:
1. Utilitarianism: proposes making decisions solely in the basis of their outcomes, ideally to provide
the greatest good for the greatest number.
2. Decision must consistent with fundamental liberties and privileges. This criterion protects whistle
blower.
3. Impose and enforce rules fairly and impartially to ensure justice or an equitable distribution of
benefits and costs.
Behavioral ethics: analyzing how people actually behave when confronted with ethical dilemma
CREATIVE DECISION MAKING
Creativity is the ability to produce novel and useful ideas. There are three-stage model of creativity:
Causes of creative behavior, creative behavior, and creative outcomes
1. Cause of creative behavior: creative potential (intelligence of the people, personality (openness to
new experience, expertise and ethics) and creative environment (motivation, reward & recognition
for creative work)
2. Creative behavior:
 a. Problem formulation involves identifying a problem or opportunity requiring a solution that is
yet unknown.
b. Information gathering is a stage when possible solutions to a problem incubate in an
individual’s mind
c. Idea generation is the process of creative behavior that involves developing possible
solutions to a problem from relevant information and knowledge.
d. Idea evaluation is process of creative behavior involving the evaluation of potential solutions
to problems to identify the best one.
3. Creativity outcome (Innovation)

CHAPTER 6 VAUING DIVERSITY

DIVERSITY
Level of Diversity: Surface level diversity (Differences in easily perceived characteristics such as
gender, race, ethnicity, age, or disability, that do not necessarily reflect the ways people think or feel but
that may activate certain stereotypes) and Deep-level diversity (Differences in values, personality, and
work preferences that become progressively more important for determining similarity as people get to
know one another better).
DISCRIMINATION
Discrimination is noting of a difference between things: often refer to unfair discrimination, which means
making judgments about individuals based on stereotypes regarding their demographic group.
Stereotyping is judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person
belong.
Discrimination of the workplace are as follows:

Biographical characteristics that differs the employees are: Age (Old employee tend to have more
experience, judgment, work ethic, and commitment to quality, no relationship between age and job
performance, and older worker are tend to be more satisfied with their job), Sex, Race & Ethnicity (Race
as the heritage people use to identify themselves; ethnicity is the additional set of cultural characteristics
that often overlaps with race),and Disabilities (sufferers of a physical or mental impairment that has a
substantial and long-term adverse effect on carrying out normal day-to-day activities, disabled individuals
are having superior personal qualities – dependability and tend to have higher performance evaluation)
Other differentiating characteristics are religion, sexual orientation and gender identity, and
cultural identity.
ABILITY
We are not equal in our ability. Ability is an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job. It
consists of intellectual and physical abilities.
1. Intellectual abilities are abilities needed to perform mental activities – thinking, reasoning,
problem solving. Dimensions of intellectual ability are:

2. Physical abilities are the capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, dexterity, strength and
similar characteristics. Dimension of physical abilities are:

IMPLEMENTING DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES

Positive Diversity Climate: an environment of inclusiveness and an acceptance of diversity.
Diversity management is the process and programs by which managers make everyone more aware of
and sensitive to the needs and differences of others
Difference in the group can be leveraged to achieve superior performance
Effective, comprehensive workforce programs encouraging diversity have three distinct components:
1. They teach managers about the legal framework for equal employment opportunity and
encourage fair treatment of all people regardless of their demographic characteristics.
2. They teach managers how a diverse workforce will be better able to serve a diverse market of
customers and clients.
3. They foster personal development practices that bring out the skills and abilities of all workers,
acknowledging how differences in perspective can be a valuable way to improve performance for
everyone.

PART3 Groups in Organizations

Chapter 9 Communication (Session, Slide 11/12)
Chapter 10 Basics of Group Behavior (Session Slide 13/14)
Chapter 11 From Groups to Teams (Session Slide 13/14)

Chapter 9. Communication
-Communication must include the transfer and the understanding of meaning.

5 Function of Communication
Management, feedback, emotional sharing, persuasion, and information exchange

Communication Process
1)the sender 2) encoding 3) the message 4)the channel 5) decoding 6)the receiver 7)noise
8)feedback

Downward Communication – to lower level: assigns goal/ Provide job instruction / explain
policies and procedure/ point out problem

Upward Communication- flows to a higher level in the group or organization.: Provide

feedback to higher-up/ inform them of progress toward goals/ relay current problems.

Lateral Communication- Comm between members of the same workgroup, same level in
separate work group or any other horizontally equivalent workers.: can be GOOD or BAD.

Formal Small Group:

-Chain: rigidly follow chain of command
-Wheel: relies on a central figure, strong leader
-All Channel: permits group members to actively communicate with each other. Self-managed
team. Many organizations today like to consider themselves all channel.

The Grapevine (informal communication network): rumor & gossip, word of mouth
-important part of communication network. It serves employee’s needs
• Emerges when:
 − Situation is important
 − Ambiguity exists
 − Situation causes anxiety
• Three Characteristics:
 − Not controlled by management
  − Perceived as being more believable and reliable (and often is)
 − Largely used to serve self-interest of those willing to communicate

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-Oral: speed, feedback, and exchange
-Written: letters, e-mail, instant message and any other method conveys words or symbol
-Nonverbal: body movement, the intonations or emphasis of give to words, facial expression,
and the physical distance.

Choice of communication Channel

-Channel richness: capacity to convey information. Some are rich, 1) Handle multiple cues
simultaneously, 2) facilitate rapid feedback, 3) be very personal. Others are lean, that they score
low on these factors.

Rich – face-to-face conversation, video conference, telephone conversation, live speech, voice
mail.
Lean- bulletin, formal report, memo, letters, prerecorded speeches, and e-mail.

Persuasive Communication
Two way of process information – Automatic processing vs Controlled processing

Automatic- relatively superficial, use of heuristics. Little time and low effort. (easily fooled)
Controlled- detailed, evidence and information. Facts, figure, and logic. Effort and energy.

-Interest Level / Prior Knowledge/ Personality/ Message Characteristics can be considered to

persuasive communication.
Barriers to effective communication

• Filtering: Purposely manipulating information. (tell his boss what he feels the boss wants to
hear)
• Selective Perception: receivers in the communication process selectively see and hear based
on their needs, motivation, experience, background, and other personal characteristic
• Information Overload: information we have to work with exceeds our processing capacity.
Tend to select, ignore, pass over, or forget it.
• Emotions: interpret the same message differently when you are angry or distraught
• Language: Word mean different things, Age and context are two biggest factor.
• Silence: ignoring silence is often mistake.
• Communication apprehension: (social anxiety about oral communication)
• Lying : misrepresentation of information.

Cultural Factors
Cultural barriers:
-related to language difficulties.

*Semantics – words mean different things to different people

*Word connotations – words imply different things in different languages
*Tone differences – in some cultures tone changes depending on context (formal/informal)
*Differences among perceptions – different world views (individualist - > comfortable with
direct conflict)

Cultural Context
* High-context cultures - rely heavily on nonverbal and subtle situational cues when
communicating with others. (Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese…)

*Low-context cultures - rely essentially on words to convey meaning (German, Swiss...)

Cultural Guide to reduce misinterpretations

1. Know your self

2. Foster a climate of mutual respect, fairness, and democracy
3. State facts, not your interpretation
4. Consider the other person’s view point
5. Proactively maintain the identity of the group
Group Behavior & Teams at Work
Chapter10. Basic of Group Behavior

Groups and Group identity

-Formal group: designated work group, particular objective
-Informal group: social contract, can deeply affect behavior and performance

Ingroups Out Groups

-Ingroup favoritism: member of ingroup is better than other people.
-Outgroup: Outside the group or other group.

Stage of group development

-Punctuated equilibrium model: a set of phases that temporary groups go through

that involves transitions between inertia and activity.

Factors impacting behavior of people in groups

• Roles
-role perception: our view of how we’re supposed to act in
-role expectation: others believe. Psychological contract between employee and employer
-role conflict: individual is confronted by divergent role expectation.
*interrole conflict: work-family conflict

• Norms (including support of deviant behaviors by the group)

-acceptable standard of behavior
-emotions can influence the group
-conformity(순응): Adjustment of one’s behavior to align with group’s norm
*Asch’s Study- 75% subject gave at least one wrong answer that they knew it was
wrong
-Positive Norm: CSR / satisfied people/ may well beget positive outcome
-Negative Norm: Deviant workplace behavior – voluntary behavior that violates significant
organizational norms. It threatens the well-being of members (counterproductive work behavior)
• Status (group as status provider, and as an arena for status claiming/granting)
-A socially defined position or rank given to groups or members by others
-High status people likely to deviate from norms when they have low identification
-High status people better able to resist conformity pressure
-Group performance suffers when too many high-status are in the mix – (Not us!)

• Size
-size of group affect behavior: over 12 can gain diverse input. (idea generating)
Smaller group of seven, more productive
-social loafing: tendency of individual to less effort
• Cohesiveness
-degree to which group members are attracted to each other and are motivated to stay in group
-smaller group / encourage / spend time together/ increase group status/ compete with other
group/ group reward/ physically isolate the group

• Diversity
-extent to which members of a group are similar to, or different from
-it can increase conflict, especially in early stage
-leader who can get the focus on the task and encourage group learning are able to reduce
conflict and enhance.
-Faultlines: split group into sub group based on individual surface differences such as sex, race,
age, work experience and education (can cause negative effect _ need good mix)

Group Decision Making

-Strength: more complete information and knowledge. Diversity of views. Acceptance of a
solution.
-Weakness: time-consuming. Conformity pressure. Can be dominated by on or a few members.
Ambiguous responsibility.

Groupthink (negative)
-phenomenon in which the norm for consensus overrides the realistic appraisal of alternative
course of action.

Specific challenge for groups: Groupthink

• Group members rationalize any resistance to their assumptions
• Members pressure any doubters to support the alternative favored by the majority
• Doubters keep silent about misgivings and minimize their importance
• Group interprets members’ silence as a “yes” vote for the majority

Group shift
-A change between a group’s decision to individual’s (greater risk, extreme version)

Group Decision Making Techniques

-interacting groups: typical group meeting interaction
-brain storming
-nominal group technique: restrict discussion and interpersonal communication during decision
making process.
*write down ideas -> present the idea (No discussion) ->discuss the idea for clarity ->silently
and independently rank-order the idea -> final decision

Chapter 11. From Groups to Teams

Difference between Groups and Teams

Work Group: interact primarily to share information and make decision. Perform within his or
her area of responsibility

Work Team: A group whose individual effort result in performance that is greater than the sum of
the individual inputs. Generates positive synergy through coordination.

Type of Team
Problem-Solving Team: employee form the same department who meet for a few hours each
week to improving quality, efficiency, and the work environment.

Self-Managed Work Team: Perform highly related or interdependent jobs. These team take on
some supervisory responsibility such as scheduling, assigning, making decision, taking action
etc.

Cross-Functional Team: Employee from about the same hierarchical level, different work area
who comes together to accomplish a task.

Virtual Team: Teams that use computer technology to tie together.

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Multiteam System: A colletion of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate
goal; a team of TEAM
Creating effective teams
What factors determine whether teams are successful
-Adequate Resource
-Leadership and structure
-Climate of trust
-Performance evaluation and reward system

Team composition
-Ability of members
-Personality of members
-Allocation of roles
-Diversity of members (Organizational demography)
-Cultural Differences
-Size of team
-Member preferences

Team Processes
1) Common plan and purpose: effective team show reflexivity, adjusting capability
2) Specific goals
3) Team efficacy: Collective belief among team members that they can succeed
4) Team Identity: Sense of belongings
5) Team Cohesion: emotionally attached to one another and motivated
6) Mental Models: Knowledge and beliefs about how the work gets done by the team
7) Conflict Levels: Relationship conflict – dysfunctional vs task conflict – can be stimuli
8) Social Loafing: (free ride) to prevent, make members individually and jointly
accountable.

Turning individual to Team Players

Selecting: Hiring Team Players

-some people already possess the interpersonal skills to be effective team player

Training: Creating Team Players

-workshop & training allow employee to experience the satisfaction

Rewarding: Providing incentives to be a Good Team Player

-encourage cooperative effort rather than competitive ones.
-Nu Skin case: Tuition reimburse, Flexible spending, Healthcare coverage etc.
-Intrinsic reward: such as camaraderie that employee can receive from teamwork.
BEWARE TEAM AREN’T ALWAYS THE ANSWER (apply 3 tests first)
-Can be done better by more than one person?
-Does work create a common purpose in a group that is more than the aggregate individual goal?
-Whether the members of the group are interdependent? Team make sense when there is
interdependence among tasks.

Chapter 12 (216-236)
Characteristics of Leaders
Kat’s Instructions:

 Blue: definitions from the book

 Black: context for the definition above in order to help understanding it
 Green: Summary for the chapter (next edition, not our book, but pretty much the same)
 Headline gives overall topic and pages where to find in book

 Leadership: ability to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set goals
 Trait theories of leadership: theories that consider personal qualities and characteristics
that differentiate leaders from nonleaders
 Traits can predict leadership
 Traits are:
o individuals that like to be around pepople
o able to assert themselves (extraverted)
o disciplined
o able to keep commitments (conscientious)
o creative
o flexible
 extraversion most predictive trait of leaders
 effective leaders are not domineering, have emotional intelligence
 Behavioral theories of leadership: theories proposing that specific behaviors differentiate
leaders from nonleaders
 Initiating structure: extent to which a leader is likely to define and structure his or her role
and those of subordinates in the search for goal attainment (includes behavior that
attempts to organize work, work relationships and goals)
 Consideration: extent to which a leader is likely to have job relationships characterized
by mutual trust, respect for subordinates’ ideas, and regard for their feelings
 Consideration preferences is strongly influenced by cultural differences (which extend is
preferred differs in e.g. Brazil and France)
 Fiedler contingency model: theory that effective groups depend on proper match between
a leader’s style of interaction with subordinates and the degree to which the situation
gives control and influence to the leader
 Least preferred coworker (LPC) questionnaire: instrument that measures whether a
person is task or relationship-oriented
 Leader-member relations: degree of confidence, trust and respect subordinates have in
their leader
 Task structure: degree to which job assignments are procedurized
 Position power: influence derived from one’s formal structural position in the
organization; includes power to hire/fire/promote etc.
 Situational leadership theory (SLT): contingency theory that focuses on followers’
readiness
 Leader needs to select his leadership style to his followers
 Leaders can compensate for follower’s limited abilities
 Path-goal theory: theory that states that it is the leader’s job to assist followers in
attaining their goals and to provide the necessary direction and/or support to ensure that
their goals are compatible with overall objectives of group/organization
 Leadership style needs to match situation (high degree of support or low degree of
support e.g.)
 Leader-participation-model: theory that provides set of rules to determine the form and
amount of participative decision making in different situations
 Leadership behavior must reflect the task structure (Leaders do not exist in a vacuum!)
 Leader-member exchange (LMX) theory: theory that supports leaders’ creation of
ingroups and outgroups; subordinates with ingroup status will likely have higher
performance ratings, less turnover, greater job satisfaction
 Due to time-pressure, leaders form ingroups with small circle of subordinates
 Ingroup has positive outcome for members, but ingroup and outgroup members realize
negative effects of this behavior
 Special treatment hurts a groups perception of trust, fairness, etc.
 Charismatic leadership theory: followers make attributions of heroic or extraordinary
leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviors
 Leader sets herself/himself apart from ordinary people by perceived supernatural powers
that are not available to ordinary people
 You are born with charisma but you can also learn it
 Qualities of charismatic leaders: vision and articulation, personal risk, sensitivity to
followers needs, unconventional behavior
 Vision: long-term strategy for attaining a goal
 Vision statement: formal articulation of an organization’s vision or mission
 Charismatic leaders use vision and vision statements to inspire followers
 One factor that enhances charismatic leadership is stress
 Some personalities (e.g. low self-esteem) are more susceptible to charismatic leaders
 Transactional leaders: leaders who guide/motivate their followers in direction of
established goals by clarifying roles and task requirements
 They guide
 Transformational leaders: inspire followers to transcend their own self-interests and who
are capable of having a profound and extraordinary effect on followers
 They inspire
 Full range of leadership model: seven management styles in a contingent: laissez-faire,
management by exception, contingent reward leadership, individualized consideration,
intellectual stimulation, inspirational motivation, idealized influence
 Only four “I’s” result in extra effort from workers, higher morale, more satisfaction
 Organizations with transformational leaders generally have greater decentralization of
responsibility and perform better
  Authentic leadership: leaders who know who they are, know what they believe in and
value, and act on those values and beliefs openly and candidly; their followers consider
them to be ethical people
 They focus on moral aspects of being a leader
 Role of leader to create ethical expectations for all members is crucial
 Socialized charismatic leadership: leaders convey values that are other-centered versus
self-centered and who role-model ethical conduct
 Every member is responsible for own ethical behavior but leaders set moral tone
 Servant leadership: going beyond the leader’s own self-interest and instead focusing on
opportunities to help followers to grow and develop
 They serve the needs of others but this style might have different levels of success in
different cultures
 Trust encourages taking risks, facilitates information sharing, groups are more effective,
enhances productivity
 Characteristics that leads to believing a leader is trustworthy: integrity, benevolence,
ability
 Trust propensity: how likely an employee is to trust a leader
 Trust in employment relationship may like different from culture to culture (e.g.
paternalistic leadership differently perceived in different cultures)
 We come to trust people by observing their behavior over a period of time
 Managers who break psychological contract with workers, demonstrate that they are not
trustworthy
 Once violated, trust can be regained, but only in certain situations and depending on type
of violation
 Attribution theory of leadership: leadership is merely an attribution that people make
about other individuals
 Perception of leaders by their followers strongly affects leader’s ability to be effective
 Substitutes: attributes, such as experience and training, that can replace the need for a
leader’s support or ability to create structure
 Followers are so experienced/ well trained, that they need no leadership
 Neutralizers: attributes that make it impossible for a leader behavior to make any
difference to followers outcome
 If a task is enjoyment, the followers is motivated already and needs no leader to motivate
him
 Identification-based trust: trust based on mutual understanding of each other’s intentions
and appreciation of each other’s wants and desires

Leadership plays a central part in understanding group behavior, because it’s the leader who
usually directs us toward our goals. Knowing what makes a good leader should thus be valuable
in improving group performance.
 The early search for a set of universal leadership traits failed. However, recent efforts
using the Big Five personality framework show strong and consistent relationships
between leadership and extraversion, conscientiousness, and openness to experience.
 The behavioral approach’s major contribution was narrowing leadership into task-
oriented (initiating structure) and people-oriented (consideration) styles. By considering
 the situation in which the leader operates, contingency theories promised to improve on
the behavioral approach, but only LPC theory has fared well in leadership research.
 Research on charismatic and transformational leadership has made major contributions to
our understanding of leadership effectiveness. Organizations want managers who can
exhibit transformational leadership qualities and who have vision and the charisma to
carry it out.
 Effective managers must develop trusting relationships with followers because, as
organizations have become less stable and predictable, strong bonds of trust are replacing
bureaucratic rules in defining expectations and relationships.
 Tests and interviews help identify people with leadership qualities. Managers should also
consider investing in leadership training such as formal courses, workshops, rotating job
responsibilities, coaching, and mentoring.
Chapter 13 (237-255)
Power and Politics in Organizations
 Power: a capacity that A has to influence the behavior of B so that B acts in accordance
with A’s wishes
 Coercive power: a power base that is dependent on fear of the negative results from
failing to comply
 A can dismiss, suspend or demote B, assuming B values its job
 Reward power: compliance achieved based on ability to distribute rewards that others
view as valuable
 Legitimate power: power a person receives as a result of his/her position in the formal
hierarchy of an organization
 Members accept authority of a hierarchical position
 Expert power: influence based on special skills or knowledge
 Referent power: influence based on identification with a person who has desirable
resources or personal traits
 Power that develops out of admiration of another and a desire to be like that person (e.g.
celebrities)
 Formal power (coercive, reward, legitimate) and personal power (expert, referent)
 The more you can expand your options, the less power you give in the hand of others
(e.g. multiple supplier strategy)
 Dependence increases when a resource you control is important, scarce and
nonsubstitutable
 One tool to assess the exchange of resources and dependencies within an organization is
social network analysis (examines patterns of communication among members to identify
how information flows)
 Networks can create substantial power dynamics
 Power tactics: ways in which individuals translate power bases into specific actions
(legitimacy, rational persuasion, inspirational appeals, consultation, exchange, personal
appeals, ingratiation, pressure, coalitions)
 Chances increase by using two or more tactics at the same time
 Tactics have different levels of success and have different audiences (e.g. pressure
generally downward only)
 More likely to be effective if you begin with softer tactics that rely on personal power, if
they fail move to harder tactics
  Political skill: ability to influence others in such a way as to enhance one’s objectives
 Power leads people to focus on their self-interest because they can
 Power leads to overconfident decision-making
 People in power take actions in order to keep their power, even if harmful to others
 Power can have bad effects on people, but not everybody is affected the same way
 Toxic effects of power depend on the wielder’s personality
 Increased motivation to achieve goals is positive effect of power
 Sexual harassment: any unwanted activity of a sexual nature that affects and individual’s
employment and creates a hostile work environment
 Managers responsible to protect their employees from hostile work environment
 Political behavior: activities that are not required as a part of a person’s formal role in the
organization but that influence, or attempt to influence, the distribution of advantages and
disadvantages within the organization
 A political free organization is possible if all members of that organization hold the same
goals and interests, if organizational resources are not scarce and if performance
outcomes are completely clear and objective
 Individual (e.g. high need for power) and organizational factors (e.g. promotions) can
increase political behavior
 Zero-sum approach: a negotiation approach that treats the reward “pie” as fixed, so any
gain one person or group achieves comes at the expense of another group or person
 Employees perceive political environments to be unfair and can have a negative impact
on job satisfaction
 Defensive behaviors: reactive and protective behaviors to avoid action, blame or change
(overconforming, buck passing, bluffing, playing safe, scapegoating, etc.)
 Impressions management (IM): process by which individuals attempt to control the
impression others form of them (conformity, favors, apologies, flattery, etc.)
 IM strategies can work (self-promoting in job interviews) or backfire (self-promoting
might result in lower performance ratings)

If you want to get things done in a group or an organization, it helps to have power. Here are
several suggestions for how to deal with power in your own work life:
 As a manager who wants to maximize your power, you will want to increase others’
dependence on you. You can, for instance, increase your power in relation to your boss by
developing knowledge or a skill she needs and for which she perceives no ready
substitute. But you will not be alone in attempting to build your power bases. Others,
particularly employees and peers, will be seeking to increase your dependence on them,
while you are trying to minimize it and increase their dependence on you. The result is a
continual battle.
 Few employees relish being powerless in their job and organization. Try to avoid putting
others in a position where they feel they have no power. People respond differently to the
various power bases. Expert and referent power are derived from an individual’s personal
qualities. In contrast, coercion, reward, and legitimate power are essentially
organizationally derived. Competence especially appears to offer wide appeal, and its use
as a power base results in high performance by group members. The message for
managers seems to be “Develop and use your expert power base!”
  An effective manager accepts the political nature of organizations. By assessing behavior
in a political framework, you can better predict the actions of others and use that
information to formulate political strategies that will gain advantages for you and your
work unit.
 Some people are significantly more politically astute than others, meaning that they are
aware of the underlying politics and can manage impressions. Those who are good at
playing politics can be expected to get higher performance evaluations and, hence, larger
salary increases and more promotions than the politically naïve or inept. The politically
astute are also likely to exhibit higher job satisfaction and be better able to neutralize job
stressors.
 Employees who have poor political skills or are unwilling to play the politics game
generally relate perceived organizational politics to lower job satisfaction and self-
reported performance, increased anxiety, and higher turnover.

Chapter 14 (256-274)
Conflict in Organizations
 Conflict: a process that begins when one party perceives that another party has negatively
affected, or is about to negatively affect, something that the first party cares about.
 Traditional view of conflict is belief that all conflict is harmful and must be avoided.
 Interactionist view of conflict is belief that conflict is not only a positive force in a group
but also an absolute necessity for a group to perform effectively.
 Functional conflict: conflict that supports the goals of the group and improves its
performance.
 If open debate amongst a team improves output, then conflict is functional.
 Dysfunctional conflict: conflict that hinders group performance.
 Task conflict: conflict over content and goals of the work.
 Can be negative or positive
 Relationship conflict: conflict based on interpersonal relationships.
 Almost always dysfunctional, appears when personalities clashes, psychologically mostly
exhausting of different conflicts
 Process conflict: conflict over how work gets done.
 Often become highly personalized
 Dyadic conflict: conflict that occurs between two people.
 Intragroup conflict: conflict that occurs within a group or team.
 A certain amount (but not too much) is good
 Intergroup conflict: conflict between different groups or teams.
 Conflict process: a process that has five stages: potential opposition or incompatibility,
cognition and personalization, intentions, behavior, and outcomes.
 Perceived conflict: awareness by one or more parties of the existence of conditions that
create opportunities for conflict to arise.
 Felt conflict: emotional involvement in a conflict that creates anxiety, tenseness,
frustration, or hostility.
 In stage II the conflict issues tend to be defined as well as a set of possible outcomes
 Intentions: decisions to act in a given way.
 Intensions are not always fixed and might change during the conflict
 Competing: a desire to satisfy one’s interests, regardless of the impact on the other party
to the conflict.
 Avoiding: the desire to withdraw from or suppress a conflict.
 Collaborating: a situation in which the parties to a conflict each desire to satisfy fully the
concerns of all parties.
 Accommodating: the willingness of one party in a conflict to place the opponent’s
interests above his or her own.
 Compromising: a situation in which each party to a conflict is willing to give up
something.
 Stage IV is a dynamic process of interaction and intensions are translated into certain
likely behaviors
 Conflict management: the use of resolution and stimulation techniques to achieve the
desired level of conflict.
 Negotiation: a process in which two or more parties exchange goods or services and
attempt to agree on the exchange rate for them.
 Distributive bargaining: negotiation that seeks to divide up a fixed amount of resources; a
win–lose situation.
 Integrative bargaining: negotiation that seeks one or more settlements that can create a
win–win solution
 BATNA: the best alternative to a negotiated agreement; the least the individual should
accept.
 If you can predict an opponent’s negotiation tactics, it may result in a better outcome for
you
 Four factors influence how effectively individuals negotiate: personality, mood/emotions,
culture, gender
  Mediator: a neutral third party who facilitates a negotiated solution by using reasoning,
persuasion, and suggestions for alternatives.
 Arbitrator: a third party to a negotiation who has the authority to dictate an agreement.
 Conciliator: a trusted third party who provides an informal communication link between
the negotiator and the opponent.

While many people assume conflict lowers group and organizational performance, this
assumption is frequently incorrect. Conflict can be either constructive or destructive to the
functioning of a group or unit. Levels of conflict can be either too high or too low to be
constructive. Either extreme hinders performance. An optimal level is one that prevents
stagnation, stimulates creativity, allows tensions to be released, and initiates the seeds of
change without being disruptive or preventing coordination of activities.
 What advice can we give managers faced with excessive conflict and the need to reduce
it? Don’t assume one conflict-handling strategy will always be best! Select a strategy
appropriate for the situation. Here are some guidelines:
 Use competition when quick decisive action is needed (in emergencies), when issues are
important, when unpopular actions need to be implemented (in cost cutting, enforcement
of unpopular rules, discipline), when the issue is vital to the organization’s welfare and
you know you’re right, and when others are taking advantage of noncompetitive
behavior.
 Use collaboration to find an integrative solution when both sets of concerns are to
important to be compromised, when your objective is to learn, when you want to merge
insights from people with different perspectives or gain commitment by incorporating
concerns into a consensus, and when you need to work through feelings that have
interfered with a relationship.
 Use avoidance when an issue is trivial or symptomatic of other issues, when more
important issues are pressing, when you perceive no chance of satisfying your concerns,
when potential disruption outweighs the benefits of resolution, when people need to cool
down and regain perspective, when gathering information supersedes immediate
decision, and when others can resolve the conflict more effectively.
 Use accommodation when you find you’re wrong, when you need to learn or show
reasonableness, when you should allow a better position to be heard, when issues are
more important to others than to yourself, when you want to satisfy others and maintain
cooperation, when you can build social credits for later issues, when you are outmatched
and losing (to minimize loss), when harmony and stability are especially important, and
when employees can develop by learning from mistakes.

Chapter 15
1. Identify seven elements of an organization’s structure.
a. Work specialization: The degree to which tasks in an organization are subdivided
into separate jobs. This makes efficient use of employee skills, though too much
specialization is not good.
b. Departmentalization: The basis by which jobs in an organization are grouped
together through; functional departmentalization, product or service
departmentalization, geographical departmentalization, process
departmentalization, and customer dep.
 c. Chain of Command: The unbroken line of authority that extends from the top of
the organization to the lowest echelon and clarifies who reports to whom. It is
based on authority and the degree of unity of command.
d. Span of Control: The number of subordinates a manager can efficiently and
effectively direct. The recent trend is in wider spans of control, which reduce
costs, cut overhead, and speed decision-making.
e. Centralization/Decentralization: The degree to which decision making is
concentrated at a single point in an organization/pushed down to the managers
closest to the action.
f. Formalization: The degree to which jobs within an organization are standardized.
g. Boundary Spanning: When individuals form relationships outside their formally
assigned groups.
2. Identify the characteristics of a functional structure, the divisional structure, and
the matrix structure.
a. Functional structure: An organization that groups employees by their similar
specialties, roles, or tasks. This system rewards employee specialization and
makes a clear path for promotions. However, it creates rigid and formal
communications and restricts coordination.
b. Divisional structure: An organization structure that groups employees into units
by product, service, customer, or geographical market. It facilitates coordination
and increases the speed of unit activities. However functions and costs are often
duplicated.
c. Matrix structure: An organization structure that creates dual lines of authority and
combines functional product departmentalization. It breaks the unity of command
concept as employees report to the functional manager and their product manager.
The system can improve coordination, but also create confusion and power
struggles.
3. Identify the characteristics of the virtual structure, the team structure, and the
circular structure.
a. Virtual Structure: A small core organization that outsources major business
functions. Employees spend most of their time coordinating and controlling
external relations. The major advantages are flexibility and low cost; however
these structures are in a state of constant change and shared goals can be lost due
to low interactions between team members.
b. Team structure: An organization structure that replaces departments with
empowered teams and which eliminates horizonal boundaries and external
barriers between customers and suppliers.
c. Circular structure: An organization structure in which executives are at the center,
spreading their vision outward in rings by function (managers, then specialists,
then workers).
4. Describe the effects of downsizing on organizational structures and employees.
Downsizing is the systematic effort to make an organization leaner by closing locations, reducing
staff, or selling off business units that don’t add value. The action results in lower wage costs and
positive effects on stock prices. However, employee attitudes suffer. Employees that remain are
worried about their job and may be less committed as a result. Higher stress reduces
functionality.
 5. Contrast the reasons for mechanistic and organic structural models.
a. Mechanistic: A structure characterized by excessive departmentalization, high
formalization, a limited information network, and centralization. There are clear
chains of command, narrow spans of control, highly specialized work forces. Cost
minimization strategies work well here.
b. Organic: A structure that is flat, uses cross-hierarchical and cross-functional
teams, has low formalization possesses a comprehensive information network,
and relies on participative decision making. Characterized by wide spans of
control and decentralization. Innovation strategies work well here.
6. Analyze the behavioral implications of different organizational designs.
a. Work specialization contributes to employee productivity but decreases job
satisfaction.
b. The span of control is not related to employee satisfaction or performance.
However, research suggests a manager’s job satisfaction increases with the
number of employees supervised.
c. Centralization reduces autonomy and thus reduces job satisfaction. But this is not
universal to all people.
d. Certain national structures influence employee preferences.
Implications for Managers
 Specialization can make operations more efficient but remember that excessive
specialization can create dissatisfaction and reduced motivation.
 Avoid designing rigid hierarchies that limit employee’s empowerment and autonomy.
 Balance the advantages of remote work against the potential pitfalls before adding
flexible workplace options into the organizations structure.
 Downsize your organization to realize major cost savings and focus the company around
core competencies – but only if necessary, because downsizing can have a significant
negative impact on employee affect.
 Consider the scarcity, dynamism, and complexity of the environment and balance organic
and mechanistic elements when designing an organizational structure.

Chapter 16
1. Describe the common characteristics of organizational culture.
a. Innovation and risk tolerance
b. Attention to detail
c. Outcome vs. process
d. People orientation
e. Team vs. individual orientation
f. Aggressiveness vs. easygoing
g. Stability vs. growth
2. Compare the functional and dysfunctional effects of organizational structure on
people and the organization.
If most employees have the same opinion of a organization’s mission and values, the
organizational culture is strong. Otherwise, when opinions vary widely, it’s weak. Strong culture
encourages predictability, orderliness, and consistency. And the less management needs to
develop formal rules to guide employee behavior. Culture conveys a sense of shared identity and
commitment to something larger than the individual contribution.
Negative organization culture can lead to:
 institutionalization, where old behaviors are unquestioned, and innovation is stifled.
 Barriers to Change
 Barriers to Diversity, where managers want people who fit a particular role and
discourage diversity of opinion or background.
 Strengthening dysfunctions, as coherence around negativity produce powerful downward
forces.
 Barriers to acquisitions and mergers.

3. Identify the factors that create and sustain an organization’s culture.

a. Creation

i. Founders hire and keep employees who match with their vision.

ii. Founders indoctrinate and socialize employees to their way of thinking.

iii. The behavior of the founder encourages employees to identify with them.

b. Sustain

i. Selection: Identify and hire individuals with the knowledge, skills, and
abilities to perform successfully in the organization. The company should
communicate its values to new hires to ensure that the applicant agrees
with its philosophy.

ii. Top management should be role models for the company culture.

iii. Socialization is the process of helping employees adapt to the

organizational culture. This includes the prearrival stage, encounter stage,
and metamorphosis.
4. Show how culture is transmitted to employees.
a. Stories anchor the company’s past with its present and create narratives that
employees can share and relate to.
b. Rituals are repetitive sequences of activities that express and reinforce the key
values of the organization, which goals are most important, which people are
important, and which are expendable.
c. Symbols convey to employees who is important, the degree of egalitarianism top
management desires, and the kinds of behavior are appropriate.
d. Language helps members identify equipment, officers, individuals, suppliers, etc.
5. Describe the similarities and differences in creating an ethical culture, a positive
culture, and a spiritual culture.
a. Ethical culture means adhering to certain principles, such as leaders being visible
role models, communicate ethical expectations, provide ethical training, visibly
 reward ethical acts, punish unethical ones, and provide protective mechanisms.
The culture must start at the top of the organization.
b. Positive organization culture emphasizes building on employee strengths, rewards
more than it punishes, and encourages individual vitality and growth. While a
company can encourage fun, organizational effectiveness is an important
consideration.
c. A spiritual culture recognizes that people have an inner life that nourishes and is
nourished by meaningful work that takes place in the context of community. It is
characterized by benevolence, strong sense of purpose, trust and respect, and
open-mindedness.
6. Show how national culture can affect the way organizational culture is interpreted
in another country.
National cultures will have different sets of ethics, positivity, and spirituality. It is important
a company understand how national culture affects organizational culture and is
complimentary.
Implications for Managers
 Realize that an organization’s culture is relatively fixed in the short term. To affect
change, involve top management and strategize a long-term plan.
 Hire individuals whose values align with those of the organization; these employees will
tend to remain committed and satisfied. Not surprisingly, “misfits” have considerably
higher turnover rates.
 Understand that employees performance and socialization depend to a considerable
degree on their knowing what to do and not do. Train your employees well and keep them
informed of changes to their job roles.
 All managers can create an ethical culture and should consider spirituality and its role in
creating a positive organizational culture.
 Be aware that your company’s organizational culture may not be “transportable” to other
countries.

Chapter 17
1. Contrast the forces for change and planned change.
a. Forces for change:
i. Changing nature of the workforce
ii. Technology
iii. Economic shocks
iv. Competition
v. Social Trends
vi. World Politics
b. Planned Change:
i. This is a proactive system that seeks to improve the ability of the
organization to adapt. It also seeks to change employee behavior. These
activities are managed by change agents.
2. Describe ways to overcome resistance to change.
a. Communication of the rationale with intent to increase commitment to change
 b. Participation of participants will reduce resistance, obtain commitment and
increase quality of the change decision.
c. Building support and commitment
d. Developing positive relationships, so that employees trust managers and change
agents
e. Implementing changes fairly
f. Manipulation and cooptation can be cheap and effective, though have negative
consequences when they fail
g. Selecting people who accept change, as some people more readily accept change
h. Coercion
3. Compare the four main approaches to managing organizational change.
a. Lewin’s three-step model follows these steps: unfreeze the status quo, move to a
desired end state, and refreeze the change to make it permanent.
b. Kotter’s eight-step plan:
i. Create a sense of urgency to give a reason for change
ii. Form a coalition with enough power to lead the change
iii. Create a new vision with enough power to lead the change
iv. Communicate the vision throughout the organization
v. Empower others to act on the vision by removing barriers to change,
encouraging risk taking and suggesting creative problem solving.
vi. Plan for, create, and reward short-term ‘wins’ that move the organization
toward the new vision
vii. Consolidate improvements, reassess changes, and make necessary
adjustments
viii. Reinforce changes by demonstrating relationship between new behaviors
and organizational success.
c. Action research is based on the systematic collection of data and the selection of a
change action based on what the analyzed data indicated.
d. Organizational development is a collection of planned change interventions, built
on humanistic-democratic values, that seeks to improve organizational
effectiveness and employee well-being. Such as:
i. Sensitivity training
ii. Survey feedback
iii. Process consultation
iv. Team building
v. Intergroup development
vi. Appreciative Inquiry
4. Demonstrate three ways of creating a culture for change.
a. Paradox culture suggests that there is no final optimal state for an organization.
There is a constant process of looking for the balancing point among shifting
priorities.
b. Innovation culture suggests sudden or gradual improvement of a product, process,
or service. It is defined by:
i. Organic structures
ii. Long tenure in management
iii. Slack resources
 iv. High interunit communication
c. Learning culture allows organizations to continually adapt and change. It is
defined by:
i. A shared vision
ii. People discard old ways of thinking and problem solving
iii. Members think of all organizational processes, activities, and interactions
as part of a system of interrelationships.
iv. People openly communicate with each other without fear of criticism or
punishment.
v. People sublimate their personal self-interest and fragmented department
interests to work together.
5. Identify the potential environmental, organizational, and personal sources of stress
at work as well as the role of individual and cultural differences.
a. Challenge stressors are related to workload, pressure to complete tasks, and time
urgency.
b. Hindrance stressors prevent employees from reaching goals.
c. Environmental Factors
i. Economic and political uncertainty
ii. Technological change
d. Organizational Factors
i. Task demands
ii. Role demands
iii. Interpersonal Demands
e. Personal Factors
i. Economic and family problems
f. Individual Differences
i. Perception
ii. Job Experience
iii. Social Support
iv. Personality Traits

6. Identify the physiological, psychological, and behavioral symptoms of stress at

work.
a. Physiological symptoms
i. Immediate effects
ii. Illness
iii. Chronic health problems
b. Psychological symptoms
i. Anxiety
ii. Lower emotional well-being
iii. Lower job satisfaction
c. Behavioral symptoms
i. Lower job performance
ii. Higher absenteeism
iii. Higher turnover
7. Describe individual and organizational approaches to manage stress.
 a. Individual Approaches
i. Time-management techniques
ii. Physical exercise
iii. Relaxation techniques
iv. Social support networks
b. Organizational Approaches
i. Selection and placement
ii. Goal-setting
iii. Redesigning jobs
iv. Employee involvement
v. Organizational Communication
vi. Employee Sabbaticals
vii. Wellness programs
Implications for Managers
 The decisions managers make, including role-modeling behaviors, will help shape the
organization’s change culture.
 Your management policies and practices will determine the degree to which the
organization learns and adapts to changing environmental factors.
 Some stress is good. Increasing challenges brought by autonomy and responsibility at
work will lead to some stress but also increase feelings of accomplishment and
fulfillment. Hindrance stressors like bureaucracy and interpersonal conflicts are entirely
negative and should be eliminated.
 You can alleviate harmful workplace stress by accurately matching workloads to
employees, providing employees with stress-coping resources, and responding to their
concerns.
 Extreme stress is displayed by declining performance and engagement and increasing
turnover and health-related absenteeism.