Which of the following does systematic study used to look at relationships to attribute causes and effects?

• Are happy workers always productive workers? 
• Are individuals always more productive when their boss is a real "people person?"
• Does everyone want a challenging job? 

Chapter 1

What are you responsible to learn?

�        Define organizational behavior (OB)

�        Describe what managers do

�        Explain the value of the systematic study of OB

�        List the major challenges and opportunities for managers to use OB concepts

�        Identify the contributions made by major behavioral science disciplines to OB

�        Describe why managers require a knowledge of OB

�        Explain the need for a contingency approach to the study of OB

�        Identify the three levels of analysis in this book�s OB model

I. �������� What managers do

�        Get things done through other people

�        Make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals

�        Do their work in an organization

II.                  Management functions

�        Planning

�        Includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities.

�        Organizing

�        Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made.

�        Leading

�        Includes motivating subordinates, directing others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.

�        Controlling

Monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations.

III.������� Mintzberg's managerial roles

�        Interpersonal Roles:� Figurehead, Leader, Liaison

�        Informational Roles:� Monitor, Disseminator, Spokesperson

�        Decisional Roles: Entrepreneur, Disturbance Handler, Resource Allocator, Negotiator

IV.������ Management skills

�        Technical Skills: The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise.

�        Human Skills: The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups.� People skills are critical for managers!

�        Conceptual Skills: The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations.

** Effective vs. Successful Managerial behavior � Which would you rather be � an �effective� manager or a �successful� one? Why?� (See pages 7-8)

V.                 Organizational Behavior

A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization�s effectiveness.

VI.               Replacing Intuition with Systematic Study

�        Intuition:�� A feeling not necessarily supported by research.

�        Systematic Study:� Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.

�        Behavior is generally predictable.

�        There are differences between individuals.

�        There are fundamental consistencies in behavior

�        There are rules (written & unwritten) in almost every setting.

VII.             Contributing Disciplines to the OB Field

�        Psychology, Sociology, Social Psychology, Anthropology, Political Science

** There are few absolutes in OB.� Often we rely on contingency variables or situational factors which moderate the relationship between two or more other variables.� Can you think of a �moderating� variable in human behavior?

VIII.           Challenges and Opportunities for OB

�        Globalization

�        Workforce Diversity

�        Improving Quality and Productivity (i.e. TQM � What is it? See pg 16-17)

�        Responding to the labor shortage

�        Improving customer service

�        Empowering people

�        Coping with temporariness

�        Stimulating Innovation and change

�        Helping employees balance work/life conflicts

�        Improving ethical behavior

IX.               Developing an OB model (or an abstraction/simplification of reality)

Dependent Variables (Or�..what do you want to predict?)

Productivity

Absenteeism

Turnover

Organizational Citizenship Behavior

Job Satisfaction

Independent Variables (Or�.what are some of the possible causes of the dependent variables?)

Individual-Level Variables

Group-Level Variables

Organizational Systems-Level Variables

OB is a complex topic! See page 27 � most of those �boxes� are in �action� almost every day in the life of an organization.� Keep this in mind as we learn about the key concepts and theories in OB�.

X.������� Chapter summary

�        Managers need to develop their interpersonal, or people, skills to be effective in their jobs.

�        OB is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within an organization.

�        OB focuses on improving productivity, employee job satisfaction, citizenship behavior and reducing absenteeism and turnover.

�        OB uses systematic study to improve predictions of behavior.

�        OB recognizes and helps managers to improve their people skills and to see the value of workforce diversity and practices.� It also seeks to improve organizations and help managers cope with the many changes faced in today�s workplace.

Which of the following involves looking at relationships attempting to attribute causes and effects and basing conclusions on scientific evidence?

Which of the following field of study is most likely to involve studying organizational culture formal organization theory and structure?

Which of the following seeks to measure explain and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals?

Which behavioral science studies societies in order to learn about people and their activities?