Chapter 1 Key Terms Flashcards
Organizational Behavior (OB)
Field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations
Human Resource Management
Field of study that focuses on the applications of OB theories and principles in organizations.
Strategic Management
Field of study devoted to exploring the product choices and industry characteristics that affect an organization’s profitability
Resource-based view
A model that argues that rare and inimitable resources help firms maintain competitive advantage.
Inimitable
Incapable of being imitated or copied
History
A collective pool of experience, wisdom, and knowledge created by people that benefits the organization.
Numerous small decisions
People making many small decisions every day that are invisible to competitors
Socially Complex resources
Resources created by people, such as culture, teamwork, trust, and reputation. The source of competitive advantage is known, but the method of replicating the advantage is unclear.
Rule of One-Eighth
The belief that at best one-eighth, or 12 percent, of organizations will actually do what is required to build profits by putting people first.
Method of experience
When people hold firmly to some belief because it is consistent with their own experience and observations.
Method of intuition
When people hold firmly to some belief because it “just stands to reason” – it seems obvious or self-evident
Method of Authority
When people hold firmly to some belief because some respected official, agency, or source has said it is so.
Method of Science
When people accept some belief because scientific studies have tended to replicate that result using a series of samples, settings, and methods.
Theory
A collection of verbal and symbolic assertions that specify how and why variables are related, as well as the conditions in which they should (and should not) be related.
Hypotheses
Written predictions that specify relationships between variables
