Empirical Approaches to Organization and Management

Question 1

What are the three groups of input variables in organizational behavior?

Answer 1

Individual level, group level, system or cultural level

Question 2

What are the major outcome variables in organizational behavior?

Answer 2

productivity and performance
absence
turnover
(deviant) workplace behavior
job satisfaction

Question 3

What is behavior

Answer 3

predictable

Question 4

complete the sentence: humans aren’t irrational…

Answer 4

just insufficiently modeled

Question 5

complete the sentence: human behavior is complex

Answer 5

but not random

Question 6

What is empirical evidence from a philosophy perspective?

Answer 6

evidence arising from the senses, from your experience, from observation

Question 7

What is empirical evidence in modern science?

Answer 7

evidence arising from systematic testing or experimentation

Question 8

Explain the information hierarchy

Answer 8

The higher up you go to on the pyramid, the more accurately you can predict the next event

Question 9

What are dramatic anecdotes and why are they dangerous?

Answer 9

powerful
richly detailed= memorable
negative=memorable
first thing you see/hear=memorable
worked for our ancestors- neanderthals

Question 10

What is the n of one problem

Answer 10

• can’t know all the reasons for 1 persons (or 1 company’s experience)
• low likelihood that your experience will be the same
• cannot generalize from an n of 1
• ex -> herb kelleher drinks wild turkey, southwest is successful, all successful CEOs drink wild turkey

Question 11

Explain rank and yank

Answer 11

Practice at GE, intuitively appealing bc remove low performers, tendency to over generalize but doesn’t work everywhere

Question 12

What is the lesson from the n of one problem?

Answer 12

don’t overgeneralize from benchmarking

Question 13

Why does correlation not equal causation?

Answer 13

1) Observed relationships may be spurious (merely coincidental)
2) Observed relationships may go in the reverse causal direction -> fewer highway deaths->more lemons
3) Observed relationships may be caused by a 3rd variable

Question 14

Where can we over-interpret correlation?

Answer 14

on lower bars of pyramid, where we need to treat everything with skepticism

Question 15

What is the criteria for an experiment?

Answer 15

1) Experimenter has control over the input (independent) variable
2) Random assignment of individuals to conditions (including a control or comparison condition)

Question 16

Who has control over the independent variable?

Answer 16

experimenter decides which group gets the treatment (and how much)

Question 17

What is random assignment?

Answer 17

Each person in the study has an equal chance of ending up in the experimental group or the control group

Question 18

What is the result of random assignment?

Answer 18

irrelevant variables will average out to be equal across conditions -> independent variable is the only thing that differs between the experimental group and the control group

Question 19

What are alternative study designs?

Answer 19

Quasi experimental studies

and correlational studies

Question 20

What is a quasi experimental study?

Answer 20

• taking advantage of a natural or existing division between employees
• different companies, branches, floors, classes

Question 21

What is a correlational study?

Answer 21

• Measure the relationship between variables (instead of manipulating the variables)
• # of customers served per day and satisfaction of those customers?