Intro to Organisational Psychology

Question 1

What is organisational psychology?

Answer 1

The study of what people think feel and do in and around organisations

Question 2

Name the three reasons OB theories and practices are important

Answer 2

Comprehending and predicting workplace events, Adopting more accurate personal theories and influencing organisational events

Question 3

What four major environmental developments face organisations?

Answer 3

Technological, globalisation, emerging employment relationships (work-life balance) and increasing diversity

Question 4

What are the benefits and downsides to globalisation?

Answer 4

Benefits: larger markets, lower costs, and greater access to knowledge and innovation.
Downsides: there is considerable debate about whether globalization benefits developing nations and the ex- tent to which it is responsible for increasing work intensification, reduced job security, and poor work–life balance in developed countries

Question 5

What is meant by remote work?

Answer 5

employees to work away from the organization’s traditional common work site

Question 6

What is meant by telecommuting?

Answer 6

information technology enables employees to work from home one or more workdays per month rather than commute to the office

Question 7

What are the advantages of telecommuting?

Answer 7

Better work-life balance, turnover lower among younger employees, statistically higher productivity, weather proof, less greenhouse gasses

Question 8

What are the disadvantages of telecommuting?

Answer 8

Social isolation, less word to mouth information (promotional opportunities), lower team cohesion and weaker organisational culture

Question 9

What traits are ideal in a telecommuter?

Answer 9

higher self-motivation, self-organisation, need for autonomy, and information technology skills, fulfill their social needs more from sources outside the workplace.

Question 10

How can organisations improve telecommuter success>

Answer 10

by rewarding and promoting employees based on their performance rather than their presence in the office, help telecommuters maintain sufficient cohesion with their team and psychological connectedness with the organisation through less TC days and face calls etc

Question 11

What is meant by surface level diversity?

Answer 11

the observable demographic or physiological differences in people, such as their race, ethnicity, gender, age, and physical disabilities

Question 12

What is deep level diversity?

Answer 12

differences in the psychological characteristics of employees, including personalities, beliefs, values, and attitudes

Question 13

What are the advantages of workplace diversity?

Answer 13

Teams with high informational diversity tend to be more creative and make better decisions in complex situations compared to teams with less informational diversity, deep-level diversity is also more representative of most communities, so companies are better able to recognize and address community needs.

Question 14

What are the advantages of workplace diversity?

Answer 14

employees with diverse backgrounds usually take longer to perform effectively together because they experience communication problems and create “faultlines” in informal group dynamics, also increases the risk of dys- functional conflict

Question 15

What are the anchors of organisational behaviour knowledge?

Answer 15

Systematic research anchor (do systematic research to find best method), Multidisciplinary anchor (take from other disciplines rather than creating own), contingency anchor (effectiveness of an action depends on the situation), Multiple levels of analysis anchor (individual, team, organisation)

Question 16

What is the ultimate dependent variable in organisational psychology?

Answer 16

Organisational effectiveness

Question 17

What composite of perspectives is the best yardstick of organisational effectiveness?

Answer 17

open systems, organisational learning, high-performance work practices, and stakeholders

Question 18

What is meant by the open systems perspective?

Answer 18

Organizations depend on the external environment for resources, affect that environment through their output and consist of internal subsystems (e.g: departments) that transform inputs to outputs; organizations are effective when they maintain a good fit with their external environment

Question 19

How can organisations capitalise according to the open systems perspectives?

Answer 19

Adapting to the environment, influence the environment and move to a more favourable environment.

Question 20

What are the three indicators of effective internal subsystems?

Answer 20

Efficiency, adaptability and innovativeness.

Question 21

What is meant by the organisational learning perspective

Answer 21

A perspective that holds that organizational effectiveness depends on the organization’s capacity to acquire, share, use and store valuable knowledge

Question 22

Give another name for knowledge in organisations and name the three forms it can exist in

Answer 22

human capital, structural capital (e.g: finished products) and relationship capital

Question 23

What is meant by the high-performance work practices perspective

Answer 23

This is a perspective that holds that effective organizations incorporate several workplace practises that leverage the potential of human capital.

Question 24

What are the four main high performance work practices?

Answer 24

Employee involvement, job autonomy, competency development (recruiting right people etc) and rewards for performance and competencies

Question 25

What is meant by the stakeholder perspective?

Answer 25

This perspective states that organizations are more effective when they understand, manage and satisfy stakeholder needs and expectations.

Question 26

What are stakeholders

Answer 26

Stakeholders include individuals, groups and other entities that affect or are affected by the organization’s objectives and actions.

Question 27

How is an organisation’s intellectual capital develop and maintained?

Answer 27

Through four organizational learning processes: acquiring knowledge, sharing knowledge, using knowledge and storing knowledge.

Question 28

What is meant by organisational memory?

Answer 28

Retained knowledge in the organisation

Question 29

What is meant by the term values

Answer 29

Values are relatively stable, evaluative beliefs that guide a person’s preference for outcomes or courses of action in a variety of situations.

Question 30

What does corporate social responsibility consist of?

Answer 30

Corporate social responsibility consists of organizational activities intended to benefit society and the environment beyond the firm’s immediate financial interests or legal obligations.

Question 31

Name three internal stakeholders in an organisation

Answer 31

Employees, management and owners

Question 32

Name some external stakeholders

Answer 32

Suppliers, society, government, creditors, stakeholders and customers