OB Study Deck

Question 1

Define OB

Answer 1

 OB is the study of human behavior in organizations
 Effectiveness of organizational functioning, the satisfaction and well-being of those who populate the organizations (Borman, Ilgen & Kilmoski, 2003)
 Organizational behavior is the study of human behavior in organizational settings, of the interface between human behavior and the organization, and of the organization itself (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011).
 Organizational behavior seeks to predict the individual, group, and organizational level outcomes that contribute to organizational effectiveness (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011)

Question 2

What is the history of OB

Answer 2

 Fredrick Taylor 1911—Scientific management –
 Fayol 1919—Five functions of management –
• Planning, organizing, command, coordination, and control
 Weber 1922—bureaucracy and the study of organizations is built on rational authority and action
 Follet 1925—power, conflict and leadership within organizations
 Barnard 1938—organizations ad cooperative system
 Mayo & Hawthorne 1939—special treatment tends to increase productivity
 McGregor 1960—Theory Y
• Managers should view workers as motivated and goal oriented individuals
 Katz & Kahn 1966, 1978—org is open, dynamic, nested system and this system has much influence upon the individual and vice versa

Question 3

Motivation

Answer 3

 Atkinson 1964
• Contemporary influence on direction, vigor, and persistence of action
 Vroom 1964
• a process governing choice made by persons among alternative forms of voluntary activity
 Mitchell 1997
• Motivation is a personal and individual psychological process, which cannot be observed directly involved with arousal, direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary action
 Pinder 1998
• Set of internal and external forces that initiate work-related behavior and determine its form, direction, intensity and duration. It is invisible and internal

 Maslow 1943
• Motivation is a function of five basic needs- physiological safety, love esteem, and self-actualization. Fulfillment of each need starting with physiological activates the next need,
o Managers are more likely to fuel employee motivation by offering benefit and rewards that satisfy individual needs
 McClelland 1961
• Needs are acquired or learned on the basis of our life experiences (achievement affiliation, and power)

Question 4

What is motivation?

Answer 4

 Motivation can be defined in several ways and encompasses several factors. Griffin and Moorhead (2011) define motivation as the set of forces that leads people to behave in a particular way. Lindner (1998) states that motivation is operationally defined as the inner force that drives individuals to accomplish personal and organizational goals. Buford, Bedeian, and Lindner (1995) defined it as a predisposition to behave in a purposive manner to achieve specific, unmet needs. Higgins (1998) stated that motivation is an internal drive to satisfy an unsatisfied need. Motivation is unique for every individual and can vary by level and orientation (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Ryan and Deci (2000) state that level of motivation deals with how much motivation someone has; whereas, the orientation of that motivation deals with what type of motivation someone has. Orientation of motivation concerns the underlying attitudes and goals that give rise to action (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Self-Determination Theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000) distinguishes between different types of motivation based on the different reasons or goals that give rise to an action. The two types of motivation identified were intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the motivation to engage in something primarily because it is interesting, engaging, or in some way satisfying (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994). Extrinsic motivation is the motivation to do something primarily in response to something apart from the task itself, such as receiving a reward or recognition (Amabile, Hill, Hennessey, & Tighe, 1994). Through the self-determination theory, an individual’s goals can be addressed because the type or quality of a person’s motivation is more important than the total amount of motivation when predicting goal performance outcomes (Deci & Ryan, 2008). In the workplace goal setting is a very useful method of enhancing employee performance and from a motivational perspective a goal is a meaningful objective that an employee can achieve (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Goals can provide managers with a framework for managing motivation and can be used as an effective control device within the organization (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). The type of motivation, intrinsic or extrinsic, that drives an employee can impact how they achieve their goals, which can also create feelings of success or failure that leads to increased or decreased employee performance (Ryan & Deci, 2000). Therefore managers can employ self-determination theory to help determine which type of motivation each employee identifies with. This can provide insight into how that type of motivation can be used to develop goals that influence an employee’s behaviors and performance (Ryan & Deci, 2000).

Question 5

key dependent variables that OB will predict

Answer 5

 Job involvement: Individuals who display high involvement in their jobs consider their work to be an important part of their lives and whether or not they feel good about themselves is closely related to how they perform on their jobs (Chughtai, 2008). Lawler and Hall (1970) defined job involvement as the degree to which a person perceives their total work situation to be an important part of their life and to be central to his/her self and their identity because of the opportunity it affords him/her to satisfy important needs.
 Job involvement is important for management to understand because it is an essential component of work behavior among the workforce as prior research proved this phenomenon (Manojlovich, Laschinger, & Heather, 2002; Kahn et al, 2010). Therefore, understanding the impact of the individual level outcomes of productivity, performance, and job involvement and how to optimize these outcomes is critical for managers to aid in improving organizational effectiveness.

Question 6

Hofstede 4 dimensions & what are the mixed perspectives of his research and the impact of it on theory and practice

Answer 6

 Power distance
 Individualism
 Masculinity
 Uncertainty
 Criticisms
• Kirkman et al 2006
o Ignored everything but the cultural label comparison when conducting research
o Doesn’t look at the effect of the country on culture and there needs to be empirical studies to explain country level differences
• House et al 2006
o Hofstede studied IBM which limited the possible dimensions
o Hofstede does not want to advance the framework and that researchers should focus on developing the framework
o Lack of advance will lead to cross cultural research to plateau
• Chiang 2007
o The findings reveal that although his framework provides both theoretical and practical contributions to the reward arena, the proposition that human values are conditioned solely by national culture ignores the potential influence of a variety of other contextual factors
• Relevancy-survey not good method (Schwartz, 1999), cultural homogeneity-doesn’t look at community and the variations of the community influences (Lindell 1996 & Smith 1998), national divisions-nation not good unit of measure (McSweeney 2000 & DiMaggio 1997), political influences-survey taken during cold war and that cold impact results and lacks data from socialist countries, one company approach-only done at IBM (Graves 1986), outdated- no modern value, too few dimensions, statistical integrity

Question 7

Cognition

Answer 7

 Person’s perception of the stimulus and how the person stores information in memory
 Psychological construct addressing how people are attracted to environmental stimuli, perceived stimuli, process the information, and retrieve it (Langer 1978)
 The process by which sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, sorted, recovers and used (Neisser, 1967)

Question 8

Personality

Answer 8

 Big 5 (Digman 90)
• Extraversion-comfort with relationships
• Agreeableness-ability to get along with others
• Conscientiousness-focus, organized, self-disciplined: lower # of goals focused on =higher performance
• Neuroticism/emotional stability-moodiness, insecurity
• Openness to experience-capacity to change; rigidity of belief; sometimes correlates with I/Q

Question 9

TMT

Answer 9

Upper Echelon Theory
• Hambrick & Mason 1984
• Org outcomes are in large measure predicted by demographic characteristics of managers
• When you can gauge an organizations direction based on the dynamics of the upper level management
• If the management team is more operational than the direction of the firm will be more focused on cost cutting and lean manufacturing. If management is mostly from sales than it will be more focused on innovation.

Question 10

Job Design

Answer 10

 Job design is how organizations define and structure jobs; job specialization can help improve efficient but it can also promote monotony and boredom
 Job enlargement involves giving workers more tasks to perform
 Job enrichment entails giving workers more tasks to perform and more control over how to perform them

Question 11

job characteristic theory

Answer 11

 Job characteristic theory
• 3 psychological states
o Experienced meaningfulness of work (individual experiences the job as meaningful, valuable, and worthwhile)
o Experienced responsibility for work conditions (individual feels personally accountable and responsible for the results of their work)
o Knowledge of results (individual continuously understand how effectively they are performing the job)

Question 12

5 characteristics or core dimensions

Answer 12

o Skill variety (variety of activities involved)
o Task identity (requires completion of a whole piece of work)
o Task significance (extent that job affects lives/work of other people)
o Autonomy (allows freedom and independence to schedule work and carry out procedures)
o Feedback (direct and clear information about the effectiveness of performance)
 Authors
• Holmstrom & Milgrom 1991
• Grant 2007
• Salancik & Pfeffer 1978

Question 13

job involvement

Answer 13

 Organizational behavior is the study of human behavior in organizational settings, of the interface between human behavior and the organization, and of the organization itself (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Organizational behavior seeks to predict the individual, group, and organizational level outcomes that contribute to organizational effectiveness (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Individual level outcomes are important to managers because these outcomes can directly influence the success of an organization (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Individual behaviors are the result of how an employee participates in an organization (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Employee productivity is one of the individual behaviors that are critical for managers to understand. This is because productivity is an indicator of an employee’s efficiency and is measured in terms of the products or services created (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). High productivity can lead to high employee performance, which is another individual outcome that managers closely monitor (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). To help increase individual level outcomes it can be important for managers to encourage employees to have high job involvement. Job involvement has been defined as an individual’s psychological identification or commitment to his/her job (Kanungo, 1982a). Individuals who display high involvement in their jobs consider their work to be an important part of their lives and whether or not they feel good about themselves is closely related to how they perform on their jobs (Chughtai, 2008). Lawler and Hall (1970) defined job involvement as the degree to which a person perceives their total work situation to be an important part of their life and to be central to his/her self and their identity because of the opportunity it affords him/her to satisfy important needs. According to Saleh’s (1976) study, job involvement can be defined as, the degree to which the person identifies with his/her job, actively participates in it, and considers his/her performance important to his/her self-worth. As employees become more or less involved in their roles and accept their roles and tasks as a critical component of themselves, this will positively or negatively impact how they perceive their performance and whether or not an effort should be made to perform at high or low levels, which impacts productivity. Chughtai’s (2008) study confirmed that there is a significant positive correlation between job involvement and performance. These findings are also confirmed by Kahn et al (2010), where the authors indicate that job involvement has a major impact on the productivity and efficiency of employees, and work has a vital role in increasing job involvement of individuals if the organization intends to play a significant role in the lives of its employees. Job involvement is important for management to understand because it is an essential component of work behavior among the workforce as prior research proved this phenomenon (Manojlovich, Laschinger, & Heather, 2002; Kahn et al, 2010). Therefore, understanding the impact of the individual level outcomes of productivity, performance, and job involvement and how to optimize these outcomes is critical for managers to aid in improving organizational effectiveness

Question 14

knowledge

Answer 14

 Burr 1995—Version of a phenomenon that has received the stamp of truth from our society

Question 15

leadership

Answer 15

 Scott 1998—leaders must define the mission of the enterprise: it is their responsibility to choose and protect its distinctive values and to create a social structure which embodies them
 IVs = emotions, creativity, gender, teams, culture, climate, individual traits, leader characteristics
 DVs= performance, OCB, follower development, leadership effectiveness, group effectiveness, group performance,
 Katz & Kahn (278)
• The influential increment over and above mechanical compliance with routine directives of the org.
• Bryman 1996
o Common elements imply that leadership involves a social influence process in which a person steers the members of the group toward a goal

Question 16

charismatic leadership

Answer 16

• House 1977 Burns 1978
o Focuses on the behavior and characteristics of leaders, the relationship between the leader and key followers, positive attributions of these relationships espoused by followers at other echelons
• Conger and Kanungo 1987)
o Transform needs, values, and aspirations of followers from individual to collective interest. Ask followers to consider the greater good of the group, org, community, or society above and beyond their own self-interest (Conger and Kanungo 1987)
o Opposed to status quo and strive to change it
o Idealized vision which is highly discrepant from status quo
o Strongly articulate a future vision and theory motivation to lead
• Howell & Frost 1989
o Under charismatic leader you get high performance, task adjustment and interpersonal adjustment

Question 17

transformational and transactional leadership

Answer 17

• Transformational =builds on charismatic leadership
o Rooted on Maslow’s theory of motivation
o By articulating a clear vision, proposing a model for its implementation, and setting group goals and nurturing individual relationships, leaders can help followers transcend self-interest and achieve superiors performance (Burns 1978, Bass et all 1987; Podsakoff 1996)
• Transactional
o Working within and strengthening existing structure, strategies, and cultures, rather than changing them (Burns, 1978; Graetz, 2000; Trice & Beyer 1986).
o Reinforced performance reward relationship.
• Bass 1997
o Transformational and transactional leadership paradigm transcend org and national boundaries

Question 18

learning

Answer 18

 Hakamsson & Snehota 19995—A change in behavior over time

Question 19

what is organization

Answer 19

 Selznick 1948—a system of consciously coordinated activities or forces of two or more persons
 Stinchcombe 1965—a set of stable social relations deliberately created with the explicit intention of continuously accomplishing some specific goals or purposes

Question 20

organizational field

Answer 20

 DiMaggio 1983—sets of organizations that together accomplish some task in which a researcher is interested. (similar to what economists call an industry)

Question 21

power

Answer 21

 Burr 1995—extent of a person’s access to sought after resources, such as money leisure time, rewarding jobs and as the extent to which they have the capacity to have some effect on their world.

Question 22

technology

Answer 22

 Barley 1990—refers to apparatus, machines, and other physical devise. Can mean technique, the behaviors and cognitions that compose an instrumental act; or a specific arrangement of persons, materials, and tasks

Question 23

trust

Answer 23

 Yates 2002—confidence in and willingness to rely on another party under conditions of risk or vulnerability

Question 24

Cross culture and the relationship to teamwork, negotiations and expatriate management

Answer 24

 International business has grown over the last decade as more companies expand to other nations to conduct business. This transformation from a domestic to multinational organization can present major challenges for managers as teams become culturally diverse. Cross-cultural differences stem from the different backgrounds of each culture (Kawar, 2012). These cultural differences can positively and negatively impact the successful completion of projects conducted by teams, negotiations conducted inside and outside of the organization, the management of employees in today’s multicultural global business community (Anbari et al, 2003). In order to prevent conflict within the organizations, leadership teams should utilize cross-cultural management. Cross-cultural management explains the behavior of people in organizations around the world and shows people how to work in organizations with employees and client populations from different cultures (Adler, 2008). Utilizing cultural intelligence gives an employee the ability to exhibit certain behaviors, including skills and qualities, which are culturally tuned to the attitudes and values of others (Kawar, 2012). When dealing with negotiations that can involve several parties of different cultural backgrounds it is important to know something about their language, the space to use while dealing with people, awareness about your culture and how to apply one’s cultural behavior with that of the other culture (Kawar, 2012). According to a study conducted by Adler, Graham, and Gehrke, (1987), negotiators must make culturally based adjustments to strategies to be effective in finalizing a business negotiation deal. Therefore, high levels of cultural intelligence can be a critical component of successful negotiations.

Question 25

job satisfaction

Answer 25

 Locke 1976
• Pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from appraisal of one’s job or experiences
 Cranny et all (1992)
• An affective reaction to a job that results from the incumbent’s comparison of actual outcomes with those that are desired
 Brier 1998
• JS is an internal state that is expressed by affectively or cognitively evaluating an experienced job with some degree of favor or disfavor

Question 26

job performance

Answer 26

 Campbell et all 1996
• Actions or behaviors that are relevant to the organization’s goals and that can be scaled in terms of each individuals proficiency
 8 classifications
• Job specific task proficiency
• Non job specific task proficient
• Written and oral communication task proficient
• Demonstration of effort
• Maintenance of personal discipline
• Facilitation of peer and team performance
• Supervision/leadership
• Management/administration
 Abilityjob knowledge and skills job performance

Question 27

turnover

Answer 27

	Mobley 1982 
•	Voluntary cessation of membership in an organization by an individual who receives monetary compensation for participating in the org
	Hom and Griffeth 1995 
	Hullin et al 1985 
	Mitchell & lee (2001)

Question 28

organizational commitment

Answer 28

 Porter et al 1974
• Maintain that commitment consists of a belief in and acceptance of org goals and values; the willingness to exert towards org goal accomplishment; and strong desire to maintain org membership
 Mowday et all 1982
• Commitment is attitudinal or behavioral
 
 Recichers 1985
• Commitment is a process of identification with the goals of an organization’s multiple constituencies
 Meyer & Allen 1991
3 Different approaches to org commitment: 1. Agentive commitment (an emotional or affective attachment 2. Continuance commitment (attachment due to perceived costs of leaving) 3. Normative commitment (Attachment due to feelings of obligation in staying at org)

Question 29

negotiations, game theory, PRAM Model, Cognitive approaches

Answer 29

 The process in which two or more parties reach agreement on an issue even though they have different preferences regarding that issue
 4 primary approaches to negotiations
• Individual differences
o Personality traits of the negotiators: demographics, risk taking, locus of control, tolerance for ambiguity
• Situational characteristics
o Types of communication between negotiators, potential outcomes of negotiation, relative power of the parties, time frame for negotiation, number of people representing each side
• Game theory
o Developed by economists using mathematical models to predict the outcome of negotiation situations
o Requires that every alternative and outcome be analyzed with probabilities and numerical outcomes reflecting the preferences for each outcome
• Cognitive approaches
o Negotiators depart from rationality during negotiation; it tries to predict how and when negotiators will make these departures
• PRAM Model
o 4 step approach to negotiation that proposes that proper planning, building relationships, getting agreements, and maintaining the relationships are the key steps to successful negotiation
 Authors
• Wade et al 2002
• Rubin & brown 1975
• Lewicki & Litterer 1985
• Raiffa 1982
• Bazerman & Neale 1992
• Reck & Long 1985

Question 30

expatriate management

Answer 30

 Since Tung’s (1982) seminal study of the failure of expatriates in overseas assignments, which reported a high proportion of US managers returning home early from an overseas assignment compared with managers from Europe and Japan, the international business literature has continued to investigate the phenomenon of expatriate.
 As more and more projects are being executed successfully using multicultural teams, expatriate management is becoming a top priority for organizations. Expatriate Management involves the selection, assignment, training, and facilitation of transition for employees who take international assignments (Suutari & Brewster, 2001). The challenges expatriates face are often due to culture shock and lack of preparedness on the organization’s part to accommodate and prepare employees for the cross-cultural differences they will face (Singh, 2016). To assist expatriates in overcoming the barriers to cultural adaption, successfully executed expatriate management practices must be in place so that the organization can prevent cultural shock and reduce the impact of other barriers (Singh, 2016). Successful expatriate management can help organizations to attract, retain, and motivate people from diverse cultural backgrounds. This diversity in the workforce of an organization can lead to competitive advantages in cost structures and through maintaining the highest quality human resources. (Singh, 2016). Therefore, organizations could potentially capitalize on the benefits of cross-cultural differences that can lead to innovative ideas, increased creativity, and flexible adaptation to change (Dimas, Lourenco, & Rebelo, 2014).

Question 31

OB Paradigm

Answer 31

 Porter 1996—ob does not have any overall paradigms; OB has become multidisciplinary but not interdisciplinary

Question 32

future directions

Answer 32

 OB  Strategic HR Management
 Renewed interest in individual
 Focus on careers (Hall & Mirvis 1995)
 Work/family balance Edwards & Rothbard 2000

Question 33

work life balance

Answer 33

 Work-life relationships are interrelationships between a person’s work life and personal life (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). Balancing the work-life linkages can cause demands from both sides to have an extreme effect on an employee, especially considering the tradeoffs involved in satisfying one side of demands over the other (Griffin & Moorhead, 2011). As an organization, understanding the potential tradeoffs employees will have to make at different stages of their life is critical because organizations can implement policies that help create better work-life relationships and work-life balance for employees. This balance can be achieved through work-life policies. Work-life policies include any organizational program or officially sanctioned practice designed to assist employees with the integration of paid work with other important life aspects such as family, education, or leisure (Ryan & Kossek 2008). Work-life policies can signal to employees that the organization’s support for individual differences in work identities goes beyond the immediate work tasks assigned to employees and extends to include aspects of life outside of work (Ryan & Kossek 2008). Employers have adopted policies to support the integration of work with personal and family life and many employers expected a positive gain (Ryan & Kossek 2008). However, the positive gains of work-life policies are not always realized because researchers and practitioners often overlook the implementation phase when creating policies (Akanji, Mordi, & Ojo, 2015). Work-life policies are expected to increase employee recruitment, satisfaction, and/or retention; however, the existence of policies does not guarantee that an organization will see a positive increase in recruitment, satisfaction, or retention (Ryan & Kossek 2008). Roehling, Roehling, and Moen (2001), identified work-life policy implementation as a major challenge for organizations. Further literature states that there has been evidence collected in theoretical studies that concludes that there is an urgent need for policy guidelines and supervisory structure to redesign work life policies (Akanji, Mordi, & Ojo, 2015). The implementation of work-life policies relies on the existence of certain factors within the firm that may encourage or discourage the effective implementation of different elements of the firm’s work-life policies (Sanchez, Cruz, Martinez-Fuentes, 2016). Ryan and Kossek (2008) research study concluded that these factors included supervisor support, universality, negotiability, and quality of communication. Using these factors, Ryan and Kossek (2008) developed a framework that points directly to organizations taking responsibility for implementation planning; indicating that organizations must consider how it plans to implement policies broadly and how intra-organizational variation is likely to manifest. Thus, organizations need to move beyond promoting the mere existence of work-life policies as a means of a more supportive work place and consider how implementation leads to feelings of balance and inclusion for employees. This could potentially lead to more positive individual and organizational level outcomes.