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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
UNIT-I: Introduction - Organizational Behavior – Nature – Management
Functions – Management Roles – Management Skills – Systematic Study;
Foundations of Individual Behavior-Attitudes – Types of Attitudes.
Introduction:
Definition:
Organization 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.
 OB is a field of study, meaning that it is a distinct area of expertise
with a common body of knowledge.
 What does it study?
 It studies three determinants of behavior in organizations:
individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order
to make organizations work more effectively.
 To sum up our definition, OB is concerned with the study of what
people do in an organization and how their behavior affects the
organization’s performance.
Nature Of Organizational Behavior (OB)


Organizational behavior is an applied behavioral science that is built on
contributions from a number of behavioral disciplines such as psychology,
sociology, social psychology, anthropology and economics.
So now students let’s see how these disciplines are related to
organizational behavior,
• Psychology. Psychology is the study of human behavior which tries to
identify the characteristics of individuals and provides an understanding
why an individual behaves in a particular way. This thus provides us with
useful insight into areas such as human motivation, perceptual processes
or personality characteristics.
• Sociology. Sociology is the study of social behavior, relationships
among social groups and societies, and the maintenance of social order.
The main focus of attention is on the social system. This helps us to
appreciate the functioning of individuals within the organization which is
essentially a socio-technical entity.
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• Social psychology. Social psychology is the study of human behavior
in the context of social situations. This essentially addresses the problem
of understanding the typical behavioral patterns to be expected from an
individual when he takes part in a group.
• Anthropology. Anthropology is the science of mankind and the study
of human behavior as a whole. The main focus of attention is on the
cultural system, beliefs, customs, ideas and values within a group or
society and the comparison of behavior among different cultures. In the
context of today’s organizational scenario. It is very important to
appreciate the differences that exist among people coming from different
cultural backgrounds as people are often found to work with others from
the other side of the globe.
• Economics. Any organization to survive and sustain must be aware of
the economic viability of their effort. This applies even to the non-profit
and voluntary organizations as well.
• Political Science Although frequently overlooked, the contributions of
political scientists are significant to the understand arrangement in
organizations. It studies individuals and groups within specific conditions
concerning the power dynamics. Important topics under here include
structuring Of Conflict, allocation of power and how people manipulate
power for individual self-interest etc.
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
The following figure depicts to highlight the interdisciplinary nature of
organizational behaviour.
What Managers Do?

•

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Managers are the individuals who achieve goals through others. They
get things done through other people.
Managerial Activities
 Make decisions
 Allocate resources
 Direct activities of others to attain goals
Managers do their work in an organization, which is consciously
coordinated social unit, basis to achieve a common goal or set of
goals.
An organization is a consciously coordinated social unit, basis to
achieve a common goal or set of goals.
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Management Functions
1. Planning: A process that includes defining goals, establishing
strategy, & developing plans to coordinate activities.
2. Organizing: Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do
them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, &
where decisions are to be made.
3. Leading: A function that includes motivating employees, directing
others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and
resolving conflicts.
4. Controlling: Monitoring activities to ensure they are being
accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations.
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Management Roles
In the late 1960s, Henry Mintzberg concluded that managers perform 10
different, highly interrelated roles -- or set of behaviors – attributable to
their jobs.
These 10 roles can be grouped as
1. Interpersonal
2. Informational
3. Decisional
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Management Skills
Robert Katz has identified three essential management skills: Technical,
Human, & Conceptual.
Technical Skills:
 Technical Skills encompass the ability to apply specialized
knowledge or expertise.
 When you think of the skill held by professionals such as civil
engineers or oral surgeons, you typically focus on their technical skills.
 All jobs require some specialized expertise, and many people develop
their technical skills on the job.
Human skills:
 The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other
people, both individually and in groups, defines Human Skills.
 Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent.
They might be poor listeners, unable to understand the needs of
others, or have difficulty managing conflicts.
 Because managers get things done through other people, they must
have good human skills to communicate, motivate, and delegate.
Conceptual Skills:
 The managers must have the ability to analyze and diagnose
complex situations.
 These tasks require conceptual skills.
 Decision making, for instance, requires managers to identify
problems, develop alternative solutions to correct those problems,
evaluate those alternatives solutions, and select the best one.
 Managers can be technically & interpersonally competent yet still fail
because of an ability to rationally process and interpret information.
Systematic Study
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Behavior is generally predictable and the systematic study of behavior
is a means to making reasonably accurate predictions.
Systematic study means looking at relationships, attempting to
attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on
scientific evidence. It provides a means to predict behaviors.
Systematic study adds to intuition, or those “gut feelings” about
“why I do what I do” and “what makes others tick”.
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Foundations of Individual Behavior
Here we look at how individual differences in the form of ability (which
includes intelligence) and biographical characteristics (such as gender,
age, race and tenure) affect employee performance and satisfaction.
Ability


Ability refers to an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job. It is a
current assessment of what one can do.
Individual overall abilities are made up of two sets of factors: intellectual and
physical.
 Intellectual Abilities:
 Intellectual abilities are those needed to perform mental activities.
 IQ tests are designed to ascertain one’s general intellectual abilities.
Examples of such tests are popular college admission tests such as the SAT,
GMAT, and LSAT.
 Jobs differ in the demands they place on incumbents to use their intellectual
abilities. For example, the more information-processing demands that exist in
a job, the more general intelligence and verbal abilities will be necessary to
perform the job successfully.
 New research in this area focuses on “multiple intelligences,” which breaks
down intelligence into its four sub-parts: cognitive, social, emotional, and
cultural.
Dimensions of Intellectual Ability

Number aptitude
 Verbal comprehension
 Perceptual speed
 Inductive reasoning
 Deductive reasoning
 Spatial visualization
 Memory
 Physical Abilities
 The capacity to do task demanding stamina, dexterity, strength,
and similar characteristics.
 Nine Physical Abilities
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Strength Factors
Dynamic strength
Trunk strength
Static strength
Explosive strength
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Flexibility Factors
Extent flexibility
Dynamic flexibility
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
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
Other Factors
Body coordination
Balance
 Stamina
 The Ability- job fit
 Employee performance is enhanced when there is a high ability-job fit.

The specific intellectual or physical abilities required depend on the ability
requirements of the job. For example, pilots need strong spatial-visualization
abilities.

Directing attention at only the employee’s abilities, or only the ability
requirements of the job, ignores the fact that employee performance depends on
the interaction of the two.

When the ability-job fit is out of sync because the employee has abilities that far
exceed the requirements of the job, performance is likely to be adequate, but
there will be organizational inefficiencies and possible declines in employee
satisfaction.
Abilities significantly above those required can also reduce the employee’s job
satisfaction when the employee’s desire to use his or her abilities is particularly
strong and is frustrated by the limitations of the job.

Biographical characteristics
Finding and analyzing the variables that have an impact on employee productivity,
absence, turnover, and satisfaction is often complicated.
Age –
 The relationship between age and job performance is increasing in importance.
Also, the older you get, the less likely you are to quit your job.
 The age-absence relationship is partially a function of whether the absence is
avoidable or unavoidable.
 In general, older employees have lower rates of avoidable absence.
 Reviews of the research find that age and job performance are unrelated. Most
studies indicate a positive association between age and satisfaction, at least up
to age 60.
 Other studies, however, have found a U-shaped relationship. When the two
types, professional and nonprofessional employees, are separated, satisfaction
tends to continually increase among professionals as they age, whereas it falls
among nonprofessionals during middle age and then rises again in the later
years.
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Gender –
 The evidence suggests that there are few, if any, important
differences between men and women that will affect their job
performance.
 There are no consistent male-female differences in problem-solving
ability, analytical skills, competitive drive, motivation, sociability, or
learning ability.
 There is a difference in terms of preference for work schedules.
 Some studies have found that women have higher turnover rates;
others have found no difference.
 There does not appear to be enough information from which to
draw meaningful conclusions. The research on absence consistently
indicates that women have higher rates of absenteeism than men
do.
Marital Status –
 There are not enough studies to draw any conclusions about the
effect of marital status on productivity.
 Research consistently indicates that married employees have fewer
absences, undergo fewer turnovers, and are more satisfied with
their jobs than are their unmarried coworkers.
Tenure –
 Studies consistently demonstrate seniority to be negatively related
to absenteeism.
 Tenure is also a potent variable in explaining turnover.
 “Tenure has consistently been found to be negatively related to
turnover and has been suggested as one of the single best
predictors of turnover.”
 The evidence indicates that tenure and satisfaction are positively
related.
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Attitudes
1. Attitudes are evaluative statements that are either favorable or unfavorable
concerning objects, people, or events.
2. Attitudes are not the same as values, but the two are interrelated.
3. Three components of an attitude:
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
Cognition
Affect
Behavior
4. The belief that “discrimination is wrong” is a value statement and an example of the
cognitive component of an attitude.
5. Value statements set the stage for the more critical part of an attitude—its affective
component. Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude. Example: “I
don’t like Jon because he discriminates again minorities.”
6. The behavioral component of an attitude refers to an intention to behave in a
certain way toward someone or something. Example: “I chose to avoid Jon
because he discriminates.”
7. Viewing attitudes as made up of three components helps with understanding of the
potential relationship between attitudes and behavior, however, when we refer to
attitude essentially we mean the affect part of the three components.
Types of Attitudes
1. OB focuses our attention on a very limited number of job-related attitudes. Most of
the research in OB has been concerned with three attitudes: job satisfaction, job
involvement, and organizational commitment.
2. Job satisfaction

Definition: It is an individual’s general attitude toward his/her job.

A high level of job satisfaction equals positive attitudes toward the job and vice
versa.

Employee attitudes and job satisfaction are frequently used interchangeably.

Often when people speak of “employee attitudes” they mean “employee job
satisfaction.”
3. Job involvement

A workable definition: the measure of the degree to which a person identifies
psychologically with his/her job and considers his/her perceived performance
level important to self-worth.

High levels of job involvement are thought to result in fewer absences and lower
resignation rates.

Job involvement more consistently predicts turnover than absenteeism.
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4. Organizational commitment
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Definition: A state in which an employee identifies with a particular organization
and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organization.
An individual’s level of organizational commitment is a better indicator of turnover
than the far more frequently used job satisfaction predictor because it is a more
global and enduring response to the organization as a whole than is job
satisfaction.
Organizational commitment is probably less important as a job-related attitude
than it once was because the unwritten “loyalty” contract in place when this
research was conducted is no longer in place.
5. Perceived Organizational Support(POS)
Degree to which employees feel the organization cares about their well-being.
6. Employee Engagement
An individual’s involvement with satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the
organization.
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