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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT What is an Organization? An organization is a collection of people who work together to achieve individual and organizational goals. What is Organizational Behavior? Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of factors that affect how individuals and groups act in organizations and how organizations manage their environments What is Management? Management is the process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling an organization’s human, financial, material, and other resources to increase its effectiveness.
Managerial Roles * Manager: Any person who supervises one or more subordinates. * Role: A set of behaviors or tasks a person is expected to perform because of the position he or she holds in a group or organization. * Managerial roles identified by Mintzberg (see Table 1. 1): FigureheadLeader LiaisonMonitor DisseminatorSpokesperson EntrepreneurDisturbance handler Resource allocatorNegotiator Managerial Skills * Conceptual Skills: The ability to analyze and diagnose a situation and distinguish between cause and effect. Human Skills: The ability to understand, work with, lead, and control the behavior of other people and groups. * Technical Skills: Job-specific knowledge and techniques. Challenges for Organizational Behavior and Management * Using new information technology to enhance creativity and organizational learning. * Managing human resources to increase competitive advantage. * Developing organizational ethics and well-being. * Managing a diverse work force. * Managing the global environment. Challenge 1: Using New Information Technology to Enhance Creativity and Organizational Learning Information technology: The computer systems and software that organizations use to speed the flow of information around an organization and to better link people and subunits within it. * Creativity: The decision-making process that produces novel and useful ideas that lead to new or improved goods and services or to improvements in the way they are produced. New Ways to Increase Performance * Reengineering: A complete rethinking and redesign of business processes to increase efficiency, quality, innovation, or responsiveness to customers. * Restructuring: Altering an organization’s structure (e. g. by eliminating a department) to streamline the organization’s operations and reduce costs. * Outsourcing: Acquiring goods or services from sources outside the organization. * Freelancers: Independent individuals who contract with an organization to perform specific services. Challenge 3 Developing Organizational Ethics and Well-Being * Ethics: Rules, beliefs, and values that outline the ways in which managers and workers should behave when confronted with a situation in which their actions may help or harm other people inside of or outside an organization. * Well-being: The condition of being happy, healthy, and prosperous. Social responsibility: An organization’s moral responsibility toward individuals or groups outside the organization that are affected by its actions. The core 21st century qualities needed to create the ideal work atmosphere begin with intelligence, passion, a strong work ethic, and a genuine concern for people. Managing and Working Today and in the Future: * Managers must become agile and flexible to help their firms develop and sustain competitive advantage * To be successful, managers will need to harness the powers of: * information technology * human capital
Challenges of These Forces to Managers * Resisting the reality of these forces will likely lead to: * Unnecessary conflict * Reduced managerial performance * Reduced non-managerial performance * Lost opportunities * Failing to cope and deal with these forces will likely result in: * Job dissatisfaction * Poor morale * Reduced commitment * Lower work quality * Burnout * Poor judgment * Unhealthy consequences Taylor’s Scientific Management Principles (1 of 2) * Develop a science for each element of an employee’s work * which replaces the old rule-of-thumb method Scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the worker * whereas in the past a worker chose the work to do and was self-trained Taylor’s Scientific Management Principles (2 of 2) * Heartily cooperate with each other to insure that all work was done in accordance with the principles of science * There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between management and non-managers Impact of Fayol’s Functions of Management * Emphasized the importance of carefully practicing efficient: * planning * organizing * commanding * coordinating * controlling Management is a separate body of knowledge that can be applied in any type of organization * A theory of management that can be learned and taught * There is a need for teaching management in colleges Definition of Organizational Behavior (OB) * The study of human behavior, attitudes, and performance within an organizational setting * drawing on theory, methods, and principles from such disciplines as psychology, sociology, political science, and cultural anthropology * to learn about individual, groups, structure, and processes Systems Theory and Effectiveness (1 of 2) Organizational effectiveness is an all-encompassing concept that includes a number of component concepts * The managerial task is to maintain the optimal balance among these components Managers can lead the way to higher levels of effectiveness by: (1 of 2) * Providing opportunities for training and continuous learning * Sharing information with employees * Encouraging cross-development partnerships * Linking compensation to performance Managers can lead the way to higher levels of effectiveness by: (2 of 2) * Avoiding layoffs * Being a supportive role model Respecting the differences across employees * Being a good listener Key Points (1 of 2) * The key to an organization’s success is its human resources * Organizations need human resources that: * work hard * think creatively * perform excellently Key Points (2 of 2) * Rewarding, encouraging, and nurturing the human resources in a timely and meaningful manner is what is required * The behavior of employees is the key to achieving effectiveness Chapter 16 Organizational Behavior across cultures Chapter objectives: * Conditions affecting multinational operations Individual differences among employees * Barriers to cultural adoption * Overcoming barriers to cultural adoption * Productivity and cultural contingencies Condition affecting multinational operation The people of the world are organized into nations with its own way, according to its recourses and heritages. There are some similarities and differences among the nations. Understanding these differences and how they influence organizational behavior is aided by examination of following keys: * Social conditions * Legal and ethical conditions Political conditions * Economic conditions Social conditions In many countries the social condition is poorly developed , there are major shortages of managerial personnel, scientists and technicians and these deficiencies limit the ability to employ local labor . Needed skills must be imported from other countries while the local workers will be prepared. exp American nation welcomed an electronic assembly plant to its capital city . the plant was labor- intensive, so the many jobs it provided reduce the nation’s high unemployment rate. ages were above standards, working conditions were good and the plant was environmentally clean. Additionally company’s agreement with the host nation stated that the company would supply a cadre of managers and technicians to train local employees. local would gradually become supervisors, technician and purchasing specialist and so on. Legal and ethical conditions In judicial systems, some countries practice rapid disposition of cases, in other countries cases may drag on for years. Some countries condone the practice of bribery as way of obtaining and retaining businesses others strictly prohibit it.

Managers need to be aware of the possible differences in both laws and ethical values that define acceptable and unacceptable behaviors in foreign countries . The managers in foreign countries need to become familiar with local customers and practice . Applying their own personal and organizational value system, their must then decide which behaviors are compatible with both parties’ expectations and which are not. Finally ,they need to recognize that the resolution of ethical issues is not always clear-cut. Individual differences There are five dimensions that accounted for the sharpest differences among employees including: Individualism/collectivism * Power distance * Uncertainty avoidance * Masculinity/femininity * Time orientation Individual differences * Individualism/Collectivism: cultures that emphasize individualism tend to accent individual rights and freedoms and place considerable attention on self-respect whereas collectivism heavily accent the group and values harmony among members. For example in US there is individualistic culture(“every person for him/her self”) but Japan is collectivistic, with the culture that can be characterized by the proverb:”The nail sticks up gets pounded down. * Power distance: refers to the belief which are strong and legitimate decision-making rights separating managers and employees. Individual differences * Uncertainty avoidance: These employees prefer to avoid ambiguity at work and those who with high degree often prefer stability, security and clarity. * Masculinity/ Femininity: define gender roles in more traditional ways. In addition, masculine societies evaluate assertive behavior and acquisition wealth ;whereas feminine cultures contribute to the relationships among people, caring for others and greater balance between family and work life.
Individual differences * Time orientation: some cultures emphasize values such as the necessity of preparing for the future, the value of thrift and savings and the qualification of persistence which have long-term orientation such as Hong Kong, China and Japan. * Other cultures value the past and accent the present with the respect for tradition and need to fulfill historical social obligations, they have short-term orientation such as France, Russia, and West Africa. Managing at International workforce * Multiculturism: occurs when the employees in two or more cultures nteract with each one regular basis. In some instances the new employees are parent-country nationals from the nations in which the home office is located or they may be third-country nationals from some other nations. In either case they are called expatriate because they come from another nation. Their role is to provide a combination of cultures in which both parties adjust to the new situation of seeking greater productivity for the benefit of both the organization and the citizens of the country. Barriers to cultural adaption Parochialism: it means that the people see the situation around them from their own perspective. They may fail to recognize key differences between their own and others’ cultures. * Ethnocentrism: occurs when people are predisposed (talented) to believe that their homeland conditions are the best. This predisposition is known as the self-reference criterion or ethnocentrism. * Cultural empathy: is the awareness of the differences across the cultures and understanding of the ways in which those differences can affect business relationships.
When culture empathy continues, it will result in geocentric organization which ignore person’s nationality while emphasizing employee ability in selection, assignment, and decisions. CROSS-CULTURAL COMMUNICATION * Transcultural Managers are those who have learned to manage employees in several cultures effectively. Transcultural Employees are those who have learned to operate effectively in several cultures. These employees are low in ethnocentrism and adapt readily to different cultures without major cultural shock. They usually communicate in more than one language. Transcultural employees are especially needed in large, multinational firms that operate in a variety of national cultures. * Multinational Firm: For a firm to be fully Multinational in character, it should have the following items truly diversified without primary dominance of any one nation : – Ownership, – Operations, – Markets, – Managers. * Multinational Companies management look to the world as an economic and social unit; but reorganize each local culture, respect its integrity, acknowledge its benefits, and use its differences effectively in their organization.