INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: IMPROVING PERFORMANCE AND
COMMITMENT IN THE WORKPLACE
5TH CANADIAN EDITION
CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.1 Assuming you possessed the right technical skills, would a job at IKEA be appealing to
you? What would be the most important positives associated with the position, in your
view? What would be the most important negatives?
The answers will vary from person to person, but one of the more oft-mentioned
positives would be working for a company that stood for something—that had a “social
mission.” One negative might be working for a company whose product seems routine
and common, as there are a number of companies that the lay consumer might view as
substitutable.
1.2 Think again about the worst coworker you’ve ever had—the one who did some of the
things listed in Table 1-1. Think about what that coworker’s boss did (or didn’t do) to
try to improve his or her behaviour. What did the boss do well or poorly? What would
you have done differently, and which organizational behaviour topics would have been
most relevant?
One boss, when faced with a “bad” employee, got more and more authoritarian –
finding fault with everything the employee did and penalizing the employee for every
fault. As a result, the employee was more and more demotivated. An alternative
approach would be to discuss the employee’s strengths and weaknesses with him,
determining the cause of the poor performance, and seeking more helpful solutions for
dealing with it. For example, discussing the employee’s individual characteristics
might yield knowledge about how to place that person for maximum effectiveness and
job satisfaction. An analysis of group mechanisms could help to determine whether or
not the employee had the proper support to do his work. And an analysis of
organizational mechanisms might provide information on changes that need to be made
to the environment for the employee to improve.
1.3 Which of the Individual Characteristics and Mechanisms in Figure 1-1 seem to drive
your performance and commitment the most? Do you think you’re unique in that regard
or do you think most people would answer that way?
Answers to this question will vary, but the important point to make when discussing the
question is that everyone is different, and that when trying to motivate employees, those
differences must be taken into account.
,1.4 Think of something that you “know” to be true based on the Method of Experience, the
Method of Intuition, or the Method of Authority. Could you test your knowledge using
the Method of Science? How would you do it?
It is often fun to work with adages (i.e., short but memorable sayings which are
considered true by many people). Examples might be “too many cooks spoil the soup”,
“when it rains, it pours,” “don’t judge a book by its cover”, or “two heads are better
than one.” Students will come up with others. Have students think of ways these could
be test, scientifically. Answers will vary.
CASE: IKEA
Questions:
1. To what extent does a company’s culture wind up reflecting the personality of its
founder? To what extent does it reflect the values of the country it was founded in?
Which seems to be a stronger force in the case of IKEA?
Certainly there will be elements of both, and both the founder and the country seem to have
impacted the culture at IKEA. It’s also important to note that—because founders grow up in a
particular country—their traits are themselves shaped by the prevailing culture.
2. IKEA operates in a number of countries around the world. The governments and
people in those countries may have different attitudes about working hours,
diversity efforts, pay levels, and political and environmental activism. Should
companies alter their policies and activities in a way that is sensitive to such
differences?
Most multinational companies do allow for variation in HR policies across countries—
when those policies are peripheral to the core mission and philosophy of the firm.
Policies that are core aspects of the firm’s identity, however, wind up being maintained
across countries. In IKEA’s case, some of those policies and activities are core to their
culture. Variation on them is likely restricted as a result.
3. Assume you were an employee at an organization like IKEA, and Fortune
surveyed you for its 100 Best Companies to Work For list. To what extent would
your attitudes be shaped not just by internal work policies, but also by how the
company engages with society?
This will vary by person, but how a company engages with society is becoming a bigger and
bigger part of what it means to work there. Social media amplifies how a company conducts
itself, and business reporting has become more sensitive to such issues over time. Thus, the
external facing aspects of a company are likely to be even bigger drivers of employee attitudes.
,BONUS CASE: LEADING THE WAY 1
What do an airline and a bank have in common? You would be correct if you guessed that both
WestJet and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) were named along with a small handful of other
companies as Canada’s most admired companies. Why were these companies chosen? In spite
of being in different industries, all had developed their respective corporate cultures in such a
way as to unleash the talents of their people to achieve important organizational goals.
According to Gregg Saretsky, President and CEO of WestJet, “our culture of care not only
delivers a world-class guest experience, but our culture is fundamentally important to sustaining
and growing our business in the longer term.” Commenting further on importance of culture,
WestJet’s Ferio Pugliese, Executive Vice- President, People and Culture, emphasized that
“many organizations talk about the importance of values and culture. At WestJet we do more
than talk—we LIVE IT! Our culture drives a superior guest experience that is brought to our
guests consistently every day. That’s because we have the right people on our team.” But it’s
more than having a service-oriented, caring culture. “If you walk around our airports or our
airplanes, and you come in contact with WestJetters, you’ll see they act like they own the place.
And we’re really okay with that because that’s what we’re trying to create here at this
company,” says Ferio Pugliese.
For RBC, a winning corporate culture has meant openly valuing teamwork and ongoing
learning and development, and embracing and harnessing the diversity of its employees. “Our
strength comes from the combination of what we have in common, like our shared values,
vision, and purpose, as well as what makes us different, like experiences and perspectives,”
says Gordon Nixon, president and CEO of RBC. “We recognize the value and power of tapping
into the full spectrum of ideas and abilities that people possess. Doing just that has been a
strong part of RBC’s past success and is crucial for seizing the opportunities ahead. We are
competing in a global marketplace, and we know that our growth will depend on an
increasingly diverse and global workforce.” Without a doubt, “it is our people that bring our
brand to life every day with our clients,” says Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer.
Both WestJet and the RBC are people-driven companies that have been able to find employees
who are conscientious and intelligent, motivated and satisfied with their jobs, and committed to
their organizations for a longer-than-normal period of time, and who perform their job duties
reliably and enthusiastically. Simply put, both are leading Canadian companies that seem to be
doing an excellent job managing organizational behaviour!
As alluded to earlier, RBC is Canada’s largest bank as measured by assets and market
capitalization, and among the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalization. It is a
leading financial services company providing personal and commercial banking, wealth
1
Sources: www.waterstonehc.com/cmac/canadas-10 (retrieved August 5, 2014);
www.westjet.com/guest/en/media-investors/gregg-saretsky.shtml (retrieved May 3, 2011);
www.westjet.com/guest/en/media-investors/ferio-pugliese.shtml (retrieved May 3, 2011);
www.rbc.com/diversity/ceo-message.html (retrieved May 3, 2011). RBC website, www.rbc.com, accessed August
2014; Royal Bank of Canada, 2010 annual report; RBC, 2010 Diversity Progress Report; RBC, 2009 RBC
Employment Equity Report; Statistics Canada website, www80.statcan.gc.ca/wes-esw/page1-eng.htm, accessed
May 2011.
, management services, insurance, corporate and investment banking, and transaction processing.
In total, RBC employs approximately 79,000 full- and part-time employees who serve close to
16 million personal, business, publicsector, and institutional clients through offices in Canada,
the United States, and 42 other countries.
The employees at RBC are very different on the surface. For instance, within Canada, the
workforce demographics break down as follows: approximately 69 percent are women, 1.6
percent are Aboriginal, 3.7 percent are persons with disabilities, and 27.3 percent are visible
minorities. According to Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer, differences in people
and their talents are seen as valuable and as potential assets, and also a source of sustainable
competitive advantage. It is not surprising to learn, therefore, that diversity for growth and
innovation is one of RBC’s core values and an integral part of their business strategy. What
does this mean? Well, for RBC, this means understanding and drawing on the strength of
diversity to meet the needs of clients around the world, building strong relationships in the
many communities they serve, and fully engaging the talents of their people. Hirji goes on to
say that “only by fully leveraging the talents and potential of a diverse workforce, can
companies ensure economic prosperity in the face of changing conditions and challenging
economic times.”
But how does RBC implement its diversity strategy? Several key activities include hiring
people who have the technical, behavioural, and diversity requirements for the position being
filled, investing heavily in training throughout the company, and promoting internal mentoring
relationships. One example is its Diversity Dialogues program, a reciprocal mentoring program
in which mid-level women or visible minority employees are matched with senior leaders and
executives. Says Cheryl Tjok-A-Tam, “it was one of the best experiences of my career. It gave
me a remarkable insight not just into ways to promote diversity and inclusion but also into what
it takes to advance to senior positions within the bank.” According to Naim Kazmi, it was
through the reciprocal mentoring program that “I got to tell my story to someone who was
listening and wanted to help me bring my unique experiences and perspectives to the
organization.”
Questions:
1. Most of you would agree that it is easy to get along and work with people who are
similar to us. Yet diversity programs like the one described at RBC are intentionally
designed to bring together people who are different in some way. Isn’t this a recipe for
conflict? What do you think might have to happen for these programs to be really
successful? Explain.
The case illustrates what a leading Canadian organization is doing to promote a diverse
workforce. This question was designed to help students discover a potential dilemma with this
strategy. On the one hand diversity (i.e., having group members who are different with respect
to ethnicity, expertise, personality, abilities, interests and values) provides for a larger pool of
resources and perspectives from which the group, team or organization can draw upon to carry
out its work. On the other hand, and as implied in the question, people who are fundamentally
different may encounter more trouble communicating and coordinating their respective
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: IMPROVING PERFORMANCE AND
COMMITMENT IN THE WORKPLACE
5TH CANADIAN EDITION
CHAPTER 1: WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR?
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1.1 Assuming you possessed the right technical skills, would a job at IKEA be appealing to
you? What would be the most important positives associated with the position, in your
view? What would be the most important negatives?
The answers will vary from person to person, but one of the more oft-mentioned
positives would be working for a company that stood for something—that had a “social
mission.” One negative might be working for a company whose product seems routine
and common, as there are a number of companies that the lay consumer might view as
substitutable.
1.2 Think again about the worst coworker you’ve ever had—the one who did some of the
things listed in Table 1-1. Think about what that coworker’s boss did (or didn’t do) to
try to improve his or her behaviour. What did the boss do well or poorly? What would
you have done differently, and which organizational behaviour topics would have been
most relevant?
One boss, when faced with a “bad” employee, got more and more authoritarian –
finding fault with everything the employee did and penalizing the employee for every
fault. As a result, the employee was more and more demotivated. An alternative
approach would be to discuss the employee’s strengths and weaknesses with him,
determining the cause of the poor performance, and seeking more helpful solutions for
dealing with it. For example, discussing the employee’s individual characteristics
might yield knowledge about how to place that person for maximum effectiveness and
job satisfaction. An analysis of group mechanisms could help to determine whether or
not the employee had the proper support to do his work. And an analysis of
organizational mechanisms might provide information on changes that need to be made
to the environment for the employee to improve.
1.3 Which of the Individual Characteristics and Mechanisms in Figure 1-1 seem to drive
your performance and commitment the most? Do you think you’re unique in that regard
or do you think most people would answer that way?
Answers to this question will vary, but the important point to make when discussing the
question is that everyone is different, and that when trying to motivate employees, those
differences must be taken into account.
,1.4 Think of something that you “know” to be true based on the Method of Experience, the
Method of Intuition, or the Method of Authority. Could you test your knowledge using
the Method of Science? How would you do it?
It is often fun to work with adages (i.e., short but memorable sayings which are
considered true by many people). Examples might be “too many cooks spoil the soup”,
“when it rains, it pours,” “don’t judge a book by its cover”, or “two heads are better
than one.” Students will come up with others. Have students think of ways these could
be test, scientifically. Answers will vary.
CASE: IKEA
Questions:
1. To what extent does a company’s culture wind up reflecting the personality of its
founder? To what extent does it reflect the values of the country it was founded in?
Which seems to be a stronger force in the case of IKEA?
Certainly there will be elements of both, and both the founder and the country seem to have
impacted the culture at IKEA. It’s also important to note that—because founders grow up in a
particular country—their traits are themselves shaped by the prevailing culture.
2. IKEA operates in a number of countries around the world. The governments and
people in those countries may have different attitudes about working hours,
diversity efforts, pay levels, and political and environmental activism. Should
companies alter their policies and activities in a way that is sensitive to such
differences?
Most multinational companies do allow for variation in HR policies across countries—
when those policies are peripheral to the core mission and philosophy of the firm.
Policies that are core aspects of the firm’s identity, however, wind up being maintained
across countries. In IKEA’s case, some of those policies and activities are core to their
culture. Variation on them is likely restricted as a result.
3. Assume you were an employee at an organization like IKEA, and Fortune
surveyed you for its 100 Best Companies to Work For list. To what extent would
your attitudes be shaped not just by internal work policies, but also by how the
company engages with society?
This will vary by person, but how a company engages with society is becoming a bigger and
bigger part of what it means to work there. Social media amplifies how a company conducts
itself, and business reporting has become more sensitive to such issues over time. Thus, the
external facing aspects of a company are likely to be even bigger drivers of employee attitudes.
,BONUS CASE: LEADING THE WAY 1
What do an airline and a bank have in common? You would be correct if you guessed that both
WestJet and the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) were named along with a small handful of other
companies as Canada’s most admired companies. Why were these companies chosen? In spite
of being in different industries, all had developed their respective corporate cultures in such a
way as to unleash the talents of their people to achieve important organizational goals.
According to Gregg Saretsky, President and CEO of WestJet, “our culture of care not only
delivers a world-class guest experience, but our culture is fundamentally important to sustaining
and growing our business in the longer term.” Commenting further on importance of culture,
WestJet’s Ferio Pugliese, Executive Vice- President, People and Culture, emphasized that
“many organizations talk about the importance of values and culture. At WestJet we do more
than talk—we LIVE IT! Our culture drives a superior guest experience that is brought to our
guests consistently every day. That’s because we have the right people on our team.” But it’s
more than having a service-oriented, caring culture. “If you walk around our airports or our
airplanes, and you come in contact with WestJetters, you’ll see they act like they own the place.
And we’re really okay with that because that’s what we’re trying to create here at this
company,” says Ferio Pugliese.
For RBC, a winning corporate culture has meant openly valuing teamwork and ongoing
learning and development, and embracing and harnessing the diversity of its employees. “Our
strength comes from the combination of what we have in common, like our shared values,
vision, and purpose, as well as what makes us different, like experiences and perspectives,”
says Gordon Nixon, president and CEO of RBC. “We recognize the value and power of tapping
into the full spectrum of ideas and abilities that people possess. Doing just that has been a
strong part of RBC’s past success and is crucial for seizing the opportunities ahead. We are
competing in a global marketplace, and we know that our growth will depend on an
increasingly diverse and global workforce.” Without a doubt, “it is our people that bring our
brand to life every day with our clients,” says Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer.
Both WestJet and the RBC are people-driven companies that have been able to find employees
who are conscientious and intelligent, motivated and satisfied with their jobs, and committed to
their organizations for a longer-than-normal period of time, and who perform their job duties
reliably and enthusiastically. Simply put, both are leading Canadian companies that seem to be
doing an excellent job managing organizational behaviour!
As alluded to earlier, RBC is Canada’s largest bank as measured by assets and market
capitalization, and among the largest banks in the world in terms of market capitalization. It is a
leading financial services company providing personal and commercial banking, wealth
1
Sources: www.waterstonehc.com/cmac/canadas-10 (retrieved August 5, 2014);
www.westjet.com/guest/en/media-investors/gregg-saretsky.shtml (retrieved May 3, 2011);
www.westjet.com/guest/en/media-investors/ferio-pugliese.shtml (retrieved May 3, 2011);
www.rbc.com/diversity/ceo-message.html (retrieved May 3, 2011). RBC website, www.rbc.com, accessed August
2014; Royal Bank of Canada, 2010 annual report; RBC, 2010 Diversity Progress Report; RBC, 2009 RBC
Employment Equity Report; Statistics Canada website, www80.statcan.gc.ca/wes-esw/page1-eng.htm, accessed
May 2011.
, management services, insurance, corporate and investment banking, and transaction processing.
In total, RBC employs approximately 79,000 full- and part-time employees who serve close to
16 million personal, business, publicsector, and institutional clients through offices in Canada,
the United States, and 42 other countries.
The employees at RBC are very different on the surface. For instance, within Canada, the
workforce demographics break down as follows: approximately 69 percent are women, 1.6
percent are Aboriginal, 3.7 percent are persons with disabilities, and 27.3 percent are visible
minorities. According to Zabeen Hirji, Chief Human Resources Officer, differences in people
and their talents are seen as valuable and as potential assets, and also a source of sustainable
competitive advantage. It is not surprising to learn, therefore, that diversity for growth and
innovation is one of RBC’s core values and an integral part of their business strategy. What
does this mean? Well, for RBC, this means understanding and drawing on the strength of
diversity to meet the needs of clients around the world, building strong relationships in the
many communities they serve, and fully engaging the talents of their people. Hirji goes on to
say that “only by fully leveraging the talents and potential of a diverse workforce, can
companies ensure economic prosperity in the face of changing conditions and challenging
economic times.”
But how does RBC implement its diversity strategy? Several key activities include hiring
people who have the technical, behavioural, and diversity requirements for the position being
filled, investing heavily in training throughout the company, and promoting internal mentoring
relationships. One example is its Diversity Dialogues program, a reciprocal mentoring program
in which mid-level women or visible minority employees are matched with senior leaders and
executives. Says Cheryl Tjok-A-Tam, “it was one of the best experiences of my career. It gave
me a remarkable insight not just into ways to promote diversity and inclusion but also into what
it takes to advance to senior positions within the bank.” According to Naim Kazmi, it was
through the reciprocal mentoring program that “I got to tell my story to someone who was
listening and wanted to help me bring my unique experiences and perspectives to the
organization.”
Questions:
1. Most of you would agree that it is easy to get along and work with people who are
similar to us. Yet diversity programs like the one described at RBC are intentionally
designed to bring together people who are different in some way. Isn’t this a recipe for
conflict? What do you think might have to happen for these programs to be really
successful? Explain.
The case illustrates what a leading Canadian organization is doing to promote a diverse
workforce. This question was designed to help students discover a potential dilemma with this
strategy. On the one hand diversity (i.e., having group members who are different with respect
to ethnicity, expertise, personality, abilities, interests and values) provides for a larger pool of
resources and perspectives from which the group, team or organization can draw upon to carry
out its work. On the other hand, and as implied in the question, people who are fundamentally
different may encounter more trouble communicating and coordinating their respective
