Social and Organisatonal Psychology
G&J Chapter 1 – Individuals in Organizations
What is Organizatonal Behaviour (OB)?
ORGANIZATION = A collecton of people who work together and coordinate their actons to achieve
individual and organizatonal goalss
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR = The study of factors that afect how individuals and groups act in
organizatons and how organizatons respond to their environmentss
GROUP = Two or more people who interact to achieve their goalss
TEAM = A group in which members work together intensively and develop team specific routnes to
achieve a common group goals
MANAGERS = Persons who supervise the actvites of one or more employeess
● A manager can work to raise an employee’s self-esteem or beliefs about his or her ability to
accomplish a certain task in order to increase the employee’s productvity or ob satsfactons
,● A manager can change the reward system to change employees’ beliefs about the extent to which
their rewards depend on their performances
● A manager can change the design of a person’s ob or the rules and procedures for doing the ob to
reduce costs, make the task more en oyable, or make the task easier to perform
TOP-MANAGEMENT TEAMS = High-ranking executves who plan a company’s strategy so that the
company can achieve its goalss
ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS = The ability of an organizaton to achieve its goalss
MANAGEMENT = The process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling an organizaton’s
human, financial, material, and other resources to increase its efectvenesss
SELF-MANAGED TEAMS = Groups of employees who are given the authority and responsibility to
manage many diferent aspects of their own organizatonal behaviours
ROLE = A set of behaviours or tasks a person is expected to perform because of the positon he or she
holds in a group or organizatons
Managers perform their four functons by assuming specific roles in organizatonss
SKILL = An ability to act in a way that allows a person to perform well in his or her roles Managers
need three principal kinds of skill in order to perform their organizatonal functons and roles
efectvely: conceptual, human, and technical skills
CONCEPTUAL SKILLS = The ability to analyse and diagnose a situaton and to distnguish between
cause and efects
HUMAN SKILLS = The ability to understand, work with, lead, and control the behaviour of other
people and groupss
TECHNICAL SKILLS = Job-specific knowledge and techniquess The specific technical skills a manager
needs depend on the organizaton the manager is in and on his or her positon in the organizatons
One of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs confront—a problem ofen responsible for their
failure—is lack of appropriate conceptual and human skillss Similarly, one of the biggest problems
faced by scientsts, engineers, and others who switch careers and go from research into management
is their lack of efectve human skillss
,Challenges for OB
OPEN SYSTEM = Organizatons that take in resources from their external environments and convert
or transform them into goods and services that are sent back to their environments where customers
buy thems To appreciate the way changes in the environment efect behaviour in organizatons, it is
useful to model an organizaton from an open-systems perspectves
ORGANIZATIONAL PROCEDURE = A rule or routne an employee follows to perform some task in the
most efectve ways
Challenge 1: The changing social and cultural environment
Forces in the social and cultural environment are those that are due to changes in the way people
live and work—changes in values, attudes, and beliefs brought about by changes in a naton’s
culture and the characteristcs of its peoples Organizatons must be responsive to the changes that
take place in a society because they afect all aspects of their operatonss
NATIONAL CULTURE = The set of values or beliefs that a society considers important and the norms
of behaviour that are approved or sanctoned in that societys
ETHICS = The values, beliefs, and moral rules that managers and employees should use to analyze or
interpret a situaton and then decide what is the “right” or appropriate way to behaves
ETHICAL DILEMMA = The quandary managers experience when they have to decide if they should act
in a way that might benefit other people or groups, and is the “right” thing to do, even though doing
so might go against their own and their organizaton’s interestss
Ethics help managers establish the goals that their organizatons should pursue and the way in which
people inside organizatons should behave to achieve thems Ethics specify what actons an
organizaton should take to make a profits
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY = An organizaton’s obligatons toward people or groups directly afected by
its actonss
A second social and cultural challenge is to understand how the diversity of a workforce afects OBs If
an organizaton or group is composed of people who are all of the same gender, ethnicity, age,
religion, and so on, the attudes and behaviour of its members are likely to be very similars
, DIVERSITY = Individual diferences resultng from age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual
orientaton, and socioeconomic backgrounds
Managers are challenged to allocate obs, promotons, and rewards in a fair and equitable manners
As diversity increases, achieving fairness can be difficult because many organizatons have
traditonally appointed white-male employees to higher organizatonal positons but today all kinds
of diverse employees must be udged by the same equitable and unbiased criteria if companies are
to avoid employment lawsuits that have cost companies hundreds of millions of dollarss Increasing
diversity can strain an organizaton’s ability to satsfy the aspiratons of all the diverse groups in its
workforce—and this can create problems that, in turn, afect the well-being of employees and
organizatonal performances
Another important challenge posed by a diverse workforce is how to take advantage of diferences in
the attudes and perspectves of people of diferent ages, genders, or races, in order to improve
decision making and raise organizatonal performances Many organizatons have found that tapping
into diversity and taking advantage of the potental of diverse employees, leads to new and improved
organisatonal behaviours and proceduress
A third diversity challenge is to be sensitve to the needs of diferent kinds of employees and to try to
develop flexible employment approaches that increase employee well-beings Examples of some of
these approaches include the following:
● New benefits packages customized to the needs of diferent groups of employees such as single
employees with no children and families, gays and lesbians in long-term commited relatonships,
and employees caring for aged parents or disabled children
● Flexible employment conditons (such as flextme or working from home) that give employees
input into the length and scheduling of their workweek
● Arrangements that allow for ob sharing so that two or more employees can share the same ob (to
take care of children or aged parents, for example)
● Designing obs and the buildings that house organizatons to be sensitve to the special needs of
handicapped employees (and customers)
● Establishing mentoring relatonships to support minority employees
G&J Chapter 1 – Individuals in Organizations
What is Organizatonal Behaviour (OB)?
ORGANIZATION = A collecton of people who work together and coordinate their actons to achieve
individual and organizatonal goalss
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR = The study of factors that afect how individuals and groups act in
organizatons and how organizatons respond to their environmentss
GROUP = Two or more people who interact to achieve their goalss
TEAM = A group in which members work together intensively and develop team specific routnes to
achieve a common group goals
MANAGERS = Persons who supervise the actvites of one or more employeess
● A manager can work to raise an employee’s self-esteem or beliefs about his or her ability to
accomplish a certain task in order to increase the employee’s productvity or ob satsfactons
,● A manager can change the reward system to change employees’ beliefs about the extent to which
their rewards depend on their performances
● A manager can change the design of a person’s ob or the rules and procedures for doing the ob to
reduce costs, make the task more en oyable, or make the task easier to perform
TOP-MANAGEMENT TEAMS = High-ranking executves who plan a company’s strategy so that the
company can achieve its goalss
ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS = The ability of an organizaton to achieve its goalss
MANAGEMENT = The process of planning, organizing, leading, and controlling an organizaton’s
human, financial, material, and other resources to increase its efectvenesss
SELF-MANAGED TEAMS = Groups of employees who are given the authority and responsibility to
manage many diferent aspects of their own organizatonal behaviours
ROLE = A set of behaviours or tasks a person is expected to perform because of the positon he or she
holds in a group or organizatons
Managers perform their four functons by assuming specific roles in organizatonss
SKILL = An ability to act in a way that allows a person to perform well in his or her roles Managers
need three principal kinds of skill in order to perform their organizatonal functons and roles
efectvely: conceptual, human, and technical skills
CONCEPTUAL SKILLS = The ability to analyse and diagnose a situaton and to distnguish between
cause and efects
HUMAN SKILLS = The ability to understand, work with, lead, and control the behaviour of other
people and groupss
TECHNICAL SKILLS = Job-specific knowledge and techniquess The specific technical skills a manager
needs depend on the organizaton the manager is in and on his or her positon in the organizatons
One of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs confront—a problem ofen responsible for their
failure—is lack of appropriate conceptual and human skillss Similarly, one of the biggest problems
faced by scientsts, engineers, and others who switch careers and go from research into management
is their lack of efectve human skillss
,Challenges for OB
OPEN SYSTEM = Organizatons that take in resources from their external environments and convert
or transform them into goods and services that are sent back to their environments where customers
buy thems To appreciate the way changes in the environment efect behaviour in organizatons, it is
useful to model an organizaton from an open-systems perspectves
ORGANIZATIONAL PROCEDURE = A rule or routne an employee follows to perform some task in the
most efectve ways
Challenge 1: The changing social and cultural environment
Forces in the social and cultural environment are those that are due to changes in the way people
live and work—changes in values, attudes, and beliefs brought about by changes in a naton’s
culture and the characteristcs of its peoples Organizatons must be responsive to the changes that
take place in a society because they afect all aspects of their operatonss
NATIONAL CULTURE = The set of values or beliefs that a society considers important and the norms
of behaviour that are approved or sanctoned in that societys
ETHICS = The values, beliefs, and moral rules that managers and employees should use to analyze or
interpret a situaton and then decide what is the “right” or appropriate way to behaves
ETHICAL DILEMMA = The quandary managers experience when they have to decide if they should act
in a way that might benefit other people or groups, and is the “right” thing to do, even though doing
so might go against their own and their organizaton’s interestss
Ethics help managers establish the goals that their organizatons should pursue and the way in which
people inside organizatons should behave to achieve thems Ethics specify what actons an
organizaton should take to make a profits
SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY = An organizaton’s obligatons toward people or groups directly afected by
its actonss
A second social and cultural challenge is to understand how the diversity of a workforce afects OBs If
an organizaton or group is composed of people who are all of the same gender, ethnicity, age,
religion, and so on, the attudes and behaviour of its members are likely to be very similars
, DIVERSITY = Individual diferences resultng from age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, sexual
orientaton, and socioeconomic backgrounds
Managers are challenged to allocate obs, promotons, and rewards in a fair and equitable manners
As diversity increases, achieving fairness can be difficult because many organizatons have
traditonally appointed white-male employees to higher organizatonal positons but today all kinds
of diverse employees must be udged by the same equitable and unbiased criteria if companies are
to avoid employment lawsuits that have cost companies hundreds of millions of dollarss Increasing
diversity can strain an organizaton’s ability to satsfy the aspiratons of all the diverse groups in its
workforce—and this can create problems that, in turn, afect the well-being of employees and
organizatonal performances
Another important challenge posed by a diverse workforce is how to take advantage of diferences in
the attudes and perspectves of people of diferent ages, genders, or races, in order to improve
decision making and raise organizatonal performances Many organizatons have found that tapping
into diversity and taking advantage of the potental of diverse employees, leads to new and improved
organisatonal behaviours and proceduress
A third diversity challenge is to be sensitve to the needs of diferent kinds of employees and to try to
develop flexible employment approaches that increase employee well-beings Examples of some of
these approaches include the following:
● New benefits packages customized to the needs of diferent groups of employees such as single
employees with no children and families, gays and lesbians in long-term commited relatonships,
and employees caring for aged parents or disabled children
● Flexible employment conditons (such as flextme or working from home) that give employees
input into the length and scheduling of their workweek
● Arrangements that allow for ob sharing so that two or more employees can share the same ob (to
take care of children or aged parents, for example)
● Designing obs and the buildings that house organizatons to be sensitve to the special needs of
handicapped employees (and customers)
● Establishing mentoring relatonships to support minority employees
