HRM & OB 1 Summary
OB Chapter 1
Management and organizational behavior
Manager - an individual who achieves goals through other people.
4 managerial tasks:
1. Planning - process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy and
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, and 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 that they are being accomplished
as planned and correcting any significant deviations.
Organization - consciously coordinated social unit, composed of 2 or more people,
that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of
goals.
Management roles
Interpersonal roles - ceremonial and symbolic in nature
Figurehead - Acts in charge, even if the power lies with someone else. Has social
roles such as opening new headquarters.
Leader - Motivates and mobilizes employees for specific goals, gives direct
commands and orders, provides an example for employees to follow
Liaison - Maintains contact networks, coordinates the work of managers of
different departments to share resources to produce new goods and services.
Informational roles - managers collect information from outside organizations and
institutions, by scanning the news and talking to people.
, Monitor - Receives information and acts as a nerve centre of the organization.
Watches for changes in internal and external environments that could affect the
organization, evaluates the work of employees and managers in different
departments and takes corrective action if necessary.
Disseminator - Transmits the received information to other members of the
organization
Spokesperson - Transmits the information about organization’s plans, policies,
actions and results to the outsiders.
Decisional roles
Entrepreneur - Commits resources and looks for opportunities for developing new
products and services, makes decisions about international expansion and other
changes
Disturbance handler - Takes quick corrective actions to protect the organization
from the unexpected problems from the external environment (eg. Oil spills), or
from internal problems (producing faulty goods or services). In short, responsible
for corrective action when company faces important disturbances.
Resource allocator - Sets budgets and salaries for middle and first-level
managers, allocates resources to different departments.
Negotiator - Works with suppliers, distributors, labor unions and other
organizations to reach agreements about the quality and the price of resources,
common projects etc. In short, represents the company at negotiations.
Management skills
Technical skills - Job-specific skills required to perform a particular type of work at a
high level.
Human skills - Ability to lead, and to understand, alter and control the behavior of
others.
Conceptual skills - Ability to analyze the situation and to distinguish the cause and
effect, and right and wrong.
Effective vs Successful managerial activities
Four managerial activities Luthans noticed:
,1. Traditional management - Making decisions, planning and controlling
2. Communication
3. Human resources management - Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict,
training and development.
4. Networking - socializing, interacting with outsiders
Organizational behavior (OB) - Field of study that investigates what impact do
individuals, groups and structure have on behavior within organizations, and then
applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.
Complementing intuition with systematic study
Systematic study - looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects,
and then drawing conclusions based on science evidence.
Evidence-based management (EBM) - Basing managerial decisions on the best
available science evidence
Intuition - An instinctive feeling not necessarily supported by research.
Big data
Roots of application of big data for businesses originates in the marketing
department of online retailers.
Background - Using persistent statistics about shoppers to create projected
outcomes of predictive outcomes. For example, Amazon used the collected data
on sold books to predict what the user might read next.
Current usage - Even with all the data collected about previous decisions, or
predicted future outcomes, companies have to take into account the current risk.
New trends
Limitations - Increase in technological capabilities also increased privacy issues.
There are many ethical issues concerning big data.
, Disciplines that contribute to OB
Psychology
Psychology - science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change human
behavior. Personality theorists, counseling therapists, industrial and organizational
psychologists analyze the individual contribution to the organization, such as learning,
motivation, personality, training, work stress, etc.
Social psychology
Social psychology - a branch of psychology that blends concepts of psychology and
sociology to focus on the influence people have on others. Social psychologists
analyze the group contribution to the organization, with special focus put on change.
How to implement it, how to lower resistance to change, etc.
Sociology
Sociology - study of people in relation to their social environment or culture.
Sociologists contributed to OB through studying group behaviors in organizations.
Most importantly, they have studied organizational culture, formal organization
theory and structure, organizational technology, power, conflict and communication.
Anthropology
Anthropology - study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.
Knowledge of cultures and environments helped to understand differences in values,
attitudes and behaviors among people in different countries.
There are few absolutes in OB
Unlike laws of nature that are absolute, in OB we can only speak of reasonably
accurate explanations of human behaviors, or making valid predictions.
Contingency variables - situational factors or variables that moderate the relationship
between variables.
OB Chapter 1
Management and organizational behavior
Manager - an individual who achieves goals through other people.
4 managerial tasks:
1. Planning - process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy and
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, and 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 that they are being accomplished
as planned and correcting any significant deviations.
Organization - consciously coordinated social unit, composed of 2 or more people,
that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of
goals.
Management roles
Interpersonal roles - ceremonial and symbolic in nature
Figurehead - Acts in charge, even if the power lies with someone else. Has social
roles such as opening new headquarters.
Leader - Motivates and mobilizes employees for specific goals, gives direct
commands and orders, provides an example for employees to follow
Liaison - Maintains contact networks, coordinates the work of managers of
different departments to share resources to produce new goods and services.
Informational roles - managers collect information from outside organizations and
institutions, by scanning the news and talking to people.
, Monitor - Receives information and acts as a nerve centre of the organization.
Watches for changes in internal and external environments that could affect the
organization, evaluates the work of employees and managers in different
departments and takes corrective action if necessary.
Disseminator - Transmits the received information to other members of the
organization
Spokesperson - Transmits the information about organization’s plans, policies,
actions and results to the outsiders.
Decisional roles
Entrepreneur - Commits resources and looks for opportunities for developing new
products and services, makes decisions about international expansion and other
changes
Disturbance handler - Takes quick corrective actions to protect the organization
from the unexpected problems from the external environment (eg. Oil spills), or
from internal problems (producing faulty goods or services). In short, responsible
for corrective action when company faces important disturbances.
Resource allocator - Sets budgets and salaries for middle and first-level
managers, allocates resources to different departments.
Negotiator - Works with suppliers, distributors, labor unions and other
organizations to reach agreements about the quality and the price of resources,
common projects etc. In short, represents the company at negotiations.
Management skills
Technical skills - Job-specific skills required to perform a particular type of work at a
high level.
Human skills - Ability to lead, and to understand, alter and control the behavior of
others.
Conceptual skills - Ability to analyze the situation and to distinguish the cause and
effect, and right and wrong.
Effective vs Successful managerial activities
Four managerial activities Luthans noticed:
,1. Traditional management - Making decisions, planning and controlling
2. Communication
3. Human resources management - Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict,
training and development.
4. Networking - socializing, interacting with outsiders
Organizational behavior (OB) - Field of study that investigates what impact do
individuals, groups and structure have on behavior within organizations, and then
applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.
Complementing intuition with systematic study
Systematic study - looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects,
and then drawing conclusions based on science evidence.
Evidence-based management (EBM) - Basing managerial decisions on the best
available science evidence
Intuition - An instinctive feeling not necessarily supported by research.
Big data
Roots of application of big data for businesses originates in the marketing
department of online retailers.
Background - Using persistent statistics about shoppers to create projected
outcomes of predictive outcomes. For example, Amazon used the collected data
on sold books to predict what the user might read next.
Current usage - Even with all the data collected about previous decisions, or
predicted future outcomes, companies have to take into account the current risk.
New trends
Limitations - Increase in technological capabilities also increased privacy issues.
There are many ethical issues concerning big data.
, Disciplines that contribute to OB
Psychology
Psychology - science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change human
behavior. Personality theorists, counseling therapists, industrial and organizational
psychologists analyze the individual contribution to the organization, such as learning,
motivation, personality, training, work stress, etc.
Social psychology
Social psychology - a branch of psychology that blends concepts of psychology and
sociology to focus on the influence people have on others. Social psychologists
analyze the group contribution to the organization, with special focus put on change.
How to implement it, how to lower resistance to change, etc.
Sociology
Sociology - study of people in relation to their social environment or culture.
Sociologists contributed to OB through studying group behaviors in organizations.
Most importantly, they have studied organizational culture, formal organization
theory and structure, organizational technology, power, conflict and communication.
Anthropology
Anthropology - study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities.
Knowledge of cultures and environments helped to understand differences in values,
attitudes and behaviors among people in different countries.
There are few absolutes in OB
Unlike laws of nature that are absolute, in OB we can only speak of reasonably
accurate explanations of human behaviors, or making valid predictions.
Contingency variables - situational factors or variables that moderate the relationship
between variables.
