Organisantional Behaviour

Chapter 01

Organizational Behavior: An Overview

Takeaways

1. Organizational Behavior - is a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations.

1. Does Organizational Behavior Matter? YES – two primary outcomes are job performance and organizational commitment.

1. A number of factors affect performance and commitment, including individual mechanisms (job satisfaction; stress; motivation; trust; justice, and ethics; learning and decision making), individual characteristics (personality, cultural values, and ability), group mechanisms (teams, leadership), and organizational mechanisms (organizational structure, organizational culture).

1. The effective management of organizational behavior can help a company become more profitable because good people are a valuable resource, rare and hard to imitate. They create socially complex resources such as culture, team, work, trust, and reputation.

True / False Questions

1. (p. 6) The theories and concepts found in OB are actually drawn from two disciplines: human resources management and strategic management. 
FALSE

2. (p. 8) Personality and cultural values reflect the various traits and tendencies that describe how people act. 
TRUE

3. (p. 11) Unfortunately, given that good employees move from one organization to another, they do not create a resource valuable enough for creating competitive advantage. 
FALSE

4. (p. 11) According to research conducted using the prospectus of IPO companies, firms who valued OB had a 19 percent higher survival rate than firms who did not value OB. 
TRUE

5. (p. 12-13) The rule of one-eighth suggests that about 88 percent of the companies will actually do what is required to build profits by putting people first. 
FALSE

Multiple Choice Questions

1. (p. 6) OB research on job performance and individual characteristics draws primarily from studies in: 
A. industrial and organizational psychology.
B. economics.
C. strategic management.
D. sociology.
E. marketing.

2. (p. 6) The primary outcomes of interest to OB researchers are: 
A. job performance and organizational commitment.
B. organizational culture and organizational structure.
C. team processes and team characteristics.
D. personality and ability.
E. stress and motivation.

3. (p. 7) According to the integrative model of organizational behavior, two of the individual characteristics that impact individual attitudes and behaviors include: 
A. job performance and organizational commitment.
B. organizational culture and organizational structure.
C. team processes and team characteristics.
D. personality and ability.
E. stress and motivation.

4. (p. 7) According to the integrative model of organizational behavior, which of the following is an individual mechanism? 
A. Justice
B. Personality
C. Leadership
D. Cultural Values
E. Ability

5. (p. 7) What Suzie feels while thinking about her job and going about her day-to-day work is captured in her: 
A. ability.
B. job satisfaction.
C. personality.
D. organizational culture.
E. leadership style.

6. (p. 8) Which of the following captures "the way things are" in the organization? 
A. Organizational culture
B. Organizational structure
C. Organizational leadership
D. Organizational ability
E. Job performance

7. (p. 11) According to a study focused on Fortune's "100 Best Companies to Work for" list, the results revealed: 
A. the "100 best" firms were more profitable than their peers.
B. the "100 best" firms were less profitable than their peers.
C. there was no difference in the profitability of "100 best" and their peers.
D. the "100 best" firms actually had a 19 percent higher turnover rate than their peers.
E. the "100 best" firms lost market value by more than 50 percent after getting on the list due to heavy expenditure related to value placed on OB.