Transcript Document

Chapter 1
Introduction to
the Field of
Organizational Behaviour
Canadian OB 7e: McShane/Steen
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
PCL Family of Companies
Several organizational behaviour practices have helped
the Edmonton-based PCL Family of Companies
become an employer of choice, a leader in the
construction industry, and a valued community member
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Organizational Behaviour
and Organizations

Organizational behaviour
• The study of what people think, feel, and do in
and around organizations

Organizations
• Groups of people who work interdependently
toward some purpose
- Structured patterns of interaction
- Coordinated tasks
- Organizations have a purpose (even if not fully
agreed)
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Why Study OB?
Satisfy the need to understand
and predict
 Helps us to test personal
theories
 Influence behaviour – get
things done
 OB improves an organization’s
financial health
 OB is for everyone

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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Old Perspective of
Organizational Effectiveness
Goal oriented -- Effective firms achieve their
stated objectives
 No longer accepted as a perspective of org
effectiveness

• Companies could set easy goals
• Some goals too abstract to know if achieved
• Company might achieve goals but go out of
business by achieving wrong goals
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Defining Organizational
Effectiveness as 4 Perspectives
1. Open systems: they have a good fit with their external
environment
2. High-performance work practices: their internal
subsystems are configured for a high-performance
workplace
3. Organizational learning: they are learning organizations
4. Stakeholder: they satisfy the needs of key stakeholders
NOTE: Need to consider all four perspectives when assessing
a company’s effectiveness
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Open Systems Perspective
Organizations -- complex systems that “live”
within (and depend upon) the external
environment
 Effective organizations

• Maintain a close “fit” with changing conditions
• Transform inputs to outputs efficiently and flexibly

Open systems perspective – foundation for
the other three effectiveness perspectives
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Open Systems Perspective



Subsystems
-- processes, task
activities, social dynamics
within the system
Transformation process
-- subsystems transform
inputs into various
outputs
Feedback
-- information from
environment about value
of outputs/availability of
inputs
Canadian OB 7e: McShane/Steen
Environment
Feedback
Feedback
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Feedback
Feedback
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Organizational Learning
Perspective
An organization’s capacity to acquire, share,
use, and store valuable knowledge
 Need to consider both stock and flow of
knowledge

• Stock: intellectual capital
• Flow: org learning processes of acquisition,
sharing, and use
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Intellectual Capital
Human
Capital
Knowledge that people possess and
generate
Structural Capital
Knowledge captured in systems and
structures
Relationship
Capital
Value derived from satisfied customers,
reliable suppliers, etc.
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Organizational Learning
Processes
KNOWLEDGE
ACQUISITION
Extracting information
and ideas from its
environment as well
as through insight
KNOWLEDGE
SHARING
Distributing
knowledge
throughout the
organization
KNOWLEDGE
USE
Applying knowledge
to organizational
processes in ways
that improves the
organization’s
effectiveness
Examples in practice
Hiring skilled staff
Canadian OB 7e: McShane/Steen
Posting case
studies on intranet
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Giving staff
freedom to try out
ideas
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Organizational Memory
The storage and preservation of intellectual
capital
 Retain intellectual capital by:

• Keeping knowledgeable employees
• Transferring knowledge to others
• Transferring human capital to structural capital

Successful companies also unlearn
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High Performance Work Practices
(HPWPs)
HPWPs are internal systems and structures
that are associated with successful companies
1. Employees are competitive advantage
2. Value of employees increased through specific
practices.
3. Maximum benefit when org practices are bundled
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High Performance Work Practices
No consensus, but HPWPs include:
• Employee involvement and job autonomy (and
their combination as self-directed teams).
• Employee competence (training, selection, etc.).
• Performance-based rewards
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Stakeholder Perspective
Stakeholders: any entity who affect or is
affected by the firm’s objectives and actions
 Personalizes the open systems perspective

• Identifies social entities in the environment
• Stakeholder relations are dynamic

Problem:
• Stakeholders have conflicting interests
• Firms have limited resources
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Canadian Public Service as a
Values-Driven Organization
The Canadian federal public
service is becoming a valuesdriven organization. The
government believes that
values will guide desired
behaviours and replace
existing control system based
on hierarchy and compliance.
Canadian Public Service
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Stakeholders: Values and Ethics
Values and ethics prioritize
stakeholder interests
 Values
• Stable, evaluative beliefs,
guide preferences for
outcomes or courses of action
in various situations
 Ethics
• Moral principles/values,
determine whether actions
are right/wrong and outcomes
are good or bad

Canadian Public Service
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Stakeholders and CSR

Stakeholder perspective
includes corporate social
responsibility (CSR)
• Benefit society and
environment beyond the firm’s
immediate financial interests
or legal obligations
• Organization’s contract with
society

Triple bottom line
• Economy, society, environment
Canadian Public Service
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Types of Individual Behaviour
Task Performance
Organizational
Citizenship
Goal-directed behaviours under
person’s control
Contextual performance – cooperation
and helpfulness beyond required job
duties
more
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Types of Individual Behaviour
(con’t)
Counterproductive
Work Behaviours
Voluntary behaviours that potentially
harm the organization
Joining/staying with
the Organization
Agreeing to employment relationship;
remaining in that relationship
Maintaining Work
Attendance
Canadian OB 7e: McShane/Steen
Attending work at required times
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Globalization
Economic, social, and cultural connectivity
with people in other parts of the world
 Effects of globalization on organizations

• New structures
• Increasing diversity
• Increasing competitive pressures, intensification
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Increasing Workforce Diversity

Surface-level diversity
• Observable demographic and other overt differences in
people (e.g. race, ethnicity, gender, age)

Deep-level diversity
• Differences in psychological characteristics (e.g.
personalities, beliefs, values, and attitudes)
• Example: Differences across age cohorts (e.g. Gen-Y)

Implications
• Leveraging the diversity advantage
• Also diversity challenges (e.g. teams, conflict)
• Ethical imperative of diversity
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Employment Relationships

Work/life balance
• Minimizing conflict between work and nonwork
demands number one indicator of career success

Virtual work
• Using information technology to perform one’s job away
from the traditional physical workplace
• Telework – issues of replacing face time, clarifying
employment expectations

Virtual teams
• Operate across space, time, and organizational
boundaries with members who communicate mainly
through electronic technologies
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Organizational Behaviour Anchors

Multidisciplinary anchor
• Many OB concepts adopted from other disciplines
• OB develops its own theories, but scans other fields

Systematic research anchor
• OB researchers rely on scientific method
• Should apply evidence-based management, but…
- Bombarded with theories and models
- Challenge translating general theories to specific situations
- Swayed by consultant marketing
- Perceptual biases -- ignoring evidence contrary to our beliefs
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Organizational behaviour Anchors
(con’t)

Contingency anchor
• A particular action may have different consequences in
different situations
• Need to diagnose the situation and select best strategy
under those conditions

Multiple levels of analysis anchor
• Individual, team, organizational level of analysis
• OB topics usually relevant at all three levels of analysis
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© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Chapter 1
Introduction to
the Field of
Organizational
Behaviour
Canadian OB 7e: McShane/Steen
26
© 2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved