OBHR 33000 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Organizational Commitment, Job Performance
23 Jan 2019
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Chapter 1: What is Organizational Behavior?
Organizational Behavior (OB): a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the
attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations
• The theories and concepts in OB are derived from anthropology, industrial psychology, and social psychology
• Research is conducted on OB→Findings from research studies are applied by managers→Do they help meet real
world challenges?
• Explores the relationship between learning and job performance
Human Resource Management: takes the theories and principles studied in OB and explores the “nuts and bolts”
applications of those principles in organizations
• Examines the best way to structure training programs to promote employee learning
Strategic Management: focuses on the product choices and industry characteristics that affect and organization’s
profitability
Integrative Model of Organizational Behavior:
1. Individual Outcomes
a. Two primary outcomes of interest to OB researchers:
i. Job Performance
ii. Organizational Commitment
b. Two primary goals employees have:
i. To perform their jobs well
ii. To remain a member of the organization
c. Two primary goals managers have for their employees:
i. To maximize job performance
ii. To ensure that they stay with the firm for a significant amount of time
2. Individual Mechanisms
a. Job Satisfaction: what employees feel when thinking about their jobs and doing day-to-day work
b. Stress: employee’s psychological responses to job demands that tax or exceed their capacities
c. Motivation: energetic forces that drive employees’ work efforts
d. Trust, Justice, & Ethics: degree to which employees feel that their company does business with fairness,
honesty, and integrity
e. Learning and Decision Making: deals with how employees gain job knowledge and how they use that
knowledge to make accurate judgments on the job
3. Individual Mechanisms
a. Personality and Cultural Values: affect the way people behave at work, the tasks they’re interested in, and
how they react to events on the job
b. Ability: cognitive abilities, emotional skills, and physical abilities that employees bring to a job (the tasks
they’re good at and what they’re not good at)
4. Group Mechanisms
a. Team Characteristics and Diversity: how teams are formed, staffed, composed, and how team members
rely on one another
b. Team Processes and Communication: how teams behave- coordination, conflict, and cohesion
c. Leader Power and Negotiation: how individuals attain authority over others
d. Leader Styles and Behavior: actions that leaders take to influence others at work
5. Organizational Mechanisms:
a. Organizational Structure: how the units within the firm link to and communicate with other units
b. Organizational Culture: shared knowledge about the values and beliefs that shape employee attitudes and
behaviors
