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  1. describe organizational behavior?
    the study of what people think, feel and do in and around organizations
  2. define organization
    groups of people who work interdependently toward some purpose
  3. why study OB
    • satisfy the need to understand and predict ones own behavior first and then you can understand and predict others
    • influence behavior of others
    • OB improves organization's financial health
    • OB is for everyone in any industry
  4. what are the four perspectives of organizational effectiveness? how does one assess a company's effectiveness?
    • open systems perspective
    • organizational learning perspective
    • high performance WP
    • stakeholder
    • need to consider all four perspectives to assess a company's effectiveness
  5. define open systems perspective
    • organizations are complex systems that live within and depend upon the external environment
    • effective organizations maintain a close fit with changing conditions, maintains competitive advantage, transforms inputs to outputs effectively
    • lays the foundation for other three perspectives
  6. what is organizational learning perspective?
    • organization's capcity to acquire, share, use and store valuable knowledge
    • need to consider both stock and flow of knowledge
    • -stock: intellectual capital
    • -flow: org learning process of acquisition, sharing and use
  7. what are the types of intellectual capital?
    • human: knowledge that people possess and generate
    • structural: knowledge captured in systems and structures
    • relationship: derived from satisfied customers and reliable suppliers
  8. describe in detail the process of organizational learning and give an example for each step
    • knowledge acquisition: extracting information and ideas from its environment as well as through insight
    • -ex hiring skilled staff
    • knowledge sharing: distributing knowledge t/o organization
    • -ex posting case studies on intranet
    • knowledge use: appplying knowledge to organization's processes in ways that improves the organization's effectiveness
    • -ex giving staff freedom to try out ideas
  9. define organizational memory and how it is used in the company
    • storage and preservation of intellectual capital
    • retain knowledge
    • unlearn-remove knowledge that no longer adds value
  10. how does a company retain knowlege?
    • keeping knowledgeable employees 
    • transferring knowledge to others
    • transferring human capital to structural capital
  11. what are high performance work practices (HPWPs)?
    • internal systems and structures that are associated with successful companies
    • employees are competitive advantage (valued most b/c they are the ones doing it)
    • value of employees increased through specific practices-valuable when part of solution not the problem
    • maximum benefit when org practices are bundled
    • make them want to stay up and produce output efficiently
  12. give examples of HPWP
    • employee involvement and job autonomy
    • -a person is more invested in achieving a postive outcome the more involved they are
    • employee competence (traing, selection, etc)
    • performance based rewards
  13. define stakeholder and the stakeholder perspective
    • any entity who affects or is affected by the firm's objectives and actions
    • personalizes the open systems perspective
  14. what are the types of individual behavior and how can one use this to be a better manager?
    • task performance
    • organizational citizenship
    • counterproductive work behavior
    • joining/styaing with the organization
    • maintaining work attendance
    • understanding a person's possible behaviors and reactions allow you to modify your interactions with them to influence the outcome you want
  15. what is task performance
    delivers task on time, goal directed bahaviors under a person's control
  16. organizational citizenship
    cooperation and helpfulhess beyond required job duties: assisting coworkers
  17. counterproductive work behavior
    • voluntary behaviors that potentially harm the organization; threats, abuse, avoidance
    • unchecked counterproductive work behavior can spread like wildfire and gets worse and worse
  18. staying with the organization
    loyal; agreeing to employment relationship and remaining in that relationship
  19. maintaining work attendance
    • attending work at required times, through situational factors, motivational factors
    • snowstorm list- people who will be there and do their job
  20. what is globalization
    economic, social and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the world
  21. what are the effects of globalization?
    new structures, increasing diversity, increasing competitive pressures
  22. what are the levels of diversity and what are its implications?
    • surface level diversity: observable, demographic and other overt diffrecnes 
    • deep level: differences in psychological characteristics (personalities, beliefs, values and attitudes)
    • leveraging the diversity advantage, diversity challenges (team conflict, etc), ethical imperatives of diversity
  23. how to develop better 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 expectiations, lower transportation and structural cost, but at the same time dehumanizes)
  24. what drives individual behavior?
    motivation, ability, role perceptions, and situational factors (MARS model)
  25. what is employee motivation?
    • internal forces that affect a person's voluntary coice of behavior
    • -direction: goal oriented
    • -intensity: amount of effort allocated to the goal
    • -persistence
  26. define employee ability
    • natural aptitudes and learned capabilities required to successfully complete a task
    • competencies: personal characteristics that lead to superior performance
    • person: job matching (selecting, developing, redesigning)
    • -how do you make sure they produce? understand how they operate
  27. define role perceptions
    • beliefs about what behavior is required to acheive the desired results
    • -need to understand what tasks to perform, relative importance of tasks, and the preferred behaviors to accomplish tasks
  28. what are situational factors?
    • environmental conditions beyond the individual's short term control that constrain or facilitate behavior
    • time, people, budget, work facilities
  29. define personality
    • relative enduring pattern or thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize a person, along with the psychological processes behind those characteristics
    • -external traits: observable behaviors
    • -internal states: thoughts, values, inferred from behaviors
    • -some variability, adjust to suit the situation
  30. how much does nature define your personality?
    heredity explans 50% of behavioral tendencies and 30%temperament
  31. how much of personality is defined by nurture?
    • personality isn't stable at birth (affected by experiences, socialization) stabilizes t/ adolescence
    • self concept steers out behavior and personality
  32. define self concept
    • an individual's self-beliefs and self-evaluations
    • who am i and how do i feel about myself
    • guides individual decisions and behavior
    • helps us make sense of the world and how we interact with it
  33. what are the four selves of self concept?
    • self-enhancement: promoting and protecting our pos self-view
    • self-verification: affirming our existing self concept (good and bad elements)
    • self-evaluation: evaluating ourselves through self-esteem, self efficacy (persons own beliefs that they can successfully complete a task)
    • social self: defining ourselves in terms of group membership
  34. what is self enhancement
    • drive to promote/protect a positive self view (competent, attractive, lucky)
    • strongest in common/important situation
    • results in bettern personal adjustment and mental/physical health; however, it inflates personal causation and probability of successs
  35. define self verification
    • motivation to verify/maintain our existing self-concept
    • stablizes our self concept
    • people prefer feedback consistent with their self-concept
    • results
    • -ignore or reject info inconsistent with self-concept
    • interact more with those who affirm/reflect self concept
  36. self evaluation
    • defined by three dimensions:
    • -self esteem: high self-esteem (less influenced, more persistent/logical)
    • -self-efficacy: belief in one's ability, motivation, role perceptions and situation to complete a task successfully
    • locus of control: general belief about personal control over life events, higher self-evaluation with internal locus of control (internal-one's personal characterization affect person's life events; external-events are due to fate, luck)
  37. social self of self-concept
    • social identity theory: defining ourselves in terms of groups to which we belong or have an emtional attachment
    • we identify with gorups that have high status, which aids our self enhancement
  38. what are values in the workplace?
    • stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences
    • define right or wrong, good or bad decision making
    • value system: hierarchy of values, very individualized
  39. define individualism and collectivism in terms of values across cultures
    • degree that people value duty to their group (collectivism) vs. independence and person uniqueness (individualism)
    • difference countries have different values: each need to be managed indivudally for full efficiency
  40. what is individualism
    degree to which people value personal freedom, self-sufficiency, control over themselves, being appreciated for unique qualities
  41. define collectivism
    degree to which people value their gorup membership and harmonious relationships within the group
  42. what are the different types of power distance?
    • high power distance: value obedience to authority, comfortable receiving commands from superiors, prefer formal rules and authority to resolve conflicts
    • lower power distance: expect relatively equal power sharing, view relationship with boss as interdepedence, not dependence
  43. uncertainty avoidance
    • high uncertainty avoidance: feel threatened by ambiguity and uncertainty, value structured situations and direct communications
    • low uncertainty avoidance: tolerate ambiguity and uncertainty
  44. achievement nurturing
    • high achievement orientation: assertiveness, competiveness, materilism
    • high nurturing orientation: relationship and other's well-being
  45. what are the ethical principles used in guidance?
    • utilitarianism: greatest good for the greatest number of people
    • individual rights: fundamental entitlements in society, such as free speech, fair trial
    • distributive justice: people who are similar should receive similar benefits
    • -might not be able to salvage situtation, manager need to be educated in ethical and how people view the world
  46. how do you support ethical behavior within organizations?
    • ethical code of conduct
    • ethical training
    • ethics hotlines
    • ethical leadership and culture

Card Set Information

Author:
 xijunzhu
ID:
 174163
Filename:
 OB
Updated:
2012-09-28 22:19:35
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IB
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OB
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