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PYC4810Exam Prep -
Latest study
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, Section 1: OB in a changing SA + World Chapter 1 and 2
Organizational Behaviour: Its Basic Nature
•Organizations :
oStructured social system.
oConsist of people, work alone and together in groups to attain common goals.
•OB is the multidisciplinary f eld that focusses on behaviour in organizational settings by systematically studying individual, group, and
organizational processes.
There are 4central characteristics of OB.
• grounded in scientif c method.
• 3 levels of analysis; individuals, groups, and organizations.
•interdisciplinary in nature.
•basis for enhancing organizational ef ectiveness and individual well-being.
Fundamental Assumptions
1. OB Recognizes the Dynamic Nature of Organizations
•dynamic and ever-changing entities or open systems;
•self-sustaining systems that transform input from the external environment into output, which the system then returns to the
environment.
•The dynamic nature of organizations = functioning continuous system.
•Considerations linked to the view that organizations are dynamic entities are the conditions under which organizations change, the
way organizations are structured and the way in which organizations interact with their environments.
2. A contingency approach
•OB holds the perspective that OB is af ected by a large number of interacting factors.
•There is no one best way to motivate, to lead, and to make decisions. In other words, a certain behaviour occurs “contingent
upon” the existence of certain conditions—therefore, the name.
OB Then and Now: A Capsule History
Frederick Winslow Taylor –
•f rst person to carefully study human behaviour at work
•the inventor of the time-and-motion-study in his search for ways to perform tasks that resulted in the fewest wasted movements.
•designing jobs to make people work more ef ciently. Comparable to machines.
•This is dehumanizing and destroyed the soul of work as people are not machines and cannot be treated in the same way.
Elton W. Mayo
•father of the human relations movement
oa perspective on organizational behaviour that rejects the primarily economic orienta tion of scientif c management and
recognizes, instead, the importance of social processes in work settings.
•Hawthorne studies- 1927
oDetermining how to design work environments in ways that increased performance.
oWhat they found is called the Hawthorne ef ect- the tendency for people being studied to behave di f erently than they
ordinarily would.
oa whole new way of thinking about behaviour at work.
oIt suggests that to understand the way people behave on the job, we must fully appreciate their attitudes and the
processes by which they communicate with each other
classical organizational theory
•focused on the ef cient structuring of overall organizations.
•there is an ef cient way to organize work in all organizations.
•Henri Fayol who believed
odivision of labour- the practice of dividing work into specialized tasks that enable people to specialize in what they do best.
Max Weber
, •proposed the bureaucracy- an organizational design that attempts to make organizations operate ef ciently by having a clear
hierarchy of authority in which people are required to perform well-def ned jobs.
•Henry Ford openly endorsed “the reduction of the necessity for thought on the part of the worker.”
•These particular organizational forms have not proven to be the perfect way to organize all work but paved the way
for contemporary OB.
1940s
•the science of organizational behaviour
oemergence of textbooks and degrees not much later on.
1970s
•active programs of research were going on— investigations into such key processes motivation and leadership, and the impact of
organizational structure.
The Gordon and Howell report of 1959
•an analysis of business education in the USA, paved the way for OB becoming a multidisciplinary, hybrid science.
•As we became more aware of the importance of the human element in the workplace, it became fashionable to treat people in
a more humane fashion.
OB Responds to the Rise of Globalization and Diversity
Globalization
•process of interconnecting the world’s people with respect to the cultural, economic, poli
tical, technological, and environmental
aspects of their lives.
Three major forces driving Globalization:
1. Technology has been involved in several ways
2. laws restricting trade generally have become liberalized throughout the world.
3. developing nations have sought to expand their economies by promo ting exports and opening their doors to foreign companies
seeking investments.
the primary vehicles of globalization are multinational enterprises (MNEs) –
•Organizations that have signif cant operations spread throughout various nations but are headquartered in a single nation.
•large numbers of people who are citizens of one country but who live and work in another country for some extended periods of
time.
• Expats- people who are citizens of one country, but who live and work in another country.
•While working abroad, people are exposed to dif erent cultures—the set of values, customs, and beliefs that people have in
common with other members of a social unit (e.g., a nation).
•When people are faced with new cultures, become confused and disoriented—culture shock.
•People also experience culture shock when they return to their native cultures after spending time away from it— a process of
readjustment known as repatriation.
During the 1950s and 1960s,
•Management scholars tended to overlook the importance of cultural dif erences in organizations.
•2 key assumptions;
othat principles of good management are universal, and that the best management practices are ones that work well in
the United States (the convergence hypothesis)
othe divergence hypothesis, the approach to the study of management which recognizes that knowing how to manage
most ef ectively requires clear understanding of the culture in which people work.
The Shifting Demographics of the Workforce: Trends towards Diversity.
•It is interesting to note that many of the organisations today are diverse in terms of gender, race and ethnicity.
•Globalisation plays a large role in the fact that many organisations consist of a diverse workforce.
•This could be due to liberal immigration policies and the birth rate of dif erent races and ethnicities.
•Half workforce comprised of women
•Social acceptance of women outside home
•Minority changing. Minority groups in the workforce now outnumbering traditional majority group
•People living longer than before
, oOlder people in workforce – drain on healthcare system
oOf er skills that time alone can provide
OB Responds to Advances in Technology
•As more work is shifted to digital brains, work that once was performed by human brains becomes obsolete.
•New opportunities arise
•The implications of this for OB are considerable.
•Rapidly advancing computer technology- Internet and wireless tech
Prominent trends in the world of work:
Leaner Organizations: Downsizing and Outsourcing
Informate
process by which workers use computer information technology to transform a once-physical task into one that involves
manipulating a sequence of digital commands.
Organizations have been rapidly reducing the number of employees needed to operate ef ectively—a process known as downsizing.
involves more than just laying of people
It is directed at adjusting the number of employees needed to work in newly designed organizations and is therefore also known as
rightsizing.
Many organizations need fewer people to operate today than in the past.
Another way organizations are restructuring:
eliminating those parts of themselves that focus on noncore sectors of the business (i.e., tasks that are peripheral to the
organization)
hiring outside f rms to perform these functions instead—a practice known as outsourcing.
By outsourcing secondary activities, an organization can focus on what it does best, its key capability—what is known as its core competency.
The Virtual Organization
A highly f exible, temporary organization formed by a group of companies that join forces to exploit a specif c opportunity.
Telecommuting: Going to Work Without Leaving Home
Telecommuting (also known as teleworking-
Using communications technology to enable work to be performed from remote locations,
requires careful adjustments in the way work is done.
people don’t have the kind of self-discipline needed to get work done without direct supervision.
OB Is Responsive to People’s Changing Expectations
2 areas of concern to the f eld of OB
Employees’ and employers’ desire for engagement
(mutual commitment between employers and employees to do things to help one another achieve goals and aspirations)
Organizations take steps to engage their employees and employees respond by engaging their organizations. This takes several forms
high levels of pride in the organization
pride in the organizations’ products and services
belief that the organization helps employees do their best
willingness to help others on the job
understanding “the big picture” and being willing to go beyond formal job requirements when necessary.
The 4 key drivers of engagement are as follows:
Involving employees in making decisions
giving employees opportunities to express their ideas and opinions
providing opportunities for employees to develop their jobs
showing concern for employees’ well-being as individuals.
f exibility employees expect from employers.
Compressed work week
Practice of working fewer days each week but longer hours each day
Improved balance between work and personal life
Not appropriate for all jobs
Flexible hours
Flexitime programs-discretion over when can arrive and leave work
Contingent workforce
People hired by org temporarily to work as needed for f nite periods of time.
Idiosyncratic work arrangements
Unique agreements between employee and employer to benef t both
Job Sharing
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