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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIELD OFORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

John LassiterChief Creative Officerof Pixar and Disney

Pixar Animation Studios

OB practices have helped Pixar Animation Studios to become the world’s most successful animation studio Employee competencies --

Pixar finds the best people People-centered -- Pixar has

long-term employment, not short-term projects

Teamwork and org learning -- Pixar supports teams and encourages cross-fertilization

John LassiterChief Creative Officerof Pixar and Disney

Organizational Behavior and Organizations

Organizational behavior 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 Have common objectives (even if

not fully agreed)

+Organizational behavior defined

Study of what people think, feel, and do in and around organizations.

Includes systematically studying individual, team, and structural characteristics that influence behavior within organizations.

Emerged as a distinct field in the 1940’s.

Origins can be traced back to ancient Greek with Plato.

+Organizations defined

Groups of people who work interdependently toward some purpose.

Not buildings or physical structures, but rather people who interact with each other to achieve a set of goals.

Origins date back to 3500 BC through archaeological findings of massive temples built in an organized manner.

Examples of organizations include the Sydney Olympics, Hong Kong’s new airport at Chek Lap Kok, Internet coordinators, etc.

Purpose for being is embodied in the organization’s mission statement

+Why Study Organizational Behavior?

To understand the behaviors of others (indiduals, groups, structure).

To predict the behaviors of others (indiduals, groups, structure).

To influence organizational events.

Should be embodied by all people within the organization.

Less focus on management, but rather understanding and influencing behavior.

+EMERGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Globalization

Definition Occurs when an organization extends its activities to

other parts of the world, actively participates in other markets, and competes against organizations located in other countries.

Implications for organizational behavior Requires new structures and different forms of

communication to assist the organization’s global reach. Creates new career opportunities and potentially brings in

new knowledge to improve the organization’s competitive advantage.

Emphasizes the need to recognize the contingencies of effective OB practices in different cultures.

+EMERGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR Workforce Diversity

Trends Increase of minorities in the workforce. Increase of a multicultural workforce due to an increasing

demographic diversity. Greater difficulty in discussing ethic differences as inter-

racial marriages increase. Increasing representation of women in the workforce. More job security expected by baby boomers—people born

between 1946 and 1964. Less loyalty to one organization expressed by Gen-Xers—

people born between 1964 and 1977. Impact of how Generation-Y employees –those born in the

decade or so since 1979—affect the workplace. How diversity impacts organizational behavior Can lead to a competitive advantage by improving decision-

making and team performance on complex tasks. Can present new challenges for companies to overcome.

+EMERGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Emerging Employment Relationships

  Employability: employees perform a variety of work

activities rather than hold specific jobs, and they are expected to continuously learn skills that will keep them employed.

Contingent work: any job in which the individual does not have an explicit or implicit contract for long-term employment, or one in which the minimum hours of work can vary in a nonsystematic way.

Telecommuting: working from home usually with a computer connection to the office.

Virtual teams: cross-functional groups that operate across space, time, and organizational boundaries with members who communicate mainly through electronic technologies.

+EMERGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Virtual work

Lead to rise in telecommuting and virtual teams. Creates opportunities to connect people around the planet. Allows small businesses in developing countries to compete

in the global marketplace. Leads to the creation of a network organization –an alliance

of several organizations for the purpose of creating a product or serving a client.

+EMERGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Values, ethics and Corporate Social

Values – stable, long-lasting beliefs about what is important in a variety of situations.

Cultural values – represent the dominant prescriptions of a society.

Personal values – incorporate cultural values, as well as other values socialized by parents, friends, and personal life events.

Organizational values – those which are widely and deeply shared by people within the organization.

Ethics – the study of moral principles or values that determine whether actions are right or wrong and outcomes are good or bad.

+EMERGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

 

Importance of values and ethics Old “command-and-control” system of direct supervision is

not congruent with today’s more independently-minded workforce.

Raised our awareness of and sensitivity to cultural differences in values and beliefs. Increasing cultural diversity also presents new challengers as organization try to discover shared values acceptable to all employees.

Increased societal pressure on organizations to engage in ethical practices.

+EMERGING TRENDS IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Corporate Social Responsibility An organization’s moral obligation towards its

stakeholders (customers, suppliers, governments and any other groups with a vested interest in the organization)

Many companies have adopted the triple bottom line philosophy – try to support or earn positive returns in the economic, social, and environment area of sustainability.

They will aim to survive and be profitable in the marketplace an also maintain or improve conditions for society as well as the physical environment.

Community projects or services and engage in more environmentally friendly behaviors.

+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

+KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Definitions

Knowledge Management: any structured activity that improves an organization’s capacity to acquire, share, and utilize knowledge in ways that improve its survival and success.

Intellectual capital: knowledge that resides in an organization. Includes:

Human capital – knowledge that employees posses and generate including their skills, experience, and creativity.

Structural capital – knowledge that is captured and retained in an organization’s systems and structures.

Relationship capital – value derived from an organization’s relationships with customers, suppliers, and other external stakeholders who provide added value for the organization.

+Intellectual Capital

Relationship Relationship CapitalCapital

Value derived from satisfied customers, reliable suppliers, etc.

Structural CapitalStructural CapitalKnowledge captured in systems and structures

HumanHumanCapitalCapital

Knowledge that people possess and generate

+Knowledge Management Process

Knowledge acquisition: includes the organization’s ability to extract information and ideas from its environment as well as through insight. Grafting – hiring individuals or acquiring entire

companies. One of the fasted ways to acquire knowledge.

Knowledge sharing Communities of practice – informal groups bound

together by shared expertise and passion for a particular activity or interest.

Knowledge use To do this, employee must realize that the knowledge is

available and that they have enough freedom to apply it

+Organizational Learning Processes

Applying knowledge to organizational processes in ways that improves the organization’s effectiveness

Distributing knowledge throughout the organization

Extracting information and ideas from its environment as well as through insight

KNOWLEDGEACQUISITIONKNOWLEDGEACQUISITION

KNOWLEDGESHARINGKNOWLEDGESHARING

KNOWLEDGEUSEKNOWLEDGEUSE

Examples in practice

Hiring skilled staff Posting case studies on intranet

Giving staff freedom to try out ideas

+Organizational Memory

The storage and preservation of intellectual capital. It includes information that employees possess as well as knowledge embedded in the organization’s systems and structures.

Includes documents, objects, and anything else that provides meaningful information about how the organization should operate.

Retain intellectual capital by: Keeping knowledgeable employees Transferring knowledge to others Transferring human capital to structural capital (in a form that can be

available to others)

Successful companies also unlearn – refers to organizational change (sometimes company should cast off routines and patterns behavior to a new practices)