Organisational Behaviour Summary Keywords And Question Hint Answers

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Book summary of Organisational Behaviour

Organisational behaviour is the study of human behaviour at work. There are broadly three levels of organisational behaviour; individual level, group level and organisational level.
The Hawthorne experiments conducted by Elton Mayo and his team emphasised on the human factor in the attainment of organisational goals and objectives.
The scope of OB could be understood by contributions made by various disciplines, such as psychology, social psychology, industrial psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, political science, economics, semantics and physiology.
Organisational behaviour helps in attaining organisational effectiveness, sustaining changes in business environment, overcoming competition and fulfilling human needs.
Organisational behaviour focuses on the individuals, groups, structure, technology and environmental elements of an organisation, which form the basis of human behaviour at work.
There are mainly three approaches to organisational behaviour; classical approach, neo-classical approach and modern approach.
Classical approach is based on three main principles; the principle of coordination, scalar chain principle and the functional principle.
The neo-classical approach emphasises on the point that organisation is a social system in which individuals work together to achieve major objectives.
The modern approach is based on scientific explanations of the complexities of organisational structure and can be divided into two separate approaches; systems approach and contingency approach.
Various opportunities and challenges in OB are managing workforce diversity, improving quality and productivity, developing people skills, promoting innovation and change, coping with temporariness, empowering people and encouraging ethical behaviour.
The scientific aspects of organisational behaviour can help managers in addressing issues, such as diversity at workplace, employee’s trust on organisation, quality and flexibility at work and employee selection and retention.
Individual behaviour refers to the reaction of an individual towards an action, environment, person or stimulus.
The different factors that affect individual behaviour are personal factors, environmental factors and organisational behaviour.
Biographical attributes are inherited and generic in nature. These attributes include physical characteristics, age, gender, religion, marital status, experience, intelligence and ability.
Ability refers to the capacity of a person to perform a job, handle a situation or innovate.
Values are the principles that are inherent in an individual and affect his/her reaction in a particular situation.
Attitude refers to the way in which an individual generally reacts in a particular situation.
Job satisfaction refers to the positive attitude of an individual towards the different aspects of his/her job.
Personality refers to the set of traits possessed by an individual that makes him/her distinct from others. Personality determines the behaviour of an individual.
Personality can also be defined as a combination of physical, mental and moral qualities of individuals that are reflected in their unique behaviour.
The elements of personality are behaviour; freedom; peculiarity; physical, mental and moral qualities; adaptability to the environment; psychological systems and habits.
The Freudian stages of personality development include the oral stage, anal stage, phallic stage, latent stage and genital stage.
Erikson`s stages of personality development include trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. confusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation and integrity vs. despair.
The main determinants of personality are heredity and environment.
The psychoanalytic theory states that childhood experiences and unconscious desires influence the behaviour of individuals.
Neo-Freudian theories are the brain work of psychologists who agreed with the basis of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory but changed and adapted the theory to incorporate their own ideas, beliefs and theories.
The trait theory states that every person has a specific and unique set of features.
The basis of the social learning theory is that people can learn new information and behaviour by watching other people.
The Big Five traits are extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability and openness to experience.
Perception is a process of interpretation of stimuli perceived through the sensory organs of individuals.
Visual perception is a process through which a naked eye detects light, depth, etc. around a stimulus and interprets it while auditory perception is the process by which the brain interprets what an individual hears.
According to the SOBC model, an organism perceives a stimulus from the environment which is interpreted in human brain and marks the human behaviour towards the stimulus. Behaviour has a certain consequence.
The process of perception is multifaceted and includes four sub-processes; stimulus, registration, interpretation, and reaction.
Perceptual selectivity refers to the tendency of an individual to select certain objects in the environment and ignore the others.
Several factors affect perception such as external factors including perceiver, target, and situation. Internal factors affecting perception are sensory limits and thresholds and psychological factors.
Impression management involves representing oneself in a way an individual wants others to see him or her. Individuals generally manage the impression to either gain something they want from other individuals or to establish an independent identity, usually favourable.
There are three types of selves individuals use to represent themselves; authentic self, ideal self, and tactical self.
The two major components of impression management are impression motivation and impression construction.
Self-image can be defined as the idea, notion, or mental image that individuals have of themselves. According to the social identity theory, self-image is a combination of two key parts; personal identity and social identity.
Some of the more common managerial implications of perception are in the areas of employee selection and recruitment and employee performance appraisal.
In organisations, employees and managers should be conscious of managing the perceptual process, which eventually determines their attitudes and behaviour.
Learning refers to the process of acquiring knowledge and new skills by an individual.
Learning enables employees to change their behaviour as per the organisation culture and working style that further brings efficiency in their work.
The different learning theories, developed to understand the process of learning, are classical conditioning theory, operant or instrumental conditioning theory, cognitive learning theory, and social learning theory.
Reinforcement refers to strengthening a particular behaviour in an individual.
The four elements of reinforcement are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, punishment, and extinction.
Reward is a form of positive reinforcement that motivates employees to improve their performance.
Reinforcement schedules can be broadly categorised as continuous reinforcement and intermittent reinforcement.
Punishment tries to decrease the frequency of unwanted behaviour and actions or an undesirable happening. Punishment can be of two types: positive punishment and negative punishment.
Motivation is a fundamental psychological process. The term ‘motivation’ is derived from the Latin word ‘movere’, meaning ‘to move’.
Motivation refers to an internal feeling that helps individuals in achieving their personal and professional goals in an efficient manner.
Motivation originates from underlying human motives. The cause of doing something or exhibiting a certain type of behaviour is known as a motive.
Different types of motives are primary motives, general motives, and secondary motives.
Different psychologists have explained the sources of motivations in different manners. Depending on the sources of motivation, there are different approaches of motivation. Some of the approaches of motivation are instinct approach, drive-reduction approach, incentive approach, and cognitive approach.
Motivation refers to encouraging individuals to direct their actions towards the realisation of organisational goals. Numerous researchers and theorists, such as David Clarence McClelland, Abraham Maslow, and Douglas M. McGregor, provided their views on motivation.
Some of the theories provided by eminent theorists are Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, Theory X and Theory Y, Herzberg’s two-factor theory/motivation-hygiene theory, McClelland’s theory of needs, goal setting theory, equity theory, Vroom’s expectancy theory, ERG Theory, and Cognitive Evaluation Theory.
Leadership is the ability of an individual to persuade other individuals to behave in a particular way, willingly.
Leaders are futuristic, have strong communication skills, confidence, an ability to manage others, and a willingness to embrace changes.
Leaders should possess certain people skills for efficient leadership such as assertive skills, communication skills, motivation skills, and adaptive skills.
Leadership is important to organisational development, because leadership provides a clear vision, leads to effective planning, inspires and motivates individuals, builds employee morale, encourages new ideas, improves employee-organisation relationship, and helps in management of crisis.
The main differences between leaders and managers are that managers influence while leaders inspire, managers create circles of power while leaders create circles of influence, and managers work to achieve a given objective, while leaders create targets for the future.
The three main leadership theories are trait theories, behavioural theories, and contingency theories.
Pitfalls in leadership involve personal pitfalls, organisational pitfalls, and environmental pitfalls.
Emotional intelligence is an individual’s ability to identify, understand, and manage emotions to relieve stress, communicate, and empathise with other individuals, overcome challenges and conflict.
The four aspects of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
The three factors that influence the kind of leadership are characteristics of the leader, characteristics of the subordinates, and characteristics of the organisational environment.
Leadership style can be categorised into autocratic leadership, bureaucratic leadership, democratic leadership, charismatic leadership, situational leadership, transactional leadership, transformational leadership, and laissez faire leadership.
The group is the collection of two or more independent individuals to achieve a common goal.
Group dynamics refers to a social process through which people interact face-to-face in small groups.
Groups provide a sense of becomingness to the employees, source of warmth and support for the employees, power/authority to the group members, security to the employees, and recognition and status of the employees.
Formal groups are the groups formed by the organisation for accomplishing a particular task.
Informal groups are the groups that people form to satisfy their social needs.
After group formation, bond of intimacy and stable relationships are developed among the group members, which provide a structure for the group along with some important processes, which characterises the dynamics within groups.
Various stages involved in the group formation are forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning.
Different theories for group formation are propinquity theory, Homan’s theory, Balance theory, and exchange theory.
Team is the formal group that includes interdependent individuals responsible for the attainment of common goals.
Some of the factors important for creating effective teams are clear goals, relevant skills, mutual trust, unified commitment, good communication, negotiation skills, appropriate leader, internal and external support from the organisation.
There are three basic schools of thought on the concept of stress. The response-based model of stress, the stimulus based model of stress and the transaction-based model of stress. The major difference in these models is how stress is viewed as an independent variable or a dependent variable.
Stress can be defined as the unpleasant tension that occurs within an employee when he perceives a situation that is about to exceed his ability to cope. The definitions of stress focus on the gap between the demands placed on an employee and his capability to cope with them, and the resulting physiological and psychological reactions.
Stress experience can involve reactions in three areas the physiology, emotions and cognitive response of the employee. The reaction to stress can manifest through several symptoms in each of these three areas.
Researchers have tried to analyse the concept of workplace stress and the factors responsible for it. Three important models have been proposed, which are: the Job Demands-Resources Model, the Demand-Control Model, and the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model.
Stress arises due to factors called stressors which are environmental conditions that cause employees to experience stress. These could be classified into challenge and hindrance stressors.
Sources of stress could be environmental factors, organisational factors, and personal factors.
Workplace stress can be dealt at three different levels of individual stress, group stress, and organisational stress.
The outcomes of stress have consequences for both the individual and the organisation. The individual might face symptoms pertaining to physiological, psychological, behavioural or social aspects. Organisational outcomes involve loss of productivity, lack of job satisfaction, higher health costs, etc.
One research claims that the relationship between stress and work performance can be depicted through an inverted U relationship. As per this theory, the stress at lower levels can boost performance but after reaching a peak, further stress may lead to deterioration in work performance.
Stress management programmes in an organisation can take a tripartite approach-primary level stress management that focuses on stress prevention at the organisational level; secondary level stress management which consists of programmes that are response-directed and aim at minimising stress exposure; and tertiary level stress management which comprises programmes that take a curative approach in terms of employee welfare and healthcare programmes.
The success of a business organisation depends on team work. However, where there is a team, conflict is bound to arise.
In simple words, conflict refers to the actual and perceived disagreement among needs, values, and interests of individuals and groups.
Some of the major sources of conflicts in organisations are communication, personal variables, unrealistic expectations, change, goal, the difference in values, and behaviour.
Some of the negative results of conflicts are performance degradation and low employee retention.
Some of the positive consequences of conflict are change in organisational culture, competition, and creativity.
Functional conflicts refer to constructive conflicts that support the goals of the organisations and improve its performance. Functional conflicts involve people genuinely interested in solving problems and listening to one another.
Methods of stimulating functional conflicts are devil’s advocacy and dialectic method.
A dysfunctional conflict consists of various disputes and disagreements that hinder the performance of the company. It involves people unwilling to work for a common goal and solve a particular problem.
Individual-level conflict indicates that human behaviour is led by needs, which guide the activities of an individual.
Transactional analysis refers to a model of people and relationships that was developed by Dr. Eric Berne in the 1960s.
The Johari window refers to a communication model used to improve understanding among individuals.
Intra-personal conflict occurs within an individual.
Intra-personal conflict involves frustration, goal-conflict, and role-conflict.
Conflicts that occur between two or more groups are called inter-group conflicts.
Some of the techniques of conflict resolution are problem solving, super-ordinate goals, increasing resources, avoidance, compromise, authoritative command, and altering human variable.
Employee Retention: It refers to the rate of employees staying in the same organisation.
Power is the potential ability to influence the behaviour of others. The term power may be applied to people, groups, divisions, organisations, and nations.
Power within organisations affects decision making for resource allocation, goals and objectives setting, hiring of individuals, structural and employment decisions, etc.
Leadership refers to influencing people with or without the advantage of a formal position or role, whereas power refers to getting people to do things owing to the formal platform or charter an individual holds in an organisation.
The various sources of power are reward power, coercive power, legitimate power, expert power, and referent power.
The various sources of power in an organisational setting can be grouped as structural and situational sources of power, which includes knowledge as power, resources as power, decision making as power, and networks as power.
Individuals use certain strategies to gain power and manipulate the bases of power for specific actions, such as influencing the behaviour of other individuals, gaining a particular advantage, etc., referred to as power tactics.
Power tactics used by individuals can be categorised into individual and intra-group tactics and inter-group tactics.
Individual and intra-group tactics include assertiveness, friendliness, rationality, sanctions, higher authority, bargaining, and coalition.
Inter-group tactics include uncertainty absorption, substitutability, and integrative importance.
Organisational politics includes actions by individuals or departments in an organisation for acquiring, developing, and using power and other resources for obtaining desirable outcomes at times of uncertainty or disagreement.
Factors that contribute to organisational politics can be categorised into individual factors and organisational factors. Individual factors include need for power, Machiavellianism, locus of control, and risk-seeking tendency. Organisational factors include limited resources, uncertainty in decision making, and performance pressure.
Organisational culture refers to the values and behaviours that contribute to the distinctive social and psychological environment of an organisation. The political environment of an organisation has a direct impact on its culture.
Political attitude refers to the positive or negative evaluation of situations, individuals, objects, events, activities, and ideas relating to politics. Thus, the political attitudes of different individuals in an organisation determine their political behaviour.
Focussing on the Big Five Model of Personality helps to reshape political attitude and thus the political behaviour of individuals in an organisation.
Companies with global operations need to go beyond traditional HRM concepts in order to effectively manage their global operations. International HRM has additional three dimensions, viz. cross-cultural dimension, international HRM policies and international industrial relations.
Since IHRM is largely differentiated by cross-cultural aspects, the field of organisational behaviour in its international perspective becomes crucial.
The trend of globalisation has made domestic companies to evolve from multi-domestic to multinational to transnational or global firms as their focus expands beyond domestic markets. This evolution is closely related to the importance and sensitivity they attach to cultural differences
Cultural perspectives evolve from ethnocentricism to polycentricism to geocentricism as companies transform into global corporations.
Culture plays an important role in organisational strategies. As companies move beyond their countries, they need to understand cultural variations across countries starting from basic social values to leadership styles.
National cultures can vary in every basic aspect of cultural dimensions and these differences could be of great importance to corporate strategies of MNCs.
One of the major and path-breaking researches on multicultural variations was carried out by Hofstede who could identify six cultural dimensions based on which different cultures can be differentiated.
Hofstede’s research showed that national cultures can have a major impact on organisational cultures even for companies like IBM who are founded on strong and unique foundational values. Another study was done by GLOBE researchers who expanded Hofstede’s research conclusions.
It is important for HR managers to understand the significance of national cultures when implementing HR policies. These HR policies should take into account the international aspects of OB. OB theories and concepts should be evaluated from an international perspective for their universal applicability.
Content theories of motivation like Maslow’s theory have been found to have universal applicability though the need profile could vary between countries. Process theories of motivation were found to attract mixed results or no support.
Leadership styles are found to be different in different countries. Leadership styles dominant in a country can be predicted based on the cultural values espoused by it. GLOBE researchers could classify leadership styles applicable for different cultural dimensions adopted by different countries.
Communication is the most visible differentiator in terms of the impact of cross-cultural variations on OB concepts. Communication barriers increase in international transactions due to cultural variations starting from the use of language, verbal style, non-verbal communication, and perception-based on cultural values, etc.
Multicultural teams have become a normal feature with global corporations. These teams are difficult to manage but offer higher potential for superior performance if properly managed.
Technological developments can lead to global convergence of cultures. Technology can be used to reinforce cultural values leading to divergence of cultures or to promote convergence towards a global culture. Organisations should take cognizance of such implications of technology in their international strategies.

Important keyword of OB

Ability: The capacity of an individual to perform a job, handle a situation or innovate.
Attitude: The tendency of an individual to behave in a particular situation.
Big Five Model: It defines five factors (openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), which define human personality and account for individual differences.
Burnout: A feeling of physical and mental fatigue that can occur from working under difficult and demanding conditions.
Cognitive functions: It is the logical process by which an individual becomes aware of, perceive, or comprehend objects, events, or ideas.
Cognitive: It is the process by which the sensory input is transformed, reduced, elaborated, stored, recovered, and used.
Collectivism: A social orientation or cultural value where the emphasis is on the good of the group, community or society rather than the good of the individual.
Conflict: Disagreements among managers and /or colleagues causing significant amount of stress that may result in burnout.
Content theories: The type of motivation theories that are based on what actuates, energises or initiates the worker behaviour.
Contingency: It is an event that is possible, but cannot be anticipated with certainty.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): It is an organisation’s sense of responsibility towards the community and environment.
Demotion: It is a compulsory reduction in an employee’s job title or salary as a repercussion to unsatisfactory performance.
Dialectic: It refers to a method of argument for resolving disagreement.
Dispute Resolution System: It refers to an organisational framework that is developed to resolve inter-group and inter-personal conflicts.
Emotional Quotient: It is an individual’s ability to sense, understand, and apply his/her wisdom of emotions to facilitate high levels of collaboration and productivity.
Employee retention: It is the effort of an organisation to withhold its existing staff by creating favourable working conditions.
Employee Retention: It refers to the rate of employees staying in the same organisation.
Ethical dilemma: It is a situation where moral principles of an individual are unable to decide which course of action is right or wrong.
Expatriate: An employee who is working and temporarily residing in a foreign country.
Formal Groups: The groups formed by an organisation for a common task.
Franchises: Refers to the organisation that buys the right to use the business model and other intellectual property of another organisation.
Franchising: Refers to a type of business deal in which an organisation gives the rights of using its trademarks and other intellectual properties to another organisation at a mutually-decided fee.
Globalisation: It is the process through which diverse countries in the world are interconnecting with each other as a result of trade and cultural exchange.
Group: Two or more individuals working together for a common goal.
Groupthink: A process wherein an individual tends to compromise on his/her idea and agrees to the idea of the group.
Host country: The country where an MNC is operating and has established a foreign subsidiary.
Incentive: It refers to the various tangible and intangible benefits provided to employees to motivate them.
Individual behaviour: The response of an individual towards an action, situation, person or stimulus.
Individualism: The extent to which the individual initiative and caring for oneself is preferred by society.
Informal Groups: The group formed due to the common interests of the members of that group.
Interpersonal Relations: It is the association between two or more people ranging from brief to long periods of time.
Job satisfaction: The positive feeling of an individual towards his/her job.
Laissez Faire: It is the policy of letting events to take their own course without much intervention.
Learning: It is a relatively permanent change occurring in the behaviour of an individual due to an external or internal stimulus.
Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) Scale: It is a scale used by managers to rate the least preferred co-worker in the organisation.
Libido: In psychology, it refers to a person’s overall desire or driving force for any behaviour. This is different from the usual term that means sexual desire.
Locus of Control: It is the extent to which individuals believe that they have power over the events occurring in their lives.
Low-context communication: A type of communication style where players tend to communicate more to the point and verbalise all important information.
Machiavellianism: It is a concept proposed in the political doctrine of Machiavelli according to which, politics is amoral and any means (however unscrupulous) is justifiable in achieving political power.
Maslow’s Theory of Hierarchy of Needs: It is a human motivational theory, which states that people aim to meet basic needs, followed by safety needs, social needs, self-esteem needs, and self-actualisation needs, in a pyramidal form.
Motivation: An internal feeling that helps individuals in attaining their personal and professional goals in an efficient manner.
Multi-variate Model: It refers to a model that involves more than two variables.
Mystery shoppers: Refers to shoppers who shop in an outlet to collect information regarding the outlet.
Needs: It refers to a motivating force that compels actions for satisfaction.
Negative Reinforcement: It involves encouraging good behaviour by removing the stimulus that leads to undesirable behaviour.
Norms: A set of acceptable standards and expectations from a person belonging to a particular group.
Optical illusion: It is the process of visual perception characterised by visually perceived images that differ from objective reality.
Paternalistic: The manner of managing or governing individuals, groups, or businesses that characterises a fatherly and sometimes intrusive attitude that may restrict the freedom and responsibilities of the dependents or subordinates in their supposed larger interest.
Peer Group: It refers to a group of people with approximately the same age, status and interests.
Performance appraisal: It is a systematic assessment of an employee’s performance and his or her potential for development.
Positive Reinforcement: It is the positive encouragement provided to an employee on delivering the desired performance.
Power distance: The degree of expectation of members of a society with regard to equal distribution of power within the society’s institutions and organisations.
Productivity: A measure of how efficiently an input is used to produce output.
Recruitment: It refers to the process of hiring new employees in an organisation.
Reinforcement: It is the process of strengthening a specific type of behaviour in an individual.
Resonance Leadership: It is the leadership style followed by leaders who possess higher degrees of emotional intelligence.
Reward: It is the monetary or non-monetary encouragement provided to an employee on his/her good performance.
Role ambiguity: Situation of indecisiveness that an employee faces about a particular assigned role.
Scalar chain: It is the formal line of authority where information moves in a straight line from the highest to the lowest ranks in an organisation.
Self-actualisation: It is the achievement of an individual’s full potential through creativity, independence, spontaneity, and an understanding of the real world.
Sensory threshold: It is the level of strength that a stimulus must have for an individual to be able to detect it.
Structure: A particular pattern of relationships amongst the members of a group.
Teams: The group formed by an organisation involving interdependent individuals who are responsible for the attainment of common goals.
Unconscious mind: It refers to the processes in mind that occur automatically and are not available for introspection.
Values: It refers to the moral basis of the actions of individuals. (b) Principles and standards of behaviour that are based on the judgement of what is important in one’s life and that shapes one’s priorities in life. (c) The principles inherent in an individual, which impact his/her reaction in a particular situation.
Workforce diversity: It is the existence of a wide variety of people with different backgrounds, nationalities and age groups in the workforce of an organisation.

Organisational Behaviour Summary Keywords And Question Hint Answers

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