Understanding the Basics of Human Behavior

An organization’s human resource policies and practices represent important forces for shaping
employee behavior and attitudes. In this chapter, we specifically discussed the influence of selection
practices, training and development programs, performance evaluation systems, and the existence of a
union. Human resource policies and practice influence organizational effectiveness. Human resource
management includes: employee selection, training performance management, and union-management
relations and how they influence organizations effectiveness.
Biographical Characteristics
1. Finding and analyzing the variables that have an impact on employee productivity, absence,
turnover, and satisfaction is often complicated.
2. Many of the concepts—motivation, or power, politics or organizational culture—are hard to assess.
3. Other factors are more easily definable and readily available—data that can be obtained from an
employee’s personnel file and would include
characteristics such as:
• Age
• Gender
• Marital status
• Length of service, etc.

A. Age
1. The relationship between age and job performance is increasing in importance.
• First, there is a widespread belief that job performance declines with increasing age.
• Second, the workforce is aging; workers over 55 are the fastest growing sector of the
workforce.
2. Employers’ perceptions are mixed.
• They see a number of positive qualities that older workers bring to their jobs,
specifically experience, judgment, a strong work ethic, and commitment to quality.
• Older workers are also perceived as lacking flexibility and as being resistant to new
technology.

• Some believe that the older you get, the less likely you are to quit your job. That
conclusion is based on studies of the age-turnover relationship.
3. It is tempting to assume that age is also inversely related to absenteeism.
• Most studies do show an inverse relationship, but close examination finds that the ageabsence
relationship is partially a function of whether the absence is avoidable or
unavoidable.
• In general, older employees have lower rates of avoidable absence. However, they have
higher rates of unavoidable absence, probably due to their poorer health associated with
aging and longer recovery periods when injured.
4. There is a widespread belief that productivity declines with age and that individual skills
decay over time.
• Reviews of the research find that age and job performance are unrelated.
• This seems to be true for almost all types of jobs, professional and nonprofessional.
5. The relationship between age and job satisfaction is mixed.
• Most studies indicate a positive association between age and satisfaction, at least up to
age 60.
• Other studies, however, have found a U-shaped relationship. When professional and
nonprofessional employees are separated, satisfaction tends to continually increase
among professionals as they age, whereas it falls

B. Gender
1. There are few, if any, important differences between men and women that will affect their
job performance, including the areas of:
• Problem-solving
• Analytical skills
• Competitive drive
• Motivation
• Sociability
• Learning ability
2. Women are more willing to conform to authority, and men are more aggressive and more
likely than women to have expectations of success, but those differences are minor.
3. There is no evidence indicating that an employee’s gender affects job satisfaction.
4. There is a difference between men and women in terms of preference for work schedules.
• Mothers of preschool children are more likely to prefer part-time work, flexible work
schedules, and telecommuting in order to accommodate their family responsibilities.
5. Absence and turnover rates
• Women’s quit rates are similar to men’s.
• The research on absence consistently indicates that women have higher rates of
absenteeism.
• The logical explanation: cultural expectation that has historically placed home and
family responsibilities on the woman.

C. Marital Status
1. There are not enough studies to draw any conclusions about the effect of marital status on
job productivity.
2. Research consistently indicates that married employees have fewer absences, undergo fewer
turnovers, and are more satisfied with their jobs than are their unmarried coworkers.
3. More research needs to be done on the other statuses besides single or married, such as
divorce, domestic partnering, etc..
D. Tenure
1. The issue of the impact of job seniority on job performance has been subject to
misconceptions and speculations.

2. Extensive reviews of the seniority-productivity relationship have been conducted:
• There is a positive relationship between tenure and job productivity.
• There is a negative relationship between tenure to absence.
• Tenure is also a potent variable in explaining turnover.
• Tenure has consistently been found to be negatively related to turnover and has been
suggested as one of the single best predictors of turnover.
• The evidence indicates that tenure and satisfaction are positively related.
Individual differences can be divided into personality and ability differences. Understanding the nature,
determinants, and consequences of individual differences is essential for managing organizational behavior.
An appreciation of the nature of individual differences is necessary to understand why people behave in
certain ways in an organization.
1. Organizational outcomes predicted by personality include job satisfaction, work stress, and
leadership effectiveness. Personality is not a useful predictor of organizational outcomes when
there are strong situational constraints. Because personality tends to be stable over time,
managers should not expect to change personality in the short run. Managers should accept
workers’ personalities as they are and develop effective ways to deal with people.
2. Feelings, thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors in an organization are determined by the interaction
of personality and situation.
3. The Big Five personality traits are extraversion (positive affectivity), neuroticism (negative
affectivity), agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience. Other personality
traits particularly relevant to organizational behavior include locus of control, self-monitoring,
self-esteem, Type A and Type B personality, and the needs for achievement, affiliation, and
power.
4. In addition to possessing different personalities, workers also differ in their abilities, or
capabilities. The two major types of ability are cognitive and physical ability.

5. Types of cognitive ability can be arranged in a hierarchy with general intelligence at the top.
Specific types of cognitive include: verbal, numerical, reasoning, deductive, ability to see
relationships, memory, spatial, and perceptual.
6. There are two types of physical ability: motor skills (the ability to manipulate objects) and
physical skills (a person’s fitness and strength).
7. Both nature and nurture contribute to determining physical and cognitive ability. A third, recently
identified, ability is emotional intelligence.
8. In organizations, ability can be managed by selecting individuals who have the abilities needed to
accomplish tasks, placing workers in jobs that capitalize on their abilities, and training workers to
enhance their ability levels.
The Ability-Job Fit

1. Employee performance is enhanced when there is a high ability-job fit.
2. The specific intellectual or physical abilities required depend on the ability requirements of
the job. For example, pilots need strong spatial-visualization abilities.
3. Directing attention at only the employee’s abilities, or only the ability requirements of the
job, ignores the fact that employee performance depends on the interaction of the two.
4. When the fit is poor employees are likely to fail.
5. When the ability-job fit is out of sync because the employee has abilities that far exceed the
requirements of the job, performance is likely to be adequate, but there will be
organizational inefficiencies and possible declines in employee satisfaction.
6. Abilities significantly above those required can also reduce the employee’s job satisfaction
when the employee’s desire to use his or her abilities is particularly strong and is frustrated
by the limitations of the job.

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Multiple Stakeholders

Multiple Stakeholders
Organizations expand globally to gain access to the valuable resources found throughout the world.
Global expansion also provides an enlarged customer base and the opportunity for greater profit. As to
the effect of culture on the decision where to expand, organizations tend to expand into countries with a
similar national culture. This results in the least amount of conflict. The cost of expansion is an
important factor and may ultimately drive the decision-making process. The ability to compromise in
terms of culture is important. Organizations can make use of electronic communication media, global
networks, and global teams to develop and transmit a strong global culture. Technologies assist in the
communication of norms and values while global networks (and teams) socialize managers into these
values and norms. Transferring managers between subsidiaries enables them to internalize norms and
values. Organizations need strong and clear top-management norms and values, communicated from the
top down. Managing global organizations shares some of the challenges inherent in managing domestic
operations. Differences in cultures add to the difficulty of managing global organizations. Given today’s
increasingly global environment, most managers will need to enter the global environment where they
will experience these additional challenges.

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Globalization and Culture

Understanding and managing global organizational
behavior begins with understanding the nature of the
differences between national cultures and then tailoring an
organization’s strategy and structure so that the organization
can manage its activities as it expands abroad. To succeed,
global companies must help their managers develop skills
that allow them to work effectively in foreign contexts and
deal with differences in national culture. A global
organization is an organization that produces or sells goods
or services in more than one country. Global companies treat the world as one large market. The
presence of organizations in countries other than their home country is so common that local people
assume they are domestic companies. Organizations expand globally to gain access to resources as
inputs and to sell outputs. Labor costs are lower in many other countries, and raw materials can be
obtained more cheaply, due to lower labor costs. Companies seek the expertise found in other countries
(e.g., the design skills of Italian automakers or the engineering skills of German companies). Customers
are a resource that motivates companies to expand globally. To operate abroad, to obtain inputs or
customers, an organization must understand differences in national cultures. A national culture is a set
of economic, political, and social values in a particular nation. People who move to a foreign country
feel confused and bewildered by the country’s customs and will have difficulty adapting. This is known
as culture shock. Culture shock can include homesickness, and citizens living abroad tend to buy
national newspapers or frequent stores or restaurants similar to those in the home country.
High Quality and Low Cost Technology is changing people’s jobs and their work behavior. Quality
management and its emphasis on continuous process improvement can increase employee stress as
individuals find that performance expectations are constantly being increased. Process reengineering is
eliminating millions of jobs and completely reshaping the jobs of those who remain, and mass
customization requires employees to learn new skills.

The e-organization, with its heavy reliance on the Internet, increases potential workplace distractions.
Managers need to be particularly alert to the negative effects of cyber-loafing. In addition, the e-org will
rely less on individual decision making and more on virtual-team decision making. Probably the most
significant influence of the e-organization is that it is rewriting the rules of communication. Traditional
barriers are coming down, replaced by networks that cut across vertical levels and horizontal units.
An understanding of work design can help managers design jobs that positively affect employee
motivation. For instance, jobs that score high in motivating potential increase an employee’s control
over key elements in his or her work. Therefore, jobs that offer autonomy, feedback, and similar
complex task characteristics help to satisfy the individual goals of employees who desire greater control
over their work. Of course, consistent with the social information-processing model, the perception that
task characteristics are complex is probably more important in influencing an employee’s motivation
than the objective task characteristics themselves. The key, then, is to provide employees with cues that
suggest that their jobs score high on factors such as skill variety, task identity, autonomy, and feedback.
Workspace design variables such as size, arrangement, and privacy have implications for
communication, status, socializing, satisfaction, and productivity. For instance, an enclosed office
typically conveys more status than an open cubicle, so employees with a high need for status might find
an enclosed office increases their job satisfaction.

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Organizational change

Organizational change is an ongoing process that has important implications for organizational
performance and for the well-being of an organization’s members. An organization and its members
must be constantly on the alert for changes from within the organization and from the outside environment and they must learn how to adjust to change quickly and effectively. Often, the
revolutionary types of change that result from restructuring and reengineering are necessary only
because an organization and its managers ignored or were unaware of changes in the environment and
did not make incremental changes as needed. The more an organization changes, the easier and more
effective the change process becomes. Developing and managing a plan for change are vital to an
organization’s success.

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Organizational Process

The organizational environment is the set of resources surrounding an organization, including inputs
(e.g., raw materials and skilled employees); resources to transform inputs (e.g., computers, buildings,
and machinery); and resources (e.g., customers) Organizations compete for the scarce, needed
resources. There is much uncertainty about obtaining needed resources. Organizations design their
structures and cultures in ways to secure and protect needed resources. Technology is the second design
contingency an organization faces. Technology refers to the combination of human resources (skills,
knowledge abilities, and techniques) and raw materials and equipment (machines, computers, and tools)
that workers use to convert raw materials into goods and services. Each job is part of an organization’s
technology. An organization must design its structure and culture to allow for the operation of
technology. Organizational processes develop plans of actions for competing successfully by obtaining
resources and outperforming competitors. These plans of actions are strategies. To attract customers, for
example, organizations can pursue the following strategies.

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Components of an Organization

The environment influences organizational design. When uncertainty exists, the ability to respond
quickly and creatively is important; when the environment is stable, an organization improves
performance by making attitudes and behaviors predictable. Creativity and predictability are fostered
by certain structures and cultures.
Task - an organization’s mission, purpose, or goal for existing
People - the human resources of the organization
Structure - the manner in which an organization’s work is designed at the micro level; how departments, divisions, & the overall organization are designed at the macro level
Technology - the intellectual and mechanical processes used by an organization to
transform inputs into products or services that meet

Formal vs. Informal Organization
Formal Organization - the part of the organization that has legitimacy and
official recognition
Informal Organization - the unofficial part of the organization

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Management Roles

Management Roles

Managers can use their understanding of organizational behavior to improve their management skills. A skill

is an ability to act in a way that allows a person to perform highly in her or his role. Managers need three types

of skills: conceptual skills to analyze and diagnose a situation to distinguish between cause and effect;

human skills to understand, work with, lead, and control the behavior of individuals and groups; and

technical skills, job-specific knowledge and techniques required to perform an organizational role.

Effective managers need all three types of skills—conceptual, human, and technical. For example,

entrepreneurs often are technically skilled but lack conceptual and human skills. Scientists who become

managers have technical expertise, but low levels of human skills.

The ten roles can be grouped as being primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships, the transfer

of information, and decision making.

1. Interpersonal roles

• Figurehead—duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature

• Leadership—hire, train, motivate, and discipline employees

• Liaison—contact outsiders who provide the manager with information. These may be individuals or

groups inside or outside the organization.

2. Informational Roles

• Monitor—collect information from organizations and institutions outside their own

• Disseminator—a conduit to transmit information to organizational members

• Spokesperson—represent the organization to outsiders

3. Decisional Roles

• Entrepreneur—managers initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their organization’s

performance

• Disturbance handlers—take corrective action in response to unforeseen problems

• Resource allocators—responsible for allocating human, physical, and monetary resources

• Negotiator role—discuss issues and bargain with other units to gain advantages for their own

unit

Management Skills

Robert Katz has identified three essential management skills: technical, human, and conceptual.

1. Technical Skills

• The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. All jobs require some specialized

expertise, and many people develop their technical skills on the job.

2. Human Skills

• The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in

groups, describes human skills.

Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent

3. Conceptual Skills

1. The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations

2. Decision making, for example, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives

that can correct them, evaluate those alternatives, and select the best one.

Skills Exhibited by an Effective Manager

1. Clarifies goals and objectives for everyone involved

2. Encourages participation, upward communication, and suggestions

3. Plans and organizes for an orderly work flow

4. Has technical and administrative expertise to answer organization-related questions

5. Facilitates work through team building, training, coaching and support

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