Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior offers both challenges and opportunities for managers. It recognizes differences

and helps managers to see the value of workforce diversity and practices that may need to be changed

when managing in different countries. It can help improve quality and employee productivity by

showing managers how to empower their people as well as how to design and implement change

programs. It offers specific insights to improve a manager’s people skills. In times of rapid and ongoing

change, faced by most managers today, OB can help managers cope in a world of “temporariness” and

learn ways to stimulate innovation. Finally, OB can offer managers guidance in creating an ethically

healthy work climate.

Managers need to develop their interpersonal or people skills if they are going to be effective in their

jobs. Organizational behavior (OB) is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals,

groups, and structure have on behavior within an organization, and then applies that knowledge to make

organizations work more effectively. Specifically, OB focuses on how to improve productivity, reduce

absenteeism and turnover, and increase employee citizenship and job satisfaction.

OB studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure. OB

applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order

to make organizations work more effectively. OB is concerned with the study of what people do in an

organization and how that behavior affects the performance of the organization. There is increasing

agreement as to the components of OB, but there is still considerable debate as to the relative

importance of each: motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group

structure and processes, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, work

design, and work stress. Organizational behavior is a developing field of study, presenting new

challenges to a manager’s understanding of work behavior and the ability to manage it effectively. This

course addresses the following points:

Organizational behavior studies the factors that impact individual and group behavior in organizations

and how organizations manage their environments. Organizational behavior

provides a set of tools—theories and concepts—to understand, analyze, describe, and

manage attitudes and behavior in organizations.

The study of organizational can improve and change individual, group, and organizational

behavior to attain individual, group, and organizational goals.

Organizational behavior can be analyzed at three levels: the individual, the group, and the

organization as a whole. A full understanding must include an examination of behavioral

factors at each level.

A manager’s job is to use the tools of organizational behavior to increase effectiveness, an

organization’s ability to achieve its goal. Management is the process of planning,

organizing, leading, and controlling an organization’s human, financial, material, and other

resources to increase its effectiveness.