Organizational Behavior

119 flashcards by MentisLibrary

How people behave at work: personality and perception, job attitudes and justice, the major motivation theories, team process and groupthink, leadership models, power and conflict, decision biases, organizational culture, change, and structure.

What is organizational behavior?
The study of how individuals, groups and structure affect behavior inside organizations, used to make organizations work better. It draws on psychology, social psychology, sociology and anthropology.
What are the three levels of analysis in organizational behavior?
The individual, the group and the organizational system. Each level has its own variables, and an explanation at one level rarely settles a question at another.
What were the Hawthorne studies, and what did they change?
Research at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works in the 1920s and 1930s that examined how working conditions affected output. The results directed attention to social and psychological factors rather than only physical and economic ones, launching the human relations movement.
What are Theory X and Theory Y?
Douglas McGregor's contrast between two sets of manager assumptions. Theory X assumes employees dislike work and must be directed and controlled; Theory Y assumes they can accept and seek responsibility and exercise self-direction.
What is evidence-based management?
Making decisions from the best available scientific evidence, organizational data and stakeholder concerns, rather than from tradition, imitation or personal intuition alone.
What are the Big Five personality dimensions?
Openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and emotional stability, which is the opposite pole of neuroticism.
Which Big Five trait best predicts job performance across occupations?
Conscientiousness. It predicts performance in most jobs because it captures effort, persistence and dependability, which nearly every role rewards.
What is the main limitation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator at work?
It classifies people into 16 types on four either-or dimensions, but the evidence that it predicts job performance is weak, and people often receive a different type when retested.
What is self-efficacy, and where does it come from?
Albert Bandura's term for belief in one's ability to perform a specific task. Its four sources are past successful performance, watching similar others succeed, verbal persuasion, and interpretation of one's own arousal.
What is locus of control?
The degree to which people believe they control what happens to them. Internals attribute outcomes to their own actions; externals attribute them to luck, fate or powerful others.
What is selective perception, and why does it matter at work?
People notice and interpret what fits their interests, background and expectations, so two people observe the same event and take away different facts.
What does attribution theory explain?
How people decide whether someone's behavior was caused by something internal, such as ability or effort, or external, such as circumstances. Kelley's model uses consensus, distinctiveness and consistency to make that judgment.
What is the fundamental attribution error?
The tendency to overestimate personal causes and underestimate situational ones when explaining other people's behavior.
What is the self-serving bias?
The tendency to attribute our successes to internal causes such as ability, and our failures to external ones such as bad luck or other people.
What is the halo effect?
Forming a general impression from one favorable characteristic and letting it color judgments of unrelated ones.
What are stereotyping and the contrast effect in evaluation?
Stereotyping judges someone by the group they belong to rather than by their own behavior. The contrast effect judges a person against the people evaluated just before them rather than against the standard.
How do emotions differ from moods?
Emotions are intense, short lived and directed at a specific cause. Moods are less intense, longer lasting and often have no clear object.
What is emotional labor, and what is the difference between surface and deep acting?
Emotional labor is the effort of displaying the emotions an organization expects regardless of what is felt. Surface acting fakes the display; deep acting changes the underlying feeling to match.
What is emotional intelligence?
The ability to perceive emotions in oneself and others, understand what they mean, and manage them in the service of a goal.
What are the three components of an attitude?
The cognitive component, which is a belief; the affective component, which is the feeling; and the behavioral component, which is the intention to act.
What is cognitive dissonance?
Leon Festinger's term for the discomfort felt when attitudes conflict with each other or with behavior. People reduce it by changing the attitude, changing the behavior, or rationalizing the inconsistency.
What predicts job satisfaction most strongly?
The nature of the work itself, including interest, variety, autonomy and training, along with fair treatment and supportive relationships. Pay predicts satisfaction strongly only up to the point where basic comfort is reached.
What is the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance?
Positive but modest at the individual level, and stronger when measured across an organization: units with more satisfied employees tend to be more effective. Causation runs in both directions.
What are the three components of organizational commitment?
Affective commitment, an emotional attachment to the organization; continuance commitment, based on the cost of leaving; and normative commitment, a felt obligation to stay.
What is employee engagement?
An employee's involvement, enthusiasm and absorption in the work, usually described as vigor, dedication and absorption.
What is organizational citizenship behavior?
Discretionary behavior that is not part of formal job requirements but helps the organization function, such as helping colleagues, volunteering, and tolerating minor inconveniences without complaint.
What are the four responses to dissatisfaction in the exit, voice, loyalty and neglect framework?
Exit, leaving the organization; voice, actively trying to improve conditions; loyalty, waiting optimistically for things to improve; and neglect, passively letting conditions worsen through lateness, absence and reduced effort.
What is the psychological contract?
The unwritten set of expectations about what the employee and the organization owe each other, beyond anything in the formal contract.
What is the difference between challenge stressors and hindrance stressors?
Challenge stressors, such as a demanding project or time pressure toward a meaningful goal, can raise motivation and performance. Hindrance stressors, such as unclear expectations, red tape and office politics, only drain.
What does the Job Demands-Resources model say?
Every job has demands, which cost effort, and resources, such as autonomy, support, feedback and development. High demands with low resources leads to strain and burnout; adequate resources buffer demands and drive engagement.