Organisational Behaviour

CHAPTER 1 – WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR?

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After studying this chapter, students should be able to:

1. Define organizational behavior (OB)

2. Describe what managers do

3. Explain the value of the systematic study of OB

4. List the major challenges and opportunities for managers to use OB concepts

5. Identify the contributions made by major behavioral science disciplines to OB

6. Describe why managers require a knowledge of OB

7. Explain the need for a contingency approach to the study of OB

8. Identify the three levels of analysis in this book’s OB model

TEXT OUTLINE

I. Introduction

A. Story

1. Jason Hershberger

a) Undergraduate degrees in computer science and geology from the University of Southern California.

b) MS in computer science from USC in 1996 at the age of 23.

c) Working for Torrey Science Corporation in San Diego, California.

2. His job includes designing software, scheduling projects, organizing teams, delegating assignments, providing guidance to team members, and monitoring team results.

a) College course work did very little regarding the people factor.

b) Learned, through experience that the primary reason most projects succeed or misfire is due to the people factor.

3. Lawrence Weinbach, former chief executive of Arthur Andersen & Co.

a) “Pure technical knowledge is only going to get you to a point. Beyond that, interpersonal skills become critical.”

4. Until the late 1980s, business school curricula focused on the technical aspects of management.

a) Course work in human behavior and people skills received minimal attention.

5. This is changed over the past decade.

B. Importance of Developing Managers’ Interpersonal Skills

1. Companies with reputations as a good place to work—such as Hewlett-Packard, Lincoln Electric, Southwest Airlines, and Starbucks—have a big advantage.

2. A recent national...