Ch.

1 Organizational Behaviour
-

What is OB? The study of actions and attitudes of employees in

organizations, and how it affects their behaviour at work.
o Production is an action
o Absenteeism is an action
o Employee Turnover is an action
o Satisfaction is an attitude
Human resources management: Focuses on the application of OB theories n
organizations

Vs.
- Strategic management is about creating a competitive advantage and creating
profit with what resources we have
o Focuses on the product choices and industry characteristics that affect an
orgs profitability.
- OB can contribute to strategic management by studying the employee/human side
Classical Theories of Management
- Scientific Management (Frederick Taylor)
o Using scientific method to design efficient work processes and tasks.
o Focuses on specialization, coordination, scientific method
o Lacked attention on human resources employees
- Bureaucracy (Max Weber)
o Emphasizes the control of its members through a strict chain of command,
formal procedures, high specialization, and centralized decision making.
Human Relations Movement
- Recognizes the psychological attributes of workers and the importance on the social
group on behaviour.
**Today, contemporary management theories say that the best approach is a balance
btwn scientific management and balancing the needs of employees.
Why is OB Important?
Resource-based view: Resources that are rare and unique helps sustain competitive
advantage.
- Financial resources (revenue, equity)
- Physical resources (buildings, machinery, tech.)
- Knowledge, decision-making, culture, ability, wisdom
- Image, culture and goodwill.
For resources to be valuable, they must be rare (scarce)
and inimitable (unique)
o History, reputation
o Small actions make big difference
o Intangible resources (culture, teamwork, trust)
Why are people/employees important? Because they are unique, and you cannot
copy them (tech. can be copied)

Primary Outcomes for OB: Job performance & organizational commitment

- 2 goals for employees:

o To do their job properly

o Be part of an org. that you like
2 goals for managers:
o Maximize employees job performances
o Retain employees for a significant amount of time (Can keep costs low)

Changes in workplace/society:
o Technology
o Diversity
o Competition
o Baby Boomers retiring = younger workers
o Globalization (global village; interconnection; interdependence)
o Higher education level
o Urbanization
Globalization:
- Cross-cultural differences
- Intl corporations
- Expatriation
- Managing diversity

Ch.2 Job Performance

What is it?
- The value of the set of employee behaviours that contribute, either pos or neg to
organizational goal accomplishment.
- Includes behaviours that employees can control
- Places a boundary on which behaviours are or are not relevant to job performance.
Job performance includes:

Task performance:
- Employee behaviours that are directly involved in the transformation of
organizational resources into goods or services that the org. produces.
o Details that would be included in the job description.
- Routine TP: Everyday tasks well-known responses to demands that occur in a
normal, routine, or predictable way. (ie. Flight attendant safety routine)
- Adaptive TP: aka adaptability, employee responses to task demands that are
unusual, or unpredictable (ie. What a flight attendant does in case of emergency)
- Creative TP: Degree to which individuals develop ides or physical outcomes that
are novel and useful.
- Job analysis: A list of activities involved in a job (by observation, interview, survey)
o Many orgs identify TP behaviours by conducting a job analysis.
o Each activity on this list is rated by subject matter experts (SMEs)
according to things like importance and frequency of the activity.
o The activities that are highly rated in terms of their importance and
frequency are retained and used to define task performance.
o When writing up a job description
The National Occupational Classification (NOC) is a national database
of Canadian occupations with all job titles and descriptions.
But the job description must be customized to your organization.
- Going the extra mile the best workers go above and beyond the minimum
requirements.
Citizenship behaviour: Voluntary employee activities that may or may not be rewarded
but that contribute to the organization by improving the overall quality of the setting in
which they work in.
Going the extra mile
Citizenship behaviour can promote higher revenue, productivity, salary, and
promotions.
- Interpersonal: Benefit co-workers
o Helping
o Courtesy (Keeping everyone informed, no sabotage)
o Sportsmanship (good attitude at work)
- Organizational: Benefit the larger organization by supporting & defending the
company, and being loyal to it.
o Voice (speaking up and offering constructive suggestions)
o Civic virtue (attending voluntary meetings)
o Boosterism (representing your company in the public in a positive way)

Counterproductive Behaviour:
Employee behaviours that intentionally hinder organizational goal
accomplishment. (75% of all employees engage in this)
- Many trends have affected job performance in todays organizations, including the
rise of knowledge
- Property deviance: Behaviours that harm the orgs assets and possessions.
(sabotage, theft)
- Production deviance: is also directed against the org. but focuses specifically on
reducing the efficiency of work (Wasting resources, substance abuse)
- Political Deviance: Behaviours that intentionally disadvantage other people.
(Gossiping, incivility)

Personal Aggression: Hostile verbal and physical actions towards others.

(Harassment, abuse)
Therefore, what does it mean to be a good performer?
- High task performance good at their duties
- Strong citizenship behaviour
- Refrains from counterproductive behaviour.

Performance Management
Management by Objectives (MBO)
- Management philosophy that bases an employees evaluations on whether the
employee achieves specific performance goals.
o The employee and manager mutually decide SMART goals, within a time
period.
o Best suited for managing the performance of employees who work in
contexts in which objective measures of performance can be quantified.
Behaviourally Anchored Rating Scales (BARS)
- Assess performance by directly assessing job performance behaviours.
- Uses critical incidences descriptions of effective and ineffective behaviours as
a measurement tool to evaluate employee performance.
- Doesnt provide specific feedback though; rating scale.
360 Degree Feedback
- Collecting performance information not just from the supervisor but from anyone
else who might have firsthand knowledge about the employees performance
behaviours.
- Best suited to improving or developing employee talent
- Limits: sources could be biased
Forced Ranking
- Managers rank subordinates relative to one another.
- must rank all of their people into 1 of 3 categories:
o Top 20% (A-players; high energy, decision makers)
o Vital middle 70% (B-players)
o Bottom 10% (C-players)
- The bottom C players need training and evaluation
- Might create a hostile, over-competitive environment.

Ch.3 Organizational Commitment

-

1 of the 2 primary job outcomes

What is it?
-

Defined as the desire on the part of an employee to remain a member of the organization.
o OC influences whether an employee stays a member of the org. (is retained) or
leaves to pursue another job (turns over)
Turnover can be voluntary or involuntary.

Employees who are not committed to their orgs engage in withdrawal behaviour - actions
that employees perform to avoid the work situation behaviours that may eventually
culminate in quitting the org.
Reasons behind Commitment
Organizational culture
Relationships with colleagues
Room to grow in position
Benefits perks
Location
Reputation of company
** The higher the commitment, the lower the withdrawal

Forms of Commitment:

Affective Commitment: You stay b/c you want to emotion based

o Friends at work, you like your job, like the org.
o Erosion model: Says that employees with fewer bonds will be most likely to quit.
Continuance commitment: You stay b/c you need to cost-based (financial)
o Due for a promotion soon, need the salary and benefits, location is good for the
family
o Occurs when there is a benefit with staying, and a cost with leaving
o Occurs when theres a lack of other employment alternatives.
Normative: You stay because you ought to. obligation-based
o You dont really love the job, but feel that since they hired you, its your job to stay.
o May arise from personal morals, values.
o You might feel in debt to your company

Focus of commitment: The various people, places, and things that can inspire a desire to remain
a member of an organization.

Withdrawal Behaviours
Various Responses to Negative Work Events
Exit: Active, destructive responses by which an individual either ends or restricts
organizational membership.
o Try to be absent from work as much as possible.
Voice: Active, constructive response in which individuals attempt to improve the situation.
o Try to talk it out.
Loyalty: Passive, constructive response that maintains public support for the situation while
the individual privately hopes for improvement
o Grin and bear it; hope itll pass.
Neglect: Passive, destructive response where interest and effort in the job declines.
o Performance deteriorates
o Sometimes neglect can be worse than exit, b/c its not really noticed.
Organizational commitment lowers the chance that an employee would respond with exit or
neglect.

2 types of withdrawal
Psychological (neglect)
o Daydreaming
o Socializing (chatting)
o Looking busy
o Cyberloafing (fb, email, online shopping)
o Moonlighting (using their time to do personal work, etc.)
Physical (exit)

o
o
o
o
o

Tardiness
Long breaks
Missing meetings
Absenteeism
Quitting (as a result of decrease in happiness)

What can you do to Increase Commitment?

Affective:
o Team building, social activities, annual dinner, retreats
Continuance:
o Create a salary and benefits package that creates a financial incentive to stay.
Normative:
o Employee training & development opps
o Thats why small businesses cannot retain their employees for as long as large
companies because they dont have the resources for training.
In General:
o Perceived organizational support: Degree to which employees believe that they org.
values their contributions and cares about their well-being.
Providing rewards, good compensation, job security, work conditions.
If withdrawal behaviours occur, stop the progression in its early stages by trying to root out
the sources of the reduced commitment.
o But conduct exit interviews if they do want to resign.

Trends that Affect Commitment

Diversity of Workforce
o Canada is a country of immigrants
o Aging labour force the baby boomers will all retire at once
o All this diversity makes it harder to retain valued employees (might not feel as
embedded in their firms)
Changing Employee-Employer Relationship
o It used to be that people would envision themselves working for 1 company for their
whole lives.
This all changed with the increase of downsizing (involuntary turnover)
o Why isnt downsizing that effective?
The ones who survive get less productive (miss their friends)

Ch.4 Job Satisfaction

*Dont need to know the moods and emotions topic in the TB
Job Satisfaction: A pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of ones job or job
experiences.
- Represents how you feel about your job and what you think about your job.
- Majority of Canadian report being satisfied with their jobs (81%)
Why are some emps more satisfied than others?
- Emps are satisfied when their job provides the things they value
- Values are those things that people consciously or subconsciously want to seek or attain
- Everyone has different values it depends on you
Commonly assessed work values
- Pay: high and secure salary
- Frequent promotions, and room to grow
- co-workers enjoyable and responsible
- Status: Prestige, fame, power
- Environment: comfort, safety
Value-Percept Theory
- Job satisfaction depends on whether you perceive that your job supplies the things you
value
- Dissatisfaction = (How much value you want How much of that value the job supplies) x
Importance of Value
= (Vwant Vhave) x Vimportance
- Dissatisfaction occurs when there is a big diff. between wants and haves.
** Studies show that the overall strongest driver of job satisfaction is the work itself if you like the
type of work, and level of difficulty.
1. Work itself
1 being the highest, 5 being the lowest
2. Co-workers
3. Supervision
4. Promotion
5. Pay
What makes the job interesting? 3 key psychological states
- Meaningfulness of work: Does your work count in your eyes and the eyes of others?
- Being responsible for the outcome
- Knowledge of results: Extent to which employees know how well (or poorly) they are doing
5 Job characteristics that create the 3 states above
- Variety: Extent to which the job allows you to use more than one skill
- Identity: Extent to which the job requires completing a whole, identifiable piece of work form
start to end, with a visible outcome.
- Significance: How important is your job to you and to others (how much impact it has)
- Autonomy: How much control and freedom you have over your job operations
- Feedback: Degree to which the job itself provides feedback to how well they are doing.

Job Enrichment
-

Process of using the 5 items in the job characteristics model to create more satisfaction
o Involves expanding duties and roles of a job to provide more variety, identity, etc.
o Enrichment efforts can boost job satisfaction levels and heighten work accuracy and
customer satisfaction, through training
o But labour costs tend to rise as a result of these changes.

How Important is Satisfaction?

-

JS does influence job performance

JS is moderately correlated with task performance

Satisfied employees do a better job of fulfilling the duties described in their job
descriptions
- JS is moderately correlated with citizenship behaviour
o Satisfied emps go the extra mile to help their co-workers and org.
o JS influences organizational commitment
JS is strongly correlated with affective commitment, and normative
commitment
**recall, commitment can be measured and managed
- Life satisfaction: Degree to which employees feel a sense of happiness with their lives in
general.
o
o

Measuring Satisfaction
- Focus groups, interviews and attitude surveys
- Attitude surveys give snapshots of how satisfied the workforce is, and can reveal trends in
sat. levels.
o Job Descriptive Index (JDI) Assesses all 5 satisfaction characteristics
- An org that struggles from low satisfaction can try to redesign key job tasks, or can train
supervisors in strategies for increasing the 3 job characteristics.

Ch. 5: Stress
Stress

A psychological response to demands when there is something at stake, and when coping
with these demands would exceed the persons capacity or resources.
o The demands that cause people to experience stress are called stressors (causes of
stress)
o The negative consequences of the stress response are called strains
Therefore, it depends on both the nature of the demand, and the person who confronts it.

Why are some employees more stressed than others?

Transactional Theory of stress
Explains how stressors are perceived and appraised, and how people respond to these
perceptions.
When people 1st encounter stressors, the process of primary appraisal is triggered. It
occurs as people evaluate the significance and the meaning of the stressors they are
confronting.
o First consider whether a demand causes them to feel stressed, and if it does, they
consider the implications of the stressor in terms of their personal goals and overall
well-being.
Hindrance stressors: Stressful demands that are perceived as hindering progress towards
personal accomplishments or goal attainment
o Tend to trigger negative emotions such as anger and anxiety
Challenge stressors stressful demands that are perceived as opportunities for learning,
growth, and achievement
o Often trigger positive emotions like pride and enthusiasm.
-

Work- Hindrance Stressors:

o Role conflict conflicting expectations that others have of us and our role.
o Role ambiguity lack of info about what needs to be done in a role.
o Role overload too many demands
o Daily hassles The relatively minor day-to-day demands that get in the way of our
goals.
Work Challenge Stressors
o Time pressures
o Work complexity exceeds our capabilities
o Work responsibility our obligations to others.
Non-work Hindrance Stressors
o Work-family conflict
o Negative life events
o Financial uncertainty
Non-work Challenge stressors
o Family time demands
o Personal development
o Positive life events.

How do people cope with stress?

Coping refers to the behaviours and thought that people use to manage the stressful
demands that they face and the emotions associated with those stressful demands. (2ndary
appraisal)
o Behavioural coping: Involves physical activities that are used to deal with a
stressful situation. (ie. If you have a lot of work, then work faster)
o Cognitive coping: The thoughts that are involved in trying to deal with a stressful
situation. (Trying to convince yourself that the daily hassles are not that bad)

Problem-focused coping: The behaviours and thoughts intended to manage the stressful
situation itself.
o Coping in a way that the demand still gets accomplished.
Emotion-focused coping: How people manage their own emotional reactions to stressful
demands.
**Exam question: How do you deal with annoying co-workers.

Strains

Physiological: Reactions that harm the human body

o High BP, headache, backpain
Psychological:
o Depression, anxiety, irritability, impatience
o Burnout: The emotional, mental, and physical exhaustion from coping with stressful
demands on an ongoing basis.
Behavioural: Patterns of negative behaviour that are associated with other strains.
o Substance abuse, overeating/not eating

Type A Behaviour Pattern

Have a strong sense of time urgency and tend to be impatient, controlling, hard-driving,
competitive, aggressive and even hostile.
May have direct influence on the level of stressors that a person confronts.
Influences the stress process itself.
o Type As are more likely to appraise demands as stressful rather than benign.
Directly linked to physiological, psychological and behavioural strains.
o Ie. Greater risk for heart disease.
Type B is the complete opposite of type A
- Patient, easygoing, relaxed.
Stress Management
Assessment:
o Stress audit: Managers ask questions about the nature of the jobs in their
organization to estimate whether high stress levels may be a problem
Reducing stressors:
o Organizations could try to eliminate or reduce stressful demands.
Job sharing occurs when 2 people share the responsibilities of a single job.
Sabbatical gives employees the opportunity to take time off from work to
engage in an alternative activity.
Providing resources:
o Training interventions aimed at increasing job-related competencies and skills.
o Supportive practices help employees manage and balance the demands that exist in
the different roles they have.
Flextime, telecommuting, compressed work week.
Reduce strains:
o Health and wellness programs.
Social support refers to the help that people receive when they are confronted with stressful
demands.
Instrumental support: The help people get that can be used to address the stressful
demand directly.
Emotional support: The help people receive in addressing the emotional distress that
accompanies

Hinidrance stressors have a storng negative correlation with Commitment.

Challeneg stressors have a mod. positive effect on Commitment.

Ch.6 Motivation
Intro

Motivation: A set of energetic forces that originates both within and outside an employee,
that determine the direction (what are you going to do right now), intensity (how hard are
you going to work on it), and persistence (how long are you going to work on it?) of an
employees work effort.
o Motivation is a critical consideration b/c job performance often requires high levels of
both ability and motivation
o Performance = Ability + Motivation
Engagement: Exhibiting high levels of intensity and persistence in work effort.

Why are some employees more motivated than others?

1. Expectancy Theory
Describes the cognitive process that employees go through to make choices among different
voluntary responses.
o Suggests that employee behaviour is directed towards pleasure, and away from pain.
o Theory says that our choices depend on 3 beliefs: Expectancy, instrumentality, and
valence.
Expectancy: The belief that exerting a high level of effort will result in the successful
performance of some task.
o Expectancy that a specific amount of effort will result in a specific level of
performance (EP) like a probability.
If you expect that putting extra effort will yield higher performance, then you
work harder.
If the extra work you put in will not make a difference, then you will not work
harder.
o Self-Efficacy: The belief in one-self that they have the capabilities needed to execute
the behaviours required for task success higher self-efficacy will likely exert more
effort.
Is influenced by verbal persuasion (pep talks), past experiences, and
emotional cues.
A manager should give them easy tasks first, and build up their confidence.
Instrumentality: The belief that successful performance will result in some outcomes.
(PO)
o Employees performance is motivated by if there will be outcomes
Valence: The anticipated value of the performance outcomes.
o Valences can be positive, negative, or zero
o Outcomes are deemed more positively valenced (attractive) when they help satisfy
needs.
Think Maslows Hierarchy of Needs
o Extrinsic Motivation: Effort controlled by some contingency that depends on task
performance.
Pay, bonuses, perks, praise, etc.
o Intrinsic Motivation: Felt when task performance serves as its own reward.
Enjoying the work, accomplishment, skill development, etc.

2. Goal Setting Theory

Views goals as the primary drivers of the intensity and persistence of effort.
Assigning employees specific and difficult goals will result in higher levels of performance, if
accepted by employees. (Lets them understand exactly what is expected of manager
Assigned vs. Self-Set Goals
o Assignment of a specific and difficult goal shapes peoples self-set goals the
internalized goals that people use to monitor their own task progress.
o If assigned goals are unable to change internal goals, motivation and performance
will be unaffected.
How do self-set goals affect Task Performance?
o Goals mobilize energy and effort to match the level reqd for successful performance.
Low goals result in lower intensity of effort than more challenging goals.
o Goals affect the mobilization of energy over time. Goals affect the persistence of
effort. Low goals will result in less persistence than will more challenging goals.
o Since self-set goals become more challenging, the intensity of effort has to increase
to reach the desired performance level.
o Self-set goals tend to trigger the creation of task strategies.
Moderators that affect the relationship between goals and task performance.
o Feedback: Updates on employee progress towards the goal.
o Task Complexity: How complicated the information and actions involved in a task are,
and how much the task changes.
o Goal Commitment: How determined a person is in reaching their goal.
SMART Goals: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Results-based, Timely
Strategies for fostering goal commitment
o Rewards: Monetary or nonmonetary rewards.
o Publicity: Create social pressure by publicizing the goal to others (like co-workers)
o Support: Provide supportive supervision if the employee struggles to attain goal.
o Participation: Collaborate on setting the goal due date and reqments
o Resources: Provide the resources needed to achieve goal.

3. Equity Theory

Acknowledges that motivation doesnt just depend on your own beliefs but also on what
happens to other people.
Suggests that employees create a mental ledger of the outcomes they get from their job
duties, and how much they invest into their job duties.
You compare your ratio of outcomes and inputs to the ratio of some comparison other
some person who seems to provide an intuitive frame of reference for judging equity.
o Ratio of outcomes to inputs is balanced btwn you and your competitive other
3 Comparison results:
o Equal No action (you will maintain your intensity & persistence)
o Underreward Inequity Anger; counterproductive behaviour; lower your effort.
o Overreward Inequity Guilt; reduce your rewards; increase your effort & citizenship
behaviour to show that you deserve it.
Internal comparisons are when you compare yourself to someone in your same company.
External comparisons are when you compare yourself to someone in a different company.

4. Psychological Empowerment
An energy rooted in the belief that work tasks contribute to some larger purpose.
Psych. Empowerment is a form of intrinsic motivation.
4 concepts that can make work tasks intrinsically motivating:
o Meaningfulness: The value of a work goal or purpose, relative to a persons own ideas
and passions.
o Self-determination: A sense of choice in the initiation and continuation of work tasks
(authority through delegation)

o
o

Competence: A persons belief in their capability to perform work tasks successfully.

(self-efficacy)
Impact: Sense that a persons actions make a difference that it is significant to
working towards fulfilling a task.

Motivation has a strong positive effect on Job Performance.

Equity has a mod. Positive effect on Organizational Commitment.

Ch.7: Trust, Justice & Ethics

Trust: The willingness to be vulnerable to a trustee based on positive expectations about

the authoritys actions and intentions.
o Concept of dependency: trust only becomes an issue when an individual is
dependent on and vulnerable to the actions of another party.
Justice: The perceived fairness of an authoritys decision making.
o Decision outcomes are fair.
Ethics: The degree to which the behaviours of an authority are in accordance with
generally accepted moral norms.
o Things are being done the way they should be.

The 4 dimensions of Justice

Authorities who treat employees more fairly are judged to be more trustworthy.
Distributive Justice: The perceived fairness of decision-making outcomes.
o Are rewards like pay, perks, and assignments allocated properly?
Procedural Justice: The perceived fairness of decision-making processes.
o Allowing employees to voice their opinions.
Interpersonal Justice: The perceived fairness of how employees get treated by
authorities.
o Respect
Informational Justice: The perceived fairness of how authorities communicate with
employees.
o Explaining the decision-making process and outcomes to employees, honesty.

Ethics
Research on ethics seeks to explain why people sometimes behave ethically, and why they
sometimes behave unethically.
Whistle-blowing: When employees expose illegal or immoral actions by their employer.
o Considered highly ethical
Do no harm, do good, codes of conduct, Justice and Equality, Protection of the weak,
responsible, caring.
Bribery vs. Ethics: If you are doing business in a country where it is the norm to take part in
bribery, then is it ethical?
o No! Still unethical.

Trust has a mod. positive effect on Job Performance. (higher task performance, less likely
counterprod.)
Trust has a strong positive effect on Job Commitment. (high affective and normative)

Application: Social Responsibility

CSR is a perspective that acknowledges that the responsibility of a business encompasses
the economic, legal, ethical, and citizenship expectations of society.
o Economic: Belief that the foundation of any business is profitability, since they must
fulfill their economic responsibilities to employees and shareholders, buttt that a
companys obligations do not end with profit maximization.
o Legal: The law must be followed (societys morals)
o Ethical: Organizations have an obligation to do what is right, just and fair, and to
avoid harm.
o Citizenship: Orgs should provide resources to improve the quality of life in which they
work.

Ch.8 Learning & Decision Making

Learning: The relatively permanent changes in an employees knowledge or skill that result
from experience.
o The more employees learn, the more they bring to the table when they come to
work.
o True learning only occurs when the behaviour is repeated over time.
Decision making: The process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to
solve a problem.
o The more knowledge and skills employees possess, the more likely they are to make
accurate and sound decisions.
Expertise: The knowledge and skills that distinguish experts from novices and less
experienced people.
o Research shows that the diff between experts and novices is a function of learning
rather than just intelligence.

Types of Knowledge

Explicit knowledge: Knowledge that is easily communicated and available to everyone (ie.
from books)
Tacit knowledge: Knowledge that employees can only learn from experience. (Attained
from the work itself)
o Tacit knowledge is what differentiates experts from common people.

Methods of Learning

We learn through reinforcement (rewards and punishments), observation, and experience.

Operant conditioning: States that we learn by observing the link between our voluntary
behaviour and the consequences that follow it.
What is the purpose of reinforcement:
o Increasing desired behaviours
o Decreasing undesired behaviours.

Contingencies of Reinforcement
4 specific consequences used by organizations to modify employee behaviour.
2 contingencies used to increase desired behaviours:
o Positive reinforcement occurs when a positive outcome follows a desired
behaviour.
Most common type of reinforcement
Increased pay, promotion, any reward.
o Negative reinforcement occurs when a negative (unwanted) outcome is removed
following a desired behaviour
If you come on time, then you wont get yelled at
2 contingencies used to decrease undesired behaviours
o Punishment occurs when an unwanted outcome follows an unwanted behaviour
Suspension, firing.
o Extinction occurs when there is the removal of a positive outcome following an
unwanted behaviour.
Desired behaviour that is not reinforces will diminish over time.
Positive reinforcement and extinction should be the most common forms used by managers,
to create learning amongst employees.
**Case 3 will be about threats (if you do that, you will be fired) punishment.
Schedules of Reinforcement table 8.2
Continuous Consequence given after each and every desired behaviour. (ie. Praise)
Fixed interval Reinforcement occurs at fixed time periods (ie. Paycheque)

Variable interval Reinforcement occurs at random periods of time (supervisor walk-by)

Fixed ratio - Reinforcement occurs after a fixed number of desired behaviours. (ie. Piece-rate
pay you get $1 for every pen you make)
Variable ratio Reinforcement occurs after a varying number of desired behaviours. (ie.
Commission pay)
Variable schedules lead to higher performance than fixed schedules (employees are always
on point, since they never know when they could be evaluated)

Learning through Observation

Social learning theory: States that people in organizations learn by observing others.
Behavioural modelling: When employees observe the actions of others, learn from what
they observe, and then repeat the observed behaviour.

Methods of Decision Making

Structured vs. non-structured problems.

Programmed decisions are decisions that become somewhat automatic because a
persons knowledge allows him or her to recognize the situation and the course of action to
be taken.
o Intuition: An emotional judgement based on quick, unconscious gut feelings.
(Developed by tacit knowl.)
Intuitive decion making is peraps the most important during a crisis.
Crisis situation: Is a change whether sudden or evolving, that results in an
urgent problem that must be addressed immediately.
Non-programmed decisions: Decisions made by employees when a problem is new,
complex, or not recognized.
o As employees move up the corporate ladder, a larger percent of their decisions
become less and less programmed.
o Rational decision-making model: A step-by-step approach to making decision
that maximizes outcomes by examining all available alternatives.
1) Identify the criteria that are important in making the decision.
2) Make a list of all alternatives to the problem.
3) Evaluate the alts against the criteria.
4) Choose the alt. that results in the best outcome.
Model 8.4

Decision-Making Problems

Limited Information
o Bounded rationality: Decision makers simply do not have the ability or resources to
process all available information and alternatives to make an optimal decision.
Result: People have to filter out unnecessary info, causing them to miss
things, with could lead to misjudged results.
o Satisficing: When decision makers select the first acceptable alternative considered.
B/c they cant consider every single alternative.
Faulty Perceptions
o Selective perception: Tendency for people to see their environment only as it affects
them and as it is consistent with their expectations.
o Projection bias: The belief that others think, feel, and act the same way as we do.
o Social identity theory: People identify themselves by the groups to which they belong
to, and perceive and judge others by their group memberships.
o Stereotype: When people make assumptions about others on the basis of their
membership in a social group. (Results in inaccurate generalizations)
o Heuristics: Simple and efficient rules of thumb that allow us to make decisions easily.
(but can sometimes result in inaccurate decisions)
o Availability Bias: The tendency for people to base their judgements on the
information that is easier to recall.
o Other biases

Anchoring: Relying too heavily on 1 trait or piece of info.

Framing: Making a decision based on how the question is phrased.
Representativeness: Assess the likelihood of an event by comparing it to a
similar event (Think inductive turkey)
Contrast: Judging things incorrectly on the basis of a reference that is near to
them. (If you take your hand out of hot water, and put it in luke warm, youll
think its col. Compared to if you took your hand out of really cold water, and
put it in luke warm, it would feel hot.)
Recency: Weighing recent events more than earlier events. (Manager
weighing the most recent performance ratings compared to during the entire
period)

Faulty attributes: When people witness a behaviour or outcome, they make a judgement
about if it was caused internally or externally. (ie. If someone is late, is it due to
irresponsibility, or traffic?)
o The fundamental attribution error: Argues that people have a tendency to judge
others behaviours due to internal factors (ie. Ability, attitudes, etc)
o The self-serving bias: When we attribute our own failures to external factors and our
own successes to internal factors.
Attribution Process
o When something goes wrong, before we blame it on internal or external factors, we
must consider the 3 attribution factors.
o Consensus: Did others act the same way under similar situations?
o Distinctiveness: Does this person tend to act differently in other circumstances?
o Consistency: Does this person always do this when performing a task?
o An internal attribution will occur if there is low consensus, low distinctiveness, and
high consistency.
o An external attribution will occur if there is high consensus, high distinctiveness, and
low consistency.

Escalation of commitment:
o A common decision-making error where the decision maker continues to follow a
failing course of action. People have a tendency, when presented with a series of
decisions, to escalate their commitment to previous decision, even in the face of
obvious failures.
When they dont want to admit they made a mistake, fear of public
embarrassment, shame.

How Important is Learning?

Learning has a moderate positive effect on job performance
o Employees who gain more knowledge and skills have higher levels of Task Perform.
Learning has a weak positive effect on organizational commitment
o Slightly higher affective commitment.

Ch.9: Personality, Cultural Values, and Ability

*Exam question: If you are internal/external locus, then would you want your manager to be
internal or external?

Intro

Personality: The structures and tendencies inside a person that explain their characteristic
patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour.
o Collection of multiple traits
Traits: Recurring trends in peoples responses to their environments.
Cultural Values: Shared beliefs about desirable modes of conduct in a given culture.
Ability: The relatively stable capabilities people have to perform a particular range of
activities.

How can we describe what employees are like? Big 5

Conscientiousness: Dependable, organized, reliable, ambitious, hardworking, and

persevering.
o Employees prioritize accomplishment striving: desire to accomplish task-related
goals (thus working harder)
Agreeableness: Warm, kind, cooperative, sympathetic, helpful, courteous.
o People prioritize communion striving: desire to obtain acceptance in personal
relationships.
Beneficial in some positions, but detrimental in others.
o Agreeable employees have stronger customer service skills.
Neuroticism: Nervous, moody, emotional, insecure, jealous.
o Most jobs want the opposite calm and secure
o Connected to Negative affectivity Tendency to experience unpleasant moods,
such as hostility and annoyance.
Thus leads to lower job satisfaction.
o Neurotic people are more likely to appraise common situations as stressful.
o Neurotic people are less likely to believe that they can cope with the stressors that
they experience.
o Neurotics are more likely to be Type A.
o Locus of Control: Ones tendency to attribute the cause of events to themselves, or
to the external env.
Neurotics hold an external locus of control (ie. Events are driven by luck, fate,
etc)
Less neurotic people tend to hold internally believe that their own
behaviour dictates events
Openness to Experience: Curious, imaginative, creative, complex, refined, and
sophisticated.
o Jobs that are very fluid and dynamic, with rapid changes to job demands benefit from
high levels of openness.
o Artistic and scientific fields.
Extraversion: Talkative, sociable, passionate, assertive, bold, and dominant
o While introverts are quiet, shy and reserved.
o Ext. is the easiest of the Big 5 to judge in Zero acquaintance situations - where 2
people just met.
o People prioritize status driving desire to obtain power and influence within a
social structure.
Also more effective in leadership roles.
o Extroverts have high positive affectivity Tendency to experience positive moods
(enthusiasm, excitement)
Thus greater job satisfaction.

Employee Abilities

3 categories: cognitive, emotional, and physical.

Cognitive Ability: Capabilities related to the use of knowledge to make decisions and solve
problems.
Verbal Understanding and expressing oral and written communication.
Quantitative Mathematical operations (using numbers, formulas, etc.)
Reasoning Sensing and solving problems using insight, rules, and logic.
Spatial Visual and mental representation and manipulation of objects in space.
Perceptual Perceiving, understanding, and recalling patterns of information.

Emotional Ability:
Emotional intelligence: Set of abilities related to the understanding and use of emotions that
affect social functioning
Self-awareness The appraisal and expression of emotions in oneself.
o Ability of an individual to understand the types of emotions he or she is experiencing,
the willingness to acknowledge them, and the capability to express them.
Other Awareness Recognizing and understanding the emotions in others.
Emotion Regulation: Being able to recover quickly from emotional experiences.
o Dont let yourself get too high, or too low.
Use of Emotions: The degree to which people can harness emotions and employ them to
improve their chances of being successful in whatever they are doing.
Physical Abilities
Strength: Lifting, pushing (degree to which body can exert force)
Stamina: How efficient a persons lungs and circulatory system can work under prolonged
physical activity..
Flexibility: Bend, stretch, twist
Psychomotor abilities: Capacity to manipulate and control objects
Sensory Ability: Vision, hearing;
Importance of Personality
Conscientiousness affects job performance
o Key driver of typical performance, reflecting performance in the routines
conditions that surround daily job tasks.
They have higher motivation, self-confidence, and are more likely to set goals
and commit to them.
o Tend to be more committed to their organization.
An employees ability is a key driver of maximum performance.
More likely to engage in citizenship behaviours; tend to have higher satisfaction.
Conscientiousness has a moderate positive effect on Performance
Moderate positive effect on Commitment. (Affective, Normative)

Cognitive ability has a strong positive effect on Task Performance

Wonderlic Perosnality Test

Selling yourself: video
They want someone with energy, passion, confidence.
60 second pitch initial 1 minute introduction
o Pay attention to body language
o The good ones: Honesty, what good qualities you have, and how you can bring those
to the table, flatter the company.they wont you to be sincere

Ch. 10 Teams & Communication

Team Characteristics & Diversity

A team consists of 2 or more people who work interdependently over some time period to
accomplish common goals related to some task-oriented purpose.
o A team is a special type of group
o A group is just a collection of 2 or more people, but teams are special
The interactions among members within teams revolve around a deeper
dependence on one another
Teams have a specific task-related purpose.
o Teams are important because:
Work has become more complex
Teams allow the pooling of knowledge and skills
Diff types of teams:
Greatest distinguisher is purpose of team:
o Work team, Management team, parallel team, project team, action team (see table
10-1)
Virtual teams
o Teams where the members are geographically dispersed, and interdependent activity
occurs through electronic communications primarily email, web and video
conferencing.

Stages of Team Development

Forming: Members try to understand the boundaries in the team and get a feel for what is
expected of them. (orientation)
Storming: Members Remain committed to ideas, triggers conflict that affects some
relationships and harms the teams progress.
Norming: Members realize that they needs to work together to accomplish team goals, and
begin to cooperate.
Performing: Members are comfortable working within their roles, and team progresses
towards goals.
Adjourning: Members experience anxiety and other emotions as they disengage and
ultimately separate from the team.

Team Interdependence The way in which members are linked to one another.
1. Task interdependence: The degree to which team members interact with and rely on
other team members for the information, materials, and resources needed to accomplish
work for the team.
o Pooled interdependence: Lowest degree of required coordination.

Members complete their work assignments independently, and then this work
is simply piled up to represent the groups output

The task is broken up, and divided up to each member. Each member
completes it independently, and then its simply combined to create the final
product.
o Sequential interdependence: Different tasks are done in a prescribed order.

Members interact to carry out their work, the interaction only occurs between
members who perform tasks that are next to each other in the sequence.

Member 1 2 3 4 Output. (Like an assembly line)

o Reciprocal interdependence: Members are specialized to perform specific tasks.

However instead off a strict sequence of activities, members interact with a

subset of other members to complete the teams work.

Think middleman (seller, realtor, and buyer

o Comprehensive interdependence: Requires the highest level of interaction and
coordination among members.

Each member has a great deal of discretion in terms of what they do and with
whom they interact with in the course of the collaboration involved in
accomplishing the teams work.

2. Goal Interdependence: When team members have a shared goal and align their individual
goals with that vision. (a shared vision perhaps through a formalized mission statement)
3. Outcome interdependence: When team members share equally in the feedback and
rewards that result from the team achieving its goals. (ie. Pay, bonuses, recognition, etc)

Team Composition

The mix of the various characteristics that describe the individuals in the team.
5 aspects of team composition
Member roles
o A role is a behaviour that a person is expected to display in a given context.
o Ie. Team task roles, team building roles, and individualistic roles.
Member ability
o Ranging from cognitive ability, to physical abilities.
o On general, smarter teams perform better b/c the work tends to be more complex.
Member personality
o Think CANOE traits
o Agreeableness, extroversion and conscientiousness are all import traits for team
members, but
o **Conscientiousness is the most important personality in a team
Team Diversity
o How different members are to one another.
o Value in diversity problem-solving approach: Heterogeneous teams (diverse) are
most effective, bc it provides larger pool of knowledge, skills and perspectives.
Team Size
o Large enough to have a large resource and skill pool, but small enough to maintain
effective communication and easy coordination.
o Ideal size is 4-5 (MC Question for final)

Team Processes and Communication

Team process: The different types of activities, interactions and communication patterns
that occur within teams and contribute to their ultimate goals.
o Team characteristics mentioned above affect team processes.
Why are some teams more successful?
Process gain: When team outcomes are greater than expected based on the capabilities of
its individual members (synergy)
Process loss: When team outcomes are less than expected according to the capabilities of
its individual members.
o Coordination loss: Consumes time and energy that could otherwise be devoted to
task activity.
Production blocking
o Motivational loss: The loss in team productivity that occurs when team members
do not work as hard as they could.
o Social Loafing: Occurs when members exert less effort when working on team tasks
than they would if they worked alone on those same tasks (b/c they feel less
accountable)

Communication

The process by which information and meaning gets transferred from a sender to a receiver.
Sender may use verbal/non-verbal or written language to encode the information into a
messages.

The encoded message is transmitted to a receiver, who then needs to interpret or decode
the message to form an understanding of the information it contains.
Factors that Influence the Communication Process:
Communicator Competence
o The skills involved in encoding, transmitting, and receiving messages.
o Can lead to sending or perceiving wrong messages.

Gender Differences
o Men tend to use a style that helps them achieve and maintain power, and
independence. (being direct)
o Women tend to use a style that builds rapport and relationships (being subtle)
o Problem, b/c they can lead to misunderstandings btwn male and female members,
and faulty assumptions.
Noise
o Presence of noise can interfere with the message being transmitted.
o Noise increases the effort that the communicators need to exert to make the
communication process work.
Information Richness
o The amount and depth of information that gets transmitted in a message.
o Messages transmitted face-to-face have the highest level of information richness b/c
senders can convey meaning through not only words, but also nonverbal
communication
Network Structure
o The pattern of communication that occurs regularly among each member of the
team.
o Communication network patterns can be described in terms of centralization
degree top which the communication flows through some members rather than
others.
o The more comm. flows through fewer members, the higher the degree of
centralization.
o Highly centralized networks have high effectiveness in simple tasks, but
decentralized networks are more effective with complex tasks.
All channel highly decentralized (everyone communicates to everyone)
student teams
Circle Y CEO, advisors then managers
Wheel highly centralized (everything goes through 1 or very few members)
o Members tend to prefer decentralized network structures

How important are teams?

Teamwork processes have a moderate positive effect on team performance.
Teamwork processes have a strong positive effect on Team Commitment.

Ch. 11 Power, Influence and Negotiation

The key to power is dependency (once you feel like you depend on someone else, then
they have power over you.)

What is Power?

The ability to influence the behaviour of others and resist unwanted influence in return.
o Just b/c a person has the ability to influence, doesnt mean they will choose to do so.
o Power can also be seen as the ability to resist the influence attempts of others.

Where does power come from?

5 major types of power can be grouped along 2 dimensions:

o Organizational power
o Personal power
Organizational Power
Legitimate power: Derived from a position of authority inside the organization and is aka
formal authority
o The higher up an organization is, the more legitimate power they possess.
Reward power: Exists when someone has control over resources or rewards another person
wants.
o Managers have control over raises, performance reviews, promotions, etc.
o Have the power to influence others if they believe they will get rewards by obeying.
Coercive power: Exists when a person has control over punishments in an organization
o Operates on the principle of fear.
o Exists when a person believes that another has the ability to punish them, and is
willing to do so.
o Not regarded as a good form of power to use as a manger.
**Typical managers have all 3 types of power.
Personal Power
Expert power: Derived from a persons expertise, skill or knowledge on which others depend
on.
Referent power: Exists when others have a desire to identify and be associated with a
person.
o Derived from admiration, affection, or loyalty towards that person.

Generally, the personal forms of power are more strongly related to organizational
commitment and job performance than the organizational forms.

Exam: As a manger, does legitimate power include both coercive and reward power? Yes.
- Difference btwn managers and leaders
o Mangers force on the day to day operations technical aspect of accomplishing tasks
- Leaders inspire people

Contingencies of Power

Certain situations in organizations that are likely to increase or decrease the degree to which
people can use their power.
The key to power is dependency (once you feel like you depend on someone else, then they
have power over you.)
Substitutability
o Power to influence increases when there are no substitutes for the rewards or
resources the leader controls.
Centrality
o PTI increases when the individuals role is important and interdependent with others
in the org.

Discretion
o PTI increases when the individual has freedom to make their own decisions without
being restrained by organizational rules.
Visibility
o PTI increases when others know about this individual and the resources they can
provide.

Using Influence

Influence: The use of an actual behaviour that causes behavioural or attitudinal changes in
others.
o Influence can be seen as discretional mostly occurs down the hierarchy (manager
employee), but can be lateral (peer peer), and upward (employee manager)
o Influence is all relative (power depends on the disparity between individuals)
Influence Tactics (Red is most effective, yellow is least)
Rational persuasion: The use of logical arguments and hard facts to show the target that
the request is a worthwhile one.
o Most effective; only method for upward influence.
Consultation: Occurs when the target is allowed to participate in deciding how to carry out
or implement a request. (Increases commitment form target)
Inspirational appeal: A tactic designed to appeal to the targets values and ideals, thereby
creating an emotional or attitudinal reaction.
A leader uses collaboration by attempting to make it easier for the target to complete the
request. (Leader could help complete the task, or provide resources)
Ingratiation: The use of favours, complements, or friendly behaviour to make the target
feel better about the influencer. (sucking up, especially for upward influencegood for
immediate, but not long-term)
Personal appeals: When the requestor asks for something based on personal friendship or
loyalty.
Exchange tactic: When the requestor offers a reward or resources to the target in return
for performing a request.
Apprising: When the requestor clearly explains why performing the request will benefit the
target personally.
Pressure: The use of coercive power through threats and demands.
Coalitions: Occur when the influencer enlists other people to help influence the target.
These influence tactics tend to be most successful when used in combination.
The tactics that are most successful are those that are softer in nature.

Responses to Influence Attempts*

Internalization (Most effective)

o Target agrees with and becomes committed to request (behavioural & attitudinal
changes)
o Best outcome for leader; results in employee putting out great effort.
Compliance
o Target is willing to perform request, but do so with indifference, meaninglessness
(Behavioural change only, but not in attitude)
Resistance (Least effective)
o Target refuses to perform request and attempts to avoid doing it (No change in
behaviour or attitude)
o Usually occurs when leaders power is low relative to target, or when the request is
bad)

Organizational Politics
An individuals actions that are directed towards the goal of furthering their own self
interests. (ie. Sucking up to your manager)

Political skill: The ability to influence others in ways that enhance personal and/or
organizational objectives.

Conflict Resolution
Conflict arises when 2 or more individuals perceive that their goals are in opposition
5 different styles a leader can use when handling conflict.
The 5 styles can be viewed as combinations as 2 separate factors: how assertive leaders
want to be in pursing their own goals and how cooperative they are wrt the concerns of
others.
- Competing (High assertiveness, low co-operation)
o One party tries to get their goals met without concern for the other partys results.
o Win-lose situation.
o Usually involves pressure or coalitions forms of influence.
- Avoiding (low assertiveness, low cooperation)
o One party wants to remain neutral, stay away from conflict, or postpone the conflict
to let thing cool down.
o Lose-lose
o Avoiding never really solves the conflict.
- Accommodating (low assert, high coop)
o One party gives in to another and acts in a completely unselfish way.
o Lose-win
o Sometimes occurs when one party has less power than the other.
- Collaboration (High assert, high coop)
o Both parties work together to maximize outcomes.
o Win-win
o Most effective form of conflict resolution, but requires relatively equal power.
- Compromise (Moderate assert, moderate coop)
o Conflicts resolved through give-or take processes
o Most common, easiest.

Power & influence are moderately positively correlated with Performance.

o Can increase internalization and compliance, which facilitates Task Perfromance, and
increase Citizenship Behaviour.
Power & influence are moderately positively correlated with Commitment. The use oof
personal forms of power (expert, referent) is associated with increased Affective
Commitment.

Ch.12 Leadership Styles and Behaviours

-

Leadership: The use of power and influence to direct the activities of followers toward goal
achievement.

Leader Decision-Making Styles

Decision making styles capture how a leader decides, as opposed to what a leader decides.
The diff styles vary in terms of the relative control that followers and leaders have.
Note, as you move down the spectrum of styles, the leader must give up, or share their
power.
Autocratic: The leader makes all the decisions alone without asking for the opinions of the
employees in the work unit.
Consultative style: The leader presents the problem to individual employees or a group of
employees, asking for their opinions before ultimately making the decision himself.
o Employees have a say, but leader still has final authority
Facilitative style: The leader presents the problem to a group of employees and seeks
consensus on a solution, making sure that his own opinion receives no more weight than
anyone elses.
Delegative style: The leader gives employees the responsibility for making the decision
within some set of specified boundary conditions.
Which one is the best style? It depends
Prof. Ramis style is consultative

Time-Driven Model of Leadership

- Suggests that the focus should shift away from autocratic, consultative, facilitative and
delegative leaders to autocratic, consultative, facilitative etc situations.
- The model suggests that 7 factors combine to make some decision-making styles more
effective in a given situation and other styles less effective. Note, each of these 7 factors
should be answered with High or Low.
1. Decision significance: Is the decision significant to the success of the project or the
org?
2. Importance of commitment: Is it important that employees buy in to the decision?
3. Leader expertise: Does the leader have significant knowledge or expertise regarding
the problem?
4. Likelihood of commitment: How likely is it that employees will trust the leaders
decision and commit to it?
5. Shared objectives: Do employees share and support the same objectives, or do they
have their own agenda?
6. Employee expertise Do the employees have significant knowledge or expertise
regarding the problem?
7. Teamwork skills: Do the employees have the ability to work together to solve the
problem, or will they struggle with conflicts?
- Autocratic styles are reserved for decisions that are insignificant, and/or when the leaders
expertise is high, and they can be trusted.
- Delegative styles are reserved for when employees have strong teamwork skills and arent
likely to just commit to whatever decision the leader makes.
Day to day Leadership Behaviours
- Initiating structure is a broad category of behaviours that reflect the extent to which the
leader defines and structures the roles of employees in pursuit of goals attainment.
o Leaders who are high on IS play a more active role in directing group activities and
prioritize planning, scheduling, deadlines, and formalized procedures.
- Consideration: The extent to which leaders create job relationships characterized by
mutual trust, respect for employee ideas, and consideration of employee feelings.
o Leaders who are high on consideration create a climate of good rapport and strong,
2-way communication and exhibit a deep concern for the welfare of employees.
o Strong relationship-orientation.

Some studies argued that Initiating structure and consideration were independent concepts,
meaning that leaders could be high on both, low on both or high on one and low on the
other.

Life Cycle Theory of Leadership

- States that the optimal combination of initiating structure and consideration depends on the
readiness of the employees in the work unit.
- Readiness is broadly defined as the degree to which employees have the ability and the
willingness to accomplish their specific tasks.
o Readiness varies from R1 (unable and unwilling) to R2 (unable but willing) to R3 (able
but unwilling) to R4 (able and willing)
-

R1: Telling Style: High IS, low consideration; the leader provides specific instructions and
closely supervises performance.
R2: Selling Style: High IS, High cons; The leader supplements their directing with support
and encouragement to protect the confidence levels of the employees.
R3: Participating Style: Low IS, High cons; The leader shares ideas and tries to help the
group conduct its affairs.
R4: Delegating Style: Low IS, low cons; The leader turns responsibility for key behaviours
over to the employees.

*Studies show that the performance of lower-ranking employees depends more on IS and less on
cons, than the performance of higher-ranking employees.
Other Styles of Leadership
-

Transformational Leadership: Inspiring followers to commit to a shared vision that gives

a meaning to their work, while also serving as a role model (Mother Teresa)
o Most effective; active
Transactional: When the leader rewards or disciplines the follower depending on the
adequacy of the followers performance.
o Contingent reward (Getting things done using rewards in exchange for adequate
performance)
o Active management-by-exception (Leader arranges to monitor mistakes actively and
takes corrective action when reqd)
o Passive management-by-exception (Leader waits around for mistakes, then takes
action)
Laissez-faire: When the leader avoids leadership duties altogether. (Hands off method)
o Least effective; passive

How Important is Leadership

- Transformational leadership has a mod. positive effect on Performance
o Employees with transformational leaders tend to have higher levels of task
performance and engage in higher levels of citizenship behaviour.
- Transformational leadership has a strong positive effect on Commitment.
o Employees with transformational leaders tend to have higher levels of Affective and
Normative commitment.
Substitutes for Leadership
-

Model suggests that certain characteristics of the situation can constrain the influence of the
leader, making it more difficult for the leader to influence employee performance.
These situational characteristics include:

Substitutes reduce the importance of the leader while simultaneously providing a

direct benefit to employee performance. (ie. Cohesive work groups can make the
leader less relevant, but serve as a source of motivation and satisfaction.)
Neutralizers: Only reduce the importance of the leader they themselves have no
beneficial impact on performance. (ie. Spatial distance)

Chapter 13: Organizational Structure

Vertical flows:
o Downward from top to bottom hierarchy.
o Upward, from bottom to top
Horizontal flows of information between cross-functional teams or departments at the same
level.
Organizational Structure: formally dictates how jobs and tasks are divided and
coordinated between individuals and groups within the company
Organizational chart: A drawing that represents every job in the organization and the formal
reporting relationships btwn those jobs.

# of hierarchical levels

Elements of Organizational Structure:

5 key elements describe how work tasks, authority relationships, and decision-making
responsibilities are organized within the company.
Work specialization: Degree to which tasks are divided into separate jobs division of
labour
o Can lead to higher productivity, but deterioration of other unused skills
o Better for larger companies, rather than small businesses.
o Job satisfaction also might suffer.
Chain of Command: Who reports to whom?; Signifies formal authority relationships.
o Organizations depend on this flow of authority to attain order, control, and
predictable performance.
Span of Control: Represents how many employees each manager is responsible for.
o Usually, top managers are only responsible for few others directly underneath them
(narrow span), but as you go down the hierarchy, first-line managers become
responsible for many employees (wide span).
o *How many employees can one manager supervise effectively?
o Depends, but organizational performance increases as span widens, but only till a
certain point (there is an optimum, after which it declines)
Centralization: Where the decisions are formally made in organizations.
o Small organization: centralized, large organization: decentralized
o If only the top managers make final decisions, then centralized few have power
o If decision-making authority is given to lower-level employees, then decentralized
many have power
Formalization: Degree to which rules and procedures are used to standardize behaviours
and decisions in an organization
o Small organization: not formalized, large organization: formalized
o Ensures formalized products and services.

Elements in Combination
Mechanistic organizations: Efficient, rigid, predictable, and standardized organizations
that thrive in stable environments.
o High levels of formalization, clear chain of command, high specialization, highly
centralized, and narrow spans.
o Employees develop firm-specific knowledge and expertise within their area of
specialization
Organic organizations: Flexible, adaptive, outward-focused organizations that thrive in
dynamic environments.
o Low levels of formalization, weak or multiple chains of command, low specialization,
decentralized, wide spans.
o Lateral communication is encouraged

Employees are encouraged to develop knowledge and expertise outside of their

specialization

Organizational Design
Organizational design: process of creating, selecting, or changing the structure of an organization.
Factors that influence the process of org. design:
1. Business environment: Consists of the orgs customers, competitors, suppliers,
distributors, and other factors external to the firm, all of which have an impact on
organizational design.
o Stable environment: predictable, does not change over time
o Dynamic environment: unpredictable, changes regularly, more expensive: lose
efficiency, make mistakes
2. Company Strategy: an organizations objectives and goals and how it tries to capitalize on
its assets to make money.
- Low-cost producer (tries to sell products at cheapest price possible); mechanistic
- Differentiation strategy (tries to make a unique and well-made product); organic
(quick to respond to changes in env.)
3. Technology: The method by which an org. transforms inputs into outputs.
4. Company Size: The total number of employees in the org.
o Bigger company = more formalization, centralization, & specialization (so more
mechanistic)

Common Organizational Forms:

1. Simple structures: Most common form of organizational design, b/c there are more small
organizations than large ones.
2. Bureaucratic structure: An organizational form that exhibits many of the facets of the
mechanistic organization. (Designed for efficiency and rely on specialization, formalization,
etc see mechanistic)
o Functional structure: Employees are grouped by the functions they perform for the
organization (small-medium companies) ie. By marketing, HR, finance, etc.
o Focuses on specialized expertise, and as a result, the efficiency advantages.
o Multi-divisional structures: Employees are grouped into divisions around
products, geographic regions, or clients.
o Each of these divisions operates autonomously form the others.
o Caters to an org. with really diverse customer needs or goals.
- Product structures: group business units around different products that the company
products.
- Geographic structures: based around the different locations where the company does
business (different cultures and values glocalization)
- Client structure: an organizational form in which employees are organized around
serving customers.
3. Matrix Structure: A more complex form of organizational structure that combines a
functional and multidivisional grouping.
o Employees are distributed into teams or projects based on both their functional
expertise and the product they happen to be working on.
o Allows for flexibility
o Gives each employee 2 chains of commandmight be confusing thoughbut they
gain more skills, learn form more people.
o Efficient: using same people
Which is best? It depends, depending on the strategy, business environment and
size/company itself.

Structure and culture follow strategy (Sometimes you will need to restructure and change
your culture in order to fit your strategy)

Ch.14: Organizational Culture & Change

Organizational Culture
- The shared social knowledge within an organization regarding the rules, norms, and values
that shape the attitudes and behaviours of its employees
o Shared: This knowledge is transferred through other employees.
o Organizational culture shapes and reinforces certain employee attitudes and
behaviours by creating a system of control over employees.

Culture Strength
-

Exists when employees definitively agree about the way things are supposed to happen
within the organization (high consensus) and when their subsequent behaviours are
consistent with those expectations (high intensity)
o A strong culture serves to unite and direct employees
- Weak cultures: when employees disagree about the way things are supposed to be or what
is expected of them.
- Strong cultures are not always good cultures.
Pros of a strong culture
Cons of a strong culture
Differentiates the org. form others.
Makes merging with another org. hard.
Employees can identify themselves with the org. Limits diversity b/c similar kinds of employees
are attracted and retained.
Facilitates desired behaviours among
Can be too much, if it creates extreme
employees.
behaviours
Creates stability within org.
Makes adapting to the environment hard.
Subcultures
- A culture created within a small subset of the organizations employees.
o Created b/c there is a strong leader in one area of the company that creates different
norms and values
o More common in larger organizations, than small ones.
o They are fine, and sometimes a good thing, as long as the subculture does not
conflict with the overall org. culture (then they become a counterculture)

Maintaining Organizational Culture

Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) framework
Potential employees will be attracted to organizations whose cultures match their own
personality.
Some potential job applicants wont apply due to a perceived lack of fit.
Organizations will select candidates based on whether their personalities fit the culture,
further weeding out potential misfits
Those people who still dont fit will either be unhappy or ineffective when working in the
organization, which leads to attrition (voluntary or involuntary turnover)
Socialization
The primary process by which employees learn the social knowledge that enables them to
understand and adapt to the organizations culture.
o Anticipatory stage happens prior to an employee spending even one second on the
job. Starts the moment a potential employee hears the name of the org, and thinks
about what it would be like to work for them.
o Encounter stage begins the day an employee starts work, where they compare the
information as an outsider to the info learned as an insider.

Reality shock: A mismatch of information that occurs when an employee

finds that aspects of working at a company are not what the employee
expected it to be.
The goal of the orgs socialization efforts should be to minimize reality shock
as much as possible.
o Understanding and adaptation: The final stage; newcomers come to learn the
content areas of socialization and internalize the norms and expected behaviours of
the organization.
Employee should adopt the goals and values of the org, and get along with
other employees, and perform key functions of their job.
The more quickly and effectively an employee is socialized, the sooner that employee
becomes a productive worker within the organization.

Culture Change The Change Process

-

Once cultures are established and maintained, they tend to persist over time. When culture
change is needed, what can be done?
o How does the organization establish new understandings, values, and norms that
shape the attitudes and behaviours of its employees.
The change process involves 3 sequential steps:
o Unfreezing, The change initiative, and Refreezing
Unfreezing
o The first step, unfreezing, occurs when the org. comes to realize that the status quo
is unacceptable.
Ex. an increase in customer complaints about product quality may trigger an
awareness that a companys culture is out of step with its mission to be a
high-quality manufacturer. Or low employee morale may trigger a realization
that culture change is needed.
The Change Initiative
o Once a need for change has been recognized and accepted, the second step is to
plan and implement the change initiative.
In the case of culture change, this may involve brining in a new leader,
introducing a new reward program, or implementing a new training program.
o Changes in leadership
New leaders bring their own ideas and values, and leaders are expected to be
a driving force for change.
o Mergers and Acquisitions
2 companies with distinct cultures are merged to form a new culture.
But mergers rarely actually result in the strong culture that managers had
hoped for.
Refreezing
o The newly developed attitudes and behaviours (ie. New ways of thinking, feeling, and
acting) need to harden up, becoming solidified as new norms, values, and shared
understandings.
o Also so that we dont revert back to the old way. b/c we tend to be creatures of
habit.

Issues with Culture Change

- Proper diagnosis of the underlying problem
o Are the companys ideas about causes of the decision-making problems correct? Will
the remedies address the core problems and produce the desired culture change?
- Resistance
o If the culture has been established and maintained for some time, then it probably
wont change easily. In short, people are creatures of habitdont like change

Person-organization fit
The degree to which a persons personality and values match the culture of an organization.
Employees judge fit by thinking about the values they prioritize the most, then judging
whether the org. shares those values.
When employees feel that their values and personality match those of the organization,
they experience higher levels of job satisfaction and feel less stress about their daily
tasks.
Employees also feel higher levels of trust toward their managers.
Therefore, strong positive effect on Commitment. (especially affective)
Application: Managing Socialization
- Realistic Job Preview (RJP) is the process of ensuring that a potential employee
understands both the positive and negative aspects of the potential job.
o One of the most inexpensive and effective ways of reducing early turnover among
new employees.
o Occurs during the anticipatory stage of socialization in the early stages.
- Newcomer Orientation session is a common form of training during which new hires learn
more about the org.
o Effective way to start the socialization process.
o Effective transmitters of socialization content.
Employees who complete orientation have higher levels of satisfaction,
commitment, and performance, than those who dont.
- Mentoring is a process by which a junior-level employee develops a deep and long-lasting
relationship with a more senior-level employee (mentor) within the organization.
o Mentors can provide a junior with social knowledge, resources, and psychological
support.