MGT5313 Chap.1 Foundations of Organizational Behaviour
Foundations of Organizational Behaviour
Three objects, one definition
The course opens by defining organizational behaviour as the study of human behaviour in organizational settings, of the interface between human behaviour and the organization, and of the organization itself.
Reading that as one object rather than three is the first available error and it is expensive, because most questions in this course are really asking which of the three levels a problem sits on. A retention problem usually sits at the interface. A culture problem sits with the organization. A motivation problem sits with the individual until somebody shows that the reward system produced it.
Naming the level before naming a theory is what stops an answer becoming a tour of everything you know.
Four outcomes a manager is accountable for
Managerial goals are stated in four parts: enhance behaviours and attitudes, promote citizenship, minimise dysfunctional behaviours, and drive strategic execution.
That list becomes useful the moment you notice that the four can move independently, which means any claim that an intervention worked has to say which one it moved and what happened to the other three. Productivity, performance and commitment are treated as distinct rather than as degrees of one thing. Productivity is efficiency, output per unit of input, counted in products or services.
Performance is wider, taking in every behaviour connected to the work, holding a positive attitude included. Commitment is about membership, the degree to which someone counts themselves a genuine member of the firm and means to remain in it.
A person can be productive and uncommitted, which is a retention problem dressed as a good quarter.
The two outcomes a report never shows
Organizational citizenship is behaviour that makes a positive overall contribution and sits outside the strict requirements of the job.
Dysfunctional behaviour runs the other way, and the published list mixes the grave with the ordinary on purpose, running from absenteeism, turnover and theft through harassment, bullying and violence to politicised behaviour such as spreading rumours, and rudeness.
The category is defined by its effect on performance rather than by its gravity, so an answer that quietly drops the small items has narrowed the concept without saying so.
Neither citizenship nor dysfunction appears in an output figure, which is why a quarter can improve one outcome while eroding three.
What the field kept from its own history
Scientific management, from the 1890s, is described as the first formal study of the field, with the goal of maximising productivity; productivity rose and the work became extremely monotonous and dehumanising.
The human relations movement was inspired by the Hawthorne effect, the observation that people lift some part of their behaviour the moment they know a measure is being taken, which is a warning about measurement that still applies to every engagement survey. Three contemporary readings follow.
The systems perspective treats the organization as an interrelated set of elements, with inputs combined and transformed into outputs and a feedback path that makes employee behaviour visible as an output alongside profit.
The situational perspective rejects the universal reading, which assumes one variable drives another straight through, on the ground that human conduct and workplaces are tangled enough that a conclusion holding everywhere is close to unreachable.
The interactionalist perspective reads behaviour as the product of a continuous exchange between person and setting, in which people pick, interpret and reshape the settings they are in rather than only responding to them.
The framework that is the syllabus in disguise
The first week closes on a framework in which organizational behaviour is affected by characteristics of the environment, of individuals, of groups and teams, of leadership and of the organization itself, and that managers who understand them can better promote effectiveness.
Underneath those headings sit values and perceptions, decision making, communication, motivating behaviour, conflict and negotiation, teams, traditional and modern leadership, structure and design, power, influence and politics, culture and change management.
Compare that list against the teaching schedule and the correspondence is exact, which makes it the most useful single page in the opening material: it tells you what the course believes the relationships between its own topics are.
What this chapter covers
- 01
The three objects the definition names, and the level a problem sits on
- 02
Productivity, performance and commitment as separate outcomes
- 03
Organizational citizenship, and why it is invisible in output figures
- 04
The published list of dysfunctional behaviours, from turnover to rudeness
- 05
Scientific management, and the cost that came with the productivity gain
- 06
The Hawthorne effect as a standing warning about measurement
- 07
Systems, situational and interactionalist readings compared
- 08
The framework that names every later week of the course
One good quarter, four outcomes
- 2Identify which outcome the reported figure measures.
- 4Locate each remaining fact against the other three outcomes.
- 2State what the quarter actually traded.
Key terms
- Productivity
- A measure of efficiency: output per unit of input, counted in products or services. It is narrower than performance and says nothing about commitment.
- Performance
- A wider notion taking in every behaviour connected to the work, which the course material extends as far as holding a positive attitude.
- Strategic Execution
- How far managers and their staff grasp what the strategy demands of them and then actually carry it out.
- Hawthorne Effect
- The finding that people lift some part of their behaviour the moment they know a measure is being taken, which is why any measurement of behaviour can change what it measures.
- Universal Model
- An approach presuming a direct cause and effect link between variables, so that a problem determines the one best way of responding. The course sets it against the situational approach.
- Interactionalist Perspective
- A reading in which person and setting act on each other without pause to produce behaviour, and in which people pick, interpret and reshape the settings they occupy.
Foundations of Organizational Behaviour FAQ
Why does the definition of organizational behaviour name three things rather than one?
Because the field studies individual behaviour, the meeting point between that behaviour and the organization, and the organization as an entity, and interventions at one of those levels often cannot repair a problem sitting at another. A reward redesign cannot fix a structural defect, and a restructure cannot fix a selection problem. Naming the level first is what makes a recommendation implementable by someone.
Is dysfunctional behaviour only about serious misconduct?
No. The published list runs from theft, harassment, bullying and violence to absenteeism, turnover, spreading rumours and rudeness, and the category is defined by its effect on performance rather than by how grave each item is. Dropping the everyday items narrows the concept and usually removes the ones a manager could actually address this month.
What is the practical difference between the universal and the situational approach?
The universal approach says an organizational problem determines the one best response. The situational approach says the elements of the situation must be evaluated first, and those elements then suggest a contingent response.
The second is not a refusal to generalise; it is a demand that the conditions under which a finding holds be named, which is exactly what the transfer question attached to every case in this course asks for.
Assessment move
Write the four effectiveness outcomes from memory, then take any recent news story about a company improving its numbers and ask which of the four the story evidences and which three it is silent on. That exercise takes five minutes and it rehearses the habit the whole course is built on, which is refusing to accept a single measure as evidence about a system.
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