Organisational Psychology: IOP202-R



IOP202-R: ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

What is organisational behaviour? Study Unit 1: Chapter 1 & 2

Organisational behaviour (OB)

It is a field of study that investigates what the impact of 3 determinants (individuals, groups and structure) have on behaviour within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organisation’s effectiveness.

Contributing disciplines to the OB field (Figure 1-2)

❖ Psychology: measure, explain & sometimes change ind. behaviour

❖ Sociology: study the social system in which ind. fill their roles , people in relation to fellow human beings

❖ Social psychology: blending psych & social concepts, influence of people on one another

❖ Anthropology: societies

❖ Political science: behaviour of ind. & groups within a political environment

Systematic approach – behaviour is not random. Differences between individuals, but there are fundamental consistencies underlying behaviour – allow predictability.

• Conclusions based on scientific evidence – data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous manner.

OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions.

Organisations are open systems: long-term effectiveness determined by ability to anticipate, manage and respond to changes in the environment.

What do managers do – make decisions, allocate resources & direct the activities of others to attain goals in an organisation: a consciously coordinated social unit composed of 2 or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals.

Plan: defining goals, strategizing, plan to integrate & coordinate

Organise: what, who, how tasks grouped, reporting channels and responsibility

Lead: direct, coordinate, motivate, resolve conflicts

Control: monitoring, comparing, potential correcting

Management roles: (Table 1-1)

Mintzberg: 10 highly interrelated roles, grouped as:

a) Interpersonal roles

b) Information roles

c) Decisional

Management skills

Robert Katz:

a) Technical – specialised knowledge & expertise

b) Human – to work with, understand & motivate others both ind and in groups

c) Conceptual – mental ability to analyse & diagnose complex situations (eg. decision making)

Effective vs successful managerial activites

Luthans study – all managers engaged in 4 managerial activites:

1) aditional management, 2) communication, 3) HR management, 4) Networking

Challenges & opportunities for OB

- Responding to globalisation

- Managing workforce diversity

- Improving people skills

- Empowering people

- Coping with “temporariness”

- Stimulating innovation and change

- Improving their ethical behaviour

- Improving quality & productivity

Total Quality Management: is a philosophy of management driven by the constant attainment by customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational processes

• Intense customer focus

• Continuous improvement

• Improvement in the quality of everything the organization does.

• Accurate measurement

• Employee empowerment

Developing an OB model

• general model to define the field of OB.

• stakes out the parameters

• identifies primary dependent and independent variables

• 4 levels of analyses in OB: ind., group, structure, environment

Dependent variables: are the key factors you want to explain or predict and that are affected by some other factor. They are:

1. Productivity – reach goals by transferring inputs to outputs @ lowest cost; concern for both effectiveness & efficiency.

2. Absenteeism – work flow disrupted; bad vs better

3. Turnover – high=increased recruiting, selection and training costs.

4. Organisational citizenship – discretionary behaviour that promotes the effective functioning of the organization.

5. Job satisfaction –attitude rather than behaviour

Independent variables:presumes cause of some change in the dependent variable. They are:

1. Individual-level variables

2. Group-level variables

3. Organizational-level variables

Figure 1-4

- Organisations are continuously subjected to forces (internal or external) for change.

- Categories of these forces are:

o Global arena

▪ technological inventions

▪ international competition

▪ rising customer expectations and demands

▪ trade agreements

▪ international diversity

▪ nature of work

▪ changes in society

▪ political change

▪ world economy

▪ changing markets

Dealing with the global challenge – adapting management style to culture in which operated.

➢ Parochialism

➢ Ethnocentric views

➢ Polycentric views

➢ Geocentric views

o Regional & sub-regional arena

o National & provincial arena

o Internal forces within the organization

▪ Individual level

▪ Group level

▪ Organisational level

Frameworks for assessing cultural differences – 3 most commonly used:

1) Kluckhorn-Strodbeck framework: uses 6 basic cultural dimensions to assess differences. a) a person’s relationship with the environment; b) time orientation; c) nature of people; d) activity orientation; e) focus of responsibility; f) conception of space

* Figure 2-2

2) Hofstede framework - Dimensions used are:

individualism vs collectivism

power distance

uncertainty avoidance

masculinity vs femininity

long-term orientation

3) Trompenaars

- tried to address some limitations to Hofstede

- 5 dimensions:

• universalism vs particularism

• individualism vs collectivism

• neutral vs affective

• specific vs diffuse

• achievement vs ascription

* GLOBE study

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