450+ Words Discussion And TWO(2) Responses With 100+ Words (Strict Only $7) With Responses.

Week 1

BADM 532 – Organizational Behavior

Tanmay Lonkar

University of the Cumberlands

8/26/2021

The first chapter sets the ground for the course by introducing us to Organizational Behavior. Organizational Behavior is defined as “a field of study that investigates the impacts individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.”[footnoteRef:1] Studying OB is essentially learning about the role of motivation, leader behavior, and power, interpersonal communications, group structures and processes. Attitude development and perception, change processes, conflicts and negotiations, and work design. Systematic Study and evidence-based management are the two types of studies that help explore organizational behavior. The systematic study deals with examining relationships, attributing causes and effects, and basing conclusions on scientific pieces of evidence. Whereas, EBM bases decisions on the best available scientific evidence. EBM is complementary to systematic study and helps managers to make science-driven decisions. Even with such a scientific approach towards understanding OB, it is important to note that making simple and accurate generalizations is not possible because of the complex and diverse nature of human beings. There still are areas that pose challenges (and hence new opportunities) in OB, namely – responding to increasing globalization, understanding workforce demographics, managing the workforce diversity, maintaining employee well-being by creating a positive work environment, and improving ethical behavior. [1: Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2018). Chapter 1. In Essentials of organizational behavior. New York, NY: Pearson.]

Chapter two talks about diversity in organizations - the impact of workplace discrimination on effectiveness, stereotypes in organizational settings, OB relevant biographical characteristics, differentiating factors, relevance of abilities to OB, and effective management of diversity. Discrimination can manifest itself in many forms like discriminatory policies and practices, sexual harassment, intimidation, exclusion, etc. Biographical characteristics like age, gender, race and ethnicity, and disability can form the basis of discrimination. Hence, it is very important to have effective diversity management practices in place. These practices include attracting and retaining diverse employees by ensuring that hiring and promotion are done fairly, maintaining a positive diversity climate in groups, and enforcing effective diversity programs that train managers on equal employment opportunities and encourage fair treatment irrespective of differences in demographic characteristics.

The third chapter explores ‘attitudes and job satisfaction. Attitudes are defined as ‘Evaluative statements – either favorable or unfavorable – about objects, people, or events.’[footnoteRef:2] Attitudes have three components, namely – Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral. These three are closely related and help us understand their complexity and the relationship between attitudes and behavior. The most powerful moderators of attitude-behavior relationships are the importance of the attitude, its correspondence to behavior, its accessibility, the presence of social pressures, and whether a person has direct experience with the attitude.[footnoteRef:3] Work, social context of work, pay, and corporate social responsibility lead to a feeling of job satisfaction. Job dissatisfaction may lead to counterproductive work behavior. It is important to note that job satisfaction brings about better job and organizational performance, better citizenship behaviors, a greater level of customer satisfaction, lower churn, and a decrease in workplace deviance instances. [2: Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2018). Chapter 3. In Essentials of organizational behavior. New York, NY: Pearson.] [3: Robbins, S., & Judge, T. (2018). Chapter 1. In Essentials of organizational behavior. New York, NY: Pearson.]

Graduate-level responses:

i. You are working as a manager of a financial planning office where you require your employees to have a presence on social media. One of your financial advisors posts to his Twitter account that he needs $500 to pay his rent for the month. Would you punish him? Why or why not? 

I will not punish the financial advisor. This is because, I understand that if I do punish, I cross the line between work and non-work matters of the advisor’s life. Chapter 3 talks about the strong correlation between job satisfaction and how people view the social context of their work. If I punish the advisor for a matter which seems to be personal, it will change their view of the social context of the work and it will eventually lead to job dissatisfaction for the advisor. Instead, I will try to assess the advisor's job satisfaction level in our one and one and will try to convey that my door is always open for discussing any hurdle – professional or personal. It then will be the advisor’s choice to open up about such issues to me. Hence, it is my job to create a safe and trusting environment and then help the advisor in any way possible to get them out of the situation.