BUSINESS RESEARCH

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Chapter One: Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behaviour

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Shopify

Ottawa-based Shopify is a rapidly growing technology success story due to its focus on teamwork, employee motivation, organizational culture, and other effective organizational behaviour practices.

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Organizational Behaviour and Organizations

Organizational behaviour

• Studies what people think, feel, and do in and around organizations

Organizations

• Groups of people who work interdependently toward some purpose

• Collective entities

• Collective sense of purpose

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Importance of OB

OB helps people in all jobs: • Comprehend and predict

workplace events • Adopt more accurate

personal theories • Influence organizational

events

Vital to the organization’s survival and success • Predicts firm’s performance • Predicts hospital quality • OB concepts are positive

screens in investment decisions

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Technological Change

Long history as a disruptive force in organizations

Effects of technological change • Higher productivity, but displaces employees/occupations

• Alters work relationships and behaviour patterns

• Improves health and wellbeing

Effects of information technology • Greater employee voice to executives

• Less work-nonwork separation, less attention span, more techno-stress

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Globalization

Economic, social, and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the world

Due to better information technology and transportation systems

Effects of globalization on organizations

• Larger markets, lower costs, more knowledge

• Affects teamwork, diversity, cultural values, leadership

• Increases work intensification, reduces job security

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Emerging Employment Relationships

Due to technology, globalization, etc.

• Longer hours, less work-nonwork separation

Work-life balance -- degree of conflict between work and nonwork demands

Remote work

• Working at client sites (e.g. repair technicians)

• Teleworking (telecommuting) – working from home

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Remote/Telework Benefits and Problems

Remote/Telework Benefits

• better work-life balance

• valued work benefit

• higher productivity

• better for the environment

• lower real estate costs for company

Remote/Telework Disadvantages • more social isolation, less co-worker interaction

• less informal communication to help career advancement

• lower team cohesion, weaker organizational culture

Remote work benefits depends on person, job, firm

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Increasing Workforce Diversity

Surface-level vs. deep-level diversity

Consequences of diversity • Better team creativity/decisions, but slower team

development

• Easier to recognize/address community needs

• Higher risk of dysfunctional conflict

Diversity is a moral/legal imperative

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Organizational Behaviour Anchors (1 of 2)

Systematic research anchor

• OB knowledge is built on systematic research

• Evidence-based management

• Many people don’t apply evidence-based management

Multidisciplinary anchor • Many OB concepts adopted from other disciplines

• OB develops its own theories, but scans other fields

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Organizational Behaviour Anchors (2 of 2)

Contingency anchor

• A particular action may have different consequences in different situations

• Need to diagnose the situation to choose best action

Multiple levels of analysis anchor

• Individual, team, organizational level of analysis

• OB topics usually relevant at all three levels of analysis

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Organizational Effectiveness

The ultimate dependent variable in OB

Goal attainment: Discredited view of effectiveness

Organizational effectiveness is a composite of four perspectives:

• Open systems

• Organizational learning

• High-performance work practices (HPWP)

• Stakeholder

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Open Systems Perspective (1 of 2)

Organizations are complex systems that “live” within and depend on the external environment

Effective organizations • Maintain a close “fit” with changing conditions

• Transform inputs to outputs efficiently and flexibly

Foundation for the other three organizational effectiveness perspectives

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Open Systems Perspective (2 of 2)

Jump to Appendix 1 long image description

•Products/services

•Shareholder dividends

•Community support

•Waste/pollution

Technological subsystem

Marketing /Sales

subsystem

Production subsystem

subsystem

Engineerin g

subsystem

Accounting subsystem

•Raw materials

•Human resources

•Information

•Finances

•Equipment

FeedbackFeedback

Managerial subsystem

Transforming inputs to outputs

External Environment

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Organizational Learning Perspective

An organization’s capacity to acquire, share, use, and store valuable knowledge

Consider both stock and flow of knowledge • Stock: intellectual capital

• Flow: processes of acquiring, sharing, using, and storing knowledge

Source: Hootsuite/Flickr/CC BY 2.0

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Intellectual Capital

Human Capital

Knowledge that people possess and generate

Structural Capital

Knowledge captured in systems and structures

Relationship Capital

Value derived from satisfied customers, reliable suppliers, etc.

Organizational Learning Processes

Storing Knowledge

• Keeping knowledgeable employees

• Documentation

• Knowledge transfer

Acquiring Knowledge

• Learning (external)

• Environmental scanning

• Hiring/grafting

• Experimenting

Using Knowledge

• Sense making (locating knowledge)

• Prerequisite knowledge/skills

• Autonomy to apply knowledge

• Learning orientation culture

Sharing Knowledge

• Communicating

• Learning (internal)

• Information systems

High-Performance Work Practices

Workplace practices that enhance human capital

Most cited HPWPs (best when bundled together) 1. Employee involvement

2. Job autonomy

3. Competence development (hire, training)

4. Performance-/skill-based rewards

How HPWPs improve effectiveness:

• develop employee skills and knowledge

• adapting better to rapidly changing environments

• better motivation and attitudes toward the employer

Corporate Social Responsibility at MTN

At MTN Group, Africa’s largest mobile (cell) phone company, employees help the community and environment through the company’s award-winning “21 Days of Y’ello Care” program. For example, MTN employees recently installed solar panels with batteries to generate off-grid electricity for lighting at rural schools.

Stakeholder Perspective

Stakeholders: entities who affect or are affected by the firm’s objectives and actions

Understand, manage, satisfy stakeholder needs

Challenges: • conflicting interests • firm’s limited resources

Stakeholders: Values and Ethics

Personal values influence how corporate boards and CEOs allocate organizational resources

Values • Stable, evaluative beliefs, guide preferences for outcomes or

courses of action in various situations

Ethics

• Moral principles/values, determine whether actions are right/wrong and outcomes are good or bad

Stakeholders and CSR

Stakeholder perspective includes corporate social responsibility (CSR) • Benefit society and environment beyond the firm’s immediate

financial interests or legal obligations

• Organization’s contract with society

Triple bottom line • Economy, society, environment

Integrative Model of OB