ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

Introduction To Your Life In Organization

BERNIE L. MULLEN, M.A.

bmullen@msb.college.edu

612 239 8604

CLASS OUTLINE FEBRUARY 11, 2013

• Bottle Shock Case Study

• Assignment – World Class Company: The Mayo Clinic, page 198, review – 3

questions.

• Career Profile.

• Chapters Eight – Cross Cultural Relationships.

• Chapter Nine – Groups and their Influences.

• Assignment(s)

CRITICAL THINKING: PASSIVE, ACTIVE, DIVERSITY

• Passive • Receive ideas and information from someone else.

• Unreflective.

• Jump to conclusion.

• Snap decision irrespective to outcome.

• Active • Persistent.

• Careful consideration.

• Think things through.

• Raise questions.

• Find relevant information.

Chapter 8 -Culture

• Culture is a set of shared beliefs and

values about what is desirable in a

community, and the set of behaviors and

practices that support these values

• National culture includes the thoughts,

emotions and behaviors rooted in common

values and societal conventions of a

particular society

What characterizes Americans--what

characterizes you—culturally?

• Open discussion is encouraged and

valued

• Decisions are made in meetings

• Everyone in the group has input

• Conflict is positive

• Friendly and open but impersonal work

relationships

• Want to achieve high efficiency at work

Since Western business customs are

accepted world wide, why should you

study other cultures?

• The Western business customs that count

the most are not accepted world wide

• Typically it is only the superficial customs

that have been adopted

• Rarely do others think about these

behaviors the same way you do

Chapter 9 - Why are groups so

important to organizations?

Groups are a key building block of

organizations

• Group: two or more people who spend time with

each other, experience emotional ties, share a

common frame of reference, and are

behaviorally interdependent

• Formal groups: those officially designated by the

organization to accomplish its tasks

• Informal groups: social groups that have no

official designation by the organization yet have

some common interests and personal ties

©2007 Prentice Hall

Groups represent a power structure

in organizations

• Formal groups are given power officially

• Informal groups have power because they

exchange information and contacts, and

give social support to their members

• Powerful groups are allotted a larger

portion of an organization’s resources

• Individuals gain much of their power

through their group memberships

Groups may make better decisions

than individuals alone

• Assets of group decision making: Groups bring a greater total sum of knowledge to a

problem.

Groups bring a greater number of approaches to a problem.

Groups tend to take more innovative approaches to solving a problem.

Participation in decision making helps people understand the solution.

Participation in decision making helps people accept a solution.

Groups may make worse decisions

than individuals alone

• Liabilities of group decision making are:

Groups may be influenced by a dominant individual.

Social pressure on individuals can significantly affect

their judgment: Individuals may vote with their friends,

authorities, or superiors rather than assert their own

opinion.

The risky shift: Groups have a tendency to make risky

decisions, accepting a plausible early solution rather

than working to find an optimal solution.

It is more difficult to fix responsibility for a decision on

a group than on an individual.

Chapter Seven - How can you make the

communication process work for you?

• Communication: the exchange of thoughts, opinions or information by speaking, writing or other means.

• Conduit metaphor: language transfers thoughts and feelings from person to person like a pipe transfers water from place to place.

• Noise: any disturbance that disrupts the communication process.

A model of communication

Receiving the message

• Did you hear and understand the message

the way the sender intended?

• Selective attention: at any given moment

humans can focus on only some of the

stimuli that come our way, while other

stimuli are disregarded.

• Overload may cause filtering of messages.

Decoding the message and forming

a response

• Attribution: answering why the sender is

behaving in a particular way; can involve

fundamental attribution error or self-serving

bias. Feel real emotion, false situation.

• Categorizing: putting people into categories

or groups that have similar characteristics;

could involve prejudice.

Encoding the response

• Translate your idea into a form that others

can recognize, typically into written or

spoken language.

• Most important goal is to be as clear as

possible.

• Monitor your use of jargon.

ASSIGNMENT

Paper Bottle Shock

• Examples of Intrinsic and Extrinsic.

• Examples of Decision Making.

• Examples of Job Stress.

• Examples of Interpersonal Skills.

• What did you discover about the movie that left an impression on

you?

ASSIGNMENT

Page 251 Chapter 8

Use the Types of Teams Definitions,

Construct story using maximum of 300 words,

Fiction, non-fiction, serious or funny story.

Due Monday Feb 25