McShane
Von Glinow
»
Readability, presentation of current knowledge
»
Strong International/Global orientation
»
Contemporary Theory Foundation (without the jargon)
»
Active Learning and Critical Thinking Support
»
Textbook’s philosophy-OB knowledge is for everyone, not just traditional managers.
Delivering what we’ve come to expect from this exceptional author team, McShane/Von
Glinow 5e helps everyone make sense of OB, and provides the conceptual tools to work more
effectively in the workplace.
fifth edition
To learn more, visit www.mhhe.com/mcshane5e
ISBN 978-0-07-338123-7
MHID 0-07-338123-3
EAN
www.mhhe.com
fifth edition
Organizational Behavior
emerging knowledge and practice for the real world
McShane | Von Glinow
MD DALIM 1011736 3/25/09 CYAN MAG YELO BLACK
The reality is that everyone needs OB knowledge to successfully thrive in and around
organizations, from sales representatives to production employees to physicians. The
authors’ ability to engage students by introducing cutting-edge OB topics while providing
relevancy to OB concepts through the ‘linking theory with reality’ approach, is the reason OB
5e remains unparalleled in its ability to engage students.
Organizational Behavior
McShane and Von Glinow 5e is acclaimed for:
emerging knowledge and practice for the real world
In their new Fifth Edition, McShane and Von Glinow continue the trailblazing
innovations that made previous editions of Organizational Behavior recognized and
adopted by the new generation of organizational behavior (OB) instructors.
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Organizational Behavior
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Emerging Knowledge and
Practice for the Real World
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Organizational Behavior
Steven L. McShane
The University of Western Australia
Mary Ann Von Glinow
Florida International University
5th Edition
Boston Burr Ridge, IL Dubuque, IA New York San Francisco St. Louis
Bangkok Bogotá Caracas Kuala Lumpur Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City
Milan Montreal New Delhi Santiago Seoul Singapore Sydney Taipei Toronto
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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR:
EMERGING KNOWLEDGE AND PRACTICE FOR THE REAL WORLD
Published by McGraw-Hill/Irwin, a business unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., 1221
Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY, 10020. Copyright © 2010, 2008, 2005, 2003, 2000 by
The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval
system, without the prior written consent of The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc., including, but
not limited to, in any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for
distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers
outside the United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 DOW/DOW 0 9
ISBN 978-0-07-338123-7
MHID 0-07-338123-3
Vice president and editor-in-chief: Brent Gordon
Publisher: Paul Ducham
Executive editor: John Weimeister
Senior development editor: Christine Scheid
Marketing manager: Natalie Zook
Lead project manager: Christine A. Vaughan
Production supervisor: Gina Hangos
Senior photo research coordinator: Lori Kramer
Photo researcher: Jennifer Blankenship
Lead media project manager: Brian Nacik
Cover and interior design: Pam Verros/pvdesign
Cover image: ©Veer
Typeface: 10/12 Berthold Baskerville
Compositor: Aptara®, Inc.
Printer: R. R. Donnelley
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
McShane, Steven Lattimore.
Organizational behavior : emerging knowledge and practice for the real world / Steven
L. McShane, Mary Ann Von Glinow. — 5th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-07-338123-7 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-07-338123-3 (alk. paper)
1. Organizational behavior. I. Von Glinow, Mary Ann Young, 1949- II. Title.
HD58.7.M42 2010
658—dc22
2009005753
www.mhhe.com
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about the authors
Steven L. McShane
Steven L. McShane is Professor of Management in
the Business School at the
University of Western
Australia (UWA), where
he receives high teaching
ratings from students in
Perth, Singapore, Manila,
and other cities where
UWA offers its programs.
He is also an Honorary
Professor at Universiti
Tunku Abdul Rahman
(UTAR) in Malaysia and
previously taught in the business faculties at Simon Fraser
University and Queen’s University in Canada. Steve has
conducted executive programs with Nokia, TÜV-SÜD,
Wesfarmers Group, Main Roads WA, McGraw-Hill,
ALCOA World Alumina Australia, and many other organizations. He is also a popular visiting speaker, having given
presentations to faculty and students in almost a dozen
countries over the past four years.
Steve earned his Ph.D. from Michigan State University
in organizational behavior, human resource management,
and labor relations. He also holds a Master of Industrial
Relations from the University of Toronto, and an undergraduate degree from Queen’s University in Canada. Steve
has served as President of the Administrative Sciences
Association of Canada (the Canadian equivalent of the
Academy of Management) and Director of Graduate Programs in the business faculty at Simon Fraser University.
Along with coauthoring Organizational Behavior, Fifth
Edition, Steve coauthors with Mary Ann Von Glinow on
Organizational Behavior: Essentials, Second Edition (2009).
He is also the coauthor with Sandra Steen (University of
Regina) of Canadian Organizational Behaviour, Seventh
Edition (2009), with Tony Travaglione (Curtin University)
of Organisational Behaviour on the Pacific Rim, Second Edition (2007), and with Charles Hill (University of Washington)
of Principles of Management, First Edition (2008). Steve is
also coauthor of Indian, Chinese, and Taiwanese editions or
translations of his OB book. Steve has published several
dozen articles and conference papers on workplace values,
training transfer, organizational learning, exit-voice-loyalty,
employee socialization, wrongful dismissal, media bias in
business magazines, and other diverse topics.
Steve enjoys spending his leisure time swimming, body
board surfing, canoeing, skiing, and traveling with his wife
and two daughters.
Mary Ann Von Glinow
Dr. Von Glinow is Director
of the Center for International Business Education
and Research (CIBER)
and is Research Professor
of Management and International Business at Florida
International University.
She also is the 2006 Vice
President of the Academy
of International Business
(AIB) and an editor of
JIBS. Previously on the
Marshall School faculty of
the University of Southern California, she has an MBA and
Ph.D. in Management Science from The Ohio State University. Dr. Von Glinow was the 1994–95 President of the Academy of Management, the world’s largest association of
academicians in management, and is a Fellow of the Academy
and the Pan-Pacific Business Association. She sits on eleven
editorial review boards and numerous international panels.
She teaches in executive programs in Latin America, Central
America, the Caribbean region, Asia, and the U.S.
Dr. Von Glinow has authored over 100 journal articles
and 11 books. Her most recent books include Managing Multinational Teams (Elsevier, 2005) and Organizational Learning
Capability (Oxford University Press, 1999; in Chinese and
Spanish translation), which won a Gold Book Award from
the Ministry of Economic Affairs in Taiwan in 2002. She has
also coauthored the popular Organizational Behavior, Fifth
Edition textbook and Organizational Behavior: Essentials,
Second Edition (McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009). She heads an
international consortium of researchers delving into “Best
International Human Resource Management Practices,” and
her research in this arena won an award from the American
Society for Competitiveness’ Board of Trustees. She also
received an NSF grant to study globally distributed work.
Dr. Von Glinow is the 2005 Academy of Management
recipient of the Distinguished Service Award, one of the
Academy’s three highest honors bestowed.
Mary Ann consults to a number of domestic and multinational enterprises, and serves as a mayoral appointee to
the Shanghai Institute of Human Resources in China. Since
1989, she has been a consultant in General Electric’s “Workout” and “Change Acceleration Program” including “Coaching to Management.” Her clients have included Asia
Development Bank, American Express, Diageo, KnightRidder, Burger King, Pillsbury, Westinghouse, Southern
California Edison, The Aetna, State of Florida, Kaiser Permanente, TRW, Rockwell Int’l, Motorola, N.Y. Life, Amoco,
Lucent, and Joe’s Stone Crabs, to name a few. She is on the
Board of Friends of WLRN, Fielding University, Friends of
Bay Oaks, Pan-Pacific Business Association, and Animal Alliance in Los Angeles. She is actively involved in several
animal welfare organizations and received the 1996 Humanitarian Award of the Year from Miami’s Adopt-a-Pet.
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Dedicated with love and devotion to Donna, and to our wonderful
daughters, Bryton and Madison
—S.L.M.
Dedicated to Zack, Emma, and Googun!
—M.A.V.G.
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Preface xvi
PART 1 Introduction 1
Chapter 1
Introduction to the Field of Organizational
Behavior
2
PART 2 Individual Behavior and Processes 31
Chapter 2
Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
32
Chapter 3 Perception and Learning in Organizations
Chapter 4
66
Workplace Emotions, Attitudes, and Stress
Chapter 5 Foundations of Employee Motivation
Chapter 6
96
130
Applied Performance Practices 164
Chapter 7 Decision Making and Creativity 196
PART 3 Team Processes 231
Chapter 8 Team Dynamics
Chapter 9
232
Communicating in Teams and Organizations 268
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Power and Influence in the Workplace 298
Conflict and Negotiation in the Workplace 326
Chapter 12
Leadership in Organizational Settings
358
PART 4 Organizational Processes 383
Chapter 13 Organizational Structure 384
brief
contents
Chapter 14 Organizational Culture
Chapter 15
414
Organizational Change 442
Additional Cases
469
Case 1: A Mir Kiss? 469
Case 2: Arctic Mining Consultants 471
Case 3: Big Screen’s Big Failure 473
Case 4: Bridging the Two Worlds—The Organizational Dilemma 478
Case 5: Fran Hayden Joins Dairy Engineering 479
Case 6: From Lippert-Johanson Incorporated to Fenway Waste Management 482
Case 7: Glengarry Regional Medical Center 484
Case 8: High Noon at Alpha Mills 488
Case 9: Keeping Suzanne Chalmers 490
Case 10: Northwest Canadian Forest Products Limited 492
Case 11: Perfect Pizzeria 494
Case 12: Simmons Laboratories 495
Case 13: Treetop Forest Products 500
Video Cases
502
Appendix A
Theory Building and Systematic Research Methods 507
Appendix B
Scoring Keys for Self-Assessment Activities 514
Glossary
References
Photo Credits
Organization Index
Name Index
Subject Index
URL Index
525
531
589
591
595
616
633
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contents
Preface xvi
The Contingency Anchor
24
The Multiple Levels of Analysis Anchor
Part 1 Introduction 1
Chapter Summary
Key Terms
24
25
25
Critical Thinking Questions 26
Case Study 1.1: Jersey Dairies, Inc.
26
Case Study 1.2: Working from Home—It’s in
the Details 28
Team Exercise 1.3: Human Checkers
28
Class Exercise 1.4: Diagnosing Organizational
Stakeholders 29
Self-Assessment 1.5: It All Makes Sense? 30
Chapter 1 Introduction to the Field of
Organizational Behavior 2
Self-Assessment 1.6: Is Telecommuting for You?
The Field of Organizational Behavior 4
Organizational Behavior’s Foundations
Why Study Organizational Behavior?
30
Part 2 Individual Behavior and
5
Processes
5
31
Perspectives of Organizational
Effectiveness 7
Open-Systems Perspective
7
Global Connections 1.1: Hospitals Take the
Lean Journey to Efficiency 10
Organizational Learning Perspective
10
High-Performance Work Practices Perspective
Stakeholder Perspective
13
Types of Individual Behavior
Task Performance
12
16
Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality,
and Values 32
17
Organizational Citizenship
17
Counterproductive Work Behaviors
Joining and Staying with the Organization
Maintaining Work Attendance
MARS Model of Individual Behavior and
Performance 34
18
18
18
Ability
Contemporary Challenges for Organizations 19
Globalization
20
20
Emerging Employment Relationships
Role Perceptions
The Systematic Research Anchor
24
36
37
Personality in Organizations
22
Anchors of Organizational Behavior
Knowledge 23
23
34
35
Situational Factors
Increasing Workforce Diversity
The Multidisciplinary Anchor
Employee Motivation
38
Personality Determinants: Nature versus Nurture
Five-Factor Model of Personality
39
39
Jungian Personality Theory and the Myers-Briggs
Type Indicator 41
Caveats about Personality Testing in Organizations 42
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Contents
ix
Self-Concept: The “I” in Organizational
Behavior 43
Self-Enhancement
Self-Verification
44
Self-Evaluation
44
Chapter 3 Perception and Learning in
Organizations 66
44
The Perceptual Process
Perceptual Organization and Interpretation
Social Identity and Stereotyping
Global Connections 2.1: Feeling Valued Adds
Value at Johnson & Johnson 45
The Social Self
Stereotyping in Organizations
Values in the Workplace
47
Attribution Theory
47
Attribution Errors
48
Value Congruence
Improving Perceptions
50
78
Improving Self-Awareness
Uncertainty Avoidance
Meaningful Interaction
51
Achievement-Nurturing Orientation
Ethical Values and Behavior
Three Ethical Principles
79
79
81
Learning in Organizations 82
52
Behavior Modification: Learning through
Reinforcement 82
52
53
Social Learning Theory: Learning by Observing
Moral Intensity, Ethical Sensitivity, and Situational
Influences 53
Supporting Ethical Behavior
77
79
Awareness of Perceptual Biases
50
Power Distance 51
Key Terms
76
Other Perceptual Errors
Individualism and Collectivism
Chapter Summary
76
Contingencies of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
49
49
Values across Cultures
71
72
75
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
Values and Individual Behavior
70
Global Connections 3.1: “Your Name Says
Everything in France” 74
46
Self-Concept and Organizational Behavior
Types of Values
68
Learning through Experience
Chapter Summary
56
Key Terms
56
88
89
Case Study 3.1: Hy Dairies, Inc. 90
Case Study 2.1: SK Telecom Goes Egalitarian in a
Hierarchical Society 57
Case Study 3.2: How Failure Breeds
Success 91
58
Class Exercise 3.3: The Learning Exercise
Case Study 2.3: The Trouble with Business
Ethics 59
Team Exercise 2.5: Comparing Cultural Values
Team Exercise 2.6: Ethics Dilemma Vignettes
Self-Assessment 3.5: How Much Perceptual Structure
Do You Need? 92
61
Self-Assessment 3.6: Assessing Your Perspective Taking
(Cognitive Empathy) 94
62
Self-Assessment 2.7: Are You Introverted or
Extroverted? 63
Self-Assessment 2.8: What Are Your Dominant Values?
Self-Assessment 2.9: Individualism-Collectivism Scale
Self-Assessment 2.10: Estimating Your Locus of
Control 64
91
Web Exercise 3.4: Stereotyping in Corporate Annual
Reports 92
Class Exercise 2.4: Test Your Knowledge of
Personality 60
Self-Assessment 2.11: Identifying Your General
Self-Efficacy 64
87
Critical Thinking Questions 89
Critical Thinking Questions 57
Case Study 2.2: Pushing Paper Can Be Fun
86
From Individual to Organizational Learning
54
85
Self-Asssessment 3.7: Assessing Your Emotional Empathy 94
64
64
Chapter 4 Workplace Emotions, Attitudes,
and Stress 96
Emotions in the Workplace
Types of Emotions
98
99
Emotions, Attitudes, and Behavior
100
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Contents
Managing Emotions at Work
103
Emotional Display Norms across Cultures
Emotional Dissonance
Global Connections 5.1: Shining the Spotlight
on Employee Recognition 137
103
What’s Wrong with Needs Hierarchy
Models? 138
104
Emotional Intelligence 105
Global Connections 4.1: GM Holden Revs Up
Emotional Intelligence 107
Improving Emotional Intelligence
Job Satisfaction
107
The Ethics of Job Satisfaction
Goal Setting and Feedback 145
Balanced Scorecard
112
Sources of Feedback
Consequences of Organizational
Commitment 112
114
115
Critical Thinking Questions 123
Case Study 4.1: Riding the Emotional Roller Coaster
123
Case Study 4.2: Dispatches from the War
on Stress 124
Class Exercise 4.3: Strength-Based Coaching
125
Chapter Summary
156
157
157
158
127
Self-Assessment 4.7: Dispositional Mood Scale
129
Self-Assessment 4.8: Work Addiction Risk Test
129
Self-Assessment 4.9: Perceived Stress Scale
Chapter 5 Foundations of Employee
Motivation 130
Employee Engagement 132
159
Team Exercise 5.4: A Question of Feedback
160
Self-Assessment 5.5: Need-Strength Questionnaire
161
Self-Assessment 5.6: Measuring Your Growth-Need
Strength 163
163
The Meaning of Money in the Workplace
Financial Reward Practices
129
Self-Assessment 4.10: Stress Coping Preference Scale
Class Exercise 5.3: Needs Priority Exercise
Chapter 6 Applied Performance
Practices 164
126
Self-Assessment 4.6: School Commitment Scale
129
134
135
166
167
Membership- and Seniority-Based
Rewards 167
Job Status–Based Rewards
168
Competency-Based Rewards
169
Performance-Based Rewards
170
Connections 6.1: Nucor Rewards the Team
134
Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory
155
Self-Assessment 5.7: Your Equity Sensitivity
Team Exercise 4.4: Ranking Jobs on Their Emotional
Labor 126
Individual Differences in Needs
Procedural Justice
Case Study 5.2: Motivating Staff When the
Money Is Tight 159
122
Employee Drives and Needs
151
Case Study 5.1: Vêtements Ltée
118
151
152
Critical-Thinking Questions
118
122
Team Exercise 4.5: Stage Fright!
Equity Theory
Key Terms
Stressors: The Causes of Stress 116
Managing Work-Related Stress
149
Organizational Justice
113
Work-Related Stress and Its Management 114
Individual Differences in Stress
148
Evaluating Goal Setting and Feedback
Building Organizational Commitment
General Adaptation Syndrome
147
Characteristics of Effective Feedback
Organizational Commitment 112
Key Terms
140
Expectancy Theory in Practice 144
Job Satisfaction and Work Behavior 109
Chapter Summary
Four-Drive Theory
138
Expectancy Theory of Motivation 143
108
Consequences of Distress
Learned Needs Theory
Improving Reward Effectiveness
172
Connections 6.2: When Rewards Go
Wrong 174
171
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Contents
Job Design Practices
xi
175
Evaluating Decision Outcomes
Job Design and Work Efficiency
175
Job Design and Work Motivation
Escalation of Commitment
177
Job Design Practices That Motivate
180
210
210
Evaluating Decision Outcomes More Effectively
212
Employee Involvement in Decision Making
213
Empowerment Practices
182
Benefits of Employee Involvement
Supporting Empowerment
182
Contingencies of Employee Involvement
Self-Leadership Practices 183
Self-Leadership Strategies
Creativity
184
Chapter Summary
Key Terms
186
214
215
Characteristics of Creative People
Effectiveness of Self-Leadership
Self-Leadership Contingencies
213
216
Connections 7.1: Going for Wow at NottinghamSpirk 217
186
Organizational Conditions Supporting Creativity
187
Activities That Encourage Creativity
188
Chapter Summary
Critical Thinking Questions 188
Case Study 6.1: The Regency Grand Hotel
Key Terms
188
Case Study 6.2: How to Make a Microserf
Smile 190
Team Exercise 6.3: Is Student Work Enriched?
219
221
222
Critical Thinking Questions 222
Case Study 7.1: Employee Involvement Cases
191
Self-Assessment 6.4: What Is Your Attitude toward
Money? 193
223
Case Study 7.2: P&G’s Designer
Thinking 224
Team Exercise 7.3: Where in the World Are We?
Self-Assessment 6.5: Assessing Your
Self-Leadership 194
Team Exercise 7.4: Winter Survival Exercise
Self-Assessment 6.6: Student Empowerment Scale
195
218
Class Exercise 7.5: The Hopping Orange
Class Exercise 7.6: Creativity Brainbusters
224
227
228
228
Self-Assessment 7.7: Measuring Your Creative Personality 229
Chapter 7 Decision Making and
Creativity 196
Self-Assessment 7.8: Testing Your Creative Bench Strength 230
Self-Assessment 7.9: Decision-Making Style Inventory 230
Rational Choice Paradigm of Decision
Making 198
Part 3 Team Processes 231
Problems with the Rational Choice
Paradigm 200
Identifying Problems and Opportunities
Problems with Problem Identification
200
201
Identifying Problems and Opportunities More
Effectively 202
Evaluating and Choosing Alternatives 203
Problems with Goals
203
Problems with Information Processing
Problems with Maximization
Evaluating Opportunities
206
Intuition and Making Choices
207
208
Making Choices More Effectively
Implementing Decisions
Chapter 8
206
Emotions and Making Choices
209
204
209
Team Dynamics
Teams and Informal Groups
Informal Groups
232
234
235
Advantages and Disadvantages of Teams
The Challenges of Teams
237
236
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Contents
A Model of Team Effectiveness
238
Organizational and Team Environment
Team Design Elements
Task Characteristics
Team Size
Choosing the Best Communication
Channel 277
239
Social Acceptance
240
Media Richness
240
Team Composition
Communication Barriers (Noise)
242
Global Connections 8.1: Royal Dutch Shell Finds
Team Players in Gourami 243
Team Processes 245
Team Development
Team Trust
245
249
Team Cohesion
250
Self-Directed Teams
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Gender
Communication 283
Nonverbal Differences across Cultures
284
Gender Differences in Communication
285
Active Listening
254
255
286
Workspace Design
Team Decision Making 256
Constraints on Team Decision Making
287
Web-Based Organizational Communication
256
Team Structures to Improve Decision Making
258
260
Chapter Summary
Case Study 8.1: The Shipping Industry
Accounting Team 262
Key Terms
289
264
265
Self-Assessment 8.5: What Team Roles Do You Prefer?
Self-Assessment 8.6: Are You a Team Player?
290
290
291
Critical Thinking Questions 291
Case Study 8.2: Philanthropic Team Building 263
Case Study 8.3: Seagate’s Morale-athon
265
267
Case Study 9.1: Communicating with the Millennials
Team Exercise 9.3: Analyzing the Blogosphere
294
294
Team Exercise 9.5: Cross-Cultural Communication Game 295
Self-Assessment 9.6: Active Listening Skills Inventory
Chapter 9 Communicating in Teams and
Organizations 268
The Importance of Communication 270
273
Connections 9.1: About-Face on Workplace
E-mail 274
Nonverbal Communication
276
271
300
A Model of Power in Organizations
Sources of Power in Organizations
272
Computer-Mediated Communication
Chapter 10 Power and Influence in the
Workplace 298
The Meaning of Power
A Model of Communication 271
Communication Channels
292
Case Study 9.2: It’s All about the
Face-to-Face 293
Team Exercise 9.4: Active Listening Exercise
Self-Assessment 8.7: How Trusting Are You? 267
Influences on Effective Encoding and Decoding
288
Communicating through the Grapevine 289
Grapevine Benefits and Limitations
Critical Thinking Questions 261
288
Direct Communication with Top Management
Grapevine Characteristics
261
Team Exercise 8.4: Team Tower Power
285
Improving Communication throughout the
Hierarchy 287
255
Success Factors for Virtual Teams
Key Terms
281
282
Getting Your Message Across
253
Success Factors for Self-Directed Teams
Chapter Summary
Information Overload
Improving Interpersonal
Communication 285
251
Virtual Teams
278
Communication Channels and Persuasion 281
242
Team Norms
278
Legitimate Power
Reward Power
Coercive Power
Expert Power
302
302
303
303
301
301
296
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Contents
Referent Power
303
Information and Power
Centrality
306
Discretion
306
Visibility
Global Connections 11.2: Conflict Overdrive at
VW and Porsche 334
304
Contingencies of Power
Substitutability
xiii
305
305
334
Scarce Resources
335
Ambiguous Rules
335
Communication Problems
335
Interpersonal Conflict-Handling Styles
307
Social Networking and Power
Choosing the Best Conflict-Handling Style
307
Global Connections 10.1: Powered by the Social
Network 308
Consequences of Power
Types of Influence Tactics
Reducing Differentiation
340
340
Improving Communication and Understanding
Influence Tactics and Organizational Politics 315
Conditions Supporting Organizational Politics
Chapter Summary
337
Cultural and Gender Differences in Conflict-Handling
Styles 339
Emphasizing Superordinate Goals
310
Consequences and Contingencies of Influence
Tactics 314
Personal Characteristics
336
Structural Approaches to Conflict
Management 340
309
Influencing Others 309
Key Terms
Interdependence
316
Reducing Interdependence
Increasing Resources
341
Clarifying Rules and Procedures
316
341
Resolving Conflict through Negotiation
317
Bargaining-Zone Model of Negotiations
317
Situational Influences on Negotiations
Critical Thinking Questions 318
Case Study 10.1: The Rise and Fall of WorldCom
318
Case Study 10.2: Rhonda Clark: Taking Charge at the
Smith Foundation 319
Case Study 10.3: Shaking Up Oxford
Team Exercise 10.4: Budget Deliberations
322
322
Self-Assessment 10.5: Guanxi Orientation Scale
Self-Assessment 10.6: Machiavellianism Scale
Negotiator Skills
324
Self-Assessment 10.7: Perceptions of Politics Scale (POPS) 324
342
343
343
345
Third-Party Conflict Resolution
346
Choosing the Best Third-Party Intervention
Strategy 347
Chapter Summary
323
341
341
Key Terms
349
349
Critical Thinking Questions 349
Case Study 11.1: Tamarack Industries
350
Case Study 11.2: The New Heat at Ford 351
Chapter 11 Conflict and Negotiation in the
Workplace 326
Is Conflict Good or Bad?
328
The Emerging View: Constructive and
Relationship Conflict 329
Class Exercise 11.3: The Contingencies of Conflict
Handling 352
Team Exercise 11.4: Ugli Orange Role Play
356
Self-Assessment 11.5: The Dutch Test for Conflict
Handling 357
Connections 11.1: Constructive Confrontation
inside Intel 331
Chapter 12 Leadership in Organizational
Settings 358
Conflict Process Model 331
What Is Leadership?
Structural Sources of Conflict in
Organizations 332
Competency Perspective of Leadership
Incompatible Goals
Differentiation
333
333
Shared Leadership
360
360
361
Competency Perspective Limitations and Practical
Implications 363
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Contents
Behavioral Perspective of Leadership
364
Elements of Organizational Structure
Choosing Task- versus People-Oriented
Leadership 364
Span of Control
Centralization and Decentralization
Contingency Perspective of Leadership
Path-Goal Theory of Leadership
Other Contingency Theories
Leadership Substitutes
365
365
Formalization
393
Forms of Departmentalization
370
Simple Structure
Transformational Perspective of Leadership 371
Functional Structure
396
Divisional Structure 397
Transformational versus Charismatic Leadership 372
Team-Based Structure
Elements of Transformational Leadership
Matrix Structure
373
Evaluating the Transformational Leadership
Perspective 374
Key Terms
External Environment
375
Organizational Size
376
Technology
407
407
Chapter Summary
Key Terms
379
408
408
409
Critical Thinking Questions 409
Critical Thinking Questions 379
Case Study 13.1: Macy’s Gets Personal
379
Case Study 12.2: Mack Attack
406
Organizational Strategy
378
Case Study 12.1: Profitel Inc.
403
Contingencies of Organizational Design 405
Cross-Cultural and Gender Issues in
Leadership 376
Chapter Summary
400
401
Network Structure
Implicit Leadership Perspective 375
The Romance of Leadership
394
395
396
Transformational versus Transactional Leadership 371
Prototypes of Effective Leaders
393
Mechanistic versus Organic Structures
368
390
390
381
Team Exercise 12.3: Leadership Diagnostic Analysis
381
Self-Assessment 12.4: What Is Your Boss’s Preferred
Leadership Style? 382
Part 4 Organizational
Processes 383
410
Case Study 13.2: More Than Cosmetic Changes
at Avon 411
Team Exercise 13.3: The Club Ed Exercise
412
Self-Assessment 13.4: What Organizational Structure Do
You Prefer? 412
Chapter 14
Organizational Culture
Elements of Organizational Culture
Content of Organizational Culture
Organizational Subcultures
414
416
418
419
Deciphering Organizational Culture through
Artifacts 420
Organizational Stories and Legends
Rituals and Ceremonies
Organizational Language
Chapter 13 Organizational Structure 384
Division of Labor and Coordination
Division of Labor
386
Coordinating Work Activities
387
386
420
421
422
Physical Structures and Symbols
422
Is Organizational Culture Important?
423
Contingencies of Organizational Culture and
Effectiveness 424
Organizational Culture and Business Ethics
426
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xv
Large-Group Interventions
Merging Organizational Cultures 426
Bicultural Audit
Strategies for Merging Different Organizational
Cultures 427
Cross-Cultural and Ethical Issues in
Organizational Change 461
Changing and Strengthening Organizational
Culture 429
Actions of Founders and Leaders
Aligning Artifacts
Organizational Behavior: The Journey
Continues 462
429
Chapter Summary
430
Key Terms
Introducing Culturally Consistent Rewards
431
Case Study 15.2: Inside Intel
433
Additional Cases
437
Critical Thinking Questions 437
438
Case Study 14.2: Merck’s New Cultural
Cure 439
Class Exercise 14.3: Diagnosing Corporate Culture
Proclamations 440
Self-Assessment 14.4: What Are Your Corporate Culture
Preferences? 441
Chapter 15 Organizational Change 442
Restraining Forces
444
469
1: A Mir Kiss? 469
2: Arctic Mining Consultants 471
3: Big Screen’s Big Failure 473
4: Bridging the Two Worlds—The Organizational
Dilemma 478
Case 5: Fran Hayden Joins Dairy Engineering 479
Case 6: From Lippert-Johanson Incorporated to Fenway
Waste Management 482
Case 7: Glengarry Regional Medical Center 484
Case 8: High Noon at Alpha Mills 488
Case 9: Keeping Suzanne Chalmers 490
Case 10: Northwest Canadian Forest Products
Limited 492
Case 11: Perfect Pizzeria 494
Case 12: Simmons Laboratories 495
Case 13: Treetop Forest Products 500
445
Connections 15.1: The FBI Meets Its Own
Resistance 448
Unfreezing, Changing, and Refreezing
Creating an Urgency for Change
450
Reducing the Restraining Forces
451
Refreezing the Desired Conditions
449
454
Change Agents, Strategic Visions, and Diffusing
Change 455
Change Agents and Strategic Visions
Diffusion of Change
467
Case
Case
Case
Case
436
Lewin’s Force Field Analysis Model
466
Self-Assessment 15.4: Are You Tolerant of Change?
Improving the Socialization Process 435
Case Study 14.1: Hillton’s Transformation
464
465
Team Exercise 15.3: Strategic Change Incidents
Socialization as a Learning and Adjustment
Process 433
Key Terms
463
Case Study 15.1: TransAct Insurance Corporation
Organizational Socialization 432
Stages of Organizational Socialization
462
Critical Thinking Questions 463
431
Attracting, Selecting, and Socializing Employees
Chapter Summary
460
Parallel Learning Structure Approach 461
427
455
502
Appendix A
Theory Building and Systematic Research Methods
Appendix B
Scoring Keys for Self-Assessment Activities
Glossary 525
References 531
Photo Credits 589
455
Four Approaches to Organizational Change 456
Action Research Approach
Video Cases
456
Appreciative Inquiry Approach 458
Organization Index 591
Name Index
595
Subject Index
URL Index
616
633
514
507
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preface
Welcome to the emerging knowledge and practice of organizational behavior! Social
networks and virtual teams are replacing committee meetings. Knowledge is replacing infrastructure. Values and self-leadership are replacing command-and-control
management. Companies are looking for employees with emotional intelligence and
team competencies, not just technical smarts. Diversity and globalization have become challenges as well as competitive opportunities for organizations. Co-workers
aren’t down the hall; they’re at the other end of an Internet connection located somewhere else on the planet.
Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, is written in the context of these emerging
workplace realities. This edition explains how emotions guide employee motivation,
attitudes, and decisions; how self-concept influences employee motivation and behavior, team cohesion, and leadership; how social networks are gaining importance
as a source of personal power and organizational effectiveness; and how appreciative
inquiry has become an important strategy for changing organizations. This book also
presents the new reality that organizational behavior is not just for managers; it is
relevant and useful to anyone who works in and around organizations.
Linking Theory with Reality
Every chapter of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, is filled with examples that
make OB knowledge more meaningful and reflect the relevance and excitement of
this field. These stories about real people and organizations translate academic theories into relevant knowledge. For example, you will read how Whole Foods Market
and La-Z-Boy have discovered the advantages of teamwork; how Sony Europe has
improved employee motivation through the positive organizational behavior practice
of strengths-based feedback; how Raytheon and other companies have mapped out
informal social networks throughout the organization; and how Ernst & Young,
Procter & Gamble, and several other firms are sending employees to overseas social
responsibility assignments to improve their global mindset and other perceptual
capabilities.
These real-life stories appear in many forms. Every chapter of Organizational
Behavior, Fifth Edition, offers several detailed photo captions and many more in-text
anecdotes. Lengthier stories are distinguished in a feature we call Connections, because
it “connects” OB concepts with real organizational incidents. Case studies in each
chapter and video case studies for each part of this book also connect OB concepts to
the emerging workplace realities. These stories provide representation across the
United States and around the planet. They also cover a wide range of industries—from
software to government, and from small businesses to the Fortune 500.
Global Orientation
One of the first things you might notice about this book is its strong global orientation. This goes beyond the traditional practice of describing how U.S. companies
operate in other parts of the world. Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, takes a truly
global approach by illustrating how organizational behavior concepts and practices
are relevant to companies in every part of the world. For example, you will read how
Mina Ishiwatari faced resistance to change as she transformed sleepy Tokyo-based
Hoppy Beverage Co. into a high-profile brand; how Volkswagen and Porsche
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Preface
xvii
executives are wrapped up in high-stakes conflict over how Volkswagen should be
run; how Air New Zealand CEO Rob Fyfe relies on a hands-on approach to improve
his and others’ perceptions; how Sweden’s Svenska Handelsbanken relies on employee empowerment and organizational rewards rather than centralized budgets to
manage the business; and how Mott MacDonald’s oil and gas team improves emotions and camaraderie through desert safari treks in Abu Dhabi.
This global orientation is also apparent in our discussion of many organizational
behavior topics. The first chapter of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, introduces
the concept of globalization. Global issues are then highlighted throughout the book,
such as cross-cultural values and ethics, development of a global mindset, job satisfaction and display of emotions in different societies, cross-cultural issues in the success
of self-directed work teams, problems with cross-cultural communication, cultural
values and expectations as a factor in preferred influence tactics, the handling of conflict differently across cultures, and preferred leadership styles across cultures.
Contemporary Theory Foundation
Vivid real-world examples and practices are only valuable if they are connected to
good theory. Organizational Behavior has developed a reputation for its solid foundation of contemporary and classic research and writing. You can see this in the references. Each chapter is based on dozens of articles, books, and other sources. The
most recent literature receives thorough coverage, resulting in what we believe is the
most up-to-date organizational behavior textbook available. These references also
reveal that we reach out to marketing, information management, human resource
management, and other disciplines for new ideas. At the same time, this textbook is
written for students, not the scholars whose work is cited. So, although this book provides new knowledge and its practical implications, it rarely names researchers and
their university affiliations. It focuses on organizational behavior knowledge rather
than “who’s who” in the field.
One of the driving forces for writing Organizational Behavior was to provide a conduit whereby emerging OB knowledge more quickly reaches students, practitioners,
and fellow scholars. This objective is so important that we state it in the subtitle of
this book. To its credit, Organizational Behavior was the first textbook to discuss workplace emotions, social identity theory, four-drive theory, appreciative inquiry, affective events theory (but without the jargon), somatic marker theory (also without the
jargon), virtual teams, future-search events, Schwartz’s value model, resilience,
employee engagement, learning orientation, workaholism, and several other groundbreaking topics. This edition introduces additional emerging OB concepts and practices, including social networking communication, the competencies of effective team
members, exceptions to media richness theory, the importance of self-concept in
organizational behavior, the globally integrated enterprise, the global mindset, and
strengths-based feedback.
Organizational Behavior Knowledge for Everyone
Another distinctive feature of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, is that it is written
for everyone in organizations, not just managers. The philosophy of this book is that
everyone who works in and around organizations needs to understand and make use
of organizational behavior knowledge. The contemporary reality is that people
throughout the organization—systems analysts, production employees, accounting
professionals—are assuming more responsibilities as companies remove layers of
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Preface
management and give the rest of us more autonomy over our work. This book helps
everyone to make sense of organizational behavior and provides the conceptual tools
needed to work more effectively in the workplace.
Active Learning and Critical Thinking Support
We teach organizational behavior, so we understand how important it is to use a textbook that offers deep support for active learning and critical thinking. The fact that
business school accreditation associations also emphasize the importance of the learning experience further reinforces our attention to classroom activities. Organizational
Behavior, Fifth Edition, includes more than two dozen case studies in various forms
and levels of complexity. It offers three dozen self-assessments, most of which have
received construct validation. This book is also a rich resource for in-class activities,
some of which are not available in other organizational behavior textbooks, such
as “Test Your Knowledge of Personality,” “Where in the World Are We?” and “CrossCultural Communication Game.”
Changes to the Fifth Edition
Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, has benefited from reviews by several dozen
organizational behavior teachers and researchers in several countries over the past
two years. The most significant structural change is that we have reduced the book to
15 chapters so that it more closely parallels the number of weeks in a typical OB
course. This edition also continues to update current knowledge in every chapter and
provides fresh examples to illustrate theories and concepts. The most notable improvements to this edition are described below:
•
•
•
Chapter 1: Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior. This chapter has
been substantially revised and updated. It introduces four perspectives of organizational effectiveness (the ultimate dependent variable in OB), so students
now have an excellent macro-OB foundation for topics throughout this book.
The organizational effectiveness section also provides better organization for
open systems, organizational learning, high-performance work practices, and
values and ethics. The five types of individual behavior are also described in
this chapter as a natural micro-OB flow from the organizational effectiveness
discussion. The topic of workforce diversity now distinguishes surface from
deep-level diversity. Discussion of the systematic research anchor now includes
the concept of evidence-based management.
Chapter 2: Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values. This edition provides important new knowledge about self-concept, including its main components (selfenhancement, self-verification, self-evaluation, and social identity) and their
relevance for organizational behavior. This edition also has a rewritten and expanded discussion of personality in line with the topic’s increasing importance
in OB. The MARS model now includes a fuller conceptual background.
Chapter 3: Perception and Learning in Organizations. This edition updates the section on selective attention, organization, and interpretation on the basis of the
rapidly developing research on this topic. It also introduces the increasingly
popular concept of global mindset in the context of perception and learning.
The chapter adds discussion about false-consensus effect as well as the implicit
association test. It also reorganizes into one section the discussion about practices that minimize perceptual problems. Positive organizational behavior,
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Preface
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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xix
which was introduced in previous editions, is described in this chapter and
mentioned again in subsequent chapters of this book.
Chapter 4: Workplace Emotions, Attitudes, and Stress. This chapter now incorporates the topic of stress, which is closely related to workplace emotions. It continues to present a clearer explanation of the dual (cognitive and emotional) processes
of attitudes and provides a fuller understanding about the dimensions of emotional intelligence. This chapter also discusses “shock events” in job satisfaction.
Chapter 5: Foundations of Employee Motivation. The previous edition was apparently the first OB book to discuss employee engagement. This edition moves
the topic to this chapter, so employee engagement is more closely connected to
employee motivation as well as the MARS model. The balanced scorecard has
also been moved to this chapter, because of its emphasis on goal setting more
than rewards. The chapter also distinguishes drives from needs and explains
how drives and emotions are the prime movers of human motivation. It describes Maslow’s contribution to the field of human motivation. Organizational
Behavior was the first OB textbook to introduce four-drive theory, and this edition further refines the description of that model and its practical implications.
Finally, this chapter introduces the positive organizational behavior concept
and practice called strengths-based feedback.
Chapter 6: Applied Performance Practices. This edition adds emerging information
about the situational and personal influences on self-leadership. It also updates
information about the meaning of money and reward practices.
Chapter 7: Decision Making and Creativity. This edition introduces three of the decision heuristic biases discovered and popularized by Kahneman and Tversky.
The chapter also revises and updates the discussion of problems with problem
identification, the section on the influence of emotions on making choices, and
the section on characteristics of creative people. It also has a more dedicated
overview of the rational choice concept of subjective expected utility.
Chapter 8: Team Dynamics. This edition combines the two chapters on teams
found in previous editions. It summarizes types of teams and more fully discusses the potential benefits and problems with teams. Furthermore, this edition
introduces new information on the competencies of effective team members, revises the writing on self-directed teams and virtual teams, and provides emerging knowledge about two key processes in team development: team identity
and team competence.
Chapter 9: Communicating in Teams and Organizations. The previous edition was
apparently the first OB textbook to discuss the role of blogs and wikis in organizations. This edition continues this leadership with new information about social networking communication. Other new knowledge in this chapter includes
the topic of multicommunicating, social acceptance as a contingency in the selection of communication channels, conditions that offset the effects of media
richness, and four factors that influence the effectiveness of the communication
process (i.e., encoding and decoding).
Chapter 10: Power and Influence in the Workplace. This chapter further develops the
section on social networking as a source of power. It also adds a separate section
on the consequences of power.
Chapter 11: Conflict and Negotiation in the Workplace. This edition offers a more
detailed look at the contingencies of conflict handling. It also revises and
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Preface
•
•
•
•
updates the development of thinking about whether conflict is good or bad.
This description includes the emerging model of constructive versus relationship conflict and the ways to allow the former while suppressing the latter. The
discussion of negotiation now includes more specific advice regarding making
concessions.
Chapter 12: Leadership in Organizational Settings. In this edition, the competency
perspective of leadership has been rewritten to incorporate new information
about personality, self-concept, practical intelligence, and other specific competencies. The topic of implicit leadership has also been revised to incorporate
the distinction between leadership prototypes and the romance of leadership.
The topic of shared leadership has been expanded.
Chapter 13: Organizational Structure. This edition describes the globally integrated
enterprise in the section on forms of departmentalization. The liability of newness is now discussed in the section on organic structures. The chapter also
revises writing on span of control and tall/flat structures and introduces
concurrent engineering practices in the context of informal coordinating mechanisms. The (dis)advantages of tall versus flat structures also receive more
precise discussion.
Chapter 14: Organizational Culture. This edition more specifically (than in past
editions) critiques the “integration” perspective of organizational culture by referring to the alternative differentiation and fragmentation views of this topic. It
also describes attraction-selection-attrition theory as well as the Organizational
Culture Profile model. The section on organizational culture and performance
and the section on changing and strengthening organizational culture have been
substantially rewritten.
Chapter 15: Organizational Change. In this edition, the topic of resistance to
change is further updated regarding the three functions of resistance. We added
a new section on large-group interventions as a distinct fourth approach to organizational change. The topics of urgency for change and future-search conferences also received minor updates.
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supporting the learning process
The changes described
previously refer only to the
text material. Organizational
Behavior, Fifth Edition, also
has improved technology
supplements, cases, videos,
team exercises, and selfassessments.
One of Robert Iger’s first tasks as Walt Disney Co.’s new CEO was to acquire Pixar
Animation Studios and put its leaders—John Lasseter (shown in this photo) and Ed
Catmull—in charge of Disney’s own animation unit, Walt Disney Animation Studios. The
studio that brought us Mickey Mouse and The Lion King had become moribund over the
past decade, eclipsed by Pixar’s award-winning productions. Disney already had lucrative
distribution rights to Pixar’s first five films, including any sequels, but Iger wanted something
much more valuable. He wanted the organizational behavior practices that have made Pixar
a powerhouse filmmaker, from Toy Storyy to Wall-E
E.
Pixar’s success is founded on the notion that
companies depend on the quality of their employees and
how well they collaborate with each other. “From the very
beginning, we recognized we had to get the best people,
technically, from the computer science world, and from
the artistic filmmaking animation world, and get them
working together,” explains John Lasseter, who is now
chief creative officer of both Pixar and Disney Animation
Studios. “That, right there, is probably the secret to Pixar.”
Pixar enables people to work together in several ways.
First, the company relies on long-term employment
relationships rather than short-term project contracts.
These long-term relationships improve team development
and social networks. “The problem with the Hollywood
model is that it’s generally the day you wrap production
that you realize you’ve finally figured out how to work
together,” says Randy Nelson, head of Pixar University.
“We’ve made the leap from an idea-centered business to a
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people-centered business.” Pixar’s campus in Emeryville,
California, is another reason why employees work well
Several organizational behavior practices have helped
Pixar Animation Studios become the world’s most
successful animation studio.
together. The buildings were designed to cluster people
into teams yet also to encourage chance encounters with
people from other projects. “When people run into each
other and make eye contact, innovative things happen,” says Pixar director Brad Bird.
Yasmeen Youssef’s self-confidence was a bit shaky when she and her husband moved
from Egypt to Canada a few years ago. “I was worried no one would take a chance on
me, would believe in me,” she recalls. But any self-doubts slowly disappeared after
taking an entry-level job with Fairmont Hotels & Resorts corporate offices in Toronto.
“Everything changed when I started working at Fairmont,” says Youssef, who is now on
Fairmont’s human resource team and recently trained new staff in Cairo. “I can’t believe
the amount of value, care, respect everyone has extended to me.”
As North America’s largest luxury hotel operator,
Fairmont discovered long ago that one of the secret
Pixar’s egalitarian, no-nonsense, perfectionist culture is a third reason why the
animation studio’s staff members work effectively. The company gives power to its
production teams rather than to senior executives, but these teams are also ruthless at
writing and rendering scenes several times until they look right. All employees—from
entry-level newcomers to the CEO—are encouraged to be creative and offer candid
feedback about work in progress. Production teams have regular “sweatbox” sessions
at which problems are discussed openly. Even the most successful films receive a
“postmortem” to discover how they could have been improved. “Our job is to address
problems even when we’re successful,” explains Pixar/Disney Animation president Ed
Catmull, whose leadership is identified as the foundation of Pixar’s unique culture.1
ingredients for employee performance and well-being
is supporting the individual’s self-concept. “People want
to feel valued and they stay where they feel valued,”
says Carolyn Clark, Fairmont’s senior vice president of
human resources. Clark also points out that Fairmont
is able to nurture this talent by selecting the best,
which means hiring people with the right values and
personality for superb customer service. “We believed
that we could train the technical skills—that’s the easy
part,” Clark explained a few years ago. “What we can’t
train is the service orientation. We just can’t put people
in the training program and say they are going to come
out smiling if that is not inherent in them.”
Along with hiring people with the right values and
personality and nurturing their self-concept, Fairmont
is developing staff to work effectively in a multicultural
world. Sean Billing is a case in point. The economics
graduate had been working as Fairmont’s director of
rooms in Chicago when he casually asked his boss
OPENING VIGNETTE
Each chapter begins with an engaging
opening vignette that sets the stage for
the chapter. These brief but interesting case
studies introduce students to critical issues,
challenge their preconceptions, and highlight
some of today’s hottest companies.
whether the hotel chain could use his skills and
Fairmont Hotels has excelled as North America’s largest
luxury hotel operator by hiring people such as Yasmeen
Youssef (shown here) with the right values and personality
and then nurturing their self-concept and cross-cultural
competencies.
knowledge elsewhere. Soon after, Billing was offered
a position in Kenya, bringing Fairmont’s new properties
in the African country up to world-class standards
through training and technology without losing the
distinctive Kenyan character. Billing jumped at the
opportunity, but he also recognizes the challenge of inculcating Fairmont’s deep values
of customer service, environmentalism, and empowerment into another culture. “It’s a
little bit of hotel culture shock . . . things are quite different here,” he says.1
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Supporting the Learning Process
1
Introduction to the Field of
Organizational Behavior
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Define organizational behaviorr and
organizations and discuss the importance
of this field of inquiry.
2. Diagram an organization from an
open-systems perspective.
Page
3. mcs81233_ch01_001-030.indd
Define intellectual capitall and describe
the 7
organizational learning perspective of
organizational effectiveness.
4. Diagnose the extent to which an
organization or one of its work units applies
high-performance work practices.
5. Explain how the stakeholder perspective
emphasizes the importance of values,
ethics, and corporate social responsibility.
6. Summarize the five types of individual
behavior in organizations.
7. Debate the organizational opportunities and
challenges of globalization, workforce
diversity, and virtual work.
1/10/09
7:33:57
AM user-s175
8. Discuss
how employment
relationships are
changing and explain why these changes
are occurring.
9. Discuss the anchors on which
organizational behavior knowledge is
based.
Learning
Objectives
A topical guide for the student, a list of
Learning Objectives not only can be found
at the beginning of each chapter, but
correspondingly throughout chapter.
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After reading the next two sections, you should be able to:
2. Diagram an organization from an open-systems perspective.
3. Define intellectual capital and describe the organizational learning
perspective of organizational effectiveness.
4. Diagnose the extent to which an organization or one of its work
units applies high-performance work practices.
5. Explain how the stakeholder perspective emphasizes the importance
of values, ethics, and corporate social responsibility.
6. Summarize the five types of individual behavior in organizations.
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Supporting the Learning Process
xxiii
CAPTIONS
BEYOND
CURSORY
Going beyond the simple
caption, richly detailed
photos are accompanied by
more in-depth narrative.
Google Attracts and Keeps Talent through “Cool” Campuses Google is ranked by college students in many countries as one of the
top 10 places to work. One reason why the Internet technology company is able to attract so many applicants is that its workplaces
look like every student’s dream of a college campus and dorm. Google’s headquarters (called Googleplex) in Mountain View,
California, is outfitted with lava lamps, exercise balls, casual sofas, foosball, pool tables, workout rooms, video games, slides, and
a restaurant with free gourmet meals. Google’s new EMEA engineering hub in Zurich, Switzerland, also boasts a fun, campuslike
environment. These photos show a few areas of Google’s offices in Zurich, including private temporary workspaces in beehives and
ski gondolas. Google’s offices are so comfortable that executives occasionally remind staff of building code regulations against making
Google’s offices their permanent home.59
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Global Connections 1.1
Connections boxes
connect OB concepts
with real organizational
incidents. Periodically,
these boxes highlight
organizational behavior
issues around the world
and are entitled Global
Connections.
Hospitals Take the Lean Journey
to Efficiency
Building Nissan automobiles seems unrelated to serving
surgical patients, but staff at Sunderland Royal Hospital can
see the similarities. The hospital in northern England recently
borrowed several lean management ideas from the nearby
Nissan factory, one of the most efficient car plants in Europe,
to improve its day surgery unit. “We took [Sunderland hospital
staff] on a tour of our plant, showing them a variety of lean
processes in action, and let them decide which ones could
be applied back at the hospital,” says a training manager at
Nissan’s factory in Sunderland.
Sunderland’s day surgery staff members were actively involved in applying lean management to their work unit. After
attending Nissan’s two-day workshop on lean thinking, they
mapped out the work processes, questioned assumptions
about the value or relevance of some activities, and discovered ways to reduce the lengthy patient wait times (which
were up to three hours). There was some initial resistance and
skepticism, but the hospital’s day surgery soon realized significant improvements in efficiency and service quality.
“By working with Nissan’s staff, we have streamlined the
patient pathway from 29 to 11 discrete stages,” says Anne
Fleming (shown in photo), who oversees Sunderland’s 32-bed
day-case unit and its 54 employees. “We have done this by
reducing duplication, halving the time that patients spend in
the unit to three hours by giving them individual appointment
times, and introducing the just-in-time approach to the patient
pathway.” Fleming also reports that Sunderland’s operating
rooms are now much more efficient.
Sunderland Royal Hospital is one of many health care centers around the world that are improving efficiency through
lean thinking. After receiving training in Japan on lean practices, several teams of doctors, nurses, and other staff from
Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, redesigned workflows to cut out 34 miles of unnecessary walking
each day. Park Nicollet Health Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota, improved efficiency at its ambulatory clinic to such an
extent that the unit does not require a patient waiting area.
One Park Nicollet team worked with orthopedic surgeons to
reduce by 60 percent the variety of instruments and supplies
they ordered for hip and knee surgery. The trauma team at
CONNECTIONS
Sunderland Royal Hospital learned from the nearby Nissan
factory how to implement lean management in its new day
surgery unit.
Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust in the United Kingdom reduced average wait times for patients with fractured hips by 38 percent
(from 2.4 to 1.7 days), which also resulted in a lower mortality
rate for these patients. By smoothing out the inflow of work
orders and rearranging the work process, Bolton’s pathology
department cut the time required to process samples, previously 24 to 30 hours, to just 2 to 3 hours and reduced the space
used by 50 percent.
“We know that our case for extra funding will fall on deaf
ears unless we cut out waste in the system,” explains Dr. Gill
Morgan, chief executive of the U.K.’s NHS Confederation.
“Lean works because it is based on doctors, nurses, and other
staff leading the process and telling us what adds value and
what doesn’t. They are the ones who know.”25
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end-of-chapter material geared
toward application
TEAM EXERCISES AND
SELF-ASSESSMENTS
An example of a self-assessment found on the Online Learning Center.
Experiential exercises and self-assessments
represent an important part of the active
learning process. Organizational Behavior,
Fifth Edition, supports that learning process
by offering team and class exercises in every
chapter. Many of these learning activities are
not available in other organizational behavior
textbooks—for example, “Test Your Knowledge
of Personality” (Chapter 2), “Cross-Cultural
Communication Game” (Chapter 9), and
“Contingencies of Conflict Handling” (Chapter 11).
This edition also has three dozen self-assessments in
the book or at the Online Learning Center. Selfassessments personalize the meaning of several
organizational behavior concepts, such as
extroversion/introversion, self-leadership, empathy,
stress, creative disposition, and tolerance of change.
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Self-Assessment 2.7
ARE YOU INTROVERTED OR EXTROVERTED?
PURPOSE This self-assessment is designed to help
you estimate the extent to which you are introverted
or extroverted.
INSTRUCTIONS The statements in the scale below refer to personal characteristics that might or
might not be characteristic of you. Mark the box indicating the extent to which the statement accurately
or inaccurately describes you. Then use the scoring
key in Appendix B at the end of this book to calculate your results. This exercise should be completed
alone so that you can assess yourself honestly without concerns of social comparison. Class discussion
will focus on the meaning and implications of extroversion and introversion in organizations.
IPIP Introversion-Extroversion Scale
How accurately does each
of the statements listed
below describe you?
Very
accurate
description
of me
Moderately
accurate
Neither
accurate nor
inaccurate
Moderately
inaccurate
Very
inaccurate
description
of me
1. I feel comfortable around
people.
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2. I make friends easily.
3. I keep in the background.
4. I don’t talk a lot.
5. I would describe my
experiences as somewhat dull.
Team Exercise 2.6
ETHICS DILEMMA VIGNETTES
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to make you
aware of the ethical dilemmas people face in various
business situations, as well as the competing principles and values that operate in these situations.
from buying the product at a lower price in another
region. The company says this policy allows it to
maintain stable prices within a region rather than continually changing prices due to currency fluctuations.
INSTRUCTIONS (SMALL CLASS) The instructor
will form teams of four or five students. Team members will read each case below and discuss the extent
to which the company’s action in each case was ethical. Teams should be prepared to justify their evaluation using ethics principles and the perceived moral
intensity of each incident.
CASE THREE For the past few years, the design department of a small (40-employee) company has been
using a particular software program, but the three employees who use the software have been complaining
for more than a year that the software is out of date and
is slowing down their performance. The department
agreed to switch to a competing software program,
costing several thousand dollars. However, the next
version won’t be released for six months and buying
the current version will not allow much discount on the
next version. The company has put in advance orders
for the next version. Meanwhile, one employee was
able to get a copy of the current version of the software
from a friend in the industry. The company has allowed the three employees to use this current version
of the software even though they did not pay for it.
INSTRUCTIONS (LARGE CLASS) Working alone,
read each case below and determine the extent to
which the company’s action in each case was ethical.
The instructor will use a show of hands to determine
the extent to which students believe the case represents an ethical dilemma (high or low moral intensity)
and the extent to which the main people or company
in each incident acted ethically.
CASE ONE An employee who worked for a major
food retailer wrote a Weblog (blog) and, in one of his
writings, complained that his boss wouldn’t let him go
home when he felt sick and that his district manager
refused to promote him because of his dreadlocks.
His blog named the employer, but the employee
didn’t use his real name. Although all blogs are on
the Internet, the employee claims that his was lowprofile and that it didn’t show up in a Google search
of his name or the company. Still, the employer somehow discovered the blog, figured out the employee’s
real name, and fired him for “speaking ill-will of the
company in a public domain.”
CASE TWO Computer printer manufacturers usually sell printers at a low margin over cost and generate much more income from subsequent sales of the
high-margin ink cartridges required for each printer.
One global printer manufacturer now designs its printers so that they work only with ink cartridges made in
the same region. Ink cartridges purchased in the
United States will not work with the same printer
model sold in Europe, for example. This “region coding” of ink cartridges does not improve performance.
Rather, it prevents consumers and gray marketers
xxiv
CASE FOUR Judy Price is a popular talk-show radio personality and opinionated commentator on the
morning phone-in show of a popular radio station in a
large U.S. city. Price is married to John Tremble, an
attorney who was recently elected mayor of the city
even though he had no previous experience in public
office. The radio station’s board of directors is very
concerned that the station’s perceived objectivity will
be compromised if Price remains on air as a commentator and talk-show host while her husband holds such
a public position. For example, the radio station manager believes that Price gave minimal attention to an
incident in which environmental groups criticized the
city for its slow progress on recycling. Price denied
that her views are biased and stated that the incident
didn’t merit as much attention as other issues that particular week. To ease the board’s concerns, the station
manager transferred Price from her talk-show host
and commentator position to the hourly news reporting position, where most of the script is written by others. Although the reporting job is technically a lower
position, Price’s total salary package remains the same.
Price is now seeking professional advice to determine
whether the radio station’s action represents a form of
discrimination on the basis of marital status.
6. I know how to captivate
people.
7. I don’t like to draw attention
to myself.
8. I am the life of the party.
9. I am skilled in handling
social situations.
10. I have little to say.
Source:
Adapted from
instruments
described and/or presented in L. R.
Goldberg, J. A. Johnson, H. W. Eber,
R. Hogan, M. C. Ashton, C. R. Cloninger,
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and H. C. Gough, “The International Personality Item Pool and the Future of Public-Domain Personality Measures,” Journal of Research in Personality
40 (2006), pp. 84–96.
CRITICAL THINKING QUESTIONS
Critical Thinking Questions
1.
An insurance company has high levels of absenteeism
among the office staff. The head of office administration argues that employees are misusing the company’s sick leave benefits. However, some of the mostly
female staff members have explained that family
responsibilities interfere with work. Using the MARS
model, as well as your knowledge of absenteeism
behavior, discuss some of the possible reasons for
absenteeism here and how it might be reduced.
2. As the district manager responsible for six stores in a
large electronics retail chain, you have had difficulty
with the performance of some sales employees. Although they are initially motivated and generally have
good interpersonal skills, many have difficulty with the
complex knowledge of the wide variety of store products, ranging from computers to high-fidelity sound
systems. Describe three strategies you might apply to
improve the match between the competencies of new
sales employees and the job requirements.
3. Studies report that heredity has a strong influence on
an individual’s personality. What are the implications
of this in organizational settings?
4. Suppose that you give all candidates applying for a
management trainee position a personality test that
measures the five dimensions in the five-factor
model. Which personality traits would you consider
to be the most important for this type of job? Explain
your answer.
5. An important aspect of self-concept is the idea that
almost everyone engages in self-enhancement. What
problems tend to occur in organizations as a result of
the self-enhancement phenomenon? What can organizational leaders do to make use of a person’s inherent drive for self-enhancement?
6. This chapter discussed value congruence mostly
in the context of an employee’s personal values
versus the organization’s values. But value congruence also relates to the juxtaposition of other pairs
of value systems. Explain how value congruence is
relevant with respect to organizational versus professional values (i.e., values of a professional occupation, such as physician, accountant, pharmacist).
7. People in a particular South American country have
high power distance and high collectivism. What
does this mean, and what are the implications of this
information when you (a senior executive) visit employees working for your company in that country?
8. “All decisions are ethical decisions.” Comment on
this statement, particularly by referring to the concepts of moral intensity and ethical sensitivity.
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End-of-Chapter Material Geared Toward Application
xxv
BUSINESSWEEK CASE STUDIES
Case Study 2.3
Found at the end of each chapter, BusinessWeek case
studies introduce the online full-text article and provide
critical thinking questions for class discussion or assignments.
These cases encourage students to understand and
diagnose real-world issues using organizational behavior
knowledge. For example, one case study challenges
students to identify and evaluate the strategies that
Merck CEO Richard Clark has applied to transform the
culture of the pharmaceutical company. Another case
study asks students to explain design thinking at
Procter & Gamble and to relate design thinking to the
decision-making process in organizations.
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Case Study 3.1
THE TROUBLE WITH BUSINESS ETHICS
Business ethics may have risen
to the top of most executive
agendas, but Wal-Mart Stores
has learned that practicing ethics can also present
ethical dilemmas. A few months after going through
a new employee training session with a heavy emphasis on ethics, Chalace Epley Lowry acted on the
guidance to report any activity that seemed the least
bit suspicious. Lowry told the company’s ethics office about possible insider trading by one of her supervisors. Wal-Mart’s investigation concluded that
the supervisor had done nothing wrong, but Lowry
soon discovered that her identity as the whistleblower had been revealed to the supervisor she accused of wrongdoing. Now Lowry is looking for
another job, but there’s no guarantee she’ll get transferred at Wal-Mart.
This BusinessWeek case study examines the challenges of supporting ethics hotlines and whistleblowing, and it discusses the reasons why employees
are reluctant to communicate ethical wrongdoing.
Read the full text of this BusinessWeek article at www.
mhhe.com/mcshane5e, and prepare for the discussion questions below.
Discussion Questions
1. In an organization’s efforts to maintain ethical
standards, how important is it to encourage and
support employees who report possible incidents
of ethical wrongdoing (i.e., engage in whistleblowing)? Why? What can companies do to support whistle-blowers?
2. What actions are described in this case study that
companies have taken to improve ethical standards in their organizations? Are these actions
substantive changes or mostly symbolic? Why?
Source: P. Gogoi, “The Trouble with Business Ethics,” BusinessWeek
Online, 22 June 2007.
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HY DAIRIES, INC.
Syd Gilman read the latest sales figures with a great
After a long silence, Beauport managed a
deal of satisfaction. The vice president of marketing weak “Thank you, Mr. Gilman.” She was too beat Hy Dairies, Inc., a large midwestern milk prod- wildered to protest. She wanted to collect her
ucts manufacturer, was pleased to see that the mar- thoughts and reflect on what she had done wrong.
keting campaign to improve sagging sales of Hy’s Also, she did not know her boss well enough to be
gourmet ice-cream brand was working. Sales vol- openly critical.
ume and market share of the product had increased
Gilman recognized Beauport’s surprise, which he
significantly over the past two quarters compared naturally assumed was her positive response to hearwith the previous year.
ing of this wonderful career opportunity. He, too,
The improved sales of Hy’s gourmet ice cream had been delighted several years earlier about his
could be credited to Rochelle Beauport, who was temporary transfer to marketing research to round
assigned to the gourmet ice-cream brand last year. out his marketing experience. “This move will be
Beauport had joined Hy less than two years ago as good for both you and Hy Dairies,” said Gilman as
an assistant brand manager after leaving a similar he escorted Beauport from his office.
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Beauport was preoccupied
with
several
tasks
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women of color in marketing management at Hy that afternoon, but she was able to consider the
Dairies and had a promising career with the com- day’s events that evening. She was one of the top
pany. Gilman was pleased with Beauport’s work women and few minorities in brand management
and tried to let her know this in the annual perfor- at Hy Dairies and feared that she was being sidemance reviews. He now had an excellent opportu- lined because the company didn’t want women or
nity to reward her by offering her the recently people of color in top management. Her previous
vacated position of market research coordinator. Al- employer had made it quite clear that women
though technically only a lateral transfer with a “couldn’t take the heat” in marketing management
modest salary increase, the marketing research coor- and tended to place women in technical support
dinator job would give Beauport broader experience positions after a brief term in lower brand managein some high-profile work, which would enhance ment jobs. Obviously Syd Gilman and Hy Dairies
her career with Hy Dairies. Few people were aware were following the same game plan. Gilman’s comthat Gilman’s own career had been boosted by ment that the coordinator job would be good for
working as marketing research coordinator at Hy her was just a nice way of saying that Beauport
several years earlier.
couldn’t go any further in brand management at
Rochelle Beauport had also seen the latest sales Hy Dairies.
figures on Hy’s gourmet ice cream and was expectBeauport now faced the difficult decision of
ing Gilman’s call to meet with her that morning. whether to confront Gilman and try to change Hy
Gilman began the conversation by briefly mention- Dairies’ sexist and possibly racist practices or to
ing the favorable sales figures and then explained leave the company.
that he wanted Beauport to take the marketing research coordinator job. Beauport was shocked by
Questions
the news. She enjoyed brand management and par- Discussion
Perception involves selecting, organizing, and interpretticularly the challenge involved with controlling a 1. Apply
ing information
to make sense
of the worldand
around
your knowledge
of stereotyping
so- us.
product that directly affected the company’s profitPerceptual
engageswhat
categorical
thinking—the
cial
identity organization
theory to explain
went wrong
ability. Marketing research coordinator was a technimostly nonconscious process of organizing people and
here.
objects into preconceived categories that are stored in our
cal support position—a “backroom” job—far removed
othermemory.
perceptual
error
is apparent in
this
long-term
Mental
models—internal
representafrom the company’s bottom-line activities. Market- 2. What
case
study?
tions
of the external world—also help us to make sense of
ing research was not the route to top management in
incoming
stimuli.
can organizations
do to minimize mispermost organizations, Beauport thought. She had been 3. What
Socialinidentity
theoryof
explains
how we perceive people
ceptions
these types
situations?
sidelined.
CHAPTER CASES AND
ADDITIONAL END-OF-TEXT
CASES
Every chapter includes at least one short case study
that challenges students to diagnose issues and
apply ideas from that chapter. One dozen additional
cases appear at the end of the book. Several cases
are new to this book and are written by instructors
around the United States and from other countries.
Other cases, such as Arctic Mining Consultants, are
classics that have withstood the test of time.
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Chapter Summary
through categorization, homogenization, and differentiation.
Stereotyping is a derivative of social identity theory, in
which people assign traits to others based on their membership in a social category. Stereotyping economizes mental
effort, fills in missing information, and enhances our selfperception and social identity. However, it also lays the
foundation for prejudice and systemic discrimination.
The attribution process involves deciding whether
an observed behavior or event is caused mainly by the
person (internal factors) or the environment (external
factors). Attributions are decided by perceptions of the
consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus of the behavior. This process helps us to link together the various
pieces of our world in cause-effect relationships, but it is
also subject to attribution errors, including fundamental
attribution error and self-serving bias.
Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when our expectations
about another person cause that person to act in a way that
is consistent with those expectations. Essentially, our expectations affect our behavior toward the target person, which
then affects that employee’s opportunities and attitudes,
which then influences his or her behavior. Self-fulfilling
prophecies tend to be stronger when the relationship begins
(such as when employees first join the department), when
several people hold the expectations toward the employee,
and when the employee has a history of low achievement.
Four other perceptual errors commonly noted in organizations are the halo effect, primacy effect, recency effect, and false-consensus effect. We can minimize these
and other perceptual problems through awareness of perceptual bias, self-awareness, and meaningful interaction.
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior
(or behavior tendency) that occurs as a result of a person’s interaction with the environment. Much of what
we learn is tacit knowledge, which is embedded in our
actions without conscious awareness.
The behavior modification perspective of learning states
that behavior change occurs by altering its antecedents and
consequences. Antecedents are environmental stimuli that
provoke (not necessarily cause) behavior. Consequences
are events following behavior that influence its future
occurrence. Consequences include positive reinforcement,
punishment, negative reinforcement, and extinction. The
schedules of reinforcement also influence behavior.
Social learning theory states that much learning occurs
by observing others and then modeling the behaviors
that seem to lead to favorable outcomes and avoiding
behaviors that lead to punishing consequences. It also
recognizes that we often engage in self-reinforcement.
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Behaviormcs81233_ch03_066-095.indd
modeling is effective because
transfers
knowledge and enhances the observer’s confidence in
performing the task.
Many companies now use experiential learning because employees do not acquire tacit knowledge through
formal classroom instruction. Experiential learning begins with concrete experience, followed by reflection on
that experience, formation of a theory from that experience, and then testing of that theory in the environment.
Organizational learning is any structured activity that
improves an organization’s capacity to acquire, share,
and use knowledge in ways that improve its survival and
success. Organizations acquire knowledge through indihalo effect, p. 78
attribution process, p. 75
vidual learning and experimentation. Knowledge sharing
Johari Window, p. 80
behavior
modification,
p. 82
occurs mainly through various
forms
of communication
learning, p. 82
categorical
thinking,
p. 70 reand training. Knowledge use
occurs when
employees
alize that the knowledge iscontact
available
and that p.
they
learning orientation, p. 86
hypothesis,
81 have
enough freedom to apply empathy,
it.
mental models, p. 71
p. 82
perception, p. 68
false-consensus effect, p. 79
positive organizational
fundamental attribution
behavior, p. 77
error, p. 76
primacy effect, p. 78
global mindset, p. 68
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Key Terms
recency effect, p. 78
selective attention, p. 68
self-fulfilling prophecy, p. 76
self-reinforcement, p. 86
self-serving bias, p. 76
social learning theory, p. 85
stereotyping, p. 72
tacit knowledge, p. 82
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instructor support materials
Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, includes a variety of supplemental materials to
help instructors prepare and present the material in this textbook more effectively.
INSTRUCTOR’S CD-ROM
The Instructor’s CD-ROM contains the Instructor’s Manual, the
Test Bank, PowerPoint presentation slides, and additional
downloads of art from the text.
INSTRUCTOR’S MANUAL
This is one of the few textbooks for which the authors write the
Instructor’s Manual. This ensures that the instructor materials
represent the textbook’s content and support instructor needs.
Each chapter includes the learning objectives, glossary of key
terms, a chapter synopsis, complete lecture outline with
thumbnail images of corresponding PowerPoint slides, and
suggested answers to the end-of-chapter discussion questions.
Also included are teaching notes for the chapter case(s), team
exercises, and self-assessments. The Instructor’s Manual also
provides complete teaching notes for the additional cases.
TEST BANK AND EZ TEST
Revised by Floyd Ormsbee of Clarkson University, the Test Bank includes more than 2,400 multiple-choice, true/
false, and essay questions. Each question identifies the relevant page reference and difficulty level.
Assurance of Learning Ready
Educational institutions are often focused on the notion of assurance of learning, an important element of many
accreditation standards. Organizational Behavior is designed specifically to support your assurance-of-learning
initiatives with a simple, yet powerful, solution. We’ve aligned our Test Bank questions with Bloom’s Taxonomy
and AACSB guidelines, tagging each question according to its knowledge and skill areas.
Each Test Bank question for Organizational Behavior also maps to a specific chapter learning objective listed
in the text. You can use our Test Bank software, EZ Test, to easily query for learning objectives that directly relate
to the learning objectives for your course. You can use the reporting features of EZ Test to aggregate student
results in a similar fashion, making the collection and presentation of assurance-of-learning data quick and easy.
AACSB Statement
McGraw-Hill Companies is a proud corporate member of AACSB International. Understanding the importance
and value of AACSB accreditation, the authors of Organizational Behavior have sought to recognize the curricular
guidelines detailed in the AACSB standards for business accreditation by connecting selected questions in the
Test Bank to the general knowledge and skill guidelines found in the AACSB standards.
xxvi
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Instructor Support Materials
xxvii
The statements contained in Organizational Behavior are provided only as a guide for the users of this text.
The AACSB leaves content coverage and assessment clearly within the realm and control of individual schools,
the mission of the school, and the faculty. The AACSB also charges schools with the obligation of doing
assessment against their own content and learning goals. While Organizational Behavior and the teaching
package make no claim of any specific AACSB qualification or evaluation, we have, within Organizational
Behavior, labeled selected questions according to the six general knowledge and skill areas. The labels or tags
within Organizational Behavior are as indicated. There are, of course, many more within the Test Bank, the text,
and the teaching package that may be used as a standard for your course.
EZ Test Online
McGraw-Hill’s EZ Test Online is a flexible and easy-to-use electronic testing program. The program allows
instructors to create tests from book-specific items, accommodates a wide range of question types, and enables
instructors to even add their own questions. Multiple versions of a test can be created, and any test can be
exported for use with course management systems such as WebCT and BlackBoard or with any other course
management system. EZ Test Online is accessible to busy instructors virtually anywhere via the Web, and the
program eliminates the need for them to install test software. Utilizing EZ Test Online also allows instructors to
create and deliver multiple-choice or true/false quiz questions using iQuiz for iPod. For more information about
EZ Test Online, please see the Web site at www.eztestonline.com.
POWERPOINT PRESENTATION SLIDES
Organizational Behavior has received considerable praise for its professional-looking PowerPoint slides. Each
PowerPoint file has more than two dozen slides relating to the chapter, including two or more photographs from
the textbook.
MBTI at Southwest Airlines
Southwest Airlines uses the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI) to help staff understand
and respect co-workers’
different personalities. “You can
walk by and see someone's
four-letter [MBTI type] posted
up in their cube,” says
Southwest’s leadership
development director, Elizabeth
Bryant (shown here).
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e
1
© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
Functions of Strong Corporate
Cultures
Culture strength
advantages depend on:
• Environment fit
• Not cult-like
• Adaptive culture
Functions of
Strong Cultures
Organizational
Outcomes
• Control system
• Social glue
• Sense-making
McShane/Von Glinow OB 5e
• Org performance
• Employee well-being
1
© 2010 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
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Instructor Support Materials
MCGRAW-HILL’S ASSET GALLERY—NEW!
McGraw-Hill/Irwin Management is
excited to now provide a one-stop
shop for our wealth of assets, making
it super quick and easy for instructors
to locate specific materials to
enhance their course. The Asset
Gallery includes all our non–textspecific management resources (SelfAssessments, Test Your Knowledge
exercises, videos and information,
additional group and individual
exercises) along with supporting
PowerPoint and Instructor’s Manual
materials. Additionally, to help
incorporate the assets in the classroom, a guide is provided specific to McGraw-Hill/Irwin texts. Instructors can
reach the Asset Gallery through a link from the instructor area of the Online Learning Center.
GROUP AND VIDEO RESOURCE MANUAL: An Instructor’s Guide to an Active
Classroom (in print 0073044342 or online through the OLC)
This manual created for instructors
contains everything needed to
successfully integrate activities into
the classroom. It includes a menu of
items to use as teaching tools in
class. All of our self-assessment
exercises, Test Your Knowledge
quizzes, group exercises, and
Manager’s HotSeat exercises are
located in this one manual along
with teaching notes and
PowerPoint slides to use in class.
Group exercises include everything
you would need to use the exercise
in class—handouts, figures, etc.
This manual is organized into
25 topics such as ethics, decisionmaking, change, and leadership for
easy inclusion in your lecture. A matrix is included at the front of the manual that references each resource by
topic. Students access all of the exercises and self-assessments on their textbook’s Web site.
MANAGER’S HOT SEAT ONLINE: www.mhhe.com/MHS
In today’s workplace, managers are confronted daily with issues such as ethics, diversity, working in teams, and
the virtual workplace. The Manager’s Hot Seat is interactive software that allows students to watch video of
15 real managers as they apply their years of experience to confront these issues.
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Instructor Support Materials
xxix
Students assume the role of the
manager as they watch the video and
answer multiple-choice questions that
pop up, forcing them to make decisions
on the spot. They learn from the manager’s
mistakes and successes, and then
prepare a report that evaluates and
critiques the manager’s approach and
justification of that approach.
Reports can be e-mailed or printed
out for credit. These video segments
are a powerful tool for your course
that truly immerses your students in
the learning experience. Students can
obtain access through the Online
Learning Center by purchasing the
Premium Content for an additional
$10.00. Ask your sales representative
for more information.
VIDEO POSSIBILITIES
Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, provides a full complement of videos to liven up the classroom
experience.
Video DVD (ISBN: 0077338928; 13-digit ISBN: 9780077338923)
The new video case collection features PBS, NBC, BWTV, and original productions that relate to examples and
cases in the text. It includes segments such as:
• Wal-Mart’s Public Image Campaign
• Clockless Office: Best Buy’s ROWE Program
• Team Work: Team Activities for Co-Workers
Management in the Movies DVD (ISBN: 0073317713;
13-digit ISBN: 9780073317717)
Management in the Movies is available exclusively to adopters of McGraw-Hill textbooks and contains a
collection of “Big Screen” Hollywood films that students will recognize. Each movie has been clipped to
highlight a specific scene (each is less than two and a half minutes) and is linked to specific topics. Some of the
topics include:
•
•
•
•
•
Groups—13 Going On 30
Ethics—John Q
Diversity—Inside Man
Attitudes, values, culture—Hoosiers
Control and change—Gung Ho
Along with the DVD, McGraw-Hill provides an instructor manual (at the Online Learning Center) with suggestions
for usage of the video clips, clip summaries, and discussion questions to accompany each segment. Ask your
McGraw-Hill sales representative how to obtain a copy.
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Instructor Support Materials
ONLINE LEARNING CENTER
Organizational Behavior offers a comprehensive and user-friendly Online Learning Center (OLC). The site
includes practice questions in a format similar to that found in the Test Bank, links to relevant external Web sites,
additional cases, and other valuable resources for students, such as:
• Self-scoring self-assessments. The three dozen self-assessments summarized in this book are available at the
OLC, which allows for rapid self-scoring results, complete with detailed feedback.
• Additional cases. In addition to the cases provided in this textbook, the OLC offers many others that
instructors might assign for class or home assignments.
• Additional self-assessments. From the Build Your Management Skills collection, these assessments are for
students who want to delve deeper into self-awareness and for professors who’d like to choose additional
exercises, along with a matrix to identify the appropriate topic.
• Manager’s Hot Seat Online. www.mhhe.com/mhs.
TEGRITY CAMPUS
Tegrity Campus is a service that makes class time available all the
time by automatically capturing every lecture in a searchable
format for students to review when they study and complete
assignments. With a simple one-click start and stop process, you
capture all computer screens and corresponding audio. Students replay any part of any class with easy-to-use
browser-based viewing on a PC or Mac.
Educators know that the more students can see, hear, and experience class resources, the better they learn.
With Tegrity Campus, students quickly recall key moments by using Tegrity Campus’s unique search feature. This
search helps students efficiently find what they need, when they need it, across an entire semester of class
recordings. Help turn all your students’ study time into learning moments immediately supported by your lecture.
To learn more about Tegrity, watch a 2-minute Flash demo at http://tegritycampus.mhhe.com.
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acknowledgments
Have you ever worked on a high-performance team where everything just seems to
“click”? We have—on this fifth edition of Organizational Behavior! Sure, we spent plenty
of time alone writing and researching for this book, and of course there were challenges along the way. But it is always amazing how teamwork really does make a difference. Several people provided valued expertise to smooth out the rough spots of
writing, search out the most challenging photos, create a fantastic design, develop the
various forms of student and instructor support, and pull together these many pieces
into a comprehensive textbook. This teamwork is even more amazing when you
consider that most of the team members live throughout the United States and one of
the authors (Steve) spends most of his time on the other side of the world.
Executive editor John Weimeister led the way with unwavering enthusiasm and
foresight. Senior developmental editor Christine (Chipper) Scheid demonstrated superhuman skills at coordinating the volumes of e-mails and files that produced this edition. Sue Gottfried was an amazing copy editor, catching the most subtle errors and
improving the authors’ writing. Christine Vaughan, our lead project manager, was
another true professional as she guided the book through its production schedule.
Jennifer Blankenship, our photo researcher, continued to raise the bar at finding the
best photos, including obscure images that we thought no one could possibly track
down. Pam Kontopoulos created a design that represents the philosophy and style of
this book. The eye-catching cover particularly captures the “dynamic flow” of wellperforming contemporary organizations. Finally, marketing manager Natalie Zook
created information packages and marketing materials to help McGraw-Hill/Irwin’s
superb sales team. These professionals help instructors to discover that this book really does deliver the content and support needed for an excellent learning experience. Thanks to you all. This has been an exceptional team effort!
As was mentioned earlier, several dozen instructors around the world reviewed
parts or all of Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition, or related editions in Canada, the
Pacific Rim, and elsewhere over the past two years. Their compliments were energizing, and their suggestions significantly improved the final product. The following
people from U.S. colleges and universities provided the most recent feedback for
improvements specifically for Organizational Behavior, Fifth Edition:
Forrest Aven
University of Houston—Downtown
Prasad Balkundi
State University of New York—Buffalo
Kathleen Bates
California State University—San Marcos
Lehman Benson
University of Arizona
Sandra Deacon-Carr
Boston University
Diane Galbraith
Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania
Nathan Goates
Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania
Kanata Jackson
Hampton University
Gary Kohut
University of North Carolina—Charlotte
Jerry Kopf
Radford University
Karthik Namasivayam
Pennsylvania State University—University Park
Howard Rudd
College of Charleston
We also extend our sincere thanks to Floyd Ormsbee, Clarkson University, for his
exceptional work on revision of the Test Bank. We also extend our gratitude to the
xxxi
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Acknowledgments
many instructors in the United States and abroad who contributed cases and exercises
to this edition of Organizational Behavior.
Steve would also like to extend special thanks to his students in Perth, Manila, and
Singapore for sharing their learning experiences and assisting with the development
of the three organizational behavior textbooks in the United States, Canada, and the
Pacific Rim. Along with working with Mary Ann, Steve is honored to work with coauthors on other editions and translations of this book, including Professor Mara
Olekalns at the University of Melbourne and Professor Tony Travaglione at Curtin
University for the Pacific Rim edition, Sandra Steen at the University of Regina for
the Canadian edition, Professor Radha Sharma at MDI for the Indian edition, Professor Runtian Jing at UESTC for the Chinese edition, and Professor Charles Benabou
at UQAM for the Quebec French edition. Steve is also very grateful to his colleagues
at the University of Western Australia for their support during changing times. But
more than anything else, Steve is forever indebted to his wife Donna McClement and
to their wonderful daughters, Bryton and Madison. Their love and support give special meaning to Steve’s life.
Mary Ann would also like to acknowledge the many professionals at McGraw-Hill/
Irwin who have worked to make the Fifth Edition a reality. In addition, she would
like to thank the many, many students who have used and hopefully enjoyed this
book. Student appreciation of this book is apparent by the number of times Mary
Ann has been stopped on various campuses all over the world by students who say
that they recognize her picture and want to thank her! There are a few who have actually asked for Mary Ann’s autograph, and that did not happen when she was president of the Academy of Management! Thus, it is to the students that Mary Ann says
thank you, particularly for making this learning venture fun and exciting. She would
also like to thank the faculty and staff at Florida International University, as well as
her CIBER staff: Sonia, Juan, and Kranthi. By far and away, Mary Ann thanks coauthor Steve McShane for his tireless efforts. Finally, Mary Ann would like to thank her
family, starting with the immediate ones—Emma, Zack, and Googun—but also John,
Rhoda, Lauren, Lindsay, and Christy. She also wants to acknowledge the critical role
that some very special people play in her life: Janet, Peter, Bill, Karen, Alan, Danny,
Debra, Mary, and Linda. I thank you all!
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Organizational Behavior
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Emerging Knowledge and
Practice for the Real World
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Part One
Introduction
Chapter 1
Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior
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One of Robert Iger’s first tasks as Walt Disney Co.’s new CEO was to acquire Pixar
Animation Studios and put its leaders—John Lasseter (shown in this photo) and Ed
Catmull—in charge of Disney’s own animation unit, Walt Disney Animation Studios. The
studio that brought us Mickey Mouse and The Lion King had become moribund over the
past decade, eclipsed by Pixar’s award-winning productions. Disney already had lucrative
distribution rights to Pixar’s first five films, including any sequels, but Iger wanted something
much more valuable. He wanted the organizational behavior practices that have made Pixar
a powerhouse filmmaker, from Toy Story to Wall-E.
Pixar’s success is founded on the notion that
companies depend on the quality of their employees and
how well they collaborate with each other. “From the very
beginning, we recognized we had to get the best people,
technically, from the computer science world, and from
the artistic filmmaking animation world, and get them
working together,” explains John Lasseter, who is now
chief creative officer of both Pixar and Disney Animation
Studios. “That, right there, is probably the secret to Pixar.”
Pixar enables people to work together in several ways.
First, the company relies on long-term employment
relationships rather than short-term project contracts.
These long-term relationships improve team development
and social networks. “The problem with the Hollywood
model is that it’s generally the day you wrap production
that you realize you’ve finally figured out how to work
together,” says Randy Nelson, head of Pixar University.
“We’ve made the leap from an idea-centered business to a
people-centered business.” Pixar’s campus in Emeryville,
California, is another reason why employees work well
Several organizational behavior practices have helped
Pixar Animation Studios become the world’s most
successful animation studio.
together. The buildings were designed to cluster people
into teams yet also to encourage chance encounters with
people from other projects. “When people run into each
other and make eye contact, innovative things happen,” says Pixar director Brad Bird.
Pixar’s egalitarian, no-nonsense, perfectionist culture is a third reason why the
animation studio’s staff members work effectively. The company gives power to its
production teams rather than to senior executives, but these teams are also ruthless at
writing and rendering scenes several times until they look right. All employees—from
entry-level newcomers to the CEO—are encouraged to be creative and offer candid
feedback about work in progress. Production teams have regular “sweatbox” sessions
at which problems are discussed openly. Even the most successful films receive a
“postmortem” to discover how they could have been improved. “Our job is to address
problems even when we’re successful,” explains Pixar/Disney Animation president Ed
Catmull, whose leadership is identified as the foundation of Pixar’s unique culture.1
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1
Introduction to the Field of
Organizational Behavior
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Define organizational behavior and
organizations and discuss the importance
of this field of inquiry.
2. Diagram an organization from an
open-systems perspective.
3. Define intellectual capital and describe the
organizational learning perspective of
organizational effectiveness.
4. Diagnose the extent to which an
organization or one of its work units applies
high-performance work practices.
5. Explain how the stakeholder perspective
emphasizes the importance of values,
ethics, and corporate social responsibility.
6. Summarize the five types of individual
behavior in organizations.
7. Debate the organizational opportunities and
challenges of globalization, workforce
diversity, and virtual work.
8. Discuss how employment relationships are
changing and explain why these changes
are occurring.
9. Discuss the anchors on which
organizational behavior knowledge is
based.
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Part One Introduction
Collaboration, motivation, communication, creativity, empowerment, organizational learning, leadership—these are some of the organizational behavior concepts
behind the success of Pixar Animation Studios and other companies. They are also
some of the topics featured in this book. Our main objective is to help you understand behavior in organizations and to work more effectively in organizational settings. We begin in this chapter by introducing the field of organizational behavior
and explaining why knowledge of this field is important to organizations as well as
to your career. Next, the chapter describes the four main perspectives of organizational effectiveness, which is considered the “ultimate dependent variable” in organizational behavior. This is followed by an overview of the five main types of
individual behavior in organizations. This chapter also describes three challenges
facing organizations—globalization, increasing workforce diversity, and emerging
employment relationships—and highlights the anchors that guide organizational behavior knowledge development.
Learning
Objectives
After reading this section, you should be able to:
1. Define organizational behavior and organizations and discuss the
importance of this field of inquiry.
The Field of Organizational Behavior
organizational
behavior (OB)
The study of what people
think, feel, and do in and
around organizations.
organizations
Groups of people who
work interdependently
toward some purpose.
Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of what people think, feel, and do in
and around organizations. Its focus is on employee behavior, decisions, perceptions,
and emotional responses. It looks at how individuals and teams in organizations relate to each other and to their counterparts in other organizations. OB also encompasses the study of how organizations interact with their external environments,
particularly in the context of employee behavior and decisions. OB researchers systematically study these topics at multiple levels of analysis, namely, the individual,
team (including interpersonal), and organization.2
The definition of organizational behavior begs the question: What are organizations?
Organizations are groups of people who work interdependently toward some purpose.3 Notice that organizations are not buildings or government-registered entities.
In fact, many organizations exist without either physical walls or government documentation to confer their legal status. Organizations have existed for as long as people have worked together.4 Massive temples dating back to 3500 BC were constructed
through the organized actions of multitudes of people. Craftspeople and merchants in
ancient Rome formed guilds, complete with elected managers. More than 1,000 years
ago, Chinese factories were producing 125,000 tons of iron each year. Throughout
history, organizations have consisted of people who communicate, coordinate, and
collaborate with each other to achieve common objectives.
One key feature of organizations is that they are collective entities. They consist of
human beings (typically, but not necessarily, employees), and these people interact
with each other in an organized way. This organized relationship requires some minimal
level of communication, coordination, and collaboration to achieve organizational objectives. As such, all organizational members have degrees of interdependence with
each other; they accomplish goals by sharing materials, information, or expertise with
co-workers.
A second key feature of organizations is that their members have a collective sense
of purpose. There is some debate among OB experts about whether all organizations
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Chapter 1 Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior
5
really have a collective sense of purpose. The collective purpose isn’t always well
defined or agreed on. Furthermore, although most companies have vision and mission statements, these documents are sometimes out of date or don’t describe what
employees and leaders try to achieve in reality. These points may be true, but imagine an organization without goals: It would consist of a mass of people wandering
around aimlessly without any sense of direction. So, whether they are producing animated feature films at Pixar Animation Studios or designing and building automobiles at General Motors, organizational members do have some sense of collective
purpose. “A company is one of humanity’s most amazing inventions,” says Steven
Jobs, CEO of Apple, Inc. (and former CEO of Pixar Animation Studios). “It’s totally
abstract. Sure, you have to build something with bricks and mortar to put the
people in, but basically a company is this abstract construct we’ve invented, and it’s
incredibly powerful.”5
Organizational Behavior’s
Foundations
Mary Parker Follett and Chester Barnard were pioneers of
contemporary organizational behavior thinking a decade or
two before OB became a distinct field of inquiry. Follett was
a Boston social worker and political science scholar who
suggested that conflict can be “constructive” when the parties
gain a better understanding of each other. She was also a
strong advocate of employee involvement and organizational
democracy. Chester Barnard was a career executive (including
president of New Jersey Bell Telephone Company and, later,
head of two foundations), who wrote several influential books on
management and organizations. He emphasized that organizations
depend on effective communication and that a manager’s formal
authority depends on the employee’s willingness to accept
that power. He also discussed norms of informal groups as well
as a rational perspective of employee motivation. Both Barnard
and Follett described organizations as holistic cooperative
organisms. This was a refreshing contrast to the machinelike
metaphor of organizations that dominated management theory
and practice in those days.7
Organizational behavior emerged as a distinct field
around the 1940s, but organizations have been studied by experts in other fields for many centuries.6
For example, the Greek philosopher Plato wrote
about the essence of leadership. Around the same
time, the Chinese philosopher Confucius extolled
the virtues of ethics and leadership. In 1776, Adam
Smith advocated a new form of organizational structure based on the division of labor. One hundred
years later, German sociologist Max Weber wrote
about rational organizations, the work ethic, and
charismatic leadership. Soon after, industrial engineer Frederick Winslow Taylor proposed new ways
to organize employees and motivate them through
goal setting and rewards. In the 1920s, Elton Mayo
and his colleagues reported on how formal and informal group dynamics operate in the workplace.
During that same time, Mary Parker Follett pioneered new ways of thinking about several OB topics, including constructive conflict, team dynamics,
organizational democracy, power, and leadership. A
decade later, Chester Barnard wrote insightful views
regarding individual behavior, motivation, communication, leadership and authority, and team dynamics in organizational settings. This brief historical
tour indicates that OB has been around for a long
time; it just wasn’t organized into a unified discipline
until after World War II.
Why Study Organizational Behavior?
Organizational behavior instructors face a challenge: On the one hand, students just beginning
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Part One Introduction
their careers tend to value courses related to specific jobs, such as accounting and
marketing.8 However, OB doesn’t have a specific career path—there is no “vice
president of OB”—so these students sometimes have difficulty recognizing the value
that OB knowledge can offer to their future. On the other hand, students with several years of work experience place OB near the top of their list of important
courses. Why? Because they have directly observed that OB does make a difference to
their career success. To begin with, they have learned that OB theories help us to
make sense of the workplace. These theories also give us the opportunity to question
and rebuild our personal mental models that have developed through observation and
experience. Thus, OB is important because it helps to fulfill our need to understand
and predict the world in which we live.9
But the main reason why people with work experience value OB knowledge is
that they have discovered how it helps them to get things done in organizations.
This practical side of organizational behavior is, according to some experts, a
critical feature of the best OB theories.10 Everyone in the organization needs to
work with other people, and OB provides the knowledge and tools for working with
and through others. Building a high-performance team, motivating co-workers,
handling workplace conflicts, influencing your boss, and changing employee behavior are just a few of the areas of knowledge and skills offered in organizational
behavior. No matter what career path you choose, you’ll find that OB concepts
play an important role in performing your job and working more effectively within
organizations.
Organizational Behavior Is for Everyone
Our explanation of why organizational behavior is important for your career success does not assume that you are,
or intend to be, a manager. In fact, this book pioneered the notion that OB knowledge is for everyone. Whether you are a geologist, financial analyst, customer
service representative, or chief executive officer, you need to understand and
apply the many organizational behavior topics that are discussed in this book.
Yes, organizations will continue to have managers, but their roles have changed
and the rest of us are increasingly expected to manage ourselves in the workplace.
In the words of one forward-thinking OB writer many years ago: Everyone is a
manager.11
OB and the Bottom Line So far, our answer to the question “Why study OB?”
has focused on how OB knowledge benefits you as an individual. But organizational behavior knowledge is just as important for the organization’s financial
health. This was apparent in the opening story about Pixar Animation Studios,
which has benefited from several OB concepts and practices. According to one
estimate, firms that apply performance-based rewards, employee communication,
work–life balance, and other OB practices have three times the level of financial
success that companies have where these practices are absent. Another study concluded that companies that earn “the best place to work” awards have significantly
higher financial and long-term stock market performance. Essentially, these firms
leverage the power of OB practices, which translate into more favorable employee
attitudes, decisions, and performance. The benefits of OB are well known to
Warren Buffett and other financial gurus; they consider the organization’s leadership and quality of employees as two of the best predictors of the firm’s financial
potential.12
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Chapter 1 Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior
Learning
Objectives
7
After reading the next two sections, you should be able to:
2. Diagram an organization from an open-systems perspective.
3. Define intellectual capital and describe the organizational learning
perspective of organizational effectiveness.
4. Diagnose the extent to which an organization or one of its work
units applies high-performance work practices.
5. Explain how the stakeholder perspective emphasizes the importance
of values, ethics, and corporate social responsibility.
6. Summarize the five types of individual behavior in organizations.
Perspectives of Organizational Effectiveness
organizational
effectiveness
A broad concept represented by several
perspectives, including
the organization’s fit with
the external environment,
internal-subsystems
configuration for high
performance, emphasis
on organizational learning, and ability to satisfy
the needs of key stakeholders.
open systems
A perspective which
holds that organizations
depend on the external
environment for resources, affect that environment through their
output, and consist of
internal subsystems
that transform inputs to
outputs.
Almost all organizational behavior theories have the implicit or explicit objective of
making organizations more effective.13 Indeed, organizational effectiveness is considered the “ultimate dependent variable” in organizational behavior.14 The first challenge, however, is to define organizational effectiveness. Experts agree that this
topic is burdened with too many labels—organizational performance, success, goodness, health, competitiveness, excellence, and so on—with no consensus on the meaning of each label.
Long ago, organizational effectiveness was defined as the extent to which an
organization achieved its stated goals.15 According to this view, Pixar is effective
because it achieves its stated objective of producing animation features on time, on
budget, and on target regarding box office sales. The goal attainment view is no
longer accepted, however, because a company can be considered effective simply
by establishing easily achievable goals. Also, some goals—such as social responsibility to the community—are so abstract that it is difficult to know how well the organization has achieved them. A third flaw with the goal attainment definition is that
a company’s stated objectives might threaten its long-term survival. For example,
some corporate leaders receive incentives (such as stock options) to maximize shortterm profits. Some accomplish this objective by slashing expenditures, including
funds for marketing and product development. The result is often a lack of new
products and deterioration in the company’s brand value in the long run. In extreme cases, the company achieves its short-term profitability targets but eventually
goes out of business.
How is organizational effectiveness defined today? The answer is that there are
several perspectives of effectiveness, so this concept is defined in terms of all of these
perspectives.16 Organizations are considered effective when they have a good fit with
their external environment, when their internal subsystems are configured for a highperformance workplace, when they are learning organizations, and when they satisfy
the needs of key stakeholders. Over the next few pages, we will discuss each of these
four perspectives of organizational effectiveness in some detail.
Open-Systems Perspective
The open-systems perspective of organizational effectiveness is one of the earliest
and deeply entrenched ways of thinking about organizations. In fact, the other major
organizational effectiveness perspectives might be considered detailed extensions of
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Part One Introduction
External Environment
Exhibit 1.1
Open-Systems
Perspective of
Organizations
Feedback
Feedback
Organization
Subsystem
• Raw materials
• Human resources
• Information
• Financial resources
• Equipment
Transforming inputs
to outputs
Su
bs
ys
Feedback
Subsystem
m
te
ys
bs
Su
Inputs
te
m
Outputs
• Products/services
• Employee behaviors
• Profits/losses
• Waste/pollution
Subsystem
Subsystem
Feedback
the open-systems model.17 As depicted in Exhibit 1.1, the open-systems perspective
views organizations as complex organisms that “live” within an external environment.
The word open describes this permeable relationship, whereas closed systems can exist
without dependence on an external environment.
As open systems, organizations depend on the external environment for resources,
including raw materials, employees, financial resources, information, and equipment.
Pixar, Disney, and other companies could not survive without employees, raw materials, knowledge, and so forth. The open-systems perspective also describes numerous subsystems within the organization, such as processes (communication and
reward systems), work units (production, marketing), and social dynamics (informal
networks, power relationships). With the aid of technology (such as equipment, work
methods, and information), these subsystems transform inputs into various outputs.
Some outputs (e.g., products and services) may be valued by the external environment, whereas other outputs (e.g., employee layoffs, pollution) have adverse effects.
The organization receives feedback from the external environment regarding the
value of its outputs and the availability of future inputs.
According to the open-systems perspective, successful organizations monitor their
environments and are able to maintain a close fit with changing conditions.18 One way
they do this is by finding new opportunities to secure essential inputs. For instance,
many fast-food restaurants struggle to find enough employees. To ensure that it has
enough qualified staff, McDonald’s restaurants were among the first to recruit retirees.
More recently, McDonald’s UK introduced the “family contract,” an employment arrangement that allows members of the employee’s family (spouses, grandparents, and
children over the age of 16) to swap shifts without notifying management.19 Successful
organizations also redesign outputs so that they remain compatible with demands from
the external environment. Food manufacturers have changed their ingredients to satisfy
more health-conscious consumers. Automobile manufacturers have redesigned cars to
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Chapter 1 Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior
9
satisfy demands for more fuel efficiency and safety, while also continually adapting to
customer preferences in models and styling.
Internal-Subsystems Effectiveness The open-systems perspective considers more
organizational
efficiency
The amount of outputs
relative to inputs in the
organization’s transformation process.
lean management
A cluster of practices to
improve organizational
efficiency by continuously reducing waste,
unevenness, and overburden in the production process.
than an organization’s fit with the external environment. It also examines how well the
organization operates internally, that is, how well it transforms inputs into outputs. The
most common indicator of this internal transformation process is organizational
efficiency (also called productivity), which is the amount of outputs relative to inputs.20
Companies that produce more goods or services with less labor, materials, and energy
are more efficient.
A popular strategy for improving efficiency in the transformation process is lean
management.21 Based on practices developed by Toyota Motor Company, lean
management involves continuously reducing waste, unevenness, and overburden in
the production process. Waste (called muda) takes many forms, such as excess travel
of the product or service through the production process, too much time during
which the work is sitting idle (waiting for the next step in production), too much inventory, too much employee physical movement, and too much finished product
without a buyer. Lean management also involves minimizing situations in which people and equipment are overloaded (too much demand per unit time) and smoothing
out the production process (e.g., reducing bottlenecks). The “lean” movement originated in manufacturing, but it is now being adopted by hospitals, government, accounting firms, and other service providers.22 Global Connections 1.1 describes how
British and American hospitals have improved efficiency and effectiveness through
various lean practices.
Keep in mind that efficiency does not necessarily translate into effectiveness. Efficiency is about doing things right, whereas effectiveness is about doing the right things.
A company might be highly efficient at making a product or providing a service, but
it will be ineffective if no one wants that product or service, for example. Also, efficiency often requires standardization, whereas companies operating in rapidly changing environments need to remain nimble and responsive. Organizations often need
more adaptive and innovative transformation processes, not just more efficient ones.
For example, German engineering conglomerate Siemens AG has an effective transformation process because its subsystems are innovative and responsive, not necessarily the most efficient. “Whether I have additional costs or not doesn’t matter as
much as the speed to market and the quality of the design,” says a Siemens executive.
“We’re not talking about a pure cost game.”23
Another important issue in the transformation process is how well the organization’s subsystems coordinate with each other. The more each subsystem depends on
other subsystems, the higher the risk of problems that undermine the transformation
process.24 Information gets lost, ideas are not shared, materials are hoarded, communication messages are misinterpreted, resources and rewards are distributed unfairly,
and so forth. These coordination challenges are amplified as organizations grow, such
as when employees are clustered into several departments and when departments are
clustered into several organizational divisions. That’s why even the best-laid plans are
paved with unintended consequences. A slight change in work practices in one subsystem may ripple through the organization and affect other subsystems in adverse
ways. For example, an adjustment in accounting procedures might have the unintended effect of motivating sales staff to sell more products with lower profit margin
or discouraging administrative staff from accurately completing documents that are
vital for executive decisions.
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Global Connections 1.1
Hospitals Take the Lean Journey
to Efficiency
Building Nissan automobiles seems unrelated to serving
surgical patients, but staff at Sunderland Royal Hospital can
see the similarities. The hospital in northern England recently
borrowed several lean management ideas from the nearby
Nissan factory, one of the most efficient car plants in Europe,
to improve its day surgery unit. “We took [Sunderland hospital
staff] on a tour of our plant, showing them a variety of lean
processes in action, and let them decide which ones could
be applied back at the hospital,” says a training manager at
Nissan’s factory in Sunderland.
Sunderland’s day surgery staff members were actively involved in applying lean management to their work unit. After
attending Nissan’s two-day workshop on lean thinking, they
mapped out the work processes, questioned assumptions
about the value or relevance of some activities, and discovered ways to reduce the lengthy patient wait times (which
were up to three hours). There was some initial resistance and
skepticism, but the hospital’s day surgery soon realized significant improvements in efficiency and service quality.
“By working with Nissan’s staff, we have streamlined the
patient pathway from 29 to 11 discrete stages,” says Anne
Fleming (shown in photo), who oversees Sunderland’s 32-bed
day-case unit and its 54 employees. “We have done this by
reducing duplication, halving the time that patients spend in
the unit to three hours by giving them individual appointment
times, and introducing the just-in-time approach to the patient
pathway.” Fleming also reports that Sunderland’s operating
rooms are now much more efficient.
Sunderland Royal Hospital is one of many health care centers around the world that are improving efficiency through
lean thinking. After receiving training in Japan on lean practices, several teams of doctors, nurses, and other staff from
Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle, Washington, redesigned workflows to cut out 34 miles of unnecessary walking
each day. Park Nicollet Health Services in Minneapolis, Minnesota, improved efficiency at its ambulatory clinic to such an
extent that the unit does not require a patient waiting area.
One Park Nicollet team worked with orthopedic surgeons to
reduce by 60 percent the variety of instruments and supplies
they ordered for hip and knee surgery. The trauma team at
Sunderland Royal Hospital learned from the nearby Nissan
factory how to implement lean management in its new day
surgery unit.
Bolton Hospitals NHS Trust in the United Kingdom reduced average wait times for patients with fractured hips by 38 percent
(from 2.4 to 1.7 days), which also resulted in a lower mortality
rate for these patients. By smoothing out the inflow of work
orders and rearranging the work process, Bolton’s pathology
department cut the time required to process samples, previously 24 to 30 hours, to just 2 to 3 hours and reduced the space
used by 50 percent.
“We know that our case for extra funding will fall on deaf
ears unless we cut out waste in the system,” explains Dr. Gill
Morgan, chief executive of the U.K.’s NHS Confederation.
“Lean works because it is based on doctors, nurses, and other
staff leading the process and telling us what adds value and
what doesn’t. They are the ones who know.”25
Organizational Learning Perspective
The open-systems perspective has traditionally focused on physical resources that
enter the organization and are processed into physical goods (outputs). This was
representative of the industrial economy but not the “new economy,” where the
most valued input is knowledge. Knowledge is the driver of competitive advantage,
10
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Chapter 1 Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior
organizational learning
A perspective which
holds that organizational
effectiveness depends
on the organization’s
capacity to acquire,
share, use, and store
valuable knowledge.
absorptive capacity
The ability to recognize
the value of new information, assimilate it,
and use it for valueadded activities.
11
however, in the organizational learning perspective (also called knowledge management). Through this lens, organizational effectiveness depends on the organization’s
capacity to acquire, share, use, and store valuable knowledge.26
Knowledge acquisition occurs when information is brought into the organization
from the external environment. This can include hiring people, acquiring companies,
and scanning the environment for the latest trends. It also includes the process of
creative insight—experimenting and discovering new ideas.27 Knowledge sharing refers
to the distribution of knowledge throughout the organization. For example, Pixar
Animation Studios deliberately centralized its cafeteria, mailroom, and restroom facilities so that employees would “bump into” and coincidentally share knowledge
with people from other areas of the organization rather than just their own team
members. Knowledge sharing also occurs through electronic whiteboards, wikis,
blogs, and other computer-mediated technology. Knowledge use is the application of
knowledge to organizational processes in ways that improve the organization’s effectiveness. Essentially, new work activities involve knowledge use because they require
the application of new knowledge to break out of past routines and practices. Storage
refers to ways that companies retain valuable knowledge. They retain employees,
document best practices, record experiments (including those that didn’t work out),
and keep samples of past products.
To understand knowledge acquisition, sharing, use, and storage, consider how
Google engages in organizational learning. The company that brought us the ubiquitous Internet search engine acquires knowledge by hiring the best talent, buying entire companies (such as Keyhole, Inc., whose knowledge created Google Earth), and
encouraging employees to try out new ideas. Employees are expected to devote 20 percent of their time to discovering new knowledge of their choosing. Google encourages knowledge sharing in many ways. It has a team-oriented project culture that
encourages staff to share information as part of their job. Its campuslike environment
(called the Googleplex) increases the chance that employees from different parts of
the organization will mingle and casually share information, whether dining at the
company’s subsidized gourmet restaurant or playing a game of volleyball in the
sports area. Google also relies on sophisticated information technologies—wikis, blogs,
and intranet repositories—to support knowledge sharing. Along with promoting
knowledge acquisition and sharing, Google encourages knowledge use by giving employees the freedom to apply their newfound knowledge and encouraging them to
experiment with that knowledge. “Google is truly a learning organization,” says
Google’s chief financial officer, George Reyes.28
An interesting dilemma in organizational learning is that the ability to acquire,
share, and use new knowledge is limited by the company’s existing store of knowledge. To recognize the value of new information, assimilate it, and use it for valueadded activities, organizations require sufficient absorptive capacity.29 For example,
many companies were slow to develop online marketing practices because no one in
the organization had enough knowledge about the Internet to fathom its potential or
apply that knowledge to the company’s business. In some cases, companies had to
acquire entire teams of people with the requisite knowledge to realize the potential of
this marketing channel. Entire countries also suffer from a lack of absorptive capacity.
Without sufficient knowledge, a society is slow or completely unable to adopt new
information that may improve social and economic conditions.30
Intellectual Capital: The Stock of Organizational Knowledge
Knowledge
acquisition, sharing, and use represent the flow of knowledge. The organizational
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intellectual capital
A company’s stock of
knowledge, including
human capital, structural capital, and relationship capital.
human capital
The stock of knowledge,
skills, and abilities
among employees that
provides economic value
to the organization.
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Part One Introduction
learning perspective also considers the company’s stock of knowledge, called its
intellectual capital.31 The most obvious form of intellectual capital is human
capital—the knowledge, skills, and abilities that employees carry around in their heads.
This is an important part of a company’s stock of knowledge, and it is a huge risk in
companies where knowledge is the main competitive advantage. When key people
leave, they take with them some of the knowledge that makes the company effective.
Even if every employee left the organization, intellectual capital would still remain
in the form of structural capital. This includes the knowledge captured and retained in
an organization’s systems and structures, such as the documentation of work procedures and the physical layout of the production line. Structural capital also includes
the organization’s finished products because knowledge can be extracted by taking
them apart to discover how they work and are constructed (i.e., reverse engineering).
Finally, intellectual capital includes relationship capital, which is the value derived
from an organization’s relationships with customers, suppliers, and others who provide added mutual value for the organization.
Organizational Memory and Unlearning
organizational memory
The storage and preservation of intellectual
capital.
Corporate leaders need to recognize
that they are the keepers of an organizational memory.32 This unusual metaphor
refers to the storage and preservation of intellectual capital. It includes knowledge
that employees possess as well as knowledge embedded in the organization’s systems
and structures. It includes documents, objects, and anything else that provides meaningful information about how the organization should operate.
How do organizations retain intellectual capital? One way is by keeping good
employees. Progressive companies achieve this by adapting their employment practices to become more compatible with emerging workforce expectations, including
work–life balance, an egalitarian hierarchy, and a workspace that generates more fun.
A second organizational memory strategy is to systematically transfer knowledge to
other employees. This occurs when newcomers apprentice with skilled employees,
thereby acquiring knowledge that is not documented. A third strategy is to transfer
knowledge into structural capital. This includes bringing out hidden knowledge, organizing it, and putting it in a form that can be available to others (such as written
instructions or a video clip showing the task being performed).
The organizational learning perspective states not only that effective organizations
learn but also that they unlearn routines and patterns of behavior that are no longer
appropriate.33 Unlearning removes knowledge that no longer adds value and, in fact,
may undermine the organization’s effectiveness. Some forms of unlearning involve
replacing dysfunctional policies, procedures, and routines. Other forms of unlearning
erase attitudes, beliefs, and assumptions. For instance, employees rethink the “best
way” to perform a task and how to serve clients.
High-Performance Work Practices Perspective
high-performance work
practices (HPWP)
A perspective which
holds that effective
organizations incorporate
several workplace
practices that leverage
the potential of human
capital.
Although the open-systems perspective states that successful companies are good at
transforming inputs into outputs, it does not identify the most important subsystem
characteristics of effective organizations. Consequently, an entire field of research has
blossomed around the objective of determining specific “bundles” of organizational
practices that offer competitive advantage. This research has had various labels over the
years, but it is now most widely called high-performance work practices (HPWP).34
The HPWP perspective begins with the idea that human capital—the knowledge,
skills, and abilities that employees possess—is an important source of competitive
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advantage for organizations.35 Human capital helps the organization realize opportunities or minimize threats in the external environment. Furthermore, human capital
is neither widely available nor easily duplicated. For instance, a newly formed company cannot instantly develop a workforce identical to a workforce at an established
company. Nor can technology replace the capabilities that employees bring to the
workplace. In short, human capital is valuable, rare, difficult to imitate, and nonsubstitutable.36 Therefore, organizations excel by introducing a bundle of systems and
structures that leverage the potential of their workforce.
Many high-performance work practices have been studied over the years.37 Four
practices with strong research support are employee involvement, job autonomy,
employee competence, and performance- and/or skill-based rewards. As you will
learn later in this book, employee involvement and job autonomy tend to strengthen
employee motivation as well as improve decision making, organizational responsiveness, and commitment to change. In high-performance workplaces, employee involvement and job autonomy often take the form of self-directed teams, which are
discussed in Chapter 8.
Another key variable in the HPWP model is employee competence. Specifically,
organizations are more effective when they recruit and select people with relevant
skills, knowledge, values, and other personal characteristics. Furthermore, successful
companies invest in their employees by supporting further competency development
(see Chapter 2). A fourth characteristic of high-performance organizations is that they
link performance and skill development to various forms of financial and nonfinancial rewards valued by employees. We discuss reward systems in Chapter 6 as one of
several practices to improve employee performance.
The HPWP perspective is currently popular among OB experts and practitioners,
but it also has its share of critics. One concern is that many studies try to find out
which practices predict organizational performance without understanding why those
practices should have this effect.38 In other words, some of the practices identified as
HPWPs lack theoretical foundation; the causal connection between work practices
and organizational effectiveness is missing. Without this explanation, it is difficult to
be confident that the practice will be valuable in the future and in other situations. A
second concern with the HPWP perspective is that it may satisfy shareholder and
customer needs at the expense of employee well-being.39 Some experts point out that
HPWPs increase work stress and that management is reluctant to delegate power or
share the financial benefits of productivity improvements. If high-performance work
practices improve organizational performance at a cost to employee well-being, then
this perspective (along with the open-systems and organizational learning perspectives) offers an incomplete picture of organizational effectiveness. The remaining
gaps are mostly filled by the stakeholder perspective of organizational effectiveness.
Stakeholder Perspective
stakeholders
Individuals, organizations, and other entities
that affect, or are
affected by, the organization’s objectives and
actions.
The three organizational effectiveness perspectives described so far mainly consider
processes and resources, yet they only minimally recognize the importance of relations
with stakeholders. Stakeholders include individuals, organizations, and other entities
that affect, or are affected by, the organization’s objectives and actions. They include
anyone with a stake in the company—employees, shareholders, suppliers, labor unions,
government, communities, consumer and environmental interest groups, and so on.
The essence of the stakeholder perspective is that companies must take into account
how their actions affect others, and this requires that they understand, manage, and
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Part One Introduction
satisfy the interests of their stakeholders.40 The stakeholder perspective personalizes
the open-systems perspective; it identifies specific people and social entities in the
external and internal environment. It also recognizes that stakeholder relations are
dynamic; they can be negotiated and managed, not just taken as a fixed condition.41
Consider the troubles that Wal-Mart has faced in recent years.42 For decades, the
world’s largest retailer concentrated on customers by providing the lowest possible
prices and on shareholders by generating healthy financial returns. Yet emphasizing
these two stakeholders exposed the company to increasing hostility from other groups in
society. Some interest groups accused Wal-Mart of destroying America’s manufacturing
base and tacitly allowing unethical business practices (such as child labor) in countries
where it purchased goods. Other groups pointed out that Wal-Mart had a poor record of
environmental and social responsibility. Still other groups lobbied to keep Wal-Mart out
of their communities because the giant retailer typically builds in outlying suburbs where
land is cheap, thereby fading the vibrancy of the community’s downtown area. These
stakeholder pressure points existed for some time, but Wal-Mart mostly ignored them
until they became serious threats. In fact, Wal-Mart recently created the position “senior
director of stakeholder engagement” to ensure that it pays more attention to most stakeholders and to proactively manage stakeholder relationships.
Understanding, managing, and satisfying the interests of stakeholders is more challenging than it sounds because stakeholders have conflicting interests and organizations
don’t have the resources to satisfy every stakeholder to the fullest. Therefore, organizational leaders need to decide how much priority to give to each group. One commonly
cited factor is to favor stakeholders with the most power.43 This makes sense when one
considers that the most powerful stakeholders hold the greatest threat and opportunity
to the company’s survival. Yet stakeholder power should not be the only criterion for
determining organizational strategy and resource allocation. Ignoring less powerful
stakeholders might motivate them to become more powerful by forming coalitions or
seeking government support. It might also irritate more powerful stakeholders if ignoring weaker interests violates the norms and standards of society.
values
Relatively stable, evaluative beliefs that guide
a person’s preferences
for outcomes or courses
of action in a variety of
situations.
Values, Ethics, and Corporate Social Responsibility This brings us to one of
the key strengths of the stakeholder perspective, namely, that it incorporates values,
ethics, and corporate social responsibility into the organizational effectiveness equation.44 The stakeholder perspective states that to manage the interests of diverse
stakeholders, leaders ultimately need to rely on their personal and organizational
values for guidance. Values are relatively stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our
preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety of situations.45 Values help
us to know what is right or wrong, or good or bad, in the world. Chapter 2 explains
how values are an important part of our self-concept and, as such, motivate our actions. Although values exist within individuals, groups of people often hold similar
values, so we tend to ascribe these shared values to the team, department, organization,
profession, or entire society. For example, Chapter 14 discusses the importance and
dynamics of organizational culture, which includes shared values across the company
or within subsystems.
Values have become a popular topic in corporate boardrooms because leaders are
discovering that the values-driven organizational approach to guiding employee behavior is potentially more effective, as well as more popular, than the old commandand-control approach (i.e., top-down decisions with close supervision of employees).
Bank of Montreal (BMO) is a case in point. A few years ago, in a series of meetings,
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Focus on Stakeholders Makes Lockheed Martin “Ideal” When choosing a future employer, college graduates look beyond
salary and career opportunities. These factors are important, but recent surveys indicate that the company’s ethical standards,
values, and corporate social responsibility (CSR) are also top considerations. Based on its reputation for ethics, diversity, and
CSR, Lockheed Martin Corporation is ranked by American undergraduate engineering students as one of the top companies for
an ideal career and is among the top 60 companies identified by all undergraduate students. “Students have always been
impressed with Lockheed Martin’s commitment to diversity and social responsibility,” says the CEO of Universum Communications,
the company that surveys more than 37,000 students annually. “The company is well known for its charitable contributions and
strong values.” For example, this photo shows a team of Lockheed Martin employees assisting cleanup of New Orleans following
Hurricane Katrina.46
ethics
The study of moral
principles or values
that determine whether
actions are right or
wrong and outcomes
are good or bad.
BMO’s top executives reflected on the financial institution’s history and had deep
conversations to identify the values on which the Canadian financial institution was
built. Out of this dialogue emerged four value statements that were distributed to
employees and built into a revised reward system. Why did BMO go to such trouble
to identify and communicate its shared values? “[BMO’s values] provide a stable
base for guiding employee decisions and actions in an otherwise rapidly changing
workplace,” explains a BMO executive who attended the meetings. “Simply put,
values matter and employees care that the organizations they work for and represent
are ethical and walk the talk of their values.”47
By incorporating values into organizational effectiveness, the stakeholder perspective also provides the strongest case for ethics and corporate social responsibility. In
fact, the stakeholder perspective emerged out of earlier writing on ethics and corporate social responsibility. Ethics refers to the study of moral principles or values that
determine whether actions are right or wrong and outcomes are good or bad. We rely
on our ethical values to determine “the right thing to do.” Ethical behavior is driven
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corporate social
responsibility (CSR)
Organizational activities
intended to benefit society and the environment
beyond the firm’s immediate financial interests
or legal obligations.
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by the moral principles we use to make decisions. These moral principles represent
fundamental values. Chapter 2 provides more detail about ethical principles and related influences on moral reasoning.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) consists of organizational activities intended to benefit society and the environment beyond the firm’s immediate financial
interests or legal obligations.48 It is the view that companies have a contract with society, in which they must serve stakeholders beyond shareholders and customers. In some
situations, the interests of the firm’s shareholders should be secondary to those of other
stakeholders.49 As part of CSR, many companies have adopted the triple-bottom-line
philosophy: They try to support or “earn positive returns” in the economic, social, and
environmental spheres of sustainability. Firms that adopt the triple bottom line aim to
survive and be profitable in the marketplace (economic), but they also intend to maintain or improve conditions for society (social) as well as the physical environment.50
Not everyone agrees with the idea that organizations are more effective when they
cater to a wide variety of stakeholders. More than 30 years ago, economist Milton
Friedman pronounced that “there is one and only one social responsibility of business—
to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits.” Although
few writers take this extreme view today, some point out that companies can benefit
other stakeholders only if those with financial interests in the company receive first
priority. Yet four out of five Americans say that a company’s commitment to a social
issue is an important factor in deciding whether to work for the company and whether
to buy its products or services. In another survey, more than two-thirds of North American students said they would not apply for a job if the company is considered irresponsible. Most American and European MBA students also claim they would accept lower
financial rewards to work for an organization with a better ethical/CSR reputation.
However, another recent survey indicated that while most American MBA students
believe socially responsible companies have a better reputation, less than half of these
respondents believe CSR improves revenue, employee loyalty, customer satisfaction,
community well-being, or the company’s long-term viability.51
Capgemini recently discovered the importance of corporate social responsibility
when the Netherlands-based information technology (IT) consulting firm tried to
fill 800 IT and management consulting positions in that country. Rather than offering a T-shirt for completing the 30-minute online survey on recruitment issues,
Capgemini advised respondents (IT and management consultants) that for each
completed survey it would provide funding for a street kid in Kolkata, India, to
have one week of schooling and accommodation. The survey included an option
for respondents to find out more about employment with the consulting firm. Far
beyond its expectations, Capgemini received more than 10,000 completed surveys
and 2,000 job inquiries from qualified respondents. The company filled its 800 jobs
and developed a waiting list of future prospects. Furthermore, media attention about
this initiative raised Capgemini’s brand reputation for corporate social responsibility.
The consulting firm supported 10,400 weeks of housing and education for children
in Kolkata.52
Types of Individual Behavior
The four perspectives described over the past few pages—open systems, organizational learning, high-performance work practices, and stakeholder—provide a multidimensional view of what makes companies effective. Within these models, however,
are individual behaviors that enable companies to interact with their environments;
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Chapter 1 Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior
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Exhibit 1.2
Types of WorkRelated Behavior
Mai
Types of
work-related
behavior
al
ation
an i z
Org enship
citiz
ntai
n
wor ing
k
atte
nda
nce
Task
performance
Jo
in
in
or wit g/st
ga h ay
ni the ing
za
tio
n
ter ork
un e w
o
C ctiv ors
u
vi
od eha
r
p b
acquire, share, and use knowledge to the best advantage; process inputs to outputs
efficiently and responsively; and meet the needs of various stakeholders. While organizational effectiveness is the ultimate dependent variable, these employee behaviors
are the individual-level dependent variables found in most OB research. Exhibit 1.2
highlights the five types of behavior discussed most often in the organizational behavior literature: task performance, organizational citizenship, counterproductive work
behaviors, joining and staying with the organization, and work attendance.
Task Performance
Task performance refers to goal-directed behaviors under the individual’s control that
support organizational objectives. Task performance behaviors transform raw materials into goods and services or support and maintain technical activities.53 For example, foreign exchange traders at Wachovia make decisions and take actions to
exchange currencies. Employees in most jobs have more than one performance dimension. Foreign exchange traders must be able to identify profitable trades, work
cooperatively with clients and co-workers in a stressful environment, assist in training
new staff, and work on special telecommunications equipment without error. Some of
these performance dimensions are more important than others, but only by considering all of them can we fully evaluate an employee’s contribution to the organization.
organizational
citizenship behaviors
(OCBs)
Various forms of cooperation and helpfulness to
others that support the
organization’s social and
psychological context.
Organizational Citizenship
Companies could not effectively compete, transform resources, or serve the needs of
their stakeholders if employees performed only their formal job duties. Employees
also need to engage in organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs)—various
forms of cooperation and helpfulness to others that support the organization’s social
and psychological context.54 In other words, companies require contextual performance (i.e., OCBs) along with task performance.
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Organizational citizenship behaviors take many forms. Some are directed toward
individuals, such as assisting co-workers with their work problems, adjusting your
work schedule to accommodate co-workers, showing genuine courtesy toward coworkers, and sharing your work resources (supplies, technology, staff) with co-workers.
Other OCBs represent cooperation and helpfulness toward the organization in general.
These include supporting the company’s public image, taking discretionary action to
help the organization avoid potential problems, offering ideas beyond those required
for your own job, attending voluntary functions that support the organization, and
keeping up with new developments in the organization.55
Counterproductive Work Behaviors
counterproductive
work behaviors (CWBs)
Voluntary behaviors that
have the potential to
directly or indirectly
harm the organization.
Organizational behavior is interested in all workplace behaviors, including those on
the “dark side,” collectively known as counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs).
CWBs are voluntary behaviors that have the potential to directly or indirectly
harm the organization. They include abuse of others (e.g., insults and nasty comments), threats (threatening harm), work avoidance (e.g., tardiness), work sabotage
(doing work incorrectly), and overt acts (theft). CWBs are not minor concerns. One
recent study found that units of a fast-food restaurant chain with higher CWBs had a
significantly worse performance, whereas organizational citizenship had a relatively
minor benefit.56
Joining and Staying with the Organization
Task performance, organizational citizenship, and the lack of counterproductive work
behaviors are obviously important, but if qualified people don’t join and stay with the
organization, none of these performance-related behaviors will occur. Attracting
and retaining talented people is particularly important as worries about skill shortages heat up. For instance, a shortage of qualified truck drivers is the main factor restricting growth at Contract Freighters in Joplin, Missouri. “We have plenty of freight;
we have plenty of trucks,” says company president Herb Schmidt, but the “severe
shortage” of qualified drivers is making it impossible to satisfy the growing customer
base. Hotels in many parts of the United States are also struggling to find enough
staff to keep up with demand. “We’re woefully understaffed,” says the owner of a
St. Petersburg, Florida, resort that employs 265 people and still has 40 unfilled vacancies. “It’s horrible.57”
Companies survive and thrive not just by hiring people with talent or potential;
they also need to ensure that these employees stay with the company. Organizations
with high turnover suffer because of the high cost of replacing people who leave.
More important, as mentioned earlier in this chapter, much of an organization’s
intellectual capital is the knowledge carried around in employees’ heads. When
people leave, some of this vital knowledge is lost, often resulting in inefficiencies,
poorer customer service, and so forth. This threat is not trivial: Between one-third
and one-half of employees say they would change companies if offered a comparable job.58
Maintaining Work Attendance
Along with attracting and retaining employees, organizations need everyone to show
up for work at scheduled times. Situational factors—such as severe weather or car
breakdown—explain some work absences. Motivation is another factor. Employees
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Google Attracts and Keeps Talent through “Cool” Campuses Google is ranked by college students in many countries as one of the
top 10 places to work. One reason why the Internet technology company is able to attract so many applicants is that its workplaces
look like every student’s dream of a college campus and dorm. Google’s headquarters (called Googleplex) in Mountain View,
California, is outfitted with lava lamps, exercise balls, casual sofas, foosball, pool tables, workout rooms, video games, slides, and
a restaurant with free gourmet meals. Google’s new EMEA engineering hub in Zurich, Switzerland, also boasts a fun, campuslike
environment. These photos show a few areas of Google’s offices in Zurich, including private temporary workspaces in beehives and
ski gondolas. Google’s offices are so comfortable that executives occasionally remind staff of building code regulations against making
Google’s offices their permanent home.59
who experience job dissatisfaction or work-related stress are more likely to be absent
or late for work because taking time off is a way to temporarily withdraw from
stressful or dissatisfying conditions. Absenteeism is also higher in organizations with
generous sick leave because this benefit limits the negative financial impact of taking
time away from work. Studies have found that absenteeism is also higher in teams
with strong absence norms, meaning that team members tolerate and even expect
co-workers to take time off.60
Learning
Objectives
After reading the next two sections, you should be able to:
7. Debate the organizational opportunities and challenges of globalization, workforce diversity, and virtual work.
8. Discuss how employment relationships are changing, and explain
why these changes are occurring.
9. Discuss the anchors on which organizational behavior knowledge is
based.
Contemporary Challenges for Organizations
Throughout the earlier discussion on organizational effectiveness was an underlying
theme that organizations are deeply affected by the external environment. They need to
maintain a good fit with their external environment by continuously monitoring and
adjusting to changes in that environment. This external environment is continuously
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changing, but some changes, over the past decade and in the decade to come, are
more profound than others. These changes require that corporate leaders and all
other employees adjust to new realities. In this section, we highlight three of the major challenges facing organizations: globalization, increasing workforce diversity, and
emerging employment relationships.
Globalization
globalization
Economic, social, and
cultural connectivity
with people in other
parts of the world.
You might not have heard of Fonterra, but chances are that you have purchased or
eaten one of its products recently. The New Zealand–based company is the world’s
largest dairy exporting business and the world’s lowest-cost dairy ingredient producer. It operates in 140 countries, employs 20,000 people, and represents 40 percent of the global dairy trade. In many countries, it forms joint partnerships, such
as those with the Dairy Farmers of America, SanCor in Argentina, and Aria in
Europe. Fonterra’s current position on the world stage is quite different from the situation a decade ago, when three New Zealand dairy companies joined forces. They
realized that globalization was shaking up the industry and that forming a global enterprise was essential to their survival. The merged company was so globally focused
from the outset that it was temporarily called GlobalCo until the name Fonterra was
chosen. Fonterra’s adjustment to a global operation was not easy. Executives were
replaced as the company needed to adopt a different mindset. “A lot of people in the
[pre-merger companies] were very New Zealand–centric and culturally did not understand the global challenges of the teams offshore and the different operating
companies,” acknowledges a Fonterra executive.61
Fonterra is a rich example of the globalization of business over the past few decades.
Globalization refers to economic, social, and cultural connectivity with people in
other parts of the world. Fonterra and other organizations globalize when they actively participate in other countries and cultures. Although businesses have traded
goods across borders for centuries, the degree of globalization today is unprecedented
because information technology and transportation systems allow a much more intense level of connectivity and interdependence across the planet.62
Globalization offers numerous benefits to organizations in terms of larger markets,
lower costs, and greater access to knowledge and innovation. At the same time, there is
considerable debate about whether globalization benefits developing nations and
whether it is primarily responsible for increasing work intensification, as well as reducing job security and work–life balance in developed countries.63 Globalization is now
well entrenched, so the real issue in organizational behavior is how corporate leaders
and employees alike can lead and work effectively in this emerging reality.64 OB researchers are turning their attention to this topic. In Project GLOBE, for example,
dozens of experts are studying leadership and organizational practices worldwide.65
Increasing Workforce Diversity
Walk into the offices of Verizon Communications and you can quickly see that the
communications service giant reflects the communities it serves. Minorities make up
35 percent of Verizon’s 230,000 employees and 29 percent of management positions.
Women represent 42 percent of its workforce and 38 percent of management positions. Verizon’s inclusive culture has won awards from numerous organizations and
publications representing Hispanics, African-Americans, gays and lesbians, people
with disabilities, and other groups. “A commitment to diversity is as much about
good business as it is about doing the right thing,” says Magda Yrizarry, vice president
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Chapter 1 Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior
surface-level diversity
The observable demographic or physiological
differences in people,
such as their race, ethnicity, gender, age, and
physical disabilities.
deep-level diversity
Differences in the
psychological characteristics of employees,
including personalities,
beliefs, values, and
attitudes.
21
of workplace culture, diversity and compliance for Verizon. “As a company, we serve
some of the most diverse markets; so from our leadership to our frontline employees,
we understand and value diversity.”66
Verizon Communications is a model employer and a reflection of the increasing
diversity of people living in the United States and in many other countries. The description of Verizon’s diversity refers to surface-level diversity—the observable demographic and other overt differences in people, such as their race, ethnicity, gender,
age, and physical capabilities. Surface-level diversity has changed considerably in the
United States over the past few decades. People with nonwhite or Hispanic origin
represent one-third of the American population, and the percentage is projected to
increase substantially over the next few decades. Within the next 50 years, one in
four Americans will be Hispanic, 14 percent will be African American, and 8 percent
will be of Asian descent. By 2060, people with European non-Hispanic ethnicity will
be a minority.67 Many other countries are also experiencing increasing levels of racial
and ethnic diversification.
Diversity also includes differences in the psychological characteristics of employees, including personalities, beliefs, values, and attitudes.68 We can’t directly see this
deep-level diversity, but it is evident in a person’s decisions, statements, and actions.
One illustration of deep-level diversity is the different attitudes and expectations held
by employees across generational cohorts.69 Baby boomers—people born between 1946
and 1964—seem to expect and desire more job security and are more intent on improving their economic and social status. In contrast, Generation-X employees—those
born between 1965 and 1979—expect less job security and are motivated more by
workplace flexibility, the opportunity to learn (particularly new technology), and egalitarian and “fun” organizations. Meanwhile, some observers suggest that Generation-Y
employees (those born after 1979) are noticeably self-confident, optimistic, multitasking, and more independent than even Gen-X co-workers. These statements certainly
don’t apply to everyone in each cohort, but they do reflect the dynamics of deep-level
diversity and shifting values and expectations across generations.
Consequences of Diversity Diversity presents both opportunities and challenges
in organizations.70 In some circumstances and to some degree, diversity can become
a competitive advantage by improving decision making and team performance on
complex tasks. Studies suggest that teams with some forms of diversity (particularly
occupational diversity) make better decisions on complex problems than do teams
whose members have similar backgrounds. A few studies also report that companies
that win diversity awards have higher financial returns, at least in the short run.71
This is consistent with anecdotal evidence from many corporate leaders, namely,
that having a diverse workforce improves customer service and creativity. For instance,
PepsiCo estimates that one-eighth of its revenue growth is directly attributable to new
products inspired by diversity efforts.72
Based on this evidence, the popular refrain is that workforce diversity is a sound
business proposition. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. There is growing evidence
that most forms of diversity offer both advantages and disadvantages.73 Teams with
diverse employees usually take longer to perform effectively. Diversity brings numerous communication problems as well as “faultlines” in informal group dynamics.
Diversity is also a source of conflict, which can lead to lack of information sharing
and, in extreme cases, morale problems and higher turnover.
Whether or not workforce diversity is a business advantage, companies need to
make it a priority because surface-level diversity is a moral and legal imperative.
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Ethically, companies that offer an inclusive workplace are, in essence, making fair
and just decisions regarding employment, promotions, rewards, and so on. Fairness
is a well-established influence on employee loyalty and satisfaction. “Diversity is
about fairness; we use the term inclusive meritocracy,” says Ann M. Limberg, president of Bank of America New Jersey. “What it does for our workforce is build trust
and assures that individual differences are valued.”74 Our main point here is that
workforce diversity is the new reality and that organizations need to adjust to this reality both to survive and to experience its potential benefits for organizational success.
Emerging Employment Relationships
work–life balance
The degree to which a
person minimizes conflict between work and
nonwork demands.
virtual work
Work performed away
from the traditional
physical workplace by
means of information
technology.
Combine globalization with emerging workforce diversity, and add in new information technology. The resulting concoction has created incredible changes in employment relationships. A few decades ago, most (although not all) employees in the
United States and similar cultures would finish their workday after eight or nine hours
and could separate their personal time from the workday. There were no BlackBerrys
and no Internet connections to keep staff tethered to work on a 24/7 schedule. Even
business travel was more of an exception due to its high cost. Most competitors were
located in the same country, so they had similar work practices and labor costs. Today, work hours are longer (although arguably less than they were 100 years ago),
employees experience more work-related stress, and there is growing evidence that
family and personal relations are suffering. Little wonder that one of the emerging
issues in this new century is for more work–life balance—minimizing conflict between work and nonwork demands.75
Another employment relationship trend is virtual work, in which employees use
information technology to perform their jobs away from the traditional physical
workplace. The most common form of virtual work, called telecommuting or teleworking, involves working at home rather than commuting to the office. In another form
of virtual work, employees are connected to the office while on the road or at clients’
offices. For instance, nearly 50 percent of employees at Sun Microsystems complete
some of their work from home, cafés, drop-in centers, or clients’ offices. More than
two-thirds of the employees at Agilent Technologies engage in virtual work some
days or all the time.76
Welcome to My Office! One of Ray Ackley’s first decisions each
workday is where to put his office. The chief creative officer for
Tipping Point Services, a metro Detroit–based marketing and
communications firm, sometimes chooses a popular bakery or café.
Other times, he sets up shop in a nearby library (Ackley is shown
here at Southfield Public Library). As long as the location has a good
Wi-Fi connection and comfortable surroundings, Ackley can get on
with his work, which includes communicating with co-workers
located elsewhere in Detroit as well as in Delhi, India, and Shanghai,
China. Tipping Point Services doesn’t even have an official office,
although it might eventually establish one. For now, Ackley and
his co-workers prefer the virtual work arrangement. “We made a
commitment to be a virtual office because we can,” says Ackley. “I can
work anywhere, which means I travel less and I can spend more
time at home.”77
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Some research suggests that virtual work, particularly telecommuting, potentially
reduces employee stress by offering better work–life balance and dramatically reducing time lost through commuting to the office. Nortel Networks reports that 71 percent of its U.K. staff feels more empowered through virtual work arrangements.
AT&T estimates that its telecommuters reduce pollution and are about 10 percent
more productive than before they started working from home. IBM’s virtual work
program annually saves the company $400 million a year globally, mostly in real
estate costs.78 Against these potential benefits, virtual workers face a number of real
or potential challenges. Family relations may suffer rather than improve if employees
lack sufficient space and resources for a home office. Some virtual workers complain
of social isolation and reduced promotion opportunities. Virtual work is clearly better
suited to people who are self-motivated and organized, can work effectively with
contemporary information technologies, and have sufficient fulfillment of social
needs elsewhere in their life. It also works better in organizations that evaluate employees by their performance outcomes rather than “face time.”79
Anchors of Organizational Behavior Knowledge
Globalization, increasing workforce diversity, and emerging employment relationships are just a few of the trends that challenge organizations and make OB knowledge more relevant than ever before. To understand these and other topics, the field
of organizational behavior relies on a set of basic beliefs or knowledge structures (see
Exhibit 1.3). These conceptual anchors represent the principles on which OB knowledge is developed and refined.
The Multidisciplinary Anchor
Organizational behavior is anchored around the idea that the field should develop
from knowledge in other disciplines, not just from its own isolated research base. For
instance, psychological research has aided our understanding of individual and interpersonal behavior. Sociologists have contributed to our knowledge of team dynamics,
organizational socialization, organizational power, and other aspects of the social system. OB knowledge has also benefited from knowledge in emerging fields such as
communications, marketing, and information systems. Some OB experts have recently argued that the field suffers from a “trade deficit”—importing far more knowledge
Exhibit 1.3
Anchors of
Organizational
Behavior Knowledge
Multidisciplinary
anchor
OB should import knowledge from many
disciplines.
Systematic
research anchor
OB should study organizations using
systematic research methods.
Contingency
anchor
OB theory should recognize that the effects
of actions often vary with the situation.
Multiple levels of
analysis anchor
OB knowledge should include three levels of
analysis: individual, team, and organization.
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Part One Introduction
from other disciplines than is exported to other disciplines. Although this may be a
concern, organizational behavior has thrived through its diversity of knowledge from
other fields of study.80
The Systematic Research Anchor
evidence-based
management
The practice of making
decisions and taking
actions based on
research evidence.
A critical feature of OB knowledge is that it should be based on systematic research,
which typically involves forming research questions, systematically collecting data,
and testing hypotheses against those data. Appendix A at the end of this book details
some of the features of the systematic research process, including hypotheses,
sampling, research design, and qualitative methods research. When research is
founded on theory and conducted systematically, we can be more confident that the
results are meaningful and useful for practice. This is known as evidence-based
management—making decisions and taking actions based on research evidence.
Evidence-based management makes sense, yet OB experts are often amazed at
how frequently corporate leaders embrace fads, consulting models and their own pet
beliefs without bothering to find out if they actually work!81 There are many reasons
that people have difficulty applying evidence-based management. One explanation is
that corporate decision makers are bombarded with so many ideas from newspapers,
books, consultant reports, and other sources that they have difficulty figuring out
which ones are based on good evidence. Another reason why people ignore evidence
and embrace fads is that good OB research is necessarily generic; it is rarely described
in the context of a specific problem in a specific organization. Managers therefore
have the difficult task of figuring out which theories are relevant to their unique situation. A third reason is that many consultants and popular book writers are rewarded
for marketing their concepts and theories, not for testing to see if they actually work.
Indeed, some management concepts have become popular (and are even found in
some OB textbooks!) because of heavy marketing, not because of any evidence that
they are valid. Finally, as you will learn in Chapter 3, people form perceptions and
beliefs quickly and tend to ignore evidence that their beliefs are inaccurate.
The Contingency Anchor
People and their work environments are complex, and the field of organizational
behavior recognizes this by stating that a particular action may have different consequences in different situations. In other words, no single solution is best in all circumstances.82 Of course, it would be so much simpler if we could rely on “one best way”
theories, in which a particular concept or practice has the same results in every
situation. OB experts do search for simpler theories, but they also remain skeptical
about “surefire” recommendations; an exception is somewhere around the corner. Thus,
when faced with a particular problem or opportunity, we need to understand and
diagnose the situation and select the strategy most appropriate under those conditions.83
The Multiple Levels of Analysis Anchor
This textbook divides organizational behavior topics into three levels of analysis: individual, team, and organization. The individual level includes the characteristics and
behaviors of employees as well as the thought processes that are attributed to them,
such as motivation, perceptions, personalities, attitudes, and values. The team level of
analysis looks at the way people interact. This includes team dynamics, communication,
power, organizational politics, conflict, and leadership. At the organizational level, we
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25
focus on how people structure their working relationships and on how organizations
interact with their environments.
Although an OB topic is typically pegged into one level of analysis, it usually relates to multiple levels.84 For instance, communication is located in this book as a
team (interpersonal) process, but we also recognize that it includes individual and
organizational processes. Therefore, you should try to think about each OB topic at
the individual, team, and organizational levels, not just at one of these levels.
Chapter Summary
Organizational behavior is the study of what people
think, feel, and do in and around organizations. Organizations are groups of people who work interdependently
toward some purpose. Although OB doesn’t have a specific career path, it offers knowledge and skills that are
vitally important to anyone who works in organizations.
OB knowledge also has a significant effect on the success
of organizations. This book takes the view that OB is for
everyone, not just managers.
Organizational effectiveness is a multidimensional
concept represented by four perspectives: open systems,
organizational learning, high-performance work practices, and stakeholder. The open-systems perspective says
that organizations need to adapt to their external environment and configure their internal subsystems to maximize efficiency and responsiveness. For the most part, the
other perspectives of organizational effectiveness are detailed extensions of the open-systems model. The organizational learning perspective states that organizational
effectiveness depends on the organization’s capacity to
acquire, share, use, and store valuable knowledge. Intellectual capital is knowledge that resides in an organization, including its human capital, structural capital, and
relationship capital. Effective organizations also “unlearn,” meaning that they remove knowledge that no
longer adds value.
The high-performance work practices (HPWP) perspective states that effective organizations leverage the human
capital potential of their employees. Specific HPWPs have
been identified, and experts in this field suggest that they
need to be bundled together for maximum benefit. The
stakeholder perspective states that effective organizations
take into account how their actions affect others, and this
requires them to understand, manage, and satisfy the interests of their stakeholders. This perspective incorporates
values, ethics, and corporate social responsibility into the
organizational effectiveness equation.
The five main types of workplace behavior are task
performance, organizational citizenship, counterproductive work behaviors, joining and staying with the organization, and work attendance. These represent the
individual-level dependent variables found in most OB
research.
Three environmental shifts that are challenging organizations include globalization, increasing workforce
diversity, and emerging employment relationships.
Globalization refers to economic, social, and cultural connectivity with people in other parts of the world. Workforce diversity includes both surface-level and deep-level
diversity. Two emerging employment relationship changes are demands for work–life balance and virtual work.
Several conceptual anchors represent the principles on
which OB knowledge is developed and refined. These
anchors include beliefs that OB knowledge should be
multidisciplinary and based on systematic research, that
organizational events usually have contingencies, and
that organizational behavior can be viewed from three
levels of analysis (individual, team, and organization).
Key Terms
absorptive capacity, p. 11
corporate social responsibility
(CSR), p. 16
counterproductive work behaviors
(CWBs), p. 18
deep-level diversity, p. 21
ethics, p. 15
evidence-based management, p. 24
globalization, p. 20
high-performance work practices
(HPWPs), p. 12
human capital, p. 12
intellectual capital, p. 12
lean management, p. 9
open systems, p. 7
organizational behavior (OB), p. 4
organizational citizenship behaviors
(OCBs), p. 17
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organizational effectiveness, p. 7
organizational efficiency, p. 9
organizational learning, p. 11
organizational memory, p. 12
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organizations, p. 4
stakeholders, p. 13
surface-level diversity, p. 21
values, p. 14
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virtual work, p. 22
work–life balance, p. 22
Critical Thinking Questions
A friend suggests that organizational behavior
courses are useful only to people who will enter management careers. Discuss the accuracy of your
friend’s statement.
2. A number of years ago, employees in a city water distribution department were put into teams and encouraged to find ways to improve efficiency. The teams
boldly crossed departmental boundaries and areas of
management discretion in search of problems. Employees working in other parts of the city began to
complain about these intrusions. Moreover, when
some team ideas were implemented, the city managers
discovered that a dollar saved in the water distribution
unit may have cost the organization two dollars in
higher costs elsewhere. Use the open-systems perspective to explain what happened here.
3. After hearing a seminar on organizational learning, a
mining company executive argues that this perspective
ignores the fact that mining companies cannot rely on
knowledge alone to stay in business. They also need
physical capital (such as digging and ore-processing
equipment) and land (where the minerals are located).
In fact, these two may be more important than what
employees carry around in their heads. Evaluate the
mining executive’s comments.
1.
Case Study 1.1
JERSEY DAIRIES, INC.
Jersey Dairies, Inc. faced increasing competition
that threatened its dominant market share in the
Pacific Northwest. Senior management at the 300employee dairy food processing company decided
that the best way to maintain or increase market
share was to take the plunge into a quality management (QM) program. Jersey hired consultants to
educate management and employees about the
QM process, and sent several managers to QM
seminars. A steering team of managers and a few
26
4. A common refrain among executives is “People are
our most important asset.” Relate this statement to
any two of the four perspectives of organizational
effectiveness presented in this chapter. Does this
statement apply better to some perspectives than to
others? Why or why not?
5. Corporate social responsibility is one of the hottest
issues in corporate boardrooms these days, partly
because it is becoming increasingly important to
employees and other stakeholders. In your opinion,
why have stakeholders given CSR more attention
recently? Does abiding by CSR standards potentially
cause companies to have conflicting objectives with
some stakeholders in some situations?
6. Look through the list of chapters in this textbook,
and discuss how globalization could influence each
organizational behavior topic.
7. “Organizational theories should follow the contingency approach.” Comment on the accuracy of this
statement.
8. What does evidence-based management mean? Describe
situations you have heard about in which companies
have practiced evidence-based management, as well
as situations in which companies have relied on fads
that lacked sufficient evidence of their worth.
employees visited other QM companies throughout North America.
To strengthen the company’s QM focus, Jersey
president Tina Stavros created a new position called
vice-president of quality, and hired James Alder into
that position. Alder, who previously worked as a
QM consultant at a major consulting firm, was enthusiastic about implementing a complete QM
program. One of Alder’s first accomplishments was
convincing management to give every employee in
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the organization several days of training in quality
measurement (e.g., Pareto diagrams), structured
problem solving, and related QM practices. Jersey’s
largely unskilled workforce had difficulty learning
this material, so the training took longer than expected and another round was required one year
later.
Alder worked with production managers to form
continuous improvement (CI) teams—groups of employees who looked for ways to cut costs, time, and
space throughout the work process. Although Alder
was enthusiastic about CI teams, most supervisors
and employees were reluctant to get involved.
Supervisors complained that the CI teams were
“asking too many questions” about activities in their
department. Less than one-quarter of the production areas formed CI teams because employees
thought QM was a fancy way for management to
speed up the work. This view was reinforced by
some of management’s subsequent actions, such as
setting higher production targets and requiring
employees to complete the tasks of those who were
absent from work.
To gain more support for QM, Jersey president
Tina Stavros spoke regularly to employees and supervisors about how QM was their answer to beating the competition and saving jobs. Although these
talks took her away from other duties, she wanted
every employee to know that their primary objective was to improve customer service and production efficiency in the company. To encourage more
involvement in the CI teams, Stavros and Alder
warned employees that they must support the QM
program to save their jobs. To further emphasize this
message, the company placed large signs throughout
the company’s production facilities that said, “Our
Jobs Depend on Satisfied Customers” and “Quality
Management: Our Competitive Advantage.”
Alder and Stavros agreed that Jersey’s suppliers
must have a strong commitment toward the QM
philosophy, so Jersey’s purchasing manager was told
to get suppliers “on board” or find alternative
sources. Unfortunately, the purchasing manager preferred a more collegial and passive involvement with
suppliers, so he was replaced a few months later.
The new purchasing manager informed suppliers
that they should begin a QM program immediately
because Jersey would negotiate for lower prices in
the next contracts and would evaluate their bids
partly based on their QM programs.
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Twenty months after Jersey Dairies began its
QM journey, Tina Stavros accepted a lucrative job
offer from a large food products company in the
Midwest. Jersey Dairies promoted its vice-president
of finance, Thomas Cheun, to the president’s job.
The board of directors was concerned about Jersey’s
falling profits over the previous couple of years
and wanted Cheun to strengthen the bottom line.
Although some CI teams did find cost savings,
these were mostly offset by higher expenses. The
company had nearly tripled its training budget and
had significantly higher paid-time-off costs as employees took these courses. A considerable sum
was spent on customer surveys and focus groups.
Employee turnover was higher, mainly due to dissatisfaction with the QM program. Just before Stavros
left the company, she received word that several
employees had contacted the Commercial Food
Workers Union about organizing Jersey’s nonunion
production workforce.
A group of suppliers asked for a confidential
meeting in which they told Cheun to reconsider the
QM demands on them. They complained that their
long-term relationships with Jersey were being damaged and that other dairies were being more realistic
about price, quality, and delivery requirements. Two
major suppliers bluntly stated that they might decide
to end their contracts with Jersey rather than agree
to Jersey’s demands.
Almost two years after Jersey Dairies began QM,
Thomas Cheun announced that James Alder was leaving Jersey Dairies, that the position of vice-president
of quality would no longer exist, and that the company would end several QM initiatives begun over the
previous two years. Instead, Jersey Dairies, Inc. would
use better marketing strategies and introduce new
technologies to improve its competitive position in the
marketplace.
Discussion Questions
1. What perspective of organizational effectiveness
did Tina Stavros and James Alder attempt to apply in this case? Describe how specific elements
of that perspective related to their interventions.
2. Explain what went wrong in this case, using one
or more of the other perspectives of organizational effectiveness.
Source: Steven L. McShane, © 1995.
27
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Case Study 1.2
1/12/09
7:51:19 PM s-206
WORKING FROM HOME—IT’S IN THE DETAILS
Roads leading to Microsoft’s
headquarters in Redmond,
Washington, simply weren’t designed to handle the 35,000 commuters who report
for work there each day. The daily gridlock has become so acute that it nearly caused Washington State’s
governor to miss his own speech at the software
maker on a recent morning. Microsoft has figured
out how to tackle the commuter crisis: it has introduced a program to get more staff telecommuting,
either working from home or other off-site locales.
About 14% of the U.S. workforce gets its job done
at a home office more than two days per week. That’s
up from 11% in 2004, and will be around 17% in another year or two. But the growth of telecommuting
has also awakened many companies to the reality that
not everyone is ready for virtual work. Companies also
need to make adjustments to the way they operate in
order for telecommuting to have lasting benefits.
This BusinessWeek case study discusses the issues
that companies are facing with the rising tide of
Team Exercise 1.3
telecommuting, as well as the strategies these organizations are applying to overcome these obstacles.
Read the full text of this BusinessWeek article at
www.mhhe.com/mcshane5e, and prepare for the
discussion questions below.
Discussion Questions
1. Identify and discuss the main problems or concerns mentioned in this case study regarding
telecommuting. In your opinion, do most of
these problems originate with the company or
the employee?
2. Describe the characteristics of people who adjust
more easily to telecommuting. How can companies identify these employees or develop others
to be better prepared for telecommuting?
Source: R. King, “Working from Home: It’s in the Details,”
BusinessWeek, 12 February 2007, p. 9.
HUMAN CHECKERS
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to help students understand the importance and application of
organizational behavior concepts.
MATERIALS None, but the instructor has more information about the team’s task.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Form teams with eight students. If possible, each
team should have a private location where team
members can plan and practice the required
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task without being observed or heard by other
teams.
2. All teams receive special instructions in class
about their assigned task. All teams have the
same task and have the same amount of time to
plan and practice the task. At the end of this
planning and practice, each team will be timed
while completing the task in class. The team that
completes the task in the least time wins.
3. No special materials are required or allowed
(see rules below) for this exercise. Although the
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task is not described here, students should learn
the following rules for planning and implementing the task:
a. You cannot use any written form of communication or any props to assist in the planning
or implementation of this task.
b. You may speak to other students on your team
at any time during the planning and implementation of this task.
c. When performing the task, you can move
only forward, not backward. (You are not allowed to turn around.)
d. When performing the task, you can move forward to the next space, but only if it is vacant. In
Exhibit 1, the individual (dark circle) can move
directly into an empty space (light circle).
e. When performing the task, you can move forward two spaces if that space is vacant. In other
words, you can move around a person who is
one space in front of you to the next space if
that space is vacant. (In Exhibit 2, two people
Class Exercise 1.4
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Exhibit 1
4.
Exhibit 2
occupy the dark circle, and the light circle is an
empty space. A person can move around the
person in front to the empty space.)
When all teams have completed their task, the
class will discuss the implications of this exercise
for organizational behavior.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Identify organizational behavior concepts that
the team applied to complete this task.
2. What personal theories of people and work
teams were applied to complete this task?
3. What organizational behavior problems occurred, and what actions were (or should have
been) taken to solve them?
DIAGNOSING ORGANIZATIONAL STAKEHOLDERS
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to help you
understand how stakeholders influence organizations as part of the open-systems anchor.
MATERIALS Students need to select a company
and, prior to class, retrieve and analyze publicly
available information over the past year or two
about that company. This may include annual reports, which are usually found on the Web sites of
publicly traded companies. Where possible, students
should also scan full-text newspaper and magazine
databases for articles published over the previous
year about the company.
INSTRUCTIONS The instructor may have students work alone or in groups for this activity. Students will select a company and investigate the
relevance and influence of various stakeholder
groups on the organization. Stakeholders can be
identified from annual reports, newspaper articles,
Web site statements, and other available sources.
Stakeholders should be rank-ordered in terms of
their perceived importance to the organization.
Students should be prepared to present or discuss
their rank ordering of the organization’s stakeholders, including evidence for this ordering.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. What are the main reasons why certain stakeholders are more important than others for this
organization?
2. On the basis of your knowledge of the organization’s environmental situation, is this rank
order of stakeholders in the organization’s best
interest, or should specific other stakeholders
be given higher priority?
3. What societal groups, if any, are not mentioned
as stakeholders by the organization? Does this
lack of reference to these unmentioned groups
make sense?
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Self-Assessment 1.5
IT ALL MAKES SENSE?
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to help you
comprehend how organizational behavior knowledge
can help you to understand life in organizations.
INSTRUCTIONS (Note: This activity may be done
as a self-assessment or as a team activity.) Read each
of the statements below and circle whether each statement is true or false, in your opinion. The class will
consider the answers to each question and discuss the
implications for studying organizational behavior.
Due to the nature of this activity, the instructor
will provide the answers to these questions. There is
no scoring key in Appendix B.
1. True
2.
False
True False
3. True False
A happy worker is a productive worker.
Decision makers tend to continue supporting a course of
action even though information suggests that the decision
is ineffective.
Organizations are more effective when they prevent conflict
among employees.
4.
True
False
5.
True
False
6.
True
False
7. True False
8. True False
9.
True False
10. True False
It is better to negotiate alone
than as a team.
Companies are more successful when they have strong
corporate cultures.
Employees perform better
without stress.
The best way to change people and organizations is by
pinpointing the source of
their current problems.
Female leaders involve employees in decisions to a
greater degree than do male
leaders.
The best decisions are made
without emotion.
If employees feel they are paid
unfairly, nothing other than
changing their pay will reduce
their feelings of injustice.
Self-Assessment 1.6
IS TELECOMMUTING FOR YOU?
Some employees adapt better than others to telecommuting (also called teleworking ) and other forms
of virtual work. This self-assessment measures personal characteristics that seem to relate to telecommuting, and therefore it provides a rough indication
of how well you would adapt to telework. The instrument asks you to indicate how much you agree
or disagree with each of the statements provided. You need to be honest with yourself to
get a reasonable estimate of your telework
disposition. Please keep in mind that this scale considers only your personal characteristics. Other factors, such as organizational, family, and technological
systems support, must also be taken into account.
After reading this chapter, if you feel that you need additional tips on managing your anxiety, see
www.mhhe.com/mcshane5e for more in-depth information and interactivities that correspond to
this chapter.
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Part Two
Individual Behavior and Processes
Chapter 2
Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
Chapter 3
Perception and Learning in Organizations
Chapter 4
Workplace Emotions, Attitudes, and Stress
Chapter 5
Foundations of Employee Motivation
Chapter 6
Applied Performance Practices
Chapter 7
Decision Making and Creativity
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Yasmeen Youssef’s self-confidence was a bit shaky when she and her husband moved
from Egypt to Canada a few years ago. “I was worried no one would take a chance on
me, would believe in me,” she recalls. But any self-doubts slowly disappeared after
taking an entry-level job with Fairmont Hotels & Resorts corporate offices in Toronto.
“Everything changed when I started working at Fairmont,” says Youssef, who is now on
Fairmont’s human resource team and recently trained new staff in Cairo. “I can’t believe
the amount of value, care, respect everyone has extended to me.”
As North America’s largest luxury hotel operator,
Fairmont discovered long ago that one of the secret
ingredients for employee performance and well-being
is supporting the individual’s self-concept. “People want
to feel valued and they stay where they feel valued,”
says Carolyn Clark, Fairmont’s senior vice president of
human resources. Clark also points out that Fairmont
is able to nurture this talent by selecting the best,
which means hiring people with the right values and
personality for superb customer service. “We believed
that we could train the technical skills—that’s the easy
part,” Clark explained a few years ago. “What we can’t
train is the service orientation. We just can’t put people
in the training program and say they are going to come
out smiling if that is not inherent in them.”
Along with hiring people with the right values and
personality and nurturing their self-concept, Fairmont
is developing staff to work effectively in a multicultural
world. Sean Billing is a case in point. The economics
graduate had been working as Fairmont’s director of
rooms in Chicago when he casually asked his boss
whether the hotel chain could use his skills and
Fairmont Hotels has excelled as North America’s largest
luxury hotel operator by hiring people such as Yasmeen
Youssef (shown here) with the right values and personality
and then nurturing their self-concept and cross-cultural
competencies.
knowledge elsewhere. Soon after, Billing was offered
a position in Kenya, bringing Fairmont’s new properties
in the African country up to world-class standards
through training and technology without losing the
distinctive Kenyan character. Billing jumped at the
opportunity, but he also recognizes the challenge of inculcating Fairmont’s deep values
of customer service, environmentalism, and empowerment into another culture. “It’s a
little bit of hotel culture shock . . . things are quite different here,” he says.1
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2
Individual Behavior,
Personality, and Values
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Describe the four factors that directly
influence voluntary individual behavior and
performance.
2. Define personality and discuss what
determines an individual’s personality
characteristics.
3. Summarize the “Big Five” personality traits
in the five-factor model and discuss their
influence on organizational behavior.
4. Describe self-concept in terms of selfenhancement, self-verification, and
self-evaluation.
5. Explain how social identity theory relates to
a person’s self-concept.
6. Distinguish personal, shared, espoused,
and enacted values and explain why value
congruence is important.
7. Summarize five values commonly studied
across cultures.
8. Explain how moral intensity, ethical
sensitivity, and the situation influence
ethical behavior.
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Individual Behavior and Processes
What makes Fairmont Hotels & Resorts a successful company? There is no single
explanation, but this opening vignette reveals that North America’s largest luxury
hotel company applies many of the theories and practices discussed in this chapter. It
hires people with the right personality traits and values, trains them well, and nurtures their self-concept. As a global enterprise, Fairmont also ensures that its staff
members develop cross-cultural competencies.
This chapter concentrates our attention on the role of the individual in organizations. We begin by presenting the MARS model, which outlines the four direct drivers of individual behavior and results. Next, we introduce the most stable aspect of
individuals—personality—including personality development, personality traits, and
how personality relates to organizational behavior. We then look at the individual’s
self-concept, including self-enhancement, self-verification, self-evaluation, and social
identity. The latter part of this chapter examines another relatively stable characteristic of individuals: their personal values. We look at types of values, issues of value
congruence in organizations, cross-cultural values, and ethical values and practices.
Learning
Objectives
After reading this section, you should be able to:
1. Describe the four factors that directly influence voluntary individual
behavior and performance.
MARS Model of Individual Behavior and Performance
For most of the past century, experts in psychology, sociology, and, more recently,
organizational behavior have investigated the direct predictors of individual behavior
and performance.2 One of the earliest formulas was performance ⫽ person ⫻ situation,
where person includes individual characteristics and situation represents external
influences on the individual’s behavior. Another frequently mentioned formula is
performance ⫽ ability ⫻ motivation. Sometimes known as the “skill-and-will” model,
this formula elaborates two specific characteristics within the person that influence
individual performance. Ability, motivation, and situation are by far the most commonly mentioned direct predictors of individual behavior and performance, but in
the 1960s researchers identified a fourth key factor: role perceptions (the individual’s
expected role obligations).3
Exhibit 2.1 illustrates these four variables—motivation, ability, role perceptions,
and situational factors—which are represented by the acronym MARS.4 All four
factors are critical influences on an individual’s voluntary behavior and performance; if any one of them is low in a given situation, the employee would perform
the task poorly. For example, motivated salespeople with clear role perceptions and
sufficient resources (situational factors) will not perform their jobs as well if they lack
sales skills and related knowledge (ability). Let’s look at each of these four factors in
more detail.
motivation
The forces within a
person that affect his
or her direction, intensity, and persistence of
voluntary behavior.
Employee Motivation
Motivation represents the forces within a person that affect his or her direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary behavior.5 Direction refers to the path along
which people engage their effort. People have choices about where they put their
effort; they have a sense of what they are trying to achieve and at what level of quality, quantity, and so forth. In other words, motivation is goal-directed, not random.
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
Exhibit 2.1
35
MARS Model of Individual Behavior and Results
Individual
characteristics
MARS model
Values
Motivation
Personality
Situational
factors
Perceptions
Ability
Emotions and
attitudes
Behavior and
results
Role
perceptions
Stress
People are motivated to arrive at work on time, finish a project a few hours early, or
aim for many other targets. The second element of motivation, called intensity, is the
amount of effort allocated to the goal. Intensity is all about how much people push
themselves to complete a task. For example, two employees might be motivated to
finish their project a few hours early (direction), but only one of them puts forth
enough effort (intensity) to achieve this goal.
Finally, motivation involves varying levels of persistence, that is, continuing the effort for a certain amount of time. Employees sustain their effort until they reach their
goal or give up beforehand. Remember that motivation exists within individuals; it is
not their actual behavior. Thus, direction, intensity, and persistence are cognitive
(thoughts) and emotional conditions that directly cause us to move.
Ability
ability
The natural aptitudes
and learned capabilities
required to successfully
complete a task.
Employee abilities also make a difference in behavior and task performance. Ability
includes both the natural aptitudes and the learned capabilities required to successfully complete a task. Aptitudes are the natural talents that help employees learn specific tasks more quickly and perform them better. There are many physical and
mental aptitudes, and our ability to acquire skills is affected by these aptitudes. For
example, finger dexterity is an aptitude by which individuals learn more quickly and
potentially achieve higher performance at picking up and handling small objects with
their fingers. Employees with high finger dexterity are not necessarily better than
others at first; rather, their learning tends to be faster and performance potential
tends to be higher. Learned capabilities are the skills and knowledge that you currently
possess. These capabilities include the physical and mental skills and knowledge you
have acquired. Learned capabilities tend to wane over time when not in use.
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36
competencies
Skills, knowledge, aptitudes, and other personal characteristics
that lead to superior
performance.
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Individual Behavior and Processes
Aptitudes and learned capabilities are closely related to competencies, which has
become a frequently used term in business. Competencies are characteristics of a
person that result in superior performance.6 Many experts describe these characteristics as personal traits (i.e., knowledge, skills, aptitudes, personality, self-concept, values). Others suggest that competencies represent actions produced by a person’s
traits, such as serving customers, coping with heavy workloads, and providing creative ideas. With either definition, the challenge is to match a person’s competencies
with the job’s task requirements. A good person-job match not only produces higher
performance; it also tends to increase the employee’s well-being.
Person-Job Matching Strategies
One way to match a person’s competencies
with the job’s task requirements is to select applicants who already demonstrate the
required competencies. For example, companies ask applicants to perform work
samples, provide references for checking their past performance, and complete
various selection tests. A second strategy is to provide training so that employees
develop required skills and knowledge. Research indicates that training has a strong
influence on individual performance and organizational effectiveness.7 The third
person-job matching strategy is to redesign the job so that employees are given
tasks only within their current learned capabilities. For example, a complex task
might be simplified—some aspects of the work are transferred to others—so that a
new employee performs only tasks that he or she is currently able to perform. As
the employee becomes more competent at these tasks, other tasks are added back
into the job.
Role Perceptions
role perceptions
The extent to which
people understand
the job duties (roles)
assigned to or expected
of them.
Motivation and ability are important influences on individual behavior and performance, but employees also require accurate role perceptions to perform their jobs
well. Role perceptions are the extent to which people understand the job duties (roles)
assigned to them or expected of them. These perceptions are critical because they
guide the employee’s direction of effort and improve coordination with co-workers,
suppliers, and other stakeholders. Unfortunately, many employees do not have clear
role perceptions. According to one large-scale survey, most employees understand
their organization’s business goals, but only 39 percent know what to do in their own
jobs to achieve those goals.8
The role perceptions concept has three components. First, employees have accurate role perceptions when they understand the specific tasks assigned to them, that
is, when they know the specific duties or consequences for which they are accountable. This may seem obvious, but employees have been (unjustly) fired for failing to
perform tasks that they didn’t even know were part of their job duties. Second, people have accurate role perceptions when they understand the priority of their various
tasks and performance expectations. This includes the quantity versus quality dilemma, such as how many customers to serve in an hour (quantity) versus how well
the employee should serve each customer (quality). It also refers to properly allocating time and resources to various tasks, such as how much time a manager should
spend coaching employees in a typical week. The third component of role perceptions is understanding the preferred behaviors or procedures for accomplishing the
assigned tasks. This refers to situations in which more than one method could be followed to perform the work. Employees with clear role perceptions know which of
these methods is preferred by the organization.
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
37
Best Buy Sorts Out Role Perceptions for Black Friday It’s 5 a.m. on Black Friday, and hundreds of eager
shoppers are pouring through the doors of the Best Buy retail outlet in Columbia, Maryland, to grab up
the advertised bargains. Fortunately, Best Buy’s 225 employees in Columbia know what is expected of
them on this extremely busy day after Thanksgiving. A huge floor plan in the back office has color-coded
stickers marking where every staff member will be located; six green dots indicate where employees
will stand outside to monitor and support customers who have lined up for hours. Many Best Buy stores
held special rehearsals—complete with acting customers—during the week before Black Friday to
help employees understand their roles and hone their customer service skills. For example, this photo
shows customer assistance supervisor Aaron Sanford orchestrating a Black Friday practice run at a
Best Buy store in Denver. “If you do it right, you’re very profitable,” advises Kevin McGrath, Best Buy’s
store manager in Columbia. McGrath explains that clear role perceptions are just as important for a
retail outlet as for a winning sports team. “The [Baltimore] Ravens are successful because [the players]
know what is expected of them,” he says.9
Situational Factors
Employees’ behavior and performance also depend on how much the situation supports or interferes with their task goals. Situational factors include conditions beyond
the employee’s immediate control that constrain or facilitate behavior and performance.10 Some situational characteristics—such as consumer preferences and economic conditions—originate from the external environment and, consequently, are
beyond the employee’s and organization’s control. However, other situational factors—
such as time, people, budget, and physical work facilities—are controlled by people
within the organization. Therefore, corporate leaders need to carefully arrange these
conditions so that employees can achieve their performance potential.
The four elements of the MARS model—motivation, ability, role perceptions, and
situational factors—affect all voluntary workplace behaviors and their performance
outcomes. These elements are themselves influenced by other individual differences.
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Individual Behavior and Processes
In the remainder of this chapter, we introduce three of the most stable individual
characteristics: personality, self-concept, and values.
Learning
Objectives
After reading the next two sections, you should be able to:
2. Define personality and discuss what determines an individual’s personality characteristics.
3. Summarize the “Big Five” personality traits in the five-factor model
and discuss their influence on organizational behavior.
4. Describe self-concept in terms of self-enhancement, self-verification,
and self-evaluation.
5. Explain how social identity theory relates to a person’s self-concept.
Personality in Organizations
personality
The relatively enduring
pattern of thoughts,
emotions, and behaviors that characterize a
person, along with
the psychological
processes behind those
characteristics.
Brian McHale carefully screens job applicants to find those who will take his company to the next level of success. “We look for people with passion about our business, a drive to understand consumers and what motivates them, and have a pervasive
curiosity,” says the president of Empower MediaMarketing in Cincinnati. McHale
emphasizes that his 150 employees are good at selecting applicants from interviews
and résumés, but he also asks candidates to complete a personality test indicating
whether they are the right fit. “A personality profile is just one more data point, one
more window into the person you’re thinking about hiring,” McHale says. “It’s obviously not something that we depend on solely or even primarily when making a
decision. But it can help complete a picture.”11
Personality is an important individual characteristic, which explains why Empower
MediaMarketing and many other companies are increasingly testing the personality
traits of job applicants and employees. Personality is the relatively enduring pattern
of thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize a person, along with the psychological processes behind those characteristics.12 It is, in essence, the bundle of
characteristics that make us similar to or different from other people. We estimate an
individual’s personality by what he or she says and does, and we infer the person’s
internal states—including thoughts and emotions—from these observable behaviors.
A basic premise of personality theory is that people have inherent characteristics or
traits that can be identified by the consistency or stability of their behavior across
time and situations.13 For example, you probably have some friends who are more
talkative than others. You might know some people who like to take risks and others
who are risk-averse. This consistency is an essential requirement for personality
theory because it attributes a person’s behavior to something within him or her—the
individual’s personality—rather than to purely environmental influences.
Of course, people do not act the same way in all situations; in fact, such consistency would be considered abnormal because it indicates a person’s insensitivity to
social norms, reward systems, and other external conditions.14 People vary their behavior to suit the situation, even if the behavior is at odds with their personality. For
example, talkative people remain relatively quiet in a library where “no talking” rules
are explicit and strictly enforced. People typically exhibit a wide range of behaviors,
yet within that variety are discernible patterns that we refer to as personality traits.
Traits are broad concepts that allow us to label and understand individual differences.
Furthermore, traits predict an individual’s behavior far into the future. For example,
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
39
studies report that an individual’s personality in childhood predicts various behaviors
and outcomes in adulthood, including educational attainment, employment success,
marital relationships, illegal activities, and health-risk behaviors.15
Personality Determinants: Nature versus Nurture
What determines an individual’s personality? Most experts now agree that personality is shaped by both nature and nurture, although the relative importance of each
continues to be debated and studied. Nature refers to our genetic or hereditary origins—
the genes that we inherit from our parents. Studies of identical twins, particularly
those separated at birth, reveal that heredity has a very large effect on personality; up
to 50 percent of variation in behavior and 30 percent of temperament preferences
can be attributed to a person’s genetic characteristics.16 In other words, genetic code
not only determines our eye color, skin tone, and physical shape but also has a significant effect on our attitudes, decisions, and behavior.
Some similarities of identical twins raised apart are surreal. Consider Jim Springer
and Jim Lewis, twins who were separated when only four weeks old and didn’t meet
each other until age 39. In spite of being raised in different families and communities
in Ohio, the “Jim twins” held similar jobs, smoked the same type of cigarettes, drove
the same make and color of car, spent their vacations on the same Florida beach, had
the same woodworking hobby, gave their first sons almost identical names, and had
been married twice. Both their first and second wives also had the same first
names!17
Although personality is heavily influenced by heredity, it is also affected to some
degree by nurture—the person’s socialization, life experiences, and other forms of interaction with the environment. Studies have found that the stability of an individual’s
personality increases up to at least age 30 and possibly to age 50, indicating that some
personality development and change occurs when people are young.18 The main explanation of why personality becomes more stable over time is that people form
clearer and more rigid self-concepts as they get older. The executive function—the
part of the brain that manages goal-directed behavior—tries to keep our behavior
consistent with our self-concept.19 As self-concept becomes clearer and more stable
with age, behavior and personality therefore also become more stable and consistent.
We discuss self-concept in more detail later in this chapter. The main point here is
that personality is not completely determined by heredity; life experiences, particularly early in life, also shape each individual’s personality traits.
Five-Factor Model of Personality
five-factor model (FFM)
The five abstract dimensions representing
most personality traits:
conscientiousness,
emotional stability,
openness to experience, agreeableness,
and extroversion.
One of the most important elements of personality theory is that people possess specific personality traits. Traits such as sociable, depressed, cautious, and talkative represent clusters of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that allow us to identify,
differentiate, and understand people.20 The most widely respected model of personality traits is the five-factor model (FFM). Several decades ago, personality experts
identified more than 17,000 words in Roget’s thesaurus and Webster’s dictionary that
describe an individual’s personality. These words were aggregated into 171 clusters
and then further reduced to five abstract personality dimensions. Using more sophisticated techniques, recent investigations identified the same five personality dimensions. Analyses of trait words in several other languages have produced strikingly
similar results, although they also lend support for the notion of six or possibly seven
dimensions of personality. Generally, though, the five-factor model is fairly robust
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Personality
dimension
Exhibit 2.2
Five-Factor Model’s
Big Five Personality
Dimensions
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People with a high score on this dimension
tend to be more:
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness to
experience
Extroversion
across cultures.21 These “Big Five” dimensions, represented by the handy acronym
CANOE, are outlined in Exhibit 2.2 and described below:
conscientiousness
A personality dimension
describing people who
are careful, dependable,
and self-disciplined.
•
•
neuroticism
A personality dimension
describing people with
high levels of anxiety,
hostility, depression,
and self-consciousness.
•
extroversion
A personality dimension
describing people who
are outgoing, talkative,
sociable, and assertive.
•
•
Conscientiousness. Conscientiousness characterizes people who are careful,
dependable, and self-disciplined. Some scholars argue that this dimension
also includes the will to achieve. People with low conscientiousness tend to
be careless, less thorough, more disorganized, and irresponsible.
Agreeableness. This dimension includes the traits of being courteous, good-natured,
empathic, and caring. Some scholars prefer the label “friendly compliance” for
this dimension, with its opposite being “hostile noncompliance.” People with low
agreeableness tend to be uncooperative, short-tempered, and irritable.
Neuroticism. Neuroticism characterizes people with high levels of anxiety,
hostility, depression, and self-consciousness. In contrast, people with low
neuroticism (high emotional stability) are poised, secure, and calm.
Openness to experience. This dimension is the most complex and has the least
agreement among scholars. It generally refers to the extent to which people are
imaginative, creative, curious, and aesthetically sensitive. Those who score low
on this dimension tend to be more resistant to change, less open to new ideas,
and more conventional and fixed in their ways.
Extroversion. Extroversion characterizes people who are outgoing, talkative,
sociable, and assertive. The opposite is introversion, which characterizes those
who are quiet, shy, and cautious. Extroverts get their energy from the outer
world (people and things around them), whereas introverts get their energy
from the internal world, such as personal reflection on concepts and ideas. Introverts do not necessarily lack social skills. Rather, they are more inclined to
direct their interests to ideas than to social events. Introverts feel quite comfortable being alone, whereas extroverts do not.
These five personality dimensions are not independent of each other. Some experts
suggest that conscientiousness, agreeableness, and low neuroticism (high emotional
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
41
stability) represent a common underlying characteristic broadly described as “getting
along”; people with these traits are aware of and more likely to abide by rules and
norms of society. The other two dimensions share the common underlying factor
called “getting ahead”; people with high scores on extroversion and openness to experience exhibit more behaviors aimed at achieving goals, managing their environment, and advancing themselves in teams.22
Studies report fairly strong associations between personality and several workplace behaviors and outcomes, even when employee ability and other factors are
taken into account. Conscientiousness and emotional stability (low neuroticism)
stand out as the personality traits that best predict individual performance in almost
every job group.23 Both are motivational components of personality because they
energize a willingness to fulfill work obligations within established rules (conscientiousness) and to allocate resources to accomplish those tasks (emotional stability).
Various studies have reported that conscientious employees set higher personal
goals for themselves, are more motivated, and have higher performance expectations than do employees with low levels of conscientiousness. They also tend to
have higher levels of organizational citizenship and work better in organizations that
give employees more freedom than is found in traditional command-and-control
workplaces.24
The other three personality dimensions predict more specific types of employee
behavior and performance. Extroversion is associated with performance in sales and
management jobs, where employees must interact with and influence people. Agreeableness is associated with performance in jobs where employees are expected to be
cooperative and helpful, such as working in teams, customer relations, and other
conflict-handling situations. People high on the openness-to-experience personality
dimension tend to be more creative and adaptable to change. Finally, personality
influences employee well-being in various ways. Studies report that personality influences a person’s general emotional reactions to her or his job, how well the person
copes with stress, and what type of career paths make that person happiest.25
Jungian Personality Theory and the
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI)
An instrument designed
to measure the elements
of Jungian personality
theory, particularly
preferences regarding
perceiving and judging
information.
The five-factor model of personality is the most respected and supported in research,
but it is not the most popular in practice. That distinction goes to Jungian personality
theory, which is measured through the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
Nearly a century ago, Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung proposed that personality is primarily represented by the individual’s preferences regarding perceiving and judging
information.26 Jung explained that perceiving, which involves how people prefer
to gather information or perceive the world around them, occurs through two
competing orientations: sensing (S) and intuition (N). Sensing involves perceiving
information directly through the five senses; it relies on an organized structure to
acquire factual and preferably quantitative details. Intuition, on the other hand,
relies more on insight and subjective experience to see relationships among variables. Sensing types focus on the here and now, whereas intuitive types focus more
on future possibilities.
Jung also proposed that judging—how people process information or make decisions based on what they have perceived—consists of two competing processes: thinking (T) and feeling (F). People with a thinking orientation rely on rational cause-effect
logic and systematic data collection to make decisions. Those with a strong feeling
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Flying High with MBTI Southwest Airlines is a peoplefriendly place, but even strangers can quickly discover the
personalities of some of its employees. That’s because many
staff at the Dallas-based airline post their Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI) results in their offices. “You can walk by and
see someone’s four-letter [MBTI type] posted up in their
cube,” says Elizabeth Bryant, shown in photo, Southwest’s
director of leadership development. Southwest began using
the MBTI a decade ago to help staff understand and respect
co-workers’ different personalities and thinking styles. The
MBTI also helps leaders work more effectively with individuals and teams. For example, Bryant recalls a session at which
employees and the manager in one department developed
more trust and empathy by discovering their MBTI scores.
“We saw a lot of ‘aha’ moments,” Bryant recalls about employee reactions when they saw each other’s MBTI score.
“Behaviors that might have once caused misunderstanding
and frustration now are viewed through a different filter.”27
orientation, on the other hand, rely on their emotional responses to the options presented, as well as to how those choices affect others. Jung noted that along with differing
in the four core processes of sensing, intuition, thinking, and feeling, people also differ in their degrees of extroversion-introversion, which was introduced earlier as one
of the Big Five personality traits.
In addition to measuring the personality traits identified by Jung, the MBTI measures Jung’s broader categories of perceiving and judging. People with a perceiving
orientation are open, curious, and flexible; prefer to adapt spontaneously to events as
they unfold; and prefer to keep their options open. Judging types prefer order and
structure and want to resolve problems quickly.
The MBTI is one of the most widely used personality tests in work settings as well
as in career counseling and executive coaching.28 Still, evidence regarding the effectiveness of the MBTI and Jung’s psychological types is mixed.29 On the one hand,
MBTI does a reasonably good job of measuring Jung’s psychological types and seems
to improve self-awareness for career development and mutual understanding. On the
other hand, it poorly predicts job performance and is generally not recommended for
employment selection or promotion decisions. Furthermore, MBTI overlaps with the
five-factor personality model, yet it does so less satisfactorily than existing measures
of the Big Five personality dimensions.30
Caveats about Personality Testing in Organizations
Personality is clearly an important concept for understanding, predicting, and changing behavior in organizational settings. However, there are a few problems that continue to hound personality testing.31 One concern is that most tests are self-report
scales, which allow applicants or employees to fake their answers. Rather than measuring a person’s personality, many test results might identify the traits that people
believe the company values. This concern is compounded by the fact that test takers
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often don’t know what personality traits the company is looking for and may not
know which statements are relevant to each trait. Thus, the test scores might not represent the individual’s personality or anything else meaningful.
A second issue is that personality is a relatively weak predictor of a person’s performance. Some experts dispute this claim, pointing to strong associations between a few
personality traits and specific types of performance. Still, the effect of personality on a
person’s behavior and performance is generally low, and thus personality testing could
cause companies to wrongly reject applicants who would have performed well. Finally,
some companies have discovered that personality testing does not convey a favorable
image of the company. For example, the British operations of PricewaterhouseCoopers
(PwC) required that applicants complete an online personality test early in the selection process. The accounting firm learned that the test discouraged female applicants
from applying because the process was impersonal and the test could be faked. “Our
personality test was seen to alienate women and so we had to respond to that,” says
PwC’s head of diversity.32 Overall, we need to understand personality in the workplace
but also to be cautious about measuring and applying it too precisely.
Self-Concept: The “I” in Organizational Behavior
self-concept
An individual’s selfbeliefs and selfevaluations.
To more fully understand individual behavior in organizations, we need to realize
that people develop, nurture, and act in ways that maintain and enhance their selfconcept. Self-concept refers to an individual’s self-beliefs and self-evaluations. It is
the “Who am I?” and “How do I feel about myself?” that people ask themselves and
that guide their decisions and actions. Self-concept has not received much attention
in organizational behavior research, but scholars in psychology, social psychology,
and other disciplines have discovered that it is a critically important concept for understanding individual perceptions, attitudes, decisions, and behavior. Indeed, as the
opening vignette to this chapter illustrated, managers at Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
have known for years that nurturing an employee’s self-concept can be a powerful
way to strengthen his or her motivation and well-being.
People do not have a single unitary self-concept.33 Rather, they think of themselves in several ways in various situations. For example, you might think of yourself
as a creative employee, a health-conscious vegetarian, and an aggressive skier. A
person’s self-concept has higher complexity when it consists of many categories. Along
with varying in complexity, self-concept varies in the degree of its consistency. People
have high consistency when similar personality traits and values are required across
all aspects of self-concept. Low consistency occurs when some aspects of self require
personal characteristics that conflict with the characteristics required for other aspects
of self. A third structural feature of self-concept is clarity, that is, the degree to which
a person’s self-conceptions are clearly and confidently described, internally consistent, and stable across time. A clear self-concept necessarily requires a consistent selfconcept. Generally, people develop a clearer self-concept as they get older.
These three structural dimensions of self-concept—complexity, consistency, and
clarity—influence an individual’s adaptability and well-being. People function better
when their self-concept has many elements (high complexity) that are compatible with
each other (high consistency) and are relatively clear. In contrast, people are more rigid
and inflexible, and therefore less adaptable, when their self-view consists of only a few
similar characteristics (low complexity). People also have poorer psychological adjustment when their self-concept is less clear and includes conflicting elements.
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Part Two Individual Behavior and Processes
Self-Enhancement
A key ingredient in self-concept is the desire to feel valued. People are inherently
motivated to promote and protect a self-view of being competent, attractive, lucky,
ethical, and important.34 This self-enhancement is observed in many ways. Individuals
tend to rate themselves above average, selectively recall positive feedback while forgetting negative feedback, attribute their successes to personal motivation or ability
while blaming the situation for their mistakes, and believe that they have a better
than average probability of success. People don’t see themselves as above average in
all circumstances, but this bias is apparent for conditions that are common rather
than rare and that are important to them.35
Self-enhancement has both positive and negative consequences in organizational
settings.36 On the positive side, research has found that individuals have better personal adjustment and experience better mental and physical health when they view
their self-concept in a positive light. On the negative side, self-enhancement can result in bad decisions. For example, studies report that self-enhancement causes managers to overestimate the probability of success in investment decisions.37 Generally,
though, successful companies, such as Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, strive to help employees feel they are valued and integral members of the organization. Global
Connections 2.1 describes how Johnson & Johnson, Inc.’s businesses worldwide also
support employees’ self-concept by making them feel valued and by aligning their
career plans with their self-view.
Self-Verification
Along with being motivated by self-enhancement, people are motivated to verify and
maintain their existing self-concept.38 Self-verification stabilizes an individual’s selfconcept, which, in turn, provides an important anchor that guides his or her thoughts
and actions. Self-verification differs from self-enhancement because people usually
prefer feedback that is consistent with their self-concept even when that feedback is
unflattering. Self-verification has several implications for organizational behavior.39
First, it affects the perceptual process because employees are more likely to remember information that is consistent with their self-concept. Second, the more confident
employees are in their self-concept, the less they will accept feedback—positive or
negative—that is at odds with their self-concept. Third, employees are motivated to
interact with others who affirm their self-concept, and this affects how well they get
along with their boss and with co-workers in teams.
Self-Evaluation
Almost everyone strives to have a positive self-concept, but some people have a more
positive evaluation of themselves than do others. This self-evaluation is mostly defined by three concepts: self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control.40
Self-Esteem
Self-esteem—the extent to which people like, respect, and are satisfied
with themselves—represents a global self-evaluation. People with high self-esteem are
less influenced by others, tend to persist in spite of failure, and think more rationally.
Self-esteem regarding specific aspects of self (e.g., a good student, a good driver, a
good parent) predicts specific thoughts and behaviors, whereas a person’s overall
self-esteem predicts only large bundles of thoughts and behaviors.41
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Global Connections 2.1
Feeling Valued Adds Value at
Johnson & Johnson
Every Saturday, Vikas Shirodkar takes his daughter to dance
lessons and pops into his office at Johnson & Johnson’s Indian
headquarters in Mumbai, which is located next door to the
dance class. Doing work at the office saves Shirodkar the
trouble of driving home and back again to pick up his daughter
after class. After three weeks, Shirodkar received a call from
J&J’s managing director, Narendra Ambwani, asking if he was
overburdened and needed additional staff. Shirodkar was surprised by the question, until Ambwani explained that he noticed the executive’s name on the register every Saturday and
was concerned about his workload.
The managing director’s call was a defining moment for
Shirodkar because it reflected J&J’s value system, in which
every employee “must be considered as an individual” and the
company “must respect [employees’] dignity and recognize
their merit.” The credo recognizes employees, customers,
communities, and the environment, as well as shareholders. In
India, where job-hopping has become the norm, the average
J&J employee has more than 15 years of service. Asked about
J&J’s success at attracting and retaining talented workers,
India managing director Narendra Ambwani answers: “We
make them feel the company belongs to them.”
J&J also supports each employee’s self-concept through
day-to-day coaching. For example, J&J’s Pharmaceutical Research & Development division in the United States discovered
Johnson & Johnson is one of the world’s most respected
employers because it recognizes the value of supporting each
employee’s self-concept. “We make them feel the company
belongs to them,” says Narendra Ambwani (shown here), the
company’s managing director in India.
that a key ingredient of employee motivation and well-being is
to have managers ensure that employees feel valued as contributors to the company’s success. The European operations of
J&J’s Global Pharmaceutical Supply Group also introduced a
new career program that takes into account employees’ selfconcept by matching their personal values with corresponding
job preferences.42
Self-Efficacy
self-efficacy
A person’s belief that
he or she has the ability,
motivation, correct
role perceptions, and
favorable situation to
complete a task
successfully.
Self-efficacy refers to a person’s belief that he or she can successfully
complete a task.43 Those with high self-efficacy have a “can do” attitude. They believe
they possess the energy (motivation), resources (situational factors), understanding of
the correct course of action (role perceptions), and competencies (ability) to perform
the task. In other words, self-efficacy is an individual’s perception regarding the MARS
model in a specific situation. Although originally defined in terms of specific tasks,
self-efficacy is also a general trait related to self-concept.44 General self-efficacy is a
perception of one’s competence to perform across a variety of situations. The higher
the person’s general self-efficacy, the higher is his or her overall self-evaluation.
locus of control
A person’s general
belief about the amount
of control he or she has
over personal life
events.
Locus of Control Locus of control, the third concept related to self-evaluation, is
defined as a person’s general belief about the amount of control he or she has over
personal life events. Individuals with more of an internal locus of control believe that
their personal characteristics (i.e., motivation and competencies) mainly influence
life’s outcomes. Those with more of an external locus of control believe that events in
their life are due mainly to fate, luck, or conditions in the external environment. Locus of control is a generalized belief, so people with an external locus can feel in
control in familiar situations (such as performing common tasks). However, their underlying locus of control would be apparent in new situations in which control over
45
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events is uncertain. People with a more internal locus of control have a more positive
self-evaluation. They also tend to perform better in most employment situations, are
more successful in their careers, earn more money, and are better suited for leadership positions. Internals are also more satisfied with their jobs, cope better in stressful
situations, and are more motivated by performance-based reward systems.45
The Social Self
social identity theory
A theory that explains
self-concept in terms
of the person’s unique
characteristics (personal identity) and
membership in various
social groups (social
identity).
A person’s self-concept can be organized into two fairly distinct categories: personal
identity characteristics and social identity characteristics.46 Personal identity consists of
characteristics that make us unique and distinct from people in the social groups to
which we have a connection. For instance, an unusual achievement that distinguishes
you from other people typically becomes a personal identity characteristic. Personal
identity refers to something about you as an individual without reference to a larger
group. At the same time, human beings are social animals; they have an inherent
drive to be associated with others and to be recognized as part of social communities.
This drive to belong is reflected in self-concept by the fact that all individuals define
themselves to some degree by their association with others.47
This social element of self-concept is described by social identity theory. According to social identity theory, people define themselves by the groups to which
they belong or have an emotional attachment. For instance, someone might have a
social identity as an American, a graduate of the University of Massachusetts, and an
employee at IBM (see Exhibit 2.3). Social identity is a complex combination of many
memberships arranged in a hierarchy of importance. One factor determining importance is how easily we are identified as a member of the reference group, such as by
our gender, age, and ethnicity. It is difficult to ignore your gender in a class where
most other students are the opposite gender, for example. In that context, gender
tends to become a stronger defining feature of your social identity than it is in social
settings where there are many people of the same gender.
Along with our demographic characteristics, a group’s status is typically an important influence on whether we include the group in our social identity. We identify
with groups that have high status or respect because this aids the self-enhancement of
C
Exhibit 2.3
t
ti
Social Identity
Theory Example
IBM
employee
Live in the
United States
An Individual's
Social Identity
University of
Massachusetts
graduate
Employees at
other firms
People living
in other countries
Graduates from
other schools
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
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our self-concept. Medical doctors usually define themselves by their profession because of its high status, whereas people in low-status jobs tend to define themselves
by nonjob groups. Some people define themselves in terms of where they work because their employer has a positive reputation in the community. In contrast, other
people never mention where they work because their employer is noted for poor relations with employees and has a poor reputation in the community.48
Self-Concept and Organizational Behavior
We began this section by stating that self-concept is an important topic for understanding individual perceptions, attitudes, decisions, and behavior. In fact, self-concept
may eventually be recognized as one of the more useful ways to understand and
improve an employee’s performance and well-being. Some aspects of self-concept,
such as self-efficacy and locus of control, already are known influences on job performance. Self-concept also affects how people select and interpret information, as well
as their biases in judgments (such as probability of success). Furthermore, as you will
learn in future chapters, the social identity component of self-concept influences team
dynamics, organizational commitment, and other OB concepts.
Learning
Objectives
After reading the next three sections, you should be able to:
6. Distinguish personal, shared, espoused, and enacted values and
explain why value congruence is important.
7. Summarize five values commonly studied across cultures.
8. Explain how moral intensity, ethical sensitivity, and the situation
influence ethical behavior.
Values in the Workplace
A person’s self-concept is connected to his or her personal values.49 Values are stable,
evaluative beliefs that guide our preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a
variety of situations. They are perceptions about what is good or bad, right or wrong.
Values tell us what we “ought” to do. They serve as a moral compass that directs our
motivation and, potentially, our decisions and actions. Values are related to selfconcept because they partly define who we are as individuals and as members of
groups with similar values.
People arrange values into a hierarchy of preferences, called a value system. Some
individuals value new challenges more than they value conformity. Others value generosity more than frugality. Each person’s unique value system is developed and reinforced through socialization from parents, religious institutions, friends, personal
experiences, and the society in which he or she lives. As such, a person’s hierarchy of
values is stable and long-lasting. For example, one study found that value systems of
a sample of adolescents were remarkably similar 20 years later when they were
adults.50
Notice that our description of values has focused on individuals, whereas executives often describe values as though they belong to the organization. In reality, values exist only within individuals—we call them personal values. However, groups of
people might hold the same or similar values, so we tend to ascribe these shared values
to the team, department, organization, profession, or entire society. The values shared
by people throughout an organization (organizational values) receive fuller discussion
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in Chapter 14 because they are a key part of corporate culture. The values shared
across a society (cultural values) receive attention later in this chapter.
Types of Values
Values come in many forms, and experts on this topic have devoted considerable attention to organizing them into clusters. Several decades ago, social psychologist Milton
Rokeach developed two lists of values, distinguishing means (instrumental values) from
end goals (terminal values). Although Rokeach’s lists are still mentioned in some organizational behavior sources, they are no longer considered acceptable representations of
personal values. The instrumental-terminal values distinction was neither accurate nor
useful, and experts have identified values that were excluded from Rokeach’s lists.
Today, by far the most respected and widely studied set of values is the model
developed and tested by social psychologist Shalom Schwartz and his colleagues.51
Schwartz’s list of 57 values builds on Rokeach’s earlier work but does not distinguish
instrumental from terminal values. Instead, through painstaking empirical research,
Schwartz reported that human values are organized into the circular model (circumplex) shown in Exhibit 2.4.52 The model organizes values into 10 broad categories,
each representing several specific values. For example, conformity consists of four
values: politeness, honoring parents, self-discipline, and obedience.
Exhibit 2.4
Schwartz’s Values Circumplex
e
Universalism
Self-direction
Stimulation
Benevolence
Conformity
Tradition
Hedonism
onism
Se
enhanc
Achievement
Security
rvation
Power
Sources: S. H. Schwartz, “Universals in the Content and Structure of Values: Theoretical Advances and Empirical Tests in 20 Countries,” Advances
in Experimental Social Psychology, 25 (1992), pp. 1–65; S. H. Schwartz and G. Sagie, “Value Consensus and Importance: A Cross-National Study,”
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 31 (July 2000), pp. 465–497.
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These 10 categories of values are further reduced to two bipolar dimensions. One
dimension has the opposing value domains of openness to change and conservation.
Openness to change refers to the extent to which a person is motivated to pursue innovative ways. It includes the value domains of self-direction (creativity, independent
thought) and stimulation (excitement and challenge). Conservation is the extent to
which a person is motivated to preserve the status quo. This dimension includes the
value clusters of conformity (adherence to social norms and expectations), security
(safety and stability), and tradition (moderation and preservation of the status quo).
The other bipolar dimension in Schwartz’s model has the opposing value domains
of self-enhancement and self-transcendence. Self-enhancement—how much a person is
motivated by self-interest—includes the value categories of achievement (pursuit of personal success) and power (dominance over others). The opposite of self-enhancement
is self-transcendence, which refers to motivation to promote the welfare of others and nature. Self-transcendence includes the values of benevolence (concern for others in one’s
life) and universalism (concern for the welfare of all people and nature).
Values and Individual Behavior
Personal values guide our decisions and actions to some extent, but this connection
isn’t always as strong as some would like to believe. Habitual behavior tends to be
consistent with our values, but our everyday conscious decisions and actions apply
our values much less consistently. The main reason for the “disconnect” between
personal values and individual behavior is that values are abstract concepts that
sound good in theory but are less easily followed in practice.
Three conditions strengthen the linkage between personal values and behavior.53
First, we are more likely to apply values when we are reminded of them. For example, co-workers tend to treat each other with much more respect and consideration
immediately after a senior executive gives a speech on the virtues of benevolence in
the workplace. Second, we tend to apply our values only when we can think of specific reasons for doing so. In other words, we need logical reasons for applying a
specific value in a specific situation. Third, we tend to apply our values in situations
that facilitate doing so. Work environments shape our behavior, at least in the short
term, so they necessarily encourage or discourage value-consistent behavior.
Value Congruence
Personal values not only define the person’s self-concept; they also affect how comfortable that person is with being associated with the organization and working with
specific people. The key concept here is value congruence, which refers to how similar
a person’s value hierarchy is to the value hierarchy of the organization, a co-worker,
or another source of comparison. Person-organization value congruence occurs when the
employee’s and organization’s dominant values are similar. Values are guideposts, so
employees whose values are similar to the dominant organizational values are more
likely to make decisions compatible with the organization’s value-based mission and
objectives. Person-organization value congruence also leads to higher job satisfaction,
loyalty, and organizational citizenship as well as lower stress and turnover. “The most
difficult but rewarding accomplishment in any career is ‘living true’ to your values
and finding companies where you can contribute at the highest level while being
your authentic self,” says Cynthia Schwalm, president of the U.S. commercial division of biopharmaceutical company Eisai Co., Ltd. “There is nothing more important
in my estimation.”54
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Do the most successful organizations have the highest possible levels of personorganization value congruence? Not at all! While a comfortable degree of value congruence is necessary for the reasons just noted, organizations also benefit from some
level of value incongruence. Employees with diverse values offer different perspectives, which potentially lead to better decision making. Also, too much congruence
can create a “corporate cult” that potentially undermines creativity, organizational
flexibility, and business ethics.
A second type of value congruence involves how consistent the values apparent in
our actions (enacted values) are with what we say we believe in (espoused values).
This espoused-enacted value congruence is especially important for people in leadership
positions because any obvious gap between espoused and enacted values undermines
their perceived integrity, a critical feature of effective leaders. One global survey reported recently that 55 percent of employees believe senior management behaves
consistently with the company’s core values.55 Meyners & Co., the Albuquerque,
New Mexico, accounting firm, tries to maintain high levels of espoused-enacted value
congruence by surveying subordinates and peers about whether managers’ decisions
and actions are consistent with the company’s espoused values.56
A third type of value congruence involves the compatibility of an organization’s
dominant values with the prevailing values of the community or society in which it
conducts business.57 For example, an organization headquartered in one country that
tries to impose its value system on employees and other stakeholders located in another culture may experience higher employee turnover and have more difficult relations with the communities in which the company operates. Thus, globalization calls for
a delicate balancing act: Companies depend on shared values to maintain consistent
standards and behaviors, yet they need to operate within the values of different cultures around the world. Let’s look more closely at how values vary across cultures.
Values across Cultures
individualism
A cross-cultural value
describing the degree
to which people in a
culture emphasize
independence and
personal uniqueness.
collectivism
A cross-cultural value
describing the degree
to which people in a
culture emphasize duty
to groups to which
people belong and to
group harmony.
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts operates world-class hotels in several countries and is
rapidly expanding its operations into the Middle East, Africa, and other regions. As
the opening story in this chapter described, Fairmont actively develops cross-cultural
competencies in its staff through work experience and formal training. Sean Billing
and other Fairmont staff soon realize that they need to be sensitive to the fact that
cultural differences exist and, although often subtle, can influence decisions, behavior, and interpersonal relations.
Individualism and Collectivism
Many values have been studied in the context of cross-cultural differences, but the
two most commonly mentioned are individualism and collectivism. Individualism is
the extent to which we value independence and personal uniqueness. Highly individualist people value personal freedom, self-sufficiency, control over their own lives,
and appreciation of the unique qualities that distinguish them from others. As shown
in Exhibit 2.5, Americans and Italians generally exhibit high individualism, whereas
Taiwanese tend to have low individualism. Collectivism is the extent to which we
value our duty to groups to which we belong and to group harmony. Highly collectivist people define themselves by their group memberships and value harmonious relationships within those groups.58 Americans generally have low collectivism, whereas
Italians and Taiwanese have relatively high collectivism.
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
Exhibit 2.5
51
Five Cross-Cultural Values in Selected Countries
Country
Individualism
Collectivism
Power
distance
Uncertainty
avoidance
Achievement
orientation
United States
High
Low
Medium low
Medium low
Medium high
Denmark
Medium
Medium low
Low
Low
Low
India
Medium high
Medium
High
Medium low
Medium high
Italy
High
High
Medium
High
High
Japan
Medium high
Low
Medium
High
High
Taiwan
Low
High
Medium
High
Medium
Sources: Individualism and collectivism results are from the meta-analysis reported in D. Oyserman, H. M. Coon, and M. Kemmelmeier, “Rethinking
Individualism and Collectivism: Evaluation of Theoretical Assumptions and Meta-Analyses,” Psychological Bulletin, 128 (2002), pp. 3–72. The other
results are from G. Hofstede, Culture’s Consequences, 2d ed (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2001).
Contrary to popular belief, individualism is not the opposite of collectivism. In
fact, an analysis of previous studies reports that the two concepts are unrelated.59
Some cultures that highly value duty to one’s group do not necessarily give a low
priority to personal freedom and self-sufficiency. The distinction between individualism and collectivism makes sense when we realize that people across all cultures
define themselves in terms of both their uniqueness (personal identity) and their relationship to others (social identity). Some cultures clearly reflect one more than the
other, but both have a place in a person’s values and self-concept.
Power Distance
power distance
A cross-cultural value
describing the degree
to which people in a
culture accept unequal
distribution of power in
a society.
uncertainty avoidance
A cross-cultural value
describing the degree
to which people in a
culture tolerate ambiguity (low uncertainty
avoidance) or feel
threatened by ambiguity
and uncertainty (high
uncertainty avoidance).
A third frequently mentioned cross-cultural value is power distance—the extent to
which people accept unequal distribution of power in a society.60 Those with high
power distance accept and value unequal power. They value obedience to authority
and are comfortable receiving commands from their superiors without consultation
or debate, and they prefer to resolve differences indirectly through formal procedures
rather than directly. In contrast, people with low power distance expect relatively
equal power sharing. They view the relationship with their boss as one of interdependence, not dependence; that is, they believe their boss is also dependent on them, so
they expect power sharing and consultation before decisions affecting them are made.
People in India tend to have high power distance, whereas people in Denmark generally have low power distance.
Uncertainty Avoidance
Uncertainty avoidance is the degree to which people tolerate ambiguity (low uncertainty avoidance) or feel threatened by ambiguity and uncertainty (high uncertainty
avoidance). Employees with high uncertainty avoidance value structured situations in
which rules of conduct and decision making are clearly documented. They usually
prefer direct rather than indirect or ambiguous communications. Uncertainty avoidance tends to be high in Italy and Taiwan and very high in Japan. It is generally low
in Denmark.
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Individual Behavior and Processes
You’re the CEO? So What! As a senior manager throughout Asia,
Stephen Roberts rarely received questions or critiques from staff
about his proposals or ideas. “I spent nine years in Asia and managing in Asia was a relatively easy process because no one
pushed back,” he recalls. The high power distance in Asian countries motivated staff to defer to Roberts’s judgment. In contrast,
Roberts experienced very low power distance when he transferred to Australia. Even though he was now a chief executive officer at Citibank, his ideas were quickly, and sometimes brutally,
questioned. “I remember arriving in Australia and I was asked to
present to an executive committee of our equities team, and it felt
like a medical examination,” recalls Roberts, who was born and
raised in Australia. “I walked out battered and bruised. So to be
pushed, challenged all the time, is more Australian than most
other [cultures].”61
Achievement-Nurturing Orientation
achievement-nurturing
orientation
A cross-cultural value
describing the degree
to which people in a
culture emphasize
competitive versus
cooperative relations
with other people.
Achievement-nurturing orientation reflects a competitive versus cooperative view
of relations with other people.62 People with a high achievement orientation value
assertiveness, competitiveness, and materialism. They appreciate people who are
tough, and they favor the acquisition of money and material goods. In contrast, people in nurturing-oriented cultures emphasize relationships and the well-being of others. They focus on human interaction and caring rather than competition and
personal success. People in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark score very low on
achievement orientation (i.e., they have a high nurturing orientation). In contrast,
very high achievement orientation scores have been reported in Japan and Hungary,
with fairly high scores in the United States and Italy.
Before leaving this topic, we need to point out two concerns about cross-cultural values.63 One concern is that country scores on power distance, uncertainty avoidance,
and achievement-nurturing orientation are based on a survey of IBM staff worldwide
more than a quarter century ago. More than 100,000 IBM employees in dozens of
countries completed that survey, but IBM employees might not represent the general
population. There is also evidence that values have since changed considerably in some
countries. A second concern is the assumption that everyone in a society has similar
cultural values. This may be true in a few countries, but multiculturalism—in which several microcultures coexist in the same country—is becoming the more common trend.
By attributing specific values to an entire society, we are engaging in a form of stereotyping that limits our ability to understand the more complex reality of that society.
Ethical Values and Behavior
When employees are asked to list the most important characteristic they look for in a
leader, the top factor isn’t intelligence, courage, or even being inspirational. Although
these characteristics are important, the most important factor in most surveys is honesty/
ethics.64 Ethics refers to the study of moral principles or values that determine whether
actions are right or wrong and outcomes are good or bad. People rely on their ethical
values to determine “the right thing to do.”
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
53
Unfortunately, incidents involving corporate wrongdoing continue to raise serious
questions about the ethical values of many corporate leaders. Scandals at Enron,
WorldCom, Tyco, and other companies led to the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, which
put more controls on U.S. companies and auditing firms to minimize conflict of interest and disclose the company’s financial picture more fully. This legislation might
reduce some unethical conduct, but wrongdoing is unlikely to disappear completely.
Three Ethical Principles
To better understand business ethics, we need to consider three distinct types of ethical principles: utilitarianism, individual rights, and distributive justice.65 While you
might prefer one principle more than the others on the basis of your personal values,
all three should be actively considered to put important ethical issues to the test.
•
•
•
Utilitarianism. This principle advises us to seek the greatest good for the greatest
number of people. In other words, we should choose the option that provides the
highest degree of satisfaction to those affected. This is sometimes known as a consequential principle because it focuses on the consequences of our actions, not on
how we achieve those consequences. One problem with utilitarianism is that it is
almost impossible to evaluate the benefits or costs of many decisions, particularly
when many stakeholders have wide-ranging needs and values. Another problem
is that even if the objective of our behavior is ethical according to utilitarianism,
the means to achieving that objective is sometimes considered unethical.
Individual rights. This principle reflects the belief that everyone has entitlements
that let her or him act in a certain way. Some of the most widely cited rights are
freedom of movement, physical security, freedom of speech, fair trial, and freedom from torture. The individual-rights principle includes more than legal
rights; it also includes human rights that everyone is granted as a moral norm of
society. One problem with individual rights is that certain individual rights may
conflict with others. The shareholders’ right to be informed about corporate activities may ultimately conflict with an executive’s right to privacy, for example.
Distributive justice. This principle suggests that people who are similar to each
other should receive similar benefits and burdens; those who are dissimilar
should receive different benefits and burdens in proportion to their dissimilarity. For example, we expect that two employees who contribute equally in their
work should receive similar rewards, whereas those who make a lesser contribution should receive less. A variation of the distributive justice principle says that
inequalities are acceptable when they benefit the least well off in society. Thus,
employees in risky jobs should be paid more if their work benefits others who
are less well off. One problem with the distributive justice principle is that it is
difficult to agree on who is “similar” and what factors are “relevant.”
Moral Intensity, Ethical Sensitivity, and Situational Influences
moral intensity
The degree to which
an issue demands the
application of ethical
principles.
Along with ethical principles and their underlying values, three other factors influence ethical conduct in the workplace: the moral intensity of the issue, the individual’s ethical sensitivity, and situational factors. Moral intensity is the degree to which
an issue demands the application of ethical principles. Decisions with high moral intensity are more important, so the decision maker needs to more carefully apply
ethical principles to resolve it. Several factors influence the moral intensity of an
issue, including those listed in Exhibit 2.6. Keep in mind that this list represents the
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Exhibit 2.6
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Individual Behavior and Processes
Factors Influencing Perceived Moral Intensity*
Moral intensity factor
Moral intensity question
Moral intensity is higher when:
Magnitude of consequences
How much harm or benefit will occur to
others as a result of this action?
The harm or benefit is larger.
Social consensus
How many other people agree that this
action is ethically good or bad?
Many people agree.
Probability of effect
(a) What is the chance that this action
will actually occur?
(b) What is the chance that this action
will actually cause good or bad
consequences?
The probability is higher.
Temporal immediacy
How long after the action will the
consequences occur?
The consequences are immediate
rather than delayed.
Proximity
How socially, culturally, psychologically,
and/or physically close to me are the
people affected by this decision?
Those affected are close rather
than distant.
Concentration of effect
(a) How many people are affected
by this action?
(b) Are the people affected by this action
easily identifiable as a group?
Many people are affected.
Those affected are easily
identifiable as a group.
*These are factors people tend to ask themselves about when determining the moral intensity of an issue. Whether some of these questions should be
relevant is itself an ethical question.
Source: Based on information in T. J. Jones, “Ethical Decision Making by Individuals in Organizations: An Issue Contingent Model,” Academy of
Management Review 16 (1991), pp. 366–395.
ethical sensitivity
A personal characteristic that enables people
to recognize the
presence of an ethical
issue and determine its
relative importance.
factors people tend to think about; some of them might not be considered morally
acceptable when people are formally making ethical decisions.66
Even if an issue has high moral intensity, some employees might not recognize
its ethical importance because they have low ethical sensitivity. Ethical sensitivity
is a personal characteristic that enables people to recognize the presence of an
ethical issue and determine its relative importance.67 Ethically sensitive people are
not necessarily more ethical. Rather, they are more likely to recognize whether an
issue requires ethical consideration; that is, they can more accurately estimate the
moral intensity of the issue. Ethically sensitive people tend to have higher empathy.
They also have more information about the specific situation. For example, accountants would be more ethically sensitive regarding the appropriateness of specific
accounting procedures than would someone who has not received training in this
profession.
The third important factor explaining why good people engage in unethical decisions and behavior is the situation in which the conduct occurs. Employees say they
regularly experience pressure from top management that motivates them to lie to
customers, breach regulations, or otherwise act unethically.68 Situational factors do
not justify unethical conduct. Rather, we need to recognize these factors so that organizations can reduce their influence in the future.
Supporting Ethical Behavior
Most large and medium-size organizations in the United States, United Kingdom,
and several other countries apply one or more strategies to improve ethical conduct.
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Chapter 2 Individual Behavior, Personality, and Values
55
Creating ethical codes of conduct is the most common. Almost all Fortune 500 companies in the United States and the majority of the 500 largest U.K. companies now
have codes of ethics. These statements communicate the organization’s ethical standards and signal to employees that the company takes ethical conduct seriously.
However, critics point out that ethics codes alone do little to reduce unethical conduct. After all, Enron had a well-developed code of ethics, but that document didn’t
prevent senior executives from engaging in wholesale accounting fraud, resulting in
the energy company’s bankruptcy.69
To supplement ethics codes, many firms provide ethics training. At Texas Instruments, employees learn to ask the following questions as their moral compass: “Is the
action legal? Does it comply with our values? If you do it, will you feel bad? How
would it look in the newspaper? If you know it’s
wrong, don’t do it! If you’re not sure, ask. Keep asking until you get an answer.” Molson Coors developed an award-winning online training program set
up as an expedition: Employees must resolve ethics
violations at each “camp” as they ascend a mountain. The first few camps present real scenarios with
fairly clear ethical violations of the company’s ethics
code; later camps present much fuzzier dilemmas
requiring more careful thought about the company’s
underlying values.70
Some companies have also introduced procedures
whereby employees can communicate possible ethical violations in confidence. Food manufacturer
H. J. Heinz Co. has an ethics hotline that operates
Protecting E&Y’s Brand with Value-Based Ethics Training As
around the clock and in 150 languages for its global
a leading accounting and professional services firm, Ernst &
workforce. Heinz’s director of ethics says that the
Young (E&Y) has a lot at stake in maintaining its reputation for
hotline “has provided an early warning signal of
ethical conduct. “We can’t ever be in a position to have our
problems we were not aware of.” Rogers Cable
ethics challenged,” says Michael Hamilton, E&Y’s chief
Communications Inc. also has an anonymous “star
learning and development officer for the Americas. Although
hotline” as well as a Web link that employees can
the financial world has become very rule-based, the rules still
use to raise ethical issues or concerns about ethical
leave gaps where ethical missteps can occur. To minimize this
conduct. Rogers employees can even call back to
risk, E&Y invests heavily in values-based ethics training. “Ethics
find out what actions have been taken to resolve an
training and value training are about providing all of our people
ethical issue.71
with a clear message and some guiding principles about what
These additional measures support ethical conto do when the rules don’t address a situation or area,” Hamilton
duct to some extent, but the most powerful foundation
explains. All E&Y staff members are required to complete a
is a set of shared values that reinforce ethical contwo-hour Web-based ethics course called “Living Our Core
duct. “If you don’t have a culture of ethical decision
Values” in which they learn about the company’s values and
making to begin with, all the controls and compliethical principles, followed by analysis of several specific
ance regulations you care to deploy won’t necessarcase situations. Ethical topics are also being integrated
ily prevent ethical misconduct,” warns a senior
throughout E&Y’s professional development courses. “We’re
executive at British communications giant Vodafone.
trying to bake ethics training into all of our curriculum,” says
This culture is supported by the ethical conduct and
Jeffrey Hoops, ethics and compliance officer for the Americas
vigilance of corporate leaders. By acting with the
and chief privacy officer. “It’s about continually reminding
highest standards of moral conduct, leaders not only
people that doing the right thing and speaking up when you
gain support and trust from followers; they rolesee the wrong thing is not just accepted—it is the expected
model the ethical standards that employees are more
way we do things at Ernst & Young.”72
likely to follow.73
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Chapter Summary
Individual behavior is influenced by motivation, ability,
role perceptions, and situational factors (MARS). Motivation consists of internal forces that affect the direction,
intensity, and persistence of a person’s voluntary choice
of behavior. Ability includes both the natural aptitudes
and the learned capabilities required to successfully complete a task. Role perceptions are a person’s beliefs about
what behaviors are appropriate or necessary in a particular situation. Situational factors are environmental conditions that constrain or facilitate employee behavior and
performance.
Personality is the relatively enduring pattern of
thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that characterize a person, along with the psychological processes behind those
characteristics. Most experts now agree that personality is
shaped by both nature and nurture. Most personality traits
are represented within the five-factor model, which includes conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism,
openness to experience, and extroversion. Another set of
traits, measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, represents how people prefer to perceive and judge information.
Conscientiousness and emotional stability (low neuroticism) stand out as the personality traits that best predict individual performance in almost every job group. The other
three personality dimensions predict more specific types of
employee behavior and performance.
Self-concept includes an individual’s self-beliefs and
self-evaluations. It has three structural dimensions: complexity, consistency, and clarity. People are inherently
motivated to promote and protect their self-concept; this
is self-enhancement. At the same time, people are motivated to verify and maintain their existing self-concept;
this is self-verification.
Self-evaluation, an important aspect of self-concept,
consists of self-esteem, self-efficacy, and locus of control.
Self-esteem is the extent to which people like, respect,
and are satisfied with themselves. Self-efficacy is a person’s belief that he or she has the ability, motivation,
correct role perceptions, and favorable situation to complete a task successfully; general self-efficacy is a perception of one’s competence to perform across a variety of
situations. Locus of control is defined as a person’s general belief about the amount of control he or she has
over personal life events. Self-concept consists of both
personality identity and social identity. Social identity
theory explains how people define themselves in terms
of the groups to which they belong or have an emotional attachment.
Values are stable, evaluative beliefs that guide our
preferences for outcomes or courses of action in a variety
of situations. People arrange values into a hierarchy of
preferences, called a value system. Espoused values—what
we say and think we use as values—are different from enacted values, which are values evident from our actions.
Values have been organized into a circle with 10 clusters.
Value congruence is the similarity of value systems between two entities.
Five values that differ across cultures are individualism, collectivism, power distance, uncertainty avoidance, and achievement-nurturing orientation. Three
values that guide ethical conduct are utilitarianism, individual rights, and distributive justice. Three factors that
influence ethical conduct are the extent to which an issue demands ethical principles (moral intensity), the
person’s ethical sensitivity to the presence and importance of an ethical dilemma, and situational factors that
cause people to deviate from their moral values. Companies improve ethical conduct through a code of ethics, ethics training, ethics hotlines, and the conduct of
corporate leaders.
Key Terms
ability, p. 35
achievement-nurturing
orientation, p. 52
collectivism, p. 50
competencies, p. 36
conscientiousness, p. 40
ethical sensitivity, p. 54
extroversion, p. 40
56
five-factor model (FFM), p. 39
individualism, p. 50
locus of control, p. 43
moral intensity, p. 53
motivation, p. 34
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI), p. 41
neuroticism, p. 40
personality, p. 38
power distance, p. 51
role perceptions, p. 36
self-concept, p. 43
self-efficacy, p. 45
social identity theory, p. 46
uncertainty avoidance, p. 52
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Critical Thinking Questions
An insurance company has high levels of absenteeism
among the office staff. The head of office administration argues that employees are misusing the company’s sick leave benefits. However, some of the mostly
female staff members have explained that family
responsibilities interfere with work. Using the MARS
model, as well as your knowledge of absenteeism
behavior, discuss some of the possible reasons for
absenteeism here and how it might be reduced.
2. As the district manager responsible for six stores in a
large electronics retail chain, you have had difficulty
with the performance of some sales employees. Although they are initially motivated and generally have
good interpersonal skills, many have difficulty with the
complex knowledge of the wide variety of store products, ranging from computers to high-fidelity sound
systems. Describe three strategies you might apply to
improve the match between the competencies of new
sales employees and the job requirements.
3. Studies report that heredity has a strong influence on
an individual’s personality. What are the implications
of this in organizational settings?
4. Suppose that you give all candidates applying for a
management trainee position a personality test that
measures the five dimensions in the five-factor
1.
model. Which personality traits would you consider
to be the most important for this type of job? Explain
your answer.
5. An important aspect of self-concept is the idea that
almost everyone engages in self-enhancement. What
problems tend to occur in organizations as a result of
the self-enhancement phenomenon? What can organizational leaders do to make use of a person’s inherent drive for self-enhancement?
6. This chapter discussed value congruence mostly
in the context of an employee’s personal values
versus the organization’s values. But value congruence also relates to the juxtaposition of other pairs
of value systems. Explain how value congruence is
relevant with respect to organizational versus professional values (i.e., values of a professional occupation, such as physician, accountant, pharmacist).
7. People in a particular South American country have
high power distance and high collectivism. What
does this mean, and what are the implications of this
information when you (a senior executive) visit employees working for your company in that country?
8. “All decisions are ethical decisions.” Comment on
this statement, particularly by referring to the concepts of moral intensity and ethical sensitivity.
Case Study 2.1
SK TELECOM GOES EGALITARIAN IN A
HIERARCHICAL SOCIETY
Until recently, Hur Jae-hoon could end debate with
junior staff members just by declaring that the discussion was over. Employed at the fourth tier in SK
Telecom Co.’s five-tier management/professional hierarchy, the 33-year-old strategist held the corresponding title of “Hur Daeri” and received plenty of
respect from people in lower positions. No one below Hur was allowed to question his decisions, and
Hur was expected to silently comply with requests
from above. South Korea’s culture of deferring to
people in higher positions was deeply ingrained in
the telecommunications company. In some South
Korean companies, such as Samsung, junior staff
members aren’t even allowed to initiate conversations with anyone above their boss.
Now, in spite of South Korea’s strong hierarchical
culture, SK Telecom wants to support more egalitarian values. It has already removed its five management ranks and their differentiated titles and status.
The English word Manager is now used to address
anyone employed throughout the five former ranks.
(Hur Jae-hoon’s title has changed from Hur Daeri to
“Hur Manager”). Only vice presidents and above
retain their previous status titles. People in charge of
projects or people are also called “Team Leader.”
Furthermore, the company is assigning project
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leadership responsibilities to employees in their
twenties, whereas these roles were previously held
only by older staff with much more seniority. As an
added change, the company is allowing a more casual dress code at work.
Through this dramatic shift in values and practices,
SK Telecom’s senior executives hope that junior staff
will speak up more freely, thereby improving creativity and decision making. They particularly want to
avoid incidents such as one that occurred several
years ago in which an excellent idea from younger
employees was initially shot down by their bosses.
The junior staff suggested that allowing customers to
change their cell phone ringtones to music chosen by
the friend they’ve phoned would generate revenue
through music licensing. Fortunately, the idea was introduced several months later, after a few persistent
employees proposed the idea again.
SK Telecom’s initiative is not completely new to
South Korea. Small high-tech companies already embrace egalitarian values and flatter corporate structures.
But SK Telecom is among the first large firms in the
country to attempt this culture shift, and it has met with
resistance along the way. SK Telecom executives were
initially divided over how quickly and to what extent
the company should distance itself from South Korea’s
traditional hierarchical culture. “There were ideas for
gradual versus all-out reforms,” recalls chief executive
Kim Shin-bae. “But the word ‘gradually’ means ‘not
now’ to some people. So we decided to go all-out.”
According to a company survey, 80 percent of employees support the changes. However, even with the
changes in titles, many still look for subtle evidence of
who has higher status and, therefore, should receive
Case Study 2.2
more deference. Some also rely on what positions
managers held under the old five-tier hierarchy. “I
know what the old titles were,” says an LG Electronics
Co. manager who supplies cell phones to SK Telecom.
“So unconsciously, I keep that in mind.”
Hur Jae-hoon admits there are times when he
prefers a more hierarchical culture, but he believes
that SK Telecom’s more egalitarian values and practices are already showing favorable results. In one
recent meeting, a younger colleague sparred with
Hur over the better way to complete a strategy project. “For a moment, I wished it was back in the old
days when I could have shut that guy down,” Hur
recalls. “But I had to admit his opinion was better
than mine, and I adjusted. So the system worked.”
Discussion Questions
1. SK Telecom is attempting to distance itself from
which South Korean cultural value? What indicators of this value are identified in this case
study? What other artifacts of this cultural value
would you notice while visiting a South Korean
company that upheld this national culture?
2. In your opinion, why is this hierarchical value so
strong in South Korea? What are the advantages
and disadvantages of this value in societies?
3. Do you think SK Telecom will be successful in
integrating a more egalitarian culture, even
though it contrasts with South Korea’s culture?
What are some of the issues that may complicate or support this transition?
Source: Based on E. Ramstad, “Pulling Rank Gets Harder at One
Korean Company,” Wall Street Journal, 20 August 2007, p. B1.
PUSHING PAPER CAN BE FUN
A large city government was putting on a number of
seminars for managers of various departments
throughout the city. At one of these sessions, the
topic discussed was motivation—how we can get
public servants motivated to do a good job. The
plight of a police captain became the central focus of
the discussion:
I’ve got a real problem with my officers. They come
on the force as young, inexperienced rookies, and we
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send them out on the street, either in cars or on a
beat. They seem to like the contact they have with the
public, the action involved in crime prevention, and
the apprehension of criminals. They also like helping
people out at fires, accidents, and other emergencies.
The problem occurs when they get back to the station. They hate to do the paperwork, and because they
dislike it, the job is frequently put off or done inadequately. This lack of attention hurts us later on when we
get to court. We need clear, factual reports. They must
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be highly detailed and unambiguous. As soon as one
part of a report is shown to be inadequate or incorrect,
the rest of the report is suspect. Poor reporting probably
causes us to lose more cases than any other factor.
I just don’t know how to motivate them to do a better job. We’re in a budget crunch and I have absolutely
no financial rewards at my disposal. In fact, we’ll probably have to lay some people off in the near future. It’s
hard for me to make the job interesting and challenging because it isn’t—it’s boring, routine paperwork, and
there isn’t much you can do about it.
Finally, I can’t say to them that their promotions
will hinge on the excellence of their paperwork. First
of all, they know it’s not true. If their performance is
adequate, most are more likely to get promoted just
by staying on the force a certain number of years than
for some specific outstanding act. Second, they were
trained to do the job they do out in the streets, not to
fill out forms. All through their career it is the arrests
and interventions that get noticed.
Some people have suggested a number of things,
like using conviction records as a performance criterion. However, we know that’s not fair—too many
Case Study 2.3
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other things are involved. Bad paperwork increases
the chance that you lose in court, but good paperwork doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll win. We tried
setting up team competitions based upon the excellence of the reports, but the officers caught on to that
pretty quickly. No one was getting any type of reward
for winning the competition, and they figured why
should they bust a gut when there was no payoff.
I just don’t know what to do.
Discussion Questions
1. What performance problems is the captain trying to correct?
2. Use the MARS model of individual behavior
and performance to diagnose the possible causes
of the unacceptable behavior.
3. Has the captain considered all possible solutions
to the problem? If not, what else might be done?
Source: T. R. Mitchell and J. R. Larson, Jr., People in Organizations, 3d
ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987), p. 184. Reproduced with permission from The McGraw-Hill Companies.
THE TROUBLE WITH BUSINESS ETHICS
Business ethics may have risen
to the top of most executive
agendas, but Wal-Mart Stores
has learned that practicing ethics can also present
ethical dilemmas. A few months after going through
a new employee training session with a heavy emphasis on ethics, Chalace Epley Lowry acted on the
guidance to report any activity that seemed the least
bit suspicious. Lowry told the company’s ethics office about possible insider trading by one of her supervisors. Wal-Mart’s investigation concluded that
the supervisor had done nothing wrong, but Lowry
soon discovered that her identity as the whistleblower had been revealed to the supervisor she accused of wrongdoing. Now Lowry is looking for
another job, but there’s no guarantee she’ll get transferred at Wal-Mart.
This BusinessWeek case study examines the challenges of supporting ethics hotlines and whistleblowing, and it discusses the reasons why employees
are reluctant to communicate ethical wrongdoing.
Read the full text of this BusinessWeek article at www.
mhhe.com/mcshane5e, and prepare for the discussion questions below.
Discussion Questions
1. In an organization’s efforts to maintain ethical
standards, how important is it to encourage and
support employees who report possible incidents
of ethical wrongdoing (i.e., engage in whistleblowing)? Why? What can companies do to support whistle-blowers?
2. What actions are described in this case study that
companies have taken to improve ethical standards in their organizations? Are these actions
substantive changes or mostly symbolic? Why?
Source: P. Gogoi, “The Trouble with Business Ethics,” BusinessWeek
Online, 22 June 2007.
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Class Exercise 2.4
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TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE OF PERSONALITY
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to help you
think about and understand the effects of the Big
Five personality dimensions on individual preferences and outcomes.
INSTRUCTIONS (LARGE CLASS) Below are
several questions relating to the Big Five personality dimensions and various preferences or outcomes. Answer each of these questions relying on
your personal experience or best guess. Later, the
instructor will show you the answers based on
scholarly results. You will not be graded on this exercise, but it may help you to better understand
the effect of personality on human behavior and
preferences.
INSTRUCTIONS (SMALL CLASS)
1. The instructor will organize students into teams.
Members of each team work together to answer
each of the questions below relating to the Big
Five personality dimensions and various preferences or outcomes.
2. The instructor will reveal the answers based on
scholarly results. (Note: The instructor might create a competition to see which team has the
most answers correct.)
PERSONALITY AND PREFERENCES
QUESTIONS
1. Which two Big Five personality dimensions are
positively associated with enjoyment of workplace humor?
2. Listed below are several jobs. Please check no
more than two personality dimensions that you
believe are positively associated with preferences
for each occupation.
Personality Dimension
Job
Budget analyst
Corporate executive
Engineer
Journalist
Life insurance agent
Nurse
Physician
Production supervisor
Public relations director
Research analyst
Schoolteacher
Sculptor
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Extroversion
Conscientiousness
Agreeableness
Neuroticism
Openness to
experience
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3.
Rank order (1 ⫽ highest, 5 ⫽ lowest) the Big
Five personality dimensions in terms of how
much you think they predict a person’s degree
of life satisfaction. (Note: Personality dimensions are ranked by their absolute effect, so
ignore the negative or positive direction of
association.)
Team Exercise 2.5
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___ Conscientiousness
___ Agreeableness
___ Neuroticism
___ Openness to experience
___ Extroversion
COMPARING CULTURAL VALUES
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to help you
determine the extent to which students hold similar
assumptions about the values that dominate in other
countries.
INSTRUCTIONS (SMALL CLASS) The terms in
the left column represent labels that a major consulting project identified with businesspeople in a particular country, based on its national culture and
values. These terms appear in alphabetical order. In
the right column are the names of countries, also in
alphabetical order, corresponding to the labels in
the left column.
1. Working alone, connect the labels with the countries by relying on your perceptions of these
countries. Each label is associated with only one
country, so each label should be connected to
only one country, and vice versa. Draw a line to
connect the pairs, or put the label number beside the country name.
2. The instructor will form teams of four or five
members. Members of each team will compare
their results and try to reach consensus on a
common set of connecting pairs.
3. Teams or the instructor will post the results so
that all can see the extent to which students hold
common opinions about businesspeople in other
cultures. Class discussion can then consider the
reasons why the results are so similar or different, as well as the implications of these results
for working in a global work environment.
INSTRUCTIONS (LARGE CLASS)
1. Working alone, connect the labels with the countries by relying on your perceptions of these
countries. Each label is associated with only one
country, so each label should be connected to
only one country, and vice versa. Draw a line to
connect the pairs, or put the label number beside the country name.
2. Asking for a show of hands, the instructor will
find out which country is identified by most students with each label. The instructor will then
post the correct answers.
Value Labels and Country Names
Value label
(alphabetical)
Country name
(alphabetical)
1. Affable humanists
Australia
2. Ancient modernizers
Brazil
3. Commercial catalysts
Canada
4. Conceptual strategists
China
5. Efficient manufacturers
France
6. Ethical statesmen
Germany
7. Informal egalitarians
India
8. Modernizing traditionalists
Netherlands
9. Optimistic entrepreneurs
New Zealand
10. Quality perfectionists
Singapore
11. Rugged individualists
Taiwan
12. Serving merchants
United Kingdom
13. Tolerant traders
United States
Source: Based on R. Rosen, P. Digh, M. Singer, and C. Phillips,
Global Literacies (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000).
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Team Exercise 2.6
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ETHICS DILEMMA VIGNETTES
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to make you
aware of the ethical dilemmas people face in various
business situations, as well as the competing principles and values that operate in these situations.
from buying the product at a lower price in another
region. The company says this policy allows it to
maintain stable prices within a region rather than continually changing prices due to currency fluctuations.
INSTRUCTIONS (SMALL CLASS) The instructor
will form teams of four or five students. Team members will read each case below and discuss the extent
to which the company’s action in each case was ethical. Teams should be prepared to justify their evaluation using ethics principles and the perceived moral
intensity of each incident.
CASE THREE For the past few years, the design department of a small (40-employee) company has been
using a particular software program, but the three employees who use the software have been complaining
for more than a year that the software is out of date and
is slowing down their performance. The department
agreed to switch to a competing software program,
costing several thousand dollars. However, the next
version won’t be released for six months and buying
the current version will not allow much discount on the
next version. The company has put in advance orders
for the next version. Meanwhile, one employee was
able to get a copy of the current version of the software
from a friend in the industry. The company has allowed the three employees to use this current version
of the software even though they did not pay for it.
INSTRUCTIONS (LARGE CLASS) Working alone,
read each case below and determine the extent to
which the company’s action in each case was ethical.
The instructor will use a show of hands to determine
the extent to which students believe the case represents an ethical dilemma (high or low moral intensity)
and the extent to which the main people or company
in each incident acted ethically.
CASE ONE An employee who worked for a major
food retailer wrote a Weblog (blog) and, in one of his
writings, complained that his boss wouldn’t let him go
home when he felt sick and that his district manager
refused to promote him because of his dreadlocks.
His blog named the employer, but the employee
didn’t use his real name. Although all blogs are on
the Internet, the employee claims that his was lowprofile and that it didn’t show up in a Google search
of his name or the company. Still, the employer somehow discovered the blog, figured out the employee’s
real name, and fired him for “speaking ill of the
company in a public domain.”
CASE TWO Computer printer manufacturers usually sell printers at a low margin over cost and generate much more income from subsequent sales of the
high-margin ink cartridges required for each printer.
One global printer manufacturer now designs its printers so that they work only with ink cartridges made in
the same region. Ink cartridges purchased in the
United States will not work with the same printer
model sold in Europe, for example. This “region coding” of ink cartridges does not improve performance.
Rather, it prevents consumers and gray marketers
62
CASE FOUR Judy Price is a popular talk-show radio personality and opinionated commentator on the
morning phone-in show of a popular radio station in a
large U.S. city. Price is married to John Tremble, an
attorney who was recently elected mayor of the city
even though he had no previous experience in public
office. The radio station’s board of directors is very
concerned that the station’s perceived objectivity will
be compromised if Price remains on air as a commentator and talk-show host while her husband holds such
a public position. For example, the radio station manager believes that Price gave minimal attention to an
incident in which environmental groups criticized the
city for its slow progress on recycling. Price denied
that her views are biased and stated that the incident
didn’t merit as much attention as other issues that particular week. To ease the board’s concerns, the station
manager transferred Price from her talk-show host
and commentator position to the hourly news reporting position, where most of the script is written by others. Although the reporting job is technically a lower
position, Price’s total salary package remains the same.
Price is now seeking professional advice to determine
whether the radio station’s action represents a form of
discrimination on the basis of marital status.
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Self-Assessment 2.7
ARE YOU INTROVERTED OR EXTROVERTED?
PURPOSE This self-assessment is designed to help
you estimate the extent to which you are introverted
or extroverted.
INSTRUCTIONS The statements in the scale below refer to personal characteristics that might or
might not be characteristic of you. Mark the box indicating the extent to which the statement accurately
or inaccurately describes you. Then use the scoring
key in Appendix B at the end of this book to calculate your results. This exercise should be completed
alone so that you can assess yourself honestly without concerns of social comparison. Class discussion
will focus on the meaning and implications of extroversion and introversion in organizations.
IPIP Introversion-Extroversion Scale
How accurately does each
of the statements listed
below describe you?
Very
accurate
description
of me
Moderately
accurate
Neither
accurate nor
inaccurate
Moderately
inaccurate
Very
inaccurate
description
of me
1. I feel comfortable around
people.
2. I make friends easily.
3. I keep in the background.
4. I don’t talk a lot.
5. I would describe my
experiences as somewhat dull.
6. I know how to captivate
people.
7. I don’t like to draw attention
to myself.
8. I am the life of the party.
9. I am skilled in handling
social situations.
10. I have little to say.
Source: Adapted from instruments described and/or presented in L. R. Goldberg, J. A. Johnson, H. W. Eber, R. Hogan, M. C. Ashton, C. R. Cloninger,
and H. C. Gough, “The International Personality Item Pool and the Future of Public-Domain Personality Measures,” Journal of Research in Personality
40 (2006), pp. 84–96.
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Self-Assessment 2.8
WHAT ARE YOUR DOMINANT VALUES?
Values have taken center stage in organizational behavior. Increasingly, OB experts are realizing that our
personal values influence our motivation, decisions,
and attitudes. This self-assessment is designed to help
you estimate your personal values and value system.
The instrument consists of several words and phrases,
and you are asked to indicate whether each word or
phrase is highly opposite or highly similar to
your personal values or is at some point between these two extremes. As with all selfassessments, you need to be honest with yourself
when completing this activity in order to get the most
accurate results.
Self-Assessment 2.9
INDIVIDUALISM-COLLECTIVISM SCALE
Two of the most important concepts in cross-cultural
organizational behavior are individualism and collectivism. This self-assessment measures your
levels of individualism and collectivism with one
of the most widely adopted measures. This scale
consists of several statements, and you are
asked to indicate how well each statement
describes you. You need to be honest with
yourself to receive a reasonable estimate of your
level of individualism and collectivism.
Self-Assessment 2.10
ESTIMATING YOUR LOCUS OF CONTROL
This self-assessment is designed to help you estimate
the extent to which you have an internal or external
locus-of-control personality. The instrument asks
you to indicate the degree to which you agree or disagree with each of the statements provided. As with
all self-assessments, you need to be honest
with yourself when completing this activity to
get the most accurate results. The results show
your relative position on the internal-external locus
continuum and the general meaning of this score.
Self-Assessment 2.11
IDENTIFYING YOUR GENERAL SELF-EFFICACY
Self-efficacy refers to a person’s belief that he or she
has the ability, motivation, and resources to complete a task successfully. Self-efficacy is usually
64
conceptualized as a situation-specific belief.
You may believe that you can perform a certain task in one situation but may be less
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confident with that task in another situation. However, there is evidence that people develop a more
general self-efficacy. This exercise helps you estimate your general self-efficacy. Read each of the
statements in this self-assessment and select the re-
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sponse that best fits your personal belief. This selfassessment should be completed alone so that you
rate yourself honestly without concerns of social comparison. Class discussion will focus on the meaning
and importance of self-efficacy in the workplace.
After reading this chapter, if you feel that you need additional tips on managing your anxiety, see
www.mhhe.com/mcshane5e for more in-depth information and interactivities that correspond to
this chapter.
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In his regular job, John Leiter helps American companies carry out internal investigations
into financial wrongdoing. But the Boston-based Ernst & Young senior manager found
himself in a completely different environment as a participant in the accounting firm’s
corporate social responsibility
fellows program. For three
months, Leiter was transplanted
to Montevideo, Uruguay, assisting
Infocorp, a young information
technology company, with its first
real five-year strategic plan. Leiter
was performing different work in a
different country with a different
culture and language. “I worked
out of my comfort zone the entire
time,” he recalls.
Leiter particularly noticed that
he had to adjust his fast-paced
American business style to the
more personal approach in
John Leiter (second from left) and other employees at Ernst & Young are developing
more cosmopolitan perceptions of the world by assisting entrepreneurs in other
cultures, such as this information technology company in Uruguay.
Uruguay, which included
traditional quarter-hour chitchats
before meetings. The experience
gave him a different perspective of the world and his approach to working with clients.
“Oftentimes, we have such a myopic focus, and it doesn’t allow us to take a large view
of the issue,” says Leiter, who now spends more time learning about the client’s needs
before launching into the work.
International corporate volunteering is more than an important form of corporate social
responsibility; it is also a valuable tool to help employees at Ernst & Young and other
companies develop more cosmopolitan perceptions of the world. “We need people with a
global mindset, and what better way to develop a global mindset, and what more realistic
way, than for somebody to have an immersion experience with just enough safety net,”
says Deborah K. Holmes, Ernst & Young Americas director of corporate responsibility.
Ernst & Young has sent John Leiter and two dozen other high-performing employees to work
with entrepreneurs in South America. At Pfizer, the world’s largest pharmaceutical company,
between 25 and 45 employees work up to six months in Africa and elsewhere each year to combat
HIV-AIDS and other illnesses. Through its Project Ulysses program, PricewaterhouseCoopers
sends 25 partners each year to developing countries, where they spend eight weeks working with
nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on community projects.
IBM has also made international corporate volunteering part of its global leadership
development curriculum through its recently launched Corporate Service Corps program.
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3
Perception and Learning
in Organizations
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
1. Outline the perceptual process.
2. Explain how social identity and stereotyping
influence the perceptual process.
3. Describe the attribution process and two
attribution errors.
4. Summarize the self-fulfilling-prophecy
process.
5. Explain how halo, primacy, recency, and
false-consensus effects bias our
perceptions.
6. Discuss three ways to improve social
perception, with specific application to
organizational situations.
7. Describe the A-B-C model of behavior
modification and the four contingencies of
reinforcement.
8. Describe the three features of social
learning theory.
9. Outline the elements of organizational
learning and ways to improve each element.
IBM CEO Sam Palmisano explains that these corporate social responsibility initiatives will develop its global
leaders because participants “work in these other kinds of environments, so they can get a perspective and
learn . . . how to think about problems from another perspective, from another point of view.”1
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68
Part Two
global mindset
The capacity for complex
perceiving and thinking
characterized by superior awareness of and
openness to different
ways that others perceive their environment.
Learning
Objectives
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Individual Behavior and Processes
International corporate volunteering programs have become a key component of
global leadership development because they nurture a global mindset.2 They help
employees develop a superior awareness of and openness to different “spheres of
meaning and action,” that is, the various ways that others perceive their environment. Global mindset is gaining interest among organizational behavior experts.
It is also a fitting topic to begin this chapter because it encompasses the dynamics
of perceptions and learning. From a perceptual view, global mindset begins with
self-awareness—understanding our own beliefs, values, and attitudes. Through selfawareness, we are more open-minded and nonjudgmental when receiving and
processing complex information for decision making. Having a global mindset
also relates to learning because employees working in a global environment need
to quickly absorb large volumes of information about the diverse environments in
which they work. Furthermore, people with a global mindset have a strong learning
orientation. They welcome new situations as learning opportunities rather than
view them as threats, and they continually question rather than quickly confirm
what they know.
This chapter describes these two related topics of perceptions and learning in
organizations. We begin by describing the perceptual process, that is, the dynamics of selecting, organizing, and interpreting external stimuli. Next, we examine
the perceptual processes of social identity and stereotyping, attribution, and selffulfilling prophecy, including biases created within these processes. Four other
perceptual biases—halo, primacy, recency, and false consensus—are also briefly introduced. We then identify potentially effective ways to improve perceptions, including practices similar to corporate volunteering. The latter part of this chapter
looks at three perspectives of learning: behavior modification, social learning theory, and experiential learning, followed by the key elements in organizational
learning.
After reading the next two sections, you should be able to:
1. Outline the perceptual process.
2. Explain how social identity and stereotyping influence the perceptual
process.
The Perceptual Process
perception
The process of receiving
information about and
making sense of the
world around us.
selective attention
The process of attending
to some information
received by our senses
and ignoring other
information.
Perception is the process of receiving information about and making sense of the
world around us. It entails determining which information to notice, how to categorize this information, and how to interpret it within the framework of our existing
knowledge. This perceptual process is far from perfect, as you will learn in this chapter, but it generally follows the steps shown in Exhibit 3.1. Perception begins when
environmental stimuli are received through our senses. Most stimuli that bombard
our senses are screened out; the rest are organized and interpreted. The process of
attending to some information received by our senses and ignoring other information
is called selective attention. Selective attention is influenced by characteristics of
the person or object being perceived, particularly size, intensity, motion, repetition,
and novelty. For example, a small, flashing red light on a nurse station console is
immediately noticed because it is bright (intensity), flashing (motion), a rare event
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Chapter 3 Perception and Learning in Organizations
Exhibit 3.1
69
Environmental stimuli
Model of the
Perceptual Process
Feeling
Hearing
Seeing
Smelling
Tasting
Selective attention and emotional marker response
Perceptual organization
and interpretation
Attitudes
and behavior
(novelty), and has symbolic meaning that a patient’s vital signs are failing. Notice that
selective attention is also influenced by the context in which the target is perceived.
The selective attention process is triggered by things or people who might be out of
context, such as hearing someone with a foreign accent in a setting where most people have American accents.
Characteristics of the perceiver play an important role in selective attention,
much of it without the perceiver’s awareness.3 When information is received through
the senses, our brain quickly and nonconsciously assesses whether it is relevant or
irrelevant to us and then attaches emotional markers (worry, happiness, boredom) to
that information. The emotional markers help us to store information in memory;
they also reproduce the same emotions when we are subsequently thinking about
this information.4
The selective attention process is far from perfect. As mentioned in Chapter 2,
we have a natural and usually nonconscious tendency to seek out information that
supports our self-concept or puts us in a favorable light and to ignore or undervalue
information that is contrary to our self-concept. This confirmation bias also screens
out information that is contrary to our values and assumptions.5 Several studies
have found that people fail to perceive (or soon forget) statements and events that
undermine political parties that they support. One recent study examined how
people perceived and accepted stories during the first weeks of the Iraq War that
were subsequently retracted (acknowledged by the media as false stories). The
study found that most of the Germans and Australians surveyed dismissed the
retracted events, whereas a significantly large percentage of Americans continued
to believe these false stories, even though many of them recalled that the stories
had been retracted by the media. In essence, people in the American sample were
reluctant to reject and forget about information that supported their beliefs about
the Iraq War.6
Finally, selective attention is influenced by our assumptions and conscious anticipation of future events. You are more likely to notice a co-worker’s e-mail among the
daily bombardment of messages when you expect to receive that e-mail (particularly
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Part Two
Individual Behavior and Processes
Detectives Avoid Tunnel Vision with Art Appreciation Good
detective work involves more than forming a good theory
about the crime. It also involves not forming a theory too
early in the investigation. “The longer it goes, the more
theories there are,” warns FBI special agent Mark MacKizer
when describing a six-year-old investigation in which a
family was murdered in Henry County, Virginia. “We’re very
careful to let the evidence drive the investigation, not
theories. All the investigators on this case are cognizant of
not having tunnel vision.” Keith Findley, codirector of the
Wisconsin Innocence Project, advises that becoming
preoccupied with a single theory “leads investigators,
prosecutors, judges, and defense lawyers alike to focus on a
particular conclusion and then filter all evidence in a case
through the lens provided by that conclusion.” To minimize
this selective attention problem, officers in the New York
Police Department are attending art classes, where they
learn to be more mindful and take multiple perspectives of
all information. “[The class] reminded me to stop and take
in the whole scene and not just have tunnel vision,” says
NYPD captain David Grossi, adding that the class helped
him to discover evidence outside the area he normally would
have investigated.9
categorical thinking
Organizing people and
objects into preconceived categories that
are stored in our longterm memory.
/Users/s-206/Desktop/Tempwork/JANUARY 09/12:01:09/MHBR089-03
when it is important to you). Unfortunately, expectations and assumptions also cause us to screen out
potentially important information. In one study, students were asked to watch a 30-second video clip in
which several people passed around two basketballs.
Students who were asked just to watch the video clip
easily noticed someone dressed in a gorilla suit walking among the players for nine seconds and stopping
to thump its chest. But only half of the students who
were asked to carefully count the number of times
one basketball was passed around noticed the intruding gorilla.7
This perceptual blindness also occurs when we
form an opinion or theory about something, such
as a consumer trend or an employee’s potential.
The preconception causes us to select information
that is consistent with the theory and to ignore contrary or seemingly irrelevant information. Studies
have reported that this faulty selective attention
occurs when police detectives and other forensic
experts quickly form theories about what happened.8 These experts are now increasingly aware
of the need to avoid selective attention traps by
keeping an open mind, absorbing as much information as possible, and avoiding theories too early
in the investigation.
Perceptual Organization and
Interpretation
People make sense of information even before they
become aware of it. This sense making partly includes categorical thinking—the mostly nonconscious process of organizing people and objects into
preconceived categories that are stored in our longterm memory.10 Categorical thinking relies on a variety of automatic perceptual grouping principles.
Things are often grouped together on the basis of their similarity or proximity to
others. If you notice that a group of similar-looking people includes several professors, for instance, you will likely assume that the others in that group are also professors. Another form of perceptual grouping is based on the need for cognitive
closure, such as filling in missing information about what happened at a meeting
that you didn’t attend (e.g., who was there, where it was held). A third form of
grouping occurs when we think we see trends in otherwise ambiguous information.
Several studies have found that people have a natural tendency to see patterns that
really are random events, such as presumed winning streaks among sports stars or
in gambling.11
The process of “making sense” of the world around us also involves interpreting incoming information. This happens quickly as selecting and organizing because the previously mentioned emotional markers are tagged to incoming
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stimuli, which are essentially quick judgments about whether that information is
good or bad for us. To give you an idea of how quickly and systematically this
nonconscious perceptual interpretation process occurs, consider the following
study:12 After viewing video clips of university instructors teaching an undergraduate class, eight observers rated the instructors on several personal characteristics
(optimistic, likable, anxious, active, etc.). The observers, who had never seen the
instructors before, were similar to each other on how they rated the instructors,
even though they completed their ratings alone. Equally important, these ratings
were very similar to the ratings completed by students who attended the actual
class.
These results may be interesting, but they become extraordinary when you realize
that the observers formed their perceptions from as little as six seconds of video—three
segments of two seconds each selected randomly from the one-hour class! Furthermore, the video didn’t have any sound. In other words, people form similar perceptions and judgments on the basis of very thin slices of information. Other studies
have reported similar findings for observations of high school teachers, courtroom
judges, and physicians. Collectively, these “thin slice” studies reveal that selective
attention, as well as perceptual organization and interpretation, operates very quickly
and to a large extent without our awareness.
mental models
Visual or relational
images in our mind that
represent the external
world.
Mental Models To achieve our goals with some degree of predictability and sanity, we need road maps of the environments in which we live. These road maps,
called mental models, are internal representations of the external world.13 They
consist of visual or relational images in our mind, such as what the classroom looks
like or, conceptually, what happens when we submit an assignment late. We rely on
mental models to make sense of our environment through perceptual grouping; the
models fill in the missing pieces, including the causal connection among events. For
example, you have a mental model about attending a class lecture or seminar, including
assumptions or expectations about where the instructor and students arrange themselves in the room, how they ask and answer questions, and so forth. We can create a
mental image of a class in progress.
Mental models play an important role in sense making, yet they also make it difficult to see the world. For example, accounting professionals tend to see corporate
problems in terms of accounting solutions, whereas marketing professionals see the
same problems from a marketing perspective. Mental models also block our recognition of new opportunities. How do we change mental models? That’s a tough
challenge. After all, we developed models from several years of experience and
reinforcement. The most important way to minimize the perceptual problems with
mental models is to constantly question them. We need to ask ourselves about the
assumptions we make. Working with people from diverse backgrounds is another
way to break out of existing mental models. Colleagues from different cultures and
areas of expertise tend to have different mental models, so working with them
makes our own assumptions more obvious.
Social Identity and Stereotyping
In the previous chapter, you learned that social identity is an important component of a person’s self-concept. We define ourselves to a large extent by the groups
to which we belong or have an emotional attachment. Along with shaping our
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self-concept, social identity theory explains the dynamics of social perception—how
we perceive others.14 Social perception is influenced by three activities in the process of forming and maintaining our social identity: categorization, homogenization, and differentiation.
•
•
•
Categorization. Social identity is a comparative process, and the comparison begins by categorizing people into distinct groups. By viewing someone (including
yourself) as a Texan, for example, you remove that person’s individuality and,
instead, see him or her as a prototypical representative of the group “Texans.”
This categorization then allows you to distinguish Texans from people who live
in, say, California or New Hampshire.
Homogenization. To simplify the comparison process, we tend to think that
people within each group are very similar to each other. For instance, we
think Texans collectively have similar attitudes and characteristics, whereas
Californians collectively have their own set of characteristics. Of course,
every individual is unique, but we tend to lose sight of this fact when thinking about our social identity and how we compare to people in other social
groups.
Differentiation. Social identity fulfills our inherent need to have a distinct and
positive self-concept. To achieve this, we do more than categorize people and
homogenize them; we also differentiate groups by assigning more favorable
characteristics to people in our groups than to people in other groups. This
differentiation is often subtle, but it can escalate into a “good-guy–bad-guy”
contrast when groups are in conflict with each other.15
Stereotyping in Organizations
stereotyping
The process of assigning
traits to people on the
basis of their membership in a social category.
Stereotyping is an extension of social identity theory and a product of our natural
process of organizing information through categorical thinking.16 Stereotyping has
three elements. First, we develop social categories and assign traits that are difficult to
observe. For instance, students might form the stereotype that professors are both
intelligent and absentminded. Personal experiences shape stereotypes to some extent, but stereotypes are mainly provided to us through cultural upbringing and media images (e.g., movie characters). Second, we assign people to one or more social
categories on the basis of easily observable information about them, such as their
gender, appearance, or physical location. Third, people who seem to belong to the
stereotyped group are assigned nonobservable traits associated with the group. For
example, if we learn that someone is a professor, we implicitly tend to assume the
person is also intelligent and absentminded.
One reason why people engage in stereotyping is that, as a form of categorical
thinking, it is a natural and mostly nonconscious “energy-saving” process that simplifies our understanding of the world. It is easier to remember features of a stereotype
than the constellation of characteristics unique to everyone we meet.17 A second reason is that we have an innate need to understand and anticipate how others will behave. We don’t have much information when first meeting someone, so we rely
heavily on stereotypes to fill in the missing pieces. People with a strong need for cognitive closure have a higher tendency to rely on stereotypes. A third reason is that
stereotyping enhances our self-concept. As mentioned earlier, the social identity process includes differentiation—we have more favorable views of members of our own
groups than we do of people in other groups. When out-group members threaten our
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Chapter 3 Perception and Learning in Organizations
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self-concept, we are particularly motivated (often without our awareness) to assign
negative stereotypes to them.18
Problems with Stereotyping
Stereotypes are not completely fictional, but neither do they accurately describe every person in a social category. For instance,
the widespread “bean counter” stereotype of accountants views people in this profession as “single-mindedly preoccupied with precision and form, methodical and
conservative, and a boring joyless character.”19 Although this may be true of some
accountants, it is certainly not characteristic of all—or even most—people in this
profession. Even so, once we categorize someone as an accountant, the features of
accountants in general rather than the features of the specific person get recalled,
even when the person does not possess many of the stereotypic traits.
Another problem with stereotyping is that it lays the foundation for discriminatory attitudes and behavior. Most of this perceptual bias occurs as unintentional (systemic) discrimination, whereby decision makers rely on stereotypes to establish notions
of the “ideal” person in specific roles. A person who doesn’t fit the ideal tends to receive a less favorable evaluation. This subtle discrimination often shows up in age
discrimination claims, such as the case in which Ryanair’s recruitment advertising
said it was looking for “young dynamic” employees. Recruiters at the Irish discount
airline probably didn’t intentionally discriminate against older people, but the tribunal concluded that systemic discrimination did occur because none of the job applicants were over 40 years old.20
The more serious form of stereotype bias is intentional discrimination or prejudice,
in which people hold unfounded negative attitudes toward people belonging to a
particular stereotyped group.21 Overt prejudice seems to be less common today
than a few decades ago, but it still exists. Over each of the past four years, for instance, more than one-quarter of Americans say they overhead racial slurs in the
workplace.22 In one recent case, three female advisers in California successfully
sued their employer, Smith Barney, on the grounds that their male co-workers were
deliberately assigned more lucrative clients (and therefore received higher pay) and
more administrative support. These complaints were raised less than a decade after
Smith Barney was ordered to correct discriminatory practices in its New York offices, where female employees complained of sexist and discriminatory behavior. A
tribunal in Quebec was shocked to discover that one of Canada’s largest vegetable
farms prevented black employees from eating in the regular cafeteria. Instead, they
were relegated to a “blacks only” eating area that lacked heat, running water, proper
toilets, and refrigeration.23 As Global Connections 3.1 describes, France is also
coming to terms with both intentional and unintentional discrimination against
non-Caucasian job applicants.
If stereotyping is such a problem, shouldn’t we try to avoid this process altogether? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Most experts agree that categorical thinking (including stereotyping) is an automatic and nonconscious process. Intensive
training can minimize stereotype activation to some extent, but for the most part the
process is hardwired in our brain cells.24 Also remember that stereotyping helps us
in several valuable (although fallible) ways described earlier: minimizing mental effort, filling in missing information, and supporting our social identity. The good
news is that while it is very difficult to prevent the activation of stereotypes, we can
minimize the application of stereotypic information. Later in this chapter, we identify
ways to minimize stereotyping and other perceptual biases.
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Global Connections 3.1
“Your Name Says Everything
in France”
Hamid Senni wears a shirt and tie whenever he strolls along the
Champs Elysées in Paris. The reason for this formality? “If I’m in
jeans, people think I’m a shoplifter,” he says. What makes this
misperception even worse is that Senni, the son of Moroccan
immigrants, was born and raised in France. And in spite of his
education (three degrees in economics) and fluent language
skills, Senni was told more than once that he would never find a
job in France. A well-intentioned high school teacher once told
him that he should replace Hamid with a more traditional French
name. Incensed by the daily discrimination he experienced in
his own country, Senni moved to Sweden and now lives in
London, where he advises companies on ethnic diversity and
has written a book on his experience. “Going abroad was like
an exorcism,” he says bluntly. “In the U.K., diversity is seen as
an opportunity. In France it’s still seen as a problem.”
Senni’s perception of racial and ethnic discrimination in
France is supported by a recent study conducted jointly by the
French government and the International Labour Organization
(ILO). Researchers submitted two nearly identical job applications to 2,440 help-wanted ads. The main difference was that
the candidate in one application had a French-sounding name
whereas the individual in the other application had a North
African or sub-Saharan African name. Almost 80 percent of
employers preferred the applicant with the French-sounding
name. Furthermore, when applicants personally visited human
resource staff, those who had foreign names seldom received
job interviews; instead, they were often told that the job had
been filled or that the company would not be hiring after all.
The report concluded that “almost 90 percent of overall discrimination occurred before the employer had even bothered
to interview both test candidates.”
One young black resident near Paris who calls himself Billy
Fabrice knows about the undercurrents of racial discrimination. “Your name says everything in France,” says Fabrice. “If
you are called Diallo or Amir, that’s all they want to know. If
you are called Jean-Pierre, you show up for a job and they
take you.” Some employers specifically ask hiring agencies
for applicants who are “BBR.” This acronym for the colors of
Learning
Objectives
74
Hamid Senni was born and raised in France but eventually
moved to the United Kingdom because race discrimination
in his home country limited job opportunities.
the French flag (bleu, blanc, rouge) is apparently a well-known
employment code to hire only white French people. In one recent court case, prosecutors claimed that Garnier, a division
of L’Oréal, tried to hire mostly white staff for in-store promotions. Garnier sent its temporary recruitment agency a fax
specifying that those hired should be within a specific age
range (18 to 22), have a certain clothing size, and be “BBR.”
Initially, 38 percent of candidates sent by the recruitment
agency were non-Caucasian. After the fax was sent, this
dropped to less than 5 percent.
While many French employers, including Garnier, deny prejudice or even systemic discrimination against non-Caucasian
applicants, others are taking steps to make the hiring process
more color-blind. Axa SA, the giant French insurance company,
introduced anonymous résumés, in which job applicants provide their qualifications but not their names, addresses, gender,
or age. Serge Simon, a 20-something French resident with
Haitian origins, is hopeful. “I think that with an anonymous
résumé, a person will be hired for what they are—for their qualifications and not for the color of their skin,” he believes.25
After reading the next three sections, you should be able to:
3. Describe the attribution process and two attribution errors.
4. Summarize the self-fulfilling-prophecy process.
5. Explain how halo, primacy, recency, and false-consensus effects bias
our perceptions.
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Chapter 3 Perception and Learning in Organizations
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Attribution Theory
attribution process
The perceptual process
of deciding whether an
observed behavior or
event is caused largely
by internal or external
factors.
Exhibit 3.2
Rules of Attribution
The attribution process involves deciding whether an observed behavior or event
is caused mainly by the person (internal factors) or by the environment (external factors).26 Internal factors include the person’s ability or motivation, whereas external
factors include lack of resources, other people, or just luck. If a co-worker doesn’t
show up for an important meeting, for instance, we infer either internal attributions
(the co-worker is forgetful, lacks motivation, etc.) or external attributions (traffic, a
family emergency, or other circumstances prevented the co-worker from attending).
People rely on the three attribution rules shown in Exhibit 3.2 to determine
whether someone’s behavior mainly has an internal or external attribution. Internal
attributions are made when the observed individual behaved this way in the past
(high consistency), he or she behaves like this toward other people or in different situations (low distinctiveness), and other people do not behave this way in similar situations (low consensus). On the other hand, an external attribution is made when there
is low consistency, high distinctiveness, and high consensus.
To illustrate how these three attribution rules operate, suppose that an employee is
making poor-quality products one day on a particular machine. We would probably
conclude that there is something wrong with the machine (an external attribution) if the
employee has made good-quality products on this machine in the past (low consistency),
Internal Attribution
Behavior is attributed
to internal factors.
External Attribution
Behavior is attributed
to external factors.
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the employee makes good-quality products on other machines (high distinctiveness),
and other employees have recently had quality problems on this machine (high consensus). We would make an internal attribution, on the other hand, if the employee usually
makes poor-quality products on this machine (high consistency), other employees produce good-quality products on this machine (low consensus), and the employee also
makes poor-quality products on other machines (low distinctiveness).27
Attribution is an essential perceptual process because it forms cause-effect relationships, which, in turn, affect how we respond to others’ behavior and how we act in the
future. How we react to a co-worker’s poor performance depends on our internal or
external attribution of that performance. Students who make internal attributions about
their poor performance are more likely to drop out of their programs, for instance.28
Attribution Errors
fundamental attribution
error
The tendency to see the
person rather than the
situation as the main
cause of that person’s
behavior.
self-serving bias
The tendency to
attribute our favorable
outcomes to internal
factors and our failures
to external factors.
People are far from perfect when making attributions. One bias, called fundamental
attribution error, refers to our tendency to see the person rather than the situation as
the main cause of that person’s behavior.29 If an employee is late for work, observers
are more likely to conclude that the person is lazy than to realize that external factors
may have caused this behavior. Fundamental attribution error occurs because observers can’t easily see the external factors that constrain the person’s behavior. We didn’t
see the traffic jam that caused the person to be late, for instance. Research suggests that
fundamental attribution error is more common in Western countries than in Asian cultures, where people are taught from an early age to pay attention to the context in interpersonal relations and to see everything as being connected in a holistic way.30
Another attribution error, known as self-serving bias, is the tendency to attribute
our favorable outcomes to internal factors and our failures to external factors. Simply
put, we take credit for our successes and blame others or the situation for our mistakes.
Self-serving bias is one of several related biases that maintain a positive self-concept,
particularly engaging in self-enhancement to maintain a positive self-evaluation. It is
evident in many aspects of work life. In annual reports, for example, executives
mainly refer to their personal qualities as reasons for the company’s successes and to
external factors as reasons for the company’s failures.31
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
self-fulfilling prophecy
The perceptual process
in which our expectations about another
person cause that
person to act in a way
that is consistent with
those expectations.
Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when our expectations about another person cause
that person to act in a way that is consistent with those expectations. In other words,
our perceptions can influence reality. Exhibit 3.3 illustrates the four steps in the selffulfilling-prophecy process using the example of a supervisor and a subordinate.32
The process begins when the supervisor forms expectations about the employee’s
future behavior and performance. These expectations are sometimes inaccurate, because first impressions are usually formed from limited information. The supervisor’s
expectations influence his or her treatment of employees. Specifically, high-expectancy
employees (those expected to do well) receive more emotional support through nonverbal cues (e.g., more smiling and eye contact), more frequent and valuable feedback
and reinforcement, more challenging goals, better training, and more opportunities to
demonstrate good performance.
The third step in self-fulfilling prophecy includes two effects of the supervisor’s behavior on the employee. First, through better training and more practice opportunities,
a high-expectancy employee learns more skills and knowledge than a low-expectancy
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Chapter 3 Perception and Learning in Organizations
Exhibit 3.3
77
Supervisor forms
expectations about
employee.
The Self-FulfillingProphecy Cycle
Supervisor's
expectations affect
his/her behavior
toward the employee.
becomes consistent
with the supervisor's
expectations.
Supervisor's behavior
affects employee's
abilities and
self-confidence.
employee. Second, the employee becomes more self-confident, which results in higher
motivation and willingness to set more challenging goals.33 In the final step, highexpectancy employees have higher motivation and better skills, resulting in better performance, while the opposite is true of low-expectancy employees.
There are plenty of examples of self-fulfilling prophecies in work and school settings.34 Research has found that women perform less well on math tests after being
informed that men tend to perform better on them. Women perform better on these
tests when they are not exposed to this negative self-fulfilling prophecy. Similarly,
people over 65 receive lower results on memory tests after hearing that mental ability
declines with age. Another study reported that the performance of Israeli Defense
Force trainees was influenced by their instructor’s expectations regarding the trainee’s
potential in the program. Self-fulfilling prophecy was at work here because the instructor’s expectations were based on a list provided by researchers showing which
recruits had high and low potential, even though the researchers had actually listed
these trainees randomly.
Contingencies of Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
positive organizational
behavior
A perspective of organizational behavior that
focuses on building
positive qualities and
traits within individuals
or institutions as
opposed to focusing
on what is wrong with
them.
Self-fulfilling prophecies are more powerful under some conditions than others. The
self-fulfilling-prophecy effect is stronger at the beginning of a relationship, such as
when employees are first hired. It is also stronger when several people (rather than
just one person) hold the same expectations of the individual. In other words, we
might be able to ignore one person’s doubts about our potential but not the collective
doubts of several people. The self-fulfilling-prophecy effect is also stronger among
people with a history of low achievement. High achievers can draw on their past successes to offset low expectations, whereas low achievers do not have past successes to
support their self-confidence. Fortunately, the opposite is also true: Low achievers
respond more favorably than high achievers to positive self-fulfilling prophecy. Low
achievers don’t receive this positive encouragement very often, so it probably has a
stronger effect on their motivation to excel.35
The main lesson from the self-fulfilling-prophecy literature is that leaders need to
develop and maintain a positive, yet realistic, expectation toward all employees. This
recommendation is consistent with the emerging philosophy of positive organizational
behavior, which suggests that focusing on the positive rather than negative aspects of
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life will improve organizational success and individual well-being. Communicating
hope and optimism is so important that it is identified as one of the critical success
factors for physicians and surgeons. Unfortunately, training programs that make leaders
aware of the power of positive expectations seem to have minimal effect. Instead, generating positive expectations and hope depends on a corporate culture of support and
learning. Hiring supervisors who are inherently optimistic toward their staff is another
way of increasing the incidence of positive self-fulfilling prophecies.
Other Perceptual Errors
halo effect
A perceptual error
whereby our general
impression of a person,
usually based on one
prominent characteristic,
colors our perception of
other characteristics of
that person.
primacy effect
A perceptual error in
which we quickly form
an opinion of people
on the basis of the first
information we receive
about them.
recency effect
A perceptual error in
which the most recent
information dominates
our perception of others.
Self-fulfilling prophecy, attribution, and stereotyping are among the most common
perceptual processes and biases in organizational settings, but there are many others.
Four others are briefly described below because they can also bias our perception of
the world around us.
•
•
•
Halo effect. The halo effect occurs when our general impression of a person, usually based on one prominent characteristic, distorts our perception of other characteristics of that person.36 If a supervisor who values punctuality notices that an
employee is sometimes late for work, the supervisor might form a negative image
of the employee and evaluate that person’s other traits unfavorably as well. The
halo effect is most likely to occur when concrete information about the perceived
target is missing or we are not sufficiently motivated to search for it. Instead, we
use our general impression of the person to fill in the missing information.
Primacy effect. The primacy effect is our tendency to quickly form an opinion of
people on the basis of the first information we receive about them.37 This rapid
perceptual organization and interpretation occurs because we need to make
sense of the world around us. The problem is that first impressions—particularly
negative first impressions—are difficult to change. After categorizing someone,
we tend to select subsequent information that supports our first impression and
screen out information that opposes that impression.
Recency effect. The recency effect occurs when the most recent information
dominates our perceptions.38 This perceptual bias is most common when people (especially those with limited experience) are making an evaluation involving complex information. For instance, auditors must digest large volumes of
information in their judgments about financial documents, and the most recent
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false-consensus effect
A perceptual error in
which we overestimate
the extent to which
others have beliefs and
characteristics similar
to our own.
Learning
Objectives
•
79
information received prior to the decision tends to get weighted more heavily
than information received at the beginning of the audit. Similarly, when supervisors evaluate the performance of employees over the previous year, the most
recent performance information dominates the evaluation because it is the most
easily recalled.
False-consensus effect. Sometimes called the similar-to-me effect, the false-consensus
effect is a widely observed bias in which we overestimate the extent to which
others have beliefs and characteristics similar to our own.39 Employees who are
thinking of quitting their jobs believe that a large percentage of their co-workers
are also thinking about quitting. This bias occurs to some extent because we
associate with others who are similar to us, and we selectively remember information that is consistent with our own views. We also believe “everyone does it” to
reinforce our self-concept regarding behaviors that do not have a positive image
(quitting, parking illegally, etc.).
After reading this section, you should be able to:
6. Discuss three ways to improve social perception, with specific application to organizational situations.
Improving Perceptions
We can’t bypass the perceptual process, but we should make every attempt to minimize perceptual biases and distortions. Three potentially effective ways to improve
perceptions include awareness of perceptual biases, self-awareness, and meaningful
interaction.
Awareness of Perceptual Biases
One of the most obvious and widely practiced ways to reduce perceptual biases is by
knowing that they exist. For example, diversity awareness training tries to minimize
discrimination by making people aware of systemic discrimination as well as prejudices that occur through stereotyping. This training also attempts to dispel myths
about people from various cultural and demographic groups. Awareness of perceptual biases can reduce these biases to some extent by making people more mindful of their thoughts and actions. However, awareness has only a limited effect.40 For
example, trying to correct misinformation about demographic groups has limited
effect on people with deeply held prejudices against those groups. Also, self-fulfillingprophecy training informs managers about this perceptual bias and encourages them
to engage in more positive rather than negative self-fulfilling prophecies, yet research
has found that managers continue to engage in negative self-fulfilling prophecies after
they complete the training program.
Improving Self-Awareness
A more powerful way to minimize perceptual biases is to help people become more
aware of biases in their own decisions and behavior. As mentioned at the beginning
of this chapter, self-awareness is a critical foundation for developing a global mindset.
We need to understand our beliefs, values, and attitudes to be more open-minded
and nonjudgmental toward others. Self-awareness is equally important in other ways.
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Johari Window
A model of mutual
understanding that
encourages disclosure
and feedback to
increase our own
open area and reduce
the blind, hidden, and
unknown areas.
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The emerging concept of authentic leadership, for instance, emphasizes self-awareness
as the first step in a person’s ability to effectively lead others (see Chapter 12).41
But how do we become more self-aware? One formal procedure, called the Implicit Association Test (IAT), detects subtle race, age, and gender bias by associating
positive and negative words with specific demographic groups.42 Many people are
much more cautious about their stereotypes and prejudices after discovering that
their test results show a personal bias against older people or individuals from different ethnic backgrounds. For example, Jennifer Smith-Holladay was surprised to learn
after taking the IAT that she is biased in favor of white people, a group to which she
belongs, and in favor of heterosexuals, a group to which she does not belong. “I discovered that I not only have some in-group favoritism lurking in my subconscious,
but also possess some internalized oppression in terms of my sexuality,” says SmithHolladay. She adds that the IAT results will make her more aware of personal biases
and help her to minimize their application in decision making. “In the case of my
own subconscious in-group favoritism for white people, for example, my charge is to
be color conscious, not color blind, and to always explicitly consider how race may
affect behaviors and decisions.”43
More generally, people tend to reduce their perceptual biases by “knowing
themselves”—increasing awareness of their own values, beliefs, and prejudices.44
The Johari Window is a popular model for understanding how co-workers can
increase their mutual understanding.45 Developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingram
(hence the name “Johari”), this model divides information about you into four
“windows”—open, blind, hidden, and unknown—based on whether your own values,
beliefs, and experiences are known to you and to others (see Exhibit 3.4). The open
area includes information about you that is known both to you and to others. The
blind area refers to information that is known to others but not to you. For example,
your colleagues might notice that you are self-conscious and awkward when meeting
the company chief executive, but you are unaware of this fact. Information known to
you but unknown to others is found in the hidden area. Finally, the unknown area
includes your values, beliefs, and experiences that aren’t known to you or others.
Feedback
Exhibit 3.4
The Johari Window
Model of SelfAwareness
and Mutual
Understanding
Unknown to
self
Known to
others
Open
area
Blind
area
Unknown to
others
Hidden
area
Unknown
area
Disclosure
Known to
self
Source: Based on J. Luft, Group Processes (Palo Alto, CA: Mayfield, 1984).
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The main objective of the Johari Window is to increase the size of the open
area so that both you and colleagues are aware of your perceptual limitations. This
is partly accomplished by reducing the hidden area through disclosure—informing
others of your beliefs, feelings, and experiences that may influence the work
relationship.46 The open area also increases through feedback from others about
your behavior. This information helps you to reduce your blind area, because coworkers often see things in you that you do not see. Finally, the combination of
disclosure and feedback occasionally produces revelations about information in the
unknown area.
contact hypothesis
A theory stating that
the more we interact
with someone, the less
prejudiced or perceptually biased we will be
against that person.
Meaningful Interaction
While the Johari Window relies on dialogue, self-awareness and mutual understanding can also improve through meaningful interaction.47 This statement is based on the
contact hypothesis, which states that, under certain conditions, people who interact
with each other will be less prejudiced or perceptually biased against each other.
Simply spending time with members of other groups
can improve your understanding and opinion of
those persons to some extent. However, the contact
hypothesis effect is much stronger when people
have close and frequent interaction working toward a shared goal and need to rely on each other
(i.e., cooperate rather than compete with each other).
Everyone should have equal status in that context
and should be engaged in a meaningful task.
An hour-long social gathering between executives
and frontline employees would not satisfy the contact hypothesis conditions. On the other hand,
meaningful interaction might occur in many of the
international volunteering activities described in the
opening vignette to this chapter. In these programs,
Air New Zealand Executives Get Meaningful Interaction If
professionals from developed countries work alongthe meal service seems a bit slower than usual on your next
side people from developing countries. Although the
Air New Zealand flight, it might be that CEO Rob Fyfe is doing
volunteers have expertise (and therefore status), they
the serving while chatting with passengers. Every month, Fyfe
often perform work outside that expertise and in unand his top executive team fill the roster as flight attendants,
familiar environments requiring the expertise of
check-in counter staff, or baggage handlers. (The executives
people in the local community. Another potential
had to pass tests to work as cabin crew.) The frontline jobs
application of the contact hypothesis occurs when
give the Air New Zealand executives a regular reality check
senior executives and other staff from headquarters
while working alongside employees. It also gives employees
work in frontline jobs frequently or for an extended
an opportunity to see that the airline’s leaders are human
time. Everyone at Domino’s head office in Ann
beings who care about staff and customers. The process is
Arbor, Michigan, attends Pizza Prep School, where
also somewhat reversed; every month one staff member
they learn how to make pizzas and run a pizza store.
spends a day with the CEO. “That will include sitting in on an
Every new hire at 1-800-GOT-JUNK? (North Amerexecutive briefing and possibly even a lunch with a politician,”
ica’s largest rubbish removal company) spends an
Fyfe explains. “They go everywhere with me for the entire day.”
entire week on a junk removal truck to better underThat program has been extended to other senior executives.
stand how the business works. “How can you possiThe result of this meaningful interaction and many other
bly empathize with someone out in the field unless
initiatives to support employees is that morale and customer
you’ve been on the truck yourself?” asks CEO and
service at Air New Zealand have soared in recent years.48
founder Brian Scudamore.49
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empathy
A person’s understanding
of and sensitivity to the
feelings, thoughts, and
situations of others.
Learning
Objectives
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Individual Behavior and Processes
Meaningful interaction does more than reduce our reliance on stereotypes. It also
potentially improves empathy toward others, that is, the extent to which we understand and are sensitive to the feelings, thoughts, and situations of others.50 You have
empathy when actively visualizing the other person’s situation and feeling that person’s emotions in that situation. Empathizing with others improves our sensitivity to
the external causes of another person’s performance and behavior, thereby reducing
fundamental attribution error. A supervisor who imagines what it’s like to be a single
mother, for example, would become more sensitive to the external causes of lateness
and other events among such employees.
The perceptual process represents the filter through which information passes
from the external environment to our memory. As such, it is really the beginning of
the learning process, which we discuss next.
After reading the next two sections, you should be able to:
7. Describe the A-B-C model of behavior modification and the four
contingencies of reinforcement.
8. Describe the three features of social learning theory.
9. Outline the elements of organizational learning and ways to improve
each element.
Learning in Organizations
learning
A relatively permanent
change in behavior (or
behavioral tendency)
that occurs as a result
of a person’s interaction
with the environment.
tacit knowledge
Knowledge that is embedded in our actions
and ways of thinking
and is transmitted only
through observation
and experience.
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior (or behavioral tendency) that
occurs as a result of a person’s interaction with the environment. Learning occurs
when the learner behaves differently. For example, you have “learned” computer
skills when you operate the keyboard and software more quickly than before. Learning occurs when interaction with the environment leads to behavior change. This
means that we learn through our senses, such as through study, observation, and
experience.
Some of what we learn is explicit knowledge, such as reading information in this
book. However, explicit knowledge is really only the tip of the knowledge iceberg.
Most of what we know is tacit knowledge.51 Tacit knowledge is not documented;
rather, it is acquired through observation and direct experience. For example, airline
pilots learn to operate commercial jets more by watching experts and practicing on
flight simulators than by attending lectures. They acquire tacit knowledge by directly
experiencing the complex interaction of behavior with the machine’s response.
Three perspectives of learning tacit and explicit knowledge are reinforcement,
social learning, and direct experience. Each perspective offers a different angle for
understanding the dynamics of learning.
Behavior Modification: Learning through Reinforcement
behavior modification
A theory that explains
learning in terms of the
antecedents and consequences of behavior.
One of the oldest perspectives on learning, called behavior modification (also
known as operant conditioning and reinforcement theory), takes the rather extreme view
that learning is completely dependent on the environment. Behavior modification
does not question the notion that thinking is part of the learning process, but it views
human thoughts as unimportant intermediate stages between behavior and the environment. The environment teaches us to alter our behaviors so that we maximize
positive consequences and minimize adverse consequences.52
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Chapter 3 Perception and Learning in Organizations
Exhibit 3.5
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A-B-Cs of Behavior Modification
Antecedents
What happens before
the behavior
Behavior
What the person says or
does
Consequences
What happens after
the behavior
Operator switches off the
machine’s power source.
Co-workers thank operator
for stopping the machine.
Example
Warning light flashes on
operator’s console.
Sources: Adapted from T. K. Connellan, How to Improve Human Performance (New York: Harper & Row, 1978), p. 50; F. Luthans and R. Kreitner,
Organizational Behavior Modification and Beyond (Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1985), pp. 85–88.
A-B-Cs of Behavior Modification The central objective of behavior modification is to change behavior (B) by managing its antecedents (A) and consequences (C).
This process is nicely illustrated in the A-B-C model of behavior modification, shown
in Exhibit 3.5.53
Antecedents are events preceding the behavior, informing employees that certain
behaviors will have particular consequences. An antecedent may be a sound from
your computer signaling that an e-mail has arrived or a request from your supervisor
asking you to complete a specific task by tomorrow. Such antecedents let employees
know that a particular action will produce specific consequences. Notice that antecedents do not cause behaviors. The computer sound doesn’t cause us to open our
e-mail. Rather, the sound is a cue telling us that certain consequences are likely to
occur if we engage in certain behaviors. In behavior modification, consequences are
events following a particular behavior that influence its future occurrence. Generally
speaking, people tend to repeat behaviors that are followed by pleasant consequences
and are less likely to repeat behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences
or no consequences at all.
Contingencies of Reinforcement Behavior modification identifies four types of
consequences, called the contingencies of reinforcement, that increase, maintain, or reduce the probability that behavior will be repeated.54
•
•
•
Positive reinforcement occurs when the introduction of a consequence increases or
maintains the frequency or future probability of a specific behavior. Receiving a
bonus after successfully completing an important project is considered positive
reinforcement because it typically increases the probability that you will use
that behavior in the future.
Punishment occurs when a consequence decreases the frequency or future probability of a behavior. This consequence typically involves introducing something
that employees try to avoid. For instance, most of us would consider being demoted or being ostracized by our co-workers as forms of punishment.55
Negative reinforcement occurs when the removal or avoidance of a consequence
increases or maintains the frequency or future probability of a specific behavior.
Supervisors apply negative reinforcement when they stop criticizing employees
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whose substandard performance has improved. When the criticism is withheld,
employees are more likely to repeat behaviors that improved their performance.
Notice that negative reinforcement is not punishment. Whereas punishment
extinguishes behavior by introducing a negative consequence, negative reinforcement actually reinforces behavior by removing the negative consequence.
Extinction occurs when the target behavior decreases because no consequence
follows it. In this respect, extinction is a do-nothing strategy. Generally, behavior that is no longer reinforced tends to disappear; it becomes extinct. For instance, research suggests that performance tends to decline when managers
stop congratulating employees for their good work.56
Which contingency of reinforcement should be used in the learning process? In
most situations, positive reinforcement should follow desired behaviors and extinction
(do nothing) should follow undesirable behaviors. This approach is preferred because
punishment and negative reinforcement generate negative emotions and attitudes
toward the punisher (e.g., supervisor) and organization. However, some form of punishment (dismissal, suspension, demotion, etc.) may be necessary for extreme behaviors, such as deliberately hurting a co-worker or stealing inventory. Indeed, research
suggests that, under certain conditions, punishment maintains a sense of fairness.57
Schedules of Reinforcement Along with the types of reinforcement, the frequency and timing of the reinforcers also influence employee behaviors.58 These reinforcement schedules can be continuous or intermittent. The most effective
reinforcement schedule for learning new tasks is continuous reinforcement—providing
positive reinforcement after every occurrence of the desired behavior. Employees
learn desired behaviors quickly, and when the reinforcer is removed, extinction also
occurs very quickly.
The best schedule for reinforcing learned behavior is a variable ratio schedule in
which employee behavior is reinforced after a variable number of times. Salespeople
experience variable ratio reinforcement because they make a successful sale (the reinforcer) after a varying number of client calls. They might make four unsuccessful calls
before receiving an order on the fifth one, then make 10 more calls before receiving
the next order, and so on. The variable ratio schedule makes behavior highly resistant to extinction because the reinforcer is never expected at a particular time or after
a fixed number of accomplishments.
Behavior Modification in Practice Everyone practices behavior modification in
one form or another. We thank people for a job well done, are silent when displeased,
and sometimes try to punish those who go against our wishes. Behavior modification
also occurs in various formal programs to reduce absenteeism, improve task performance, encourage safe work behaviors, and have a healthier lifestyle.59 In Arkansas,
for example, the North Little Rock School Board introduced an absenteeism reduction plan in which teachers can earn $300 after every six months with perfect attendance. Those with no more than one day of absence receive $100. ExxonMobil’s
Fawley refinery in the United Kingdom introduced a “Behave Safely Challenge” program in which supervisors rewarded employees and contractors on the spot when
they exhibited good safety behavior or intervened to improve the safe behavior of
co-workers. These rewards were a form of positive reinforcement using a variable
ratio schedule (safe work behaviors were reinforced after a variable number of times
that they occurred).60
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Reinforcing the Long (and Healthy) Walk For many
of Horton Group’s 350 employees, the best parking
spots aren’t closest to the building; they are deep
in the outfield. The Chicago-based insurance
broker reinforces the healthy lifestyle of walking
by rewarding staff who take at least 7,000 steps
each day—more than twice the normal daily
average. Humana, Inc., has introduced a similar
program. Employees at the Kentucky-based health
insurance company use a pedometer to count the
number of steps, and the results are uploaded
from the pedometer to a Web site. The more steps
taken, the higher the rewards in the form of cash
cards that can be used at popular retail stores.
“This program has changed the culture within
Humana,” says Phil Smeltzer, Humana’s wellness
strategy leader. “People have started paying
attention to how many steps they are taking. When
it gets late in the day and they haven’t walked
enough, they take the long way to their car.”61
Although a natural part of human interaction, behavior modification has a number of limitations when applied strategically in organizational settings. One limitation is “reward inflation,” in which the reinforcer is eventually considered an
entitlement. For this reason, most behavior modification programs must run infrequently and for a short duration. Another concern is that the variable ratio schedule
of reinforcement tends to create a lottery-style reward system, which is unpopular with
people who dislike gambling. Probably the most significant problem is behavior
modification’s radical view that behavior is learned only through personal interaction with the environment.62 This view is no longer accepted; instead, learning experts recognize that people also learn by observing others and thinking logically
about possible consequences. This learning-through-observation process is explained
by social learning theory.
Social Learning Theory: Learning by Observing
social learning theory
A theory stating that
much learning occurs
by observing others and
then modeling the
behaviors that lead to
favorable outcomes
and avoiding behaviors
that lead to punishing
consequences.
Social learning theory states that much learning occurs by observing others and
then modeling the behaviors that lead to favorable outcomes and avoiding behaviors
that lead to punishing consequences.63 This form of learning occurs in three ways:
behavior modeling, learning behavior consequences, and self-reinforcement.
•
Behavior modeling. People learn by observing the behaviors of a role model on a
critical task, remembering the important elements of the observed behaviors,
and then practicing those behaviors.64 This is a valuable form of learning because tacit knowledge and skills are mainly acquired through observation and
practice. As an example, it is difficult to document or explain in a conversation
all the steps necessary to bake professional-quality bread. Student chefs also
need to observe the master baker’s subtle behaviors. Behavioral modeling also
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self-reinforcement
Reinforcement that occurs when an employee
has control over a reinforcer but doesn’t “take”
it until completing a
self-set goal.
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increases self-efficacy because people gain more self-confidence after seeing
someone else perform the task. This is particularly true when observers identify
with the model, such as someone who is similar in age, experience, gender, and
related features.
Learning behavior consequences. People learn the consequences of behavior
through logic and observation, not just through direct experience. They logically anticipate consequences after completing a task well or poorly. They also
learn behavioral consequences by observing the experiences of other people.
Consider the employee who observes a co-worker receiving a stern warning for
working in an unsafe manner. This event would reduce the observer’s likelihood of engaging in unsafe behaviors because he or she has learned to anticipate a similar reprimand following those behaviors.65
Self-reinforcement. Self-reinforcement occurs whenever an employee has control over a reinforcer but doesn’t “take” it until completing a self-set goal.66 For
example, you might be thinking about having a snack after you finish reading
the rest of this chapter. Raiding the refrigerator is a form of self-induced positive
reinforcement for completing this reading assignment. Self-reinforcement takes
many forms, such as taking a short walk, watching a movie, or simply congratulating yourself for completing a task.
Learning through Experience
learning orientation
An individual attitude
and organizational culture in which people
welcome new learning
opportunities, actively
experiment with new
ideas and practices,
view reasonable
mistakes as a natural
part of the learning
process, and continuously question past
practices.
Along with behavior modification and social learning, another way that employees
learn is through direct experience. In fact, most tacit knowledge and skills are acquired through experience as well as observation. Generally, experiential learning
begins when we engage with the environment; then we reflect on that experience and
form theories about how the world around us works. This is followed by experimentation, in which we find out how well the newly formed theories work.67 Experiential
learning requires all these steps, although people tend to prefer one step more than
the others.
One of the most important ingredients for learning through experience is that the
organization and its employees should possess a strong learning orientation.68 As
mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, people with a global mindset have a
strong learning orientation, meaning that they welcome new learning opportunities,
actively experiment with new ideas and practices, view reasonable mistakes as a natural part of the learning process, and continuously question past practices. This individual orientation becomes part of the organization’s culture when it is held by many
people throughout the organization.
Organizations develop and maintain a learning orientation culture by supporting
experimentation, acknowledging reasonable mistakes without penalty, and supporting
the mindset that employees should engage in continuous learning. They encourage
employees to question long-held assumptions or mental models and to actively
“unlearn” practices that are no longer ideal. Without a learning orientation, mistakes
are hidden and problems are more likely to escalate or reemerge later. It’s not
surprising, then, that one of the most frequently mentioned lessons from the bestperforming manufacturers is to expect mistakes. “At CIMB we have learnt to admit
our mistakes openly,” says Datuk Nazir Razak, chief executive of CIMB Group,
Malaysia’s second-largest financial services company. “Some of these mistakes cost us
a lot of money,” he adds, but “each mistake is a learning opportunity.”69
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Learning from Near Misses If there is one thing more
serious than making mistakes in a hospital setting, it
would be failing to report and learn from those mistakes. With that idea in mind, Osaka University Hospital
in Japan has developed a “no-blame” Web-based system whereby staff can anonymously report “near-miss”
incidents, thereby enabling the hospital to quickly identify practices that most urgently require better procedures or training. For example, when the reporting
system identified medication ordering and dispensing
as the most common near misses, staff developed new
procedures to reduce those errors. Canossa Hospital in
Hong Kong also encourages staff to speak up about
near misses so that everyone can improve the quality of
hospital care. “The hospital believes through staff’s
alertness of potential risk and early reporting of near
misses, both quality and safety of the hospital could be
improved,” explains Terence Chow, Canossa Hospital’s
physiotherapy department manager. “The training program also serves to help employees cultivate a positive
attitude towards learning from mistakes.”70
From Individual to Organizational Learning
One of the most popular contemporary perspectives of organizational effectiveness is
organizational learning, which was defined in Chapter 1 as any structured activity that
improves an organization’s capacity to acquire, share, and use knowledge in ways
that improve its survival and success. Organizational learning is heavily dependent
on individual learning, but the “capacity” to acquire, share, and use knowledge means
that companies establish systems, structures, and organizational values that support
the knowledge management process.71
•
•
Knowledge acquisition. This includes extracting information and ideas from the
external environment as well as through insight. One of the fastest and most
powerful ways to acquire knowledge is by hiring individuals or acquiring entire
companies. Knowledge also enters the organization when employees learn from
external sources, such as by discovering new resources from suppliers or becoming aware of new trends from clients. A third knowledge acquisition strategy is experimentation. Companies receive knowledge through insight as a
result of research and other creative processes.
Knowledge sharing. This aspect of organizational learning involves distributing
knowledge to others across the organization. Although typically associated with
computer intranets and digital repositories of knowledge, knowledge sharing
also occurs through informal online or face-to-face communication.72 Most social learning (such as behavioral modeling) and experiential learning are forms
of knowledge sharing because the learning is transferred from one employee to
another.
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Knowledge use. The competitive advantage of knowledge comes from applying
it in ways that add value to the organization and its stakeholders. To do this,
employees must realize that the knowledge is available and that they have enough
freedom to apply it. This requires a culture that supports the learning process.
This chapter has introduced two fundamental activities in human behavior in the
workplace: perceptions and learning. These activities involve receiving information
from the environment, organizing it, and acting on it as a learning process. Our
knowledge about perceptions and learning in the workplace lays the foundation for
the next chapter, which looks at workplace emotions and attitudes.
Chapter Summary
Perception involves selecting, organizing, and interpreting information to make sense of the world around us.
Perceptual organization engages categorical thinking—the
mostly nonconscious process of organizing people and
objects into preconceived categories that are stored in our
long-term memory. Mental models—internal representations of the external world—also help us to make sense of
incoming stimuli.
Social identity theory explains how we perceive people
through categorization, homogenization, and differentiation.
Stereotyping is a derivative of social identity theory, in
which people assign traits to others based on their membership in a social category. Stereotyping economizes mental
effort, fills in missing information, and enhances our selfperception and social identity. However, it also lays the
foundation for prejudice and systemic discrimination.
The attribution process involves deciding whether
an observed behavior or event is caused mainly by the
person (internal factors) or the environment (external
factors). Attributions are decided by perceptions of the
consistency, distinctiveness, and consensus of the behavior. This process helps us to link together the various
pieces of our world in cause-effect relationships, but it is
also subject to attribution errors, including fundamental
attribution error and self-serving bias.
Self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when our expectations
about another person cause that person to act in a way that
is consistent with those expectations. Essentially, our expectations affect our behavior toward the target person, which
then affects that employee’s opportunities and attitudes,
which then influences his or her behavior. Self-fulfilling
prophecies tend to be stronger when the relationship begins
(such as when employees first join the department), when
several people hold the expectations toward the employee,
and when the employee has a history of low achievement.
Four other perceptual errors commonly noted in organizations are the halo effect, primacy effect, recency effect, and false-consensus effect. We can minimize these
88
and other perceptual problems through awareness of perceptual bias, self-awareness, and meaningful interaction.
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior
(or behavior tendency) that occurs as a result of a person’s interaction with the environment. Much of what
we learn is tacit knowledge, which is embedded in our
actions without conscious awareness.
The behavior modification perspective of learning states
that behavior change occurs by altering its antecedents and
consequences. Antecedents are environmental stimuli that
provoke (not necessarily cause) behavior. Consequences
are events following behavior that influence its future
occurrence. Consequences include positive reinforcement,
punishment, negative reinforcement, and extinction. The
schedules of reinforcement also influence behavior.
Social learning theory states that much learning occurs
by observing others and then modeling the behaviors
that seem to lead to favorable outcomes and avoiding
behaviors that lead to punishing consequences. It also
recognizes that we often engage in self-reinforcement.
Behavior modeling is effective because it transfers tacit
knowledge and enhances the observer’s confidence in
performing the task.
Many companies now use experiential learning because employees do not acquire tacit knowledge through
formal classroom instruction. Experiential learning begins with concrete experience, followed by reflection on
that experience, formation of a theory from that experience, and then testing of that theory in the environment.
Organizational learning is any structured activity that
improves an organization’s capacity to acquire, share,
and use knowledge in ways that improve its survival and
success. Organizations acquire knowledge through individual learning and experimentation. Knowledge sharing
occurs mainly through various forms of communication
and training. Knowledge use occurs when employees realize that the knowledge is available and that they have
enough freedom to apply it.
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Key Terms
attribution process, p. 75
behavior modification, p. 82
categorical thinking, p. 70
contact hypothesis, p. 81
empathy, p. 82
false-consensus effect, p. 79
fundamental attribution
error, p. 76
global mindset, p. 68
halo effect, p. 78
Johari Window, p. 80
learning, p. 82
learning orientation, p. 86
mental models, p. 71
perception, p. 68
positive organizational
behavior, p. 77
primacy effect, p. 78
recency effect, p. 78
selective attention, p. 68
self-fulfilling prophecy, p. 76
self-reinforcement, p. 86
self-serving bias, p. 76
social learning theory, p. 85
stereotyping, p. 72
tacit knowledge, p. 82
Critical Thinking Questions
Several years ago, senior executives at energy
company CanOil wanted to acquire an exploration
company (HBOG) that was owned by another
energy company, AmOil. Rather than face a hostile takeover and unfavorable tax implications,
CanOil’s two top executives met with the CEO of
AmOil to discuss a friendly exchange of stock to
carry out the transaction. AmOil’s chief executive
was previously unaware of CanOil’s plans, and as
the meeting began, the AmOil executive warned
that he was there merely to listen. The CanOil
executives were confident that AmOil wanted to
sell HBOG because energy legislation at the time
made HBOG a poor investment for AmOil.
AmOil’s CEO remained silent for most of the
meeting, which CanOil executives interpreted as
an implied agreement to proceed to buy AmOil
stock on the market. But when CanOil launched
the stock purchase a month later, AmOil’s CEO
was both surprised and outraged. He thought he
had given the CanOil executives the cold shoulder,
remaining silent to show his disinterest in the deal.
The misunderstanding nearly bankrupted CanOil
because AmOil reacted by protecting its stock.
What perceptual problem(s) likely occurred that
led to this misunderstanding?
2. What mental models do you have about attending
a college or university lecture? Are these mental
models helpful? Could any of these mental models
hold you back from achieving the full benefit of
the lecture?
3. Do you define yourself in terms of the university or
college you attend? Why or why not? What are the
1.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
implications of your answer for your university or
college?
During a diversity management session, a manager
suggests that stereotypes are a necessary part of
working with others. “I have to make assumptions
about what’s in the other person’s head, and
stereotypes help me do that,” she explains. “It’s
better to rely on stereotypes than to enter a working relationship with someone from another culture
without any idea of what they believe in!” Discuss
the merits of and problems with the manager’s
statement.
Describe how a manager or coach could use the process of self-fulfilling prophecy to enhance an individual’s performance.
Describe a situation in which you used behavior
modification to influence someone’s behavior. What
specifically did you do? What was the result?
Why are organizations moving toward the use of experiential approaches to learning? What conditions
are required for success?
BusNews Corp. is the leading stock market and business news service. Over the past two years, BusNews
has experienced increased competition from other
news providers. These competitors have brought in
Internet and other emerging computer technologies
to link customers with information more quickly.
There is little knowledge within BusNews about how
to use these computer technologies. On the basis of
the knowledge acquisition processes for knowledge
management, explain how BusNews might gain the
intellectual capital necessary to become more competitive in this respect.
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Case Study 3.1
HY DAIRIES, INC.
Syd Gilman read the latest sales figures with a great
deal of satisfaction. The vice president of marketing
at Hy Dairies, Inc., a large midwestern milk products manufacturer, was pleased to see that the marketing campaign to improve sagging sales of Hy’s
gourmet ice-cream brand was working. Sales volume and market share of the product had increased
significantly over the past two quarters compared
with the previous year.
The improved sales of Hy’s gourmet ice cream
could be credited to Rochelle Beauport, who was
assigned to the gourmet ice-cream brand last year.
Beauport had joined Hy less than two years ago as
an assistant brand manager after leaving a similar
job at a food products firm. She was one of the few
women of color in marketing management at Hy
Dairies and had a promising career with the company. Gilman was pleased with Beauport’s work
and tried to let her know this in the annual performance reviews. He now had an excellent opportunity to reward her by offering her the recently
vacated position of market research coordinator. Although technically only a lateral transfer with a
modest salary increase, the marketing research coordinator job would give Beauport broader experience
in some high-profile work, which would enhance
her career with Hy Dairies. Few people were aware
that Gilman’s own career had been boosted by
working as marketing research coordinator at Hy
several years earlier.
Rochelle Beauport had also seen the latest sales
figures on Hy’s gourmet ice cream and was expecting Gilman’s call to meet with her that morning.
Gilman began the conversation by briefly mentioning the favorable sales figures and then explained
that he wanted Beauport to take the marketing research coordinator job. Beauport was shocked by
the news. She enjoyed brand management and particularly the challenge involved with controlling a
product that directly affected the company’s profitability. Marketing research coordinator was a technical support position—a “backroom” job—far removed
from the company’s bottom-line activities. Marketing research was not the route to top management in
most organizations, Beauport thought. She had been
sidelined.
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After a long silence, Beauport managed a
weak “Thank you, Mr. Gilman.” She was too bewildered to protest. She wanted to collect her
thoughts and reflect on what she had done wrong.
Also, she did not know her boss well enough to be
openly critical.
Gilman recognized Beauport’s surprise, which he
naturally assumed was her positive response to hearing of this wonderful career opportunity. He, too,
had been delighted several years earlier about his
temporary transfer to marketing research to round
out his marketing experience. “This move will be
good for both you and Hy Dairies,” said Gilman as
he escorted Beauport from his office.
Beauport was preoccupied with several tasks
that afternoon, but she was able to consider the
day’s events that evening. She was one of the top
women and few minorities in brand management
at Hy Dairies and feared that she was being sidelined because the company didn’t want women or
people of color in top management. Her previous
employer had made it quite clear that women
“couldn’t take the heat” in marketing management
and tended to place women in technical support
positions after a brief term in lower brand management jobs. Obviously Syd Gilman and Hy Dairies
were following the same game plan. Gilman’s comment that the coordinator job would be good for
her was just a nice way of saying that Beauport
couldn’t go any further in brand management at
Hy Dairies.
Beauport now faced the difficult decision of
whether to confront Gilman and try to change Hy
Dairies’ sexist and possibly racist practices or to
leave the company.
Discussion Questions
1. Apply your knowledge of stereotyping and social identity theory to explain what went wrong
here.
2. What other perceptual error is apparent in this
case study?
3. What can organizations do to minimize misperceptions in these types of situations?
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Case Study 3.2
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HOW FAILURE BREEDS SUCCESS
Coca-Cola chairman and former CEO E. Neville Isdell
knows that the best companies
embrace their mistakes and learn from them. That’s
why Isdell doesn’t mind rhyming off the list of
Coke’s failures over the years. In fact, he is keen to
convince employees and shareholders that he will
tolerate the failures that will inevitably result from
the bigger risks that he wants Coke to take. At the
same time, say analysts, balancing a learning culture with a performance culture is a perennial challenge. Intuit, the tax software company, thinks it
has a solution. When one of its marketing strategies
recently flopped, the company celebrated the failure and spent a lot of time dissecting it.
This BusinessWeek case study describes several
ways that companies learn from their mistakes while
Class Exercise 3.3
still maintaining a strong focus on performance and
the bottom line. Read the full text of this BusinessWeek article at www.mhhe.com/mcshane5e, and prepare for the discussion questions below.
Discussion Questions
1. Describe the experiential learning process that
companies mentioned in this case study apply to
learn from their mistakes and failures.
2. What perceptual problems do managers need to
overcome with failures? How can these perceptual problems be minimized?
Source: J. McGregor, “How Failure Breeds Success,” BusinessWeek,
10 July 2006, p. 42.
THE LEARNING EXERCISE
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to help you
understand how the contingencies of reinforcement
in behavior modification affect learning.
MATERIALS Any objects normally available in a
classroom will be acceptable for this activity.
INSTRUCTIONS (LARGE OR SMALL CLASS)
The instructor will ask for three volunteers, who
are then briefed outside the classroom. The instructor will spend a few minutes briefing the remaining
students in the class about their duties. Then, one
of the three volunteers will enter the room to participate in the exercise. When completed, the second volunteer enters the room and participates in
the exercise. When completed, the third volunteer
enters the class and participates in the exercise.
For students to gain the full benefit of this exercise, no other information will be provided here.
However, the instructor will have more details at the
beginning of this fun activity.
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Class Exercise 3.4
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STEREOTYPING IN CORPORATE
ANNUAL REPORTS
PURPOSE This exercise is designed to help you
diagnose evidence of stereotyping and identify corporate role models that minimize stereotyping in
corporate annual reports.
MATERIALS Students need to complete their research for this activity prior to class, including selecting a publicly traded company and downloading the
past four or more years of its fully illustrated annual
reports.
INSTRUCTIONS The instructor may have students
work alone or in groups for this activity. Students will
select a company that is publicly traded and posts its
annual reports on the company Web site. Ideally, annual reports for at least the past four years should be
available, and these reports should be presented in
the final illustrated format (typically PDF replicas of
the original hard-copy report).
Students will closely examine images in the selected company’s recent annual reports in terms of
how women, visible minorities, and older employees and clients are presented. Specifically, students
should be prepared to discuss and provide details in
class regarding:
1. The percentage of images showing (i.e., visual
representation of) women, visible minorities,
and older workers and clients. Students should
also be sensitive to the size and placement of
these images on the page and throughout the annual report.
2. The roles in which women, visible minorities,
and older workers and clients are depicted. For
example, are women shown more in traditional
or nontraditional occupations and nonwork
roles in these annual reports?
If several years of annual reports are available,
students should pick one that is a decade or more
old and compare its visual representation of and role
depiction of women, visible minorities, and older
employees and clients.
If possible, students should pick one of the most
blatantly stereotypic illustrations they can find in
these annual reports to show in class, either as a
hard-copy printout or as a computer projection.
Self-Assessment 3.5
HOW MUCH PERCEPTUAL STRUCTURE DO YOU NEED?
PURPOSE This self-assessment is designed to help
you estimate your personal need for perceptual
structure.
INSTRUCTIONS Read each of the statements below and decide how much you agree with each according to your attitudes, beliefs, and experiences.
Then use the scoring key in Appendix B at the end
of this book to calculate your results. It is important
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for you to realize that there are no right or wrong
answers to these questions. This self-assessment
should be completed alone so that you can rate
yourself honestly without concerns of social comparison. Class discussion will focus on the meaning
of need for structure in terms of how we engage differently in the perceptual process at work and in
other settings.
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