Week

1 Introduction to Organisational Behaviour

What is organisational behaviour

o Investigate the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on
behaviour within organisations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge
toward improving an organisations effectiveness
o Systematic study: looks at relationships attempting to attribute causes and
effects and draws conclusions based on scientific evidence. It is important to
replace popular notions with evidence-based conclusions
Theories & Models of organisational Behaviour
o Help organize knowledge
o Summarise diverse findings & highlight relationships
o Tell what to pay attention to (and what to ignore):
o Help us understand why events occur
o Gives guidance about how to bring change
Theories
o Theories present a concept or idea that is testable
o Is a fact based framework for describing a phenomenon
o A psychological theory
o Describe a behaviour
o Make predictions about future behaviours
Fields that influence OB
o Psychology: the science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes
change the behaviour of humans etc.
o Sociology: the study of people in relation to their fellow human beings
o Social psychology: an area within psychology that blends concepts from
psychology and sociology that focuses on the influence of people on one
another
o Anthropology: the study of societies to lean about human beings and their
activities
History
o Hugo Munsterberg: designing effective operations to select people suitable
for the job
o Walter Dill Scott: the psychology of advertising
o Frederick W. Taylor: Was able to break jobs down scientifically into
measurable component movements and recorded the time required to
complete each movement people had low satisfaction and well being
Hawthorne Studies
o The influence of worker knowledge of being observed and their
expectations were said to determine the increases in productivity
Hawthorne Effect
 o No matter the illumination level, productivity increased
o The effect is not always positive: productivity fell following changes to then
work environment
Managers
o Achieve goals through other people
o Make decisions, allocate resources, direct activities of others to attain goals
o Planning
o Defining goals, establishing strategy and developing plans to
coordinate activities
o Organizing
o Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the
tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom and where decisions
are to be made
o Controlling
o Monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as
planned and correcting any significant deviations
o Leading
o A function that includes motivating employees, directing others,
selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving
conflicts
Mintzbergs Managerial Roles
o Figurehead: symbolic head; required to perform a number of routine duties
of a legal or social nature
o Leader: responsible for the motivation and direction of employees
o Liaison: maintains a network of outside contacts who provide favors and
information
o Monitor: receives wide variety of information; serves as a nerve center of
internal and external information of the organisation
o Disseminator: transmits information received from outsiders or from other
employees to members of the organisation
o Spokesperson: transmits information to outsiders on organisations plans,
policies, action and results, serves as expert on organisations industry
o Entrepreneur: searches organisation and its environment for opportunities
and initiates projects to bring about change
o Disturbance handler: responsible for corrective action when organisation
faces important, unexpected disturbances
o Resource allocator: makes or approves significant organisational decisions
o Negotiator: responsible for representing the organisation at major
negotiations
Management skills
o Technical skills: the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise
 o Human Skills: the ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people
both individually and in groups
o Conceptual skills: the mental ability to analyse and diagnose complex
situations
Effective Vs Successful Managerial Activities (Luthans)
o Traditional management: decision making, planning, and controlling
o Communications: exchanging routine information and processing paperwork
o Human resource management: motivating, disciplining, managing conflict,
staffing and training
o Networking: socializing, politicking and interacting with others
o Being promoted: networking
o Being effective: communicating
Dependent Variables
o Productivity: a performance measure that includes effectiveness and
efficiency
o Effectiveness: achievement of goals
o Efficiency: the ratio of effective output to the input required to achieve it
o Absenteeism: the failure to report to work
o Turnover: the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an
organisation
o Organisational Citizenship behaviour (OCB): discretionary behaviour that is
not part of an employees formal job requirements, but that nevertheless
promotes the effective functioning of the organisation
o Job Satisfaction: a general attitude toward ones job; the difference between
the amount the reward workers receive and the amount they believe they
should receive
Independent Variables
o Individual-level variables work attitudes e.g. satisfaction, motivation and
leadership behaviours
o Group-level variables work design: teams, job design
o Organisational System-Level Variables: culture
Challenges and Opportunities for OB
o Responding to globalization
o Managing workforce diversity
o Improving quality and productivity
o Responding to labour shortages aging population
o Improving customer service
o Improving people skills
o Empowering people
o Coping with temporariness
o Stimulation of receptivity to innovation and change
o Helping employees balance work/life conflicts
 o Improving ethical behaviour

Week 2 Personality & Individual Differences

Demographic Diversity
o Gender: 40% employees women, <25% women in full time, 21%-part time
o Demographic composition changing
o Female tertiary students now outnumber their male counterparts in 2/3 of
countries
o Few differences between men and women, no clear consistent findings. Yet
women represent only a very small percentage of managers and particularly
top management
o There are barriers to the top: gender stereotypes, negative attitudes, altered
perceptions of male and female behaviour, gender segregated cultures, male
dominated cultures
o Gender inequality is a major managerial challenge
o Age
o Generations
o Baby Boomers(1946-1962) start job, stay job
o Generation X (1963-1978) change job
o Generation Y (1979-1988) work life balance is more important
o Aging population
o Mixed findings need to learn how to utilize people of all ages
o Managing age diversity appropriately
o There are four generations of values belief systems, work norms, work
attitudes,
Abilities
o Ability is a persons capacity to do or learn to do a particular task
o An individuals overall abilities area determined by their intellectual and
physical abilities
o Cognitive ability: those needed to perform mental activities for thinking
reasoning and problem solving
o Dimensions of intellectual ability
o Number aptitude: speedy and accurate arithmetic
o Verbal comprehension: understand what is read/heard and the
relationship of words to one another
o Perceptual speed: ability to visualize and analyse visual differences
quickly and accurately
o Inductive reasoning: identify a logical reasoning in a problem and then
solve the problem
o Deductive reasoning: logic to assess the implications of an argument
 o Spatial visualization: ability to imagine how an object will look if its in
a different position
o Memory: ability to recall and retain past experiences
o Intelligence beyond mental abilities
o Social intelligence: getting along well with others
o Emotional intelligence: able to relate others emotions and express
your own emotions easily
o Cultural intelligence: ability for a person to act well in situations of
cultural diversity
o Most employers predict based on cognitive abilities because cognitive is a
strong predictor of workplace performance
o Physical Ability: capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength,
and similar characteristics
o Strength factors: dynamic strength, trunk strength, static strength,
explosive strength
o Flexibility factors: extent flexibility, dynamic flexibility
o Other factors: body coordination, balance, stamina
o Galton: started the attempt to assess sensory skills (intellectual abilities)
o Binet: introduced mental age developed the first ways of measuring IQ,
using abstract reasoning. Mental age: how the intelligence of a person
compares to those of the same age group
o Terman: IQ = (mental age/chron age) X 100
o Higher cognitive ability = less training = save money
o Intelligence tests measure general or broad mental ability
o Ravens matrices: uses non verbal testing
o Aptitude tests: measures potential but they look at more specific abilities e.g.
perceptual speed and psychomotor
o Ability test: achievement tests e.g. university exam
o The ability-job fit: requires knowledge of what is required of the job to find
someone who will fit into the job well. Employees abilities and Job ability
requirements
Personality
o Definition
o Refers to an individuals unique constellation of consistent behavioural
traits
o A personality trait is a predisposition or tendency to behave in a
particular way
o Personality tests can measure aspects of personality other than traits,
such as motives, interests, values and attitudes
o Personality tests have lower validities than cognitive tests
o Personality Theories
 o Trait theories: most commonly used, e.g. big 5. Break down
behavioral patterns into observable traits
o Affective theories: used often, personality rather than referring to a
predisposition to experience certain moods and emotions on an
ongoing basis
o Biological theories: rarely used, people differ in terms of their brain
structures and it influences their behaviours
o Psychodynamic theories: not used very much, super ego and ego,
focuses on the unconscious determinants of behaviour
o Humanistic theories: used in career psychology, people seek to self
actualize, and be the best they can be
o Trait relevance: broad factors vs specific traits, non work-related traits
o History of personality testing
o Personality is an invalid predictor because
Personality measures were designed for clinical settings
Were too broad
No taxonomy of personality
o Relevant traits showed higher validities
o matching traits to job requirements
o Costa & McCrae: The big Five
o Openness to experience/Intellect: imaginative, open, extent to a
person is open to new experiences
o Conscientiousness: extent to which person is organized and
concerned about achieving goals and deadlines
o Extraversion: sociable, outgoing, enjoy excitement, can be aggressive
and impulsive
o Agreeableness: good natured, warm, compassionate with others
o Neuroticism/Emotional stability: tense, anxious, tendency to worry
o 16PF is also another test
o Integrity
o Predict whether or not an employee will engage in
counterproductive/dishonest behaviour
o Two tests:
Overt Integrity test e.g. reid report
Looks at attitudes and prior behaviour
E.g. it is alright to lie if you know you wont get caught
Personality Integrity test e.g. employee reliability scale
Personality characteristics: counterproductive behaviour
Hidden
Predict theft and other counterproductive behaviour
Employees can still lie in these tests
o Workplace psychopaths
 Lack of empathy due to deficiency limbic system
genetic/childhood rearing
Manipulate people to hide who they really are
They need to isolate that person away so they cant do damage
They are very manipulative, superficial, look good on the
outside, egotistical, narcissistic, devious, superficial
Would do anything to meet deadlines, get anything done and
rise to the top
Other Individual Differences
o Machiavellianism
o Highly related to psychopaths
o Degree of pragmatism, emotional distance, believes ends justifies
means
o Greater influence over others, manipulate more, win more, less
persuaded by others
o Self interest, personal gain, related to negative workplace behaviours
o Harsh management techniques
o Theft, sabotage, etc.
o Locus of Control
o Internals: you believe what happens to you
o External: what happens to them is decided upon external forces
o Externals (compared to internals) tend to be less satisfied are involved
with their job and have higher absenteeism rates, because they dont
feel like they have control over themselves. They are more vulnerable
by external circumstances in the workplace that disrupt the
organization.
o Self-Efficacy
o A believe in your own capability to perform a specific task
o Global vs task specific beliefs
o High self efficacy (approach difficult problems, more intrinsic
interested in their job, have higher goals) > low self efficacy (lower
goal aspiration and less committed to it, face with difficulties and give
up easily, low motivation)
o Giving a go, improves self efficacy, seeing others doing well make you
want to do well, verbal persuasion, also your mood influences it
Practical Interventions
Maximize fit between the people you bring in and the job demands:
personnel selection
Personnel training: matching the kind of training in the right areas depending
on the characteristics of people your organisation
 Performance management: understanding people employed will enable
matching people to training and jobs to maximize benefits for individuals and
organisations as a role

Week 3 Work Attitudes

o Job satisfaction is linked to high productivity

o Attitudes: tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain
idea, object, person or situation
o ABC model of an attitude: affective (emotions or feelings emotional
statements), Behaviour (conative inclination for actions observed
behaviour), Cognition (thought, reflects a persons perceptions or beliefs
attitude scales, verbal statements about beliefs, asking about thoughts)
o Why study attitudes?
o Relationships with outcomes
o Moral obligation: to have high performance but also have a
responsibility to make sure people are satisfied with their jobs etc.
o Attitudes are compared to
Traits are consistent (e.g. how extroverted you are) but
attitudes are less stable
Moods temporary feelings and are not formed upon a specific
event, but attitudes are
Values theres no right or wrongness, values are more basic,
attitudes are more transitory and based on a particular situation
o Job satisfaction definitions
o A pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal
of ones job or job experiences
o An affective reaction to a job that results from the incumbents
comparison of actual outcomes with those that are desired
o Global vs Facet approaches: global rating is simple buy may hide
important differences, facets (e.g. pay, promotion, coworkers,
supervision/leader, job itself) refer to different aspects of a job that
influence job satisfaction. The global and facet results are not that
strongly correlated
o Measures of job satisfaction
Michigan organisational assessment questionnaire
Brayfield & Rothes Overall Job Satisfaction measure
Facet Job Satisfaction: Job Satisfaction Index
Faces scale: likely to be valid in measuring global valid
satisfaction, it measures emotion and cognitive components of
attitude most balanced way
o Consequences of Dissatisfaction
o 4 factor model: (active) exit, voice, neglect, loyalty (passive)
o Antecedents of Job Satisfaction
o Environmental factors
Mentally challenging work: people prefer work that is mentally
stimulating, but too much stimulation will cause dissatisfaction
and cause stress
Equitable rewards: justice, more satisfied when the reward
matches the level of work, and procedures in place to
determine level of rewards in an organisation
Physical working conditions: people need to be in a safe
workplace that is comfortable
Relationships at work: supportive relationships with supervisors
and colleagues
Work roles: roles must be clear, no role ambiguity
Work-life conflict: work life and family life conflict can cause
dissatisfaction
Pay: only associated small-moderate amount with job
satisfaction
o Personal factors
Personality: negative affectivity, locus of control
Gender: no trends in job satisfaction?
Age: people are more satisfied as they get older?
Cultural and Ethnic differences: no strong consistent evidence
o Person-job fit: personal factors + environmental factors = job
satisfaction
o Consequences job satisfaction and performance
o Job satisfaction causes job performance
o Job performance causes job satisfaction
o Job satisfaction and job performance are reciprocally related
o The relationship between job satisfaction and job performance is
spurious
o The relationship between job satisfaction and job performance is
moderated by other variables
o Job satisfaction consequences
o Turnover strong relationship
o Absenteeism negative relationship
o Health and Well being dissatisfied people have negative emotions
and have health problems
o Life satisfaction correlated with job satisfaction, largely dependent
on personality
o Interventions
 o No specific interventions for increasing job satisfaction
o Theory and research relating to antecedents and consequences can
be used to inform practice
o Subtractive theory: suggests that job satisfaction stems from the
comparison between the individuals standards and his or her
perceptions of the extent to which those standards are being met
o Instrumental theory: people will be satisfied if the work gives them the
opportunity to achieve valued outcomes (e.g. promotion, personal
growth, recognition)
o Person-job fit theory highlights that different individuals will value
different outcomes
o Equity Theory: employees compare their own inputs and outputs
relative to those of others and satisfaction depends on balance in the
ration need to be fair
o Organisational commitment
o Define
The strength of an individuals identification with an
organisation
Affective commitment: individual intends to remain in the
organisation
Continuance commitment: individual cannot afford to leave the
organisation sacrifice and lack of alternatives (different to the
other two forms of commitment)
Normative commitment: individuals perceived obligation to
remain with an organisation
Definition: the extent to which an employee feels a sense of
allegiance to his/her employees
Definition: the degree to which an individual identified with a
particular organisation and its goals and wishes to maintain
membership in the organisation
Definition: the extent to which an employee has an emotional
attachment or wants to stay, feels he or she has organisational
obligations or out to sty or perceives the costs of leaving the
organisation will be high commitment model
o Measurement
o Antecedents
Demographics: almost no correlation between age and gender
Personality characteristics: more external locus of control = less
emotionally attached to an organisation. High task efficacy
(being able to perform a task) = weakly associated with
commitment
 Work experiences: strongest antecedent of commitment:
leadership, extent the organisation supports, role ambiguity,
transformational leadership, role conflict, types of justice
(interactional (with supervisors), distributive (sense that justice in
the way outcomes are distributed, procedural (ways outcomes
are distributed - negatively associated))
o Consequences
Turnover high continuance commitment = low turnover
Absence high affective commitment = less absence
Job Performance continuance commitment = low job
performance
Citizenship affective + normative commitment = positive
relationship
Stress and work-family conflict affective = negative, normative
= positive
o Practical Interventions
Selection and training: selecting people with internal locus of
control, improve self efficacy or train people to have higher
levels
Positive work experiences: because it is the most important
antecedent of commitment
Fairness
Increasing Job security
Increasing Employee involvement
Job design

Week 4 Workplace Stress

o Definition of stress
o Job related factors interact with a worker to change their
physical/psychological condition so that the person deviates from
normal functioning
o Stress as the physiological and/or psychological reactions to an event
that is perceived as threatening or taxing
o Stress involves an interaction between an individual and an
environmental event
o Stress is a process it occurs over time
o There are physical and psychological reactions (strains) to external
environmental events (stressors) that are appraised as taxing or
threatening
o Positive stress: eustress e.g. promoted at work
o Negative stress: distress e.g. made redundant
 o Stress/performance curve: meeting the optimal stress/stimulation
point it always changed, but when there is too much stress you go
into distress and performance drops
o Approaches
o French, rogers, & cobb stress occurs due to a lack of fit
o Lazarus and Folkman produced the transactional model of stress and
coping: looking at the transaction between a person and their external
environment
Stress results from an individuals cognitive appraisal that a
certain environmental event is threatening, harmful or
challenging
Primary appraisal: make an evaluation of whether an
event is going to be threatening/harmful/challenging?
Emotions are generated by the appraisal
Secondary appraisal: Can I cope with the stress? What
are the alternatives?
Two options
o Yes, I can cope: minimum stress
o Sorry, I cant cope: I experience a lot of stress
o Job demands job decision latitude model
Karasek two constructs vary independently in the work
environment
Job decision latitude buffers the negative effects of job
demands on levels of strain
Job demands
Job decision latitude

Active jobs: focus of the model is the active jobs, the key
hypothesis 1 is that job decision latitude buffers
(moderates) the negative effects of job demands on
levels of strain

Second key prediction focuses on employee adjustment
(satisfaction, morale, well-being). Job demands when
accompanied by high levels of job decision latitude, act
as a source of challenge, rather than as a source of strain

Stress can result in illness
Hypertension
Coronary heart disease
Migraines
Asthma attacks
Stress been associated with increased absence and turnover
o Objective and subjective stress
o Fundamental distinction between objective and subjective stress
Objective stress: can be measured e.g. how much work the
employee has done
Subjective stress: asking the employee how stressed they are
o Perceptions of stressors are generally more powerful predictors of
human functioning than objective stressors
o Sources of stress
o Authors have broadly distinguished between situational/environmental
stress and dispositional areas
o Situational stressors arise from all aspects of our lives
Stressful work conditions/environment
o Work: Situational sources of stress
Belief that certain occupations are more stressful than others
Some evidence suggesting that people in these occupations do
experience greater work-related stress
 Identified a range of stressors that occur more commonly in
these occupations
Difficult patients
Heavy workloads
Poor working conditions high/unpredictable workloads
Majority of researchers emphasize the importance of examining
those sources that are common to all jobs
Work environment
Individual characteristics
Work overload: important workplace stressor: excessive
workload and concentration, negative health and psychological
distress
Underutilization of skills: too little to do can be problematic
Role ambiguity: not sure what their job entails
Role conflict: e.g. work-family conflict
Lack of control
Physical work conditions: too hot/noisy stressful workplace
Interpersonal conflict
Harassment
Organisational change
o Individual sources: Disposition
Two individual characteristics
Type A personality
Susceptibility to stress
Type A characterized by excessive drive and competitiveness,
sense of urgency and impatience, and an underlying hostility
Type A personality slightly more likely to develop stress related
coronary heart disease than people with a type B personality
Type A hostility and lack of appropriate expression of that
hostility is partly responsible for physiological/psychological
stress
Some individuals are more resilient to stress or more hardy
hardiness because of their style of dealing with stressful
situations
Lack of hardiness associated with higher levels of self-
perceived stress and lower self efficacy (belief in his/her activity
and can deal with whatever faces them)
Self-efficacy an individuals belief in his or her ability to
engage in a course of action that will lead to desired outcomes
These people may be prone to stress related illnesses
o Measuring stress
o Physiological measures: blood pressure, ECG, etc.
 o Self-report surveys e.g. stressful events scale: measures person-
environment fit
o Limitations of physiological measures
Expensive and time consuming
Variations can occur from day to day for individuals naturally
Highly trained to administer these measures
Self report instruments
o Most surveys assesss
Organisational conditions/stressors e.g. role ambiguity, role
conflict, work overload, individual physical and psychological
states e.g. sleeplessness, depression etc.
Common standardized survey tools: stress diagnostic survey,
occupational stress indicator, job stress survey
o Social readjustment scale
Stressful life events approach: assumes stressful life events act
as stressors and can bring on stress related illnesses and may
negatively impact on job performance
Acknowledges both pleasant (eustress) and unpleasant
(distress) stressors
Physical symptoms are likely to develop in direct proportion to
ones life event score
Criticism:
Approach is general: e.g. every reacts to certain stressful
events in the same way
Simple additive weighting: doesnt take on time periods
where it happened
Ignores the impact of hassles: things that hassle on a day
to day basis e.g. overcrowding and missing the bus and
traffic
o Measurement of person-environment fit
PE fit refers to the match between a workers abilities, needs
and values and an organisations demands, rewards and values
As PE fit increases, organisational commitment increases,
turnover decreases
Mismatch between a person and their environment is seen as
the primary cause of stress
Measurement of PE fit involves measuring a workers
characteristics and measuring the characteristics of the
environment
Preferable to focus on specific types of PE fit: person-supervisor
value congruence and person-job fit
o How to manage stress
 o Individual approaches
Individual: employee assistance progress help programs
Individual level interventions are limited
Implicitly attribute primary responsibility for the
management of work stress to employees
The extent to which employees will continue to
experience work stress is not likely to be diminished
o Organisational approaches
Recruitment and selection: Recruit people with high internal
locus of control and high efficacy
Job redesign
Training

Week 5 Leadership

o Introduction and defining leadership

o Leadership is important
o Many different definitions and perspectives
o Commonalities: leaders exercise influence over others
o Leadership: the ability to direct a group towards the attainment of
goals
o Leaders vs managers:
Manager: formally designated
Leader: ability to direct a group towards attaining a goal
o Leadership theories
o Universalist theories
Great man/great woman belief: not a theory, the adage great
leaders are born and not made is the basis of this approach
Trait theory: 1930s and 1940s
Identified physical and personality characteristics of
effective leadership
Results disappointing
No longer looking at single traits, now looking at
constellations of traits
Judge & Bono: looked at 14 samples of leaders from 200
organisations and saw that constellation of traits predicts
leadership: extroversion, agreeableness associated with
transformational leadership. The big 5 factors predicted
leadership traits
Foti & Hauenstein: high intelligence, dominance,
efficacy, self monitoring predicts leadership
 Evaluation
o Trait theory in the 19th century was overly
simplistic
o Behavioral theories
Explore actual behaviour of leaders, is it what they do that
explains leadership? focus on identifying behaviours that
distinguish effective from ineffective leaders
Two major behavioral research programs
Ohio state studies:
o Two general categories of behaviours
Initiating structure: task focused
behaviours, assigning tasks and roles
Consideration: building a relationship with
followers, showing concern for followers
and taking their needs into account
o Independent: can be high on both or low on both
or one or the other ^
o Associated with different outcomes: consideration
has higher job satisfactions, initiating has higher
effectiveness
University of Michigan
o Task-oriented behaviours
o Relationship-oriented behaviours
o Relationship oriented behaviours generally more
effective than task oriented behaviours
Evaluation of behavioral theories
Different indicators of effectiveness
The role of the situation is not considered
o Contingency theories
Importance of considering the characteristics of the leader and
the situation
Examples
Fielders contingency model
o Classifies leaders based on their primary
motivation (task/relationship oriented)
o Least preferred co-worker (LPC) scale
o Highly criticized fairly odd doesnt measure
leadership
o Define the characteristics of the situation
Leader-member relations
Task structure
Position power
 o Combine to create very favourable, very
unfavourable, and neither favourable or
unfavourable conditions
o Most favourable situation
Leader-member exchange good
Task is structured
Leader as strong position power
o Task-oriented leaders: most effective at the
extremes, very structured
o Relationship-oriented leaders: more effective

o
o Evaluation:
Criticism has been directed towards the
LPC measure
Criticism favorableness of the situation:
cant tell if the situation is favourable or not
in the real world
Path goal theory
o A leaders role is to help work groups attain their
goals
o A leader is said to adopt:
Directive: task-oriented provided
instructions to get the job done
Achievement-oriented: setting challenging
goals and encouraging and measuring
improvements in performance
Supportive: interpersonal relationships
Participative: encouraging group members
to take a more active role in decision
making
o The choice of leader behaviour is contingent on
the type of work task and characteristics of
followers
 o Situational characteristics
Work-group characteristics
Task structure
Formal authority system
o Worker characteristics
Locus of control
Perceived ability
Experience

o
o Evaluation
Very general approach but can be applied
in any industry
Specific leadership training or interventions
Model has recently been expanded
Vrooms decision making model
o Leaders are decision makers
o Prescriptive advice provides a decision tree
o Identifies 5 decision-making styles
Autocratic decision making 1: making
decision by themselves by information only
available as leader
Autocratic decision making 2: gathers
information and makes decision alone
Consultative decision making 1: seeking
information from those around you but
make decision alone
Consultative decision making 2: get feed
back from the group and make decision
alone
Group decision making: group members
get to vote on the decision
o Evaluation:
Research supportive of this model
 Complex
Leader-member exchange model
o Leaders develop a unique relationship with each
follower
o The follower is the key situational (contingency)
factor
o High quality LMX (higher commitment) vs low
quality LMX (doing only whats required of their
employment contract)
o Hard to change from low to high quality LMX
o The quality of the LMX relationship influences
important outcomes
o Factors that influence the LMX relationship
Similarity in values
Demography characteristics
Follower competence and job interest
o Evaluation
Unique perspective
Evidence supports core propositions
Benefits of approach
Acknowledges situation
Has led to the development of leadership programs
Emphasizes that it is more effective to change the
situation
New leadership theories e.g. transformational and charismatic
leadership. Effective leadership assumption differs from past
approaches
Charismatic leadership theory
Karl Weber: 5 components
o Extraordinarily gifted person
o Social crisis
o A vision
o A set of followers
o The validation of the leaders extraordinary gifts
through repeated success
Conger and Kanungo stage model of charismatic
leadership
o Stage 1: evaluation of existing situation
o Stage 2: formation and communication of a vision
o Stage 3: build trust
Transformational Leadership Theory
 Burns: transactional leadership with transforming
leadership
Bass: built on this model contrast transactional with
transformational
Transformational leaders motivate followers to achieve
performance beyond expectations by transforming
followers attitudes, beliefs and values as opposed to
simply gaining compliance
Transformational leadership is defined primarily in terms
of the influence that leaders have on followers
o Transformational leadership displays significantly
stronger relationships with measures of
effectiveness than transactional leadership
Evaluation of new leadership theories
Confusion between charismatic and transformational
leadership
Definition of the transformational behaviours what they
are
Insufficient attention paid to the role of the situation
Destructive leadership
Individuals who repeatedly violate the legitimate interest
of an organisation by undermining or sabotaging the
company goals, tasks, resources, and the motivation,
well being or effectiveness of followers
Abusive supervision: subordinates perceptions of the
extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained
display of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviours,
excluding physical contact
Negative relationship with outcomes
Laissez-faire leadership
The absence of leadership and a failure to intervene
Negative relationship with outcomes
o Consider leader traits and behaviours and situational characteristics when
thinking about effective leadership in organisations

Week 6 Job Design

o Definition
o Concerned with choices made about the nature and content of
peoples jobs and how these choices affect individual and
 organisational outcomes such as employee well-being and
productivity
o Historical context
o The Craft Approach single workers complete whole jobs
o The Industrial Revolution e.g. Babbage
o Scientific management (Taylor)
o Industrial Fatigue Board:
Boredom has become increasingly prominent as a factor in the
industrial life of the worker and its effects are no less important
than those of fatigue
o Taylors Philosophy
It is only through enforced standardisation of methods,
enforced adoption of the best implements and working
conditions and enforced cooperation that this faster work can
be ensured. And the duty of enforcing this cooperation rests
with management alone
o Theories
o Job characteristics model

Skill Variety: degree to which a job involves a variety to duties
and tasks that allow employees to utilize a variety of
knowledge, skills and abilities
Task Identity: degree to which a job allows employees to be
involved in a work activity from beginning to end, facilitating a
sense of task accomplishment
Task Significance: the jobs impact on the lives or work of other
people, whether within or outside the organisation
Autonomy: degree of freedom, independence and discretion in
scheduling work and work procedures
Job Feedback: degree to which carrying out the tasks required
results in direct and clear information about the effectiveness of
performance
 Motivating potential score:

Growth need strength: extent to which employees place

importance on personal growth and development within the
work context
Critique - Strengths
Job characteristics tend to correlate with outcomes as
predicted
MPS score better predictor of outcomes than any one
job characteristic
Effects of growth need strength weak but consistent
Critique Weaknesses
Direction of causality is unclear
Critical psychological states are an unnecessary
elaboration?
Ignores several potentially important features
Job design approaches

Concerns about job enrichment

Costly
Controversial
Job (Re)design

o Socio-technical systems model

Origins in the British coal-mining industry
 Group based approach
Technical system and social system aligned
Any organisation requires technology organisation of
equipment and a social organisation of individuals who operate
the technology
Aims to optimize both systems to ensure economic
effectiveness
Self managed work teams
Decide on own methods of working
Decision making authority
Multitasking
Benefits widely documented
Cordery, Mueller and Smith
Compared the job design practices of an established
plant and a greenfield site in the mining industry
Processing operations at the greenfield site performed
by 10 managing work teams

Results
o Employees in the self-managing work teams
reported higher levels of job satisfaction and
organisational commitment (but not managerial
trust)
o Contrary to initial expectation, however, rates of
absenteeism and turnover were higher in the
greenfield site than in the established plant
Job Redesign
o Emerging trends in job design
o Work life balance
Major issue for todays workforce
Increase in two-career families
Organisations expecting more work from fewer people
Ways to become unbalanced
Work at home
Home at work
Redesigning the workplace
Child care at work
Integrating family into work
Clarifying work/home boundaries
Making boundaries flexible
o Flexitime: workers choose when they work e.g.
public service, university
o Compressed work weeks 4*10hr days
o Job sharing
o Telecommuting
Telecommuting
Organisational vs individual outcomes
Organisational advantages
Lower accommodation costs
Recruitment & retention
Productivity
Resilience to extreme conditions
Organisational disadvantages
Individual advantages
Individual disadvantages
Golden, Veiga & Simsek
Examined whether telecommuting had a differential
impact on work-to-family vs family-to-work conflict
 Examined the moderating roles of scheduling flexibility &
household size
Results
o Extent of telecommuting was negatively related to
work-to-family conflict
o Extent of telecommuting was positively related to
family-to-work conflict

Week 7 Motivation & Emotion

o Motivation is an internal drive, but manifests itself via 3 types of effort

intensity, direction and persistence
o Energises or causes people to act (arousal)
o Directs behaviour towards the attainment of goals (attention &
direction)
o Sustains effort in reaching goals (intensity & persistence)
o We cannot observe motivation directly we can only infer motivation
from the observation of goal-directed behaviour
o Most research on motivation is problematic because it rarely looks
specifically at effort
o Rather it looks at things that are assumed to be associated with
motivation, like performance, or personality
o Definition:
The willingness to exert high levels of effort towards a goal or
goals, conditioned by that efforts ability to satisfy some
individual need
A general term for a group of phenomena that affect the
nature, strength or persistence of an individuals behaviour
o Maslows hierarchy of needs
 o Little empirical support hard to measure the variables basically
were looking at peoples needs and their satisfaction with them
o Betz found that the important of needs wasnt related to deficiency,
however need fulfillment was related to satisfaction
o Other studies are generally unsupportive
o However, his theory was not really set up to be tested, and it forms a
very solid basis for further theorizing
o McClellands theory of needs
o Need for achievement the drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a
set of standards, to strive to succeed
Achievers prefer jobs that offer
Personal responsibility
Feedback
Moderate risks
o Lots of research on achievement orientation a personality trait
closely related to motivation positively related to performance they
want to succeed and have a challenge, so they go for intermediate
goals
o Prefer jobs with responsibility, feedback, a moderate level of risk if
so, theyll be highly motivated
o Very good at running their own business
o Not necessarily a good manager i.e. interested in how well they do,
but not necessarily with how they influence others, likewise
o Need for power the need to make others behave in a way that they
wouldnt have behaved otherwise
o High need for power associated with a desire to be prestigious and
gain influence rather than effective performance
o Personal power used towards personal ends
o Institutional power oriented towards organisational objective
o Need for affiliation desire for friendly and close interpersonal
relationship
o What combination is best?
Best managers = high Need for power + Need for affiliation
High Need for achievement good management potential
o Reinforcement theory (Skinner)
o Behaviour is motivated by its consequences
Positive reinforcement pleasant consequences following a
desirable behaviour
Punishment unpleasant consequences following an
undesirable behaviour
o Stimulus = any variable or condition that elicits a behavioural response
 o Response = some measure of job performance e.g. productivity,
absenteeism
o Reward = something of value given to the employee on the basis of
the elicited behavioural response i.e. intended to reinforce the
current behaviour
o Older approach to motivation but only recently applied to
organisation behaviour
o Origins in skinners work on animals
o See behaviour as being environmentally caused
o Strictly, its a theory of what controls behaviour
o Positive reinforcement example: pay, bonus
o Punishment example: reprimanded, sacked
o Motivation to respond can be shaped by manipulating reinforcement
schedules
o However, this puts the control of behaviour in the organisations hand, rather
than the employee
o Research is supportive but depends on the the effectiveness of the
reinforcement used example: how constant
o Equity theory
o My Output-input ratio vs your output-input ratio
o Inputs e.g. time, effort, ability, loyalty
o Outputs e.g. pay recognitions, perks, benefits
o Drawn from the principle of social comparison
o How hard a person is willing to work is a function of comparisons with
efforts of others
o Motivation has a social rather than biological function
Person compares themselves with another person who is other
persons assets are called inputs e.g. education, intelligence,
effort etc.
Benefits the person derives are outcomes
o Person forms a ratio of inputs to outcomes and compares that with
other
o The equality of these ratios is the equity
o Feelings of inequity cause tension which the person is motivated to
reduce
o Source of motivation = tension from feelings of inequity
o Underpayment = person derives fewer outcomes for the same output
o Overpayment = opposite
o Equity predictions hold up best in underpayment conditions
o Predictions are usually valid, however doesnt specify which method
for reducing inequity will be chosen
 o If there is inequity, there can be negative consequences, so need to
make sure things are equitable
o Expectancy Theory
o Valence: the value or attractiveness of the outcome
o Instrumentality: the perceived relationship between the performance
of a particular behaviour and the likelihood of a particular outcome
o Expectancy: the perceived relationship between an individuals effort
and their performance
o Cognitive: each person assumed to be rational decision maker who
will expend effort on activities that lead to desired rewards
o People know what they want from work and understand that
performance will determine whether they get the rewards they desire
also assume a link between effort and performance
o An individual is motivated if he/she believes that
There is a positive correlation between effort and performance
Favourable performance will result in a desired reward
The rewards will satisfy an important need
The desire to satisfy the need is strong enough to make the
effort worthwhile
o Effort + expectancy performance + instrumentality outcomes +
valence satisfaction
o Applications:
Incentives must be carefully chosen
Rules for attaining behaviour must be clear
Perceptions must exist that behaviour will lead to performance
and then rewards
o Good validity, but relies on the fact that people will be rational, and
wont always be
o Also assumes that the higher the force, the more motivation but up to
a point we cant put any more effort tin
o Goal setting theory
o Four keys towards motivating
Difficult and challenging goals
Specific goals
Goal acceptance by the employee
Feedback on progress toward goal
o Intentions to work towards a goal are a major source of motivation, tell
an employee what needs to be done and how much effort is needed
o Specific and difficult goals = higher performance
o Goals help individuals decide how much effort to expend and where
to direct it
 First must be aware of the goals and know what must be
accomplished
Second must accept the goal
o More difficult goals lead to better performance engender more
commitment
o Maslow methodological problems, little empirical support
o McClelland low-moderate validity
o Equity high for under-reward, moderate for over-reward
o Expectancy moderate-high validity
o Goal setting very high validity
o Management by objectives
o Emphasises participation in goal-setting
Goal specificity
Participative decision making
Explicit time frame
Performance feedback
o Converts overall organisational objectives into specific goals for units
and individuals
o Participative management:
Compatible with needs theory need for belonging, power,
affiliation
Participative process that uses the entire capacity of employees
Designed to encourage commitment to the organisations
success
By involving them, hope theyll become more motivated,
productive, satisfied etc.
o Representative participation
Usually legislative
Representative committee
Redistribute power
o Quality Circles
Work group of 8-10 people shared responsibility for a
problem area
Management typically has final say
o Employee share ownership plans
Employees owning shares
Benefit plans
Increase satisfaction
o Issues
Management tokenistic
Management retains final veto
Managers untrained in participative models
 Problems often due to implementation logistics
Employees not trained to engage in participation
o Emotion
o Emotions are critical factor in employee behaviour
o The myth of rationality
o Emotions of any kind are disruptive to organisations
Original OB focus was solely on the effects of strong negative
emotions that interfered with individual and organisational
efficiency
o Definition
Moods reflect the diffuse and pervasive feelings the individuals
experience from day to day
Emotions reflect the more intense, situation and /or object-
specific feelings that individuals experience from moment-to-
moment
Affect: defined as a broad range of feelings that people
experience, affect can be experience in the form of emotions or
moods
Emotions: caused by specific events, very brief in duration,
specific and numerous in nature, usually accompanied by
distinct facial expressions, action-oriented in nature
Moods: cause is often general and unclear, last longer than
emotions, more general, generally not indicated by distinct
expressions, cognitive in nature
o Aspect of emotions
Biology of emotions
Originate in brains limbic system
Intensity of emotions
Personality
Job requirements
Frequency and duration of emotions
How often emotions are exhibited
How long emotions are displayed
Functions of emotions
Critical for rational thinking
Motivate people
o Correlates of affect
Negative
Anxiety
Depression
Stress
Poor coping
 Health complaints
Unpleasant events
Satisfaction, commitment, turnover intentions
Job performance
Task performance
Positive
Social activity
Exercise
Pleasant events
Satisfaction, commitment, turnover intentions
Job performance
Task performance
o Sources of emotions and moods
Personality
Day and time of the week
Weather
Stress
Social activities
Sleep
Exercise
Age
Gender
o Positive moods are highest at the end of the week and the middle of
the day
o Negative moods are highest and the beginning of the week and show
little variation throughout the day
o Gender and emotions
Women
Can show greater emotional expression
Experience emotions more intensely
Display emotions more frequently
Are more comfortable in expression emotions
Are better at reading others emotions
Men
Believe that displaying emotions is inconsistent with the
male image
Are innately less able to read and to identify with others
emotions
Have less need to seek social approval by showing
positive emotions
o Organisational and cultural influences affect individual emotions
o Emotional labour
 A situation in which an employee expresses organisationally
desired emotions during interpersonal transactions
Emotional dissonance: inconsistencies between the emotions
we feel and the emotions we project
o Emotional labour defined
Effort, planning and control needed to express organisationally
desired emotions during interpersonal transactions
Emotional labour is higher when jobs require
Frequent and long duration of display of emotions
Displaying a variety of emotions
Displaying more intense emotions
Surface acting vs deep acting
Displaying or hiding emotions vary across cultures
Minimal emotional expression and monotonic voice in
Korea, Japan, Austria
Encourage emotional expression in Kuwait, Egypt, Spain,
Russia
The smile school in japan
Emotional labour challenges
Difficult to display expected emotions accurately and to
hide true emotions
Emotional dissonance
o Conflict between true and required emotions,
potentially stressful with surface acting (hiding
ones inner feelings and forcing emotional
expression in response to display rules)
o Less stress through deep acting (trying to modify
ones true inner feelings based on display rules)
Felt vs displayed emotions
Felt: an individuals actual emotions
Displayed emotions: emotions that are organisationally
required and considered appropriate in a given job
o Affective events theory
Suggests that individuals attitudes are partly a result of their
cumulative affective experiences at work
Implies an exposure (mediation) model where peoples
dispositional affect subsequently causes job-related
experiences, which influence attitudes and behaviours
Implications
Individual response reflects emotions and mood cycles
Current and past emotions affect job satisfaction
 Emotional fluctuations create variations in job satisfaction
and performance
Both negative and positive emotions can distract workers
and reduce job performance

o Affect infusion model

The influence of affective states on judgements and behaviour
depends on the kinds of information processing strategies that
are adopted
Tasks that can be solved using simple and directed processing
strategies should show little affect infusion
Basic idea: affect impacts on organisational behaviour
outcomes because it influences what people think and how they
think
Concerned with low intensity moods on thought processes

o Affect measurement
The PANAS
 o OB applications of emotions and moods
o Emotions and selection (emotions affect employee effectiveness)
o Decision making (emotions are an important part of the decision
making process in organisations)
o Creativity (positive mood increases creativity)
o Motivation (emotional commitment to work and high motivation are
strongly linked)
o Leadership (emotions are important to acceptance of messages from
organisational leaders)
o Interpersonal conflict (conflict in the workplace and individual
emotions are strongly intertwined)
o Negotiation (emotions can impair negotiations)
o Customer services (emotions affect service quality delivered to
customers which, in turn, affects customer relationships)
o Job attitudes (can carry over to home)
o Deviant workplace behaviours (negative emotions lead to employee
deviance, actions that violate norms and threaten the organisation)

Week 8 Turnover

o Withdrawal
o Withdrawal: the physical and/or psychological avoidance by
employees or their workplace
o Psychological withdrawal: a mental state in which an employee is
disengaged from the work environment
o Physical withdrawal: the act of physically removing oneself from the
work environment through such behaviours as tardiness, absence, and
turnover
o Turnover
o Involuntary vs voluntary turnover
Involuntary: turnover initiated by the organisation
Voluntary: turnover initiated by employees
o Models of voluntary turnover


Costs of voluntary turnover

Turnover disrupts the normal operations of an
organisation
o Huselid inefficient nature of replacements
o Morrow and McElroy internal activities in an
organisation suffer
o Phillips 5 of the 9 costs identified were related
to processing costs
o Saige, birati, Tziner - $2.8 million US due to
cumulated withdrawal behaviours
Absenteeism 49% of the total cost
Involuntary and voluntary turnover
contributed to 27% of this cost
Lost productivity
Preparing for recruiting
Recruiting costs
Screening costs
 Interviewing costs
Evaluation costs
Cost of making a job offer
Training costs
Reduced efficiency and quality
Other costs
General model of the causes of voluntary turnover

Micro research: Mobley intermediate linkages in the
relationship between job satisfaction and job turnover
job dissatisfaction thoughts of quitting intention to
search for another job turnover intentions voluntary
turnover
Empirical evidence on the antecedents and outcomes of
voluntary turnover
Kwon et al. (2012)
o Voluntary turnover-performance relationship can
be influenced by an organisations context
o Voluntary turnover can potentially have either
positive or negative effects on performance
depending on the context
o Moderating role of:
HR system: use of EI practices
Investment in training and development
Availability of potential workers
o EI practices strengthen the negative relationship
between voluntary turnover and organisational
performance
o Marginal support for the availability of potential
workers
o No support for the investment in training and
development
The unfolding model of turnover
 Focused on shocks to the system a distinguishable
event that jars employees towards deliberate
judgements about their jobs and perhaps to voluntarily
quit their organisation
Not all events are shocks
Individuals make a judgement about whether an events
can be dealt with easily and determine what if an actions
will occur
4 decision paths
o Shock to system draw on previous experience
decide whether to stay or not with no
consideration of alternative jobs or current job
satisfaction
o Shock to system no previous experience
deliberate thinking about circumstances around
the shock if it leads to no positive
consequences, quit
o Shock to system no previous experience
specific job alternatives available think about
staying or not
o No shock change in job-person it or growing
dissatisfaction with job over time
Job embeddedness theory
LINKS
FIT
SACRIFICE
People who are more embedded in their jobs have less
intent to leave the organisation
Job embeddedness adds to the prediction of turnover
over and above:
o Job satisfaction and commitment
o Job alternatives and job search behaviours
o Interventions
o Absence
o Absenteeism: occurs when an employee does not report to work when
scheduled
o Excused absences/involuntary: absences in which employees notify
their employer in advance that they will not be in on a given day and
the employer approves of the absence
o Unexcused absences/voluntary: absences in which an employee with
no advance approval simply fails to show up to work when scheduled
o Causes:
 Long term
Depression
Smoking
Alcohol or drug abuse
Lack of exercise
Short term
Lack of attendance incentives
Unhealthy employees
Lack of work group pressure to attend
Intermediate
Job satisfaction
Job job involvement
Low organisational commitment
Monotonous work
Work group norms that encourage absenteeism
Inflexible work outs
o Empirical data on the antecedents of absenteeism
Harrison & Martocchio
Personality
Demographics
Attitudes
Social context
Decision making processes
The antecedents differ depending on the time scale adopted
In the long term
In the mid term
In the short term
o Costs associated with absence
Pay for time not worked
Benefits payments
Premium pay for temporary workers
Salaries and benefits for supervisors
Underutilized facilities
Substandard quantity and quality of production
Increased inspection and supervision costs
o Strategies for preventing absenteeism and turnover
Employee surveys
Incentives and special compensation programs
Wellness programs
Accurate record keeping
Job enrichment
Safe and clean work environment
 Exit interviews
Career planning
Open communication
Work and non-work balance options
Flexible work schedules
Compelling organisational culture
High-involvement work processes

Week 9 Teams

o What is a team

o
o What are the benefits of working in teams?
o What are the downsides of working in teams?
o Types of teams
o Problem solving
o Self managed
o Cross-functional
o Virtual
o Value of work teams?
o Increased employee motivation
o Higher levels of productivity
o Increased employee satisfaction
o Common commitment to goals
o Improved communication
o Why are teams important? managements perspective
o Mixture of people results in cross-fertilizing ideas innovation
o Teams integrate and link across a number of information processing
units
o Saving time by performing tasks concurrently rather than sequentially
o Stages of team development
o Forming
o Storming
o Norming
o Performing
o Key roles of teams
o Linker: coordinates and integrates
o Creator: initiates creative ideas
o Promoter: champions ideas after theyre initiated
o Assessor: offers insightful analysis of opinions
o Organiser: provides structure
o Producer: provides direction and follow through
o Controller: examines details and enforces rules
o Maintainer: fights external battles
o Adviser: encourages the search for more information
o What is a successful team?
o A 3D conception of work team effectiveness
Team performance: quality, quantity, and timeliness indicators
are important
Team viability: the ability to work together again
Personal growth and well-being
o Attributes of a successful team
Clear goals for both team and members
Built in performance feedback
Diversity in membership (cross-functional): professional back
ground, organisational tenure
Cohesiveness
Skills for managing external boundaries
Reflection on team processes, objectives and performance
(team self-evaluation)
o Team effectiveness model what factors influence team effectiveness?
Context
Adequate members
Leadership and structure
Climate of trust
Composition
Abilities of members
Personality
Allocating jokes
Diversity
Size of teams
Member flexibility
Member preferences
Work design
Autonomy
Skill variety
Task identity
 Task significance
Process
Common purpose
Specific goals
Team efficacy
Conflict levels
Social loafing
o Effects of group processes
Potential group effectiveness + process gains process losses
= actual group effectiveness
o Team composition
Teams with higher levels of technical knowledge and skill
perform better
Knowledge skills and abilities that lead to effective functioning
Conflict resolution, collaborative problem solving,
communication, goal setting, planning
Personality attributes:
Positively: agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-
reliance
Negative: authoritarianism, dominance
For many traits, balance is good e.g. extraversion
o Organisational context
Support for teams
Reward systems: team bonus
Communication systems: shared computer network
Physical space: open plan office
Organisational environment: feedback at team level
Empowerment & authority structures i.e. team provided
autonomy
External context: high turbulence or complexity teams
maximally effective
o The task
Job design
Job autonomy, variety, significance, identify, feedback
as these increase so does team effectiveness
You dont require a team to do a very simple task
o Cohesion driving team success
o Team processes actions that the team engages in while working
together
o Team cohesion: the degree to which team members are attracted to
each other and are motivated to stay in the group
o How does cohesion develop?
 Time spent together
Severity of initiation
Group size
Previous successes
External threats
Similarity e.g. gender

o
o Why do teams fail
o Inappropriate use of teams
o Lack of support from organisational leaders
o Lack of good information
o Lack of team member skills
o Lack of good processes
o Need to attend to internal (team development, conflict management)
and external factors (support from leaders)
o Team conflict
Task conflict positive for team performance relationship conflict
negative for team performance
A meta-analysis found task conflict also negative for team
performance
Determine how to have positives without negatives
o Group think: desire for conformity overrides good decision-making
Bay of Pigs invasion
Devils advocate
o Psychological safety
Psychological safety leads to better team learning
Interpersonal risk-taking
Using wrong dosage in medical terms
o Faultlines
Subgroups within teams
Identify with subgroup rather than team
Structured unstructured time to build we rather than us and
them
o Interventions
 o Team building data-based interventions where a team examines
issues such as:
Goals
Structure/roles
Procedures
Culture
Norms
Interpersonal relationships
o Used for increasing the communication, cooperation, and
cohesiveness of units to make them more productive and effective
o Role analysis technique
o The focal role member considers his/her place in the team, the
purpose of the role, the contribution of the role to the team and
organisation
o Other team members write up their expectations of the focal role
member
o Focal role member list & agree on expectations of other members
o Responsibility charting
o Team building process facilitation
o Often groups have process difficulties, which require some team
building in the form of process facilitation
Define team outcomes
Define the decisions that need to be made to achieve
outcomes
Define the information required to make these decisions
Exchange and analyse information
Make decisions based on information
Implement decisions to achieve outcomes
o Teams arent always the answer
o Three tests to see if a team fits the situation
Is the work complex and is there a need for different
perspectives?
Does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the
group that is larger than the aggregate of the goals for
individuals?
Are members of the group involved in interdependent tasks?
o Considerations
o Romance of teams
Socio-emotional and competence-related benefits rather than
high performance
o Mavericks take more risks: some people more suited to teams than
others
 o Conclusion
o Teams are increasingly important in organisations
o Different types of teams
o Team development model
o Factors influencing team effectiveness
o Interventions

Week 10 Organisational Culture

o Introduction
o Organisational-level constructs
o Debate regarding the definition and measurement of culture
o Multiple perspectives
o Organisation systems levels, group levels, individual levels
o Defining organisational culture
o Unwritten rules or the taken for granted assumptions about the way
we do things around here
o Personality of an organisation
o Cultural strength
o Influenced by
Agreement with the cultural values as a whole (intensity)
Number of members sharing the central values (breadth)
o Do organisations have uniform cultures?
o Dominant culture
Expresses the core values that are shared by a majority of the
organisations members
o Subcultures
minicultures within an organisation, typically defined by
department designations and geographical separation
o Iceberg model of organisational culture
o Physical artifacts can be seen: clearly observable, includes language,
behaviours, and other symbols
o Intangible activities and routines
o Underlying values (shared beliefs about what is good or right),
assumptions (taken for granted solutions to problems), beliefs and
expectations
o Functions of organisational culture
o Decrease anxiety
o Defines boundaries of an organisation
o Conveys a sense of identity
 o Generates commitment to higher-order goals
o Enhances stability of the social system
o Serves as a regulatory mechanism for attitudes and behaviours
o Dimensions of organisational culture
o Process-oriented vs results-oriented
o Employee-oriented vs job oriented
o Parochial vs professional
o Open vs closed
o Loose vs tight
o Normative vs pragmatic
o Cultural frameworks
o Competing values framework
o Organisations are classified according to whether they value flexibility
or control in their structures
o Organisations differ in terms of whether they adopt an inward focus
towards their internal dynamics or an external focus towards the
environment

o
o Measurement
Competing values framework initially assessed using a
scenario approach
Cameron and Ettington argued that the culture of an
organisation could be reflected in 4 organisational attributes
Strategic emphasis
Organisational bonding
Leader style
Dominant affective characteristic
For each of these attributes four scenarios were
developed to describe each of the four types of
organisational cultures
o Empirical findings of the CV model
o Studies have looked at the link between the CV model and
organisational effectiveness
o Results suggest
HR better morale and reduced turnover
OS more new ideas, products, and services
IP accurate records and on-time delivery
RG higher quality and bigger profits
o People oriented supportive and personal cultures are associated with
Positive affect (job satisfaction, commitment)
Reduced turnover
o Some cultures associated with reduced turnover regardless of
performance levels or fit of staff with values
o How cultures develop and change over time
o What leaders pay attention to
o How leaders react to critical incidents
o Role modelling leaders behaviours and coaching from leaders
o Rules that establish criteria for allocation of rewards/status
o The criteria for selection, recruitment, promotion
o Less important factors
Organisational design and structure formal allocation of roles
and authority
Organisational systems and procedures
Design of the physical space
Stories, myths, symbols
Formal statements of organisational philosophy
o Changing culture
Not a simple or easy issue, maybe 10+ years
Researchers suggest that we promote that aspects of a culture
that are critical or adaptive and those that are dysfunctional
o Interventions
o Future search conferences to generate awareness, concern,
understanding, and support
Focus on the past. Ask participants to recall significant events
and milestones that are relevant to the last 3 decades from the
perspective of self, company society
Focus on present issues that shape the future of the
organisation
Focus on the future, new groups are formed and are asked to
develop a draft of a preferred future scenario
 Groups reflect on issues that have surfaced and make
suggestions for themselves, their function and the total
organisation
o Beckhards confrontation meeting one day of meetings involving
management
Climate setting open discussion of issues and problems
Info collection identify factors that make the organisation less
effective and factors that make the organisation more effective
Info sharing, groups report on their discussions
Priority setting and action planning
Immediate follow up by top team, top team meets after the
other participants have left to plan follow up and determine
what actions to be taken
Progress review
o Conclusions
o Organisational culture is a key influence on employee behaviour
o It is critical that we understand organisational culture in order to work
effectively in organisational settings

Week 11 Organisational Change

o Achieving organisational change

o Lewins model
Stage 1: creating readiness (unfreezing)
Change readiness; beliefs, attitudes, and intentions
regarding the extent to which changes are needed and
the organisations capacity to successfully make those
changes
Readiness is the cognitive precursor to the behaviours of
either resistance to, or support for change
Generate an awareness something is wrong
Build individuals confidence
Provide a sense of psychological safety
Stage 2: changing (transition)
Change is actually occurring characterised by
experimentation
E.g. autonomous teams are being introduced. Individuals
try out various strategies to find the most effective way
to coordinate and communicate. Trying to understand
what it means to be an autonomous team
Stage 3: Institutionalising change (refreezing)
 A desired change has been enacted
Personal Refreezing
Relational refreezing
o Antecedents of individual change
Change self-efficacy
Individuals belief in his or ability to execute a course of
action needed to meet the demands of a situation
The research suggests information provision realistic
information
Providing opportunities for control: participation in
change decision making
Participation
Different types of participation
Participation resulted in reduced resistance to job
transfer
Participation is important because
o Satisfy needs
o Enhances self-efficacy
o People learn hard work performance
Up to 2/3 of a workforce may select not to participate
due to
o Lack of confidence
o Participation not genuine
o Not be compatible with organisations values
Communication
5 goals when communicating during change
o Communicate clear consistent messages
o Motivate support for change
o Encourage high performance and effort
o Limit rumours and misunderstandings
o Emphasise the link between employees well-
being and change goals
Two common communication mistakes
o Under communication
o Failing to communicate the fairness (justice) of
change procedures
Leadership
Transformational leadership
Behavioural dimensions of transformational leadership
o Idealised influence/Charisma
o Inspirational motivation
o Intellectual stimulation
 o Individualised consideration
Transformational leadership can ineffective during
change
o Overly independent
o Appropriate for creating a vision, other processes
may be useful to execute the vision
Justice
Concerned with whether people feel that theyve been
treated fairly
Actively address concerns about justice
Change agents should consider
o Do employees consider the outcomes of the
problem identification stage fair?
o Do employees consider the procedures used in
problem identification fair?
o Do employees feel that management actually
listen to their concerns
o The Dunphy & Stace Change matrix
There is no one right way to lead change, depends on 3 factors:
The scale of the change needed
How fast change needs to happen
The level of resistance to change
o The power of change leaders
o 6 leadership styles
Coercive: demanding immediate compliance
Authoritative: mobilising people toward a vision
Affiliative: creating emotional bonds and harmony
Democratic: building consensus through participation
Pacesetting: expecting excellence and self-direction
Coaching: developing people for the future
o Resistance to change
o Surprise
o Inertia
o Emotional upset
o The break up of groups
o Uncertainty
o Overcoming resistance:
Educating employees
Participation
Support for change
Provision of resources
o Evaluating success of change efforts
 o Conflicting evidence
o Focus on reports of managers and employees
o Number of changes need to occur to the way we measure success
o Cross-sectional design
o More rigorous methods
o Use a range of indicators of effectiveness
o Conclusion
o Understanding how to design, implement and manage change is one
of the most important requirements for managers
o Overall change is not well managed or implemented