MGMT1002

Study Notes

1: Introduction
Organisational behavior (OB): study of the impact that individuals, groups, and structure
have on behaviour within organisations.

Organisations: groups with two or more people that share a certain set of goals and meet at
regular times.

Organisational architecture: can be thought about in different ways.
• Culture is one element which is social and determines how people behave.
• Other forms of architecture are authority relations, HR systems, control systems, as
well as dark side structures

Replacing intuition with systematic study
Intuition: a feeling not necessarily supported by research.
Systematic Study: looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes & effects, &
drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence.

Model: An abstraction of reality. A simplified representation of a real-world phenomenon.

What do employers want?
1. Interpersonal and communication skills (written and oral)
2. Drive and commitment/industry knowledge
3. Critical reasoning and analytical skills/technical skills
4. Calibre of academic results
5. Cultural alignment/values fit
6. Work experience
7. Teamwork skills
8. Emotional intelligence (including self-awareness, confidence, motivation)
9. Leadership skill
10. Activities (including intra and extracurricular)

Management functions

2: Personality & Individual Differences
Demographic Diversity
• Little evidence of strong differences based on demographics (age & gender), but
there is much evidence of the glass ceiling for women
o 2% of fortune 500 CEOs are women
o In the US, females are paid on average 21% less than men (this difference is
further exacerbated for AA & Latino women, compared to white men)

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Ability
• Ability: a person’s capacity to do or learn a particular task
• An individual’s overall abilities are determined by their intellectual & physical ability

The Ability-Job Fit
• Ability-Job Fit: employee’s abilities + job’s ability requirements
• Use personal characteristic to match people to appropriate jobs

Normal Distribution of IQ

Why use a Test to Measure IQ?
• We are not great at accurately judging the competence of others.
• We are not great at accurately judging our own competence.

Implications
• IQ is the biggest single predictor of job performance.
• IQ is related to very large differences in productivity (the more complex the job, the
more higher IQs outperform lower IQs)
• IQ tests are constructed in a biased way (test skills that are more commonly used in
Western/Asian cultures than other cultures); ‘Flynn Effect’: most of the IQ
differences between races are due to biased IQ test metrics

Mindsets
Growth vs. Fixed Mindset
Fixed mindset – belief that basic abilities are simply fixed traits, and performance is used to
document those traits.
Growth mindset – belief that most basic abilities can be developed and improved upon.

Effect of Praise
• Don’t praise: intelligence & abilities (à fixed mindset)
• Do praise: process & effort (à growth mindset)

Personality
Personality: an individual’s unique constellation of consistent behavioural traits
Personality trait: a predisposition or tendency to behave in a particular way
• Personality tests have lower validities than ability
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• More broadly, personality tests can measure aspects of personality other than traits
– such as motives, interests, values, and attitudes

Personality Theories
• Psychodynamic theories (e.g. Rorschach tests; very poor predictive validity)
• Trait theories
• Affective theories
• Biological theories
• Humanistic

The Big Five Model
• Openness to experience
• Conscientiousness
• Extraversion
• Agreeableness
• Neuroticism/Emotional stability

Predicting Outcomes
• High conscientiousness predicts high work performance & life expectancy
• Second best predictor (after intelligence) of stable personality characteristics

The Dark Triad
Machiavellianism: manipulate & deceive others to achieve their goals.
Psychopathy: lack remorse.
Narcissism: self-centred.

Integrity
The Overt Integrity Test
• Looks at attitudes and prior behaviour
o E.g. ‘it is all right to lie if you know you won’t get caught’
• Or how often done a number of counter-productive behaviours
o E.g. ‘how often have you stolen something from your employer?’
• Obvious assessment – commonly affected by social desirability bias

The Personality Integrity Test
• Assess personality characteristics that have been shown to relate to
counterproductive work behaviour (e.g. theft)
• Hidden; more difficult to lie on the test

Validity of Personality/Integrity Tests Ones et al. (1993)
• Important to match predictor to the criterion (e.g. does conscientious predict work
performance?)
• Need to use tests with high predictive validity
• Influence of faking and social desirability

Personality can be an overly simplistic assessment of a person (Bregman, 2015)
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Other Individual Differences

Locus of Control: how you internalise/externalise success & failure
• Internally vs. Externally
• Externals (compared to internals) tend to:
o Be less satisfied and involved with their job
o Have higher absenteeism rates
Self-Efficacy: confidence in your capacity to do the job
• Predictor of performance

3: Attitudes
Attitudes: tendency to respond positively or negatively towards a certain idea, object,
person, or situation.

The ABC Model of an Attitude
• Component: Affect (emotions or feelings)
o E.g. I don’t like my boss, I like this…, I prefer that…
• Component: Behaviour (inclination for actions)
o E.g. I have a bad supervisor; I will transfer to another department
• Component: Cognition (thought; reflects a person’s perceptions or beliefs)
o E.g. “I believe my boss plays favorites at work”. “I believe Japanese workers
are industrious” reflects the cognitive component of an attitude

Job Satisfaction
Job Satisfaction: a positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job
experiences.

Global vs Facet Approaches
• Researchers either use:
o Global rating: looks at overall job satisfaction
o Facet rating: looks at satisfaction of specific facets of the job
• Benefits/Costs of Global vs Facet Satisfaction:
o Global rating is simple, but may hide important differences
o Is global satisfaction just the sum of facet satisfaction or something different?
o Empirical research shows:
§ Weak-moderate relationship btw global job sat & facet job sat
• Facet Job Satisfaction
o Job Descriptive Index (JDI)
o Most popular and well-validated: measures satisfaction and relates to
important constructs
o Assesses:
§ Work, Pay, Promotion opportunities, Supervision, Coworkers
o Can sum the scores for a global rating, but not recommended

Antecedents of Job Satisfaction
Environmental Factors
• Mentally challenging work:
o People prefer challenging work (opportunities to use skills & abilities)
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o But too much challenge à frustration

• Equitable rewards:
o More just the rewards are perceived to be = more satisfaction
o Distributive justice: rewards match degree of effort put into job
o Procedural justice: procedures for measuring performance are fair
• Physical working conditions:
o Comfort impacts job satisfaction
• Relationships at work:
o Social support from colleagues & supervisors is vital for job satisfaction
• Work roles:
o Role ambiguity: extent to which the employee is uncertain about what their
job functions and responsibilities are
o Role conflict: incompatible demands at work (intrarole – e.g. two supervisors
set conflicting tasks); or between work and home (extrarole – e.g. work-
family conflict)
• Work-life conflict:
o Form of role conflict
• Pay:
o Only associated to some extent with job satisfaction

Personal Factors
• Negative Affectivity:
o Tendency to experience negative emotions across a wide variety of situations
o High NA = likely to be dissatisfied with jobs
• Locus of Control:
o Refers to whether or not people believe that they are in control of
reinforcements in life
o ‘Internals’ – believe they control their reinforcements & are more satisfied
o ‘Externals’ – believe that fate, luck etc. & are more unsatisfied

Person-Job Fit
Personal Factors + Environmental Factors à Job Satisfaction
• The person-job fit approach says that satisfaction will occur when there is a good
match between the person and the job
• The smaller the discrepancy, the more satisfaction

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
• All people’s needs are the same (has been criticised for being overly simplistic)

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Hertzberg’s Two Factor Theory

• All people’s needs are not the same
• More supporting evidence than Maslow
o Sources of satisfaction: motivation factors
§ E.g. achievement; recognition; the work; responsibility & growth
o Sources of dissatisfaction: hygiene factors
§ E.g. controlling supervisors; poor working conditions
• Job design: managers must ensure that motivation factors are present, and that
the hygiene factors are limited

Consequences of Poor Job Satisfaction
Turnover; Absenteeism; Poor Health & Well-Being; Poor Life Satisfaction

Organisational Commitment
Organisational Commitment: the degree to which an individual identifies with a particular
organisation and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organisation.

Affective Commitment: individual intends to remain in the organisation

Continuance Commitment: individual cannot afford to leave the organisation

Normative Commitment: individual’s perceived obligation to remain with an organisation

Antecedents of Organisational Commitment
• Organisational communication
• Personality-job fit
• Training
• Mentoring

Consequences of Organisational Commitment
Turnover; Performance; Citizenship
Those who are committed are more likely to stay with the organization, be better performers,
and engage in more citizenship behaviours.

Interventions for Improving Organisational Commitment
1. Fairness: new employees need to believe that the organisation is fulfilling its
obligations
2. Job security: lay-off threats can make loyalty suffer; to be committed, employees
need to feel some sense of permanence
3. Employee involvement: employees feel like part of the organisation when they
make decisions that guide the organisation’s future
4. Competence: giving employees opportunities to develop their competence (e.g.
training, mentoring, promotions)




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4: Motivation & Goal-Setting

Motivation
Motivation: a psychological drive that determines three things:
• Direction of effort; Level of effort; Persistence

Goal-Setting Theory (Locke & Latham, 1990)
Specific and difficult goals with feedback lead to higher performance.
Difficult Goals:
• Focus and direct attention
• Energize the person to work harder
• Difficulty increases persistence

SMART Goals
Specific; Measurable; Achievable; Relevant (to person’s values); Time-bound

A Partial Model of Performance
• Motivation x Ability = Performance

Nohria et al. (2008)
• Talks about how to motivate employees:
• Reward people well, differentiate between good and poor performers, and tie
reward to performance
• Have culture to share good practice
• Make jobs important, meaningful, so they foster sense of contribution

The Functions of Values
• Determine what we consider to be important and worthwhile
• People are more likely to set goals and strive to achieve things that they value, as
opposed to what is of minimal importance

Schwartz’s Values Circumplex
Openness to Change
• Independence; Exploring ideas; Creativity
Self-Enhancement
• Personal success, achievement; Social status, dominance
Self-Transcendence
• Concern for the welfare for all people and for nature
• Understanding, tolerance, appreciation for others.
• Wanting to benefit others you are associated with.
Conservation
• Security & Safety; Conformity; Tradition, duty

Self-Regulation
• Gets stronger with exercise, but can also get depleted
o 1) Spend self-control carefully (consider at what time you should do your
most important tasks)
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o 2) Mind your environment (make “desired” behaviours easy; make

“undesirable” behaviours hard)
o 3) Biology (steady glucose levels, uninterrupted sleep, regular exercise)

How to Jumpstart Motivation
• 1) Checklist: a written list of mini-goals for the day (focuses attention)
• 2) Chunking: break a large task into smaller ones (can make visible progress)
• 3) Emotions: positive emotions are psychological rewards that can help us achieve
our goals (e.g. temptation bundling: pair exercising on treadmill with watching TV)

Extrinsic vs. Intrinsic Motivation Study
Extrinsic Motivation: directed from outside the individual (e.g. money)
Intrinsic Motivation: centred within the individual (e.g. learning something new)

Amabile (2003)
• Extrinsic Motivation can be detrimental to creativity, while informational motivation
extrinsic motivators can be conducive, especially intrinsic motivation is high.
• Informational extrinsic motivations can:
o Confirm competency
o Confirm the value of one’s work
o Provide information about
o Enable the individual to do something that was already intrinsically desirable
o … will increase immediate performance, but have a detrimental effect on
subsequent performance when reward(s) are not offered

5: Leadership
Managers vs. Leaders (Dalt, 2002)

Managers – maintain the status quo
Leaders – want to create change

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Leadership Theory
Early Theories:
• Great Man Theories
o Leaders are exceptional people, born with innate qualities, destined to lead
o Concept was primarily male, military and Western
• Trait Theories
o Research on traits or qualities associated with leadership

New Trait Research (Foti & Hauenstein, 2007):
• High intelligence, dominance, general self-efficacy & self-monitoring were
associated with leadership emergence and effectiveness

Situational/Contingency Leadership:
• Leadership style changes according to the 'situation’, and in response to the
individuals being managed – their competency and motivation

Transformational Theory (Bass, 1985):
• Leaders inspire followers through the articulation of a goal or vision
• Behaviours displayed by transformational leaders including:
o Idealised influence: leader articulates a sense of vision.
o Inspirational motivation: leader appeals to followers’ emotions to develop
commitment and readiness for change.
o Intellectual stimulation: leader encourages followers to question the way
things are done and break with the past.
o Individualised consideration: leader considers followers’ needs in order to
help followers perform at their best.
• Bass argued these behaviours make transformational leaders effective for change:
o They encourage others to generate ideas for change
o They provide psychological security for people involved in change
o They enhance trust, which is often necessary for risk-taking,
creativity/innovation to work
• But can be ineffective during change:
o Followers can become dependent on highly charismatic leaders for direction,
lose objective thought & self-reflection

Charismatic Leadership Theory (Weber, 1945)
Charisma: ability to capture the attention and positive regard of others.
1. An extraordinarily gifted person
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2. A social crisis
3. A vision providing a radical solution to a problem
4. A set of followers who are attracted to the exceptional person and believe that the
leader is linked to transcendent powers
5. The validation of the leader’s extraordinary gifts through repeated success

Can Charismatic Leadership Be Taught? (Antonakis et al., 2011)
• Managers were taught 10 Charismatic Leadership Tactics (CLTs)
• Results: significant improvements in followers’ evaluations of:
o 1) Leader’s charisma
o 2) Affect toward leader (i.e. “I like this person as a leader”)
o 3) Trust in the leader
o 4) Perceptions of leader’s competence
o 5) Perceptions of leader’s ability to influence

Olivia Fox Cabane: Build Your Personal Charisma
Charisma is the result of specific BEHAVIOURS:
• 1) Behaviours of presence (be authentic, have the answers)
• 2) Behaviours of power (power comes though: stance & posture)
• 3) Behaviours of warmth (body language)

Kellerman (2004)
• Leadership can have positive and negative effects
• Bad followers are as much as responsible as leaders for their bad leadership. At the
extreme, there are those who commit “crimes of obedience.”

Destructive Leadership
Abusive supervision: subordinates’ perceptions of the extent to which supervisors engage
in the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behaviors
• Forms of abuse: Withholding vital information; Intimidation; Blaming / ridiculing;
Assaulting; Victimising; Social exclusion
• Why do people abuse:
o Individual reasons: Poor training; Bullying;
o Situational reasons: High pressure; Aggressive work cultures
• Consequences:
o Poorer attitudes towards their job and organisation
o Greater work-family conflict
o Psychological distress
o Increased turnover intentions
o Higher emotional exhaustion
o Greater co-worker directed aggression

Laissez-faire leadership: give the least possible guidance to subordinates
• Role conflict, role ambiguity, and conflicts with coworkers
• Linked to bullying at work
• Distress

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6: Job Design
Basic Design Dimensions
• Formalisation - degree to which the organisation has official rules & procedures
• Centralisation - degree to which decisions are made at the top of the organisation
• Specialisation - degree to which jobs are narrowly defined & rely on unique
expertise
• Standardisation - degree to which work activities are accomplished in a routine way
• Complexity - degree to which many different types of activities occur in the org.

Burns & Stalker’s Mechanistic vs. Organic Framework

Mechanistic organisation: the organization is hierarchical & bureaucratic. It is characterized
by its (1) highly centralized authority, (2) formalized procedures & practices, & (3) specialized
functions.
Organic organisation: the organization is very flexible & able to adapt well to changes. Its
structure is identified as having little job specialization, few layers of management,
decentralized decision-making, and not much direct supervision.

Tall vs. Flat Organisations

Tall Organisations: many levels of management and each has a small area of control
• Pros:
o Clarity & managerial control
o Close supervision of employees
o Clear, distinct layers with obvious lines of responsibility & control
o Clear promotion structure
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• Cons:
o Expense of additional layers of management
o Discourage employee autonomy
o Communication takes too long to travel through all the levels
o These communication problems hamper decision-making & progress
Flat Organisations: fewer management levels, with each level controlling a broad area
• Pros:
o Empower employees & encourage self-direction
o Enhance creativity & problem-solving with collaboration
o Cost-effective
o Flatter structures are flexible & better able to adapt to changes
o Promotes greater opportunities for decisions to be made by people closest to
problems
o Enhanced communication
• Cons:
o Managers can end up with a heavier work load
o Can create role confusion

What Contingencies Affect Organisational Structure?
• Strategy:
o Innovation à decentralisation & low formalisation
o Standardisation à centralisation & high formalisation
• Environment:
o Management will attempt to minimize environmental uncertainty by
adjusting the organisation’s structure:
§ Dynamic & complex environments require flexible, organic structures
§ Stable & simple environments require mechanistic structures
• Systems (e.g. HRM) and technology:
o Standardized technologies characterize centralized structures
o Customized activities characterize decentralized structures
• Organisation size & lifecycle:
o Small organisations = flat
o Large organisations = tall

McGregor’s Theory X & Theory Y
Douglas McGregor proposed an alternative theory about what motivates people’s
behaviour in their workplace. He suggested two views of human nature:
• Theory X managers see workers as:
o Having little ambition
o Disliking work
o Avoiding responsibility
• Employees must be coerced, controlled, or threatened to achieve goals.
• Theory Y managers see workers as:
o Self-directed
o Enjoying work
o Accepting responsibility
• Employees must be given opportunities apply skills & use decision-making.
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Job Design: concerned with choices made about the nature and content of peoples’ jobs,
and how these choices affect organisational outcomes such as employee well-being.

The Job Characteristics Model

1) Skill Variety: variety of tasks
2) Task Identity: see the entire process of a task (e.g. create a chair vs. create only the legs)
3) Task Significance: meaningfulness of task (e.g. nursing the sick vs. sweeping the floor)
4) Autonomy: extent to which you control your tasks vs. follow a specified procedure
5) Job Feedback: receive feedback for work

Growth Need Strength (GNS) is the strength of a person's need for personal
accomplishment, learning, and development.
• If high à will react to enriched jobs in a positive manner
• If low à may find newly enriched work threatening

Ways to Improve MPS

7: Workplace Fear & Stress
Fear Responses: Fight, Flight, Freezing
• Flight: avoidance response involving rapid escape from threat (action-oriented)
• Freeze: tonic immobility or “playing dead” (non-action oriented)
• Fight: a last-ditch fear response (action-oriented)

Is Fear a Good Thing?
• Fear keeps us: grounded, authentic, prevents optimism bias
• “Only the paranoid survive” (i.e. constantly scanning environment to find threats)
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Fear & Work Performance (Negative Relationship)

• Acute fear causes:
o Distrust, distorted communication & stifled innovation
o Absenteeism & indirect aggression

Where Fear has a Place
• Low levels of fear cause arousal
• High levels of fear cause fight-flight-freeze response
• Emotions can enhance performance & creativity due to heightened blood pressure
& heart rate to sustain attention and effort
• Experiments show negative emotions can be as favourable for performance as
positive emotions before relief (Higgins, 1997)
• There must be an element of self-regulation à top down control

Top Down Control
• Self-regulatory processes act as a moderator on emotions.
• When top-down control is high, emotions are associated with more productive
outcomes; whereas when top-down control is low, emotions are associated with less
productive workplace outcomes.
o When TDC is high, arousal is a mediator à high job performance
o When TDC is low, FFF is a mediator à poor job performance (aggression,
absenteeism, staying still)

The Proposed Model

Stress
• Stress: interaction between an individual & an environmental event
• Stress involves long-term exposure to threat
— There are physical and psychological reactions to external environmental events
(stressors) that are appraised as taxing or threatening
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Stress at Work Causes Illness

• Hypertension; Coronary heart disease; Migraines; Asthma attacks
• Absence & turnover

Stress-Performance Curve
Negative stress – distress
Positive stress – eustress

Physiological Approach of Stress
General Adaptation Syndrome:
• Increased heart rate
• Stress hormone is released (“cortisol”)
• Psychological reactions – fear, anxiety, frustration
• Subjective stressors (perceptions of stress) affect these more than objective
stressors (physiological responses to stress)

Psychology Approach of Stress
Lazarus & Folkman’s transactional model of stress:

Coping: efforts to manage stressful demands
• PROBLEM-FOCUSED COPING – efforts to deal with the source of the problem
• EMOTION-FOCUSED COPING – efforts to manage the worry, anxiety, etc. that are
the result of a problem

Individual Coping
1. Active coping
2. Planning
3. Suppression of competing activities
4. Restraint
5. Seeking social support for instrumental reasons
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6. Seeking social support for emotional reasons

7. Focusing on, and venting, emotions
8. Behavioral disengagement
9. Mental disengagement
10. Positive reinterpretation
11. Denial
12. Acceptance
13. Turning to religion

Job Demands Model
• Job demands – extent overloaded, no time to work
• Job decision latitude – amount of authority

Sources of Stress
1) Situational / environmental stress: (certain professions are more stressful, e.g. police)
• Associated with:
o Lack of control and role ambiguity
o Interpersonal conflict
o Harassment
o Organisational change
o Workplace bullying
2) Dispositional stress:
• Type A (organised, ambitious) not Type B (relaxed, less anxious) personality
• Lack of hardiness
• Low self-efficacy
• Leading to stronger stress-induced physiological responses that they are not
consciously aware of

8: Turnover
Types of Turnover
• Involuntary Turnover (initiated by organisation)
o Discharge: discipline, poor performance
o Downsizing: redundancy, layoff
• Voluntary Turnover (initiated by employees)
o Avoidable: employee seeks job elsewhere
o Unavoidable: employee retires, starts new career

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KSAOs: Knowledges, Skills, Abilities, and Other characteristics to successfully perform

Costs of Turnover
• Lost productivity while the job is vacant
• Recruiting costs
• Training costs
• Cost of reduced efficiency and quality of performance

Model of the Causes of Voluntary Turnover

Micro Research

• Mobley (1977): intermediate association between job satisfaction and job turnover.
• Less satisfied employees think about leaving, look for alternative jobs & are more
likely to quit.
• They do these activities more when they feel there are attractive job alternatives.

Job Embeddedness Theory
Job embeddedness incorporates a number of aspects:
• 1) The extent to which people have links to other people (LINKS)
• 2) The extent to which their jobs fit with the other aspects of their life spaces (FIT)
• 3) The ease with which these links can be broken (SACRIFICE). E.g. personal costs
such as giving up relationships with coworkers, interesting projects, “perks”, etc.:
• The more links, fit and sacrifice = the more bound an individual is to their job
• Mitchell et al. (2000) – conducted a study with employees from a grocery store.
• Results: people who are more embedded in their jobs have less intent to leave the
organisation

The Unfolding Model of Turnover (Lee, 1996)
• Focused on “shocks to the system” (events that cause a person to rethink their
current circumstances)
• Identifies 4 decisions paths that individuals can take after a shock to the system
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o Path 1: Pre-determined Script: draw on previous experiences of similar

situations to determine if they should stay/go. No consideration of
alternative jobs or a decision about current job satisfaction.
o Path 2: Pushed to Leave: have not experienced a similar situation before, use
deliberate thinking about the consequences to decide what to do.
o Path 3: Pulled by Opportunity to Leave: no previous experiences that are
similar to this, although an individual has specific job alternatives available.
o Path 4: No Wake-Up Call No shock to the system. Some employees will come
to rethink their attachment to an organisation because of issues like:
§ Change in job-person fit
§ Growing dissatisfaction with the job over time

Barrick & Zimmerman (2009)
• Examined pre-hire predictors of turnover (e.g. pre-hire intent to quit), biodata (e.g.
tenure at previous job) & personality
o Personality & biodata were better predictors of voluntary turnover than pre-
hire attitudes

Withdrawal
Physical withdrawal: physically removing oneself from the work environment (e.g.
tardiness, absence & turnover)
Psychological withdrawal: a mental state where an employee is disengaged from the work
environment

Absenteeism
Absenteeism: when an employee does not report to work when scheduled
• Voluntary absenteeism: employee chooses not to work when they can
o Occurs when an employee chooses not to work when they could have (they
are not ill) and should have (they are expected)
• Involuntary absenteeism: absent because of illness or uncontrollable factors

Causes of Absenteeism
• LT causes:
o Depression; Smoking; Alcohol and drug abuse; Lack of exercise
• MT causes:
o Job dissatisfaction; Low organizational commitment
o Monotonous work; Work norms that encourage absenteeism
o Inflexible work hours
• ST causes:
o Lack of attendance incentives; Unhealthy employees; Lack of work group
pressure to attend

Costs of Absenteeism
• Pay for time not worked
• Underutilised facilities
• Substandard quantity and quality of production
• Increased inspection and supervision costs
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Presenteeism
Presenteeism: when an employee, impaired by health problems, comes to work regardless

Predictors of Presenteeism
• Age (younger = more presenteeism)
• Professional responsibilities, weak peer support & work hours (more presenteeism)
• Stress very predictive (and leads to illness which leads to more stress)

Costs of Presenteeism
• Productivity losses resulting from presenteeism may be more significant than
those caused by absenteeism
• Presenteeism is more insidious and harder to estimate than absenteeism in terms of
its real impact on organizational productivity
• Impacts include: increase in contamination risks & longer recovery leave

9: Power & Conflict
Groupthink
Groupthink: pressure to go along with the group opinion (illusion all agree with it)
How to overcome groupthink:
• All people are ‘critical evaluators’ – allows each member to freely air objections
• Leaders should not express an opinion or influence outcome
• Organisation should use independent groups to work on the same problem
• Alternatives should be examined
• Discuss with people outside the group & invite outside experts into meetings
• Play Devil’s advocate

Conflict
• Cognitive/Structural: discussion of problem, causes, alternative solutions &
consequences, team building, creativity
• Affective/Personal: irritability, lack of concern for other, checking out

How to manage conflict:
• Disseminate a full agenda early
• State team philosophy/purpose
• Channel discussion from Affect to Cognitive

Power

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Pfeffer (2010) How to Use Power

• Shape behaviour through rewards and punishments
• Don’t draw unnecessary fire
• Make important relationships work
• Make the vision compelling

10: Organisational Culture
Organisational Culture
Organisational Culture: the ‘unwritten rules’ or the ‘taken for granted assumptions about
the way we do things around here’ (Schein, 1990)
• Culture refers to (Schein, 1990):
o A pattern of basic assumptions
o Invented, discovered, or developed by a group (organisation)
o As it learns to cope with the problems of external adaptation to the
environment & internal integration
o Is taught to new members as the correct way to think, feel & perceive in
relation to those problems
• Culture is learned behaviour
o Learned by observing the behaviors of people & symbols

Ethnocentrism: apply own values in judging the behavior of people from other cultures

Other Functions of Culture (Schein, 1990)
• Decrease anxiety because it helps people understand & predict events in an
organisation
• Defines boundaries of an organisation (distinguishes one org. from another)
• Conveys a sense of identity
• Generates commitment to goals by directing individuals’ actions in certain ways
• Enhances stability of the social system by ensuring people act in certain ways
• Serves as a regulatory mechanism for appropriate attitudes and behaviours

Culture Contributes to Performance When…
• The values are shared by all in the organisation
• The values guide behaviour
• Adaptability & flexibility need to be built into the cultural values
• The culture is fully integrated into the business strategy

Theories on the Relationship between Organisational Culture and Performance
Strong Culture Perspective
• Strength of an organisational culture is influenced by:
o Agreement with the cultural values as a whole (intensity)
o Number of members sharing the central values (breadth)
• Strong cultures facilitate performance because…
o They are characterized by goal alignment
o They create a high level of motivation & commitment because of shared
values by the members
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o Shared values make people feel good

o They provide control without the oppressive effects of bureaucracy

Fit Perspective
• Culture is good only if it fits the firm strategy; helps manager make good decisions
• Three particular industry characteristics affect culture:
o 1) Competitive environment
o 2) Customer requirements
o 3) Societal expectations

Adaptive Perspective
• Adaptive cultures:
o Encourage confidence and risk taking among employees,
o Leadership produces change & focuses on changing needs of customers;
o Invest in people & reward appropriate behaviours

The “Iceberg Model” of Organisational Culture

• Artefacts: clearly observable features of the work environment
o E.g. Posters emphasising the goals of an organisation
• Intangible activities and routines: invisible rules about processes & the way things
are done
• Values: the shared beliefs about what is “good” or “right” in an organisation
• Underlying assumptions: the taken for granted solutions to problems
MGMT1002 Study Notes

Do Organisations have Uniform Culture?

Dominant Culture: expresses core values, shared by majority of organisation’s members
Subculture: minicultures within an organisation, defined by department designations and
geographical separation

Dimensions of Organisational Culture (Hofstede, 2002)
1) Process-oriented versus results-oriented
• Process = avoid risk, put in minimal effort, no variation in day-to-day activities
• Results = comfortable in unfamiliar situations, in maximum effort, see each day bring
new challenges
2) Employee-oriented versus job-oriented
• Broad responsibility to employees vs. limited to their job performance
3) Parochial verses professional
• Parochial = organisations norms apply at home as well as at work; feel personal
background is relevant to work
• Professional = personal & work lives = separate; hire on basis of job competence only
4) Open versus Closed
• Open = organisation is open to newcomers; anyone could fit in the organisation
• Closed = organisation is not open to newcomers; only a select few will suit
5) Loose versus Tight
• Loose = no concern about cost, flexible meeting times, free to joke
• Tight = cost-conscious, strict, little joking or humour
6) Normative versus Pragmatic
• Normative = emphasis on organisational rules & ethics
• Pragmatic = emphasis is on meeting customers’ needs & results, ethics are flexible

Competing Values Model
Human Relations Culture (internal / flexible)
• Has an internal focus which is seen through its efforts to develop commitment via
training of staff, efforts to develop morale, and cohesion
Open Systems Culture (external / flexible)
• Focused on expansion and adapting to external circumstances.
• Values: adaptability, readiness for change, acquisition of resources
Internal Process Culture (internal / control)
• Focused on stability, continuity, value information management, communication and
procedures that ensure control.
Rational Goal Culture (external / control)
• Focused on maximising output, productivity, planning & goal setting.

CVM in Reality (Kalliath, Bluedorn, & Gillespie, 1999
1) Human Relations Culture positively associated with employee morale and & turnover
2) Open Systems Culture positively associated with more new ideas, products & services
3) Internal Process Culture positively associated with accurate records & timely delivery g/s
4) Rational Goal Culture is positively associated with higher quality g/s & bigger profits

MGMT1002 Study Notes

Emotional Culture (Barsade & O’Neill, 2016)

• Importance of establishing an emotional culture:
o Joy & Compassionate, opposed to, Envy, Fear & Suppression

How Organisational Cultures Form

A Socialisation Model

• Pre-arrival Stage: period of learning in the socialization process that occurs before a
new employee joins the organisation.
• Encounter Stage: where new employee sees what the organisation is really like and
confronts the possibility that expectations and reality may diverge.
• Metamorphosis Stage: where a new employee changes and adjusts to the workplace.

Transforming Culture
Role model:
• See leaders, influential people and all levels of staff behaving in line with the
corporate espoused values
Build commitment:
• Employees know what is expected of them & how it contributes to organization
• Feel motivated to take responsibility
• Candid & constructive conversations
• Clear and positive stories of ‘what it should be like around here’
Align processes and systems:
• The structures & systems support employees to have the right behaviours
• Clear compliance/ behavioural standards
• Policies / procedures that are taken seriously
• Rewards, recognition and consequences aligned
Develop capability – skills and knowledge:
• Hiring for the right attitude as well as the right skills
• Learning (including on-the-job development)
• Continuous feedback and coaching

11: Organisational Change
Transformation & Strategy
• Today, organisations are being forced to constantly reassess their goals & objectives,
their size in the market, their g/s
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• But many organisational change efforts are often unsuccessful

Strategy: a plan or direction-setting framework for resolving mission critical issues such as:
• What business are we in?
• What do we aspire to become?
• What changes to our current course of action, resources

How Strategy Happens

Strategic Fit
• For a firm’s strategy to be successful, it must ‘fit’ the organisation’s:
o Goals and values
o External environment
o Resources and capabilities
o Culture and systems

How Core Competencies Can Become Core Rigidities
• Especially in successful organisations:
o Processes à Routines
o Relationships à Shackles
o Values à Dogmas

MGMT1002 Study Notes

How Capabilities Inhibit Change

• Two causes of the transformation from capability to rigidity are insularity & trying to
do things better, rather than doing better things:
o Insularity: we become too internally focused and comfortable with the status
quo in an attempt to meet short-term objectives.
o Doing things better, rather than doing better things: it is easy to work on
the assumption that more of a good thing is always better.

Change Agents vs. Change Champions
Change Agent: person who attempts to positively influence organisational change through
their own actions + influencing the actions of others (formally nominated)

Change Champion: any person from an organisation who is skilled at initiating, facilitating,
and implementing change (informal change agent)

Four Frame Approach to Understanding Organisations
1. Structural – Views organisations as machines
• Frame emphasis: rationality, formal roles and relationships
• Action logic: rational analysis
• Path to organisational success: clear division of labor; creation of appropriate
mechanisms to integrate efforts

2. Human Resource – Views organisations as families
• Frame emphasis: the fit between individual and the organisation
• Action logic: attending to people
• Path to organisational success: tailor the organisation to meet individual needs,
train the individual in relevant skills to meet organizational needs

3. Political – Views organisations as a jungle in which different interests compete for
power and scarce resources
• Frame emphasis: allocation of power and scare resources
• Action logic: winning
• Path to organisational success: bargain, negotiate, build coalitions, set agendas,
manage conflict

4. Symbolic – Views organisations as a theatre, carnival, or temple driven more by rituals,
stories and myths than by rules, policies and structures
• Frame emphasis: meaning, purpose, and values
• Action logic: building faith and shared meaning
• Path to organisational success: create common vision, relevant rituals & symbols

Scoping
Scoping: make an initial definition of a situation, identify the need for change, and make an
initial assessment of readiness for change.
• We attempt to answer the following questions:
o How is the organisation performing?
o What are our predictions about its future performance?
MGMT1002 Study Notes

o What are the signs of a need or opportunity for change?

Kotter’s 8 Steps for Change

Dunphy & Stace’s Change Matrix

Measuring Change Success
• Five complementary diagnostic strategies: observation; interviews; surveys;
analysis of organisational records; workshops
• Use multiple methods in combination
• Use methods that involve key interest groups

Theory E & Theory O

MGMT1002 Study Notes

Theory E: Pre-Packaged Interventions

• Such approaches focus on the “how” of change rather than on the outcome of
change. They are usually methodologies that can be used in any organisation as a
way to bring about change. Usually developed and marketed by consultancies

Theory O: Action Research
• “The process of systematically collecting research data about an ongoing system
relative to some objective goal or need of that system; feeding these data back into
the system; taking action by altering selected variables within the system, based both
on data and hypotheses; and evaluating results of actions by collecting more data”
• Researcher a participant in the research process, not an impartial observer