Table Of Content

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR CONCEPTS CONTROVERSIES APPLICATIONS Seventh Edition Stephen P. Robbins 1996 Contents Part One • Introduction Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behavior? 2 Chapter 2 Responding to Global and Cultural Diversity 42 Part Two • The Individual Chapter 3 Foundations of Individual Behavior 80 Chapter 4 Perception and Individual Decision Making 130 Chapter 5 Values, Attitudes, and Job Satisfaction 172 Chapter 6 Basic Motivation Concepts 210 Chapter 7 Motivation: From Concepts to Applications 250 Part Three • The Group Chapter 8 Foundations of Group Behavior 292 Chapter 9 Understanding Work Teams 344 Chapter 10 Communication 374 Chapter 11 Leadership 410 Chapter 12 Power and Politics 460 Chapter 13 Conflict, Negotiation, and Intergroup Behavior 502 Part Four - The Organization System Chapter 14 Foundations of Organization Structure 548 Chapter 15 Technology, Work Design, and Stress 588 Chapter 16 Human Resource Policies and Practices 634 Chapter 17 Organizational Culture 678 Part Five - Organizational Dynamics Chapter 18 Organizational Change and Development 714 CHAPTER I • WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR? What Managers Do Let’s begin by briefly defining the terms manager and the place where managers work—the organization. Then let’s look at the manager’s job; specifically, what do managers do? Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an organization. This is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. Based on this definition, manufacturing and service firms are organizations and so are schools, hospitals, churches, military units, retail stores, police departments, and local, state, and federal government agencies. The people who oversee the activities of others and who are responsible for attaining goals in these organizations are their managers (although they’re sometimes called administrators, especially in not- for-profit organizations). Management Functions In the early part of this century, a French industrialist by the name of Henri Fayol wrote that all managers perform five management functions: They plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control. Today, we’ve condensed these down to four: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. Since organizations exist to achieve goals, someone has to define these goals and the means by which they can be achieved. Management is that someone. The planning function encompasses defining an organization’s goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving these goals, and developing a comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Managers are also responsible for designing an organization’s structure. We call this function organizing. It includes the determination of 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. Every organization contains people, and it is management’s job to direct and coordinate these people. This is the leading function. When managers motivate subordinates, direct the activities of others, select the most effective communication channel, or resolve conflicts among members, they are engaging in leading The final function managers perform is controlling. After the goals are set, the plans formulated, the structural arrangements delineated, and the people hired, trained, and motivated, there is still the possibility that some thing may go amiss. To ensure that things are going as they should, management must monitor the organization’s performance. Actual performance must be compared with the previously set goals. If there are any significant deviations, it is management’s job to get the organization back on track. This monitoring, comparing, and potential correcting is what is meant by the controlling function. So, using the functional approach, the answer to the question of what managers do is that they plan, organize, lead, and control. Management Roles In the late 1960s, a graduate student at MIT, Henry Mintzberg, undertook a careful study of five executives to determine what these managers did on their jobs. Based on his observations of these managers, Mintzberg concluded that managers perform ten different highly interrelated roles, or sets of behaviors, attributable to their jobs. These ten roles can be grouped as being primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships, the transfer of information, and decision making. INTERPERSONAL ROLES All managers are required to perform duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature. When the president of a college hands out diplomas at commencement or a factory supervisor gives a group of highschool students a tour of the plant, he or she is acting in a figurehead role. All managers have a leadership role. This role includes hiring, training, motivating, and disciplining employees. The third role within the interpersonal grouping is the liaison role. Mintzberg described this activity as contacting outsiders who provide the manager with information. These may be individuals or groups inside or outside the organization. The sales manager whb obtains information from the personnel manager in his or her own company has an internal liaison relationship. When that sales manager has contacts with other sales executives through a marketing trade association, he or she has an outside liaison relationship. INFORMATIONAL ROLES All managers wills to some degree, receive and collect information from organizations and institutions outside their own. Typically, this is done through reading magazines and talking with others to learn of changes in the pubtic’s tastes, what competitors may be planning, and the like. Mintzberg called this the monitor role. Managers also act as a conduit to transmit information to organizational members. This is the diseminator role. Managers additionally perform a spokesperson role when they represent the organization to outsiders. DECISIONAL ROLES Finally, Mintzherg identified four roles that revolve around the making of choices. In the entrepreneur role, managers initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their organization’s performance. As disturbance handlers, managers take corrective action in response to previously unforeseen problems As resource allocators, managers are responsib]e for allocating human, physical, and monetary resources. Lastly, managers perform a negotiator role, in which they discuss and bargain with other units to gain advantages for their own unit. Management Skills Still another way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills or competencies they need to successfully achieve their goals. Robert Katz has identified three essential management skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Technical skills encompass the ability to apply the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. When you think of the skills held by professiorials such as civil engineers, tax accountants, or oral surgeons, you typically focus on their technical skills. Through extensive formal education, they have learned the special knowledge and practices of their field. Of course, professional don’t have a monopoly on technical skills and these skills don’t have to be learned in schools or formal training programs. All jobs require some specialized expertise and many people develop their technical skills on the job. The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups, describes human skills. Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent. They might, for example, be poor listeners, unable to understand the needs of others, or have difficulty managing conflicts. Since managers get things done through other people, they must have good human skills to communicate, motivate, and delegate. Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. These are conceptual skills. Decision making, for instance, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives that can correct them, evaluate these alternatives, and select the best one. Managers can be technically and interpersonally competent, yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and interpret information. Effective vs. Successful Managerial Activities Fred Luthans’ and his associates looked at the issue of what managers do from a somewhat different perspective. They asked this question: Do managers who move up most quickiy in an organization do the same activities and with the same emphasis as those managers who do the best job? You would tend to think that those managers who were the most effective in their jobs would also be the ones who were promoted fastest. But that’s not what appears to happen. Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers. What they found was that these managers all engaged in four managerial activities: 1. Traditional management: Decision making, planning, and controlling. 2. Communication: Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork. 3. Human resource management: Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training. 4. Networking: Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders. The “average” manager studied spent 32 percent of his or her time in traditional management activities, 29 percent communicating, 20 percent in human resource management activities, and 19 percent networking. However, the amount of time and effort that different managers spent on these four activities varied a great deat Specifically, managers who were successful (defined in terms of the speed of promotion within their organization) had a very different emphasis than managers who were effective (defined in terms of the quantity and quality of their performance and the satisfaction and commitment of their subordinates). Networking made the biggest relative contribution to manager success; human resource management activities made the least relative contribution. Among effective managers, communication made the largest relative contribution and networking the least. This study adds important insights to our knowledge of what managers do. On average, managers spend approximately 20 to 30 percent of their time on each of the four activities: traditional management, communication, human resource management, and networking. However, successful managers don’t give the same emphasis to each of these activities as do effective managers. In fact, their emphases are almost the opposite. This challenges the historical assumption that promotions are based on performance, vividly illustrating the importance that social and political skills play in getting ahead in organizations. A Review of the Manager’s Job One common thread runs through the functions, roles, skills, and activities approaches to management: Each recognizes the paramount importance of managing people. As David Kwok found out when he became a manager at The Princeton Review, regardless of whether it’s called “the leading function”, “interpersonal roles”, ”human skills”, or “human resource management and networking activities”, it’s clear that managers need to develop their people skills if they’re going to be effective and successful in their job. Enter organizational behavior We’ve made the case for the importance of people skills. But neither this book nor the discipline on which it rests is called people skills. The term that is widely used to describe the discipline is called organizational behavior (OR) which is a field of study which investiqates the impact study that investigates the impact of individuals, groups, and structure on behavior moi individuak, groups, awi structure ha within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an on bchnvr wilfirn orgarniations, for the organization c effectiveness. That’s a lot of words, so let’s break it down. purpeseof eppln suth bov4edpe Organizational behavior is a field of study. What does it study? It studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure. Additionally, 0B applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order to wake organizations work more effectively. To sum up our definition, OB is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and howthat behavior affects the performance of the organization. And because OR is specifically concerned with employment-related situations, you should not be surprised to find that it emphasizes behavior as related to jobs, work, absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human performance, and management. There is increasing agreement on the components or topics that constitute the subject area of OW While there is still considerable debate about the relative importance of each, there appears to be general agreement that OB includes the core topics of motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group structure and process, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, job design, and work stress)’ — Replacing Intuition with Sysfirnatic Study Each of us is a student of behavior. Since our earliest years, we have watched the actions of others and have attempted to interpret what we see. Whether or not you have explicitly thought about it before, you have been “reading” peopie almost all your life. You watch what others do and try to explain to yourself why they have engaged in their behavior. Additionally, you’ve attempted to predict what they might do under different sets of conditions. Generalizations About Behavior You have already developed some generalizations that you find helpful in explaining and predicting what people do and will do. But how did you arrive at these generalizations? You did so by observing, sensing, asking, listening, and reading. That is, your understanding comes either directly from your own eperience with things in the environment, or secondhand, through the experience of others. How accurate are the generalizations you hold? Some may represent extremely sophisticated appraisals of behavior and may prove highly effective in expiaining and prethcting the behavior of others. However, most of us also carry with us a number of beliefs that frequently fail to explain why people do. CHAPTER I • WHAT IS ORGANATIONAL BEHAVIOR what they do. To illustrate, consider the following statements about work. related behavior: 1. Happy workers are productive workers. 2. All individuals are most productive when their boss is fricndly, trusting; arid approachable. 3. Interviews are effective selection devices for separating ob applicants who would be high-performing employees from those who would be low performers. 4. Everyone wants a challenging job. 5. You have to scare people a little to get them to do their jobs. 6. Everyone is motivated by money. 7. Most people are much more concerned with the size of their own salaries than with others’. 8. The most effective work groups are devoid of conflict. How many of these statements do you think are true? For the most part, they are all false, and we touch on each later in this text. But whether these statements are true or false is not really important at this time. What is important is to be aware that many of the views you hold concerning human behavior are based on intuition rather than fact. As a result, a systematic approach to the study of behavior can improve your explanatory and predictive abilitks. Consistency vs. Individual Differences Casual or commonsense approaches to obtaining knowledge about human behavior are inadequate. In reading this text, you will discover that a systematic approach will uncover important facts and relationships, and provide a base from which more accurate predictions of behavior can be made. Underlying this systematic approach is the belief that behavior is not random, It is caused and directed toward some end that the individual believes, rightly or wrongly, is in his or her best interest. Behavior generally is predictable if we know how the person perceived the situation arid what is important to him or her. While people’s behavior may not appear to be rational to an outsider, there is reason to believe it usually is intended to be rational and it is seen as rational by them. An observer often sees behavior as nonrational because the observer does not have access to the same information or does not perceive the environment in the same way.’3 Certainly there are differences between tndividuals. Placed in similar situations, all people do not act alike. However, certain fundamental consistencies underlie the behavior of all individuals that Can be identified and then modified to reflect individual differences, These fundamenta] consistencies are very important. Why? Because they allow predictability. When you gel into your car, you make some definite and usually highly accurate predictions about how other people will behave. In North America, for instance, you would predict that other drivers will stop at stop signs and red lights, drive oct the right side of the road, pass on your left, and not cross the solid double line on mountain roads. Notice that your predictions about the behavior of people behind the wheels of their cars are almost always correct. Obviously, the rules of driving make predictions about driving behavior fairly easy. 12• PART ON ‘ INTRODUCTION o ts us ‘ho nt • I ler4p n the hew ar 4 a i g o si oiled us on 9001 uti *00 u di ohs sc vde’ 1o Ll’flOe i& h ki: ,e,J:rcuo Juobv 0!’ ev die ri s (MI di 0 ra cv, cc nd oh odin s *og olehh’ Mdiii ‘ ‘ unrn n s hoe c ‘MI n’h , e 0 ri, on If doely I systematic study Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on scienfic evidence. intuit’,on A feeling nol necessarily supported by research. What may be less obvious is that there are rules (written and unwritten) in almost every setting. Therefore, it can be argued that it’s possible to predict behavior (undoubtedly not always with 100 percent accuracy) in supermarkets, classrooms, doctors’ offices, elevators, and in most structured situations. To Illustrate further, do you turn around and face the doors when you get into an elevator? Almost everyone does, yet did you ever read you’re supposed to do this? Probably notl Just as I make predictions about automobile drivers (where there are definite rules of the road), I can make predictions about the behavior of people in elevators (where there are few written rules). In a class of 60 students, if you wanted to ask a question of the instructor, I would predict you would raise your hand. Why don’t you clap, stand up, raise your leg, cough, or yell, “Hey, over herd”? The reason is that you have learned raising your hand is appropriate behavior in school. These examples support a major contention in this text: Behavior is generally predictable, and the systematic study of behavior is a means to making reasonably accurate predictions. When we use the phrase “systematic study,” we mean looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and basing our conclusions on scientific evidence, that is, on data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous manner. (See Appendix B for a basic review of iesearch methods used in studies of organizational behavior.) Systematic study replaces Intuition or those gut feelings about “why I do what I do” and “what makes others tick.” Of course, a systematic approach does not mean those things you have come to believe in an unsystematic way are necessarily incorrect. Some of the conclusions we make in this text, based on reasonably substantive research findings, will only support what you always knew was true. But you will also be exposed to research evidence that runs counter to what you may have thought was common sense. In fact, one of the challenges of teaching a subject like organizational behavior is to overcome the notion, held by many, that “it’s all common sense.”14 You will find that many of the so-called commonsense views you hold about human behavior are, on closer examination, wrong. Moreover, what one person considers “common sense” frequently runs counter to another’s version of “common sense.” Are leaders born or made? What is it that motivates people at work nowadays? You probably have answers to such questions, and individuals who have not reviewed the research are likely to differ on their answers. The point is that one of the objectives of this text is to encourage you to move away from your intuitive views of behavior toward a systematic analysis, in the belief that such analysis will improve your accuracy in explaining and predicting behavior. CHAPTER I • WHAT 5 ORGANIZATIONAL BHAYIOR? • 13 — Challenges and Opportunities tar GB Understanding organizational behavior has never been more important for managers. A quick look at a few of the dramatic changes now taking plaEe in organizaticins supports this claim. For instance, the typical employee is getting older; more and more women and nonwhites are in the workplace; corporate restructuring and cost cutting are severing the bonds of loyalty that historically tied many employees to their employers; and global competition is requiring employees to be- come more flexible and to learn to cope with rapid change and innovation. In short, there are a lot of challenges and opportunities today for man- -. agers to use OB concepts. In this section, we review some of the more critical issues confronting managt:s for which OB offers solutions—or at least somç meaningful insights toward solutions. Improving Quality and Productivity Tom Rossi manages in a tough business. He runs a light bulb plant in Mattoon, Illinois, for General Electric. Ills business hasseen tough competition from manufacturers in the United States, Europe. Japan, and evei China, To survive, he’s had to cut fat, increase productivity, and improve quality. And he’s succeeded. Between 1988 and 1993, the Mattoon plant has averaged annual cost productivity improvements of approximately 8 percent. By focusing on continuous improvement, streamlining processes, and cost cutting, GE’S Mattoon plant has remained viable and profitable. ‘‘ More and more managers are confronting the challenges that Tom Rossi is facing. They are having to improve their organization’s productivity and the tow quality inMgemmt (TOMI quality of the products and services they offer. Toward improving quality and AphosophyoFinanag4mfltihathdrivefi productivity, they are implementing programs like total quality management and reengineering—programs’ that require extensive emplOyee involvement. wtfaction Through tho cordiuous We discuss total quality management (TQM) at a number of places iinrovement of ofl organlwtieaal throughout this book. As Table 1-2 describes, TQM is a philosophy of manage- processos. ;1 Table 1-2 Wh0t Is Total Quality Manngement?;0] 1 - intense k,cus’r,in tbø customer The custme. includes not only outsiders who buy the: orgarilzcitloWs oducts or seMci, b also Thtemcl ctmWlnen (web as shipping or açeoynt payable personnel) whaintoractwith cøserve others ip the orgonizoaiori} . 2. Concern fbi corffinhtcTl impu-ovethent. TQM Woccmmi;rnerd to never being saiisFied. “Ve’y good.is not good enough. Qudityéan always be improved.. 3. lmprovement4n thcquolfty of everything I$eoiga&zation d0es: TQM uses a very brood definition of quality. Ii rel&es noiily léthe Final product but bow the. orgcnitatian}wndles deliveries; how rapidly j,:resrds Jo complaints, how politely the phoies ore onwered. ondthüiks 4. Accuroe?jsorerneni TQMiises stotiattcaltecniques to medsure every critical performance-variable in the orpanizalioh’s ofreratioris. These perforMance vadableior th&i compared ogaijistfslai4t&6i& Benàhmotki to  enlify problems, the problems are traced to their reots and the couses areeliminated. 5. Empowetmen! of amp! oyees. TQM involves the pàopie cr1 the line in the mpr’-vemen procen. Teams are widely used in TQM-prograrns as empowerment vehices for finding and solving problems. - 14+ PART ONE • INTRODUCT]ON ment that is driven by the constant attainment of customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational processes.’6 TQM has implications for 03 because it requires employees to rethink what they do and become more involved in workplace decisions. in times of rapid and dramatic change, it’s someumes necessary to approach improving quality and productivity from the perspective of 41How would we do things around here if we were starting over from scratch?” That, reenginriug in essence, is the approach of reengincering. It asks managers to reconsider Rcconid howweàwouidbcdoa and how work would be done and their organization structured if they were start- the orqanizaliam sirixtured ii they were ing over.17 To illustrate the concept of reengineering, consider a manufacturer h&riq ucciled from SOOt{h. of roller skates. His product is essentially a shoe with wheels beneath it, The typical roller skate was a leather boot with shoelaces, attached to a steel platform that held four wooden wheels. If our manufacturer took a continuous improvement approach to change, he would look for small increniental improvements that he could introduce in his product. For instance, he might consider adding hooks to the upper part of the boot for speed lacing; or changing the weight of leather used for improved comfort; or using different bailbearings to make the wheels spin more smoothly. Now most of us are familiar within- line skates. Ihey represent a reengineering approach to rollerskates. The goal was to come up with a skating device that could improve skating speed, mobility, and control. Rollerbiades fulfilled those goals in a comp?et&y different type of shoe. The upper was made of injected plastic, made popular in skiing. Laces were replaced by easy-close clamps. And the four wheels, set in pairs of two, were replaced by four to six in-line plastic wheels. The reenginee[ed result, which didn’t look much like the traditional toIler skate, proved universafly superior. The rest, of course, is history. In-line skates have revolutionized the roller skate business. Our point is that today’s contemporary managers understand the success of any efforts at improving quality and productivity must include their employees. These employees will not only be a major force in carrying out changes but increasingly will participate actively in planning those changes. OB offers important insights into helping managers work through these changes. improving People Skills We opened this chapter by demonstrating how important people skills are to managerial effectiveness. We said, “This book has been written to help both managers and potential managers develop those people skills.’ As you proceed through this text, we present relevant concepts and theo ties that can help you explain and predict the behavior of people at work. In addition, you’ll also gain insights into specific people skills that you can use on the job. For instance, you’ll learn how to be an effective listener, the proper way to give performance feedback, how to delegate authority, and how to create effective teams. Moreover, you’ll have the opportunity to tomplete exercises that will give you insights into your own behavior, thc bel,avioi of others, and practice at improving your interpersonal skills. Managing Work Force Diversity One of the most important and broad-based challenges curren ly facing US. organizations is adapting to people who are different. The turin we use for describing this challenge is work force diversity. CHAPTER 1 • WHAT [S ORGANIZATIONAL REHAVIOR +15 Work force diversity means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity. But the term encompasses anyone who varies from the so-called norm. In addition to the more obvious groups—women, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans—it also includes the physically disabled, gays and lesbians, and the elderly. We used to take a melting pot approach to differences in organizations, assuming people who were different would somehow automatically want to assimilate. But we now recognize that employees don’t set aside their cultural values and lifestyle preferences when they come to work. [he challenge for organizations, therefore, is to make themselves more accommodating to diverse groups of people by addressing their different lifestyles, family need, andwork styles. The melting pot assumption is being replaced by one that recognizes and values differences. 8 Haven’t organizations always included members of diverse groups? Yes, but they were a small percentage of the work force and were, for the most part, ignored by large organizations. Moreover, it was assumed these minorities would seek to blend in and assimilate. The bulk of the pre-1980s work force were male Caucasians working full time to support a nonemployed wife and school-aged children. Now such employees are the true minority! Currently, 45 percent of the U.S. labor force are women. Minorities and immigrants make up 22 percent.’9 As a case in point, Hewlett—Packard’s work force is 19 percent minorities and 40 percent women:t A Digital Equipnwnt Co±p, plant in Boston provides a partial preview of the future. The tactorvs 350 employees include men and women from 44 countries who speak 19 languages. When plant management issues written announcements, they are printed in English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Haitian Creole. Work force diversity has important implications br management practice. Managers will need to shift their philosophy from treating everyone alike to recognizing differences and responding to those differences in ways that will Honeywells diverse global work force i includes employees who speak 29 lan- pages and represent 47 cultures and 90 ethnic backgrounds. Honeywell strives to create an environment that values individual differences, removes barriers Ia equal opportunity, and empowers employees to develop their talents fully. Among the advisory covndls that the company has formed to identify and resolve common issues are the American Asian Council, American Indian Council, Block Employee Neiwork, Council of Employees with Disabllhies, Hispanic Council, Older Workers teogue, Committee of Vietnam Veterans, Women’s Council, and Work and Family Council. work force diversity The increasing heterogeneity of organizations with the inclusion of different groups. A fj •Vne of the most important and broad-based challenges 1 currently facing US H organizations is adapting to people who are different - - ‘?r FItTTJr7flTh 164 PART ONE • INTRODUC1HON I ensure employee retention and greater productivity—while, at the same time, not discriminating. Diversity, if positively managed, can increase creativity and innovation in organizations as well as improve decision making by providing different perspectives on problems.21 When diversity is not managed properly, there is potential for higher turnover, more difficult communication, and more interpersonal conflicts. We discuss work force diversity in greater detail in Chapter 2. Responding to Globalization Management is no longer constrained by national borders, Burger King is owned by a Eritish firm and McDonald’s sells hamburgers in Moscow. Exxon, a sc-called American company, receives almost 75 percent of its revenues from sales outside the United States. Toyota makes cars in Kentucky; General Motors makes cars in Brazil; and Ford (which owns part of Mazda) transfers executives from Detroit to Japan to help Mazda manage its operations. These examples illustrate that the world has become a global village. In turn, managers have to become capable of working with people from different cultures. Globalization affects a manager’s people skills in at least two ways. First, if you’re a manager you’re increasingly likely to find yourself in a foreign assignment. You’ll be transferred to your employer’s operating division or subsidiary in another country. Once there, you’ll have to manage a work force that is likely to be very different in needs, aspirations, and atlitudes from the ones you were used to back home. Second, even in your own country, you’re going to find yourself working with bosses, peers, and subordinates who were born and raised in different cultures. What motivates you may not motivate them.. While your style of communication may be straightforward and open, they may find this style uncomfortable and threatening. This suggests that if you’re going to be able to work effectively with these people, you’ll need to understand their ,.OOBin the New* - Work-Force Study Finds Divisions of Race and Gender Are Deep Abroad survey of American workers depicts a work force coworkers. Employees under 25 show no greater prefer- euce than older employees showed a stronger preference for diversity in the work- place Unfortunately, few em- that is deeply divided by race and gender The survey, funded by the Families and Work Institute, covered 2,958 wage and salaried workers. One of the survey’s more interesting findings is that younger workers don’t seem any better equipped to cope’ with a more diverse work- [or working with people of other races, ages, or ethnic groups Just over half of stir- veyed workas of all ages said the3fr piefer working with people oithe same. race, sex, gender, and.education. .. Employees, who had greater experIence living or working with people or other ployees have such expert- ence The study found that even workers under 25 had little cont4ct in:the neighbor- hoods where theygrew ufr• With people of dlfferent.cthñic and cultural backgrounds. . . . WeAl Street Juiwnat (SepteTnber 3, 1993), • : . , place than their older races, ethnic groups, and ages p. ni. CHAPTER I • WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONiJ BEHAVIOR2 . 1 Japan’s electronic giant Matsushita Electric Company, maker of Panasonic and National brands, operates more than 150 plants in 38 countries throughout Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East, btin America, and Africa. In managing its overseas network of factories that employ 99,000 workers, Matsushib adapts its organizational practices to each country. At its plants in Malaysia, it accommodates the cultural diFferences of Muslim Malays, ethnic Chinese, and Indian employees by offering Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian food in company cafeterias. It accamrnoiotes Muslim religious customs by providing special prayer rooms at each plant and allowing Iwo prayer sessions per shift. Shown here ore Muslim Moloys during a midday prayer break. culture, how it has shaped them, and learn to adapt your management style to these differences. In the next chapter, we provide some frameworks for understanding differences between national cultures. Further, as we discuss OB concepts throughout this book, we focus on how cultural differences might require managers to modify their practices. Empowering People If you pick up any popular business periodical nowadays, you’ll read about the reshaping of the relationship between managers and those they’re supposedly responsible for managing. You’ll lind managers being called coaches, advisers, sponsors, or facilitators.22 In many organizations, employees have become associates. 23 And there’s a blurring between the roles of managers and workers, Decision making is being pushed down to the operating level, where workers are being given the freedom to make choices about schedules, procedures, and solving work-related problems. In the 1980s, managers were encouraged to get their employees to participate in work-related decisions.24 Now, managers are going considerably further by allowing employees full control of their work. Self-managed teams, where workers operate largely without bosses, have become the rage of the 19905.25 What’s going on is that managers are empowering employees. They are putting employees in charge of what they do. And in so doing, managers are having to learn how to give up control and employees are having to learn how to take responsibility for their work and make appropriate decisions. in later chapters of this book we show how empowernient is changing leadership styles, power relationships, the way work is designed, and the way organizations are structured. Stimulating Innovation and Change Whatever happened to W. 1 Grant, Girnbel’s, and Eastern Airlines? All these giants went hustt Why have other giants like General Motors,Sears, Westinghouse, Boeing, and AT&T implemented huge cost-cutting programs and eliminated thousands of jobs? To avoid going hust empowerment Putting employees in charge of whot they do. 18. PART ONE • INTRODUCTION Today’s successful organizations must foster innovation and master the art of change or they will become candidates for extinction. Victory will go to those organizations that maintain their flexibi1it continually improve their qualitc and beat their competition to the marketplace with a constant stream of innovative products and services. Domino’s single-handedly brought on the demise of thousands of small pizza parlon whose managers thought they could continue doing what they had b&n doing for years. Fox Television has successfully stolen a ma jar portion of the under-25 viewing audience from their much larger network rivals through innovative programming like The Sinipsons and Beverly Hills 90210. An organization’s employees can be the impetus for innovation and change, or they can be a major stumbling block. The challenge for managers is to stimulate employee creativity and tolerance for change. The field of organizational behavior provides a wealth of ideas and techniques to aid in realizing these goals.

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ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR CONCEPTS CONTROVERSIES APPLICATIONS Seventh Edition Stephen P. Robbins 1996 Contents Part One • Introduction Chapter 1 What Is Organizational Behavior? 2 Chapter 2 Responding to Global and Cultural Diversity 42 Part Two • The Individual Chapter 3 Foundations of Individual Behavior 80 Chapter 4 Perception and Individual Decision Making 130 Chapter 5 Values, Attitudes, and Job Satisfaction 172 Chapter 6 Basic Motivation Concepts 210 Chapter 7 Motivation: From Concepts to Applications 250 Part Three • The Group Chapter 8 Foundations of Group Behavior 292 Chapter 9 Understanding Work Teams 344 Chapter 10 Communication 374 Chapter 11 Leadership 410 Chapter 12 Power and Politics 460 Chapter 13 Conflict, Negotiation, and Intergroup Behavior 502 Part Four - The Organization System Chapter 14 Foundations of Organization Structure 548 Chapter 15 Technology, Work Design, and Stress 588 Chapter 16 Human Resource Policies and Practices 634 Chapter 17 Organizational Culture 678 Part Five - Organizational Dynamics Chapter 18 Organizational Change and Development 714 CHAPTER I • WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR? What Managers Do Let’s begin by briefly defining the terms manager and the place where managers work—the organization. Then let’s look at the manager’s job; specifically, what do managers do? Managers get things done through other people. They make decisions, allocate resources, and direct the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in an organization. This is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals. Based on this definition, manufacturing and service firms are organizations and so are schools, hospitals, churches, military units, retail stores, police departments, and local, state, and federal government agencies. The people who oversee the activities of others and who are responsible for attaining goals in these organizations are their managers (although they’re sometimes called administrators, especially in not- for-profit organizations). Management Functions In the early part of this century, a French industrialist by the name of Henri Fayol wrote that all managers perform five management functions: They plan, organize, command, coordinate, and control. Today, we’ve condensed these down to four: planning, organizing, leading, and controlling. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there. Since organizations exist to achieve goals, someone has to define these goals and the means by which they can be achieved. Management is that someone. The planning function encompasses defining an organization’s goals, establishing an overall strategy for achieving these goals, and developing a comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activities. Managers are also responsible for designing an organization’s structure. We call this function organizing. It includes the determination of 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. Every organization contains people, and it is management’s job to direct and coordinate these people. This is the leading function. When managers motivate subordinates, direct the activities of others, select the most effective communication channel, or resolve conflicts among members, they are engaging in leading The final function managers perform is controlling. After the goals are set, the plans formulated, the structural arrangements delineated, and the people hired, trained, and motivated, there is still the possibility that some thing may go amiss. To ensure that things are going as they should, management must monitor the organization’s performance. Actual performance must be compared with the previously set goals. If there are any significant deviations, it is management’s job to get the organization back on track. This monitoring, comparing, and potential correcting is what is meant by the controlling function. So, using the functional approach, the answer to the question of what managers do is that they plan, organize, lead, and control. Management Roles In the late 1960s, a graduate student at MIT, Henry Mintzberg, undertook a careful study of five executives to determine what these managers did on their jobs. Based on his observations of these managers, Mintzberg concluded that managers perform ten different highly interrelated roles, or sets of behaviors, attributable to their jobs. These ten roles can be grouped as being primarily concerned with interpersonal relationships, the transfer of information, and decision making. INTERPERSONAL ROLES All managers are required to perform duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature. When the president of a college hands out diplomas at commencement or a factory supervisor gives a group of highschool students a tour of the plant, he or she is acting in a figurehead role. All managers have a leadership role. This role includes hiring, training, motivating, and disciplining employees. The third role within the interpersonal grouping is the liaison role. Mintzberg described this activity as contacting outsiders who provide the manager with information. These may be individuals or groups inside or outside the organization. The sales manager whb obtains information from the personnel manager in his or her own company has an internal liaison relationship. When that sales manager has contacts with other sales executives through a marketing trade association, he or she has an outside liaison relationship. INFORMATIONAL ROLES All managers wills to some degree, receive and collect information from organizations and institutions outside their own. Typically, this is done through reading magazines and talking with others to learn of changes in the pubtic’s tastes, what competitors may be planning, and the like. Mintzberg called this the monitor role. Managers also act as a conduit to transmit information to organizational members. This is the diseminator role. Managers additionally perform a spokesperson role when they represent the organization to outsiders. DECISIONAL ROLES Finally, Mintzherg identified four roles that revolve around the making of choices. In the entrepreneur role, managers initiate and oversee new projects that will improve their organization’s performance. As disturbance handlers, managers take corrective action in response to previously unforeseen problems As resource allocators, managers are responsib]e for allocating human, physical, and monetary resources. Lastly, managers perform a negotiator role, in which they discuss and bargain with other units to gain advantages for their own unit. Management Skills Still another way of considering what managers do is to look at the skills or competencies they need to successfully achieve their goals. Robert Katz has identified three essential management skills: technical, human, and conceptual. Technical skills encompass the ability to apply the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise. When you think of the skills held by professiorials such as civil engineers, tax accountants, or oral surgeons, you typically focus on their technical skills. Through extensive formal education, they have learned the special knowledge and practices of their field. Of course, professional don’t have a monopoly on technical skills and these skills don’t have to be learned in schools or formal training programs. All jobs require some specialized expertise and many people develop their technical skills on the job. The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups, describes human skills. Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent. They might, for example, be poor listeners, unable to understand the needs of others, or have difficulty managing conflicts. Since managers get things done through other people, they must have good human skills to communicate, motivate, and delegate. Managers must have the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations. These are conceptual skills. Decision making, for instance, requires managers to spot problems, identify alternatives that can correct them, evaluate these alternatives, and select the best one. Managers can be technically and interpersonally competent, yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and interpret information. Effective vs. Successful Managerial Activities Fred Luthans’ and his associates looked at the issue of what managers do from a somewhat different perspective. They asked this question: Do managers who move up most quickiy in an organization do the same activities and with the same emphasis as those managers who do the best job? You would tend to think that those managers who were the most effective in their jobs would also be the ones who were promoted fastest. But that’s not what appears to happen. Luthans and his associates studied more than 450 managers. What they found was that these managers all engaged in four managerial activities: 1. Traditional management: Decision making, planning, and controlling. 2. Communication: Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork. 3. Human resource management: Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training. 4. Networking: Socializing, politicking, and interacting with outsiders. The “average” manager studied spent 32 percent of his or her time in traditional management activities, 29 percent communicating, 20 percent in human resource management activities, and 19 percent networking. However, the amount of time and effort that different managers spent on these four activities varied a great deat Specifically, managers who were successful (defined in terms of the speed of promotion within their organization) had a very different emphasis than managers who were effective (defined in terms of the quantity and quality of their performance and the satisfaction and commitment of their subordinates). Networking made the biggest relative contribution to manager success; human resource management activities made the least relative contribution. Among effective managers, communication made the largest relative contribution and networking the least. This study adds important insights to our knowledge of what managers do. On average, managers spend approximately 20 to 30 percent of their time on each of the four activities: traditional management, communication, human resource management, and networking. However, successful managers don’t give the same emphasis to each of these activities as do effective managers. In fact, their emphases are almost the opposite. This challenges the historical assumption that promotions are based on performance, vividly illustrating the importance that social and political skills play in getting ahead in organizations. A Review of the Manager’s Job One common thread runs through the functions, roles, skills, and activities approaches to management: Each recognizes the paramount importance of managing people. As David Kwok found out when he became a manager at The Princeton Review, regardless of whether it’s called “the leading function”, “interpersonal roles”, ”human skills”, or “human resource management and networking activities”, it’s clear that managers need to develop their people skills if they’re going to be effective and successful in their job. Enter organizational behavior We’ve made the case for the importance of people skills. But neither this book nor the discipline on which it rests is called people skills. The term that is widely used to describe the discipline is called organizational behavior (OR) which is a field of study which investiqates the impact study that investigates the impact of individuals, groups, and structure on behavior moi individuak, groups, awi structure ha within organizations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an on bchnvr wilfirn orgarniations, for the organization c effectiveness. That’s a lot of words, so let’s break it down. purpeseof eppln suth bov4edpe Organizational behavior is a field of study. What does it study? It studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure. Additionally, 0B applies the knowledge gained about individuals, groups, and the effect of structure on behavior in order to wake organizations work more effectively. To sum up our definition, OB is concerned with the study of what people do in an organization and howthat behavior affects the performance of the organization. And because OR is specifically concerned with employment-related situations, you should not be surprised to find that it emphasizes behavior as related to jobs, work, absenteeism, employment turnover, productivity, human performance, and management. There is increasing agreement on the components or topics that constitute the subject area of OW While there is still considerable debate about the relative importance of each, there appears to be general agreement that OB includes the core topics of motivation, leader behavior and power, interpersonal communication, group structure and process, learning, attitude development and perception, change processes, conflict, job design, and work stress)’ — Replacing Intuition with Sysfirnatic Study Each of us is a student of behavior. Since our earliest years, we have watched the actions of others and have attempted to interpret what we see. Whether or not you have explicitly thought about it before, you have been “reading” peopie almost all your life. You watch what others do and try to explain to yourself why they have engaged in their behavior. Additionally, you’ve attempted to predict what they might do under different sets of conditions. Generalizations About Behavior You have already developed some generalizations that you find helpful in explaining and predicting what people do and will do. But how did you arrive at these generalizations? You did so by observing, sensing, asking, listening, and reading. That is, your understanding comes either directly from your own eperience with things in the environment, or secondhand, through the experience of others. How accurate are the generalizations you hold? Some may represent extremely sophisticated appraisals of behavior and may prove highly effective in expiaining and prethcting the behavior of others. However, most of us also carry with us a number of beliefs that frequently fail to explain why people do. CHAPTER I • WHAT IS ORGANATIONAL BEHAVIOR what they do. To illustrate, consider the following statements about work. related behavior: 1. Happy workers are productive workers. 2. All individuals are most productive when their boss is fricndly, trusting; arid approachable. 3. Interviews are effective selection devices for separating ob applicants who would be high-performing employees from those who would be low performers. 4. Everyone wants a challenging job. 5. You have to scare people a little to get them to do their jobs. 6. Everyone is motivated by money. 7. Most people are much more concerned with the size of their own salaries than with others’. 8. The most effective work groups are devoid of conflict. How many of these statements do you think are true? For the most part, they are all false, and we touch on each later in this text. But whether these statements are true or false is not really important at this time. What is important is to be aware that many of the views you hold concerning human behavior are based on intuition rather than fact. As a result, a systematic approach to the study of behavior can improve your explanatory and predictive abilitks. Consistency vs. Individual Differences Casual or commonsense approaches to obtaining knowledge about human behavior are inadequate. In reading this text, you will discover that a systematic approach will uncover important facts and relationships, and provide a base from which more accurate predictions of behavior can be made. Underlying this systematic approach is the belief that behavior is not random, It is caused and directed toward some end that the individual believes, rightly or wrongly, is in his or her best interest. Behavior generally is predictable if we know how the person perceived the situation arid what is important to him or her. While people’s behavior may not appear to be rational to an outsider, there is reason to believe it usually is intended to be rational and it is seen as rational by them. An observer often sees behavior as nonrational because the observer does not have access to the same information or does not perceive the environment in the same way.’3 Certainly there are differences between tndividuals. Placed in similar situations, all people do not act alike. However, certain fundamental consistencies underlie the behavior of all individuals that Can be identified and then modified to reflect individual differences, These fundamenta] consistencies are very important. Why? Because they allow predictability. When you gel into your car, you make some definite and usually highly accurate predictions about how other people will behave. In North America, for instance, you would predict that other drivers will stop at stop signs and red lights, drive oct the right side of the road, pass on your left, and not cross the solid double line on mountain roads. Notice that your predictions about the behavior of people behind the wheels of their cars are almost always correct. Obviously, the rules of driving make predictions about driving behavior fairly easy. 12• PART ON ‘ INTRODUCTION o ts us ‘ho nt • I ler4p n the hew ar 4 a i g o si oiled us on 9001 uti *00 u di ohs sc vde’ 1o Ll’flOe i& h ki: ,e,J:rcuo Juobv 0!’ ev die ri s (MI di 0 ra cv, cc nd oh odin s *og olehh’ Mdiii ‘ ‘ unrn n s hoe c ‘MI n’h , e 0 ri, on If doely I systematic study Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on scienfic evidence. intuit’,on A feeling nol necessarily supported by research. What may be less obvious is that there are rules (written and unwritten) in almost every setting. Therefore, it can be argued that it’s possible to predict behavior (undoubtedly not always with 100 percent accuracy) in supermarkets, classrooms, doctors’ offices, elevators, and in most structured situations. To Illustrate further, do you turn around and face the doors when you get into an elevator? Almost everyone does, yet did you ever read you’re supposed to do this? Probably notl Just as I make predictions about automobile drivers (where there are definite rules of the road), I can make predictions about the behavior of people in elevators (where there are few written rules). In a class of 60 students, if you wanted to ask a question of the instructor, I would predict you would raise your hand. Why don’t you clap, stand up, raise your leg, cough, or yell, “Hey, over herd”? The reason is that you have learned raising your hand is appropriate behavior in school. These examples support a major contention in this text: Behavior is generally predictable, and the systematic study of behavior is a means to making reasonably accurate predictions. When we use the phrase “systematic study,” we mean looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and basing our conclusions on scientific evidence, that is, on data gathered under controlled conditions and measured and interpreted in a reasonably rigorous manner. (See Appendix B for a basic review of iesearch methods used in studies of organizational behavior.) Systematic study replaces Intuition or those gut feelings about “why I do what I do” and “what makes others tick.” Of course, a systematic approach does not mean those things you have come to believe in an unsystematic way are necessarily incorrect. Some of the conclusions we make in this text, based on reasonably substantive research findings, will only support what you always knew was true. But you will also be exposed to research evidence that runs counter to what you may have thought was common sense. In fact, one of the challenges of teaching a subject like organizational behavior is to overcome the notion, held by many, that “it’s all common sense.”14 You will find that many of the so-called commonsense views you hold about human behavior are, on closer examination, wrong. Moreover, what one person considers “common sense” frequently runs counter to another’s version of “common sense.” Are leaders born or made? What is it that motivates people at work nowadays? You probably have answers to such questions, and individuals who have not reviewed the research are likely to differ on their answers. The point is that one of the objectives of this text is to encourage you to move away from your intuitive views of behavior toward a systematic analysis, in the belief that such analysis will improve your accuracy in explaining and predicting behavior. CHAPTER I • WHAT 5 ORGANIZATIONAL BHAYIOR? • 13 — Challenges and Opportunities tar GB Understanding organizational behavior has never been more important for managers. A quick look at a few of the dramatic changes now taking plaEe in organizaticins supports this claim. For instance, the typical employee is getting older; more and more women and nonwhites are in the workplace; corporate restructuring and cost cutting are severing the bonds of loyalty that historically tied many employees to their employers; and global competition is requiring employees to be- come more flexible and to learn to cope with rapid change and innovation. In short, there are a lot of challenges and opportunities today for man- -. agers to use OB concepts. In this section, we review some of the more critical issues confronting managt:s for which OB offers solutions—or at least somç meaningful insights toward solutions. Improving Quality and Productivity Tom Rossi manages in a tough business. He runs a light bulb plant in Mattoon, Illinois, for General Electric. Ills business hasseen tough competition from manufacturers in the United States, Europe. Japan, and evei China, To survive, he’s had to cut fat, increase productivity, and improve quality. And he’s succeeded. Between 1988 and 1993, the Mattoon plant has averaged annual cost productivity improvements of approximately 8 percent. By focusing on continuous improvement, streamlining processes, and cost cutting, GE’S Mattoon plant has remained viable and profitable. ‘‘ More and more managers are confronting the challenges that Tom Rossi is facing. They are having to improve their organization’s productivity and the tow quality inMgemmt (TOMI quality of the products and services they offer. Toward improving quality and AphosophyoFinanag4mfltihathdrivefi productivity, they are implementing programs like total quality management and reengineering—programs’ that require extensive emplOyee involvement. wtfaction Through tho cordiuous We discuss total quality management (TQM) at a number of places iinrovement of ofl organlwtieaal throughout this book. As Table 1-2 describes, TQM is a philosophy of manage- processos. ;1 Table 1-2 Wh0t Is Total Quality Manngement?;0] 1 - intense k,cus’r,in tbø customer The custme. includes not only outsiders who buy the: orgarilzcitloWs oducts or seMci, b also Thtemcl ctmWlnen (web as shipping or açeoynt payable personnel) whaintoractwith cøserve others ip the orgonizoaiori} . 2. Concern fbi corffinhtcTl impu-ovethent. TQM Woccmmi;rnerd to never being saiisFied. “Ve’y good.is not good enough. Qudityéan always be improved.. 3. lmprovement4n thcquolfty of everything I$eoiga&zation d0es: TQM uses a very brood definition of quality. Ii rel&es noiily léthe Final product but bow the. orgcnitatian}wndles deliveries; how rapidly j,:resrds Jo complaints, how politely the phoies ore onwered. ondthüiks 4. Accuroe?jsorerneni TQMiises stotiattcaltecniques to medsure every critical performance-variable in the orpanizalioh’s ofreratioris. These perforMance vadableior th&i compared ogaijistfslai4t&6i& Benàhmotki to  enlify problems, the problems are traced to their reots and the couses areeliminated. 5. Empowetmen! of amp! oyees. TQM involves the pàopie cr1 the line in the mpr’-vemen procen. Teams are widely used in TQM-prograrns as empowerment vehices for finding and solving problems. - 14+ PART ONE • INTRODUCT]ON ment that is driven by the constant attainment of customer satisfaction through the continuous improvement of all organizational processes.’6 TQM has implications for 03 because it requires employees to rethink what they do and become more involved in workplace decisions. in times of rapid and dramatic change, it’s someumes necessary to approach improving quality and productivity from the perspective of 41How would we do things around here if we were starting over from scratch?” That, reenginriug in essence, is the approach of reengincering. It asks managers to reconsider Rcconid howweàwouidbcdoa and how work would be done and their organization structured if they were start- the orqanizaliam sirixtured ii they were ing over.17 To illustrate the concept of reengineering, consider a manufacturer h&riq ucciled from SOOt{h. of roller skates. His product is essentially a shoe with wheels beneath it, The typical roller skate was a leather boot with shoelaces, attached to a steel platform that held four wooden wheels. If our manufacturer took a continuous improvement approach to change, he would look for small increniental improvements that he could introduce in his product. For instance, he might consider adding hooks to the upper part of the boot for speed lacing; or changing the weight of leather used for improved comfort; or using different bailbearings to make the wheels spin more smoothly. Now most of us are familiar within- line skates. Ihey represent a reengineering approach to rollerskates. The goal was to come up with a skating device that could improve skating speed, mobility, and control. Rollerbiades fulfilled those goals in a comp?et&y different type of shoe. The upper was made of injected plastic, made popular in skiing. Laces were replaced by easy-close clamps. And the four wheels, set in pairs of two, were replaced by four to six in-line plastic wheels. The reenginee[ed result, which didn’t look much like the traditional toIler skate, proved universafly superior. The rest, of course, is history. In-line skates have revolutionized the roller skate business. Our point is that today’s contemporary managers understand the success of any efforts at improving quality and productivity must include their employees. These employees will not only be a major force in carrying out changes but increasingly will participate actively in planning those changes. OB offers important insights into helping managers work through these changes. improving People Skills We opened this chapter by demonstrating how important people skills are to managerial effectiveness. We said, “This book has been written to help both managers and potential managers develop those people skills.’ As you proceed through this text, we present relevant concepts and theo ties that can help you explain and predict the behavior of people at work. In addition, you’ll also gain insights into specific people skills that you can use on the job. For instance, you’ll learn how to be an effective listener, the proper way to give performance feedback, how to delegate authority, and how to create effective teams. Moreover, you’ll have the opportunity to tomplete exercises that will give you insights into your own behavior, thc bel,avioi of others, and practice at improving your interpersonal skills. Managing Work Force Diversity One of the most important and broad-based challenges curren ly facing US. organizations is adapting to people who are different. The turin we use for describing this challenge is work force diversity. CHAPTER 1 • WHAT [S ORGANIZATIONAL REHAVIOR +15 Work force diversity means that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, and ethnicity. But the term encompasses anyone who varies from the so-called norm. In addition to the more obvious groups—women, African-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, Asian-Americans—it also includes the physically disabled, gays and lesbians, and the elderly. We used to take a melting pot approach to differences in organizations, assuming people who were different would somehow automatically want to assimilate. But we now recognize that employees don’t set aside their cultural values and lifestyle preferences when they come to work. [he challenge for organizations, therefore, is to make themselves more accommodating to diverse groups of people by addressing their different lifestyles, family need, andwork styles. The melting pot assumption is being replaced by one that recognizes and values differences. 8 Haven’t organizations always included members of diverse groups? Yes, but they were a small percentage of the work force and were, for the most part, ignored by large organizations. Moreover, it was assumed these minorities would seek to blend in and assimilate. The bulk of the pre-1980s work force were male Caucasians working full time to support a nonemployed wife and school-aged children. Now such employees are the true minority! Currently, 45 percent of the U.S. labor force are women. Minorities and immigrants make up 22 percent.’9 As a case in point, Hewlett—Packard’s work force is 19 percent minorities and 40 percent women:t A Digital Equipnwnt Co±p, plant in Boston provides a partial preview of the future. The tactorvs 350 employees include men and women from 44 countries who speak 19 languages. When plant management issues written announcements, they are printed in English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Vietnamese, and Haitian Creole. Work force diversity has important implications br management practice. Managers will need to shift their philosophy from treating everyone alike to recognizing differences and responding to those differences in ways that will Honeywells diverse global work force i includes employees who speak 29 lan- pages and represent 47 cultures and 90 ethnic backgrounds. Honeywell strives to create an environment that values individual differences, removes barriers Ia equal opportunity, and empowers employees to develop their talents fully. Among the advisory covndls that the company has formed to identify and resolve common issues are the American Asian Council, American Indian Council, Block Employee Neiwork, Council of Employees with Disabllhies, Hispanic Council, Older Workers teogue, Committee of Vietnam Veterans, Women’s Council, and Work and Family Council. work force diversity The increasing heterogeneity of organizations with the inclusion of different groups. A fj •Vne of the most important and broad-based challenges 1 currently facing US H organizations is adapting to people who are different - - ‘?r FItTTJr7flTh 164 PART ONE • INTRODUC1HON I ensure employee retention and greater productivity—while, at the same time, not discriminating. Diversity, if positively managed, can increase creativity and innovation in organizations as well as improve decision making by providing different perspectives on problems.21 When diversity is not managed properly, there is potential for higher turnover, more difficult communication, and more interpersonal conflicts. We discuss work force diversity in greater detail in Chapter 2. Responding to Globalization Management is no longer constrained by national borders, Burger King is owned by a Eritish firm and McDonald’s sells hamburgers in Moscow. Exxon, a sc-called American company, receives almost 75 percent of its revenues from sales outside the United States. Toyota makes cars in Kentucky; General Motors makes cars in Brazil; and Ford (which owns part of Mazda) transfers executives from Detroit to Japan to help Mazda manage its operations. These examples illustrate that the world has become a global village. In turn, managers have to become capable of working with people from different cultures. Globalization affects a manager’s people skills in at least two ways. First, if you’re a manager you’re increasingly likely to find yourself in a foreign assignment. You’ll be transferred to your employer’s operating division or subsidiary in another country. Once there, you’ll have to manage a work force that is likely to be very different in needs, aspirations, and atlitudes from the ones you were used to back home. Second, even in your own country, you’re going to find yourself working with bosses, peers, and subordinates who were born and raised in different cultures. What motivates you may not motivate them.. While your style of communication may be straightforward and open, they may find this style uncomfortable and threatening. This suggests that if you’re going to be able to work effectively with these people, you’ll need to understand their ,.OOBin the New* - Work-Force Study Finds Divisions of Race and Gender Are Deep Abroad survey of American workers depicts a work force coworkers. Employees under 25 show no greater prefer- euce than older employees showed a stronger preference for diversity in the work- place Unfortunately, few em- that is deeply divided by race and gender The survey, funded by the Families and Work Institute, covered 2,958 wage and salaried workers. One of the survey’s more interesting findings is that younger workers don’t seem any better equipped to cope’ with a more diverse work- [or working with people of other races, ages, or ethnic groups Just over half of stir- veyed workas of all ages said the3fr piefer working with people oithe same. race, sex, gender, and.education. .. Employees, who had greater experIence living or working with people or other ployees have such expert- ence The study found that even workers under 25 had little cont4ct in:the neighbor- hoods where theygrew ufr• With people of dlfferent.cthñic and cultural backgrounds. . . . WeAl Street Juiwnat (SepteTnber 3, 1993), • : . , place than their older races, ethnic groups, and ages p. ni. CHAPTER I • WHAT IS ORGANIZATIONiJ BEHAVIOR2 . 1 Japan’s electronic giant Matsushita Electric Company, maker of Panasonic and National brands, operates more than 150 plants in 38 countries throughout Southeast Asia, North America, Europe, the Middle East, btin America, and Africa. In managing its overseas network of factories that employ 99,000 workers, Matsushib adapts its organizational practices to each country. At its plants in Malaysia, it accommodates the cultural diFferences of Muslim Malays, ethnic Chinese, and Indian employees by offering Chinese, Malaysian, and Indian food in company cafeterias. It accamrnoiotes Muslim religious customs by providing special prayer rooms at each plant and allowing Iwo prayer sessions per shift. Shown here ore Muslim Moloys during a midday prayer break. culture, how it has shaped them, and learn to adapt your management style to these differences. In the next chapter, we provide some frameworks for understanding differences between national cultures. Further, as we discuss OB concepts throughout this book, we focus on how cultural differences might require managers to modify their practices. Empowering People If you pick up any popular business periodical nowadays, you’ll read about the reshaping of the relationship between managers and those they’re supposedly responsible for managing. You’ll lind managers being called coaches, advisers, sponsors, or facilitators.22 In many organizations, employees have become associates. 23 And there’s a blurring between the roles of managers and workers, Decision making is being pushed down to the operating level, where workers are being given the freedom to make choices about schedules, procedures, and solving work-related problems. In the 1980s, managers were encouraged to get their employees to participate in work-related decisions.24 Now, managers are going considerably further by allowing employees full control of their work. Self-managed teams, where workers operate largely without bosses, have become the rage of the 19905.25 What’s going on is that managers are empowering employees. They are putting employees in charge of what they do. And in so doing, managers are having to learn how to give up control and employees are having to learn how to take responsibility for their work and make appropriate decisions. in later chapters of this book we show how empowernient is changing leadership styles, power relationships, the way work is designed, and the way organizations are structured. Stimulating Innovation and Change Whatever happened to W. 1 Grant, Girnbel’s, and Eastern Airlines? All these giants went hustt Why have other giants like General Motors,Sears, Westinghouse, Boeing, and AT&T implemented huge cost-cutting programs and eliminated thousands of jobs? To avoid going hust empowerment Putting employees in charge of whot they do. 18. PART ONE • INTRODUCTION Today’s successful organizations must foster innovation and master the art of change or they will become candidates for extinction. Victory will go to those organizations that maintain their flexibi1it continually improve their qualitc and beat their competition to the marketplace with a constant stream of innovative products and services. Domino’s single-handedly brought on the demise of thousands of small pizza parlon whose managers thought they could continue doing what they had b&n doing for years. Fox Television has successfully stolen a ma jar portion of the under-25 viewing audience from their much larger network rivals through innovative programming like The Sinipsons and Beverly Hills 90210. An organization’s employees can be the impetus for innovation and change, or they can be a major stumbling block. The challenge for managers is to stimulate employee creativity and tolerance for change. The field of organizational behavior provides a wealth of ideas and techniques to aid in realizing these goals.

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