self reflection essay organizational behaviour

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Don’t Underestimate the Power of Self-Reflection

• James R. Bailey
• Scheherazade Rehman

Focus on moments of surprise, failure, and frustration.

Research shows the habit of reflection can separate extraordinary professionals from mediocre ones. But how do you sort which experiences are most significant for your development?

• To answer this questions, the authors asked 442 executives to reflect on which experiences most advanced their professional development and had the most impact on making them better leaders.
• Three distinct themes arose through their analysis: surprise, frustration, and failure. Reflections that involved one or more or of these sentiments proved to be the most valuable in helping the leaders grow.
• Surprise, frustration, and failure. Cognitive, emotional, and behavioral. These parts of you are constantly in motion and if you don’t give them time to rest and reflect upon what you learned from them, you will surely fatigue.

Where your work meets your life. See more from Ascend here .

Empathy, communication, adaptability, emotional intelligence, compassion. These are all skills you need to thrive in the workplace and become a great leader. Time and again, we even hear that these capabilities are the key to making yourself indispensable — not just now but far into the future. Soft skills, after all, are what make us human, and as far as we know, can’t be performed well by technologies like artificial intelligence.

• James R. Bailey is professor and Hochberg Fellow of Leadership at George Washington University. The author of five books and more than 50 academic papers, he is a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, The Hill, Fortune, Forbes, and Fast Company and appears on many national television and radio programs.
• Scheherazade Rehman is professor and Dean’s Professorial Fellow of International Finance. She is director of the European Union Research Center and former Director of World ExecMBA with Cybersecurity, has appeared in front of the U.S. House and Senate, and been a guest numerous times onPBS Newshour, the Colbert Report, BBC World News, CNBC, Voice of America, and C-Span.

Partner Center

• Tools and Resources
• Customer Services
• Affective Science
• Biological Foundations of Psychology
• Clinical Psychology: Disorders and Therapies
• Cognitive Psychology/Neuroscience
• Developmental Psychology
• Educational/School Psychology
• Forensic Psychology
• Health Psychology
• History and Systems of Psychology
• Individual Differences
• Methods and Approaches in Psychology
• Neuropsychology
• Organizational and Institutional Psychology

Personality

• Psychology and Other Disciplines
• Social Psychology
• Sports Psychology
• Share This Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

Article contents

Organizational behavior.

• Neal M. Ashkanasy Neal M. Ashkanasy University of Queensland
•  and  Alana D. Dorris Alana D. Dorris University of Queensland
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.013.23
• Published online: 29 March 2017

Organizational behavior (OB) is a discipline that includes principles from psychology, sociology, and anthropology. Its focus is on understanding how people behave in organizational work environments. Broadly speaking, OB covers three main levels of analysis: micro (individuals), meso (groups), and macro (the organization). Topics at the micro level include managing the diverse workforce; effects of individual differences in attitudes; job satisfaction and engagement, including their implications for performance and management; personality, including the effects of different cultures; perception and its effects on decision-making; employee values; emotions, including emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and the effects of positive and negative affect on decision-making and creativity (including common biases and errors in decision-making); and motivation, including the effects of rewards and goal-setting and implications for management. Topics at the meso level of analysis include group decision-making; managing work teams for optimum performance (including maximizing team performance and communication); managing team conflict (including the effects of task and relationship conflict on team effectiveness); team climate and group emotional tone; power, organizational politics, and ethical decision-making; and leadership, including leadership development and leadership effectiveness. At the organizational level, topics include organizational design and its effect on organizational performance; affective events theory and the physical environment; organizational culture and climate; and organizational change.

• organizational psychology
• organizational sociology
• organizational anthropology

Introduction

Organizational behavior (OB) is the study of how people behave in organizational work environments. More specifically, Robbins, Judge, Millett, and Boyle ( 2014 , p. 8) describe it as “[a] field of study that investigates the impact that individual groups and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purposes of applying such knowledge towards improving an organization’s effectiveness.” The OB field looks at the specific context of the work environment in terms of human attitudes, cognition, and behavior, and it embodies contributions from psychology, social psychology, sociology, and anthropology. The field is also rapidly evolving because of the demands of today’s fast-paced world, where technology has given rise to work-from-home employees, globalization, and an ageing workforce. Thus, while managers and OB researchers seek to help employees find a work-life balance, improve ethical behavior (Ardichivili, Mitchell, & Jondle, 2009 ), customer service, and people skills (see, e.g., Brady & Cronin, 2001 ), they must simultaneously deal with issues such as workforce diversity, work-life balance, and cultural differences.

The most widely accepted model of OB consists of three interrelated levels: (1) micro (the individual level), (2) meso (the group level), and (3) macro (the organizational level). The behavioral sciences that make up the OB field contribute an element to each of these levels. In particular, OB deals with the interactions that take place among the three levels and, in turn, addresses how to improve performance of the organization as a whole.

In order to study OB and apply it to the workplace, it is first necessary to understand its end goal. In particular, if the goal is organizational effectiveness, then these questions arise: What can be done to make an organization more effective? And what determines organizational effectiveness? To answer these questions, dependent variables that include attitudes and behaviors such as productivity, job satisfaction, job performance, turnover intentions, withdrawal, motivation, and workplace deviance are introduced. Moreover, each level—micro, meso, and macro—has implications for guiding managers in their efforts to create a healthier work climate to enable increased organizational performance that includes higher sales, profits, and return on investment (ROE).

The Micro (Individual) Level of Analysis

The micro or individual level of analysis has its roots in social and organizational psychology. In this article, six central topics are identified and discussed: (1) diversity; (2) attitudes and job satisfaction; (3) personality and values; (4) emotions and moods; (5) perception and individual decision-making; and (6) motivation.

An obvious but oft-forgotten element at the individual level of OB is the diverse workforce. It is easy to recognize how different each employee is in terms of personal characteristics like age, skin color, nationality, ethnicity, and gender. Other, less biological characteristics include tenure, religion, sexual orientation, and gender identity. In the Australian context, while the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act of 1992 helped to increase participation of people with disabilities working in organizations, discrimination and exclusion still continue to inhibit equality (Feather & Boeckmann, 2007 ). In Western societies like Australia and the United States, however, antidiscrimination legislation is now addressing issues associated with an ageing workforce.

In terms of gender, there continues to be significant discrimination against female employees. Males have traditionally had much higher participation in the workforce, with only a significant increase in the female workforce beginning in the mid-1980s. Additionally, according to Ostroff and Atwater’s ( 2003 ) study of engineering managers, female managers earn a significantly lower salary than their male counterparts, especially when they are supervising mostly other females.

Job Satisfaction and Job Engagement

Job satisfaction is an attitudinal variable that comes about when an employee evaluates all the components of her or his job, which include affective, cognitive, and behavioral aspects (Weiss, 2002 ). Increased job satisfaction is associated with increased job performance, organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs), and reduced turnover intentions (Wilkin, 2012 ). Moreover, traditional workers nowadays are frequently replaced by contingent workers in order to reduce costs and work in a nonsystematic manner. According to Wilkin’s ( 2012 ) findings, however, contingent workers as a group are less satisfied with their jobs than permanent employees are.

Job engagement concerns the degree of involvement that an employee experiences on the job (Kahn, 1990 ). It describes the degree to which an employee identifies with their job and considers their performance in that job important; it also determines that employee’s level of participation within their workplace. Britt, Dickinson, Greene-Shortridge, and McKibbin ( 2007 ) describe the two extremes of job satisfaction and employee engagement: a feeling of responsibility and commitment to superior job performance versus a feeling of disengagement leading to the employee wanting to withdraw or disconnect from work. The first scenario is also related to organizational commitment, the level of identification an employee has with an organization and its goals. Employees with high organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and employee engagement tend to perceive that their organization values their contribution and contributes to their wellbeing.

Personality represents a person’s enduring traits. The key here is the concept of enduring . The most widely adopted model of personality is the so-called Big Five (Costa & McCrae, 1992 ): extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness. Employees high in conscientiousness tend to have higher levels of job knowledge, probably because they invest more into learning about their role. Those higher in emotional stability tend to have higher levels of job satisfaction and lower levels of stress, most likely because of their positive and opportunistic outlooks. Agreeableness, similarly, is associated with being better liked and may lead to higher employee performance and decreased levels of deviant behavior.

Although the personality traits in the Big Five have been shown to relate to organizational behavior, organizational performance, career success (Judge, Higgins, Thoresen, & Barrick, 2006 ), and other personality traits are also relevant to the field. Examples include positive self-evaluation, self-monitoring (the degree to which an individual is aware of comparisons with others), Machiavellianism (the degree to which a person is practical, maintains emotional distance, and believes the end will justify the means), narcissism (having a grandiose sense of self-importance and entitlement), risk-taking, proactive personality, and type A personality. In particular, those who like themselves and are grounded in their belief that they are capable human beings are more likely to perform better because they have fewer self-doubts that may impede goal achievements. Individuals high in Machiavellianism may need a certain environment in order to succeed, such as a job that requires negotiation skills and offers significant rewards, although their inclination to engage in political behavior can sometimes limit their potential. Employees who are high on narcissism may wreak organizational havoc by manipulating subordinates and harming the overall business because of their over-inflated perceptions of self. Higher levels of self-monitoring often lead to better performance but they may cause lower commitment to the organization. Risk-taking can be positive or negative; it may be great for someone who thrives on rapid decision-making, but it may prove stressful for someone who likes to weigh pros and cons carefully before making decisions. Type A individuals may achieve high performance but may risk doing so in a way that causes stress and conflict. Proactive personality, on the other hand, is usually associated with positive organizational performance.

Employee Values

Personal value systems are behind each employee’s attitudes and personality. Each employee enters an organization with an already established set of beliefs about what should be and what should not be. Today, researchers realize that personality and values are linked to organizations and organizational behavior. Years ago, only personality’s relation to organizations was of concern, but now managers are more interested in an employee’s flexibility to adapt to organizational change and to remain high in organizational commitment. Holland’s ( 1973 ) theory of personality-job fit describes six personality types (realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising, and artistic) and theorizes that job satisfaction and turnover are determined by how well a person matches her or his personality to a job. In addition to person-job (P-J) fit, researchers have also argued for person-organization (P-O) fit, whereby employees desire to be a part of and are selected by an organization that matches their values. The Big Five would suggest, for example, that extraverted employees would desire to be in team environments; agreeable people would align well with supportive organizational cultures rather than more aggressive ones; and people high on openness would fit better in organizations that emphasize creativity and innovation (Anderson, Spataro, & Flynn, 2008 ).

Individual Differences, Affect, and Emotion

Personality predisposes people to have certain moods (feelings that tend to be less intense but longer lasting than emotions) and emotions (intense feelings directed at someone or something). In particular, personalities with extraversion and emotional stability partially determine an individual predisposition to experience emotion more or less intensely.

Affect is also related as describing the positive and negative feelings that people experience (Ashkanasy, 2003 ). Moreover, emotions, mood, and affect interrelate; a bad mood, for instance, can lead individuals to experience a negative emotion. Emotions are action-oriented while moods tend to be more cognitive. This is because emotions are caused by a specific event that might only last a few seconds, while moods are general and can last for hours or even days. One of the sources of emotions is personality. Dispositional or trait affects correlate, on the one hand, with personality and are what make an individual more likely to respond to a situation in a predictable way (Watson & Tellegen, 1985 ). Moreover, like personality, affective traits have proven to be stable over time and across settings (Diener, Larsen, Levine, & Emmons, 1985 ; Watson, 1988 ; Watson & Tellegen, 1985 ; Watson & Walker, 1996 ). State affect, on the other hand, is similar to mood and represents how an individual feels in the moment.

The Role of Affect in Organizational Behavior

For many years, affect and emotions were ignored in the field of OB despite being fundamental factors underlying employee behavior (Ashforth & Humphrey, 1995 ). OB researchers traditionally focused on solely decreasing the effects of strong negative emotions that were seen to impede individual, group, and organizational level productivity. More recent theories of OB focus, however, on affect, which is seen to have positive, as well as negative, effects on behavior, described by Barsade, Brief, and Spataro ( 2003 , p. 3) as the “affective revolution.” In particular, scholars now understand that emotions can be measured objectively and be observed through nonverbal displays such as facial expression and gestures, verbal displays, fMRI, and hormone levels (Ashkanasy, 2003 ; Rashotte, 2002 ).

Fritz, Sonnentag, Spector, and McInroe ( 2010 ) focus on the importance of stress recovery in affective experiences. In fact, an individual employee’s affective state is critical to OB, and today more attention is being focused on discrete affective states. Emotions like fear and sadness may be related to counterproductive work behaviors (Judge et al., 2006 ). Stress recovery is another factor that is essential for more positive moods leading to positive organizational outcomes. In a study, Fritz et al. ( 2010 ) looked at levels of psychological detachment of employees on weekends away from the workplace and how it was associated with higher wellbeing and affect.

Emotional Intelligence and Emotional Labor

Ashkanasy and Daus ( 2002 ) suggest that emotional intelligence is distinct but positively related to other types of intelligence like IQ. It is defined by Mayer and Salovey ( 1997 ) as the ability to perceive, assimilate, understand, and manage emotion in the self and others. As such, it is an individual difference and develops over a lifetime, but it can be improved with training. Boyatzis and McKee ( 2005 ) describe emotional intelligence further as a form of adaptive resilience, insofar as employees high in emotional intelligence tend to engage in positive coping mechanisms and take a generally positive outlook toward challenging work situations.

Emotional labor occurs when an employee expresses her or his emotions in a way that is consistent with an organization’s display rules, and usually means that the employee engages in either surface or deep acting (Hochschild, 1983 ). This is because the emotions an employee is expressing as part of their role at work may be different from the emotions they are actually feeling (Ozcelik, 2013 ). Emotional labor has implications for an employee’s mental and physical health and wellbeing. Moreover, because of the discrepancy between felt emotions (how an employee actually feels) and displayed emotions or surface acting (what the organization requires the employee to emotionally display), surface acting has been linked to negative organizational outcomes such as heightened emotional exhaustion and reduced commitment (Erickson & Wharton, 1997 ; Brotheridge & Grandey, 2002 ; Grandey, 2003 ; Groth, Hennig-Thurau, & Walsh, 2009 ).

Affect and Organizational Decision-Making

Ashkanasy and Ashton-James ( 2008 ) make the case that the moods and emotions managers experience in response to positive or negative workplace situations affect outcomes and behavior not only at the individual level, but also in terms of strategic decision-making processes at the organizational level. These authors focus on affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996 ), which holds that organizational events trigger affective responses in organizational members, which in turn affect organizational attitudes, cognition, and behavior.

Perceptions and Behavior

Like personality, emotions, moods, and attitudes, perceptions also influence employees’ behaviors in the workplace. Perception is the way in which people organize and interpret sensory cues in order to give meaning to their surroundings. It can be influenced by time, work setting, social setting, other contextual factors such as time of day, time of year, temperature, a target’s clothing or appearance, as well as personal trait dispositions, attitudes, and value systems. In fact, a person’s behavior is based on her or his perception of reality—not necessarily the same as actual reality. Perception greatly influences individual decision-making because individuals base their behaviors on their perceptions of reality. In this regard, attribution theory (Martinko, 1995 ) outlines how individuals judge others and is our attempt to conclude whether a person’s behavior is internally or externally caused.

Decision-Making and the Role of Perception

Decision-making occurs as a reaction to a problem when the individual perceives there to be discrepancy between the current state of affairs and the state s/he desires. As such, decisions are the choices individuals make from a set of alternative courses of action. Each individual interprets information in her or his own way and decides which information is relevant to weigh pros and cons of each decision and its alternatives to come to her or his perception of the best outcome. In other words, each of our unique perceptual processes influences the final outcome (Janis & Mann, 1977 ).

Common Biases in Decision-Making

Although there is no perfect model for approaching decision-making, there are nonetheless many biases that individuals can make themselves aware of in order to maximize their outcomes. First, overconfidence bias is an inclination to overestimate the correctness of a decision. Those most likely to commit this error tend to be people with weak intellectual and interpersonal abilities. Anchoring bias occurs when individuals focus on the first information they receive, failing to adjust for information received subsequently. Marketers tend to use anchors in order to make impressions on clients quickly and project their brand names. Confirmation bias occurs when individuals only use facts that support their decisions while discounting all contrary views. Lastly, availability bias occurs when individuals base their judgments on information readily available. For example, a manager might rate an employee on a performance appraisal based on behavior in the past few days, rather than the past six months or year.

Errors in Decision-Making

Other errors in decision-making include hindsight bias and escalation of commitment . Hindsight bias is a tendency to believe, incorrectly, after an outcome of an event has already happened, that the decision-maker would have accurately predicted that same outcome. Furthermore, this bias, despite its prevalence, is especially insidious because it inhibits the ability to learn from the past and take responsibility for mistakes. Escalation of commitment is an inclination to continue with a chosen course of action instead of listening to negative feedback regarding that choice. When individuals feel responsible for their actions and those consequences, they escalate commitment probably because they have invested so much into making that particular decision. One solution to escalating commitment is to seek a source of clear, less distorted feedback (Staw, 1981 ).

The last but certainly not least important individual level topic is motivation. Like each of the topics discussed so far, a worker’s motivation is also influenced by individual differences and situational context. Motivation can be defined as the processes that explain a person’s intensity, direction, and persistence toward reaching a goal. Work motivation has often been viewed as the set of energetic forces that determine the form, direction, intensity, and duration of behavior (Latham & Pinder, 2005 ). Motivation can be further described as the persistence toward a goal. In fact many non-academics would probably describe it as the extent to which a person wants and tries to do well at a particular task (Mitchell, 1982 ).

Early theories of motivation began with Maslow’s ( 1943 ) hierarchy of needs theory, which holds that each person has five needs in hierarchical order: physiological, safety, social, esteem, and self-actualization. These constitute the “lower-order” needs, while social and esteem needs are “higher-order” needs. Self-esteem for instance underlies motivation from the time of childhood. Another early theory is McGregor’s ( 1960 ) X-Y theory of motivation: Theory X is the concept whereby individuals must be pushed to work; and theory Y is positive, embodying the assumption that employees naturally like work and responsibility and can exercise self-direction.

Herzberg subsequently proposed the “two-factor theory” that attitude toward work can determine whether an employee succeeds or fails. Herzberg ( 1966 ) relates intrinsic factors, like advancement in a job, recognition, praise, and responsibility to increased job satisfaction, while extrinsic factors like the organizational climate, relationship with supervisor, and salary relate to job dissatisfaction. In other words, the hygiene factors are associated with the work context while the motivators are associated with the intrinsic factors associated with job motivation.

Contemporary Theories of Motivation

Although traditional theories of motivation still appear in OB textbooks, there is unfortunately little empirical data to support their validity. More contemporary theories of motivation, with more acceptable research validity, include self-determination theory , which holds that people prefer to have control over their actions. If a task an individual enjoyed now feels like a chore, then this will undermine motivation. Higher self-determined motivation (or intrinsically determined motivation) is correlated with increased wellbeing, job satisfaction, commitment, and decreased burnout and turnover intent. In this regard, Fernet, Gagne, and Austin ( 2010 ) found that work motivation relates to reactions to interpersonal relationships at work and organizational burnout. Thus, by supporting work self-determination, managers can help facilitate adaptive employee organizational behaviors while decreasing turnover intention (Richer, Blanchard, & Vallerand, 2002 ).

Core self-evaluation (CSE) theory is a relatively new concept that relates to self-confidence in general, such that people with higher CSE tend to be more committed to goals (Bono & Colbert, 2005 ). These core self-evaluations also extend to interpersonal relationships, as well as employee creativity. Employees with higher CSE are more likely to trust coworkers, which may also contribute to increased motivation for goal attainment (Johnson, Kristof-Brown, van Vianen, de Pater, & Klein, 2003 ). In general, employees with positive CSE tend to be more intrinsically motivated, thus additionally playing a role in increasing employee creativity (Judge, Bono, Erez, & Locke, 2005 ). Finally, according to research by Amabile ( 1996 ), intrinsic motivation or self-determined goal attainment is critical in facilitating employee creativity.

Goal-Setting and Conservation of Resources

While self-determination theory and CSE focus on the reward system behind motivation and employee work behaviors, Locke and Latham’s ( 1990 ) goal-setting theory specifically addresses the impact that goal specificity, challenge, and feedback has on motivation and performance. These authors posit that our performance is increased when specific and difficult goals are set, rather than ambiguous and general goals. Goal-setting seems to be an important motivational tool, but it is important that the employee has had a chance to take part in the goal-setting process so they are more likely to attain their goals and perform highly.

Related to goal-setting is Hobfoll’s ( 1989 ) conservation of resources (COR) theory, which holds that people have a basic motivation to obtain, maintain, and protect what they value (i.e., their resources). Additionally there is a global application of goal-setting theory for each of the motivation theories. Not enough research has been conducted regarding the value of goal-setting in global contexts, however, and because of this, goal-setting is not recommended without consideration of cultural and work-related differences (Konopaske & Ivancevich, 2004 ).

Self-Efficacy and Motivation

Other motivational theories include self-efficacy theory, and reinforcement, equity, and expectancy theories. Self-efficacy or social cognitive or learning theory is an individual’s belief that s/he can perform a task (Bandura, 1977 ). This theory complements goal-setting theory in that self-efficacy is higher when a manager assigns a difficult task because employees attribute the manager’s behavior to him or her thinking that the employee is capable; the employee in turn feels more confident and capable.

Reinforcement theory (Skinner, 1938 ) counters goal-setting theory insofar as it is a behaviorist approach rather than cognitive and is based in the notion that reinforcement conditions behavior, or in other words focuses on external causes rather than the value an individual attributes to goals. Furthermore, this theory instead emphasizes the behavior itself rather than what precedes the behavior. Additionally, managers may use operant conditioning, a part of behaviorism, to reinforce people to act in a desired way.

Social-learning theory (Bandura, 1977 ) extends operant conditioning and also acknowledges the influence of observational learning and perception, and the fact that people can learn and retain information by paying attention, observing, and modeling the desired behavior.

Equity theory (Adams, 1963 ) looks at how employees compare themselves to others and how that affects their motivation and in turn their organizational behaviors. Employees who perceive inequity for instance, will either change how much effort they are putting in (their inputs), change or distort their perceptions (either of self or others in relation to work), change their outcomes, turnover, or choose a different referent (acknowledge performance in relation to another employee but find someone else they can be better than).

Last but not least, Vroom’s ( 1964 ) expectancy theory holds that individuals are motivated by the extent to which they can see that their effort is likely to result in valued outcomes. This theory has received strong support in empirical research (see Van Erde & Thierry, 1996 , for meta-analytic results). Like each of the preceding theories, expectancy theory has important implications that managers should consider. For instance, managers should communicate with employees to determine their preferences to know what rewards to offer subordinates to elicit motivation. Managers can also make sure to identify and communicate clearly the level of performance they desire from an employee, as well as to establish attainable goals with the employee and to be very clear and precise about how and when performance will be rewarded (Konopaske & Ivancevich, 2004 ).

The Meso (Group) Level of Analysis

The second level of OB research also emerges from social and organizational psychology and relates to groups or teams. Topics covered so far include individual differences: diversity, personality and emotions, values and attitudes, motivation, and decision-making. Thus, in this section, attention turns to how individuals come together to form groups and teams, and begins laying the foundation for understanding the dynamics of group and team behavior. Topics at this level also include communication, leadership, power and politics, and conflict.

A group consists of two or more individuals who come together to achieve a similar goal. Groups can be formal or informal. A formal group on the one hand is assigned by the organization’s management and is a component of the organization’s structure. An informal group on the other hand is not determined by the organization and often forms in response to a need for social contact. Teams are formal groups that come together to meet a specific group goal.

Although groups are thought to go through five stages of development (Tuckman, 1965 : forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning) and to transition to effectiveness at the halfway mark (Gersick, 1988 ), group effectiveness is in fact far more complex. For example, two types of conformity to group norms are possible: compliance (just going along with the group’s norms but not accepting them) and personal acceptance (when group members’ individual beliefs match group norms). Behavior in groups then falls into required behavior usually defined by the formal group and emergent behavior that grows out of interactions among group members (Champoux, 2011 ).

Group Decision-Making

Although many of the decisions made in organizations occur in groups and teams, such decisions are not necessarily optimal. Groups may have more complex knowledge and increased perspectives than individuals but may suffer from conformity pressures or domination by one or two members. Group decision-making has the potential to be affected by groupthink or group shift. In groupthink , group pressures to conform to the group norms deter the group from thinking of alternative courses of action (Janis & Mann, 1977 ). In the past, researchers attempted to explain the effects of group discussion on decision-making through the following approaches: group decision rules, interpersonal comparisons, and informational influence. Myers and Lamm ( 1976 ), however, present a conceptual schema comprised of interpersonal comparisons and informational influence approaches that focus on attitude development in a more social context. They found that their research is consistent with the group polarization hypothesis: The initial majority predicts the consensus outcome 90% of the time. The term group polarization was founded in Serge Moscovici and his colleagues’ literature (e.g., Moscovici & Zavalloni, 1969 ). Polarization refers to an increase in the extremity of the average response of the subject population.

In other words, the Myer and Lamm ( 1976 ) schema is based on the idea that four elements feed into one another: social motivation, cognitive foundation, attitude change, and action commitment. Social motivation (comparing self with others in order to be perceived favorably) feeds into cognitive foundation , which in turn feeds into attitude change and action commitment . Managers of organizations can help reduce the negative phenomena and increase the likelihood of functional groups by encouraging brainstorming or openly looking at alternatives in the process of decision-making such as the nominal group technique (which involves restricting interpersonal communication in order to encourage free thinking and proceeding to a decision in a formal and systematic fashion such as voting).

Elements of Team Performance

OB researchers typically focus on team performance and especially the factors that make teams most effective. Researchers (e.g., see De Dreu & Van Vianen, 2001 ) have organized the critical components of effective teams into three main categories: context, composition, and process. Context refers to the team’s physical and psychological environment, and in particular the factors that enable a climate of trust. Composition refers to the means whereby the abilities of each individual member can best be most effectively marshaled. Process is maximized when members have a common goal or are able to reflect and adjust the team plan (for reflexivity, see West, 1996 ).

Communication

In order to build high-performing work teams, communication is critical, especially if team conflict is to be minimized. Communication serves four main functions: control, motivation, emotional expression, and information (Scott & Mitchell, 1976 ). The communication process involves the transfer of meaning from a sender to a receiver through formal channels established by an organization and informal channels, created spontaneously and emerging out of individual choice. Communication can flow downward from managers to subordinates, upward from subordinates to managers, or between members of the same group. Meaning can be transferred from one person to another orally, through writing, or nonverbally through facial expressions and body movement. In fact, body movement and body language may complicate verbal communication and add ambiguity to the situation as does physical distance between team members.

High-performance teams tend to have some of the following characteristics: interpersonal trust, psychological and physical safety, openness to challenges and ideas, an ability to listen to other points of view, and an ability to share knowledge readily to reduce task ambiguity (Castka, Bamber, Sharp, & Belohoubek, 2001 ). Although the development of communication competence is essential for a work team to become high-performing, that communication competence is also influenced by gender, personality, ability, and emotional intelligence of the members. Ironically, it is the self-reliant team members who are often able to develop this communication competence. Although capable of working autonomously, self-reliant team members know when to ask for support from others and act interdependently.

Emotions also play a part in communicating a message or attitude to other team members. Emotional contagion, for instance, is a fascinating effect of emotions on nonverbal communication, and it is the subconscious process of sharing another person’s emotions by mimicking that team member’s nonverbal behavior (Hatfield, Cacioppo, & Rapson, 1993 ). Importantly, positive communication, expressions, and support of team members distinguished high-performing teams from low-performing ones (Bakker & Schaufeli, 2008 ).

Team Conflict

Because of member interdependence, teams are inclined to more conflict than individual workers. In particular, diversity in individual differences leads to conflict (Thomas, 1992 ; Wall & Callister, 1995 ; see also Cohen & Bailey, 1997 ). Jehn ( 1997 ) identifies three types of conflict: task, relationship, and process. Process conflict concerns how task accomplishment should proceed and who is responsible for what; task conflict focuses on the actual content and goals of the work (Robbins et al., 2014 ); and relationship conflict is based on differences in interpersonal relationships. While conflict, and especially task conflict, does have some positive benefits such as greater innovation (Tjosvold, 1997 ), it can also lead to lowered team performance and decreased job satisfaction, or even turnover. De Dreu and Van Vianen ( 2001 ) found that team conflict can result in one of three responses: (1) collaborating with others to find an acceptable solution; (2) contending and pushing one member’s perspective on others; or (3) avoiding and ignoring the problem.

Team Effectiveness and Relationship Conflict

Team effectiveness can suffer in particular from relationship conflict, which may threaten team members’ personal identities and self-esteem (Pelled, 1995 ). In this regard, Murnighan and Conlon ( 1991 ) studied members of British string quartets and found that the most successful teams avoided relationship conflict while collaborating to resolve task conflicts. This may be because relationship conflict distracts team members from the task, reducing team performance and functioning. As noted earlier, positive affect is associated with collaboration, cooperation, and problem resolution, while negative affect tends to be associated with competitive behaviors, especially during conflict (Rhoades, Arnold, & Jay, 2001 ).

Team Climate and Emotionality

Emotional climate is now recognized as important to team processes (Ashkanasy & Härtel, 2014 ), and team climate in general has important implications for how individuals behave individually and collectively to effect organizational outcomes. This idea is consistent with Druskat and Wolff’s ( 2001 ) notion that team emotional-intelligence climate can help a team manage both types of conflict (task and relationship). In Jehn’s ( 1997 ) study, she found that emotion was most often negative during team conflict, and this had a negative effect on performance and satisfaction regardless of the type of conflict team members were experiencing. High emotionality, as Jehn calls it, causes team members to lose sight of the work task and focus instead on the negative affect. Jehn noted, however, that absence of group conflict might also may block innovative ideas and stifle creativity (Jehn, 1997 ).

Power and Politics

Power and organizational politics can trigger employee conflict, thus affecting employee wellbeing, job satisfaction, and performance, in turn affecting team and organizational productivity (Vigoda, 2000 ). Because power is a function of dependency, it can often lead to unethical behavior and thus become a source of conflict. Types of power include formal and personal power. Formal power embodies coercive, reward, and legitimate power. Coercive power depends on fear. Reward power is the opposite and occurs when an individual complies because s/he receives positive benefits from acting in accordance with the person in power. In formal groups and organizations, the most easily accessed form of power is legitimate because this form comes to be from one’s position in the organizational hierarchy (Raven, 1993 ). Power tactics represent the means by which those in a position of power translate their power base (formal or personal) into specific actions.

The nine influence tactics that managers use according to Yukl and Tracey ( 1992 ) are (1) rational persuasion, (2) inspirational appeal, (3) consultation, (4) ingratiation, (5) exchange, (6) personal appeal, (7) coalition, (8) legitimating, and (9) pressure. Of these tactics, inspirational appeal, consultation, and rational persuasion were among the strategies most effective in influencing task commitment. In this study, there was also a correlation found between a manager’s rational persuasion and a subordinate rating her effectively. Perhaps this is because persuasion requires some level of expertise, although more research is needed to verify which methods are most successful. Moreover, resource dependence theory dominates much theorizing about power and organizational politics. In fact, it is one of the central themes of Pfeffer and Salancik’s ( 1973 ) treatise on the external control of organizations. First, the theory emphasizes the importance of the organizational environment in understanding the context of how decisions of power are made (see also Pfeffer & Leblebici, 1973 ). Resource dependence theory is based on the premise that some organizations have more power than others, occasioned by specifics regarding their interdependence. Pfeffer and Salancik further propose that external interdependence and internal organizational processes are related and that this relationship is mediated by power.

Organizational Politics

Political skill is the ability to use power tactics to influence others to enhance an individual’s personal objectives. In addition, a politically skilled person is able to influence another person without being detected (one reason why he or she is effective). Persons exerting political skill leave a sense of trust and sincerity with the people they interact with. An individual possessing a high level of political skill must understand the organizational culture they are exerting influence within in order to make an impression on his or her target. While some researchers suggest political behavior is a critical way to understand behavior that occurs in organizations, others simply see it as a necessary evil of work life (Champoux, 2011 ). Political behavior focuses on using power to reach a result and can be viewed as unofficial and unsanctioned behavior (Mintzberg, 1985 ). Unlike other organizational processes, political behavior involves both power and influence (Mayes & Allen, 1977 ). Moreover, because political behavior involves the use of power to influence others, it can often result in conflict.

Organizational Politics, Power, and Ethics

In concluding this section on power and politics, it is also appropriate to address the dark side, where organizational members who are persuasive and powerful enough might become prone to abuse standards of equity and justice and thereby engage in unethical behavior. An employee who takes advantage of her position of power may use deception, lying, or intimidation to advance her own interests (Champoux, 2011 ). When exploring interpersonal injustice, it is important to consider the intent of the perpetrator, as well as the effect of the perpetrator’s treatment from the victim’s point of view. Umphress, Simmons, Folger, Ren, and Bobocel ( 2013 ) found in this regard that not only does injustice perceived by the self or coworkers influence attitudes and behavior within organizations, but injustice also influences observer reactions both inside and outside of the organization.

Leadership plays an integrative part in understanding group behavior, because the leader is engaged in directing individuals toward attitudes and behaviors, hopefully also in the direction of those group members’ goals. Although there is no set of universal leadership traits, extraversion from the Big Five personality framework has been shown in meta-analytic studies to be positively correlated with transformational, while neuroticism appears to be negatively correlated (Bono & Judge, 2004 ). There are also various perspectives to leadership, including the competency perspective, which addresses the personality traits of leaders; the behavioral perspective, which addresses leader behaviors, specifically task versus people-oriented leadership; and the contingency perspective, which is based on the idea that leadership involves an interaction of personal traits and situational factors. Fiedler’s ( 1967 ) contingency, for example, suggests that leader effectiveness depends on the person’s natural fit to the situation and the leader’s score on a “least preferred coworker” scale.

More recently identified styles of leadership include transformational leadership (Bass, Avolio, & Atwater, 1996 ), charismatic leadership (Conger & Kanungo, 1988 ), and authentic leadership (Luthans & Avolio, 2003 ). In a nutshell, transformational leaders inspire followers to act based on the good of the organization; charismatic leaders project a vision and convey a new set of values; and authentic leaders convey trust and genuine sentiment.

Leader-member exchange theory (LMX; see Graen & Uhl-Bien, 1995 ) assumes that leadership emerges from exchange relationships between a leader and her or his followers. More recently, Tse, Troth, and Ashkanasy ( 2015 ) expanded on LMX to include social processes (e.g., emotional intelligence, emotional labor, and discrete emotions), arguing that affect plays a large part in the leader-member relationship.

Leadership Development

An emerging new topic in leadership concerns leadership development, which embodies the readiness of leadership aspirants to change (Hannah & Avolio, 2010 ). In this regard, the learning literature suggests that intrinsic motivation is necessary in order to engage in development (see Hidi & Harackiewicz, 2000 ), but also that the individual needs to be goal-oriented and have developmental efficacy or self-confidence that s/he can successfully perform in leadership contexts.

Ashkanasy, Dasborough, and Ascough ( 2009 ) argue further that developing the affective side of leaders is important. In this case, because emotions are so pervasive within organizations, it is important that leaders learn how to manage them in order to improve team performance and interactions with employees that affect attitudes and behavior at almost every organizational level.

Abusive Leadership

Leaders, or those in positions of power, are particularly more likely to run into ethical issues, and only more recently have organizational behavior researchers considered the ethical implications of leadership. As Gallagher, Mazur, and Ashkanasy ( 2015 ) describe, since 2009 , organizations have been under increasing pressure to cut costs or “do more with less,” and this sometimes can lead to abusive supervision, whereby employee job demands exceed employee resources, and supervisors engage in bullying, undermining, victimization, or personal attacks on subordinates (Tepper, 2000 ).

Supervisors who are very high or low in emotional intelligence may be more likely to experience stress associated with a very demanding high-performance organizational culture. These supervisors may be more likely to try to meet the high demands and pressures through manipulative behaviors (Kilduff, Chiaburu, & Menges, 2010 ). This has serious implications for employee wellbeing and the organization as a whole. Abusive supervision detracts from the ability for those under attack to perform effectively, and targets often come to doubt their own ability to perform (Tepper, 2000 ).

The Macro (Organizational) Level of Analysis

The final level of OB derives from research traditions across three disciplines: organizational psychology, organizational sociology, and organizational anthropology. Moreover, just as teams and groups are more than the sum of their individual team members, organizations are also more than the sum of the teams or groups residing within them. As such, structure, climate, and culture play key roles in shaping and being shaped by employee attitudes and behaviors, and they ultimately determine organizational performance and productivity.

Organizational Structure

Organizational structure is a sociological phenomenon that determines the way tasks are formally divided and coordinated within an organization. In this regard, jobs are often grouped by the similarity of functions performed, the product or service produced, or the geographical location. Often, the number of forms of departmentalization will depend on the size of the organization, with larger organizations having more forms of departmentalization than others. Organizations are also organized by the chain of command or the hierarchy of authority that determines the span of control, or how many employees a manager can efficiently and effectively lead. With efforts to reduce costs since the global financial crisis of 2009 , organizations have tended to adopt a wider, flatter span of control, where more employees report to one supervisor.

Organizational structure also concerns the level of centralization or decentralization, the degree to which decision-making is focused at a single point within an organization. Formalization is also the degree to which jobs are organized in an organization. These levels are determined by the organization and also vary greatly across the world. For example, Finnish organizations tend to be more decentralized than their Australian counterparts and, as a consequence, are more innovative (Leiponen & Helfat, 2011 ).

Mintzberg ( 1979 ) was the first to set out a taxonomy of organizational structure. Within his model, the most common organizational design is the simple structure characterized by a low level of departmentalization, a wide span of control, and centralized authority. Other organizational types emerge in larger organizations, which tend to be bureaucratic and more routinized. Rules are formalized, tasks are grouped into departments, authority is centralized, and the chain of command involves narrow spans of control and decision-making. An alternative is the matrix structure, often found in hospitals, universities, and government agencies. This form of organization combines functional and product departmentalization where employees answer to two bosses: functional department managers and product managers.

New design options include the virtual organization and the boundaryless organization , an organization that has no chain of command and limitless spans of control. Structures differ based on whether the organization seeks to use an innovation strategy, imitation strategy, or cost-minimization strategy (Galunic & Eisenhardt, 1994 ). Organizational structure can have a significant effect on employee attitudes and behavior. Evidence generally shows that work specialization leads to higher employee productivity but also lower job satisfaction (Porter & Lawler, 1965 ). Gagné and Deci emphasize that autonomous work motivation (i.e., intrinsic motivation and integrated extrinsic motivation) is promoted in work climates that are interesting, challenging, and allow choice. Parker, Wall, and Jackson ( 1997 ) specifically relate job enlargement to autonomous motivation. Job enlargement was first discussed by management theorists like Lawler and Hall ( 1970 ), who believed that jobs should be enlarged to improve the intrinsic motivation of workers. Today, most of the job-design literature is built around the issue of work specialization (job enlargement and enrichment). In Parker, Wall, and Jackson’s study, they observed that horizontally enlarging jobs through team-based assembly cells led to greater understanding and acceptance of the company’s vision and more engagement in new work roles. (In sum, by structuring work to allow more autonomy among employees and identification among individual work groups, employees stand to gain more internal autonomous motivation leading to improved work outcomes (van Knippenberg & van Schie, 2000 ).

The Physical Environment of Work

Ashkanasy, Ayoko, and Jehn ( 2014 ) extend the topic of organizational structure to discuss, from a psychological perspective, how the physical work environment shapes employee attitudes, behaviors, and organizational outcomes. Elsbach ( 2003 ) pointed out that the space within which employees conduct their work is critical to employees’ levels of performance and productivity. In their study, Ashkanasy and his colleagues looked at the underlying processes influencing how the physical environment determines employee attitudes and behaviors, in turn affecting productivity levels. They base their model on affective events theory (Weiss & Cropanzano, 1996 ), which holds that particular “affective” events in the work environment are likely to be the immediate cause of employee behavior and performance in organizations (see also Ashkanasy & Humphrey, 2011 ). Specifically, Ashkanasy and colleagues ( 2014 ) looked at how this theory holds in extremely crowded open-plan office designs and how employees in these offices are more likely to experience negative affect, conflict, and territoriality, negatively impacting attitudes, behaviors, and work performance.

• Organizational Climate and Culture

Although organizational structure and the physical environment are important determinants of employee attitudes and behaviors, organizational culture and climate lie at the heart of organizational interactions (Ashkanasy & Jackson, 2001 ). Organizational culture derives from an anthropological research tradition, while organizational climate is based on organizational psychology.

A central presumption of culture is that, as Smircich ( 1983 ) noted, organizational behavior is not a function of what goes on inside individual employees’ heads, but between employees, as evidenced in daily organizational communication and language. As such, organizational culture allows one organization to distinguish itself from another, while conveying a sense of identity for its members.

Organizational Climate and its Relation to Organizational Culture

Organizational culture creates organizational climate or employees’ shared perceptions about their organization and work environment. Organizational climate has been found to facilitate and/or inhibit displays of certain behaviors in one study (Smith-Crowe, Burke, & Landis, 2003 ), and overall, organizational climate is often viewed as a surface-level indicator of the functioning of the employee/organizational environment relationship (Ryan, Horvath, Ployhart, Schmitt, & Slade, 2000 ). For instance, a more restrictive climate may inhibit individual decision-making in contrast to a more supportive climate in which the organization may intervene at the individual level and in which the ability/job performance relationship is supported (James, Demaree, Mulaik, & Ladd, 1992 ). In a study focused on safety climate, Smith-Crowe and colleagues found that organizational climate is essential in determining whether training will transfer to employee performance, and this is most likely because organizational climate moderates the knowledge/performance relationship. Gibbs and Cooper ( 2010 ) also found that a supportive organizational climate is positively related to employee performance. They specifically looked at PsyCap, the higher-order construct of psychological capital first proposed by Luthans and Youssef ( 2004 ).

Organizational Change

The final topic covered in this article is organizational change. Organizational culture and climate can both be negatively impacted by organizational change and, in turn, negatively affect employee wellbeing, attitudes, and performance, reflecting onto organizational performance. Often, there is great resistance to change, and the success rate of organizational change initiatives averages at less than 30% (Al-Haddad & Kotnour, 2015 ). In order to overcome this resistance, it is important that managers plan ahead for changes and emphasize education and communication about them. As organizations becoming increasingly globalized, change has become the norm, and this will continue into the future.

Additionally, as organizations become increasingly globalized, organizational changes often involve mergers that have important organizational implications. In this regard, Kavanagh and Ashkanasy ( 2006 ) found that, for a merger to be successful, there needs to be alignment between the individual values and organizational cultures of merging partners. Managers during a merger situation need to be especially cognizant of how this organizational change affects the company’s original organizational culture.

Organizational development (OD), a collection of planned change interventions, may be the way to improve organizational performance and increase employee wellbeing. OD focuses on employees respecting one another, trust and support, equal power, confrontation of problems, and participation of everyone affected by the organizational change (Lines, 2004 ). Moreover, when an organization already has an established climate and culture that support change and innovation, an organization may have less trouble adapting to the change.

Organizational change research encompasses almost all aspects of organizational behavior. Individuals and employees are motivated to achieve success and be perceived as successful. In this regard, each of the individual differences—personality, affect, past experiences, values, and perceptions—plays into whether individuals can transcend obstacles and deal with the barriers encountered along the journey toward achievement. Teams are similarly motivated to be successful in a collective sense and to prove that they contribute to the organization as a whole. In addition to individual differences, team members deal with bringing all those individual differences together, which can wreak havoc on team communication and cause further obstacles in terms of power differences and conflicts in regard to decision-making processes. Last, at the organizational level of organizational behavior, it is important to account for all of these micro- and meso-level differences, and to address the complexity of economic pressures, increasing globalization, and global and transnational organizations to the mix. This is at the top level of sophistication because, as emphasized before, just as groups equal much more than the sum of individual members, organizations are much more than the sum of their teams. The organizational structure, the formal organization, the organizational culture, and climate and organizational rules all impact whether an organization can perform effectively. Organizational behavior, through its complex study of human behavior at its very conception, offers much-needed practical implications for managers in understanding people at work.

• Adams, J. S. (1963). Towards an understanding of inequity. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology , 67 , 422–436.
• Al-Haddad, S. , & Kotnour, T. (2015). Integrating the organizational change literature: A model for successful change. Journal of Organizational Change Management , 28 , 234–262.
• Amabile, T. M. (1996). Creativity in context: Update to the social psychology of creativity . Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
• Anderson, C. , Spataro, S. E. , & Flynn, F. J. (2008). Personality and organizational culture as determinants of influence. Journal of Applied Psychology , 93 , 702–710.
• Ardichivili, A. , Mitchell, J. A. , & Jondle, D. (2009). Characteristics of ethical business cultures. Journal of Business Ethics , 85 , 445–451.
• Ashforth, B. E. , & Humphrey, R. H. (1995). Emotion in the workplace: A reappraisal. Human Relations , 48 , 97–125.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. (2003). Emotions in organizations: A multilevel perspective. In F. Danserau & F. J. Yammarino (Eds.), Research in multilevel issues (Vol. 2, pp. 9–54). Oxford: Elsevier.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. , & Ashton-James, C. E. (2008). Affective events theory: A strategic perspective. In W. J. Zerbe , C. E. J. Härtel , & N. M. Ashkanasy (Eds.), Research on emotion in organizations (Vol. 4, pp. 1–34). Bingley, U.K.: Emerald Group Pub.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. , Ayoko, O. B. , & Jehn, K. A. (2014). Understanding the physical environment of work and employee behavior: An affective events perspective. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 35 , 1169–1184.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. , & Dasborough, M. T. (2003). Emotional awareness and emotional intelligence in leadership teaching. Journal of Education in Business , 79 , 18–22.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. , Dasborough, M. T. , & Ascough, K. W. (2009). Developing leaders: Teaching about emotional intelligence and training in emotional skills. In S. J. Armstrong & C. V. Fukami (Eds.), The Sage handbook of management learning, education and development (pp. 161–185). London: SAGE.
• Ashkanasy, N. M & Daus, C. S. (2002). Emotion in the workplace: The new challenge for managers. Academy of Management Executive , 16 , 76–86.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. , & Härtel, C. E. J. (2014). Emotional Climate and culture: The good, the bad, and the ugly. In B. Schneider & K. Barbera (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of organizational culture and climate (pp. 136–152). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. , & Humphrey, R. H. (2011). Current research on emotion in organizations. Emotion Review , 3 , 214–224.
• Ashkanasy, N. M. , & Jackson, C. R. A. (2001). Organizational culture and climate. In N. Anderson , D. S. Ones , H. K. Sinangil , & C. Viswesvaran (Eds.), Handbook of work and organizational psychology (pp. 398–415). London: SAGE.
• Bakker, A. B. , & Schaufeli, W. B. (2008). Positive organizational behavior: Engaged employees in flourishing organizations. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 29 , 147–154.
• Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory . Alexandria, VA: Prentice Hall.
• Barsade, S. G. , Brief, A. P. , & Spataro, S. E. (2003). The affective revolution in organizational behavior: The emergence of a paradigm. In J. Greenberg (Ed.), Organizational behavior: The state of the science (pp. 3–50). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Bass, B. M. , Avolio, B. J. , & Atwater, L. E. (1996). The transformational and transactional leadership of men and women. Applied Psychology: An International Review , 45 , 5–34.
• Bono, J. E. , & Colbert, A. E. (2005). Understanding responses to multi‐source feedback: The role of core self‐evaluations. Personnel Psychology , 58 , 171–203.
• Bono, J. E. , & Judge, T. A. (2004). Personality and transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology , 89 , 901–910.
• Boyatzis, R. E. , & McKee, A. (2005). Resonant leadership: Renewing yourself and connecting with others through mindfulness, hope, and compassion . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Brady, M. K. , & Cronin, J. J., Jr. (2001). Customer orientation: Effects on customer service perceptions and outcome behaviors. Journal of Service Research , 3 , 241–251.
• Britt, T. W. , Dickinson, J. M. , Greene-Shortridge, T. M. , & McKibbin, E. S. (2007). Self-engagement at work. In D. L. Nelson & C. L Cooper (Eds). Positive Organizational Behavior (pp. 143–158). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
• Brotheridge, C. , & Grandey, A. (2002). Emotional labor and burnout: Comparing two perspectives of “people work.” Journal of Vocational Behavior , 60 , 17–39.
• Castka, P. , Bamber, C. J. , Sharp, J. M. , & Belohoubek, P. (2001). Factors affecting successful implementation of high performance teams. Team Performance Management: An International Journal , 7 (7/8), 123–134.
• Champoux, J. E. (2011). Organizational behavior: Integrating individuals, groups and organizations (4th ed.). Florence: Routledge.
• Cohen, S. G. , & Bailey, D. E. (1997). What makes teams work? Group effectiveness research from the shop floor to the executive suite. Journal of Management , 23 , 239–290.
• Conger, J. A. , & Kanungo, R. N. (1988). Charismatic leadership. The elusive factor in organizational effectiveness . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
• Costa, P. T., Jr. , & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO personality inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO five-factor inventory (NEO-FFI) manual . Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.
• De Dreu, C. K. W. , & Van Vianen, A. E. M. (2001). Managing relationship conflict and the effectiveness of organizational teams. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 22 , 309–3278.
• Diener, E. , Larsen, R. J. , Levine, S. , Emmons, R. (1985). Intensity and frequency: Dimensions underlying positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 28 , 1253–1265.
• Druskat, V. U. , & Wolff, S. B. (2001). Building the emotional intelligence of groups. Harvard Business Review , 79 , 81–90.
• Elsbach, K. D. (2003). Relating physical environment to self-categorizations: Identity threat and affirmation in a non-territorial office space. Administrative Science Quarterly , 48 , 622–654.
• Erickson, R. J. , & Wharton, A. S. (1997). Inauthenticity and depression: Assessing the consequences of interactive service work. Work and Occupations , 24 , 188–213.
• Feather, N. T. , & Boeckmann, R. J. (2007). Beliefs about gender discrimination in the workplace in the context of affirmative action: Effects of gender and ambivalent attitudes in an Australian sample. Sex Roles , 57 , 31–42.
• Fernet, C. , Gagne, M. , & Austin, S. (2010). When does quality of relationships with coworkers predict burnout over time? The moderating role of work motivation. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 31 , 1163–1180.
• Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leadership effective ness. New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Fritz, C. , Sonnentag, S. , Spector, P. E. , & McInroe, J. (2010). The weekend matters: Relationships between stress recovery and affective experiences. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 31 , 1137–1162.
• Galunic, D. C. , & Eisenhardt, K. M. (1994). Renewing the strategy-structure-performance paradigm. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 16, pp. 215–255). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.
• Gallagher, E. C. , Mazur, A. K. , & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2015). Rallying the troops or beating the horses? How project-related demands can lead to either high performance or abusive supervision. Project Management Journal , 46 (3), 10–24.
• Gersick, C. J. G. (1988). Time and transition in work teams: Toward a new model of group development. Academy of Management Journal , 31 , 9–41.
• Gibbs, P. C. , & Cooper, C. L. (2010). Fostering a positive organizational culture and climate in an economic downturn. In N. M. Ashkanasy , C. P. M. Wilderom , & M. F. Peterson , The handbook of organizational culture and climate (2d ed., pp. 119–137). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
• Graen, G. B. , & Uhl-Bien, M. (1995). Development of LMX theory of leadership over 25 years: Applying a multi-level, multi-domain perspective. Leadership Quarterly , 6 , 219–247.
• Grandey, A. (2003). When the show must go on: Surface and deep acting as predictors of emotional exhaustion and service delivery. Academy of Management Journal , 46 , 86–96.
• Groth, M. , Hennig-Thurau, T. , & Walsh, G. (2009). Customer reactions to emotional labor: The roles of employee acting strategies and customer detection accuracy. Academy of Management Journal , 52 , 958–974.
• Hannah, S. T. , & Avolio, B. J. (2010). Ready or not: How do we accelerate the developmental readiness of leaders? Journal of Organizational Behavior , 31 , 1181–1187.
• Hatfield, E. , Cacioppo, J. T. , & Rapson, R. L. (1993). Emotional contagion: Current directions. Psychological Science , 2 , 96–99.
• Herzberg, F. (1966). Work and the nature of man . Cleveland, OH: World Publishing.
• Hidi, S. , & Harackiewicz, J. M. (2000). Motivating the academically unmotivated: A critical issue for the 21st century. Review of Educational Research , 70 , 151–179.
• Hobfoll, S. E. (1989). Conservation of resources: A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. American Psychologist , 44 , 513–524.
• Hochschild, A. R. (1983). The managed heart: Commercialization of human feeling . Berkeley: University of California Press.
• Holland, J. (1973). Making vocational choices: Q theory of careers . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Janis, I. L. , & Mann, L. (1977). Decision making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment . New York: Free Press.
• James, L. R. , Demaree, R. G. , Mulaik, S. A. , & Ladd, R. T. (1992). Validity generalization in the context of situational models. Journal of Applied Psychology , 77 , 3–14.
• Jehn, K. A. (1997). A qualitative analysis of conflict types and dimensions in organizational groups. Administrative Science Quarterly , 42 , 538–566.
• Johnson, E. C. , Kristof-Brown, A. L , van Vianen, A. E. M. , de Pater, I. E. , & Klein, M. R. (2003). Expatriate social ties: Personality antecedents and consequences for adjustment. International Journal of Selection and Assessment , 11 , 277–288.
• Judge, T. A. , Bono, J. E. , Erez, A. , & Locke, E. A. (2005). Core self-evaluations and job and life satisfaction: The role of self-concordance and goal attainment. Journal of Applied Psychology , 90 , 257–268.
• Judge, T. A. , Higgins, C. A. , Thoresen, C. J. , & Barrick, M. R. (2006). The Big Five personality traits, general mental ability, and career success across the life span. Personnel Psychology , 52 , 621–652.
• Judge, T. A. , Ilies, R. , & Scott, B. A. (2006). Work-family conflict and emotions: Effects at work and home. Personnel Psychology , 59 , 779–814.
• Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal , 33 , 692–724.
• Kavanagh, M. H. , & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2006). The impact of leadership and change management strategy on organizational culture and individual acceptance of change during a merger. British Journal of Management , 17 , S81–S103.
• Kilduff, M. , Chiaburu, D. S. , & Menges, J. I. (2010). Strategic use of emotional intelligence in organizational settings: Exploring the dark side. Research in Organizational Behavior , 30 , 129–152.
• Konopaske, R. , & Ivancevich, J. M. (2004). Global management and organizational behavior: Text, readings, cases, and exercises . New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Latham, G. P. , & Pinder, C. C. (2005). Work motivation theory and research at the dawn of the twenty-first century. Annual Review of Psychology , 56 , 485–516.
• Lawler, E. E. , & Hall, D. T. (1970). Relationship of job characteristics to job involvement, satisfaction, and intrinsic motivation. Journal of Applied psychology , 54 , 305–312.
• Leiponen, A. , & Helfat, C. E. (2011). Location, decentralization, and knowledge sources for innovation. Organization Science , 22 , 641–658.
• Lines, R. (2004). Influence of participation in strategic change: Resistance, organizational commitment and change goal achievement. Journal of Change Management , 4 (3), 193–215.
• Locke, E. A. , & Latham, G. P. (1990). A theory of goal setting and task performance . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Luthans, F. , & Avolio, B. J. (2003). Authentic leadership development. In K. S. Cameron , J. E. Dutton , & R. E. Quinn (Eds.), Positive organizational scholarship: Foundations of a new discipline (pp. 241–261). San Francisco: Barrett-Koehler.
• Luthans, F. , & Youssef, C. M. (2004). Human, social, and now positive psychological capital management. Organizational Dynamics , 33 , 143–160.
• Martinko, M. J. (1995). The nature and function of attribution theory within the organizational sciences. In. M. J. Martinko (Ed.), Advances in attribution theory: An organizational perspective (pp. 7–14). Delray Beach, FL: St. Lucie Press.
• Maslow, A. H. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review , 50 , 370–396.
• Mayer, J. D. , & Salovey, P. (1997). What is emotional intelligence? In P. Salovey & D. J. Sluyter (Eds.), Emotional development and emotional intelligence: Educational implications (pp. 3–31). New York: Basic Books.
• Mayes, B. T. , & Allen, R. W. (1977). Toward a definition of organizational politics. Academy of Management Journal , 2 , 635–644.
• McGregor, D. (1960). The human side of enterprise . New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Mintzberg, H. (1979). The structuring of organizations: A synthesis of the research . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Mintzberg, H. (1985). The organization as a political arena. Journal of Management Studies , 22 , 133–154.
• Mitchell, T. R. (1982). Motivation: New directions for theory, research, and practice. Academy of Management Review , 7 , 80–88.
• Moscovici, S. , & Zavalloni, M. (1969). The group as a polarizer of attitudes. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 12 , 125–135.
• Murnighan, J. K. , & Conlon, D. E. (1991). The dynamics of intense workgroups: A study of British string quartets. Administrative Science Quarterly , 36 , 165–186.
• Myers, D. G. , & Lamm, H. (1976). The group polarization phenomenon. Psychological Bulletin , 83 , 602–627.
• Ozcelik, H. (2013). An empirical analysis of surface acting in intra-organizational relationships. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 34 , 291–309.
• Ostroff, C. , & Atwater, L. E. (2003). Does whom you work with matter? Effects of referent group and age composition on managers’ compensation. Journal of Applied Psychology , 88 , 725–740.
• Parker, S. K. , Wall, T. D. , & Jackson, P. R. (1997). “That's not my job”: Developing flexible employee work orientations. Academy of Management Journal , 40 , 899–929.
• Pelled, L. H. (1995). Demographic diversity, conflict, and work group outcomes: An intervening process theory. Organization Science , 7 , 615–631.
• Pfeffer, J. , & Leblebici, H. (1973). Executive recruitment and the development of interfirm organizations. Administrative Science Quarterly , 18 , 449–461.
• Pfeffer, J. , & Salancik, G. R. (1973). The external control of organizations: A resource dependence perspective . Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.
• Porter, L. W. , & Lawler, E. E. (1965). Properties of organization structure in relation to job attitudes and job behavior. Psychological Bulletin , 64 , 23–51.
• Rashotte, L. S. (2002). What does that smile mean? The meaning of nonverbal behaviors in social interaction. Social Psychology Quarterly , 65 , 92–102.
• Raven, B. H. (1993). The bases of power: Origins and recent developments. Journal of Social Issues , 49 , 227–251.
• Richer, S. , Blanchard, C. , & Vallerand, R. J. (2002). A motivational model of work turnover. Journal of Applied Social Psychology , 32 , 2089–2113.
• Rhoades, J. A. , Arnold, J. , & Jay, C. (2001). The role of affective traits and affective states in disputants’ motivation and behavior during episodes of organizational conflict. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 22 , 329–345.
• Robbins, S. P. , Judge, T. A. , Millett, B. , & Boyle, M. (2014). Organisational behaviour (7th ed.). French’s Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearson Education.
• Ryan, A. M. , Horvath, M. , Ployhart, R. E. , Schmitt, N. , & Slade, L. A. (2000). Hypothesizing differential item functioning in global employee opinion surveys. Personnel Psychology , 53 , 531–562.
• Scott, W. G. , & Mitchell, T. R. (1976). Organization theory: A structural and behavioral analysis . Homewood, IL: Irwin.
• Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis . New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
• Smircich, L. (1983). Concepts of culture and organizational analysis. Administrative science quarterly , 28 , 339–358.
• Smith-Crowe, K. , Burke, M. J. , & Landis, R. S. (2003). Organizational climate as a moderator of safety knowledge-safety performance relationships. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 24 , 861–876.
• Staw, B. M. (1981). The escalation of commitment to a course of action. Academy of Management Review , 6 , 577–587.
• Tepper, B. J. (2000). Consequences of abusive supervision. Academy of Management Journal , 43 , 178–190.
• Thomas, K. W. (1992). Conflict and negotiation processes in organizations. In M. D. Dunnette , & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (2d ed., Vol. 3, pp. 652–717). Mountain View, CA: Consulting Psychologist Press.
• Tjosvold, D. (1997). Networking by professionals to manage change: Dentists’ cooperation and competition to develop their business. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 18 , 745–752.
• Tse, H. M. M. , Troth, A. M. , & Ashkanasy, N. M. (2015). Leader-member exchange and emotion in organizations. In B. Erdogan & T. N. Bauer (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of leader-member exchange (pp. 209–225). New York: Oxford University Press.
• Tuckman, B. (1965). Developmental sequence in small groups. Psychological Bulletin , 63 , 384–399.
• Umphress, E. E. , Simmons, A. L. , Folger, R. , Ren, R. , & Bobocel, R. (2013). Observer reactions to interpersonal injustice: The roles of perpetrator intent and victim perception. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 34 , 327–349.
• Van Erde, W. , & Thierry, H. (1996). Vroom’s Expectancy models and work-related criteria: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology , 81 , 576–588.
• Van Knippenberg, D. , & Van Schie, E. L. S. (2000). Foci and correlates of organizational identification. Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology , 73 , 137–147.
• Vigoda, E. (2000). Organizational politics, job attitudes, and work outcomes: Exploration and implications for the public sector. Journal of Vocational Behavior , 57 , 326–347.
• Vroom, V. H. (1964). Work and motivation . New York: Wiley.
• Wall, J. , & Callister, R. (1995). Conflict and its management. Journal of Management , 21 , 515–558.
• Wallach, M. A. , Kogan, N. , & Bem D. J. (1964). Diffusion of responsibility and level of risk taking in groups. Journal of Abnormal Social Psychology , 68 , 263–274.
• Watson, D. (1988). The vicissitudes of mood measurement: Effects of varying descriptors, time frames, and response formats on measures of positive and negative affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 55 , 128–141.
• Watson, D. , & Tellegen, A. (1985). Toward a consensual structure of mood. Psychological Bulletin , 98 , 219–235.
• Watson, D. , & Walker, L. M. (1996). The long-term stability and predictive validity of trait measures of affect. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , 70 , 567–577.
• Weiss, H. M. (2002). Deconstructing job satisfaction: Separating evaluations, beliefs and affective experiences. Human Resource Management Review , 12 , 173–194.
• Weiss, H. M. , & Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: A theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experiences at work. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in organizational behavior (Vol. 18, pp. 1–74). Westport, CT: JAI Press.
• West, M. (1996). Reflexivity and work group effectiveness: A conceptual integration. In M. A. West (Ed.), The handbook of work group psychology (pp. 555–579). Chichester, U.K.: Wiley.
• Wilkin, C. L. (2012). I can’t get no job satisfaction: Meta-analysis comparing permanent and contingent workers. Journal of Organizational Behavior , 34 , 47–64.
• Yukl, G. , & Tracey, J. B. (1992). Consequences of influence tactics used with subordinates, peers, and the boss. Journal of Applied Psychology , 77 , 525–535.

Related Articles

• Organizational Sensemaking
• Human Resource Management and Organizational Psychology
• Overqualification in the Workplace
• Communication and Intergroup Relations
• Justice in Teams
• Training from an Organizational Psychology Perspective
• Dual Process Models of Persuasion

Printed from Oxford Research Encyclopedias, Psychology. Under the terms of the licence agreement, an individual user may print out a single article for personal use (for details see Privacy Policy and Legal Notice).

date: 16 May 2024

• Cookie Policy
• Privacy Policy
• Legal Notice
• Accessibility
• [66.249.64.20|185.80.151.41]
• 185.80.151.41

Character limit 500 /500

Introduction to Organizational Behavior

• First Online: 02 August 2023

Cite this chapter

• Josiah Kwia 4  

401 Accesses

1 Citations

Organizational behavior (OB) takes a systematic approach to understand how individuals and groups behave in organizations as well as the relationship between people and organizations. This chapter examines organizational behavior from the viewpoints of professionals and researchers. First, a case is presented describing individuals’ behavior in difficult circumstances, and then a brief definition of organizational behavior follows. Next, we will analyze how organizational behavior differs from human resources. Then we will proceed to OB during the pandemic. We will also review why we study OB: from Taylor’s Principles of Scientific Management to Mayo and Roethlisberger’s Human Relations Theory (Hawthorne Effect), to understand the history of organizational behavior. The following is a synopsis of all the topics that will be discussed in the book. Last, we look at organizational behavior research. This section provides an explanation of why and how we conduct OB research, as well as breaks down various study designs and measurement issues.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

• Available as EPUB and PDF
• Read on any device
• Instant download
• Own it forever
• Durable hardcover edition
• Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
• Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Henri Fayol developed an approach to managing businesses that have come to be known as Fayolism during his career as a mining engineer, executive, author, and director. The development of modern management is generally attributed to Henri Fayol (Fayol, 1949 ). Over the course of the twentieth century, his management theories influenced industrial management practices in a significant way. The ideas of Fayol were developed independently of other theories that were prevalent at the time, such as those of Elton Mayo and Human Relations. Fayol outlined the skills needed for effective management in his 14 Principles of Management. Fayol’s management theories are still used today. Besides the Principles, Fayol identified five basic management functions. Among the management functions are planning, organizing, commanding, coordinating, and controlling. Fayol emphasized that managerial skills are different from technical skills. Moreover, Fayol recognized that management is a field requiring research, teaching, and development. Fayol proposed 14 principles and five functions that form the basis of Administrative Theory. A variety of nonacademics shared their experiences and contributed to its progress. Fayol’s Five Functions of Management originated the planning-organizing-leading-controlling framework that remains an influential management framework throughout the world today.

Abbreviations

Captain Chengquan

Human Resources

Human Relations Theory

National Football Association

National Hockey League

Organizational Behavior

Adams, J. S. (1965). Inequity in social exchange. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 267–299). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.

Google Scholar  

Ammar, A., Chtourou, H., Boukhris, O., Trabelsi, K., Masmoudi, L., Brach, M., et al. (2020). COVID-19 home confinement negatively impacts social participation and life satisfaction: A worldwide multicenter study. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17 , 6237. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17176237

Article   PubMed   PubMed Central   Google Scholar  

Anderson, B. R., Ivascu, N. S., Brodie, D., Weingarten, J. A., Manoach, S. M., Smith, A. J., et al. (2020). Breaking silos: The team-based approach to coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic staffing. Critical Care Explorations, 2 , e0265.

Ashkanasy, N. M., & Dorris, A. D. (2017, March 29). Organizational behavior . Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. https://oxfordre.com/psychology/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780190236557.001.0001/acrefore-9780190236557-e-23

Australian Institute of Health and Welfare. (2021). The first year of COVID-19 in Australia: Direct and indirect health effects . Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

Bilotta, I., Cheng, S., Davenport, M. K., & King, E. (2021). Using the job demands-resources model to understand and address employee well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 14 , 267–273.

Article   Google Scholar  

Coscieme, L., Fioramonti, L., Mortensen, L. F., Pickett, K. E., Kubiszewski, I., Lovins, H., et al. (2020). Women in power: Female leadership and public health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic. MedRxiv .

Dunn, M., Stephany, F., Sawyer, S., Munoz, I., Raheja, R., Vaccaro, G., & Lehdonvirta, V. (2020). When motivation becomes desperation: Online freelancing during the COVID-19 pandemic .

Fayol, H. (1949). General and Industrial management (Trans. C. Stores). Pitman. (Orginally published in 1916.)

Frank, M. G., & Gilovich, T. (1988). The dark side of self- and social perception: Black uniforms and aggression in professional sports. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54 (1), 74–85. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.74

Article   PubMed   Google Scholar  

Ginger. (2020, April). COVID-19: Four radical changes in U.S. worker mental health needs . https://www.ginger.io/resources .

González Ramos, A. M., & García-de-Diego, J. M. (2022). Work–life balance and teleworking: Lessons learned during the pandemic on gender role transformation and self-reported well-being. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 19 , 8468.

Greenberg, J. (1990). Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of pay cuts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 75 , 561–568.

Hannum, L. (2021, June). 7 strategies for effectively managing organizational change . Beehive. https://beehivepr.biz/7-strategies-for-effectively-managing-organizational-change/

Harter, J. (2022, April 25). U.S. employee engagement slump continues . Gallup.com. Retrieved October 25, 2023, from https://www.gallup.com/workplace/391922/employee-engagement-slump-continues.aspx

Irawanto, D. W., Novianti, K. R., & Roz, K. (2021). Work from home: Measuring satisfaction between work–life balance and work stress during the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. Economies, 9 , 96.

Juchnowicz, M., & Kinowska, H. (2021). Employee well-being and digital work during the COVID-19 pandemic. Information, 12 , 293.

Judge, T. A., Thoresen, C. J., Bono, J. E., & Patton, G. K. (2001). The job satisfaction-job performance relationship: A qualitative and quantitative review. Psychological Bulletin, 127 , 376–407.

Li, J. Y., Sun, R., Tao, W., & Lee, Y. (2021). Employee coping with organizational change in the face of a pandemic: The role of transparent internal communication. Public Relations Review, 47 , 101984.

Mayo, E. (1924). The basis of industrial psychology. Bulletin of the Taylor Society, 9 , 249–259.

Mayo, E. (1933). The human problems of an industrial civilization . New York: MacMillan.

Morales-Vives, F., Dueñas, J.-M., Vigil-Colet, A., et al. (2020). Psychological variables related to adaptation to the COVID-19 lockdown in Spain. Frontiers in Psychology, 11 , 565634.

Qiang, D. (2016, January 14). “Self-reported by the people who experienced the Pacific” Escape . Esquire. Retrieved January 12, 2023, from https://web.archive.org/web/20170814112318/http:/www.esquire.com.cn/2016/0114/233205.shtml

Qiang, D. (2019, December 3). Massacre in the Pacific: A personal account by Du Qiang . Words Without Borders. https://wordswithoutborders.org/read/article/2019-12/december-2019-true-crime-massacre-in-the-pacific-personal-account-du-qiang/

Robbins, S. P., Judge, T. A., Millett, B., & Boyle, M. (2014). Organisational behaviour (7th ed.). Pearson Education.

Roethlisberger, F. J., & Dickson, W. J. (1939). Management and the worker . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Silva, C., Albuquerque, P., de Assis, P., Lopes, C., Anníbal, H., Lago, M. C. A., & Braz, R. (2022). Does flossing before or after brushing influence the reduction in the plaque index? A systematic review and meta-analysis. International Journal of Dental Hygiene, 20 , 18–25.

Starcevic, V., & Janca, A. (2022). Personality dimensions and disorders and coping with the COVID-19 pandemic. Current Opinion in Psychiatry, 35 , 73–77. https://doi.org/10.1097/YCO.0000000000000755

Sun, R., Li, J. Y. Q., Lee, Y., & Tao, W. (2021). The role of symmetrical internal communication in improving employee experiences and organizational identification during COVID-19 pandemic-induced organizational change. International Journal of Business Communication, 2021 , 23294884211050628.

Sutton, R. I., & Rafaeli, A. (1988). Untangling the relationship between displayed emotions and organizational sales: The case of convenience stores. Academy of Management Journal, 31 (3), 461–487. https://doi.org/10.5465/256456

Tan, W., Hao, F., McIntyre, R. S., Jiang, L., Jiang, X., Zhang, L., et al. (2020). Is returning to work during the COVID-19 pandemic stressful? A study on immediate mental health status and psychoneuroimmunity prevention measures of Chinese workforce. Brain, Behavior, and Immunity, 87 , 84–92.

Taylor, F. W. (1911). The principles of scientific management . Harper Brothers.

Ward, P. (2022a, September 1). Management theory of Henri Fayol: Summary, examples . NanoGlobals. Retrieved January 9, 2023, from https://nanoglobals.com/glossary/henri-fayol-management-theory/

Ward, P. (2022b, August 15). Frederick Taylor’s principles of scientific management theory . NanoGlobals. Retrieved September 20, 2022, from https://nanoglobals.com/glossary/scientific-management-theory-of-frederick-taylor/

Zhou, X., Vohs, K. D., & Baumeister, R. F. (2009). The symbolic power of money: Reminders of money alter social distress and physical pain. Psychological Science, 20 , 700–706.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Herberger Business School, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN, USA

Josiah Kwia

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Josiah Kwia .

Editor information

Editors and affiliations.

Department of Management & Entrepreneurship, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN, USA

James A. Tan

Department of Art, St. Cloud State University, St. Cloud, MN, USA

Gustavo Valdez Paez

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Kwia, J. (2023). Introduction to Organizational Behavior. In: Hou, N., Tan, J.A., Valdez Paez, G. (eds) Organizational Behavior. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31356-1_1

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-31356-1_1

Published : 02 August 2023

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-031-31355-4

Online ISBN : 978-3-031-31356-1

eBook Packages : Behavioral Science and Psychology Behavioral Science and Psychology (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

• Publish with us

Policies and ethics

• Find a journal
• Track your research

Sample details

• Psychology,
• Relationship
• Conflict resolution
• Words: 2589

Related Topics

• Theory of Mind
• Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
• Mental Illness
• Positive Psychology
• Supersize Me
• Positive Attitude
• Psychological theories
• Self Assessment
• Developmental Psychology
• Abnormal Psychology
• Cognitive Psychology
• Humanistic psychology
• Educational psychology
• Milgram experiment
• Neuropsychology

Self Reflection Organizational Behaviour

This paper will focus on two personal experiences that are connected to theories in the Organizational Behavior book. The aim is to highlight the relevance of these theories in our everyday lives. Rather than following a chronological order, the criterion for this self-reflection paper is based on the significance of these experiences and their influence on my personal and professional development. Starting with the situation that had the greatest impact on my professional life, I will begin this self-reflection.

It is important to provide a detailed description of the most challenging situation encountered in work. To clarify the context, a case study format was used for presenting the first situation involving ESPM Junior, a marketing consultancy company where I worked in Brazil four years ago.

ready to help you now

Without paying upfront

Junior is a student-led company operating as a regular consultancy in college. Each project is overseen by at least two experienced professors, who possess strong academic backgrounds and extensive market experience. The inclusion of these distinguished faculty members makes the service enticing for businesses, as junior companies charge significantly lower fees than “real” firms while benefiting from the support of valuable professionals.

These companies provide services to large businesses and have a hierarchical structure similar to other companies. Promotions in the “Junior” company depend on the employee’s time in the company and passing exams that assess their knowledge of company policies and marketing concepts. Managers, who are typically students with about a year and a half of experience in the company, negotiate with clients alongside guiding teachers. The employees who will actually execute the project do not participate in these negotiations.

During a meeting, students, guiding teachers, and company managers come together to comprehend the client’s requirements and discuss project details. The current scenario involves me being employed by the company for approximately six months and recently being appointed as a project manager. As a result, I am accountable for overseeing both a project and a team consisting of four members. However, due to the timing of the project conclusion and the recruitment process for new students, my team primarily comprises individuals who have recently joined.

Out of the four members, three were newcomers while only one was an “old” employee with a similar tenure as mine. What’s intriguing is that one of the new recruits was actually older and had more experience in academia than me. In other words, I supervised someone who theoretically possessed more knowledge about marketing. The project involved conducting research for a college that wanted to comprehend how students (including those from other universities) perceived this particular institution. Our task was to gather data, organize it into tables, and then conduct an analysis.

The teachers raised the questionnaire questions. After meeting with directors and teachers, it was decided to conduct interviews with three different colleges. Each sample would consist of approximately 300 participants. The interviews were scheduled to take place when the students from these colleges are leaving. However, since the interviewers were also students, it became clear that we would have to skip some classes because our departure time coincided with other colleges’. As a result, we determined that we would need to be present at these distant colleges even before the students left their classrooms.

At first, the team was filled with excitement and enthusiasm for the project. But soon, their initial excitement transformed into frustration as they embarked on the search. The challenge became even more daunting due to students’ eagerness to depart, grab lunch, or attend post-lunch classes. Moreover, they faced the tight constraint of only having one week to interview a grand total of 900 individuals. It wasn’t until later that they discovered an issue with the project’s description, which appeared perplexing. Until that point, all their actions had been fueled by speculation given their collective status as novices in this particular field.

Realizing that the desired results were not being achieved, I decided to convene a meeting with my team. Before the meeting, I pondered the individual qualities of each team member at home and wrote them down. Additionally, I restructured some of our duties in an effort to reignite lost motivation. At the meeting, I actively communicated my ideas and asked for feedback while also acknowledging and highlighting each team member’s strengths. Afterward, I held individual meetings with each of them to express my unwavering belief in their abilities and explain why they are indispensable to the team.

I also completed an activity for each point to show why having a team member on your side is important for the success of the project. The outcome was just as I anticipated – everyone fully embraced the project, working late nights and making sure everything was on track. However, as the project manager, it was my duty to oversee everything. Once I recognized that even with our efforts, finishing the project within a week would be impossible, I had a strong argument to discuss with the directors.

I discovered that the sample set for two out of the three chosen schools did not match the actual number of students in those colleges. Hence, the project was deemed unfeasible. Fortunately, after the meeting, the board rectified the issue by reducing the incorrect samples and extending our deadline by an additional 2 weeks. I then informed my team about this positive development, and they responded with enthusiasm and increased motivation, except for one member.

Carla *, a new student in the company, has been in college longer than all the members and is one of the oldest. During the meeting, she showed unhappiness and did not respond positively to the news. In the days after deciding on the new project, she started skipping or leaving early, citing appointments such as doctor visits, dentist appointments, or therapy sessions. Unfortunately, I ignored these signs and failed to look into what might be going on.

The day after, I spoke with a director at the company who is one of Carla’s classmates. He expressed worry about my team’s lack of control and their high level of demotivation. I defended myself by saying that I was unaware of these problems and thought everything was going smoothly. I mentioned that most team members were fully committed to the project, except for one person possibly. However, despite my attempts to justify myself, the conversation remained tough and unpleasant.

I left the situation feeling deeply wounded and questioning my abilities as a leader, but also harboring a suspicion that the director’s behavior was related to his relationship with Carla. With this realization, I made the decision to have a team discussion where I could share what had occurred and gain insight from everyone’s perspective. Remarkably, every team member except Carla voiced their disagreement with the director’s statements and went so far as to suggest drafting a letter outlining the company’s project flaws and highlighting the team’s positive contributions that had transformed a seemingly doomed venture into a successful one.

Carla did not agree with the rest of the members, expressing her discontent about the situation. She also mentioned her dissatisfaction with my leadership and complained about not being present for the second project meeting. As she continued to voice her frustration, I discovered that her annoyance stemmed from the fact that only one team member was allowed to participate in meetings with managers, according to company policy. I acknowledged her concerns and reminded everyone that this was a standard procedure. I agreed that if anyone from the team should have attended, it should have been me, as I am older and closer to graduating. Carla shouted and looked at everyone, hoping for their approval. However, all the other members defended me, stating that they had always known Carla was envious of my position and would often criticize and invent arguments to justify my supposed incompetence. They also mentioned that they had refrained from sharing their thoughts with me earlier because they feared it would hinder the project’s progress.

Carla attempted to convince them that she was more experienced than me, citing her previous work in large companies and her superior academic performance. She used various other arguments to assert her desire for greater respect within the company. Despite feeling humiliated, I acknowledged that this was her opinion. Despite my surprise and anger, I calmly explained that my intention was for all team members to be present in meetings. Unfortunately, company protocol dictates that there is a designated representative for team meetings, and this role is typically assigned to the project manager.

Regardless of the company, managers are responsible for leading, coordinating, and managing a team. Age or theoretical knowledge of team members does not change the manager’s role. Despite Carla’s reluctance and frequent tardiness, the conversation motivated me to continue progressing the project with the team. In the end, our customer highly praised the project as we accomplished it with excellence and execution.

Three members of the group, without my knowledge, drafted and submitted a letter to managers and teachers. The letter emphasized the significance of my leadership and management during the project, as well as highlighted the company’s failures. In conclusion, Carla attempted to utilize her “expert power” by referencing a concept from chapter 13. She drew upon her knowledge and previous experience in large organizations to persuade other team members.

Carla’s desire to compete has caused a conflict within the group, which is in line with the information discussed in chapter 14: Conflict and Negotiation. In this chapter, it was noted that Carla prioritizes her own interests and does not support the team’s participation in meetings. This uncooperative behavior contradicts the best interests of the team as outlined in this chapter. Additionally, I acknowledge that I mishandled this conflict.

Perhaps, if I had utilized the BATNA (best alternative of a Negotiation Agreement), the situation could have been resolved in a more favorable manner. However, due to feeling offended and hurt, I chose to ignore the issue, inadvertently allowing her to remain excluded and leaving the conflict unresolved. In conclusion, although I am not entirely satisfied with my performance in conflict resolution, I believe I exhibited good leadership skills by successfully engaging and motivating over 70% of the team. I also provided frequent feedback and coaching to my subordinates. Additionally, one of the points mentioned in the letter sent by board officials regarding my performance pertains to chapter 8: Motivation. They emphasized that a significant positive aspect of my management was my ability to motivate the team by individually and collectively demonstrating their motivations for successful job completion. Finally, referencing chapter 11: Communication, I recognize that there was a miscommunication when I noticed that Carla seemed disinterested and frequently made excuses for arriving late or leaving early. Despite the signs, I chose not to address the issue, and Carla also did not make an effort to communicate her discontent and dissatisfaction with the project’s execution.

These two omissions resulted in a conflict that occurred. This situation, which took place during my second job about 9 months ago at AB INBEV, a leading global brewer and one of the world’s top 5 consumer products companies, exemplified elements of leadership and teamwork. Initially, I was highly enthusiastic about my activities, especially since I was warmly welcomed by all my colleagues and particularly my boss, Rodrigo *. Rodrigo was a person with a great heart, easygoing nature, exceptional competence, and strong work ethic. He also excelled at mediating conflicts.

However, as time went on, I observed a flaw in his leadership abilities. He struggled to inspire or engage his team members in the projects they were assigned to. While he was undeniably efficient in executing tasks, he lacked certain crucial qualities that define a true leader. Although he achieved success and consistently delivered positive outcomes, his approach was excessively centered on himself and he would often spend nights at the company working on everything alone before important events such as project deliveries, major meetings, or conferences.

Becoming overwhelmed seemed like an option for him. To worsen matters, just days before the deadline, he would often get overwhelmed and realize it would be impossible to complete everything alone. As a result, he would assign all tasks to his team members, without providing any explanation of the content, implementation, or goals. This caused the employees to interrupt their daily activities, resulting in extreme stress as they had to work under pressure without prior guidance.

However, when Rodrigo was transferred to another city, we were informed that a new manager had been selected. This new manager, Caio*, had a similar personality to Rodrigo’s but followed a different approach to management. One major difference was that Caio insisted on all employees being present at company meetings. He also made a point of checking each employee’s schedule before scheduling any meetings so he could be confident that everyone would be available. Additionally, Caio shared tasks among the team and regularly checked in with each staff member to ensure everything was going smoothly and if they had any questions or required assistance.

Every week, Caio would meet with the team to assess the progress of the project and offer individual meetings for employees who felt uncomfortable discussing problems in a group setting. This resulted in the team surpassing their goals and their management system being adopted by the company as part of a program called “best practices”. In this program, the company promotes the dissemination of the most effective methods to encourage all employees to utilize these techniques.

Moreover, employees who achieved median evaluation marks experienced a minimum increase of two grade levels and, without exception, became more valuable to the company. They received offers from other areas and venues as a result. Consequently, it can be concluded that Rodrigo was an ineffective boss. Not only did he pressure his employees and subject them to highly stressful situations without proper preparation and guidance, but his main flaw was his tendency to centralize activities. As a result, he lacked the time to develop and invest in the professional growth of his staff.

By distributing the tasks among employees, not only would overload be avoided, but also everyone would have the chance to learn and derive personal satisfaction from feeling engaged in important work for the company. However, the manner in which he managed the project resulted in the exclusion and disregard of the staff, who observed employee participation in all aspects of projects in other departments. As a result, they became disheartened and failed to reach their full potential, as they were forced to undertake unplanned and disorganized work instead of following a planned and organized approach.

Quoting the 10th chapter: Understanding work teams, I noticed that Rodrigo lacked understanding of team formation aspects. For instance, he was unaware of the distinction between groups and teams. As a result, we operated in a group format where no one was familiar with each other’s tasks or acknowledged the significance of their colleagues’ work to their own. Unlike effective teams that possess a meaningful purpose, a vision, direction, and commitment for all members, our team didn’t exemplify this. Instead, we worked towards specific goals.

However, the new boss was an exemplary leader who took on the responsibility of creating a cohesive team. With his unique management style, which included a combination of technical expertise, interpersonal skills, problem-solving abilities, and decision-making skills, he was able to transform the pace of work for the employees. As a result, they started to grasp the significance of their projects and received regular feedback on their performance from an effective coach. These changes ultimately led to achieving better results.

Cite this page

https://graduateway.com/self-reflection-essay-organizational-behaviour/

You can get a custom paper by one of our expert writers

• Metacognition
• Alternative dispute resol...
• Stanford prison experiment
• Reflective practice
• Social psychology
• Intimate relationships

Check more samples on your topics

Self reflection and self awareness reflection paper.

Codependency: Self-Reflection and Self-Awareness Reflection Paper Over the past few weeks, I have had the opportunity to engage in self-reflection and analyze the events that have shaped my life. This experience was unique as it allowed me to emotionally prepare myself for examining my past. I was able to objectively revisit many buried and painful events

Consumer Behaviour Models and Consumer Behaviour in Tourism

The theories of consumer decision-making process assume that the consumer’s purchase decision process consists of steps through which the buyer passes in purchasing a product or service. However, this might not be the case. Not every consumer passed through all these stages when making a decision to purchase and in fact, some of the stages

Self-Reflection and Self-Awareness Essay

Self Awareness

Emotional intelligence has recently been arousing the interest of many psychologists and researchers. It has been associated with the kind of intelligence that plays a key role in our performance in various areas in life and serves as a tool to reach our goals more effectively. According to Goleman, emotional intelligence is recognized as “the

Challenges That Face The Organizational Behaviour Business

Employee and client satisfaction are the critical elements of an administration to last in the uninterrupted changing universe. To work efficaciously, the administration must understand the civilization and the diverseness of the employees. Administrations must accommodate to the alterations of engineering and client demands, hence the importance of the work force is a polar function confronting

Sony – Organizational Behaviour

This study has been prepared towards the completion of the Organizational Behavior Case Study 1. The study is an rating of the organisation construction implemented in Sony when Howard Stringer joined as CEO in October 2005. The passage Stringer made of Sony’s organisation construction was from Multinational structural to a multidivisional construction. Hence. this passage

Examples of specific organizational behaviour topics like personality

Organization

This essay will see cardinal rules, theories and illustrations of specific organisational behavior subjects like personality, motive and group and squad working. All three subjects are rather related to each other, because in a group or a squad there are some people with different personalities and they all need those people need a motive to

How can Pfizer achieve competitive advantage through organizational behaviour

How Pfizer can accomplish competitory advantage through organisational behavior and organisational development patterns? Introduction Pfizer has a history as a pioneering company in the medical specialty concern since 1849. The local company had been created by Charles Pfizer and Charles Erhardt in Brooklyn, NY. Pfizer Inc. ( PFE ) over the century has evolved into a planetary

Organizational Behaviour: the Devil Wears Prada

Movies often depict a glimpse into the inner workings of organizations which are complex and fascinating entities that consist of a group of people, who work together. Analyzing how the characters, as individuals and groups, interact with one another allows for an understanding of “how people think, feel and act” within an organization, also referred

Motivation Theory in Organizational Behaviour

Organisational behaviour, as defined by Robbins and Millet and Cacioppe and Waters-Marsh (1998, p.10), is the study of the influence that individuals, groups, and structure have on behaviour within organisations. The purpose of this field of study is to use the gained knowledge to enhance an organisation's effectiveness. Motivation is a significant aspect within organisational

Hi, my name is Amy 👋

In case you can't find a relevant example, our professional writers are ready to help you write a unique paper. Just talk to our smart assistant Amy and she'll connect you with the best match.

Get access to the final draft

You will be notified once the essay is done. You will be sent a mail on your registered mail id about the details of the final draft and how to get it.

Emilie Nilsson

Customer Reviews

What's the minimum time you need to complete my order?

Finished Papers

Our Professional Writers Are Our Pride

EssayService boasts its wide writer catalog. Our writers have various fields of study, starting with physics and ending with history. Therefore we are able to tackle a wide range of assignments coming our way, starting with the short ones such as reviews and ending with challenging tasks such as thesis papers. If you want real professionals some of which are current university professors to write your essays at an adequate price, you've come to the right place! Hiring essay writers online as a newcomer might not be the easiest thing to do. Being cautious here is important, as you don't want to end up paying money to someone who is hiring people with poor knowledge from third-world countries. You get low-quality work, company owners become financial moguls, and those working for such an essay writing service are practically enduring intellectual slavery. Our writing service, on the other hand, gives you a chance to work with a professional paper writer. We employ only native English speakers. But having good English isn't the only skill needed to ace papers, right? Therefore we require each and every paper writer to have a bachelor's, master's, or Ph.D., along with 3+ years of experience in academic writing. If the paper writer ticks these boxes, they get mock tasks, and only with their perfect completion do they proceed to the interview process.