Organizational Behavior Exam 1: Chapters 1-6 – Flashcards

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Interpersonal Skills
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These are important for managers to develop because they help organizations attract and keep high-performing employees
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Manager
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An individual who achieves goals through other people
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Organization
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A consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals
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Management Functions
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Planning, organizing, Leading, controlling
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Interpersonal Roles
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Includes figurehead role, leadership role, and the liaison role
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Informational Roles
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Includes the disseminator role, spokesperson role, and what Mintzberg called the monitor role
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Decisional Roles
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Includes the entrepreneur role, the disturbance handler, resource allocator, and negotiator role
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Mintzberg's Managerial Roles
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Includes interpersonal roles, informational roles, and decisional roles
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Planning
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A process that includes defining goals, establishing strategy, and developing plans to coordinate activities
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Organizing
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Determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, and where decisions are to be made
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Leading
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A function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts.
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Controlling
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Monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations
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Technical Skills
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The ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise
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Human skills
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The ability to work with, understand, and motivate other people, both individually and in groups
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Conceptual Skills
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The mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations
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Managerial Activities
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-Traditional management -Communication -Human resource management -Networking
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Traditional Management
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Decision making, planning, and controlling
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Communication
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Exchanging routine information and processing paperwork
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Human Resource Management
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Motivating, disciplining, managing conflict, staffing, and training
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Networking
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Socializing, potlicking, and interacting with outsiders
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Organizational Behavior
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A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization's effectiveness.
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Systematic Study
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Looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects, and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence
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Evidence-Based Management
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The basing of managerial decisions on the best available scientific evidence
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Intuition
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A gut feeling not necessarily supported by research
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Major Disciplines that Contribute to the OB Field
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-Psychology -Social psychology -sociology -Anthropology
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Psychology
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The science that seeks to measure, explain, and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals
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Social Psychology
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An area of psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another
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Sociology
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The study of people in relation to their social environment or culture
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Anthropology
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The study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities
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Contingency Variables
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Situational factors: variables that moderate the relationship between two or more variables
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Effects of Globalization
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-Increased Foreign Assignments -Working with People from Different Cultures -Overseeing Movement of Jobs to Countries with Low-Cost Labor
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Workforce Diversity
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The concept that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and inclusion of other diverse groups
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Positive Organizational Scholarship (AKA Positive Organizational Behavior)
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An area of OB research that concerns how organizations develop human strength, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential
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Reflected Best-Self
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Asking employees to think about when they were at their "personal belt" in order to understand how to exploit their strengths
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Ethical Dilemmas & Ethical Choices
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Situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct
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Model
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An abstraction of reality. A simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon.
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Inputs
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Variables that lead to processes
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Processes
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Actions that individuals, groups, and organizations engage in as a result of inputs and that lead to certain outcomes
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Outcomes
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Key factors that are affected by some other variables
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Stress
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An unpleasant psychological process that occurs in response to environmental pressures
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Task Performance
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The combination of effectiveness and efficiency at doing your core job tasks
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Citizenship Behavior
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Discretionary behavior that contributes to the psychological and social environment of the workplace
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Withdrawal Behavior
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The set of actions employees take to separate themselves from the organization
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Group Cohesion
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The extent to which members of a group support and validate one another while at work
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Group Functioning
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The quantity and quality of a work group's output
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Productivity
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The combination of the effectiveness and efficiency of an organization
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Effectiveness
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The degree to which an organization meets the needs of its clientele or customers
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Efficiency
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The degree to which an organization can achieve its ends at a low cost
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Organizational Survival
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The degree to which an organization is able to exist and grow over the long term
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Surface-Level Diversity
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Differences in easily perceived characteristics, such as gender, race, ethnicity, age, or disability, that do not necessarily reflect the ways people think or feel but that may activate certain stereotypes
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Deep-Level Diversity
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Differences in values, personality, and work preferences that become progressively more important for determining similarity as people get to know one another better
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Discrimination
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Noting ofa difference between things; often we refer to unfair discrimination, which means making judgments about individuals based on stereotypes regarding their demographic group
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Discriminatory Policies or Practices
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Actions taken by representatives of the organization that deny equal opportunity to perform or unequal rewards for performance
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Sexual Harassment
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Unwanted sexual advances and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that create a hostile or offensive work environment
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Intimidation
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Overt threats or bullying directed at members of specific groups of employees
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Mockery and Insults
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Jokes or negative stereotypes; sometimes the result of jokes taken too far
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Exclusion
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Exclusion of certain people from job opportunities, social events, discussions, or informal mentoring, can occur unintentionally
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Incivility
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Disrespectful treatment, including behaving in an aggressive manner, interrupting the person, or ignoring his or her opinions
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Biographical Characteristics
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Personal characteristics- such as age, gender, race, disability, religion, sexual orientation, and length of tenure- that are objective and easily obtained from personnel records. These characteristics are representative of surface-level diversity
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Ability
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An individual's capacity to perform the various tasks in a job
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Intellectual Abilities
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The capacity to do mental activities- thinking, reasoning, and problem solving
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General Mental Ability (GMA)
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An overall factor of intelligence, as suggested by the positive correlations among specific intellectual ability dimensions
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Physical Abilities
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The capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics
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Diversity Management
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The process and programs by which managers make everyone more aware of and sensitive to the needs and differences of others
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Attitudes
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Evaluative statements or judgments concerning objects, people, or events
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Cognitive component
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The opinion or belief segment of an attitude
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Affective Component
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The emotional or feeling segment of an attitude
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Behavioral Component
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An intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something
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Cognitive Dissonance
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Any incompatibility between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes
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Major Job Attitudes
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These include job satisfaction, job involvement, organizational commitment, perceived organizational support, and employee engagement
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Job Satisfaction
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A positive feeling about one's job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics
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Job Involvement
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The degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively participates in it, and considers performance important to self-worth
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Psychological Empowerment
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Employees' belief in the degree to which they affect their work environment, their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy in their work
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Organizational Commitment
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The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its goals and wishes to maintain membership in the organization
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Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
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The degree to which employees believe an organization values their contribution and cares about their well-being
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Employee Engagement
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An individual's involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the work he or she does
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Main Causes of Job Dissatisfaction
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- On-the-job stress - Pay - Promotion - Work - security - supervisor - Coworkers
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Causes of Job Satisfaction
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- Interdependence - Feedback - Social support - Interaction with co-workers outside the workplace
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Impact of Dissatisfied Employees
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-Exit -Voice -Loyalty -Neglect
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Exit
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Dissatisfaction expressed through behavior directed toward leaving the organization
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Voice
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Dissatisfaction expressed through active and constructive attempts to improve conditions
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Loyalty
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Dissatisfaction expressed by passively waiting for conditions to improve
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Neglect
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Dissatisfaction expressed through allowing conditions to worsen
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Core Self-Evaluations
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Bottom-line conclusions individuals have about their capabilities, competence, and worth as a person
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Deviant Behavior in the Workplace (AKA counterproductive behavior or employee withdrawal)
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Indicated by behavior including unionization attempts, substance abuse, stealing at work, undue socializing, and tardiness
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Affect
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A broad range of feelings that people experience
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Emotions
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Intense feelings that are directed at someone or something
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Moods
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Feelings that tend to be less intense than emotions and that lack a contextual stimulus
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Basic Emotions
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- Anger - Fear - Sadness - Happiness - Disgust - Surprise
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Positive Affect
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A mood dimension that consists of specific positive emotions such as excitement, self-assurance, and cheerfulness at the high end and boredom, sluggishness, and tiredness at the low end
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Negative Affect
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A mood dimension that consists of emotions such as nervousness, stress, and anxiety at the high end and relaxation, tranquility, and poise at the low end
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Positivity Offset
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The tendency of most individuals to experience a mildly positive mood at zero input (when nothing in particular is going on)
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Sources of Emotions and Moods
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-Personality -Day of the week/ Time of Day -Weather -Stress -Social Activities -Sleep -Exercise -Age -Sex
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Affect Intensity
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Individual differences in the strength with which individuals experience their emotions
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Illusory Correlation
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The tendency of people to associate two events when in reality there is no connection
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Emotional Labor
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A situation in which an employee expresses organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work
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Emotional Dissonance
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Inconsistencies between the emotions people feel and the emotions they project
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Felt Emotions
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An individual's actual emotions
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Displayed Emotions
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Emotions that are organizationally required and considered appropriate in a given job
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Surface Acting
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Hiding one's inner feelings and forgoing emotional expressions in response to display rules
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Deep Acting
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Trying to modify one's true inner feelings based on display rules
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Affective Events Theory (AET)
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A model that suggests that workplace events cause emotional reactions on the part of employees, which then influence workplace attitudes and behaviors
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Emotional Intelligence (EI)
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The ability to detect and to manage emotional cues and information
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Arguments in favor of Emotional Intelligence
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-Intuitive appeal - Predicts criteria that matter - Biologically Based
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Arguments Against Emotional Intelligence
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-Researchers do not agree on definitions -Cannot be measured -It is nothing more than personality with a different label
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Emotional Contagion
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The process by which peoples' emotions are caused by the emotions of others
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Personality
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Enduring characteristics that describe an individual's behavior
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Personality Determinants
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-Heredity -Environment
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Heredity
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Factors determined at conception; one's biological, physiological, and inherent psychological makeup
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Personality Traits
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Enduring characteristics that describe an individual's behavior
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Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
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A personality test that taps four characteristics and classifies people into 1 of 16 personality types
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The Big Five Personality Model
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A personality assessment model that taps five basic dimensions: extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience)
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Extraversion
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A personality dimension describing someone who is sociable, gregarious, and assertive
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Agreeableness
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A personality dimension that describes someone who is good natured, cooperative, and trusting
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Conscientiousness
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A personality dimension that describes someone who is responsible, dependable, persistent, and organized
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Emotional Stability
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A personality dimension that characterizes someone as calm, self-confident, secure (positive) versus nervous, depressed, and insecure (negative)
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Openness to experience
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A personality dimension that characterizes someone in terms of imagination, sensitivity, and curiosity
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Machiavellianism
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The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means
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Narcissism
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The tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self-importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement
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Self-Monitoring
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A personality trait that measures an individual's ability to adjust his or her behavior to external, situational factors
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Proactive Personality
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People who identify opportunities, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs
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Other-Orientation
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A personality trait that reflects the extent to which decisions are affected by social influences and concerns vs. our own well-being and outcomes
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Values
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Basic convictions that a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence
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Value System
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A hierarchy based on a ranking of an individual's values in terms of their intensity
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Terminal Values
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Desirable end-states of existence; the goals a person would like to achieve during his or her lifetime
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Instrumental values
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Preferable modes of behavior or means of achieving one's terminal values
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Personality-Job Fit Theory
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A theory that identifies six personality types and proposes that the fit between personality type and occupational environment determines satisfaction and turnover
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Power Distance
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A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society accepts that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally
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Individualism
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A national culture attribute that describes the degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups
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Collectivism
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A national culture attribute that describes a tight social framework in which people expect others in groups of which they are a part to look after them and protect them
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Masculinity
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A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which the culture favors traditional masculine work roles of achievement, power, and control. Societal values are characterized by assertiveness and materialism
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Femininity
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A national culture attribute that indicates little differentiation between male and female roles; a high rating indicates that women are treated as the equals of men in all aspects of the society
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Uncertainty Avoidance
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A national culture attribute that describes the extent to which a society feels threatened by uncertain and ambiguous situations and tries to avoid them
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Long-Term Orientation
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A national culture attribute that emphasizes the future, thrift, and persistence
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Short-Term Orientation
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A national culture attribute that emphasizes the past and present, respect for tradition, and fulfillment of social obligations
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Perception
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A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment
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Factors in the Perceiver
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-Attitudes -Motives -Interests -Experience -Expectations
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Factors in the Situation
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-Time -Work Setting -Social Setting
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Factors in the Target
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-Novelty -Motion -Sounds -Size -Background -Proximity -Similarity
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Attribution Theory
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An attempt to determine whether an individual's behavior is internally or externally caused
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Fundamental Attribution Error
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The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of others
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Self-Serving Bias
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The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors and put the blame for failures on external failures
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Selective Perception
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The tendency to selectively interpret what one sees on the basis of one's interests, background, experience, and attitudes
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Halo Effect
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The tendency to draw a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic
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Contrast Effect
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Evaluation of a person's characteristics that is affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics
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Stereotyping
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Judging someone on the basis of one's perception of the group to which that person belongs
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Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
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A situation in which a person inaccurately perceives a second person, and the resulting expectations cause the second person to behave in ways consistent with the original perception
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Decisions
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Choices made from among two or more alternatives
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Problem
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A discrepancy between the current state of affairs and some desired state
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Rational
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Characterized by making consistent, value-maximizing choices within specified constraints
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Rational Decision-Making Model
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A decision-making model that describes how individuals should behave in order to maximize some outcome
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6 Steps in Rational Decision-Making Model
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1. Define the problem 2. Identify the decision criteria 3. Allocate weights to the criteria 4. Develop the alternatives 5. Evaluate the alternatives 6. Select the best alternative
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Bounded Rationality
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A process of making decisions by constructing simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity
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Intuitive Decisions Making
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An unconscious process created out of distilled experience
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Most Common Biases in Decision-Making
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-Overconfidence bias -Anchoring Bias -Confirmation Bias -Availability Bias
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Anchoring Bias
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A tendency to fixate on initial information, from which one then fails to adequately adjust for subsequent information
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Confirmation Bias
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The tendency to seek out information that reaffirms past choices and to discount information that contradicts past judgments
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Availability Bias
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The tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is readily available to them
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Escalation of Commitment
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An increased commitment to a previous decision in spite of negative information
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Randomness Error
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The tendency of individuals to believe that they can predict the outcome of random events
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Risk Aversion
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The tendency to prefer a sure gain of a moderate amount over a riskier outcome, even if the riskier outcome might have a higher expected payoff
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Hindsight Bias
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The tendency to believe falsely, after an outcome of an event is actually known, that one would have accurately predicted that outcome
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Utilitarianism
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A system in which decisions are made to provide the greatest good for the greatest number
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Whistle-blowers
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Individuals who report unethical practices by their employer to outsiders
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Creativity
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The ability to produce novel and useful ideas
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Three-Component Model of Creativity
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The proposition that individual creativity requires expertise, creative thinking skills, and intrinsic task motivation
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