organisational behaviour essay example

Essay on Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior is the study of how individuals act within groups and how these behaviors impact the organization. Organizational behavior improves business operations such as job performance, increased innovation, high job satisfaction, and encouraging leadership. Organizational performance is considerably related to the employees’ attitudes. Understanding the various aspects of organizational behavior makes it easy for employers to access the feelings, attitudes, and motivation towards their job (Osland et al.,2015). The study introduces people to the concepts and theories about human behavior, which helps replace held notions. Organizational behavior is both a challenge and opportunity to employers due to the study’s focus on reducing absenteeism, increased job satisfaction, and productivity (Osland et al.,2015). The study also guides managers in providing better working conditions, ethical practice, and maximum respect in the workplace.

Every employee is unique, depending on the knowledge and experience they have about the job. Organizational behavior helps leaders to comprehend the motivational tools needed to help their employees reach their full potential (Osland et al.,2015). Leaders must evaluate the organizational structure that acts in the best interests of their employees. For example, recent years have seen corporations such as Google adopt flatter structures that allow employees to operate independently, thus encouraging them to exchange knowledge and acquire more control in decision making.

Performance and Office Characteristics

Behaviors affect employee’s performance. Multiple research pieces provide that employees with positive attitudes are creative and have low-stress levels at work—however, behaviors such as rudeness and gossip lower performance, productivity, and job satisfaction (Pinder, 2014). Organizations with many employees with negative attitudes have conflicts due to miscommunications that reduce overall working morale. The organization and setting of working offices can be a source of good or poor organizational behavior. An open office increases employee’s calmness with crowded offices, causing anxiety and exposure to diseases, breathing problems, among other issues. However, it is unwise to over-densify office spaces because small stations of work make collaboration difficult (Pinder, 2014). Employees take pride in working in successful companies with excellent organizational cultures and have many growth opportunities. A manager’s ability to recognize ways to improve workplace behaviors helps resolve pre-existing problems between workers and promote a healthy working environment.

Organizational behavior does not rely on analysis and conclusions made out of emotions and gut feeling but rather a manager’s ability to collect information concerning an issue in a methodical manner under controlled conditions (Mahek, 2019). The study involves using information and interpreting the findings to analyze the behavior of groups or individuals as desired. Companies exist to fulfill the needs of communities, and for them to survive in today’s competitive world, they must be growth-oriented. Respect for quality, high productivity, and zero errors in these companies ensure their growth merged with great focus on the teams and individuals that run the companies.

Characteristics of Organizational Behavior and Real-Life Application

The study involves rational rather than emotional thinking about individuals. The main aim of organizational behavior lies in explaining, predicting, and understanding human behavior in companies. The study is goal and action-oriented. Also, the study seeks to provide a balance in the technical and human values in the workplace (Mahek, 2019). Organizational behavior achieves productivity by maintaining and constructing worker’s growth, satisfaction, and dignity rather than sacrificing these values. Organizational behavior is an art and science since the study of human behavior leans heavily on science. For instance, modern studies of organizational behavior are critical, experimental, and interpretive, which makes it a revealing science in the search for meaning and knowledge (Mahek, 2019). The study also mixes behavioral sciences such as sociology and psychology, among others. The study has evolved with modern organizational behavior utilizing people’s culture and current events to gain facts and use available paradigms.

Organizational behavior is an important study in real life because it helps one understand their behavior and others (Mahek, 2019). For example, students can use organizational behavior to promote teamwork in school, improve communication, and ultimately promoting a peaceful learning environment. Organizational behavior has helped me understand my views of ethics both in school and in the community. I have always had a problem adapting to new environments and interacting with new people because of my inability to learn behaviors, making it hectic to make friends and express myself while in such places. Having learned about organizational behavior, its characteristics, and the remarkable results the study has on communication, productivity, and attitudes, I now know that I would have handled the situations differently. After the course, new environments and people are no longer a problem since I can effectively utilize the various organizational behavior theories to approach people while understanding their views on some issues, attitudes, and behaviors.

Leadership in Organizational Behavior

In today’s world of business, influential leaders are essential for binding the authority around them. Leadership has countless pitfalls that leaders must learn to avoid since leaders’ mistakes have grave consequences on the societies they lead, businesses, and administrations. Big companies need leadership that harmonizes thousands of people’s energies into a mutual goal, with startup enterprises requiring inspirational leaders that share similar values with their employees (Boekhorst, 2015). Therefore, leadership is a social influence process that aims to increase other people’s efforts in search of a common goal. Different kinds of leadership have different results ranging from effective to chaotic ones. Leaders must assess their personality, strengths, and weaknesses before becoming leaders. A leader in the workplace must connect with the employees and ultimately engage with them to gain their support, cooperation, and respect.

Characteristics and Abilities of Effective Leaders

Emotional Intelligence

Emotional intelligence refers to an individual’s ability to identify their emotions and understand what they are communicating to them. Emotional intelligence also involves a person’s perception of those around you, which creates harmony and respect (Boekhorst, 2015). A leader that does not understand how they feel cannot manage their relationship with others since it is hard for them to relate to their feelings. Emotional intelligence in a leader comprises self-knowledge (awareness), motivation, social skill, empathy, and self-regulation. Each of these facets determines how well a leader gets rounded, thus enabling him/her to excel in the business world.

Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is one of the most important qualities of a leader and trumps all. Every leader, manager, and entrepreneur purposing to make it in business must possess this quality. A leader who has self-awareness knows what motivates them and their decision-making process. When a leader understands their motivation, they can channel the same to the employees to acquire high productivity and harmony (Rao, 2020). Research provides that the energy a leader channels to his/her employees reflects who they are, meaning that a leader who instigates strength to his/her followers Is a strong person who knows their strengths and weaknesses. A self-aware leader is alert to their inner signals, which helps them recognize their feelings and their effects on their job performance. The moral compass helps in decision making, thus deducing the most practical course of action (Rao, 2020). A self-aware leader can see the bigger picture and is genuine about it, giving them the vision to lead and the ability to distinguish between their strengths and weaknesses.

Self-Regulation

Self-regulation refers to the ability to manage one’s emotions in an unrestrained environment. Self-regulation helps leaders to escape the bondage of one’s impulses. Leaders who possess this quality lean toward thoughtfulness and reflection, accepted change and indecision, honesty, and the ability to fight instincts. Self-regulation helps leaders to maintain a positive outlook on life (Rao, 2020). A leader must be able to cool themselves down when upset and cheer themselves up when down. A self-regulated leader is flexible and adapts to various styles or work with their employees and take charge of all situations no matter how challenging. The quality allows one to be an independent actor without needing other people to pull them out of greasy situations or provide the path towards their goals.

A leader cannot be an effective one if they cannot motivate other people. In the workplace, leaders must set goals to ensure a change in their companies and encourage them to follow the same direction (Rao, 2020). Employees mostly do what they have been instructed to do, and without a motivational leader, most would get lost. Successful leaders can motivate people even if it is one of the hardest things to do since people motivate themselves. The secret to being a leader that motivates his/her employees lies in valuing these people than oneself.

Empathy is the strength to relate with and comprehend the needs and views of other people. Empathic leaders can recognize other people’s feelings even when they are not obvious. Empathy sharpens a person’s communication skills in that it guides them on not saying the wrong things when another person is suffering on the inside (Rao, 2020). An empathic leader builds a feeling of importance and belonging to their employees by showing them that their leader cares and is not a heartless detached robot.

Social Skill

The quality refers to a person’s ability to tune into other people’s emotions and comprehend what they think about certain things. This ability helps a leader with team playing, collaboration, and negotiation skills. Active listening and excellent communication skills are important to this quality. Lack of social skills in a leader may result in companies’ collapse due to lack of representation from a coherent external environment (Rao, 2020). The modern world involves leaders assuming that they need to tweet more and send thousands of emails to have social skills, but one needs to be comfortable connecting with other people in person and on social channels.

Leadership Theories

Leadership theories are thoughts that explain why and how certain individuals become leaders. The theories focus on the leader’s characteristics in each school of thought. The theories are:

Great Man Theory

The theory vies leadership as an individual’s heroic act. The theory provides that something special exists about an individual’s combination of abilities and personality traits that sets them up as great leaders, thus distinguishing them from others (Amanchukwu et al., 2015). The theory clings to the fact that leaders are born and not made. Companies tend to focus on persons that possess the ability to inspire others toward a common zeal.

Behavioral Theory

The behavioral theory focuses on the way leaders behave in the workplace. For instance, do leaders just provide rules and expect other people to follow them without question, or do they involve others in the decision-making process (Amanchukwu et al., 2015)? The theory believes leaders can be made from their behaviors and not born as the Great Man Theory holds. Depending on a leader’s behavior, they can become autocratic, democratic, or Laissez-faire leaders.

Situational Theory

The theory focuses on the situational variables without terming one person’s leadership style as better than the others (Amanchukwu et al., 2015). The theory states that different situations call for different leadership styles and the maturity level of the followers.

Transformational Theory

The theory focuses on the relationship between leaders and their followers, emphasizing charismatic and inspirational leaders. The theory focuses on leaders who aim to change their follower’s performance on various tasks (Amanchukwu et al., 2015). Leaders in this theory get motivated by their ability to show their followers that specific tasks are vital and should be highly involved in performing them.

Trait Theory

The theory assumes that leaders are born possessing certain leadership traits, which makes them more suitable for leadership roles than others who lack the natural characteristics (Amanchukwu et al., 2015). The theory upholds the qualities of responsibility, intelligence, accountability, and creativity that make them prosper in leadership.

In conclusion, organizational behavior is a study that focuses on the effect of individual and group behavior in the workplace. The science helps leaders access their employees’ attitudes, feelings, and motivation switches and guide them on their next steps. Through organizational behavior, companies can develop ways to reduce conflicts, improve productivity, build teamwork and create conducive working environments in the workplace. Leadership is a vital concept of organizational behavior and aims at defining the roles, traits, and theories of leadership suitable for different organizational structures and cultures.

Amanchukwu, R. N., Stanley, G. J., & Ololube, N. P. (2015). A review of leadership theories, principles and styles and their relevance to educational management.  Management ,  5 (1), 6-14.

Boekhorst, J. A. (2015). The role of authentic leadership in fostering workplace inclusion: A social information processing perspective.  Human Resource Management ,  54 (2), 241-264.

Mahek, S. (2019, September 28).  Organisational behaviour: Meaning, scope, nature, models & importance . Economics Discussion.  https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/management/organisational-behaviour/31869

Osland, J., Devine, K., & Turner, M. (2015). Organizational behavior.  Wiley Encyclopedia of Management , 1-5.

Pinder, C. C. (2014).  Work motivation in organizational behavior . psychology press.

Rao, S. (2020, March 23).  The mini-guide to effective leadership in the workplace . A Blog About Payroll, Small Business and More | Wagepoint.  https://blog.wagepoint.com/all-content/the-mini-guide-to-effective-leadership-in-the-workplace

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Free Sample Essay on Organizational Behaviour

• Emily Scott

Organizational Behavior can be defined as understanding, controlling and predicting human behavior at work. It is the study and application of knowledge on how people behave and act within organization. It has proven to be a good tool for human benefits. It applies to the behavior of all people in all types of organization like government, business, schools, etc. It helps structure, people, external environment and technology to mix together to form an effective environment.

Organizational Behavior has Some Basic Assumptions that are:

• Any industrial enterprise can be seen as an organization of people.
• Peoples who are working with the organization should be motivated to work effectively.
• The goals of the employer and the employee may not be the same.
• The procedures and policies adopted by an enterprise can influence people in directions not always foreseen by policy makers.

Fundamental Concepts of  Organizational Behavior

• Individual Differences within Organization:  The concept tells that every person has an entity in himself. Two persons having same behavioral problems are to be treated differently. This concept tells that a manager should not only examine his own stereotypes but also should also treat every person as an entity in himself.
• Whole Person: This concept tells that a company hires not only the hands of employees but a complete man with its pluses and minuses. It tells that a manager should take into account the other roles of a person when it comes to behavioral problems.
• Motivation to Employee: This concept reminds the manager about the law enunciated by Newton which states that “to every action there is equal and opposite reaction”. It means that a manager with his own behavior can cause an employee to behave in a particular way. The employees are bound to respect the manager if the manager is respectful to his employees.

Goals of Organizational Behaviour

• The first goal is to motivate the employees to give better performance to increase the production and services of the organization.
• The second goal is to concentrate on team performance by minimizing politics and getting support from the leaders of the organization.

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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.

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Organizational Behavior: Teamwork and Leadership Essay

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Teamwork is significant to the success of an organization. Teams are significant vehicles for the establishment of valuable solutions to the arising problems. Nevertheless, the creation and management of successful teams is not an easy task (Alexiev, Volberda, & Van den Bosch, 2016). For instance, it has been established that as the size of the group increases, the likelihood of collaborating efficiently reduces.

Large groups demand favorable conditions and motivation for enhanced cooperation and success. Large teams are less cohesive and have more communication problems than small ones. The realization of a positive organizational environment calls for a thoughtful process; significant investment of time, energy, and effort; and excellent conflict resolution, collaboration, communication, coordination, and comfort. Creativity is boosted when employees operate jointly. Members of a group should develop open, opportune, and respectful communication to safeguard their collective welfare. Effective communication arises when the members of a group are at ease expressing sentiments and ideas and are open to different viewpoints.

The attributes of a strong and successful group encompass effective communication, facilitated morale, excellent leadership, and the ability of the members to perceive themselves as valuable players. The members of a group usually become frustrated or displeased when they find that their opinions do not count or are not permitted to give their views regarding daily operations (De Jong, Dirks, & Gillespie, 2016).

Successful leaders should maintain the morale of group members high by promoting everyone’s contribution and valuing the recommendations offered. The members of a group desire to feel proud not just of being on the team but also having their ideas, achievements, efforts, and contributions treasured. On this note, leaders ought to create and uphold a delicate balance between encouraging every member’s input and recognizing them as individual participants.

Strong leadership is crucial for the realization of organizational goals. Successful leaders identify the significance of the supportive backing of the group, in addition to its people, center on every stakeholder, and seek the views of clients or supporters (De Jong et al., 2016).

Moreover, such leaders engage all members of the group and come up with smart, reasonable, well-defined, and excellently planned objectives. In this manner, the leaders generate a setting of mutual respect and trust while motivating the team members to become diligent. Effective leadership motivates the members of the group to collaborate toward common objectives, get involved in problem resolution, sustain individual responsibility, and discover a sustainable work-life balance.

The basis of any outstanding team is management that strengthens, orients, and ensures positive interactions of the members. A group cannot be motivated if the members do not understand what is expected of them or the objectives they are seeking to attain as a team (Cheruvelil et al., 2014). The goals set by a team ought to be challenging but not so demanding that the members become discouraged.

The set objectives should be consequential to make the members have the opportunity of receiving extrinsic incentives such as recognition, compensation, promotion, and intrinsic rewards; for instance, satisfaction and self-worth. Diversity is vital to the success of a team but necessitates proper management to achieve its potential. The connection of diverse standpoints may result in a profound conceptual reformation and fresh insights. If well managed, diversity has the capacity of increasing efficiency, morale, and creativity. This does not just rely on varied views but also exceptional addressing of arising conflicts, in addition to the smooth execution of novel and improved strategies.

Alexiev, A. S., Volberda, H. W., & Van den Bosch, F. A. (2016). Interorganizational collaboration and firm innovativeness: Unpacking the role of the organizational environment. Journal of Business Research , 69 (2), 974-984.

Cheruvelil, K. S., Soranno, P. A., Weathers, K. C., Hanson, P. C., Goring, S. J., Filstrup, C. T., & Read, E. K. (2014). Creating and maintaining high‐performing collaborative research teams: The importance of diversity and interpersonal skills. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment , 12 (1), 31-38.

De Jong, B. A., Dirks, K. T., & Gillespie, N. (2016). Trust and team performance: A meta-analysis of main effects, moderators, and covariates. Journal of Applied Psychology , 101 (8), 1134-1138.

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Sample Undergraduate Organisational Behaviour Essay

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Organisations, People, and Performance

Organisational culture, management, and the human resources of a business are all connected. Unilever is one of the top user goods businesses in the international economy. Unilever Company was started in 1930 established by the British based lever brothers and Dutch Margarine Company.

The case study investigates the Unilever Human Resource Management and what Unilever does for employee efficiency and organisational performance. Unilever is a much-known brand, and it has been working on its HR strategies for an extended period. The case study explains Unilever’s business tactics, human resource management, and how Unilever manages to keep the corporate environment better for its employees.

Keywords: Organisational culture, human resources, organisational performance.

A case study on Unilever

There are many business types globally, where there are many problems associated with the company’s progress, and different policies will allow other businesses to achieve their objectives. Unilever Company was started in 1930 established by the British based lever brothers and Dutch Margarine Company. Unilever has a wide variety of products, including food, beverages, canned foods, ice creams, personal care, and much more, which are the world’s most acceptable consumer trademark. The case study explains a lot of info about Unilever’s business tactics, human resource management, and how Unilever manages to keep the organisational environment better for its employees .

HRM Strategy Aligning With the Business Strategy

Many views go into establishing a go-to-market or business strategy. From brand messaging to product planning to sales dealings, active business strategies also depend on many people across various sectors .

The change of culture around the globe has a considerably large impact on individuals and firms. Every professional decision has a real-life influence, and Human Resource departments are exceptionally prepared to notify strategy and help staff manage the substantial changes. There are some reasons why it is so essential for HR to align with business strategies .

• Work-in pattern with the rest of the company
• Associating with business tactics gives Human Resource strategic attention and helps highlight objectives.
• Considering the business’s strategic objectives will benefit HR invite and keep the right talent at the right stage.

Recommending and Critically Evaluating a Suitable HRM Strategy Aligned with the Business Strategy for Unilever

Unilever is a vast organisation that is widely spread, endorsing its dominance over its opponents, sustaining every potential forecasting along with the practical goals recommended by the administration. Business management understands that certain common aspects are ultimately growing the business manageability .

So how do Human Resources become part of the more comprehensive business decision-making procedure? It starts with making healthy ideas for the unit and strong morals for the whole business. Businesses with typical values are less likely to overlook the realistic effect of any strategy changes or huge decisions. Consider these steps as you start.

Align and Set your HR Objectives:

• The way businesses are organised mostly depends on their present strategic goals and growth stages. Organisational structure may help in achieving the goals.
• Maybe existing business objectives are more engrossed in worker maintenance or culture-building. When HR is united and up-to-date on these objectives, they can create strategic choices to meet the goals.
• The role of HR in employee development situations is to both evangelise additional training and ensure teams are developed to keep pace with shifting needs.
• The HR can act as an influential supporter and change representatives in applying business strategy, creating a structured employee commitment and success.
• Formulate specific actions to hit the goals: Once you’ve affiliated and set objectives, it’s time to advance action strategies to perform your HR strategic visualisation. Focus on increasing and improving processes for engaging, hiring, employee progress, and performance appraisals.
• Measure and track performance: With human resource association about data-driven objectives, HR leaders can confirm that decision-making is associated with strategic business goals and helps determine those goals. HR leaders can examine marketing, sales, and bookkeeping data to break down departmental management and better align with overall business objectives.

The business-level strategy of Unilever is essential to its overall functioning and market performance. It takes care of its clients by concentrating on demographics, lifestyle choices, tastes and morals, behavior characters, consumption patterns, and brand faithfulness . Unilever is a much-known brand, and it has been working on its HR strategies for an extended period. According to their ‘Work Smart’ strategy, the strategy will produce the efficient working and better time management. It will allow teamwork to operate the business at a better level. It will help to simplify the work within organisational procedures and employee commitment .

For Unilever to achieve a better HRM strategy and Business strategy, it needs to invest in better people planning. Present human resources units manage much more than appointing, onboarding, and profits. Unilever should improve its organisation’s arrangement and recognise severances across teams, sites, and skillsets with active views of your team. Allocate people where their skills will have a significant influence.

Workforce stability is essential for workers to live a suitable private and professional time. Flexibility is one of the features of work-life stability. In general, flexibility can be stated as the adjustment in the business’s arrangement, according to the state. Unilever can also apply some of the tactics that can make relaxed surroundings in the organisation. The method of flexibility cannot be made on the charge of organisational efficiency. It is acute to assign the flexibility strategy to survive corporate culture and structure .

Flexibility plan can be applied in Unilever by the following procedure:

• The strategy should be made according to the people’s qualities and duties and operated according to the circumstances.
• Flexibility can be functional in two types, schedule and situation. Schedule flexibility is the variation and easing connected to the working hours of the business.
• It is compulsory to lessen the risk related to flexible conveniences. If a worker is working from home, the company needs to guarantee that he is still allied with the operations department he is working with.

The above-explained points about how Human Resource Management strategy is aligned with Unilever’s business strategy, and the company can overlook its policies and management and then choose which strategy to apply. According to , flexibility is a great strategy to start as employees feel more secured and cared for in the organisation.

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How Unilever can manage employee engagement in HR to contribute to high individual and organisational performance

Employment staffing in the industry contains two types: internal and external staffing. Occasionally, firms prefer internal staffing to external staffing to sustain the firm’s value and save budgets; meanwhile, hiring people who have had experience in other firms involves more funds. However, firms often do external staffing when they need somebody to replace the vital spot quickly .

According to , their global mental health movements’ determine awareness and education through mental well-being preparation, storytelling, and sharing are intended to confront the disgrace that stops people from seeking support. The mental health of employees is essential for their performance in the organisation.

Performance is a challenge for many businesses. It isn’t easy to accomplish the preferred performance levels. Hence Unilever needs to use Human Resource (HR) components such as employee engagement . The business has a significant dependency on the employees to run the business. That’s why the industry should increase employee engagement in the firm. Employee engagement is a psychological form that shows commitment and devotion to the firm, demonstrated by working well and continuing at the firm for a long time .

Employee Engagement in HR to Contribute to High Individual Performance

How to define employee engagement? There are two types of engagement

Emotional engagement: A state in which workers have strong emotional connections to their bosses, feel their thoughts count, and think that their bosses are interested in their progress .

Cognitive engagement: Condition in which workers know what is expected of them, understand their role and purpose, are given chances to surpass and develop, and are given information about enhancing their development .

As Unilever keeps growing and their management keeps growing, they need to provide better employee engagement programs and good facilities. These theories, points, and explanations should be considered while managing employee engagement in HR to contribute to high individual performance.

The engagement can be generated by achieving numerous psychological conditions of the employee. The business has to preserve the real work environment to develop it. According to , some psychological reasons can affect the engagement of workers:

• Engagement represents more than job satisfaction, assurance, or inspiration.
• Engaged employees have a sensitive attachment to their work and organisation, which leads them to expend more energy.
• It links to Human Resource Management (HRM) terms such as ‘organisational citizenship,’ ‘working beyond contract’ and ‘unrestricted effort.’
• Positive engagement can be useful to both the administration and different employees.
• It is a multidimensional idea that may differ broadly between people, across offices, and from nation to nation.

Unilever HR department can also develop an app to get the idea of employee behavior and mentality. Workers will have a mood display facility where they would adjust their status to indicate how they feel after availing any assistance or services .

Employee engagement in HR to improve High Organisational Performance

Human Resources HR within Unilever provides a wide range of platforms and significances to allow strong business performance. Their HR accessing team is continuously cooperating with different firm’s shares to address business challenges and importance in a flexible, agile way. They work with firm leaders to convey their schema, champion change, and simplify culture and climate interferences through a well-defined but always evolving HR strategy. The vital objective is to develop the ability, form capacity, and increase the speed of Unilever’s values so we can still be fit to win in the market .

Defining a high-performance organisation

There is no clear or agreed definition of a high-performing organisation, but it can be considered by precision and coordination. Each person plays an essential part in bringing the firm forward, and everything that occurs at the individual, group, or departmental level contributes to the administration’s objectives. People realise their roles and how their efforts contribute to creating the desired outcomes .

High Performing Work Practices

A system or (package) of work practices leads to higher organisational performance as defined by . It is initially focused on bundling HR practices together. These practices help single workers’ abilities, Motivations, and Opportunities (AMO) to perform. They affect the quality of interactions between people and across groups, including relationships between workers and organisation; Justice, Belief, enclosure.

How employee engagement impacts organisational performance?

Engaged employees are the best coworkers. They work together to build a business, institution, or assistance and are behind everything good that happens there. These workers are involved in, passionate about, and devoted to their work. They know the potency of their jobs and look for new and better ways to achieve results. They are 100% dedicated psychologically to their work. They are the only people in a business who produce new clients .

Unilever should design a performance managing system that holds managers and employees responsible for the level of engagement they have presented to increase high organisational performance. Unilever should encourage a healthy work value in which directors’ objectives and values are allied across all work units. Firms that build a mutual respect culture by keeping achievement stories active will retain their current employees engaged and entitled the new arriving workers with this communicable spirit of work culture .

Like any other management choices, engagement decisions should be assessed in terms of their benefits and related costs, without giving more considerable importance to neither of the two, not to bias the decision-makers. Thus, Unilever also needs to study the cost side of engagement decisions.

Critical Evaluation of the Organisational Culture and Structure of Unilever and Assess its Significance in Determining Employee Behaviour

Critical evaluation of the organisational culture and arrangement of unilever.

Organisational culture, management, and the human resources of a business are all connected. Unilever is one of the top user goods businesses in the international economy. This firm’s progress is interconnected with its organisational culture and the kinds of accomplishments and plans leaders have applied over time. The characteristics of these workings also affect each other and the rest of the industry of Unilever. The firm is successful because of its managers’ overall support in organisational culture development. Unilever’s company culture adds to advances in other parts, such as manufacturing and human resources .

How are cultures formed? To change the cultures, it is essential to understand this question. An administration’s culture is formed as the industry faces external and internal trials and learns how to deal with them. When the administration’s way of doing business proposes an effective variation to ecological difficulties and promises achievement, those values are reserved. These values and practices of doing business are shown to new workers as the way of doing business .

Important factors in creating an organisation’s culture

The most critical factors in creating an administration’s culture include organisers’ values, preferences, and business demands.

Organiser’s Values

When industrialists launch their businesses, the way they want to do business determines the administration’s directions, the arrangement set up in the firm, and the people they employ to work with them. However, Unilever developed the business in 2000, the social involvement factor remains unbothered, and Unilever has communicated its promise to sustaining it . Organiser values become part of the business culture to the notch to benefit the firm and become successful. By providing a competitive advantage, the values can be taken as part of the business culture and are shown to new fellows as the accurate way to do business .

Business Demand

While organisers certainly apply an authoritative impact over business cultures, the business features also play a part. Firms within the same business can sometimes have broadly contradictory cultures. Simultaneously, the business characteristics and demands act as a power to generate likenesses among business cultures. The business effect over culture is also essential to know because it may not be imaginable to replicate a firm’s culture in a different business, even though it may seem commendable to unknowns .

Organizational Culture and its Importance in Employee Behavior

Culture plays a significant role within an organisation. In the first place, it gives business personalities, which means it generates limitations among one business and others and entities. Further, culture could change individual self-interests into something more splendid, matching with an administration’s goal . Since culture controls the employee’s behavior by providing suitable values, it boosts the administrative organisation level. Lastly, culture behaves like an interactive instrument influencing workers’ assertiveness and behavior .

What are employee orientated and work oriented?

The employee and work oriented redirects the organisation’s viewpoint, prioritisation, and a complete focus towards either worker welfare or achieving work objectives. A business with a strong employee orientation redirects its idea of putting the workers forward of consumers and stakeholders. The administration viewpoint and shares greatly understand the modern era in which human investment has gained a tactical reputation. In an enormously work oriented culture, the administrations are likely to put an extreme burden on the workers, and substantial importance is placed on maximising the mission performance, even if it comes at the cost of the broader employee well-being .

Analysis of Unilever

The Unilever administration truthfully knows the worth of its human capital and prioritises worker pleasure and inspiration. Granting that workers are consigned with the stimulating goals, the administration takes care of their anxieties and avoids forcing them, which leads the workers towards breakdown.  The balance between the work and employee orientation is accomplished by:

• Allocating the exciting goals and offering prizes to boost the work functioning
• Offering workers with essential training, mentoring, and supervision to achieve the allocated objectives
• Opposing the workers from making extra hours a common custom in the office.
• Inspiring and training the workers to cope with the tension and time is vital for both developing the work performance and developing mental well-being.
• Fortunately, talent administrators, human resources advisors, and even some squad leaders realise the importance of culture’s role within an administration’s inner strategy and how it impacts employee behavior .

Over time, the company’s fellows, even when they have diverse behavioral records, tend to undertake comparable actions and attitudes due to the administrative culture. In this logic, business directors face the challenge of discovery, if needed, collaborative chances for development and changing the values, ways, behaviors, and implicit customs that model the work responsibilities in the commonplace .

In Unilever, the workers need to provide the best determination to achieve the administrative objective. The organisational purpose is not possible to attain if the employees are not contented. To complete the target line, Unilever must have the highest competitive advantage. Since it is essential to maximise the worker’s capacity to meet the target line, it is very significant to maximise the employee’s determination

The overall situation is examined to provide precise business recommendations . The workers are cheered by the performance-based payment system and enhanced their performance for getting more reward. Therefore, Unilever should pay the workers for their outstanding performance and call weekly to develop the workers’ understanding. They should also pay attention to swift response and special commendation to the staffs for a more energetic working atmosphere. The rational wage system can understand the workers’ anticipated reward system. The industry and workers should uphold the equality that is the inner quality of relative business workers .

Critically Assess How Unilever Apply Knowledge of Personality and Emotions to Increase Employee Motivation

Some workers struggle to accomplish the utmost possible performance level in every organisation, while others choose to stand by to their minimal work desires firmly. Each person’s specific motivational strength powerfully determines these contrasting means of behavior. The latter is affected by various subjective causal variables of intellectual, dynamic, and purposeful character. Also, motivation is clearly shaped by organisational and foreign variables .

Employee motivation has always been considered the main problem for any business. Researchers have worked vigorously to present different motivational concepts, and they accomplished significant accomplishments in the 1960s and 1970s .

Motivation is used to involve workers in their work. Employees are the main components of all firms, whether private or government. Motivation means to be encouraged to do something. Hence, somebody who is thrilled or performed towards a conclusion is reflected as motivated. However, a person who feels no encouragement to perform is considered unmotivated . It is also described as creating “engagement in and determination with the learning task” .

Even though every researcher has different definitions for motivation, but they all agree on a single characteristic, it is the potency that forces humans to start an action and complete it by putting all of their energies to accomplish their requirements. Simple activities such as eating are motivated by hunger, and education is motivated by the aspiration for knowledge .

How does Personality Affect Employee Motivation?

Personality indicates the mixture of one’s qualities that make them different and of a unique character, and it formulates the base for individual differences among administrative members. Personality is being widely investigated, and most specialists have established a strong connection between personality and employees’ motivation . , explained some of the most leading concepts in this regard: traits theory, psychoanalytic, humanistic, and social-cognitive theories.

There is also some disagreement on the trait theories. have objected to trait theories for being too simpleminded. Some researchers discuss that even when one is said to have some traits, it is not always likely to be apparent. For instance, the source claims that the way someone responds to a given stimulus today might be completely different from how they react to the same incitement in the future.

Impact of Personality on Motivation

Studies have shown that people with emotional strength and those who rank low on psychoticism are more ready to be accessible to motivation practices . On the other hand, people with more violent natures tend to be unaffected by the organisation, even on things that are helpful for them .

According to , the relation between aggression and motivation is directly predicted in Vroom’s Expectancy theory , which recommends that and employees’ motivation and their definitive performance are affected by personality, among other aspects such as abilities, experience, and skills. Employees with less violent actions are likely to be engrossed in lenient and more qualitative features while choosing the rewards they wish . Emotional placements are a direct creation of people’s characters; hence, the results made in the evidence above prove a link between personality and motivation.

Emotions and Motivation

Emotions and motivation are not constant and stable features of the individual, as a mass of underlying variables impacts them. Even though they are always connected, the relationship between emotions and motivation may be examined from two viewpoints:

• Emotional needs are part of the motivation (i.e., emotions affect motivation) and
• Motivation development can generate different situations of effect (i.e., motivation impacts emotions).

Just as workers tend to concentrate on specific emotions and overlook others, organisational culture acts to form its institutions to explain and limit different emotional structures. Executives must be responsive that emotions produce certain disorders/disparities that cause tension and struggle. In general, employee behavior and decision performance are converging towards :

• Either the need to live pleasant emotions (constructive attitude – fight for positive results) or
• The need to avoid hostile feelings (precautionary perspective – lack of connection of the desire to prevent negative moments).

How Unilever can use the Knowledge of Personality and Emotions to Enhance Employee Motivation

As we all know, Unilever is the most known brand all over the world, and Unilever has applied innovative techniques to guarantee high employee motivation and ensure that their best resources will stay in business. By tracking employees ‘ motivation, carrying out assessments, or interviewing workers, Unilever can be taken as a model by small and large firms.

Unilever has done a lot of research on employee motivation and how it is affected by personality and emotions. They have done much training on this issue and helped their employees in better understanding these issues. The only problem Unilever faced was Trust and Belongingness. When employees felt empowered, they felt trusted, and when they were trusted, they felt belongingness with the organisation. Unilever has always looked over their employees and has always helped them in every field. They build personalities, take care of the employee’s emotions and keep checks and balances in the organisation.

Critical Evaluation of Unilever to Maximise its Contribution as an Organisation as a Future Leader

Unilever is one of the world’s leading traders of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) across food, home, and personal product production. Unilever works in almost 150 countries in the world has around 300k people working for them. Their annual sale is nearly €52.0 Billion .

But when it comes to their Human resource management, the positive side also brings some negative issues. Human Resource of any organisation is the critical factor to predict the sustainable growth of a company. Unilever works in the best interest of its employees and customers, but sometimes when they focus on one side, they forget the other. Unilever has often neglected it Human Resources and employee management while keeping their focus on the consumer side. Many complaints were filed against their management system as the workers didn’t feel secure in the firm and were not motivated by their company’s efforts.

Recommendation

As a future leader of Unilever, my main priority will be to ensure the best environment and strategies for my employees first so that the customers could get the positive side of the company.

Improving Human Resource

My first change will be to hire a human resource professional involved in designing and implementing changes within the company to improve it. They offer a unique and creative perspective that leaders may overlook and play a dynamic role in classifying the proper authorities for new positions within the firm.

Focus on Growth and Motivation

My next focus will be on the growth and motivation of employees. Organisational management requires active processes to work with different groups and people. A leader must recognise other specialists’ weaknesses and strengths before making a design of action to develop efficiency .

Employees can be motivated by introducing reward policies on practical work, but it does not mean employees have to work extra hours. Efficient working will help them reach their goal and improve their efficiency . According to , works’ positive engagement has a direct relationship with the business’s total financial achievement. Thus, organisations must change strategies and policies that would help employee’s promotion and development.

Workforce Flexibility

Businesses respond to changes in the business atmosphere by fluctuating the number of people hired. As a leader, I would change work hours from standard 9-5 hours of work to improve employee efficiency. To enhance the organisational environment, I would help employees choose the task they think they can do rather than making them specialise in a specific field. According to The flexible firm model – Atkinson, it is important to give recognition to different groups and individuals of an organisation to improve workforce flexibility .

Organisational Structure

There are different organisational structures, and to get more acknowledgment in the world, I would recommend changing Unilever’s structure. Administrative structure matter because designs must imitate the main strategic concern, external market complication, and internal cultural needs for control, partnership, and creativeness. The structure must therefore Associate with strategy, smooth competitiveness, and strengthen the chosen culture.

Effective Communication

As a leader, I am responsible for conveying the message and communicating with my employees efficiently. Unilever can enhance their communication by developing apps that will help them engage with the employees. Instead of using an email system, they can communicate and get to know their feelings on social media platforms. Or Having a quick meeting or phone call can resolve a problem that might have occupied hours of back-and-forth emails .

Training and Employee Development

Dropping training and cutting everything together may seem like a good idea to save the company’s time and money, but this can ultimately go wrong. Forcing employees to learn their work on their own without help is extraordinarily unprofessional. If Unilever has this issue in their management, then I would recommend starting a training session for the new and old employees to increase their and the company’s productivity. There are several ways Unilever can help employee development: workshops, individual training, sessions, courses, observation or mentoring or even just increasing their duties. Proposing these changes will give workers extra skills to develop their productivity and efficiency .

Giving feedback to workers is very important to improve Unilever’s employee efficiency and contribution to the organisation. Reviewing the employees work and then providing feedback on how he/she can improve their work will encourage them. Maybe they would appreciate more guidance and little room for think broadly. Inquiring for feedback gives you a clear, instant means to help your workers progress and inspires a culture of open discussion that will allow for sustained growth over time .

Unilever offers a lot of products and services around the globe and is known for its lifetime achievements. Unilever keeps growing and has become people’s first choice. More than half of the world’s population uses their products and services. Their customer service and output production are tremendous, but no one knows what happens inside the firm. The case study explains how Unilever has worked for their employees and helped them become more productive. Unilever has some positive and negative points, just like every other firm. But they keep improving their work environment and training sessions for a more efficient workforce. Unilever has worked day and night to enhance its employee engagement strategies and is still working to build a sustainable environment for its employees.

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1.2 Understanding Organizational Behavior

Learning objectives.

• Learn about the layout of this book.
• Understand what organizational behavior is.
• Understand why organizational behavior matters.
• Learn about OB Toolboxes in this book.

About This Book

The people make the place.

Benjamin Schneider, Fellow of the Academy of Management

This book is all about people, especially people at work. As evidenced in the opening case, we will share many examples of people making their workplaces work. People can make work an exciting, fun, and productive place to be, or they can make it a routine, boring, and ineffective place where everyone dreads to go. Steve Jobs, cofounder, chairman, and CEO of Apple Inc. attributes the innovations at Apple, which include the iPod, MacBook, and iPhone, to people, noting, “Innovation has nothing to do with how many R&D dollars you have.…It’s not about money. It’s about the people you have, how you’re led, and how much you get it” (Kirkpatrick, 1998). This became a sore point with investors in early 2009 when Jobs took a medical leave of absence. Many wonder if Apple will be as successful without him at the helm, and Apple stock plunged upon worries about his health (Parloff, 2008).

Steve Jobs is known for developing innovative products by hiring the right people for the job and fostering a culture of hard work and creativity.

Wikimedia Commons – CC BY 3.0.

Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Inc., a billion-dollar cosmetics company, makes a similar point, saying, “People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps” [1]

Just like people, organizations come in many shapes and sizes. We understand that the career path you will take may include a variety of different organizations. In addition, we know that each student reading this book has a unique set of personal and work-related experiences, capabilities, and career goals. On average, a person working in the United States will change jobs 10 times in 20 years (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2005). In order to succeed in this type of career situation, individuals need to be armed with the tools necessary to be lifelong learners. So, this book will not be about giving you all the answers to every situation you may encounter when you start your first job or as you continue up the career ladder. Instead, this book will give you the vocabulary, framework, and critical thinking skills necessary for you to diagnose situations, ask tough questions, evaluate the answers you receive, and act in an effective and ethical manner regardless of situational characteristics.

Throughout this book, when we refer to organizations, we will include examples that may apply to diverse organizations such as publicly held, for-profit organizations like Google and American Airlines, privately owned businesses such as S. C. Johnson & Son Inc. (makers of Windex glass cleaner) and Mars Inc. (makers of Snickers and M&Ms), and not-for-profit organizations such as the Sierra Club or Mercy Corps, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) such as Doctors Without Borders and the International Red Cross. We will also refer to both small and large corporations. You will see examples from Fortune 500 organizations such as Intel Corporation or Home Depot Inc., as well as small start-up organizations. Keep in mind that some of the small organizations of today may become large organizations in the future. For example, in 1998, eBay Inc. had only 29 employees and $47.4 million in income, but by 2008 they had grown to 11,000 employees and over $7 billion in revenue (Gibson, 2008). Regardless of the size or type of organization you may work for, people are the common denominator of how work is accomplished within organizations.

Together, we will examine people at work both as individuals and within work groups and how they impact and are impacted by the organizations where they work. Before we can understand these three levels of organizational behavior, we need to agree on a definition of organizational behavior.

What Is Organizational Behavior?

Organizational behavior (OB) is defined as the systematic study and application of knowledge about how individuals and groups act within the organizations where they work. As you will see throughout this book, definitions are important. They are important because they tell us what something is as well as what it is not. For example, we will not be addressing childhood development in this course—that concept is often covered in psychology—but we might draw on research about twins raised apart to understand whether job attitudes are affected by genetics.

OB draws from other disciplines to create a unique field. As you read this book, you will most likely recognize OB’s roots in other disciplines. For example, when we review topics such as personality and motivation, we will again review studies from the field of psychology. The topic of team processes relies heavily on the field of sociology. In the chapter relating to decision making, you will come across the influence of economics. When we study power and influence in organizations, we borrow heavily from political sciences. Even medical science contributes to the field of organizational behavior, particularly to the study of stress and its effects on individuals.

OB spans topics related from the individual to the organization.

Those who study organizational behavior—which now includes you—are interested in several outcomes such as work attitudes (e.g., job satisfaction and organizational commitment) as well as job performance (e.g., customer service and counterproductive work behaviors). A distinction is made in OB regarding which level of the organization is being studied at any given time. There are three key levels of analysis in OB. They are examining the individual, the group, and the organization. For example, if I want to understand my boss’s personality, I would be examining the individual level of analysis. If we want to know about how my manager’s personality affects my team, I am examining things at the team level. But, if I want to understand how my organization’s culture affects my boss’s behavior, I would be interested in the organizational level of analysis.

Why Organizational Behavior Matters

OB matters at three critical levels. It matters because it is all about things you care about. OB can help you become a more engaged organizational member. Getting along with others, getting a great job, lowering your stress level, making more effective decisions, and working effectively within a team…these are all great things, and OB addresses them!

It matters because employers care about OB. A recent survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) asked employers which skills are the most important for them when evaluating job candidates, and OB topics topped the list (NACE 2007 Job Outlook Survey, 2008).

The following were the top five personal qualities/skills:

• Communication skills (verbal and written)
• Honesty/integrity
• Interpersonal skills (relates well to others)
• Motivation/initiative
• Strong work ethic

These are all things we will cover in OB.

Finally, it matters because organizations care about OB. The best companies in the world understand that the people make the place. How do we know this? Well, we know that organizations that value their employees are more profitable than those that do not (Huselid, 1995; Pfeffer, 1998; Pfeffer & Veiga, 1999; Welbourne & Andrews, 1996). Research shows that successful organizations have a number of things in common, such as providing employment security, engaging in selective hiring, utilizing self-managed teams, being decentralized, paying well, training employees, reducing status differences, and sharing information (Pfeffer & Veiga, 1999). For example, every Whole Foods store has an open compensation policy in which salaries (including bonuses) are listed for all employees. There is also a salary cap that limits the maximum cash compensation paid to anyone in the organization, such as a CEO, in a given year to 19 times the companywide annual average salary of all full-time employees. What this means is that if the average employee makes $30,000 per year, the highest potential pay for their CEO would be $570,000, which is a lot of money but pales in comparison to salaries such as Steve Jobs of Apple at $14.6 million or the highest paid CEO in 2007, Larry Ellison of Oracle, at $192.9 million (Elmer-DeWitt, 2008). Research shows that organizations that are considered healthier and more effective have strong OB characteristics throughout them such as role clarity, information sharing, and performance feedback. Unfortunately, research shows that most organizations are unhealthy, with 50% of respondents saying that their organizations do not engage in effective OB practices (Aguirre et al., 2005).

In the rest of this chapter, we will build on how you can use this book by adding tools to your OB Toolbox in each section of the book as well as assessing your own learning style. In addition, it is important to understand the research methods used to define OB, so we will also review those. Finally, you will see what challenges and opportunities businesses are facing and how OB can help overcome these challenges.

Adding to Your OB Toolbox

Your ob toolbox.

OB Toolboxes appear throughout this book. They indicate a tool that you can try out today to help you develop your OB skills.

Throughout the book, you will see many OB Toolbox features. Our goal in writing this book is to create something useful for you to use now and as you progress through your career. Sometimes we will focus on tools you can use today. Other times we will focus on things you may want to think about that may help you later. As you progress, you may discover some OB tools that are particularly relevant to you while others are not as appropriate at the moment. That’s great—keep those that have value to you. You can always go back and pick up tools later on if they don’t seem applicable right now.

The important thing to keep in mind is that the more tools and skills you have, the higher the quality of your interactions with others will be and the more valuable you will become to organizations that compete for top talent (Michaels, Handfield-Jones, & Axelrod, 2001). It is not surprising that, on average, the greater the level of education you have, the more money you will make. In 2006, those who had a college degree made 62% more money than those who had a high school degree (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). Organizations value and pay for skills as the next figure shows.

Education and training have financial payoffs as illustrated by these unemployment and earnings for workers 25 and older.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, http://www.bls.gov .

Tom Peters is a management expert who talks about the concept of individuals thinking of themselves as a brand to be managed. Further, he recommends that individuals manage themselves like free agents (Peters, 1997; Peters, 2004). The following OB Toolbox includes several ideas for being effective in keeping up your skill set.

Your OB Toolbox: Skill Survival Kit

• Keep your skills fresh . Consider revolutionizing your portfolio of skills at least every 6 years.
• Master something . Competence in many skills is important, but excelling at something will set you apart.
• Embrace ambiguity . Many people fear the unknown. They like things to be predictable. Unfortunately, the only certainty in life is that things will change. Instead of running from this truth, embrace the situation as a great opportunity.
• Network . The term has been overused to the point of sounding like a cliché, but networking works. This doesn’t mean that having 200 connections on MySpace, LinkedIn, or Facebook makes you more effective than someone who has 50, but it does mean that getting to know people is a good thing in ways you can’t even imagine now.
• Appreciate new technology . This doesn’t mean you should get and use every new gadget that comes out on the market, but it does mean you need to keep up on what the new technologies are and how they may affect you and the business you are in.

Source: Adapted from ideas in Peters, T. (2007). Brand you survival kit. Fast Company . Retrieved July 1, 2008, from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/83/playbook.html .

A key step in building your OB skills and filling your toolbox is to learn the language of OB. Once you understand a concept, you are better able to recognize it. Once you recognize these concepts in real-world events and understand that you have choices in how you will react, you can better manage yourself and others. An effective tool you can start today is journaling , which helps you chart your progress as you learn new skills. For more on this, see the OB Toolbox below.

OB Toolbox: Journaling as a Developmental Tool

• What exactly is journaling ? Journaling refers to the process of writing out thoughts and emotions on a regular basis.
• Why is journaling a good idea ? Journaling is an effective way to record how you are feeling from day to day. It can be a more objective way to view trends in your thoughts and emotions so you are not simply relying on your memory of past events, which can be inaccurate. Simply getting your thoughts and ideas down has been shown to have health benefits as well such as lowering the writer’s blood pressure, heart rate, and decreasing stress levels.
• How do I get started ? The first step is to get a journal or create a computer file where you can add new entries on a regular basis. Set a goal for how many minutes per day you want to write and stick to it. Experts say at least 10 minutes a day is needed to see benefits, with 20 minutes being ideal. The quality of what you write is also important. Write your thoughts down clearly and specifically while also conveying your emotions in your writing. After you have been writing for at least a week, go back and examine what you have written. Do you see patterns in your interactions with others? Do you see things you like and things you’d like to change about yourself? If so, great! These are the things you can work on and reflect on. Over time, you will also be able to track changes in yourself, which can be motivating as well.

Sources: Created based on ideas and information in Bromley, K. (1993). Journaling: Engagements in reading, writing, and thinking . New York: Scholastic; Caruso, D., & Salovey, P. (2004). The emotionally intelligent manager: How to develop and use the four key emotional skills of leadership . San Francisco: Jossey-Bass; Scott, E. (2008). The benefits of journaling for stress management. Retrieved January 27, 2008, from About.com: http://stress.about.com/od/generaltechniques/p/profilejournal.htm .

Isn’t OB Just Common Sense?

As teachers we have heard this question many times. The answer, as you might have guessed, is no—OB is not just common sense . As we noted earlier, OB is the systematic study and application of knowledge about how individuals and groups act within the organizations where they work. Systematic is an important word in this definition. It is easy to think we understand something if it makes sense, but research on decision making shows that this can easily lead to faulty conclusions because our memories fail us. We tend to notice certain things and ignore others, and the specific manner in which information is framed can affect the choices we make. Therefore, it is important to rule out alternative explanations one by one rather than to assume we know about human behavior just because we are humans! Go ahead and take the following quiz and see how many of the 10 questions you get right. If you miss a few, you will see that OB isn’t just common sense. If you get them all right, you are way ahead of the game!

Putting Common Sense to the Test

Please answer the following 10 questions by noting whether you believe the sentence is true or false .

• Brainstorming in a group is more effective than brainstorming alone. _____
• The first 5 minutes of a negotiation are just a warm-up to the actual negotiation and don’t matter much. _____
• The best way to help someone reach their goals is to tell them to do their best. _____
• If you pay someone to do a task they routinely enjoy, they’ll do it even more often in the future. _____
• Pay is a major determinant of how hard someone will work. _____
• If a person fails the first time, they try harder the next time. _____
• People perform better if goals are easier. _____
• Most people within organizations make effective decisions. _____
• Positive people are more likely to withdraw from their jobs when they are dissatisfied. _____
• Teams with one smart person outperform teams in which everyone is average in intelligence. ______

You may check your answers with your instructor.

Key Takeaway

This book is about people at work. Organizations come in many shapes and sizes. Organizational behavior is the systematic study and application of knowledge about how individuals and groups act within the organizations where they work. OB matters for your career, and successful companies tend to employ effective OB practices. The OB Toolboxes throughout this book are useful in increasing your OB skills now and in the future.

• Which type of organizations did you have the most experience with? How did that affect your understanding of the issues in this chapter?
• Which skills do you think are the most important ones for being an effective employee?
• What are the three key levels of analysis for OB?
• Have you ever used journaling before? If so, were your experiences positive? Do you think you will use journaling as a tool in the future?
• How do you plan on using the OB Toolboxes in this book? Creating a plan now can help to make you more effective throughout the term.

Aguirre, D. M., Howell, L. W., Kletter, D. B., & Neilson, G. L. (2005). A global check-up: Diagnosing the health of today’s organizations (online report). Retrieved July 25, 2008, from the Booz & Company Web site: http://www.orgdna.com/downloads/GlobalCheckUp-OrgHealthNov2005.pdf .

Elmer-DeWitt, P. (2008, May 2). Top-paid CEOs: Steve Jobs drops from no. 1 to no. 120. Fortune . Retrieved July 26, 2008, from CNNMoney.com: http://apple20.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/05/02/top-paid-ceos- steve-jobs-drops-from-no-1-to-no-120/ .

Gibson, E. (2008, March). Meg Whitman’s 10th anniversary as CEO of eBay. Fast Company , 25.

Huselid, M. A. (1995). The impact of human resource management practices on turnover, productivity, and corporate financial performance. Academy of Management Journal , 38 , 635-672.

Kirkpatrick, D. (1998). The second coming of Apple. Fortune , 138 , 90.

Michaels, E., Handfield-Jones, H., & Axelrod, B. (2001). The war for talent . Boston: Harvard Business School Publishing.

NACE 2007 Job Outlook Survey. Retrieved July 26, 2008, from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Web site: http://www.naceweb.org/press/quick.htm#qualities .

Parloff, R. (2008, January 22). Why the SEC is probing Steve Jobs. Money . Retrieved January 28, 2009, from http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/22/technology/stevejobs_disclosure.fortune/?postversion=2009012216 .

Peters, T. (1997). The brand called you. Fast Company . Retrieved July 1, 2008, from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/10/brandyou.html .

Peters, T. (2004). Brand you survival kit. Fast Company . Retrieved July 1, 2008, from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/83/playbook.html .

Pfeffer, J. (1998). The human equation: Building profits by putting people first . Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Pfeffer, J., & Veiga, J. F. (1999). Putting people first for organizational success. Academy of Management Executive , 13 , 37–48.

U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. (2005). Retrieved December 8, 2005, from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site: http://www.bls.gov/nls/nlsfaqs.htm#anch5 .

Welbourne, T., & Andrews, A. (1996). Predicting performance of Initial Public Offering firms: Should HRM be in the equation? Academy of Management Journal , 39 , 910–911.

• Retrieved June 4, 2008, from http://www.litera.co.uk/t/NDk1MDA/ . ↵

Organizational Behavior Copyright © 2017 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Organizational Behaviour Essays

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108 Organizational Behavior Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Organizational behavior is a fascinating field that examines how individuals, groups, and organizations interact within a work environment. It encompasses a wide range of topics, from leadership and communication to motivation and decision-making. If you're studying organizational behavior and need some inspiration for your next essay, look no further. Here are 108 organizational behavior essay topic ideas and examples to get you started:

• The impact of organizational culture on employee satisfaction
• The role of leadership in shaping organizational behavior
• How diversity and inclusion influence team dynamics
• The importance of emotional intelligence in the workplace
• Strategies for managing conflict in organizations
• The effects of job design on employee motivation
• The relationship between organizational justice and employee performance
• The role of power and politics in organizational behavior
• The impact of technology on organizational communication
• The influence of organizational structure on decision-making processes
• The role of trust in building effective teams
• The effects of stress and burnout on employee well-being
• The impact of organizational change on employee morale
• The relationship between job satisfaction and employee turnover
• Strategies for promoting work-life balance in organizations
• The role of ethics in organizational behavior
• The effects of group dynamics on team performance
• The relationship between personality and organizational behavior
• The impact of globalization on organizational culture
• The role of feedback in employee development
• The effects of job insecurity on employee motivation
• The relationship between leadership style and organizational performance
• The influence of organizational climate on employee engagement
• The role of mentoring in organizational development
• The effects of social media on organizational communication
• The impact of organizational citizenship behavior on team effectiveness
• The relationship between job crafting and employee well-being
• The role of emotional labor in customer service
• The effects of organizational learning on innovation
• The influence of organizational justice on employee trust
• The impact of job characteristics on employee engagement
• The relationship between organizational commitment and job performance
• The role of resilience in overcoming workplace challenges
• The effects of job insecurity on employee productivity
• The importance of psychological safety in team dynamics
• The impact of organizational politics on decision-making processes
• The relationship between job satisfaction and organizational citizenship behavior
• The role of transformational leadership in driving organizational change
• The effects of work-life balance on employee retention
• The influence of organizational culture on employee motivation
• The impact of emotional intelligence on leadership effectiveness
• The relationship between job design and job satisfaction
• The role of organizational justice in shaping employee attitudes
• The effects of diversity and inclusion on team performance
• The importance of communication in building trust within teams
• The impact of job insecurity on employee well-being
• The relationship between leadership style and employee engagement
• The role of feedback in promoting employee development
• The effects of job crafting on job satisfaction
• The influence of organizational climate on team effectiveness
• The impact of organizational learning on innovation
• The relationship between job characteristics and employee motivation
• The role of emotional labor in customer satisfaction
• The effects of organizational citizenship behavior on organizational performance
• The importance of psychological safety in team collaboration
• The impact of organizational politics on decision-making effectiveness
• The role of transformational leadership in organizational development
• The effects of work-life balance on employee engagement
• The influence of organizational culture on team dynamics
• The impact of emotional intelligence on employee well-being
• The relationship between job design and team performance
• The role of organizational justice in shaping organizational behavior
• The effects of diversity and inclusion on employee satisfaction
• The importance of communication in building effective teams
• The impact of job insecurity on job performance
• The relationship between leadership style and organizational culture
• The role of feedback in promoting team cohesion
• The effects of job crafting on team dynamics
• The influence of organizational climate on employee morale
• The impact of organizational learning on team innovation
• The relationship between job characteristics and organizational performance
• The role of emotional labor in employee engagement
• The effects of organizational citizenship behavior on employee motivation
• The importance of psychological safety in team effectiveness
• The impact of organizational politics on employee well-being
• The relationship between job satisfaction and team collaboration
• The role of transformational leadership in building trust within teams
• The effects of work-life balance on organizational performance
• The influence of organizational culture on employee retention
• The impact of emotional intelligence on team dynamics
• The relationship between job design and organizational communication
• The role of organizational justice in shaping team effectiveness
• The effects of diversity and inclusion on organizational culture
• The importance of communication in promoting employee satisfaction
• The impact of job insecurity on team performance
• The relationship between leadership style and job satisfaction
• The role of feedback in driving organizational change
• The effects of job crafting on organizational development
• The impact of organizational learning on team collaboration
• The relationship between job characteristics and team performance
• The role of emotional labor in organizational performance
• The effects of organizational citizenship behavior on team dynamics
• The importance of psychological safety in promoting team cohesion
• The impact of organizational politics on team effectiveness
• The relationship between job satisfaction and organizational communication
• The role of transformational leadership in shaping organizational culture
• The effects of work-life balance on employee morale
• The influence of organizational culture on team collaboration
• The impact of emotional intelligence on organizational performance
• The relationship between job design and employee engagement
• The role of organizational justice in promoting team effectiveness
• The effects of diversity and inclusion on team dynamics
• The importance of communication in building trust within organizations
• The impact of job insecurity on employee satisfaction
• The relationship between leadership style and team performance
• The role of feedback in driving team innovation

These organizational behavior essay topic ideas and examples cover a wide range of issues and concepts within the field. Whether you're interested in exploring the impact of leadership on organizational culture or the effects of job insecurity on employee well-being, there's something here for everyone. So, pick a topic that interests you, conduct some research, and start writing your next organizational behavior essay today!

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Organizational behavior - List of Free Essay Examples And Topic Ideas

An essay on organizational behavior can delve into the study of how individuals and groups behave within organizational settings. It can explore topics like workplace culture, motivation, leadership styles, and the impact of organizational behavior on productivity and employee satisfaction. The essay can also discuss strategies for improving organizational effectiveness. A vast selection of complimentary essay illustrations pertaining to Organizational Behavior you can find at Papersowl. You can use our samples for inspiration to write your own essay, research paper, or just to explore a new topic for yourself.

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Personal Statement Business subjects have always been my area of interest. My passion for business studies developed from observing my family members operating their business. I was always curious to know how the business operates and how to grow while maintaining profitability. The most significant influence on my life has been of my parents. They have always encouraged me to learn more, work hard, face challenges and enjoy the crests and troughs of life. They succeeded in developing in me […]

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Psychological Contract in Organizational Behavior

In tangled dance between employers and link a worker taciturn and powerful agreement, celebrates so as psychological agreement. In difference from his copy, agreement employment, that draws responsibilities and expectations black on a white material color, a psychological agreement operates in a kingdom conceptions, trusts, and unwritten promises. It is a flow, that brings up terms employee-employer submarine worker, influences a relation, motive, and in eventual addition, organizational implementation.In his kernel, a psychological agreement incarnates trusts, conceptions, and uncategorical obligations […]

Managing Diversity: Strategies for Inclusive Organizational Behavior

In today's quickly, grows global landscape, variety leading in borders has organizations transitioned from mere switchboard on a corporate bustle put right taking of inventory despite an aspect viable success basic. "Variety" a border covers a ghost distinctions vast among types, include and no limited for participating in, belonging, kind, age, orientation, religion, inclinations, and socio-economic capitals physical sexual ethnique. Recognizing and moves this variety not only ethic imperative mood, and and strategically advantageous for businesses, inhale to flower in […]

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