Chapter 1 - What is organizational behavior? After reading this chapter, you should be able to answer the following questions: What is the definition of "organizational behavior" (OB)? What are the two primary outcomes in studies of OB? What factors affect the two primary OB outcomes? Why might firms that are good at OB tend to be more profitable? What is the role of theory in the scientific method? How are correlations interpreted? | What Is Organizational Behavior? Chapter 1 What is Organizational Behavior? A field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations Buying the Textbook Aside from your local bookstore, the book is available on Amazon There is a Kindle version Does OB Matter? Do firms who do a good job managing OB concepts become more profitable as a result? Does OB Matter? The resource-based view of the firm Does OB Matter? Does OB Matter? Retention Sales/employee Market value Profitability So What’s So Hard? The Rule of 1/8: “One must bear in mind that 1/2 of organizations won’t believe the connection between how they manage their people and the profits they earn. 1/2 of those who do see the connection will do what many organizations have done--try to make a single change to solve their problems, not realizing that the effective management of people requires a more comprehensive and systematic approach. Of | What Is Organizational Behavior? Chapter 1 What is Organizational Behavior? A field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, and ultimately improving the attitudes and behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations Buying the Textbook Aside from your local bookstore, the book is available on Amazon There is a Kindle version Does OB Matter? Do firms who do a good job managing OB concepts become more profitable as a result? Does OB Matter? The resource-based view of the firm Does OB Matter? Does OB Matter? Retention Sales/employee Market value Profitability So What’s So Hard? The Rule of 1/8: “One must bear in mind that 1/2 of organizations won’t believe the connection between how they manage their people and the profits they earn. 1/2 of those who do see the connection will do what many organizations have done--try to make a single change to solve their problems, not realizing that the effective management of people requires a more comprehensive and systematic approach. Of the firms that make comprehensive changes, probably only about 1/2 will persist with their practices long enough to actually derive economic benefits.” How Do We Know Things About OB? Where does the knowledge in this textbook come from? Understanding that requires an understanding of how we know things, in general How Do We Know Things about OB? Methods of Knowing Experience Intuition Authority Science What are the benefits of the last one, relative to the other three? How Do We Know Things about OB? Scientific method How Do We Know Things about OB? Theory A collection of assertions (both verbal and symbolic) that specify how and why variables are related, as well as the conditions in which they should (and should not) be related How Do We Know Things about OB? To test our theory we gather data on the variables included in our hypotheses We then use variants of the correlation coefficient to test hypotheses, to see if they verify our theory How Do We Know Things about OB? The .
