MODULE 1

Human behaviour is the collection of behaviours exhibited by human beings

and influenced by culture, attitudes, emotions, values, ethics, authority, rapport, persuasion, coercion and/or
genetics.
OB is a field of study that investigates the impact of individuals, groups, and structure on behavior within
organisations for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness. OB
is concerned with the study of what people do in an organisation and how that behavior affects the performance
of the organisation.
6 Contributing Disciplines to the Organization Behavior Field are:

1. Psychology.

2. Sociology.

3. Social Psychology.

4. Economics.

5. Anthropology.

6. Political Sciences.

Psychology

Psychology is the science that attempts to measure, explain, and at times change the behavior of humans and
other animals. Early industrial/organizational psychologists were concerned with problems of fatigue, boredom,
and other factors relevant to working conditions that could disrupt/ impede efficient work performance. More
recently, their contributions have been expanded to include learning, perception, personality, emotions, training,
leadership effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision making processes,
performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employee selection techniques, work design, and job stress.

Sociology
Sociologists study the social system in which individuals fill their roles; that is, sociology studies people in
relation to their fellow human beings. Their significant contribution to OB is through their study of group
behavior in organizations, particularly formal and complex organizations.

Social Psychology

Social psychology blends the concepts of psychology and sociology. It focuses on the influence of people on
one another. The major challenge deals with the issue of how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its
acceptance.

Anthropology

Anthropology is the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities. Anthropologists work on
cultures and environments; for example, they have aided in understanding differences in fundamental values,
attitudes, and behavior among people in different countries and within different organizations.

Political Science

Political science studies the behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment. It focuses on
areas, such as, conflict, intra-organizational politics and power.
THE OB MODEL

Organizational behavior model is a basic structure that shows the relations between variables at different levels
in the organization. Organization analyze behavior of employees into three basic levels known as OB Model.
They are :-
1. Individual Level 2. Group Level 3. Organizational system Level

Individual Level:

 Complex level because employees has different psychology

 Orgn are the purposeful association of individuals.
 Analyze the characteristics & behaviors of employees and thought processes that are attributed to them.
such as motivation, perception, personality, values and morals, emotions, level /amount of stress etc.
Mainly here we add to our understanding of behavior in organization.

Challenges at the Individual Level

• Individual Differences
• Job Satisfaction
• Motivation
• Empowerment
• Behaving Ethically
Group Level:
Most of individual work in a group. So, group is defined as two or more individuals ,interacting and
interdependent , who has come together to achieve particular objectives (Formal or informal). The structure of
organization along with giving rise to basic organization culture at organization system level, also determines
the basic type and trust in leadership at group level. The trust of leadership and the trust on employees then
determines the structure of groups in which the employees are to work. The quality of leadership is directly
related to the quality of decision making.
Challenges at the Group Level:
• Working with Others
• Workforce Diversity:- differences among people by age, sex , gender ethnicity, physical abilities, disabilities.
Organizational system Level:
Level at which initial policies, rules and regulation are formed. It serves as the building block of an orgn
structure and culture which has direct impact on human output which further has different variables such as
productivity, turnover, satisfaction and deviant work place behaviour. The focus is on how people structure their
working.
Challenges at the Organizational Level:
• Productivity
• Developing Effective Employees
• Efficiency of employees
• Putting People
• Global Competition
So in conclusion, we can say that, each level is constructed upon the previous. Group concepts grow out from
the foundation of individual section. We overlay structural constraints on the individuals and group in order to
arrive at organizational system level. First OB model focuses on the individual level then group level and then
towards organization system level. These three levels are linked to a great deal and have a deep impact on each
other, starting / moving from individual level to the organizations system level and running side by side are the
personal characteristics of the employees. And having right policies with people of right attitude and psychology
and right execution can lead to a smooth-running profitable organization.

Biographical Characteristics
Personal characteristics — such as age, gender, maritalstatus, length of tenure/service with an organization —
datathat are objective and easily obtained from an employee’s personnel file.
These individual variables surely have an impact on employee productivity, absence, turnover, job satisfaction,
etc.
AGE
The most important conclusions regarding age are:
Age seems to have no relationship to productivity i.e. age & jobperformance are unrelated. Thus, older workers
are asproductive as younger employees.
Older workers and those with longer tenure are less likely to resign or quit their jobs.
GENDER
• Given the significant changes that have taken place in the last 25years in terms of increasing female
participation rates in the workforce, it is concluded that there is no significant difference in job productivity
between men and women. Also, there are no consistent male-female differences in problem-solving ability,
analytical skills, competitive drive, motivation, sociability, learning ability, etc.
• The research on absence, however, is a different story. The evidence indicates that women have higher rates of
absenteeism that men do as our culture has historically placed home and family responsibilities on the woman.

MARITAL STATUS
Research indicates that married employees have fewer absences, less turnover, and are more satisfied with
theirjobs than are their unmarried co-workers. Marriage imposes increased responsibilities that maymake a
steady job more valuable and important.
INTELLECTUAL ABILITY
Intellectual abilities are those needed to perform mental activities for thinking, reasoning & problem solving.
Intelligent people have high intellectual abilities & are thus better job performers. IQ tests , admission tests like
CAT (CAT has 3 components: logical reasoning, quantitative analysis & verbal ability) , GMAT, Job hiring
interviews, etc . are designed to ascertain one’s general intellectual abilities/intelligence.
PHYSICAL ABILITIES
The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, manual dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics. Just like
intellectual abilities play a larger role in doing complex jobs, physical abilities gain importance for successfully
doing less skilled & more standardized jobs.
EXPERIENCE
RELIGION

MODULE 2
PERCEPTION
Definition: A process by which individuals give meaning (reality) to their environment by organizing and
interpreting their sensory impressions.

Attribution theory:
Attribution theory tries to explain the ways in which we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we
attribute to a given behaviour. It suggests that when we observe an individual’s behaviour, we attempt to
determine whether it is internally or externally caused. Internally caused behaviour is that which is under the
individual’s control and externally caused behaviour is that due to outside factors. Whether it is internally or
externally caused depends on three factors:
(1) DISTICTIVENESS- refers to whether an individual displays different behaviours in different situations
(2) CONSENSUS: If everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way we can say the
behaviour shows consensus.
(3) CONSISTENCY: An observer will look for consistency in a person’s actions. Does the person respond
the same way everytime.
Errors and biases in attribution theory:
 Fundamental attribution error
The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and to overestimate the influence of internal or
personal factors.
 Self-serving bias
The tendency of individuals to attribute their successes to internal factors while blaming personal failures on
external factors.
Shortcuts Used in Judging Others:
 Selective Perception
Tendency to choose information that supports our view.
 Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of our perception of a group he or she is a part of.
 Halo Effect
Forming a general impression of a person on the basis of a single characteristic of that person
 Contrast effect
The evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are affected by comparisons with other people recently
encountered who rank higher/lower on the same characteristics.

LEARNING
Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience.
Theories of learning:

 Classical conditioning
 Operant conditioning
 Social learning
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING (IVAN PAVLOV)
 A type of conditioning in which an individual respond to some stimulus that would not ordinarily
produce such a response.
The experiment:
During the 1890s, Russian physiologist, Ivan Pavlov was researching salivation in dogs in response to being fed.
He inserted a small test tube into the cheek of each dog to measure saliva when the dogs were fed (with a
powder made from meat).

Pavlov (1902) started from the idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn. For example,
dogs don’t learn to salivate whenever they see food. This reflex is ‘hard-wired’ into the dog. In behaviorist
terms, food is an unconditioned stimulus and salivation is an unconditioned response. (i.e., a stimulus-response
connection that required no learning).
In his experiment, Pavlov used a metronome as his neutral stimulus. By itself the metronome did not elecit a
response from the dogs. Next, Pavlov began the conditioning procedure, whereby the clicking metronome was
introduced just before he gave food to his dogs. After a number of repeats (trials) of this procedure he presented
the metronome on its own. As you might expect, the sound of the clicking metronome on its own now caused an
increase in salivation.
So the dog had learned an association between the metronome and the food and a new behavior had been
learned. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a conditioned response). The neutral
stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus. Pavlov found that for associations to be made, the two stimuli had
to be presented close together in time (such as a bell). He called this the law of temporal contiguity. If the time
between the conditioned stimulus (bell) and unconditioned stimulus (food) is too great, then learning will not
occur. Pavlov and his studies of classical conditioning have become famous since his early work between 1890-
1930. Classical conditioning is "classical" in that it is the first systematic study of basic laws of learning /
conditioning.

OPERANT CONDITIONING:
Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior.
Through operant conditioning, an individual makes an association between a particular behavior and a
consequence (Skinner, 1938). Behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and
behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated. Skinner introduced a new term -
Reinforcement. Behavior which is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e., strengthened); behavior which is not
reinforced tends to die out-or be extinguished (i.e., weakened).
Behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and behavior followed by
unpleasant consequences is less likely to be repeated. Skinner introduced a new term into the Law of Effect -
Reinforcement. Behavior which is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e., strengthened); behavior which is not
reinforced tends to die out-or be extinguished (i.e., weakened).
If a child tries out a number of behaviors and learns from their consequences. For example, if when you were
younger you tried smoking at school, and the chief consequence was that you got in with the crowd you always
wanted to hang out with, you would have been positively reinforced (i.e., rewarded) and would be likely to
repeat the behavior. If, however, the main consequence was that you were caught, caned, suspended from school
and your parents became involved you would most certainly have been punished, and you would consequently
be much less likely to smoke now.
SOCIAL LEARNING:
 The theory that individuals learn through their observations of others and through their direct
experiences.
 Attributes of models that influence learning:
 Attentional: the attractiveness or similarity of the model
 Retention: how well the model can be recalled
 Motor reproduction: the reproducibility of the model’s actions
 Reinforcement: the rewards associated with learning the model behavior

SHAPING BEHAVIOR
It is a managerial tool attempting to “mold” individuals by guiding their learning in graduated steps such that
they learn to behave in ways that most benefit the organization.
The shaping methods are as follows:
 Positive reinforcement: rewarding desired behaviors.
 Negative reinforcement: removing an unpleasant consequence once the desired behavior is exhibited.
 Punishment: penalizing an undesired behavior.
 Extinction: eliminating a reinforcement for an undesired behavior.