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UNIT 1
Introduction to the Field of Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior is nothing more than developing our understanding and develoment of people skill. A multidisciplinary field devoted to understanding individual and group behavior, interpersonal processes, and organizational dynamics. There are two words, organization and behavior. An organization is a collection of people working together in a division of labor to achieve a common purpose. The study of Organizational Behavior is very interesting and challenging too. It is related to individuals, group of people working together as in teams. The study of organizational behaviors relates to the expected behaviour of an individual in an organization. No two individuals are likely to behave in the same manner in a particular work situation. It is the predictability of a manager about the expected behaviour of an individual. I have learned that Organizational Behavior is the study of the way people interact within groups. Normally this study is applied in an attempt to create more efficient business organizations. The central idea of the study of organizational behavior is that a scientific approach can be applied to the management of workers. Organizational behavior theories are used for human resource purposes to maximize the output from individual group members. It is the study of both group and individual performance and activity within an organization. Internal and external perspectives are two theories of how organizational behavior can be viewed by companies. This area of study examines human behavior in a work environment and determines its impact on job structure, performance, communication, motivation, leadership, etc. Internal and external perspectives are two theories of how organizational behavior can be viewed by companies. There are a variety of different models and philosophies of organizational behavior. Areas of research include improving job performance, increasing job satisfaction, promoting innovation and encouraging leadership. In order to achieve the desired results, managers may adopt different tactics, including reorganizing groups, modifying compensation structures and changing the way performance is evaluated.

UNIT 2
Individual Behavior, Personality and Values

In this unit, I have lerned that Personality encompasses the relatively stable feelings, thoughts, and behavioral patterns a person has. Our personality differentiates us from other people, and understanding someone’s personality gives us clues about how that person is likely to act and feel in a variety of situations. In order to effectively manage organizational behavior, an understanding of different employees’ personalities is helpful. Having this knowledge is also useful for placing people in jobs and organizations. Ther are big five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Openness is the degree to which a person is curious, original, intellectual, creative, and open to new ideas. People high in openness seem to thrive in situations that require being flexible and learning new things. They are highly motivated to learn new skills, and they do well in training settings. Conscientiousness refers to the degree to which a person is organized, systematic, punctual, achievement oriented, and dependable. Conscientiousness is the one personality trait that uniformly predicts how high a person’s performance will be, across a variety of occupations and jobs. Extraversion is the degree to which a person is outgoing, talkative, and sociable, and enjoys being in social situations. One of the established findings is that they tend to be effective in jobs involving sales. Agreeableness is the degree to which a person is nice, tolerant, sensitive, trusting, kind, and warm. In other words, people who are high in agreeableness are likeable people who get along with others. Neuroticism refers to the degree to which a person is anxious, irritable, aggressive, temperamental, and moody. These people have a tendency to have emotional adjustment problems and experience stress and depression on a habitual basis. Values refer to stable life goals that people have, reflecting what is most important to them. Values are established throughout one’s life as a result of the accumulating life experiences and tend to be relatively stable. The values that are important to people tend to affect the types of decisions they make, how they perceive their environment, and their actual behaviors. Moreover, people are more likely to accept job offers when the company possesses the values people care about.

UNIT 3
Perception and Learning in Organization

Our behavior is not only a function of our personality, values, and preferences, but also of the situation. We interpret our environment, formulate responses, and act accordingly. Perception may be defined as the process with which individuals detect and interpret environmental stimuli. What makes human perception so interesting is that we do not solely respond to the stimuli in our environment. We go beyond the information that is present in our environment, pay selective attention to some aspects of the environment, and ignore other elements that may be immediately apparent to other people. Our perception of the environment is not entirely rational. In fact, what we see in the environment may be objectively, flat-out wrong because of our personality, values, or emotions. Our coverage of biases and tendencies in perception is not exhaustive—there are many other biases and tendencies on our social perception. Human beings are prone to errors and biases when perceiving themselves. Moreover, the type of bias people have depends on their personality. Many people suffer from self-enhancement bias. This is the tendency to overestimate our performance and capabilities and see ourselves in a more positive light than others see us. When perceiving themselves, human beings are also subject to the false consensus error. Simply put, we overestimate how similar we are to other people. [5] We assume that whatever quirks we have are shared by a larger number of people than in reality. How we perceive other people in our environment is also shaped by our values, emotions, feelings, and personality. Moreover, how we perceive others will shape our behavior, which in turn will shape the behavior of the person we are interacting with. One of the factors biasing our perception is stereotypes. Stereotypes are generalizations based on group characteristics. For example, believing that women are more cooperative than men, or men are more assertive than women, is a stereotype. One other perceptual tendency that may affect work behavior is that of first impressions. The first impressions we form about people tend to have a lasting impact. In fact, first impressions, once formed, are surprisingly resilient to contrary information. Even if people are told that the first impressions were caused by inaccurate information, people hold onto them to a certain degree.

UNIT 4
Workplace Emotions, Attitudes and Stress

In this unit, I have lerned that emotions influence almost everything we do in the workplace. To understand how emotions influence our thoughts and behavior in the workplace, we first need to know about attitudes. Attitudes involve conscious logical reasoning, whereas emotions operate as events, usually without our awareness. We also experience most emotions briefly, whereas our attitude toward someone or something is more stable over time. attitudes could be understood just by the three cognitive components: beliefs, feelings, and behavioral intentions. Now evidence suggests that a parallel emotional process is also at work. The influence of both cognitive reasoning and emotions on attitudes is most apparent when they disagree with each other. People occasionally experience this mental tug-of-war, sensing that something isn’t right even though they can’t think of any logical reason to be concerned. This conflicting experience indicates that the person’s logical analysis of the situation can’t identify reasons to support the automatic emotional reaction. Our coverage of the dynamics of workplace emotions wouldn’t be complete unless we mentioned that emotions are also partly determined by a person’s personality, not just workplace experiences. Some people experience positive emotions as a natural trait. People with more positive emotions typically have higher emotional stability and are extroverted. Those who experience more negative emotions tend to have higher neuroticism (lower emotional stability) and are introverted. Positive and negative emotional traits affect a person’s attendance, turnover, and long-term work attitudes.29 While positive and negative personality traits have some effect, other research concludes that the actual situation in which people work has a noticeably stronger influence on their attitudes and behavior.

UNIT 5
Foundation of Employee Motivation

In this unit, I have learned that motivation is the force within a person that affect the direction, intensity, and persistence of voluntary behavior. Motivated employees are willing to exert a particular level of effort (intensity), amount of time (persistence) towards a particular goal (direction). Motivation is one of the four essential drivers of individual behavior - MARS (motivation, ability, role perceptions and situational factors). Employee engagement pertains to the employee's emotional and cognitive motivation, self-efficacy to perform the job, perceived clarity of the organization's vision and his or her specific role in that vision, and belief that he or she has the resources to get the job done. Improves organizational effectiveness, associated with higher organizational citizenship and lower turnover intentions. I have learned about Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs. It is a motivation theory of needs arranged in a hierarchy, whereby people are motivated to fulfill a higher need as a lower one becomes gratified. People regulate their goals and behavior on the basis of social and cultural norms, and their self-concept and reinforcement in previous situations. The needs are: 1. Physiological 2. Safety 3. Belongingness 4. Esteem 5.Self-Actualization. Also, Need of Achievement (nAch) is a need in which people want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals and desire unambiguous feedback and recognition for their success. Individual characteristics influence the strenth of higher-order needs, need strength can be altered through social influences, reinforcement, learning, and social conditions. Need of Affiliation (nAff) which is a need in which people seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontation. Need for Power (nPow) is a need in which people want to control their environment, including people and material resources, to benefit either themselves (personalized power) or others (socialized power). Our mental skill set relies on social norms, past experience, and personal values to direct the motivational force of our emotions to useful and acceptable goals that address the source of those emotions.
UNIT 6
Applied Performance Practice

I have learned in this unit that Financial Rewards is the most fundamental applied performance practice in organizational settings. Pay has multiple meanings, such as symbol of success, reinforcer and motivator, reflection of performance, reduce anxiety and so on. The meaning of money also varied. There are four types of rewards in the workplace: Membership and Seniority Based Rewards which represent the largest part of most pay checks and fixed wages, seniority increases. Job Status-Based Rewards which Include job evaluation and status perks. Competency-Based Rewards which Pay increases with competencies acquired and demonstrated. Performance-Based Rewards an overview of some of the most popular individual, team, and organizational performance based rewards. the most fundamental applied performance practice in organizational settings. Besides that, company will have their own way to increase the job effectiveness and improving the company performances. Job Design which is the process of assigning tasks to a job, including the interdependency of those tasks with other jobs. Job Specialization which is the result of division of labor in which work is subdivided into separate jobs assigned to different people. Job Rotation which is the practice of moving employees from one job to another.