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BUSI 2101 Notes

BUSI 2101- Notes
Chapter 1: Introduction to Organizational Behaviour, Psychological Contract
What is Org Behavior?
 A field of study that investigates that impact that individuals, groups and structure have
improving an organization’s effectiveness.
 Fundamental understanding
What is an organization?
 A consciously coordinated social unit, composed of a group of people, which functions
Work environment and its impact:
 The quality of the workplace impacts directly on issues of customer service and
 1998 study published in the Harvard Business review article “The Employee-CustomerProfit-Chain at Sears. An increase in employee satisfaction resulted in an increase in
customer satisfaction.
 Frank Russell Co. did a similar investigation with Fortune 100 investment companies.
o Took a hypothetical portfolio of stocks
o Money invested returned almost 3 times more than the same amount in the S&P
500 companies.
 Reasons for this success:
o Lower turnover rate
o With better reputations they attract higher quality staff
o Deliver better employee morale- translates into a better environment
Creating a “Great Place to Work”
 Definition: a place to work in which employees trust the people they work for, have pride
in what they do and enjoy the people they work with
 What is meant by trust?
o Credibility- manager’s believability, competence and integrity.
 Managers do so by the following:
o Sharing information broadly: sharing information about such that matters (daily
o Accessibility to employees: Top executives go to great lengths to meet with
ordinary employees whenever possible. CEO of East Alabama medical center
meets with every ward in the hospital every day. To be able to trust employees
need to feel some sense of what kind of people are in management.
o Willingness to answer hard questions: leaders of organizations need to be able to
answer tough questions.
 JM Smucker conducts quarterly meetings where they answer any
questions asked of them
 Key point is that management makes themselves available for genuine
o Delivering on promises: Integrity, cant be trusted if one doesn’t follow through
with their promises no matter how good their communication skills
 The second major aspect of trust related to what employees think management thinks of
Showing recognition and appreciation: Best employers makes an effort to say
thank you for a job well done
o Demonstrating personal concern: respect is needed. People especially care about
how they will be treated when faced with a personal event of significanceillness, death, birth, etc.
The Knowledge Base:
 When individuals join an organization they form an unwritten, implicit, psychological
contract with the organization.
o These refer to the mutual expectations employees and employers have of each
o Defines the implicit agreement about what the employee will do (e.g. work hard,
be supportive of organizational change efforts, work on multiple projects, etc.) in
exchange for the kinds of things an employer will do (e.g. promotions, respect,
rewards, opportunities, etc.)
o An individual’s beliefs, shaped by the organization, regarding the terms and
conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between individuals and their
o Can predict the types of outputs employers will get from employees as well as
the rewards employees will receive
o Social exchange theory: people enter into relationships in which economic and
social exchanges are met. A future has been promised for contributions creating a
obligation to reciprocate
The Current Psychological contract:
 Current rate of change that businesses undergo as they adapt to competition, technology,
and changing markets has resulted in market place expectations and psychological
 After WW2 the psychological contract was very simple: employees worked their way up
the corporate ladder slowly in return for a high promotion in their middle age for a
comfortable retirement, high degree job security
 Now, changed from long-term employment-to-employment based on business needs.
 Now rewarded for skills and performance rather than tenure
 In return for high pay and stock options, many employers expect long hours of hard
work, flexibility, and commitment but have less expectation of employee loyalty.
 How do employees react to broken psychological contracts:
o Modify expectations
o Put more emphasis on reputational capital (building resume)
Employee Commitment:
 Defined as emotional attachment to the organization, identification with the
organization, involvement in the organization, strong belief in and acceptance of the
organization’s goals and values
 Committed employees yield several advantages for the employer:
o Higher performance
o Greater ability to adapt to unforeseen circumstances
o Higher attendance
o Longer tenure
 Commitment is more likely when you are satisfied with your job
 Recommended ways to earn employee commitment:
o Clarifying and communicating the organization’s mission
o Guaranteeing organizational justice
o Creating a sense of community
o Supporting employee development
Study found that greatest influence on the level of employee commitment to stay with
the company was meritocracy (rewards, promotions) followed by fair treatment
 Another factor that influences commitment and turnover is workplace incivility
o Low intensity deviant behavior that violates workplace norms for mutual
respect; may or not be intended
 Seven values found in healthy organizations:
o Commitment to self-knowledge and development (continuous learning)
o Firm belief in decency (fair treatment)
o Respect for individual differences (celebration of diversity)
o Spirit of partnership (belief in community, teamwork, participation)
o High priority for health and well-being
o Appreciation for flexibility and resilience (change managed well)
o Passion for products and process (concerned for balancing stakeholder interest
and environmental protection)
Class Lecture
Chapter 1: Psychological contract and commitment
A psychological contract is an individual’s beliefs, shaped by the organization, regarding the
terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange agreement between individuals and organizations.
Basically, it is an unwritten rule of what is and isn’t’ appropriate in a workplace setting.
 Why is it important?
o Helps orient us to the subject matter of OB
 The relationship between the individual and the organization
o Helps us understand what we are doing in this course:
 As teachers + students have psychological contracts with one another
Social exchange theory: Where the economic and social obligations play a role in the
relationships, and balanced exchange is valued.
Self-fulfilling prophecy: When the performer performs at the rater’s expectations. Eg. School
children who are told they are gifted perform better than their peers, despite no other differences
 Explicit 10% (Things that need to be set)
 Implicit 90% (Things assumed and happen subconsciously)
Pinch model: The day to day negotiations and communications between employee and employer.
Eventually, there will be a strain in it, or pinch. While small, this problem can fester into a crunch
point, where it has become too big to ignore, and
1. Return to normal
2. Renegotiate the terms
3. Resentful termination (fired)
If you break a psychological contract:
Willing + Able
Unwilling + Able
You commit an inadvertent
Willing + Unable
You commit a Breach
You commit a disruption
Reponses to breaking psychological contract:
Silence (Say nothing)
Voice (Say something)
Neglect (Do you job worse than before)
Exit (Quit or leave)
Chapter 3: Organizational Learning
Chapter 4: Decoding Human Behavior
Behaviour is influenced by the following:
 The individual
o Personal characteristics such as abilities, motivation, and personality may affect
 The job
o Job an employee performs affects how that person behaves. Regardless of their
personalities, hospital nurses learn to be meticulous because errors are not
tolerated in their job
 The work group
o Work group characteristics such as norms, size, leadership, and structure also
influence human behavior
 The organization
o Reward systems, performance appraisal procedures, resources, and other
organizational practices further impact how an employee acts
 The culture
o All of these are impacted by national, regional, and local culture to which they
What is personality?
 Can be defined as an individual’s relatively stable characteristic patterns of thought,
emotion, and behavior and the psychological mechanisms that support and drive those
 Although family setting and life circumstances play a role in shaping personality, people
are not passive recipients of environmental influences.
 Children are active creators of their own personalities because they can influence others’
reactions and initiate their own social interactions
 Adults likewise play a role in their own development by choosing their own career path,
activities to participate in, etc.
o Thus both nature and nurture play important roles in personality development
Trait Models:
 Comprised of the OCEAN dimensions:
 Openness to experience:
o Refers to the extent that people actively seek out new and varied experiences and
the extent to which they are aware of their thoughts, feelings and impulses
o Curious, imaginative, complex, refined, sophisticated
o Valued in jobs that require creativity
o More likely to migrate into artistic and scientific fields
 Conscientiousness:
o People who are tend to be dependable and trustworthy and conform to social
o Dependable, organized, reliable, ambitious, hardworking, and persevering
o Strong influence on performance of the Big 5
o Conscientious individuals prioritize accomplish striving:
 Spend more time on-task
 Build job knowledge
 Goal-setting and persistence
 Exceed work requirements
o Refers to how outgoing, sociable, and assertive people are
o May also be energetic, active, having many interests and hobbies
o Talkative, sociable, passionate, bold, dominant
o Prioritize status striving:
 Strong desire to obtain power and influence within a social structure as a
means of expressing personality
o Tend to be high in positive affectivity:
 Tendency to experience pleasant, engaging moods such as enthusiasm,
excitement and elation
o Captures the extent to which people are likeable, cooperative, and considerate
o Warm, kind, sympathetic, helpful, courteous
o Prioritize communion striving:
 Seek to gain acceptance in personal relationships
o Focus on “getting along” not necessarily “getting ahead”
o Beneficial but can be detrimental in others
o Also called emotional stability, refers to the tendency to experience chronic
negative emotions such as worry, insecurity, self-pity, poor self image and mood
o Synonyms with negative affectivity:
 Tendency to experience unpleasant moods such as hostility, nervousness,
and annoyance
o Associated with differential exposure to stressors
 Neurotic people more likely to appraise day-to-day situations as stressful
o Associated with a differential reactivity to stressors:
 Neurotic people less likely to believe they can cope with the stressors
that they experience
Conscientiousness seems to have the strongest relation to overall job performance across
a wide variety of jobs
o People who score high of conscientiousness also may set higher goals for
themselves, have higher performance expectations for other people, have greater
motivation, be more satisfied with their jobs, and have higher occupational status
Neuroticism has the worst relation to overall job performance…
Extroversion related to job types in sales
Agreeableness related to performance in jobs where cooperation is necessary
Openness to experience has not been a predicator of job performance, although good for
international work
Ultimately, we need to consider the situation and the individual’s overall profile
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator:
 Personality profile partially based on psychologist Carl Jung’s theory of personality
 Available in 19 different languages, used in a variety of workplaces
 Extroversion/Introversion (E/I): refers to how the individual interacts socially.
o Extroverts are outgoing and sociable
o Introverts are shy and prefer to be alone
 Sensing/Intuiting (S/N): measures how people prefer to collect information.
Those who score towards the sensing end of the dimension prefer to use their 5
senses to systematically obtain factual information (practical and orderly)
o Intuitive individuals use instinct and subjective perception (unconscious process)
Thinking/Feeling (T/F): captures how people evaluate information
o Thinking types prefer to rely on logic and analysis (use reason and logic)
o Feeling types rely more on their own and other people’s reaction (uses values and
Judging/Perceiving (J/P): refers to how people like to make decisions
o People who score on the judging side are planners and like to control the decision
making process (want order and structure)
o Perceivers are more flexible, spontaneous, and adaptive in their decision style
(flexible and spontaneous)
The MBTI is scored by combining all four pairs into a matrix of 16 personality types
o Visionaries (INTJ): original, stubborn, and driven
There is little evidence supporting MBTI as a valid personality measure as is it a good
tool for self-awareness but not for testing job candidates
Other Personality Traits:
 Self-esteem: degree of regard people have for themselves. Individuals with high selfesteem tend to be more satisfied with their jobs than those with low self-esteem
 Machiavellianism: takes name from Niccolo Machiavelli. People who are high in
Machiavellianism believe that the end justifies the means and that manipulation is an
acceptable way to influence other people
 Locus of control: people with an internal locus of control tend to believe that they
control their own fate and destiny. In contrast, people with an external locus of control
tend to think that luck, chance or other environmental factors control what happens to
Social Dominance orientation:
 Preference for hierarchy in a social system and inequality between groups
 Sample items from SDO scale:
o “Some groups of people are inferior to others”
o “To get ahead in life, sometimes it is necessary to step on other groups”
o “Inferior groups should stay in their own place”
 Associated with:
o Right wing authoritarianism
o More prejudicial views
o More aggressive behavior in the workplace and group conflict
Proactive Personality:
 Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and perseveres to completion
 Creates positive change in the work environment
 Fit with organization/supervisor is important
The “Dark Triad” of Negative Personality Traits:
 All linked to destructive workplace behaviors i.e. harassment, bullying, etc.
 Machiavellianism:
o Pragmatic, emotionally distant power-player who believes that the end justifies
the means
o Manipulative, deceptive, unethical, and persuade more than they are persuaded
o An arrogant, self-centered, entitled person who needs excessive admiration
o Prone to deviant behavior or partly due to high levels of thrill-seeking,
impulsivity, and selfishness
o Tend to display superficial charm, and lack of emotion and remorsefulness
Emotional Intelligence:
 Capacity to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions to discriminate among
 4 core dimensions:
o Self-awareness: appraisal and expression of emotions in oneself
o Other-awareness: the appraisal and recognition of emotion in others
o Emotional regulation: being able to recover quickly from emotional
o Use of emotions: being able to harness emotion to enhance performance
 Predicts key work/non-work related outcomes:
o Stronger social relationships
o Higher well-being/life satisfaction
o Higher job satisfaction and performance
o Effective leadership
o Effective group performance
 Predicts these outcomes above and beyond effects of IQ and personality
Interactionist Perspective:
 Like trait models they hypothesize that personality is an important factor in determining
an individual’s behavior. They go a step further and argue that situational factors can
powerfully shape how that individual responds
 Conditional Reasoning: suggests that individuals interpret what happens in their social
environment based on their individual dispositions, a type of mental map
 Trait Activation: certain situational cues are needed to evoke the display of personality
traits, e.g. proactive personality
 Reciprocal Determinism: three way influence
o Personal factors behaviorenvironmental factors
From the Interactive: Dealing with Difficult People
1) Create a Rich picture of the problem:
 Remember that we tend to think that people cause their won behavior and we
tend to downplay other causes. Think about the following:
o The problem person: what motivates this person? What obstacles are
preventing him from achieving what he wants? How often has their
behavior occurred?
o Yourself: what might you do to encourage the problem behavior? Are
you unknowingly rewarding some behaviors and punishing others? Is
there something that you do that sets the person on the wrong track?
o The situation: What might be causing you and the problem person to
behave poorly? Is there something happening in the organization that
might have an impact? Was there something that happened that might
have triggered this behavior?
2) Reframe your goals:
Try to think flexibly about what you want to happen
Consider a situation where an employee is dealing with a large amount of email
requests from a low-priority customer group. He wants to stop answering these
emails. Instead of just demanding the employee do the emails you might decide
that you want the employee to have less work but also meet the needs of the
3) Stage the Encounter:
 Schedule a face-to-face meeting to discuss the issues. Acknowledge the person’s
values and then describe the problem behavior as you see it in factual terms.
Clearly indicate that the problem behavior cannot continue and suggest that you
would like to work together to find a solution that is acceptable for both of you.
Then discuss possible solutions.
4) Follow up:
 Set aside time to monitor and reward progress or take corrective action
*Remember the Juana case study example*
Chapter 5- Motivation
One key factor that affects productivity is motivation:
 That is the psychological forces that determine the direction of people’s behavior,
their level of effort and level of persistence
 Every living human is motivated
The primary task for managing motivation is channeling and directing human
energy toward the activities, tasks, and objectives that further the organization’s
Motivation is an internal state that directs individuals and cannot be done to
someone else (someone else cannot directly motivate you)
The sources of motivation are both intrinsic and extrinsic:
 Intrinsic: is performed for its own sake. The work itself is pleasurable
o People who do what they love to do (hockey players)
 Extrinsic: performed because of the consequences it brings
o Material or social rewards or even the avoidance of punishment
o Salary, social prestige of a large house and a luxury car rather than the actual job
are extrinsic rewards
o Motivated by what the job gives you
 Performance= Motivation x Ability
The most reliable predictor of job performance is cognitive ability:
 This means that intelligence should be a major criterion when we select job candidates
When people wonder why an individual does not appear motivated to do their job we look at four
 Person-job-reward fit
 Job design
 Role of the leader
 Role of the organizational policies and rewards
Person-Job-Reward Fit:
 Key step in understanding motivation problems is to identify the factors unique to an
individual that energize, direct, sustain, and stop behavior
 Content theories focus on the specific internal needs that motivate people
 Content theories include Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and McClelland’s need
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
 Physiological needs refer to the basic needs like food, water, and shelter
o Organizations satisfy this by providing adequate wages
 Security needs: need for security, stability, and protection from physical or emotional
o Organizations satisfy this need by providing a pension and health care plans
 Socialization needs: need for social interaction, friendship, affection, and love
o Organizations can satisfy this by permitting interaction with colleagues, work
team structures, social and sports facilities, and parties
 Self-esteem needs: need to feel good about oneself and to be respected, appreciated and
o Organizations can satisfy this by providing feedback and recognition for high
performance and accomplishments
 Self-Actualization needs: need people have to realize their full potential
o Organizations fulfill this need by allowing employees to use their skills and
talents fully
Higher order needs take effect once lower order needs are met
McClelland’s Need Theory:
 McClelland and his colleagues found evidence of 3 human motives:
o Need for affiliation
o Need for power
o Need for achievement
 Need for Power:
o The need to influence and lead others and be in control of one’s environment
o Very common among middle and upper level management as their job is to
influence people
o Can be satisfied in positions such as politics, police work, military, and law
o There are two faces of need for power
 Positive face is socialized power: influence used for the good of others
 Negative face is personalized power: an unsocialized concern for
personal dominance
 Need for Affiliation:
o Desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships
o Positive face is affiliative interest: concern for interpersonal relationships but
not at the expense of goal-oriented behavior
 Concern for relationships does not prevent them from giving negative
feedback or making tough decisions
o Negative face of n-Affiliation is affiliative assurance: concern with obtaining
assurance about the security and strength of one’s relationship and avoiding
 Worry about being disliked
 Need for achievement:
o Need to accomplish goals, excel, and strive continually to do things better
o People high in n-Achievement want to take personal responsibility for their
success of failure, like to take calculated risks, and prefer situations in which they
get immediate and concrete feedback on how well they’re doing
 Most effective managers scored high in n-Affiliation and n-Achievement
Hackman and Oldham Job characteristic theory:
 Focused on internal work motivation
 Internal work Motivation: performing well on the job results in the individual feeling a
sense of accomplishment and feeling good; performing poorly leaves the individual
feeling unhappy
Hackman and Oldham job characteristic model:
Theory based on an epiphany that human are hard-wired to grow and develop
The Role of Leadership in Fostering Motivation:
Goal-Setting Theory:
 Involves setting a clear objective and ensuring that every participant is aware of what is
expected from him or her if this objective if to be achieved
o Specific goals increase performance
o Compared to easy goals, difficult goals that are accepted by employees result in
higher performance
o Feedback leads to higher performance than non-feedback
o People are more committed to goals that are made public and that they
themselves set
Equity Theory:
 Employees evaluate what they receive from a job (outputs such as pay, bonuses, job
security, promotions, recognition, etc.) in relation to what they contribute (inputs such as
time, creativity, skills, effort, etc.)
 Those who are overrewarded may increase production or the quality of their work, but
are likely to simply find ways to justify the overreward
 Those who are underrewarded may also try a variety of methods to restore equity. May
ask for a raise or an increase in other rewards, decrease production or quality, increase
absenteeism, and perhaps resign.
 When compensation is equitable employees report greater levels of job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, and trust in supervisors
Expectancy Theory:
Assumes that motivation is a function of 3 linkages:
o Effort-performance outcome expectation that if a person makes an effort, it will
result in good performance
o The performance-outcome expectation that good performance will result in a
particular outcome or reward
o The valence (value) of the reward to the person
o Ability also influences how much effort is necessary, since good performance is
more difficult for people with less ability
Reinforcement Theory:
 Operant conditioning: the idea that people continue behavior that is rewarded and
suppress behavior that does not lead to desired outcomes
 The main tenets of reinforcement theory is that managers should reinforce desired
behavior and discourage undesirable behavior by negative reinforcement, extinction or
 Positive reinforcement: giving people positive outcomes when they perform the desired
behavior, such as a bonus when their team finishes a product launch on time
o It is better to create a positive environment and reward positive behavior than to
focus primarily on punishing or disciplining negative behavior
o Pavlov’s dog
 Punishment: administering an undesired or negative consequence in response to
undesired behavior
o Can take form of reprimand, warning letter, suspension, pay cut, demotion,
termination, loss of a hoped-for assignment and so forth
o Should be handled privately
 Extinction: occurs when the reinforcer for an undesired behavior is removed
o A manager who was promoted from within and realized he can not continue to
have the same types of social interaction with his buddies at work
Chapter 8: Interpersonal Communication
Why is communication so important?
 Communication is the process of information exchange between communicators with the
goal of achieving mutual understanding
o Essential skill for any business man
o Most frequent and important of managerial activities
o Basis for almost all other activities people in business sector engage in
o Communication is a recurring process
Transactional Model of Communication
 Communication is a transaction
o People respond based on how they perceive what was said
o Our response to speakers’ messages lead them to modify what they say next
 Feedback and clarification are important
 Occur in social systems and each communicator has a personal context and field of
Distortion in communication:
 Person A will say something to person B who hears and understands what A said
 If this were so easy we would never experience what has been labeled as the arc of
o Difference between what the sender intended to communicate and what the
receiver actually understood
Barriers to communication:
 Poor relationships: communications must be understood within the context of
interpersonal relationships
 Lack of clarity: the way person encodes the message may not accurately reflect the
 Individual differences in encoding and decoding: the way person A encodes messages
and the way person decodes them is strongly related to their individual field of
 Gender: women focus on seeking and giving information, men tend to be more
concerned with status and trying to achieve or maintain the upper hand in a conversation
(hard to decode or interpret)
 Perception: they may hear what they wish to hear or only hear messages that reinforce
their own beliefs
 Culture: ability to speak another language fluently does not guarantee that one
understands all the nuances involved in a particular context
 High context versus low context: vary in the extent to which they use language itself to
communicate the message.
o Low context communication: relies on explicit verbal messages
o High context: most of the information is contained in the physical context or
internalized in the person, not explicit or coded info (Asia)
 Silence: perceived and used differently according to cultural norms
 Direct versus indirect: refers to extent to which language and tone of voice reveal or
hides the speaker’s intent.
o Direct style: specify their intentions
o Indirect: hide their meaning in nuances in their verbal statements
 Misinterpretation of Nonverbal Communication
 Defensiveness: once people become defensive they have difficulty hearing or
interpreting messages accurately
 Lack of feedback: because communication process is fraught with potential for
distortion, feedback is crucial. Ensuring what you said is what you really meant to say
 Poor listening skills
Responding styles:
o Evaluative: indicates that the listener has made a judgment of the relative goodness,
appropriateness, effectiveness or rightness of the speaker’s statement of the problem
o Interpretive: indicates the listener’s intent is to teach, tells how they really feel
o Supportive: indicates the listener’s intent to reassure
Probing: a probing response is a response that indicates the listener’s intent is to seek
further information
Understanding: indicates listener’s intent is only to ask whether the listener understands
what they are saying
Communication via electronic emails:
o More likely to be misinterpreted
o Rich communication: involves multiple channels, face-to-face communication
o Lean communication: limited channels, language alone, emoticons
Active Listening:
o Listening one of the most important communication skills
o Being nonevaluative:
o Active listening includes a variety of verbal and non-verbal behaviors to the
speaker that he or she understood
o Paraphrasing Content:
o When we paraphrase we put what the speaker has said in our own words and
repeat it to make sure the speaker understood
o Key is listening to what the other party is saying
o Reflecting the implications
o Indicating appreciation of where the content is leading
o Important to reflect on the implications to leave the speaker in control
o Reflecting underlying feelings
o Empathize, put yourself in someone else’s shoes
o Delicacy is required when reflecting the underlying feelings to not overexpose
the speaker
o Inviting further contributions:
o Communicate interest in hearing more when you don’t completely understand
enough to follow
o To maintain balance, questions should not be used exclusively but should follow
after reflecting
Chapter 9: Perception and Attribution
Knowledge Base:
 Perception: is the process by which we select, organize and evaluate stimuli in our
environment to make it meaningful to ourselves
o Serves as a filter or gatekeeper so we are not overwhelmed by the stimuli that
bombard us
 Three stages of the perceptual process:
 Selection: a key aspect of the perceptual process is selective attention, defined as the
process of filtering the information our senses receive
 Both internal and external factors determine what sensory impressions we pay attention
o Internal factor are motivate, values, interests, attitudes, past experiences and
o External factors that influence perception are characteristics of the target we
perceive: motion, intensity, size, novelty, salience (stand out) etc.
 Organization: second stage in the perceptual process is the organization of the stimuli
that has been selected to make it simpler
Our thought process structure stimuli into patterns that make sense to us
Antithesis (opposites) and cause and effect (If, Then) are examples
According to social cognition theory, we organize stimuli into schemas: mental
maps of different concepts, events, or types of stimuli that contain both the
attributes of the concept and the relationship among the attributes
 Traits that we think describe a good leader (trustworthy, hardworking,
Evaluation: final stage in the perceptual process is evaluation or inference.
o We interpret stimuli in a subjective rather than objective fashion
o Conclusions are biased by our own attitudes, needs, experiences, goals, values,
o Not only do interpretations differ from person to person but the same person can
have diverse perceptions of the same stimuli at different points in time
Social Identity:
 We communicate more with people we perceive to like us, social identity and perception
are very closely related
 Social Identity theory is based on the belief that people tend to:
o (1) Perceive themselves to others in terms of social categories rather than as
individuals (social categorization)
o (2) To assess the relative worth of groups as well as individuals by comparing
them (social comparison)
o (3) Perceive and respond to the world not as detached observers but it terms of
their identity, which depends on the social groups to which they belong (social
 Sharing a social identity means that people perceive themselves as similar along
important dimensions such as similar disposition, attitudes and define themselves in
terms of the groups in which they are members
 Downside is that when humans categorize others into groups they tend to perceive other
groups as inferior-stereotyping
 Occurs when we attribute behavior or attitudes to a person on the basis of the group to
which the person belongs, danger of perception
 Research in social cognition shows that people have an implicit bias against social
categories, particularly racial minorities, despite claims that they are not prejudiced
 According to research, stereotypes are based on relatively little information, resistant to
change even in light of new information, and rarely accurately applied to specific
 Can be helpful if used effectively
 According to Adler, helpful stereotypes are consciously held, descriptive rather than
evaluative, accurate, and viewed as a “first best guess” about a group or person, which
are subject to modification once we have firsthand experience with the people
Impact of Perception in the Workplace:
 WI Thomas- “situations that are perceived to be real are real in their consequence”
 We cannot ignore misperceptions with the comforting thought that they are untrue
 The determination of employee job performance is vulnerable to subjective perceptions
that have surprisingly little to do how people do their job
Two economists discover that paychecks are correlated with beauty, particularly
for men. People who’s looks are above average are paid approximately 5 percent
more than people whose appearance is average
Perceptual Distortions:
 Halo/horns effect: occurs when our evaluation of others is dominated by only one of
their traits
o US army officers who were liked were evaluated as more intelligent
 Primary effect: one’s perception is dominated by the first impression of another person
o Initial impression of the person is never adjusted in light of more information
about him or her
 In contrast, when one’s perception is overly dominated by the most recent interaction
with a person is called the recency effect
 Central tendency is a perceptual distortion that occurs when a person avoid extreme
judgments and rates everything as average
o Manager gives employee a rating of 3 out instead of 5 or 1 that they deserve
 Contrast effects: occurs when our evaluations are affected by comparisons with other
people we recently encountered who are either better or worse in terms of this
o Brother much smarter than me, so teachers compare my intelligence to his
 Projection: the tendency to attribute one’s personal attributes or feelings to another
person, thereby relieving one’s own sense of guilt or failure. It’s a defense mechanism
that protects people from confronting their own feelings.
o Little insight into their own personalities
 Perceptual defense: acts as a filter, blocking out what we do not want to see and letting
through that which we wish to see. Used when dealing with self-image and our
relationships with important others. Can create self-fulfilling (or circular) perceptual
Observation of
Congruent Behavior
Leads to confirmation of the original assumption or belief
The Johari Window:
 An information processing model that consists of four regions determined by whether the
information about oneself is known or unknown to oneself and others
 When a person’s arena is very small, communication is greatly hindered
 The more we know about ourselves and allow other to know us, the greater the potential
for effective communication
 Two ways to increase an arena: self-disclosure (sharing info about oneself, façade to
arena) and feedback from others (blindspot to arena)
 There must be trust and psychological safety first
 The kind of information being processed is internal information, not physical features
Known to others
Known to Self
Not Known to Self
Not known to others
Arena: information that I and others know about me-mutually shared perceptions
o Beanie has huge biceps (we know it, he knows it)
Façade: information I know about myself but hide from others
o Matt has a huge horn, hides it from the world
Blindspot: people perceive about me but I do not know myself
o Tamber is shy, doesn’t think she is shy
Unknown: neither I nor other see in myself
Cultural Influence on Perception:
 Adler has identified 3 sources of misinterpretation in cross-cultural interaction:
o Subconscious cultural blinders: we use our own cultural assumptions to
interpret events and behavior of a foreign culture
o Lack of cultural awareness: we are unaware of our cultural values and norms
and the way that other cultures perceive us
o Projected similarity: we assume that people from other cultures are more
similar to us than they really are
D.I.E Model:
 Developed to teach more accurate perceptions and attributions in cross-cultural
 Stands for Description, Interpretation, Evaluation
 Description: refers to what you see-only observed fact
 Interpretation: refers to inferences, what you think you see
 Evaluation: refers to judgments, what you feel about what you think
 Attribution theory: when people observe behavior they attempt to determine whether it is
internally or externally caused
 We use three types of information to help us make causal judgments about others:
o Consensus: refers to the extent to which others behave in the same manner
o Consistency: extent to which the person acts in the same manner at other times
o Distinctiveness: extent to which this person behaves in the same manner in other
 Can often lead a self-serving bias: tendency for people to attribute successes to internal
factors while blaming external factors for their failure
 Internal causation: behavior explained by internal factors
 External causation: behavior explained by external factors
Chapter 3: Individual and Organizational Learning
Learning Style Types:
o Diverging:
o Combines the learning mode of Concrete experience (feeling) and reflective
observation (watching)
o Best at viewing concrete situations from many different points of view
o Enjoy situations that call for generating a wide range of ideas
o Greatest strength: imaginative ability and awareness of meaning and values
o Formal learning situation: group work
o Imaginative
o Understand people
o Brain-storming
o Open-minded
o Assimilating:
o Combines learning mode of reflective observation (watching) and abstract
conceptualization (thinking)
o Best at understanding a wide range of information and putting it into a concise,
logical form
o Less focused on people, more interested in abstract ideas and concepts
o Greatest strengths: inductive reasoning, the ability to create theoretical
models into an integrated plan
o Formal learning: prefers lectures, readings, models, etc.
o Planning
o Creating models
o Developing theories
o Being patient
o Converging:
o Combines learning mode of abstract conceptualization (thinking) and Active
experimentation (doing)
o Best at finding practical uses for ideas and theories
o Ability to solve problems and make decisions based on finding solutions to
questions and problems
o Greatest strength: problem solving, decision making, and practical
application of ideas
o Formal learning: prefer to experiment with new ideas, practical applications
o Solving problems
o Making decisions
o Logical thinking
o Accommodating:
o Combines Active Experimentation (doing) and Concrete experience (feeling)
o Ability to learn primarily from “hands-on” experience
o Enjoy carrying out plans and involving yourself in new and challenging
o Act on “gut” feeling rather than on logical analysis
o Greatest strength: doing things, in carrying out plans and tasks, and getting
involved in new experiences
o Formal learning: work with others to get assignment done, set goals, do field
o Getting things done
o Leading
o Taking risks
A Model of the Learning Process;
o The learning process can be conceived as a four stage cycle: (1) concrete experiences, (2)
observation and reflections which lead to (3) the formation of abstract concepts and
generalizations which lead to (4) testing implication of concepts in new situations
o Several key observations about Kolb’s model
o First, the learning cycle is continuously recurring
o Second, the direction that learning takes is governed by one’s felt needs and
o Third, since the learning process is directed by individual needs and goals,
learning styles become highly individual
Learning Styles:
o Different learning styles or modes are associated with each stages of this cycle
o People develop preferred modes, or ways of learning
o Effective learners develop some level of proficiency in each style/mode
o The Learning Style Inventory (LSI):
o Indicates how different people are stronger at different stages of the cycle
o Measures the extent that you prefer one mode of learning
Why are learning styles important?
o They start to teach us about ourselves
o Part of the reflective mindset- gaining self-awareness
o They will help us understand one another’s preferences when working in teams
The Learning Organization:
o Systematic problem solving: employees taught to solve problems in a scientific method
o Experimentation: employees encouraged to take risks and experiment with continuous
o Learning from past experiences: companies must take time and evaluate their successes
and failures
o Learning from others: companies look outward to find and adopt good ideas from other
o Transferring knowledge: organization have mechanisms to share knowledge among
Adaptive learning: solving problems and making incremental improvements using the
prevailing mental model
Generative learning: consists of continuous experimentation and feedback in an
ongoing analysis of how organizations define and solve problems
Argyris and Schon (1978): Levels of organizational learning
Single – loop learning: adaptive learning – coping
- Changing according to existing procedures and strategies
- “Inside the box”
Double-loop learning: Generative Learning – creating
- Questioning and possibly altering the governing assumptions, policies, procedures and
strategies and developing a new one.
- “Outside the box”
Triple-loop or Deutero learning: learning to learn
3 types of learning
Cognitive- reading the information from a book
Affective –emotions, like fear and happiness
Psychomotor – Physically doing something
Organizational Learning:
It is a process, in which an organization’s capacity to acquire, process, exploit/apply and
disseminate knowledge in order to ensure its success. Basically the concept of individual learning
applied to the organization as a whole as opposed to just individuals.
For example, teaching someone else in the organization is a net game of 0. You could hire
someone who knows different things, and have a net change in knowledge. You can lose
knowledge by someone leaving.
2 Types of Organizational Learning
- Search for and experiment with new kinds or forms of organizational activities and
- Learn ways to refine and improve existing organizational activities and procedures
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