Organizational Behavior

Your paper should be an approximately 500-word essay outlining the concepts from the course modules which you have found most meaningful and describing how you anticipate incorporating these new concepts into your professional, academic or personal life.
The grading criteria will be based on:
▪ Explanation of how you have – or you will – incorporate course concepts, citing specific examples (50%)
▪ Evidence of understanding of general organizational behavior course topics (30%)
▪ Quality of writing (20%)

Module Objectives:
MLO 1.1 Define the concepts of organization and organizational behavior.
MLO 1.2 Describe the field of organizational behavior’s commitment to the scientific method and the three levels of analysis it uses.
MLO 1.3 Trace the historical developments and schools of thought leading up to the field of organizational behavior today.
MLO 1.4 Identify the fundamental characteristics of the field of organizational behavior.
MLO 1.5 Describe how the field of OB today is being shaped by the global economy, increasing racial and ethnic diversity in the workforce, and advances in technology.
MLO 1.6 Explain how people’s changing expectations about the desire to be engaged in their work and the need for flexibility in work have influenced the field of organizational behavior.

MLO 2.1 Identify four different forms of organizational justice and the organizational impact of each
MLO 2.2 Describe strategies that can be used to promote organizational justice.
MLO 2.3 Explain what is meant by ethical behavior and describe its relation to the law.
MLO 2.4 Describe the individual and situational factors responsible for unethical behavior in organizations and methods for minimizing such behavior.
MLO 2.5 Explain ways of behaving ethically when conducting business internationally
MLO 2.6 Explain what is meant by corporate social responsibility, describe the forms it takes, and characterize the relationship between responsible behavior and financial profitability.

MLO 3.1 Analyze and identify how ethical decisions made by individuals within organizations can impact stakeholders and the wider community.
MLO 3.2 Analyze and identify how moral development impacts ethical decisions.
MLO 3.3 Analyze how organizational mentalities and counternorms influence ethical decisions.

MLO 4.1 Distinguish between the concepts of social perception and social identity.
MLO 4.2 Explain how the attribution process works, and describe the various sources of bias in social perception.
MLO 4.3 Understand how the process of social perception operates in the context of performance appraisals and employment interviews
MLO 4.4 Define learning and describe the two types most applicable to OB: operant conditioning and observational learning.
MLO 4.5 Describe how principles of learning are involved in organizational training and innovative reward systems.
MLO 4.6 Compare the way organizations use rewards in organizational behavior management programs and how they can use punishment most effectively when administering discipline.

MLO 5.1 Define personality and describe its role in the study of organizational behavior.
MLO 5.2 Identify the Big Five dimensions of personality and elements of core self-evaluations and describe how they are related to key aspects of organizational behavior.
MLO 5.3 Distinguish between positive and negative affectivity, and describe its effects on organizational behavior.
MLO 5.4 Describe achievement motivation and distinguish among learning, performance, and avoidance goal orientations.
MLO 5.5 Describe Machiavellianism and the difference between morning and evening persons, and their role in work-related behavior.
MLO 5.6 Differentiate between cognitive intelligence, emotional intelligence, and practical intelligence, and explain their influences on behavior in organizations.

MLO 6.1 Define attitudes and work-related attitudes, and describe the basic components of attitudes.
MLO 6.2 Distinguish between prejudice and discrimination and identify various victims of prejudice in organizations.
MLO 6.3 Describe some of the steps being taken by organizations to manage diversity in their workforces and the effectiveness of these practices.
MLO 6.4 Explain the concept of job satisfaction and summarize three major theories of job satisfaction.
MLO 6.5 Describe the consequences of job dissatisfaction and ways to promote job satisfaction.
MLO 6.6 Describe the concept of organizational commitment, its major forms, the consequences of low levels of organizational commitment, and how to overcome them.

MLO 7.1 Define motivation and explain its importance in the field of organizational behavior.
MLO 7.2 Describe the motivational-fit approach and what it suggests about how to improve motivation in organizations.
MLO 7.3 Identify and explain the conditions through which goal setting can be used to improve job performance.
MLO 7.4 Describe equity theory and explain how it may be applied to motivating people in organizations.
MLO 7.5 Describe expectancy theory and how it may be applied in organizations
MLO 7.6 Distinguish among job enlargement, job enrichment, and the job characteristics model as techniques for motivating employees.

MLO 8.1 Define what is meant by a group and identify different types of groups operating within organizations.
MLO 8.2 Describe the importance of roles, norms, status, and cohesiveness within organizations.
MLO 8.3 Explain how individual performance in groups is affected by the presence of others (social facilitation) and the number of others with whom one is working (social loafing).
MLO 8.4 Define what teams are and describe the various types of teams that exist in organizations.
MLO 8.5 Describe the effectiveness of teams in organizations.
MLO 8.6 Explain the factors responsible for the failure of some teams to operate as effectively as possible and steps that can be taken to build successful teams.

MLO 9.1 Describe the process of communication and its fundamental purposes in organizations.
MLO 9.2 Identify various forms of verbal media used in organizations, and explain which ones are most appropriate for communicating messages of different types.
MLO 9.3 Describe how technology has influenced organizational communication.
MLO 9.4 Describe how people’s communication patterns differ as a function of their sex and culture.
MLO 9.5 Distinguish between the various forms of formal and informal communication that occur in organizations and how they operate.
MLO 9.6 Explain how you can improve your effectiveness as a communicator in organizations.

MLO 11.1 Identify the steps in the analytical model of decision-making and distinguish among the various types of decisions that people make.
MLO 11.2 Describe different individual decision styles and the various organizational and cultural factors that influence the decision-making process.
MLO 11.3 Distinguish among three approaches to how decisions are made: the rational-economic model, the administrative model, and image theory.
MLO 11.4 Identify the various factors that lead people to make imperfect decisions
MLO 11.5 Compare the conditions under which groups make superior decisions to individuals and when individuals make superior decisions to groups.
MLO 11.6 Describe various techniques that can be used to enhance the quality of individual decisions and group decisions.

MLO 12.1 Describe three types of psychological contracts and the two basic kinds of trust that play a role in work relationships
MLO 12.2 Describe organizational citizenship behavior and ways in which it may be encouraged.
MLO 12.3 Identify ways in which cooperation can be promoted in the workplace..
MLO 12.4 Describe the causes and effects of conflict in organizations along with techniques that can be used to manage conflict in organizations.
MLO 12.5 Explain why deviant organizational behavior can produce positive as well as negative effects.
MLO 12.6 Describe the major forms of workplace deviance, both constructive and destructive..

MLO 13.1 Describe the nature of influence in organizations and its major forms.
MLO 13.2 Distinguish between various forms of individual power in organizations..
MLO 13.3 Define empowerment and indicate how it operates among individuals and in teams.
MLO 13.4 Describe how the resource-dependency model and the strategic contingencies model explain the nature of power among organizational units.
MLO 13.5 Describe how sexual harassment constitutes an abuse of organizational power and ways of reducing its occurrence
MLO 13.6 Describe when and where organizational politics occur and the forms such behavior takes.

MLO 14.1 Differentiate between leadership and management, contrasting the things people in these roles typically do.
MLO 14.2 Identify the major characteristics that make leaders effective and that help transformational leaders inspire followers to make major changes in their organizations.
MLO 14.3 Distinguish between the two basic forms of leader behavior: person-oriented behavior and production-oriented behavior, explaining how grid training helps develop them.

MLO 14.4 Explain what the leader-member exchange (LMX) model and the attributional approach to leadership say about the relationships between leaders and followers.
MLO 14.5 Summarize what LPC contingency theory and situational leadership theory say about the connection between leadership style and situational variables.
MLO 14.6 Describe various techniques used to develop leadership in organizations.