Using the Problem-Solving Application Case “WALMART’S VALUES COME UNDER SCRUTINY” from Chapter 2 (pp. 73-74) of your text, what do you see as the major problem in this situation? What are your recommendations for solving the problem? Cite concepts from the first two chapters of your text and other outside sources in your initial post.
The initial post must be between 250-300 words in length and is due by 11:59PM EST on Thursday. At least two replies to other students are due by Sunday at 11:59PM EST. Responding to at least two other students is a requirement; posts must be submitted on time and each peer reply per question must be between 150-200 words in length.
Angelo Kinicki
Behavior
Organizational
A Practical, Problem-Solving Approach
3e
Angelo Kinicki
Arizona State University
Kent State University
Organizational
Behavior
A Practical, Problem-Solving Approach
Third Edition
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR: A PRACTICAL, PROBLEM-SOLVING APPROACH, THIRD EDITION
Published by McGraw-Hill Education, 2 Penn Plaza, New York, NY 10121. Copyright © 2021 by McGraw-Hill
Education. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. Previous editions © 2018 and 2016. No
part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or
retrieval system, without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education, including, but not limited to, in
any network or other electronic storage or transmission, or broadcast for distance learning.
Some ancillaries, including electronic and print components, may not be available to customers outside the
United States.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 LWI 24 23 22 21 20
ISBN 978-1-260-07507-6 (bound edition)
MHID 1-260-07507-9 (bound edition)
ISBN 978-1-260-51625-8 (loose-leaf edition)
MHID 1-260-51625-3 (loose-leaf edition)
Executive Portfolio Manager: Michael Ablassmeir
Lead Product Developer: Kelly Delso
Product Developer: Anne Ehrenworth
Executive Marketing Manager: Debbie Clare
Content Project Managers: Harvey Yep (Core) / Keri Johnson (Assessment)
Buyer: Susan K. Culbertson
Design: Matt Diamond
Content Licensing Specialist: Carrie Burger
Cover Image: © malerapaso/Getty Images
Compositor: Aptara®, Inc.
All credits appearing on page or at the end of the book are considered to be an extension of the copyright page.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2019920084
The Internet addresses listed in the text were accurate at the time of publication. The inclusion of a website does
not indicate an endorsement by the authors or McGraw-Hill Education, and McGraw-Hill Education does not
guarantee the accuracy of the information presented at these sites.
mheducation.com/highered
DEDICATION
To the thousands of students I encountered during my career. Thank you for making
me a better teacher and writer.
— Angelo
iv
ab
ou
t t
he
a
ut
ho
r nizational performance. Angelo has published over 95 articles in a variety of academic journals
and proceedings and is co-author of eight text-
books (32 including revisions) that are used by
hundreds of universities around the world.
Several of his books have been translated into
multiple languages, and two of his books were
awarded revisions of the year by McGraw-Hill.
Angelo also was identified as being among the
top 100 most influential (top .6%) Organizational
Behavior authors in 2018 out of a total of 16,289
academics.
Angelo is a busy international consultant and
is a principal at Kinicki and Associates, Inc., a
management consulting firm that works with top
management teams to create organizational
change aimed at increasing organizational effec-
tiveness and profitability. He has worked with
many Fortune 500 firms as well as numerous
entrepreneurial organizations in diverse indus-
tries. His expertise includes facilitating strategic/
operational planning sessions, diagnosing the
causes of organizational and work-unit problems,
conducting organizational culture interventions,
implementing performance management sys-
tems, designing and implementing performance
appraisal systems, developing and administering
surveys to assess employee attitudes, and lead-
ing management/executive education programs.
He developed a 3600 leadership feedback
instrument called the Performance Management
Leadership Survey (PMLS) that is used by com-
panies throughout the world.
Angelo and his wife of 37 years, Joyce, have
enjoyed living in the beautiful Arizona desert for
36 years. They are both natives of Cleveland,
Ohio. They enjoy traveling, hiking, and spending
time in the White Mountains with Gracie, their
adorable golden retriever. Angelo also has a pas-
sion for golfing.
Angelo Kinicki is an emeritus professor of
management and held the Weatherup/Overby
Chair in Leadership from 2005 to 2015 at the
W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State
University. He joined the faculty in 1982, the
year he received his doctorate in business
administration from Kent State University. He
was inducted into the W.P. Carey Faculty Hall
of Fame in 2016. Angelo currently is the Dean’s
Scholar in Residence at Kent State University.
He is teaching in the MBA program and serves
on the Dean’s National Advisory Board.
Angelo is the recipient of six teaching awards
from Arizona State University, where he taught in
its nationally ranked MBA and PhD programs. He
also received several research awards and was
selected to serve on the editorial review boards
for four scholarly journals. His current research
interests focus on the dynamic relationships
among leadership; organizational culture; organi-
zational change; and individual, group, and orga-
Courtesy of Angelo Kinicki
v
ne
w
to
th
e
th
ird
e
di
tio
nwe have included a variety of new exercises to our already robust Connect offering:• Problem-Solving Application Case Analyses:
All problem-solving application mini-cases
and end-of-chapter cases are now assignable
as case analyses in Connect. These exercises
give students the opportunity to analyze a
situation and to apply the 3-Step Problem-
Solving Approach. Student knowledge and
proficiency are assessed using high-level
multiple-choice questions that focus on both
the problem-solving approach and on the
key topics of each chapter.
• Application-Based Activities: Students can
gain valuable practice using problem-
solving skills to apply their knowledge to
realistic scenarios. Included in this edition
are two types of Application-Based Activities:
Role-Playing mini-simulations that allow
students to make decisions and see, in real
time, the impact of those decisions; and
Self-Assessments, which are research-based
surveys that students can take to gain fur-
ther introspection into how organizational
behavioral concepts apply to them.
• Cumulative Case: This capstone activity
provides students the opportunity to apply
the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach on an
actual situation affecting a specific firm
(Tesla). Because the case examines issues at
the individual, group, and organizational
levels of analysis at Tesla, it can be used in
parts or as a comprehensive assignment or
exam. All told, this activity presents stu-
dents with a rich and practical example to
apply their OB knowledge and problem-
solving skills.
• iSeeIt Videos: Brief, contemporary intro-
ductions to key course concepts that often
perplex students, this series will enhance
your student-centered instruction by offer-
ing your students dynamic illustrations that
guide them through the basics of core OB
concepts such as motivation, leadership,
socialization, and more.
• Manager’s Hot Seat Videos: These vignettes
allow students to assume the role of a man-
ager as they immerse themselves in real-life
situations. Students see how managers deal
with employees and complex issues, and use
critical-thinking skills in defining their
approach and course of action–while
learning from the manager’s mistakes.
We are pleased to share these
exciting updates and new additions
to the third edition of
Organizational Behavior!
Features
In this new edition, we have better integrated
the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach through-
out, and clarified its relationship to the Orga-
nizing Framework for Understanding and
Applying OB. In addition:
• Winning at Work boxes at the beginning of
every chapter offer career-readiness guid-
ance for students on a variety of timely,
pertinent topics.
• OB in Action boxes illustrate OB concepts
or theories in action in the real world,
featuring well-known companies and
individuals.
• Applying OB boxes offer students
“how-to” guidance on applying OB
knowledge in their lives. The importance
of career readiness is stressed in many
of these boxes throughout the book,
indicated with a “Career Readiness”
label.
• Problem-Solving Application boxes provide a
minicase for students to analyze, using the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.
• Takeaways for Me and Takeaways for
Managers conclude each chapter,
explaining in direct terms practical appli-
cations of the chapter content from the
student’s perspective as an employee and
a manager.
• Problem-Solving Application Cases at the
end of each chapter provide a complex and
current case with one or more problems
that pertain to concepts discussed in the
chapter.
• Legal/Ethical Challenges provide a conclud-
ing exercise in each chapter and ask stu-
dents to choose from several courses of
action or invent their own to resolve a
business situation involving ethics
at work.
Connect
In our continuing efforts to help students move
from comprehension to application, and to
ensure they see the personal relevance of OB,
vi NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION
Chapters
In each chapter we have refreshed examples,
research, figures, tables, statistics, and photos,
as well as streamlined design to ease navigation
and improve readability. We have also largely
replaced the topics in such popular features as
Winning at Work, Legal/Ethical Challenges,
Problem-Solving Application mini cases, and
Problem-Solving Application Cases. New in
this edition, each chapter concludes with a sec-
tion entitled “Making Connections,” in which
we provide a list of specific applications of
chapter content for students and managers.
Beyond these valuable changes, the following
outlines some of the more notable changes by
chapter.
CHAPTER 1
• New content on the implications of OB for
students’ jobs and careers.
• Expanded and enhanced section on ethics,
including expanded treatment on the preva-
lence of cheating and other forms of unethi-
cal conduct at school and work; revised and
further developed section on ethical dilem-
mas and whistleblowers; revised and
enhanced content on the importance of soft
versus hard skills; expanded explanation of
the importance of self-awareness for personal
development and job and career success.
• Updated survey results outlining skills most
sought by employers.
• New Winning at Work feature provides
insight and guidance on how to deal with
challenges in the hiring process, including
the growing role of artificial intelligence
and how to effectively get past these virtual
gatekeepers.
• New Applying OB feature on how self-
awareness can help one build a fulfilling career.
• Updated and refined the 3-Step Approach
to Solving Problems Using OB.
CHAPTER 2
• New content on the factors that shape the
values of Generation Z; increasing
employee commitment, with best practices
used by Hilton, Salesforce, and Cisco.
• New examples clarify content about
Schwartz’s value theory and explain
cognitive dissonance.
• Updated statistics on employee engagement
around the world; new data on employee
satisfaction in the U.S.; new statistics on
telecommuting; new research on accounting/
financial performance and customer
service/satisfaction as outcomes of job
satisfaction.
• New Winning at Work feature on creating
your own sense of employee engagement.
• New Problem-Solving Application features
on McDonald’s workers protesting sexual
harassment at work; Netflix’s approach to
sexual harassment in the workplace.
• New OB in Action feature on how compa-
nies foster employee engagement.
• New Applying OB features on ways to
implement telecommuting for employees;
using job satisfaction to reduce employee
turnover.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on Walmart’s values
under scrutiny.
CHAPTER 3
• New section on the dark side of personal-
ity, the dark triad: narcissism, psychopathy,
and Machiavellianism; new coverage of
emotional intelligence, including the most
recent research and ways in which to
develop one’s EI; new content on the
potential and actual success of introverts in
the workplace; new content on how to
manage emotions during the job search
process.
• Expanded section on brain training, using
current research findings and applications;
streamlined treatment of multiple intelli-
gences with new, compelling examples;
updated and streamlined material related to
core self-evaluations.
• Updated research and practical implications
of intelligences, linking Big 5 personality
dimensions to performance.
• New Winning at Work feature illustrating
the career implications of OB, with
guidance on which interview questions
students should be prepared to answer
and ask.
• New Applying OB features on what to look
for in a manager; managing emotions
during the job search.
• New OB in Action features on intelligence
testing; one of the richest self-made women
in America (who also epitomizes self-
efficacy).
vii
research and examples on job design, job
crafting, and i-deals.
• New Winning at Work feature on how to
negotiate for a pay raise at work.
• New Problem-Solving Applications about
employee benefits at Walmart; symphony
orchestra members going on strike.
• New OB in Action feature about job swap-
ping and job rotation opportunities.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving Appli-
cation Case on why Amazon workers are
not feeling motivated.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge about
whether Sears executives should receive
bonuses while taking the company through
bankruptcy.
CHAPTER 6
• New content on the primary outputs and
functions of performance management;
applied goalsetting to jobs and careers;
the major reasons performance manage-
ment is criticized; the growing role of
technology in performance management;
contemporary performance management,
highlighting that it is now continual and
includes more coaching and ongoing
feedback; how to improve performance
monitoring.
• Revised Winning at Work feature on best
practices for productivity.
• New Applying OB features on goal-setting;
responding to negative feedback; effective
coaching.
• New OB in Action features on ID
checks; monitoring for performance; com-
pensation.
• New Problem-Solving Application on incen-
tivizing teachers in one underperforming
school district.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on the consequences
resulting from Wells Fargo’s use of
incentives.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on the
practice of employers’ asking about current
salary.
CHAPTER 7
• New content on positive and negative
deviance; how students can increase their
• New Problem-Solving Application on
Uber’s former CEO, Travis Kalanick.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on the fall of John
Schnatter, founder of Papa John’s Pizza.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on drug
testing with the recent legalization of
marijuana in some states.
CHAPTER 4
• New, expanded discussion and illustration
of the four stages of social perception;
new content on diversity, including new
discussion of assumptions about diversity
and new examples about the use of quotas
when it comes to hiring practices; new
example to elaborate on the self-serving
bias.
• New research on how a person’s appear-
ance affects our perception and their ability
to get hired; updated research on stereo-
types; new results of gender research;
updated trends and statistics related to
diversity, including the topic of pay equity
for men and women and research on unwel-
coming workplace environments.
• New Applying OB features on developing
cultural awareness to enhance perception;
the best companies for Millennial workers.
• New OB in Action features on the use of vir-
tual technologies for job interviews and recruit-
ment; how U.S. companies are using product
design to reach a diverse customer base.
• New Problem-Solving Application about
firefighters suing for age discrimination.
• Updated end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on the diversity profile of
technology companies.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge about patient
requests versus employees’ civil rights.
CHAPTER 5
• New content on equity sensitivity.
• New illustrations of extrinsic and intrinsic
motivation; new examples to illustrate key
theories including Maslow’s theory, self-
determination theory, and equity/justice
theory; new examples to illustrate the
concept of goal setting and the application
of the job characteristics model.
• New research on employees’ opinions about
performance feedback and pay; updated
NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION
viii
• Expanded and refined content on team
effectiveness, including new material on
the characteristics of high performing
teams and how to use conflict to improve
teamwork.
• Revised and expanded research and appli-
cation related to social-loafing (how to
prevent and overcome it); updated
research and content on team adaptive
capacity.
• New Applying OB features on cultivating
cohesiveness to improve the function of
groups and teams; the benefits of
microinternships for both employers
and students.
• New OB in Action features on how
T-Mobile has changed their customer
service approach by working in teams; how
conflict and tension can be the key to better
teams.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on the predicaments
that Boeing faces with its 737 Max
airliner.
CHAPTER 9
• New content on media richness; social
listening; generational differences regarding
the role of digital devices and communica-
tion expectations and norms; social media
and OB.
• New subsection on phubbing (phone
snubbing) and FOMO (fear of losing out);
new discussion on nondefensive communi-
cation.
• New research on media richness, managers’
use of empathy; tips on managing e-mail;
statistics on social media and OB.
• New OB in Action features on communica-
tion transparency at a skin-care company;
how empathy is good for business; crowd-
sourcing success stories at Lego and Frito-
Lay.
• New Applying OB feature on how to ace a
video job interview.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case about United
Airlines’ turbulent communications
strategy.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on whether
social media posts impact the cost of life
insurance premiums.
flourishing at school; turning rejection in the
job search process into positive motivation.
• Updated and expanded section on doing
well and doing good, including three quali-
fying criteria and further development of
how this occurs across levels of OB
( individual, group, and organizational);
expanded material on how to insert more
positivity in one’s work; organizational cli-
mate; revised material on the history and
current role of positivity in OB; prosocial
behaviors.
• Refined, updated, and expanded research,
applications, and benefits of mindfulness at
work; updated research and applications of
resilience, optimism, and signature
strengths at work.
• New Winning at Work feature on boosting
performance with productivity.
• New Applying OB features on how managing
internal responses can improve performance;
boosting positivity with a fun work environ-
ment; fostering positive candidate experi-
ences during job interviews.
• New OB in Action features on socially-
responsible investing; mindfulness at major
healthcare, biotech, and industrial compa-
nies; employee wellness via resistance
training at a major health system; how one
fast-casual health food business fosters posi-
tive culture
• New Problem-Solving Application on
Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods and
reckoning of the two companies’ values.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on how aggressive mar-
keting created an opioid epidemic.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on hiring
those with criminal pasts.
CHAPTER 8
• New section differentiating groups
and teams using three characteristics:
dependence, accountability, and time.
• Revised and updated content on formal and
informal groups and their respective func-
tions; group and team norms; types of
teams, especially related to virtual team
challenges and solutions; updated and
expanded content on trust: what it is, why it
is important, and how to repair it when
damaged.
NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION
ix
new research on the importance of
creativity and curiosity within
organizations.
• New Winning at Work feature about how to
practice critical thinking skills for decision
making.
• New OB in Action features on improving an
airport terminal under bounded rationality;
how big data helps advance the health care
industry; how shaking up your routine may
spark creativity.
• New Problem-Solving Application on how
cognitive bias was partly to blame for
California’s devastating wildfires.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on Airbus’s decision
to cease production of its A380
airliner.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on whether
college students should be expelled if
their parents cheated to get them into
school.
CHAPTER 12
• Revised content on common influence
tactics, including current and compelling
examples of students, #MeToo, and employ-
ees; political tactics, highlighting the
increasing activism by employees, students,
and other groups; political behavior, uncer-
tainty, performance, and change; the tactic
of blame and levels of political action;
apologies—when and how to use them
effectively.
• Updated and expanded research on the five
bases of power, with a focus on negative
legitimate and referent power.
• New Applying OB features on social media
influencers; etiquette in the hiring process;
body art in the workplace.
• New OB in Action features on giving tax
breaks and other incentives to billion-dollar
companies; employee activism; the effects
of student activism on companies and
corporations.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on Nike and the MeToo
Movement.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on companies
who impose their leaders’ values on
employees.
CHAPTER 10
• New section on harassment—what it is and
how to prevent it at work.
• New content on functional versus dysfunc-
tional conflict: causes and outcomes;
intergroup conflict material; creating the
climate for psychological safety; framing
negotiation as a skill, task, or even a game—
with the goal of improving your attitude
related to negotiation and thus improving
the outcomes.
• Revised and updated content related to
conflict avoidance, including reasons why
people avoid conflict, how to avoid avoiding
conflict, and the desired outcomes of
conflict management.
• Expanded and updated sections related to
work-life conflict, with a new focus on har-
mony or integration of life’s; modern con-
flict at work; civility at work, including its
forms, prevalence, and costs; programming
functional conflict and conflict handling
styles; ethics and negotiations.
• New Applying OB features on how to
explain your departure from one job while
interviewing for another; psychological
safety at Google; how to ask for a larger
s alary or a raise.
• New OB in Action features on dealing with
conflict; the battle between two unions
involved in the creation of shows and
movies.
• New Problem-Solving Application on the
Fair Food Program.
• New Problem-Solving Application Case on
Facebook’s struggles with protection of
data and privacy.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on arbitration
versus litigation.
CHAPTER 11
• New section on artificial intelligence and its
increasing use in decision making.
• Expanded discussion of Kahneman’s two
ways of thinking; updated information on
data analytic jobs and majors; new exam-
ples for the four types of decision-making
styles; new examples of bounded rationality,
intuition, big data, analytical decision mak-
ing, and creativity.
• New data on use of heuristics by physi-
cians; new statistics about use of big data;
NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION
x
• New Applying OB feature about key strate-
gies for cultivating a network and mentor-
ing relationship.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case about the culture clashes
at Ford Motor Company.
CHAPTER 15
• New introductory section and illustration
that provide an overview of how organiza-
tional structure and innovation impact
organizational effectiveness.
• Shifted discussion of assessing organiza-
tional effectiveness to the end of the
chapter to provide a clearer link between
implementing organizational design
and evaluating its effectiveness using
various metrics, including the Balanced
Scorecard.
• Updated examples on learning organiza-
tions; the seven types of organizational
structure; innovation in organizations.
• New research on the effects of open-office
design on individual, group, and organiza-
tional outcomes; updated research related
to learning organizations and innovation in
organizations.
• New Problem-Solving Applications
about gig workers’ growing influence in the
labor market; AMD and its struggles to
innovate.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case about one major book-
seller and the challenges it faces to stay in
business.
• Updated Legal/Ethical Challenge about
universities’ tax-exempt status and the
response from their local communities.
CHAPTER 16
• New section on confronting and effectively
overcoming failures at work.
• New material contrasting fatigue versus
tiredness and consequences at work; the
role and characteristics of change agents;
tips on overcoming resistance to change.
• Revised and expanded content on forces for
change; updated material on using missions
to motivate change; revised content on
resistance to change—its causes and how to
overcome it; revised content on stress at
work, including statistics, causes, and costs.
CHAPTER 13
• New section on abusive supervision and
what strategies organizations can imple-
ment to eliminate such behavior.
• New content on the leadership model devel-
oped by Kouzes and Posner; the four ways
of creating psychological empowerment;
the four behaviors demonstrated by trans-
formational leaders.
• New statistics on why leadership is so
important in today’s organizations; new
research on leadership traits and task and
relational leadership; new research about
leader- member exchange model of
leadership.
• New OB in Action features on how one
university used task leadership to help
reclaim the national college football
championship; abusive leadership
at a local pharmacy.
• New Problem-Solving Application on
Barnes & Noble’s search for a new CEO.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on Elon Musk and his
leadership behavior.
• New Legal/Ethical Challenge on whether
store managers should force employees
to pierce childrens’ ears against their
wishes.
CHAPTER 14
• Expanded discussion of sustainability as a
key driver of organizational success.
• New examples for the three levels of organi-
zational culture; the four cultural types in
the competing values framework; the
12 mechanisms to change organizational
culture; the three stages of socialization; the
career and psychosocial functions of
mentoring; how human and social capital
enhance the benefits of mentoring.
• Updated research for the three stages of
socialization; new illustrations on the
importance of organizational culture; new
examples of the career and psychosocial
functions of mentoring.
• New OB in Action feature about compa-
nies that demonstrate sustainability
leadership.
• New Problem-Solving Application about
Sprouts Farmers Market and its organiza-
tional culture.
NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION
xi
• Streamlined and updated research and
examples related to common models
of change; forces for change; managing
stress.
• New Winning at Work feature on
relocating.
• New OB in Action features on turnover
among CEOs; improving lives with shoes.
• New Applying OB features on answering
behavioral interview questions; how to rant
productively.
• New Problem-Solving Application on the
AT&T/Time Warner merger.
• New end-of-chapter Problem-Solving
Application Case on the reinvention of
Toys R Us.
NEW TO THE THIRD EDITION
xii
“My students have embraced
the problem-solving approach
. . . and are excelling as a
result. They tell me in their
feedback that they ‘get it.’ To
me, that proves success and
that learning has taken place.”
David D. Mull
—Columbia College of Missouri
• “I want a good job, one that I like and is
fulfilling. How do I know which job and
company are a good fit for me?”
• “I know that this job and company provide
good opportunities for me, but what can I do to
be sure I actually realize these opportunities?”
• “I can’t stand my job, but I need the money.
Should I talk to my boss or just quit?”
• “I am taking a class with 50 percent of the
grade due to teamwork. My team has four
members and two of us are doing all the
work. I’ve been talking to the team, but the
two members still aren’t doing their share. I
am at a loss for what to do.”
• “How do I negotiate a salary and benefits for
my new job, or a raise for the one I have?”
Each of these scenarios presents a problem. We
all are faced with problems every day, and our
ability to solve problems can set us apart from
others in our jobs and careers. In fact, surveys
consistently show that problem solving is one of
the skills most valued by employers. For this rea-
son, we designed Organizational Behavior, 3e, to
help students become more effective problem
solvers. Students who are effective problem solvers
today become valued leaders tomorrow.
The third edition of Organizational Behavior
relies on three key strategies to help students
use OB knowledge to solve problems:
• Consistent 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.
• Applied, practical features.
• User-centric design.
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Given problem solving is one of the skills most
sought by employers, we help students develop
instead of hone this skill. We teach them to use a
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach—(1) define the
problem, (2) identify the causes, and (3) recom-
mend a solution. This approach is introduced in
Chapter One and used multiple times in each
subsequent chapter. To complement the 3-Step
Approach, we also developed the Organizing
Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.
This framework is used in two ways. First, it pro-
vides students a means for organizing OB con-
cepts into three categories (inputs, processes,
and outcomes) as they learn them. This facili-
tates student learning and shows how concepts
relate to each other. Second, it is an important
and complementary tool for problem solving.
Problems are often defined in terms of out-
comes in the Organizing Framework, and the
causes are commonly found in the inputs and
processes elements. Students use this framework
in every chapter to solve problems confronted by
real organizations and employees.
We provide many opportunities for students to
practice using the 3-Step Problem-Solving
Approach. Problem-Solving Application mini
cases are inserted throughout each chapter. These
provide numerous opportunities for students to
apply their OB knowledge and practice their prob-
lem solving skills to real companies and people.
The longer Problem-Solving Application Case at
the end of each chapter presents more complex
and current business cases containing one or
more problems that illustrate OB concepts
included in a particular chapter. A version of the
Organizing Framework is presented in each chap-
ter and is populated with relevant concepts from
that chapter, which students use to define and
solve problems presented in the various features.
This capstone Cumulative Case activity provides
students the opportunity to apply the 3-Step Prob-
lem-Solving Approach on an actual situation
affecting a specific firm (Tesla) in Connect.
We carry the 3-Step Problem-Solving
Approach into Connect, McGraw-Hill’s
market-leading digital platform, and provide
students with numerous opportunities to
observe how different decisions can lead to dif-
ferent outcomes. We also offer new critical-
thinking application exercises tied to the
Problem-Solving Application boxes and
Problem-Solving Application Cases, giving stu-
dents additional practice with applying the
3-Step Approach. These activities are a
pr
ef
ac
e
xiii
We also present content in digestible chunks
of text, with frequent opportunities to engage
with or reflect on the material. The Winning at
Work feature opens each chapter with a list of
practical tips related to a highly relevant topic
for work and/or school, such as negotiating a sal-
ary for a new job or a pay raise, or how to man-
age meetings more effectively. Self-Assessments
in Connect allow students to evaluate personal
characteristics related to OB concepts, as well as
to reflect on their own characteristics and behav-
ior. What Did I Learn provides students with a
review of the chapter’s key concepts, an invita-
tion to answer important questions relating to
chapter content, and a summary of the Organiz-
ing Framework for a given chapter.
Connect gives instructors the foundations for
creating a course that fits their individual teach-
ing needs. The Teaching Resource Manual offers
a playbook for creating and delivering a discus-
sion-based learning environment in which stu-
dents practice and apply concepts in a more
active manner. The extensively revised Test Bank
offers greater opportunity to assess students on
OB concepts at a higher level, with essay and
scenario-based questions to engage students’
problem-solving skills. Finally, a comprehensive
set of PowerPoint slides provide guidance in
addressing key concepts.
Developing Effective Problem
Solvers Today, Valued Leaders
Tomorrow
Organizational Behavior, 3e, explicitly addresses
OB implications for students’ jobs and careers,
showing how OB provides them with the higher-
level soft skills employers seek, such as problem
solving, critical thinking, leadership, and deci-
sion making. We strongly believe that applying
OB theories and concepts provides tremendous
value to students’ lives today and throughout
their careers. The understanding and application
of OB enhances student effectiveness at school
and work, both today and tomorrow.
com bination of case analyses, video cases, and
click-and-drag exercises.
Applied, Practical Approach
The third edition repeatedly demonstrates the
practical value of OB concepts in solving real-
world problems in students’ professional and
personal lives. OB in Action boxes illustrate OB
concepts or theories in action in the real world,
featuring well-known companies. Applying OB
boxes offer students “how-to” guidance on
applying their knowledge in both their profes-
sional and personal lives. Appearing at the end
of each chapter are new Takeaway features that
explain to students the practical value of OB
concepts—one for their personal use now (Take-
aways for Me) and the other for managers
(Takeaways for Managers).
Legal/Ethical Challenges ask students to
choose from several proposed courses of action
or invent their own to resolve a business situa-
tion that falls into a gray area of ethics at work.
Connect provides a multitude of opportuni-
ties for active practice and application of con-
cepts learned during class or while completing
assigned reading. SmartBook is another key
component. This adaptive and data-driven read-
ing experience gives students ample opportu-
nity to develop mastery of key learning
objectives tied to core OB concepts, while also
providing instructors real-time snapshots of stu-
dent comprehension.
User-Centric Approach
It is important for us to offer users, whether stu-
dents or instructors, a tool that is easy to navi-
gate, easy to digest, and exceptionally practical.
We therefore have taken great care to create con-
tent, craft our writing, and include features that
focus on the needs and interests of the user. To
that end, Learning Objectives and “The Bigger
Picture” feature open the main sections of each
chapter and immediately place students in a
practical learning mode.
PREFACE
“(This) is a text with a
practical approach . . . Theory
is there, but explained in a
hands-on manner, which fits
well into the way I present the
course.”
Dr. Floyd Ormsbee
—Clarkson University
“Practical, student centered, highly relevant
to both students and employers needs. (It)
hits all of the most critical topics of OB in an
engaging and visually appealing way, and
includes a critical thinking approach that is
easy to learn and use.”
Jody Tolan
—University of Southern California Marshall School of Business
Make it simple,
make it affordable.
Connect makes it easy with seamless
integration using any of the major
Learning Management Systems—
Blackboard®, Canvas, and D2L, among
others—to let you organize your course
in one convenient location. Give your
students access to digital materials at
a discount with our inclusive access
program. Ask your McGraw-Hill
representative for more information.
Solutions for your
challenges.
A product isn’t a solution. Real
solutions are affordable, reliable,
and come with training and
ongoing support when you need it
and how you want it. Our Customer
Experience Group can also help
you troubleshoot tech problems—
although Connect’s 99% uptime
means you might not need to call
them. See for yourself at status.
mheducation.com
65%
Less Time
Grading
FOR INSTRUCTORS
®
Checkmark: Jobalou/Getty ImagesPadlock: Jobalou/Getty Images
Laptop: McGraw-Hill; Woman/dog: George Doyle/Getty Images
You’re in the driver’s seat.
Want to build your own course? No problem. Prefer to use our turnkey,
prebuilt course? Easy. Want to make changes throughout the semester?
Sure. And you’ll save time with Connect’s auto-grading too.
They’ll thank you for it.
Adaptive study resources like SmartBook® 2.0 help
your students be better prepared in less time. You
can transform your class time from dull definitions to
dynamic debates. Find out more about the powerful
personalized learning experience available in
SmartBook 2.0 at www.mheducation.com/highered/
connect/smartbook
No surprises.
The Connect Calendar and Reports tools keep you on track with the
work you need to get done and your assignment scores. Life gets busy;
Connect tools help you keep learning through it all.
Learning for everyone.
McGraw-Hill works directly with Accessibility Services
Departments and faculty to meet the learning needs
of all students. Please contact your Accessibility
Services office and ask them to email
accessibility@mheducation.com, or visit
www.mheducation.com/about/accessibility
for more information.
“I really liked this
app—it made it easy
to study when you
don’t have your text-
book in front of you.”
FOR STUDENTS
– Jordan Cunningham,
Eastern Washington University
Top: Jenner Images/Getty Images, Left: Hero Images/Getty Images, Right: Hero Images/Getty Images
Calendar: owattaphotos/Getty Images
Study anytime, anywhere.
Download the free ReadAnywhere app and access your
online eBook or SmartBook 2.0 assignments when it’s
convenient, even if you’re offline. And since the app
automatically syncs with your eBook and SmartBook 2.0
assignments in Connect, all of your work is available
every time you open it. Find out more at
www.mheducation.com/readanywhere
Effective, efficient studying.
Connect helps you be more productive with your study time and get better grades using tools
like SmartBook 2.0, which highlights key concepts and creates a personalized study plan.
Connect sets you up for success, so you walk into class with confidence and walk out with better
grades.
xvi PREFACE
Dr. Bill Carnes,
Metropolitan State University of Denver—College
of Business
Ileene Chernoff,
University of Phoenix
Donna Chlopak,
Montclair State University
Amanda L. Christensen,
University of Cincinnati
Dean Cleavenger,
University of Central Florida
Elizabeth Cooper
University of Rhode Island
Dana M. Cosby,
Western Kentucky University
Matthew Cronin,
George Mason University
Joe Daly,
Appalachian State University
Caitlin A. Demsky,
Oakland University
Diane Denslow,
University of North Florida
Dr. Anant Deshpande,
SUNY Empire State College
John DeSpagna,
Nassau Community College
Kristen DeTienne,
Brigham Young University
Ken Dunegan,
Cleveland State University
Steven M. Elias,
New Mexico State University
Aimee Ellis,
Ithaca College
W. Randy Evans,
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Michelle H. Feller,
Weber State University
Martin L. Fogelman,
SUNY Albany
Charla S. Fraley,
Columbus State Community College
John D. Fuehrer,
Baldwin Wallace University
Allison S. Gabriel,
University of Arizona
Jane Whitney Gibson,
Nova Southeastern University
Cynthia Gilliand,
University of Arizona
Acknowledgments
We could not have completed this product without
the help and support of a great number of people.
It all began with the vision of our director, Michael
Ablassmier. He assembled a fantastic team to help
create a truly unique product and pushed us to cre-
ate new and applied features valued by the market.
Among our first-rate team at McGraw-Hill, we
want to acknowledge key contributors: Senior
Product Developer Anne Ehrenworth’s assistance
was instrumental in structuring the editorial pro-
cess; Cate Rzasa, content developer, Debbie Clare,
Senior Marketing Manager, helped us implement
our vision for creative and proactive marketing;
Harvey Yep lead content project manager, and
Keri Johnson, senior content project manager, led
the core and Connect components through the
production process; Matt Diamond, designer, and
Debra Kubiak, design manager, worked with us to
streamline the design and come up with a creative
new cover concept; and Allison Marker, editorial
coordinator, provided tremendous support behind
the scenes.
We also want to thank Patrick Soleymani,
George Mason University, for his work on the
Teaching Resource Manual. Patrick also con-
tributed in many other ways to help us achieve
our vision. We are also grateful to Lara Hobson
for her work on the Test Bank, and to Jake
Heller for his work on the PowerPoints. Deep
gratitude goes to Ravi Shanmugam for his work
on Connect, and Ken Carson, Grove City
College, for all his work on researching and
developing the Self-Assessment feedback.
We would like to acknowledge the following
instructors for providing feedback to shape this
product. Special thanks goes to:
Tim Basadur,
Concordia University Chicago
James Bishop,
New Mexico State University—Las Cruces
B.D. Boardman,
University of Phoenix
Adeline Boomgaard,
University of Phoenix
Brenda D. Bradford,
Missouri Baptist University
Chris Bresnahan,
University of Southern California
Mark Burdsall,
University of Pittsburgh
E. Holly Buttner, PhD.,
University of North Carolina at Greensboro—Bryan
School of Business & Economics
xviiPREFACE
Katie Liljequist,
Brigham Young University
Gregory P. Lucht,
University of Phoenix
Douglas Mahony,
Lehigh University
Jennifer Malarski,
Metropolitan State University
Laura Martin,
Midwestern State University
J. J. Massey,
The University of Texas at Tyler
Merrill A. Mayper,
University of Phoenix
Douglas McCabe,
Georgetown University—McDonough School of Business
Lorianne D. Mitchell,
East Tennessee State University
Dan Morrell,
Middle Tennessee State University
Paula C. Morrow,
Iowa State University
Robert Muliero,
University of Phoenix
David D. Mull,
Columbia College of Missouri
Daniel F. Nehring,
Morehead State University
Jeananne Nicholls,
Slippery Rock University
Dr. Floyd Ormsbee,
Clarkson University
Bradley P. Owens,
State University of New York at Buffalo
John Pepper,
The University of Kansas
Jeff Peterson,
Utah Valley State College
Don Powell,
University of North Texas
Gregory R. Quinet,
Southern Polytechnic State University
Samuel Rabinowitz,
Rutgers University—Camden
Jude A. Rathburn,
University of Wisconsin—Milwaukee
Alicia J. Revely,
Miami University
Herb Ricardo,
Indian River State College
Katherine Robberson,
Southern Illinois University—Edwardsville
Lydia Gilmore,
Columbus State Community College
Simona Giorgi,
Boston College
Early Godfrey,
Gardner Webb University
Roy Lynn Godkin,
Lamar University
Connie Golden,
Lakeland Community College
Nora Alicia González,
University of Phoenix
Dr. Deborah Good,
University of Pittsburgh
Christina Goodell,
Florida State College at Jacksonville
Meghan Griffin,
Daytona State College
Samuel Hazen,
Tarleton State University
Kim Hester,
Arkansas State University
Lara Hobson,
Western Michigan University
Wayne Hochwarter,
Florida State University
Madison Holloway,
Metropolitan State University of Denver
Brooks Holtom,
Georgetown University
Jenni Hunt,
Southern Illinois University—Edwardsville
Teresa Hutchinson,
University of Phoenix
Kendra Ingram,
Texas A&M University—Commerce
Hank Karp,
Hampton University
Stacey R. Kessler,
Montclair State University
Anthony J. Kos,
Youngstown State University
Michael Kosicek,
Indiana University of Pennsylvania
Christine L Krull,
IUPUI
Mika Tatum Kusar,
Fort Lewis College
Caroline Leffall,
Bellevue College
Fengru Li,
University of Montana Business School
xviii PREFACE
Patrick Soleymani,
George Mason University
Dan Spencer,
University of Kansas
Dr. Atul Teckchandani,
California State University—Fullerton
Mussie T. Tessema,
Winona State University
Linda Thiede Thomas,
Bellevue University
Jody Tolan,
University of Southern California—Marshall School
of Business
Mary L. Tucker,
Ohio University
Brian Usilaner,
University of Maryland—University College
Wellington Williams, Jr.,
University of Phoenix
Robert M. Wolter,
IUPUI School of Engineering and Technology
John G. Zappala,
Central Michigan University
Finally, I hope you enjoy this textbook. Best
wishes for happiness, health, and success!
Angelo Kinicki
Joe Rode,
Miami University—Oxford
Matt Rodgers,
The Ohio State University
Deborah Roebuck,
Kennesaw State University
Kristie Rogers,
University of Kansas
Hannah R. Rothstein,
CUNY Baruch College
Christopher Roussin,
Suffolk University
David Ruderman,
University of Colorado at Denver
Frances McKee Ryan,
University of Nevada—Reno
Gordon Schmidt,
Indiana Purdue University—Fort Wayne
Dr. Marina Sebastijanovic,
University of Houston
Holly Schroth,
University of California
Ravi Shanmugam,
University of Kansas
Richard G. Sims,
University of Phoenix
Kenneth Solano,
Northeastern University
xix
PART ONE Individual Behavior 1
1 Making OB Work for Me 2
2 Values and Attitudes 42
3 Individual Differences and
Emotions 76
4 Social Perception and
Managing Diversity 120
5 Foundations of Employee
Motivation 160
6 Performance
Management 198
7 Positive Organizational
Behavior 250
PART TWO Groups 295
8 Groups and Teams 296
9 Communication in The Digital
Age 336
10 Managing Conflict and
Negotiations 378
11 Decision Making and
Creativity 422
12 Power, Influence, and
Politics 464
13 Leadership Effectiveness 506
PART THREE Organizational
Processes 547
14 Organizational Culture,
Socialization, and
Mentoring 548
15 Organizational Design,
Effectiveness, and
Innovation 592
16 Managing Change and
Stress 636
br
ie
f c
on
te
nt
s
xx CONTENTS
co
nt
en
ts
1 MAKING OB WORK FOR ME
WINNING AT WORK 3
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 3
1.1 Use Knowledge of OB to Enhance
Your Performance and Career 4
How OB Fits into My Curriculum and Influences
My Success 4
APPLYING OB: Self-Awareness Can Help You Build
a Fulfilling Career 6
SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.1: How Strong Is
My Motivation to Manage? 6
Employers Want Both Hard and Soft Skills 7
How OB Fits into My Career 8
APPLYING OB: How to Ace Your Next Interview 9
1.2 Right vs. Wrong—Ethics and My
Performance 11
Cheating 11
Ethical Lapses—Legality, Frequency, Causes, and
Solutions 13
OB IN ACTION: Wrong? Absolutely! Illegal?
Seemingly Not. 14
OB IN ACTION: The Whistle-Blower’s Dilemma 16
SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.2: Assessing My
Perspective on Ethics 20
1.3 OB and Problem Solving 21
A 3-Step Approach 21
Tools to Reinforce My Problem-Solving Skills 23
SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.3: Assessing Your
Problem-Solving Potential 23
1.4 Structure and Rigor in Solving
Problems 24
The Person–Situation Distinction 24
Three Levels of OB 26
Applying OB Concepts to Problem Solving 26
1.5 The Organizing Framework for
Understanding and Applying OB 27
A Basic Version of the Organizing Framework 27
APPLYING OB: Mars: The World We Want
Tomorrow 28
Using the Organizing Framework for Problem
Solving 29
Applied Approaches to Selecting a Solution 29
Basic Elements for Selecting an Effective Solution 30
1.6 Preview and Application of What
You Will Learn 31
The 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach 31
The Organizing Framework 31
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Technology:
A Situation Factor That Affects Your
Performance 33
Hypothetical Problem-Solving Scenario 34
1.7 Making the Connection: What Is OB
and Why Is It Important? 36
Our Wishes for You 36
What Did I Learn? 37
Problem-Solving Application Case: Blood, Brilliance,
Blind Ambition, and Fraud 39
Legal/Ethical Challenge: What Would You Do? 41
PART ONE
Individual Behavior 1
2 VALUES AND ATTITUDES
WINNING AT WORK 43
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 43
2.1 Personal Values 44
Schwartz’s Value Theory 44
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.1: What Are My
Core Values? 47
The Dynamics of Values 47
2.2 Personal Attitudes and Their Impact
on Behavior and Outcomes 48
OB IN ACTION: Hospitality Industry Uses Attitude
Surveys to Target Causes of Turnover 49
Personal Attitudes: They Represent Your Consistent
Beliefs and Feelings about Specific Things 49
Attitudes Affect Behavior via Intentions 51
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: McDonald’s
Workers Protest Sexual Harassment: What
Should Management Do? 52
2.3 Key Workplace Attitudes 54
Organizational Commitment 54
Employee Engagement 56
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.2: To What Extent Are You
Engaged in Your Studies? 58
OB IN ACTION: Companies Foster Employee
Engagement in Different Ways 58
Perceived Organizational Support 59
xxiCONTENTS
3 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND EMOTIONS
WINNING AT WORK 78
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 78
3.1 The Differences Matter 79
APPLYING OB: Does Your Potential Boss Get the Job? 80
3.2 Intelligences: There Is More to the
Story Than IQ 82
Intelligence Matters . . . And You Have More Than You
Might Think 82
Practical Implications 85
OB IN ACTION: Smarts and Performance in Sports 86
3.3 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness 87
There Is More to Personality Than Liking and Fit 87
The Big Five Personality Dimensions 88
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.1: What Is My Big Five
Personality Profile? 88
Hail the Introverts 89
Proactive Personality 89
APPLYING OB: How to Thrive as an Introvert 90
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.2: How Proactive Am I? 90
The Dark Side of Personality 92
Personality and Performance 93
Personality Testing at Work 93
APPLYING OB: Acing Employment Tests 94
There Is No “Ideal Employee” Personality 95
3.4 Core Self-Evaluations: How My Efficacy,
Esteem, Locus, and Stability Affect My
Performance 96
Self-Efficacy—“I Can Do That” 97
OB IN ACTION: You Can Go to the Moon and Beyond,
If You Believe in Yourself 98
Self-Esteem—“Look in the Mirror” 99
Locus of Control: Who’s Responsible—Me or External Factors? 100
Emotional Stability 101
Three Practical Considerations for Core Self-Evaluations 102
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.3: How Positively Do I See Myself? 103
3.5 The Value of Being Emotionally
Intelligent 104
What Is Emotional Intelligence? 104
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.4: What Is Your Level of Emotional
Intelligence? 105
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Darkness in the C-Suite
at Uber 106
Benefits of EI 107
3.6 Understand Emotions to Influence
Performance 109
Emotions—We All Have Them, but What Are They? 109
Emotions as Positive or Negative Reactions to Goal
Achievement 110
APPLYING OB: Do You Procrastinate? Blame Your
Emotions! 110
Besides Positive and Negative, There’s Past vs. Future 111
How Can I Manage My Negative Emotions at Work? 111
OB IN ACTION: The Good and Bad of Anger at Work 111
APPLYING OB: Managing Emotions During Job Search 113
3.7 Making the Connection: How Do Individual
Differences and Emotions Affect My
Performance? 114
What Did I Learn? 115
Problem-Solving Application Case: Better Ingredients. Better
Pizza. Worst Spokesperson. 117
Legal/Ethical Challenge: To Test or Not to Test, That Is a
Problem 119
2.4 The Causes of Job Satisfaction 60
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.3: How Satisfied Are You with Your
Present Job? 60
At a Glance: Five Predominant Models of Job Satisfaction 61
Brief Preview: Five Predominant Models of Job Satisfaction 61
A Shorter Walk to Work 62
APPLYING OB: Best Practices for Implementing
Telecommuting 63
2.5 Major Correlates and Consequences of
Job Satisfaction 64
Attitudinal Outcomes of Job Satisfaction 64
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: What to Do, or Not to Do,
about Sexual Harassment 65
Behavioral Outcomes of Job Satisfaction 66
APPLYING OB: Using Job Satisfaction to Reduce Employee
Turnover 69
Organizational-Level Outcomes of Job Satisfaction 69
2.6 Making the Connection: How Do
Values and Attitudes Affect Work-Related
Outcomes? 70
What Did I Learn? 71
Problem-Solving Application Case: Walmart’s Values Come under
Scrutiny 73
Legal/Ethical Challenge: What Should Management Do About an
Abusive Supervisor? 75
4 SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND MANAGING DIVERSITY
WINNING AT WORK 122
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 122
4.1 The Perception Process 123
Stages of Social Perception 123
A Model of Person Perception 125
APPLYING OB: Developing Cultural Awareness to Enhance
Perception 127
Managerial Implications of Person Perception 128
OB IN ACTION: Virtual Interviews Can Improve the Accuracy
of Job Interviews and Reduce Costs 129
4.2 Stereotypes 130
Stereotype Formation and Maintenance 130
Managerial Challenges and Recommendations 131
xxii CONTENTS
4.7 Organizational Practices Used to Effectively
Manage Diversity 148
Framework of Options 148
How Companies Are Responding to the Challenges of
Diversity 150
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Firefighters, 46 and 54,
Sue for Age Discrimination 151
SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.3: How Does My Diversity Profile Affect
My Relationships with Other People? 152
4.8 Making the Connection: Why Is Understanding
Perception and Diversity Essential to Your
Success? 153
What Did I Learn? 154
Problem-Solving Application Case: White, Male, and Asian: The
Diversity Profile of Technology Companies 157
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Should Patient Requests Trump Health
Care Employees’ Civil Rights? 159
4.3 Causal Attributions 132
Kelley’s Model of Attribution 132
Attributional Tendencies 134
Managerial Applications and Implications 134
4.4 Defining and Managing Diversity 135
Layers of Diversity 135
Affirmative Action vs. Diversity Management 137
4.5 Building the Business Case for Managing
Diversity 139
Business Rationale 139
OB IN ACTION: Using Product Design to Reach a Diverse
Market 139
Trends in Workforce Diversity 140
SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.1: What Are Your Attitudes Toward
Working with Older Employees 144
4.6 Barriers and Challenges to Managing
Diversity 145
APPLYING OB: Best Companies for Millennials 146
SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.2: Assessing an Organization’s Diversity
Climate 147
5 FOUNDATIONS OF EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION
WINNING AT WORK 161
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 161
5.1 The What and Why of Motivation 162
Motivation: What Is It? 162
The Two Fundamental Perspectives on Motivation:
An Overview 163
5.2 Content Theories of Motivation 164
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y 164
Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory: Five Levels of Needs 164
Acquired Needs Theory: Achievement, Affiliation, and
Power 165
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.1: Assessing Your Acquired Needs 166
OB IN ACTION: Cameron Mitchell, Founder and CEO of
Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, Exemplifies Acquired
Needs 167
Self-Determination Theory: Competence, Autonomy, and
Relatedness 168
Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory: Two Ways to Improve
Satisfaction 169
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Walmart Adds Sick-Leave
Pay. Problem Solved? 171
5.3 Process Theories of Motivation 173
Equity/Justice Theory: Am I Being Treated Fairly? 173
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.2: Measuring Perceived Interpersonal
Treatment 176
Expectancy Theory: Does My Effort Lead to Desired
Outcomes? 178
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Symphony Orchestras on
Strike 180
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: A High School Principal
Uses Principles of Expectancy Theory to Motivate
Students 182
Goal-Setting Theory: How Can I Harness the Power of Goal
Setting? 182
5.4 Motivating Employees through Job
Design 185
Top-Down Approaches—Management Designs Your Job 186
OB IN ACTION: Job Swapping and Job Rotation Opportunities
Abound 187
Bottom-Up Approaches—You Design Your Own Job 189
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.3: To What Extent Have I Used Job
Crafting? 191
Idiosyncratic Deals (I-Deals)—You Negotiate the Design of Your
Job 191
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.4: Creating an I-Deal 191
5.5 Making the Connection: How Can I Apply
Motivation Theories? 192
What Did I Learn? 193
Problem-Solving Application Case: Workers at Amazon Are Not
Feeling Motivated 195
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Should Senior Executives Receive
Bonuses for Navigating a Company through Bankruptcy 197
6 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
WINNING AT WORK 200
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 200
6.1 Performance Management Processes 201
Effective Performance Management 201
Common Uses of Performance Management 202
APPLYING OB: Apply Goal Setting to Your
Job and Career 203
What Goes Wrong with Performance Management 203
APPLYING OB: The Deloitte Way: “Snapshots”
and “Check-ins” 205
Contemporary PM Is Continual 206
xxiiiCONTENTS
Types of Rewards 226
SELF-ASSESSMENT 6.2: What Rewards Do I
Value Most? 227
Distribution Criteria 228
Desired Outcomes of the Reward System 228
APPLYING OB: Put the “I” In Team with Appropriate
Incentives 229
Be Sure You Get the Outcomes You Desire 229
Total and Alternative Rewards 230
OB IN ACTION: A Car, $100,000, and There’s More Where
That Came From at Hilcorp 231
Why Rewards Often Fail and How to Boost Their
Effectiveness 231
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Incentives, Performance,
and Schools 232
Pay for Performance 233
Making Pay for Performance Work 235
6.6 Reinforcement and Consequences 236
The Law of Effect—Linking Consequences
and Behaviors 236
Using Reinforcement to Condition Behavior 236
Contingent Consequences 237
Positive Reinforcement Schedules 239
Organizations Typically Rely on the Weakest
Schedule 241
6.7 Making the Connection: How Can
I Use Goals, Feedback, Rewards,
and Positive Reinforcement to Boost
Effectiveness? 243
What Did I Learn? 245
Problem-Solving Application Case: Incentives Gone Wrong, Then
Wrong Again, and Wrong Again 247
Legal/Ethical Challenge: What Is Your Current Salary? 249
6.2 Define Performance—Expectations and
Goals 207
Do You Want to Perform or Learn? 207
Managing the Goal-Setting Process 208
OB IN ACTION: I Need to See Some ID 210
Contingency Approach to Defining Performance and Setting
Goals 211
6.3 Performance Monitoring and Evaluations 212
Monitoring Performance—Measure Goals Appropriately and
Accurately 212
OB IN ACTION: Monitoring for Performance Becomes More
Sophisticated and Pervasive 213
Evaluating Performance 214
6.4 Performance Review, Feedback, and
Coaching 217
What Effective Feedback Is . . . and Is Not 217
If Feedback Is So Helpful, Why Don’t We Get and Give More? 218
Two Functions of Feedback 218
Important Sources of Feedback—Including Those Often
Overlooked 219
OB IN ACTION: How Do You Spell Feedback and
Self-Improvement? Z-A-P-P-O-S! 220
Your Perceptions Matter 221
SELF-ASSESSMENT 6.1: What Is My Desire for Performance
Feedback? 221
APPLYING OB: Making Lemonade from Lemons—How to
Respond to Negative Feedback 222
Today’s Trends in Feedback 224
Coaching—Turning Feedback into Change 224
APPLYING OB: An “F” In Coaching Signals Success 225
6.5 Providing Rewards and Other
Consequences 226
Key Factors in Organizational Rewards 226
7 POSITIVE ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
WINNING AT WORK 252
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 252
7.1 The Value of Positivity 253
Two Scenarios—Which Do You Prefer? 253
A Framework for Positivity 254
The Benefits of Positive OB Extend beyond Good
Performance 255
APPLYING OB: How to Build Positivity and Your Success 256
OB IN ACTION: How Do You Spell Green? ESG. 259
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Whole Foods vs. Whole
Amazon 260
7.2 The Power of Positive Emotions 261
Beyond Happy vs. Sad 261
Positive Emotions Are Contagious 262
How Much Positivity Is Enough? 264
APPLYING OB: Boost Positivity with Fun 265
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.1: Learn Your Positivity Ratio 267
7.3 Fostering Mindfulness 268
Big Business 269
OB IN ACTION: Biotech, Insurance, and Industrials . . .
They’re All Mindful. What About You? 269
Benefits of Mindfulness 270
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.2: What Is My Level of Mindfulness? 271
Practicing Mindfulness 271
7.4 Psychological Capital and Signature
Strengths 273
Hope = Willpower + Waypower 273
Efficacy 274
Resilience 274
Optimism 274
OB IN ACTION: Resilience Is Organizational
at Kaiser 275
How I Can Develop My PsyCap 276
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.3: What Is My Level of PsyCap? 276
Signature Strengths 277
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.4: What Are My Signature
Strengths? 278
7.5 Positive Organizational Climates 279
OB IN ACTION: Sweetgreen . . . Sweet Indeed 279
Organizational Values 280
Organizational Practices 281
Virtuous Leadership 282
xxiv CONTENTS
7.7 Making the Connection: How Can I Flourish at
School, Work, and Home? 288
What Did I Learn? 290
Problem-Solving Application Case: Opioids: Pain Relief,
Grief, and Purdue 292
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Is Hiring Candidates with Criminal
Records Wise or Risky? 294
7.6 Flourishing: The Destination of POB 283
Positive Emotions 283
APPLYING OB: Converting Rejection into Business, or Not 284
Engagement 285
Relationships 285
Meaningfulness 286
Achievement 287
8 GROUPS AND TEAMS
WINNING AT WORK 298
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 298
8.1 Group Characteristics 299
Formal and Informal Groups 300
Roles and Norms: The Social Building Blocks for Group and
Organizational Behavior 300
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.1: Group and Team Role Preference
Scale 302
OB IN ACTION: Improve Team Norms to Improve Surgical
Outcomes 304
8.2 The Group Development Process 305
Tuckman’s Five-Stage Model of Group Development 306
APPLYING OB: How to Cultivate Cohesiveness and
Success 307
Punctuated Equilibrium 307
8.3 Teams and the Power of Common
Purpose 309
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.2: Is This a Mature Work Group or a
Team? 309
Team Players versus Free-Riders 309
OB IN ACTION: At T-Mobile Groups Lose,
But Teams Thrive! 310
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.3: Evaluate Your Team Member
Effectiveness 311
Types of Teams 313
Virtual Teams 314
Team Interdependence 315
8.4 Trust Building and Repair—Essential Tools
for Success 317
Three Forms of Trust and How to Build Them 318
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.4: How Much Do You Trust Another? 319
APPLYING OB: Microinternships Can Produce Major Benefits 319
Repairing Trust 320
8.5 Keys to Team Effectiveness 321
Characteristics of High-Performing Teams 321
The 3 Cs of Effective Teams 321
OB IN ACTION: Want Better Teamwork? Expect and Ensure
Conflict 322
Collaboration and Team Rewards 324
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Hospitals and Nursing
Homes Collaborate to Combat Common Foes 325
OB IN ACTION: Space Travel Requires Teams of Teams 326
8.6 Making the Connection: How Can
Working with Others Increase My
Performance? 328
What Did I Learn? 330
Problem-Solving Application Case: Money, Design, and
Disaster 332
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Whose Accountable? 334
PART TWO
Groups 295
9 COMMUNICATION IN THE DIGITAL AGE
WINNING AT WORK 338
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 338
9.1 Basic Dimensions of the Communication
Process 339
Defining Communication 339
How the Communication Process Works 340
OB IN ACTION: Transparency Is the Message at Skinfix 341
Selecting the Right Medium 342
9.2 Communication Competence 344
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.1: Assessing Your Communication
Competence 344
Sources of Nonverbal Communication 344
Listening 346
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.2: Assessing Your Listening Style 347
Nondefensive Communication 348
Connecting with Others via Empathy 348
OB IN ACTION: Empathy Is Good for Business 349
9.3 Gender, Generations, and Communication 350
Communication Patterns between Women and Men 350
Generational Differences in Communication 351
Improving Communications between the Sexes and
Generations 352
9.4 Social Media and OB 353
Social Media and Increased Productivity 354
APPLYING OB: How to Optimize LinkedIn 355
OB IN ACTION: Expanding Organizational Boundaries with
Crowdsourcing at Lego, Frito-Lay 356
Costs of Social Media 356
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: A Very Expensive
Fantasy 357
xxvCONTENTS
9.6 Making the Connection: How Can I
Become a More Effective
Communicator? 370
What Did I Learn? 372
Problem-Solving Application Case: United’s Turbulent
Communications Strategy 375
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Should Social Media Posts Impact Life
Insurance Premiums? 377
Make E-mail Your Friend, Not Your Foe 358
Social Media Concerns and Remedies—What Companies and
You Can Do 358
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.3: Assessing Social Media
Readiness 360
OB IN ACTION: Coca-Cola’s Online Social Media Principles 361
APPLYING OB: Acing a Skype Interview 363
9.5 Communication Skills to Boost your
Effectiveness 364
Presenting—Do You Give Reports or Do You Tell Stories? 364
APPLYING OB: How to Dazzle the Crowd—Tips on Public
Speaking 366
Crucial Conversations 367
Managing Up 368
10 MANAGING CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATIONS
WINNING AT WORK 380
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 380
10.1 A Contemporary View of Conflict 381
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.1: Interpersonal Conflict
Tendencies 381
Conflict Is Everywhere and It Matters 381
A Modern View of Conflict 381
A Conflict Continuum 382
Functional vs. Dysfunctional Conflict 382
Common Causes of Conflict 383
Escalation of Conflict 383
APPLYING OB: You’ve Decided to Leave Your Job . . . How Do
You Explain It During an Interview? 384
Conflict Avoidance 385
Desired Outcomes of Conflict Management 386
10.2 Conventional Forms of Conflict 387
Personality Conflicts 387
Intergroup Conflict 387
How to Handle Intergroup Conflict 388
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.2: Psychological Safety Climate 390
APPLYING OB: Psychological Safety Is Oxygen at Google 390
10.3 Forms of Conflict Intensified by Technology 391
Work–Life Conflict 391
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.3: School–Non-School Conflict 392
Incivility—Treating Others Poorly Has Real Costs 395
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.4: Bullying Scale—Target and
Perpetrator 399
10.4 Effectively Managing Conflict 400
Programming Functional Conflict 400
Conflict-Handling Styles 401
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.5: Preferred Conflict-
Handling Style 402
OB IN ACTION: Maybe It’s a Difference in Style, and
Maybe It’s Yours 404
Third-Party Interventions: Alternative Dispute
Resolution (ADRs) 405
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Food Fight on
Campus 406
10.5 Negotiation 408
Two Basic Types of Negotiation 408
OB IN ACTION: Who Is Going to Eat More Pie, Writers or
Agents? 410
Emotions and Negotiations 411
APPLYING OB: How to Ask for More Money 412
Ethics and Negotiations 413
10.6 Making the Connection: How Can Managing
Conflict and Negotiating Give Me an
Advantage? 415
What Did I Learn? 417
Problem-Solving Application Case: With Trouble Comes Conflict,
and with Conflict Comes Trouble 419
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Arbitrate or Litigate? Employees Now
Have a Choice 421
11 DECISION MAKING AND CREATIVITY
WINNING AT WORK 424
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 424
11.1 Rational and Nonrational Models
of Decision Making 425
Two Ways of Thinking 425
Rational Decision Making: Managers Make Logical and Optimal
Decisions 426
Nonrational Models of Decision Making: Decision Making Does
Not Follow an Orderly Process 428
OB IN ACTION: Improving an Airport Terminal under Bounded
Rationality 429
APPLYING OB: Tips for Improving Your Intuition 432
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.1: Assessing Your Intuition 432
11.2 Decision-Making Biases: Rules of
Thumb or “Heuristics” 433
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Overconfidence
Bias Partly to Blame for California Wildfire 434
11.3 Evidence-Based Decision Making 437
Using Evidence to Make Decisions 438
Big Data: The Next Frontier in Evidence-Based
Decision Making 439
OB IN ACTION: Big Data Helps Advance the Health Care
Industry 440
Artificial Intelligence: Teaching Machines to
Make Decisions 440
xxvi CONTENTS
Practical Contingency Recommendations for Group Decision
Making 450
Reaching Consensus: The Goal of Group Problem-Solving
Techniques 450
Practical Problem-Solving Techniques 450
11.7 Creativity 452
A Model of Creativity 452
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.4: Assessing Climate for Creativity 454
Practical Recommendations for Increasing Creativity 455
APPLYING OB: Tips for Sparking Creativity 455
11.8 Making the Connection: How
Can I Master Decision-Making and
Creativity Skills? 456
What Did I Learn? 457
Problem-Solving Application Case: Airbus Decides to Permanently
Land the A380 460
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Should Colleges Expel Students Whose
Parents Cheated to Get Them In? 462
11.4 Four Decision-Making Styles 442
Value Orientation and Tolerance for Ambiguity 442
The Directive Style: Action-Oriented Decision Makers Who
Focus on Facts 442
The Analytical Style: Careful and Slow Decision Makers Who
Like Lots of Information 443
The Conceptual Style: Intuitive Decision Makers Who Involve
Others in Long-Term Thinking 444
The Behavioral Style: Highly People-Oriented Decision
Makers 444
Which Style Are You? 444
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.2: What Is My Decision-Making
Style? 444
11.5 A Road Map to Ethical Decision Making 445
11.6 Group Decision Making 447
Advantages and Disadvantages of Group Decision Making 448
Groupthink 448
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.3: Assessing Participation in Group
Decision Making 450
12 POWER, INFLUENCE, AND POLITICS
WINNING AT WORK 466
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 466
12.1 Power and Its Basic Forms 467
Five Bases of Power 467
APPLYING OB: Follow Me—All the Way to the Bank 469
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.1: What Kind of Power Do I Prefer? 470
Position vs. Personal Power 470
APPLYING OB: From Teammate to Manager: Taking Charge 471
Power, but for What Purpose? 472
12.2 Power Sharing and Empowerment 475
Structural Empowerment 475
Psychological Empowerment 477
How to Empower Individuals, Teams, and Organizations 478
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Empowering a Team of
Your Peers 479
12.3 Effectively Influencing Others 480
Common Influence Tactics 480
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.2: Which Influence Tactics Do I Use? 482
OB IN ACTION: Hard Sell . . . Amazon Style 482
Match Tactics to Desired Outcomes 483
Influence in Virtual Teams 483
Cialdini’s Six Principles of Persuasion 484
Apply Your Knowledge 485
12.4 Political Tactics and How to Use Them 486
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.3: How Political Am I? 486
Organizational Politics—The Good and the Bad 486
OB IN ACTION: Turning Politics Upside Down . . . Employees
Rule! 487
Uncertainty and Political Behavior 487
Frequently Used Political Tactics 488
Blame and Politics 489
Three Levels of Political Action 490
OB IN ACTION: Fed Up, Rise Up, Affect Change . . . Students
Take Action 491
Using Politics to Your Advantage 492
12.5 Impression Management 493
What Is Impression Management? 493
Good Impressions 493
APPLYING OB: Etiquette Gets You Hired 494
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.4: Your Impression Management—How
and Who 495
Impression Management and Job Interviews 496
OB IN ACTION: Is Your Ink an Asset, a Liability, or Just
Colorful? 496
Ethics and Impression Management 497
Apologies 498
12.6 Making the Connection: How Can I Apply
Power, Influence, and Politics to Increase
My Effectiveness? 500
What Did I Learn? 501
Problem-Solving Application Case: #MeToo—Just Do It! 503
Legal/Ethical Challenge: If You Work Here,
You Can’t Eat Meat! 504
13 LEADERSHIP EFFECTIVENESS
WINNING AT WORK 508
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 508
13.1 Making Sense of Leadership Theories 509
An Integrated Model of Leadership 509
What Is the Difference between Leading and Managing? 511
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.1: Assessing Your Readiness to
Assume a Leadership Role 511
13.2 Trait Theories: Do Leaders Possess Unique
Traits and Personal Characteristics? 512
What Core Traits Do Leaders Possess? 512
What Role Does Emotional Intelligence Play in Leadership
Effectiveness? 513
Do Women and Men Display the Same Leadership
Traits? 514
xxviiCONTENTS
13.5 Transformational Leadership: How Do Leaders
Transform Employees’ Motives? 530
A Model of Transformational Leadership 530
How Does Transformational Leadership Work? 532
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.4: Assessing Your Boss’s Transforma-
tional Leadership? 532
13.6 Additional Perspectives on Leadership 534
The Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Model of Leadership 534
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.5: Assessing Your Leader-Member
Exchange 536
APPLYING OB: Tips for Improving the Quality of a
Leader–Member Exchange 536
The Power of Humility 537
The Role of Followers in the Leadership Process 537
13.7 Making the Connection: What Does It Take to
Be an Effective Leader? 539
What Did I Learn? 540
Problem-Solving Application Case: Leadership Matters! 543
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Should Store Managers Force Employees
to Pierce Kids’ Ears Against Their Wishes? 545
How Important Are Knowledge and Skills? 514
Do Perceptions Matter? 514
What Are the Take-Aways from Trait Theory? 515
13.3 Behavioral Theories: Which Leader Behaviors
Drive Effectiveness? 516
Task-Oriented Leader Behavior 516
OB IN ACTION: Dabo Swinney Uses Task-Oriented Leadership
to Reclaim the Championship for Clemson 517
Relationship-Oriented Leader Behavior 518
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.2: Assessing Your Task- and Relationship-
Oriented Leader Behavior 518
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.3: Assessing Your Servant
Orientation 521
Abusive Supervision 521
OB IN ACTION: Abusive Leadership at a Pharmacy 522
What Are the Take-Aways from Behavioral Theory? 522
13.4 Contingency Theories: Does the Effectiveness
of Leadership Depend on the Situation? 523
Fiedler’s Contingency Model 523
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Barnes & Noble Seeks a
Leader 525
House’s Path-Goal Theory 526
Applying Contingency Theories 529
14 ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE, SOCIALIZATION, AND MENTORING
WINNING AT WORK 550
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 550
14.1 The Foundation of Organizational Culture:
Understanding Its Drivers and Functions 551
Defining Culture and Exploring Its Impact 551
The Three Levels of Organizational Culture 552
OB IN ACTION: Being vs. Becoming Sustainable 554
The Four Functions of Organizational Culture 555
14.2 The Impact of Organizational Culture Types on
Outcomes 558
Identifying Culture Types with the Competing Values
Framework 558
OB IN ACTION: Activision Blizzard Integrates Clan and
Adhocracy Cultures 562
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.1: What Is the Organizational Culture
at My Current Employer? 563
Outcomes Associated with Organizational Culture 564
Subcultures Matter 565
14.3 Mechanisms or Levers for Culture
Change 566
12 Mechanisms or Levers for Creating Culture Change 567
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Sprouts Farmers Market:
The Best Culture or the Worst? 572
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.2: What Type of Organizational Culture
Do I Prefer? 573
14.4 Embedding Organizational Culture Through
the Socialization Process 574
A Three-Phase Model of Organizational Socialization 574
OB IN ACTION: Companies Use Different Approaches to
Onboard Employees 576
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.3: Have You Been Adequately
Socialized? 577
Practical Applications of Socialization Research 577
APPLYING OB: Key Skills Needed for Success in a New
Job 579
14.5 Embedding Organizational Culture Through
Mentoring 580
Functions of Mentoring 580
Human and Social Capital Enhance the Benefits of
Mentoring 582
APPLYING OB: Key Strategies for Cultivating a Network and a
Mentoring Relationship 583
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.4: Assessing My Level
of Mentoring 584
14.6 Making the Connection: How Can I Use These
Concepts to Fit, Develop, and Perform? 585
What Did I Learn? 586
Problem-Solving Application Case: Cultures Clash at Ford 589
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Should the Citadel Change Its
Socialization Practices? 591
PART THREE
Organizational Processes 547
xxviii CONTENTS
15 ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN, EFFECTIVENESS, AND INNOVATION
WINNING AT WORK 594
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 594
15.1 Understanding Organizational Behavior 595
15.2 The Foundation of an Organization 597
What Is an Organization? 597
Organization Charts 598
An Open-System Perspective of Organizations 599
Learning Organizations 600
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.1: Are You Working for a Learning
Organization? 603
APPLYING OB: Learning from Failure 603
15.3 Organizational Design 604
Three Categories 604
Seven Types of Organizational Structures 606
OB IN ACTION: W.L. Gore & Associates Operates with a
Horizontal Design 607
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.2: What Is Your Preference for
Telecommuting? 608
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Gig Workers Are a
Growing Force in the Labor Market 609
15.4 Contingency Design and Internal
Alignment 613
Contingency Factors 613
Internal Alignment 614
What Does This Mean to Me? 615
15.5 Organizational Innovation 616
Approaches toward Innovation 616
An Innovation System: The Supporting Forces for
Innovation 618
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: Can AMD Innovate
without Risk? 620
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.3: How Innovative Is the Organizational
Climate? 621
OB IN ACTION: Design Thinking Your Way to Innovative
Solutions 621
Office Design 623
15.6 Assessing Organizational Effectiveness 625
The Balanced Scorecard: A Dashboard-Based Approach to
Measuring Organizational Effectiveness 625
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.4: Assessing the Learning and Growth
Perspective of the Balanced Scorecard 627
Strategy Mapping: Visual Representation of the Path to
Organizational Effectiveness 627
15.7 Making the Connection: How Can
Understanding Organizational Design,
Effectiveness, and Innovation Help Me
Succeed? 629
What Did I Learn? 630
Problem-Solving Application Case: Barnes & Noble Faces Its
Last Chapter 633
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Does Tax-Exempt Status for Universities
Make Them Good Organizational Citizens? 634
16 MANAGING CHANGE AND STRESS
WINNING AT WORK 638
WHAT’S AHEAD IN THIS CHAPTER 638
16.1 Forces for Change 639
SELF-ASSESSMENT 16.1: Assessing Your Attitudes toward
Change at Work 639
External Forces 639
Internal Forces 643
OB IN ACTION: The C-Suite Revolving Door 644
16.2 Types and Models of Change 646
Three General Types of Change 646
Lewin’s Change Model 647
A Systems Model of Change 648
APPLYING OB: How to Formulate a Meaningful Mission
Statement 649
OB IN ACTION: Changing the World with Shoes and Much
More 650
SELF-ASSESSMENT 16.2: What Is Your Readiness for
Change? 651
Kotter’s Eight-Step Organizational Change Process 652
Creating Change through Organization Development (OD) 652
16.3 Understanding Resistance to Change 655
SELF-ASSESSMENT 16.3: Assessing Your Resistance to
Change 655
A Dynamic View of Resistance 655
Causes of Resistance to Change 656
16.4 The Good and the Bad of Stress 658
Stress—Good and Bad 658
A Model of Job Stress 659
Confronting and Overcoming Failures 663
APPLYING OB: “Tell me about a time . . .” 664
16.5 Effective Change and Stress
Management 665
Applying the Systems Model of Change—Strategic Planning
and Diagnosis 665
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION: HBO + TNT + TBS +
CNN + ETC = NEW AT&T 665
How to Overcome Resistance to Change 666
How to Manage Stress 669
APPLYING OB: How Do You Spell Stress Relief? R-A-N-T! 670
Pulling It All Together—Change Management Tips for
Managers 670
APPLYING OB: Five Tips for Effective Change 671
16.6 Making the Connection: How Can I Apply
OB and Show What I’ve Learned? 672
What Did I Learn? 674
Problem-Solving Application Case: Toys R Amazon,
Walmart, and Others, but Not Us 676
Legal/Ethical Challenge: Can Employers Ethically
Force You to Change and Be Healthy? 678
ENDNOTES CN1
GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX I-1
NAMES INDEX I-21
COMPANY INDEX I-25
Organizational
Behavior
A Practical, Problem-Solving Approach
Individual Behavior
PART ONE
Caia Image/Image Source
LO 1-1 Describe the value of OB to your job and career.
LO 1-2 Identify factors that influence unethical conduct and how it affects
performance.
LO 1-3 Utilize OB to solve problems and increase your effectiveness.
LO 1-4 Explain the practical relevance and power of OB to help solve problems.
LO 1-5 Utilize the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.
LO 1-6 Apply the Organizing Framework to the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.
LO 1-7 Describe the implications of OB knowledge and tools for you and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
In this chapter you’ll learn that the study and practice of OB often organizes the workplace into
three levels—the individual, the group or team, and the organization. We therefore structured
this book the same way—Part One is devoted to individual-level phenomena (job satisfaction),
Part Two to groups and teams (team cohesiveness), and Part Three to the organizational level
(innovation). Make sure you read the final section of Chapter 1 for a preview of the many con-
cepts you’ll learn in the book. You’ll also find a summary and application of the Organizing
Framework for Understanding and Applying OB and the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.
These are fundamental tools we created not only to help you learn more effectively, but also to
help you apply and realize the true value of OB for you personally.
1 Making OB Work for Me
C
ai
a
Im
ag
e/
Im
ag
e
So
ur
ce
Winning at Work
Your Future
projects, practice, sports, or clubs) and/or work (intern-
ships, full-time jobs, or volunteer work). Problem solving,
critical thinking, creativity, teamwork, collaboration, com-
munication, active listening, self-awareness, attention to
detail, strategic thinking.
5. Your Commitment to Development. Be sure to Include train-
ing or workshops (outside of school) you’ve done, as it will
show you are aware of the importance of these skills and
are committed to developing them.
6. Position Matters. Like real estate, location matters so be
thoughtful as to where you put key words. Education-related
information is obvious enough, in the education section, but
others depend on the resume format you choose. For
instance, skills-based resumes are now more popular com-
pared to old-school chronological resumes, especially if you
don’t have much experience yet or are changing careers.
7. Don’t Overlook the Cover Letter. This is an opportunity to
include and highlight the most Important key skills, if
you’ve identified them as suggested in #1 above.
8. What’s in a Name? A lot! Just as you expect to be
addressed by your name in an interview, assume the ATS
and humans who ultimately get involved in the hiring pro-
cess also value names. Specifically, be sure to include the
company name and job title. Don’t be generic, such as: “I
want to join a company that ____,” or “I want to contribute
to a valuable company . . .”4
Bottom line: Whether your major or job experience is accounting,
finance, marketing, IT/IS, or something else, the fact is that jobs
increasingly require OB knowledge and skills. “Everyone has to
work across silos,” says Becky Frankiewicz, president of Man-
power Group North America. And since OB skills “are not usually
taught in business schools or undergraduate programs, they are
qualities that you have to burnish on your own, preferably in the
early stages of your career.”5
Your future starts with your next job, whether it is your very first
or your tenth. Once you’ve identified a desirable job to apply for,
the challenge becomes—how do you get that job? Part of the
answer is to give employers what they want, and as you’ll learn
employers want employees who possess and effectively use OB
knowledge and tools.
Employers Want OB
This is supported by the findings of countless surveys, such as
one by ManpowerGroup with thousands of employers, which
found 61 percent rate people (OB) skills as the most important
trait in new hires.1 Research by the National Association of Col-
leges and Employers (NACE) routinely shows the three skills most
valued by employers are critical thinking, problem solving, and
teamwork.2 Building your skills in these areas and others is the
overarching goal of this book. The Applying OB box later in this
chapter differentiates and describes hard and soft skills in greater
detail, but what we cover here Is how to emphasize these on
your resume.
Talking to Robots
As you likely know, many companies use applicant tracking soft-
ware (ATS) that not only organizes the hundreds or even thousands
of applications received, but also makes them searchable. ATS
scans for key words inserted by humans, scores them accordingly,
and then pares the applications based on these scores. This means
you need to put points on the board with the robot. Even if you are
indeed the best candidate, if you’re not seen—no interview, no
offer, no job. And for the human eyes that ultimately review your
resume, some estimates suggest a recruiter spends approximately
6 seconds reviewing your resume.3 So, what can you do?
First, it is your responsibility to communicate to the prospective
employer (both their ATS robots and humans) what you can do for
them. Tell them in direct and specific terms what they want to
know and what you can do for them.
Use Their Language and Tell Them What
You Can Offer
1. Use the Same Language. You are well served to use the
same words a prospective employer uses in their job ads. To
ensure your spellings match theirs consider writing things in
multiple forms. Your degree, for instance, “I have a bache-
lor’s in management (BS in management),” includes two dif-
ferent versions and increases likelihood of being “picked.”
2. Identify Key Skills for the Job. If the most Important skills
are not listed or evident in the job posting, then what do
you do? Ask! Whomever you can communicate with simply
ask, “I know the posting notes a number of important skills,
but what are the two or three that are most important?”
3. Don’t Overlook Other Key Words. Your skills of course
matter, but also do your research and include key words
for Important customers, how they are served, as well as
key products and services.
4. Don’t Just List or Tell—Illustrate! Better than simply listing
are descriptions of how you’ve used these at school (team
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
You’ll learn how OB can drive your job and career success.
You’ll grasp the difference between hard and soft skills and
the value of developing both, as well as the importance of
self-awareness. We’ll show how ethics are integral to long-
term individual and organizational success, and we’ll intro-
duce a problem-solving approach you can use in a wide
variety of situations at school, at work, and in life. What
really powers this book is our Organizing Framework for
Understanding and Applying OB, which we introduce mid-
chapter. This framework will help you organize and apply
OB concepts and tools as you learn them. To show you the
power of the Organizing Framework, we conclude the
chapter with a preview of the many concepts, theories, and
tools you will learn. We then show you how to apply this
knowledge using our 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.
We think you’ll be intrigued by this glimpse into all you will
learn in this book and course. Let’s get started!
4 PART 1 Individual Behavior
1.1 USE KNOWLEDGE OF OB TO ENHANCE YOUR
PERFORMANCE AND CAREER
The term organizational behavior (OB) describes an interdisciplinary field dedi-
cated to understanding and managing people at work. To achieve this goal, OB draws
on research and practice from many disciplines, including:
• Anthropology • Political science
• Economics • Psychology
• Ethics • Sociology
• Management • Neuroscience
• Organizational theory • Vocational counseling
From this list you can see that OB is very much an applied and broad discipline that
draws from many sources. Throughout this book we will help you see the relevance and
value of OB for your own job and career.
Let’s begin by looking at how OB compares to your other
courses, explaining the contingency perspective, which is the
premise of contemporary OB, and exploring the importance
of both hard and soft skills.
How OB Fits into My Curriculum
and Influences My Success
Organizational behavior is an academic discipline focused on
understanding and managing people at work. This includes
managing yourself and others both inside and outside the
organization, but unlike jobs associated with functional disci-
plines, such as accounting, marketing, and finance, you will
not get a job in OB.
What then is the benefit of learning about OB? The
answer is that the effective application of OB is critical to your
success in all disciplines of work and all job levels. As you’ll
learn, technical knowledge associated with any given job is
important, but your ability to influence, get along with, man-
age, and get things done through others is what makes the
difference. Put more simply—people skills!
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Are you uncertain about the value of organizational behavior (OB) and how it fits into your
school curriculum or your professional life? This section will explain how OB can be valuable
to you. You’ll see how OB knowledge and tools go far beyond common sense and can
enhance your personal job performance and career success. For instance, you will learn what
it takes to get hired versus what it takes to get promoted, the importance of both hard and
soft skills, and the role of self-awareness in your success.
Describe the value of
OB to your job and
career.
LO 1-1
Our professional lives are extremely busy and challenging and
effectiveness will require a host of both hard and soft skills. Your
understanding and application of OB concepts and tools will help
you meet the many challenges, perform better, and create more
attractive opportunities throughout your career.
Somos Images LLC/Alamy Stock Photo
5Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
Applying OB knowledge and tools gives you opportunities, sets you apart from
your peers and competition, and contributes to your success. An important part of your
success is ability to know which tools to use and under what circumstances. This is
described as a contingency approach to managing people and is the foundation of con-
temporary OB.
A Contingency Perspective—The Contemporary Foundation of OB
A contingency approach calls for using the OB concepts and tools that best suit
the situation, instead of trying to rely on “one best way.” This means there is no
single best way to manage people, teams, or organizations. A particular management
practice that worked today may not work tomorrow. What worked with one employee
may not work with another. The best or most effective course of action instead depends
on the situation.
Harvard’s Clayton Christensen put it this way: “Many of the widely accepted princi-
ples of good management are only situationally appropriate.”6 Put differently, don’t use a
hammer unless the job involves nails. You’ll learn in Chapter 13, for instance, no single
leadership style is best and works in all situations. This makes OB very different from
many of your other courses in that answers here are rarely black and white, right or wrong,
but instead the best answer—the most appropriate behavior—depends on the situation.
Directly considering situational factors is fundamental to OB and is emphasized through-
out this book.
Therefore, to be effective you need to understand and do what is appropriate given the
situation, rather than adhering to hard-and-fast rules or defaulting to personal preferences
or organizational norms. Organizational behavior specialists, and many effective manag-
ers, embrace the contingency approach because it helps them consider the many factors
that influence the behavior and performance of individuals, groups, and organizations.
Taking a broader, contingent perspective like this is a fundamental key to your success in
the short and the long term.
Effectively applying the contingency approach requires self-awareness, which means
knowing your own skills, abilities, values, weaknesses, strengths, preferences, and fit with
the environment. It also includes knowing how others see you in terms of these same fac-
tors. Not surprisingly, self-awareness is key to your success in both the short and long
term.7 The following Applying OB box explains in some detail what self-awareness is and
how to build It.
To help increase your self-awareness we
include multiple Self-Assessments in every
chapter. These are an excellent way to learn
about yourself and see how you can apply
OB at school, at work, and in your personal
life. Go to Connect, complete the assess-
ments, then answer the questions included
in each of the Self-Assessment boxes.
Let’s start with your motivation to
manage others. Many employees never
manage others. Some choose not to and
some don’t get the chance, but what about
you? How motivated are you to manage
others? Go to conect.mheducation.com
and Self-Assessment 1.1 to learn about
your motivation for managing others.
What you learn might surprise you. Sur-
prised or not, more precisely understand-
ing your motivation to manage others can
guide your course selection in college and
your job choices in the marketplace.
A central feature of almost any successful development program is self-
awareness. Knowing who you are and knowing your preferences are impor-
tant considerations in personal development.
Lana Isabella/Moment/Getty Images
6 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Applying OB
Employers Care—So Should You. The Stanford Graduate
School of Business asked the members of its Advisory
Council which skills are most important for their MBA
students to learn. The most frequent answer was self-
awareness.8 Self-awareness has been identified as
one of the key attributes of successful leaders, as they
tend to get along better with others and their compa-
nies are more profitable.9
Key to Your Development. Larry Bossidy (former CEO
of Honeywell) and Ram Charan (world-renowned man-
agement expert) said it best in their book Execution:
“When you know yourself, you are comfortable with
your strengths and not crippled by your shortcomings.
Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn from
your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables
you to keep growing.”10
Influencing Others. They also argue that you need to
know yourself in order to be authentic—real and not
fake, the same on the outside as the inside. Authentic-
ity is essential to influencing others, which we discuss
in detail in Chapter 12. People don’t trust fakes, and it
is difficult to influence or manage others if they don’t
trust you (trust is covered in Chapter 8). The implica-
tion is that to have a successful career you need to
know who you are, what you want, and how others
perceive you.
Experience + Power (does not equal) Self-Awareness.
Unfortunately, some people’s experience and success
lead them to be overconfident about their abilities and
become less self-aware. Making matters worse, the
same research revealed the more senior the leadership
position the greater the overconfidence, and only
10 to 15 percent of employees actually meet the
criteria of self-awareness, despite nearly all believing
they are!11
Building Your Self-Awareness. Research and practice
provide excellent practical guidance:
1. Practice mindfulness daily. We’ll explore mindful-
ness in detail in Chapter 7, but for our purposes
here mindfulness involves purposefully focusing
your attention on the here and now, yourself, the
environment, and those around you in the present
moment.
2. Take timeouts. Even if it is just a minute or two,
stop what you are doing and do nothing. Don’t
check your phone, e-mails, or go talk to a coworker.
Self-awareness requires time and space, and
when you’re working under (time) pressure you
are most likely to go with your habits and usual
ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. This is why
true timeouts can foster self-awareness.
3. Keep a diary of strengths and weaknesses. Make
and periodically revise a list of your strengths and
weaknesses.
4. Take self-assessments. Many tests exist, for example
the Myers-Briggs, that measure various personal
characteristics and help you learn about yourself.
Better still, there are multiple self-assessments in
every chapter of this book.
5. Keep ears open, mouth shut. In other words, listen!
Self-awareness requires insight and some of the
best insights come from others. Seek feedback,
listen, and learn.12
Self-Awareness Can Help You Build a Fulfilling Career
How Strong Is My Motivation to Manage?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 1.1 in Connect.
1. Does this instrument accurately assess your potential as a manager? Explain.
2. Which of the seven dimensions do you think is likely the best predictor of
managerial success? Which is the least? Explain.
3. The instrument emphasizes competition with others in a win-lose mentality.
Describe the pros and cons of this approach to management.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.1 CAREER READINESS
CAREER READINESS
7Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
“OB Is Just Common Sense” As professors and consultants we often hear, “OB is
just common sense.” We can easily refute this inaccurate claim, but instead we simply say—
“Even if it is common sense it certainly isn’t common practice!” If common sense were all
that mattered, managers would always treat employees fairly, businesses would never make
“stupid” decisions, and you and other employees would make very few mistakes. Everyone
would perform better and be happier.
Moreover, common sense is largely based on experience or logic, both of which have
limits, and it suffers three major weaknesses you need to be aware of and avoid:
• Overreliance on hindsight. Common sense works best in well-known or stable situa-
tions with predictable outcomes—what worked before should work again. But mod-
ern business situations are complex and uncertain and require adapting to change,
which are exactly the conditions under which common sense is likely to fail. And
because it focuses on the past, common sense lacks vision for the future.
• Lack of rigor. People comfortable with common-sense responses may not apply
the effort required to appropriately analyze and solve problems. If you lack
rigor, and aren’t especially thorough or precise, then you are unlikely to define
the problem accurately, identify the true causes, or recommend the right courses
of action.
• Lack of objectivity. Common sense can be overly subjective and lack a basis in sci-
ence. In such cases we are not always able to explain or justify our reasoning to oth-
ers, which is a sign that common sense lacks objectivity.
OB is a scientific means for overcoming the limits and weaknesses of common sense.
The contingency approach in OB means you don’t settle for options based simply on expe-
rience or common practice if another solution may be more effective. The goals of OB are
to give you more than common sense, enhance your understanding of situations at work,
and guide your behaviors. This in turn will make you more attractive to potential employ-
ers and more effective once hired. Let’s explore this idea in greater detail, beginning with
the importance of possessing and developing both hard and soft skills.
Employers Want Both Hard and Soft Skills
Most of us know the difference between hard and soft skills.
• Hard skills are the technical expertise and knowledge required to do a par-
ticular task or job function, such as financial analysis, accounting, or operations.
• Soft skills relate to human interactions and include both interpersonal skills
and personal attributes.
Susan Vitale, chief marketing officer for iCIMS, an HR software provider described
them this way: “Hard skills are what you do, and soft skills are how you do it.”13 Research
has long showed people may excel based on hard skills but they often fail because of soft
skills.14 Maybe that’s why firms tend to weigh soft skills so heavily when hiring. The Future
of Jobs report by the World Economic Forum provides compelling supporting evidence.
They found the most sought-after skills for graduates in 2020 are problem solving, critical
thinking, creativity, and people management.15
What do you notice about these four skills? Which are hard skills? None! Instead, all
are soft skills, the skills you need to interact with, influence, and perform effectively when
working with others.
This is a good news/bad news story. The good news—all of these skills are key topics
in this book and can be developed. The bad news is 33 percent of recruiting professionals
feel candidates’ skills in these areas have declined in the past five years.16 “Many claim
that college grads are lacking in people skills and have trouble solving problems and
thinking creatively. . . . Having a college degree and technical skills isn’t enough to land
their first job.”17
8 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Table 1.1 shows four sought-after skills, along with a brief explanation of how we
directly address them in this book.
One key aspect of soft skills is that they are not job specific. Instead they are portable
skills , more or less relevant in every job, at every level, and throughout your
career.19 All of these and many more soft skills are represented by OB topics covered in
this book, whether as personal attributes or interpersonal skills:
Personal attributes Interpersonal skills
(with which you build goodwill and (with which you foster respectful
trust and demonstrate integrity) interactions)
• Attitudes (Chapter 2) • Active listening (Chapters 12 and 13)
• Personality (Chapter 3) • Positive attitudes (Chapters 2 and 7)
• Teamwork (Chapter 8) • Effective communication (Chapter 9)
• Leadership (Chapter 13)
The takeaway for you? Good interpersonal skills can make a candidate with a less-market-
able degree an appealing hire, while a lack of people skills may doom a college grad to
unemployment, low pay, or otherwise undesirable and limited opportunities.20
How OB Fits into My Career
Hard skills are of course important. Accountants, for instance, need to understand debits
and credits, financial analysts must calculate net present value, and both need to under-
stand cash flows. However, to be competitive and give employers what they want, you must
develop soft skills too. Some soft skills will even increase in importance over your career
and help set you apart from the competition. To highlight this point, think about the crite-
ria used for hiring workers versus promoting them.
TABLE 1.1 Four Skills Most Desired by Employers for Workforce 202018
SKILL DESCRIPTION THIS BOOK
1. Problem solving Identifying complex problems and
reviewing related information to
develop and evaluate options then
implement solutions.
Our problem-solving approach is used
throughout the book. We repeatedly
ask you to apply your knowledge to
solve problems at school, at work, and
in life.
2. Critical thinking Using logic and reasoning to identify
the strengths and weaknesses of
alternate solutions, conclusions, or
approaches to problems.
Critical thinking is fundamental to this
book and woven throughout. We
designed features and exercises to
help you think critically and apply your
OB knowledge and tools.
3. Creativity Applying new ideas, processes, and
technology to improve products,
services, and other outcomes.
Creativity is a function of person and
situation factors and can result In new
processes and outcomes. All of these
are fundamental elements of OB and
described in more detail later In this
chapter and throughout the book.
4. People management Motivating, developing, and influenc-
ing others to meet individual, group,
and organizational goals.
OB is people management which
means every chapter provides knowl-
edge and tools to make you a more
effective people manager.
9Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
What It Takes to Get Hired Regardless of where you are in your career today, ask
yourself: What criteria were used to hire you for your first job? What factors did your hir-
ing manager consider? (If your first job is still ahead of you, what factors do you think will
be most important?) You and most of your peers
will identify things like college major, GPA, and
internship or other experience. In short, for most
jobs you are selected for your technical skills, your
ability to do the given job. Whatever the selection
criteria, you need to perform during the interview
process in order to receive the offer. The Applying OB
box provides some useful insights on how to ace
interviews.
What It Takes to Get Promoted Now ask
yourself what criteria are used for promotions? Of
course, performance in your current job is often a
primary consideration. However, you and many
other employees may fail to realize that your per-
ceived ability to get things done through others
and to manage people will be another important
deciding factor. If you and three of your coworkers
are all vying for an open management position,
then it’s likely all four of you perform at a high
level. This means performance isn’t the only
Applying OB
Everyone knows that jobs are won or lost during
interviews. Here are a few simple tips to help you finish
on top.
1. Create an elevator pitch. Imagine you’re in the
elevator with the interviewer and have only
60 seconds to sell yourself. Select your three best-
selling points (strengths) and concisely explain
how each would benefit the company. Stay
focused—keep your pitch short and meaningful.
2. Finish strong. At the end of the interview state
and show your enthusiasm for the opportunity.
Also restate your one or two best-selling points
and how they will benefit the company.
3. Prepare for situational questions. Anticipate
questions like, “Why do you want this job?” and,
“Tell me about a time when you had a conflict at
work and what you did about it.” Be prepared to
answer them by describing the situation, your
behavior, and the resulting impact. Also consider
describing what you learned in that situation.
4. Make your research social. Reach out to your net-
work privately (you don’t want everyone to know
you’re looking) and learn whether anyone has
worked for or interviewed with your target com-
pany. Learn about the person you’re interviewing
with on LinkedIn—education, past jobs, positions
within the target company. Glassdoor.com and
other sites can be a wealth of information on
employee experiences and compensation.
5. Don’t trip up on the money. It’s generally best to
wait until you have a formal offer in hand before
discussing pay. If asked about your salary require-
ment during the interview, respond by saying, “Are
you making me an offer?” The answer will likely
be, “No, not yet.” But if the interviewer persists,
say, “I would prefer to have all the details in hand
in order to determine what would be most appro-
priate and fair. Once I have those, I will happily dis-
cuss compensation.”21
How to Ace Your Next Interview
An understanding of OB can provide extremely valuable knowledge
and tools to help “sell” yourself during job interviews.
Chris Ryan/OJO Images/age fotostock
CAREER READINESS
10 PART 1 Individual Behavior
deciding factor—all of you are top performers. Instead, it may be your perceived ability to
directly or indirectly manage others!
Roxanne Hori, an associate dean at New York University’s Stern School of Business,
echoes this argument: “Yes, your knowledge of the functional area you’re pursuing is
important. But to succeed longer term . . . having strong team skills and knowing how to
build and manage relationships were seen as just as important.” One executive she inter-
viewed suggested that students should “take as much organizational behavior coursework
as possible . . . because as you move into leadership roles, the key skills that will determine
your success will be around your ability to interact with others in a highly effective fash-
ion.”22 As authors of this book, we agree, but more Importantly we hope after learning the
power of OB you’ll agree too.
Some career experts, such as Chrissy Scivicque, the CEO of a career coaching and
training firm and writer for Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, go so far as to say that most
people have the technical skills to succeed at higher-level jobs. And even if some new tech-
nical knowledge is needed it generally is easy to learn. However, as you rise through the
hierarchy your job generally will require a more developed set of soft skills, such as com-
munication, emotional intelligence, ethics, and stress management.23
We make this point visually in Figure 1.1. It illustrates how technical or job-specific
skills decline in importance as you move to levels of higher responsibility, while personal
skills increase.
Performance Gives Me Credibility Performance matters because it gives you cred-
ibility with your peers and those you may manage. Be aware that early in your career your
bosses will be looking for more than your job performance. They also will evaluate your
management potential, and their opinion will affect your future opportunities. So even in
a non-management position you need to know how to:
• Apply different motivational tools (Chapter 5).
• Provide constructive feedback (Chapter 6).
• Develop and lead productive teams (Chapters 8 and 13).
• Understand and manage organizational culture and change (Chapters 14 and 16).
Knowledge of OB, therefore, is critical to your individual performance, your ability to
work with and manage others, and your career success (promotions, pay raises, increased
opportunities). As you may already know, ethics can similarly make or break you at every
step of your career, which is why we cover it next.
FIGURE 1.1 Relative Importance of Different Skills Based on Job Level
High
Low Job
Level
Importance Personal Skills
Technical Skills
ExecutiveManagementFront-line
SOURCE: Lombardo, Michael, and Robert Eichinger. Preventing Derailment: What To Do Before It’s Too Late. North California:
Center for Creative Leadership, 1989.
Ethics guides our behavior by identifying right, wrong, and the many shades of gray
in between. We will weave discussions of ethics throughout the book for three key reasons.
1. Employees are confronted with ethical challenges at all levels of organizations and
throughout their careers.
2. Unethical behavior damages relationships, erodes trust, and thus makes it difficult to
influence others and conduct business.
3. Unethical behavior reduces cooperation, loyalty, and contribution, which hurts the
performance of individuals, teams, and organizations.
Ethics also gets priority because many OB topics have a direct and substantial influ-
ence on the conduct of individuals and organizations. Notably, reward systems (Chapter 6),
decision making (Chapter 11), leader behavior (Chapter 13), and organizational culture
(Chapter 14) all can powerfully challenge our ethical standards at work. Let’s begin by
describing cheating, a common form of unethical conduct at school and work.
Cheating
Cheating is a persistent part of reality in sports, school, and business. For instance,
with some regularity it seems a marathon runner either enters a race somewhere after
the start line or cuts the course (Rory O’Connor in London 2018), a ball is doctored to
provide unfair advantage (Cameron Bancroft of the Australia National cricket team),
or an individual athlete throws games or shaves points. An investigation of professional
tennis revealed a “tsunami” of fixed matches (hundreds) in the 2000s.24 Then there was
the systematic use and cover-up of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) rampant in
major league baseball in the early 2000s, Lance Armstrong and his seven Tour de
France victories, and more recently the Russian Olympic team.25 PEDs are even used
by card players! The world champion bridge player Geir Helgemo tested positive for
banned substances and was suspended for one year and required to forfeit his title,
awards, and points.26
Student Cheating If cheating is common in sports, it is rampant in high school and
college. Fifty-one percent of high school students participating in a national survey
reported cheating on exams. And besides typical school cheating, such as looking on
another student’s paper, using a cheat sheet, or plagiarism, countless examples exist of
students sharing answers via social media, text messages, Bluetooth technology, and vari-
ous devices.28 Sixty-two percent of U.S. college students reported knowledge of another
student using a connected device to cheat on an assignment, exam, or project.29
11Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
THE BIGGER PICTURE
If you were asked, “Do you know right from wrong? Are you secure in your ethics?” of course
you would answer yes to both questions. What’s interesting is that most people who suffer
ethical lapses also answer yes. OB can teach you about the drivers of unethical behavior, and
in the process improve your awareness while enabling you to reduce your risk. You’ll learn
that even though most unethical behavior is not illegal, it still causes tremendous damage to
people, their jobs and careers, and their employers. Fortunately, the OB concepts and tools
you learn through this course will help you recognize and navigate ethical challenges.
1.2 RIGHT VS. WRONG–ETHICS AND MY PERFORMANCE
Identify factors that
influence unethical
conduct and how it
affects performance.
LO 1-2
12 PART 1 Individual Behavior
And then there is contract cheating, paying someone else to do your work. Countless
websites advertise these services, and this type of cheating is at epidemic proportions
according to some.30 A survey of students worldwide found 16 percent paid for at least one
assignment during their college studies.31 Well-intentioned or not, some services can get
students in trouble, such as twelve Texas Christian University students who were sus-
pended for using the Quizlet app to cheat on exams.32 These are just a few examples and
statistics of a very long list or cheating in grade school and college, increasingly assisted by
technology. What percentage of students at your school do you think cheat on homework
assignments? Exams? Take-home finals?
Administrators, Teachers, and Parents Too Cheating isn’t limited to students.
T.M. Landry, a college prep school in rural Louisiana, which received incredible recogni-
tion for sending underprivileged students to elite universities, was caught falsifying tran-
scripts and college application materials.33 This is just another example of systematic and
illegal efforts by schools and school systems to falsely elevate performance.34 Temple
University’s business school dean was dismissed for submitting inaccurate data (e.g., GPA,
admissions, and GMAT scores) to improve the school’s rankings.35
We now know some number of parents, college admissions consultants, counselors,
coaches, and many others also engage in cheating, as revealed by the college admissions scan-
dal unveiled in early 2019. William Singer, the college consultant at the center of the scandal,
facilitated admissions for scores of students to numerous universities, such as the University
of Southern California, Stanford, and Yale. Parents paid him nearly $25 million for his ser-
vices, which included bribes to administrators, counselors, and coaches; faking student pro-
files, sometimes as elite athletes for sports they didn’t even play; and having other people take
SAT and ACT exams. Dozens of people have been charged with a host of crimes—money
laundering, fraud, racketeering, and obstruction of justice—with many pleading guilty.36
If winning a game or receiving good grades are strong temptations, then of course
people cheat to get ahead at work too, and sometimes misconduct seems contagious and
infects an industry. A notable example is the emissions and fuel economy cheating perpe-
trated by numerous automakers—VW (including Audi and Porsche), Nissan, Mitsubishi,
Suzuki, and Subaru. These companies engaged in widespread systematic falsification of
measures of fuel economy to meet and beat various environmental standards.37
These examples highlight the frequency and destructiveness of cheating. Now, let’s
explore other forms of unethical conduct and their legality, frequency, causes, and solutions.
Some describe cheating in marathons as rampant. Large races, like the Boston Marathon,
can have nearly forty thousand competitors. And in some marathons hundreds have been
accused of cheating in some fashion, from falsifying qualifying times to riding a bicycle twice
during one race!27
Marty Schwalm/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald/Getty Images
13Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
Ethical Lapses—Legality, Frequency,
Causes, and Solutions
The vast majority of founders, leaders, and managers mean to run ethical organizations, yet
corporate corruption is widespread. Some of the executives whose unethical behavior bank-
rupted the organizations they led, destroyed the lives of many employees, and caused enor-
mous financial losses for employees, investors, and customers in the last few decades are:
Michael Milken (Drexel Burnham Lambert, 1990)
Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling (Enron, 2001)
Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom, 2002)
Bernie Madoff (Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 2009)
Hisao Tanaka (Toshiba, 2015)
Sepp Blatter (FIFA, 2015)
Shigehisa Takada (Takada, 2017)
Elizabeth Holmes (Theranos, 2018)
Indictments and verdicts are a matter for the courts, and our point is that each of
these disgraced executives led companies or organizations that in most cases employed
thousands of other people. Surely these organizations did not advertise for and hire the
criminally minded to assist the leaders in their unethical endeavors. Most employees prob-
ably knew little or nothing about any unethical or illegal activities, while others were deeply
involved. How does the work environment produce unethical conduct, sometimes on an
extreme scale, from people who are otherwise good, well-intentioned, and on the right side
of the law? Knowledge of OB helps you answer this question.
Unethical Does Not Mean Illegal While extreme examples of unethical and illegal
conduct make headlines, they are the exception. The truth is that very few unethical acts
are illegal, most are not punished in any way, and even if illegal, few are prosecuted.
This means you should not rely on the legal system to manage or assure ethical
conduct at work. For instance, conflicts of interest are very common across industries and
most are not illegal. The New York Times reported that Dr. Jose Baselga, a top cancer
researcher, didn’t disclose millions of dollars in compensation received from pharmaceuti-
cal companies for whom he conducted and published research related to their drugs. Dr.
Baselga also served on the boards of these same companies, was an editor for one that
published this work, and promoted the benefits of these drugs at conferences. Worse still,
Students aren’t the only ones who cheat in high school and college, Tracey and Michael Landry, founders of T.M. Landry College
Prep in Louisiana, were accused of orchestrating a very intricate scheme to get the school’s students into some of the most elite
universities. William Singer, a college consultant, implemented his own elaborate and far-reaching practices to ensure his clients’
(parents) children admission to colleges of their choice.
(Left) Brian Snyder/Reuters/Newscom; (right) Steven Senne/AP Images
14 PART 1 Individual Behavior
some of this occurred while he was president of the
Association of Cancer Research which made policies
regarding researcher conflicts, and he was the chief med-
ical officer at Sloan Kettering where some of the research
was conducted.38
Southwest Airlines mechanics provided another
example in 2019 when they created widespread slow-
downs in flights to pressure the company in negotiations
with their union. The mechanics slowed their work and
grounded planes in the name of safety concerns, causing
the cancellation of approximately 100 flights per day for
several weeks.39 Such actions are not uncommon and
rarely judged illegal, but they do raise ethical concerns
given the costs and inconveniences to customers. The
nearby OB in Action box provides another notable
instance of how widespread unethical behavior has
resulted in virtually no legal consequences.
Why Ethics Matters to Me and My Employer Criminal or not, unethical behavior
harms not only the offending employee but also his or her coworkers and employer. Uneth-
ical behavior by your coworkers, including company executives, can make you look bad
and tarnish your career.
Dr. Jose Baselga was accused of numerous conflicts of
interest related to his research.
Eligio Paoni/Contrasto/Redux Pictures
Zero. That is the number of senior Wall Street Execu-
tives that went to jail because of the 2008–2009 finan-
cial crisis. This is baffling to many, as Wall Street firms
were central to the creation, packaging, and sales of
faulty financial products that cost millions of people their
homes, jobs, and savings. It is estimated that $30 trillion
of the world’s wealth was destroyed during the crisis, in
large part due to the behaviors of financial institutions
overseen by executives. Put simply, the crisis would not
have happened without the firms and their leaders.
Many of the biggest firms were saved by the govern-
ment in what became known as “too big to fail.”40
Although over 300 people were convicted in
relation to the crisis, most of these were community
bankers, mortgage lenders, and real estate brokers
and developers. The lack of consequences for the
Wall Street executives is perhaps even more
astounding when over $150 billion In fines were lev-
ied and paid by their firms. Put differently, their firms
were fined enormous sums of money, which means
the firms were held accountable but the executives
who led them were not. This contrasts with other
countries, notably Iceland, which is far smaller than
the U.S., but prosecuted the CEOs of three large
banks and 23 other bankers.41
Two central figures in the U.S. during the crisis
had telling and damning comments. Eric Holder, the
U.S. attorney general at the time, said the conduct
that led to the crisis was “unethical and irresponsi-
ble.” And “some of this behavior—while morally rep-
rehensible—may not necessarily have been
criminal.”*42 Ben Bernanke, the chair of the Federal
Reserve Bank during the financial crisis, said, “. . .
more corporate executives should have gone to jail
for their misdeeds . . . since everything that went
wrong or was illegal was done by some individual,
not by an abstract firm.”43
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. If you think executives (and perhaps other
employees) of financial institutions should be
punished for their roles in the crisis, describe
what punishment you think is appropriate.
2. If you think they should not be punished, explain
why.
3. Is it appropriate for the firms to pay fines, but for
the executives to avoid consequences? Justify
your answer.
Wrong? Absolutely! Illegal? Seemingly Not.
OB in Action
15Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
SAC Capital Advisors, for example, was one of the most successful hedge funds in the
2000s. But the fund and its founder, Steven A. Cohen, were dogged throughout 2012–2016
by suspicions of insider trading, and many traders with ties to SAC were convicted. Before
any formal charges were made against the firm itself or its founder, clients withdrew nearly
$2 billion in assets.44 SAC investors ultimately withdrew even more money, nearly $2 billion
in fines were levied, and the fund was ordered to close.
That didn’t stop Cohen, however, who reopened the company as a “family office,”
named Point72, and traded only his personal fortune. He ultimately settled charges
brought against him personally, without admitting guilt, which resulted in his paying no
personal fines and being banned only from trading other people’s money for two years.45
In early 2018 his ban completed, Cohen opened a new fund and began to raise and invest
other people’s money again.46
“Point72” and Steven A. Cohen are infamous. The financial returns of his former firm
SAC Capital were legendary. Many of the most senior people in the firm were convicted or
pled guilty to financial crimes. How about others in the firm who were perhaps uninvolved
or even unaware of the insider trading?
To make this more real for you, imagine you are interviewing for a job. How would you
explain your past employment history if it included jobs at SAC, Enron, Countrywide, MF
Global, Madoff Investment Securities, Takada, or Theranos? It certainly is possible and
even likely that you did nothing wrong. However, it is likely you would always be concerned
about what others thought or suspected about your involvement. Would suspicions remain
in the back of your future colleagues’ minds? Sometimes ethical choices are clear—right or
wrong—but sometimes they are more complicated and pose dilemmas.
Ethical Dilemmas Ethical dilemmas are situations with two choices, neither of
which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable manner. Such situations surround
us at work and school and highlight that choosing among available options is not always a
choice between right and wrong. Since such dilemmas are so frequent and potentially conse-
quential, we include an Ethical/Legal Challenge feature at the end of each chapter that asks
you to consider what you might do if confronted with difficult ethical choices at work.
An excellent example is the #MeToo movement. The women who have and will come
forward are confronted with a true dilemma—speak out about the inappropriate, unaccept-
able, and in some instances illegal behavior they have experienced, or say nothing and take
a chance the behavior will continue with themselves and/or others. The first choice can be
Steven A. Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors eventually shut down after numerous employees pled guilty and/or were convicted of
misconduct. But this didn’t stop Cohen, and he simply opened another firm (Point72 Asset Management) and continued trading.
(Left) Seth Wenig/AP Images; (right) Suzanne DeChillo/Redux Pictures
16 PART 1 Individual Behavior
devastating to their jobs, careers, and reputations, and the second allows the bad behavior
to continue.47 The stories in the headlines have seemingly wrecked the careers of the many
famous and often wealthy men implicated,48 but what we don’t yet know and maybe never
will is what will happen to the opportunities and careers of the accusers and victims? What
costs will be borne by them? Similar considerations are highlighted in the OB in Action
box related to whistleblowers.
An eternal dilemma confronts pharmaceutical companies. On the one hand they need
to make a profit to reward shareholders and invest in research and development; however,
in many instances how much profit is “enough”? What about denying life-saving medicines
to those who cannot afford them? What about charging widely different prices for the
same product to different patients based on their insurance or country? The difficulty with
such dilemmas at least in part has contributed to some of the very public scandals related
to drug pricing in recent years.49
Martin Shkreli earned a dubious reputation for purchasing existing pharmaceuticals with little competition, and then hiking the
prices hundreds or even thousands of percent. Even while in prison on fraud and other charges, he is rumored to be attempting to
run a pharmaceutical company, Illegally.50
(Left) Craig Ruttle/AP Images; (right) Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press/AP Images
Whistle-blowing often creates a particularly chal-
lenging type of ethical dilemma. People do wrong,
unethical, and even illegal things at work, and you
and other employees know about the misconduct
and may have even witnessed it firsthand. The
dilemma is what to do about it—should you keep
quiet or do you notify management or the authori-
ties? Sharing your knowledge may indeed seem like
the “right thing to do,” and depending on the situa-
tion you may even profit, but it might cost you dearly.
Whistle-blowers can have many motives. Some
are inspired by their personal sense of fairness or
morality, while others may act out of greed or
revenge. The Government Accountability Project
(GAP) is a whistle-blower protection organization,
whose director, Tom Devine, makes recommenda-
tions for those inclined to speak out.
1. Think of Yourself. What are the potential benefits
and costs to you personally?
2. Test Internally. Raise the Issue within the orga-
nization before going to the authorities or
media. Most organizations have mechanisms in
place (such as hotlines) and chains of com-
mand. Use them, even if you don’t expect them
to work.
3. Recognize That It Will Be Personal. Many
organizations will attack you and your charac-
ter, regardless of what they do about the
issue. Retaliation often occurs, and not
just by the accused and offending indivi-
dual(s), but by others too.51 HR and legal
departments are there to “protect” the organi-
zation, not you.
The Whistle-Blower’s Dilemma
OB in Action
17Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
What Causes Unethical Behavior? Harvard professor Max Bazerman and Ann
Tenbrunsel of the University of Notre Dame have studied ethical and unethical conduct
extensively. They concluded that while criminally minded people exist in the workplace,
most employees are good people with good intentions. Bazerman and Tenbrunsel contend
that instead of ill intent, cognitive biases and organizational practices “blind managers to
unethical behavior, whether it is their own or that of others.”56 Table 1.2 summarizes their
findings and outlines causes of unethical behavior as well as what we can do to address
that behavior as employees and managers.
Many possible reasons for unethical behavior at work exist, beyond those listed in
Table 1.2, such as:
1. Personal motivation to perform (“I must be No. 1”).
2. Pressure from a supervisor to reach unrealistic performance goals along with threats
for underperforming.
3. Reward systems that honor unethical behavior.
4. Employees’ perception of little or no consequences for crossing an ethical line.57
What about Unethical Behavior in College and When Applying for Jobs? A
study of graduate students in the United States and Canada, including MBAs, found that
Whistle-Blowing for Profit The Dodd-Frank Act of
2010 and some regulatory agencies provide incen-
tives for whistle-blowers who report financial fraud
which is both illegal and unethical. Some can receive
up to 30 percent of any settlement if regulators col-
lect more than $1 million due to the infraction.52 The
largest awards to date were paid in 2018 when $83
million were paid to three whistle-blowers from
Merrill Lynch who reported the misuse of funds.53
The Costs Although whistle-blower protection laws
exist, they often do not sufficiently protect employ-
ees. For instance, a vice president at Chase Bank,
Linda Almonte, was asked to review more than
20,000 past-due credit card accounts before they
were sold to another company. Almonte’s team
reported back to her that nearly 60 percent con-
tained some sort of major error, including discrepan-
cies about the amount or whether the court had
indeed ruled for the bank. Concerned, Almonte went
up the chain of command, flagging the errors and
encouraging management to halt the sale. Instead,
the bank fired Almonte and completed the deal.54
Nobody would hire her, which ruined her profession-
ally and financially. She and her family ultimately
moved to another state, where they lived in a hotel
while she continued to look for work.
Ultimately, Chase was ordered to pay $200 mil-
lion in fines and restitution. The company also set-
tled a suit for an undisclosed amount with Almonte.55
What’s the Lesson? Doing the right thing is just
that, doing the right thing. While it is noble, doing the
right thing can also be very costly. Losing your job or
suffering other forms of retaliation are unfortunately
common, and there isn’t much recourse. Suing your
employer, even if legitimate, rarely results in future
job offers for the whistle-blower.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What can employers do to encourage whistle-
blowers?
2. How can organizations ensure that whistle-
blowers are protected, other than simply making
it a policy (just words)?
3. What can you do as an individual employee
when you witness or become aware of unethical
conduct?
Protesters calling for the protection of
whistleblowers.
Christophe Forestier/Alamy Stock Photo
18 PART 1 Individual Behavior
peer behavior was by far the strongest predictor of student cheating, followed by severity of
penalties and certainty of being reported.58 Students are more likely to cheat if their class-
mates cheat, and/or they think the probability of being caught is small, and if caught the
penalties will not be severe.
However, don’t be too quick to blame this bad behavior on your lying, cheating
classmates. The same researchers acknowledge that there are many other potential rea-
sons for cheating, such as perceived unfairness in grading. It also is possible that stu-
dents see different degrees of cheating—for instance, in homework assignments versus
on exams.
As for job hunting, an analysis of 2.6 million job applicant background checks by
ADP Screening and Selection Services revealed that “44 percent of applicants lied about
their work histories, 41 percent lied about their education, and 23 percent falsified creden-
tials or licenses.”59 Sadly, it’s seemingly getting worse. More recent data shows 85 percent
of employers caught false information on resumes or applications, up from 66 percent five
years earlier.60
Figure 1.2 highlights some of the most common and most outrageous lies told on
resumes. Can you imagine being a recruiter? If you believe these numbers, more than half
the people you interview could be lying to you about something!
TABLE 1.2 Causes of Unethical Behavior at Work and What to Do About It
ILL-CONCEIVED
GOALS
MOTIVATED
BLINDNESS
INDIRECT
BLINDNESS
THE SLIPPERY
SLOPE
OVERVALUING
OUTCOMES
Description:
We set goals and
incentives to pro-
mote a desired
behavior, but they
encourage a nega-
tive one.
We overlook the
unethical behavior
of another when
it’s in our interest
to remain ignorant.
We hold others
less accountable
for unethical
behavior when it’s
carried out through
third parties.
We are less able
to see others’
unethical behavior
when it develops
gradually.
We give a pass to
unethical behavior
if the outcome is
good.
Example:
The pressure to
maximize billable
hours in accounting,
consulting, and law
firms leads to
unconscious
padding.
Baseball officials
failed to notice
they’d created
conditions that
encouraged
steroid use.
A drug company
deflects attention
from a price
increase by selling
rights to another
company, which
imposes the
increases.
Auditors may be
more likely to
accept a client
firm’s questionable
financial state-
ments if infractions
have accrued over
time.
A researcher
whose fraudulent
clinical trial saves
lives is considered
more ethical than
one whose fraudu-
lent trial leads to
deaths.
Remedy:
Brainstorm
unintended
consequences
when devising
goals and
incentives. Consider
alternative goals
that may be more
important to reward.
Root out conflicts
of interest. Simply
being aware of
them doesn’t
necessarily reduce
their negative
effect on decision
making.
When handing off
or outsourcing
work, ask whether
the assignment
might invite
unethical behavior
and take
ownership of the
implications.
Be alert for even
trivial ethical
infractions and
address them
immediately.
Investigate
whether a change
in behavior has
occurred.
Examine both
“good” and “bad”
decisions for their
ethical implications.
Reward solid
decision processes,
not just good
outcomes.
SOURCE: Bazerman, Max H., and Ann E. Tenbrunsel. “Ethical Breakdowns: Good People often Let Bad Things Happen. Why?” Harvard Business Review 89, no. 4
(April 2011). https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=39125.
19Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
Employers are getting more sophisticated and thus are more likely to catch you by uti-
lizing skills assessments as part of the hiring process for some jobs. Also coding or design
skills can be assessed using simple behavioral questions during an interview. If dates and
facts on your social media sites don’t align with your resume and other communications,
this may also raise a red flag. Background checks are another way “alternative facts” are
revealed, including not just contacting the references you provided, but perhaps even col-
leagues from past employers too. Finally, keep in mind you’re never off the hook for the
false information provided during the hiring process.61 Many news stories describe high-
level individuals who have been called out and terminated.
Whether at work or school, some people don’t see their actions as unethical.
Despite being convicted, the top two executives at Enron proclaim their innocence to
this day, Jeff Skilling as well as Ken Lay until he died. Nevertheless, it will be helpful
for you to learn more specifically about your own ethical tendencies. Some people view
ethics in ideal terms, which means that ethical principles or standards apply universally
across situations and time. Others, however, take a relativistic view and believe that
what is ethical depends on the situation. Take Self-Assessment 1.2 to learn about your
own views.
Most Creative Liars
The best lies came from those who claimed to …
Liar, Liar, Résumé on Fire
More than half of hiring and HR managers have caught a lie on a résumé. Here are some
results from a survey of more than 2,500 hiring professionals.
28%
31%
62%
54%
39%
Most Common Lies
200
Academic
degrees
Job titles
Employment
dates
Responsibilities
Skill sets
10060 8040
Be a Nobel
Prize winner.
Be a former CEO
of the company to
which the person
was applying.
Have worked in a
jail (when the person
really was serving
time there).
Have attended
a college that
didn’t exist.
Be employed at
three di�erent
companies in three
di�erent cities
simultaneously.
Be HVAC-certified
and later asked the
hiring manager what
“HVAC” meant.
AC
FIGURE 1.2 Examples and Prevalence of Lies on Resumes
SOURCE: Gurchiek, Kathy. “Liar, Liar, Resume on Fire.” SHRM, September 2, 2015. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/
hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/lying-exaggerating-padding-resume.aspx.
20 PART 1 Individual Behavior
What Can You Do about It? You have or likely will witness questionable or even
blatantly unethical conduct at work and you may be tempted to think, This is common
practice, the incident is minor, it’s not my responsibility to confront such issues, or loyal workers
don’t confront each other. While such rationalizations for not confronting unethical conduct
are common, they have consequences for individuals, groups, and organizations. What can
you do instead? Here are a few suggestions:
1. Recognize that it’s business and treat it that way. Ethical issues are business issues, just
like costs, revenues, and employee development. Collect data and present a convinc-
ing case against the unethical conduct just as you would to develop a new product or
strategy.
2. Accept that confronting ethical concerns is part of your job. Whether it is explicit in
your job description or not, ethics is everyone’s job. If you think something is ques-
tionable, act.
3. Challenge the rationale. Lapses occur despite policies against them. If this is the case,
then ask, “If what you did is common practice or OK, then why do we have a policy
forbidding it?” Alternatively, and no matter the rationale, you can ask, “Would you be
willing to explain what you did and why in a meeting with our superiors, customers, or
during an interview on the evening news?”
4. Use your lack of seniority or status as an asset. While many employees rely on their
junior status to avoid confronting ethical issues, being junior can instead be an advan-
tage. It enables you to raise issues by saying, “Because I’m new, I may have misunder-
stood something, but it seems that what you’ve done may be out of bounds or could
cause problems.”
5. Consider and explain long-term consequences. Many ethical issues are driven by temp-
tations and benefits that play out in the short term. Frame and explain your views in
terms of long-term consequences.
6. Suggest solutions—not just complaints. When confronting an issue, you will likely be
perceived as more helpful and be taken more seriously if you provide an alternate
course or solution. Doing so will also make it more difficult for the offender to disre-
gard your complaint.62
Now that you have a good understanding of the importance of ethics at school and
work, we’ll turn our attention to using OB to solve problems. The ability to apply OB to
solve problems is a major part of what makes this knowledge so valuable.
Assessing My Perspective on Ethics
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 1.2 in Connect.
1. Are your views more idealistic or more relativistic?
2. What do you think about students cheating on homework assignments in
school? What about cheating on exams?
3. Are your answers consistent with your score? Explain.
4. Suppose you’re a manager. What does your score imply about the way you
would handle the unethical behavior of someone you manage? What about your
boss’s unethical behavior?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.2 CAREER READINESS
21Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
A problem is a difference or gap between an actual and a desired state or outcome,
and problem solving is a systematic process for closing such gaps.
Problem-solving skills are increasingly needed in today’s complex world. Loren Gary,
former associate director at Harvard’s Center for Public Leadership, supports this asser-
tion: “The ability to identify the most important problems and devising imaginative
responses to them is crucial to superior performance in the modern workplace, where
workers at all levels of the organization are called upon to think critically, take ownership
of problems, and make real-time decisions.”63
For example, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, has long downplayed the
importance of meeting quarterly numbers to please Wall Street investors. He instead
defines his problem as delivering superior service to customers, today, tomorrow, and for-
ever. His problem-solving efforts are thus more likely to focus on innovative products and
delivery times than on profit margins and earnings per share.
To help increase your personal performance and well-being at school, work, and home,
we created an informal approach to apply OB tools and concepts to solving problems. It’s
simple, practical, and ready to use now!
A 3-Step Approach
There are many approaches to problem solving, and knowing
this, it was important for us as professors and authors to pro-
vide an approach that is both practical and effective across a
variety of situations. The 3-Step Approach presented in this
book is the result of our combined consulting experience of
applying our knowledge of OB to help real-world employees
and organizations solve problems. Our intent is to help you
apply your OB knowledge and tools to boost your own effec-
tiveness in school, at work, and in life.
Basics of the 3-Step Approach Here are the three
steps in our applied approach to problem solving.
Step 1: Define the problem. Most people identify prob-
lems reactively—after they happen—which causes
them to make snap judgments or assumptions. These
are often plagued by a reliance on common sense
and result in defining the problem incorrectly, which
in turn leads to identifying inaccurate causes and
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Now that you know that OB is not just common sense, the challenge is to find a way to orga-
nize and apply its many concepts and theories. In this section, we explain how you can apply
OB to effectively solve problems at work, at school, and in your life. We use a 3-Step Problem-
Solving Approach.
1.3 OB AND PROBLEM SOLVING
Utilize OB to solve
problems and
increase your
effectiveness.
LO 1-3
Few CEOs have faced more scrutiny in the recent past than
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. He has been challenged
over concerns about privacy, sharing and selling access
and data, and allowing the platform to influence election
outcomes.
Saul Loeb/Getty Images
22 PART 1 Individual Behavior
ineffective solutions. All of us could benefit from Albert Einstein’s comment, “If
I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the
problem and one minute resolving it.” Let’s take Professor Einstein’s advice and
learn how to improve our ability to define problems throughout this course and
in your professional life.
• Define problems in terms of desired outcomes, then test each one by asking, “Why is
this a problem?” First think of what you want, what is the desired outcome or state,
then compare it to what you have or the current situation. It is important to resist
snap judgements and quickly conclude you “know” the problem and underlying
causes. You are better served to start with available facts and details. Then ask your-
self, “Why is this gap a problem?” For example, suppose you are disengaged from
your work. How do you know this? What is the evidence? Perhaps you no longer go
out of your way to help your coworkers and stop responding to e-mails after work
hours. You’ve defined your problem using evidence (or data). Now ask, “Why is this
a problem?” Because when you are engaged, your coworkers benefit from you shar-
ing your knowledge and experience. Coworkers and customers benefit from your
responsiveness and willingness to respond to e-mails on their timeline, even when it
isn’t necessarily convenient for you (after hours). We find that asking “why” multiple
times helps refine and focus your definition of the problem.
Step 2: Identify potential causes using OB concepts and theories. Essential to effective
problem solving is identifying the appropriate underlying causes. So far you have
OB concepts like the contingency perspective and ethics—and many more are coming—
to use as potential causes. The more knowledge you have to choose from, the more
likely you will identify the appropriate cause(s) and recommendation(s). To improve
your ability to accurately identify potential causes, we provide the following tip
for Step 2.
• Test your causes by asking, “Why or how does this cause the problem?” Once you
have confidently defined the problem in Step 1—disengagement—you need to
identify potential causes (Step 2). Ask, “Why am I disengaged?” One common
reason, backed by science, is that you perceive you were evaluated unfairly in your
recent performance review. “Why or how did this cause disengagement?” If you
feel unappreciated for what you’ve done, then you are unmotivated to go the extra
mile to help your coworkers or customers. Asking “why” multiple times and fol-
lowing the line of reasoning will lead you to define and identify problems and
causes more accurately.
Step 3: Make recommendations and (if appropriate) take action. Whether planning
and/or implementing recommendations, it is important to map or link recom-
mendations to the causes and problems. The following is a simple and helpful
suggestion.
• Map recommendations onto causes. Be certain to link recommendations to causes
which are linked to the problem. The rationale is good recommendations address
the causes, and when causes are removed or improved the underlying problem is
solved or at least mitigated. Returning to our engagement example, the perceived
fairness of performance reviews can be improved if managers use multiple raters,
such as peers and the employee him- or herself (you’ll learn about multiple raters
in Chapter 6). Now, map or link this recommendation to the cause (an unfair
performance review) to ensure it is appropriate and will effectively address the
cause identified in Step 2 and the problem defined in Step 1. Fixing the cause
eliminates the problem.
How This Problem-Solving Approach Develops Throughout the Book As
you learn more OB concepts and tools, the 3-Step Approach will become richer and more
useful. Later, in Chapter 11, you’ll learn this approach to problem solving is an abbreviated
version of the rational approach to decision making.
23Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
Tools to Reinforce My Problem-Solving Skills
Because of our strong belief in the value of problem solving at school, work, and life
more generally, we created numerous opportunities throughout the book to help
you master this skill by applying OB. Each chapter, for instance, includes the following
features:
• Problem-Solving Application Mini-Cases—These mini-cases present a problem or
challenge for you to solve. You are asked to apply the 3-Step Approach to each.
• Self-Assessments—Validated instruments allow you to immediately assess your per-
sonal characteristics related to OB concepts, frequently with a personal problem-
solving focus (see below).
• End-of-Chapter Problem-Solving Application Cases—The full-length cases require you
to apply the OB knowledge gained in a particular chapter to define the problem,
determine the causes, and make recommendations.
• Ethical/Legal Challenge—Mini-cases present provocative ethical dilemmas in today’s
workplace. You are asked to consider, choose, then justify different courses of
action.
How good are your problem-solving skills? For a preliminary idea complete Self-
Assessment 1.3 which measures your problem-solving skills and will help you
understand:
• What types of things you consider when solving problems.
• How you think about alternate solutions to problems.
• Which approach you prefer when solving problems.
Tip: Take this assessment again at the end of the course to see whether your skills have
improved.
Assessing Your Problem-Solving Potential
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 1.3 in Connect.
1. What do items 1–3 tell you about your ability to define problems?
2. Do your scores on items 4–6 match your perceptions of your ability to generate
effective solutions?
3. Using the individual items, describe the pros and cons of your tendencies
toward implementing solutions.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.3 CAREER READINESS
24 PART 1 Individual Behavior
1.4 STRUCTURE AND RIGOR IN SOLVING PROBLEMS
It’s easier to understand and apply OB if you categorize or organize your knowledge as you
learn it. The first and most fundamental distinction is between elements that are related to
you and those related to the situation.
The Person–Situation Distinction
OB concepts and theories can be classified into two broad categories—person factors and
situation factors. The person–situation distinction is foundational to OB.64
• Person factors are the infinite characteristics that give individuals their
unique identities. These characteristics combine to influence every aspect of your
life. In your job and career, they affect your goals and aspirations, the plans you
make to achieve them, the way you execute such plans, and your ultimate level of
achievement. Part One of this book is devoted to person factors.
This is simple and makes perfect sense, but as we all know reality is seldom simple.
Things get in the way, and these “things” often are situation factors.
• Situation factors are all the elements outside us that influence what we do,
the way we do it, and the ultimate results of our actions. A potentially infinite
number of situation factors can either help or hinder your efforts and outcomes,
such as job satisfaction, performance, and turnover.65 This is why situation factors
are fundamental to OB and critically important to your performance. Parts Two and
Three of this book are devoted to situation factors.
Which Influences Behavior and Performance More—Person or Situation
Factors? Researchers and managers have debated for decades whether person or situ-
ation factors are more influential. They ask, for instance, about the relative impact of
“nature versus nurture” and whether leaders are “born or made.” We address these debates
in Chapters 3 and 13, respectively.
Many believe that some people are by their nature better suited than others to perform
well at work (“born winners”). In contrast, others believe some people are clearly better in
a given job or situation. No particular person could outperform every other person in every
possible job! No one is the best at everything.
This second view is supported by research in psychology and OB. The interactional
perspective states that behavior is a function of interdependent person and situa-
tion factors.66 The following quotation captures this reality: “Different people may per-
ceive similar situations in different ways and similar people may perceive different
situations in the same way.”67
THE BIGGER PICTURE
When struggling to solve a problem, have you ever felt the solution was beyond your reach?
Sometimes the solution is a matter of organizing or structuring the problem and its ele-
ments. OB can help. We’ll show you useful tools to assist in organizing and applying your OB
knowledge as it grows. You can use these same tools to solve problems more rigorously and
more effectively.
Explain the practical
relevance and power
of OB to help solve
problems.
LO 1-4
25Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
People and Situations Are Dynamic People change, situations change, and the
two change each other. To illustrate:
• People bring their abilities, goals, and experiences to each and every situation,
which often changes the situation.
• Conversely, because situations have unique characteristics, such as opportunities,
rewards, and coworkers, they change people. What you value in a job will likely dif-
fer between now and the time you are trying to make a move to senior management.
• It is also true the current job market and employer expectations differ from those
at the height of the technology bubble in the late 1990s or those in of the Great
Recession of 2007–2009. In the first scenario employees changed, and in the sec-
ond the situation changed.
• Finally, your manager—a situation factor—can change what you do, how you do it,
and your effectiveness. You too can exert influence on your manager. In fact, many
of the concepts and tools in this book can be applied to manage up (influence your
manager and other superiors).
What is the bottom-line for your personal effectiveness? You need to understand both
person and situation factors and the interplay between the two. Knowledge and consideration
of one without the other is insufficient.
How Does the Person–Situation Distinction Help Me Apply OB Knowledge?
Categorizing your knowledge in terms of person and situation factors is immensely helpful
when applying OB knowledge to solve problems. Consider downsizing.
Many companies restructure indiscriminately and cut a large percentage from their
employee ranks, such as a 20 percent across the board reduction. Assume you and five
coworkers, all of whom do the same job, are downsized. Each of you experience the same
event, but your reactions will vary. You might not feel too bad if you didn’t like the job and
were considering going to graduate school anyway. Two of your coworkers, however, may
be devastated and depressed.
Aside from the cyclical nature of its industry, U.S. automakers have felt intense competitive pressures
for decades, resulting in persistent waves of layoffs—often tens of thousands per year. These industry
and economic characteristics are important situation factors for these employees.
(Left) Jim West/Alamy Stock Photo; (right) Darren McCollester/Getty Images
26 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Nevertheless, because the downsizing event was the same for all of you (the situation
factors were identical), we can assume that the differences in everyone’s reactions were due
to things about you as individuals (person factors), such as other job opportunities, how
much each of you liked the job you just lost, your financial situation, and whether you have
kids, mortgages, or a working partner. The person–situation distinction, therefore, provides
a means for classifying OB concepts and theories into causes of behavior and problems.
The Three Levels of OB
We explained above that OB distinguishes among three levels at work: individual, group/
team, and organizational. Let’s think about the varied reasons people quit their jobs as an
Illustration of how considering levels helps in solving real-world problems.
• Some people quit because their job doesn’t fulfill what they value at work, for exam-
ple, providing a challenging and stimulating work (an individual-level input).
• Others quit because of conflict with their boss or because they have nothing in com-
mon with their coworkers (a group/team-level process).
• A common reason people quit is a faulty reward system which unfairly distributes
raises, bonuses, recognition, and promotion opportunities (an organizational-level
process).
Understanding and considering levels increases your problem-solving effectiveness
and performance. This is highlighted in the problem-solving example in Section 1.6.
Applying OB Concepts to Problem Solving
Nothing causes more harm than solving the wrong problem. Assume, for instance, that
several people in your department have quit in the past year. What could be the reason? The
person–situation distinction allows you to consider unique individual factors as well as situ-
ation factors that might be the source of the problem. Considering the levels of individual,
group, and organization will allow you to look at each for possible causes. For example:
• Person factors. Do your departing coworkers have something in common? Is there
anything about their personalities that makes working in your department unfulfill-
ing, for example, a preference to work collaboratively rather than independently?
What about their ages? Gender? Skills?
• Situation factors. Has the job market improved and now offers more attractive
opportunities at better wages elsewhere?
• Individual level. Has the job itself become boring and less meaningful or rewarding
to the employees who quit?
• Group/team level. Did a new manager take over your department, one who micro-
manages and is less interested in developing you and your coworkers? How does
turnover in your department compare to that in other departments in the organiza-
tion? Depending on the answers, the new manager or other factors may explain
these differences?
• Organizational level. Has the organization changed or restructured such that the
most desirable positions are now at the headquarters in another state?
By following this approach and asking these questions, you widen your focus and
review a larger number of possible causes, increasing the likelihood you will identify the
right problem. If you don’t quite follow this example, then have no fear because we’ll ana-
lyze a turnover scenario in the last section of this chapter and provide a more detailed
application. Stay tuned!
We now move on to the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.
This tool is not only helpful for learning OB, but it is incredibly valuable when using OB to
solve problems.
27Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
Given your knowledge of the person–situation distinction and levels (individual, group/
team, and organizational), you are now ready to learn about the Organizing Framework for
Understanding and Applying OB. We created this framework (see Figure 1.3) for two rea-
sons. The first is to help you organize OB concepts and theories into three causally related
categories–Inputs, Processes, and Outcomes. Students often ask, “How do these concepts
fit together?” The Organizing Framework helps answer this question. The second reason
for creating the Organizing Framework is its value in helping to solve problems. It enhances
your problem-solving skills and marketability to employers. Now let’s explore this valuable
tool in more detail.
A Basic Version of the Organizing Framework
The foundation of the Organizing Framework is a systems model wherein inputs influ-
ence outcomes through processes. The person and situation factors are inputs, and pro-
cesses and outcomes are divided into the three levels of OB—individual, group/team, and
organizational.
This framework implies that person and situation factors are the initial drivers of all
outcomes, such that inputs affect processes and processes affect outcomes. This is a
dynamic process which means many outcomes will in turn affect inputs and processes. See
Figure 1.3. The relationships between outcomes at one point in time and inputs and pro-
cesses at another are shown as feedback loops in the Organizing Framework (the black
arrows at the bottom of the figure).
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You’re about to learn about the single best tool for understanding and applying OB’s many
concepts and tools—the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. The
framework will help tremendously in improving your problem-solving abilities at school, work,
and in your larger life space. In the final section, we give you practical and effective guidance
on how to choose among alternate solutions to problems.
1.5 THE ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR
UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB
Utilize the Organizing
Framework for
Understanding and
Applying OB.
LO 1-5
FIGURE 1.3 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Personal Factors
Situation Factors
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
28 PART 1 Individual Behavior
As you work through this book notice that each chapter begins with a version of the
Organizing Framework that helps introduce the concepts discussed in that particular chap-
ter. Each chapter repeats the same version of the framework at the end as part of the chap-
ter review. If you add up the content of all the chapters, you’ll end up with something that
looks like the fully populated or complete Organizing Framework shown in the next sec-
tion of this chapter. The fully populated framework is a useful preview of all you will learn,
a powerful tool for solving problems throughout the course, and an effective review tool for
preparing for a comprehensive final exam.
By definition, frameworks (and models) are simplifications of reality and necessarily
exclude information. This means the complete Organizing Framework will not show every
OB concept that might affect employee behavior, performance, and other outcomes. How-
ever, the basic elements of the framework will help you understand, organize, and apply
any OB topic you encounter. The following OB in Action box illustrates the value of the
Organizing Framework and its components—inputs, processes, and outcomes. Be sure to
answer the “Your Thoughts?” questions, as they will show you how to apply your new OB
knowledge and tools.
Applying OB
family interested in cats, dogs, and candy. At one facil-
ity more than 200 employees bring their dogs to work
each day. (Leash rules apply.)71
This family environment flows from the founding
Mars family, which still tightly controls the company
according to the “Five Principles of Mars”: quality,
responsibility, mutuality, efficiency, and freedom.
Employees can recite these principles and live them.72
You likely associate Mars Company with its candy
products (Snickers, M&Ms, Lifesavers), for which it’s
been known for more than 100 years. But what you
likely don’t know is that today about half of the com-
pany’s $35 billion in revenues and more than half of its
115,000 member workforce is dedicated to pet foods,
such as Pedigree and Whiskas, and pet care, Banfield
Pet Hospitals and Veterinary Centers of America (VCA),
to name but a few. Mars is not only in the business of
catering to your sweet tooth and your sweet dog or
cat, but it also puts a high priority on catering to its
employees.68 The company made the Fortune 100
Best Companies to Work For again in 2019 (#98),69
and the Organizing Framework of Understanding and
Applying OB can help us understand how they do It.
Inputs The environment at Mars lacks the perks
touted by many tech companies—no Foosball tables,
no free gourmet lunches, and no premier health clubs.
More than this, some work practices are downright old
school. For instance, all employees, including the pres-
ident, have to punch a time clock each day and are
docked 10 percent of their pay for the day if late.70
But what Mars may seem to lack in style it makes
up for with its culture. Former President Paul S.
Michaels explains how the company aligns its values
and practices by asking: “Does it add value for the
consumer to pay for marble floors and Picassos?” If it
doesn’t, then the company doesn’t provide it. Employ-
ees seem to love the place and have very positive rela-
tionships at work; many families have three generations
working at Mars. The culture seems to be one big
Mars: The World We Want Tomorrow
James R. Martin/Shutterstock
29Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
Let’s now consider the details of the Organizing Framework and apply it to the 3-Step
Problem-Solving Approach.
Using the Organizing Framework
for Problem Solving
You can use the Organizing Framework at all three steps of the problem-solving process to
add rigor, intelligently apply your OB knowledge, and in turn improve your performance.
Step 1: Define the problem. Problems can be defined in terms of gaps in outcomes at
three levels in the Organizing Framework.
Step 2: Identify causes. Causes are often best thought of in terms of inputs (person or
situation) or processes at various levels (individual, group/team, organizational).
Step 3: Generate recommendations. Consider the most appropriate recommendations
using your OB knowledge and tools, then map these onto the causes (inputs or
processes).
The ultimate effectiveness of your problem-solving efforts will be determined by the
impact of your recommendations on the underlying causes and problem. Let’s discuss
this next.
Selecting a Recommendation and Taking Action (if appropriate) Selecting
recommendations (solutions) is both art and science. In fact, this is the decision-making
part of the problem-solving process and is discussed in greater detail in Chapter 11. Choos-
ing the appropriate course of action is critically Important as research shows nearly
50 percent of decisions fail.78 Part of the explanation is some managers rely largely on
intuition (also discussed in Chapter 11) and experience. While these approaches can work,
others use more analytical or systematic methods to select a solution.
Don’t Forget to Consider Constraints As a matter of practicality, most people
lack the time, knowledge, or access to data to routinely follow such a rigorous procedure.
Therefore, your selection most often requires you to consider various constraints—on time,
money, your own authority, and information—that can occur at different levels. Let’s now
consider a few practical pointers on how to select the best solution.
Applied Approaches to Selecting a Solution
You can save time and hassle with the following practical advice from renowned problem-
solving expert and professor Russell Ackoff. Ackoff recommends first deciding how
The company believes in and fosters sustainable
practices across its businesses, including its suppliers
and product development. For Instance, Mars created
a product to address malnutrition in collaboration with
the Tata Group In India.75
Outcomes Mars posts a very low turnover rate
(5 percent),76 a sign that employees are highly satis-
fied with their jobs. And the fact that the company has
managed to grow consistently for decades and
remain private is compelling evidence of its strong
financial performance. Moreover, the CEO has plans
to double revenues in the next 10 years and to do so
sustainably.77
The focus on values reflects the purpose-driven nature
of Mars and its leadership. Current CEO, Grant Reid,
put It succinctly: “The way we do business today cre-
ates the world we want tomorrow.”73
Processes While some practices may seem frugal,
the company reportedly awards bonuses of 10 to 100
percent of employees’ salaries. The company also
invests heavily in the community via its Mars Volun-
teers and Ambassador Programs. For instance, associ-
ates at their Banfield facilities impacted more than
144,000 people and pets In 2018, and other associ-
ates assisted those affected by earthquakes and hur-
ricanes in Mexico and Puerto Rico, respectively.74
30 PART 1 Individual Behavior
complete a response you are looking for. Do you want the problem to be resolved, solved, or
dissolved?
• Resolving problems is arguably the most common action managers take and simply
means choosing a satisfactory solution, one that works but is less than ideal. Putting
a “doughnut” or temporary spare tire fixes a flat, but it is certainly not ideal and is
unlikely to last.
• Solving problems is the optimal or ideal response. For instance, you could buy a
new, high-quality, full-size spare to keep in your trunk (not the typical doughnut or
the “run-flats” that manufacturers frequently provide).
• Dissolving problems requires changing or eliminating the situation in which the
problem occurs. Keeping with our example, the city you live in could build and uti-
lize effective public transportation and remove the necessity of having cars (and
tires) altogether.79
Making this decision first helps guide your choice among alternatives. In addition, it
helps you decide what you need, whether it is realistic, and what level of effort and
resources to use.
Basic Elements for Selecting an Effective Solution
After deciding whether to resolve, solve, or dissolve the identified problem, you need to
select the most effective solution. A problem-solving expert says: “The essence of success-
ful problem solving is to be willing to consider real alternatives.”80 To help you choose
among alternatives identified in Step 2, we distilled three common elements that will help
you qualify the best solution:
1. Selection criteria. Identify the criteria for the decision you must make, such as its
effect on:
• Bottom-line profits.
• You and your classmates or coworkers.
• Your organization’s reputation with customers or the community.
• Your values.
• Ethical implications.
2. Consequences. Consider the consequences of each alternative, especially trade-offs
between the pros and the cons, such as:
• Who wins and who loses.
• Ideal vs. practical options.
• Perfection vs. excellence.
• Superior vs. satisfactory results.
3. Choice process. Decide who will participate in choosing the solution. (If more than
one person, agree on the method. Will you vote? Will the vote be public or secret?
Unanimous or simple majority?):
• You
• Third party
• Team
In every case, consider the necessary resources, including which people will be key
sources of support for (and resistance to) your ultimate selection. Consider who can help
and who can hurt your efforts—what’s in it for them?
Putting it all together, the OB knowledge and tools you’ll learn in this book will help
tremendously in selecting and implementing the best solution given the situation you face.
The final section of this chapter provides a preview of what you will learn in this book,
along with an example application of the Organizing Framework and the 3-Step Problem-
Solving Approach.
31Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
We wrote this preview to serve three primary functions: (1) It is a sneak peek and fore-
shadows all you will learn in this book; (2) it illustrates how to use the Organizing Frame-
work when solving problems with the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach; and (3) it serves
as a review for a comprehensive final exam for this course.
We begin this section by briefly reviewing the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach and
the components of the Organizing Framework. We will apply these tools to an example
problem-solving scenario. The purpose is to be a tutorial of how you are expected to apply
your knowledge and these tools throughout the rest of the book.
The 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
This chapter began by demonstrating that common sense often is not common practice.
We instead showed you how to think critically and add rigor and structure to your problem
solving by using three steps, recapped as follows:
Step 1: Define the problem. To be an effective problem solver, you must define the
problem accurately. It all starts here.
Step 2: Identify potential causes using OB concepts and theories. The many OB theo-
ries and concepts you will learn are extremely useful in helping identify the underly-
ing causes of the problem you defined in Step 1.
Step 3: Make recommendations and (if appropriate) take action. Once you have identi-
fied the problem and its causes, you can plan and implement recommendations,
applying your OB knowledge and tools.
Improving your problem-solving abilities will lead to better performance for you, your
team, and your organization. This is important given that problem solving is one of the
most sought after skills of employers across jobs and industries.
The Organizing Framework
Figure 1.4 illustrates a summary version of the Organizing Framework. It shows the OB
concepts and theories you will learn and includes chapter references for finding details
about them. The framework further illustrates how the various concepts are related to each
other: Inputs affect processes, which in turn influence outcomes. Remember, problems are
generally identified by looking for gaps in desired versus actual outcomes, and causes can
be found in inputs and processes.
Here are a few important insights from Figure 1.4.
• There are more person factors that affect processes than situation factors. Pay par-
ticular attention to person factors when looking for causes of problems.
• Solving problems requires you to think across levels. Notice the many different con-
cepts listed under individual, group/team, and organizational processes and outcomes.
• OB concepts are both inputs and processes. Leadership is a good example. This
reinforces the dynamic nature of organizational behavior and underscores the con-
sideration of connections between inputs and processes when solving problems.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
This section provides a high-level overview of what you will learn in this book, and it shows a
summary Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. A thorough application of
the 3-Step Problem Solving Approach is also provided to illustrate its power and applicability.
1.6 PREVIEW AND APPLICATION OF
WHAT YOU’LL LEARN
Apply the Organizing
Framework to the
3-Step Problem-
Solving Approach.
LO 1-6
32 PART 1 Individual Behavior
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Personal Factors
(associated chapters)
Hard and soft skills: 1
• Ethical behavior: 1
• Values: 2
• Attitudes: 2
• Intelligence: 3
• Cognitive abilities: 3
• Personality: 3
• Core self-evaluations: 3
• Emotional intelligence: 3
• Stereotypes: 4
• Diversity: 4
• Motivation: 5, 6, 7
• Positive OB: 7
• Emotions: 3, 7
• Mindfulness: 7
• Psychological capital: 7
• Communication: 9
• Social media: 9
• Decision making: 11
• Creativity: 11
• Resistance to change: 16
Situation Factors
• Ethical behavior of others:
1, 10, 12
• Leadership: 1, 8, 13
• Job design: 5
• Competition, regulators, and
leadership: 6
• Human resource policies,
practices, and procedures:
6, 9, 14
• Relationship quality: 8
• Decision making: 11
• Organization culture and
climate: 7, 10, 13, 14, 15
• Mentoring: 14
• Organizational design: 15
• Forces for change: 16
• Resistance to change
(coworker and
organizational): 16
• Organizational mission and
vision: 16
Individual Level
(associated chapters)
• Emotions: 3, 7
• Perceptions: 4, 6
• Attributions: 4
• Motivation: 5, 6, 7
• Job design: 5
• Performance management
practices: 6
• Communication: 7, 8, 9
• Trust: 8
• Decision making: 11, 15
• Creativity: 11
• Leadership: 1, 8, 13
• Mentoring: 14
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics:
3, 4, 8, 11, 14, 16
• Communication: 7, 8, 9
• Group roles and norms: 8
• Group development: 8
• Trust: 8
• Team effectiveness: 8
• Conflict and negotiation: 10
• Decision making: 11
• Creativity: 11
• Power, influence, and
politics: 12
• Structural and psychological
empowerment: 12
• Impression management: 12
• Organizational culture and
climate: 7, 10, 13, 14, 15
• Organizational socialization: 14
• Mentoring: 14
• Organizational design: 15
Organizational Level
• Managing diversity: 4
• Human resource policies,
practices, and procedures:
6, 8, 14
• Communication: 7, 8, 9
• Organizational culture and
climate: 7, 10, 13, 14, 15
• Decision making: 11
• Creativity: 11
• Leadership: 1, 6, 8, 13
• Organizational socialization: 14
• Organizational design: 15
• Leading and managing
change and stress: 16
Individual Level
(associated chapters)
• Task performance: all but 15
• Work attitudes: all but 11, 15
• Turnover: all but 11, 15
• Career outcomes:
1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16
• Well-being/flourishing:
2, 3, 4, 7, 13, 16
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior:
2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16
• Intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation: 5
• Creativity: 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15
• Physical health: 7
• Stress (physical and
emotional): 12, 15, 16
• Resistance to change: 15, 16
• Accidents: 16
• (Un)Ethical behavior: all but
3, 7, 15
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance: all
but 1, 2
• Group satisfaction:
3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16
• Group/team cohesion and
conflict: 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16
• Group/team collaboration:
13, 15
• Innovation: 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16
• Resistance to change: 16
• (Un)Ethical behavior: all but
3, 7, 15
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16
• Customer service/satisfaction:
2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,
14, 16
• Survival: 3, 6, 16
• Reputation: 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 16
• Employer of choice: 4, 6
• Innovation: 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16
• Organizational effectiveness:
7, 15, 16
• Legal liability: 9, 11, 12
• Product/service quality: 14
• Operational efficiency: 14, 15
• (Un)Ethical behavior: all but
3, 7, 15
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
FIGURE 1.4 Summary of Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
Technology: A Situation Factor That Affects Your Performance
Since the Blackberry Quark in 2003, the iPhone 2007,
and the first Android in 2008, smartphones have
become extensions of our hands, which means they
go with us and are used everywhere.81 Approximately
31 percent of adults with smartphones report being
online nearly constantly as do 39 percent of those
18–29 years old.82 Many employers allow employees
to bring-their-own-devices (BYOD) and access work
e-mail and other resources via their personal phones.
Walmart, for instance, adopted such a policy and now
allows employees to check inventory, prices, review
sales data, and sign in and out for their shifts from their
own devices. This is a reversal of previous policies that
banned the use of personal devices at work.83
Benefits. Walmart obviously expects to save
money and boost performance, and they like other
employers are promoting the benefits to employ-
ees. Employers claim smartphone use at work, and
connectivity more generally, provides employees
greater flexibility in terms of where they work, how,
and when.84 Flexible work arrangements, such as
telecommuting, have ballooned in the past decade
as a result and are now benefits highly valued by
employees. On the surface this scenario appears to
be a win-win, but the benefits are not without costs.
Costs. Besides privacy and security concerns,
which are very real, always being connected has real
costs. The statistics are overwhelming and troubling.
For instance, more than half of Americans don’t take
all of their allotted vacation time. This happens for
Martin Novak/Shutterstock
Problem-Solving Application
33Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
• Knowledge about OB is important. Simply look at the outcomes box! Over two
dozen different outcomes are affected by OB-related inputs and processes. The
framework further shows the frequency with which various outcomes are important
to managers. Notice the number of chapters where individual task performance,
work attitudes, turnover, group/team performance, innovation, accounting/financial
performance, and customer service/satisfaction are discussed. And more personally,
observe that career outcomes (an individual-level outcome) are related to concepts
included in nearly every chapter.
Using the Framework for Learning When you first read or learn about a new concept
we recommend you attempt to categorize it in terms of whether it is a person factor, such as
values and work attitudes (Chapter 2), personality and emotions (Chapter 3), perceptions and
diversity (Chapter 4); or a situation factor like human resource policies, practices, and proce-
dures (Chapter 6), leader behavior (Chapter 13), and organizational culture (Chapter 14). Doing
this will improve your understanding and help you learn how they are related to each other.
We also encourage you to consider the issue of levels as you progress in learning about
OB. Not only do many OB concepts exist at particular levels, such as personality at the
individual level, but some concepts like performance management and conflict are pro-
cesses that can affect outcomes across all levels.
Breadth and Power of OB You should conclude from this that OB matters in busi-
ness. More importantly it matters to you—your job and your career. And anyone (other
textbooks, classmates, coworkers, bosses) who says OB is simply common sense, or that it
only affects employee commitment, satisfaction, and performance, clearly does not under-
stand the full and true power and value of OB. At the conclusion of this course you’ll know
better and won’t make such mistakes!
34 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Hypothetical Problem-Solving Scenario
Observation and practice are two excellent ways to learn. Let’s do both. We will work
through a problem-solving scenario and show you how to use the Organizing Framework
and the 3-Step Approach.
The scenario involves the problem of employee turnover, an individual-level outcome
we used earlier in the chapter. For this application assume you are a valued junior employee
who is thinking of quitting, and many other talented junior employees have quit your
department in the past couple of years.
Step 1: Define the Problem To reiterate, a problem is a gap between a current situation and a
desired situation or outcome. First review the outcomes box in the Organizing Framework,
because many problems are gaps between one or more current and desired outcomes. For
instance, in this hypothetical scenario your organization has a turnover problem. Why is
this a problem? Because the company wants to have the appropriate number of talented
people in its most crucial jobs. Note that defining the problem this way is different from
saying more people quit your company this year than last year, or that your employer has
higher turnover than its competitors. (Note: If your worst performers quit instead of your
best, then you could argue your organization is better off due to the reduction in “dead
wood” rather than having a problem.) It isn’t necessarily a problem to lose people, espe-
cially underperformers or those with obsolete skills, but if your organization’s most valu-
able and high-performing people (like you) quit, then a problem exists. This sort of
reasoning highlights the importance of defining the problem accurately.
Now that we’ve confidently completed the first step and defined the problem
accurately—turnover of talented, high-performing, junior employees—let’s continue the
process and identify the potential causes of this turnover problem.
Step 2: Use OB to Highlight the Causes While people quit for a variety of reasons, a good
place to start is to consider both person and situation inputs, then various processes
many reasons, but the most common are concerns (1)
work will pile up while away, (2) only they can do their
jobs, and (3) they could be replaced while away.85
Employees who don’t unplug are far more likely
to report lower commitment (Chapter 2), lower
engagement (Chapter 2), feel less valued (multiple
chapters), and experience higher levels of stress
(Chapter 16), anxiety (Chapters 3 and 16) and work-
life conflicts (Chapter 10). Moreover, laws govern
what constitutes work, overtime, and compensation,
and our always connected society puts more and
more companies at legal risk.86
Causes. Organizational cultures are part of the
cause (Chapter 13). Company values, policies, and
practices are more or less supportive of unplugging.
Besides the culture, your direct supervisor’s expec-
tations and behavior (role modeling) determine to a
large degree the extent to which employees suffer
the pitfalls of always being plugged-in. One study
found only 14 percent of managers unplug when
they take time off and just 7 percent of senior level
managers. This does not bode well for most of us.
More troubling still is that it seems the mere
expectation you’ll check e-mail after hours causes
anxiety, stress, and decreased well-being, even if
you don’t actually check It! This suggests you don’t
even have to actually work after hours to experi-
ence negative effects.87
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem(s) described in this example. Remember, problems are gaps between
what exists and what is desired. Consider outcomes that are undesirable and for whom.
Step 2: Identify potential causes to the problem(s) defined In Step 1. Be sure to link the causes to the
problem you identified.
Step 3: Make a recommendation aimed at each cause you feel will improve or remove the problem.
Be sure your recommendations link to the causes identified in Step 2.
35Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
as potential causes of your organization’s turnover problem. Look at the summary
Organizing Framework for guidance (see Figure 1.4).
• Potential Cause 1—Person factors often represent key causes of turnover. Possibly
the junior employees are quitting because their jobs don’t fulfill their personal val-
ues (see Chapter 2). Low job satisfaction (Chapter 2) and demotivating job charac-
teristics (see Chapter 5) also might cause turnover.
• Potential Cause 2—Situation factors frequently are causes of turnover. For example,
people may be quitting because they have poor relationships with their bosses (see
Chapter 13) or are working in a culture (see Chapter 14) characterized by damaging
political behavior (see Chapter 12).
• Potential Cause 3—Individual, group/team, and organizational processes can also
cause turnover. Conflict (with your boss), a team-level process (see Chapter 10),
may constitute a cause of turnover. Another is a faulty performance management
system (an organizational-level process—Chapter 6), one that unfairly distributes
raises, bonuses, and recognition. As you will learn in Chapter 5, perceived injustice
can be a powerful driver of employee turnover.
Notice the potential causes are located in different components (inputs and processes)
and different levels within the Organizing Framework. Using the Organizing Frame-
work to identify potential causes increases the likelihood that you’ll identify the appro-
priate ones, essential to creating and implementing the best solution in Step 3.
Step 3: Generate Effective Recommendations Using OB Now it’s time to review the poten-
tial causes and identify the most likely and significant ones for the problem you
defined in Step 1. Returning to our scenario, we list brief recommendations for each
of the potential causes outlined above. We’ll address all three to highlight how much
you will learn and the practical value of that knowledge.
• Response to Cause 1: Recommendations for Improving Person Factors. OB provides a
host of ideas for solving problems. The needs of your most valuable employees could
be better satisfied if they were allowed to work on projects that satisfy their values of
self-direction or achievement (Chapters 2 and 5). Job satisfaction might be increased
through rewards that equitably meet employees’ needs. Finally, motivation can be
enhanced if people are allowed to assume more responsibility for projects (job
enrichment) and the ability to decide how and when to do their work (autonomy).
• Response to Cause 2: Recommendations for Improving Situation Factors. Manager–
employee relationships can suffer for many reasons, but let’s assume some key and
more junior employees in your department feel they are in the “out group,” instead of
the “in group,” consisting of older and more senior employees who have known and
worked with your manager for many years. This cause sounds like poor leader–
member exchange (LMX in Chapter 13), which can be remedied if managers are trained
to be more inclusive and implement formal mentoring and development programs.
Managers can improve the political behavior driving a negative culture by acknowledg-
ing its existence and discontinuing the practice of rewarding people who are too politi-
cal. Finally, team building (see Chapter 8) can reduce conflict among employees.
• Response to Cause 3: Recommendations for Improving Processes. Along with the knowl-
edge you will gain related to justice and goal setting, Chapter 6 provides a host of ideas for
improving performance management practices. A good place to start is to use Table 6.1
and clearly define and communicate performance goals and expectations. If these goals
are SMART, then they are more likely to be achieved. Finally, rewards are more effective
if the links between particular levels of performance and rewards are made clear. Rewards
and their consequences should be fair and based on accurate performance evaluations.
Are you surprised by the many causes and potential solutions for this problem? As we
just illustrated, the 3-Step Approach, combined with the Organizing Framework, can help
you to more effectively solve problems. This, in turn, will contribute to your professional
(and personal) effectiveness and potentially increase your opportunities.
36 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Takeaways for Me
1. Be sure you develop and apply both hard and soft skills. Effective employees can no
longer solely rely on technical expertise to get a job and advance once you do.
2. Consider the skills most sought after by employers (like critical thinking, problem solv-
ing, decision making, active listening) and decide which are your strengths and weak-
nesses. Use this knowledge along with the self-assessments in this book to improve
your self-awareness and guide your development.
3. Give your employers what they want! Be sure to highlight the valued skills you possess
during interviews and explore and seize opportunities to develop the others.
4. Identify the most common forms of unethical conduct in your job, determine possible
causes using Table 1.2, and confront and/or avoid them. Unethical conduct can be so
damaging to you and your career. Most unethical conduct is not illegal, which means
legal action is rarely a viable solution. Also, be aware of the possible consequences of
whistle-blowing—doing the “right thing” can be costly. Finally, applying rigor and
structure to problem solving can help you avoid the pitfalls of common sense and
make you more successful at work, at school, and in life.
Takeaways for Managers
1. Identify the key skills needed to be top performers in the jobs you manage. You may con-
sider an existing or past top performer, but we also suggest determining to what extent
your current employees possess soft skills and the other skills noted as determined by
the most current research. Select and develop employees focusing on these skills.
2. Determine the most common forms of unethical conduct for managers like you, as well
as for those you manage. Identify the likely causes (see Table 1.2) and explain clearly
what you expect from your employees when they are confronted with such situations.
3. Realize that performance and all other employee behavior is a function of both the per-
son and the situation. Don’t be too quick to attribute bad (or good) behavior to the
employee as situation factors may also be at play.
4. Improve your effectiveness and that of those you manage by applying the 3-Step Problem-
Solving Approach. Be sure to define problems accurately and look for causes at multi-
ple levels—individual, group/team, and organizational. Organizations and people are
complex and managing them requires you to consider this complexity and deal with it
effectively. Models like the Organizing Framework can help.
Our Wishes for You
Knowledge by itself is not an advantage; to get ahead you must apply your knowledge. This is why
we wrote this book with a primary emphasis on application and provide numerous opportunities
for practice in every chapter. We encourage you to continually apply your new OB knowledge as
you learn it. Applying knowledge is the key to achieving a more successful and fulfilling career,
which is our ultimate wish for you and our goal for writing this book. Enjoy the rest of your journey!
Describe the
implications of OB
knowledge and tools
for you and managers.
LO 1-7
1.7 MAKING THE CONNECTION: WHAT IS OB AND WHY
IS IT IMPORTANT?
THE BIGGER PICTURE
To reflect on and apply your new knowledge, we provide a few notable examples of how you
can benefit as both an employee and a manager.
37Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
You learned OB is a multidisciplinary field of study
focused on behavior at three levels—individuals,
groups/teams, and organizations. Understanding
and applying OB knowledge and tools are valu-
able means for Increasing your performance at
school and work, as well as advancing your
career. Like most every OB concept, (un)ethical
behavior is determined by both person and situa-
tion factors. More generally, OB knowledge is a
powerful problem-solving tool and can make you
more satisfied and effective in many arenas of
your life—school, work, and home.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 1
You learned the following key points.
1.1 THE VALUE OF OB TO YOUR
JOB AND CAREER
• OB is an applied discipline focused on man-
aging the behaviors of individuals, groups/
teams, and organizations.
• The contingency approach says the best or most
effective approach depends on the situation.
• Self-awareness is critically important to your
short and long-term success.
• Employers want employees who possess
both hard and soft skills.
1.2 FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE
UNETHICAL CONDUCT AND
HOW IT AFFECTS
PERFORMANCE
• Ethics is concerned with behavior—right,
wrong, and the many shades of gray in
between.
• The vast majority of unethical conduct at work
is not illegal.
• Unethical conduct negatively affects the indi-
vidual targets, the perpetrators, coworkers,
and entire organizations.
• Ethical dilemmas are situations in which
none of the potential solutions are ethically
acceptable.
1.3 USING OB TO SOLVE
PROBLEMS AND INCREASE
YOUR EFFECTIVENESS
• A problem is a difference or gap between a
current and a desired outcome or state.
• Problem solving is a systematic means for
closing such differences or gaps.
• The 3-Step Problem Solving Approach
includes defining the problem, identifying the
causes using OB concepts, and making rec-
ommendations and action plans.
1.4 THE PRACTICAL RELEVANCE
AND POWER OF OB TO HELP
SOLVE PROBLEMS
• The person–situation distinction is a funda-
mental way to organize, understand, and
apply OB concepts.
• Person factors are the many characteristics
that give individuals their unique identities.
• Situation factors consist of all the elements
outside us that influence what we do.
1.5 THE ORGANIZING
FRAMEWORK FOR
UNDERSTANDING AND
APPLYING OB
• The Organizing Framework is a tool that helps
you organize, understand, and apply your
OB knowledge and tool.
• The systems approach—inputs, processes,
outcomes—is the basis of the Organizing
Framework.
• The Organizing Framework is extremely valu-
able when applied to the 3-Step Problem-
Solving Approach.
What Did I Learn?
38 PART 1 Individual Behavior
1.6 APPLYING THE ORGANIZING
FRAMEWORK TO THE 3-STEP
PROBLEM-SOLVING
APPROACH
• The Organizing Framework is a powerful tool to
use with the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.
• The fully populated Organizing Framework is
an excellent preview of the breadth, depth,
and practical knowledge you will gain during
this course.
1.7 WHAT IS OB AND WHY IS IT
IMPORTANT?
• OB knowledge and tools are powerful means
for enhancing your job performance and
career opportunities.
• Understanding and applying OB concepts are
critical for manager success.
The Organizing Framework
for Chapter 1
In this chapter we introduced our first application
of the Organizing Framework, demonstrating the
basic structure of inputs, processes, and outcomes
(see Figure 1.5). The basic framework shown here
will help you organize new concepts, theories, and
tools as they are introduced, as well as help you
retain and apply them. We’ll use the Organizing
Framework at the end of each chapter as an aid to
review and apply what you’ve just learned.
We hope you are impressed by all that you will
learn, as illustrated in the Summary Organizing
Framework (Figure 1.4). The same framework can
help you understand and manage behavior and
solve problems in many different organizational
contexts (clubs, sports teams, and other social
groups).
FIGURE 1.5 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Personal Factors
Situation Factors
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
39Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
How can you change the world of medicine, or at
least medical testing, monitoring, and diagnosis?
One potential way is to invent a device that performs
more than 240 tests with just a couple of drops of
blood, faster, more effectively, and with less pain
than existing approaches.88 Coming up with the idea
is one thing, but raising the funds and assembling
the necessary talent is another. It’s not enough to
have an idea, you need to bring it to life. If you were
to do this it would help to be extremely intelligent,
even more driven, and be willing to do anything it
takes. Anything. This describes Elizabeth Holmes
and the company she founded, Theranos, which
aimed to revolutionize medicine with a new blood
testing technology.
FORECLOSURE OF A DREAM
Unfortunately, the technology didn’t work. But that
didn’t stop Holmes from telling investors, customers,
employees, the press, and everyone else it did. Her
ambition transformed to fraud and resulted in the death
of Theranos. The testing that supposedly certified the
efficacy of the company’s product has since been dis-
credited, and it is now known that some of the demon-
strations of prototypes of the company’s products were
rigged.
The billions of dollars in estimated value of Ther-
anos are gone, along with It the accolades once show-
ered on Holmes as being the youngest self-made
billionaire at age 30. At one point $9 billion but now
$0. Also gone is the $700 million of investors’ actual
money, and the jobs of many very talented employees
who were either fired or quit during the company’s
existence. These employees, along with the unfortu-
nate few who stayed to the end, may have tarnished
reputations for years to come as a result of their asso-
ciation with Holmes and her company. Holmes is now
faced with the fallout and is confronted with criminal
charges related to defrauding investors, customers,
employees, and most anyone else connected to the
company. Her ex-boyfriend, and Theranos’s president
and COO, Ramesh Balwani is also facing many of the
same charges. He acted as confidant, advisor, and as
many insiders eventually learned, was seemingly the
only other person within the company besides Holmes
how knew the truth.89
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
She went from Stanford undergraduate engineering stu-
dent and celebrated female entrepreneur, to the
founder and leader of one of the most astounding
frauds in science and business in the recent past.
Theranos was the company she founded with the hopes
and claims that its technology would revolutionize blood
testing and in the process medicine. Holmes always
wanted to make an impact, and at 19 saw this as her
path. She spent the next several years assembling the
necessary talent, money, influence, and notoriety to
realize her vision. But as we now know it was a sham.
Holmes was single-minded and unwavering in pur-
suit of her vision. She ruled the company like a dictator,
making all critical decisions herself, sharing informa-
tion on a need to know basis, and expressing enthusi-
asm and positivity even in instances of flat out failures,
such as demonstrations and presentations to investors
and potential customers. She quickly soured on, then
avoided, and even retaliated against those who ques-
tioned her or her ways. Absolute loyalty, which meant
agreement and obedience, was demanded by Holmes.
Individuals and groups who spoke out or otherwise fell
out of favor were quickly dismissed, as was any feed-
back that was inconsistent with Holmes’s desired mes-
sage or outcome,90
Although it was Holmes’s company, and she
hoarded authority, other factors supported her ulti-
mately disastrous approach. Her vision, charisma, con-
viction, and delivery persuaded many wealthy and
otherwise powerful people and organizations to sup-
port her cause. For Instance, two of the largest Inves-
tors were Betsy DeVos, now education secretary and
part of the founding family of Amway, as well as Rupert
Murdoch (the media mogul who owns Fox among many
others). The board was stacked with celebrities from
government (Henry Kissinger and George Schultz, both
former secretaries of state). Along with others with
impressive track records from Apple and other tech
companies, these prominent Individuals gave Holmes
and Theranos credibility.91
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Blood, Brilliance, Blind Ambition, and Fraud
40 PART 1 Individual Behavior
WHAT ABOUT THE BOARD?
The company also had a board of directors, which, as
in other companies public or private, was charged with
ultimate oversight and responsibility. Members of the
Theranos board had impressive resumes and should
have been up to the task, such as Avie Tevanian, who
was Steve Jobs’s righthand man at Apple and head of
software engineering, and Don Lucas (chair of the
board) a long-time and successful venture capitalist.
However, they were relatively silent or when they did
speak up, as Tevanian did, they were dismissed.
Apparently, Holmes grew tired of his increasingly con-
frontational insistence she “open the books” and jus-
tify her seemingly wildly and overly optimistic revenue
projections.92
But the real truth is coming to light from books, doc-
umentaries, and legal proceedings. Walgreens, one of
Theranos’s marquee customers, is suing for $140 mil-
lion, the SEC has charged Holmes and Balwani with
fraud, and other investors are sure to follow. This raises
the question: how could this have been avoided? How
can this be prevented in the future?
Assume you are the chair of the Theranos board of
directors back in 2003 at the founding of the company.
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to pre-
venting the debacle.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework to help identify the important
problem(s) in this case. Remember that a prob-
lem is a gap between a desired and current
state. State your problem as a gap and be sure
to consider problems at all three levels. If more
than one desired outcome is not being accom-
plished, decide which one is most important and
focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are
generally viewed from a particular player’s
perspective. You need to determine from
whose perspective—employee, manager, team,
or the organization—you’re defining the
problem. In this case you’re asked to assume
the role of chair of the board of directors at
Theranos.
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current
chapter, because we generally select cases illus-
trating concepts specifically located within the
current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify the causes of the
problem you identified in Step 1? Remember, causes
tend to appear in either the Inputs or Processes boxes.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 1.4) and decide which person factors, if
any, are most likely causes of the defined prob-
lem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause
of the problem. Asking why multiple times is more
likely to lead you to root causes of the problem.
For example, do executive characteristics help
explain the problem you defined in Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, why is this a cause?
By asking why multiple times you are likely to
arrive at a complete and more accurate list of
causes. Again, look to the Organizing Frame-
work for this chapter for guidance. Did particular
policies or practices play a role?
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organizing
Framework. Are any processes at the individual,
group/team, or organizational level potential
causes of your defined problem? For any pro-
cess you consider, ask yourself, why is this a
cause? Again, do this for several iterations to
arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem and confirm the link or cause and effect
connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make your recommendations for solving the problem.
Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is
desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes you identified in Step 2, what
are your best recommendations? Use material in
the current chapter that best suits the cause.
Consider the OB in Action and Applying OB
boxes, because these contain insights into what
others have done.
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors—as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your rec-
ommendations and be sure your recommenda-
tions map onto the causes and resolve the
problem.
41Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
What Would You Do?
Assume you are a nursing director for a nursing home.
You’ve been working at the facility for a few short
months when you learn the company that owns the
home has been improperly overbilling Medicare for
the care and services provided to the residents. You
bring this to the attention of the company’s managers,
but they do nothing. You then notify the appropriate
authorities (becoming a whistle-blower) and, dismayed
by the fraud and other problems, you quit.
Several months later you interview for a new posi-
tion as nursing director at another facility. The inter-
view is with a panel of 10 decision makers, including
the CEO, medical director, and other administrators,
who will decide whether or not you get the job.
One other important detail: This facility is just two
miles from the one you reported to the authorities
before quitting. Nursing, like some other industries,
tends to be a closed circle of people who often cross
paths repeatedly in different jobs over time. This
means one or more of the interviewers may know
about you and the other facility before the interview, or
one or more of them will likely learn after if they don’t
know already.
What would you do about divulging information
regarding the allegations made against your previous
employer? Choose your answer from the options
below. Be sure to explain and justify your choice.
Your Response
1. Do not divulge the whistle-blowing. Justify.
2. Wait until you learn the outcome of the inter-
view; if you don’t get the offer, don’t share the
information. Justify.
3. Wait until you learn the outcome of the panel
interview; if you get a job offer, then tell the per-
son who makes you the offer about the allega-
tions. Explain your reasoning.
4. Tell all members of the panel during your inter-
view. Explain your reasoning, Including anticipat-
ing their potential reaction and what you might
do as a result.
5. Create and explain another course of action.
LO 2-1 Describe the role values play in influencing your behavior.
LO 2-2 Explain how personal attitudes affect workplace behavior and
work-related outcomes.
LO 2-3 Discuss the importance of four key workplace attitudes.
LO 2-4 Discuss the five causes of job satisfaction.
LO 2-5 Describe work-related outcomes associated with job satisfaction.
LO 2-6 Describe the implications of values and attitudes for you and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB shown in Figure 2.1 summa-
rizes what you will learn in this chapter. Chapter 2 begins your study of the way values, personal
attitudes, and intentions serve as inputs to a host of individual- and organizational-level out-
comes. Remember, we generally define problems as gaps between the current and the desired
state of one or more outcomes. In this chapter, pay attention to the way values and personal
attitudes might become causes of problematic outcomes, such as low task performance, poor
workplace attitudes, low well-being/flourishing, low citizenship behavior/counterproductive
behavior, and high turnover. These inputs also might contribute to explaining the organizational-
level outcomes of poor firm performance and low customer service or satisfaction.
2 Values and Attitudes
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Values
• Personal Attitudes
• Intentions
Situation Factors
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Workplace attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Citizenship behavior/counter-
productive behavior
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial performance
• Customer service/satisfaction
FIGURE 2.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
C
ai
a
Im
ag
e/
Im
ag
e
So
ur
ce
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
43
Creating Your Own Sense of Engagement
If you’re still struggling to feel engaged, try these additional steps:
• Revisit the big picture. Refresh your understanding of
your organization’s larger mission and how your work
contributes to achieving it. What’s the larger picture, and
what role does your work play? How can you close any
gap that might exist between the two?
• Challenge yourself. If you’re just coasting along at work,
look for a task that needs doing or a committee or work
team to which you can contribute, and ask your manager to
let you tackle this new opportunity. Emphasize your desire
to learn and grow, and be ready to demonstrate that you’ll
continue doing your current work to the highest standards.
• Take a break. If you haven’t taken any time off in a while,
consider a short break or even a vacation to replenish
your emotional resources. Try to physically and mentally
disconnect from work as much as possible while away,
and use the time to regain your focus and enthusiasm.
• Do something for yourself. Add a meaningful spark to
your life outside work by volunteering in your community,
learning a new skill unrelated to work, going to a profes-
sional networking event, or simply making more time for
socializing with family and friends.
Gallup’s State of the Global Workplace report says that only
15 percent of employees around the world are engaged at
work, which could be costing U.S. employers alone as much as
$550 billion in lost productivity every year.2 Rather than interpreting
this data to mean you don’t stand a chance of maintaining your
connection to work, realize that you actually have a unique oppor-
tunity to stand out from the crowd. Fully engaged employees are
widely acknowledged to be a company’s most valuable asset.
That asset can be you.
We’ll see in this chapter that employee engagement is a work-
place attitude that motivates people to identify with and immerse
themselves in their work, actively applying a sense of urgency,
focus, intensity, and enthusiasm. That sounds like a positive and
rewarding approach to bring to the job every day, doesn’t it?
Managers have a number of tools at their disposal to help fos-
ter engagement at work, like maintaining supportive relationships
with employees and reducing factors that can create stress and
frustration. The good news for those starting out in their careers,
however, is that whether your manager uses these tools or not,
you can foster your own sense of engagement no matter what
kind of work you do.
Here are some ways to be sure you are bringing your best and
most deeply engaged self to the job each day:1
• Know your job and what is expected of you. Ask well-
informed questions, seek out training you may need, vol-
unteer for extra assignments, and look for new roles you
can play in your organization to increase your sense of
competence and skill. These all contribute to engage-
ment at work and increase your visibility as well.
• Speak up when you have appropriate opportunities.
Those who are heard are usually more emotionally com-
mitted to the organization and are more likely to feel they
are valued. Offer positive suggestions or constructive
feedback in team or committee meetings, for example.
• Ask for frequent feedback. Make it a habit to ask your
boss, your coworkers, and your peers in other depart-
ments how well you’re performing, so you know what
you’re doing well and what to improve on. Recognition
and praise build engagement, as does constructive
criticism.
• Work on developing mindfulness. Mindfulness is a strat-
egy that allows you to readily focus on the task at hand.
Some immediate steps you can take are limiting your time
online, checking your e-mail only once or twice a day and
at specific times, and avoiding your cellphone during the
work day except for emergencies. Don’t try to multitask.
Instead, work on your ability to focus so you can enjoy the
satisfaction of completing each task.
• Avoid coworkers who are actively disengaged.
Disengaged workers can sometimes be influential people
in the organization and are often vocal about their feel-
ings, but their negative attitudes about the workplace are
contagious and can spread dissatisfaction even among
those who are otherwise ready to be fully engaged.
• Take charge of your health. To be sure you are working
at your best performance level, eat healthy foods, drink
plenty of water, exercise, get enough sleep, and spend a
little time each day recharging through a quiet activity like
yoga or meditation.
Winning at Work
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
Now that you have new tools to make OB work for you—
tools like the Organizing Framework and the 3-Step Prob-
lem Solving Approach—you’re ready to put them to work.
With this chapter we begin exploring how individual-level
factors influence a host of important outcomes. Specifi-
cally, we look at the way individual-level factors such as
values affect workplace attitudes and behavior. We help
you explore how your personal values affect your own
workplace attitudes and behavior. We’ll outfit you with OB
concepts to understand key work-related attitudes—orga-
nizational commitment, employee engagement, and per-
ceived organizational support—which lead to important
outcomes at the individual and organizational levels.
Before you’re done, you will understand the causes and
consequences of job satisfaction, an important outcome
for both employees and managers.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
44 PART 1 Individual Behavior
2.1 PERSONAL VALUES
Values are abstract ideals that guide our thinking and behavior across all situations.
They stem from our parents’ values, our experiences in childhood and throughout life, and
our religious or spiritual beliefs. Values are relatively stable and can influence our behavior
without our being aware of it.
Understanding the way values affect our behavior matters for two reasons. First, val-
ues guide our actions across all situations. Knowing this helps you to self-manage, such as
by choosing a major or career for which you are well suited. Second, you will be more
effective at influencing others’ attitudes and behaviors when you are armed with an under-
standing of values and their effects.
Renowned researcher Shalom Schwartz created a theory of personal values that many
managers and OB professionals find useful for understanding the motivational impact of
our values. Let’s look at this theory.
Schwartz’s Value Theory
Schwartz proposed that broad values motivate our behavior across any context. He catego-
rized these values into two opposing or bipolar dimensions, as outlined in Table 2.1. The
first dimension ranges from concern for the welfare of others (which Schwartz calls self-
transcendence) to pursuit of one’s own interests (self-enhancement). The second dimen-
sion ranges from self-directed independence (which Schwartz calls openness to change) to
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You may already have a good understanding of your personal values and the role they play in
your life. In an organization, personal values contribute to workplace attitudes and behavior.
So it’s important to understand how the full range of potential human values affects our atti-
tudes and behavior at work. Then you can use this knowledge to influence outcomes in the
Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.
Describe the role
values play in
influencing your
behavior.
LO 2-1
TABLE 2.1 Bipolar Dimensions in Schwartz’s Model
FIRST BIPOLAR DIMENSION
Self-Transcendence Self-Enhancement
Concern for the welfare and interests of
others (universalism, benevolence).
Pursuit of one’s own interests and relative
success and dominance over others
(power, achievement).
SECOND BIPOLAR DIMENSION
Openness to Change Conservation
Independence of thought, action, and
feelings and readiness for change
(stimulation, self-direction).
Order, self-restriction, preservation of
the past, and resistance to change
(conformity, tradition, security).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
45Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
conformity (conservation). Schwartz stressed that it is the relative importance we give to
these two dimensions of opposing values that drives our behavior.3 For example, if you
value achievement (self-enhancement) over universalism (self-transcendence), you will
spend your evening studying hard to get an A in this class rather than attending a meeting
about fighting climate change. Our values help us to make these types of choices.
Schwartz categorized 10 broad values within these two opposing dimensions. Figure 2.2
shows those 10 values as the slices of a pie, with the underlying opposing dimension shown
outside the circle. Schwartz placed the 10 values in a circular-motivation structure to
illustrate their compatibility. In general, adjacent values (like self-direction and universal-
ism) are more compatible. That is, these values share a common focus that promotes their
acceptance within an individual. Values that are farther apart (like self-direction and
power) are less compatible or in conflict. Opposing values (such as self-direction and con-
formity) are less likely to be held by the same individual.
Schwartz noted that one set of values is in opposition to the other set, as suggested by
the use of color in Figure 2.2. Notice the unique treatment of several values: Tradition and
conformity share a single wedge, supporting the same broad motivational goal. Confor-
mity is toward the center because it does not conflict with the opposing value quite as
much as does tradition, which is toward the outside. Also notice that hedonism shares
elements of both openness to change and self-enhancement.
Protesting is often driven by values-based issues such as ending gun violence. These protesters might be expressing the
self-transcendence value of universalism and the self-direction value associated with openness to change. In contrast,
completing a college degree might reflect values associated with achievement, power, and stimulation.
(Left): Rena Schild/Shutterstock; (right): Digital Vision/SuperStock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
46 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Workplace Applications of Schwartz’s Theory You can feel comfortable apply-
ing this theory because research supports its basic structure and its prediction of behavior.
For example, suppose you and several classmates are working together on a sustainability
project for an earth sciences course. You volunteer to assign specific tasks to the three
other classmates on the project. Paul, one of the team members, tells you he’s not con-
vinced that climate change is a real issue, so it may not be a good idea to ask him to come
up with ideas to protect the earth’s natural resources, because he may not value the impor-
tance of protecting the environment (universalism). Instead, he might be better suited to
prepare the project’s final report because he’s motivated to get an A for the assignment
because success is important to him (achievement).
In the workplace, managers can better supervise workers by using Schwartz’s model to
understand their values and motivation. For example, if a manager knows that an employee
values universalism and benevolence, then it would be wise to assign this employee to proj-
ects or tasks that have social value. Managers can also use Figure 2.2 to reduce the chances
of employees’ experiencing conflict between their values and their work assignments, when
options are available. An employee who values tradition and conformity over achievement,
for example, will not be happy about being asked to work on a holiday or to miss a child’s
school play for work.
Excitement, novelty,
and challenge in life
(daring, a varied life,
an exciting life)
Pleasure and sensuous
gratification for
oneself (pleasure,
enjoying life)
Independent thought and action,
choosing, creating, exploring
(creativity, freedom, independent,
curious, choosing own goals)
Understanding, appreciation,
tolerance and protection of the
welfare of all people and of nature
(broad-minded, wisdom, social
justice, equality, a world at peace,
a world of beauty, unity with nature,
protecting the environment)
Preservation and
enhancement of the welfare of
people with whom one is in
frequent personal contact
(helpful, honest, forgiving,
loyal, responsible)
Restraint of actions,
inclinations, and impulses
likely to upset or harm others
and violate social
expectations or norms
(politeness, obedient, self-
discipline, honoring parents
and elders)
Personal success
through demonstrating
competence according
to social standards
(successful, capable,
ambitious, influential)
Social status and prestige, control
or dominance over people and
resources (social power,
authority, wealth)
Safety, harmony, and stability of
society, of relationships, and of self
(family security, national security,
social order, cleanliness,
reciprocation of favors)
Self-Direction Universalism
Benevolence
Conformity
Security
Power
Achievement
Stimulation
Hedonism Tradition
Respect, commitment, and
acceptance of the customs and
ideas that traditional culture
or religion provides the self
(humble, accepting my
portion in life, devout, respect
for tradition, moderate)
O
pe
nn
es
s t
o C
han
ge
Self-Enhancement
Co
ns
er
va
tio
n
Self-Transcendence
FIGURE 2.2 Values and Motives in Schwartz’s Theory
SOURCE: Schwartz, Shalom H. “An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values.” Online Readings in Psychology and Culture 2, no.1 (2012): 9. https://doi.
org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116. Bardi, Anat, and Shalom H. Schwartz. “Values and Behavior: Strength and Structure of Relations.” Personality & Social Psychology
Bulletin 29, no. 10 (October 2003): 1207–220. https://doi:10.1177/0146167203254602.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
47Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Research also confirms the theory’s relevance cross-culturally for both children
and adults. As you might expect, the priorities given to Schwartz’s values do vary across
countries.4
Personal Application of Schwartz’s Theory Schwartz’s model can help you deter-
mine whether your values are consistent with your goals and whether you are spending
your time in a meaningful way. Complete the Self-Assessment that measures the worth to
you of Schwartz’s 10 values, and whether your goals align with these values.
What Are My Core Values?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 2.1 in Connect.
1. Rank your scores for the values from high to low. Do you agree with this rank
order?
2. What are your top five values? Which do you think has the greatest impact
on your personal goals?
3. Do you think you may want to focus more on any of the five lowest-rated values
as you graduate from school and pursue a career? Explain.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.1 CAREER READINESS
The Dynamics of Values
In general, our values are relatively stable across time and situations. This means that
positive employee attitudes and motivation are greatest when the work environment is
consistent with employee values. For example, Airbnb, the global lodging website, tries to
attract and motivate employees by offering them an annual travel and experiences credit
of $2,000 to visit anywhere around the world where the company offers accommodations.
The company does this because it believes Airbnb employees are driven to “embrace the
adventure” and experience personal growth through traveling to different countries and
communities.5
Values tend to vary across generations because they are influenced by events in
childhood and youth. For example, the author’s parents lived through the Depression,
which lasted through the 1930s and part of the 1940s. This experience led them to
value security and to be conservative with their money. They did not like debt, and
they opposed the use of credit cards. Do you know anyone with values like these? In
contrast, the values held by baby boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, are
influenced by events like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam
War, and the shooting deaths of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio. In
contrast, Millennials, people born between 1980 and 2001, have been influenced by
events like September 11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the founding of Google,
and the rise of social media. What shapes the values of Generation Z? Born between
1997 and 2012, Gen Zers have been inf luenced by growing up during a recession
(focus on saving money); making connections on their mobile devices more than
10 hours a day; and fighting for racial equality and inclusion.6 We discuss generational
differences thoroughly in Chapter 4.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
48 PART 1 Individual Behavior
2.2 PERSONAL ATTITUDES AND THEIR IMPACT ON
BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES
In this section, we discuss the components of personal attitudes and examine the connec-
tion between personal attitudes and behavior.
Personal attitudes affect behavior at a different level than do values. While values rep-
resent global beliefs that influence behavior across all situations, personal attitudes relate
only to behavior directed toward specific objects, persons, or situations. We summarize the
differences between the two in Table 2.2.
Attitudes represent our feelings or opinions about people, places, and objects
and range from positive to negative. They are important because they influence our
behavior. For example, you are more likely to select chocolate ice cream over vanilla if you
are more positively disposed toward chocolate. In contrast, workplace attitudes are an
outcome of various OB-related processes, including leadership. In this chapter we
reserve the term workplace attitudes for attitudes that have resulted from the interaction of
various individual, group, and organizational processes. We examine the effects of work-
place attitudes later in Section 2.3.
As predictors of likely behavior, attitudes attract serious attention. Hardly a day goes
by without the popular media reporting the results of another effort to take the pulse of
public opinion (attitudes). Political consultants use poll results, for instance, to draft mes-
sages meant to nudge the public’s attitudes toward desired results. In the workplace, man-
agers conduct attitude surveys to monitor workplace attitudes like job satisfaction and
employee engagement, and to identify the causes of employee turnover.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Closely related to values are personal attitudes, which also operate as an input in the Orga-
nizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. (In contrast, workplace attitudes are
defined as outcomes in the framework.) Personal attitudes have three components—affective,
cognitive, and behavioral. Knowing these components helps us understand how and when
personal attitudes affect behavior. Have you ever been stopped short by something that
didn’t seem to make sense? When personal attitudes collide with reality, the result is cogni-
tive dissonance. From an OB perspective, your personal attitudes affect your behavior via
your intentions.
Explain how personal
attitudes affect
workplace behavior
and work-related
outcomes.
LO 2-2
TABLE 2.2 Differences between Values and Personal Attitudes
CONCEPT
SCOPE
INFLUENCE
AFFECTS
BEHAVIOR
Personal Values Global Broad: All situations Variously
Personal Attitudes Specific Targeted: Specifically Via intentions
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
49Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Personal Attitudes: They Represent Your Consistent
Beliefs and Feelings about Specific Things
Consider a work example. If you have a positive attitude about your job (specifically, you
like what you are doing), you should be more willing to extend yourself by working longer
and harder. This example illustrates that attitudes propel us to act in a specific way in a
specific context.
Values and attitudes are generally in harmony, but not always. A manager who strongly
values helpful behavior may have a negative attitude toward helping an unethical coworker.
The hospitality industry is using attitude surveys
to identify the causes of employee dissatisfaction
and turnover—and perhaps discover why there is
a shortage of good cooks. A recent survey con-
ducted by Culinary Agents revealed that career
development opportunities were very important
to kitchen and dining room employees. Managers
use results from surveys like this to make organi-
zational changes. One restaurant, for instance,
implemented a Sous Chef Supper Series, in which
under-chefs can introduce original dishes to
the public. Others are making it easier for their
cooks to stay healthy. Chef Tony Maws of Craigie
on Main in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers
company-sponsored yoga classes for employees.
At SPQR in San Francisco, executive chef Matthew
Accarrino has led his kitchen staff on bike rides to
the Napa Valley to visit the restaurant’s partnering
farm.7 Blue Apron, the meal kit delivery service,
uses customized software to regularly survey
employees with quick polls.8
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What are the pros and cons of using results from
attitude surveys to create organizational
changes?
2. Do you think the changes described above will
reduce employee turnover for cooks? Explain.
Hospitality Industry Uses Attitude Surveys to Target Causes of Turnover
OB in Action
This pastry chef seems to be enjoying her job. Not only does this attitude posi-
tively impact her performance, but it is contagious to others in the kitchen. Do
you think we have a choice in our work attitudes?
Echo/Image Source
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
50 PART 1 Individual Behavior
The Three Components of Attitudes: Affective, Cognitive, and Behavioral
Our overall attitudes toward someone or something are a function of the combined influ-
ence of three components of attitudes:
1. The affective component—“I feel.” The affective component of an attitude
contains our feelings or emotions about a given object or situation. For
example, how do you feel about people who talk on their cell phones in restau-
rants? If you feel annoyed with such people, you are experiencing a negative affect
toward them.
2. The cognitive component—“I believe.” The cognitive component of an attitude
reflects our beliefs or ideas about an object or situation. What do you think about
people who talk on cell phones in restaurants? Your idea that such behavior is rude
(or not) represents the cognitive component of your attitude.
3. The behavioral component—“I intend.” The behavioral component refers to the
way we intend or expect to act toward someone or something. For example, how
would you intend to respond to someone talking on a cell phone during dinner at a
restaurant if this individual were sitting near you and your guest?
All three components influence behavior. You are unlikely to say anything to someone
using a cell phone in a restaurant if you are not irritated by this behavior (affective), if you
believe cell phone use helps people manage their lives (cognitive), and if you have no
intention of confronting the individual (behavioral).
When Attitudes and Reality Collide: Consistency and Cognitive Disso-
nance Have you ever been accused of being a hypocrite—saying one thing and then
behaving differently? Like most people, you probably want to maintain consistency
between your attitudes and your behavior.
But sometimes attitudes conflict with reality. Suppose Megan has a positive atti-
tude about helping others. One day in class, Megan’s instructor announces there will be
a contest to come up with the best social media campaign to increase enrollment at the
school. The prize for winning the contest is $500, which would go a long way to helping
Megan purchase a new laptop. The rub is that Rob, one of her classmates, has come to
her seeking help on his contest entry, agreeing to split the cash prize with her if they
win. Although Megan would like to help Rob, she feels it would take time away from
completing her own entry. Should she make time to help her classmate or focus solely
We are more likely to purchase a car when we have positive atti-
tudes toward it. These attitudes might pertain to make, model, color,
price, and quality. Which component of attitudes would most strongly
affect your overall attitude toward buying a sleek new convertible?
John Lund/Marc Romanelli/Blend Images LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
51Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
on finishing her own contest entry? According to social psychologist Leon Festinger,
Megan’s situation is creating cognitive dissonance.
Cognitive dissonance represents the psychological discomfort a person experi-
ences when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions (ideas,
beliefs, values, or emotions).9 Festinger was fascinated by the way people are motivated
to maintain consistency (and avoid dissonance) among their attitudes and beliefs, and the
way they resolve inconsistencies that drive cognitive dissonance. From observation, he
theorized that we can reduce cognitive dissonance in three ways:
1. Change your attitude or behavior or both. Megan could either (a) tell herself that she can’t
help Rob because she wants to win the contest and the much-needed prize money or (b)
schedule a little extra time to help her classmate and split the prize money.
2. Belittle the importance of the inconsistent behavior. Megan could belittle (in the sense of
“make small”) the belief that she needs to help her classmates every time they ask for
assistance.
3. Find consonant elements that outweigh dissonant ones. Megan could tell herself that she
can’t help because she could really use the prize money to buy a new laptop.
Attitudes Affect Behavior via Intentions
Psychologists I. Ajzen and M. Fishbein further explored the reasons our attitudes and behav-
ior can be misaligned. Based on this work, Ajzen developed and refined a model focusing on
intentions as the key link between attitudes and planned behavior. See Figure 2.3.
Determinants of Intention Figure 2.3 suggests that three key general motives (in the
three gold circles) predict or at least influence intention and behavior.
1. Attitude toward the behavior: the degree to which a person has a favorable or unfavor-
able evaluation of the behavior in question.
Subjective
norm Intention Behavior
Attitude
toward the
behavior
Perceived
behavioral
control
FIGURE 2.3 Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior
SOURCE: Ajzen, Icek. “The Theory of Planned Behaviour.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50, no. 2
(December 1991): 179–211.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
McDonald’s Workers Protest Sexual Harassment: What Should Management Do?
Problem-Solving Application
Hundreds of McDonald’s employees in 10 U.S. cit-
ies recently staged a series of strikes to call atten-
tion to the prevalence of sexual harassment at work
and to urge the company to take more active steps
to prevent it. “This is more important than work,”
said one Kansas City employee who experienced
harassment and skipped her shift to participate in
that city’s rally. “We have the strength to protect one
another and demand the justice we deserve,” she
told the crowd.11
With historically low wages and a large share of
the workforce, one that consists predominantly of
women and young adults, the restaurant industry and
the fast-food industry in particular employ many peo-
ple typically vulnerable to rights violations. Four in 10
female employees in these sectors report having
received unwanted sexual advances, and nearly 3 in
10 report various forms of harassment. The majority,
including 90 percent of immigrant workers, keep quiet
about such offenses, and many are unaware that they
are legally entitled to protection and recourse.
The recent protests, organized by a labor
rights group called Fight for $15, were intended to
draw public attention to employees’ dissatisfaction
with McDonald’s response to complaints. “What
McDonald’s does on this issue, how they choose to
treat it, how they act on it proactively, will have
influence on other stores,” said a lawyer for the
workers.12 Among workers’ demands are better
training, more effective ways to file complaints, and
an employee committee specifically empowered to
look into sexual misconduct issues at the compa-
ny’s 14,000 stores.
Ten McDonald’s workers have already filed sex-
ual harassment and retaliation complaints against
male supervisors with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Nearly 30 other
employees claim they have been harassed at work.
Two enforcement problems specific to the restau-
rant industry are that employees often depend on
tips, making it difficult for them to challenge poor
customer behavior, and the franchise structure of
the fast-food sector, which large companies may
feel absolves them from any responsibility for
employee relations at individual stores. Workers
want McDonald’s to take a bigger role in setting
human resource policies at the franchise level,
believing this will extend needed protections to
52 PART 1 Individual Behavior
2. Subjective norm: a social factor representing the perceived social pressure for or against
the behavior.
3. Perceived behavioral control: the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior,
assumed to reflect past experience and anticipated obstacles.10
Consider the intention of donating blood. You would have a positive intention if you
thought donating was valuable for society (attitude toward the behavior), if your friends
were going to join you (subjective norm), and if you had the time to participate (perceived
control).
Putting the Theory into Practice We provide a case regarding McDonald’s as a
context for applying this theory. Once you identify the problem in the case, Ajzen’s
theory can be used to explain why the McDonald’s employees went on strike. You do
this by considering whether or not the three determinants of intentions are influencing
the employees’ behavior of walking off their shifts. If you conclude that one or more of
these determinants is a cause for the strike, then propose what management can do to
change the situation. For example, if you believe that the McDonald’s workers have a
positive attitude about going on strike, then what should management do to change
these attitudes?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
53Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Research and Practical Applications According to the Ajzen model, someone’s
intention to engage in a given behavior is a strong predictor of that behavior. For example,
if you want a quick way to determine whether a worker will quit his or her job, have an
objective third party ask the worker what he or she intends. The answer is likely to be accu-
rate. Research supports this conclusion15 and the prediction that intentions are influenced
by the three general motives in Ajzen’s model.16
So if we want to change behavior, we should look at intentions and ways we might
modify them by working on the three general motives shown in Figure 2.3. Managers may
be able to influence behavioral change by doing or saying things that affect the three deter-
minants of employees’ intentions to exhibit a specific behavior: attitude toward the behav-
ior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. In your own life, if you want to
exercise more, you should start by changing your intentions about exercising and your
associated beliefs about it.
Let’s consider another practical illustration. Have you ever wanted a classmate to
increase the quality of his or her work on a team project? If so, Ajzen’s model can help
you. Start by trying to create a positive attitude toward contributing high-quality work. You
might do this by telling the person that getting a good grade on the project will increase
everyone’s chances of getting higher grades for the course and ultimately a better job upon
graduation. Next, model the desired behavior by producing good work yourself and recog-
nizing others who do the same. This should strengthen the subjective norm about doing
high-quality work. Finally, talk to the individual about any obstacles getting in the way of
high-quality work and discuss solutions for overcoming them. This should increase the
person’s perceived behavioral control.
employees of franchise businesses that may not
have a human resource department or a safe pro-
cess for handling complaints about workplace
harassment. As the lawyer quoted above observed,
McDonald’s is a huge company and easily capable
of doing this effectively if it chooses to.
McDonald’s statement said, “We have strong
policies, procedures and training in place specifically
designed to prevent sexual harassment. To ensure
we are doing all that can be done, we have engaged
experts in the areas of prevention and response.”13
Employees, however, say nothing is being done.14
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Action 1: What is the problem in this case?
Action 2: Identify the causes of the problem.
Action 3: Make a recommendation to correct the situation.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
54 PART 1 Individual Behavior
2.3 KEY WORKPLACE ATTITUDES
Savvy managers will track four key workplace attitudes:
1. Organizational commitment
2. Employee engagement
3. Perceived organizational support
4. Job satisfaction
These attitudinal measures serve a dual purpose. First, they represent important out-
comes that managers may be working to enhance directly. Second, they link to other sig-
nificant outcomes that managers will want to improve where possible. For example, low
job satisfaction and low employee engagement imply lower task performance and higher
employee turnover.17 This is why managers should track key workplace attitudes and under-
stand their causes and consequences.
EXAMPLE Facebook sends out employee surveys on a regular basis to gauge work
attitudes and employee engagement. The company discovered these surveys not
only give employees the chance to be heard but also provide management with
important information when it comes to how long people intend to stay at the social
networking giant. For example, according to Facebook’s head of people analytics,
individuals who don’t fill out employee surveys are 2.6 times more likely to leave the
company over the next six months.18
This section specifically examines the first three of the four attitudes: organizational
commitment, employee engagement, and perceived organizational support. Job satisfac-
tion, the most studied workplace attitude, will be covered in a later section.
Organizational Commitment
OB researchers define commitment as “a force that binds an individual to a course of
action of relevance to one or more targets.”19 This definition highlights the way OB
researchers link commitment to behavior and the way workers can commit to multiple
targets or entities. For example, an individual can be committed to his or her job,
family, girl- or boyfriend, faith, friends, career, organization, and/or a variety of profes-
sional associations. Let us now consider the application of commitment to a work
organization.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Of the many workplace attitudes we might see as outcomes in the Organizing Framework
for Understanding and Applying OB, researchers have identified a small number that
are especially potent. These key attitudes allow you to track a limited number of work-
place attitudes to gauge how the organization is doing. When you try to make sense of the
workplace on either side of a manager’s desk, these are the important attitudes to follow.
Discuss the
importance of four
key workplace
attitudes.
LO 2-3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
55Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Organizational commitment reflects the extent to which an individual identi-
fies with an organization and commits to its goals. Committed individuals tend to
display two outcomes:
• Likely continuation of their employment with the organization.
• Greater motivation toward pursuing organizational goals and decisions.
What Drives Organizational Commitment? Many factors inspire organizational
commitment, but let’s start with a basic one. Organizational commitment exists to the
degree that your personal values match the values that pervade your company’s organiza-
tional culture. For example, if you value achievement and your employer rewards people
for accomplishing goals, you are more likely to be committed to the company. This consis-
tency between personal and company values is called person–culture fit and is discussed
in Chapter 14.
Throughout this book we will cover other drivers of organizational commitment,
including:20
• Personality.
• Meaningfulness of the work being performed.
• Organizational climate.
• Leader behavior.
• Organizational culture.
Finally, commitment depends on the quality of an employee’s psychological con-
tracts. Psychological contracts represent an individual’s perception about the
reciprocal exchange between him- or herself and another party. In a work environ-
ment, the psychological contract represents an employee’s beliefs about what he or she is
entitled to receive in return for what he or she provides to the organization. Research shows
that an employer breach of the psychological contract is associated with lower organizational
commitment, job satisfaction, and performance and with greater intentions to quit.21
How Can Managers Increase Employees’ Commitment? To highlight how
managers can increase employees’ commitment, we review three general best practices and
then discuss approaches used by Hilton, Salesforce, and Cisco.
General Best Practices
• Hire people whose personal values align with the organization’s.
• Make sure that management does not breach its psychological contracts.
• Treat employees fairly and foster trust between managers and employees.
Example Company: Hilton
• Fortune listed it as the No. 1 best company to work for in 2019.
• Launched new team member benefits including parental leave and adoption assis-
tance.
• Implemented a companywide immersion program requiring every executive leader
to spend one week on the front lines working alongside cooks, housekeepers, and
front desk personnel.
• Invested heavily in redesigning employee spaces with better lighting, more comfort-
able furnishings, and an updated cafeteria.
• Worked with Under Armour to introduce lighter, more comfortable work wear for
service employees.
• Increased expenditures for continuous learning and career development programs
through its Hilton University program.22
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
56 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Example Company: Salesforce
• Fortune listed it as No. 2 best company to work for in 2019.
• Spent nearly $9 million over three years to address differences in pay across gender
and race for its more than 21,000 employees.
• Built company culture around Ohana—the Hawaiian concept of family, with
10 employee resource groups to encourage employees to be their “full authentic
self ” at work.
• Asks new employees to spend part of their first day doing service work in the local
community.
• Gives employees seven paid days of volunteer time off annually to make the world a
better place in addition to a generous amount of paid time off and sick leave.
• Established the role of Chief Philanthropy Officer to oversee the millions of dollars
in grants the company provides to support education in underserved neighbor-
hoods, homelessness organizations, and other local community initiatives.23
Example Company: Cisco
• Fortune listed it as the sixth best company to work for in 2019.
• Outlines company and employee expectations and benefits in “Our People Deal,” a
manifesto detailing what Cisco can do for its employees and what the company
expects in return.
• Flextime helps employees achieve work–life balance. Flextime is a policy of giving
employees flexible work hours so they can come and go at different times, as
long as they work a set number of hours.
• Employees get 40 hours of paid time off to volunteer, and the company matches this
time with financial contributions to the volunteers’ programs.
• To encourage new ideas, launched global pitch contest to its 37,000-plus employees
to come up with innovative solutions to technology problems with a $50,000 prize.
• Employees get 36 days of holiday and vacation time following one year of
employment.24
Employee Engagement
Observing workers at a summer camp and an architecture firm in 1990, William Kahn
defined employee engagement as “the harnessing of organization members’
selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves
This employee looks highly engaged in her work. Note the
attention and focus she uses to uncover this fossil. Would
you find this type of work meaningful?
Arpad Benedek/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
57Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performance.”25 The essence of
this definition is the idea that engaged employees “give their all” at work. Further study
identified its components as four feelings:
• Urgency • Intensity
• Focus • Enthusiasm26
Have you ever felt at work or school that time seems to fly by? If yes, then you under-
stand why academics, consultants, and managers want to understand how they can harness
the power of employee engagement.
How Much of the U.S. Workforce Is Actively Engaged? The U.S. workforce
appears to be achieving close to the global average. Consulting firm Aon has traced data
on employee engagement around the globe for more than 15 years, studying millions of
employees. Recent figures for North America (of which the United States is the largest
component) and other global regions are shown in Table 2.3.27 Although the U.S. work-
force leads Europe, it is outpaced by Latin America, Africa-Middle East, and Asia Pacific.
What Contributes to Employee Engagement? Let’s use the Organizing Frame-
work for Understanding and Applying OB to identify key drivers of employee engagement.
Person Factors
• Personality.
• Positive psychological capital.
• Human and social capital.28
Situation Factors
• Job characteristics. People are engaged when their work contains variety and when
they receive timely feedback about performance.
• Leadership. People are more engaged when their manager is supportive and main-
tains a positive, trusting relationship with them.29
• Organizational climate can range from positive and inspiring to negative and deplet-
ing. Positive climates obviously foster engagement.
• Stressors. Stressors are environmental characteristics that cause stress.
Engagement is higher when employees are not confronted with a lot of stressors.30
What Outcomes Are Associated with Employee Engagement? Consulting
firms such as Gallup, Hewitt Associates, and Blessing White have been in the forefront of
collecting proprietary data supporting the practical value of employee engagement. For
example, Gallup estimates that an organization whose employees are highly engaged can
LOCATION OF EMPLOYEES
PERCENT OF HIGHLY OR MODERATELY
ENGAGED EMPLOYEES
1. The World 65%
2. North America 64
3. Europe 60
4. Asia Pacific 65
5. Latin America 75
6. Africa-Middle East 66
TABLE 2.3 Employee Engagement Around the World
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
58 PART 1 Individual Behavior
achieve 10 percent higher customer loyalty/engagement; 20 percent more productivity;
and 21 percent greater profitability.31 Other recent academic studies similarly showed a
positive relationship between employee engagement, performance, and physical and psy-
chological well-being and corporate-level financial performance and customer satisfaction.32
Now that you know engagement is correlated with performance at work, try the fol-
lowing Self-Assessment to measure your level of engagement with your studies. Can you
improve your performance in the classroom?
To What Extent Are You Engaged in Your Studies?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 2.2 in Connect.
1. Is your level of engagement what you expected?
2. How might you increase it?
3. To what extent do your professors influence your level of engagement? How
might they foster more engagement from you?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.2 CAREER READINESS
How Can Managers Increase Engagement? As a manager you will have many
opportunities to improve employee engagement, even if you can’t offer the lavish perks of
the richest corporations. One way is to make sure inputs in the Organizing Framework are
positively oriented. Organizations do this by measuring, tracking, and responding to sur-
veys of employee engagement.
EXAMPLE The Ritz-Carlton hotel chain significantly lowered employee turnover (to
28 percent vs. an industry average of more than 55 percent) and increased both
customer satisfaction and customer spending by assessing potential candidates
against the company’s 12 employee values related to its gold standards for cus-
tomer service.33
Other ideas include creating career and developmental opportunities for employees,
recognizing people for good work, effectively communicating and listening, allowing peo-
ple to exercise during the workday, creating a physically attractive and stimulating work
environment, giving employees meaningful work to do, and empowering them.
• Freese and Nichols This Texas engineering
firm fosters engagement with generous
development opportunities. When engineer
Kim Patak wanted the company to adopt
greener water engineering, her bosses gave
her $10,000 and time off for a training pro-
gram on environmentally sound infrastructure
practices. “It felt like I was getting a gradu-
ate degree,” says Patak of her experience.
“It felt amazing to have that support of the
company, to have the trust in me.” Since
then, the company’s expertise and leader-
ship in sustainable water practices have
grown rapidly.34
• T-Mobile In hiring Ivan Beltran to manage its
flagship New York City store, T-Mobile gam-
bled on a candidate with “passion and love
for the brand” but no experience as a direc-
tor. Beltran explains why that paid off. “What
Companies Foster Employee Engagement in Different Ways
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
59Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Perceived Organizational Support
Perceived organizational support (POS) reflects the extent to which employees
believe their organization values their contributions and genuinely cares about
their well-being. Your POS would be negative if you worked for a bad boss or a company
that did not provide good health benefits or career opportunities. It would more likely be
positive if you worked for outdoor gear retailer REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc.) in one
of its more than 150 stores across the country. REI fully funds the company profit-sharing
plan (without employees needing to contribute their own pay); awards annual incentive
pay based on reaching individual, department, and company goals; subsidizes the majority
of employees’ medical plan costs; offers a referral bonus of $100 to $2,000; and gives gen-
erous discounts (30 to 50 percent) on REI gear and apparel.37
How Does POS Affect Employees? People are willing to work hard and commit to
their organizations when they believe the company truly cares about their best interests.
Quite simply, we are motivated by the norm of reciprocity to return the favor when someone
treats us well. This is why we are more likely to reciprocate with hard work and dedication
when our employer treats us favorably. But the favorable treatment must be voluntary, not
imposed by external constraints such as government or union rules. Voluntary actions dem-
onstrate that the giver genuinely values and respects us.
Benefits of POS Managers cannot go wrong in providing organizational support.
Research shows that it is positively associated with employee engagement, organizational
commitment, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, greater trust, innovation,
and lower tendency to quit.38
How can managers foster positive POS?
They can treat employees fairly, avoid political behavior, provide job security, empower
employees, reduce stressors in the work environment, eliminate abusive supervision, and
fulfill the psychological contract.39
it means to me is I work for a company that
truly values their employees, a company will-
ing to take risks.” Ranked among the best
workplaces in the nation’s largest city,
T-Mobile continues to embrace employees’
individuality. Says Jon Frier, executive vice
president of retail channels, “We tell people,
‘We want you to be you.’ We think people do
their best work when they can be them-
selves.”35
• Levi Strauss “If we can identify much earlier
people who are at risk of developing cancer,
then go into hyper care for them to make sure
that, if they do get the disease, you catch it at
stage zero or stage 1—where the cost of care
is much, much less . . . it’s much better for
everyone.” That’s not a doctor talking. It’s Chip
Bergh, CEO of jeans maker Levi Strauss, which
recently offered employees an optional free
DNA test. Says Bergh, “The more we can do
to keep our employees engaged and give
them benefits that are meaningful for them,
the better it is for us.”36
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What do you think about these approaches to
engagement?
2. Which company approach would be most effec-
tive for you as an employee? Explain.
Chip Bergh, Levi Strauss CEO
Richard Drew/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
60 PART 1 Individual Behavior
2.4 THE CAUSES OF JOB SATISFACTION
Job satisfaction essentially reflects the extent to which an individual likes his or her job.
Formally defined, job satisfaction is an affective or emotional response toward vari-
ous facets of your job. Notice that job satisfaction is not a monolithic concept. Rather, a
person can be relatively satisfied with one aspect of her or his job and dissatisfied with one
or more others.
Managers and organizations measure job satisfaction in one of two ways. The simplest
is to use a single overall rating, such as, “How satisfied are you with your job?” People
respond on a rating scale that might run from (1) very dissatisfied to (5) very satisfied.
Have you ever completed a survey like this? The second method assess satisfaction along a
series of facets. For example, researchers at Cornell University developed the Job Descrip-
tive Index (JDI) to assess satisfaction with the following: work, pay, promotions, cowork-
ers, and supervision.40 This type of assessment provides more detailed and actionable
information about job satisfaction. If desired, managers or researchers can add the ratings
across facets to arrive at a total score.
We use a facet measure of job satisfaction in the following Self-Assessment. Complet-
ing it will inform you about your level of satisfaction for a current or past job and make the
rest of the chapter more practical for you. Are you curious about where you stand?
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Job satisfaction is the most frequently studied outcome in the Organizing Framework. To help
you understand it better, this section provides you with the five major models of job satisfac-
tion. These models can help you manage others and yourself, leading to an increased sense
of satisfaction at work or school for you and others.
Discuss the five
causes of job
satisfaction.
LO 2-4
How Satisfied Are You with Your Present Job?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 2.3 in Connect.
1. What are your relative levels of satisfaction with recognition, compensation, and
supervision?
2. Which of these three aspects of satisfaction is most important to you? Explain.
3. What can you do to increase your level of job satisfaction?
Source: Adapted from D.J. Weiss, R.V. Dawis, G.W. England and L.H. Lofquist, Manual for the Minnesota Satisfaction
Questionnaire (Minneapolis: Industrial Relations Center, University of Minnesota, 1967). Used with permission.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.3 CAREER READINESS
Do you think job satisfaction across the United States has been going up or down over
the past few years? A national survey conducted by the Conference Board attempted to
answer this question by asking 1,500 employed individuals to rank their job satisfaction
based on 23 components. Results revealed 51 percent were satisfied with their jobs in
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
61Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
2018, the seventh straight year that overall job satisfaction had increased among U.S. work-
ers.41 The significance of this finding will become more apparent after you read the final
section of this chapter.
At a Glance: Five Predominant
Models of Job Satisfaction
If you want insight into the drivers of your own job satisfaction or that of others, consider
five models of these causes, summarized as follows. We look at each in more detail in
Table 2.4.
TABLE 2.4 Five Models of Job Satisfaction
MODEL HOW MANAGEMENT CAN BOOST JOB SATISFACTION
Need fulfillment Understand and meet employees’ needs.
Met expectations Meet employees’ expectations about what they will receive
from the job.
Value attainment Structure the job and its rewards to match employee values.
Equity Monitor employees’ perceptions of fairness and interact with
them so they feel fairly treated.
Dispositional/genetic
components
Hire employees with an appropriate disposition.
(See qualifications below.)
Brief Review: Five Predominant
Models of Job Satisfaction
Let’s take a closer look at these models. It will increase your understanding if you personal-
ize each model to your own past experiences.
Need Fulfillment Need fulfillment models propose that satisfaction is determined by
the extent to which the characteristics of a job allow an individual to fulfill her or his
needs. Needs are physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse behavior.
All of us have different needs, which means that managers need to learn about employees’
needs if they want to increase employees’ job satisfaction.
EXAMPLE A recent annual survey of 600 individuals by the Society for Human
Resource Management asked employees to choose the aspects of their jobs that
were very important to their job satisfaction. For the third year in a row, the top choice
was respectful treatment of employees at all levels of the organization. Other impor-
tant contributors to job satisfaction included compensation/pay; trust between
employees and senior management; job security; and opportunities to use skills and
abilities.42 Are any of these aspects important to you?
Research generally supports the conclusion that need fulfillment is correlated with
job satisfaction.43
Met Expectations Met expectations represent the difference between what an
individual expects to receive from a job, such as good pay and promotional oppor-
tunities, and what she or he actually receives. When expectations are greater than
what is received, a person will be dissatisfied. On the other hand, he or she will be satisfied
when outcomes are above and beyond expectations. Research strongly supports the con-
clusion that met expectations are significantly related to job satisfaction.44
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
62 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Value Attainment The idea underlying value attainment is that satisfaction results
from the perception that a job allows for fulfillment of an individual’s important values.
Research consistently supports this perspective. Managers can enhance employee satisfaction
by providing work assignments and rewards that reinforce employees’ values.
Equity Equity theory builds on the notion that satisfaction rests on how “fairly” an indi-
vidual is treated at work. If we perceive that our work outcomes, relative to our inputs,
compare favorably with someone else’s outcomes and inputs, we will be satisfied. Research
has strongly supported the theory behind this model.45 Managers thus are encouraged to
monitor employees’ fairness perceptions and to interact with employees in such a way that
they feel equitably treated. Chapter 5 explores how this can be accomplished.
Dispositional/Genetic Components Ever notice that some coworkers or friends
remain satisfied in situations where others always seem dissatisfied? The dispositional/
genetic model posits that job satisfaction is a function of both personal traits and genetic
factors. Indeed, the model implies that stable individual differences are at least as powerful
as characteristics of the work environment in their impact on satisfaction.
Few studies have tested these propositions in depth, but they do show that disposi-
tional factors are significantly associated with only selected aspects of job satisfaction.
Dispositions had stronger relationships with intrinsic aspects of a job (such as having
autonomy) than with extrinsic aspects (such as the receipt of rewards).46 Genetic factors
also were found to significantly predict life satisfaction, well-being, and general job satisfac-
tion.47 Overall, researchers estimate that 30 percent of an individual’s job satisfaction is
associated with dispositional and genetic components.48
EXAMPLE Recent gene-editing
experiments conducted in China
may have an impact on personal
traits and genetic factors in the
future. A Chinese scientist recently
announced he and his team had
used a powerful gene-editing tech-
nique called Crispr to alter the genes
of human embryos that were
implanted in female volunteers. One
of the volunteers gave birth to twin
girls and another volunteer is now
pregnant. In addition to the ethical
issues raised by such experiments,
the worldwide scientific community
is questioning the long-term effects
of such alterations, which if successful, would be inherited by future generations and
likely change individuals’ genetic makeup and personal traits.49
A Shorter Walk to Work
Now that we have looked at the predominant models of job satisfaction, let’s highlight one
element that allows people to balance their work and family lives: the opportunity to tele-
commute. Telecommuting allows employees to do all or some of their work from
home, using advanced telecommunications technology and Internet tools to send
work electronically from home to the office, and vice versa.
• About half of the U.S. workforce telecommutes for at least part of the time spent
working.
As technology continues to advance, it’s likely scientists will
be able to edit the genes of human embryos to alter genetic
makeup including personal traits. Is this a good thing?
Gregor Fischer/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
63Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Applying OB
1. Assess the readiness of both people and jobs for
telecommuting. Not all employees or all jobs are
ready for this step.
2. Ensure employees have the proper technology
and support, and that the communications net-
work is secure.
3. Establish clear expectations about the goals of the
program and how it will work. For example, encour-
age telecommuters to keep regular work hours
and to set up a dedicated office space.
4. Make it a priority to establish trust on both sides.
Communicate regularly, give credit when due, and
avoid micromanaging.
5. Evaluate the program’s effectiveness with regular
and fair assessments of employee performance.52
Best Practices for Implementing Telecommuting
More and more employees are telecommuting from their homes
on a regular basis. Managers need to encourage regular
communications, ensure employees keep regular work hours,
and insist on workers setting up a dedicated office space.
Jupiterimages/Getty Images
• The number of people telecommuting has grown 140 percent between 2005 and
2016. Experts estimate that 50 percent of the U.S. workforce has a job compatible
with teleworking.
• The need for flexibility is a key reason people like telecommuting.50
• Studies confirm telecommuting enhances productivity and retention and decreases
absenteeism.51
These positive statistics imply that the opportunity to telecommute could improve job
satisfaction. To make such programs successful, consider the recommendations in the
Applying OB box below.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
64 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Thousands of studies have examined the relationship between job satisfaction and other
organizational variables. We consider a subset of the most important variables from the
standpoint of managerial relevance. Ten key outcomes correlate to job satisfaction—four
attitudinal and four behavioral, and two organizational-level outcomes. Job satisfaction has
significant correlations with:
Attitudes
• Motivation
• Job involvement
• Withdrawal cognitions
• Perceived stress
Behavior
• Job performance
• Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)
• Counterproductive work behavior (CWB)
• Turnover
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial performance
• Customer service/satisfaction
Attitudinal Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
We examine four attitudinal outcomes of job satisfaction that are important to OB
researchers and managers: motivation, job involvement, withdrawal cognitions, and
perceived stress.
Motivation Employee motivation represents a psychological process that arouses our
interest in doing something, and it directs and guides our behavior. As you might expect,
employee motivation positively correlates to job satisfaction. Managers can enhance
employees’ motivation with a host of techniques and recommendations discussed through-
out this book.
Describe work-related
outcomes associated
with job satisfaction.
LO 2-5
2.5 MAJOR CORRELATES AND CONSEQUENCES
OF JOB SATISFACTION
THE BIGGER PICTURE
The documented relationship between job satisfaction and other positive organizational out-
comes is good news. It means that employers have economic reasons for fostering job satis-
faction to improve results. You’re about to learn four key attitudinal and behavioral outcomes
and two organizational-level outcomes associated with this relationship.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
What to Do, or Not to Do, about Sexual Harassment
When actor Kevin Spacey was accused of sexual
misconduct, Netflix was among the companies that
responded unequivocally, removing him as execu-
tive producer and star of its acclaimed series “House
of Cards” and then abandoning another deal with
him, despite losing $39 million in the process. When
it came to setting an internal sexual harassment
policy for its own employees, however, Netflix drew
a more confused reaction.
The new policy reportedly forbids employees to
ask each other for their phone numbers without prior
permission, to flirt, or to ask a colleague for a date
again if he or she has already said no. It encourages
employees to shout, “Stop! Don’t do that again,” if a
Problem-Solving Application
65Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Job Involvement Job involvement
represents the extent to which an indi-
vidual is personally engaged in his or her
work role. Many years of research have
demonstrated that job involvement is mod-
erately related to job satisfaction.53 Manag-
ers can foster satisfying work environments
to fuel employees’ job involvement.
Withdrawal Cognitions Although
some people quit their jobs impulsively or in
a fit of anger, most first go through a pro-
cess of thinking about whether they should
quit. Withdrawal cognitions capture this
thought process by representing an indi-
vidual’s overall thoughts and feelings
about quitting. Low job satisfaction is
believed to be one of the most significant
contributors to thoughts of quitting.
EXAMPLE A recent survey of more
than 1,000 employed U.S. workers con-
ducted by Bamboo HR revealed that 31
percent of respondents left a job within
the first six months of being hired
because they thought their new boss
was a jerk; the job was different from
what they expected in the interview; or
they felt alone and not engaged with coworkers. Results suggest managers can help
increase job satisfaction by ensuring that new employees understand their new job
tasks and feel connected to others in the organization.54
Perceived Stress Stress has negative effects on many different OB-related out-
comes. For instance, it is positively related to absenteeism, turnover, coronary heart
disease, and viral infections. As you would expect, it also has a strong negative relation-
ship to job satisfaction and employee engagement. Managers should attempt to reduce
the negative effects of stress by improving job satisfaction and by encouraging employees
to detach from work during off-job time (stop thinking about work and don’t “take it
home with you”).55
Have you ever felt like this when studying for
exams? Unfortunately, too much stress impairs our
ability to perform at school or at work.
Kdonmuang/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
66 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Behavioral Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction has a positive association with two constructive individual-level behavioral
outcomes—job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It also has a
negative relationship with two potentially negative behaviors—counterproductive work
behavior (CWB) and turnover. The following discussion is more practical when you con-
sider that these individual-level outcomes in the Organizing Framework are driven by pro-
cesses at the group and organizational level, which, further upstream, are influenced by
environmental characteristics.
Job Performance One of the biggest controversies within OB research centers on the
relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. This is more complicated than
it might first appear; OB experts have identified at least eight ways in which these variables
are related. Here is what we know from research.58
A team of researchers analyzed data involving nearly 7,000 individuals over a three-
year period.59 They made two key findings:
• Job satisfaction and performance are moderately related. This supports the belief
that employee job satisfaction is a key workplace attitude managers should consider
when attempting to increase employees’ job performance.
• The relationship between them is complex. Researchers now believe both variables
indirectly influence each other through a host of person factors and environmental
characteristics contained in the Organizing Framework.
Organizational Citizenship Behavior Organizational citizenship behavior
(OCB) is defined as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or
explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate
colleague behaves inappropriately. But rumors
about a rule that said employees should not stare at
each other for more than five seconds at a time
drew particular mockery in the media, and among
Netflix employees as well. They reportedly began
deliberately staring at each other, counting to five,
and looking away.
Critics also wondered how employees could
network with each other for business purposes
without sharing phone numbers and questioned
why Netflix seemed to presume that every such
request was made for the purpose of dating or in
pursuit of sex.
Netflix responded by issuing this statement:
“We’re proud of the anti-harassment training we offer
to our productions. We want every Netflix production
to be a safe and respectful working environment. We
believe the resources we offer empower people on
our sets to speak up, and shouldn’t be trivialized.”56
Some, however, felt the policies themselves triv-
ialized the very real problems of sexual harassment
at work, which have been in especially sharp focus
since the rise of the #MeToo movement. A later
statement from Netflix said the five-second “rule”
was not a rule but rather a suggestion raised in a
training session about the new policy.57
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem in this case.
Step 2: Identify the OB concepts or theories that help explain the situation Netflix faced and its reaction.
Step 3: State what you would do if you were a human resource officer at Netflix responsible for set-
ting harassment policies.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
67Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
promotes the effective functioning of the organization.”60 This definition high-
lights two key points:
• OCBs are voluntary.
• OCBs help work groups and the organization to effectively achieve goals.
Examples of organizational citizenship behavior include such gestures as:
• Constructive statements about the department.
• Expression of personal interest in the work of others.
• Suggestions for improvement.
• The training of new people.
• Respect for the spirit as well as the letter of housekeeping rules.
• Care for organizational property.
• Punctuality and attendance well beyond standard or enforceable levels.61
Managers certainly would like employees to exhibit these behaviors, and research
clearly supports their value. OCBs have a moderately positive correlation with job satisfac-
tion.62 Moreover, they are significantly related to both individual-level consequences (per-
formance appraisal ratings, intentions to quit, absenteeism, and negative job attitudes) and
organizational-level outcomes (productivity, efficiency, lower costs, customer satisfaction,
and unit-level satisfaction and turnover).63
These results are important for two reasons. First, exhibiting OCBs is likely to
create positive impressions about you among your colleagues and manager. In turn,
these impressions affect your ability to work with others, your manager’s evaluation
of your performance, and ultimately your promotability. Second, the aggregate
amount of employees’ OCBs affects important organizational outcomes. It is thus
important for managers to foster an environment that promotes organizational
citizenship behaviors.
Volunteerism is a form of discretionary citizenship behavior that promotes a positive organizational
image. What personal values lead someone to volunteer to tend to a local community garden?
John Lund/Marc Romanelli/Blend Images LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
68 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Counterproductive Work Behavior You already know from personal experience and
OB research that the absence of satisfaction may be associated with some types of undesir-
able behavior, such as low employee engagement and performance. In contrast to the helping
nature of OCBs, counterproductive work behavior (CWB) harms other employees, the
organization as a whole, and/or organizational stakeholders such as customers and
shareholders. CWBs represent a particularly negative work-related outcome. Examples
include bullying, theft, gossiping, backstabbing, drug and alcohol abuse, destruction of orga-
nizational property, violence, deliberately poor or incorrect work, Internet surfing for per-
sonal reasons, excessive socializing, tardiness, sabotage, and sexual harassment.64
EXAMPLE Mastering the company’s mail order system, an IKEA worker issued him-
self nearly $400,000 in refunds for purchases made by customers.
EXAMPLE A former manager at a lab testing company created fake invoices and
expense reports to get reimbursed for more than $1.2 million.
EXAMPLE A U.S. postal worker in Washington, DC, bilked the Postal Service out of nearly
$40,000 in unearned wages by claiming he was serving jury duty on a lengthy federal
trial. The worker fabricated court paperwork to support his reimbursement claims.65
CWB has a strong negative relationship with job satisfaction, so managers should find
ways to reduce it. Here are three key ways.
1. Hire individuals who are less prone to engage in counterproductive behavior. Cogni-
tive ability is associated with many measures of success, so it is a logical quality to
screen for in hiring decisions. Personality tests also may be relevant.
2. Design jobs that promote satisfaction, and root out and eliminate managers who treat
others in an abusive manner.66
3. Respond quickly and appropriately if an employee does engage in CWBs, defining
the specific behaviors that are unacceptable and the requirements for acceptable
behavior.
Turnover Turnover can be a good thing when a low-performing person like George
Costanza from Seinfeld quits or is fired. This result enables managers to replace the
Georges of the world with better or more diverse individuals or to realign the budget. In
losing a good employee, however, the organization loses valuable knowledge and experi-
ence and it can be costly. Experts estimate that the cost of turnover for an hourly
employee is roughly 20 percent of his or her annual salary, higher for professional employ-
ees with specialized skills.67
Job satisfaction has a moderately strong negative relationship with turnover. Man-
agers are well served by enhancing employees’ job satisfaction, especially in today’s
competitive labor market.68 For example, global HR consulting firm Mercer surveyed
more than 160 large employers recently and found that voluntary turnover was at more
than 15 percent.69
All these considerations suggest several practical steps employers can take to tackle a
turnover problem. See the Applying OB box.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
69Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Applying OB
1. Hire people who fit the organization’s culture.
Person–culture fit is discussed in Chapter 14.
2. Spend time fostering employee engagement.
Engaged employees are less likely to quit.
3. Hire selectively. Human resource data analytics
uses large data sets to answer questions like,
“Why are people quitting?” and “What skills are
needed to do the job?” But even small busi-
nesses can answer these questions. At Dash
Design, an interior design company with fewer
than 30 employees, owner David Ashen tackled
high turnover by asking employees where they
wanted to be in six months or three years, help-
ing them to reach those goals, offering flexible
schedules, and even allowing pet dogs in the
office.70
4. Provide effective onboarding. Onboarding pro-
grams help employees to integrate, assimilate,
and transition to new jobs by making them famil-
iar with corporate policies, procedures, culture,
and politics and clarifying work-role expectations
and responsibilities.71
5. Recognize and reward high performers, because
they are more likely to quit than average perform-
ers.72 In recognition of good performance, North
6th Agency, a public relations firm, awards employ-
ees points they can redeem for commuter passes,
groceries, and even cash or time off.73
Using Job Satisfaction to Reduce Employee Turnover
Organizational-Level Outcomes
of Job Satisfaction
Job satisfaction is positively associated with the organizational-level outcomes of
accounting/financial performance and customer service/satisfaction.
Accounting/Financial Performance Earlier we noted that job satisfaction was
moderately associated with an individual’s performance. It thus makes sense to hypoth-
esize that the aggregate level of employee job satisfaction should be positively associated
with a company’s accounting/financial performance. A study of 448 small- to medium-
sized business units supported this prediction. However, the association between job
satisfaction and this outcome is lower than between job satisfaction and productivity.74
This makes sense because many other factors besides job satisfaction impact accounting/
financial performance.
Customer Service/Satisfaction Why do we expect satisfied employees to provide
higher-quality service to customers? The answer is the spillover effect. Spillover occurs
when attitudes in one part of our lives spill over to another. Employees’ positive work
attitudes might spill over to improve their behaviors toward customers. In support of
this idea, research supports a positive association between job satisfaction and customer
satisfaction.75
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
70 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Takeaways for Me
Here are five additional things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive
change in your personal and professional life.
1. Identify your core values: This can help you make decisions about careers, companies
to work for, relationships, and ways to manage others.
2. Realize the power of your beliefs and intentions: Your intentions will drive your behav-
ior, but it is beliefs that create your intentions. If you want to change a behavior, such
as losing weight or studying more, the first step is to analyze and change your beliefs
about the behavior.
3. Engagement is partly a choice on your part, and it all starts with doing meaningful work:
Identify what types of work you find meaningful.
4. If your manager or organization is not providing support, consider moving on: There are
many great companies that understand the value of organizational support.
5. Before quitting a job, consider doing a cost–benefit analysis: Write down the costs of
staying and compare them to the perceived benefits of leaving. Making an emotional
decision might feel good in the short run, but it is less likely to lead to positive results.
Takeaways for Managers
There are five key implications for managers.
1. Hire people whose values match the values that underlie the organization’s culture: Such
employees are more likely to be productive and to stay.
2. Influence employees’ behavior by reinforcing appropriate beliefs: For example, if you
want to improve employee retention, underscore the value of staying at the company.
3. Employee commitment is strongly associated with emotional connections at work:76 Cre-
ate positive team spirit and engage in social activities that promote friendships among
employees.
4. Employees won’t be engaged if you display negative emotions: Stay positive and model
engagement.
5. There is a trend for employees to quit less than one year on the job: Discuss their expec-
tations when you hire and socialize new employees effectively. Socialization is dis-
cussed in Chapter 14.
Personal values, attitudes, and intentions play a significant role in affecting individual and
organizational outcomes at work. Here are some key points to consider.
2.6 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW DO VALUES AND
ATTITUDES AFFECT WORK-RELATED OUTCOMES?
Describe the
implications of values
and attitudes for you
and managers.
LO 2-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
71Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
You learned that employee engagement is a work-
place attitude that motivates people to identify with
and immerse themselves in their work. Values and
attitudes directly affect a variety of organizational
outcomes, and companies pay attention to them to
achieve improved performance. Companies track
the work attitude of job satisfaction because it posi-
tively correlates with other positive workplace atti-
tudes (motivation, job involvement, reduced stress)
and behavior (job performance, OCB, customer sat-
isfaction, reduced CWB and turnover). Reinforce
your learning with the chapter’s Key Points below.
Next, consolidate your learning using the Organiz-
ing Framework, shown in Figure 2.4. Then, chal-
lenge your mastery of the material by answering
the chapter’s Major Questions in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 2
You learned the following key points.
2.1 PERSONAL VALUES
• Values are abstract ideals that guide your
thinking and behavior across all situations.
• Schwartz proposed that 10 core values
guide behavior across contexts and time
(see Figure 2.2).
• The 10 core values each relate to one of four
themes: self-transcendence, conservation,
self-enhancement, and openness to change
(see Figure 2.2).
• Managers can use the Schwartz model to moti-
vate employees and to reduce the chances of
employees’ experiencing conflict between
their values and their work assignments.
2.2 PERSONAL ATTITUDES AND
THEIR IMPACT ON BEHAVIOR
AND OUTCOMES
• Attitudes represent your feelings or opinions
about people, places, and objects and range
from positive to negative. Workplace attitudes
are outcomes in the Organizing Framework
for Understanding and Applying OB.
• The three components of attitudes are affec-
tive, cognitive, and behavioral.
• Cognitive dissonance represents the psycho-
logical discomfort an individual experiences
when his or her attitudes or beliefs are incom-
patible with his or her behavior.
• Intentions are the key link between attitudes
and behavior in Ajzen’s model. Three determi-
nants of the strength of an intention are atti-
tude toward the behavior, subjective norms,
and perceived behavioral control (Figure 2.3).
2.3 KEY WORKPLACE ATTITUDES
• Organizational commitment reflects how
strongly a person identifies with an organization
and is committed to its goals. It is influenced by
a host of factors in the Organizing Framework,
including personality, leader behavior, organiza-
tional culture, meaningfulness, organizational
climate, and psychological contracts.
• Employee engagement occurs when employ-
ees give it their all at work. It includes feelings
of urgency, focus, intensity, and enthusiasm.
• Employee engagement is influenced by per-
sonal factors and environmental characteris-
tics contained in the Organizing Framework.
• Perceived organizational support reflects how
much employees believe their organization
values their contributions and cares about
their well-being. Employees are happier and
work harder when they feel supported.
2.4 THE CAUSES OF JOB
SATISFACTION
• Job satisfaction is an affective or emotional
response toward various facets of the job. It is
a key OB outcome.
• The five major causes of job satisfaction are
need fulfillment, met expectations, value
attainment, equity, and dispositional/genetic
components.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
72 PART 1 Individual Behavior
• Telecommuting allows people to balance their
work and family lives. It uses telecommunica-
tion technology and Internet tools to send and
receive work between home and office.
2.5 MAJOR CORRELATES AND
CONSEQUENCES OF JOB
SATISFACTION
• Job satisfaction is significantly associated
with the following attitudinal variables: moti-
vation, job involvement, withdrawal cogni-
tions, and perceived stress.
• Job satisfaction is significantly related to five
key behavioral outcomes: job performance,
organizational citizenship behavior, counter-
productive work behavior, turnover, and
customer satisfaction.
2.6 HOW DO VALUES AND
ATTITUDES AFFECT WORK-
RELATED OUTCOMES?
• Identifying your core values will help you
make smart decisions about career moves
and relationships in both your personal and
professional life.
• Recognizing the power of your beliefs and
how they influence behavior will help you zero
in on the type of work you find meaningful.
• Hiring people whose values and attitudes align
with an organization’s culture encourages
employee motivation, productivity, and retention.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 2
As shown in Figure 2.4, values, personal atti-
tudes, and intentions serve as inputs that lead
to a host of outcomes. Although this chapter
focused on workplace attitudes as an outcome,
future chapters will look at other outcomes in
more detail.
Challenge: Major Questions
for Chapter 2
You should now be able to answer the following
major questions. If you can’t, have you really
processed and internalized the lessons in the
chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 2.4, the
chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and
answer the following major questions:
1. What role do play in influencing my behavior?
2. How do personal attitudes affect workplace
behavior and work-related outcomes?
3. Why should management pay attention to
workplace attitudes?
4. How can changes in the workplace improve
job satisfaction?
5. What work-related outcomes are associated
with job satisfaction?
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Values
• Personal Attitudes
• Intentions
Situation Factors
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Workplace attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Citizenship behavior/counter-
productive behavior
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial performance
• Customer service/satisfaction
FIGURE 2.4 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
73Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
Sam Walton founded Walmart in Rogers, Arkansas, and
the company grew from that single store in 1962 to
more than 11,300 locations spanning 27 countries by
2019. Today, the multinational retailer is the world’s
largest company by revenue—generating over $500
billion in 2018—and the largest private employer with
more than 2.2 million employees. The retailer also
owns Sam’s Club, a chain of warehouse clubs that sell
groceries and general merchandise in bulk.77
Walmart is known for its “everyday low prices,” but
critics say prices are not all that’s low at the retailer.
Individual employees, advocacy groups, and govern-
ment agencies have brought numerous labor-related
lawsuits against the company, scrutinizing its internal
values. Let’s take a closer look at what’s going on at
the massive retailer.
A SERIES OF WORKPLACE ABUSES
Walmart prides itself on its values. The retailer states that,
“We define culture as our values in action. It’s how we
deliver superior customer service, create a great front-
line work environment and improve performance . . .”
Moreover, Walmart’s stated values are centered on
being “guided by good,” which includes “respect for the
individual” and “acting with integrity.”78 Allegations
against the company suggest a different story.
Consider a report by a workers’ advocacy group that
says Walmart “routinely refuses to accept doctors’ notes,
penalizes workers who need to take care of a sick family
member and otherwise punishes employees for lawful
absences.” The report is based on a survey of more than
1,000 Walmart employees and accuses Walmart of vio-
lating the American with Disabilities Act and Family Med-
ical Leave Act, among other labor laws.79
Katie Orzehowski was a cashier at the Walmart in
North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, and completed the
employee survey. She suffered a miscarriage in 2016
and provided doctors’ notes and hospitalization
records to excuse her missed shifts, but the company
refused to excuse her absences. She was so worried
that another absence would get her fired that she
returned to work, while still in recovery. “I still had a lot
of bleeding going on, and that’s embarrassing,”
Orzehowski told The New York Times.80
Walmart’s focus on the bottom line over its
employees’ welfare didn’t end with those who suffered
from an illness. The Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC) filed a lawsuit against the retailer
in September 2018 alleging it unlawfully discriminated
against pregnant workers in Wisconsin. The complaint
was filed on behalf of Alyssa Gilliam, who became
pregnant in 2015. Gilliam requested light duty or trans-
fer to a less physically demanding job in which she
would avoid heavy lifting due to her pregnancy. The
company declined to accommodate her in any way,
including providing her with a chair, shorter work days,
or additional breaks. The EEOC alleges that Walmart
retaliated by cutting Gilliam’s benefits, reducing her
work hours, and eventually forcing her to take unpaid
leave. Interestingly, Walmart had a robust light duty
program that allowed workers with lifting restrictions to
be accommodated, “But Walmart deprived pregnant
workers of the opportunity to participate in [this] pro-
gram. This amounted to pregnancy discrimination,
which violates federal law,” said the EEOC.81
Gilliam wasn’t the only employee denied a chair.
Adam Catlin, who suffers from cerebral palsy, has been a
Walmart greeter in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, for almost
ten years. Catlin was told in 2019 that due to a change in
corporate policy, he would need to stand for his entire
eight-hour shift and lift up to 25 pounds or be fired. Cait-
lin’s mother urged Walmart customers on Facebook to
support her son. “I know corporate decisions are corpo-
rate decisions, if [that’s] where this originated from, but
does anyone ever make any decisions anymore by put-
ting any heart or care into it?” she wrote.82
WALMART’S ALLEGED BAIT
AND SWITCH
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon’s compensation for fiscal
2018 was $22.8 million, which is 1,188 times the
annual compensation of its median employee. In con-
trast, CEO pay at S&P firms averaged 361 times more
than the average employee in 2018.83 Overall, the
company “has been the defendant in scores of cases,
including class actions, or group suits, accusing the
company of wage-law violations,” according to Jona-
than Tasini, president of the Economic Future Group.84
Walmart decided to raise its minimum wage from
$10 to $11 in 2018. With much fanfare, CEO McMillon
stated, “Today, we are building on investments we’ve
been making in associates, in their wages and skills
development . . . It’s our people who make the differ-
ence and we appreciate how they work hard to make
every day easier for busy families.”85 Now consider
that Walmart closed dozens of its Sam’s Club ware-
houses on the same day it announced the pay
increases.86 This brings into question whether the
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Walmart’s Values Come under Scrutiny
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
74 PART 1 Individual Behavior
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and prob-
lems are generally viewed from a particular pro-
tagonist’s perspective. You need to determine
from whose perspective—employee, manager,
team, or the organization—you’re defining the
problem.
C. Use details in the case to identify the key prob-
lem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that
are not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a
problem? Answering this question helps refine
and focus your thinking. Focus on topics in the
current chapter, because we generally select
cases that illustrate concepts in the current
chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, which has been summarized
in the Organizing Framework shown in Figure 2.4.
Causes will tend to appear in either the Inputs box or
the Processes box.
A. Start by looking at Figure 2.4 to decide which
person factors, if any, are most likely causes of
the defined problem. For each cause, ask your-
self, Why is this a cause of the problem?
For example, if you think personal attitudes—an
input in the Organizing Framework—are a cause,
ask yourself why. This might lead you to the con-
clusion that Mayer’s attitudes about telecommut-
ing are related to her prior work experience.
This may have led her to make decisions that
are adversely affecting employees. Asking why
several times will lead you to a more complete
list of causes.
B. Follow the same process for the situation factors.
C. Because no processes were specifically dis-
cussed in this chapter, you can skip an analysis
of this component of the Organizing Framework.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem.
STEP 3: Make recommendations for solving the
problem. Consider whether you want to resolve
it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which
recommendation is desirable and feasible?
• Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use the material in
Chapter 2 (or in Chapter 1) to propose a solution.
• Find potential solutions in the OB in Action and
Applying OB boxes within the chapter. These fea-
tures provide insights into what other individuals or
companies are doing regarding the topic at hand.
• Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations.
retailer had positive intentions in raising employee
pay. The United Food and Commercial Workers Inter-
national Union, for example, called the wage increase
a “public relations stunt” meant to distract from the
closing of 63 stores.87 The closures resulted in approx-
imately 10,000 workers losing their jobs.88 The timing
of the announcement wasn’t the only issue as many
Sam’s Club employees had no idea their stores would
be closed until the day of the announcement. Accord-
ing to The Times, some workers showed up for work
only to be informed that their stores were closed.89
POOR JOB SATISFACTION IMPACTS
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Walmart’s minimum wage hikes may raise the pay of
some of its workers, but they may not be enough to
solve the retailer’s continued customer service prob-
lem, according to Forbes.90 Walmart’s American Cus-
tomer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) score dropped between
2016 and 2017. The ASCI measures the quality of
products and services American consumers receive by
major department and discount retailers. The drop
placed Walmart at the bottom of a list of department
and discount retailers (even below a bankrupt Sears).
Making Change at Walmart (MCAW), an organiza-
tion dedicated to transforming the lives of Walmart
employees, believes the company’s poor customer
service ratings are related to the way it treats its work-
ers. “Walmart lacks the ability to improve its customer
experience when it refuses to focus on what we all
know to be true—quality jobs create quality experi-
ences for both shoppers and workers,” says MCAW
director Randy Parraz.91 Walmart needs to do more for
its employees if it wants to improve their attitudes with
customers. For example, wages and benefits are so
poor at Walmart that thousands of its employees qual-
ify for food stamps, Medicaid, and other government
assistance programs, according to MCAW.92
Walmart says it has a “common purpose of saving
people money so they can live better.”93 It seems its
employees will need to live better as well if the com-
pany wants to continue its success.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcome box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 2.4 to identify the important
problem(s) in this case. Remember that a prob-
lem is a gap between a desired and a current
state. State your problem as a gap, and be sure
to consider problems at all three levels. If more
than one desired outcome is not being accom-
plished, decide which one is most important and
focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
75Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
What Should Management Do About
an Abusive Supervisor?
This challenge involves the behavior of Bernadine
Pearce. Pearce was the supervisor of Michelle
Ruppert, a clerk in the Office of the Tax Collector in the
Borough of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Pearce worked
at the local government for about 40 years.
Ruppert filed a lawsuit claiming that her boss and
the office allowed a hostile work environment to exist.
She had worked at the office for about three years at
the time of the suit.
The hostility allegedly began on Ruppert’s first day
at work. Upon arriving, Pearce showed her the “Wall of
Shame.” Placed conspicuously in the main office, it
contained a funeral urn with the “ashes of problem
employees.” Ruppert noted that it resembled “the way
Adolf Hitler treated the disabled and the Jews during
the Holocaust,” with “various nameplates of the
employees who were ‘exterminated’” or fired by
Pearce.
The lawsuit alleges that Pearce stated “that all per-
sonnel of her office should be ‘perfect humans,’ as she
believed she was.”94
Media reports about the situation allege that
“Pearce threw papers at Ruppert and called her a
‘waste of a human being,’ encouraged Pearce’s daugh-
ter and coworker to give Ruppert the middle finger,
and referred to Ruppert as a ‘mess up’ who should just
‘quit her job.’”95
Ruppert ultimately experienced stress and anxiety
and took sick leave for medical and psychiatric treat-
ment. When she returned to work, Ruppert alleges that
Pearce relocated her desk so that she had to look at
the Wall of Shame, which now contained her name
along with the others.96
Addressing the Challenge
What would you do if you were the manager responsi-
ble for the entire office?
1. Settle the lawsuit and allow Bernadine Pearce to
retire. While Pearce’s behavior is bad, she did
give the city 40 years of her life.
2. According to what we learned about counterpro-
ductive behavior, you would settle the lawsuit
and fire Pearce. Assuming the allegations are
accurate, Pearce’s behavior deserves to be
punished.
3. Settle the lawsuit and then retire because you
allowed this abusive situation to exist.
4. Fight the lawsuit. If nothing else, this may help
you reduce the payment that will be awarded to
Ruppert.
5. Invent other options.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 3-1 Distinguish individual differences based on their relative stability.
LO 3-2 Explain how multiple intelligences affect your performance.
LO 3-3 Illustrate ways in which personality can affect your performance at
school and work.
LO 3-4 Describe the impact of core self-evaluations on performance.
LO 3-5 Realize the benefits of emotional intelligence.
LO 3-6 Explain how understanding emotions makes people more effective.
LO 3-7 Describe the implications of individual differences and emotions for you
and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB shown in Figure 3.1 summarizes
the key concepts in Chapter 3. This chapter builds on Chapters 1 and 2 and explores numerous
additional person factors, such as intelligence, personality, proactive personality, self-efficacy,
self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional intelligence. We add to this an important individual-
level process—emotions. Personality and the other person factors are related not only to
emotions, but to a host of other processes and outcomes across levels in the Organizing
Framework. While reading this chapter pay attention to the way these person-factor inputs
influence individual-level outcomes, such as task performance, workplace attitudes ( job
satisfaction), well-being/flourishing, citizenship behaviors/counterproductive behaviors,
turnover, and career outcomes. These inputs might contribute to explaining group/team conflict
and performance, as well as organizational-level outcomes such as poor firm performance and
low customer satisfaction.
3 Individual Differences and Emotions
C
ai
a
Im
ag
e/
Im
ag
e
So
ur
ce
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
77Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
FIGURE 3.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
© 2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Intelligences
• Personality
• Proactive personality
• Core self-evaluations
• Self-efficacy
• Locus of control
• Self-esteem
• Emotional intelligence
Situation Factors
Individual Level
• Emotions
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
Organizational Level
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
Organizational Level
• Financial performance
• Survival
• Reputation
A seemingly infinite number of characteristics make us who we are as individuals. It therefore is helpful to organize these
individual differences so we can better understand and use them to manage people at work. One method is to categorize
characteristics in terms of their malleability. These photos illustrate this method. For instance, just by looking we can deter-
mine the gender of these two people. We also can approximate their ages. Your height and age are fixed traits, characteris-
tics we cannot change. These photos also show very different emotions. The woman appears to be surprised and the man
angry. Unlike height and age, our emotions can and do change easily and often. Managers can use that knowledge in mul-
tiple ways, such as selecting and hiring people on relatively fixed traits (intelligence), and training them on the appropriate
or most effective emotions to display with customers. (left): Ingram Publishing; (right): Gulfimages/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Winning at Work
Interview Questions I Should Prepare to Answer and ASK
What to Consider Asking
You of course will think of many questions of your own.
However, you are well served to consider including these
to gain important insights that will help you decide should
you receive an offer, and help you understand what to
expect if you accept. The questions you ask also provide
the interviewer with valuable insights about you.
1. “Why are you hiring for this job?” Is it a new position
due to growth, which could bode well for you, the
organization, and future opportunities? Or, are they
trying to fill an existing position due to a promotion
or turnover? It could be valuable to learn which—
promotions are good (you’ll likely want one yourself)
and if turnover is because the boss is a nightmare you
may want to reconsider, especially if it is a pattern.
2. “What is the career path?” Essentially you want to
know where do employees go after this role, what is
the next step? It’s likely you prefer to see opportunities
beyond this job, and asking this question can help you
learn whether that is the norm within the organization.
3. “What are the performance expectations and how are
they measured?” Clarity and specifics are preferred,
and wish-washy, unclear answers may be cause for
concern. You don’t want surprises when it comes time
for your performance review, as money, promotions,
and opportunities may be at stake.
4. “What do you like and dislike about working here?”
Just like the interviewer wants to know your strengths
and weaknesses, you want to know theirs. Do their
strengths align with or conflict with your interests, such
as development, teamwork, and collegiality?2
You’ve likely heard that interviews are a two-way street—
the prospective employer interviews you and vice versa.
And although the list of potential interview questions is lim-
itless, a combination of research, practice, and experience
from experts can help narrow the list and help you deter-
mine what to ask and how to prepare your resume.
What to Consider When Answering the
Following Questions
Many questions you can anticipate, some you can’t, but
either way the following should help. First, we provide the
questions or requests from the interviewer, followed by
what she or he presumably wants to know and how you
might respond.
1. “What are your strengths?” Identify two or three key
skills noted in the job description and provide exam-
ples. Also use your OB knowledge and consider shar-
ing some individual differences (Chapter 3) along with
a brief Illustration, such as: “I am an extrovert and
thrive in groups and teams.” Or, “I am a motivated and
skilled problem solver.” This book will definitely help.
2. “What are your weaknesses?” Don’t dare say, “My
strengths are my weaknesses,” “I work too hard,” or
“I’m a perfectionist.” Interviewers want to check you’re
honest, humble, and ensure you are motivated to work
on your weaknesses. Be honest without torpedoing
your opportunity. Whatever you choose, be sure to ex-
plain how you became aware of it and what you are
doing to address it.
3. “Describe yourself.” Two approaches to consider. One,
describe the professional path leading to where you
are now. What piqued your interests and how did your
studies or (work) experiences influence your path? Or,
you might pick 2 or 3 key attributes you possess and
explain how they will benefit the organization if hired.
4. “Tell me how you dealt with a challenge.” Interviewer
wants to learn how you deal with pressure and conflict.
Think of and describe a situation, task, action, and re-
sult (STAR method). Example situations to consider:
(a) difficult team member for a school project, sports team,
or at work; (b) pressure situation where you performed
well; or (c) met a tight and consequential deadline.
5. “Describe your dream job.” The prospective employer
is trying to determine fit, that is, do your interests align
with the job and organization for which you are inter-
viewing. Accordingly, be sure whatever you choose is
relevant to and emphasizes both what you would re-
ceive from the “dream job” and what you would pro-
vide. Put differently, the dream job is not all about you.
Also explain what the employer would get in return.1
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
In this chapter you’ll explore individual differences
(IDs), which are the many attributes that distinguish
all of us from one another. Recognizing and under-
standing IDs is critical to effectively applying OB
knowledge and tools. For managers, it is fundamen-
tal to attracting, motivating, retaining, and improving
the performance of others.
Your exploration of IDs begins with an explana-
tion of the relative stability of these differences. Next,
you’ll delve into a subset of individual differences
researchers have found to be particularly important
in the work context: (1) intelligence, (2) cognitive
abilities, (3) personality, (4) core self-evaluations,
(5) attitudes (also covered in Chapter 2), and
(6) emotions (including emotional intelligence).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
79Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You undoubtedly notice that your friends behave differently in different situations, whether in
class, watching a sporting event, cramming for an exam, or coping with a new job. However,
what you probably don’t pay much attention to are the characteristics and behaviors that
don’t change. To help you understand and use this knowledge, we’ll arrange the individual
attributes on a continuum based on their relative stability. At one end are relatively fixed or
stable traits (like intelligence), and at the other end are more flexible states (like emotions),
with various trait-like and state-like characteristics in between.
3.1 THE DIFFERENCES MATTER
Individual differences (IDs) are the many attributes, such as traits and behaviors,
that describe each of us as a person. IDs are a big part of what gives each of us our
unique identities, and are fundamental to the understanding and application of OB. So,
what is it that makes us different? Is it our genetics or our environment? The answer is
both.3 And while the way you are raised, along with your experiences and opportunities,
helps shape who you are, a large volume of research on twins suggests genetics matters
more. But what is more important at work is recognizing the many attributes that make us
unique individuals, regardless of whether they are due to nature or nurture.
To help you understand and apply the knowledge you will gain about IDs, we organize
and discuss them according to Figure 3.2.
On the left-hand side of Figure 3.2 we arrange individual differences on a contin-
uum. At the top of the continuum are intelligence and cognitive abilities, which are
relatively fixed. This means they are stable over time and across situations and are dif-
ficult to change. At the bottom are attitudes (which we discussed in Chapter 2) and
emotions, which are relatively flexible. Emotions change over time and from situation
to situation, and thus can be altered more easily. To elaborate, you aren’t more or less
intelligent at school than you are at work or home, although your emotions commonly
change within and between all these places. Both your intelligence and emotions, as
well as many other individual characteristics influence the many outcomes included in
the right side of Figure 3.2.
The distinction between relatively fixed and flexible individual differences has great
practical value. Wise managers know they have little or no impact on fixed IDs. You can’t
change an employee’s level of intelligence or remake an employee’s personality.4 But you
can help employees manage their attitudes and emotions. For instance, many effective
managers (and their employers) select employees based on positive, job-relevant, but rela-
tively stable IDs. This hiring strategy enables managers to capitalize on the personal
strengths someone brings to a job because these stable strengths affect behavior and
performance in almost every work situation.5 Intelligence and analytical abilities, for
example, are beneficial in front of customers, in teams with coworkers, and when working
alone on a project.
In contrast, managers can have greater influence on the relationships between relatively
flexible IDs and individual-level work outcomes, like performance and job satisfaction.
They can do this by implementing policies that raise employees’ core self-evaluations,
attitudes, and emotions. For example, as a manager you’ll likely see better results from
Distinguish individual
differences based on
their relative stability.
LO 3-1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
80 PART 1 Individual Behavior
assigning work with new products and new markets to employees who are open to experi-
ence than to employees with low levels of this attribute. Similarly, you could help build
new employees’ confidence about selling to tough customers if you role-model how to do
this effectively, give them experience presenting to easy customers first, and provide verbal
encouragement before and constructive feedback after.
Managers are wise to pay attention to the effect of employee attitudes and emotions
on turnover. Low job satisfaction and high negative emotions can predict which employees
are likely to quit. Thankfully, however, attitudes and emotions can be changed more easily
than other IDs. You can apply the same knowledge in reverse during job interviews, to
help determine whether you’d like to work for that person. Read the following Applying
OB box and find out how.
Environment/External Context
Organizational/Internal Context
Important Individual
Di�erences at Work
• Intelligence
• Cognitive abilities
• Personality
• Core self-evaluations
> Self-efficacy
> Self-esteem
> Locus of control
> Emotional stability
• Attitudes
• Emotions
Individual-Level
Work Outcomes
• Job performance
• Job satisfaction
• Turnover
• Organizational citizenship
behaviors
• Counterproductive
work behaviors
Relatively
Fixed
Relatively
Flexible
FIGURE 3.2 Relative Stability of Individual Differences
Applying OB
And if it is you should be concerned that they have
(bad) manager issues.
We encourage you to look out for potential “bad”
bosses, and to help in that endeavor we describe four
common types:
• Marionette managers are puppets to their own
bosses or to the organization. They don’t challenge
You may have heard “People quit managers, not their
jobs or companies.” Of course, employees quit for a
host of reasons, but managers are a major one for
most. A Gallup poll of more than 1 million employees
who quit revealed 75% did so because of their bosses,
not the job itself.6 This means you should do your best
to determine if turnover is an issue at any prospective
employer, especially in the area in which you will work.
Does Your Potential Boss Get the Job?
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
81Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3 81Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Next, let’s discuss an individual difference which has historically received consider-
able attention at school and less at work—intelligence.
Don’t wear rose-colored glasses and overlook red
flags, but don’t be overly harsh either. Finding a
boss willing to be a real advocate and champion
for you and your career is invaluable. Make a list of
your prospective boss’s pros and cons and review
it honestly.
3. Learn what is expected of you. Learning what the
job entails seems obvious but is often overlooked.
Ask, “What are your key expectations of me?” And,
“If I’m a top performer, which I expect to be, what
should my track record look like in 30, 60, or
90 days?” Ask, “How do people get ahead here?
How do they fall behind?”
4. Ask where others have gone. Assuming your
manager has been in the position for a while, he
or she has likely managed other employees in
the position for which you are interviewing. Ask:
“Where have others you’ve managed gone?” You
want to know whether they have been promoted
or quit the organization. The first is encouraging,
the second a potential red flag. It may be a sign
of a miserable boss, or at least one who is not
especially developmental.
5. Meet people like you. Do what you can to meet and
learn from other employees—those doing the same
job today or in the recent past. Sometimes you can
find information online, and other times the compa-
ny’s interview process may provide opportunities to
meet and interact with these employees. Learn what
was good, bad, ugly. Ask, “If you were me, what
would you want to know?” And, “If I’m going to be
successful, then what do I need to do and not do
with this person as my manager?” You may not get
much detail, but it is worth trying to learn this infor-
mation. Your own future may depend on it.
any policies or practices and won’t stand up for
you. They are loyal to themselves, not you, and
follow orders and expect you to do the same.
• King Kong managers feel superior to you and
other subordinates; they have reached the top and
expect you to bow down.
• Keeping with the superiority theme, Superman
bosses believe the world and everyone in it (you)
revolves around them. They are the best and thus
most qualified to make decisions. And making
matters worse, they not only feel entitled to recog-
nition and credit, they will steal it if possible.
• Then, there are Taskmasters who micromanage
and often suffocate and kill employee creativity.
They are consumed with bottom line results and
will grind you up to achieve them.7
Now that we’ve described several versions of night-
mare bosses, we offer the following tips and questions
to help you learn whether the interviewer is worthy of
being your manager.
1. Determine what you want. If you simply want a
job or aren’t sure what you want in a job and where
you want it to lead, you are obviously more likely
to accept a position with a bad boss. To gain more
clarity about your boss, ask yourself what kind of
relationship you want with him or her. Do you want
someone hands-on, nurturing, and developmental?
Or do you want a boss who is hands-off and will let
you do your own thing? Asking these questions is
a critical first step in evaluating your potential new
boss.
2. Look for good and bad. While signing on with a
bad boss can make you miserable, missing the
opportunity to work with a good boss is costly too.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
82 PART 1 Individual Behavior
3.2 INTELLIGENCES: THERE IS MORE
TO THE STORY THAN IQ
Although experts do not agree on a specific definition, many say intelligence represents
an individual’s capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving.
Most people think of intelligence in terms of intelligence quotient or IQ, the famous score
on tests we often take as children. Many people view intelligence and IQ as one big attri-
bute of brainpower. However, intelligence, intelligence testing (for IQ), and related research
are more complex.
The concept of intelligence has expanded over the years and is now thought of and
discussed in terms of general mental abilities. People are different in terms of such abilities,
but this isn’t what is important at work. What is important is to understand intelligence or
mental abilities in order to manage people more effectively. Put another way, the reason we
highlight intelligence and mental abilities is they are related to performance at work.8 This
section provides a brief overview of intelligence and mental abilities and highlights practical
implications.
Intelligence Matters . . . and
You Have More Than You Might Think
Historically, intelligence was believed to be purely genetic—passed from one genera-
tion to another—you were either born “smart” or not. Do you agree with this belief?
What are the implications of believing intelligence is a gift of birth? Regardless of
your personal views, research has shown intelligence, like personality, can be altered
or modified in several ways.9 Think about it. No matter who you are or where your
starting point in education or experience is, if you engage in more constructive
thinking, reasoning, and problem solving, you will get better at these skills. You’ll be
more intelligent. If you buy this argument, then after reading this book and studying
OB you’ll be more intelligent due to the practice in critical thinking and problem
solving you’ll gain.
Am I More Intelligent than My Parents? If you answer yes to this question,
research may support your claim. A steady and significant rise in average intelligence
among those in developed countries has been observed over the last 70 years. Why?
Experts at an American Psychological Association conference concluded, “Some combi-
nation of better schooling, improved socioeconomic status, healthier nutrition, and a more
technologically complex society might account for the gains in IQ scores.”10 If you think
you’re smarter than your parents and your teachers, despite them saying you don’t know
important facts they do, you’re probably right!
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You may be smarter than you think. You may already know your IQ, and your grades may
reflect intellectual intelligence. But you can be intelligent in other ways too. We explain vari-
ous forms of intelligence because all are inputs to the Organizing Framework, and all affect
your performance.
Explain how multiple
intelligences affect
your performance.
LO 3-2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
83Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Multiple Intelligences (MI) While many people think of intelligence in general terms,
such as IQ, it is more common and more practical to think in terms of multiple intelligences,
or an intelligence for something specific. Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard’s Gradu-
ate School of Education, investigated the nature of intelligence for years and summarized his
findings in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of
Multiple Intelligences.12 The eight intelligences he identi-
fied, listed in Table 3.1, include not only mental abilities
but social and physical abilities and skills as well.
EXAMPLE Named one of the Top 50 Women in
Tech before turning 30, Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon is
the cofounder and CEO of Stemettes which helps
girls develop and realize their potential in science,
technology, engineering, and math—STEM, Ste-
mettes, get it? Clever. To help inspire and guide
teenaged girls, she and her company have devel-
oped apps and created mentoring programs and
collaborations with large multi-national tech and
media companies, such as Salesforce and BBC.
Imafidon’s intelligence in notable, as she is the
youngest girl ever to pass A-level computing (age
11) and one of the youngest to earn a computer
science masters from Oxford University.15 But this
belies her introversion. In an interview she said,
“My dream in life is to be a hermit. Clubbing,
festivals, and travelling are too much. . . . If I’m
there it’s for other people, not me. I’d rather spend
a quiet night in front of the TV.”16
Many believe the concept of multiple intelligences
has important implications for employee selection,
training, and performance. For example, one-size-fits-all
Mayim Bialik not only plays a neuroscientist on the blockbuster TV show The Big Bang Theory, but she actually has a PhD from UCLA (she
also was accepted to Harvard and Yale). Reports put her IQ between 150 and 163. Matt Damon has a similarly impressive IQ of 160. It
would seem the brainpower of his character in Good Will Hunting didn’t require much “acting.”11 (left): Amanda Edwards/WireImage/Getty Images;
(right): Michel Euler/AP Images
Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon was names one of the Top 50 Women
in Tech before turning 30. Stuart C. Wilson/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
84 PART 1 Individual Behavior
training programs often fall short when diversity of intelligences is taken into consider-
ation. When clinical training for undergraduate nursing students was designed to draw
upon and apply their eight intelligences, for example, they acquired greater proficiency in
clinical skills. This type of training also enabled them to utilize and develop interpersonal
intelligence, extremely important for effective patient care.17
Near the end of this chapter, you will encounter the concept of emotional intelligence,
which managers can apply for employee selection and other purposes. Future break-
throughs in the area of multiple intelligences will attract more OB researchers and practic-
ing managers.
Practical Intelligence We can draw practical benefits from Gardner’s notion of mul-
tiple intelligences. For instance, Cornell University’s Robert J. Sternberg applied Gard-
ner’s “naturalist intelligence” to the domain of leadership under the heading practical
intelligence. He explains: “ Practical intelligence is the ability to solve everyday prob-
lems by utilizing knowledge gained from experience in order to purposefully adapt
to, shape, and select environments. It involves changing oneself to suit the environment
(adaptation), changing the environment to suit oneself (shaping), or finding a new
TABLE 3.1 Gardner’s Eight Intelligences
TYPE OF INTELLIGENCE EXAMPLE
Linguistic intelligence: potential to learn
and use spoken and written languages.
Madeline Johnson, CEO of marketing and PR firm Market Council,
speaks Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, along with her native English.
She consults for multinational companies, and linguistic intelligence
enables her to develop richer and more productive relationships
quicker.13
Logical-mathematical intelligence: poten-
tial for deductive reasoning, problem
analysis, and mathematical calculation.
Did this intelligence help or hurt you on your college entrance
exam?
Musical intelligence: potential to appre-
ciate, compose, and perform music.
Do you play the drums? Have you heard Marco Minnemann?
He is widely considered a virtuoso drummer, one of the best
on the planet. If you were to measure this form of intelligence,
Minneman’s musical intelligence score would likely be very high.
Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: potential
to use mind and body to coordinate
physical movement.
Serena Williams, tennis player extraordinaire, says her mind helps
her realize her tremendous physical talent.
Spatial intelligence: potential to
recognize and use patterns.
Fighter pilots are excellent examples of people gifted with spatial
intelligence.
Interpersonal intelligence: potential to
understand, connect with, and effec-
tively work with others.
Compare Warren Buffett (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway) to Larry
Ellison (former CEO of Oracle). Critics see the first as approach-
able and friendly, the second as arrogant.
Intrapersonal intelligence: potential to
understand and regulate yourself.
As the only woman assistant general manager of an NBA team,
Kelly Krauskopf must have enormous self-awareness and control
to endure the constant criticism and conflict in the job and for
being a woman in that job.
Naturalist intelligence: potential to live
in harmony with your environment.
Rose Marcario, the CEO of clothing and outdoor sports retailer
Patagonia, supports the company’s famous ad—“don’t buy this
jacket.” The company has a long tradition of environmental
responsibility in which it encourages customers not to buy more
than they need to limit the strain on Earth’s resources.14
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
85Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
environment within which to work (selection).
One uses these skills to (a) manage oneself,
(b) manage others, and (c) manage tasks.”18
EXAMPLE Attorney Elizabeth Cabraser has
led some of the largest class-action lawsuits
of our time, such as against big tobacco,
makers of silicone breast implants, BP (for
the Deepwater Horizon oil spill), and Toyota,
GM, Takata, and VW for safety violations.
Cabraser is an introvert and soft-spoken in
court and outside of work. Her acclaim and
success undoubtedly reflect considerable
practical intelligence. Her success in class-
action suits highlights her linguistic as well
as intra- and interpersonal intelligences.
These skills help immensely both in and out of court with clients and other attorneys.
She also appears to have considerable musical intelligence; in college she played
drums and toured with bands. But now she plays and collects drums only in her
spare time.19
Practical Implications
Many educators and parents have embraced the idea of multiple intelligences because it
helps explain how a child could score poorly on a standard IQ test yet be obviously gifted
in other ways such as music, sports, or relationship building. It then follows we need to
help each child develop in his or her own unique way and pace. Many people make the
same arguments about college students and employees, but what is important as a matter
of practice is to identify intelligences relevant to the job, and then to select, place, and
develop individuals accordingly.
The Business of Brain Training The interest in improving intelligence goes far
beyond children and school. A number of companies, including Lumosity, Cogfit, and
Elevate are in the business of brain training, claiming that adult intelligence can be
increased by playing the company’s games. Like other games, players improve their perfor-
mance on these brain games over time, and some have also improved scores on IQ and
other related tests.
Proof Is Lacking Researchers, however, recommend caution. More research refutes
the improvement claims made by such companies than supports them.20 In fact, the Fed-
eral Trade Commission fined Lumosity $2 million for falsely claiming its training could
prevent memory loss, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.21 The links between IQ and
performance in school and on the job are also inconclusive. Part of the criticism is because
IQ tests measure things taught in school, like linguistics (language) and analytics (math).
This means if you do well in school, you’re likely to do well on the test and vice versa
(we’re testing what is taught and teaching what is tested).22
What We Know Improving intelligence through training is difficult, and you are well
served to consider carefully before investing your time, money, or energy. But if you’re
going to do it, experts say in order to be effective such training needs three characteristics:
1. Adaptive. In intellectual training, much like physical training, improvement occurs
when you exert yourself just beyond your limits. Easy should be avoided; constant and
increasing challenge is what you need.
2. Variety. Given you have multiple intelligences, you’ll need a variety of activities to
improve. Memory, for instance, involves multiple areas of your brain which is why it is
Class action attorney Elizabeth Cabraser epitomizes the concept of
multiple intelligences. Jeff Chiu/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
86 PART 1 Individual Behavior
best to include a host of stimuli (e.g., sights and sounds) to improve it. Training only
your mathematical skills will improve just your mathematical skills, not your linguistic
intelligence or more general IQ.
3. Generalizability. Most games and intelligence tests do not involve what you actually do
in your job or everyday life. Therein lies the problem—you improve on a game or a test,
but it has no relevance or impact on your performance at work. This is part of the
reason why in 2014 more than 70 scientists “signed a statement warning consumers
about commercial ‘brain training’ programs.” Because you improve on the games
doesn’t mean you’re smarter or will be a better performer at school or work.23
Regardless of your personal view on the practical value of intelligence at school or
work, the following OB in Action box offers an interesting illustration of how intelligence
testing is used in professional sports.
Intelligence in its various forms is important because
of its link to performance. Research and experience
do not always support this link—the smartest are not
necessarily the best performers in any arena. How-
ever, most believe it influences performance enough
to test and select candidates based on IQ and other
measures of intelligence. Perhaps you should con-
sider it too.
Intelligence Testing in Football Not only does the
National Football League have an intelligence test
for players, but it has been using it since the
1970s! The Dallas Cowboys began the practice
with the popular Wonderlic test (50 questions with
a 12-minute time limit). The test is administered at
the Combine where new recruits are “interviewed”
to assess physical and intellectual capabilities.
Player scores are one factor considered by teams
in the draft.
Only one player has had a perfect score so
far—wide receiver Pat McInally of the Cincinnati
Bengals from 1976 to 1985. Quarterback Ryan
Fitzpatrick seemingly has “smarts” no matter how
you measure it. He scored 48 on the Wonderlic (the
third-best score of all time), completed the test in
the shortest time ever and also scored 1580 out of
1600 on his SAT.24
Smarts aren’t limited to QBs. Sam Acho, a line-
backer in the NFL, speaks three languages and was
awarded the Campbell Trophy for college football’s
top scholar-athlete when he attended the University
of Texas.25 Christian Wilkins, while a defensive line-
man at Clemson also won this award, and he finished
his bachelor’s degree in only two and half years—
and completed a masters too!26
New Test and Other Sports Multiple NFL, NBA,
and MLB teams have recently trialed a new test—the
Athletic Intelligence Quotient (AIQ). This test
assesses how fast a player can acquire, process, and
apply information. The idea or hope is these charac-
teristics are better predictors of performance in
sports, compared to a more general aptitude test
such as the Wonderlic.27 Baker Mayfield was
reported to have the second highest score of the 63
college quarterbacks who have now taken the AIQ.28
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. If you were a coach of a professional sports
team would you favor intelligence testing? Why
or why not?
2. Assume your employer uses such tests, and you
are a hiring manager, how much weight would
you give intellectual intelligence? Explain.
3. If you owned your own company justify both why
you would and why would not use intelligence
tests in the hiring process.
Smarts and Performance in Sports
OB in Action
Let’s now explore the ever-popular way that distinguishes people at work and in life—
personality.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
87Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Personality is the combination of relatively stable physical, behavioral, and mental
characteristics that gives individuals their unique identities. These characteristics or
traits—including the way we look, think, act, and feel—are the product of interacting genetic
and environmental influences and are stable over time and across situations and cultures.29
Personality is a person input in the Organizing Framework.
Karen Sparck Jones was a highly regarded scientist whose work in the 1960s and 70s
laid the foundation for search engines decades later. She was a self-taught programmer
who combined statistics and linguistics to help computers interpret words. Jones was an
advocate for women in science, fond of sailing, and wore a similar “uniform” most days—
jeans, sweater, and a blouse.
There Is More to Personality Than Liking and Fit
Like most people, you may often think of personality in terms of whether you like or dislike
someone. For instance, if you’re asked to describe your professor for this class you might
say: “She’s great. I love her personality.” Or if asked to describe your boss you might say:
“He’s a difficult individual, he’s unethical, many of his colleagues won’t associate with him,
and he is widely disrespected and should be fired.” If you are recruiting someone for a job
(or your fraternity or sorority) you might say: “I really like his/her personality . . . I think
he/she will fit in great with the rest of us.”
What Can I Do with “Like”? While “liking” and “fit” matter (recall our discussion
of fit from Chapter 2), these general and evaluative types of descriptions aren’t very useful
from a management standpoint. If you think of personality only in these terms, then what
type of guidance would you give your recruiters for hiring new employees? “Go find people
you like and be sure they fit” won’t take you very far. And because you like someone
doesn’t mean you should hire that person, he or she will perform well, or he or she will be
a good addition to your organization.
Be Precise to Be Effective To be effective at managing people you need to be
more precise and scientific about personality. This challenge has motivated a tremen-
dous amount of research about personality in psychology and in OB and provides
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You probably feel you know yourself better than anyone else, but you’re about to learn some
tools that will help you see how others perceive you. One such tool is the Big Five personality
profile, which summarizes hundreds of personality traits into five categories. Another useful
approach centers on proactivity. These tools will help you understand the managerial impli-
cations of other people’s views of you. We explore these topics because personality is a fun-
damental driver of your behavior and performance at work, and an important input in the
Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.
3.3 PERSONALITY, OB, AND MY EFFECTIVENESS
Illustrate ways in
which personality
can affect your
performance at
school and work.
LO 3-3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
88 PART 1 Individual Behavior
specific definitions of what personality is, provides tools to measure it, and data as to
the effect it has on important processes and outcomes across all levels of the Organiz-
ing Framework.
The Big Five Personality Dimensions
Defining something as complex as personality is a challenge. Fortunately, psychologists
and researchers have simplified this work into the Big Five Personality Dimensions:
extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and open-
ness to experience.30 Table 3.2 details the five personality dimensions. For example,
someone scoring high on extroversion will be an extrovert—outgoing, talkative, sociable,
and assertive. Someone scoring low on emotional stability will likely be nervous, tense,
angry, and worried.
A person’s scores on the Big Five reveal a personality profile as unique as their finger-
prints. To discover your own Big Five profile, complete Self-Assessment 3.1 and you’ll
learn there is more to personality than being likable or fitting in. This Self-Assessment will
increase your self-awareness and illustrate some of the concepts described. Many compa-
nies use personality profiles for hiring and promotions, so your profile should provide
practical insights.
TABLE 3.2 Characteristics of Persons Scoring High on the Five Dimensions
THE BIG FIVE PERSONALITY
DIMENSIONS PERSONALITY CHARACTERISTIC
1. Extroversion Outgoing, talkative, sociable, assertive
2. Agreeableness Trusting, good-natured, cooperative, softhearted
3. Conscientiousness Dependable, responsible, achievement-oriented,
persistent
4. Emotional stability Relaxed, secure, unworried
5. Openness to experience Intellectual, imaginative, curious, broad-minded
SOURCE: Barrick, Murray R., and Michael K. Mount. “Autonomy as a Moderator of the Relationships between the Big Five
Personality Dimensions and Job Performance.” Journal of Applied Psychology 78, no. 1 (February 1993): 111–18.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.78.1.111.
What Is My Big Five Personality Profile?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 3.1 in Connect.
1. What are your reactions? Do you agree with the scores on your Big Five profile?
2. Which dimension(s) is (are) your highest? In which situations would they be most
beneficial?
3. Which one or two dimensions do you think are likely the best predictors of man-
agerial success? Which is the least? Explain.
4. What are the implications of your Big Five profile for working in teams at school
or work?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.1 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
89Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
One important question lingers: Are personality models unique to the culture in which
they were developed? Cross-cultural research on the Big Five suggests the answer is no.
Specifically, the Big Five personality structure held up very well in a study of women and
men from Russia, Canada, Hong Kong, Poland, Germany, and Finland.31 As a comprehen-
sive analysis of Big Five studies revealed, “To date, there is no compelling evidence that
culture affects personality structure.”32
Hail the Introverts
Personality is not monolithic. Every person is a combination of the various dimensions—
no one is 100 percent of one and zero of the others. This means, for instance, you and
everyone else has some amount of introversion. Unfortunately, however, introverts get a
bad rap in terms of performance and often are stereotyped and seen as less effective than
extroverts or those who are conscientious. (You’ll learn much more about stereotyping and
perceptions more generally in Chapter 4.)
If this is your own view, you have more to learn. Founders of some of the most
iconic tech companies of all time—Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg—are
perceived as introverts, and yet their accomplishments are legendary. Regardless of your
own level of introversion, the nearby Applying OB box provides guidance on how to
thrive as an introvert.
You could be on the Supreme Court! Ruth Bader Ginsburg is a self-described introvert,
and given what we know about her work and what those who know her personally have
shared, it is safe to assume she is highly conscientious,
intelligent, and open to experience. These seemingly
would be very beneficial traits in a Supreme Court
justice. Her impact on gender equality and the legal
history of America cannot be overstated, as are her
many accomplishments. She was one of the first nine
women admitted to Harvard Law School, made the
Law Review in her first year, but despite these accom-
plishments had difficulties getting a job.33 She
obviously overcame these challenges and eventually
made it to the highest court in the land, and since
then has overcome multiple bouts of cancer.34 It cer-
tainly seems like introversion didn’t get in her way.
Proactive Personality
A proactive personality is an attribute of someone “relatively unconstrained by
situational forces and who effects environmental change. Proactive people identify
opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take action, and persevere until
meaningful change occurs.”35 In short, people with proactive personalities are
hard-wired to change the status quo. It is no surprise this particular individual difference
has received growing attention from both researchers and managers. Think about it.
Companies, and their managers, routinely say they want employees who take initiative and
are adaptable, as today’s hypercompetitive and fast-changing workplace requires such
characteristics.
Research shows those with proactive personalities positively influence many of the
work outcomes shown in Figure 3.2 (and later in Figure 3.5). For example, proactivity is
related to increased performance, satisfaction, affective organizational commitment (genu-
ine desire to remain a member of an organization), and social networking.36 Particularly
interesting is the finding that those with proactive personalities tend to increase the sup-
portiveness of their supervisors (a true benefit), and they also modify their work situations
so they have more control. You likely are not thinking of retirement yet, but if you have a
proactive personality then you will be more likely to be satisfied in your retirement, regard-
less of whether you were satisfied with your career or not.37
The iconic Supreme Court member’s life has been chronicled
on TV and in movies, providing vivid insight into her
personality. TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
90 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Proactive Managers What about your manager? An interesting study showed the
ideal scenario is for both you and your manager to be proactive. This results in a better fit
and better relationship between the two of you, and it also increases your level of job per-
formance, job satisfaction, and affective commitment.39 The same study also showed that
the worst scenario in terms of performance was low proactivity for both you and your
manager, followed by a highly proactive manager and a low proactivity follower. Employers
are well-served to value and seek out employees and managers with high levels of proactive
personality.
Given these insights, how proactive do you believe you are? How might you increase
your proactivity? To help answer these questions, learn about your own proactivity, and
explore the potential benefits for you by completing Self-Assessment 3.2.
Applying OB
language, and interactions are maxed out, realize
that if you were an extrovert, you’d probably be
playing at only 7 instead of 10. Your perception of
intense and loud is lower than what others will
perceive. (Soliciting feedback, which is discussed
in Chapter 6, is a good way of calibrating your
intensity.)
3. Play to your strengths. Because engaging others
is typically quite draining for introverts, it is a good
idea to talk about and stick to topics you know and
care about. This will enable you to naturally feel
more energized and comfortable.
4. Get team practice. Join a team. Whether you join
a recreational sports team or a club of some sort,
being a member will help you practice and become
comfortable with interacting with others. If it is a
non-work team, the pressure and stress of work
won’t be part of the experience, making it easier to
engage. This will help build your skills for when
they really count—at work!38
Having an introverted personality is an individual dif-
ference that you, Larry Page, J. K. Rowling, Rosa Parks,
Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and many other success-
ful people share. Regardless of your own level of suc-
cess, you can benefit from the advice of Russ Fujioka,
entrepreneur and former president of the Americas
for cloud accounting company Xero. Fujioka is a self-
proclaimed and successful introvert.
1. Be self-aware. Be aware that introverts can be
perceived as disinterested or aloof when they
seem less engaged in conversations and social
interactions. They may or may not be disinter-
ested, of course, but are more likely to show it if
they are. And in business situations, they must
make the effort necessary to appear interested
and force themselves to be engaged.
2. Calibrate your intensity. When engaging others,
especially groups of people or teams at work, try
to push your personal intensity level to 10 on a
10-point scale. If you feel your volume, body
How to Thrive as an Introvert
How Proactive Am I?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 3.2 in Connect.
1. Do you see a pattern among the questions on which you scored the highest?
The lowest?
2. What are the implications of your highest-scoring answers for your success in
school? In other words, how can these aspects of your proactivity help you?
3. How can knowledge of your proactive personality score help you when you
look for a job? Be specific.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.2 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
91Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Proactivity and Entrepreneurs Besides leading to increases in job performance, job
satisfaction, and affective commitment (as discussed in Chapter 2), proactive personality
is also linked to intentions to be entrepreneurial. This really should not be surprising, but
it is helpful to know that scientific OB research substantiates this belief. Building on this,
we can say employees with proactive personalities are more likely to be engaged (again, see
Chapter 2) and creative at work.40
Successful entrepreneurs often exemplify proactive personality. Consider Dan Goldie,
former professional tennis player and successful financial adviser. Goldie’s youthful passion
was tennis and his talent led him to junior championship titles, a scholarship at Stanford,
and a ranking of 27th on the pro tour. Now he considers himself more successful at manag-
ing money than he ever was at tennis. Impressive to be sure.
Perhaps the more interesting aspect of Goldie’s story is that proactivity has been a hall-
mark of his entire journey. He knew he wanted to attend college and the only way to pay for it
was with a scholarship. He trained, competed, and earned it. He dreamed of playing profession-
ally, so he looked at colleges with top tennis programs (like Stanford). He valued money and
turned professional as soon as possible. Realizing he
would not be a top player and tennis would not last for-
ever, he completed an MBA while on tour. He utilized
his standing to associate with and learn about finance
from top professionals in that industry. Later he lever-
aged his tennis relationships to land some of his first and
most significant clients as a money manager.41
Another entrepreneurial example is Sal Khan’s
Khan Academy. Now world famous, this organization
provides Internet-based learning for nearly every scho-
lastic subject under the sun. Here’s how it started.
Khan, who has three graduate degrees, offered to help
his cousin with one of her classes via the Internet. She
learned, the word spread, and a company was born.
Khan Academy now has 18 million monthly users,
more than 150 employees, and its courses are trans-
lated into 36 languages.42
Fascinating statistics, shown in Table 3.3, highlight other notable individual differences
of entrepreneurs. How do you match up?
TABLE 3.3 Taking the Measure of Entrepreneurs
40 Average and median age
95.1% Have bachelor’s degrees
47% Have advanced degrees
71.5% Come from middle-class backgrounds
< 1% Come from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds
70% Used own savings as major source of funding
42.5% Were firstborn
3.1 Average number of siblings
51.9% First in family to start a business
69.9% Married when they launched first business
59.7% Had at least one child
73% Think luck is an important factor in the success of their venture
SOURCE: The Wall Street Journal. “By the Numbers: Taking the Measure of Entrepreneurs.” November 12, 2012.
Sal Khan’s influence in online learning is epic. It is likely that a
number of his individual differences (e.g., intelligence and
proactivity) contribute to his entrepreneurial success.
Larry Busacca/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
92 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Table 3.3 contains only averages. Even if you don’t possess these qualities, you can still
succeed as an entrepreneur. To help make this point, let’s explore the link between person-
ality and performance.
The Dark Side of Personality
Most of the individual differences covered in this book are positive or desirable, and
Chapter 7 is devoted entirely to Positive Organizational Behavior. However, there are
three individual differences that are universally considered undesirable, as they nega-
tively affect outcomes across individual, group, and organizational levels: narcis-
sism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism. These are referred to as the Dark
Triad ,43 but before saying any more, it is important to note at least the first two are
considered clinically as personality disorders, which is not our interest here, but
instead it is the prevalence and consequences at work that is our concern. That said,
you may have already encountered people with one or more of these traits, and when
this happens in the form of a manager, colleague, partner, advisor, or mentor the
effects can be devastating. Let’s explore in a bit of detail and learn how to identify if
not also avoid them.
Narcissists are characterized as (1) having a grandiose sense of self-importance;
(2) requiring or even demanding excessive admiration; (3) having a sense of entitle-
ment; (4) lacking empathy; and (5) tending to be exploitative, manipulative, and
arrogant.44 Although most OB research investigates this trait in leaders (Chapter 14),
narcissists inhabit every arena of our lives and at all levels and positions at work. Part of
the problem with narcissists is they can be charismatic or even charming to many, reach
high levels of status in organizations, especially in the short term, but once something is at
stake for them, they can turn and throw you to the curb.
How do you identify a narcissist? For one, pay attention to your emotions—how do
they make you feel? These people can prop you up with praise to win you over (manipula-
tion), but then they make you feel stupid or inadequate. Narcissists are good at making you
feel that all problems or bad outcomes are your fault, and their contributions are the most
significant or valuable. Second, pay attention to what they do more than what they say.
They can say good things about you then throw you under the bus. Remember, they are
skilled at making themselves look good and viewed in a favorable light, so they may not
show their true colors in a group setting. Third, someone else is always the target of blame.
You will rarely hear a narcissist say, “I was wrong, it was my fault,” especially if the out-
comes are consequential and may make them look bad.45
Psychopaths can be aggressive and lack concern for others, guilt, or
remorse when their own actions do others harm. The key here is when they harm
others. Research shows psychopaths are likely to engage in and cause counterproduc-
tive work behaviors (CWBs from Chapter 2) and damage morale of those with whom
they work.46 One way to identify such people, for example, a prospective boss or busi-
ness partner, is to learn about their relationships over time. Does he or she have any
or many true long-term friends? What about people they’ve managed or led in some
meaningful way over time, are these relationships still intact, do these people speak
fondly of this person? Like narcissism, you need to beware, as this trait can be difficult
to detect. Psychopaths may use words that suggest empathy and concern, but they are
a false front.
Machiavellians believe the ends justify the means, often maintain emotional
distance, and are manipulative. These individuals may climb the corporate ladder quite
quickly, but they rarely make or keep friends along the way. Like the other traits, they show
little regard for you or others beyond your benefit or value to achieving their goals. They
also are prone to more CWBs and rarely succeed over time.
Employees with one or more of these characteristics tend to leave destroyed relation-
ships in their wake over time. You are best served to identify and avoid any one of the
three, especially if they are in positions of power and may exert influence over your job,
career, and well-being.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
93Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Personality and Performance
Instead of simply assuming personality affects performance, let’s see what research has to
say and how this knowledge can make you more effective. First, and most generally, your
personality characteristics are likely to have the greatest influence and effect on perfor-
mance when you are working in situations that are unstructured and with few rules.47 This
makes sense. You’re more likely to show your true colors (your personality) when the
situation is open and lacks constraints.
As for the Big Five, knowledge of these stable personality dimensions can assist in
selecting the right people and assigning responsibilities to them that will set them up to win.
• Conscientiousness has the strongest and most positive effects on performance
across jobs, industries, and levels. Individuals who exhibit traits associated with a
strong sense of purpose, obligation, and persistence generally perform better than
those who do not. They also tend to have higher job satisfaction.48 This trait has
consistently been shown to be the most influential when it comes to performance
at work.49
• Extroversion, not surprisingly, is beneficial if the job involves interpersonal interac-
tion. It is also a stronger predictor of job performance than agreeableness, across all
professions.
• Agreeable employees are likely to fit and excel in jobs requiring interpersonal inter-
action, such as customer service. These same employees are more likely to stay with
their jobs, be kind and get along with others, and thus have positive relationships
and experiences at work.50
• Openness is linked with higher levels of creativity compared with other traits, but
open employees may be more likely to quit. Such people are curious and may
seek and find new opportunities, even when they are satisfied with their current
jobs.51 This characteristic seems like a double-edged sword for employers. On the
one hand they want open and flexible employees, but these are also the same
employees who are likely to quit. How might you deal with this as a manager or
the owner of a business?
• Emotional stability is associated with higher job satisfaction and well-being. Those
low in emotional stability (high on neuroticism) have opposite experiences, includ-
ing higher levels of burnout. It is difficult to find a downside to emotional stability
in the workplace. If you are a hiring manager, perhaps you’d consider including this
trait in your recruiting and selecting efforts.
Finally, if employee engagement is the desired outcome, then proactive personality was
found to be the strongest predictor, followed by conscientiousness and extraversion. Agree-
ableness and openness were the weakest.52
Personality Testing at Work
Personality testing is a commonly used tool for making decisions about hiring, training,
and promotion. Roughly 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies use some form of
pre-employment testing, including personality tests.53 A few of the major reasons organiza-
tions use such tests are:
1. Reduce time and cost of recruiting and hiring.
2. Reduce biases in the interview process.
3. Increase the pool of candidates (because such tests can be administered electronically
and remotely).
4. Complement candidate information found in resumes and interviews.54
Personality tests, in particular, are more widely used at the management level than at
the entry level. However, despite this widespread use, many experts argue that the typical
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
94 PART 1 Individual Behavior
personality test is not a valid predictor of job performance.55 One reason might be that
many test takers don’t describe themselves accurately but instead try to guess what answers
the employer is looking for.56 With this in mind, consider the recommendations of the fol-
lowing Applying OB box the next time you take such a test.
Another reason for inaccurate results is that personality tests are typically bought off
the shelf and often given indiscriminately by people who aren’t trained or qualified. And
while rigorous research shows personality is related to performance, the effects are small.
Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, personality tests are designed to measure per-
sonality, not to identify the individual differences needed to perform at a high level in a
particular job. This means managers need different and better ways to measure personality
if they want to select employees based on performance-conducive personality traits.
An excellent example is the very popular Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
Although helpful for self-awareness purposes, or discussing preferences related to commu-
nicating and making decisions with colleagues, rigorous science largely shows it is a poor
predictor of job performance. To be fair, the test is not designed or intended to be a predic-
tor of performance, but rather offer insights for you and colleagues. Keith McNulty, People
Science Leader at McKinsey, says: “There is no place for the MBTI in organizations. The
issue is using it and other measures in ways in which they were not intended and for which
science doesn’t support.”57
To help overcome these shortcomings, researchers have used technology and advances
in brain science to create a new breed of tests. Companies such as Pymetrics and Knack
use games to help assess cognitive abilities, thought processes, and other characteristics.
Applying OB
drink. Don’t overdo the caffeine, unless that is
what you’ve done for every test you’ve ever taken.
3. Be yourself . . . sort of. Don’t lie. Well-designed
tests can often detect inaccuracies, and most
skilled interviewers unveil inconsistencies with
ease. But also, beware of being too extreme.
Ambition is generally good, but extreme ambition
can be dysfunctional. A strong work ethic is pre-
ferred, but too high a level is a red flag. In a word—
moderation. Don’t be too much of even good
things. And when interviewing, take the lead from
what others have said about you. If someone has
recommended or endorsed you, learn what they
said and emphasize those same attributes. Sell
yourself the way your endorsers are selling you.
You want the interviewer’s data points to align.
SOURCE: D. Meinert, “Heads Up: Personality Assessments Are Being Used More
Often in the Hiring Process. But What Do They Really Tell You?” HR Magazine,
June 2015, 88–98.
Employment tests can be far more consequential than
those you take in school, since getting hired or promoted
may depend on It. This may tempt you to provide
answers you think the employer wants, but faking is ill-
advised. Many tests are intended to assess fit, and if you
don’t answer honestly, you might get a job but perhaps it
will be one you hate! Instead consider the following tips:
1. Practice. Yes, like other tests (GMAT, SAT, MCAT,
LSAT) you can practice for employment tests, and
practicing can help increase scores by 20 percent.
Practicing works because you become more com-
fortable taking such tests, you develop effective
test-taking strategies, and you learn what you’re
being tested on. This is why so many students take
GRE practice exams, as doing so helps sharpen
reasoning, numerical, and verbal skills.
2. Play to your own rhythms. If you are sharpest in
the afternoon try to avoid taking employment tests
in the morning. Also, beware of what you eat and
Acing Employment Tests
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
95Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
TABLE 3.4 Advice and Words of Caution about Personality Testing in
the Workplace
Researchers, test developers, and organizations that administer personality assessments
offer the following suggestions for getting started with testing or for evaluating whether
tests already in use are appropriate for forecasting job performance:
• Determine what you hope to accomplish. If you are looking to find the best fit
between job and applicant, analyze the aspects of the position that are most critical
for it.
• Look for outside help to determine if a test exists or can be developed to screen
applicants for the traits that best fit the position. Industrial psychologists, professional
organizations, and several Internet sites provide resources.
• Insist any test recommended by a consultant or vendor be validated scientifically for
the specific purpose you have defined. Vendors should be able to cite independent,
credible research supporting a test’s correlation with job performance.
• Ask the test provider to document the legal basis for any assessment: Is it fair? Is it
job-related? Is it biased against any racial or ethnic group? Does it violate an appli-
cant’s right to privacy under state or federal laws? Get legal advice to assure that a
test does not adversely affect any protected class.
• Make sure every staff member administering tests or analyzing results is educated
about how to do so properly and will keep results confidential. Use the scores on
personality tests with other factors you believe are important to the job—such as
skills and experience—to create a comprehensive evaluation of the merits of each
candidate and apply those criteria identically to each applicant.
SOURCE: Bates, Steve. “Personality Counts.” SHRM, February 1, 2002. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/
pages/0202covstory.aspx.
The intended advantage is that prospective employees will be assessed on how they play or
what they actually do, rather than on their answers to multiple-choice questions or a self-
report instrument.
Wise managers learn about personality and the tools used to measure it before invest-
ing in and/or utilizing the data they yield. Table 3.4 provides some insights.
There Is No “Ideal Employee” Personality
Given the complexity of today’s work environments, the diversity of today’s workforce, and
recent research evidence, the quest for an ideal employee personality profile is sheer folly.
Just as one shoe does not fit all people, one personality profile does not fit all job situa-
tions. Good managers take the time to get to know each employee’s unique combination of
personality traits, abilities, and potential and to create a productive and satisfying person–
job fit. In other words, a contingency approach to managing people is best (recall the
discussion of contingency in Chapter 1).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
96 PART 1 Individual Behavior
When studying individuals, we either consider narrow or broad concepts. Narrow con-
cepts tend to be better for describing individuals because they are more precise, for
instance, when identifying musical intelligence, whereas broad concepts (the Big 5)
are better for predicting behavior and outcomes included in Figure 3.2 and the
Organizing Framework. The rationale is that broad concepts are more likely to include
the complexity in both individuals and situations than those that are narrow. With this
in mind we, explore core self-evaluations (CSEs), which is an especially broad
personality trait.
Core self-evaluations (CSEs) represent four narrow and positive individual
traits: (1) generalized self-efficacy, (2) self-esteem, (3) locus of control, and
(4) emotional stability. (See Figure 3.3.) People with high core self-evaluations see them-
selves as capable, competent, and valuable. This section discusses the component traits
and highlights research and managerial implications for each.
Why should you care about CSEs? CSEs have desirable effects on many outcomes
in the Organizing Framework, such as increased job performance, job and life satisfac-
tion, motivation, organizational citizenship behaviors, and better adjustment to interna-
tional assignments. CEOs with high core self-evaluations positively influence their
organization’s drive to take risks, innovate, and seek new opportunities, especially
strong in dynamic business environments.58 Better still, CSEs can be developed and
improved.59
Now let’s learn about the component dimensions.
3.4 CORE SELF-EVALUATIONS: HOW MY EFFICACY,
ESTEEM, LOCUS, AND STABILITY AFFECT MY
PERFORMANCE
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You can significantly improve your self-awareness by understanding your core self- evaluations
(CSEs). These self-evaluations provide broad and useful ways to describe personality in terms
of four important individual differences: self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, and emo-
tional stability. CSEs and their component dimensions are more flexible than IQ but more
stable than emotions. Your knowledge of CSEs can improve your performance at work, in
your career, and in your life.
Describe the impact
of core self-evaluations
on performance.
LO 3-4
FIGURE 3.3 The Core Self-Evaluation and Its Components
1.
Generalized
Self-E�cacy
2.
Self-Esteem
Core Self-Evaluation
3.
Locus of
Control
4.
Emotional
Stability
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
97Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Self-Efficacy—“I Can Do That”
Have you noticed that those who are confident about their ability tend to succeed, while
those who are preoccupied with failing tend to fail? At the heart of such performance
differences is self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his or her chances
of successfully accomplishing a specific task.
Self-Efficacy Can Be Developed Helpful nudges in the right direction from par-
ents, role models, and mentors are central to the development of high self-efficacy. For
example, a study of medical residents showed guidance and social support from their
mentors improved the residents’ clinical self-efficacy.60
Mechanisms of Self-Efficacy A detailed model of self-efficacy is shown in Figure 3.4.
To apply this model, imagine you have been told to prepare and deliver a 10-minute talk to
an OB class of 50 students on how to build self-efficacy. How confident are you that you
can complete this task? Part of your self-efficacy calculation is to evaluate the interplay
between person and situation factors described in the Organizing Framework.
SOURCE: Bandura, Albert. “Perceived Self-Efficacy in Cognitive Development and Functioning.” Developmental Psychology 25, no. 5 (1993): 117–148.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.25.5.729; and Wood, Robert, and Albert Bandura. “Social Cognitive Theory of Organizational Management.” The Academy
of Management Review 14, no. 3 (July 1989): 361–384. https://DOI: 10.5465/AMR.1989.4279067.
FIGURE 3.4 Self-Efficacy Paves the Way for Success or Failure
Prior
Experience
Sources of
self-e�cacy beliefs
Feedback
Behavioral patterns Results
Behavior
Models
Persuasion
from Others
Assessment
of Physical/
Emotional
State
High
“I know I can
do this job.”
Success
Self-E�cacy
Beliefs
Low
“I don’t think I can
get the job done.”
Failure
• Be active—select
best opportunities.
• Manage the situation—
avoid or neutralize
obstacles.
• Set goals—establish
standards.
• Plan, prepare, practice.
• Try hard; persevere.
• Creatively solve problems.
• Learn from setbacks.
• Visualize success.
• Limit stress.
• Be passive.
• Avoid di cult tasks.
• Develop weak aspirations
and low commitment.
• Focus on personal
deficiencies.
• Don’t even try—make a
weak e…ort.
• Quit or become
discouraged because of
setbacks.
• Blame setbacks on lack
of ability or bad luck.
• Worry, experience stress,
become depressed.
• Think of excuses for
failing.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
98 PART 1 Individual Behavior
On the left-hand side of Figure 3.4, among the sources of self-efficacy beliefs, prior
experience takes first position as the most potent of the four sources. This is why it con-
nects to self-efficacy beliefs with a solid line. Past success in public speaking would boost
your self-efficacy, and poor experiences would diminish it. Other sources of your beliefs
about yourself—behavior models, persuasion from others, and physical and emotional
factors—might also affect your self-confidence. As weaker sources, they connect to beliefs
with dashed lines in the figure.
Your evaluation of the situation yields your self-efficacy level—ranging from high to
low expectations for success. High expectations are not mere bravado; but instead are deep
convictions supported by experience. Your self-efficacy beliefs affect your behavioral pat-
terns (right-hand portion of Figure 3.4). If you have high self-efficacy about giving a
10-minute speech, you will work harder, longer, and more creatively when preparing for
your talk than would a low-self-efficacy classmate. Better performance will follow.
People program themselves for success or failure by enacting their self-efficacy beliefs.
Positive or negative results subsequently act as feedback and become the basis of personal
experience and future levels of self-efficacy. The OB in Action box provides an excellent
illustration.
Eren Ozmen is #19 on Forbes’ list of richest self-
made women in America and epitomizes self- efficacy.
She and her husband’s company (she is the majority
owner), Sierra Nevada (not the beer), are competing
to create and operate reusable spacecraft. Their first
craft, the Dream Chaser, crashed upon landing and
the company lost the NASA contract to SpaceX.
However, that setback did not stop her. The com-
pany is now part of a $14 billion effort to shuttle
cargo between Earth and the International Space
Station. The company is the biggest female-owned
government contractor in the country.
Her Own Journey Began Far Away She came to
the U.S. from Turkey for graduate school in the
1980s and later bought Sierra Nevada, her employer
at the time. They have now turned their original
investment of $5 million into a company with
$1.6 billion in sales and 4,000 employees in 33 loca-
tions. The story is one of an underdog and tremen-
dous personal risk for Ozmen, as the company has
never been in space exploration. But it nevertheless
acquired other companies and developed its way
into the industry.
It Was Not a Clear or Straight Path This parallels
her own journey. A journalism and public relations
major, she knew nothing about technology, and
moved through numerous jobs in America after
graduating. She and her husband worked at Sierra
You Can Go to the Moon and Beyond, If You Believe in Yourself
OB in Action
(left): NASA/Ken Ulbrich.; (right): Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
99Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Managerial Implications Self-efficacy has been extensively studied in the workplace.
The data supports several recommendations. As a rule, managers are encouraged to nur-
ture self-efficacy in themselves and others because it is related to improved job perfor-
mance and job satisfaction (both are important individual-level outcomes). Table 3.5
provides a few specific means for building self-efficacy. Nearly all are explained in detail in
other chapters of this book.
Self-Esteem—“Look in the Mirror”
Self-esteem is your general belief about your self-worth. Personal achievements and
praise bolster self-esteem, while prolonged unemployment and destructive feedback erode
it. Researchers measure self-esteem by having people indicate their agreement with posi-
tive and negative statements about themselves. An example of a positive statement is,
TABLE 3.5 Ways to Apply Knowledge of Self-Efficacy at Work
APPLICATION EXPLANATION
1. Job Design Complex, challenging, and autonomous jobs tend to
enhance perceived high self-efficacy. Boring, tedious jobs
generally do the opposite.
2. Training and
Development
Managers can improve employees’ self-efficacy expecta-
tions for key tasks through guided experiences, mentoring,
and role modeling.
3. Self-Management Training linked to goal setting, action planning, and self-
motivation enhance self-efficacy expectations.
4. Goal Setting and
Quality Improvement
Goal difficulty needs to match the individual’s perceived
self-efficacy.62 As self-efficacy and performance improve,
goals and quality standards can be made more challenging.
5. Creativity Supportive managerial actions—encouraging risk taking and
providing “blue sky time”—can augment the strong link
between self-efficacy beliefs and workplace creativity.63
6. Coaching Those with low self-efficacy and employees hampered by
learned helplessness need lots of constructive pointers and
positive feedback.64
7. Leadership Leadership talent surfaces when top management gives
high self-efficacy managers a chance to prove themselves
under pressure.
Nevada for several years, which nearly went bank-
rupt, before taking it over and transforming it into
what it is today—a major competitor in the race to
space.61
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. How do you think Ms. Ozmen’s self-efficacy
influenced her decisions along the way?
2. Although by most any measure she seems to be
successful now, how do you think her challenges
along the way shaped her self-efficacy?
3. What can you learn from her story and apply to
building your own self-efficacy?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
100 PART 1 Individual Behavior
“I feel I am a person of worth, the equal of other people.” An example of a negative state-
ment is, “I feel I do not have much to be proud of.” Those who agree with the positive
statements and disagree with the negative statements have high self-esteem. They see them-
selves as worthwhile, capable, and accepted. People with low self-esteem view themselves
in negative terms. They do not feel good about themselves and are hampered by self-
doubts.65
Although research suggests self-esteem is relatively consistent within cultures, over
time, and among men and women, we can still ask: Can it be improved?
Can Self-Esteem Be Improved? The short answer is yes. If your self-esteem is
lower than you’d like now, don’t despair. It has been shown, for example, that support-
ive clinical mentors improved medical residents’ self-esteem.66 But not everyone is
convinced.
Researchers have found one method especially effective for improving self-esteem.
Low self-esteem can be raised more by having the person think of desirable characteristics
possessed rather than of undesirable characteristics from which he or she is free.67
Some researchers believe performing at a high level boosts your self-esteem, not the
other way around. Thus, they reason it’s a mistake to focus on self-esteem. We all know
people who “talk big” but “deliver small” and thus seem to suffer from delusions of
competency.
Our Recommendation: Apply yourself to things important to you. If getting an A in
your OB course affects your sense of self-worth, then you will be motivated to work harder
and presumably perform better.
Locus of Control: Who’s Responsible—
Me or External Factors?
Locus of control is a relatively stable personality characteristic that describes how
much personal responsibility we take for our behavior and its consequences. We
tend to attribute the causes of our behavior primarily to either ourselves or environmental
Many individual differences influence performance. Of those discussed so far in this chapter, which do you
think are most important for surgeons? Would you rather have a surgeon with high self-efficacy or high
self-esteem? Michael N. Paras/Pixtal/age fotostock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
101Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
factors. (Recall our discussion of the person—situation distinction in Chapter 1.) Locus of
control thus has two forms—internal and external.
Internal Locus of Control People who believe they control the events and con-
sequences that affect their lives are said to possess an internal locus of control.
Such people, called internals, tend to attribute positive outcomes to their own abilities and
negative outcomes to their personal shortcomings. Many entrepreneurs eventually succeed
because their internal locus of control helps them overcome setbacks and disappoint-
ments. They see themselves as masters of their own fate and not as simply “lucky.”
Those who willingly take high-stakes jobs in the face of adversity (such as pulling a
company back from scandal or bankruptcy) likely have a high internal locus of control.
Dara Khosrowshahi, for instance, took over at Uber after a slew of scandals and bad press
damaged the company’s reputation and resulted in the ouster of then CEO, Travis
Kalanick.68
External Locus of Control In contrast, those who believe their performance is
the product of circumstances beyond their immediate control possess an external
locus of control and tend to attribute outcomes to environmental causes, such as luck or
fate. An “external” would attribute a passing grade on an exam to something external like
an easy test and attribute a failing grade to an unfair test or distractions at work.
Locus in the Workplace The outcomes of internals and externals differ widely at work.
Internals
• Display greater work motivation.
• Have stronger expectations that effort leads to performance.
• Exhibit higher performance on tasks that require learning or problem solving, when
performance leads to valued rewards.
• Derive more job satisfaction from performance.
Externals
• Demonstrate less motivation for performance when offered valued rewards.
• Earn lower salaries and smaller salary increases.
• Tend to be more anxious.69
Don’t mistakenly assume, however, that internal locus is always good and external is
always bad. High internals can implode, burn out, or otherwise underperform in situations
offering them little or no control, such as during organizational changes in which they
have no input or influence. An external locus would be more helpful here. Encouragingly,
research shows managers can increase the degree of one’s internal locus of control over
time by providing more job autonomy (something you’ll learn about in Chapter 5).70
Emotional Stability
As described in our discussion of the Big Five and in Table 3.2, individuals with high
levels of emotional stability tend to be relaxed, secure, unworried, and less likely to
experience negative emotions under pressure. In contrast, if you have low levels of
emotional stability, you are prone to anxiety and tend to view the world negatively. How is
this knowledge useful at work?
Employees with high levels of emotional stability have been found to have higher job
performance and to perform more organizational citizenship behaviors. Emotionally
stable employees also exhibit fewer counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), actions
that undermine their own or others’ work. Both OCBs and CWBs were discussed in
Chapter 2 and are individual-level outcomes illustrated in Figure 3.2 and the Organizing
Framework.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
102 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Three Practical Considerations for
Core Self-Evaluations
Before leaving core self-evaluations let’s briefly touch on three areas of interest:
• Is having more of a CSE component always better?
• Is the whole of the CSE components greater than its parts?
• How can managers use CSEs?
Is More Always Better? Like having more self-esteem, having greater emotional sta-
bility is not always better. Researchers found curvilinear, or inverted-U, relationships
between emotional stability and outcomes. This suggests that as your emotional stability
increases, so too will your job performance and organizational citizenship behaviors, but
only to a point.
It seems as emotional stability continues to increase, OCBs decline, likely because
you focus your attention on the task at hand and not on your coworkers. Typically,
that’s a good thing, but at a certain level emotional stability becomes problematic if you
begin obsessing over details and lose sight of the larger objectives and those with whom
you work.
Emotional stability can also protect against stressors at work, such as trouble with
supervisors, unfair policies, and too much work. It also reduces the likelihood employ-
ees will act out by committing CWBs. But there may come a tipping point when the
stress becomes too much and emotional stability cannot prevent counterproductive
behaviors.71
What is the lesson for you? Emotional stability is an asset for many types of jobs, but
it will take you only so far.
The USA women’s national soccer team has won four Women’s World Cup titles, most recently in 2019.
And although Megan Rapinoe was awarded the FIFA Best Player Award, neither she nor any of her team-
mates could have won a single game alone. Can you think of non-sports examples where the whole is
greater than the sum of the parts?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
103Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Is the Whole of CSE Greater than Its Parts? To clarify the value of CSE as a
whole, versus that of its component traits, think of basketball as a metaphor. Clearly a
team outperforms any individual playing alone. Even the greatest player would have no
chance against an entire team. And the five greatest players ever, playing individually, still
have no chance against an entire team. The sum of their solo efforts would be zero.
However, if you assembled a team of the five greatest players, then those individuals
playing as a team would be able to do things and perform in ways they couldn’t otherwise
do on their own (more on teams in Chapter 8). CSE and its component traits are much
the same. Core self-evaluation is the team and the traits are the individual players—the
whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
How Can I Use CSEs? Especially in a managerial role, you can use your knowledge of
CSEs in many practical ways, such as:
• Employee selection. It is more efficient to select employees using CSEs as one broad
personality characteristic rather than using its four component traits. Employers
can determine the link between one characteristic (CSE) and performance in a
particular job, rather than having to determine the relationships between each of
the four components’ parts and performance. This is one relationship versus four.
Doing so enables managers and employers to take advantage of the various benefi-
cial outcomes described above.
• Training. The training potential of CSEs is limited because most of its components
are trait-like or relatively fixed (self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional stabil-
ity). That said, self-efficacy is more flexible than the other three components and
can be enhanced as explained above. (Figure 3.4 is an excellent “how to” guide.)
Before moving on, we encourage you to assess your own core self-evaluations in Self-
Assessment 3.3. Knowledge of your CSEs helps you understand other components of your
personality beyond the Big Five discussed and assessed earlier. Awareness of your self-
esteem, self-efficacy, locus, and emotional stability can help guide many aspects of your work
life, such as what types of jobs to look for and what types of development opportunities may
be most useful for you.
How Positively Do I See Myself?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 3.3 in Connect.
1. What is your CSE score? A score greater than 48 is high, between 36 and
48 moderate, and less than 36 low.
2. What are the implications for your performance in school? Work?
3. Now consider this scenario: You’re on a three-member team for a project in this
class that requires research, a paper, and a presentation. Your CSE score is high,
one team member’s is moderate, and the other’s is low. Describe the potential
implications for the three of you working together and your ultimate perfor-
mance on the paper and presentation.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.3 CAREER READINESS
Let’s continue our discussion of individual differences and learn about emotional
intelligence (EI) next. EI is a popular OB concept and relatively more flexible than CSEs
and the others discussed thus far.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
104 PART 1 Individual Behavior
3.5 THE VALUE OF BEING EMOTIONALLY
INTELLIGENT
As we know, people deal with their emotions in a variety of ways, which is one reason
we are discussing emotions in the chapter on individual differences. For a long time
many people considered skill in managing emotions as simply a matter of maturity.
However, since the mid-1990s researchers, consultants, and managers have increas-
ingly described emotional maturity by using the phrase emotional intelligence (EI).
Today, EI is big business. Hundreds of consulting companies provide EI products and
services, and estimates suggest approximately 75 percent of Fortune 500 companies
use them.72
What Is Emotional Intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor your own emotions and those of
others, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide your
thinking and actions. Referred to by some as EI (used in this book) and by others as EQ,
emotional intelligence is a mixture of personality and emotions and has four key compe-
tencies (see also Table 3.6):
1. Self-awareness
2. Self-management
3. Social awareness
4. Relationship management73
The first two dimensions constitute personal competence and the second two feed into
social competence. Recall the discussion earlier in the chapter of inter- and intra-personal
intelligences described by Howard Gardner. EI builds on this work.
Before learning more about emotional intelligence, complete Self-Assessment 3.4.
Self-awareness is fundamental to EI and having this knowledge in hand is helpful in
exploring the benefits of EI and learning how to develop it.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You likely already know that intelligence doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about
performance. The smartest student doesn’t always get the best grades, and the smartest
candidate for a job is not necessarily the best choice. While you almost certainly agree with
both of these statements, what is even more certain is that people perform better if they have
emotional intelligence—smart or not. When you understand the concept of emotional intelli-
gence from an OB perspective, you’ll understand why it is an important person-factor input in
the Organizing Framework.
Realize the benefits
of emotional
intelligence.
LO 3-5
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
105Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
TABLE 3.6 Developing Emotional Intelligence
Personal
Competence
HOW WE MANAGE OURSELVES
Capability Description
Self-Awareness Emotional
self-awareness
Reading one’s own emotions and recognizing their impact;
using “gut sense” to guide decisions
Accurate self-assessment Knowing one’s strengths and limits
Self-confidence A sound sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities
Self-Management Emotional self-control Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control
Transparency Displaying honesty and integrity; trustworthiness
Adaptability Flexibility in adapting to changing situations or overcom-
ing obstacles
Achievement The drive to improve performance to meet inner standards
of excellence
Initiative Readiness to act and seize opportunities
Optimism Seeing the upside in events
Social
Competence
HOW WE MANAGE RELATIONSHIPS
Capability Description
Social Awareness Empathy Sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspec-
tive, and taking active interest in their concerns
Organizational awareness Reading the currents, decision networks, and politics at
the organizational level
Service Recognizing and meeting follower, client, or customer needs
Relationship
Management
Inspirational leadership Guiding and motivating with a compelling vision
Influence Wielding a range of tactics for persuasion
Developing others Bolstering others’ abilities through feedback and guidance
Change catalyst Initiating, managing, and leading in a new direction
Conflict management Resolving disagreements
Building bonds Cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships
Teamwork and collaboration Cooperation and team building
SOURCE: Goleman, Daniel, Richard E. Boyatzis, and Annie McKee. Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence. Boston: Harvard Business
School Press, 2002.
What Is Your Level of Emotional Intelligence?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 3.4 in Connect.
1. Which of the four competencies is highest for you? What are the implications for
you at school and/or work?
2. Which competency is the lowest? What are the implications for you at school
and/or work?
3. Do you have greater personal or social competence? What are the implications
for you at school and/or work?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.4 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
106 PART 1 Individual Behavior
You can gain considerable Insights regarding EI by observing those who seem to pos-
sess and lack this valuable ID. Uber’s former CEO provides an excellent example of the
latter. See the Problem-Solving Application.
Darkness in the C-Suite at Uber
Do you remember Travis Kalanick, the founder and
former CEO of Uber? Ample evidence from an
employee survey, testimonials from other execu-
tives (both inside and outside of Uber), and busi-
ness partners provide compelling evidence for a
number of troubling traits exhibited by Uber’s
founder and former CEO.
When public opinion of the company took
major hits due to numerous scandals—sexual
harassment at corporate, allegations of rape and
other illegal behavior by drivers, and a perception
of greed and exploitation when it implemented
surge pricing during a taxi strike at JFK airport—
Kalanick claimed Uber had a public relations prob-
lem, instead of acknowledging the company he
founded and created had a serious culture prob-
lem. This was further exacerbated by his seeming
disregard, If not outright encouragement, for ram-
pant sexual harassment.
In addition, there is the infamous video of him
arguing with an Uber driver during a ride he took.
You may recall the driver expressed his concerns
about the company and the challenges faced by
drivers. Instead of taking these concerns as feed-
back, Kalanick showed a blatant lack of empathy
and a great deal of arrogance by blaming the driver,
and people like him, by stating they didn’t take
enough personal responsibility for their own lives.
And later, when convinced by others to meet with
the driver and apologize, he doubled down and
argued the same points again! Another employee
who witnessed the meeting described his own reac-
tion as deeply troubling. The lack of willingness to
accept responsibility for negative behaviors and
events (e.g., sexual harassment) was exacerbated
further still by bullying and retaliation against those
who complained to HR.74
Kalanick has also been described as unrelent-
ingly combative. In meetings he routinely switched
between praising and tearing down individuals. Jeff
Jones, Uber’s former president, quit after only a few
months and was so eager to leave he didn’t even
negotiate an exit package, leaving millions of dol-
lars behind. Adding insult to injury, Uber employees
were asked to rank specific business leaders, both
inside and outside the company, for a survey and
Kalanick ranked last in tech company CEOs!75
Using a quick checklist:
Grandiose self-importance. Check.
Lack of empathy. Check.
Arrogant. Check.
Sense of entitlement. Check.
Demand excessive admiration. Perhaps.
Although Travis Kalanick has already stepped
down as CEO, assume he hasn’t, and apply the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach below.
Problem-Solving Application
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem in the confronting Uber’s board of directors.
Step 2: Identify the OB concepts and theories that may point to the cause(s) of the problem. What
role did emotional intelligence play in the problem you defined? Which personality attributes
are evident, and how might they have contributed?
Step 3: Assume Kalanick was still the CEO and make a recommendation to correct the situation.
Think both short-term and long-term.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
107Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Now that you have some knowledge of
your EI you might wonder, why another type
of intelligence, and how is EI different from
IQ? Those who developed the concept of EI
argue that traditional models of IQ are too
narrow, failing to consider interpersonal
competence. They also argue from a practi-
cal perspective that EI is more flexible than
IQ and can be developed throughout your
working life. This is consistent with Figure
3.2 and the practical benefits of relatively
flexible IDs. Let’s explore the benefits of EI
and how to develop yours.
Benefits of EI
What Research Tells Us EI has been
linked to better social relationships, well-
being, and satisfaction across all ages and
contexts, including work.76 For instance, store
managers’ EI was shown to foster greater
team cohesiveness (covered in Chapter 8)
among sales associates, and this in turn
boosted sales.77 EI has also been linked with
creativity, helping employees manage their
emotions amid the challenges of the creative
process to stay on task and remain in the cre-
ative space. EI further enables individuals to
apply positive emotions to their work, improv-
ing their creative outcomes.78
EI also seems to have a dark side. In a
study with undergraduates, researchers found
those with higher EI were more effective at
faking pre-employment personality tests.
Participants were better able to change their
answers to align with the characteristics
listed in the job description.79 And sadly, some people use their EI skills to manipulate
others, faking empathy or supporting another only to make yourself look good, rather than
authentically caring and helping.80 He says, “People want to be led, but you’ve got to know
how to lead different people. . . . I treat everybody differently . . . and if you do that in busi-
ness, you’re going to be successful.”81
Figure 3.5 summarizes the relationships between EI and several individual differences
we’ve covered as well as several outcomes. EI does not contain any strong relationships
with other inputs or outcomes contained in the Organizing Framework. In fact, there are
an equal number of weak and moderate relationships. Most importantly, EI was not found
to be the big driver of performance as suggested by some consultants and academics.
How to Develop Your EI? Dan Goleman, the person whose book helped take EI
mainstream, highlights the importance of self-awareness—both how you see yourself and
how others see you (recall our discussion from Chapter 1). He and his colleague, Michelle
Nevarez, recommend using the following three questions to build your EI. We think you’ll
notice, what they recommend sounds much like the problem-solving approach used in
this book.
1. What are the differences between how you see yourself and others see you? This
means you need to do a self-assessment on the competencies in Table 3.6, as well
Tillman Fertitta is a self-made billionaire and now owns the NBA’s
Houston Rockets, Golden Nugget Casinos, and the Landry’s Restaurant
Group. He learned to cook in his father’s restaurant in Galveston, dropped
out of the University of Houston, and is now the president of its Board of
Regents.82 Donna Ward/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
108 PART 1 Individual Behavior
as get feedback on how others see you in terms of the same competencies. Feed-
back can come from friends, coworkers, customers, classmates, your boss, or a
personal coach.
2. What matters to you? Once the information from #1 is in hand, sift through and
decide what is important to you. Put differently, ascertain your goals and use the infor-
mation to help determine which aspects of your EI need development.
3. What changes will you make to achieve these goals?83 This is the planning part; you
have a goal, information to help, now you need a plan. Make a plan, implement,
review, and revise. (You’ll learn much more about goal setting and how to make your
EI development efforts more successful in Chapter 6.)
Practical Takeaways EI certainly makes common sense and is appealing on the sur-
face. However, despite its popularity and the millions of dollars spent on EI programs
every year, the research results are mixed. Proceed with caution.84 Beware of individuals
and companies claiming EI is the silver bullet of performance. It is but another individual
difference, and no single attribute explains all behavior. Nevertheless, you should identify
and develop your own EI to realize the clear interpersonal benefits. Table 3.6 can serve as
a guide.
Now that you’ve learned about emotional intelligence, let’s explore emotions themselves.
FIGURE 3.5 Relationships between Emotional Intelligence and Individual Differences and Outcomes
V
ar
ia
bl
es
Extroversion
Conscientiousness
Emotional Stability
Cognitive Ability
Self-efficacy
Supervisor-rated Job
Performance
Self-rated Job
Performance
Subjective Well-being
Mental Health
Physical Health
Strength of Relationship
Not significant Weak Moderate Strong
SOURCE: Sánchez-Álvarez, Nicolás, Natalio Extremera, and Pablo Fernández-Berrocal. “The Relation between Emotional Intelligence and Subjective Well-Being:
A Meta-Analytic Investigation.” The Journal of Positive Psychology 11, no. 3 (August 2015): 276–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2015.1058968;
Joseph, Dana L., Jing Jin, and Daniel A. Newman. “Why Does Self-Reported Emotional Intelligence Predict Job Performance? A Meta-Analytic Investigation of
Mixed EI.” Journal of Applied Psychology 100, no. 2 (2015): 298–342. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0037681; and Martins, Alexandra, Nelson Ramalho, and Estelle
Morin. “A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Health.” Personality and Individual Differences 49, no. 6
(October 2010): 554–64. https:doi:10.1016/j.paid.2010.05.029.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
109Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
3.6 UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS TO INFLUENCE
PERFORMANCE
Many people believe employees should check their emotions at the door when they come
to work. This is unrealistic and simply impossible. Like personality and the other IDs dis-
cussed thus far, emotions are an integral part of who we are as people, a fundamental part
of the human experience, and greatly influence our performance. Given this reality, you
will want to understand emotions so you can manage them as a process to benefit you, your
team, and your employer. This will help make emotions a practical tool to use, rather than
something to avoid, ignore, or suppress.
Emotions—We All Have Them,
but What Are They?
Emotions are complex, relatively brief responses aimed at a particular target,
such as a person, information, experience, or event. They also change psycho-
logical and/or physiological states.85 Researchers distinguish between felt and dis-
played emotions. For example, if your boss informs you that you’ve been passed over for
a promotion, you might feel disappointed and/or angry (felt emotion). You might keep
your feelings to yourself or you might begin to cry. Both reactions are instances of dis-
played emotions. It’s just that in the first case you are choosing not to show emotion,
which means your display is “no emotion.” Your display can affect the outcomes, in
this case your manager’s reactions. Taxi drivers, waiters, and hairdressers all received
higher tips when they were trained to manage what they felt and the way they displayed
these feelings.86
Emotions may also motivate your behavior and are an important means for commu-
nicating with others.87 A smile on your face signals you are happy or pleased, while a
scowl and a loud, forceful tone of voice may reflect anger. We also know our emotions
can and often do change moment to moment and thus are more flexible than the other
IDs discussed so far. For these reasons, emotions have important implications for you at
school, at work, and in every other social arena of your life. They can even be the root
cause of why you procrastinate. Read the Applying OB box and learn how to combat
your tendencies.
Explain how
understanding
emotions makes
people more effective.
LO 3-6
THE BIGGER PICTURE
The human experience is awash in emotions, and you won’t be surprised to learn emotions
are important both at work and as an individual-level process in the Organizing Framework.
We’ll explore the difference between felt versus displayed emotions and how emotions
serve as an important means of communication with ourselves and others. Most of your
experiences elicit a mix of positive and negative emotions, and these emotions are tightly
related to your goals.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
110 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Emotions as Positive or Negative Reactions
to Goal Achievement
You’ll notice from the definition you can think of emotions, whether positive, negative, or
mixed, in terms of your goals.89
• Positive. If your goal is to do well in school and you graduate on time and with hon-
ors, you are likely to experience positive emotions, such as joy, gratitude, pride, satis-
faction, contentment, and relief. These emotions are positive because they are
congruent (or consistent) with your goal.
• Negative. Negative emotions are triggered by frustration and failure to meet goals.
They are said to be goal incongruent. Common negative emotions are anger, fright,
anxiety, guilt, shame, sadness, envy, jealousy, and disgust. Which of these are you
likely to experience if you fail the final exam in a required course? Failing would be
incongruent with your goal of graduating on time with a good GPA. Typically, the
more important the goal, the more intense the emotion.
• Mixed. Meeting or failing to meet our goals can also generate mixed emotions. Let’s
say you receive a well-earned promotion that brings with it positives—increased
responsibility and higher pay—but only if you relocate to another state, which you
don’t want to do.
Applying OB
Most people procrastinate at least occasionally, which
means we irrationally delay an action despite expect-
ing to be worse off. We often attribute procrastination
to poor time management or even laziness, but it
seems research has revealed a true cause— emotions.88
Researchers say procrastination is a way to deal with
stress. That’s right. Putting off studying for your next
exam is one way of dealing with the stress of preparing
for it.
The rationale is many things you do while procras-
tinating are often things that make you feel good or
you enjoy, such as shopping, going out with friends,
watching TV, or playing video games. They help ease
the anxiety associated with the task you need to do
(study for an exam). Compounding this further, it seems
that people who are more impulsive tend to be more
anxious, and the more anxiety they experience,
the more likely they are to procrastinate to make
themselves feel better. With this in mind, what can
occasional and chronic procrastinators do to help
themselves?
1. Set subgoals. Whatever the needed or dreaded
task is, break it into smaller parts or subgoals
and specify a start and end time for each. Doing
this will help the task seem less daunting, which
will reduce your associated anxiety and the
temptation to do something else more enjoyable
(procrastinate).
2. Just do it. We’re not talking about going for a run
or playing sports, which while healthy may be
another form of procrastination. Instead, we’re
saying to get started and do part of the task. Once
you’ve begun, completing it will seem less difficult.
3. Envision the benefits and feelings. How will you
feel when you’re finished? What will you be able to
do? This seems obvious enough, but research has
shown that people rarely think of such benefits
when they are procrastinating.
4. Reward yourself. Building on No. 3, reward your-
self for achieving the subgoals, as well as the over-
all goal or task.
Blaming your emotions won’t get your term paper
done or help you prepare sufficiently for the upcoming
client presentation. Understanding the role emotions
play may help you recognize and overcome your ten-
dencies. With this advice in mind, get to work!
Adapted from S. Wang, “To Stop Procrastinating, Start by Understanding the
Emotions Involved,” The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2015, http://www.wsj.
com/articles/to-stop-procrastinating-start-by-understanding-whats-really-
going-on-1441043167.
Do You Procrastinate? Blame Your Emotions!
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
111Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Besides Positive and Negative,
There’s Past vs. Future
The negative–positive distinction matters—you’re happy, you’re sad. However, another
characteristic of emotions can be especially useful for managers. Assume you’re a manager
in a company that just downsized 15 percent of its employees. This is stressful for all those
who lost their jobs, but let’s focus on two fictitious employees who survived the cuts—
Shelby and Jennifer. Both feel negatively about the job cuts, but in different ways.
Shelby: Her dominant emotion is anger. People are typically angry about things that
happened (or didn’t happen) in the past. Anger is a backward-looking or retrospec-
tive emotion.
Jennifer: Her dominant emotion is fear. People are typically fearful of things that
might happen in the future. Fear is a forward-looking or prospective emotion.
Practical implications for managers: Knowing these emotions tells you that Shelby is likely
most concerned with something that happened in the past, perhaps the way decisions were
made about whom to terminate. She may think the process was unfair and caused three of
her favorite colleagues to be let go. As for Jennifer, knowing she is dominated by fear tells
you that uncertainty about the future—perhaps her job might be cut next—concerns her
most. As their manager, you can use knowledge of Shelby’s and Jennifer’s emotions to
guide your own actions.
How Can I Manage My Negative Emotions at Work?
Theoretically, to manage your emotions at work you could simply translate felt emotions
into displayed emotions—unfiltered. Besides being unrealistic this would be disastrous. To
help, we explore emotion display norms, how to handle a host of negative emotions, and
the emotions related to a job search.
Organizations have emotion display norms or expectations regarding the types of emo-
tions that are appropriate for employees to show in different situations.90 For instance, to
always act happy and positive in front of customers or your boss, remain calm in meetings,
and don’t show anger. What about crying? Many people think this is taboo and a reputa-
tion killer, but not as many people feel this way as you might think. For instance, 38 per-
cent of participants in a recent study reported crying is okay occasionally, but if it is
frequent then your career could suffer. This compares to 31 percent who said crying had
no effect. However, 32 percent thought it is never okay and if you do cry, then people will
perceive you as weak or immature.91
But what can you do when you feel negative emotions at work? The OB in Action box
describes the costs and benefits of displaying anger at work.
Andrew Cornell, CEO of Cornell Iron Works, under-
stands the days of the screaming boss are, or at
least should be, a thing of the past. He deals with
anger toward his employees by holding frequent
and brief meetings, “rather than ‘waiting until the
end, throwing a nuclear bomb and leaving blood all
over the wall.’”92
Screaming takes other forms too. At work you
might receive a hostile e-mail berating you, which
was copied to your coworkers in ALL CAPS. Science
supports the many people who believe yelling,
whether by e-mail or face-to-face, is inappropriate
and counterproductive. You may have been in a
group meeting when someone was so angry he or
The Good and Bad of Anger at Work
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
112 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Anger isn’t the only negative emotion. Table 3.7 provides guidance on a variety of oth-
ers and how to deal with them. As you study the table, think of your own experiences and
reactions and how the recommendations could have helped you handle them.
she began to scream and bully another person. Both
are unprofessional and uncalled for, and they dam-
age the reputation of the perpetrator.
Costs of Negative Emotions Growing research
evidence confirms the suspected undesirable out-
comes of negative emotions. For instance, managers
need to be careful about generating feelings of
shame and/or anger when giving feedback to
employees because these particular emotions have
been linked to counterproductive work behaviors
such as abuse of others and theft.93
Unhappy Customers May Suffer Twice Custom-
ers’ negative emotional displays, such as verbal
aggression, have been shown to negatively affect
employee job performance. Specifically, receivers of
the aggression made more mistakes recalling and
processing the customers’ complaints.94 You may
want to think twice before venting on a customer
service representative.
What About the Benefits of Anger? Expressing
your anger sometimes can actually help solve the
problem. Your message is communicated, though
forcefully, which can lead to better understanding.
Displays of anger are more likely to be beneficial if
they are directed at organizational issues and prob-
lems instead of at individuals. Being angry at the
problem rather than the person is likely to be per-
ceived more constructively and less defensively.95
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What advice would you give to managers on
how to handle their own anger and other nega-
tive emotions at work?
2. What advice would you give to managers on
how to handle the anger and negative emotions
felt (and expressed) by their direct reports?
3. What has been the most productive way for you
to deal with your negative emotions?
TABLE 3.7 Common Negative Emotions and How to Handle Them
IF YOU’RE
FEELING . . . THEN YOU MIGHT WANT TO . . .
Fearful Step back and try to see the situation objectively. Ask yourself: “Is my business or career truly
at risk?” If not, you may be feeling nervous and excited rather than fearful.
Rejected Do you respect the opinion of the person rejecting you? If the comment came from someone
you don’t respect, rejection may instead be a backhanded compliment. If you do respect the
person, you may want to clarify by asking: “The other day you said ________ and I felt hurt.
Can you explain what happened?”
Angry Get some distance from the situation to avoid blowing your top in the heat of the moment.
Once you calm down, pinpoint the reason you are angry. Most often the reason is someone
violated a rule or standard that is deeply important to you. Find a way to communicate the
importance of the rule or standard to the person so it doesn’t happen again.
Frustrated We all get frustrated at work when results don’t meet our expectations, given the amount of
time and energy we’ve applied. The goal often is achievable, but progress is slow. First, reas-
sess your plan and behavior. Do they need modification? If not, perhaps you simply need to
be patient.
Inadequate Even those with the highest self-esteem feel they don’t measure up at times. Our discussion
of self-efficacy and how to build it in Table 3.5 can guide your solution to this emotion.
Stressed Time constraints are a major source of stress. Too many commitments, too little time. You
need to prioritize! Do what is important rather than what is urgent. For example, most e-mail is
urgent but not important.
SOURCE: James, Geoffrey. “Feeling Negative? How to Overcome It.” Inc., November 26, 2012. https://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/how-to-handle-negative-
emotions-at-work.html.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
113Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
Finally, searching for a job can be an emotional experience, the proverbial rollercoaster—
up and down and up and down again. The mixture of positive and negative emotions can
be daunting, so what can you do? The following advice may help, but before we get to the
emotions it is important to do two things first. Become organized and be disciplined. A job
search can be overwhelming, time consuming, and often happens over a long period of
time. It therefore is important to create a system to keep track of your efforts, establish
a routine, and stick to both!96 Now let’s address some of the common emotions in the
Applying OB box.
Applying OB
You cannot see the future, but you can anticipate
potential scenarios or outcomes in your job search.
Include in your planning, “If X happens, then I’ll do Y.”
This may help reduce the uncertainty of the negative
emotions that go along with it.
Fear. Yes, once again fear rears its head. Although
often justified it is rarely helpful. There is no single or
best way to deal with it, but knowing that fear is future-
oriented can help create different scenarios for inter-
views and outcomes. Doing so will reduce the
uncertainty and hopefully your fear too.
Frustration. Some job descriptions read like autobiog-
raphies, and the only thing missing is your picture. Yet,
you don’t get an interview. Or, you feel you nailed the
interview but don’t get the job offer. Besides disap-
pointment, this can be frustrating. The best advice
here is the cliché that “you must be in it to win it.” Don’t
take the process personally. The employer may have
made the wrong decision, or they may have had an
internal candidate already picked out and are just
going through the motions with you. Whatever the rea-
son, pick yourself up and try again. Look at these
occurrences not as setbacks, but as learning opportu-
nities to further hone your resume, and communica-
tions and interviewing skills.
Excitement. Yes, the job search has positive emotions
too, and you must also manage them. Envision passing
the screening call, nailing the first interview, and feel-
ing even better about the second. Wonderful! But don’t
become complacent and stop your search. Continue
to work the process. This opportunity may stall or
fall through, or you may even find a more appealing
opportunity.
Managing Emotions During Job Search
We’ll conclude the chapter by distilling some specific applications of what you just
learned.
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
114 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Takeaways for Me
Use your new knowledge of personality, intelligences, CSEs, emotions, and EI, along with
the self-assessments and concepts learned in Chapter 3 to:
1. Enhance your self-awareness.
2. Identify the pros and cons of particular IDs for you at school and work.
3. Create profiles of the managers and leaders where you work (or where you want to work if
you’re not currently employed). Profiling the “important people” in this way will not only
illustrate the concepts you’ve learned, but serve as a template or prototype of what is
valued by a particular employer. In other words, create a profile of what successful people
look like in terms of individual differences and use this knowledge to highlight the same
qualities you possess during job interviews and to guide your own development.
4. Use your knowledge of emotional intelligence, because despite mixed research results, it can
make or break an individual in any given job and have implications for the larger career.
Takeaways for Managers
IDs have great practical significance for managers.
1. Explicitly include the individual differences that matter most in job descriptions. This
means you are well served to list job responsibilities and the employee characteristics
you think are most important to be successful in a specific job.
2. Use your knowledge of the continuum when selecting and training employees. Realize you
often will want to hire and test for relatively fixed traits (intelligence and personality),
because these are not easy to change, and consider training or coaching the others.
3. Assess your own emotional intelligence, paying explicit attention to both personal and
social competence. Don’t simply make a summary judgment— “I have high EI,” or “My
EI is pretty good.” Given the potential consequences of low EI, you are wise to put in
the effort to learn about and improve both aspects of yours (if needed). After doing
this, you will be better prepared to assess the emotional intelligence of those you man-
age and those you consider hiring. These actions will benefit you, them, other cowork-
ers, and the larger organization.
Individual differences are fundamental to who you are as an employee and as a per-
son. Understanding the many concepts presented here will assist you in better understand-
ing yourself and others, and perhaps enhance your problem-solving skills too. Recall the
person-situation inputs in the Organizing Framework? You have learned a great deal about
person inputs and yourself in the process!
3.7 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW DO INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES AND EMOTIONS AFFECT MY
PERFORMANCE?
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We conclude this chapter with practical applications of knowledge and tools related to
individual differences, intended to improve your effectiveness as both an employee and
manager.
Describe the
implications of
individual differences
and emotions for you
and managers.
LO 3-7
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
115Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
You learned that who you are affects performance
because individual differences (IDs) play an
important and often fundamental role in the way
you perform at school, at work, and in other con-
texts. Reinforce and consolidate your learning
with the Key Points and Organizing Framework.
Then challenge your mastery of the material by
completing the Problem-Solving Application Case
and Legal/Ethical Challenge.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 3
You learned the following key points.
3.1 DISTINGUISHING INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES BASED ON
THEIR RELATIVE STABILITY
• Individual differences (IDs) is a broad category
used to describe the vast number of attributes
(traits and behaviors) that describe a person.
• It is helpful to think of IDs in terms of their rel-
ative stability.
3.2 HOW MULTIPLE
INTELLIGENCES AFFECT
MY PERFORMANCE
• Intelligence Is more than IQ and represents
an individual’s capacity for constructive think-
ing, reasoning, and problem solving.
• Multiple intelligences are linguistic, logical,
musical, kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal,
intrapersonal, and naturalist.
• Identifying the intelligences relevant to par-
ticular jobs can be used to select, place, and
develop individuals accordingly.
3.3 WAYS IN WHICH
PERSONALITY CAN AFFECT
MY PERFORMANCE AT
SCHOOL AND WORK
• Personality is the combination of stable physi-
cal, behavioral, and mental characteristics
that give individuals their unique identities.
• The Big Five personality dimensions are
extroversion, agreeableness, conscientious-
ness, emotional stability, and openness to
experience.
• People with proactive personalities identify
opportunities and act on them, show initiative,
take action, and persevere until meaningful
change occurs.
• Employers use personality tests to select and
place employees, but no “ideal personality”
exists and tests are often misused.
3.4 THE IMPACT OF CORE
SELF-EVALUATIONS ON
PERFORMANCE
• Managers can realize the practical value of
CSEs by selecting employees based on them
and then training them to enhance elements
of their CSEs.
• Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his or
her chances of successfully accomplishing a
specific task.
• Self-efficacy beliefs can be improved via
experience, behavior models, persuasion
from others, and emotional state.
3.5 THE BENEFITS OF
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
• Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to
monitor your own and others’ feelings and
emotions and use this information to guide
your thinking and actions.
• EI is associated with higher sales and
improved retention, as well as leadership
effectiveness.
• EI can be developed by building personal and
social competence.
3.6 HOW UNDERSTANDING
EMOTIONS MAKES PEOPLE
MORE EFFECTIVE
• Emotions are complex, relatively brief res-
ponses aimed at a specific target.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
116 PART 1 Individual Behavior
• IDs are insightful for understanding, motivat-
ing, and otherwise managing employees.
• Awareness and management of your and oth-
ers’ emotions can enhance performance.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 3
As shown in Figure 3.6, you learned how individ-
ual differences can present themselves through
the process of emotions (both felt and expressed)
at the individual level, affecting many workplace
outcomes across individual, group/team, and
organizational levels.
• Most experiences are a mixture of positive
and negative emotions, rather than purely
one or the other.
• Emotions can be distinguished in terms of a
future or a past orientation.
• Emotion display norms dictate which types of
emotions are expected and appropriate in
particular organizational situations.
3.7 HOW DO INDIVIDUAL
DIFFERENCES AND
EMOTIONS AFFECT MY
PERFORMANCE?
• Knowledge of IDs is abundant and a useful
way for leveraging your strengths and devel-
oping your weaknesses.
FIGURE 3.6 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
© 2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Intelligences
• Personality
• Proactive personality
• Core self-evaluations
• Self-efficacy
• Locus of control
• Self-esteem
• Emotional intelligence
Situation Factors
Individual Level
• Emotions
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
Organizational Level
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
Organizational Level
• Financial performance
• Survival
• Reputation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
117Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
John Schnatter founded Papa John’s Pizza in a broom
closet in his father’s tavern in 1984. The restaurant is
now the fourth largest pizza delivery chain in the
United States with more than 5,300 corporate and
franchisee owned establishments worldwide.97 Papa
John’s revenues exceeded $1.5 billion in 2018 but
were down for the first time in almost ten years.98 The
company is also down a spokesperson. Schnatter, bet-
ter known as “Papa John,” was ousted by the organiza-
tion after a series of controversial statements.99
Let’s take a closer look at the issues facing Papa
John’s and its founder.
PROBLEMATIC STATEMENTS
Schnatter told college students in 2013 that he “has
a real problem with the English language” while dis-
cussing his poor score on the verbal portion of the
SAT. Those who know him seem to agree with that
sentiment, but don’t believe grammar is the under-
lying problem. For example, Steve Coomes, a
restaurant industry journalist who has interviewed
Schnatter a dozen times, wrote a blog post in 2018
titled “A tale of a man who couldn’t tame his tongue”
in which he profiled a CEO he claims “has always
said too much.”100
One of Schnatter’s first controversial statements
was in 2012 when he discussed the passage of Presi-
dent Obama’s Affordable Care Act. What caught the
public’s attention was not his political opposition to the
law, but the fact that he complained to shareholders
that it would increase the cost of a large pizza by
14 cents. Papa John’s social media was soon inun-
dated with outraged customers claiming they would
pay a couple extra cents so Papa John’s employees
had health insurance. Others said they would take
their business to a restaurant that has empathy and
“. . . doesn’t begrudge their employees the ability to
seek a doctor when they’re ill.”101
Schnatter found a new target in 2017, the National
Football League (NFL). Papa John’s was a significant
sponsor of the league at the time that many players
were kneeling during the national anthem to raise
awareness of police brutality and social injustice.
Again, Schnatter caused controversy because he
could not keep his emotions and impulses under con-
trol. According to the Washington Post he said that the
NFL’s “poor leadership” and inability to stop the pro-
tests hurt the league’s TV ratings, which in turn hurt
sales of his pizza because it is advertised heavily
during games. To make matters worse, a white suprem-
acist group embraced the remarks and dubbed Papa
John’s as the official pizza of the alt-right. Papa John’s
condemned the group and distanced itself from the
endorsement, but the damage was already done and
the company had to apologize for Schnatter’s “divisive”
remarks.102 The NFL also broke ties with the company,
according to the New York Times.103
Schnatter was forced to resign as the company’s
CEO after making the controversial comments about
the NFL, but that did not stop him from continuing to
cause public outrage with his statements. In May
2018 Schnatter, who was still serving as Papa John’s
chairman at the time, used the n-word on a confer-
ence call with executives and a marketing agency
when referring to African Americans. The marketing
agency terminated its contract with Papa John’s and
Schnatter was forced to resign as the company’s
chairman.104
PAPA JOHN BATTLES PAPA JOHN’S
Schnatter’s comments gravely injured the restaurant
chain he founded. Sales at North American stores fell
more than 7% in 2018 and the organization’s stock
lost a third of its value.105 Papa John’s tried to distance
itself from Schnatter to stop the bleeding. The board
of directors evicted Schnatter from the company’s
Louisville, Kentucky, headquarters, took him off pizza
boxes and commercial materials, and directed him to
cease all communications with internal and external
stakeholders.106
Papa John would not go quietly though. He hurled
multiple lawsuits at his former company and took out a
full-page newspaper ad directing Papa John’s 120,000
employees to a website he set up. The website
includes press releases, news articles, and public fil-
ings in support of Schnatter.107
Papa John’s and Schnatter reached an agreement
in 2019 to resolve many of their points of contention.
As a result of the agreement, Schnatter will resign from
the Papa John’s board of directors and cease litigation
against his former company. However, the matter is far
from closed. Schnatter’s spokesperson says he still
“retains his ability to assert new legal claims” in the
future related to his ouster.108 Moreover, the founder is
still the company’s largest individual shareholder, own-
ing a 19% stake.109
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Better Ingredients. Better Pizza. Worst Spokesperson.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
118 PART 1 Individual Behavior
problem. For each cause explain why or how it
causes the problem. Asking why multiple times
is more likely to lead you to root causes of the
problem. For example, do particular individual
differences John Schnatter possesses help
explain the problem you defined in Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for situation factors.
For each ask yourself, why is this a cause? By
following the process of asking why multiple
times, you are likely to arrive at a more complete
and accurate list of causes. Again, look to the
Organizing Framework for guidance.
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organiz-
ing Framework. Are any processes at the indi-
vidual, group/team, or organizational level
potential causes of your defined problem? It cer-
tainly seems Schnatter’s emotions are notable
aspects of his experience and predicament. Do
they help explain the problem defined in Step 1?
What about the board and their governance of
Papa John’s? What about the fact that Schnatter
is still a significant shareholder in the company?
For any process you consider, ask yourself, why
is this a cause? Again, do this for several itera-
tions to arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem and confirm the link or cause and effect
connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make recommendations for solving the problem,
considering whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
dissolve it. Which recommendation is desirable and
feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use material in
the current chapter that best suits the cause.
Remember to consider the OB in Action and
Applying OB boxes, because these contain
insights into what others have done. Details of
this case, for instance, describe how Papa
John’s board is concerned and has legitimate
authority to make changes at the organization
and repair its reputation. What might they do?
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors, as well as pro-
cesses at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations and be sure your recommen-
dations map onto the causes and resolve the
problem.
THE COMPANY’S CONTINUED
STRUGGLES
Papa John’s continues to reel under negative public-
ity even after Schnatter’s exile. The company has
closed over 100 locations in the past year while
competitors such as Dominos and Pizza Hut have
opened new ones.110 It has also been forced to assist
suffering franchisees by providing royalty relief and
other types of subsidies, further deteriorating the
company’s bottom line.111
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
Use the Organizing Framework in Figure 3.6 and the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify
inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcome box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 3.6 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember, a
problem is a gap between a desired and current
state. State your problem as a gap and be sure
to consider problems at all three levels. If more
than one desired outcome is not being accom-
plished, decide which one is most important and
focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are gen-
erally viewed from a player’s perspective. You
need to determine from whose perspective—
employee, manager, team, or the organization—
you’re defining the problem. As in other cases,
whether you choose the individual or organiza-
tional level in this case can make a difference.
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
that are not explicitly included in the case itself.
Only use what is provided in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
thinking. Focus on topics in the current chapter,
because we generally select cases that illustrate
concepts in the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify what are the
causes of the problem you identified in Step 1. Remem-
ber, causes tend to appear in either the Inputs or Pro-
cesses boxes.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 3.6) and determine which person factors,
if any, are most likely causes of the defined
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
119Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
To Test or Not to Test, That Is a Problem
Companies across industries have tested for drugs for
many years, and depending on the job and the drug,
few would argue against such practices. For instance,
no one wants pilots, air traffic controllers, or surgeons
to be altered in any way while performing their duties.
In the past when there was ambiguity about drugs and
jobs the law made it easier—if the drug is illegal for
recreational use then it is reasonable to include it in
testing, pre- and post-employment. This is why few
people today or in the past would support the use of
heroin or cocaine at work, and thus testing for these Is
still widely accepted.
But Now There Is Recreational Pot
(Not Medicinal)
Although still illegal at the federal level, marijuana is
legal for medicinal uses in 39 states and for recre-
ational use in 10 (as of early 2019), and a Gallup poll
showed 64 percent of Americans favor its legaliza-
tion.112 These changing attitudes and legal complexi-
ties are forcing owners, managers, and employees to
reconsider their positions and policies related to drugs
and drug testing in the workplace.
Some argue testing is obsolete while others claim
the current situation requires even greater diligence.113
The state of Maine, as an example, has outlawed pre-
employment testing and dismissal for a first positive
test for pot use at work, which has led companies there
and elsewhere to eliminate or at least reduce testing.
Vermont also legalized recreational use but does not
require employers to tolerate possession or use at
work, nor does it forbid them from testing for it.114
On the other hand, many argue employers have a
responsibility to provide a safe and productive work-
place, and to the extent policies and practices related
to marijuana (or any other substance) undermine these
responsibilities, then such policies are difficult to
defend. The failure to establish and enforce such
policies erodes employee morale and potentially
increases legal liability for employers. Additionally,
since opioids and other prescription drug misuse is
epidemic, many think drug policies and practices need
to be tougher at work, not more relaxed. Further sup-
port for this position is that 4.2 percent of urine tests
done on employees in 2016 were positive, the highest
level in more than a decade.115
What About Unreliable Tests?
As before and still, those who test positive almost
always claim their exposure was indirect, a situation
factor, and it was the secondhand smoke of a partner,
friend, person sitting next to them at a concert or in a
car. Experts and processes today reduce the likelihood
of false positives to nearly zero, and many processes
automatically use a second and more stringent testing
method when the initial test comes back positive. Fur-
thermore, testing today allows for a threshold level for
all drugs, and the thresholds are now high enough to
require being stuck in a closet with four friends smok-
ing pot heavily for hours in order for a bystander to
register positive.116
This poses quite a dilemma for owners, managers,
and employees. Let’s explore your own views and rec-
ommended actions with the following questions.
1. What is your position on drug testing at work,
both pre- and post-employment? Explain.
2. Assume you are a manager of employees across
multiple states, some with recreational drug
legalization and others not, what would you do?
3. Employees in most companies are allowed to
take smoke breaks, historically for cigarettes,
but what if now they want to include pot-breaks
in those states where marijuana is legal?
Assume you own the company, does that
change your views?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 4-1 Describe how you form perceptions of others.
LO 4-2 Discuss how awareness of stereotypes helps you make better decisions.
LO 4-3 Explain how causal attributions help managers interpret employee
performance.
LO 4-4 Describe the four layers of diversity and how they help organizations
manage diversity effectively.
LO 4-5 Discuss the business rationale for managing diversity.
LO 4-6 Discuss the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity
programs.
LO 4-7 Explain what organizations are doing to manage diversity effectively.
LO 4-8 Describe the implications of social perception and managing diversity for
you and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework shown in Figure 4.1 summarizes the key concepts discussed in
Chapter 4. We discuss the impact of three important person factors—diversity, demographics, and
stereotypes, and the situation factor of diversity climate on a host of processes at the individual,
group/team, and organizational levels. These person and situation factors affect the individual
level processes pertaining to perception, attributions, and psychological safety. They also influ-
ence processes at the group/team and organizational levels. One of the biggest takeaways from
this chapter is the fact that the combination of inputs and processes shown in Figure 4.1 have a
broad effect on individual, group/team, and organizational level outcomes. Try to observe how the
inputs and processes affect individual level outcomes such as task performance, work attitudes,
well-being, flourishing, turnover, and career outcomes such as promotions. At the same time, you
should learn that concepts discussed in this chapter also affect group/team level outcomes of
performance and satisfaction as well as organizational outcomes like being an employer of choice,
customer satisfaction, and reputation.
4 Social Perception and Managing Diversity
C
ai
a
Im
ag
e/
Im
ag
e
So
ur
ce
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
121Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
FIGURE 4.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Diversity
• Demographics
• Stereotypes
Situation Factors
• Diversity climate
Individual Level
• Perceptions
• Attributions
• Psychological safety
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
Organizational Level
• Options to manage diversity
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
Organizational Level
• Employer of choice
• Customer satisfaction
• Reputation
This team of professionals is focused on finalizing plans for a new office space. Success in this effort
requires coordination among a diverse set of people, and this is not always an easy task. Research and
anecdotal evidence reveals that diversity can promote greater performance once people learn to work
effectively with people different from themselves.
stockbroker/123RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
122
Winning at Work
Perception Plays a Key Role in Getting a Job
Do’s
• Be aware of each platform’s
policies and procedures
because they tend to vary.
• Focus on the quality of your
posts rather than the quantity.
• Use Twitter and LinkedIn to
play up your professional inter-
ests (like sharing relevant news
articles).
• Cross-check your résumé and LinkedIn profile to
make sure there are no discrepancies.
• Share information about your volunteer activities
and work with professional associations.
• Make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors
in your materials.
• Remember to continuously update your profiles.
Don’ts
• Don’t bad-mouth a current or former employer, col-
league, or company.
• Avoid foul language and negative remarks.
• Don’t post when you are impaired, or even when
you are overly tired or emotional.
• Don’t post anything that might be perceived as rac-
ist, biased, sexually oriented, or illegal.5
More recruiters than ever are using
social media to find good employees. A
recent U.S. survey of 800 recruiters by
Jobvite revealed that 25 percent of hir-
ing companies overall are developing
recruiting methods that rely on Insta-
gram; the rate is 63 percent among
technology companies. Results also
showed that nearly half the companies
surveyed (43 percent) have used texting
to communicate with job applicants, and
they report a high approval rating for those communications.1
Another survey reveals that nearly 3 in 4 Millennial job
seekers (aged 18 to 34) found their most recent job
through social media. That’s not too surprising if you con-
sider that 82 percent of hiring organizations report using
social media to recruit “passive” candidates; that is, those
who are not actively looking for a job.2
Perceptions Start with Social Media Posts
A national CareerBuilder survey of more than 1,000 hiring
and HR managers found that 7 in 10 research job candi-
dates online, using their social network profiles to assess
their potential fit with the company. Nearly half said if they
couldn’t find a candidate online, they would hesitate to get
in touch for an interview. Although the Internet is a gold
mine of information for recruiters, a poorly managed online
image can hurt your chances of finding a job. Forty percent
of employers in the CareerBuilder survey report forming a
negative impression of candidates who posted “provoca-
tive or inappropriate” photos; 36 percent disliked online
revelations of alcohol or drug use; and 31 percent were
turned off by expressions of race, gender, or religious bias.3
Consider the experience of Pete Maulik, chief strategy
officer at Fahrenheit 212. Maulik was ready to make an offer
to an applicant, but after checking out the man’s LinkedIn
profile he decided the applicant was not a team player. “He
took credit for everything short of splitting the atom,”
Maulik said. “Everything was ‘I did this.’ He seemed like a
lone wolf. He did everything himself.”
Maulik recalls another seemingly good applicant who
used his Twitter account “to disparage just about every new
innovation in the marketplace.” Maulik concluded the appli-
cant “was much more comfortable as the critic than the col-
laborative creator.”4 This candidate was not hired either.
Recommended Tips
The following suggestions can help you manage the
impression you are projecting based on the information
you post on social media.
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
We want to help you enhance your understanding
of the perceptual process so you won’t fall victim to
common perceptual errors—yours or other people’s.
This chapter will show you, for instance, how per-
ception influences the way managers manage
diversity. Diversity should matter to you because the
way a business deals with diversity affects the way
you are perceived as an individual. Diversity matters
to your organization too, because it allows you to
take advantage of the fullest range of human skill
and talent. We also discuss barriers and challenges
to managing diversity, and the practices organiza-
tions use to overcome them.
Panther Media GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
123
Imagine you are driving on a winding mountain road at dusk and suddenly see something
in the road. Is it an animal, a rock, or a person? Should you stop or just maneuver around
it? Suppose you’re in a team meeting and one of your teammates makes a negative state-
ment about your work. Is the person being political or just having a bad day? Your mind is
trying to quickly answer these questions before you respond.
Perception is key to resolving the above questions. Perception is a cognitive pro-
cess that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings. Recognition of
objects is one of this process’s major functions. But because organizational behavior’s
(OB’s) principal focus is on people, our discussion will emphasize social perception rather
than object perception.
Perception is important to OB because it affects our actions and decisions. It is based
on our perception of reality, not on reality itself. Our exploration of this important process
begins with a discussion of social perception and the four stages of processing informa-
tion. We then consider a model of person perception, which provides a practical frame-
work for understanding how we form perceptions of others. Finally we consider the
managerial implications of person perception.
Stages of Social Perception
You can learn to avoid making perceptual errors by understanding the process that guides
perception. As shown in Figure 4.2, there are four stages of social perception:
• Stage 1: Selective attention/comprehension
• Stage 2: Encoding and simplification
• Stage 3: Storage and retention
• Stage 4: Retrieval and response
Describe how you
form perceptions
of others.
LO 4-1
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Understanding how you process information will help you see how perception affects a vari-
ety of important processes and outcomes within the Organizing Framework for Understand-
ing and Applying OB. It can also assist in managing the perceptions people form about you.
4.1 THE PERCEPTION PROCESS
FIGURE 4.2 Social Perception: A Social Information Processing Model
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
C Judgments and
decisions
Interpretation
and categorization• People
• Events
• Objects
Memory
A
B
C
D
E
F
A
C
F
Stage 2
Encoding and
Simplification
Stage 3
Storage and
Retention
Stage 1
Selective Attention/
Comprehension
Stage 4
Retrieval and
Response
Competing
environmental
stimuli
Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
124 PART 1 Individual Behavior
The first three stages describe how specific social information is observed and stored in
memory. The fourth and final stage, retrieval and response, involves turning mental repre-
sentations into real-world judgments and decisions.
Let’s look at the four stages of social perception by following a simple example. Suppose
you were thinking of taking a personal finance course. Three professors teach the same course,
using different types of instruction and testing procedures. Through personal experience, you
now prefer good professors who rely on the case method of instruction and essay tests.
According to social perception theory, you would likely arrive at a decision regarding which
course to take based on the instructor, following the steps outlined in the following sections.
Stage 1: Selective Attention/Comprehension People are constantly bombarded
by physical and social stimuli. To avoid being overwhelmed, they selectively perceive sub-
sets of environmental stimuli. This is where attention plays a role. Attention is the process
of becoming consciously aware of someone or something. Research has shown that
people tend to pay attention to salient stimuli—that is, something that stands out from its
context. For example, a 250-pound man would certainly be salient in a women’s aerobics
class but not at a meeting of NFL players.
One’s needs and goals often dictate which stimuli are salient. In our personal finance
example, you would begin your search for the “right” professor by asking friends who have
taken classes from the three available professors. You might also interview the professors
who teach the course to gather additional information. In Figure 4.2, all the information
you obtain shows as competing environmental stimuli labeled A through F. You interpret
and categorize your notes.
Stage 2: Encoding and Simplification Our memory does not store observed informa-
tion in its original form; encoding is required. Our brains interpret or translate raw informa-
tion into mental representations. To accomplish this, individuals assign pieces of information
to cognitive categories, groups of objects that are considered equivalent. For example,
categories are generally designated by names—for example, dog, animal.6
In social information processing theory, a particular category builds on a schema.
A schema represents a person’s mental picture or summary of a particular event or
type of stimulus. For example, picture a sports car. Does the picture show a small vehicle
with two doors? Is it red? If you answered yes, you would tend to classify all small, two-door,
red vehicles as sports cars because this type of car possesses characteristics consistent with
your sports car schema. We interpret and evaluate people, events, and objects by comparing
their characteristics with information contained in schemata (the plural form of schema).
Relying on encoding helps us to simplify what might be a bewildering range of inputs.
Encoding and schemata make the world more manageable. In our personal finance exam-
ple, let’s say you simplify by focusing on categories most salient to you: the method of
instruction, testing procedures, and past grade distributions. Figure 4.2 shows these three
salient pieces of information as lines A, C, and F.
Having collected relevant information about the three professors and their approaches,
you compare this information with other details contained in schemata. This comparison leads
you to form an impression of what each professor’s course might be like. In turn, the relevant
information (lines A, C, and F in Figure 4.2) are passed along to the third stage of the process.
Stage 3: Storage and Retention Long-term memory is like an apartment complex
consisting of separate units connected to common areas. Sometimes different people in
each apartment will interact. Long-term memory similarly consists of separate but related
compartments (or wings), one each for events, semantic materials, and people.7
• Event memory: This compartment includes categories with information about both
specific events (relying on unique details) and general events (relying on schemata).
These memories describe sequences of events in familiar situations: going to a res-
taurant, going on a job interview, going to a movie, etc.
• Semantic memory: This refers to general knowledge about the world, as a kind of
mental dictionary of concepts. Each concept includes a definition (e.g., a good leader)
and associated traits (outgoing), emotional states (happy), physical characteristics
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
125Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
(short), and behaviors (works hard). These concepts are stored as schemata and are
often subject to cultural differences.
• Person memory: Categories within this compartment supply information about a sin-
gle individual (your professor) or groups of people (professors). You are more likely to
remember information about a person, event, or advertisement if it contains charac-
teristics that are similar to something stored in the compartments of memory.
As time draws near for you to decide which personal finance professor to choose, your
schemata of them are stored in the three categories of long-term memory and are available
for immediate retrieval and comparison.
Stage 4: Retrieval and Response People retrieve information from memory when
they make judgments and decisions, and these ultimately come about in one of two ways:
(1) we draw on, interpret, and integrate categorial information stored in long-term memory
or (2) we retrieve a summary judgment that has already been made.
On course registration day, you have to choose which professor to take for personal
finance. After retrieving your schemata-based impressions from memory, you select a good
professor who uses the case method and gives essay tests (line C in Figure 4.2). In con-
trast, you may choose your preferred professor by simply recalling the decision you made
two weeks ago.
A Model of Person
Perception
Figure 4.1 showed that perception is an
important process in the Organizing Frame-
work for Understanding and Applying OB
because it affects our actions and decisions.
Consider dieting. Recently Weight Watchers
International stopped using the word diet in
its advertising because of the word’s negative
perception. In fact, the company slimmed
down its own name to WW and is adding the
word wellness to its brand. Company presi-
dent and CEO Mindy Grossman noted that
“We are becoming the world’s partner in well-
ness.”8 Weight Watchers clearly is trying to
use the perception process to increase sales.
Perception is influenced by three key
components: the characteristics of the per-
ceiver, of the target—the person or group being observed—and of the situation (see Figure 4.3).9
Let’s take a closer look at how these components work.
Characteristics of the Perceiver Figure 4.3 shows six key perceiver characteristics
that affect our perceptions of others.10 As you read, consider how they might have influ-
enced your perceptions in the past.
• Direction of gaze. Gaze is the first step in the perception process because it focuses
your attention and tells the brain what you think is important in the immediate environ-
ment. When scanning people, we also tend to pay attention to others who are gazing at
us. We usually remember people when we make direct eye contact with them.
• Needs and goals. We are more likely to perceive whatever is related to our goals and
needs. For example, we perceive examples of food if we are hungry. If we are looking
for a friend at a party, we scan the room for familiar faces and fail to perceive strangers.
• Experience with target. Our perception of a target is influenced by our past experience
with him or her. You might perceive someone’s firm handshake negatively, for instance,
if you know this person has attempted to exert power and control over you in the past.
The same handshake is positive if you remember the target as a friendly, caring person.
Music artist DJ Khaled is one of many celebrities who endorse Weight
Watchers and its wellness approach to a healthy lifestyle. Do you think
more people will join WW’s programs because of celebrity endorsements?
Lu Chau/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
126 PART 1 Individual Behavior
• Category-based knowledge. Category-based knowledge consists of perceptions,
including stereotypes, that we have stored in memory about various categories of
people (professors, singers, artists, police, politicians, and so on). We use this infor-
mation to interpret what we see and hear. For instance, if you believe professors in
general are intelligent, you are more likely to perceive that those teaching your cur-
rent courses are intelligent. If your memory tells you that people who lie cannot be
trusted, you are likely to perceive a politician as untrustworthy who is caught in a
lie. We discuss stereotypes in the next section.
• Gender and emotional status. Women recognize emotions more accurately than
men, and both men and women are more likely to recognize a target’s emotions
when they are consistent with their own. Experiencing negative emotions such as
anger and frustration is likely to make your perceptions more negative. The opposite
is true for positive emotions such as optimism and love.
• Cognitive load. Cognitive load represents the amount of activity going on in your
brain. If you are tired and distracted after working a long day, your perceptions are
more likely to be distorted and susceptible to stereotypical judgments.
Characteristics of the Target Figure 4.3 identifies five important characteristics of
the target that affect our person perception.11 The characteristics are:
• Direction of gaze. We form different perceptions of people based on whether they
are looking at us while conversing. Direct eye contact suggests interest, whereas eyes
darting across a room suggests the opposite.
• Facial features and body shape. We often use faces as markers for gender, race, and
age, but face and body characteristics can lead us to fall back on cultural stereotypes.
Characteristics of the perceiver
• Direction of gaze
• Needs and goals
• Experience with target
• Category based knowledge
• Gender and emotional status
• Cognitive load
Characteristics of the target
• Direction of gaze
• Facial and body shape
characteristics
• Nonverbal cues
• Appearance or dress
• Physical attractiveness
Characteristics of the situation
• Context of interaction
• Culture and race consistency
between perceiver and target
Interactions
between perceivers
and targets.
Person
Perception
FIGURE 4.3 A Model of Person Perception
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
127Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
For example, height has been associated with perceptions of prosperity—high
income—and occupational success. Excess weight can be stereotypically associated
with negative traits such as laziness, incompetence, and lack of discipline.
• Nonverbal cues. Communication experts tell us that nonverbal actions are highly
influential in perception. Gestures, touching, facial expressions, eye contact, and
body movements like slouching all convey messages. You might perceive that some-
one is defensive if you observe folded arms, a facial scowl, or crossed legs. In many
cultures appropriate touching conveys an impression of warmth and caring.
• Appearance or dress. We all are susceptible to being influenced by appearance. We
may conclude someone who shows up for work with tattoos or other body art may
not be serious about doing a good job or may wonder how the person even got
hired. However, research doesn’t support this perception. In a recent survey of more
than 2,000 individuals, those with tattoos were no less likely to be employed than
their uninked counterparts and average earnings were the same for both groups.12
• Physical attractiveness. While attractiveness is culturally determined, the beauty-is-good
stereotype leads us to perceive attractive people positively. High attractiveness has been
associated with better job opportunities, higher performance ratings, and the potential
for increased earnings. One team of researchers concluded, “The effects of facial attrac-
tiveness are robust and . . . attractiveness is a significant advantage for both children
and adults in almost every domain of judgment, treatment, and behavior.”13
Characteristics of the Situation Figure 4.3 shows two key situational characteris-
tics that affect perception: the context of the interaction, and the culture and race consis-
tency between perceivers and targets.
• Context of interaction. Perceptions are affected by the social context in which the inter-
action occurs. For example, your parent will likely perceive your eating food from the
kitchen when you visit home differently than will a coworker whose food you take from
the office refrigerator. Texting someone while eating dinner with friends is perceived
differently than texting during a business meeting. Context matters!
• Culture and race consistency. We more accurately recognize emotions displayed by
people from our own culture or from other familiar cultures. We also better under-
stand and remember facial expressions displayed by people from our own race. For
instance, both authors do consulting around the world, and we find it harder to accu-
rately perceive group dynamics in foreign than in U.S. companies. Angelo recalls
telling a joke to a group of Finnish managers. No one laughed or made any facial
expressions, and he thought the joke had bombed until someone told him at a break
that he was really funny. What a perceptual surprise! The Applying OB box provides
some tips on how to develop your own cultural awareness.
Applying OB
Our cultural backgrounds and expectations are just
some of many factors that affect our own perceptions
of a person or situation. For example, “Americans see
an apology as an admission of wrongdoing, whereas
Japanese see it as an expression of eagerness to
repair a damaged relationship, with no culpability nec-
essarily implied.”14 To build your own cultural aware-
ness and enable you to form more accurate
perceptions of unfamiliar people and situations, con-
sider the following:15
1. Know what you don’t know. Begin by acknowl-
edging that you may not have good or sufficient
information about another person’s culture, and
that there are probably gaps in your knowledge
that you can fill.
Developing Cultural Awareness to Enhance Perception
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
128 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Managerial Implications of Person Perception
Person perception is the window through which we all observe, interpret, and prepare our
responses to people and events. It affects a wide variety of managerial activities, organiza-
tional processes, and quality-of-life issues. We’ll touch on hiring, performance appraisal,
and leadership.
Hiring Interviewers make hiring decisions based on their impression of how an applicant
fits the perceived requirements of a job. Unfortunately, many of these decisions are
made on the basis of implicit cognition. Implicit cognition
represents any thoughts or beliefs that are automati-
cally activated from memory without our conscious
awareness. The existence of implicit cognition, or implicit
bias, leads people to make biased decisions without realizing
they are doing so.16 A recent study of letters of recommenda-
tion for academic job positions, for instance, demonstrated
that people recommend female versus male candidates in
different ways, probably based on gender role stereotypes.
The letters described female applicants as caring, friendly,
and nice, while male applicants were strong, decisive, and
outstanding.17
Experts recommend three solutions for reducing the biasing
effect of implicit cognition. First, managers can be trained to
understand and recognize this type of hidden bias. Second, they
can use structured rather than unstructured interviews. Inter-
viewers ask the same sequence of questions to all applicants in a
structured interview, which leads to more reliable evaluations.
Finally, managers can rely on evaluations from multiple inter-
viewers rather than just one or two people. More companies now
are using virtual interviews as a tool for reducing problems asso-
ciated with implicit cognition (see the OB in Action box).
Performance Appraisal Faulty perceptions about perfor-
mance can lead to inaccurate performance appraisals, which
can erode morale and thwart some women from seeking for-
mal leadership roles in an organization. Consider the results of
a recent study of how former CEOs influence the success of
their female successors.
2. Try not to judge prematurely. Once you’ve recog-
nized that you may have some cultural biases,
withhold judgment of others whose motivations,
words, or actions you may not immediately under-
stand, and of situations that are new to you.
3. Do some homework. Even if your organization
doesn’t provide formal diversity training, there are
almost unlimited resources in libraries and online
for finding information about other cultures on
your own. Do some research and consider using
your company’s suggestion box or other feedback
framework to propose diversity training if there
isn’t any.
4. Rely on good manners. Always err on the side of
cordiality and respect and give others the benefit
of the doubt whenever appropriate. Use informal-
ity with care; it is not valued equally in all cultures,
particularly in business relationships.
5. Reach out to others as a way to learn. Get to
know coworkers from other cultures than your
own. Invite them to share coffee or a meal, listen
carefully, and be ready to share information about
what you have in common as well as how you
may differ. Give these new relationships time to
develop.
6. Build diverse teams. Include different kinds of
people on any team you are asked to build and
make an active effort to work with them on teams
to which you are assigned.
Do you think these diners have any implicit cognitions
when it comes to choosing their menu selections?
Do you think their choice of rosé wine activates a
preference for a certain type of entrée?
Image Source
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
129Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
The research looked at all of the CEO successions involving female successors over a
20-year period across the largest companies in the United States. Findings suggest that
women CEOs were successful when their mostly male predecessors promoted gender-
neutral work environments and functioned as “gatekeepers,” meaning the male CEOs were
closely involved in hiring, selecting, and socializing the women within the company’s orga-
nizational culture, and providing them with ongoing feedback about their performance—
both formally and informally.18
Perceptual biases in performance appraisals can be reduced by the use of more objective
measures of performance. While this is a good idea, it is hard to implement for jobs that
require interdependent work, mental work, or work that does not produce objective outcomes.
Companies can also reduce bias by providing managers a mechanism for accurately recall-
ing employee behavior, such as a performance diary. Finally, it would be useful to train manag-
ers about perceptual biases and about how they can avoid them in performance evaluations.19
What do Doctors Without Borders, Yelp, Trivago,
ExxonMobil, Porsche Consulting, and ClubMed have
in common? According to WebEmployed.com, these
organizations and others use Skype to conduct vir-
tual interviews with qualified job candidates around
the world.20 Among the benefits are speed and cost
savings, since the time and expense to get candi-
date and interviewer to the same place are elimi-
nated. Not only can hiring companies interview more
candidates; multiple interviewers can participate,
yielding more and better information for selecting a
new hire. Job candidates benefit, too. They don’t need
to take time off for travel to be considered for a job,
and they can widen the pool of organizations to
which they apply.
In a variation on virtual interviewing that demon-
strates another of its advantages, Matt Mullenweg,
CEO of Automattic (the parent company of Word-
Press), tries to eliminate hidden bias by using text-
only Skype and messaging for the final stage of
interviewing. “I don’t know the gender or ethnicity of
anyone I interview,” he says. “I see only the words on
the screen. It’s as close to a double-blind process as
you can get. I’m looking mainly for passion and cul-
tural fit. Of the people who make it to the final inter-
view, 95 percent get a job offer—a testament to the
effectiveness of our approach.”21
Even before the interview, some companies are
using virtual technologies in recruiting. Jet.com, the
New Jersey-based shopping site owned by Walmart,
has created a virtual reality simulation to let potential
job candidates try out its workplace culture wher-
ever they happen to be. They can observe a meeting
with the CEO, sample the company’s happy hour,
and even play games. The company hopes this
opportunity will allow it to attract the best candidates
to compete against its main rival, Amazon.com.22
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. The above discussion focuses on the positive
aspects of virtual interviews. Are there negative
aspects of this strategy? If so, what are they?
2. How would you prepare for a virtual interview?
3. If you were relying on virtual interviews to select
job candidates, what would you look for?
Virtual Interviews Can Improve the Accuracy of Job Interviews and Reduce Costs
OB in Action
Leadership Research demonstrates that employees’ evaluations of leader effectiveness
are influenced strongly by their categorical knowledge of what constitutes good and poor
leaders. For example, a team of researchers found that the following behaviors are repre-
sentative of effective leadership:
1. Assigning specific tasks to group members.
2. Telling others they have done well.
3. Setting specific goals for the group.
4. Letting other group members make decisions.
5. Trying to get the group to work as a team.
6. Maintaining definite standards of performance.23
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
130 PART 1 Individual Behavior
4.2 STEREOTYPES
“A stereotype is an individual’s set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes
of a group.”24 We need to recognize how stereotypes affect our perception because we use
them without intending to or even being consciously aware that we are.25
Stereotypes are not always negative. For example, the belief that engineers are good at
math is certainly part of a stereotype and is positive. Stereotypes also may or may not be
accurate. Engineers may in fact be better at math than the general population.
Unfortunately, stereotypes can lead to poor decisions. Consider people diagnosed with
cancer, about 38 percent of men and women living in the United States.26 A recent study
showed that managers continue to make discriminatory decisions about employees who
are cancer patients.27 All told, stereotypes can create barriers for women, older individuals,
people of color, and people with disabilities, all while undermining loyalty and job satisfac-
tion. Let’s look at examples.
Gender. A summary of research revealed that:
• Men were preferred for male-dominated jobs (e.g., firefighters), but there was no
preference for either gender in female-dominated jobs (e.g., nurse).
• Female entrepreneurs looking for funding for their start-ups have a more difficult
time than their male counterparts in obtaining venture capital due to gender bias on
the part of investors.
• Women are more likely than men to hire other women.
• Women of color are more negatively affected by sex-role stereotypes than white
women or men in general.28
Race. Studies of race-based stereotypes demonstrated that people of color experienced
more perceived discrimination and less psychological support than whites.29 Perceived
racial discrimination was also associated with more negative work attitudes, physical
health, psychological health, and organizational citizenship behavior.30
Age. Another example of an inaccurate stereotype is the belief that older workers are
less motivated, more resistant to change, less trusting, less healthy, and more likely to
have problems with work–life balance. A recent study refuted all these negative beliefs
about age.31
Stereotype Formation and Maintenance
We build stereotypes through a four-step process:
1. Categorization. We categorize people into groups according to criteria (such as gen-
der, age, race, and occupation).
2. Inferences. Next, we infer that all people within a particular category possess the same
traits or characteristics: women are nurturing, older people have more job- related acci-
dents, African Americans are good athletes.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Don’t say you don’t use stereotypes; they help us process information faster and thus are part
of the way we humans think. But stereotypes can also lead to bad decisions and undermine
personal relationships. Being aware of them can save you from such pitfalls.
Discuss how
awareness of
stereotypes helps
you make better
decisions.
LO 4-2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
131Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
3. Expectations. We form expectations of others and interpret their behavior according
to our stereotypes.
4. Maintenance. We maintain stereotypes by:
• Overestimating the frequency of stereotypic behaviors exhibited by others.
• Incorrectly explaining expected and unexpected behaviors.
• Differentiating minority individuals from ourselves.
Research shows that it takes accurate information and motivation to reduce the use of
stereotypes.32
Managerial Challenges and Recommendations
The key managerial challenge is to reduce the extent to which stereotypes influence deci-
sion making and interpersonal processes throughout the organization. We suggest three
ways that this can be achieved.
1. Managers should educate people about stereotypes and how they can influence our
behavior and decision making. Many people may not understand how stereotypes
unconsciously affect their perception. For example, in a recent LinkedIn report on
gender insights, data revealed that when recruiters are searching for job candidates
and they see a list of men and women, they tend to open the men’s LinkedIn profiles
more frequently than the women’s profiles. To combat the initial selection bias, more
companies are implementing anonymous hiring and removing key identifiers (for
example, names and photos) from candidates’ applications.33
2. Managers should create opportunities for diverse employees to meet and work together
in cooperative groups of equal status. Social scientists believe positive interpersonal
contact among mixed groups is the best way to reduce stereotypes because it provides
people with more accurate data about the characteristics of others.
3. Managers should encourage all employees to increase their awareness of stereotypes.
Awareness helps reduce the application of stereotypes when making decisions and
interacting with others.
What do you notice in this photo? The woman working from a wheelchair? Do you think some people have
negative stereotypes about those with disabilities? Research shows that many people do.
Pixtal/age fotostock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
132 PART 1 Individual Behavior
4.3 CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS
Attribution theory is based on a simple premise: Rightly or wrongly, people infer causes
for their own and others’ behavior. Formally defined, causal attributions are sus-
pected or inferred causes of behavior. Managers need to understand how people
formulate these attributions because they profoundly affect organizational behavior.
Consider Table 4.1, in which the manager’s understanding of observed behavior leads
to very different actions.
Kelley’s Model of Attribution
Current models of attribution build on the pioneering work of the late Fritz Heider.
Heider, the founder of attribution theory, proposed that behavior can be attrib-
uted either to internal factors within a person (such as ability) or to external
factors within the environment (such as a difficult task). Following Heider’s
work, Harold Kelley attempted to pinpoint some specific antecedents of internal
and external attributions. Kelley hypothesized that people make causal attributions
by observing three dimensions of behavior: consensus, distinctiveness, and consis-
tency.34 These dimensions vary independently, forming various combinations and
leading to differing attributions.
• Consensus compares an individual’s behavior with that of his or her peers.
There is high consensus when someone acts like the rest of the group and low con-
sensus when he or she acts differently.
• Distinctiveness compares a person’s behavior on one task with his or her
behavior on other tasks. High distinctiveness means the individual has performed
the task in a significantly different manner than he or she has performed other
tasks.
• Consistency judges whether the individual’s performance on a given task is
consistent over time. Low consistency is undesirable for obvious reasons and
implies that a person is unable to perform a certain task at some standard level.
High consistency implies that a person performs a certain task the same way, with
little or no variation over time.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Consciously or unconsciously, you use causal attributions when you seek to explain the
causes of behavior. So do most managers. You can avoid the fundamental attribution bias
and self-serving bias if you learn how they distort our interpretation of observed behavior.
Explain how
causal attributions
help managers
interpret employee
performance.
LO 4-3
TABLE 4.1 The Link between Attributions and Managerial Actions
OBSERVED BEHAVIOR
MANAGER’S
ATTRIBUTION
MANAGERIAL
ACTION
Employee fails to meet minimum standards Lack of effort Reprimand
Employee fails to meet minimum standards Lack of ability Training
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
133Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
Figure 4.4 provides sample charts of these dimensions in both low and high
incidence.
How do these three dimensions of behavior lead to specific attributions? Kelley theo-
rized that people attribute behavior to either internal causes (personal factors) or external
causes (environmental factors) depending on the way they rank consensus, distinctiveness,
and consistency as shown in Table 4.2:
EXAMPLE You would make an internal attribution to Mary if she displayed extraor-
dinary performance relative to her peers and this level of performance was typical for
Mary over the past year. In contrast, you would arrive at an external attribution if
Mary’s performance was similar to her peers, but the performance on the task you
observed was lower than usual for Mary over the past year.
While other combinations are possible, the two options shown below have been most
frequently studied.35 Note: For another view of Kelley’s theory, return to Figure 4.4. In the
figure, we provided charts that, taken together, indicate internal attributions on the left-
hand side and external attributions on the right-hand side.
FIGURE 4.4 Sample Charts of Consensus, Distinctiveness, and
Consistency in Performance
SOURCE: Brown, Karen A. “Explaining Group Poor Performance: An Attributional Analysis.” Academy of Management Review 9,
no. 1 (January 1984): 54–63. https://DOI: 10.2307/258232.
In the Low
Consensus chart,
Person C is not in
consensus. In the
High Consensus
chart, all persons
are in consensus.
In the Low
Distinctiveness
chart, all tasks are
similar. In the High
Distinctiveness
chart, Task 4 is
especially distinct.
For reasons we’ll share
soon, we switched order
of high and low. The High
Consistency chart shows no
change over time. The Low
Consistency chart shows
lack of consistency.
Conse
nsus
(amon
g peo
ple)
Distin
ctiven
ess
(acros
s task
s)
Consi
stenc
y
(over
time)
Low
A EB C D A EB C D
1 52 3 4 1 52 3 4
High
Low High
High Low
TABLE 4.2 Formation of Internal and External Attributions
ATTRIBUTION
CONSENSUS
(PEOPLE)
DISTINCTIVENESS
(TASKS)
CONSISTENCY
(TIME)
Internal Low Low High
External High High Low
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
134 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Attributional Tendencies
Researchers have uncovered two attributional tendencies that distort our interpretation of
observed behavior—fundamental attribution bias and self-serving bias.
Fundamental Attribution Bias The fundamental attribution bias reflects our
tendency to attribute another person’s behavior to his or her personal characteris-
tics, rather than to situation factors. This bias causes perceivers to ignore important
environmental factors (again refer to the Organizing Framework), which often signifi-
cantly affect behavior. Such bias leads to inaccurate assessments of performance, which in
turn fosters inappropriate responses to poor performance.
Self-Serving Bias The self-serving bias represents our tendency to take more
personal responsibility for success than for failure. The self-serving bias suggests indi-
viduals will attribute their success to controllable internal factors (high ability or hard
work) and their failures to uncontrollable external factors (bad luck or lack of sleep). For
example, let’s say you ace a test in your most difficult course. The self-serving bias suggests
your success occurred because you studied hard for the exam (internal factor). On the
other hand, let’s say you failed the test. You might believe you did poorly on the exam
because the teacher didn’t explain the subject correctly or you had to work your shift at the
local sub shop the night before the test.36
Managerial Applications and Implications
Attribution models can explain how managers handle poorly performing employees. One
study revealed that managers gave employees more immediate, frequent, and negative feed-
back when they attributed their performance to low effort. Another indicates that manag-
ers tended to transfer employees whose poor performance they attributed to a lack of
ability. These same managers also decided to take no immediate action when poor perfor-
mance was attributed to external factors beyond an individual’s control.37
These observations offer useful lessons for all of us:
• We tend to disproportionately attribute behavior to internal causes. This bias can
result in inaccurate evaluations of performance, leading to reduced employee moti-
vation. The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB offers a
simple solution for overcoming this tendency. You must remind yourself that behav-
ior and performance are functions of both person and situation factors.
• Other attributional biases may lead managers to take inappropriate actions. Such
actions could include promotions, transfers, layoffs, and so forth. Inappropriate
responses can dampen motivation and performance.
• An employee’s attributions for his or her own performance have dramatic effects on
motivation, performance, and personal attitudes such as self-esteem. For instance,
people tend to give up, lower their expectations of future success, and experience
decreased self-esteem when they attribute failure to lack of ability. Employees are
more likely to display high performance and job satisfaction when they attribute
success to internal factors such as ability and effort.38
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
135Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
Do you have any preconceived notions about diversity that are worth considering? Let’s
take a reality check:
• Assumption: Gender diversity on boards of directors does not affect firm perfor-
mance. Wrong, says a team of researchers who aggregated results from 140 research
studies. Findings showed that firms were more profitable when women were mem-
bers of the board of directors. As of 2018, there were only 12 Fortune 500 compa-
nies with zero women on their boards, and 11 of the 12 firms performed poorly
over the past five years when compared to other Fortune 500 companies (the other
firm is privately held).39
• Assumption: Organizations are losing Baby Boomers to retirement—can Millenni-
als fill the gap? Yes, in terms of sheer numbers, but no, in terms of skills. Accord-
ing to Pew Research data, of the 75 million strong Baby Boom generation,
44 million are still working, with the youngest in their early 50s. Millennials con-
tribute nearly 53 million workers to the labor force but because of their ages,
they don’t necessarily have the job experience or skills yet to fill the roles of the
retiring Boomers.40
• Assumption: Whites will constitute the majority among U.S. racial groups through
2060. No, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Today whites represent 61 percent
of the population, but that will drop below 45 percent by 2060.41
The United States is becoming more diverse in its gender, racial, educational, and
age makeup. For example, there are now more working parents, more nonwhites, and
more older people, and the consequences are not always what you might expect.
Demographics are the statistical measurements of populations and their quali-
ties (such as age, race, gender, or income) over time. The study of demographics
helps us better appreciate diversity and helps managers develop human resource
policies and practices that attract, retain, and develop qualified employees. In the
remainder of this chapter we will further your understanding of diversity and its mana-
gerial challenges.
Layers of Diversity
Diversity represents the multitude of individual differences and similarities that
exist among people, making it an input in the Organizing Framework for Understanding
and Applying OB. As you will learn, however, managing diversity also affects a variety of
processes and outcomes within the Organizing Framework.
Moreover, diversity pertains to everybody. It is not just an issue of age, race, or gender;
of being heterosexual, gay, or lesbian; or of being Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or Muslim.
Diversity pertains to the host of individual differences that make each of us unique and
different from all others.
Describe the four
layers of diversity and
how they help
organizations
manage diversity
effectively.
LO 4-4
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Like seashells on a beach, people come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. All of us need
to be aware of the different layers of diversity and to know the difference between affirmative
action and diversity management.
4.4 DEFINING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
136 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Lee Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe, a team of diversity experts, identified four layers
of diversity to help distinguish the important ways in which people differ (see Figure 4.5).
Taken together, these layers define our personal identities and influence the way each of us
sees the world.
Figure 4.5 shows that personality is at the center of the diversity wheel because it rep-
resents a stable set of characteristics responsible for a person’s identity. These are the
dimensions of personality discussed in Chapter 3. The next layer of diversity is composed
of internal dimensions, also referred to as surface-level dimensions of diversity.
“Surface-level characteristics are those that are quickly apparent to interactants,
such as race, gender, and age.”42 Because we view these characteristics of others as
unchangeable, they strongly influence our attitudes, expectations, and assumptions about
them, which, in turn, influence our behavior. Take the experience of an African American
middle manager sitting by the pool while vacationing at a resort. As she recalls, “A large
50-ish white male approached me and demanded that I get him extra towels. I said, ‘Excuse
me?’ He then said, ‘Oh, you don’t work here,’ with no shred of embarrassment or apology
in his voice.”43 Stereotypes regarding one or more of the internal dimensions of diversity
most likely influenced this man’s behavior.
FIGURE 4.5 The Four Layers of Diversity
SOURCE: Gardenswartz, Lee, and Anita Rowe. Diverse Teams at Work: Capitalizing on the Power of Diversity. Virginia: Society
For Human Resource Management, 2003.
Inter
nal dimensions
Extern
al dimensions
Functional level/
classification
Orga
nizational dimensions
Geographic
location
Personality
Race
Marital
status
Manage-
ment status
Union
a�liation
Work
location
Seniority
Division/
department/
unit/
group
Work
content/
field
Parental
status
Appear-
ance
Work
experience
Gender
Income
Personal
habits
Sexual
orientation
Religion
Recreation-
al habits
Ethnicity
Physical
ability
Educational
background
Age
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
137Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
Figure 4.5 shows that the next layer of diversity consists of external influences.
These are individual differences over which we have more control, such as where we
live, our religious affiliation, our marital and parental status, and our work experience.
These dimensions also exert a significant influence on our perceptions, behavior, and
attitudes.
The final layer of diversity is organizational dimensions such as seniority, job title and
function, and work location. Integrating these last two layers yields deep-level characteris-
tics of diversity. “Deep-level characteristics are those that take time to emerge in
interactions, such as attitudes, opinions, and values.”44 These characteristics are defi-
nitely under our control.
Affirmative Action vs. Diversity Management
Affirmative action and diversity management are driven by very different values and goals.
This section highlights these differences.
Affirmative Action Affirmative action is not a law in and of itself. It is an out-
growth of equal employment opportunity (EEO) legislation. The goal of this legisla-
tion is to outlaw discrimination and to encourage organizations to proactively prevent
discrimination. Discrimination occurs when employment decisions about an
individual are based on reasons not associated with performance or related to
the job. For example, organizations cannot legally discriminate on the basis of race,
color, religion, national origin, sex, age, physical and mental disabilities, and preg-
nancy. Affirmative action is an intervention aimed at giving management a
chance to correct an imbalance, injustice, mistake, or outright discrimination
that occurred in the past.
Does the number of white males stand out in this picture of the U.S. Congress? Criticized for its lack of
diversity, the U.S. Congress recently added over 120 women to its ranks.
Saul Loeb/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
138 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Affirmative action
• Can refer to both voluntary and mandatory programs.
• Does not legitimize quotas. Quotas are illegal and can be imposed only by judges
who conclude that a company has engaged in discriminatory practices.
• Does not require companies to hire unqualified people.
• Has created tremendous opportunities for women and minorities.
• Does not foster the type of thinking needed to manage diversity effectively.
Is the last point surprising? Research uncovered
the following tendencies of affirmative action plans.
They are
1. Perceived more negatively by white males than by
women and minorities, because white males see
the plans as working against their interests.
2. Viewed more positively by people who are liberals
and Democrats than by conservatives and Repub-
licans.
3. Not supported by people who hold racist or sexist
attitudes.45
4. Found to negatively affect the women and minori-
ties expected to benefit from them. Supposedly
hired on the basis of affirmative action, these
groups feel negatively stigmatized as unqualified or
incompetent.46
Recently California became the first state in the nation to legally require women on
boards for companies based in the state. Although seen as a conscious effort to even out
the gender inequity in corporate boardrooms, some female leaders say they worry the new
regulation could result in women being named to boards to comply with the regulation
rather than to bring new skills and business experience to company boards. According to
Bonnie Gwin, co-managing partner of executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles, “We’ve
got to fix it [the gender imbalance], but I’m personally not a huge fan of quotas.”47
Managing Diversity Managing diversity enables people to perform to their
maximum potential. Diversity management focuses on changing an organization’s cul-
ture and infrastructure such that people work to the highest productivity possible. Ann
Morrison, a diversity expert, attempted to identify the types of initiatives 16 companies
used to successfully manage diversity. Her results found three key strategies at work: educa-
tion, enforcement, and exposure. She describes them as follows:
• The educational component. Education “has two thrusts: one is to prepare nontradi-
tional managers for increasingly responsible posts, and the other is to help tradi-
tional managers overcome their prejudice in thinking about and interacting with
people who are of a different sex or ethnicity.”
• The enforcement component. Enforcement “puts teeth in diversity goals and encour-
ages behavior change.”
• The exposure component. Exposing people to others with different backgrounds and
characteristics “adds a more personal approach to diversity by helping managers get
to know and respect others who are different.”48
In summary, both consultants and academics believe organizations should strive to
manage diversity rather than being forced to use affirmative action.
In an effort to encourage diversity and combat gender inequity,
former California governor Jerry Brown signed legislation in
2018 to require companies based in the state to add women to
their board of directors.
Jae C. Hong/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
139Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
The growing diversity in the United States is not a business initiative; it is a reality.
Businesses can consciously choose to manage diversity or get caught short by the demo-
graphic changes facing the country.
Business Rationale
The rationale for managing diversity is more than the fact that it’s legally, socially, or mor-
ally desirable. Quite simply, it’s good business. The OB in Action box illustrates how com-
panies can gain competitive advantage by using product design to reach a diverse market.
Discuss the business
rationale for managing
diversity.
LO 4-5
THE BIGGER PICTURE
After reviewing the business case for managing diversity, we also look at demographic
changes in the U.S. workforce that make the need to manage diversity all the more urgent.
These demographic changes have major implications for OB.
4.5 BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR
MANAGING DIVERSITY
Can building diversity into your organization’s pur-
pose be good for business? More companies today
believe it is. Product designers and marketers are
looking for ways to make products and services
“inclusive” so they can serve a broader market, or
“universal” so they can reach just about everyone,
rather than limiting their use to a narrower market
such as the able-bodied. For example, voice-
activated computer technology such as Google
Voice makes social media more accessible to peo-
ple with limited dexterity for typing, and those with
limited or no vision. Alzheimer’s patients might
someday rely on a device such as Amazon’s artifi-
cial intelligence–assisted DeepLens camera, cur-
rently in development, to recognize and interact
with family and friends they no longer remember.
Because this “smart camera” relies on universal
design principles, however, anyone else can use it
as well. People who communicate via sign lan-
guage can confidently rely on the superior screen
resolution of Apple’s Facetime video chat feature,
as other sighted users do too.49
The idea behind inclusive design is to begin with
outliers, such as people with disabilities or other limi-
tations, and design for them first, ideally resulting in a
product or service that is ultimately better for every-
one. As Kat Holmes, a former Microsoft staffer who
heads her own product design company, recently told
Fast Company, the process matters as much as the
result. The right question to ask, she says, is, “Did you
involve someone in your design process who was
previously unable to participate? How you get there is
what makes it inclusive, not that it’s targeted at an
underrepresented or underserved community.”50
Inclusive marketing took hold at Hyatt Hotels
when Hyatt recognized that half of all business trav-
elers are women. Acknowledging women’s prefer-
ences and concerns, the hotel chain remedied
issues it had not seen as problems before, such as
male employees making late-night room-service
deliveries, mirrors and bathrobes designed for larger
and taller male guests, and dark parking lots that
made women feel less safe. All the chain’s guests
benefited from the changes, not just women.51
Using Product Design to Reach a Diverse Market
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
140 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Managing diversity also gives an organization the ability to grow and maintain its
business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Here’s what Alex Gorsky, current
Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, said:
Our people are one of a kind–the way they think, feel, speak, and work; what they’ve
experienced, and where they’re from. Harnessing these unique perspectives and
experiences gives us great problem-solving potential—the ideas, solutions, and strat-
egies that, when mobilized, brings health to billions of people.53
Research supports the logic of this strategy. For example, a recent study of 739
retail stores found reinforcement for the access-and-legitimacy perspective, defined in
the following manner:
An access-and-legitimacy perspective on diversity is based in recognition that the
organization’s markets and constituencies are culturally diverse. It therefore
behooves the organization to match the diversity in parts of its own workforce as a way
of gaining access to and legitimacy with those markets and constituent groups.54
This particular study discovered that customer satisfaction and
employee productivity were higher when the racial-ethnic com-
position of store employees matched that of customers.55
These favorable results were taken one step further by
another team of researchers, who wanted to know whether
customers would spend more money in stores when they
perceived themselves as similar to the sales representatives.
Results from 212 stores supported the idea that customer–
employee similarity leads to more spending.56 Clearly it
pays to manage diversity, but organizations cannot use
diversity as a strategic advantage if employees fail to con-
tribute their full talents, abilities, motivation, and commit-
ment. Thus organizations must create an environment or
culture that allows all employees to feel included and valu-
able. Managing diversity is a critical component of creating
this environment.
Trends in Workforce Diversity
For managers, the study of demographics suggests unique ways of managing diverse
employees. For organizations, it helps signal whether human resource policies and proce-
dures are appropriate to the characteristics of a diverse employee population. Let’s exam-
ine five categories on the internal dimension of the diversity wheel in Figure 4.5—gender,
race, sexual orientation, physical/mental abilities, and age—and one category on the exter-
nal dimension, educational level.
Women Break the Glass Ceiling—but Navigate a Labyrinth Coined in 1986, the
term glass ceiling identifies an invisible but absolute barrier that prevents women
Advertisers, too, are beginning to value the
diversity of the marketplace. Look carefully at TV ads
and you’ll see mixed-race and same-sex couples
promoting familiar products such as Campbell’s soup
and Allstate insurance, and popular retailers such as
Kohl’s and David’s Bridal. A Mattel’s commercial
recently featured a young boy raving about Mattel’s
iconic Barbie doll.52
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What do you think is the benefit of starting the
design process by considering the needs of out-
lier user groups?
2. Do you see any drawbacks to considering diver-
sity in the product design process? Discuss.
Companies increasingly recognize the value of having
a workforce that matches the race of their customers.
Why would customers prefer to be helped by someone
like them?
Steve Hix/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
141Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
from advancing to higher-level positions. Various statistics support the existence of the
glass ceiling. Take the pay gap between men and women, for example. In 2018, the median
weekly income in full-time management, professional, and related occupations was $1,468 for
men but $1,078 for women. Even among female and male MBA graduates who made about
the same upon graduation over the past 15 years, by 2017 a 28 percent pay gap had opened
with women earning an average of $59,000 less per year than their male counterparts.57
Some people think these pay differences come about because women leave the work-
force to raise children, or because men perform better on the job. Although women are
more likely than men to take time off to raise children, recent research continues to dem-
onstrate that pay differences and productivity gaps were not due to performance evalua-
tions, particularly in the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)
fields.58 Other unknown causes are behind the gender pay gap.
Alice Eagly and Linda Carli conducted a thorough investigation into the organiza-
tional life of women and in 2007 published their conclusions that women had finally bro-
ken through the glass ceiling.59 We’ve updated the data reported in Eagly and Carli’s book
that led them to their conclusion. In late 2018 there were more female CEOs (24 within
the Fortune 500) and more women in managerial, professional, and related occupations
than in the 1990s and 2000s.60 Statistics further showed that women had made strides
along several measures.
1. Educational attainment: Women earned the majority of bachelor’s and master’s
degrees in 2018.
2. Seats on boards of directors of Fortune 500 firms: Women held 9.6 percent of seats in
1995 and 21.2 percent in 2018.
3. Leadership positions in educational institutions and Congress: In 2017 women repre-
sented 30 percent of college presidents, and in 2019, 131 women served in Congress—
the largest number ever.
4. Federal court appointments: In 2019, more than 36 percent of federal courts of appeals
judges were female.61
You can interpret the above statistics in one of two ways.
• No Change. On the one hand, you might see proof
that women remain underpaid and underrepresented
in leadership positions, victims of discriminatory
organizational practices.
• Positive Change. Or you can agree with Eagly and
Carli’s conclusion that “men still have more authority
and higher wages, but women have been catching up.
Because some women have moved into the most elite
leadership roles, absolute barriers are a thing of the past.”62
Eagly and Carli propose that a woman’s career follows
a pattern more characteristic of a path through a labyrinth.
They believe a woman’s path to success is neither direct
nor simple but rather contains twists, turns, and obstruc-
tions, particularly for married women with children.
Racial Groups Face Their Own Glass Ceiling and Perceived Discrimination
The U.S. workforce is becoming increasingly diverse. Between 2016 and 2060, the Census
Bureau predicts the following changes in ethnic representation:
• Growth: The Asian population will grow from 5.7 percent to 9.1 percent of the total.
• Growth: The Hispanic population will grow from 17.8 percent to 27.5 percent.
• Mild Growth: The African American population will rise from 13.3 percent to
15.0 percent.
• Decline: Non-Hispanic whites will drop from 61.3 percent to 44.3 percent.63
Sometimes a woman’s career is thought to resemble a
labyrinth like this—with twists and turns needed to get
through the maze. Have you experienced such twists
and turns in your career?
Sergey Nivens/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
142 PART 1 Individual Behavior
In 2060 so-called minority groups will constitute approximately 57 percent of the work-
force, according to the Census Bureau.64 And yet three additional trends suggest that
current-day minority groups are stalled at their own glass ceilings:
Smaller percentage in the professional class. Hispanics, or Latinas/os, and African
Americans have a smaller relative hold on managerial and professional jobs compared
with whites. Women of color generally do better than men of color.
More discrimination cases. The number of race-based charges of discrimination
that were deemed to show reasonable cause by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission increased from 294 in 1995 to 723 in 2017. Companies paid a total of
$355.6 million to resolve these claims without litigation in 2017.65
Lower earnings. Minorities also tend to earn less personal income than whites. In
2018, median weekly earnings for workers 16 years and older were $916, $694, $1,095,
and $680 for whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, respectively. Asians had the highest
median income.66
Sexual Orientation: LGBTQ People Become More Visible The term LGBT is a
widely recognized acronym to represent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.
However a fifth letter has been gaining acceptance—Q—which according to the Human
Rights Campaign can mean either “questioning” or “queer.”
Q for “questioning” refers to someone in the process of exploring his or her sexual iden-
tity. “People use the term queer because it’s not specific to sexual orientation or to gender
identify but is more of an umbrella term that can encompass a lot of people.” You may want
to avoid using the term queer because it is offensive to some in the LGBT community.67
We are discussing sexual orientation because organizations cannot afford to allow
between 3.9 and 5.1 percent of the workforce to feel disenfranchised. This represents the
estimated number of people who identify as LGBT.68
Because LGBTQ employees often experience a lack of inclusion, their engagement,
performance, and retention can be affected. A recent study by the Human Rights Cam-
paign Foundation, for instance, revealed that unwelcoming environments can lead to close
to half of LGBT workers remaining closeted at work (meaning they don’t acknowledge
their sexual orientation); 31 percent feeling unhappy at work; 20 percent searching for a
different job; and 10 percent leaving a job because the work environment was not very
accepting of LGBT people.69
The good news is that over 90 percent of Fortune 500 companies offer workplace
protections on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. In contrast, 21 states do
not offer such protections.70
Physical and Mental Abilities: People with Disabilities Face Challenges
Approximately 20 percent of Americans have a physical or cognitive disability, according
to the U.S. Census Bureau. The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimina-
tion against those with disabilities and requires organizations to reasonably accom-
modate an individual’s disabilities.71
Not surprisingly, some people with disabilities have difficulty finding work. The
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 8.0 percent were unemployed in 2018, more than
twice the rate of those with no disability (3.7 percent).72 Contrary to negative stereotypes
about hiring the disabled, such as that making reasonable accommodation is expensive,
many organizations are finding this group of people to be a valuable source of talent. Micro-
soft, for example, has two programs that encourage inclusion for disabled workers: the
autism hiring program and the supported employment program, as well as local partners
who share information on Microsoft’s inclusive hiring practices with the community.73
Generational Differences in an Aging Workforce The U.S. population and work-
force are getting older, and the workforce includes greater generational differences than
ever before. In a recent poll by Frank N. Magid Associates, more than half of the respon-
dents said they were least likely to get along with someone from another generation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
143Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
compared to 30 percent with a different racial background and 19 percent with the oppo-
site sex. According to the company’s executive director, “Generational understanding is
the new diversity training.”74 We already see four generations of employees working
together, soon to be joined by a fifth (see Table 4.3). Managers need to deal effectively
with generational differences in values, attitudes, and behaviors. Many companies, includ-
ing IBM, Lockheed Martin, Ernst & Young LLP, and Aetna, address this issue by provid-
ing training workshops on generational diversity.
Table 4.3 summarizes generational differences using common labels: traditionalists,
baby boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials/Gen Ys, and Gen Zers. We use such labels (and
resulting generalizations) for sake of discussion. There are always exceptions to the charac-
terizations shown in Table 4.3.75
Millennials account for the largest block of employees in the workforce, followed by baby
boomers. Thus Millennials are often managed by boomers, who possess very different values
and personal traits. Conflicting values and traits are likely to create friction between people.
TRADITIONALISTS
BABY BOOMERS
GEN XERS
MILLENNIALS
(GEN Y)
GEN ZERS
Birth Time
Span
1928–1945 1946–1964 1965–1980 1981–1996 1997–
Current
Population
25.7 million 73 million 65 million 71 million 86 million
Key
Historical
Events
Great Depression,
World War II, Korean
War, Cold War era,
rise of suburbs
Vietnam War;
Watergate; assas-
sinations of John
and Robert
Kennedy and
Martin Luther King,
Jr.; women’s
movement; Kent
State killings; first
man on the moon
MTV, AIDS epi-
demic, Gulf War,
fall of Berlin Wall,
Oklahoma City
bombing, 1987
stock market
crash, Bill
Clinton–Monica
Lewinsky scandal
September 11
terrorist attack,
Google, Columbine
High School shoot-
ings, Enron and
other corporate
scandals, wars in
Iraq and Afghanistan,
Hurricane Katrina,
financial crisis of
2008 and high
unemployment
Social media,
election of
Barack Obama,
financial
crisis of 2008
and high
unemployment
Broad
Traits
Patriotic, loyal, disci-
plined, conformist,
possessed of a high
work ethic and
respect for authority
Workaholic,
idealistic, competi-
tive, materialistic,
possessed of a
high work ethic, in
search of personal
fulfillment
Self-reliant,
adaptable, cyni-
cal, independent,
technologically
savvy, distrustful
of authority, in
search of work–
life balance
Entitled, civic
minded, close
parental involve-
ment, cyberliteracy,
appreciate diversity,
multitasking,
in search of
work–life balance,
technologically
savvy
Multitasking,
digital natives,
independent
learners,
cyberliteracy,
communicate
fast and online
Defining
Invention
Fax machine Personal computer Mobile phone Google and
Facebook
Social media
and iPhone
apps
SOURCES: Parker, Kim, Nikki Graf, and Ruth Igielnik. “Generation Z Looks a Lot Like Millennials on Key Social and Political Issues.” Pew Research Center, January 17, 2019.
https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2019/01/17/generation-z-looks-a-lot-like-millennials-on-key-social-and-political-issues/; Massot, Dolors. “15 Ways Generation Z Could
Change the World.” Aleteia SAS, May 09, 2018. https://aleteia.org/2018/05/09/15-ways-generation-z-could-change-the-world/; “Resident population in the United States in
2017, by generation.” Statista; Meister, Jeanne C, and Karie Willyerd. The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees
Today. Harper Business, 2010; and Alsop, Ron. The Trophy Kids Grow Up: How the Millennial Generation is Shaking Up the Workplace. Jossey-Bass, 2008.
TABLE 4.3 Generational Differences
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
144 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Millennials also tend to change jobs more frequently than other categories of workers. For
example, the median job tenure of people between 20 and 24 is less than 16 months. This puts
pressure on companies to find ways to retain this talented segment of the workforce.76
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is addressing the issue head on. According to The Wall
Street Journal the firm is “rethinking the way it structures bankers’ early years at the firm.
The bank is dangling carrots, including promises to speed the path to promotions and
eliminating some of the grunt work that often falls to younger employees.” In addition to
lightening workloads, the company started having “town-hall-style meetings to address griev-
ances to keep young people on board.” And just in case some workers jump ship and need
to be replaced, Goldman is advertising on Spotify to attract more Millennial and Gen Z
employees both in the United States and the UK.77 Will other groups of employees view
these changes as unfair? Time will tell.
Have age-related differences at school or work caused any conflicts for you? The fol-
lowing Self-Assessment was created to assess your attitudes toward older employees.
Because the term older is relative, define older employees in your own terms when complet-
ing the assessment.
What Are Your Attitudes Toward Working with Older Employees?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 4.1 in Connect.
1. What is your attitude about working with older employees? Are you surprised by
the results?
2. What is your level of satisfaction when working with older employees?
3. Based on your results, what can you do to improve your satisfaction when work-
ing with older employees?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.1 CAREER READINESS
Educational Levels: Mismatch between Education and Organizational Needs
There are three potential education–work mismatches:
• College graduates may be in jobs for which they are overqualified. The U.S. Census
Bureau estimates that 22 percent of the U.S. workforce has at least a college
degree.78 Unfortunately, even with a strong economy, nearly 300,000 college gradu-
ates are working minimum-wage jobs—148,000 with bachelor’s degrees and 146,000
with associate’s degrees.79 These graduates are underemployed, working at jobs
that require less education than they have such as waiting tables, tending bar,
painting, and other work that someone with less education could perform. Under-
employment is associated with poorer work attitudes, job performance, job satisfac-
tion, motivation, and psychological well-being.80
• College graduates may not have the skills desired by employers. Recent studies show
that college graduates, while technically and functionally competent, lack teamwork
skills, critical-thinking ability, oral communication skills, and analytic reasoning.81
There is also a shortage of college graduates in technical fields related to science,
math, technology, and engineering.
• High-school dropouts and others may not have the literacy skills needed for many jobs.
A recent study revealed that 6.1 percent of all U.S. students between 16 and 24
dropped out of high school in 2016.82 The dropout rate is higher for males. This
statistic, along with the fact that 32 million U.S. adults read below a basic level, is a
real problem for employers, because about 50 percent of on-the-job reading materials
are written at or above a ninth-grade level.83
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
145Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
The following is a list of the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity
programs:84
1. Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice. Mistaken perceptions manifest themselves in the
belief that differences are weaknesses and that diversity hiring means sacrificing compe-
tence and quality. As a reporter for The Wall Street Journal noted, “Studies show that
negative stereotypes about aging—for example, that older people inevitably grow less
productive and more depressed—are as pervasive as they are inaccurate.”85 Inaccurate
stereotypes like this limit the promotability and job satisfaction of older workers.
2. Ethnocentrism. The ethnocentrism barrier is based on the feeling that our cultural
rules and norms are superior to or more appropriate than the rules and norms of
another culture.
3. Poor career planning. Lack of opportunities for diverse employees to get work
assignments that qualify them for senior management positions can stunt careers.
Discuss the most
common barriers to
implementing
successful diversity
programs.
LO 4-6
4.6 BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES TO
MANAGING DIVERSITY
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Wouldn’t you rather know what obstacles lay ahead, instead of discovering them too late? We
share 11 common challenges to effectively managing diversity.
There are more than 11 different types of lightning. This type is called an anvil crawler,
because it travels horizontally and generally at high altitudes. A lightning storm like this
can be dangerous, and we must be careful to avoid being struck. The same is true for
an organization’s diversity climate—which signals the extent to which the organization’s
“internal climate” supports diversity initiatives. Bad organizational climates, like bad
lightning storms, result in people taking cover by withholding effort and skills.
Menno van der Haven/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
146 PART 1 Individual Behavior
4. A negative diversity climate. We define organizational climate in Chapter 7 as employee
perceptions about an organization’s formal and informal policies, practices, and pro-
cedures. Diversity climate is a subcomponent of an organization’s overall cli-
mate and is defined as the employees’ aggregate “perceptions about the
organization’s diversity-related formal structure characteristics and informal
values.”86 Diversity climate is positive when employees view the organization as being
fair to all types of employees, which promotes employee loyalty and overall firm per-
formance.87 It also enhances psychological safety. Psychological safety reflects the
extent to which people feel free to express their ideas and beliefs without fear
of negative consequences. As you might expect, psychological safety is positively
associated with outcomes in the Organizing Framework like innovation.88
5. A hostile working environment for diverse employees. Hostile work environments are
characterized by sexual, racial, and age harassment and can be in violation of Equal
Employment Opportunity law, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.89 Whether
perpetrated against women, men, older individuals, or LGBTQ people, hostile envi-
ronments are demeaning, unethical, and appropriately called “work environment pol-
lution.” You certainly won’t get employees’ best work if they believe the work
environment is hostile toward them. The Applying OB box highlights the companies
recognized for creating a work environment supportive of Millennials.
Applying OB
mothers, work–life balance, compensation, and giving
back.”91 The top 10 companies were Northrop Grum-
man, Discover Financial Services, Kaiser Permanente,
Delta, Southwest Airlines, Apple, Pfizer Inc., Capital
One, EY (one of the big four global accounting firms),
and Dow Chemical.
Among the highlights: Kaiser Permanente makes
leadership training and mentoring programs available;
Delta and Southwest both offer profit sharing and free
travel to all their destinations; Discover hosts on-site
fitness centers and mother’s rooms; and Apple pro-
vides generous parental leave plans. Most of the top
ten companies offer adoption assistance and some
form of tuition assistance. At Discover, that means full
payment for an online bachelor’s degree.92
Indeed.com, the popular job posting site, has released
its list of the U.S. employers that Millennials rate as the
best to work for. Now in their twenties and thirties and
open to job changes, Millennials make up about a third
of the U.S. workforce, and they place “opportunity to
learn and grow” at the top of their wish-list for employ-
ers. Many are disillusioned about the business commu-
nity, finding that companies could act more ethically and
do more to help make the world a better place. Millenni-
als want flexibility in where and when they work, and
they want to prioritize their health and their families.
Parental leave and tuition assistance are also prized.90
An analysis of the list by Forbes found that the top
companies recommended by Millennials had a few
things in common: “a focus on education, working
Best Companies for Millennials
6. Diverse employees’ lack of political savvy. Diverse employees may not get promoted
because they do not know how to “play the game” of getting along and getting ahead
in an organization. Research reveals that women and people of color are excluded
from organizational networks that could help them rise.93 Some organizations attempt
to overcome this barrier by creating employee resource groups that encourage indi-
viduals with similar backgrounds to share common experiences and success strategies.
American Express has 16 network groups and Cisco has 13.94
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
147Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
7. Difficulty balancing career and family issues. Women still assume most of the respon-
sibilities associated with raising children. This makes it harder for them to work eve-
nings and weekends or to travel. Even without children in the picture, household
chores take more of a woman’s time than a man’s.
8. Fear of reverse discrimination. Some employees believe diversity management is a
smoke screen for reverse discrimination. This belief leads to very strong resistance
because it makes people feel one person’s gain is another’s loss.
9. Lack of organizational priority for diversity. Low priority for diversity leads to subtle
resistance in the form of complaints and negative attitudes. Employees may complain
about the time, energy, and resources devoted to diversity that could have been spent
doing “real work.”
10. A poor performance appraisal and reward system. Performance appraisals and reward
systems must reinforce the need to effectively manage diversity. Success must thus be
based on a new set of criteria. For example, AT&T evaluates the extent to which its
managers are inclusive of employees with different backgrounds. These evaluations
are used in salary and promotion decisions.95
11. Resistance to change. Effectively managing diversity entails significant organiza-
tional and personal change. Sometimes this resistance is a function of cross-
cultural values. In Japan, for example, women have a difficult time being promoted
to senior management positions because of the practice of lifetime employment
and age-based promotions. This tradition still holds at both large and small
companies.96
Are you curious about the diversity climate in a current or former employer? If yes,
take the Self-Assessment below. It measures the components of an organization’s
diversity climate and will enable you to determine whether your employer has or had a
favorable one.
Assessing an Organization’s Diversity Climate
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 4.2 in Connect.
1. What were the three highest- and lowest-rated survey items? What does this tell
you about your employer?
2. Based on these scores, what advice would you give the human resources
officer at the company you evaluated?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.2
In summary, managing diversity is a critical component of organizational success. It is
a challenge, but it is necessary if you want to create an environment that engages employ-
ees and motivates them to do their best.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
148 PART 1 Individual Behavior
What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity? We can answer this question
by first providing a framework for categorizing organizational initiatives.
Framework of Options
One especially relevant framework was developed by R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr., a diversity
expert. Thomas identified eight generic action options that organizations can use to
address any type of diversity issue. After describing each option, we discuss relationships
among them.97
Option 1: Include/Exclude Include/exclude is an outgrowth of affirmative action
programs. Its primary goal is to either increase or decrease the number of diverse people
at all levels of the organization. Big 5 Corporation is a sporting goods retailer that oper-
ates 435 stores in 11 western states. Recently it was fined $165,000 to settle a racial dis-
crimination and retaliation lawsuit filed by the EEOC. According to the lawsuit, Big 5’s
store manager and assistant managers in a store on Whidbey Island, Washington, sub-
jected an African American management trainee to ongoing racial harassment and death
threats. The trainee was forced to go on several leaves due to stress from ongoing racial
harassments and threats, as well as retaliatory work assignments and discipline. Ulti-
mately Big 5 terminated the trainee. In addition to the fine, Big 5 agreed to review and
revise its current policies regarding discrimination and to provide training to its employ-
ees, supervisors, managers, and investigators on how to keep the workplace free of harass-
ment, discrimination, and retaliation.98
Option 2: Deny People may deny differences exist, saying that all decisions are
color-, gender-, and age-blind and that success is determined solely by merit and per-
formance. Seasons 52, a national restaurant chain, agreed to settle a $2.85 million
federal lawsuit that alleged age discrimination when it came to hiring employees. In
the suit filed with the EEOC, the agency said managers at the restaurant chain tried to
portray a young and hip image by hiring younger servers and hosts. The initial com-
plaint alleged that the company wouldn’t hire two men in their mid-40s and early 50s
because of their age. After contacting thousands of people over 40 who had applied
for positions with Seasons 52, EEOC determined that more than 250 additional peo-
ple claimed they were treated with bias during the interview process. Seasons 52
admits no liability and continues to deny the allegations but will be required to hold
new training for all hiring managers regarding “non-discriminatory recruiting, inter-
viewing, and hiring.”99
4.7 ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES USED TO
EFFECTIVELY MANAGE DIVERSITY
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Whether you manage a diverse work group or find yourself managed within a diverse work
group, you’ll do better by understanding the various ways in which organizations attempt to
manage diversity. You’ll be able to review eight options in the following section. Hint: We rec-
ommend mutual adaptation.
Explain what
organizations are
doing to manage
diversity effectively.
LO 4-7
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
149Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
Option 3: Assimilate The idea behind assimilation is that, given time and reinforce-
ment, all diverse people will learn to fit in or become like the dominant group. Organiza-
tions initially assimilate employees through their recruitment practices and through
orientation programs that describe their preferred values and standard operating proce-
dures. Employees then are encouraged to refer to policies and procedures when confused
about what to do in a specific situation. These practices create behavioral homogeneity
among employees.
Option 4: Suppress Differences are squelched
or discouraged when suppression is the diversity
strategy. Managers and peers tell employees to quit
whining and complaining about issues. Saying,
“You’ve got to pay your dues” is another way to
s uppress differences and promote the status quo.
Option 5: Isolate Isolation maintains the sta-
tus quo by setting the diverse person off to the side.
Then he or she is unable to influence organiza-
tional change. Managers can isolate people and
entire teams and departments by putting them on
special projects, creating functionally independent
entities often referred to as silos.
Option 6: Tolerate Toleration entails acknowl-
edging differences but not valuing or accepting
them. This live-and-let-live approach allows organi-
zations to give lip service to the issue of managing
diversity. It differs from isolation in that it allows
for the inclusion of diverse people, but differences
are still not truly valued or accepted.
Option 7: Build Relationships Relationship building is based on the premise that
good relationships can overcome differences. It addresses diversity by fostering high-
quality relationships—characterized by acceptance and understanding—among diverse
groups. For example, financial services firm Baird has paired a group of senior leaders
with junior Millennial employees so they can capitalize on their strengths and differences
when it comes to developing competitive business strategies and building relationships
with each other and their client base.100
Option 8: Foster Mutual Adaptation Mutual adaptation allows people to change
their views for the sake of creating positive relationships with others. Employees and man-
agers alike must be willing to accept differences and, most important, agree that everyone
and everything is open for change. Diversity training is one way to kick-start mutual adap-
tation. Research shows that such training can positively enhance people’s attitudes and
feelings about working with diverse employees.101
Conclusions about Action Options Although the action options can be used alone
or in combination, some are clearly more effective than others. Exclusion, denial, assimila-
tion, suppression, isolation, and toleration are the least preferred options. Inclusion, build-
ing relationships, and mutual adaptation are preferred. That said, Thomas reminds us that
mutual adaptation is the only approach that unquestionably endorses the philosophy
behind managing diversity.
Choosing how to best manage diversity is a dynamic process and is influenced by the
context. For instance, some organizations are not ready for mutual adaptation. The best
they might be able to achieve is the inclusion of diverse people.
These volleyball players illustrate the idea of assimilation. Note the
common uniforms and the structured approach toward acknowledg-
ing their opponents. Assimilation techniques used by some organi-
zations create levels of homogeneity and behavioral expectations,
which can be reinforced by corporate policies and procedures.
Christopher Futcher/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
150 PART 1 Individual Behavior
How Companies Are Responding
to the Challenges of Diversity
We close this chapter by sharing some examples and models that demonstrate how compa-
nies are responding to the emerging challenges of managing diversity. Compare these to
Thomas’s framework and you’ll find the greatest activity around Options 7 and 8, building
relationships and fostering mutual adaptation.
Response: Paying Attention to Sexual Orientation The Transgender Law Cen-
ter estimates that about 2 percent of the population is transgender. The term transgender
applies to anyone whose gender identity or gender expression is different from sex
at birth. Although 83 percent of Fortune 500 firms forbid discrimination based on gender
identity, transgender people are protected against discrimination in only 18 states and the
District of Columbia.102 More companies recognize that they don’t want to alienate this
segment of the population, however, and are implementing programs to help them transi-
tion. The Coca-Cola Company, for example, began offering transgender-inclusive health
insurance coverage nearly a decade ago and also assists with the costs of taxes imposed on
eligible U.S. employees whose same-sex spouse or partner was enrolled in health benefits
in states that do not recognize same-sex marriage. Other companies, including PayPal,
Hyatt, Microsoft, and IKEA, address the needs of transgender employees by trying to cre-
ate an inclusive culture—where individuals can be their authentic selves.103
Unfortunately, the U.S. military does not appear to be trying to maintain an inclusive
culture for transgender service personnel. In early 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed
President Trump’s ban on transgender persons in the military to proceed, which means
most transgender persons—for now—are disqualified from military service.104
Response: Addressing Changing Customer Demographics Recognizing that
its core demographic is changing, Target recently launched a campaign called #SinTraduc-
ción (“without translation”) targeting Spanish-speaking customers, which used words with
no English equivalent. For example, words such as “sobremesa,” a period of time after a
meal conversing among family and friends, and “estrenar,” the act of using or wearing
something for the first time, were used in the social media campaign to strike up conversa-
tions between Target and its Hispanic customers. The marketing approach underscored
Target’s acknowledgment that the Spanish language plays an important role in today’s
American culture, particularly among its many Hispanic customers.105
Response: Helping Women Navigate the Career Labyrinth Organizations can
make career navigation easier by providing flexible work schedules and the developmental
assignments that prepare women for promotional opportunities. According to a business
writer, the Boston Consulting Group “focuses heavily on recruiting and retaining women,
offering part-time options, mentoring and professional-development programs.” On-ramping
programs encourage people to reenter the workforce after a temporary career break.
Companies such as Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs Group offer these to women in
particular. Goldman, for example, instituted “returnship” programs that offer short-term
job assignments to former employees.106
Response: Helping Hispanics Succeed Medical device maker Arthrex and Shaw
Industries Inc. hope to raise employee productivity, satisfaction, and motivation by devel-
oping customized training programs to improve the communication skills of their Spanish-
speaking employees. Research reveals that retention and career progression of minorities
can be significantly enhanced through effective mentoring.107
Response: Providing Community and Corporate Training to Reduce the
Mismatch between Education and Job Requirements To combat education
gaps on a more global level, JPMorgan Chase started The Fellowship Initiative (TFI) in
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Firefighters, 46 and 54, Sue for Age Discrimination
Firefighters John Guido and Dennis Rankin were only
46 and 54, respectively, when they were fired by the
Mount Lemmon fire district, a department of the state
of Arizona. Each had put in nine years of employment.
The fire district claimed the two were fired for budget
reasons, and because they had not volunteered for
wildland duty. But one of the people chosen to
replace them had also not served on any wildland fire-
fighting assignments for the last two years.
Guido and Rankin then filed an age discrimina-
tion suit with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC), charging they had been let
go simply because they were the two oldest full-
time members of the department. The EEOC
agreed there was “reasonable cause” for their
claim that in dismissing them Mount Lemmon had
violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act
(ADEA).
Problem-Solving Application
151Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
New York in 2010 and expanded it to Chicago, Los Angeles, and Dallas. The goal is to
provide intensive academic and leadership training to young men of color. Jamie Dimon,
chair and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, is committed to the program. “These young men need
access to high quality education and positive role models in and outside the classroom,” he
said. Michael Bloomberg, then New York City’s mayor, applauded JPMorgan’s effort by
concluding, “We need more civic-minded companies and organizations to step up and join
this work, and I congratulate JPMorgan Chase for being a leader in this effort and for mak-
ing a real difference in the lives of young men of color in our city.”108
At the individual corporate level, companies, including Wheeler Machinery Co. in
Salt Lake City, have instituted specialized training programs that enable less-qualified peo-
ple to perform more technically oriented jobs. Lockheed Martin and Agilent Technologies
also offer paid apprenticeships or internships to attract high-school students interested in
the sciences.109
Response: Retaining and Valuing Skills and Expertise in an Aging Workforce
Here are seven initiatives that can help organizations to motivate and retain an aging
workforce:
1. Provide challenging work assignments that make a difference to the firm and employees.
2. Give employees considerable autonomy and latitude in completing a task.
3. Provide equal access to training and learning opportunities when it comes to new
technology and job processes.
4. Provide frequent recognition for skills, experience, and wisdom gained over the years.
5. Offer mentoring opportunities whereby older workers can pass on accumulated knowl-
edge to younger employees.
6. Offer short sabbaticals to help the workforce stay fresh and current.
7. Design a work environment that is both stimulating and fun.110
You’ll see a number of these tactics being used by BAE, a multinational defense and
aerospace company, according to a writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. “When BAE learns
that an employee with deep institutional knowledge plans to retire, whether in a few
months or a couple of years, a knowledge-transfer group of about a half-dozen people of
varying ages working in the same area is formed. The teams meet regularly over months to
talk and exchange advice. Younger workers elicit tips, and in some cases older ones gradu-
ally hand off tasks to junior employees.”111
Some organizations, such as fire departments, have encountered problems managing
older employees; see the Problem-Solving Application box.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
152 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Response: Resolving Generational Differences Traditional and boomer manag-
ers are encouraged to consider their approach toward managing the technologically savvy
Gen Xers and Millennials. Gen Xers and Millennials, for instance, are more likely to visit
social networking sites during the workday, often perceiving this activity as a “virtual cof-
fee break.” In contrast, traditional and boomer managers are more likely to view this activ-
ity as wasted time, leading them to adopt policies that attempt to prevent it. Experts
suggest that restricting access to social media will not work in the long run if an employer
wants to motivate younger employees.
Would you like to improve your working relationships with diverse people? If yes,
Self-Assessment 4.3 can help. It asks you to compare yourself with a group of other
people you interact with and then to examine the quality of the relationships between
yourself and these individuals. This enables you to gain a better understanding of
how similarities and differences among people influence your attitudes and behavior.
A federal trial judge sided with the fire district’s
attorneys, who argued that federal anti-discrimination
law applied only to private organizations with at
least 20 employees. Appealing the ruling, Guido
and Rankin, who had meanwhile found other
employment, watched as their case finally made its
way to the U.S. Supreme Court several years later. In
its 8-0 ruling in late 2018 (newly appointed Justice
Brett Kavanaugh did not participate), the Supreme
Court decided in favor of the two firefighters.
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s opinion in the
case said Mount Lemmon’s reading of the law was
inconsistent with precedent and with EEOC rulings
and that, while the ADEA does not in fact apply to
private companies with fewer than 20 employees,
it sets no size limit on public employers, including
local government entities like the Mount Lemmon
fire department. Thus these entities are required
to obey the Age Discrimination Act regardless of
size. With that ruling, Guido and Rankin were enti-
tled to sue their former employer for damages.
While the law does not guarantee they will win
their case, they plan to ask for their lost past and
future wages.112
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Identify the problem in this case.
Step 2: Identify the OB concepts or theories that may be causing the problem. For example, are
stereotypes, diversity climate, or frameworks for managing diversity causes of the problem?
Step 3: Recommend what you would do to correct the situation. Think both short term and long term.
How Does My Diversity Profile Affect My Relationships with
Other People?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 4.3 in Connect.
1. Which diversity dimensions have the greatest influence on the quality of your
interpersonal relationships?
2. Consider the person with whom you have the most difficulty working. Which
dimensions of diversity may contribute to this relationship? What can you do to
improve it?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.3 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
153Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
Takeaways for Me
Here are four additional things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive
change in your personal and professional life.
1. Remember your personal and professional success depends on others’ perceptions of
you: Because perceptions can override your good work, it is important to gather feed-
back on what others think of you.
2. It is normal to be affected by stereotypes: It would be helpful to reflect on your stereo-
types and try to avoid letting them bias your decisions and perceptions of others.
3. Consider how you will respond when you hear negative or disparaging things about
diverse people: It’s going to happen, and your response can make the difference in
stopping such comments.
4. Celebrate your uniqueness, but remember some people are uncomfortable with individ-
ual differences among people: We encourage you to just be yourself.
Takeaways for Managers
There are three key implications for managers.
1. Because managers make many types of judgments about people, it is important to try
and make these judgments without being biased or using stereotypes: This can be diffi-
cult because such cognitive errors are a natural and normal part of how we process
information.
2. The fundamental attribution bias can lead to inaccurate interpretations of someone’s
suitability for a job or a performance evaluation: Be aware of this attributional error
and try to consider both personal and situational factors when evaluating others.
3. Managing diversity is good for individual employees, managers, and organizations as a
whole: Whether local or global, organizations will compete more effectively when all
employees feel included, supported, and valued. We all should try our best to be
understanding and supportive of people who are different from the majority.
Describe the
implications of social
perception and
managing diversity
for you and managers.
LO 4-8
4.8 MAKING THE CONNECTION: WHY IS
UNDERSTANDING PERCEPTION AND DIVERSITY
ESSENTIAL TO MY SUCCESS?
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Understanding the concepts of perception and diversity will play a significant role in being
successful at work. Here are some key points to consider.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
154 PART 1 Individual Behavior
You learned that perception and managing
diversity are essential for success. Why?
Because social and person perception help you
better understand the perception process,
improve the way you are perceived, and adjust
your own perception to avoid common percep-
tual errors. Managing diversity (represented by
both diversity and demographics in our Organiz-
ing Framework) lets you better optimize diversi-
ty’s effect on individual and group/team outcomes.
Reinforce your learning with the Key Points
below. Then consolidate your learning using the
Organizing Framework. Finally, challenge your
mastery of the material by answering the Major
Questions in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 4
You learned the following key points.
4.1 THE PERCEPTION PROCESS
• Perception is a mental and cognitive process
that enables us to interpret and understand
our surroundings.
• Social perception is a four-stage process. The
four stages are selective attention/compre-
hension, encoding and simplification, storage
and retention, and retrieval and response
(see Figure 4.2).
• Person perception is influenced by three
components: characteristics of the perceiver,
characteristics of the target, and characteris-
tics of the situation.
• Person perception affects a wide variety of
organizational activities including hiring
decisions, performance appraisals, and
leadership.
4.2 STEREOTYPES
• Stereotypes represent generalized beliefs
about the characteristics of a group.
• Stereotypes are not always negative, and
they are not always inaccurate.
• Common stereotypes exist about gender,
race, and age.
• Stereotyping is a four-step process that con-
sists of categorization, inference, expectation
formation, and maintenance.
• We maintain stereotypes by (a) overestimat-
ing the frequency of stereotypic behaviors
exhibited by others, (b) incorrectly explaining
expected and unexpected behaviors, and
(c) differentiating minority individuals from
ourselves.
4.3 CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS
• Causal attributions are suspected or inferred
causes of behavior.
• According to Kelley’s model of causal attribu-
tion, we make external attributions when con-
sensus and distinctiveness are high and
consistency is low. We make internal (personal
responsibility) attributions when consensus and
distinctiveness are low and consistency is high.
• The fundamental attribution bias emphasizes
personal factors more than situation factors
while we are formulating attributions. In the
self-serving bias we personalize the causes of
our success and externalize the causes of our
failures.
4.4 DEFINING AND MANAGING
DIVERSITY
• Diversity represents the individual differences
that make people unique from and similar to
each other.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
155Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
performance appraisal and reward systems,
and (k) resistance to change.
4.7 ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES
USED TO EFFECTIVELY
MANAGE DIVERSITY
• Organizations have eight options for addressing
diversity issues: (a) include/exclude the number
of diverse people at all levels of the organiza-
tion, (b) deny that differences exist, (c) assimilate
diverse people into the dominant group, (d) sup-
press differences, (e) isolate diverse members
from the larger group, (f) tolerate differences
among employees, (g) build relationships among
diverse employees, and (h) foster mutual adap-
tation to create positive relationships.
4.8 WHY IS UNDERSTANDING
PERCEPTION AND
DIVERSITY ESSENTIAL
TO YOUR SUCCESS?
• Your overall success depends on other peo-
ple’s perceptions of you—gathering feedback
from them will help you grow and mature.
• Your ability to recognize and avoid stereo-
types will help you make unbiased decisions.
• Managing diversity at all levels of an organi-
zation will ensure that employees feel
included, supported, and valued.
The Organizing Framework
for Chapter 4
As shown in Figure 4.6, you learned that diversity,
demographics, and stereotypes serve as key per-
son factors, while diversity climate is an important
situation factor. You also know there are relevant
processes across the individual level (perception,
attributions, and psychological safety), the group/
team level (group/team dynamics), and the organi-
zational level (options to manage diversity). These
inputs and processes have critical outcomes.
• Diversity varies along surface-level character-
istics like race, gender, and age and along
deep-level characteristics such as attitudes,
opinions, and values.
• Affirmative action is an outgrowth of equal
employment opportunity legislation and is an
intervention aimed at giving management a
chance to correct past discrimination.
• Managing diversity entails enacting a host of
organizational changes that enable all people
to perform to their maximum potential.
4.5 BUILDING THE BUSINESS
CASE FOR MANAGING
DIVERSITY
• Managing diversity is predicted to be good
business because it aims to engage employ-
ees and satisfy customers’ unique needs.
• There are six key demographic trends: (a)
women are navigating a labyrinth after break-
ing the glass ceiling, (b) racial groups are
encountering a glass ceiling and perceived
discrimination, (c) recognition of sexual orien-
tation is growing in importance, (d) people
with disabilities face challenges, (e) genera-
tional differences are growing in an aging
workforce, and (f) a mismatch exists between
workers’ educational attainment and organi-
zational needs.
4.6 BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES
TO MANAGING DIVERSITY
• There are 11 barriers to successfully imple-
menting diversity initiatives: (a) inaccurate
stereotypes and prejudice, (b) ethnocentrism,
(c) poor career planning, (d) a negative diver-
sity climate, (e) a hostile working environment
for diverse employees, (f) diverse employees’
lack of political savvy, (g) difficulty balancing
career and family issues, (h) fears of reverse
discrimination, (i) lack of organizational prior-
ity, (j) the need to revamp the organization’s
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
156 PART 1 Individual Behavior
4. How does awareness about the layers of
diversity help organizations effectively man-
age diversity?
5. What is the business rationale for managing
diversity?
6. What are the most common barriers to imple-
menting successful diversity programs?
7. What are organizations doing to effectively
manage diversity, and what works best?
Challenge: Major Questions
for Chapter 4
1. How do I form perceptions of others?
2. How can I use awareness of stereotypes to
make better decisions and manage more
effectively?
3. How do I tend to interpret employee
performance?
FIGURE 4.6 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Diversity
• Demographics
• Stereotypes
Situation Factors
• Diversity climate
Individual Level
• Perceptions
• Attributions
• Psychological safety
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
Organizational Level
• Options to manage diversity
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
Organizational Level
• Employer of choice
• Customer satisfaction
• Reputation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
157Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
Managing diversity is a hot topic among technology
companies, some of which have started to display
transparency by publishing their diversity profiles.
Google’s diversity report reveals its workforce is
69.1 percent male and 30.9 percent female. Ethnicity
data for Google’s U.S. workforce indicates 53.1 percent
white, 36.3 percent Asian, 4.2 percent of two or more
races, 3.6 percent Latinx, and 2.5 percent black.113
This pattern is similar to Apple (32 percent female and
54 percent white, and U.S. ethnicity data showing
21 percent Asian, 13 percent Hispanic, 9 percent
black, 3 percent of two or more races, and 1 percent
other)114 and Facebook (36 percent female, and U.S.
ethnicity data of 46.6 percent white, 41.4 percent
Asian, 4.9 percent Hispanic, and 3.5 percent black).115
Executives within the technology industry have
started to implement a variety of programs and poli-
cies to change the demographic profiles of their com-
panies. For example, Pinterest established a 2018
goal to have 25 percent of new hires in engineering
roles be female and 8 percent from underrepresented
ethnic groups.116 Intel established a hiring goal of full
representation of underrepresented minorities and
women in its U.S. workforce by 2020.117
Is setting diversity hiring goals fair? While companies
that set them note the hiring goals are not meant to be
quotas, some managers may perceive them that way.
This would likely create feelings of reverse discrimina-
tion, fueling resistance to hiring diverse employees.
What has led to the skewed demographics at tech-
nology companies? Some experts believe the root
cause goes back to patterns and norms in elementary
and high school, where girls are not encouraged to
focus on the STEM subjects (science, technology, engi-
neering, and math). If this is true, female high-school
students are not developing the proficiency that would
help them major in STEM subjects in college. Further, a
writer for Forbes concluded that an unconscious bias
exists “that science and math are typically ‘male’ fields
while humanities are primarily ‘female’ fields, and
these stereotypes further inhibit girls’ likelihood of cul-
tivating an interest in math and science.”118
A related issue is the “information gap.” High-school
students simply do not know which jobs are in high
demand. For example, research shows that 24 percent
of high-school seniors “have no idea of what career
they want to pursue. Of high school seniors who have
pinpointed a desired profession, 23 percent said they
made their career choice based on something they
saw on TV or in a movie.”119 This is a problem because
TV shows often depict technology-oriented people as
geeky males. Who wants to be a geek?
Others claim the tech industry has a pipeline prob-
lem. In other words, not enough females and minorities
are majoring in STEM subjects in college. Statistics
conflict on this subject. Some data indicate that
females earn fewer than 20 percent of college degrees
in computer science and engineering, even though
they achieve the majority of bachelor’s degrees in the
United States.120 In contrast, other studies suggest
there is not a pipeline issue. According to EdSource
writer Carolyn Jones, about half of the students in
high-school science and math courses are female.121
Data from the National Science Foundation indicate
that women earn approximately 50 percent of science
and engineering bachelor’s degrees.122 A USA Today
study further showed that “top universities graduate
black and Hispanic computer science and computer
engineering students at twice the rate that leading
technology companies hire them.”123 There must be
some reason these students are not being hired.
If the above data are accurate, then it is possible that
companies have a systemic problem based on hiring
managers’ beliefs, stereotypes, or unconscious biases.
This occurred at Pinterest, for example, when it tried to
increase the number of women and minorities being
hired. Although recruiters found qualified applicants
“from nontraditional backgrounds, managers often
continued to prioritize people from places like Stanford
and MIT, which have less broad student bodies. And
while Adam Ward, Pinterest’s head of recruiting, and
Abby Maldonado, its diversity-programs specialist, had
encouraged colleagues to pass along résumés from a
range of candidates, most of the referrals were still white
or Asian,” according to Fast Company.124 Pinterest
founder Evan Sharp believes technology companies
may not be giving diversity the same type of attention
they give to product development initiatives.
There may also be more overt causes of the under-
representation of female and minority tech employees.
Consider results from a survey of 1,000 women who
had held technology positions. These women explained
why they believe females leave the tech field at a rate
45 percent higher than males. A perceived lack of
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
White, Male, and Asian: The Diversity Profile of
Technology Companies
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
158 PART 1 Individual Behavior
chapter, because we generally select cases that
illustrate concepts in the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, which has been summa-
rized in the Organizing Framework shown in Figure 4.6.
Causes will appear in either the Inputs box or the
Processes box.
A. Start by looking at Figure 4.6 to identify which
person factors, if any, are most likely causes of
the defined problem. For each cause, explain
why this is a cause of the problem. Asking why
multiple times is more likely to lead you to root
causes of the problem. For example, if you think
demographics—an input in the Organizing
Framework—is a cause, ask yourself why. This
might lead to the conclusion that there are not
enough females and minorities who are taking
STEM majors in college. In turn, this might lead
to the conclusion that a poor pipeline is a root
cause of demographics at technology compa-
nies. Then ask yourself why this is happening.
The cause might go all the way back to elemen-
tary and high school. By following this process of
asking why multiple times, you will be more
likely to arrive at a more complete list of causes.
B. Now consider the Processes box shown in
Figure 4.6. Consider whether perception,
attributions, psychological safety, group/team
dynamics, or options to manage diversity are
causes of the problem. For any concept that
might be a cause, ask yourself, Why is this a
cause? Again, do this for several iterations to
arrive at root causes.
C. Follow the same process for the situation
factors.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem.
STEP 3: Make recommendations for solving the
problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it,
solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom-
mendation is desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use the content in
Chapter 4 or one of the earlier chapters to pro-
pose a solution.
B. Potential solutions may be found in the OB in
Action and Applying OB boxes within the
chapter. These features provide insights about
how other individuals or companies are handling
the topic at hand.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendation.
career growth/trajectory was the most common factor
in females’ decisions to leave tech. Further, almost
50 percent of the women interviewed believed they
had been paid less than their male counterparts. Other
top reasons, particularly among women in tech aged
25–34, were difficulties breaking into management
and leadership roles, perceived bias and discrimina-
tion, and a lack of female leadership representation in
the company.125
Could something as subtle as gender-based com-
munication contribute to the problem? The answer is
yes, according to a recent report presented in Fortune.
A study of 1,100 technology resumes from 512 men
and 588 women uncovered gender-related differ-
ences that may affect a recruiter’s perceptions. For
example, “women’s résumés are longer, but shorter on
details. . . . Yet when it comes to providing details
about previous jobs, the men present far more specific
content than the women do,” according to the Fortune
report. Women were also found to “lead with their cre-
dentials and include more personal background. On
average, the women’s résumés cite seven personal
distinctions apiece, while the men’s cite four.” Overall,
women tend to use more narrative while men are more
precise about their experiences.126
Assume you are a senior leader at a technology
company. What does the information in this case tell
you about managing diversity?
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcome box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 4.6 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember
that a problem is a gap between a desired and
current state. State your problem as a gap and
be sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
accomplished, decide which one is most impor-
tant and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and prob-
lems are generally viewed from a particular pro-
tagonist’s perspective. You need to identify the
perspective—employee, manager, team, or the
organization—from which you’re defining the
problem.
C. Use details in the case to identify the key prob-
lem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that
are not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
159Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Should Patient Requests Trump Health Care Employees’
Civil Rights?
This case describes an incident that occurred at
Beaumont Hospital in Dearborn, Michigan, and
resulted in a lawsuit.
Teoka Williams, a 10-year veteran black nurse at
Beaumont, overheard her patient comment in a racially
charged manner that she did not want to be cared for
by a black nurse. Williams reported the incident to the
hospital’s clinical manager who proceeded to bar the
nurse from treating both the patient and the other
patients sharing her room.127
Williams filed a complaint with the hospital’s human
resources department and was told that “patient
requests are honored all the time and the next time it
happens she would simply be taken off the assign-
ment altogether.” She felt “humiliated, embarrassed,
and disappointed” by the experience. Her attorney
Julie Gafkey said that health care facilities should not
consent to patient requests at the expense of their
employees’ civil rights. Williams sued the hospital for
federal and state civil rights violations.128
The American Medical Association’s ethics code
expressly prevents physicians from discriminating
against patients based on race, gender, sexual orien-
tation, gender identity, or other clinically irrelevant
characteristics.129 Official policies and guidelines for
dealing with patient discrimination against health
care providers, however, are virtually nonexistent.130
Further, a survey of “emergency physicians found
patients often make such requests, and they are rou-
tinely accommodated. A third of doctors who
responded said they felt patients perceive better
care from providers of shared demographics, with
racial matches considered more important than gen-
der or religion.”131
Some hospitals are beginning to address this issue.
For example, the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota,
has developed policies and procedures to protect its
staff from patient discrimination. The policies allow
staff members to deny discriminatory patient requests,
extend guidance for handling such requests, and out-
line official reporting mechanisms.132
Your Views
What would you have done if you were a medical
administrator at the time the request was made?
1. I would not have honored the patient’s request.
I would have explained why Teoka Williams and
other African American nurses are best suited to
take care of the patient.
2. I would have done exactly what the hospital did.
The patient has a right to be taken care of by
someone with a preferred race or gender.
What would you do about the lawsuit?
1. Fight it. It’s ridiculous that someone would feel
emotional stress and humiliation from simply
being reassigned.
2. Settle it and create a policy that prohibits
honoring future requests like this.
3. Settle it but hold a hospitalwide meeting explain-
ing the rationale for continuing to accommodate
such requests.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 5-1 Define motivation and how it affects your behavior.
LO 5-2 Compare and contrast the content theories of motivation.
LO 5-3 Compare and contrast the process theories of motivation.
LO 5-4 Describe three approaches to motivating employees through job design.
LO 5-5 Describe the implications of employee motivation for you and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB shown in Figure 5.1 summa-
rizes what you will learn in this chapter. Although Chapter 5 focuses on motivation, an individual-
level process, a host of person and situation factors influence it. There are more situation than
person factors in the figure. This reinforces the simple fact that managers significantly affect our
motivation because they have more control over situation than person factors. Figure 5.1 further
shows that processes across the individual, group/team, and organizational level influence a
variety of important outcomes.
FIGURE 5.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Personal attitudes
• Values—Theory X/Y
• Needs
Situation Factors
• Hygiene factors
• Motivating factors
• Job characteristics
• Job design
• Leadership
• Organizational climate
Individual Level
• Equity/justice
• Expectancy processes
• Goal setting processes
• Voice
Group/Team Level
• Climate for justice
Organizational Level
• Climate for justice
Individual Level
• Intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
Organizational Level
• Customer satisfaction
Foundations of
Employee Motivation5
C
ai
a
Im
ag
e/
Im
ag
e
So
ur
ce
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
161
Negotiating for a Raise
offered successful new ideas or
initiatives; brought new clients in;
or increased revenue? Get in the
habit of regularly documenting
your tangible achievements to
clearly demonstrate what you’re
worth to your firm.
5. Consider your options. If a
raise isn’t possible just now,
consider accepting another
form of compensation instead,
such as added vacation time, a
one-time bonus, or work-life
options like flextime or occasional telecommuting
privileges. This is the “want” part of “Wish, want, walk.”
“Think of things [the company] may have the ability to
give you instead of money,” advises Allison Hutton,
chief talent officer at Allavanti Group. “Coming up with
alternatives is usually viewed as positive.”4
6. Be patient. It’s unlikely you’ll get an answer right away,
so don’t expect one. Your boss will need to consider
the department’s budget, the organization’s overall
performance, the case you’ve presented, and your
compensation relative to that of comparable others in
the group or company. Keep your case factual, don’t
oversell it, and choose your moment carefully to be
sure of finding a receptive audience. If just-released
quarterly results reflect poorly on your manager, for in-
stance, hold your fire for a couple of weeks.
7. Stay positive, and don’t give up! At the very least, you
can walk away with a plan you and your manager agree
will eventually bring you the increase you want.5 Above
all, if you’ve done a good job and can demonstrate just
how good, don’t be afraid to make your case. Good luck!
Among the many things you’ll dis-
cover about motivation in this chapter
is that money is not the only incentive
leading to high performance. How-
ever, there’s no question that equita-
ble salaries and well-deserved
bonuses are motivating, and that,
conversely, inequities in pay can hurt
job satisfaction and performance.
What can you do if you feel your
performance merits a bump in your
compensation? What is the most
effective way to ask for a raise? Here
are a few suggestions from the experts.
1. Know what you want. One writer who has researched
the special frustrations that Millennial women in par-
ticular feel about compensation offers this three-word
mantra: “Wish, want, walk.” That is, know what your ul-
timate wish is, know what you would want if you
couldn’t get your wish, and know what offer you would
reject or walk away from.1
2. Know what you’re worth. Do your homework, on sites
like Glassdoor.com and Salary.com, to find out what
people with your level of experience are earning to do
similar work in the same or related industries. Your
chances of succeeding in a salary negotiation are
much higher if your demands are realistic for your cir-
cumstances, including any factors particular to your
firm that you should take into account.2
3. Enlist support if possible. If a mentor or sponsor will
champion your request for a raise (and if you can seek
his or her advice as well), all the better. If you are a gig
worker looking to raise your rates, this person could
be a supportive client or clients. However, a word of
caution: Transparency about pay has some advan-
tages, but it is not the universal standard. Avoid refer-
ring to what your colleagues make, even if you know it,
as a reason you should make more. The conversation
you want to have is about you, not about others.3
4. Build your story. Be prepared to offer concrete evi-
dence of accomplishments and contributions that
prove your worth. Document results above expecta-
tions, successful projects, or responsibilities outside
the normal scope of your job, and praise and commen-
dations from your manager, customers, colleagues, and
other influential voices. These will bolster your argu-
ment that you deserve a pay increase. Have you saved
your organization time, money, or other resources;
Winning at Work
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
There are far too many dysfunctional organizations
where managers don’t seem to have a clue about
how to motivate workers. OB supplies proven meth-
ods of how to motivate employees. These aren’t just
abstract theories. All spring from observation and
study of the workplace, and they have been vali-
dated in real-life testing. Business professionals
treasure them as tools for making work better and
more productive. We’ll show you how these meth-
ods operate and give practical tips and suggestions
for implementing them.
Ahlapot/iStockphoto/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
162 PART 1 Individual Behavior
5.1 THE WHAT AND WHY OF MOTIVATION
Motivation theories help us understand our own behaviors in organizational settings and
provide us tools for motivating others.
Motivation: What Is It?
Motivation explains why we do the things we do. It explains why you are dressed the way
you are right now, and it can account for what you plan to do this evening.
How Does It Work? The term motivation derives from the Latin word movere, mean-
ing “to move.” In the present context, motivation describes the psychological pro-
cesses “that underlie the direction, intensity, and persistence of behavior or
thought.”6 “Direction pertains to what an individual is attending to at a given time, inten-
sity represents the amount of effort being invested in the activity, and persistence repre-
sents for how long that activity is the focus of one’s attention.”7
There are two types of motivation: extrinsic and intrinsic.
• Extrinsic motivation results from the potential or actual receipt of external
rewards. Extrinsic rewards such as recognition, money, or a promotion repre-
sent a payoff we receive from others for performing a particular task. For exam-
ple, in 2018 Southwest Airlines paid its employees $544 million in profit-sharing
bonuses, increasing every employee’s annual compensation by nearly 10.8 per-
cent. This is the 45th consecutive year that the airline has paid out profit-sharing
bonuses to employees. According to Southwest CEO Gary Kelly, “Our people are
our greatest asset and they deserve all the credit for our continued success.” Such
recognition from management is certainly a motivating factor for Southwest
workers.8
• Intrinsic motivation occurs when an individual is inspired by “the positive
internal feelings that are generated by doing well, rather than being depen-
dent on external factors (such as incentive pay or compliments from the boss) for
the motivation to work effectively.”9 We create our own intrinsic motivation by
giving ourselves intrinsic rewards such as positive emotions, satisfaction, and self-
praise. Consider the intrinsic motivation of Millennials Kory and Mallory Stevens,
who started the Taft shoe company out of their apartment several years ago. They
were recently named to Forbes 30-under-30 list of people to watch in the coming
years for their passion, motivation, and entrepreneurship. Per the company web-
site, “As Taft continues to grow, our vision for the brand remains the same—we
believe in making beautiful shoes at beautiful prices and offering the best service
Define motivation
and how it affects
your behavior.
LO 5-1
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Motivation is a key process within the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Apply-
ing OB. Understanding the principles of motivation can help you both achieve personal goals
and manage others in the pursuit of organizational goals.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
163Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
and value possible.” With NBA ballers James Harden and Dwayne Wade, as well
as action star Dwayne Johnson as super fans, this dynamic couple has turned
athletes and celebrities into shoe ambassadors via social media and are motivated
to continue their success.10
The Two Fundamental Perspectives on Motivation:
An Overview
Researchers have proposed two general categories of motivation theories: content theories
and process theories. Content theories identify internal factors such as needs and satisfac-
tion that energize employee motivation. Process theories explain the process by which
internal factors and situational factors influence employee motivation.11 It’s important to
understand both motivational perspectives because they offer different solutions for han-
dling motivational problems. The following two sections discuss several theories for each
theoretical perspective.
Intrinsic motivation helps Taft founders Kory and Mallory Stevens fulfill their vision of making beautiful shoes
at competitive prices and offering the best possible service to their customers.
Courtesy of Taft Clothing
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
164 PART 1 Individual Behavior
5.2 CONTENT THEORIES OF MOTIVATION
Most content theories of motivation are based on the idea that an employee’s
needs influence his or her motivation. Content theorists ask, “What are the different
needs that activate motivation’s direction, intensity, and persistence?” Needs are defined
as physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse behavior. They can be
strong or weak and are influenced by environmental factors. This tells you that human
needs vary over time and place.
Content theories include:
• McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y.
• Maslow’s need hierarchy theory.
• Acquired needs theory.
• Self-determination theory.
• Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene theory.
McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y
Douglas McGregor outlined his theory in his book The Human Side of Enterprise.12 Draw-
ing on his experience as a management consultant, McGregor formulated two sharply
contrasting sets of assumptions about human nature. Theory X is a pessimistic view of
employees: They dislike work, must be monitored, and can be motivated only with
rewards and punishment (“carrots and sticks”). McGregor felt this was the typical
perspective held by managers. To help them break with this negative tradition, McGregor
formulated his own Theory Y. Theory Y is a modern and positive set of assumptions
about people at work: They are self-engaged, committed, responsible, and creative.
Consider the value of adopting a Theory Y approach toward people. One recent study
demonstrated that employees and teams had higher performance when their managers
displayed Theory Y behaviors. A second study uncovered higher levels of job satisfaction,
organizational commitment, and organizational citizenship when managers engaged in
Theory Y behaviors.13
Maslow’s Need Hierarchy Theory:
Five Levels of Needs
In 1943, psychologist Abraham Maslow published his now-famous need hierarchy theory
of motivation. Although the theory was based on his clinical observation of a few neurotic
individuals, it has subsequently been used to explain the entire spectrum of human
behavior. The need hierarchy theory states that motivation is a function of five basic
needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization. See Figure 5.2 for
an explanation.
Compare and contrast
the content theories
of motivation.
LO 5-2
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Five OB theories deal with the internal factors that motivate individuals. Several come from
other disciplines. So you may have already encountered Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and
related content theories such as McGregor’s Theory X and Theory Y, acquired needs theory,
self-determination theory, and Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene theory.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
165Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
The Five Levels Maslow proposed that the five needs are met sequentially and relate
to each other in a “prepotent” hierarchy (see Figure 5.2). Prepotent means the current
most-pressing need will be met before the next need becomes the most powerful or potent.
In other words, Maslow believed human needs generally emerge in a predictable stair-step
fashion. Thus when physiological needs have been met, safety needs emerge, and so on up
the need hierarchy, one step at a time. Once a need has been satisfied, it activates the next
higher need in the hierarchy. This process continues until the need for self-actualization
has been activated.14
Using Maslow’s Theory to Motivate Employees Although research does not
clearly support its details, Maslow’s theory does offer practical lessons. It reminds us,
for instance, that employees have needs beyond earning a paycheck. In addition to offering
health care benefits, which fills a physiological need, Wisconsin–based consumer products
company SC Johnson has an on-site employee concierge service to help employees with
some of life’s chores. Concierges send packages and flowers, pick up groceries, shop for
the best deals on car insurance, take employees’ cars in for service, and even stand in line
for concert tickets.15
This theory tells us that a “one style fits all” approach to motivation is unlikely to work.
Studies show that different motivators are needed for employees working at small firms,
whose owners may not have the money to spend on extensive benefits and perks. There are
several strategies that will help keep employees motived at start-up or small businesses:
• Offer flexibility when it comes to work hours;
• Recognize and reward good performance; and
• Involve employees in decision making.16
A final lesson of Maslow’s theory is that satisfied needs lose their motivational potential.
Therefore, managers are advised to motivate employees by devising programs or practices
aimed at satisfying emerging or unmet needs.
Acquired Needs Theory: Achievement,
Affiliation, and Power
David McClelland, a well-known psychologist, began studying the relationship between
needs and behavior in the late 1940s. He proposed the acquired needs theory, which
states that three needs—for achievement, affiliation, and power—are the key driv-
ers of employee behavior.17 McClelland used the term “acquired needs” because he
believes we are not born with our needs; rather we learn or acquire them as we go about
living our lives.
FIGURE 5.2 Maslow’s Need Hierarchy
Most basic need. Entails having enough food, air,
and water to survive.
Desire for self-fulfillment—to become the best one is capable of
becoming.
The desire to be loved and to love. Includes the needs for
aection and belonging.
Consists of the need to be safe from physical and
psychological harm.
Need for reputation, prestige, and recognition from others.
Also includes need for self-confidence and strength.
Esteem
Love
Safety
Physiological
Self-
Actualization
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
166 PART 1 Individual Behavior
The Three Acquired Needs McClelland’s theory directs managers to drive employee
motivation by appealing to three basic needs:
• Need for achievement, the desire to excel, overcome obstacles, solve prob-
lems, and rival and surpass others.
• Need for affiliation, the desire to maintain social relationships, be liked, and
join groups.
• Need for power, the desire to influence, coach, teach, or encourage others to
achieve.
People vary in the extent to which they possess these needs, and often one need dominates
the other two (see Figure 5.3).
McClelland identified a positive and negative form of the power need. The positive
side is called the need for institutional power. It manifests in the desire to organize people
in the pursuit of organizational goals and help people obtain the feeling of competence.
The negative face of power is called the need for personal power. People with this need
want to control others, and they often manipulate people for their own gratification.
You can use this theory to motivate yourself, assuming you are aware of your need
states. Can you guess which of the three needs is most dominant? Would you like to know
which is helping or hindering the achievement of your personal goals? Check your percep-
tions by taking the acquired needs Self-Assessment.
Assessing Your Acquired Needs
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 5.1 in Connect.
1. Which of the three needs is dominant for you? Are you surprised by this result?
2. Which is/are helping you to achieve your goals?
3. Are any of the needs affecting your level of well-being? Should you make any
changes in your need states?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.1 CAREER READINESS
Using Acquired Needs Theory to Motivate Others The following OB in Action
box illustrates how Cameron Mitchell’s acquired needs affected the way he ran his success-
ful restaurant business.
You can apply acquired needs theory by appealing to the preferences associated with
each need when you (1) set goals, (2) provide feedback, (3) assign tasks, and (4) design
the job.18 Let’s consider how the theory applies to Cameron Mitchell.
• Need for achievement. People motivated by the need for achievement, like Cam-
eron Mitchell, prefer working on challenging, but not impossible, tasks or projects.
They like situations in which good performance relies on effort and ability rather
FIGURE 5.3 McClelland’s Three Needs
Ach.
A�.
Power
Ach.
A�.
Power
Ach. A�.
Power
Ach. A�.
Power
Balanced Needs Achievement Orientation A�liation Orientation Power Orientation
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
167Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
Cameron Mitchell has achieved his childhood
dream of running a successful restaurant business.
He currently runs 32 upscale themed restaurants,
such as Hudson 29 and Ocean Prime, in 12 states.
His business earns about $300 million in annual
revenue.19
Mitchell’s primary goal was “to create an extraor-
dinary restaurant company known for great people
delivering genuine hospitality.” He says, “In order to
achieve this goal, I could not do it on my own! In fact,
our past, present, and future success is directly
attributed to our associates.”20
You might not have foreseen Mitchell’s success
based on his difficult childhood. His parents
divorced when he was 9, and he began drinking
alcohol and trying drugs in middle school. When he
started dealing drugs in high school, his mom threat-
ened to call child protective services. Mitchell
decided to run away.
He moved into a one-room apartment with other
teens and sometimes went days without food. He
decided to return home at 16 when he found him-
self thinking about suicide. He went back to high
school and took a job as a dishwasher at a local
steak house. He loved the job and concluded, “The
restaurant business was where I wanted to be the
rest of my life.”
When Mitchell’s application to the Culinary Insti-
tute of America was rejected due to his poor grades,
he became more driven. He started working double
shifts so he could pay for community college. He
eventually graduated from culinary school and
began working as a sous chef. Mitchell opened his
first restaurant in 1993 in Columbus, Ohio. It was a
success!21
Mitchell’s business puts people first. “Our
associates are the core and foundation of our com-
pany,” he says, “and they are my number one prior-
ity. If they aren’t happy at work, it will show in the
food they produce, the way they treat our guests
and the way they treat each other. . . . We treat
them great and, in turn, they take great care of the
company.”22
The company’s commitment to its employees
shows in the wide array of benefits it offers, which
exceed industry standards. It also rewards restau-
rant managers who support and develop their
teams. Mitchell believes associates should have
trusting, caring relationships with each other. He
encourages managers’ autonomy by allowing them
to provide input on menu and wine selection deci-
sions. The company further reinforces the value of
autonomy and effective decision making with lead-
ership training programs. Managers are taught
“how to think (rather than ‘how to do’). The goal is
to encourage creative, appropriate problem-solving
and idea generation,” according to the company’s
website.”23
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Which of the three acquired needs is most pro-
nounced in this example?
2. Would you like to work for someone like
Cameron Mitchell? Why?
Cameron Mitchell
Courtesy of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants
Cameron Mitchell, Founder and CEO of Cameron Mitchell Restaurants,
Exemplifies Acquired Needs
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
168 PART 1 Individual Behavior
than luck, and they like to be rewarded for their efforts. High achievers also want to
receive a fair and balanced amount of positive and negative feedback. This enables
them to improve their performance.
• Need for affiliation. People motivated by the need for affiliation like to work in
teams and in organizational climates characterized as cooperative and collegial.24
You clearly see this theme at work in Cameron Mitchell’s restaurants.
• Need for power. People with a high need for power like to be in charge. They
enjoy coaching and helping others develop. Cameron Mitchell seems to exemplify
this need.
Self-Determination Theory: Competence, Autonomy,
and Relatedness
Self-determination theory was developed by psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan.
In contrast to McClelland’s belief that needs are learned over time, this theory identifies
innate needs that must be satisfied for us to f lourish. Self-determination
theory assumes that three innate needs influence our behavior and well-being—the
needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.25
Self-Determination Theory Focuses on Intrinsic Motivation Self-determination
theory focuses on the needs that drive intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is longer
lasting and has a more positive impact on task performance than extrinsic motivation.26
The theory proposes that our needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness produce
intrinsic motivation, which in turn enhances our task performance. Research supports
this proposition.27
The Three Innate Needs An innate need is a need we are born with. The three
innate needs are:
1. Competence—“I need to feel efficacious.” This is the desire to feel qualified, knowledge-
able, and capable to complete an act, task, or goal.
2. Autonomy—“I need to feel independent to influence my environment.” This is the desire
to have freedom and discretion in determining what you want to do and how you want
to do it.
3. Relatedness—“I want to be connected with others.” This is the desire to feel part of a
group, to belong, and to be connected with others.
Although the above needs are assumed to be innate, according to Deci and Ryan their
relative value can change over our lives and vary across cultures.
Using Self-Determination Theory to Motivate Employees Managers can apply
self-determination theory by trying to create work environments that support and encour-
age the opportunity to experience competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Here are some
specific suggestions:
• Competence. Managers can provide tangible resources, time, contacts, and coach-
ing to improve employee competence. They can make sure employees have the
knowledge and information they need to perform their jobs. For example, e-commerce
giant Amazon offers new hires an intensive, month-long training and leadership
program before they begin their job, and its “virtual contact center” trains
employees to work from home. According to the company’s corporate communi-
cations manager, “We want our employees to be owners from day one, so we
train them to take ownership over products and services that impact millions of
customers.”28
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
169Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
• Autonomy. Managers can empower employees and delegate meaningful assign-
ments and tasks to enhance feelings of autonomy. This in turn suggests they
should support decisions their employees make. A recent study confirmed this
conclusion. Employees’ intrinsic motivation was higher when they perceived
that their manager supported them.29 Schneider Electric is a global company
specializing in energy management and automation and it offers dedicated
courses for leadership, customer education, energy solutions, sales excellence,
and functional skills to its more than 160,000 employees worldwide. Company
executives believe providing high-potential, early-career opportunities for its
workforce encourages autonomy and paves the way for strong and future leaders
of the organization.30
• Relatedness. Many companies use fun and camaraderie to foster relatedness. In addi-
tion, a positive and inspiring corporate vision can create a feeling of commitment
to a common purpose. At 23andMe, a consumer genetic testing company, founder
and CEO Anne Wojcicki believes in using her influence to further the position of
women in the biotech industry, which has long been a male-dominated field. The
company has a policy of hiring equal numbers of men and women, maintains a bal-
ance of men and women at the leadership level, and fosters a workplace culture that
supports liberal parental leave policies, a robust employee onboarding process, and
a strong sense of belonging and relatedness.31
Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory:
Two Ways to Improve Satisfaction
Frederick Herzberg’s theory is based on a landmark study in which he interviewed
203 accountants and engineers.32 These interviews, meant to determine the factors respon-
sible for job satisfaction and dissatisfaction, uncovered separate and distinct clusters of
factors associated with each. This pattern led to the motivator-hygiene theory, which
proposes that job satisfaction and dissatisfaction arise from two different sets of
At Amazon, managers apply the self-determination theory by trying to create a work
environment that supports and encourages the opportunity to experience compe-
tence, autonomy, and relatedness. New hires undergo an intensive, month-long train-
ing and leadership program before they start their new job, which helps them take
ownership of the products and services delivered to millions of customers every day.
Jeramey Lende/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
170 PART 1 Individual Behavior
factors—satisfaction comes from motivating factors and dissatisfaction from
hygiene factors.
• Hygiene factors—What makes employees dissatisfied? Job dissatisfaction was associ-
ated primarily with factors in the work context or environment. Herzberg hypothe-
sized that such hygiene factors—including company policy and administration,
technical supervision, salary, interpersonal relationships with supervisors,
and working conditions—cause a person to move from a state of no dissatis-
faction to dissatisfaction. He did not believe their removal created an immediate
impact on satisfaction or motivation (for that, see motivating factors following). At
best, Herzberg proposed that individuals will experience the absence of job dissatis-
faction when they have no grievances about hygiene factors.
• Motivating factors—What makes employees satisfied? Job satisfaction was more
frequently associated with factors in the work content of the task being performed.
Herzberg labeled these motivating factors or motivators because each was associ-
ated with strong effort and good performance. He hypothesized that such
motivating factors, or motivators—including achievement, recognition,
characteristics of the work, responsibility, and advancement—cause a
person to move from a state of no satisfaction to satisfaction. Therefore,
Herzberg’s theory predicts managers can motivate individuals by incorporating
motivators into an individual’s job.
For Herzberg, the groups of hygiene and motivating factors did not interact. “The
opposite of job satisfaction is not job dissatisfaction, but rather no job satisfaction; and
similarly, the opposite of job dissatisfaction is not job satisfaction, but no dissatisfaction.”33
Herzberg conceptualizes dissatisfaction and satisfaction as two parallel continuums. The
starting point is a null state in which both dissatisfaction and satisfaction are absent. Theo-
retically an organization member could have good supervision, pay, and working condi-
tions (no dissatisfaction) but a tedious and unchallenging task with little chance of
advancement (no satisfaction), as illustrated in Figure 5.4.
Managerial View of Job Satisfaction and Dissatisfaction Insights from
Herzberg’s theory allow managers to consider the dimensions of both job content and job
context so they can manage for greater overall job satisfaction. There is one aspect of this
theory we think is wrong, however. We believe you can satisfy and motivate people by
providing good hygiene factors. REI (Recreational Equipment Inc.), regularly rated one
of the top companies to work for by Fortune, is a good example. The company routinely
pays both part- and full-time employees significantly more than regulatory minimums and
FIGURE 5.4 Role of Job Content and Job Context in Job Satisfaction
and Dissatisfaction
No Satisfaction
Jobs that do not
o�er achievement,
recognition,
stimulating work,
responsibility,
and advancement.
Jobs o�ering
achievement,
recognition,
stimulating work,
responsibility,
and advancement.
Jobs with good
company policies
and administration,
technical supervision,
salary, interpersonal
relationships with
supervisors, and
working conditions.
Jobs with poor
company policies
and administration,
technical supervision,
salary, interpersonal
relationships with
supervisors, and
working conditions.
Satisfaction
Motivators
No Dissatisfaction Dissatisfaction
Hygiene Factors
Job Content Job Context
SOURCE: Whitsett, David A., and Erik K. Winslow. “An Analysis of Studies Critical of The Motivator-Hygiene Theory.” Personnel
Psychology, Winter (1997): 391–415.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
provides benefits to part-timers who work 20 hours a week (industry threshold for benefits
is typically 30 hours a week). In addition, company contributions to the employee retire-
ment plan are considered very generous compared to other retailers—employees may
receive up to an additional 15 percent of their pay contributed by the company. And its
employee turnover rate is almost half that of other retailers.34
Other companies seem to agree with our conclusion, because they have been offering
a host of hygiene factors in an attempt to attract and retain Millennials. A recent survey
of 5,000 Millennials revealed they are looking for better workplace benefits, including
flexible work arrangements, generous matches to their 401(k) plans, pet insurance, and
help with paying down their student loan debt. In this tight labor market, many compa-
nies are taking a closer look at their benefits packages to attract and maintain a competi-
tive workforce.35
Using Herzberg’s Theory to Motivate Employees Although research does not
support the two-factor aspect of Herzberg’s theory or the proposition that hygiene factors
are unrelated to job satisfaction, three practical applications of the theory help explain
why it remains important in the study of OB.
1. Hygiene first. There are practical reasons to eliminate dissatisfaction before trying to
use motivators to increase motivation and performance. You will have a harder time
motivating someone who is experiencing pay dissatisfaction or otherwise struggling
with Herzberg’s hygiene factors.
2. Motivation next. Once you remove dissatisfaction, you can hardly go wrong by build-
ing motivators into someone’s job. This suggestion represents the core idea behind the
technique of job design that is discussed in the final section of this chapter.
3. A few well-chosen words. Finally, don’t underestimate the power of verbal recognition
to reinforce good performance. Savvy managers supplement Herzberg’s motivators
with communication. Positive recognition can fuel intrinsic motivation, particularly
for people who are engaged in their work.
Walmart Adds Sick-Leave Pay. Problem Solved?
Early in 2019, the giant retailer Walmart instituted a
sweeping revision of some core human resource
policies affecting its 1.1 million hourly workers in
the United States. The move was undertaken in
response to the fact that an increasing number of
states and cities now require employers to offer
paid sick leave. As of February 2019, Walmart’s
store and warehouse workers can earn one hour of
paid leave for every 30 hours worked, up to
48 hours total. The time can be used for any pur-
pose without infringing on vacation time. Since the
new policy consolidates and unifies a number of
earlier rules, the company expects it will simplify
administration and compliance, as well as reduce
absenteeism. Management also hopes the policy
change will help continue a decline in turnover that
started the year before, when, it says, an improved
wage scale, relaxed dress codes, and more gener-
ous parental leave helped reduce turnover by more
than 10 percent.36
At the same time, however, the company has
tightened up some of its other employment poli-
cies. For instance, workers can now be fired for
accumulating only five attendance violations within
six months, whereas the limit was nine in the past.
Short of firing, attendance has new financial conse-
quences too. Although workers with perfect atten-
dance can earn higher quarterly bonuses, they
currently make up fewer than a third of Walmart’s
hourly employees. Those who miss more than a
handful of shifts will now see their bonuses cut by
as much as half. Before the policy revamp,
Problem-Solving Application
171Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
172 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem in this case.
Step 2: Identify the key causes of this problem.
Step 3: Make your top two recommendations for fixing the problem at Walmart.
employee bonuses were based solely on store
performance.37
“Walmart is responding to our call for change
with a new policy. But what they are giving with one
hand, they are taking with the other,” said Shashauna
Phillips, a Walmart employee in South Carolina and
a leader in OUR Walmart, a worker group. Phillips
also worries that one result of offering a financial
incentive for perfect attendance is that employees
will come to work sick.38
Others share her concern that Walmart has a
way to go before it can claim to be doing every-
thing possible to support and retain its workers.
Vermont’s Senator Bernie Sanders, for example,
issued a statement saying that Walmart’s new sick-
leave policy was “a small step forward but not
enough,” noting that “Walmart . . . is not a poor
company” and urging it to raise its starting pay to
$15 an hour (as a public outcry and legislation
introduced by Sanders recently forced Amazon to
do). Walmart currently starts its hourly workers at
$11 an hour, up from only $9 as recently as 2017.39
Writing in The Hill, Congressional representative
Ro Khanna of California and Marc Perrone, Interna-
tional President of the United Food and Commer-
cial Workers Union, also urged Walmart to increase
its basic wage, saying that Congress should take
action again to compel Walmart and other large
employers to pay their workers enough to feed
their families and avoid forcing the “taxpayer-
funded safety net” to make up the difference.
Amazon faced a choice between raising wages
and paying the government for the social safety
net benefits its workers claimed. It opted to raise
wages; Khanna and Perrone feel Walmart should
make the same decision.40
Walmart’s sales are growing steadily and are
expected to near $530 billion for fiscal 2019.41
Figure 5.5 illustrates the overlap among the need and satisfaction theories discussed
in this section. As you can see, the acquired needs and self-determination theories do not
include lower-level needs. Remember, higher-level need satisfaction is more likely to foster
well-being and flourishing.
FIGURE 5.5 A Comparison of Need and Satisfaction Theories
Maslow
Higher-level
needs
Lower-level
needs
Achievement
Power
A�liation
Motivating factors
Hygiene factors
Competence
Autonomy
Relatedness
Self-actualization
Esteem
Love
Safety
Physiological
Acquired Needs Self-Determination Herzberg
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
173Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
Process theories of motivation describe how various person factors and situation
factors in the Organizing Framework affect motivation. They go beyond content theo-
ries by helping you understand why people with different needs and levels of satisfaction
behave the way they do at work.
In this section we discuss three process theories of motivation:
• Equity/justice theory
• Expectancy theory
• Goal-setting theory
Equity/Justice Theory: Am I Being Treated Fairly?
Defined generally, equity theory is a model of motivation that explains how people
strive for fairness and justice in social exchanges or give-and-take relation-
ships. According to this theory, people are motivated to maintain consistency between
their beliefs and their behavior. Perceived inconsis tencies create cognitive dissonance (or
psychological discomfort), which in turn motivates corrective action. When we feel victim-
ized by unfair social exchanges, the resulting cognitive dissonance prompts us to correct
the situation. This can result in a change of attitude or behavior.
Consider what happened when workers at several U.S. poultry processing plants
were forced to wear adult diapers during their work shifts as a result of being denied
bathroom breaks by supervisors. A report by Oxfam
America revealed supervisors repeatedly mocked
workers and ignored their requests and threatened
punishment or firing in an effort to keep the process-
ing line running to meet production quotas. In the
U.S. poultry industry, less than a third of all plants
are unionized, which leaves most workers without
crucial safety protections.42 In addition, another
investigation found that the more than half a million
men and women who work in meat-processing plants
have some of the most dangerous factory jobs in
America.43
As a result of pressure from worker advocate
groups and unions, as well as growing consumer aware-
ness about the hazards experienced by poultry work-
ers, Tyson Foods announced it would provide regularly
scheduled bathroom breaks, give more attention to the
line speeds at its processing plants, offer training on
workers’ rights, and establish safety councils that
would include employees.44
Compare and contrast
the process theories
of motivation.
LO 5-3
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Process theories examine the way personal factors and situation factors influence employee
motivation. You’ll be considering three major process theories: equity/justice theory, expectancy
theory, and goal-setting theory. Each offers unique ideas for motivating yourself or employees.
5.3 PROCESS THEORIES OF MOTIVATION
Working the processing line at a U.S. poultry plant is a dangerous
and challenging job, fraught with near-impossible work goals.
Intense pressure from worker advocate groups, labor unions, and
even consumers has resulted in companies improving conditions
for their workers.
USDA photo by Preston Keres.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
174 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Psychologist J. Stacy Adams pioneered the use of equity theory in the workplace. Let
us begin by discussing his ideas and their current application. We then discuss the exten-
sion of equity theory into justice theory and conclude by discussing how to motivate
employees with both these tools.
The Elements of Equity Theory: Comparing My Outputs and Inputs with
Those of Others The key elements of equity theory are outputs, inputs, and a com-
parison of the ratio of outputs to inputs (see Figure 5.6).
• Outputs—“What do I perceive that I’m getting out of my job?” Organizations provide
a variety of outcomes for our work, including pay/bonuses, medical benefits, chal-
lenging assignments, job security, promotions, status symbols, recognition, and par-
ticipation in important decisions. Outcomes vary widely, depending on the
organization and our rank in it.
• Inputs—“What do I perceive that I’m putting into my job?” An employee’s inputs, for
which he or she expects a just return, include education/training, skills, creativity,
seniority, age, personality traits, effort expended, experience, and personal appearance.
FIGURE 5.6 Elements of Equity Theory
Equity theory compares how well you are doing to how well others are doing in similar jobs. Instead of focusing
just on what you get out of the job (outputs) or what you put into the job (inputs), equity theory compares your
ratio of outputs to inputs to those of others.
Outpu
ts
Pay, b
enefit
s,
assign
ments
, etc.
Input
s
Time,
skills
,
educa
tion, e
tc.
Resul
ts
What am I
getting out of
my job?
My Ratio
My Perceptions
What are others
getting out of
their jobs?
What am I
putting into my
job?
What are others
putting into their
jobs?
Equity
I’m satisfied.
I see myself as
faring comparably
with others.
Negative Inequity
I’m dissatisfied.
I see myself as
faring worse than
others.
Positive Inequity
Am I satisfied?
I see myself as
faring better than
others.
(See note.)
Others’ Ratio
vs.
Note: Does positive inequity result in satisfaction? Some of us may feel so. But J. Stacy Adams recognized that employees often
feel guilty about positive inequity, just as they might become angry about negative inequity. Your positive inequity is others’ neg-
ative inequity. If your coworkers saw you as being favored unfairly in a major way, wouldn’t they be outraged? How effective
could you be in your job then?
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
175Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
• Comparison—“How does my ratio of outputs to inputs compare with those of relevant
others?” Your feelings of equity come from your evaluation of whether you are
receiving adequate rewards to compensate for your collective inputs. In practice
people perform these evaluations by comparing the perceived fairness of their out-
put-to-input ratio to that of relevant others (see Figure 5.6). They divide outputs by
inputs, and the larger the ratio, the greater the expected benefit. This comparative
process was found to generalize across personalities and countries.45
People tend to compare themselves to other individuals with whom they have close
interpersonal ties, such as friends, and to whom they are similar, such as people perform-
ing the same job or individuals of the same gender or educational level, rather than to dis-
similar others. For example, we work for universities, so we consider our pay relative to
that of other business professors, not the head football coach.
The Outcomes of an Equity Comparison Figure 5.6 shows the three different
equity relationships resulting from an equity comparison: equity, negative inequity, and
positive inequity. Because equity is based on comparing ratios of outcomes to inputs, we
will not necessarily perceive inequity just because someone else receives greater rewards. If
the other person’s additional outcomes are due to his or her greater inputs, a sense of
equity may still exist. However, if the comparison person enjoys greater outcomes for simi-
lar inputs, negative inequity will be perceived. On the other hand, a person will experience
positive inequity when his or her outcome-to-input ratio is greater than that of a relevant
comparison person.
People tend to have misconceptions about how their pay compares to that of their
colleagues. These misconceptions can create problems for employers. Consider the
implications of results from a recent PayScale study of more than 500,000 employees.
Close to 90 percent of those who were paid above the market—positive inequity—believed
they were underpaid, while only 10 percent correctly perceived they were overpaid. In
addition, 11 percent of the people paid at the market rate—equity—believed they were
underpaid. When it comes to employee satisfaction, study results revealed that how
employees feel about the pay process is more than five times more impactful on how
satisfied they are than how they are paid relative to the market.46 In both these cases,
significant numbers of equitably treated people perceived a state of inequity. If manage-
ment fails to correct these perceptions, it should expect lower job satisfaction, commit-
ment, and performance.
The Elements of Justice Theory: Distributive, Procedural, and Interactional
Justice Beginning in the later 1970s, researchers began to expand the role of equity
theory in explaining employee attitudes and behavior. This led to a domain of research
called organizational justice. Organizational justice reflects the extent to which people per-
ceive they are treated fairly at work. This, in turn, led to the identification of three different
components of organizational justice: distributive, procedural, and interactional.47
• Distributive justice reflects the perceived fairness of the way resources and
rewards are distributed or allocated. Do you think fairness matters when it
comes to the size of people’s offices? Robert W. Baird & Co., a financial services
firm ranked as Fortune’s 16th best place to work in 2019, did. The company
decided to make everyone’s office the same size in its newly renovated corporate
headquarters.48
• Procedural justice is the perceived fairness of the process and procedures
used to make allocation decisions.
• Interactional justice describes the “quality of the interpersonal treatment
people receive when procedures are implemented.”49 Interactional justice does
not pertain to the outcomes or procedures associated with decision making. Instead
it focuses on whether people believe they are treated fairly when decisions are being
implemented.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
176 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Tools exist to help us improve our ability to gauge the level of fairness or justice that
exists in a current or past job. Try Self-Assessment 5.2. It contains part of a survey devel-
oped to measure employees’ perceptions of fair interpersonal treatment. If you perceive
your work organization as interpersonally unfair, you are probably dissatisfied and have
contemplated quitting. In contrast, your organizational loyalty and attachment are likely
greater if you believe you are treated fairly at work.
Measuring Perceived Interpersonal Treatment
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 5.2 in Connect.
1. Does the level of fairness you perceive correlate to your work attitudes such as
job satisfaction and organizational commitment?
2. What is causing your lowest level of perceived fairness? Can you do anything to
change these feelings?
3. What do these results suggest about the type of company you would like to
work for after graduation?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.2
The Outcomes Associated with Justice Doesn’t it make sense that your percep-
tions of justice are related to outcomes in the Organizing Framework? Of course! This
realization has generated much research into organizational justice over the last 25 years.
We created Figure 5.7 to summarize these research findings. The figure shows the strength
of relationships between nine individual-level outcomes and the three components of orga-
nizational justice. By and large, distributive and procedural justice have consistently stron-
ger relationships with outcomes. This suggests that managers would be better off paying
attention to these two forms of justice. In contrast, interactional justice is not a leading
indicator in any instance.
You can also see that certain outcomes, such as job satisfaction and organizational
commitment, have stronger relationships with justice. All told, however, the majority of
relationships between justice and important OB outcomes are weak. This reinforces the
conclusion that motivating people via justice works for some outcomes but not for others.
Equity Sensitivity In the study of equity theory, researchers have put forth the notion that
not all individuals prefer an equal ratio of inputs to outcomes. This concept is known as equity
sensitivity.50 For example, individuals who are high in equity sensitivity place more importance
on inputs (what they can give in a specific situation) versus those who place more importance
on outcomes (what rewards they can get in a certain situation).51 Recent research supports
this concept, suggesting that equity sensitivity can help predict certain workplace outcomes,
including organizational citizenship behaviors and inappropriate workplace behaviors.52
Using Equity and Justice Theories to Motivate Employees Figure 5.7 notwith-
standing, managers can’t go wrong by paying attention to employees’ perceptions of equity
and justice at work. Here are five practical lessons to help you apply equity and justice
theories.
1. Employee perceptions count. No matter how fair management thinks the organization’s
policies, procedures, and reward system are, each employee’s perception of the equity
of those factors is what counts. For example, male employees were found to be more
sensitive toward pay inequity and procedural justice than female employees.53 Further,
justice perceptions can change over time.54 This implies that it is important for managers
to regularly assess employees’ justice beliefs. Companies tend to do this by using
employee work attitude surveys.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
177Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
2. Employees want a voice in decisions that affect them. Employees’ perceptions of justice are
enhanced when they have a voice in the decision-making process. Voice is “the discre-
tionary or formal expression of ideas, opinions, suggestions, or alternative
approaches directed to a specific target inside or outside of the organization with
the intent to change an objectionable state of affairs and to improve the current
functioning of the organization.”55 Managers are encouraged to seek employee input
on organizational issues that are important to employees, even though many employees
FIGURE 5.7 Outcomes Associated with Justice Components
The three components of organizational justice have varying effects on workplace outcomes, listed here in
rough order from strongest to weakest. Note that job satisfaction and organizational commitment lead the list
and most strongly align with justice components.
Not Significant
Distributive Justice
Procedural Justice
Interactional Justice
Significant correlation to all outcomes and is mostly coequal with procedural
justice in e�ect. It is the main leading indicator as to mental health. Only in
performance is it a lagging indicator.
Significant correlation to all outcomes and is mostly coequal with distributive
justice in e�ect. It is the main leading indicator as to performance. Only in
mental health is it a lagging indicator.
Weakest correlation to all outcomes, as it is lagging behind or at best coequal
to other indicators. For two outcomes (turnover and performance) it is not even
significant. However, interactional justice remains of moderate significance in
performance, and for some employees it could be significant across all
categories.
Organizational
Citizenship
Behavior
Absenteeism
Stress
Health Problems
Performance
Mental Health
Turnover
Organizational
Commitment
Job Satisfaction
StrongModerateWeak
O
ut
co
m
es
SOURCES: Pan, Xiaofu, Mengyan Chen, Zhichao Hao, and Wenfen Bi. “The Effects of Organizational Justice on Positive Organi-
zational Behavior: Evidence from a Large-Sample Survey and a Situational Experiment.” Frontiers in Psychology 8 (January
2018). https://doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02315; Robbins, Jordan M., Michael T. Ford, and Lois E. Tetrick. “Perceived Unfairness
and Employee Health: A Meta-Analytic Integration.” Journal of Applied Psychology 97, no. 2 (March 2012): 235–72. https://DOI:
10.1037/a0025408; Fassina, Neil E., David A. Jones, and Krista L. Uggerslev. “Meta-Analytic Tests of Relationships between
Organizational Justice and Citizenship Behavior: Testing Agent-System and Shared-Variance Models.” Journal of Organizational
Behavior 29, no. 6 (August 2008): 805–28. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/job.494; Cohen-Charash, Yochi, and Paul E. Spector.
“The Role of Justice in Organizations: A Meta-Analysis.” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 86, no. 2
(November 2001): 278–321. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/obhd.2001.2958; and Colquitt, Jason A., Donald E. Conlon, Michael
J. Wesson, Christopher O. L. H. Porter, and K. Yee Ng. “Justice at the Millennium: A Meta-Analytic Review of 25 Years of
Organizational Justice Research.” Journal of Applied Psychology 86, no. 3 (2001): 421–45. https://DOI: 10.1037//0021-
9010.86.3.425.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
178 PART 1 Individual Behavior
are reluctant to use their “voice.” Consider how Saleforce’s CEO Marc Benioff addressed
the issue of employees wanting their voices heard on an important topic. Faced with
employee objections to the company’s recent work with the U.S. Border Patrol (which has
been separating children of illegal immigrants from their parents), Benioff created Silicon
Valley’s first-ever Office of Ethical and Humane Use of Technology. With advisers from
Georgetown, Harvard, Amnesty International, and other organizations, this initiative pro-
vides Salesforce and its employees with a solid framework for discussing the thorny ethical
issues that technological advances can raise. “We may not all agree,” Benioff said, “but we
can have that discussion and figure out how to move forward together.”56 Managers can
overcome issues such as these by creating a voice climate. A voice climate is one in
which employees are encouraged to freely express their opinions and feelings.57
3. Employees should have an appeals process. Employees should be given the opportunity
to appeal decisions that affect their welfare. This opportunity fosters perceptions of
distributive and procedural justice.
4. Leader behavior matters. Employees’ perceptions of justice are strongly influenced by
their managers’ leadership behavior and the justice-related implications of their deci-
sions, actions, and public communications.58 For example, Kenneth Frazier, CEO of
pharmaceutical giant Merck, took a stand against extremism when he resigned from
President Trump’s advisory business council after the president refused to criticize a
group of white nationalist protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. The grandson of a
man born into slavery, Frazier said he resigned from the council because the presi-
dent’s response, “was one that I felt was not in concordance with my views or the
views we claim to hold as a country.”59
5. A climate for justice makes a difference. Team per-
formance was found to be higher in companies that
possessed a climate for justice.60 Do you think it’s OK
for customers to yell at retail or service employees or
treat them rudely? We don’t! A climate for justice
incorporates relationships between employees and
customers. Employees are more likely to provide poor
customer service when managers allow customers to
treat employees rudely or disrespectfully.61
And as for you? You can work to improve equity
ratios through your behavior or your perceptions. For
example, you could work to resolve negative inequity by
asking for a raise or a promotion (raising your outputs)
or by working fewer hours or exerting less effort (reduc-
ing your inputs). You could also resolve the inequity cog-
nitively, by adjusting your perceptions of the value of
your salary or other benefits (outcomes) or the value of
the actual work you and your coworkers do (inputs).
Expectancy Theory: Does My
Effort Lead to Desired Outcomes?
Expectancy theory holds that people are motivated
to behave in ways that produce desired combina-
tions of expected outcomes. Generally, expectancy
theory can predict behavior in any situation in which a
choice between two or more alternatives must be made.
For instance, it can predict whether we should quit or
stay at a job, exert substantial or minimal effort at a task,
and major in management, computer science, account-
ing, marketing, psychology, or communication.
Shaquem Griffin, a linebacker with the Seattle Seahawks, has
all the motivation he needs to become a successful player in
the NFL. A congenital birth defect resulted in his left hand
being amputated when he was 4 years old, but Griffin sees
that life-changing event as the reason he continues to work
so hard to succeed.
Otto Greule Jr/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
179Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
The most widely used version of expectancy theory was proposed by Yale professor
Victor Vroom. We now consider the theory’s key elements and recommendations for its
application.
The Elements of Vroom’s Expectancy Theory: Expectancy, Instrumentality,
and Valence Motivation, according to Vroom, boils down to deciding how much effort
to exert in a specific task situation. This choice is based on a two-stage sequence of
expectations—moving from effort to performance and then from performance to outcome.
Figure 5.8 shows the major components of this theory.
Let us consider the three key elements of Vroom’s theory.
1. Expectancy—“Can I achieve my desired level of performance?” An expectancy rep-
resents an individual’s belief that a particular degree of effort will be followed by
a particular level of performance. Expectancies take the form of subjective probabili-
ties. As you may recall from a course in statistics, probabilities range from zero to one. An
expectancy of zero indicates that effort has no anticipated impact on performance, while
an expectancy of one suggests performance is totally dependent on effort.
EXAMPLE Suppose you do not know how to use Excel. No matter how much effort
you exert, your perceived probability of creating complex spreadsheets that com-
pute correlations will be zero. If you decide to take an Excel training course and
practice using the program a couple of hours a day for a few weeks (high effort), the
probability that you will be able to create spreadsheets that compute correlations will
rise close to one.
Research reveals that employees’ expectancies are affected by a host of factors.
Some of the more important ones include self-efficacy, time pressures, task difficulty,
ability and knowledge, resources, support from peers, leader behavior, and organiza-
tional climate.62
2. Instrumentality—“What intrinsic and extrinsic rewards will I receive if I achieve my
desired level of performance?” Instrumentality is the perceived relationship
between performance and outcomes. It reflects a person’s belief that a particular
outcome is contingent on accomplishing a specific level of performance. Passing
exams, for instance, is instrumental in graduating from college, or put another way,
graduation is contingent on passing exams. In this tight labor market, even the U.S.
military is offering bonuses to entice individuals to join. For example, the U.S. Navy
offers enlistment bonuses (including money for college degrees) from $5,000 to more
FIGURE 5.8 Major Elements of Expectancy Theory
ValenceInstrumentality
“What are the
chances of reaching
my performance
goal?”
“What are the
chances of receiving
various outcomes if
I achieve my
performance
goals?”
“How much do I
value the outcomes
I will receive by
achieving my
performance
goals?”
Expectancy
E�ort
Performance
Goal Outcomes
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
180 PART 1 Individual Behavior
than $25,000, depending on prior experience.63 The Problem-Solving Application box
illustrates what happens when classical musicians find instrumentality out of balance.
3. Valence—“How much do I value the rewards I receive?” Valence describes the positive
or negative value people place on outcomes. Valence mirrors our personal prefer-
ences. For example, most employees have a positive valence for receiving additional
money or recognition. In contrast, being laid off or being ridiculed for making a sugges-
tion would likely be negative valence for most individuals. In Vroom’s expectancy model,
outcomes are consequences that are contingent on performance, such as pay, promotions,
recognition, or celebratory events. For example, Aflac hosted a six-day appreciation week
for employees that included theme park visits, movie screenings, and daily gifts.64 Would
you value these rewards? Your answer will depend on your individual needs.
Symphony Orchestras on Strike
The rarified world of classical music is often per-
ceived as calm, even staid, and above the hassles
of the workaday world. But with the cost of produc-
ing performances rising and ticket sales and donor
support slumping in many markets, this picture is
far from the truth. In recent years musicians of
more than one symphony orchestra have gone on
strike for better pay and other benefits. Among the
latest are the players of the Chicago Symphony
Orchestra, one of the top (and best-paid) U.S. clas-
sical ensembles. The musicians’ union had been
negotiating a new contract for almost a year when
players recently began picketing Orchestra Hall in
Chicago in an attempt to hang on to disputed
employment benefits, including their prized
defined-benefit pension plan.
The orchestra’s management says the cost of
maintaining this retirement benefit has skyrocketed,
making it unsustainable for the group’s future, and
proposes substituting a less expensive defined-
contribution plan. This would follow the example of
organizations in many other industries, which have
switched to defined-contribution plans for their
employees and thus shifted the investment risk to
workers as well. But Chicago’s defined-benefit plan
“has been the hallmark of the orchestra’s benefits
package (and those of other leading orchestras) for
over 50 years,” says a member of the musicians’
negotiating committee, and members want to keep
it that way.65
While defined-benefit plans, in which benefits
are essentially guaranteed, are still common in
major U.S. orchestras, many such plans are under-
funded, putting benefits for both current and future
retirees in jeopardy. Management says its current
offer will “put the musicians in as good if not a better
state upon their retirements,” but Chicago’s players
counter that attracting and retaining world-class
musicians will grow ever more difficult “if our bene-
fits continue to fall.”66 Meanwhile, the orchestra’s
famed director Ricardo Muti urged management to
consider the welfare of the musicians, even visiting
the picket line, though some performances had to
be canceled while talks continued.67
Problem-Solving Application
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem in this case.
Step 2: Identify the cause of the problem. Do the parties featured in this case use the principles of
expectancy theory?
Step 3: Make a recommendation to the orchestra’s management. Should the musicians be allowed to
keep their defined-benefit pension plan?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
181Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
According to expectancy theory, your motivation will be high when all three elements
in the model are high. If any element is near zero, your motivation will be low. Whether
you apply this theory to yourself or managers apply it to their employees, the point is to
simultaneously consider the status of all three elements.
Using Expectancy Theory to Motivate Employees There is widespread
agreement that attitudes and behavior are influenced when organizations link rewards
to targeted behaviors. For example, in this era of #MeToo and other social initiatives,
many companies, including Microsoft, Intel, and Facebook, have begun to link
bonuses to how well senior leaders champion the firm’s anti-discrimination objectives
and diversity efforts.68
Expectancy theory has important practical implications for individual managers
and organizations as a whole (see Table 5.1). Three additional recommendations are
often overlooked. First, establish the right goal. Our consulting experience reveals that
people fail at this task more often than you might imagine. Second, remember that you
can better keep behavior and performance on track by creating more opportunities to
link performance and pay. Recent research supports this point. A survey of more than
2,500 HR and office professionals suggests there is a growing divide between manage-
ment and employees when it comes to performance feedback and pay. While 94 per-
cent of the executives surveyed are confident employees are satisfied with their
company’s performance review process, more than two-thirds of employees believe the
process is outdated, happens too infrequently, and is often incomplete. In addition, to
help link performance with pay, some organizations have implemented variable pay
plans with individual incentive bonuses being the most common type of incentive
awarded.69 Finally, monetary rewards must be large enough to generate motivation,
and this may not be the case for annual merit raises in the U.S. The average merit raise
has been around 3 percent over the past five years, although recent studies suggest
employees are anticipating larger increases based on strong company performances
over the past year. To overcome this limitation, organizations are starting to eliminate
merit raises and replace them with discretionary bonuses for special projects or one-
time achievements.70
The following Problem-Solving Application illustrates expectancy theory in action at
Westwood High School in Mesa, Arizona.
TABLE 5.1 Managerial and Organizational Implications of Expectancy Theory
FOR MANAGERS FOR ORGANIZATIONS
• Determine the outcomes employees value. • Reward people for desired performance, and do
not keep pay decisions secret.
• Identify good performance so appropriate
behaviors can be rewarded.
• Design challenging jobs.
• Make sure employees can achieve targeted
performance levels.
• Tie some rewards to group accomplishments to
build teamwork and encourage cooperation.
• Link desired outcomes to targeted levels of
performance.
• Reward managers for creating, monitoring, and
maintaining expectancies, instrumentalities, and
outcomes that lead to high effort and goal attainment.
• Make sure changes in outcomes are large enough
to motivate high effort.
• Monitor employee motivation through interviews or
anonymous questionnaires.
• Monitor the reward system for inequities. • Accommodate individual differences by building
flexibility into the motivation program.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
182 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Goal-Setting Theory: How Can I Harness the Power
of Goal Setting?
Regardless of the nature of their specific achievements, successful people tend to have
one thing in common: Their lives are goal-oriented. This is as true for politicians seek-
ing votes as it is for world-class athletes like Simone Biles. Research also supports this
conclusion. The results of more than 1,000 studies from a wide range of countries
clearly show that goal setting helps individuals, teams, and organizations to achieve
success.72
Next we review goal setting within a work context and then explain the mechanisms
that make goal setting so effective. We will discuss the practical applications of goal setting
in Chapter 6.
A High School Principal Uses Principles of Expectancy
Theory to Motivate Students
Tim Richard, principal at Westwood High School,
decided to use a motivational program he called
“Celebration” to improve the grades of 1,200 stu-
dents who were failing one or more courses. The
school has a total of 3,000 students.
How Does the Program Work? “Students are
allowed to go outside and have fun with their friends
for 28 minutes on four mornings a week,” the
principal explained to the local newspaper. “But
those who have even one F must stay inside for
‘remediation’—28 minutes of extra study, help from
peer tutors, or meetings with teachers.” Richard,
who successfully implemented the program at a
smaller high school, believes the key to motivating
students is to link a highly valued reward—socializing
with friends outside—with grades. Socializing
includes playing organized games, dancing and lis-
tening to music, eating snacks, and just plain hanging
out. Results suggest the program is working.
Positive results were found within two to three
months of the motivation program’s start. The num-
ber of students with failing grades dropped to 900.
The principal’s goal is to achieve zero failing grades
by the end of the year.
What Is the Student Reaction? Students like the
program. Ivana Baltazar, a 17-year-old senior,
said, “You really appreciate Celebration after you
have been in remediation.” She raised an F in
economics to a B after receiving help. Good aca-
demic students like Joseph Leung also like the
program. Leung is a tutor to students with failing
grades. He believes that “the tricky part is getting
people out of the mind-set that they can’t suc-
ceed. . . . A lot of times they just haven’t done
their homework. I try to help them understand that
the difference between a person passing and
failing is their work ethic.”71
Problem-Solving Application
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem Tim Richard is trying to address.
Step 2: Identify the causes. What OB concepts or theories are consistent with Richard’s motivational
program?
Step 3: Make recommendations for fixing the problem. Do you agree with Richard’s approach to
improving student performance? Why or why not?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
183Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
Edwin Locke and Gary Latham’s Theory of Goal Setting After studying four
decades of research on goal setting, two OB experts, Edwin Locke and Gary Latham, pro-
posed a straightforward theory of goal setting. Here is how it works.73
• Goals that are specific and difficult lead to higher performance than general goals
like “Do your best” or “Improve performance.” This is why it is essential to set
specific, challenging goals. Goal specificity means whether a goal has been
quantified. For example, a goal of increasing the score on your next OB test by
10 percent is more specific than the goal of trying to improve your grade on the
next test.
• Certain conditions are necessary for goal setting to work. People must have the abil-
ity and resources needed to achieve the goal, and they need to be committed to the
goal. If these conditions are not met, goal setting does not lead to higher perfor-
mance. Be sure these conditions are in place as you pursue your goals.
• Performance feedback and participation in deciding how to achieve goals are neces-
sary but not sufficient for goal setting to work. Feedback and participation enhance
performance only when they lead employees to set and commit to a specific, diffi-
cult goal, even when that goal is to delegate other activities to colleagues. For exam-
ple, managing partners, clients, and colleagues vie for time with Julia Lamm, a
director at PwC in New York. With the help of her boss, Lamm has learned to pri-
oritize her projects; reimagine routine status meetings with managers to focus on
problem solving; and forgo nonessential meetings by delegating them to associ-
ates.74 Goals lead to higher performance when you use feedback and participation
to stay focused and committed to a specific goal.
• Goal achievement leads to job satisfaction, which in turn motivates employees to set
and commit to even higher levels of performance. Goal setting puts in motion a posi-
tive cycle of upward performance.
In sum, it takes more than setting specific, difficult goals to motivate yourself or others. You
also want to fight the urge to set impossible goals. They typically lead to poor performance or
unethical behavior, as they did at Volkswagen. The company admitted installing software on
more than 11 million cars that manipulated emission test results.75 Company engineers
claimed they tampered with the software because targets set by the CEO at the time, Martin
Winterkorn, were too difficult to achieve. To date, the emissions scandal has cost the company
more than $35 billion.76 Set challenging but attainable goals for yourself and others.
U.S. gymnast Simone Biles won a medal in every event she entered in the 2019
world championships competition. Biles has now set her sites on winning gold in
multiple events at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan.
Francois Nel/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
184 PART 1 Individual Behavior
What Are the Mechanisms Behind the Power of Goal Setting? Edwin Locke
and Gary Latham, the same OB scholars who developed the motivational theory of goal
setting just discussed, also identified the underlying mechanisms that explain how goals
affect performance. There are four.
1. Goals direct attention. Goals direct our attention and effort toward goal-relevant
activities and away from goal-irrelevant activities. If, for example, you have a term
project due in a few days, your thoughts and actions tend to revolve around completing
that project. In reality, however, we often work on multiple goals at once. Prioritize
your goals so you can effectively allocate your efforts over time.77 For example, fast-
food giant KFC recently announced plans to ensure that all plastic-based, consumer
packaging across its global businesses will be recoverable or reusable by 2025. In addi-
tion, the chain said the goal of having 100 percent of chicken within its U.S. supply
chain raised without antibiotics important to human medicine has been met—two
years after announcing its pledge.78
2. Goals regulate effort. Goals have an energizing function in that they motivate us to
act. As you might expect, harder goals foster greater effort than easy ones. Deadlines
also factor into the motivational equation. We expend greater effort on projects and
tasks when time is running out. For example, an instructor’s deadline for turning in
your term project would prompt you to complete it instead of going out with friends,
watching television, or studying for another course.
3. Goals increase persistence. Within the context of goal setting, persistence repre-
sents the effort expended on a task over an extended period of time. It takes effort
to run 100 meters; it takes persistence to run a 26-mile marathon. One of your
textbook authors—Angelo Kinicki—knows this because he ran a marathon. What an
experience! His goal was to finish in 3 hours 30 minutes. A difficult goal like this
served as a reminder to keep training hard over a three-month period. Whenever he
wanted to stop training or run slow sprints, his desire to achieve the goal motivated
him. Although he missed his goal by 11 minutes, it still is one of his proudest
accomplishments. This type of persistence happens when the goal is personally
important.
4. Goals foster the development and application of task strategies and action plans.
Goals prompt us to figure out how we can accomplish them. This begins a cogni-
tive process in which we develop a plan outlining the steps, tasks, or activities we
must undertake. For example, the city of Memphis, Tennessee, recently announced
a five-year plan called the 800 Initiative with the goal of growing the revenue of 800
minority-owned businesses by $50 million and helping them add paid employees to
scale their operations. Funded partly by the city and commitments by other organi-
zations including FedEx, the program offers business coaching, technical assis-
tance, education, and access to loans and grants to help businesses grow.79 Setting
and using action plans also reduces procrastination. If this is sometimes a problem
for you, break your goals into smaller and more specific subgoals.80 That will get
you going.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
185Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
“Ten hours [a day] is a long time just doing this. . . . I’ve had three years in here and
I’m like, I’m going to get the hell out. . . . It’s just the most boring work you can do.”
—Ford autoworker
“I love my job. . . . I’ve learned so much. . . . I can talk with biochemists, software
engineers, all these interesting people. . . . I love being independent, relying on myself.”
—Corporate headhunter
“We see about a hundred injuries a year and I’m amazed there aren’t more. The main
causes are inexperience and repetition. . . . People work the same job all the time and
they stop thinking.”
—Slaughterhouse human resources director
These quotations reflect the different outcomes that can result from job design.81 Job
design, also referred to as job redesign or work design, refers to any set of activi-
ties that alter jobs to improve the quality of employee experience and level of pro-
ductivity. As you can see from this definition, job design focuses on motivating employees
by considering the situation factors within the Organizing Framework.
Figure 5.9 summarizes the approaches to job design that have developed over time.82
• Top-down. Managers changed employees’ tasks with the intent of increasing motiva-
tion and productivity. In other words, job design was management led.
• Bottom-up. In the last 10 years, the top-down perspective gave way to bottom-up
processes, based on the idea that employees can change or redesign their own jobs
and boost their own motivation and engagement. Job design is then driven by
employees rather than managers.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Job design focuses on motivating employees by considering the situation factors within the
Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. Objectively, the goal of job
design is to structure jobs and the tasks needed to complete them in a way that creates intrin-
sic motivation. We’ll look at how potential motivation varies depending on who designs the
job: management, you, or you in negotiation with management.
5.4 MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES THROUGH JOB DESIGN
Describe three
approaches to
motivating employees
through job design.
LO 5-4
FIGURE 5.9 Historical Models of Job Design
Employee or
Work Teams
Design Job
Employee and
Management Design Job
Idiosyncratic Deals
(I-Deals) Approach
Bottom-Up
Approach
Management
Designs Job
Top-Down
Approach
Historical Recent Emerging
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
186 PART 1 Individual Behavior
• I-deals. The latest approach to job design, idiosyncratic deals, attempts to merge
the two historical perspectives. It envisions job design as a process in which
employees and individual managers jointly negotiate the types of tasks employees
complete at work.
This section provides an overview of these three conceptually different approaches to job
design.83 We give more coverage to top-down techniques and models because they have been
used for longer periods of time and more research is available to evaluate their effectiveness.
Top-Down Approaches—
Management Designs Your Job
In top-down approaches, management creates efficient and meaningful combinations of
work tasks for employees. If it is done correctly, in theory, employees will display higher
performance, job satisfaction, and engagement, and lower absenteeism and turnover. The
five principal top-down approaches are scientific management, job enlargement, job rota-
tion, job enrichment, and the job characteristics model.
Scientific Management Scientific management draws from research in industrial
engineering and is most heavily influenced by the work of Frederick Taylor (1856–1915).
Taylor, a mechanical engineer, developed the principles of scientific management based on
research and experimentation to determine the most efficient way to perform jobs.
Scientific management is “that kind of management which conducts a business or
affairs by standards established by facts or truths gained through systematic obser-
vation, experiment, or reasoning.”84
Designing jobs according to the principles of
scientific management has both positive and nega-
tive consequences. Positively, employee efficiency
and productivity are increased. On the other hand,
research reveals that simplified, repetitive jobs
also lead to job dissatisfaction, poor mental
health, higher levels of stress, and a low sense of
accomplishment and personal growth.85 Recogni-
tion of these negative consequences paved the way
for the next four top-down approaches.
Job Enlargement Companies first used job
enlargement in the late 1940s in response to
complaints about tedious and overspecialized
jobs created from the principles of scientific
management. Job enlargement puts more vari-
ety into a worker’s job by combining special-
ized tasks of comparable difficulty. Some call
this strategy horizontally loading the job.
Researchers recommend using job enlargement as part of a broader approach that uses
multiple motivational methods, because by itself job enlargement does not have a sig-
nificant and lasting positive effect on job performance.86
Job Rotation Like job enlargement, job rotation gives employees greater variety in
their work. Job rotation calls for moving employees from one specialized job to
another. Rather than performing only one job, workers are trained and given the
opportunity to perform two or more separate jobs on a rotating basis. Proposed benefits of
job rotation include the following:87
• Increased engagement and motivation because employees have a broader perspec-
tive on the organization.
This automotive assembly line, which is using robotics, is a great
example of scientific management. The principles of scientific
management have aided auto manufacturers to produce cars more
efficiently and with higher quality.
Glow Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
187Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
• Increased worker flexibility and easier scheduling because employees are cross-
trained to perform different jobs.
• Increased employee knowledge and abilities, which improves employees’ promot-
ability and builds a pipeline of internal talent.
More companies are now hiring new college graduates into “rotational programs,”
which allow them to work in different functional areas for short periods and learn many
different parts of the business along the way. Finally, the technique of job rotation has
evolved into job swapping, with increased opportunities both here and abroad. (See the
OB in Action box.)
How would you like to work all over the country
without the hassle of changing jobs? At Abbott, the
health care company, new graduates with appropri-
ate majors from partner universities who are
selected for the two- to three-year corporate devel-
opment program are asked to rotate among differ-
ent jobs at company offices around the country. The
focus areas are finance, information technology,
manufacturing, quality assurance, engineering, and
environmental health.
Similarly, the Global Fellows Program at Edelman,
a global communications marketing company,
chooses strong employees with high potential to
work at international locations like Shanghai,
Moscow, and Abu Dhabi for as long as 18 months.
HSBC Holdings, one of the world’s largest banking
companies, has comparable opportunities that
range from 10 weeks to 2 years and places interns
and entry-level employees in locations as wide-
ranging as Argentina, the UK, Singapore, and
France. There they work in relationship manage-
ment, global trade, and receivables finance in the
Commercial Banking Global Graduate Program,
and in retail banking and wealth management in
the Digital Global Graduate Program.
Emerson, a global technology and engineering
company, runs an Engineers in Leadership Program
that rotates as many as 18 candidates every year
through a two-year program exposing them to one
domestic and one international assignment. Benefits
for the chosen employees include training, mentor-
ship, and network building. Even the NFL runs a
Junior Rotational Program that cycles employees
through 6- to 12-month projects at different depart-
ments including Events, Communications and Public
Affairs, Football Operations and Officiating, and
International.88
Job swapping, in which employees actually
switch with one another for a time, can take place
internally or externally. One good example of exter-
nal swapping was forged by Travis York, CEO of a
marketing firm called GYK Antler, who decided he
could better understand how to work with his client,
technology firm Dyn Industries, if he took CEO
Jeremy Hitchcock’s place for a typical day. “We
thought it would be good to be in each other’s shoes
so we could understand each other better and gain
a deeper perspective,” York says. The experiment
was so rewarding that York has repeated it three
times with other clients, including the CEO of an art
school, the founder of a men’s fashion company, and
a professional basketball player. Everything is “fair
game” during the swap day except raises, hires, and
firings. Several weeks later, York will follow up with
the CEO and then make it a point to check in with
the person on a regular basis thereafter.89
Common features of many successful job
swaps and rotations are planning, goal setting, the
possibility of benefit for participants on both sides,
mentors to offer direction and answers, and written
(or posted) documentation about the job to lower the
learning curve.90
YOUR THOUGHTS
1. What are the pros and cons of job swaps and
rotations?
2. What would be your ideal job swap or rotation?
3. If you managed a business, would you offer this
option to your employees? Why or why not?
Job Swapping and Job Rotation Opportunities Abound
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
188 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Job Enrichment Job enrichment is the practical application of Frederick Herzberg’s
motivator-hygiene theory of job satisfaction, discussed earlier in this chapter. Specifically,
job enrichment modifies a job such that an employee has the opportunity to experi-
ence achievement, recognition, stimulating work, responsibility, and advancement.
These characteristics are incorporated into a job through vertical loading. Rather than giv-
ing employees additional tasks of similar difficulty (horizontal loading), vertical loading
gives them more autonomy and responsibility. For example, “Final Friday” is a big hit with
employees at Hot Dog Marketing, a branding and digital marketing agency in the Austin,
Texas area. According to CEO Jessica Scanlon, six times a year, employees are encouraged
to use the last Friday of the month as a free day to work on personal projects or to pursue
skills to further their professional development.91
The Job Characteristics Model Two OB researchers, J. Richard Hackman and Greg
Oldham, played a central role in developing the job characteristics approach. They proposed
that intrinsic motivation was determined by three psychological states. In turn, these psycho-
logical states were fostered by the presence of five core job characteristics (see Figure 5.10).
The goal of the job characteristics model is to promote high intrinsic motivation
by designing jobs that possess the five core job characteristics. The five characteris-
tics are as follows:
• Skill variety. The extent to which the job requires an individual to perform a variety
of tasks that require him or her to use different skills and abilities.
• Task identity. The extent to which the job requires an individual to perform a whole
or completely identifiable piece of work. Task identity is high when a person works
on a product or project from beginning to end and sees a tangible result.
FIGURE 5.10 The Job Characteristics Model
• Experienced
meaningfulness
of the work
• Experienced
responsibility for
outcomes of the work
• Gained knowledge of
the actual results of
the work activities
• High intrinsic
work motivation
• High growth
satisfaction
• High general
job satisfaction
• High work
e�ectiveness
Outcomes
• Skill variety
• Task identity
• Task significance
• Autonomy
• Feedback from job
Core job
characteristics
Critical
psychological
states
Moderators
Not everyone wants a job
covering all five
characteristics. Job design is
moderated by:
These moderators will a�ect
or moderate both the critical
psychological states and the
outcomes.
1. Knowledge and skill
2. Growth need strength
3. Context satisfactions
SOURCE: Hackman, J. Richard, and Greg R. Oldham. Work Redesign. Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1980.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
189Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
• Task significance. The extent to which the job affects the lives of other people within
or outside the organization.
• Autonomy. The extent to which the job enables an individual to experience freedom,
independence, and discretion in both scheduling and determining the procedures
used in completing the job.
• Feedback. The extent to which an individual receives direct and clear information
about how effectively he or she is performing the job.92
Moderators. A moderator is a variable that changes the relationship between two
other variables. Hackman and Oldham proposed that there are moderators that affect the
success of job design, and they are shown in the moderator box of Figure 5.10.
• Knowledge and skill (representing whether or not the person has the knowledge and
skills to perform the enriched job).
• Growth need strength (representing the desire to grow and develop as an individual).
• Context satisfactions (representing the extent to which employees are satisfied with
various aspects of their job, such as pay, coworkers, and supervision).
The takeaway is that job design is more likely to work when people have the required
knowledge and skills, when they want to develop, and when they are satisfied with their
jobs. Job design is not for everyone.
In Practice. Research identifies three practical implications of applying the job char-
acteristics model.
1. Managers can increase employee job satisfaction.93
2. Managers can enhance employees’ intrinsic motivation and
performance, while reducing absenteeism and stress.94
EXAMPLE File-sharing company Dropbox increases
employee autonomy and motivation by its unlimited vaca-
tion policy, explaining “we provide generous time off poli-
cies for everything life throws your way.” Adobe’s frequent
“check-in” conversations, which take the place of annual
performance reviews, enable managers and employees to
discuss performance and opportunities on an informal
basis and provide real-time feedback to promote growth
and development.95
3. Managers can find noticeable increases in the quality of per-
formance after a job redesign program. Results from 21 exper-
imental studies revealed that job redesign resulted in a median
increase of 28 percent in the quality of performance.96
Bottom-Up Approaches—You Design
Your Own Job
As its name suggests, bottom-up job design is driven by employ-
ees rather than managers; it is also referred to as job crafting. Job
crafting represents employees’ attempts to proactively
shape their work characteristics.97 The concept is largely
based on the theories of empowerment and intrinsic motivation,
and its goal is to help employees experience a sense of meaning
in their jobs. A recent survey of more than 2,200 professionals
revealed that 90 percent of them would be willing to earn less
money (roughly 23 percent of future earnings) for more meaning-
ful work.98
This employee of Swiss-based computer device
producer Logitech is working on a computer
mouse. He looks very focused on the task at hand.
It may be that job crafting is partly behind his
engagement. The company is using job crafting to
increase employee engagement and job satisfac-
tion. As part of this effort the company created a
90-minute workshop to help employees
learn how to align their strengths and interests with
tasks contained in their jobs.
Gaetan Bally/Keystone/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
190 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Forms of Job Crafting Employees are viewed as “job crafters” according to the bottom-
up model because they are expected to define and create their own job boundaries. Table 5.2
illustrates three forms of job crafting. The first changes the job’s task boundaries. You can do
this by taking on more or fewer tasks or by altering their scope or nature. The second form
changes the relational nature of the job. Specifically, you can alter the quantity or quality of
interactions you have with others at work, or you can establish new relationships. The third
method is cognitive crafting. In this strategy you perceive or think differently about the exist-
ing tasks and relationships associated with your job.
Outcomes of Job Crafting The right-hand column in Table 5.2 outlines the
potential impact of job crafting on employee motivation and performance. You can see
that job crafting is expected to change the way employees perceive their jobs. It should
also result in more positive attitudes about the job, which is expected to increase
employee motivation, engagement, and performance. Preliminary research supports
this proposition.99
Computer accessories maker Logitech Inc. successfully implemented a job crafting
pilot program. Jessica Amortegui, senior director of learning and development, said, “The
company hopes helping employees find more intrinsic motivation in their work will be a
powerful hiring draw. Logitech plans to begin using the [program] with all 3,000 of its
workers.”100
Given that job crafting can lead to higher levels of engagement and satisfaction, you may
be interested in understanding how you can apply the technique to a former, current, or future
job. The Self-Assessment 5.3 explores the extent to which you are applying job crafting to
reduce job demands, seek resources, or seek challenges.
TABLE 5.2 Forms of Job Crafting
CHANGES IN APPROACH EXAMPLE CHANGES IN RESULTS
Task boundaries:
Number, scope, and type of
job tasks.
Design engineers
engage in relational
activities that move
a project to
completion.
Engineers are now guardians
or movers of projects; they
complete work in a more
timely fashion.
Relational nature:
Quality and/or amount
of interaction with others
encountered in a job.
Hospital cleaners
actively care for
patients and families
and integrate
themselves into the
workflow of their floor
units.
Cleaners are now helpers of
the sick; they see the work of
the floor unit as a vital part of
an integrated whole.
Cognitive crafting:
Perception of or thinking
about tasks and
relationships in your job.
Nurses take
responsibility for all
information and
“insignificant” tasks so
they can care more
appropriately for a
patient.
Nurses are now patient
advocates; they provide high-
quality, technical care.
SOURCE: Wrzesniewski, Amy, and J. E. Dutton. “Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work.”
Academy of Management Review 26, no. 2 (2001): 179–201. https://DOI: 10.2307/259118.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
191Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
Idiosyncratic Deals (I-Deals)—
You Negotiate the Design of Your Job
The last approach to job design, idiosyncratic deals, represents a middle ground
between top-down and bottom-up methods and attempts to overcome their limitations.
For example, top-down approaches are constrained by the fact that managers cannot
always create changes in task characteristics that are optimal for everyone. Similarly,
job crafting is limited by the amount of latitude people have to change their own jobs.
Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) represent “employment terms individuals negotiate
for themselves, taking myriad forms from flexible schedules to career develop-
ment.”101 Although “star performers” have long negotiated special employment con-
tracts or deals, demographic trends and the changing nature of work have created
increased opportunities for more employees to negotiate i-deals.
I-deals tend to affect task and work responsibilities, schedule flexibility, location flex-
ibility, and compensation.102 The goal of such deals is to increase employee intrinsic moti-
vation and productivity by allowing employees the flexibility to negotiate employment
relationships that meet their own specific needs and values. RSM promotes and encour-
ages the creation of i-deals among its more than 9,600 employees. The focus of its program
is to create innovative and flexible ways of working.103
This relatively new approach to job design has begun to generate much research. Results
confirm that i-deals are associated with higher perceived organizational support, job satisfac-
tion, and perceived voice. Employees also are less likely to quit when they negotiate i-deals.104
Future study is needed to determine the generalizability of these encouraging results.
Consider how you might one day create an i-deal for yourself. Self-Assessment 5.4 will
help you think through the process.
Creating an I-Deal
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 5.4 in Connect.
1. What are your strengths and weaknesses in terms of creating an i-deal?
2. Assume you are applying for a job after graduation and you want to create an
i-deal. What do your results suggest that you should discuss with your potential
employer?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.4
To What Extent Have I Used Job Crafting?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 5.3 in Connect.
1. What are your strengths and weaknesses in terms of job crafting?
2. Were you happy in the job under consideration?
3. Do you think the average employee can affect all the suggestions measured in
the survey? Explain.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 5.3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
192 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Takeaways for Me
Here are five things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive change in your
personal and professional life.
1. Identify the needs that are important to you today, recognizing they may change over
time: This can help you identify the type of work you would like to do before and after
graduation.
2. If your current job is low on hygiene or motivating factors, reflect on what you can do to
change this situation: You may be able to create change by talking to your boss, asking
for new work assignments, or getting a different job.
3. Festering feelings of inequity are not good for you or those you interact with on a regular
basis: Make a plan to correct any feelings of inequity that exist in your life.
4. Set specific, measurable goals for things you want to accomplish in your life: Develop an
action plan that outlines the path to success, then be sure to reward yourself for
accomplishing the goals.
5. If your current job is unfulfilling, try to find ways to incorporate job crafting or i-deals
into your work: If this doesn’t work, you might consider changing jobs.
Takeaways for Managers
There are seven key implications for managers.
1. Recognize that intrinsic motivation can have longer-lasting effects than extrinsic motiva-
tion: Try to build Herzberg’s motivators into employees’ work experiences.
2. Acknowledge that needs drive employee motivation: Find a way to determine employee
needs, such as employee surveys or one-on-one meetings.
3. Because some needs are innate, consider people’s needs when they are first hired: Vali-
dated tests exist that will identify these needs.
4. Uncover employees’ perceptions about equity and justice: Then correct any deficiencies
by administering employee surveys or exit interviews.
5. Incorporate the principles of expectancy theory: By ensuring employees believe they
can accomplish their goals and linking performance to rewards that individual
employees value.
6. Work with employees to set challenging yet attainable goals and then establish action
plans: Be sure employees have the resources they need to achieve these goals.
7. Consider different ways to design jobs: Doing so will ensure that jobs foster intrinsic
motivation and meaningfulness.
Describe the
implications of
employee motivation
for you and managers.
LO 5-5
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Motivation explains why we do the things we do and is an important process that affects
behavior in both our personal and professional lives. Here are some key points to consider.
5.5 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I APPLY
MOTIVATION THEORIES?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
193Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
You learned that motivation, a key individual-level
process, is influenced by inputs such as needs,
perceptions of justice, expectancies and instru-
mentalities, goals, and job design. You learned
how various theories and models of motivation
can be applied by managers to improve multiple
outcomes. Reinforce your learning with the Key
Points below. Consolidate your learning using the
Organizing Framework. Then challenge your mas-
tery of the material by answering the Major Ques-
tions in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 5
You learned the following key points.
5.1 THE WHAT AND WHY OF
MOTIVATION
• There are two types of motivation: intrinsic
and extrinsic.
• Extrinsic motivation results from the potential
or actual receipt of external rewards.
• Intrinsic motivation is driven by positive inter-
nal feelings generated by doing well.
5.2 CONTENT THEORIES OF
MOTIVATION
• Content theories are based on the idea that
an employee’s needs influence motivation.
There are five key content theories.
• Douglas McGregor proposed a theory of
motivation based on two opposing views of
employees. Theory X people believe employ-
ees dislike work and are motivated by
rewards and punishment. Theory Y people
believe employees are self-engaged, commit-
ted, and responsible.
• Abraham Maslow proposed that motivation is
a function of five basic needs—physiological,
safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization—
arranged in a prepotent hierarchy.
• David McClelland’s acquired needs theory is
based on the idea that motivation is a function
of three basic needs: achievement, affiliation,
and power.
• Self-determination theory assumes that three
innate needs influence motivation: compe-
tence, autonomy, and relatedness.
• Frederick Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene the-
ory is based on the premise that job satisfac-
tion comes from motivating factors and
dissatisfaction from hygiene factors.
5.3 PROCESS THEORIES OF
MOTIVATION
• Process theories attempt to describe how
various person factors and situation factors
affect motivation.
• Equity theory explains how people strive for
fairness and justice in social exchanges. Fair-
ness or equity is determined by comparing
our outputs and inputs with those of others.
• Three key types of justice are distributive,
procedural, and interactive.
• Expectancy theory assumes that motivation is
determined by our perceived chances of
achieving valued outcomes. The three key
elements of this theory are expectancies,
instrumentalities, and valence of outcomes.
• Goal-setting theory proposes that goals affect
performance because they (1) direct our
attention, (2) regulate effort, (3) increase per-
sistence, and (4) encourage the development
of action plans.
5.4 MOTIVATING EMPLOYEES
THROUGH JOB DESIGN
• Job design theories are based on the idea
that motivation is primarily influenced by the
tasks people perform and the characteristics
of the immediate work environment.
• Three broad approaches to job design are
top-down, bottom-up, and emerging.
• The premise of top-down approaches is that
management is responsible for creating effi-
cient and meaningful combinations of work
tasks for employees. Top-down approaches
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
194 PART 1 Individual Behavior
You can also see that there are more situational
than personal factors influencing motivation. This
underscores the importance of leadership and cre-
ating a work environment that reinforces voice and
justice. Figure 5.11 further illustrates that motiva-
tional processes affect outcomes across the indi-
vidual, group/team, and organizational levels.
Challenge: Major Questions for
Chapter 5
You should now be able to answer the following
questions. Unless you can, have you really pro-
cessed and internalized the lessons in the
chapter? Review relevant portions of the text
and your notes to answer the following major
questions. With Figure 5.11 as your guide, look
for inputs, processes, and outputs specific to
each:
1. What is motivation and how does it affect my
behavior?
2. How would I compare and contrast the con-
tent theories of motivation?
3. How would I compare and contrast the pro-
cess theories of motivation?
4. How are top-down approaches, bottom-up
approaches, and “idiosyncratic deals” similar
and different?
include scientific management, job enlarge-
ment, job rotation, job enrichment, and the
job characteristics model.
• Bottom-up approaches, also referred to as
job crafting, are driven by employees rather
than managers. Employees create their own
job boundaries.
• Emerging approaches include idiosyncratic
deals (i-deals). This approach views job
design as a process in which employees and
managers jointly negotiate the types of tasks
employees complete at work.
5.5 HOW CAN I APPLY
MOTIVATION THEORIES?
• Identifying needs important to you helps pinpoint
the type of work you might find meaningful.
• Talking with your boss about possible
changes in work activities may increase your
motivation to perform at a higher level.
• Setting specific, measurable goals in your
personal life and career help keep you
focused and moving forward.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 5
As shown in Figure 5.11, both person and situa-
tion factors influence the process of motivation.
FIGURE 5.11 Integrative Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Personal attitudes
• Values—Theory X/Y
• Needs
Situation Factors
• Hygiene factors
• Motivating factors
• Job characteristics
• Job design
• Leadership
• Organizational climate
Individual Level
• Equity/justice
• Expectancy processes
• Goal-setting processes
• Voice
Group/Team Level
• Climate for justice
Organizational Level
• Climate for justice
Individual Level
• Intrinsic and extrinsic
motivation
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Citizenship behavior/counter-
productive behavior
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
Organizational Level
• Customer satisfaction
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
195Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
Across the globe at over 175 fulfillment centers, more
than 125,000 workers frantically “pick, pack, and ship
millions of Amazon.com customer orders to the tune of
millions of items per year.”105 Amazon’s innovations,
like free 2-day shipping for Prime members, dash but-
tons, and in-home delivery, have made the retail giant
a standout in customer service. The company has con-
sistently received award-winning customer satisfaction
ratings.106 Amazon became the most valuable public
company and second largest e-commerce company in
the world in 2019 by being hyper-focused on customer
experiences.107
But many of Amazon’s fulfillment center workers are
unhappy with what they are required to do to assure
these esteemed customer experiences.108 The result
has been public outcry, boycotts, poor attitudes and
health, and extremely high turnover rates among work-
ers. What’s making employees so miserable inside
Amazon fulfillment centers?
WORKING AT AN AMAZON
FULFILLMENT CENTER
Amazon designs its fulfillment center jobs for effi-
ciency, with managers constantly monitoring and track-
ing employees in three primary areas. First, workers
are monitored for productivity as they race to fill as
many orders as possible to meet or exceed daily quo-
tas. Those who don’t meet their quotas are written up,
and excessive write-ups can lead to termination.109 A
recent undercover investigation revealed that some
employees are so fearful of missing their quotas that
they forego taking necessary bathroom breaks and
instead urinate in bottles and trash cans inside the
warehouses.110 The company is so dedicated to its
productivity goals that workers reportedly don’t speak
to one another during their shifts, saying that manag-
ers strongly discourage any kind of camaraderie.111
Second, management monitors fulfillment center
workers for security purposes. One employee
described the environment as resembling a prison,
noting time-consuming scans for contraband (e.g., sun-
glasses, phones, hoodies) and stolen items at the
beginning and end of shifts.112 There’s also a custom
of publicly shaming employees who steal from the
company on flat-screen TVs and bulletin boards
around the warehouses.113
Third, fulfillment center managers track employee
attendance. Workers can be fired for excessive missed
work days, or, as Amazon calls it, going into negative
unpaid time off (UPT). Employees have reported being
so terrified of missing work that they show up even
when they are too sick or injured to work safely, in
spite of the extremely physically demanding nature of
the job.114
HOW DOES AMAZON ATTRACT
FULFILLMENT CENTER WORKERS?
How is it that news of a new Amazon fulfillment center
is still seen as cause for celebration, given what has
been reported about working conditions? Employment
opportunities are one key explanation. The company
tends to locate fulfillment centers on the outskirts of
major metropolitan areas, often in regions that have
yet to recover from the recent economic recession and
are desperate for increased jobs.115 In other words, if
Amazon opens a fulfillment center in your town,
chances are your employment prospects will be better
than those you’ve got right now.
Even so, many Amazon fulfillment center employees
feel the compensation they receive is not commensu-
rate with the extreme working conditions and job
demands. Worker retention thus seems to be a function
of a lack of viable alternatives rather than positive
employee attitudes toward the company. As one worker
stated, “that’s what makes people not want to quit—the
pay” . . . “you can treat me any type of way, since this is
the best money we can get out here . . . ”116
Amazon does provide some additional incentives
to increase productivity at its fulfillment centers. For
example, managers often hold competitions that
reward employees with “swag bucks”—tokens to
spend inside the warehouse on things like t-shirts,
water bottles, or cafeteria meals.117 Other rewards
reportedly include small gift cards and even cookies.
Said one employee, “I don’t want a cookie or a gift
card. I’ll take it, but I’d rather a living wage. Or not
being timed when you’re sitting on the toilet.”118
Another worker found these incentives insulting,
saying that “around this time of year the managers, if
their targets are met or exceeded, they get a
bonus.”119
Amazon implemented a policy guaranteeing a mini-
mum wage of $15 per hour after receiving such nega-
tive attention in the press. This resulted in raises as
small as 25 cents per hour, which many viewed as
“damage control.”120 For some tenured workers, the
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Workers at Amazon Are Not Feeling Motivated
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
196 PART 1 Individual Behavior
protagonist’s perspective. Identify the perspec-
tive from which you’re defining the problem—is
it the perspective of Amazon or its workers?
C. Use details in the case to identify the key prob-
lem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that
are not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current
chapter, because we generally select cases that
illustrate concepts in the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, summarized in the Organiz-
ing Framework shown in Figure 5.11. Causes will
appear in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.
A. Start by looking at Figure 5.11 to identify which
person factors, if any, are most likely causes to
the defined problem. For each cause, ask, Why
is this a cause of the problem? Asking why mul-
tiple times is more likely to lead you to root
causes of the problem.
B. Follow the same process for the situation factors.
C. Now consider the Processes box in Figure 5.11.
Consider concepts listed at all three levels. For
any concept that might be a cause, ask yourself,
Why is this a cause? Again, do this for several
iterations to arrive at root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem.
STEP 3: Make recommendations for solving the
problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it,
solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom-
mendation is desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use the content in
Chapter 5 or one of the earlier chapters to
propose a solution.
B. You may find potential solutions in the OB in
Action boxes and Applying OB boxes within this
chapter. These features provide insights into
what other individuals or companies are doing in
relationship to the topic at hand.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations.
new policy meant their wages became compressed and
they lost important benefits they previously received,
such as stock options and bonus opportunities.121
WHAT’S NEXT?
Stacy Mitchell, co-director of the Institute for Local Self-
Reliance, said, “There’s this way in which Amazon’s
warehouses are perceived to be a good thing for a
community, but that’s only because the context in which
they are being proposed and built is so devoid of better
opportunities.” Said a current employee, “They’re walk-
ing a fine line in the community—everybody knows
someone who’s worked there, and no one says it’s a
good place to work.”122
Some Amazon workers have attempted to generate
interest in union representation but have been unable
to gain the momentum necessary for an organizing
campaign. This is likely due to two main causes. First,
the fact that Amazon has one of the highest turnover
rates in the United States means that employees aren’t
around long enough for a movement to take shape.
Second, workers have expressed they are afraid to
speak up and participate in organizing campaigns for
fear of retaliation from the company.123
It’s unlikely we’ll see any sweeping changes to the
way Amazon manages its fulfillment center workers in
the near future. This is because Amazon already loses
money on e-commerce and subsidizes the losses with
other segments of its business. Any changes to the
current state of affairs could mean a loss of our cov-
eted cheap wares and free two-day shipping.124
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcome box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 5.11 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember
that a problem is a gap between a desired and a
current state. State your problem as a gap and
be sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
accomplished, decide which one is most impor-
tant and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and
problems are generally viewed from a particular
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
197Foundations of Employee Motivation CHAPTER 5
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Should Senior Executives Receive Bonuses for Navigating
a Company through Bankruptcy?
Consider the case of Sears Holdings, which filed for
bankruptcy protection in October 2018. The company
closed several hundred stores in recent years and cut
over 50,000 jobs between January 2017 and March
2018.125 Still, Sears sought and received approval to
pay up to $25.3 million in bonuses for key executives
and other employees.126 Does this seem appropriate
from a justice or expectancy theory perspective?
A federal law was established in 2005 to restrict
companies from paying bonuses to executives before
and during a bankruptcy process. The law does allow
for companies to dole out executive bonuses while
simultaneously seeking bankruptcy protection, but
only in cases where companies are seeking to rebound
and could thus be irreparably harmed by the loss of
key executives.127 In the case of Sears, a judge ruled
that the bonuses were legal because they were tied to
the company meeting specific financial milestones.128
U.S. bankruptcy trustee William Harrington formally
objected to the bonus proposal saying that “the
bonuses do not feel like an effort to retain top talent
through a difficult period, but a final extraction of cash
before the ship sinks.”129
The practice of giving bonuses to senior executives
who navigate a company through bankruptcy is quite
common. A Wall Street Journal study of 12 of the 100
biggest corporate bankruptcies revealed that CEOs
from these firms were paid more than $350 million in
various forms of compensation. “Over the past few
years, fights have erupted during a handful of
Chapter 11 bankruptcy cases,” the newspaper
reported. “The central argument has been over
whether companies are adhering to federal laws when
giving their executives the extra pay.” While judicial
decisions regarding this issue have been mixed, con-
sider the ethics of paying executives large bonuses
when laying off workers, closing plants, and eliminat-
ing health care and retirement benefits to retirees.130
Does this seem fair or just?
Finding Answers to Solve the
Challenge
Is it ethical to pay these bonuses? Respond to each of
the following options.
1. Yes. Navigating a company through bankruptcy
is hard work and requires hard decisions. Execu-
tives at Sears, for example, are expected to earn
those bonuses by staying with the company to
shepherd it through tough times, helping to turn
it around.
2. Yes, if all employees receive some sort of bonus
for staying through a bankruptcy process. In
other words, executives should be paid the
same as other surviving employees. If everyone
took a 10 percent pay cut or gets a 10 percent
bonus, so should executives. What’s fair for one
is fair for all.
3. Absolutely not. It just is not right to close stores,
displace employees, and eliminate retirement
benefits while simultaneously giving executives
hefty bonuses.
What is your ideal resolution to the challenge?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 6-1 Summarize the elements of effective performance management.
LO 6-2 Explain how and why goal setting gives you an advantage.
LO 6-3 Describe how monitoring and evaluation can improve your performance
and ability to manage others.
LO 6-4 Apply knowledge of feedback and coaching to review and improve
performance.
LO 6-5 Implement rewards to generate desired outcomes.
LO 6-6 Use reinforcement and consequences to improve performance.
LO 6-7 Describe the implications of performance management for you
and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Performance Management6
C
ai
a
Im
ag
e/
Im
ag
e
So
ur
ce
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
199Performance Management CHAPTER 6
FIGURE 6.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
Situation Factors
• Competition, Regulators,
and Leadership
Individual Level
• Performance management
practices
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
• Leadership
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and
conflict
Organizational Level
• Survival
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Reputation
Figure 6.1 summarizes what you will learn in this chapter. The main focus is perfor-
mance management, which we position as an individual process in the Organizing
Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. It could easily be considered a group-
or organizational-level process, but we put it at the individual level because it is the
performance of individuals that determines the performance of groups and organiza-
tions. Performance management is an umbrella phrase that includes a number of
important OB concepts, such as goal setting, performance measurement and apprais-
als, feedback, and rewards. Performance management therefore is an especially
important topic in OB.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Winning at Work
Busy vs. Productive—Productive Wins
and boost productivity during the time you’re on task.
Some research suggests that 90-minute intervals of
work are best. This means you should set a plan for what
you’ll accomplish in 90 minutes, then take a break. A se-
ries of intense, focused, and energized intervals is more
productive than long stretches of uninterrupted work.3
5. Eat the frog. This phrase was famously used by a re-
nowned sales trainer, Brian Tracy, which means do the
most undesirable item on your to-do list first, at the be-
ginning of the day. Thus it doesn’t get postponed, your
least desirable task is finished, making the rest of your
day that much better.4
6. Not always yes. Busy people arguably say “yes” too
often, but productive people say “yes” more judi-
ciously. When approached or invited to participate in
something that is voluntary, instead of deciding say:
“Thank you for the opportunity, but do you mind if I
consider it overnight and get back in touch?” Most
will see this as acceptable, and then you have the
opportunity to consider your other commitments,
determine the fit of your skills to the task, and of
course consider the impact you can make before
deciding and giving your answer.5
Many people are busy but far fewer are productive. Given
that everyone has the same number of hours in a day, one
way to beat the competition is to spend your time more
productively than others. We assembled the following col-
lection of best practices to help make you more productive,
which should in turn Improve your job performance and
career opportunities.
1. Learn how you spend your time. Create a time log by
tracking your time and the way you spend it for two or
three days to capture the things you commonly do.
Ideally, you’ll pause every hour or two and record how
much time you’ve spent on particular tasks. If this isn’t
feasible, then be sure you record your time twice in
the morning, twice in the afternoon, and once in the
evening.1 (Note: You cannot accurately document the
entire day at the end. This doesn’t work so don’t even
try.) When you have two or three days recorded, add
up the time you spent on various tasks. Identify the
three activities that consume the greatest amounts of
your time. It is especially useful to determine how
much time you spend on social media, e-mailing, tex-
ting, playing games, and surfing the web, then, deter-
mine how much of this effort is really related to school
and/or work. You’ll likely be shocked, and if so this will
hopefully motivate you to use your time more wisely.
2. Never touch things twice. This means you should
never put tasks in a holding pattern.2 If you open an
e-mail, for instance, and then decide to respond later,
you will have to look at it at least one more time. This
advice also applies to phone calls and other items on
your to-do list. You need to decide the first time you
touch it—take action now, delegate it, or delete it. At
first you may think this isn’t possible. But being deci-
sive is key to increasing productivity. You may have to
do some less desirable or even undesirable tasks im-
mediately instead of putting them off. Or you’ll have to
figure out how to do certain things, like texting, only at
certain times of the day.
3. Schedule e-mail, text, and phone time. Turn off
notifications—all of them. Then set specific times in the
day when you’ll check and tend to other distracting
tasks. For instance, you are wise to always look at and
respond to e-mail in the same space of time, such as at
11:00 each morning and 4:00 each afternoon. When
the phone rings, you don’t have to answer it. If it’s
important the caller will leave a message, which you
can listen to during the time you’ve allocated. Set
times for particular tasks and stick to them.
4. Take regular breaks. Recharging with a walk, music, or a
brief chat has been shown to improve your concentration
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
Performance management encompasses many of
the topics and tools you’ve learned thus far. In many
ways this chapter serves as a summary. And in other
ways it serves as a rationale for taking the course. If
you want to know why OB is important, and why its
theories, models, and tools matter, the answer
comes down to improving performance at all three
levels of OB—individual, team, and organizational.
The discussion in this chapter focuses on several of
the critical components of effective performance
management: goal setting, feedback, rewards, and
reinforcement. To effectively manage performance,
managers and organizations need to identify and
communicate clear expectations or goals, monitor
and provide feedback regarding progress toward
these goals, and then link and deliver appropriate
consequences (rewards) for goal achievement. We
highlight how performance management serves as
a powerful tool for motivating, developing, and
retaining talent. We hope you will appreciate why
effective performance management policies and
practices often dramatically affect many aspects of
your work life.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
201
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Performance management occurs in many arenas of your life, notably school and work.
Because it is a process that generates grades at school and pay and promotions at work, it is
important to understand how it works. You’ll learn why performance management is one of
the most critical and far-reaching processes in the Organizing Framework. You’ll see why
opinions about the usefulness and effectiveness of performance management practices are
often negative. However, you’ll also learn how performance management practices can be
beneficial, such as by helping signal and reinforce desired behaviors and outcomes across all
levels of OB.
6.1 PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROCESSES
This chapter focuses on improving individual job performance, notably yours, as well as on
your ability to improve the performance of others. To do this, you need to draw on and
apply many of the concepts and tools you’ve learned thus far, such as hard and soft skills,
personality, perceptions, and of course, motivation. The integration and application of this
knowledge for the purposes of improved outcomes is called performance management.
Performance management (PM) is a set of processes and managerial behaviors
that include defining, monitoring, measuring, evaluating, and providing conse-
quences for performance expectations.6 Defined in this way, PM is far more than per-
formance appraisal. Appraisals typically consist only of the actual performance review, an
event. Effective PM, in contrast, is a continual process and a critically important individ-
ual-level process of which appraisals are a subset.7 Performance management typically
operates through an organization’s managers and human resources policies and practices.
You will learn how it affects outcomes across all levels in the Organizing Framework, such
as individual (job satisfaction, OCBs, and turnover), team (cohesiveness, conflict, and
performance), and organizational (reputation, performance, survival, innovation, and
employer of choice).
But before we dive in, it is helpful to frame exactly what is in store with a quote from
Elaine Pulakos, a renowned PM expert and CEO of PDRI, a leading human resource
development consulting company, and her colleagues who described it this way: “No other
talent management system has been the subject of such great debate, change, and emotion
as PM.”8 This means you’ll learn about the good, the bad, and the ugly of this important
individual-level process.
Effective Performance Management
As illustrated in Figure 6.2, effective PM has four components:
1. Defining performance.
2. Monitoring and evaluating performance.
3. Reviewing performance.
4. Providing consequences.
Please note the double-headed arrows. They signify the systems part of PM, which
means the various components affect each other. How performance is defined
Summarize the
elements of effective
performance
management.
LO 6-1
Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
202 PART 1 Individual Behavior
(Component 1) obviously impacts how it is measured (Component 2), at least it should,
but how it is measured helps refine the performance expectations themselves.
Successfully managing performance is a powerful means for improving individual,
group/team, and organizational effectiveness. Effective performance management influ-
ences important outcomes such as greater employee engagement and better organizational
performance.9 Managers who practice effective performance management generate excep-
tional results compared to those who don’t:
• 48% higher profitability.
• 22% higher productivity.
• 30% higher employee engagement scores.
• 17% higher customer engagement scores.
• 19% lower turnover.10
Common Uses of Performance Management
Most performance management systems have six primary outputs and functions.
1. Performance ratings. High, low, better, or worse than before or others.
2. Feedback. Generating the content and delivering it.
3. Development and performance improvement plans. Underperformers need to improve
or be moved out.
4. Career planning. Linking expectation and performance to increased responsibilities.
5. Recommendations for employee-related decisions. Rewards, promotions, training, or
termination.
6. Documentation for legal purposes. Sound decisions need appropriate supporting data.11
Component 1: Define
Performance
Set goals and communicate
performance expectations.
Component 3: Review
Performance
Deliver feedback and coaching.
Component 2: Monitor &
Evaluate Performance
Measure and evaluate
progress and outcomes.
Component 4: Provide
Consequences
Administer valued rewards and
appropriate punishment.
FIGURE 6.2 Effective Performance Management System
SOURCE: Kinicki, Angelo J., Kathryn J. L. Jacobson, Suzanne J. Peterson, and Gregory E. Prussia. “Development and Validation
of the Performance Management Behavior Questionnaire.” Personnel Psychology 66, no. 1 (Spring 2013): 1–45. https://doi.org/
10.1111/peps.12013.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
203Performance Management CHAPTER 6
The extent to which organizations effectively practice performance management can have
enormous impact on outcomes across all levels. This greatly impacts your personal oppor-
tunities, job satisfaction, engagement, and turnover among other aspects of your career.
That said, only 3 percent of PM studies since the early 2000s investigated career planning.12
What does this mean for you? It means researchers likely aren’t the ones offering the best
insights for your career planning and this is why we draw on insights from career coaches,
counselors, and other professionals. See the following Applying OB box for an example.
Applying OB
Note: You’ll be far more likely to achieve each of
the goals above if you apply the SMART and other
goal setting tools explained later in this chapter.
3. Action plans for each goal. Most good plans con-
tain who, what, where, when, and how. Be sure
you at least consider all of these elements for each
goal in #2.
4. Implement. If you do the previous steps correctly
and thoroughly this should be clear. It is of course
helpful if you practice, consult a coach, or at least
get advice from appropriate others. Informational
interviews or shadowing someone for a day can
be immensely helpful.
5. Review, revise, and re-engage. Like effective per-
formance management, you need to review your
progress and outcomes. Don’t focus only on the
outcomes but monitor your progress as well. Did
you implement the plan you created, did you do it
on time, and what did you learn along the way?
Use this information to revise your plan and get
back to it!
Although most people have desires, wishes, and pref-
erences for their jobs and careers, and most also set a
goal or two from time to time, such as to get a raise or
a promotion, relatively few people make career plans.
The four components of performance management
can serve as a useful guide to career planning, and this
begins with goal setting.
1. Set long-term goals. It is good to start far into the
future, at least as far as you can reasonably think,
such as 10 years, when you’re 30, or some other
marker.
I want to get: _____ by (date) _____.
I will need these skills: a, b, and c.
Which require the following experiences:
2. Break these into shorter-term goals. Think of these
as steps along the way to the long-term goal noted
above. Take each skill, for instance, and determine
the necessary sub-goals and steps to achieve
them.13
Apply Goal Setting to Your Job and Career
What Goes Wrong with Performance Management
Volumes of research and employee surveys report that the majority of managers and orga-
nizations do a poor job of managing employee performance. According to extensive
research done by Gallup:
• 20% of employees feel their performance is managed in a way that motivates them.
• 29% perceive their employers’ PM system as fair.
• 26% agree they are accurate.14
• Less than 40% of employees say their systems do not provide clear goals or generate
honest feedback.15
• 66% of employees say it actually interferes with their productivity.
• 58% of 576 HR executives surveyed graded their company’s performance manage-
ment systems as a C or worse.16
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
204 PART 1 Individual Behavior
These unfortunate perceptions raise the question: Why do companies often do so poorly
with performance management? The most common reasons employees feel performance
management doesn’t measure up are:
Feedback is rare. You will learn much more about feedback later in the chapter, but
the most fundamental problem is that feedback is in frequent. If your performance
is reviewed only once a year, as is still common, there’s little chance that feedback
shared will in any way be linked to the behaviors that produce the performance.
Moreover, unless the person providing the feedback has a photographic memory its
accuracy may be questionable.
Lack of clarity on how to improve. The various scores and rankings provide little detail
or guidance on how to actually improve. For example, if you rated on a 1 to 5 scale,
strongly disagree to strongly agree, how do you really translate that into actionable
performance improvement? This highlights that everyone is rated using the same
scale, yet we know not all jobs and employees are the same.
Manager bias. As you learned in Chapter 4, biases are very real and can be especially
problematic in the context of PM. Nothing undermines the effectiveness of a PM
system faster than a lack of perceived fairness. Making matters worse, many manag-
ers do not really understand the responsibilities of the jobs they are reviewing, which
makes the process difficult and the outcomes suspect.
Negative reactions. Due to the above and other reasons, employees often react very
negatively. This is no surprise. Such reactions can undermine motivation and if the
review occurs only once a year, then it can take a long time for you to recover.
Too much focus on pay and incentives. The performance evaluation component of PM
is often linked to rewards (consequences), which means any issues you may have
with the process are likely to impact these important individual level outcomes.
Moreover, the hyper-focus on pay can blind you to the developmental aspects of an
otherwise fair and constructive review.17
The meeting in this photo is typical of many performance reviews: Once a year a
manager and a subordinate sit on opposite sides of a table, the manager does most
of the talking, both are uncomfortable, and each walks away less than happy with the
results. This chapter will help you understand how and why you and your managers
can do better.
Chris Ryan/OJO Images/age fotostock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
205Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Pervasive poor views of performance management practices have led many notable
companies including Accenture, Netflix, Microsoft, GE, and Eli Lilly to scrap their old
practices.18 The following OB in Action box illustrates how Deloitte has tackled the chal-
lenges of performance management.
As part of a renewed commitment to developing its
high-caliber workforce, Deloitte made a $100 million
investment in The Leadership Center (called Deloitte
University). In the process it reviewed the role played
by its performance management practices.
The internal review and research revealed two
things. First, performance, retention, and client satis-
faction were all better when employees felt they
were playing to their strengths in their jobs.19 Sec-
ond, current PM practices were interfering. The com-
pany then embarked on a dramatic transformation of
its practices, and its new approach is as interesting
for what it excludes as for what it includes. Gone are
once-a-year performance reviews, 360-degree feed-
back tools, and cascading goals.20 Included are the
four components of effective performance manage-
ment outlined above and described below.
Key Elements of Deloitte’s Approach
1. Setting Goals and Objectives. Like its many
clients, Deloitte has objectives, financial and
otherwise, it must achieve. All are important
and consequential for employees. However,
instead of being set centrally by senior man-
agement and cascading down through the
organization, goals are now set per client, per
team, per employee. This means that goal
setting and expectations are much more local
and are handled by team leaders, rather than
global and done by senior executives at
headquarters.
2. Monitoring and Measuring Performance. The
company still tracks and measures performance,
but now it does so in the form of Snapshots.
These are questions each team leader answers
for each team member, whether quarterly,
monthly, at the end of a project, or at any other
meaningful point. Instead of ranking the team
member, leaders indicate to what extent they
agree with statements like, “Given what I know
of this person’s performance, I would always
want him or her on my team,” “This person is at
risk for low performance,” and “If it were my
money, I would award this person the highest
possible compensation increase in bonus.”21
3. Reviewing Performance and Providing
Feedback. Performance reviews and feed-
back happen not once or twice a year but at
regular check-ins. Check-ins are one-on-one,
real-time discussions between team leaders
and their team members. Their purpose is to
discuss progress, expectations, feedback, and
any other relevant details related to current or
near-term work. The rationale is that perfor-
mance is driven through conversations, and
check-ins give frequent opportunities for man-
agers and employees to meet and talk. Check-
ins are not mandated or tracked. Deloitte simply
prompts all employees via periodic e-mails that
ask, “Did you have a check-in conversation with
your team leader this week? Yes or No.”22 Snap-
shot responses are aggregated every quarter,
and HR reviews and discusses the results with
business leaders. Along with other metrics, such
as revenue per employee, Snapshots give lead-
ers a more holistic and timely view of individual
and unit performance.
4. Rewarding Performance. Snapshots provide
regular and ongoing opportunities to recognize
and correct performance, and the quarterly
reviews provide yet another opportunity. All of
this culminates in annual compensation decisions,
which are now based on a wealth of information
consistently captured throughout the year.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. From an employee’s perspective, what do you
think are some of the pros and cons of Deloitte’s
PM system? Explain.
2. Assuming you are a team leader at Deloitte,
describe one benefit and one challenge of the
PM system for you.
3. What do you think are the major challenges in
implementing Deloitte’s new PM practices?
The Deloitte Way: “Snapshots” and “Check-ins”
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
206 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Given the still largely negative views of PM practices and outcomes, what are enlight-
ened and successful individuals and organizations doing to improve PM?
Contemporary PM Is Continual
The starting point and the fundamental problem to overcome is that most organizations
and their managers treat PM as a bureaucratic chore, a box to be checked, rather than
treating it as a critically important and continuing development process.23 For instance,
Gallup recommends reframing the entire system as progress improvement and highlights
three qualities that make PM more effective:
• Establish expectations that are clear, collaborative, and aligned. Of course, clarity is
important, but as you’ll learn later in the chapter there are benefits to you being
involved in setting goals, including performance goals. And it is nothing new to say
it is important to align employees’ goals with those of the organization, but research
underscores the importance of doing so. Companies with effective PM ensure this
alignment happens.
• Continually coach. Annual or quarterly reviews fall far short of continual. You’ll
learn more about feedback later, but even the best feedback is of little value only
once a year. You accomplish tasks every day at work, encounter challenges regularly,
which means you’d likely benefit from more frequent feedback and coaching.
• Create accountability. Besides being critical to performance, accountability is
what gives value to goals and coaching. You’ll learn many different ways to hold
people accountable throughout this course, and whatever you choose it is
important to ensure the means are achievement-oriented, fair and accurate, and
developmental.24
Johnson and Johnson (J&J), the behemoth consumer products company, tried a more
contemporary program in which employees, peers, and bosses used an app to provide real-
time feedback. The initial uptake was slow, but when the company offered training to show
managers the benefits of effective feedback nearly 50 percent of managers participated and
approximately 3,000 pieces of feedback were shared.25 The new approach was real-time
and linked behaviors, outcomes, and feedback, as well as providing numerous and timely
opportunities for coaching.
Now that you have a general understanding of the performance management process
and its importance, let’s take a closer look at how to define performance expectations
and goals.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
207Performance Management CHAPTER 6
It makes sense that improving goal setting is a way to boost both your own perfor-
mance and your ability to manage the performance of others. But once again, com-
mon sense is not common practice. Let’s make this personal. Do you set goals? Do
you write them down? Do you revisit and revise them periodically? If you answered
yes to all three then you are truly exceptional! But the fact is that even those that
consider themselves goal- setters rarely do a good job of it, and the same can be said
for organizations.
According to Gallup’s “State of the American Manager” report, only 12 percent of
employees strongly agreed that their manager helps them set performance goals.26 To
improve your own goal setting, let’s begin by differentiating two general types of goals—
performance and learning.
Do You Want to Perform or Learn?
One way to organize or differentiate your many goals is to categorize them as perfor-
mance or learning. A performance goal targets a specific end result, and a learn-
ing goal promotes enhancing your knowledge or skill. Managers typically
overemphasize the former and ignore the latter as they try to motivate greater effort
and achieve results.
If you lack necessary skills, experience, or direction from
your manager, then performance goals can be more frustrat-
ing than motivating. A performance goal can deflect atten-
tion from the discovery of task-relevant capabilities (learning
goals); as such it often is helpful to set learning goals first
and then set performance goals once you’ve developed some
level of proficiency. Let’s illustrate using a tennis analogy.
If a novice tennis player focuses on getting 100 percent
of her first serves in (a performance goal), this may prevent
her from concentrating on the fundamental elements of an
effective serve (learning goals). Both goals are ultimately
important, but the novice player must learn how to play the
game before becoming concerned about reaching challenging
performance outcomes, such as a high first serve percentage
and aces.
This insight may also have implications for college
graduation rates. The U.S. Department of Education
reports that 59 percent and 66 percent of students graduate
from public and private institutions, respectively.27 Of
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Not all goals are the same, and you’re about to learn the difference between performance
goals and learning goals. More importantly, you’ll pick up tips on how to manage the goal-
setting process. You’ll also benefit from practical guidance on what types of goals to use in
particular circumstances.
6.2 DEFINE PERFORMANCE—
EXPECTATIONS AND GOALS
Explain how and why
goal setting gives you
an advantage.
LO 6-2
Learning about and applying goal setting has been shown to improve
one’s academic achievement.
Edwin Remsberg/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
208 PART 1 Individual Behavior
course, many factors can contribute to these outcomes, but one person factor that could
help are students’ goal-setting skills. A study of students who were struggling academi-
cally demonstrated the power of teaching people how to skillfully set and integrate both
learning and performance goals. The students participated in an intensive online tutorial
on how to write and achieve personal goals, which led to significant improvement in
academic achievement four months later.28
What about at work? A study of nearly 900 managers across industries showed those
with learning goals performed better at their jobs and were more adaptive to change.29 You
should assume your employer would like you to do both—perform and adapt—and now you
know your goals can make the difference.
The lesson? Learn about and apply goal setting to improve your grades at school and
your performance at work.
Managing the Goal-Setting Process
There are four general steps to follow when implementing a goal-setting program (for yourself
or others). Deficiencies in one step cannot be made up for with strength in the others, which
means you need to diligently execute all four steps.
Step A: Set goals.
Step B: Promote goal commitment.
Step C: Provide support and feedback.
Step D: Create action plans.
Specific State goals in precise rather than vague terms. For example, I will par-
ticipate in 20 hours of training this quarter, versus I will do more train-
ing this year. Quantify your goals whenever possible.
Measurable You need to track progress and verify whether a goal has been achieved
or not. This requires some form of measurement or veri fication—quantity,
quality, completed (yes or no), and other relevant details. If, for instance,
the goal is to assess the characteristics of your company’s top-performing
sales teams, then you likely will need to include both quantitative (sales)
and qualitative (methods for building customer relationships) measures.
Also be sure to consider the interplay between quantity and quality of
output–trade-offs matter.
Attainable Goals should be realistic, challenging, and attainable. Impossible goals
reduce motivation because people do not like to fail. It helps to remem-
ber people have different levels of ability and skill, and what is easy and
second nature for one person may be very difficult for another.
Results
oriented
To focus on desired end results, goals should start with the word to
followed by verbs such as complete, acquire, produce, increase, and
decrease. Corporate goals should focus on desired end results that
support the organization’s strategy. In turn, an individual’s goals should
directly support the accomplishment of corporate goals. Activities that
support the achievement of goals are outlined in action plans.
Time bound Specify target dates for goal completion. Getting a job is an outcome,
but there are several sub-goals you must accomplish first. You’re more
likely to achieve them and get the job if you put dates on the calendar.
TABLE 6.1 Guidelines for Writing Smart Goals
SOURCE: Schroedera, Juliana, and Ayelet Fishbachb. “How to Motivate Yourself and Others? Intended and Unintended Conse-
quences.” Research in Organizational Behavior 35 (2015): 123–41. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.riob.2015.09.001.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
209Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Step A: Set Goals Whether your manager sets your goals for you, or you set them
together, the goals should be “SMART.” SMART applied to goals is an acronym for
specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time bound. Goals with
these qualities are clearer and more actionable than those that aren’t. And when
SMART goals are set from the top to the bottom of an organization, it is easier to link
employee goals to those at higher levels—the department and organization. This could
help you and your colleagues understand how your work and performance affects
others, including the strategy of the company.30 Table 6.1 lists practical guidelines for
writing SMART goals.
Step B: Promote Goal Commitment Goal commitment boosts motivation to
achieve any particular goal, and commitment can be increased by ensuring goals are per-
sonally relevant, obtainable, and fair. Table 6.2 provides additional practical advice for
increasing your goal commitment, while at the same time improving the quality of your
goals and boosting your likelihood of success.
Step C: Provide Support and Feedback This step is about helping employees
achieve their goals. (More detail related to feedback is provided later in this chapter.) Prac-
tical suggestions include:
• Make sure each employee has the necessary skills and information to reach his or
her goals. Provide training if necessary, because it can boost people’s expectancy
(recall expectancy theory from Chapter 5).
Write Your Goals Down You’ve heard it before, but writing your goals down
makes a real difference. The process of writing them
helps refine and imprint them in your mind, and it pro-
vides a record that you can go back to and revise as you
make progress. It is more efficient since you don’t have
to keep the goals and details in your head.
Identify Key Obstacles
and Sources of Support
Be proactive and try to identify who or what might get in
your way. Conversely, think of who or what might be
able to help you reach your goal.
Ask What’s in
It for YOU?
List the benefits of achieving the goal, and keeping your
eyes on the prize will help you stay motivated over time.
Break It Down Some goals are big and/or take considerable effort and
time to achieve. It is helpful to break them down into
smaller, sub- or intermediate goals.
Visualize If you haven’t tried this—it works! Imagine not only how
you will benefit by achieving your goal, but also how you
will feel. Adding the positive emotional component can
boost your motivation.
Organize Preparation is key. It gives you clarity, makes you more
efficient, and helps you avoid wasting energy and time.
Reward Yourself Reward yourself both for making progress while pursu-
ing your goal and for attaining the ultimate outcome. It is
important to reinforce your efforts. Building in small wins
and rewards along the way can help motivate you and
keep you on track.31
TABLE 6.2 Tips for Increasing Goal Commitment and Success
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
210 PART 1 Individual Behavior
• Similarly, pay attention to employees’ expectations about their perceived relation-
ship between effort and performance (Chapter 5), their perceived self-efficacy, and
their reward preferences, and adjust accordingly.
• Give employees timely and task-specific feedback (knowledge of results from job
characteristics in Chapter 5) about what they are doing right and wrong.
• Provide monetary and nonmonetary incentives and be sure to reward meaningful
progress—not just goal accomplishment.
Step D: Create Action Plans What use is a goal without a plan for realizing it? For
instance, planning the amount of time you intend to devote to training, rather than sim-
ply attending a session or doing it when you can, greatly improves the effectiveness of
your learning. The same applies to studying—plan your study time and what you will
study during that time, and research says you are more likely to stick with it and increase
your learning.32
The first three steps all help tremendously in formulating your actions plans. Table 6.2
offers additional useful tips. We also encourage you to look to your experience—what’s
worked in the past when pursuing a similar goal? If you can’t rely on your own experi-
ence, then learn what others have done and follow their plan. No need to reinvent the
wheel. See the nearby OB in Action box to learn how the goal-setting plan worked in a
restaurant.
The owner of two restaurants wanted to help guard
against credit card theft as it costs both customers
and the business. A simple way of doing this is to
ensure cashiers compare IDs with names and and
signatures on the credit cards presented by custom-
ers. The owner did an experiment and set a compli-
ance goal and an intervention at one restaurant but
not the other. Before the experiment began, the
baseline ID check rate at both restaurants was about
3 percent. At the target restaurant the manager met
with employees, set a 50 percent ID check goal,
posted signs next to the registers, and provided a
verbal reminder at the beginning of each shift, “let’s
meet our goal of 50 percent.”
The results were remarkable! ID checks rose to
nearly 40 percent at the target restaurant and even
remained above 30 percent many weeks after the
prompts were stopped. The other restaurant without
the goal and prompt saw no change in ID checks.
This goal-setting strategy is simple and effective.
Put this knowledge to use.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What is a way you could apply this simple goal-
setting and prompt intervention to improve your
performance at school?
2. Why do you think this worked at the restaurant?
Why do you think it would work for the personal
example you provided in #1?
3. At your current job, or one you had in the past,
describe how you or the manager could apply a
similar intervention. Be sure to describe desired
behavior and both the goal and the prompt or
reminder.
I Need to See Some ID33
OB in Action
Simply setting goals and offering reminders can have a
dramatic impact on behaviors, as happened in the
restaurants described in this box.
Chuck Savage/Corbis/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
211Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Next, visualize what achieving the goal looks like and work backward. This is another
instance when the characteristics of SMART goals are extremely valuable. Being specific,
results oriented, and time bound are fundamental characteristics of solid action plans.
Finally, if you run into difficulties we’ve already provided you with an excellent tool—the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach. This can help you identify and remedy roadblocks in
your goal setting and action plans.
Applying a contingency approach to goal setting is another way to be more effective
and boost performance. Let’s explore this next.
Contingency Approach to Defining Performance
and Setting Goals
Recall the discussion in Chapter 1 about how effective employees and managers (you!)
should use a contingency approach. Do what the situation requires rather than applying a
one-size-fits-all approach, relying on personal preferences, or doing something “the way it’s
always been done.” Fit the behavior, policy, or practice to the situation. You can apply this
same wisdom to goal setting.
Learning and performance goals have their place, and SMART goals can give you a
significant advantage over your competitors. However, another way to define goals is in
terms of behavioral, objective, and task/project (see Table 6.3). Defining goals in this
manner helps you ensure your goals match the situation. For instance, not all performance
can or should be defined and measured in dollars and cents.
Once you’ve clarified expectations and set effective goals, it is necessary to monitor
and evaluate your progress and ultimate level of achievement. This is the focus of the next
section.
BEHAVIORAL GOALS OBJECTIVE GOALS TASK OR PROJECT GOALS
Can be used in
most jobs.
Best for jobs with clear
and readily measured
outcomes.
Best for jobs that are
dynamic, but in which nearer-
term activities and milestones
can be defined.
Most relevant for
knowledge work.
Measure what matters, not
just what can be measured.
Similar to SMART goals.
Example: Treat others
with professionalism
and respect; communi-
cate clearly.
Examples: sales quotas,
production rates, error
rates.
Example: Complete your
portion of the team project
by Tuesday.
TABLE 6.3 Contingency Approach to Defining Performance
SOURCE: Adapted from M. Schrage, “Reward Your Best Teams, Not Just Star Players,” Harvard Business Review, June 30, 2015,
https://hbr.org/2015/06/reward-your-best-teams-not-just-star-players.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
212 PART 1 Individual Behavior
6.3 PERFORMANCE MONITORING
AND EVALUATIONS
Once you have defined and communicated performance expectations (goals), you are
ready to monitor and evaluate progress and ultimate performance. We emphasize the need
to monitor and evaluate both progress toward the goal and ultimate level of goal achieve-
ment. Doing both instead of simply focusing on the final outcome boosts both motivation
and performance.
For instance, at school you prefer to learn how you’re performing sometime before
your final grade report, such as a midterm exam and/or homework assignments. If the
only score you receive and the only time you learn this is on the final, then you have no
opportunity to take corrective action and improve the outcome. Moreover, your final exam
may not appropriately capture all that you’ve done throughout the course. Despite this
common-sense argument, many, many organizations and entire industries focus only on
one final outcome, such as sales target (pharmaceuti-
cals), wins (sports), and rankings (business schools).
This is why accurately and appropriately monitor-
ing and evaluating both progress and outcomes are criti-
cal components of effective performance management
and your personal effectiveness.
Monitoring Performance—
Measure Goals Appropriately
and Accurately
Monitoring performance means measuring,
tracking, or otherwise verifying progress and
ultimate outcomes. You use the information gath-
ered through monitoring to identify problems and
successes and to find opportunities for enhancing per-
formance during the pursuit of a goal. To be effective,
you need to use or even create accurate and appropri-
ate measures. Table 6.3 showed that many goals can
be categorized as behavioral, objective, or task-
oriented, and the way you measure these goals should
match their character.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
To ensure success, you’ll need to accurately measure and evaluate both your progress and
the ultimate completion of the goals you set in component 1—defining expectations. In this
section you’ll learn numerous practical tips to help with monitoring and evaluating perfor-
mance. This includes learning how perceptual errors can influence your evaluation of perfor-
mance, and why 360-degree feedback is commonly used to help overcome shortcomings in
the measurement and evaluation of performance.
Describe how
monitoring and
evaluation can
improve your
performance and
ability to manage
others.
LO 6-3
Grades are the dominant if not sole way performance Is monitored and evalu-
ated at school. Mid-term exams and homework grades are a means for moni-
toring your progress toward your overall or final grade.
rjp85/E+/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
213Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Monitoring Your measurement and monitoring can improve further still if you con-
sider the following (you’ll notice some overlap with Table 6.3):
Timeliness. Was the work completed on time? Many customer service roles require
representatives to answer calls within a certain number of rings, or to respond to
customer requests in a certain number of hours or days.
Quality. How well was the work done? A behavioral goal that could fit here is greeting
customers warmly, personally, and with a smile. Measurement consists of observing
and/or reporting that these actually occurred.
Quantity. How much? Sales goals are common examples here, such as dollars or
number of units sold.
Financial metrics. What are the profits, returns, or other relevant accounting/finan-
cial outcomes? For instance, some law firms measure the performance of attorneys
and the larger firm by calculating profits in dollars per partner.34
Like many other elements of our lives, technology is revolutionizing performance
management. Employers can and often do track computer and phone usage, install cam-
eras in most places, and review social media activity. Now, however, employers are cap-
turing employee facial expressions, tone of voice, emotions, location, interactions, and
bio/health data, and the list is growing.35 Electronic performance monitoring (EPM)
uses technology to gather, store, analyze, and report employee behavior.36 The OB in
Action box illustrates some interesting applications and the associated pros and cons.
There was a time when some employers used tape
measures to plot the distance and paths nurses fol-
lowed on their patient rounds in hospitals.37 Today,
such monitoring is done with hardware and software
that provides real-time location and activity logs for
employees. Patty Jo Toor, the chief nursing officer at
Florida Hospital Celebration Health, uses electronic
badges to monitor how often nurses and other care
providers visit patient rooms.38 One result was the
hospital found it could increase time with patients by
stocking more medication on the floors during the
night shift, cutting the time nurses had to spend
ordering it. In a similar way, United Parcel Service
(UPS) has used GPS to make drivers’ routes more
efficient, saving time, gas, emissions, and money
(millions of dollars every year).39
Benefits to the Employer Supporters outline a
number of benefits, such as reducing theft, improv-
ing safety and productivity, and limiting liability. If
you’re being watched you’re less likely to take extra-
long or unsanctioned breaks, spend work time shop-
ping online, or tending to your fantasy sports
standings. Basically, monitoring ensures you’re
doing what you’re expected to do, and do the
expected things better.40
Some companies equip their vehicles with video
cameras in case of theft or accidents. Shuttle Express
Inc., for example, used dashboard camera video to
show that its driver was not at fault in an accident. It
saved the company an estimated $100,000.41
Most employees would not fault employer moni-
toring that guards against improper sharing of trade
secrets or other proprietary information, but as mon-
itoring becomes more capable and more pervasive
we might ask: Just because employers can monitor,
should they, and what are the boundaries?
Costs and Cautions for Employers Dissenters
argue such monitoring is demoralizing, unfair, vio-
lates privacy, and decreases job satisfaction. And
some studies show links between electronic perfor-
mance monitoring (EPM) and decreased job perfor-
mance and increased counterproductive work
behaviors (CWBs).42 Still others reveal it increases
stress, fatigue, and negative emotions.43
Employers also are tracking the time lost to non-
work activities. College basketball’s March Madness
Monitoring for Performance Becomes More Sophisticated and Pervasive
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
214 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Companies have considerable legal discretion to monitor employees, including for
performance, but along with the benefits come challenges. Here are helpful tips to con-
sider when utilizing monitoring for performance at work.
• Be Transparent. Explain the what, where, how, and why. Tell employees what is
monitored, where, how, and especially why. Justify! The primary motive should be
performance improvement. But if guarding against theft is another goal, say so.
Employees may raise potential pitfalls you didn’t consider. Many negative reactions
happen because employees are unaware of the motives and practices.
• Monitor Only Work. Make work and nonwork boundaries clear and the ensure both
parties abide by them. For instance, do not track employees’ locations during non-
work hours.
• Focus on Development, Not Punishment or Deterrence. Avoid blocking everything
and instead collect, analyze, share, and act on information that contributes to
performance. If you’re simply monitoring to catch employees doing the wrong
things, then you are undermining employee trust and will spur an eternal game of
cat and mouse.
• Make it Fit and Fair. Be sure monitoring fits particular jobs and situations to the
extent necessary and feasible. If some employees’ and their jobs require more flexi-
bility and access, then consider this. However, be sure that all employees across
levels are expected to comply with policy.46
After you’ve defined your performance goals and monitored them using accurate and
appropriate measures, it is time to evaluate the level and/or quality of performance.
Evaluating Performance
Your measures of performance should be both relevant and accurate. There is nothing
more discouraging than being measured on criteria that don’t matter or not being measured
on those that do. Evaluating performance is the process of comparing performance
at some point in time to a previously established expectation or goal. To do this, you
obviously need something to compare, which is why measurement or verification is needed
in some form.
is estimated to cost employers approximately
$4 billion In lost productivity,44 which is due to the
nearly 51 million employees who participate in and
thus fill out pools, watch, and talk about the games.
Consider also Cyber Monday, when nearly half of
U.S. workers say they shop online while at work.
Great news for the retailers; not so much for other
businesses and their managers who suffer the lost
productivity.
Individual opinions will vary about each of these,
but such constant monitoring has the potential to
cause stress, undermine employee morale and trust,
and even be the grounds for lawsuits.
One of the early challenges to tracking employ-
ees using GPS technology involved Intermex Wire
Transfer. Employees were required to download an
app to their phones and keep them on 24/7. An
employee asked her manager about nonwork hours
tracking, and he told her, “yes,” the employer would
track her both on and off duty. She “likened it to
wearing a house arrest bracelet,” protested, unin-
stalled the app, and was fired. She and the company
ultimately settled out of court.45
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Assuming you own your company, make the
case for monitoring your employees.
2. If you are working (or have worked), does your
employer monitor employees? If yes, describe
the costs and benefits to that employer.
3. If your employer does not monitor employees,
what type of monitoring might be beneficial from
the employer’s perspective?
4. Whether you are working or not, describe a type
of monitoring that would be useful for your school.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
215Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Your midterm grade, for instance, helps you monitor your performance so far, but it
isn’t the end of the story. You then evaluate it—did you perform as you expected? Why or
why not? How will your midterm performance affect your grade for the course? The
answers to these questions are important and are often influenced by your perceptual
processes.
As you learned in Chapter 4, your attributions and perceptions can greatly influ-
ence the way you evaluate the information you gathered via monitoring. Table 6.4 lists
common perceptual errors in monitoring employee performance and recommended
solutions.
The best-laid goals can be completely undermined if performance toward them is not
measured appropriately, or if performance is evaluated with bias. Many organizations and
their managers have tried to overcome such problems using 360-degree feedback.
In 360-degree feedback, individuals compare perceptions of their own perfor-
mance with behaviorally specific (and usually anonymous) performance information
PERCEPTUAL
ERROR
TENDENCY
EXAMPLE
RECOMMENDED SOLUTION:
KEEP PERFORMANCE NOTES
Halo effect To form an overall
impression about a
person or object and
then use that impres-
sion to bias ratings
about same.
Rating an employee pos-
itively across all dimen-
sions of performance
because the employee
is so likable.
Record examples of positive and
negative employee performance
throughout the year. Remember
employee behavior tends to vary
across different dimensions of
performance.
Leniency To consistently evalu-
ate other people or
objects in an extremely
positive fashion.
Rating an employee high
on all dimensions of per-
formance regardless of
actual performance.
Provide specific examples of both
good and poor behavior so you
can help the employee improve.
Remember it does not help
employees when they are given
positive but inaccurate feedback.
Be fair and realistic in evaluations.
Central
tendency
To avoid all extreme
judgments and rate
people and objects
as average or neutral.
Rating an employee as
average on all dimen-
sions regardless of
actual performance.
Define an accurate profile, with
high and low points, so you can
help the employee improve.
Remember it is normal to provide
feedback that contains both posi-
tive and negative information.
Recency effect To over-rely on
the most recent
information. If it is
negative, the person
or object is evaluated
negatively.
Rating an employee
based only on the last
portion of the review
period.
Accumulate examples of perfor-
mance over the entire rating
period. Remember to look for
trends but accept some variance
as normal.
Contrast effect To evaluate people or
objects by comparing
them with characteris-
tics of recently
observed people or
objects.
Rating an employee as
average, from a
comparison of the
employee’s performance
with the exceptional
performance of a few top
performers.
Evaluate employees against a
standard, rather than against the
performance of your highest-
performing employees. Remember
that each employee deserves the
objectivity in evaluation that a
standard can provide.
TABLE 6.4 Common Perceptual Errors Related to Performance Evaluation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
216 PART 1 Individual Behavior
from their manager, subordinates, and peers. Such multi-rater feedback can also come
from outsiders, such as customers or suppliers. These participants can help overcome posi-
tive or negative biases due to perceptions or manager-employee relationships.47
HCL Technologies, one of India’s three largest IT services companies, implements a
360-degree feedback program for the CEO and 3,800 managers. The CEO’s reviews are
transparent, posted on the company’s internal website for all 50,000 employees to see. The
managers’ results are posted too. Vineet Nayar, the former CEO who created the system,
described the system as “reverse accountability,” wherein managers are accountable to
employees, the opposite of the business norm.48
Collecting performance information
from multiple sources helps the person being
evaluated get a broad view of his or her per-
formance, and it also highlights any biases
and perceptual errors that might be occur-
ring. Finally, using multiple raters also makes
it much more difficult for managers to
unfairly favor or punish particular employees
(recall our discussion of equity and fairness
in Chapter 5).
A study of 360-degree feedback for
69,000 managers and 750,000 employees
revealed fascinating results. Managers dra-
matically overrated their own capabilities—
perhaps this is not a surprise. But those
who underrated their prowess were viewed
by employees as the most effective leaders.
The underraters also had the most engaged
employees (an important individual-level
outcome).49
Research on 360-degree feedback, com-
bined with your author’s consulting experi-
ence, leads us to favor anonymity and also
to discourage use of 360-degree feedback
for pay and promotion decisions. When it
is used for pay and promotions managers
often resist and/or try to manipulate the
process. However, multi-source feedback
can be extremely helpful for training and
development purposes.
Now that you have a sense of the impor-
tance of monitoring and evaluating perfor-
mance, as well as tips for doing this
accurately, let’s move on to the next compo-
nent and review performance. This includes
the critically important and dramatically
underutilized skill: feedback.
Vineet Nayar, former CEO of HCL Technologies and world-renowned
management expert, believes in realizing employees’ full potential. He
energetically advocates that organizations put employees first and invest
in their development.
Stephane Audras/REA/Redux Pictures
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
217Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Most people agree that feedback has the potential to boost performance. However, most
people also admit that they neither receive nor provide feedback as often or as well as they
would like. Forty-seven percent of employees surveyed by Gallup indicated they receive
feedback a few times or less per year from their managers, while 19 percent reported
receiving it zero times or once (likely in an annual review). This contrasts with the 7 percent
who said they receive feedback daily.50 We’ll help you understand some reasons this hap-
pens and what you can do about it. It is safe to say your feedback skills are some of the
most valuable tools you can develop and use throughout your career. Now let’s convince
you that this bold statement is true.
What Effective Feedback Is . . . and Is Not
Many if not most students and employees alike appreciate feedback. Both want to know
how they’re doing and how their performance compares to that of their peers. Feedback is
an important, but not always present, cousin of goal setting. It enables you to learn how
your performance compares to the goal, which you can then use to modify your behaviors
and efforts. We therefore define feedback as information about individual or collec-
tive performance shared with those in a position to improve the situation.
Effective feedback is only information—it is not an evaluation. Subjective assessments
such as “You’re lazy” or “You have a bad attitude” do not qualify as effective feedback.
They are simply opinions and often have little value. But hard data such as units sold, days
absent, dollars saved, projects completed, customers satisfied, and quality rejects are all
examples of effective feedback. Christopher Lee, author of Performance Conversations: An
Alternative to Appraisals, clarifies the concept of feedback by contrasting it with perfor-
mance appraisals:
Feedback is the exchange of information about the status and quality of work prod-
ucts. It provides a road map to success. It is used to motivate, support, direct, correct,
and regulate work efforts and outcomes. Feedback ensures that the manager and
employees are in sync and agree on the standards and expectations of the work to
be performed. Traditional appraisals, on the other hand, discourage two-way com-
munication and treat employee involvement as a bad thing. Employees are discour-
aged from participating in a performance review, and when they do, their responses
are often considered “rebuttals.”51
Mike Duke, former president and CEO of Walmart, is a strong advocate of linking goal
setting and feedback.
Leadership is about . . . listening and getting feedback from a broad array of
constituents. . . . It’s about setting aggressive goals and not being afraid to go after very
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You’re about to learn how different forms of feedback influence performance and how to
deliver feedback more effectively. You’ll also see how combining feedback with coaching is a
powerful means for managing and improving your performance and that of others.
6.4 PERFORMANCE REVIEW, FEEDBACK,
AND COACHING
Apply knowledge of
feedback and
coaching to review
and improve
performance.
LO 6-4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
218 PART 1 Individual Behavior
aggressive goals and targets. I think it’s even better for a leader to set an aggressive
goal and come up a little short than it would be to set a soft goal and to exceed it. . . .
Hard feedback is in some environments viewed in a very threatening way, and people
don’t want to hear feedback. In our environment, I think there is a desire to hear candid
feedback. When we leave a meeting, before we’ll even drive away, I’ll ask, “Well, give
me feedback.” I think a leader asking for feedback sets a good tone.52
Clearly, feedback can affect outcomes across levels of the Organizing Framework.
If Feedback Is So Helpful, Why Don’t We Get
and Give More?
This obvious question is worth answering. After surveying thousands of students and
employees, researchers offer the most common responses:
1. Potential strain on relationships. It is easy for most people to deliver good news:
“Susan, great job on the project. The customer was very pleased, and you made the
team look good.” However, very few people like to deliver negative feedback (or bad
news in general): “Susan, you were ill-prepared and really hurt our chances with that
customer.” We worry about making the person feel bad and wonder how that person
will act in the future because of it. After all, we often make friends at work, we genu-
inely like many of our coworkers, and we don’t want to make them feel bad, make
ourselves and others uncomfortable, or harm our relationships.
2. Too little time. We’re all busy. Even true believers in the value of feedback often let it
slide: “This week I plan to talk to Mark about how impressed I am with his fast start at
the company.” But the week passes and you still haven’t done it. Next week. But then
that passes too, and so on, and so on.53
3. Lack of confidence. Very few people are trained to give effective feedback and so lack
confidence in their abilities. This problem is compounded if the feedback is going to
include negative content and/or will be tied to a performance evaluation. After read-
ing this chapter and book, you won’t have such an excuse. You’ll be equipped with
both knowledge and tools to boost your confidence.
4. No consequences. As you’ll learn or may already be aware, the trend is toward giving
more frequent and considerably different forms of feedback than in the past. However,
if managers are not evaluated on whether they provide feedback—effective or not—they
are less likely to give it.
With these common obstacles in mind, let’s learn how to overcome them and do bet-
ter, beginning with the two primary functions of feedback—to instruct and to motivate.
Two Functions of Feedback
Experts say feedback serves two functions for those who receive it: one is instructional and
the other motivational. Feedback instructs when it clarifies roles or teaches new behavior.
For example, an assistant accountant might be advised to handle a certain entry as a capi-
tal item rather than as an expense item. Feedback motivates when it serves as a reward,
such as recognition for a job well done, or promises a reward (remember the discussion in
Chapter 5). Hearing the boss say, “You’ve completed the project ahead of schedule; take
the rest of the day off,” is a pleasant reward for hard work. More generally, however, many
employees appreciate the attention and interest expressed by the very act of providing
feedback, regardless of content.
Assume you’re one of the students learning CPR in the photo. Which type of feedback
do you think would be more helpful and you would appreciate more—instructional or moti-
vational? Regardless of your preference, you certainly would agree that both forms would
be more effective than the instructor simply saying you did it wrong and that she is
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
219Performance Management CHAPTER 6
unhappy with your performance. Keep this in mind when you provide feedback to others.
Keep it instructional or motivational and you’ll keep it appreciated and effective!
We also think you’ll find this example especially interesting. A study showed that
undergraduate students who used peer-to-peer feedback on writing assignments improved
the quality and performance of their work. This likely isn’t a surprise, but what is notable
is that either giving or receiving both resulted in similar improvements. This suggests
simply giving feedback can boost your performance.54
Important Sources of Feedback—Including
Those Often Overlooked
The three common sources of feedback are
1. Others
2. Task
3. Self
It almost goes without saying that you receive feedback from others (peers, supervisors,
lower-level employees, and customers). Perhaps less obvious is the fact that the task itself
is a common source of objective feedback. For instance, many tasks—writing code, landing
a plane, or driving a golf ball—provide a steady stream of feedback about how well or
poorly you are doing. A third source of feedback is you, but self-serving bias and other
perceptual problems can contaminate this source (recall Chapter 4).
NO SURPRISES! Whoever conducts a performance review should ensure there are no
surprises—good or bad! As a general rule, if you are surprised by something shared during
your review, your manager is doing a poor job of managing your performance. It also is a
Assume you’re one of the students learning CPR in the photo. Which type of feedback do you think would be
more helpful and you would appreciate more—instructional or motivational? Regardless of your preference,
you certainly would agree that both forms would be more effective than the instructor simply saying you did it
wrong and that she is unhappy with your performance. Keep this in mind when you provide feedback to oth-
ers. Keep it instructional or motivational and you’ll keep it appreciated and effective!
Hero Images/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
220 PART 1 Individual Behavior
sure sign that he or she is not giving you the appropriate quantity and quality of feedback.
Most often such surprises occur in performance management systems structured around
an annual review. This means that regardless of how frequently performance information
is collected, it is communicated and discussed only once a year.
To avoid surprises in your own reviews, check in with your manager periodically and
informally ask, “Is there anything I should be aware of? I know we’ll have my review later
this year, and I want to be sure there are no surprises . . . even positive ones.” If you
punctuate your question with a smile it is likely your manager will clearly understand
your intent.
The OB in Action box describes the progressive and effective approach to employee
feedback at Zappos.
One of the key elements that enables Zappos to
have rock star status with its customers and employ-
ees is the company’s approach to performance man-
agement. The company has led rather than followed
trends in PM and puts a premium on feedback, which
it sees as fundamental to continuous improvement.
Form of Feedback For starters, the company is
largely organized in teams and each with a coach
rather than manager. And much like coaches of
sports teams, Zappos coaches focus on the devel-
opment and performance of team members. They
rely heavily on instructional feedback, such as how
long customers had to wait on hold and what per-
centage indicated their problem was resolved during
a call, rather than evaluative or punitive judgements.
Zappos team member Lori Johnson, who has been
at Zappos since 2017 and in customer service roles
for more than 30 years, described the sessions with
coaches as 1-on-1 conversations and 2-way, rather
than the conventional manager-subordinate perfor-
mance meeting. Metrics are used, but not exclu-
sively, and conversations tend to include specific
examples of particular behaviors witnessed versus
simple numeric ratings.55
Linked to Values The nature of the coach-team
member conversations, and thus the feedback, are
directly linked to the company’s 10 core values:
deliver WOW through service, embrace and drive
change, create fun and a little weirdness, be cre-
ative and open-minded, pursue growth and learn-
ing, build open and honest relationships with
communication, build a positive team and family
spirit, do more with less, be passionate and deter-
mined, be humble. The company’s performance
management and associated feedback are all driven
by and based on these values.56
Use and Frequency of Feedback The company
long ago abandoned the traditional once-a-year
review. Team members, like Ms. Johnson, commonly
meet with their coach every couple of weeks to dis-
cuss job-related issues in real-time. They also meet
once a month more formally to review the trailing
three months of performance. She described these
as formal only in the sense metrics are pulled and
reviewed, but the actual conversation is informal,
free-flowing, and a casual back-and-forth. These fre-
quent interactions provide numerous opportunities
for feedback and enable desirable behaviors to be
recognized and reinforced, as well as take corrective
action, as it happens.57
How Do You Spell Feedback and Self-Improvement? Z-A-P-P-O-S!
OB in Action
Zappos employees are not only allowed but encouraged to person-
alize their workspaces. This aligns with the company’s values—
create fun and a little weirdness—and is believed to foster
excellent customer service.
Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
221Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Your Perceptions Matter
Another reason people don’t give or get more feedback is that they don’t want it. What are
your attitudes toward feedback? Do you seek it out? Do you want to hear it only if it is
positive? To answer these questions and better understand your desire for feedback, com-
plete Self-Assessment 6.1 and read the following section.
Not Meeting Expectations? If someone’s perfor-
mance is not up to standards, the company provides
numerous free, on-site courses aimed at skill build-
ing and improvement.58
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What are the advantages to the Zappos
approach to feedback?
2. What disadvantages are possible?
3. Explain why you would or would not want to be
an employee with such a PM system.
4. Assume you are a manager at a company using
a similar approach. What may be the pros and
cons of this system for you?
What Is My Desire for Performance Feedback?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 6.1 in Connect.
1. Think of a recent instance when you were given feedback.
2. How does your score help explain your reaction to that feedback?
3. Describe a specific way your desire for feedback (your score) helps or hurts you
in college and at work.
4. Given your score, think of ways you can improve your receptiveness for feedback.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 6.1 CAREER READINESS
Factors that Affect Your Perceptions of Feedback Many factors influence the
way we perceive feedback. For instance, all managers and employees are susceptible to the
fundamental attribution bias (your manager attributes your poor performance entirely to
you and things you control) and the self-serving bias (you are likely to take credit for
positive performance outcomes and attribute poor performance to extrinsic factors). The
following also can influence your perceptions of feedback:
1. Accuracy. A common criticism of PM systems is that they measure the wrong things or
measure the right things the wrong way. Either way, the feedback is inaccurate.
2. Credibility of the sources. If a member of your project team points out shortcomings in
your work, you are likely to put more weight on the feedback if he or she is an “A”
student or top performer. Trust is critical here too. If you don’t trust the person deliv-
ering the feedback, you will likely be suspicious of his or her intentions and discount
its value.
3. Fairness of the system. If you perceive the process or outcomes as unfair—recall equity
theory from Chapter 5—you are likely not only to discount the feedback but also to be
outraged, withdraw, commit counterproductive work behaviors, and/or quit. Perfor-
mance appraisals are one of the aspects of organizational life that most commonly
reveal issues of fairness.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
222 PART 1 Individual Behavior
4. Performance-reward expectancies. Effective performance management, particularly
ongoing and open feedback between you and your supervisors, is an important means
of managing such expectancies.
5. Reasonableness of the goals or standards. When it comes to goals, challenging is good,
unattainable bad. If your manager says, “You can earn a bonus of up to 50 percent of
your salary,” ask whether anyone has actually ever earned that much. If not, you may
be the first, but more likely the goal is unreasonable.
Any feedback that fails to clear one or more of these cognitive hurdles will be rejected
or discounted by the employee.
Negative Feedback Remember, feedback itself is simply information. It becomes
positive or negative only when you compare it to a goal or expectation. Such comparisons
are the basis for improvement. (Note: Negative feedback is not negative reinforcement.
You’ll learn the important difference later in this chapter.)
People tend to perceive and recall positive feedback more accurately than they do
negative feedback. But negative feedback, such as being told your performance is below
average, can have a positive motivational effect. One study showed that those who were told
they were below average on a creativity test subsequently outperformed those who were led
to believe their results were above average. The subjects apparently took the negative feed-
back as a challenge and set and pursued higher goals. Those receiving positive feedback
were less motivated to do better.59
However, as you likely know, negative feedback needs to be used with discretion
because it is perceived and processed differently. For instance, a study of employees in a
company with a transparent peer-review process—each employee knew both the ratings and
the associated raters—showed that after receiving negative feedback employees tended to
distance themselves from the sources of that feedback, and then “shopped around” for and
associated with colleagues who provided positive feedback. As you might expect, some
employees had to work with those providing negative feedback, and over time they devel-
oped more and richer relationships with members outside of their group. So how do you
balance the benefits and costs? The same Harvard researchers suggested the key is in
ensuring employees feel valued and they also make positive contributions.60
It thus seems research is mixed on negative feedback, but you will undoubtedly receive
it throughout your working life. It therefore is a good idea to learn how to deal with it effec-
tively, which is the purpose of the nearby Applying OB box.
Applying OB
Although research is mixed, all of us receive negative
feedback, and in most Instances the person providing
the feedback has genuinely positive intentions. The
goal of course in most instances is to improve your
performance, which means your challenge is how to
avoid getting defensive or having your self-esteem or
self-efficacy crushed. The following tips can help.
1. Hit the Brakes. Oftentimes our first reaction is
quick and defensive. A better approach is to
pause, listen, and then take time to process. When
processing it helps to frame it as “what can I learn
from this? How was this intended to help me?” It
also can help to then think of a positive way you
contribute in the same task or relationship.
2. Confirm. Don’t immediately discount or accept the
feedback, but instead seek other unbiased
sources. Even if done informally they can help con-
firm or refute the negative feedback. This is one
reason why multi-rater or 360 feedback is so
valuable—you can compare. But from whom? It is a
good idea to identify a small group of people you
trust both to share such information with and hear
the truth in return. One executive referred to such
people as “loving critics.”
Making Lemonade from Lemons—How to Respond to Negative Feedback
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
223Performance Management CHAPTER 6
3. Approach and Cultivate, Don’t Avoid. As you
learned above, and likely understand, people tend
to avoid those who delivered the bad news. But if
you’re serious about improving your self-aware-
ness and effectiveness, then you need to cultivate
relationships with people who will give it to you
straight. Try thanking those who provide such
Information and ask whether they would mind your
following up periodically.
4. Assess and Own? In addition to and as a result of
the above advice, you may learn some of the
negative feedback pertains to individual differ-
ences, some of which might be relatively more
fixed than others (recall from Chapter 3). In such
instances you may communicate to those who
provided the feedback, such as that you are not
especially likeable, and tell them that their feed-
back helped raise your awareness. And even
though you seem kind of stand-offish, you genu-
inely like to interact with people. Then, ask for their
understanding and help as you work on breaking
down and resetting their perceptions.61
Nonetheless, feedback with a negative message or threatening content needs to be
administered carefully to avoid creating insecurity and defensiveness. Both negative
and positive feedback need to provide clear guidance to improve performance. Feed-
back is most likely to be perceived accurately, and thus more likely to be acted on,
when it is instructional and helps achieve an important or valued outcome.
Table 6.5 lists important and fundamental do’s and don’ts for giving feedback. In addi-
tion to these, the following tips further improve your feedback skills and provide pointers
on how to deliver it:
1. Reflect. Before giving feedback you are well served to identify what change you want
to see, what is the context or experiences of the target person (person or situation fac-
tors influencing his or her performance), and whose needs you are meeting by giving
the feedback. Answering these three questions helps clarify your motives and intended
outcomes.
2. Cultivate Trust. By reflecting on and sharing the information in #1, you will help the
receiver understand your intentions are for her or his development. You might say, for
instance, “I know you want to be the number one performer and get promoted, and I
would like to offer some feedback that might help.”
3. Be Action-Oriented. Sharing information isn’t the end. Feedback is more effective if it
is accompanied by suggested actions.62 When done in this way, providing feedback is
a form of problem-solving—what is the problem, likely causes, accompanied by recom-
mended actions.
Negative feedback of course has its place at work. Sometimes it is necessary,
but be very careful when using it to avoid doing more harm than good.
Photographee.eu/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
224 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Today’s Trends in Feedback
Like PM more generally, feedback is becoming more informal, continual, and inclusive. It
also is increasingly taking place between other employees and not just between managers
and subordinates. These new developments hold the promise of making feedback truly
more developmental and effective.
It is worth noting, however, that another trend is
for direct if not also critical feedback. Netflix, for
instance, is practicing what is called “radical transpar-
ency” in feedback and other elements of its opera-
tions. Most generally, says CEO Reed Hastings, the
intent is to get employee input and feedback in every
aspect of the company. Performance evaluations are
one example and are visible to all employees, and sal-
ary information for all employees is available to
approximately 500 employees at the director level and
above. But that’s not all. Constant and even blunt
feedback is encouraged—employees should always be
looking for and offering ways to improve. The “keeper
test” is one especially interesting example of direct
feedback. Managers are expected to ask themselves
when evaluating employees: Would I keep this per-
son? Would I fight to have them on my team?65
Just as feedback practices are evolving in PM, so
too are those related to coaching.66
Coaching—Turning Feedback
into Change
Coaching is a customized process between two
or more people with the intent of enhancing
learning and motivating change. Coaching can
occur at any component in the PM process, but it
most often follows the review and consequences of
performance.
One way to look at coaching is that it is an indi-
vidualized and customized form of PM. It is different
from training, which typically consists only of skill
Donna Morris, Chief Human Resource Officer & Executive
Vice President of Employee Experience at Adobe Systems,
spearheaded a dramatic transformation in the way her
company manages performance. Regular “check-ins” and
“snapshots” are mini and continual opportunities to provide
and receive feedback.
©2019 Adobe Inc. All rights reserved. Adobe is either a registered
trademark or a trademark of Adobe in the United States and/or other
countries.
TABLE 6.5 Feedback Do’s and Don’ts
DON’T63 DO64
Don’t use feedback to punish, embarrass,
or put someone down.
Keep feedback relevant by relating it to
existing goals.
Don’t provide feedback that is irrelevant
to the person’s work.
Deliver feedback as close as possible to
the time the behavior was performed.
Don’t provide feedback too late to do
any good.
Provide specific and descriptive feed-
back.
Don’t provide feedback about something
beyond the individual’s control
Focus the feedback on things employees
can control.
Don’t provide feedback that is overly
complex or difficult to understand.
Be honest, developmental, and
constructive.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
225Performance Management CHAPTER 6
building with the same content delivered to a group of people. It differs
from mentoring, which typically has a career rather than a performance
focus and most often flows from more senior to more junior employees.
All these processes differ from counseling, which usually aims to over-
come a problem, conflict, or dysfunctional behavior.67
With these differences in mind, effective coaching is developmen-
tal, has specific performance goals, and typically includes considerable
self-reflection, self-assessment, and feedback. In fact, “research from
Gallup, McKinsey, and Harvard recommends that giving feedback
should be the most used tool in a coach’s toolbox.”68 Research shows
employees who received continual development conversations with
their managers were nearly three times more likely to be engaged at
work! This reinforces volumes of studies which show goal setting to be
more effective when it is accompanied by continue coaching related to
progress monitoring and feedback.69
Some venture capitalists see the benefits of coaching. Felicis
Ventures, a VC firm founded by a former Google employee, is chang-
ing venture capital by investing 1 percent of the money invested into
the coaching and mental health of the founders of the firms in which
they invest. The firm realizes the founders and other leaders of start-
ups are both underskilled and overstressed, and by helping in both
areas they are increasing the chances for their investments to per-
form.70 You too can be a more effective coach by applying the advice
in the nearby Applying OB box.
Felicis Ventures is changing venture
capital by investing in the coaching and
mental health of the founders of the
firms in which they invest.
Peter DaSilva/The New York Tim es/
Redux Pictures
Applying OB
We’re not talking grades, but instead some fundamen-
tal elements to practice when coaching others: fre-
quency, focus, and future orientation.71
Frequent. Consistent with trends in PM, the most effec-
tive coaches engage others regularly, whether it be
face-to-face, e-mail, phone, text, video conferences, etc.
The point isn’t so much the channel but the frequency.
Although the appropriate frequency is contingent on
many person and situation factors, research by Gallup
suggests that at least once a week is a good goal. And
remember, feedback does not need to be formal.
Check-ins can work: “How are you doing today?” “What
worked well in the presentation or meeting?” Simple
encouragement or recognition works too.
Focused. Frequency can allow communications to
wander, so be sure to stay on point. It thus helps to
identify and assign specific tasks and priorities.
Outlining purposes and outcomes is a good place to
start; however, coaching is most effective when it is a
two-way street. Try not to tell and prescribe, but to
discuss, identify, and recommend—problem solve col-
laboratively.
Future-Oriented. At the heart of coaching is develop-
ment, and development is all about improving for the
future. Therefore, beware of focusing too much on
past performance and instead spend most of your
efforts on what to do going forward. Think of coaches
in sports. They of course use past games and matches
for learning, but most of the attention is on improving
skills and performance for the next competition. Be
sure your coaching does the same.
An “F” in Coaching Signals Success
The Self-Assessments throughout this book can serve as important elements for your own
coaching, helping you identify your development opportunities.72 When coaching is
approached in this way, it is not only an important aspect of effective performance manage-
ment, but it is also consistent with positive organizational behavior (Chapter 7). Consider
this: If coaching is done in the way described, who wouldn’t appreciate or benefit from it?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
226 PART 1 Individual Behavior
6.5 PROVIDING REWARDS AND OTHER
CONSEQUENCES
Rewards are a critical component of performance management, and just as particular
motivational approaches affect people differently, so do rewards. Some employees see
their job as the source of a paycheck and little else. Others derive great pleasure from their
job and association with coworkers. Even volunteers who donate their time to charitable
organizations, such as Habitat for Humanity, walk away with rewards in the form of social
recognition and having done something meaningful for themselves and impactful to oth-
ers. Hence, the subject of organizational rewards includes but goes far beyond monetary
compensation. We begin by outlining key factors of organizational reward systems.
Key Factors in Organizational Rewards
Despite the fact that reward systems vary widely, they do share some common compo-
nents. The model in Figure 6.3 diagrams the relationship of three components:
1. Types of rewards
2. Distribution criteria
3. Desired outcomes
Let us examine these components and then discuss pay for performance.
Types of Rewards
Financial, material, and social rewards qualify as extrinsic
rewards because they come from the environment. Psychic
rewards, however, are intrinsic rewards because they are
self-granted. If you work primarily to obtain rewards such as
money or status, you are extrinsically motivated. If you derive your
primary reward from the task itself, or the feeling that your work is
meaningful and gives you a sense of responsibility, then you are
motivated by intrinsic rewards (recall extrinsic and intrinsic moti-
vation from Chapter 5).
Responders to the devastating 2018 Camp Fire in Butte
County, California, certainly had a difficult job to do. For firefight-
ers, police, medical, and other emergency personnel, such work is
their occupation, which means they have formal responsibilities
and are paid. However, it was clear that many of them were moti-
vated by and received intrinsic rewards far beyond pay. They were
saving their own homes and communities, and like the many volun-
teers, they were saving lives.
The relative importance of extrinsic and intrinsic rewards is a
matter of culture and personal preferences, so it is critically
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You of course like being rewarded, but some rewards are more effective than others. Next,
you’ll learn common types of rewards and the potential outcomes of specific reward systems.
You’ll see how organizations use various criteria, such as results and behaviors, to distribute
rewards, as well as why rewards can fail to motivate as intended.
Implement rewards
to generate desired
outcomes.
LO 6-5
Thankfully for all of us, many people perform their jobs for
reasons other than money and other extrinsic rewards. Some
of the best examples are first responders to disasters who do
more than simply “punch the clock.”
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
227Performance Management CHAPTER 6
important to know what types of rewards you and others value most. This knowledge can
make the difference in your getting what you want personally, as well as in your ability to
effectively manage others. It can also assist you in identifying employers with whom you fit.73
For example, if you’re hard-charging, a high income is very important to you, and you like
to be rewarded based on your own efforts, then it would be advisable to look for companies
whose reward systems align with these preferences. You also can use your self-knowledge to
“manage up.” The author of this book routinely told his managers shortly after he was
hired which of the rewards available for that particular job he valued most. This helped his
managers choose and provide rewards that would have the most positive impact.
Kaiser Permanente, an integrated health care system in California, is opening its own
medical school in 2020. To attract high caliber students and encourage them not to avoid
relatively low-paying specialties (family medicine and pediatrics), it is not charging tuition
for students in the first five years. These motives and actions are similar to those of New
York University and Columbia’s medical schools, which also are eliminating tuition for
their students. These are extremely valuable, as the median debt for medical school gradu-
ates in 2017 was just under $200,000. And it seems to be working. NYU reported overall
med school applications increased 47 percent, and those from applicants who identified as
black increased 142 percent!74
Self-Assessment 6.2 will help you identify the rewards you value most and show you
what a survey of employees revealed they valued most.
FIGURE 6.3 Key Factors in Organizational Reward Systems
Distribution Criteria
Results
Behaviors and actions
Nonperformance factors
Desired Outcomes
Attract
Motivate
Retain
Develop
Engage
Types of Rewards
Extrinsic—financial
and nonfinancial
Intrinsic—meaningfulness
and achievement
What Rewards Do I Value Most?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 6.2 in Connect.
1. Were your perceptions accurate? Why or why not?
2. What would Vroom’s expectancy theory (covered in Chapter 5) suggest you
should do?
3. Would you generalize the actual survey results to all nonmanagerial employees?
Why or why not?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 6.2 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
228 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Distribution Criteria
Organizations use three general criteria for distributing rewards:
• Results. Tangible results include quantity produced, quality, and individual, group,
or organizational performance. These are often accounting-type measures—sales,
profit, or error rate. Employers increasingly include customer satisfaction.
• Behavior and actions. Examples are teamwork, cooperation, risk taking, and
creativity.
• Nonperformance considerations. Examples are abundant, such as rewards linked to
seniority or job title. Associate attorneys’ salaries are commonly linked to the
number of years out of law school—first-year associates get paid a set salary, which
differs from second-year associates, and so on. Night or weekend shifts often pay
differently. Perks provided to executives, like use of a company plane or member-
ship to a golf club, are nonperformance rewards. They get them just because they
hold the job not because of what they do.
Industries, companies, and jobs all differ, and so too should their performance and
reward-distribution criteria. Many Internet companies, for example, track number of page
views, registered users, and app downloads as performance criteria. These may or may not
be relevant to individual employee, team, or organizational performance. Netscape
founder, and now legendary tech investor, Marc Andreessen is leading a charge to do away
with what he calls “vanity” or “bull#$!% metrics.” He argues that many common metrics
are meaningless and don’t capture performance. “Download counts can easily be inflated
if an app developer is willing to pay.”75
Digital and social media companies therefore have struggled to develop and utilize
effective PM metrics, which are necessary to gauge performance and allocate rewards.
Some examples for marketing via digital and social media are:
• Reach and Impressions. Reach is the number of different people who view your
post, while impressions are the number of times a given person views it. Think of it
as breadth and depth.
• Platform Engagement. This can be likes, retweets, shares, comments, etc.
• Conversions. Of those that click or view how many actually take action, such as buy
your product. This is an obvious way for many to measure return on investment
(ROI) for investments in online advertising.
• Relevancy Score. This is used to compare or test the relative interest of one poten-
tial customer to others. You essentially present the same ad content to multiple
customer groups, perhaps via different channels, and then focus your future
resources on the one that showed the greatest interest.76
In sum, effective PM includes measures, rewards, and distribution criteria that are
linked.77
Desired Outcomes of the Reward System
As Figure 6.3 showed, a good reward system should not only attract and motivate
talented people, but it should also foster development and keep talented people from
leaving. A prime example is Tulsa-based QuikTrip, a gas station and convenience store
chain. Good employee wages and benefits, training, and a friendly and supportive
culture result in an annual turnover rate of just 13 percent. The industry average is
59 percent! An employee was quoted as saying, “We actually have to open new markets
to create movement to give our employees an opportunity to advance because no one
leaves.”78
The Applying OB box addresses the important topic of rewards and teams.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
229Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Be Sure You Get the Outcomes You Desire
Rewards come in many forms, both financial and nonfinancial. But most fundamen-
tally rewards are exchanges—you are given this for doing that. At work you may be paid
a cash bonus or your commission rate may increase for performing above and beyond
your sales quota. While you are at school professors sometimes give you extra credit for
doing well in an assignment or course. But whatever the case, whoever provides the
reward should get what is desired or intended in exchange. There are three potential
outcomes from rewards:
1. Desired outcome. You get more of what you intended and for which you are rewarding
people.
2. Nothing. The reward can have no effect.
3. Undesired side effects. Rewards reinforce or motivate the wrong behaviors.
For example, doctors and hospitals in the U.S. health care system have historically been
compensated for the services they provide. This means providers make more money when
they run more tests and provide more treatments—postoperative infections and procedure-
related strokes are on average twice as profitable as cases that go smoothly. A study by
Harvard Medical School, Bain Consulting Group, and Texas Health Systems found:
Private-insurance and Medicare payments soared when surgeries went awry,
outpacing extra treatment costs. In one example, a complication during an intestinal
surgery . . . could lead to an intensive care stay, boosting payments five-fold. . . .
On average, procedures with complications netted $15,700 versus $7,600 for
procedures that went well.79
People should get paid for their expertise and work. But performance management is
part of both the cause and the solution to this enormous challenge. This example illus-
trates how the distribution of rewards can be both an input and a process in the Organizing
Framework.
The takeaway: Be sure your performance management system and associated rewards
produce the desired outcomes and be mindful of undesirable side effects.
Applying OB
money is allocated too, be sure teams and individ-
uals get the same.
2. Acknowledge assistance. Don’t take team mem-
bers’ help for granted. The supporting cast needs
to be explicitly recognized.
3. Show enthusiasm and fanfare. Be sure energy
and attention for team incentives matches that for
individuals.
4. Measure both! If teams are indeed valuable, create
and utilize effective means for measuring team
performance, just as you do for individuals.
Many companies and leaders trumpet the impor-
tance of teamwork—we win or lose together. Yet
most of these same companies reward individuals
and not teams. Such inconsistencies undermine
teamwork and the effectiveness of PM. If teamwork
is truly important, then the following recommenda-
tions can ensure that PM practices send consistent
signals.
1. Split 50-50. Awards, bonuses, and recognition
should be split evenly. If there is an employee of
the year, then be sure to have a team of the year. If
Put the “I” in Team with Appropriate Incentives
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
230 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Total and Alternative Rewards
Historically, rewards programs were simply a matter of combining compensation with
some mix of health insurance and vacation time. These of course still matter, but today
leading organizations are offering far more complex and personalized packages.80 Besides
the usual paycheck, the variety and magnitude of organizational rewards have evolved into
a mind-boggling array, such as fertility services, child adoption assistance, college tuition
reimbursement, college loan repayment, stock grants and options, and pet insurance. All
these are extrinsic rewards, and it is common for nonwage benefits to be 50 percent or
more of total compensation.
The current and broader perspective on compensation is referred to as “total
rewards.” Total rewards encompass not only compensation and benefits, but also
personal and professional growth opportunities and a motivating work environ-
ment that includes recognition, job design, and work–life balance. Table 6.6 lists and
describes the key components of a total rewards perspective.
This broader view of rewards has grown partly in reaction to stiffer competition and
challenging economic conditions, which have made it difficult for cost-conscious organiza-
tions to offer higher wages and more benefits each year. Employers have had to find alter-
native forms of rewards that cost less but still motivate employees to excel.
Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work list provides a treasure trove of some of the most
generous and interesting awards currently offered. Biotech giant Genentech was number
one in the salary category in 2019 at $205,000 per year (up from $180,000 in 2018).
This is far ahead of number two in the salary category, Atlassian, a software developer,
and the most valuable tech firm in Australia, which pays an average of $167,000.
Although that kind of money is certainly appealing, enterprise software company Work-
Day (#4 in 2019) is quite creative with alternative rewards. They provide unlimited time
off and onsite manicures, bike repairs, and car washes. And Wegman’s Food Markets, a
grocery store chain and #3 on Fortune’s list of Best Places to Work, spent $50 million on
employee development, $5 million on scholarships, and filled half of its open jobs inter-
nally. Baptist Health South Florida also was a clear believer in employee development
opportunities, as they filled 75 percent of their leadership positions with internal
candidates.82 See the OB in Action box for an especially generous and long-term
performance-oriented plan at Hilcorp.
COMPONENT DESCRIPTION
Compensation Base pay, merit pay, incentives, promotions, and pay
increases
Benefits Health and wellness care, savings and retirement
planning, and paid time off
Work–life effectiveness Policies and practices to help employees thrive at
work and home
Recognition Formal and informal programs that acknowledge
employee efforts and behaviors that support the
organization’s strategies and objectives
Talent development Training, career development, and other support nec-
essary to improve performance and advance careers
TABLE 6.6 Components of a Total Rewards Perspective81
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
231Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Bottom line: The most effective reward programs tend to align with employee
preferences. But we know that rewards often don’t work as intended—let’s explore why and
what to do about it.
Why Rewards Often Fail and How to Boost
Their Effectiveness
Here are some of the reasons rewards often fail to motivate.
1. Too much emphasis on monetary rewards.
2. Sense in recipient that extensive benefits are entitlements.
3. Fostering of counterproductive behavior (as discussed in Chapter 2).
4. Long delay between performance and reward.
5. One-size-fits-all rewards.
6. Use of one-shot rewards with short-lived motivational impact.
7. Continued use of demotivating practices such as layoffs, across-the-board raises and
cuts, and excessive executive compensation.86
Hilcorp is the largest independent energy explora-
tion and production company in the U.S. One of the
company’s core values is alignment. “When Hilcorp
wins, we all win” is how they state it on their web-
site.84 The company certainly seems to walk the talk
when it comes to compensation. CEO Greg Lalicker
describes it this way, “We want it to be in every-
body’s best interest that Hilcorp succeeds and, when
we do succeed, that everybody shares the rewards
equitably.”85 Sounds like he took this OB course.
Goal Alignment The company sets goals over periods
of five years, and oil exploration and production proj-
ects typically occur over the course of years. And if the
company meets those targets everybody is compen-
sated very generously. For instance, from 2006 to
2011, the goal was to double production from 40,000
barrels per day to 80,000, reserves from 125 million to
250 million, and double the value of the business from
$1 billion to $2 billion. Hilcorp met all of these targets!
Perhaps the only thing more impressive than dou-
bling these key performance metrics were the associ-
ated rewards. Every employee received $50,000 to
spend on a car. When the company met the goals for
2011 to 2015 each employee received $100,000
cash to spend how they wish. The rewards are pro-
rated for employees not at Hilcorp the entire period.
And That’s Not All Besides production goals, Hil-
corp rewards employees with annual bonuses up to
60 percent of an employee’s salary which are linked
to overall company performance, measured with
production rate, midstream income, operating costs,
and reserves.
Since safety is so fundamentally important In
many industries, especially oil and gas production,
you’d think the company would provide incentives or
bonuses linked to this. Nope. When asked about this
Mr. Lalicker said, “Safety is a requirement, not an
upside. If people aren’t working hard to operate
safely, then they are fired.”
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Describe three benefits of the reward practices
at Hilcorp. Explain not only the benefit but how
or why it works.
2. What are the downsides or potential challenges
with this program’s emphasis on organization-
level rewards?
3. Assume you are a founder and CEO of Hilcorp,
what you would you do when individual employ-
ees don’t perform in this system? Describe and
justify your actions.
A Car, $100,000, and There’s More Where That Came from at Hilcorp83
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
232 PART 1 Individual Behavior
One way to use these findings is as a checklist and determine to what extent your
employer’s, or another company’s, practices suffer from these shortcomings. Then apply
your new knowledge and help ensure that managers and employers get more for their
reward bucks!
How to Boost the Effectiveness of Rewards One means for improving the effec-
tiveness of almost any reward system is to involve employees in devising the system. Recall
the discussion of motivation and procedural justice in Chapter 5. Including employees in
the design, selection, and assessment of rewards programs increases the chance employees
will perceive the rewards as fair and valuable. (Valuable rewards are the valence outcomes
in expectancy theory from Chapter 5.) Involvement also fosters employee engagement—
discussed in Chapter 2—because it makes them feel valued.
A major and common problem with rewards is they don’t always work as intended.
The Problem-Solving Application provides an excellent example and opportunity to apply
your knowledge and build your skill.
Incentives, Performance, and Schools
Like organizations in other industries, the Houston
Independent School District (HISD) believed it could
direct, motivate, and improve performance with
monetary rewards. The goal was to improve the
skills and test scores of students at 40 underper-
forming schools.
Officials thought the underlying reasons for the
underperformance were low performing teachers,
as those at the target schools were twice as likely to
be rated “ineffective” or “needs improvement” than
in well-performing schools. Worse still, teachers at
these same schools were half as likely to be rated
“highly effective.” School district leaders reasoned
that offering money—$5000 signing bonuses—
would attract better teachers to the poor performing
schools.
Officials spent nearly $7 million to incentivize
highly rated teachers to move to the target schools
in the 2017–18 school year, and they planned to
spend a similar amount in 2018–2019. But there
was a problem—it didn’t work. The 40 schools expe-
rienced tremendous turnover—40–60 percent of
teachers at worst schools quit—but the teachers
who replaced them had nearly identical (poor) rat-
ings when they arrived.
This left officials scratching their heads. The dis-
mal results might have been due to the fact they
had no performance criteria for teachers to qualify
for the bonus and move to one of the 40 schools.
Moving to the worst performing schools could be
perceived as very risky, as highly rated teachers’
performance could drop in a more challenging,
underperforming school. Adding to the risk, some
teachers would presumably be giving up a position
at a “better” school. Of course, it also was possible
$5000 just wasn’t enough for many.87
Problem-Solving Application
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem HISD officials wanted to fix.
Step 2: Identify the potential causes of this problem. (Consider also the common reasons rewards fail
to motivate.)
Step 3: Make your recommendations.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
233Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Pay for Performance
Pay for performance comprises merit and/or bonus pay based on individual-,
group-, or organization-level measures and involving individual, group, or organiza-
tion rewards.88 Therefore, it is compensation above and beyond basic wages and salary,
and its use is consistent with the expectancy theory of motivation.89
Most often pay for performance is referred to as variable pay because it most depends
or varies based on some behavior or outcome, and variable pay has grown as a percentage
of total compensation for decades. PayScale’s Compensation Best Practices Report of
2018 revealed 71 percent of companies surveyed used some form of variable pay, and
79 percent of companies considered top-performing did.90 This means that over the course
of your career an increasing portion of your pay will be variable.
Pay for performance is used to align employees’ interests and behaviors with those of
the department and organization, as it links your behaviors and outcomes to objectives or
goals at some level.91 Figure 6.4 outlines the most commonly used types today, along with
the frequency of use according to size and type of company, and Figure 6.5 displays the
most common variable pay by job type.
FIGURE 6.4 Different Types of Variable Pay and Percentage and Size of Company
That Uses Each92
Types of Variable Pay by Organizational Size
0% 10%
2%
2%
2%
1%
17%
23%
24%
21%
26%
24%
26%
20%
32%
33%
31%
29%
50%
37%
21%
11%
52%
50%
39%
31%
54%
52%
50%
23%
67%
56%
38%
14%
71%
71%
70%
62%
4%
4%
3%
6%
20% 30% 40% 50%
% of Respondents
B
on
us
T
yp
e
60% 70% 80%
Individual Incentive Bonuses
Hiring Bonuses
Employee Referral Bonus
Spot Bonuses or Other
Retention Bonuses
Discretionary Bonus Programs
Company-wide Bonus
Team Incentive Bonuses
Profit Sharing
Market Premium Bonus
Other
Individual incentive
bonuses are most
prevalent for all org sizes
Small Mid Large Enterprise
SOURCE: PayScale, Inc. “Variable Pay Trends into 2018: Who Gets It, What Types and Why?” Accessed June 14, 2019.
https://www.payscale.com/compensation-today/2018/04/variable-pay-trends.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
234 PART 1 Individual Behavior
You’ll notice the most used types of variable pay are targeted at individual perfor-
mance, but as you climb in the organization and manage others variable pay increasingly
becomes linked to team and organization-level performance. Eighty-two percent of
executives’ variable pay is based on organizational performance, versus 43 percent for
nonmanagers. It also is more common for certain types of roles. Sales and management
roles are more likely to have outcomes appropriate for variable pay than are engineers or
accountants.93
A useful way to differentiate between types of pay for performance is whether they
reward past or future performance. Bonuses are most often given for past performance and
incentives are intended to motivate future performance. The most basic form of bonus pay
is the traditional piece-rate plan, wherein an employee is paid a specified amount of money
for each unit of work. Many online jobs are paid this way, such as the amount of data
entered, recordings transcribed, or customer service calls taken.94 Freelancer, for instance,
promotes itself as the “world’s largest online platform for finding jobs.” Users post the
details of work they want done and others bid on the work. This is a classic but contempo-
rary form of piece-rate work.95
Girl Scout cookies are another example. Approximately one million Girl Scouts sell
roughly 200 million boxes and generate $776 million. This is a lot of dough (we couldn’t
resist). Thin mint cookies are the perennial top seller, and the money stays where it is
earned. If the Scouts in your area sell more, their council keeps more for their own activi-
ties and projects.96
Sales commissions are one of the most popular incentives, wherein a specified per-
centage or amount of money is paid for particular or groups of transactions.
Jen Tadin, National Sales Director for Small Business at Gallagher, an insurance and
risk management company, uses a 60-40 plan. Sixty percent of sales rep’s compensation is
guaranteed in the form of salary, and 40 percent is available in commissions on sales. She
takes it a step further and links commission payouts to company goals, as well as client
retention, client count, and total revenue. Microsoft similarly aligns sales commissions
with company goals, specifically cloud computing and new customers.97
A word of caution regarding sales incentives is offered by Jason Jordan, of Vantage
Point Performance (sales consulting and coaching). Effective incentives should do two
FIGURE 6.5 Variable Pay by Type and Organizational Level
0%
Sales Employees
Non-Exempt Employees
Professional, Technical and
Administrative Exempt Employees
Directors and Managers
Executives
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Percent Using Variable Pay
Variable Pay by Organizational Level
% of Orgs That Pay Out Variable Pay on an Annual Basis
Bonus Incentive Commissions None
SOURCE: PayScale, Inc. “Variable Pay Trends into 2018: Who Gets It, What Types and Why?” Accessed June 14, 2019.
https://www.payscale.com/compensation-today/2018/04/variable-pay-trends.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
235Performance Management CHAPTER 6
things: motivate the right behaviors and reward successful outcomes. Too often leader-
ship designs incentive plans to do a third thing: discourage bad behaviors. Sales incen-
tives cannot take the place of sales management, so don’t try to use them as ‘managers in
absentia.’”98
Making Pay for Performance Work
As we’ve done throughout the book, we use research and practice to guide your learning.
Research shows mixed results for pay for performance—sometimes it increases perfor-
mance as intended, other times not, and like other rewards sometimes it creates undesir-
able outcomes. For instance, executives and the organizations they lead are increasingly
expected to deliver not only financial performance but also corporate social perfor-
mance. The little research that exists shows that simply setting social goals for executives
is not enough to improve the organization’s social performance outcomes. However, if
the targets are quantifiable (target percentage, amount, or other clear measures) and
linked to compensation, then social performance tends to improve.99 Although the
researchers did not examine this directly, it seems that making these goals SMART
makes a difference.
Companies with the best pay-for-performance results tend to:
• Pay top performers substantially more than their other employees.
• Reduce “gaming” of the system by increasing transparency.
• Utilize multiple measures of performance.
• Calibrate performance measures to ensure accuracy and consistency.100
Most experts agree it is critically important to ensure pay for performance practices fit
the situation and align with the organization’s strategy and culture.101
Now let’s learn the mechanisms by which rewards change our behavior, along with
how and when they are administered can make a difference.
Selling Girl Scout cookies is a famous form of piece-rate work. Each year Girl Scouts
sell approximately 200 million boxes and take in $776 million.
Andy Matsko/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
236 PART 1 Individual Behavior
6.6 REINFORCEMENT AND CONSEQUENCES
Providing consequences is the last component of the performance management process,
and the way rewards and consequences more generally are administered can make or
break performance management efforts. Effective use of these OB tools is particularly
important given that pay raises and promotions are often powerful career outcomes in the
Organizing Framework. They often influence perceptions of fairness, intentions of quit-
ting, emotions, and a range of behaviors at work. For instance, have you ever worked your
butt off and gotten results, yet neither your effort nor performance were acknowledged?
Have you ever witnessed a colleague, teammate, or friend be rewarded handsomely when
you think they didn’t deserve it? The answer to both questions is undoubtedly “yes,” and
as you thus know the resulting impact on your motivation and future performance can be
significant and negative.
To help you understand and use consequences effectively, we begin with behavior
modification and reinforcement techniques.
The Law of Effect—Linking Consequences
and Behaviors
In the early 1900s psychologist Edward L. Thorndike observed in his lab that a cat would
behave randomly when placed in a small box with a secret trip lever that opened a door.
However, once the cat had accidentally tripped the lever and escaped, it would go straight
to the lever when placed back in the box. This observation led to Thorndike’s now
famous law of effect, which says behavior with favorable consequences tends to be
repeated, and behavior with unfavorable consequences tends to disappear.102 This
was a dramatic departure from previous notions that behavior was the product of instincts.
Using Reinforcement to Condition Behavior
B. F. Skinner refined Thorndike’s work and developed what came to be known as behavior-
ism as he dealt strictly with observable behavior. He believed it was pointless to explain
behavior in terms of unobservable inner states, such as needs, drives, attitudes, or thought
processes. He instead drew an important distinction between two types of behavior:
respondent and operant behavior.103
Respondent behavior describes automatic reactions to stimuli, or stimulus-
response (S-R), like when you are startled by an unexpected loud noise or yank your hand
from a hot surface. These behaviors are obviously important, but not nearly as common
and consequential as operant behavior, behaviors that are learned and occur when
we “operate on” the environment to produce desired consequences. It can be help-
ful to think of this as response–stimulus (R–S) model or operant conditioning, as it describes
things we do to generate desired behaviors and are the essence of much of OB.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
In this section, you’ll learn about three especially effective and practical means for influenc-
ing your behavior and that of others: (1) the law of effect and the way it relates to respondent
and operant conditioning; (2) common types of reinforcement; and (3) the way managers can
increase the effectiveness of reinforcement using a variety of reinforcement schedules.
Use reinforcement
and consequences to
improve performance.
LO 6-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
237Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Contingent Consequences
According to Skinner’s operant theory, contin-
gent consequences control behavior in one of
four ways:
1. Positive reinforcement.
2. Negative reinforcement.
3. Punishment.
4. Extinction.
Of critical importance is the term contin-
gent, which means there is a purposeful if-
then link between the target behavior and the
consequence. You therefore should first think
of the target behavior and whether you want
to increase or decrease it, and then choose the
appropriate consequence (see Figure 6.6). We
next look more closely at the four types of
consequences.
Increase Desired Behaviors Positive
reinforcement is the process of strengthen-
ing a behavior by contingently presenting
something appealing. A behavior is strengthened when it increases in frequency and
weakened when it decreases in frequency. An excellent example comes from BP in the
years immediately following the horrific Deep Water Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of
Mexico. Newly appointed CEO Bob Dudley based 100 percent of employees’ variable pay
(bonuses) on safety for the fourth quarter of 2010.104 This was a reward or reinforcer for
safe behaviors—better safety, more money.
Negative reinforcement also strengthens a desired behavior by contingently
withdrawing something displeasing. Many probationary periods for new hires are
applications of negative reinforcement. During probation periods, often your first 30,
60, or 90 days on a new job, you need to have weekly meetings with your boss or have
somebody sign off on your work. Once you’ve demonstrated your skill these require-
ments are removed.
B. F. Skinner taught pigeons how to pace figure eights and how to bowl
by reinforcing the underweight (and thus hungry) birds with food when-
ever they more closely approximated target behaviors.
Bettmann/Getty Images
FIGURE 6.6 Contingent Consequences in Operant Conditioning
Nature of Consequence
Positive or Pleasing Negative or Displeasing
B
eh
av
io
r–
C
on
se
qu
en
ce
R
el
at
io
ns
hi
p
Contingent
Presentation
Contingent
Withdrawal
Positive Reinforcement
Behavioral outcome:
Target behavior occurs more often
Punishment
Behavioral outcome:
Target behavior occurs less often
Punishment (response cost)
Behavioral outcome:
Target behavior occurs less often
Negative Reinforcement
Behavioral outcome:
Target behavior occurs more often
(no contingent consequence)
Extinction
Behavioral outcome:
Target behavior occurs less often
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
238 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Unfortunately, most people confuse negative reinforcement with negative feedback,
which is a form of punishment. Negative reinforcement, as the word reinforcement
indicates, strengthens a desirable behavior because it provides relief from something
undesirable (paperwork, meetings, or yelling).
Decrease Undesired Behaviors Punishment is the process of weakening
behavior through either the contingent presentation of something displeasing or
the contingent withdrawal of something positive. The U.S. Department of Transporta-
tion now fines airlines up to $27,500 per passenger for planes left on the tarmac for more
than three hours. This policy reduced reported cases from 535 to 12 in the first year it was
implemented.105 Similarly, Allegiant Airlines was fined $225,000 for not keeping their
planes cool enough during tarmac delays.106
However, remember the possibility of unintended consequences mentioned earlier.
A study of the tarmac delay rule found it resulted in more cancelled flights, as airlines
tried to avoid fines. This of course requires passengers to find another flight costing
even more time.107
Approximately 51 percent of employers providing health insurance use money to motivate
employees to participate in wellness programs and health screening. For instance, a form
of negative reinforcement commonly used is the reduction of insurance premiums for
employees who participate. You’d rather not pay insurance premiums, which means
reducing premiums when you participate (get healthy) is contingently removing or limit-
ing those undesirable payments.108 Figure 6.7 shows the percentage of employers that
offer various types of incentives for health exams.
Be sure to remember punishment needs to be used sparingly and wisely. Perceptual
errors and biases you’ve learned about in previous chapters also apply to punishment.
Specifically:
1. Negative events are far more impactful on people than positive events. People typically
exert more energy to avoid losses and negative events than they do to receive positive
outcomes.
FIGURE 6.7
Among Large Firms O�ering Workers an Incentive to
Complete a Biometric Screening, Percentage of Firms with
Various Types of Incentives, by Firm Size, 2018
0%
Other
Additional Paid
Time O
Eligibility for Other
Wellness Rewards
Cash, HRA/HSA Contributions, or
Avoid a Payroll Deduction
Gift Cards, Merchandise,
or Ra€e Entries
Lower Premium Contributions
or Cost Sharing
10%
52%
46%
39%
36%
4%
4%
20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%
SOURCE: Kaiser Family Foundation. “2018 Employer Health Benefits Survey.” Accessed June 14, 2019. https://www.kff.org/
report-section/2018-employer-health-benefits-survey-summary-of-findings/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
239Performance Management CHAPTER 6
2. Negative events stick with us much longer than positive events. This means you are
likely to remember and be affected by punishment (demotion) or negative feedback
(poor performance review) much longer than a promotion or positive review.
3. Punishment is more likely to be informal, unless of course you are put on a perfor-
mance improvement plan or fired, and thus at the discretion of your manager. To
elaborate, organizations most often have established policies and practices for allocat-
ing rewards, but they rarely devote as much attention and formality to punishments.
One important implication is the use of punishments will be far more variable.109
Weakening a behavior by ignoring it or making sure it is not reinforced is
referred to as extinction. Not returning calls, unfriending, or otherwise not responding
are extinction tactics. A good analogy for extinction is the fate of your houseplants if you
stopped watering them. Like a plant without water, a behavior without occasional rein-
forcement eventually dies. Although they are very different processes, both punishment
and extinction have the same weakening effect on behavior.
The bottom line: Knowing the difference between these various forms of contingent
consequences provides you with numerous powerful tools with which to manage yourself
and others. Put another way, you just learned four tools for influencing behavior. Most
people think of and use only two—positive reinforcement and punishment (negative feed-
back). Apply your knowledge and get ahead!
Positive Reinforcement Schedules
You can supercharge or at least enhance the effectiveness of positive reinforcement
(rewards) by managing the timing or schedule of reinforcement. Continuous and intermit-
tent reinforcement schedules are two common means for timing the administration of
reinforcers.
Continuous Reinforcement If every instance of a target behavior is reinforced,
then a continuous reinforcement (CRF) schedule is in effect. Just as you train your
dog to do a new trick by providing a reward each time he or she does it successfully, CRF
Like dogs, humans respond to reinforcement. To make this work for you, identify
a behavior you want somebody to perform, and when they do be sure to shower
them with praise, recognition, or some other form of reward they value and tell
them it is because of what they did. The behavior will likely happen again.
Darkcloud/iStock/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
240 PART 1 Individual Behavior
schedules are especially useful when employees learn a new task or skill. Assume, for
instance, you are asked to conduct an analysis of the individual purchasing patterns of
your employer’s largest customers. Your manager could help you develop this skill by
giving you feedback as you complete the analysis for each customer. This feedback and
recognition reinforce your performance on this new task. However, you can see that while
this reinforcement is especially helpful and appreciated for the first few customer analyses,
it likely loses its effect after the 10th, 20th, and 30th customer. Enough already! This
scenario shows how CRF is susceptible to perceptions of entitlement and rapid extinction
if the link is broken.
One way to help guard against the fading benefit of reinforcers is to use intermittent
schedules. Intermittent reinforcement consists of reinforcement of some but not
all instances of a target behavior. Table 6.7 shows four subcategories of intermittent
schedules along with examples.
EXAMPLE Of the many reasons people don’t save enough money, one is motivation.
One way banks can motivate people to save is to utilize variable schedules in the same
way slot machines and lotteries do—provide an opportunity to win big. To illustrate,
assume your savings account balance averages $1,000 per month, and you earn
5 percent interest. One way to get you to maintain this balance and save even more is
to offer you an opportunity to win prizes of $50, $500, or $5,000 if you do. The trade-
off, however, is you only earn 3 percent guaranteed. Like the gambling games, people
are motivated to behave in ways with the potential to earn more. Of course, the devil is
in the details, but when managed appropriately by the bank, people are not gambling
away their money, but instead are maintaining higher average savings balances and
earning approximately the same guaranteed return (in this example, 5 percent).
Researchers at the University of Maryland have run experiments with similar results.110
TABLE 6.7 Reinforcement Schedules, Examples, Advantages, and Disadvantages
REINFORCEMENT
SCHEDULE
EXAMPLES
ADVANTAGES
DISADVANTAGES
Fixed ratio Piece-rate pay; bonuses
tied to the sale of a fixed
number of units
Clear and predictable link
between the behavior and
the reinforcer
Costly to monitor perfor-
mance and administer
reinforcers (like money);
reinforcers lose effect
over time
Variable ratio Slot machines that pay
after a variable number of
pulls; lotteries that pay
after a variable number of
tickets sold
Strong motivation to
continue until reinforcer is
received; less costly than
fixed ratio
Some desired behaviors
will not be rewarded;
potentially long periods
between reinforcers (such
as payouts)
Fixed interval Paychecks (every two
weeks or once a month);
annual bonuses; proba-
tionary periods
Clear and predictable link
between the behavior and
reinforcer; less costly than
fixed ratio
Inconsistent effort and
performance over the
interval (majority of effort/
performance occurs near
reinforcer)
Variable interval Random supervisor “pats
on the back”; spot
rewards; random audits
(financial); random drug
tests of athletes and
employees; pop quizzes
Consistent and strong moti-
vation to perform over time;
least costly schedule due to
relatively little monitoring
and administration
Some desired behaviors
will not be reinforced;
potentially long periods
between reinforcers
(payouts)
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
241Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Applying knowledge of biases and reinforcement you’ve learned in this course has
tremendous potential, as the Federal Reserve Bank reported 24 percent of Americans
don’t have access to $400, and not all of these people are poor.111
Organizations Typically Rely on the
Weakest Schedule
Variable ratio and variable interval schedules of reinforcement generally produce the
strongest behaviors and are most resistant to extinction. As gamblers will attest, vari-
able schedules hold the promise of reinforcement after the next roll of the dice, spin of
the wheel, or pull of the lever. Continuous and fixed schedules, in contrast, are the least
likely to elicit the desired response over time. Nevertheless, the majority of work orga-
nizations rely on fixed intervals of reinforcement, such as hourly wages and annual
reviews and raises.
Reinforcement Schedules and Performance Figure 6.8 illustrates the relative
effect of the schedules on performance over time. Consider three professors who teach
different sections of the same OB course. Assume their students are essentially equal in
age, experience, and GPAs across the three sections. This is the scenario:
• Professor Blue bases student grades solely on short quizzes given at the beginning of
every class (continuous reinforcement).
• Professor Black bases grades on a midterm and final exams of equal weight (fixed
interval).
• Professor Red uses a number of unannounced or pop quizzes (variable interval).
We expect the level of preparation for each class and overall academic performance
(preparation and learning) to follow the patterns in Figure 6.8. Professor Blue’s students
will start fast and prepare diligently for each class. However, they will then settle into a
routine and a common level of preparation. Over time they will figure out what is required
and do less. Some may even quit preparing once they have a clear sense of what their
overall grade will be.
The pattern for Professor Black’s students is all too common. They start slowly, know-
ing there is plenty of time before the midterm. When it grows near the intensity of their
preparation increases and some begin cramming. Once the midterm passes they discon-
nect for a while until they ramp up again for the final.
In contrast, Professor Red’s students will likely maintain a higher average level of
preparation throughout the course, because there is a chance they will have a pop quiz and
be graded in every session.
The bottom line: Students generally don’t like unannounced or pop quizzes. However,
if the professor’s goal is increased student preparation and learning, then variable-interval
grading is one means for generating a higher average level of student performance.
These same patterns and results apply in business settings too. For instance, many
sales and professional service jobs such as accounting and law have monthly numbers to
meet, like sales or billable hours. This often means employees get far more work done in
the last few days of the month than in the beginning (see Figure 6.8).
Practical Implications for Using the Strongest Schedule In general, any type
of consequence—whether reward or punishment—is more effective when administered near
the time of the behavior. Effectiveness wears off as time passes. You are unlikely to change
your professor’s grading format or the timing of your employer’s pay and bonus schedules;
however, there are many ways you can put your knowledge of positive reinforcement sched-
ules to use within the confines of existing practices.
Spot Rewards. Spot rewards are highly effective. If your coworker has worked
hard to make your project a success, recognize her efforts via an e-mail to the
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
242 PART 1 Individual Behavior
entire team including your manager. Your manager, in turn, may decide to give
Friday off to those who complete their current work satisfactorily and ahead of
schedule.
Variable Rewards/Bonuses. Entrepreneurs can especially benefit from applying
knowledge of reinforcement schedules. Assume you started your own business and,
like many new business owners, you are short on cash. You would like to provide
regular bonuses and pay raises, but you can afford monetary rewards only when
your company secures a new customer or a big order. The variable nature of these
rewards not only recognizes employees’ efforts and success, but also motivates
them to work hard in the future because they know that such efforts are recognized
and reinforced.
Celebrations. When it comes to school, we advocate celebrating and thus reinforc-
ing “victories,” such as completing a paper, achieving a good score on an exam,
and ending a semester in which you worked hard and performed well. Scattering
these reinforcers throughout the semester can help reenergize you to work hard in
the future, especially if you make these rewards contingent on good behavior and
outcomes.
All three of these examples apply to variable schedules, and we encourage you to think
of your own examples and consider their effectiveness. Reinforcement schedules, like the
larger process of performance management, are often limited only by your creativity and
willingness to apply your knowledge.
FIGURE 6.8 Reinforcement Schedules and Performance
Midterm Exam
30 Days
Time:
Pe
rf
or
m
an
ce
Final Exam
60 Days
Variable
Avg PerformanceVariable
Fixed
Avg PerformanceFixed
Continuous
Avg PerformanceContinuous
SOURCE: ©2014 Mel Fugate
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
243Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Applying knowledge and best practices related to PM is a way to get ahead throughout
your career, and to help you, we’ve distilled some pointed applications.
Takeaways for Me
There are five notable ways to excel as an employee.
1. Look for companies and managers with PM practices that align with your personal val-
ues, preferences, and aspirations: If you like continual feedback and large differentials
between top and low performers, find opportunities that match.
2. Compare what managers and organizations say they value and what they reward: Many
will say they value and reward performance, but they give everyone the same 3 percent
raise or promote people based on tenure rather than performance.
3. Use Table 6.2 to build your own goal commitment: This alone can set you apart from
the competition.
4. Ask for regular feedback if you’re not already given it: This step will help you avoid
surprises during your reviews and boost your performance in between.
5. Using Self-Assessment 6.2, identify the rewards you value most, then tell your managers
which available rewards you value most: Be sure to think broadly about rewards, and
don’t think only about the money. If you value time (vacation), autonomy (flexibility
to work from home), or development (tuition benefits), making these part of your
total rewards can enhance the value of your compensation.
Takeaways for Managers
There are seven takeaways that will prove useful as a manager.
1. Immediately increase your management effectiveness: Ensure that you set clear expecta-
tions and provide regular and effective feedback for those you manage.
2. Make explicit and clear links between the rewards you provide and the behaviors and/or
outcomes the rewards are intended to signal.
3. Practice the recommendations in Table 6.2 to boost goal commitment: This, along with
ensuring your people set SMART goals, will help set them up to win.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We conclude this chapter with a number of practical applications of PM knowledge and tools
to improve your effectiveness as both an employee and manager.
6.7 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I USE
GOALS, FEEDBACK, REWARDS, AND POSITIVE
REINFORCEMENT TO BOOST EFFECTIVENESS?
Describe the
implications of
performance
management for you
and managers.
LO 6-7
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
244 PART 1 Individual Behavior
4. Guard against common perceptual errors when evaluating performance: Be sure you
effectively measure the appropriate elements of performance (both quantitative and
qualitative) for a particular job and individual.
5. Provide more feedback: Apply what you learned here to make it more effective (see
Table 6.5) and focus on development more than evaluation. Feedback is a skill;
practice it and you’ll get better.
6. Be certain your rewards are delivering the intended outcomes: Clearly linking them to
expectations helps.
7. If teamwork is important and truly valued, then be certain your PM practices send such
signals.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
245Performance Management CHAPTER 6
In our coverage of performance management,
you learned how you can use goals, feedback,
rewards, and reinforcement to boost effective-
ness. Reinforce and consolidate your learning
with the Key Points and Organizing Framework.
Then challenge your mastery of the material by
completing the Problem-Solving Application Case
and Legal Challenge/Ethical.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 6
You learned the following key points.
6.1 THE ELEMENTS OF
EFFECTIVE PERFORMANCE
MANAGEMENT
• Effective performance management (PM) is a
process of defining, monitoring, reviewing,
and providing consequences.
• PM is often used for employee-related deci-
sions and development.
• Employee perceptions of the value and effec-
tiveness of PM are often very low.
6.2 HOW AND WHY GOAL
SETTING GIVES YOU AN
ADVANTAGE
• Goal setting is critical to effective PM.
• Both learning and performance goals can be
used.
• SMART goals are more likely to be achieved.
• Goal commitment, support and feedback, and
action plans foster goal achievement.
• PM can be improved using behavioral, objec-
tive, and task/project goals.
6.3 HOW MONITORING AND
EVALUATION CAN IMPROVE
YOUR PERFORMANCE AND
ABILITY TO MANAGE OTHERS
• Monitoring performance requires making
effective measurements of progress and
outcomes.
• Evaluation requires comparing performance
measures to expectations or goals.
• Performance evaluation is often hampered by
perceptual errors.
• Multi-rater or 360-degree feedback can make
performance evaluation more accurate.
6.4 APPLYING KNOWLEDGE OF
FEEDBACK AND COACHING
TO REVIEW AND IMPROVE
PERFORMANCE
• Two basic functions of feedback are to
instruct and motivate.
• Sources of feedback include others, the task,
and yourself.
• The effectiveness of positive and negative
feedback is greatly influenced by the receiv-
er’s perceptions.
• Coaching helps translate feedback into
desired change.
6.5 IMPLEMENTING REWARDS TO
GENERATE DESIRED
OUTCOMES
• Rewards can be extrinsic or intrinsic.
• Rewards are commonly distributed based on
results, behavior, and nonperformance con-
siderations.
• Total and alternative rewards are increasingly
common practices.
6.6 USING REINFORCEMENT
AND CONSEQUENCES TO
IMPROVE PERFORMANCE
• Providing contingent consequences is funda-
mental to effective reinforcement.
• Both positive and negative reinforcement
increase desired behaviors.
• Punishment and extinction both decrease
undesirable behaviors.
• The schedule on which reinforcers are
administered can increase their effectiveness.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
246 PART 1 Individual Behavior
outcome across the three levels of OB. At the indi-
vidual level these outcomes are task performance,
work attitudes, well-being/flourishing, citizenship
and counterproductive behaviors, turnover, career
outcomes, and creativity. Group and team-level
performance, along with group satisfaction, cohe-
sion, and conflict, are similarly related. As for the
organizational level, performance management
practices link to accounting/financial performance,
customer satisfaction, reputation, and even an
organization’s overall survival. Please observe the
roles of regulators, competition, and leadership as
inputs and processes affecting PM and its
associated outcomes.
6.7 HOW CAN I USE GOALS,
FEEDBACK, REWARDS, AND
POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT
TO BOOST EFFECTIVENESS?
• Knowledge and application for PM can guide
your efforts and set you apart from others.
• PM tools are invaluable for managers who
seek to realize the performance potential for
their employees and themselves.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 6
As shown in Figure 6.9, performance manage-
ment practices are associated with nearly every
FIGURE 6.9 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
Situation Factors
• Competition, Regulators,
and Leadership
Individual Level
• Performance management
practices
Group/Team Level
Organizational Level
• Leadership
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and
conflict
Organizational Level
• Survival
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Reputation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
247Performance Management CHAPTER 6
Money is an important tool for both attracting and moti-
vating talent. If you owned a company or were its CEO,
you would likely agree and choose performance man-
agement practices to deliver such outcomes. It also is
possible you’d use incentives to help align your
employees’ interests, behaviors, and performance with
those of the company. After all, countless companies
have used incentives very successfully, but not all.
The incentives used by Wells Fargo had disastrous
consequences for employees, customers, and the
company itself.
THE SCENARIO AND BEHAVIORS
A client enters a bank branch and opens a checking
account. The performance expectations of the banker
that helped open the account were to open eight
accounts for each customer, which meant he or she
needed to persuade that customer to open seven
additional accounts! This resulted in the banker then
attempting to open a savings account and maybe a
credit card account, simple enough. But the problem
happened when the customer left without opening
additional accounts and many bankers went ahead
and did so anyway without the customer’s consent.
Customers who had mortgages with the bank some-
times had insurance policies opened without their
knowledge. The bank also financed automobiles for
many customers, and insurance was also often added
unknowingly to these. Small business customers were
frequently overcharged for credit cards and other ser-
vices. More generally, customers for one product were
cross-sold other products, and along with many of
these additional accounts there were fees. The
increased number of accounts helped employees
meet their numbers, and the fees provided still more
income for the bank.112
Even after all of these efforts, many bankers still fell
short of their goals and opened accounts in family mem-
bers’ names. One branch manager opened 24 accounts
in her teenage daughter’s name and 21 In her hus-
band’s. Other reports include Wells Fargo bankers can-
vassing employees at stores in which they shopped.113
Pet insurance was added in some instances!114
Some sham accounts were closed once the
employee received credit, but many remained open,
charging fees and affecting customers’ credit.
THE DAMAGE TO CUSTOMERS
AND EMPLOYEES
Wells employees created approximately 3.5 million
fake accounts; even now precise numbers are difficult
to obtain. But it seems as if 1.5 million deposit and
500,000 credit card accounts were opened without
customer consent, and it erroneously foreclosed on
over 400 mortgages and repossessed thousands of
cars. Over 800,000 customers with auto loans were
charged for auto insurance.115 The list goes on.
The negative consequences within Wells Fargo also
have been enormous. CEO John Stumpf was ousted
along with former head of community banking, Carrie
Tolstedt. Seventy-five million dollars in compensation
was clawed back from these two executives, as it was
considered ill-gotten and due to illegal or at least
unprofessional behaviors. The same executives lost
additional millions in compensation, and approximately
5,300 employees were fired. Numerous regulatory
agencies fined Wells Fargo for nearly $200 million, the
company’s stock underperformed its competitors’, and
it is difficult to estimate the cost of damage to the com-
pany’s reputation and the resulting lost business.116
Above all, there are the incalculable costs to custom-
ers in money, frustration, ruined credit, lost vehicles,
and lost homes.
THE CULPRITS
Much of this carnage has now been attributed to per-
verse incentives and poor leadership. Investigations
revealed that both Stumpf and Tolstedt were well aware
of these unethical behaviors, but they turned a blind
eye or even encouraged these behaviors. It was
reported that Tolstedt repeatedly denied and resisted
complaints about goals being unachievable and prob-
lematic.117 But what about the thousands of employees
that actually opened the accounts? When writing about
the Wells Fargo scandal, Professor Elizabeth Tippett
noted, “Research suggests that ethical behavior is not
about who you are or the values you hold. Behavior is
often a function of the situation in which you make the
decision, even factors you barely notice.”118
Another interesting detail regarding performance
expectations is that the eight-account expectation for
every customer was only three 10 years earlier. It also
is important to note that this sort of cross-selling
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Incentives Gone Wrong, Then Wrong Again,
and Wrong Again
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
248 PART 1 Individual Behavior
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
that are not explicitly included in the case itself.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current
chapter, because we generally select cases that
illustrate concepts in the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify what are the
causes of the problem you identified in Step 1?
Remember, causes tend to appear in either the Inputs
or Processes boxes.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 6.9) and determine which person factors,
if any, are most likely causes to the defined
problem. For each cause, explain why this is a
cause of the problem. Asking why multiple times
is more likely to lead you to root causes of the
problem. There may be few or no person factors
but be sure to consider them. For example, did
attributes of the leaders or other employees
contribute to the problems defined in Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, Why is this a cause?
For example, leadership at the executive and
other levels might have some effect on the prob-
lem you defined. Aside from performance man-
agement, did other HR practices contribute to
the problem? If you agree, which specific prac-
tices and why? By following the process of ask-
ing why multiple times you are likely to arrive at
a more complete and accurate set of causes.
Again, look to the Organizing Framework for this
chapter for guidance.
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organiz-
ing Framework. Performance management pro-
cesses are clearly part of the story, but are any
other processes at the individual, group/team, or
organizational level that caused your defined
problem? For any process you consider, ask
yourself, why is this a cause? Again, do this for
several iterations to arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem and confirm the link or cause and effect
connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make your recommendations for solving the problem,
considering whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is
desirable and feasible?
(multiple products to the same customer) was some-
thing Wells was known for and contributed to its past
success. It’s been reported that the reason for eight
instead of another number was that CEO Stumpf said it
rhymed with “great.”
ACTIONS
To be fair, numerous examples exist of Wells Fargo
management explicitly instructing employees not to
engage in such activities, including ethics training and
the deployment of risk professionals to identify and
correct inappropriate conduct. But this obviously
wasn’t enough, and even though employees were
expected to report any misdeeds, they didn’t. Incen-
tives stayed in place and employees continued to be
pressured and even fired if they did not make their
sales quotas. Some involved in the scandal argued it
isn’t the employees’ fault, they needed a paycheck
and this is what their employer required.119 Tim Sloan,
who worked at Wells for decades, was inserted as the
new CEO and charged with cleaning up the mess,
restoring the bank’s reputation, and warding off a
potential new $1 billion fine.120
Sloan worked in the role for two years before step-
ping down in 2019, presumably for not being able to
turn things around.121 Whoever replaces him has the
same challenges. Assume you are the new CEO, what
would you do?
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
Use the Organizing Framework in Figure 6.9 and the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify
inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first to the Outcome box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 6.9 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember
that a problem is a gap between a desired and
current state. State your problem as a gap and
be sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
accomplished, decide which one is most impor-
tant and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are
generally viewed from a particular player’s
perspective. You need to determine from whose
perspective—employee, manager, team, or the
organization—you’re defining the problem. As in
other cases, whether you choose the individual
or organizational level in this case can make a
difference. In this case you’re asked to assume
the role of the new CEO.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
249Performance Management CHAPTER 6
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors, as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your recom-
mendations, and be sure your recommendations
map onto the causes and resolve the problem.
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use material in the
current chapter that best suits the cause.
Remember to consider the OB in Action and
Applying OB boxes, because these contain
insights into what others have done.
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
What Is Your Current Salary?
For eons it’s been standard operating procedure to
ask job candidates: “What is your current salary?” The
motives for this question are obvious. If your current
salary is beyond that budgeted for the job you’re inter-
viewing for, then employers often and quickly exclude
you from the candidate pool, while those with lower
current salaries are assumed to be more likely to
accept an offer.
This Practice Is Damaging
This is changing, however, as legislators in multiple
states have outlawed companies from asking about job
candidates’ salary histories. Policymakers’ motives are to
help eliminate one factor contributing to persistent gen-
der and minority compensation disparities. In support,
Susie Clark, director of undergraduate studies at the Uni-
versity of Indiana’s Kelley School of Business, says:
“Gender pay inequality will go on forever if we don’t do
something.” Eliminating the question about salary is
expected to focus employers’ attention on job qualifica-
tions, such as skills, abilities, and experience, and to use
market data to set pay. Put differently, the argument by
some is employers should not be making offer decisions
based on a candidate’s current or past pay.
Such Changes Would Be Ineffective
Many HR experts and executives disagree and argue
banning the box will not have the desired effect of reduc-
ing unwarranted pay disparities. They further argue it is
reasonable and necessary for employers to learn during
the interviewing process if they can reasonably expect
to meet a candidate’s pay expectations.
Alternatives Already Exist
Some companies and HR managers have already
devised and implemented alternatives, particularly in
instances when considerable and accurate market
data exists. This information enables them to confi-
dently “price” jobs. Still other employers determine
and implement pay ranges which allow for some
adjustment based on an individual’s qualifications.122
But neither of these provide insights into candidate
expectations.
What Would You Do?
Assume you are the person responsible for setting the
practices at your company, what would you recommend?
1. Would you eliminate such questions from your
hiring process? Defend your choice.
2. Describe how you would implement this prac-
tice, and explain your rationale.
3. Given your response to #1, assume the law
changed in your state and requires you do the
opposite. Describe how you would effectively
implement that practice.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 7-1 Explain the benefits of positive organizational behavior.
LO 7-2 Apply knowledge of positive emotions to enhance your effectiveness.
LO 7-3 Understand how to foster mindfulness.
LO 7-4 Describe how psychological capital and signature strengths can improve
outcomes at work.
LO 7-5 Develop a climate that promotes positive organizational behavior.
LO 7-6 Create the conditions for flourishing in your job and career.
LO 7-7 Describe the implications of positive organizational behavior for you and
managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Figure 7.1 summarizes what you will learn in this chapter. The focus is on positive organizational
behavior and how positive inputs and processes influence a host of outcomes across levels of
OB. The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB illustrates how person fac-
tors such as mindfulness, psychological capital, and signature strengths form the basis for posi-
tive functioning at work. A variety of situation factors also affect the positivity of an organization’s
processes. They include organizational culture, organizational climate, organizational values,
virtuous leadership, and organizational practices. In turn the inputs and processes shown in the
Organizing Framework influence a host of outcomes at the individual, group/team, and organi-
zational level. Most importantly, you will learn about a valuable new individual-level outcome
labeled flourishing. Flourishing is a contemporary way of describing success or positive func-
tioning at work.
7 Positive Organizational Behavior
C
ai
a
Im
ag
e/
Im
ag
e
So
ur
ce
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
251Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Emotions
• Mindfulness
• Psychological capital
• Signature strengths
Situation Factors
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
• Organizational values
• Virtuous leadership
• Organizational practices
Individual Level
• Communication
• Decision making discretion
• Interpersonal conflict
Group/Team Level
• Communication
• Civility
• Group Dynamics
Organizational Level
• Communication
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Flourishing
• Physical health
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group/team cohesion and
conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Organizational performance
• Customer satisfaction
FIGURE 7.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
SOURCE: ©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Flourishing is at the core of positive organizational behavior. We flourish when our lives
contain positive emotions, engagement in our work, positive relationships with others,
meaningfulness, and a sense of achievement. It is safe to assume that many people work-
ing for and with NASA were flourishing when the Insight Lander successfully landed on
Mars in late 2018. The flight was 300 million miles over six months, but the journey was
much longer. Numerous employees have been working on this project for decades, includ-
ing one member of the NASA team who helped conceive of this project 40 years ago!1
Source: NASA/Bill Ingalls.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
252
Winning at Work
Boosting Your Performance with Positivity2
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
We’re concluding Part One of the book and our dis-
cussion of the individual level by introducing you to
one of the most exciting and fastest-growing areas
of OB, positive organizational behavior (POB).
Research suggests you can enhance your life and
job satisfaction by following some of the ideas pre-
sented in this chapter. We explore the value of posi-
tive organizational behavior and expand on several
elements to help you foster personal positivity. Posi-
tive emotions are one such element (an individual-
level process), as are mindfulness (a person input),
positive psychological capital (a person input), and
organizational climate (a situation factor). Com-
bined, these elements create a positive workplace
environment and enable people, teams, and organi-
zations to flourish. Flourishing is the ultimate individ-
ual-level outcome of POB and consists of positive
emotions, engagement, constructive relationships,
meaningfulness, and achievement.
Your performance at work and throughout your career is
dependent in large part on influencing others (a primary
focus of Chapter 12), and people are attracted to positivity.
It is energizing to you, your work, and to others. Be an
energizing force and improve your own performance and
ability to influence others.
Engagement is a key driver of performance at all levels—
you, your team, and your organization. Key drivers of
engagement are relationships, and positivity is an excellent
way to cultivate productive relationships, so you are well
served to learn how to use positivity. The rationale behind
this approach is best explained in Shawn Anchor’s TED Talk,
wherein he describes how happiness leads to success,
rather than the other way around. Further, as you have
already learned, he explains how emotions are contagious
and people like positivity. So, how do you use positivity to
improve relationships, engagement, and performance?
1. Smile. It’s that simple and the best place to start. An-
chor illustrates how the 10 & 5 tool is used widely
within the hotel industry to foster positive interactions
with guests. In short, if a guest is within 10 feet make
eye contact and smile. If a guest is within five feet
make eye contact, smile, and say hello or, how are
you? Research in the hospital setting showed doctors
and nurses who practice the 10 & 5 rule boosted em-
ployee and patient satisfaction.
2. Have Purpose. “Happiness Is working hard at work
worth doing.” Influence yourself and others by ensur-
ing you have a clear and compelling reason for doing
what you’re doing. As you learned in Chapter 5, mean-
ingfulness and impact on others are two ways to boost
intrinsic motivation. If you don’t know how or why your
own work makes an impact, then work with your su-
pervisor to better understand. When asking someone
else to help or to assist with something, be sure to
communicate the purpose and potential impact they
and their work will have.
3. Encourage and Praise. Feedback is one form, recogni-
tion is another, but what is important is to observe and
acknowledge the efforts and outcomes of others.
4. Say Thank You. It is that simple. Be polite and say
thank you.
5. Celebrate. Celebrate wins big and small, as well as
progress and accomplishments. It is important to ac-
knowledge and celebrate progress and accomplish-
ments. As you learned about goal setting In Chapter 6,
don’t wait until the final outcome is known, but instead
congratulate people for their efforts along the way.
These small celebrations can help motivate you and
others to stay the course and perform better.
LWA/Larry Williams/Blend Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
253Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You can benefit at school and at work by understanding positive organizational behavior
(positive OB or POB), a purposefully positive approach to managing the behavior of individu-
als, groups, and organizations. You’ll see some of these potential benefits when you explore
three ways in which positive OB affects a broad set of outcomes contained in the Organizing
Framework of OB.
7.1 THE VALUE OF POSITIVITY
Positive OB focuses on positive human characteristics that can be measured,
developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement.3 It Is an off-
shoot of positive psychology and positive organizational scholarship, and like these,
focuses on building positive qualities in and positive outcomes for individuals, groups, and
organizations. Positive OB contrasts with the historical concentration in these disciplines
on sickness and dysfunction in people and organizations.4 The differences are highlighted
in the following hypothetical scenarios.
Two Scenarios—Which Do You Prefer?
Let’s set the stage by describing two scenarios included in an early presentation of positive
organizational behavior (POB).
First Scenario “Imagine a world in which almost all organizations are typified by
greed, selfishness, manipulation, secrecy, and a single-minded focus on winning.”5
Wealth is the ultimate measure of success, feelings of distrust, anxiety, self-absorp-
tion, fear, burnout, and abuse are common. Members often experience conflict,
treat each other disrespectfully, and break agreements with each other. Employees
in this context focus on problem solving, managing uncertainty, overcoming resis-
tance, achieving profitability, and figuring out how to beat the competition.
Second Scenario Now imagine a world in which appreciation, collaboration, virtu-
ousness, vitality, and meaningfulness are the rule. Well-being and thriving are the
markers for success among individuals, groups, and organizations alike. Trustwor-
thiness, resilience, wisdom, humility, and positive energy are common features.
Relationships and interactions are described as compassionate, loyal, honest,
respectful, and forgiving. Employees emphasize excellence, positive deviance,
extraordinary performance, and positive spirals of flourishing.
A Matter of Emphasis Rather than Rejection of Business Realities Many pro-
fessionals who first encounter positive organizational behavior assume it simply rejects the
realities in the first scenario: the need to solve problems, manage uncertainty, overcome
resistance, achieve profitability, and compete successfully. But something else is happening.
Positive organizational behavior “does not reject the value and significance of the
phenomena in the first worldview. Rather, it emphasizes the phenomena represented in the
second.”6 We will show you how identifying and applying the many positive attributes of
individuals, groups, and organizations is yet another powerful way of increasing your effec-
tiveness professionally and personally.
Explain the benefits of
positive organizational
behavior.
LO 7-1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
254 PART 1 Individual Behavior
A Framework for Positivity
We created Figure 7.2 to help organize, understand, and apply your knowledge of POB. As
you recall from the Organizing Framework of OB, person and situation factor inputs influ-
ence processes and outcomes across levels. Similarly, in Figure 7.2, positive emotions,
mindfulness, psychological capital, and signature strengths are the inputs that help create
positivity from person factors, and organizational climate is an input that helps create
positivity from situation factors. Positivity from these two sources contribute to positive
outcomes across levels of OB.
Taking this a step further, positive outcomes are generated through three pro-
cesses: the amplifying effect, the buffering effect, and the positivity effect. Let’s discuss
each.
Amplifying Effect In the amplifying effect, positive practices from one individual
result in additional positive practices by others, which spur positivity in others,
which generate other positive outcomes. The amplifying effect is often conveyed via
positive emotions and social capital (your relationships and network). The idea is positiv-
ity fuels more positivity, such that both the receiver and witnesses of kind acts are likely to
perform kind acts of their own. This results in reinforcing cycles or upward spirals of positiv-
ity. Such behaviors can then transform organizations into more compassionate and harmo-
nious places, while improving interpersonal interactions, collaboration, information
sharing, and efficiency.7
This perspective on positive emotions is called the broaden-and-build theory, which
proposes positive emotions broaden our attention and make us more open to experience.
Positive
Emotions
Mindfulness Positivity fromPerson Factors
Positivity from
Situation Factors
Psychological
Capital and
Signature
Strengths
Positive
Outcomes across
Levels of OB
Organizational
Culture and
Climate
FIGURE 7.2 A Framework of Positive OB
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
255Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
These are self-reinforcing—more creates more—resulting in upward spirals of additional
positive emotions and actions. For instance, employees who supported and trusted their
coworkers received support and trust in return. This may not surprise you; we all hope
to reap what we sow. However, the positive spiral is notable. Support and trust resulted
in even more support and trust in return.8 One implication for you is if you want some-
thing, then give something. If you want more, give more. Do your own experiment and
find out.
People are more likely to exhibit prosocial behaviors when positive OB is taking
place in their work environments. Prosocial behaviors are positive acts performed
without the expectation of anything in return.9 A striking and heart-warming exam-
ple was provided by Laura Mazur and Jessica Robertson in the 2019 Pittsburgh Mara-
thon. The two women who did not know each other were the last runners on the course
when they joined hands at about mile 25. They
supported each other to the finish line in an exhi-
bition of prosocial behavior that went viral.
Another racer who finished already and watched
Mazur and Robertson said, “it isn’t about finishing
first, it’s about helping each and every person
change their lives for the better.”10
Buffering Effect To buffer means to reduce or
counteract the effects of a negative force. In the
buffering effect, positive practices and resources
reduce the impact of negative events and stress-
ors. When we are confronted with stressors or other-
wise undesirable experiences, we utilize various
social and personal resources to buffer or cope with
them.11 At work, we use social support from helpful
coworkers to cope, and/or we may use personal
resources such as psychological capital described
later in this chapter.
Positivity Effect The positivity effect “is the
attraction of all living systems toward positive
energy and away from negative energy, or
toward that which is life giving and away from
that which is life depleting.”12 Organizations
using positive practices are more likely to create an
atmosphere of positive energy, which in turn fuels
performance,13 such as financial, work climate
(more on this later in the chapter), turnover, patient
satisfaction, employee participation, and managerial
support.14
The Benefits of Positive OB Extend Beyond
Good Performance
Positive OB is more than seeing the good side of people, sharing examples of good
performance, or treating employees well. Positive OB focuses on creating exceptionally
positive inputs, processes, and outcomes at all levels in the Organizing Framework.
Exceptionally positive means above and beyond expectations, more than making the
grade. This level of achievement is referred to as positive deviance. Gretchen Spreitzer
and Kim Cameron from the University of Michigan describe positive deviance
Laura Mazur and Jessica Robertson, two strangers,
finished the final mile of the Pittsburgh Marathon
holding hands. They were the last runners on the
course and bonded together to help each other com-
plete the race. Helping others, especially when you
expect nothing in return, has been shown both to
make you feel better and motivate those people to
help others.
Courtesy of Daniel Heckert
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
256 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Applying OB
Because behavior is a product of our emotions,
thoughts, beliefs, and experiences, it makes sense that
managing these internal responses can improve our
performance. Try these suggestions:
• Set intentions. Intentions are the end point or
goal you want to achieve. They drive your behav-
ior.16 If you want to accomplish a specific result on
a given day, start your day with a positive intention
to do so. Set your intentions around tasks and
people that matter to you.
• Express gratitude to someone. We are healthier
both physically and mentally when we express
gratitude. People receiving gratitude report these
same positive outcomes.17 Your expression of
thanks might be a small gesture, like thanking
someone for holding a door open while you pass,
or it can also be bigger like starting a college
scholarship to assist others in financial need. You
can keep a gratitude journal at your bedside and
write down one or two things each day that went
well or write a thank-you note to someone. The
point is to look for positive actions by others and
acknowledge them.
• Do something helpful or positive for other peo-
ple. You do not have to give a tangible gift, but
instead offer someone a kind or positive gesture
as a smile, a compliment, or words of encourage-
ment. Volumes of research show helping others is
one of the most fulfilling things you can do. The
more you give, the more you’ll get.18
• Become more hopeful. “Hope is believing the
future will be better than the present and you
have some power to make it happen.”19 The fol-
lowing process was found to increase hopefulness
for college students: Identify an important goal,
identify different ways to achieve the goal, identify
obstacles to each pathway and develop a plan for
overcoming these roadblocks, and work the
plan.20 Taking these steps should give you a sense
of hope and control.
How to Build Positivity and Your Success
The Applying OB box describes ways you can insert positivity into your life, generally,
and at work.
as “successful performance that dramatically exceeds the norm in a positive
direction.”15 The relative effects of deviance at the individual and organizational levels
are illustrated in Figure 7.3.
SOURCE: M. Meyer, “The Evolution and Challenges of the Concept of Organizational Virtuousness in Positive Organizational
Scholarship,” Journal of Business Ethics, 153, 2018, 245–264. IN Cameron and Caza (2002, p. 35)
FIGURE 7.3 A Continuum Illustrating Positive Deviance
Negative Deviance
Individual:
Physiological
Psychological
Organizational:
E�ectiveness
E�ciency
Quality
Ethics
Relationships
Adaptation
Ine�ective
Ine
cient
Error-prone
Unethical
Harmful
Threat-rigidity
E�ective
E
cient
Reliable
Ethical
Helpful
Coping
Excellent
Extraordinary
Perfect
Benevolent
Honoring
Flourishing
Illness
Illness
Health
Health
Olympic Fitness
Flow
Positive DevianceNormal
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
257Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
TABLE 7.1 Positive OB Practices That Foster Employee Positivity
ORGANIZATIONAL
PRACTICE DESCRIPTION AND BENEFIT
Provide decision-
making discretion
Allowing employees to make decisions gives them a sense of
control and greater opportunities for learning.
Share information Information helps employees see the impact of their work
and how it fits into the big picture, like the vision and goals of
the organization.
Minimize incivility Poor treatment, for example bullying and rude behavior, has
dramatic negative effects on outcomes in the Organizing
Framework and often leads to uncivil behavior by the victims.
Organizations need to select employees based on civility and
take swift and appropriate action when incivility occurs.
Provide feedback Feedback can be motivational and instructional.
SOURCE: Spreitzer, Gretchen, and Christine Porath. “Creating Sustainable Performance.” Harvard Business Review, January
2012. https://hbr.org/2012/01/creating-sustainable-performance.
Positively Deviant Employees Aren’t Just Happy and Satisfied—They Are
Much, Much More Job satisfaction is an important outcome in the Organizing
Framework. However, you have also learned job satisfaction is not the strongest or
best predictor of job performance. Positive OB provides you with additional useful
insights beyond job satisfaction and other attitudes that predict performance. For
instance, a study published in the Harvard Business Review showed employees who
flourish (a key positive outcome of positive OB shown in Figure 7.2 and discussed
later) reported:
• 16 percent higher overall performance.
• 125 percent less burnout.
• 32 percent more commitment to their employers.
• 46 percent more job satisfaction.
• Fewer sick days.22
These outcomes are compelling. Organizations can foster positive deviance in employees
in a number of ways, such as those described in Table 7.1.23
Doing Well and Doing Good Positive businesses do well, and they do good. They do
well by being profitable and performing at a high level, but they also do good by making the
well-being of their employees and other stakeholders (suppliers, customers, and communities)
a priority.
• Focus on the positive side of life. Negative
thoughts and worry are prime enemies of staying
focused in the present moment. We often worry
about things we can’t control, including events in
the past. Don’t worry about the past or what you
can’t control, instead try to stay focused on what is
happening in the present moment.
• Be aware of negative thoughts and beliefs. The
brain has a built-in negativity bias. This allows
negative events to have more impact on us
than positive ones, and we often think bad infor-
mation about someone is more important than
positive information.21 If you find yourself focus-
ing on negativity, try to reframe your thoughts in
a positive direction. For example, rather than
worrying about your level of performance on an
exam, tell yourself you are prepared and will do
just fine.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
258 PART 1 Individual Behavior
This positive approach to business is now mainstream. For example, Fortune magazine
has published a list of companies that are not altruistic—doing good for goodness’s sake—
but that are nevertheless solving major problems profitably. These meet three criteria:
1. Measurable Social Impact. Fortune assessed the magnitude and lasting nature of the
company’s impact on a notable societal problem.
2. Business Results. How does the company benefit? Shareholder return factors heavily.
It isn’t enough to receive good PR and reputational benefits.
3. Degree of Innovation. It isn’t enough to do good and do so profitably, it also is impor-
tant to do so creatively, differently from others.24
Good to Employees = Good to Shareholders Positive organizations empower,
support, and develop employees not just because leaders believe doing so is valuable in and
of itself, but because it helps meet shareholder expectations. Kip Tindell, founder of the
Container Store, reflects this belief in his philosophy about the value of employees:
One great employee is equal to three good ones. If you really believe that, a lot of
things happen. We try to pay 50 to 100 percent above industry average. That’s good
for the employee, that’s good for the customer, but it’s good for the company too,
because you get three times the productivity at only two times the labor cost.25
Doing good can enhance well-being, even in the absence of a monetary reward, and it can
happen at all levels in the Organizing Framework.
• Individual Level Joe Ryan started his own company, and rather than the common
label of CEO he instead chose CFE—chief fun engineer. He thought this label
aligned better with the nature of the company—party-games—and his actual respon-
sibilities. It also is a great conversation tool, enabling him to explain and promote
his business to others.26
• Team/Unit Level CSAA Insurance Group from California has a unique proposi-
tion for employees. If you work for us you’ll spend multiple weekends per year vol-
unteering in some of the nation’s best national parks. Hundreds of the company’s
employees travel in teams to help with beautification and cleanup projects. For this
they get Friday as a paid day off and spend the weekend camping and helping. This
aligns with the company mantra—“taking care of business means taking care of each
other.” Volunteering is included in leaders’ performance expectations, and in 2018
the goal was 80 percent employee participation in volunteering. They achieved
99 percent!27
• Organizational Level Walmart has made reducing waste a major focus, so much so
it has diverted approximately 78 percent of the waste it produces away from land-
fills.28 It has done this via recycling, packaging design and materials, and food dis-
posal, and is influencing its suppliers to do the same. The company’s philosophy is
that any waste is bad, and it is trying to close the loop by making products circular,
meaning the energy, packaging, and products themselves are captured and put back
into the system.29
Give in Order to Get Giving financially doesn’t necessarily detract from outcomes.
Researchers studied the links between the amount of discounted care and the quality of all
care provided by a number of hospitals in Southern California. Discounted care is given to
those who cannot pay or can pay only a reduced rate; sometimes it amounts to a financial
loss for the hospital. The researchers found hospitals that provided more discounted care
also reported lower incidences of pneumonia and heart failure, as well as better surgical
outcomes and fewer readmissions.30 This seems to suggest altruism and high performance
are not mutually exclusive.
Notions of positivity are catching on with Wall Street too, as illustrated in the OB in
Action box.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
259Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Socially responsible investing is nothing new, it’s
decades-old in fact. However, it’s finally lost its
stigma and is now recognized as a viable and profit-
able approach to investing. Financial instruments
with a green and responsible focus are referred to
as environmental, social, and governance (ESG).
Ample evidence now exists showing that compa-
nies can be very profitable by considering the envi-
ronment, communities, and employees in their
decisions.31
Bank of America and Merrill Lynch found that
approximately 20% of all investors, and 50% of
those with a longer time horizon, consider ESG
issues in their decisions, demonstrating there is suf-
ficient demand for such considerations. In support
of this focus, McKinsey studied mid-large compa-
nies between 2001 in 2014 who manage with a
long-term approach, which means they consistently
invest profits back into their business through peo-
ple and R&D. They found these companies per-
formed substantially better than their peer group:
47% greater revenue growth and 36% greater profit.
As one investor put it, “investments chosen with
social concerns in mind proved ‘more resilient and
less risky.’ ”32
ESG investing is no longer just for do-gooders
and tree huggers. Some titans of the investment
world have gotten behind it, including billionaire
investor Paul Tudor Jones II. In 2012 he started a
foundation, Just Capital, to develop a series of cor-
porate performance measures including things other
than dollars and cents, like how workers are treated
and job creation.
In the beginning, Just Capital produced only a
list, but then Goldman Sachs used these metrics to
create a new exchange traded fund as part of its
social impact efforts. The fund includes a selection
of Russell 1000 companies and tracks the top per-
formers in each industry based on Just Capitals’
measures, which now include metrics related to
workers, customers, products, environment, jobs,
communities, and management. In its first year the
top performers were only tech companies: Intel,
Texas Instruments, NVidia, Microsoft, and IBM.
Just Capital says the companies in the fund out-
performed their peer group impressively and in
socially conscious ways. They paid 71 percent less
in fines for consumer complaints and violations,
94 percent less in equal employment opportunity
commission fines, and produced 45 percent lower
greenhouse gases. And to top it off, they created
20 percent more jobs in their peer group.33
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What are the pros and cons of ESG investing?
2. Assume you are a money manager, explain why
you would or would not consider ESG factors in
your investing? Be sure to include at least two
reasons for each argument.
3. Do you think this approach will continue to be
effective over time? Explain.
How Do You Spell Green? ESG.
OB in Action
Balancing the needs of multiple stakeholders—employees, customers, communities,
and investors—is a major challenge. Despite what particular leaders may say, most give
clear priority to one, often at the expense of the others. But some truly attempt to satisfy
all stakeholders. A glowing example is Salesforce, which ranked #2 on Fortune’s Best
Places to Work list in 2019.34 This company continues to deliver impressive results for
many of its stakeholders. For employees, it spent $3 million to help establish pay equity,
and it provides unlimited vacation time and paid sabbaticals among many other attrac-
tive benefits. It invests in communities by providing each employee seven days per year
to devote to a cause they choose, and it matches up to $5,000 in charitable giving.35
Whether these practices have actually attracted investors isn’t exactly clear, but what is
clear is it hasn’t scared them away. The company’s stock is a long-time favorite among
tech investors.
However, positive approaches to doing business aren’t without difficulties. The follow-
ing Problem-Solving Application describes challenges Whole Foods has had maintaining
its doing well by doing good philosophy since being acquired by Amazon in 2017.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
260 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Whole Foods vs. Whole Amazon
Investigative journalist Michael Blanding put it best,
“Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods . . . was the
corporate equivalent of mixing tap water with
organic extra virgin olive oil. You’d be hard-pressed
to find two companies with more different value
propositions.”36 Stories quickly emerged about
Whole Foods customers unhappy about the
changes at their favorite organic retailer, and they
weren’t the only ones complaining. Similar negative
stories emerged from employees regarding the
new performance-driven expectations imposed by
Amazon.
Immediate Impact After the acquisition,
Amazon’s presence was immediately felt. In addition
to plastering its logo everywhere In Whole Foods
stores, it also used its strengths in data and data
analysis to determine appropriate product mixes
and bring efficiencies to many processes. After all,
Amazon is known for its efficiencies, low costs, and
low prices.
Clash This is a stark contrast to Whole Foods’
highly empowered approach to doing business,
wherein individual stores and their employees had
autonomy regarding decisions about product
selection, inventory, and how best to serve
customers. This employee-centric focus is what
earned the company a spot-on Fortune’s Best
Places to Work list for 20 consecutive years, and the
reason its customers enjoyed personalized
intensive, hands-on service. Although this
decentralized, high-touch approach had real
benefits, it also had considerable inefficiencies that
Amazon was keen to address.
Amazon and its employees utilized data, rigor-
ous analysis and controls, and demanding perfor-
mance management practices. In the eyes of
Amazon, customers were faceless digital profiles of
purchasing history and preferences. This environ-
ment was a good fit for some employees but incred-
ibly stressful and negative for others. Evidence for
this was Whole Foods dropping from Fortune’s list in
2018 (it didn’t make the list in 2019 either).
Unrealized Potential? These differences have
the potential to undermine the hopes and goals of
the merger, which were to bring Amazon’s
efficiencies and operating prowess to Whole Foods’
unique approach and loyal customers, enabling it to
scale up and make an even larger impact in the
market. Leaders at Amazon, and to a lesser extent
at Whole Foods, now have decisions to make.
Problems exist, and the success of the marriage
depends on solving them.
Assume you’re a consultant, what would you
recommend to Amazon’s leadership?
Problem-Solving Application
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem as described in the case.
Step 2: Identify the causes of the problem. Which inputs and processes from the Organizing Frame-
work are evident?
Step 3: Make recommendations to Amazon’s leadership regarding how to realize the potential of
the merger.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
261Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
THE BIGGER PICTURE
OB recognizes emotions as an important and ever-present individual-level process. In the
section ahead you can see whether your positive emotional experience matches our list of
the 10 most common positive emotions. Positivity is more than feeling happiness and paint-
ing a smile on your face. You’ll also find tips on how to foster positive emotions and how to
apply them at school, work, and home.
7.2 THE POWER OF POSITIVE EMOTIONS
Referring to Figure 7.2, note that positive emotions help drive positivity from person fac-
tors. Recall in Chapter 3 we introduced emotions as relatively brief psychological and
physiological reactions having a particular target, such as a person (an unethical, bullying
boss), a situation (a night out with your closest friends), or an event (scoring well on an
exam). Our discussion then focused on negative emotions and how to manage their
expression. We now turn to positive emotions.
Like their negative cousins, positive emotions are relatively f lexible individual
differences and are important processes in the Organizing Framework. You may
think of emotions in terms of positive or negative; however, there is much more to
the story.
Beyond Happy vs. Sad
Positive and negative emotions are not polar opposites. The world of emotions is not
happy versus sad. Negative emotions spur you to act in quite narrow or specific ways. Fear
may motivate you to flee and anger may motivate you to fight. Positive emotions, in con-
trast, tend to broaden your mind-set and allow you to consider new, different, and possibly
better alternatives when trying to solve a problem.
Positive Emotions as Resources If you think of emotions in this way, you can see
negative emotions are limiting and positive emotions are resources that fuel individual,
group, and organizational flourishing. (Flourishing is discussed in detail in the last section
of this chapter.) Psychology professor Barbara Fredrickson explains positive emotions
this way:
To get a feel for the ways positive emotions can build life resources, envision for a
moment something that made you feel joyful, playful, or intensely alive—when you
wanted to smile, cheer, or jump up and dance around. Maybe it was . . . sharing a
meal with lots of laughter with a friend you haven’t seen in ages . . . maybe it was
dancing with the group of friends as your favorite band played. Whatever comes to
mind for you, take a moment to relive the experience in your mind, letting joy rekin-
dle. Consider how you felt and what you felt like doing. What we’ve learned about
Apply knowledge of
positive emotions
to enhance your
effectiveness.
LO 7-2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
262 PART 1 Individual Behavior
joyful experiences like these is that the playful urges they carry build resources,
and in times of trouble, these gains in resources can help you in important ways—
strengthen relationships, boost performance at school and work, and improve
your health.37
The bottom line is positive emotions help you build resources in the form of:
• Social relationships that are supportive, fulfilling, and lasting.
• Psychological well-being that leads to personal growth, meaningful goals, and self-
acceptance.38
• Physical well-being in the form of lower stress and a healthy heart.
These resources support your efforts and effectiveness in all arenas of life—school, work,
and family.
Benefits of Positive Emotions Positive emotions are processes influencing many
outcomes in the Organizing Framework, and they have desirable effects on:
• Organizational commitment
• Creativity
• Decision making
• Intentions to quit
• Performance39
• Stress40
Table 7.2 lists the 10 most common positive emotions from the most to the least frequently
experienced. Love is a special case, however. Despite being at the bottom of the list, it is
the most frequently experienced positive emotion. After reading about each of the other
positive emotions, you’ll understand why it was inserted last in the table.
Positive Emotions Are Contagious
It has been shown time and again, if you help someone in a meaningful or even a small
way, that person is more likely to help others. As Barbara Fredrickson says, “Beyond the
dance of positivity between you and the person you helped, those who witness your good
deed may well feel inspired, their hearts uplifted and elevated.”41
This means not only do you reap the benefits of helping somebody else, but that
person also benefits, and so does the person he or she helps, and so on. This self-
reinforcing and perpetuating aspect of positive emotions, and positivity more gener-
ally, is what leads to upward spirals of positivity, in which your positive behaviors,
feelings, and attitudes generate the same in others in a continually reinforcing
process.
Positivity spirals may also work in the other direction. In diverse customer service
jobs—such as financial consulting, medical care, retail banking, hair care, and grocery
stores—customers who showed delight with the service generated positive emotions in
the provider and a subsequent increase in that person’s organizational commitment
and job satisfaction. We’re often pleased when we help somebody and they in turn
show appreciation. However, better still, the benefits extend to future customers
via improved service behaviors.42 This illustrates the lasting or enduring effects of
positivity.
This contagion occurs in teams too. Positive emotions spread to create team-level
emotions that help members new and old feel safe, welcome, and truly part of the team.
These benefits lead to improved team performance.43
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
263Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
TABLE 7.2 Description of the 10 Most Frequent Positive Emotions
POSITIVE
EMOTION DESCRIPTION
Joy Visualize this: Your surroundings are safe and familiar. Things are going your way,
even better than you expected. Choice requires little effort on your part. Colors are
more vivid. There’s a spring in your step and your face lights up with a smile and an
inner glow.
Gratitude Imagine you’ve realized someone has gone out of his or her way to do something different.
Your mentor gently steers your career in the right direction, or your physician meets you at the
office after hours or on the weekend. Gratitude opens your heart and generates an urge for
you to give back, to do something good in return, either for the person who helped you or for
someone else.
Serenity Like joy, serenity includes safe and familiar surroundings and requires little effort on your
part. But unlike joy, serenity is low key. It comes when you go on a long, leisurely ride or
walk, engage in fulfilling conversation, or get wrapped up in a good book while relaxing on
vacation.
Interest Something novel or different draws your attention, filling you with a sense of possibility or
mystery. Unlike the case for joy and serenity, the circumstances call for effort on your part.
You’re pulled to immerse yourself in what you’re discovering.
Hope Hope is different from most other positive emotions you experience when you’re safe
and/or satisfied. You are hopeful when something isn’t going your way, but you believe that
it can.
Pride You know pride’s evil cousins—shame and guilt—and the painful feelings that overcome you
when you are to blame for something. Pride is the opposite; you’re responsible for something
good, something for which you can take credit or that made a positive difference to someone
else. (However, unchecked pride is hubris.)
Amusement Sometimes something unexpected happens that makes you laugh. Amusement is social;
it most often occurs in the company of and as a result of others. Heartfelt laughter often
accompanies amusement.
Inspiration When you’re inspired you are moved to do something extraordinary, something you might
otherwise feel is beyond your abilities. This same feeling rivets your attention, warms your
heart, and draws you in. Inspiration doesn’t just feel good; it makes you want to act, to
improve, or even to be the best you can be.
Awe Closely related to inspiration is awe which happens on a grand scale. You feel overwhelmed,
small, and humble. Awe makes you stop in your tracks. Sometimes people are awed by the
beauty of nature (Grand Canyon or Niagara Falls).
Love Love is not a single positive emotion but incorporates many of the others. When these good
feelings stir our hearts within a safe, often close relationship, we call it love. Early stages of
romantic relationships involve intense interest in everything and anything the person says.
You share amusements and laughter together and as the relationship builds great joy, you
begin to share your hopes and dreams for the future together. When the relationship
becomes more solid, you experience serenity and can be proud of your partner’s achieve-
ments, as if they are your own.
SOURCE: Fredrickson, Barbara L. Positivity. New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
264 PART 1 Individual Behavior
We often think of service encounters from the customer’s perspective, but research shows positive
customers help generate positive feelings and behaviors in employees. These positive effects can
“spiral” beyond a particular encounter to positively affect the employee’s other behaviors.
Peathegee Inc/Blend Images
How Much Positivity Is Enough?
Don’t overlook the valuable role of negative emotions—life is not all sunshine and roses.
Negative emotions can motivate you to try harder and improve, and they can also protect
you against harmful situations and communicate to others your need for help or support.44
Forcing yourself to feel or act as if everything is great all the time is absurd and would
certainly undermine your effectiveness, health, and overall well-being. Even the most posi-
tive person feels the intense emotional pain associated with experiences of loss and
betrayal, and positive people get angry when they or others are treated unfairly. So how
much positivity is enough?
Multiple Positives for Every Negative Some researchers have argued for specific
optimal ratios of positive to negative which others have disputed. Yet, all agree that posi-
tive and negative experiences are not equivalent. You cannot remedy a negative experience
by simply adding a positive one—it’s not one for one.
Instead, to flourish and experience the benefits of positive OB discussed in this chap-
ter, you must have three, five, or more positive experiences for every negative.45 You don’t
need to focus on which positive emotions you feel at a particular time, but be sure you have
multiple positives for every negative one.
Why? Because it has been well-established that our brains respond differently to posi-
tive and negative experiences.
• Negative experiences activate a survival orientation and lead us to be more respon-
sive to negative information. Our brains actually look harder for negative than for
positive information during daily activities.46 This might help explain why managers
tend to give more negative than positive feedback to employees.
• Positive experiences activate a supportive orientation and lead us to be more respon-
sive to positive information. This is part of the reason managers, and people more
generally, seem receptive to new ideas when in a good mood. The following Apply-
ing OB box describes how to boost positivity by injecting some fun.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
265Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Applying OB
Of course, everyone likes to have fun, including at
work. Thanks to researchers in the 2000s we have sci-
entific support for its benefits in the workplace. Fun
in the workplace is defined as: “characteristics or
features of the work environment of a social, playful,
and humorous nature, which have the potential to
trigger positive feelings of enjoyment, amusement,
and lighthearted pleasure.”47
Situation Factor When viewed this way fun is a
situation factor, which means it is an input in the
Organizing Framework and is something you and your
coworkers can control. Some companies are well
known for cultivating fun as an important value or part
of their culture. For instance, Marriott famously says,
“work hard, yet keep it fun.” Google leaders have been
known to espouse “fun comes from everywhere,”48
and Southwest Airlines Is well known for its “fun-
LUVing” culture and encourages employees to be
“creative and add a touch of levity and laughter
whenever possible.”49
Benefits Fun for fun’s sake, is fine, but purposefully
building a fun work environment has many benefits,
such as helping coworkers make new connections
while learning something new because of the
interactions. Employees also have been found to
support one another, be more creative, resilient, and
optimistic, all due to fun.50
How to Build It Several factors can help cultivate a
fun work environment, including:
• Supportive Practices. Be a fun promoter, not a
damper. Manager encouragement, participation,
and other supportive behaviors help.
• Employee autonomy. Let them play!
• Events. Activities, stimulating job responsibilities,
and socializing are ways of building fun. To help
ensure your efforts have the desired results,
consider the type of activity, those involved In
the activity, and make it voluntary. You can’t force
fun; you can only present the opportunity.
Research has found employees generally appre-
ciate mainstream activities aligning with their
interests (celebrations for birthdays or achieve-
ments) rather than something wacky or with
narrow appeal.51
Boost Positivity with Fun
This discussion reveals why managers should focus on the good things employees are
doing, and why all of us should focus on the positive qualities of coworkers, classmates,
business partners, friends, and significant others. You’re likely thinking, “sounds good,
but how?”
Strategies to Increase Your Positivity The following activities can help increase
positive experiences and decrease your negative ones.52
Create high-quality connections. Any social interaction, whether with family, coworkers,
classmates, or the person ahead of you in line, is a chance to create a high-quality
connection. These connections are energizing and enhance your positivity. To trans-
form ordinary interactions into high-quality connections, try the following tips:
1. Make someone the only person in the room. Engage the other person by being
present, attentive, and affirming. Act as though he or she is the only person in
the room.
2. Support. Encourage the person and help him or her achieve a goal or attain
success.
3. Give trust. Believe you can depend on this person to meet your expectations,
and let it show.
4. Goof off, play, have fun! Have no goals or intentions other than to goof off
with others.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
266 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Cultivate kindness. Set a goal of performing five new acts of kindness in a single day.
Aim for actions that make a difference and come at no cost to you. Assess what
those around you might need most and make a plan, but execute your plan so acts
of kindness occur on the same day to further enhance the impact.
Develop distractions. One of the best ways to break from negativity is to distract your-
self. Brainstorm and think of ways—old and new—to distract yourself from negative
thoughts. Be sure to think of things you can do at school, at home, or at work. Make
two lists: healthy distractions and unhealthy distractions. Healthy distractions can
be going for a run, taking a bike ride, or playing your favorite sport. Unhealthy dis-
tractions might be drinking, eating junk food, watching TV, or playing video games.
For each unhealthy distraction, challenge yourself to add another healthy distrac-
tion to your list. Negativity can creep in anywhere and at any time, so keep your lists
of distractions handy and practical.
For example, Sam Kendricks may not be household name, but he is a renowned
pole vault champion. He won bronze in the 2016 Olympics, five consecutive national
titles, a world championship, and was undefeated in meets in 2017. Obviously, he is
a world class talent but what is equally notable is his determination to spread posi-
tivity by making friends with and helping support his fellow competitors. The pole
vault is one of the loneliest of sports—just you, the pole, and bar—and you either win
or lose. Yet during competitions Kendricks gives pointers, coaches, and cheers for
his competitors. His positivity was captured in an interview: “They probably thought
I seemed a little strange. I really pushed on these other guys that I wanted to be their
friend and help them. . . . I had an undefeated season last year, but what good is vic-
tory if you can’t share it?”53
Dispute negative self-talk and thoughts. Write on 3×5-inch cards your most frequent
negative thoughts or emotions about yourself, a relationship, or a situation at school,
work, or home. Then, in a private place where no one can hear you, read the cards
aloud one at a time. After reading each, immediately dispute or counter it. Don’t
stop to think but beat it down and disprove it with something positive about yourself,
Sam Kendricks treats the pole vault like a team sport. He helps and cheers on his competitors in the
middle of meets. He believes friendship and positivity benefit his performance and that of his com-
petitors, and that’s how he likes it.
David Emm/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
267Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
the situation, or the facts. Be sure to do this with enthusiasm, to build your convic-
tion. Practice. Your goal is to learn to dispute negative thoughts as quickly as they
enter your mind.
Platitudes = Fake = Bad Outcomes Uttering positive words or forcing a smile
isn’t enough. Humans are excellent detectors of insincerity.54 If your positivity is not heart-
felt and genuine, you will not reap any of the benefits of improved performance, relation-
ships, and health we’ve discussed. Disingenuous attempts at positivity may even do harm,
because your lack of authenticity may erode others’ trust in you and reduce your influence
and credibility with them.
Your Level of Positivity To make this discussion come to life for you, find out the
relative frequency of your positive to negative emotions. This knowledge can help you
understand many things about yourself, such as how likely you are to reap the benefits of
positive emotions and positive OB. Emotions are short-lived, and any measure of your
emotions captures your feelings about a specific event, person, or dimension of your life at
only a particular point in time. We encourage you to take Self-Assessment 7.1 for the past
day of your life, which is intended to capture your positivity more generally. Then take it
again, focusing on school or work as your target. Now calculate your ratio of positive to
negative emotions for work or school, and compare it to your ratio for life more generally.
This will provide knowledge of your positivity in various arenas of life and help you better
understand this important personal resource.
Learn Your Positivity Ratio
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 7.1 in Connect.
1. What is your reaction to the results?
2. Considering the individual differences (IDs) we discussed in Chapter 3, which
ones do you think are contributing to your ratio?
3. Do others see you as more or less positive than your ratio suggests? Why?
4. If you conduct this self-assessment for two different dimensions of your life
(school and work), to what do you attribute the differences in the ratios if any?
5. Describe three things you can do to improve your positivity ratio for school.
SOURCE: Barbara Fredrickson, Positivity: Groundbreaking Research Reveals How to Embrace the Hidden Strength of Posi-
tive Emotions, Overcome Negativity, and Thrive, Crown Publishers, 2009.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.1
Next, we’ll explore an approach to positivity and well-being that has received enor-
mous attention, and practice, in the past several years.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
268 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Mindfulness is “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose,
in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding of experience
moment by moment.”55 We can be mindful of our inner world (our feelings and
thoughts), and our outer world, including the feelings, thoughts, and interactions of others.
Everyone has the ability to be mindful, but it takes effort. The default setting in our minds
is to judge or evaluate our current internal and external situation,56 and it is this mental
chatter that detracts from the inner quiet we need to stay focused on and aware of what is
going on around us.
Understand how to
foster mindfulness.
LO 7-3
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You may be more aware of mindfulness by its absence, such as when you’re saying some-
thing you feel is important, yet the person you’re speaking to isn’t paying attention. In this
section, you’ll find you can improve your focus and attention through practice, and how doing
so can be tremendously beneficial to you, those around you, and your employer.
7.3 FOSTERING MINDFULNESS
Figure 7.2 shows mindfulness is another person factor that creates positivity in work
environments, along with a growing number of desirable outcomes for individuals, teams,
and organizations. This is why we study it in OB and explore some of the details next.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
269Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Big Business
The interest in mindfulness, and meditation more generally, at work has grown tremen-
dously in recent years. Mindfulness is now mainstream and widely practiced by employees
and in workplaces everywhere. A study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
revealed a two- to three-fold increase in the number of people practicing some sort of
mindfulness since 2012.57 A survey of 163 employers of different sizes and industries found
that greater than 52 percent planned to provide mindfulness classes within the next year,
and another 25 percent planned to do so within the next two years.58
Many companies now sponsor mindfulness training for employees (Google, Nike,
Fidelity) and others have cashed in by providing apps and other forms of mindfulness
training. Insight Timer, for instance, claims it is the world’s most used meditation app with
over 6 million users59 and more than 50,000 hours of meditation per day. This is one small
part of the more than $1 billion mindfulness industry.60 A competitor, Headspace, antici-
pates doubling its corporate clients in just one year.61
Like many other things at work, it helps if senior leaders buy in and are believers in
mindfulness. The following OB in Action box describes how the former CEO of Aetna
brought mindfulness to his employees, along with the experiences of other companies.
CEO Is a Believer Mark Bertolini, the former CEO
of Aetna Health (which merged with CVS), credits
mindfulness with changing his life after a horrible
skiing accident before becoming CEO. He used it to
help manage the pain and recover from his injuries,
and once becoming CEO, he was determined that
employees should reap similar benefits. But it wasn’t
easy. In an interview with The New York Times he
recalls the CFO at the time saying, “ ‘We’re a profit-
making entity. This isn’t about compassion and
collaboration.’ I said, ‘Well, I actually think it is. And
I’m in charge, so we’re going to do it.’ ”62
Bertolini also credits mindfulness with boosting
the minimum wage at the company. The company’s
yoga instructor heard numerous complaints regard-
ing pay from employees during the training sessions;
these were then shared with Bertolini. He was
deeply troubled by the dire financial situations of
many employees, which he then acted on by increas-
ing the minimum wage at the company from $12 to
$16 per hour.63 Although mindfulness did not directly
cause the change, the classes provided the opportu-
nity for him to learn about employees’ plight and
open his mind to listen and thus sparked his com-
passion to act.
Scientists Proved It to Themselves Scientists at
biotech company Genentech felt happier and more
content at both work and home after using a
mindfulness app. Like true scientists, they conducted
experiments and used the data to convince HR
to offer the Headspace app to all of the company’s
14,000 employees. It seems to work, as 2,500
of them now use the app at least four times
per week.
Nancy Vitale, senior vice president of human
resources at Genentech, said: “Headspace is giving
us an opportunity to focus on the health and well-
being of our employees. . . . Our mission is bringing
breakthrough medicines to patients, and it’s critical
to foster an environment where employees feel they
can give their best.”
Biotech, Insurance, and Industrials . . . They’re All Mindful. What About You?
OB in Action
Mark Bertolini attributes much of his recovery from a
severe skiing accident to mindfulness. He then promoted
it throughout the company when CEO at Aetna Health.
Cindy Ord/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
270 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Benefits of Mindfulness
Although mindfulness was originally used as a means for guarding against negative work-
related outcomes, such as stress and burnout, now it is promoted for improving a wide
range of cognitive, emotional, behavioral, and physical outcomes.65
The American Psychological Association has compiled several scientifically sup-
ported mindfulness benefits:
1. Less rumination. If you dwell on past or current challenges, you are likely ruminating.
Mindfulness can help reduce this often destructive emotional vicious circle.
2. Reduced stress. Stress can have many undesirable effects, which will be explored in
more detail in Chapter 16. But there are clear benefits for mindfulness.
3. Improved memory. Many forms of meditation have been shown to improve retention
and working memory, beyond the benefits of reducing stress.
4. Better focus. Mindfulness training has been shown to improve focus and decision making.
5. Self-awareness. Mindfulness fosters self-observation and introspection.
6. Greater interpersonal effectiveness and satisfaction. It is likely the other benefits
noted contribute to better relationships, but mindfulness helps reduce conflict and
lessen the negative effects when it occurs.66
Industrial Well-Being Industrial giant GE also uses
mindfulness training as a part of its employee health
and well-being efforts. The company provides one
month free and then 60 percent discounts for
employees who want to continue. So far feedback
has been very positive, according to Global Wellness
Leader Adam Malinkoski, and more than 5,000
employees have tried it.64
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. If your employer provided mindfulness training
would you participate? Why or why not?
2. If you were CEO would you be willing to give
mindfulness training a try? Why or why not?
3. Have you meditated or done yoga? If yes, what
are the benefits you experienced? If you haven’t
personally, what have others you know told you
about their experience?
Each of these companies has created a climate that fosters positive OB. Do you agree that industry
leaders have a larger responsibility to make the world a better place?
Top Left: Michael Lucia/The Oakland Tribune/ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy Stock Photo; Top Right: Kristoffer Tripplaar/
Alamy Stock Photo; Bottom Left: Bjorn Bakstad/Shutterstock; Bottom Right: Asif Islam/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
271Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Practicing Mindfulness
The goal of practicing mindfulness is to help you become more calm-and-collected in all
circumstances. An influential book, The Leader’s Way, explains: “When the mind is dis-
turbed by anger, jealousy, hate, impatience, fear, lack of self-confidence, or negative emo-
tions about things that happened in the past, it is wasting valuable time that instead should
be used for constructive thinking.”68 Practicing mindfulness helps you focus your mind on
productive activities while constraining counterproductive thinking and mind wandering.
The good news is you can learn mindfulness by practicing a variety of simple medita-
tion techniques on a regular basis. Although there are many good books, articles, and help-
ful apps,69 we review two approaches that are easily learned: a breathing meditation and a
walking meditation. Research shows practicing short meditative techniques reduces stress
and negative emotions and increases emotional regulation, task performance, and memory.70
Give the techniques a try and note how you feel!
Breathing Meditation Breathing meditations are easy and can be done almost any-
where. Focusing on breath reminds us of the here and now because it brings us back to a
fundamental and vital function of life. This technique requires nothing more than tuning
in to the physical sensations associated with breathing in and out. Two experts recommend
the following simple approach for getting started:
• Place your hand on your stomach a couple of inches beneath the upside-down V at
the center of your rib cage. Look down, breathe normally, and watch your hand.
You’ll probably see it move only a little bit, and more-or-less up and down. Your
abdomen should expand when you inhale and contract on the exhale.
• Leaving your hand in place, now breathe in such a way that your hand moves out
and back, perpendicular to your chest. Try to breathe into your hand with real
oomph, so that it travels back and forth half an inch or more with each breadth.71
What Is My Level of Mindfulness?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 7.2 in Connect.
1. What questions identified your greatest inhibitors? (Select the three items with
the lowest scores.)
2. What is the cause of these inhibitors?
3. Examine the techniques listed in the next section and decide which one might
be best suited for your needs. Start using the technique on a daily basis.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.2
Evidence is accumulating as to the many benefits of mindfulness at work, especially in
the areas of performance, interpersonal relationships, and overall well-being. Mindfulness
interventions have been shown to increase job performance, organizational citizenship
behaviors (OCBs from Chapter 2), and safety behaviors. It’s also been shown to improve
communications, leadership, and teamwork, while reducing conflict.67
It’s no wonder so many organizations have explored the benefits of mindfulness. But
what about you? Would you like to improve your interpersonal interactions and experience
less stress? If yes, then you’ll gain insight about your current level of mindfulness by com-
pleting Self-Assessment 7.2. Then, in the next section we will walk you through a mindful-
ness exercise with the hope you’ll get some sense of the benefits for your personally. But
first, be sure to take the assessment and answer the questions.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
272 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Start by trying these two steps for about 10 to 20 breaths. Once you are comfortable with
this form of diaphragm breathing, you can take your practice to the next level with these
additional instructions:
• Sit comfortably in a chair, feet firmly on the ground and your back relatively erect. Feel
like you are a “proud mountain” of stability. Close your eyes and take a deep inhale that
fills your belly and lungs. Now exhale, noticing how your belly contracts. Do this twice.
• Add counting to four or five as you both inhale and exhale, to ensure you are taking
deep breaths. Try doing this for five minutes twice a day. You can extend the length
of time you practice breathing meditations as you become more comfortable with
the technique.
Your mind is likely to wander during these exercises. You will also notice sounds
around you. That’s normal. Acknowledge the thoughts and sounds and return your focus
to your breath. Don’t try to chase the thoughts away or give the sounds much attention.
Just recognize them and let them pass. The thoughts will move away like a white cloud
being blown by the wind in a blue sky.
Walking Meditation This can be done any time you are walking, and no one will
know you are doing it. Start this technique by forming an intention or desired goal. Doing
this sends a signal to the mind that guides its attentiveness and awareness during the
meditative practice.72 A sample intention is, “I will focus on the act of walking while
ignoring other sounds and thoughts.”
Begin walking and keep your intention in mind.
Concentrate on placing one foot after the other. Feel
the rhythmic nature of your steps. Focus on how it
feels to lift and place your feet on the surface. Train
your mind to be aware of your footsteps. Notice the
speed at which you walk and the pressure being felt
by your feet. Consider changing the length of your
stride and notice how it feels. If your mind starts to
wander or you begin thinking about something you
have to do, just recognize the thought and then drop
it. Return your attention and awareness to your inten-
tion, which is the act of walking. You will be amazed
at what you can observe.73 Try this for five minutes
every day for three weeks and observe the effects.
A variation on this technique is to focus your
intention on sound or smell. For example, “I will
focus on all sounds during my walk,” and “I will
focus on all smells during my walk.” If you use an intention aimed at sound, begin walk-
ing and concentrate on what you hear. Listen for all types of sounds like footsteps, bird-
song, mechanical objects operating, wind, tree branches rustling, voices, clanging of
objects, airplanes overhead, and so on. The key is to allow your mind to focus on anything
that can be heard. Again, recognize stray or wandering thoughts, and let them passively
go away by returning to your intention. Try this for five to 10 minutes.
Practice Makes Perfect Mindfulness can be learned via practice, and though it takes
time and commitment, the benefits are substantial. The techniques above can get you
started, and helpful apps can also guide you through meditative experiences.74 In addition,
your local gym might offer classes. For example, 24 Hour Fitness is exploring the use of
special meditative pods that use sound and light to help people meditate.75
Experiencing nature can be very meditative and has been found
to improve our mood and general outlook. If you want to make a
walk like this meditative, take breaks now and then to focus on
what you are seeing, hearing, or smelling.
Tananya pitiwatsombat/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
273Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Positive psychological capital is part of the positive OB movement and is a key person input
in the Organizing Framework (Figure 7.2). You’ll often find it explained in terms of its compo-
nents: hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism (HERO). You’re about to learn how to develop
and benefit from your “inner HERO” or psychological capital. We also explore signature
strengths, which are another way to utilize individuals’ positive attributes instead of attempt-
ing to overcome weaknesses.
7.4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL AND SIGNATURE
STRENGTHS
Individuals with high levels of positive psychological capital (PsyCap) possess con-
siderable hope, efficacy, resilience, and optimism (HERO). To elaborate:
H Hope. Persevering toward goals and, when necessary, redirecting paths in order
to succeed.
E Efficacy. Having the confidence to take on challenging tasks and put in the
effort necessary to succeed.
R Resilience. When hampered by problems and adversity, sustaining and bounc-
ing back and even beyond to attain success.
O Optimism. Making a positive attribution about succeeding now and in the
future.76
Besides being positive PsyCap can be developed.77 Recall from Chapter 3 when we dis-
cussed the relative flexibility of individual differences, such as attitudes and emotional
intelligence (Figure 3.2). Flexible individual differences are opportunities for you and man-
agers to develop and improve. This means training and practice can increase your PsyCap.
Not only is your PsyCap flexible, but it also has been shown to improve many out-
comes in the Organizing Framework, such as increasing job satisfaction, organizational
commitment, and well-being, and decreasing intentions to quit, job stress, anxiety, and
counterproductive work behaviors.78
PsyCap has also been shown to guard against negative experiences and events. One
study found employees who were subjected to abusive supervisors, who also had high lev-
els of PsyCap, still performed OCBs.79 Although these findings are interesting, we would
likely advocate for improving or removing the abusive supervisor, instead of developing the
PsyCap of employees so they can deal with it better. PsyCap also reduced the degree to
which stockholders sold shares due to a negative earnings surprise.80 Not sure who
benefits—the shareholders or the company?
Let’s learn how to develop your PsyCap and that of others by focusing on the HERO traits.
Hope = Willpower + Waypower
You’re probably thinking, “Of course I know what hope is; what else is there to know?”
You may even see yourself as more hopeful than the average person. If this is your view,
you might be surprised to learn that hope actually has two components, and knowing this
can help you understand why hope works, when it doesn’t, and how to build it.
Describe how
psychological capital
and signature
strengths can improve
outcomes at work.
LO 7-4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
274 PART 1 Individual Behavior
The two components of hope are willpower and waypower. This means to have hope
you need to have a goal and the determination to achieve it—willpower. You also
need to see one or more paths to achieve your goal, even when faced with adver-
sity—waypower.81 Hope requires both a goal and a means for achieving that goal.
Ben Horowitz, the renowned technology entrepreneur and venture capitalist, puts a
high premium on the willpower of entrepreneurs. Willpower, along with genius, are in his
mind the two most crucial characteristics of successful entrepreneurs. “Building a com-
pany is hard and lonely. It demands relentless focus. And no matter how well you do, you
must be ready to be pummeled again and again.”82 It takes willpower to persist. Horowitz
himself demonstrated enormous willpower when Loudcloud, an earlier venture with Marc
Andreessen, nearly failed half a dozen times before ultimately being revived, strengthened,
and sold to HP for $1.6 billion. Horowitz used “force of personality and willpower to make
a business out of it,” said Herb Allen III, the CEO of Allen & Co.83
In a practical sense, hope supports adaptability and change.84 A series of studies
showed hope led to increased adaptability for police officers and insurance sales agents,
and in the case of the agents, it also led to increased sales commissions.85 You can build
hope in yourself and others via effective goal setting (Chapter 6).86 The problem-solving
approach can help too, because it can assist you in identifying potential obstacles, sources
of support, and feasible alternate paths by which to reach your goal.
Efficacy
We discussed efficacy in Chapter 3; remember efficacy also is a component of your core
self-evaluations (CSEs) and represents your confidence in your ability to achieve. It there-
fore influences the way you perceive the world around you and your ability to deal with
challenges and opportunities. Figure 3.4 provides a guide for improving your self-efficacy.
Applying your knowledge of self-efficacy will help you realize its important role in positive
psychological capital—greater efficacy makes you more confident, more positive, and more
effective.
Resilience
If you’re resilient you have the capacity to consistently bounce back from adversity
and to sustain yourself when confronted with challenges. Resilience helps you when
things go your way and when they don’t—it is your built-in shield and recovery characteris-
tic. Fred Luthans, the father of psychological capital, and his colleagues stated that resil-
ience “is arguably the most important positive resource to navigating a turbulent and
stressful workplace.”87
What gives resilience its power? Resilient people are open to new experiences, flex-
ible to changing demands, and emotionally stable when confronted with adversity.88 It
is no wonder that resilience is a component of psychological capital and positive OB.
Resilience can be improved with support, such as coaching or help from others during
trying times or experiences. The work climate, discussed in the next section of this
chapter, can make employees feel safe enough to take risks and to make mistakes, thus
enhancing their resilience.89 The following OB in Action box illustrates how resilience
is used at one of the nation’s largest health systems and how to build a resilience pro-
gram at work.
Optimism
Optimists are both realistic and flexible. Think about it—if you aren’t realistic you are
setting yourself up to fail. And if you fail too often, even the most optimistic of us loses
our motivation and inspiration. True optimists are flexible and willing to revise their
views as situations change. (Recall the contingency approach to management discussed
in Chapter 1.) However, optimists don’t see everything as positive; if so, they would be
unrealistic or delusional.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
275Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Kaiser Permanente is one of the largest health sys-
tems in the United States, employing approximately
200,000 employees. Employee wellness is a primary
focus for this organization and is led by Kathy Gerwig,
VP of employee safety, health, and wellness. Ms. Gerwig
is a member of the American Heart Association CEO
Roundtable, which has studied the matter and pro-
duces the Resilience in the Workplace Report.90
Ms. Gerwig and Kaiser address a broad range of
issues confronted by workers today: relationships at
work, emotional well-being, how we handle stress,
and the increasingly dynamic and uncertain career
landscape. Kaiser approaches these issues by focus-
ing on six elements of employee well-being: physical
health and safety, mental health and wellness, finan-
cial well-being, career development, other relation-
ships, and community involvement.91
VP Gerwig believes resilience threads through
all of these elements, and as such she and Kaiser
promote resilience at the individual, department, and
organizational levels. For instance, Kaiser offers
extensive resilience training not only for its employ-
ees, but also for partners in the communities in which
it operates, such as schools.
The Resilience in the Workplace Report showed
nearly three-quarters of those who participated in
resilience training found it beneficial, in part by
reducing stress and improving sleep. The AHA
report also made recommendations for implement-
ing a workplace resilience program that includes five
practices:92
1. Understand the problem. Much like our own
3-Step Approach, the AHA recommendation is
to identify the problems, find causes, and deter-
mine to what extent resilience can help.
2. Create a culture supporting resilience. Develop
the appropriate training and other practices to
support resilience and stress reduction (paid
time off, breaks, wellness programs, and
employee development). And very importantly,
ensure leadership support and participation.
3. Assess resilience and outcomes at baseline.
Measure resilience and other outcomes ( job
satisfaction, job stress, and sick time used)
before implementing interventions, so you
have a baseline against which to compare
progress.
4. Determine program design. What are the com-
ponents, who will deliver, who will participate,
when, and where?
5. Implement and continuously improve.93 Just as
you learned about performance management in
Chapter 6: set goals, measure and evaluate,
review and improve, and provide consequences.
This course provides knowledge and tools of great
value for each element. Now that you’ve learned
what Kaiser does and the AHA recommends, what
are your thoughts?
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What is the likelihood you would participate in
resilience training if offered by your employer?
Why or why not? Explain.
2. Assume you are a manager and a believer in the
benefits of resilience at work, what might you do
to persuade your employees to participate in
resilience training?
3. What are the potential downsides to employability
resilience? Explain.
Resilience Is Organizational at Kaiser
OB in Action
Also recall from Chapter 4 that optimists perceive the causes of events in a particular
way. Optimists often attribute successes to “personal, permanent, and pervasive
causes, and negative events to external, temporary, and situation-specific ones.”94
Scientists argue humans actually have an optimism bias which, in part, alters our views of
the likely outcomes in our lives and motivates us to act.95
Have you ever wondered why people are optimistic in the first place? What function
does optimism serve? One school of thought claims it is self-inspiration, our mind’s way
of motivating us to move forward even if the future is uncertain. The rationale is if
humans didn’t think the future would be bright—an improvement over today—they might
be crippled with fear and uncertainty, never take risks, and never try to better them-
selves or their situation. After all, humans have the unique ability to think ahead and to
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
276 PART 1 Individual Behavior
realize they will die some day. If the mind didn’t have some way of combating this, then
many people would be preoccupied with gloom and wouldn’t save money or invest in
their children.
Therefore, a belief that things can or will be better in the future not only helps keep
our minds at ease, but it reduces stress (discussed in Chapter 16) and helps us color our
decisions in a positive, appealing light and keeps us moving forward.
How I Can Develop My PsyCap
Like other more conventional forms of capital (cash, facilities, patents, equipment),
PsyCap is a resource you invest in or develop with the expectation of future returns or
benefits. It can help you flourish in your professional and personal life. Its components are
mutually reinforcing—developing one often helps develop the others.96 Try putting the fol-
lowing recommendations into practice and develop your PsyCap.
• Hope development. Generate a work-related goal important to you and attainable yet
challenging. Then, create multiple plans for achieving this goal, share them with
others—coworkers or classmates, and get their feedback and recommendations.
• Efficacy development. Besides recommendations from Chapter 3, break your larger
goal into smaller sub-goals as discussed in Chapter 6. Create plans for achieving the
sub-goals and share them with others to gain feedback and recommendations.
• Resilience development. Make a list of your personal talents, skills, and social con-
nections. Specify how these can help you achieve your goal, identify potential obsta-
cles, and decide how to avoid them or reduce their impact.97
• Optimism development. Hope development bolsters your optimism, but it may be
helpful to identify obstacles and negative expectations. On your own, check to see
whether the obstacles you identify are valid, and have others challenge your
assumptions.
Complete Self-Assessment 7.3 to learn your personal PsyCap score, as it can help you
understand and improve your ability to find a job, increase your creativity and innovative-
ness, and reduce the stress in your life.98 Your score will also serve as the basis for develop-
ing hope, efficacy, resiliency, and optimism, as described above.
Let’s conclude this section with an exploration of signature strengths.
What Is My Level of PsyCap?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 7.3 in Connect.
1. Which score is the highest? The lowest? Complete the PsyCap development
steps and be sure to utilize your highest or strongest component. Pay extra
attention to developing the lowest or weakest component.
2. In the Organizing Framework identify a process at all three levels—individual,
group, and organizational—that PsyCap is likely to influence.
3. Describe one thing you can do to further develop each component of your
PsyCap.
Adapted from F. Luthans, C. M. Youseff, and B. J. Avolio, Psychological Capital: Developing the Human Competitive Edge
(Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2006).
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.3 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
277Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Signature Strengths
Signature strengths “are positive human traits that influence thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors and provide a sense of fulfillment and meaning.”99 Signature strengths
are a subset, typically three to seven for most individuals, of a larger collection of 24 char-
acter strengths (see Table 7.3). What helps differentiate signature strengths from the rest is
that “a person owns, celebrates, and frequently exercises”100 them, and these strengths are
“core to people’s identities, and feel authentic, exciting, and invigorating when used.”101
Signature strengths can be developed, too.102
TABLE 7.3 The 24 Character Strengths
Creativity Zest Modesty
Curiosity Love Prudence
Judgment Kindness Self-regulation
Love of learning Social intelligence Beauty
Perspective Teamwork Gratitude
Bravery Fairness Hope
Perseverance Leadership Humor
Honesty Forgiveness Religiousness
SOURCE: Harzer, Claudia, and Willibald Ruch. “The Application of Signature Character Strengths and Positive Experiences at
Work.” Journal of Happiness Studies 14, no. 3 (June 2012): 965–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10902-012-9364-0.
A Departure from Past and Present The strengths movement represents a dra-
matic departure from conventional management research and practice. As noted earlier,
the vast majority of writing, research, and managing focuses on how to fix what is wrong
and who is underperforming or otherwise not meeting expectations.
Many large and successful organizations have used a strengths approach, for example,
VMware, Wayfair, and the Boston Consulting Group. The primary focus is now on
employee successes and potential, rather than on missteps and deficiencies.103 Research by
the Gallup organization on employee strengths shows some impressive findings. Employ-
ees who report using their strengths every day at work are:
• Three times more likely to feel as though they have an excellent quality of life.
• Six times more likely to be engaged at work.
• 8 percent more productive.
• 15 percent less likely to quit.104
Would you like to be more engaged with school, work, and leisure activities? If yes, your
signature strengths are very likely the key. Self-Assessment 7.4 will help identify your signa-
ture strengths. Use your scores to assess how you might build your strengths into daily
activities at school, work, and life.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
278 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Applying Strengths at Work Consultants who work for Gallup, a firm instrumental
in the strengths movement, said: “Giving employees a chance to excel by doing what they
do best every day seems like a no-brainer. In too many organizations, though, encouraging
employees to know and use their strengths at work is limited to a guerrilla movement.”105
This quotation highlights that the fundamental obstacles to realizing the benefits associ-
ated with signature strengths are situation factors, such as leaders, managers, performance
management practices, and organizational culture. Put another way, of course it is neces-
sary to be aware of your strengths, but it also is necessary to be in situations allowing you
to use them.
Recent research should help persuade reluctant employees and leaders. Interventions,
or activities and practices designed to identify and use peoples’ signature strengths, showed
desirable results for a number of outcomes in the Organizing Framework for OB, such as
increases in positive emotions, satisfaction, goal attainment, and academic performance,
along with decreases in depression and counterproductive work behaviors.106
To help with this, we provide the following guidance on how organizations can create
environments that foster and utilize employees’ strengths:
1. Look in the mirror. Like most work endeavors, a strengths approach requires leader
support to succeed. Begin with leaders learning their own strengths and being open
about them. Leaders, for instance, who show vulnerability and admit to their own
mistakes and limitations can serve as powerful role models for the larger organization.
2. Build strengths into performance management. Strengths need to be supported by
expectations, measurement, review, and rewards. It is an uphill battle to talk about,
encourage, and celebrate strengths if performance management practices do not sup-
port them.
3. Know your purpose. Leaders need to be clear on why they and the organization are
focusing on strengths—what is the intended benefit? Is it greater collaboration,
increased customer satisfaction, innovation, or reduced turnover? Employees need to
understand why and how strengths are important to the organization and its objec-
tives.
4. Coach and develop strengths-oriented managers. A strengths approach is not common,
and implementing it effectively requires effort. Set your managers up to win by provid-
ing appropriate coaching and support.107
Since you now have a sense of two flexible and very important positive individual
differences—psychological capital and signature strengths—we move to the group/team
level in the next section and discuss organizational climate. You’ll learn how policies and
practices can help foster and realize the positive attributes of employees.
What Are My Signature Strengths?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 7.4 in Connect.
1. What are your highest-scoring strengths?
2. What are your weaknesses (the components with the lowest scores)?
3. Which of your strengths do you use daily?
4. What can you do to incorporate your strengths into school, work, and leisure
activities?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 7.4 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Sweetgreen is in the fast-casual health food busi-
ness and focuses on what’s good for you and what’s
good to you. It sells nourishment, natural and made
to order, which is consistent with its mission to “build
healthier communities by connecting people to real
food.”112 Combine these elements (focus on employ-
ees, quality product, and an enormous social media
presence) and you have the recipe for success. But
the most important ingredient of their success is the
company’s positive culture. How they do this is quite
remarkable.
Emergency Fund. Employees make voluntary dona-
tions to an emergency fund used to support other
employees in times of need, such as a being dis-
placed by a house fire or for travel to care for a sick
family member.
Gratitude. Positive comments from customers are
collected and used for personal notes of gratitude
from the owners. These are celebrated during Grati-
tude Nights where employees get together to share
and be recognized.
Sweetgreen . . . Sweet Indeed
OB in Action
279Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Organizational climate describes the way you and your cohorts evaluate the school you attend
or the workplace you share. A positive climate is one component that makes positive organi-
zational behavior work, and you’re about to discover how organizations and managers can
foster such a climate.
7.5 POSITIVE ORGANIZATIONAL CLIMATES
You may be the most positive person you know, but to flourish you need the right environ-
ment. Figure 7.2 shows organizational culture and climate are the key situation factors that
promote positive work environments, meaning they are critical to reaping the benefits of
POB. We focus on organizational climate in this section (again in Chapter 10) and organi-
zational culture in Chapter 14.
Organizational climate consists of employees’ shared perceptions of organiza-
tional policies, practices, procedures, and routines.108 Simply put, organizational cli-
mate reflects employees’ beliefs about what they see going on at work and what is
happening to them. These perceptions can range from positive and uplifting to negative
and debilitating. Positive climates, such as one that supports safety, lead to positive out-
comes like fewer accidents at work.109 Supportive climates—those in which employees
believe the organization values their contributions, provides support, and cares about
their well-being—can serve as a buffer against the demands and stressors in wide range of
jobs.110 In contrast, negative climates that condone abusive supervision or fear are associ-
ated with negative outcomes, like less cooperation, less citizenship behavior, and lower
performance.111 What type of climate do you think is most likely to promote positivity
from situation factors? The OB in Action box describes how fast-fresh restaurant Sweet-
green does it.
Develop a climate
that promotes
positive organizational
behavior.
LO 7-5
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
280 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Figure 7.4 presents a model showing positive climates are a function of organizational
values, organizational practices, and virtuous leadership. We’ll explore each of these situa-
tion factors next.
Organizational Values
We defined values in Chapter 2 as abstract ideals that guide our thinking and behavior
across all situations. In the context of organizational climate, organizational values repre-
sent ideals endorsed, shared, and supported by the organization as a whole. Three global
values essential for promoting positive organizational behavior are described next (see
Figure 7.4).115
1. Restorative justice reflects “a shared belief in the importance of resolving con-
flict multilaterally through the inclusion of victims, offenders, and all other
stakeholders.”116 Organizations subscribing to restorative justice tend to resolve con-
flict by giving all parties a chance to express their thoughts and feelings. This in turn
leads to healing when there has been hurt or offense, thereby producing solutions
focusing on the greater good.
Community Impact. Employees are encouraged
and given time to support local causes, and in some
cases the efforts are in coordination with larger
agencies like the LA Food Policy Council.113
Also notable is such positivity does not require
vast resources, meaning it isn’t just for large, public
multinationals companies. Sweetgreen was started
by three Georgetown University graduates who
started small, but after 11 years have 90 locations
and have attracted piles of venture capital. But how
did they get here?
What if you want to do something similar? The
following advice may help.
• Job #1—Employee Wellness. A positive
culture isn’t possible without tending to
employee well-being at work and in their
larger life space. Ensure employees have
resources for professional development and
health.
• Make It Mean Something. Like those at
Sweetgreen, employees prefer to have a
clear purpose in their work, they want to
see a meaningful impact. Mission and vision
statements can help, but what matters most is
how they are put into practice, beginning with
the leaders at every level.
• Goals with Impact. Include employee devel-
opment, community involvement, and custom-
ers in your goals. The knowledge and skills
learned in Chapter 6 can help.
• Be Positive. Positivity needs to be part of
daily practice, so express gratitude, smile,
be optimistic. Remember, emotions are
contagious, make yours positive and infec-
tious.114
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What is most compelling to you about the Sweet-
green approach?
2. What do you think are the 2 or 3 biggest chal-
lenges for managers of Sweetgreen restaurants?
3. Assume you started a business, what do you
think would be the challenges of implementing a
similarly positive approach? How might you
address such challenges?
Jeffrey MacMillan/The Washington Post/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
281Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
2. Compassion is a shared value that drives people to help others who are suffer-
ing. It is associated with behaviors related to sympathy, kindness, tenderness, warmth,
and love.117
3. Temperance is a shared belief in showing restraint and control when faced with
temptation and provocation. Temperance promotes self-control, humility, and pru-
dence. It helps people avoid egocentric and heated emotional responses and practice
patience and restraint.118
Organizational Practices
Organizational practices are the procedures, policies, practices, routines, and
rules that organizations use to get things done. Figure 7.4 shows training programs,
support programs, and human resource practices and policies represent three key sets
of practices that shape organizational climate.119 Employees have greater commitment,
satisfaction, citizenship behavior, and performance—and lower absenteeism and inten-
tions to quit—when they believe organizational practices support them professionally or
personally.120
Marc Benioff, CEO and co-founder of Salesforce, has created a company climate that
fosters positive OB. Many would consider him a virtuous leader. He exudes benevolence
and often speaks of how leaders in all industries, but especially technology, have a larger
responsibility to make the world a better place. Certainly not at the expense of profits, but
while making them.
Salesforce’s organizational practices are clearly employee focused. It provides excep-
tional benefits and rewards for its employees, such as bonuses for employee referrals. It
paid out over $5 million for such referrals in 2017. It also uses its software to identify
FIGURE 7.4 Creating a Climate that Fosters Positive Organizational Behavior
Organizational
Climate That
Fosters Positive
Organizational
Behavior
• Restorative Justice
• Compassion
• Temperance
Organizational
Values
• Training
• Support Programs
• Human Resource
Practices, Programs,
and Policies
Organizational
Practices
• Greater Good
• Trust
• Integrity
• Forgiveness
Virtuous
Leadership
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
282 PART 1 Individual Behavior
employees who have not been promoted within the past year and a half and actively seeks
new challenges and opportunities for them. All employees are given 56 hours of paid leave
each year to volunteer in the community. No wonder it was number two on Fortune’s 2019
list of Best Places to Work.121
Benioff’s conduct and the company’s practices reflect underlying values of compas-
sion, temperance, and restorative justice. For instance, Benioff is outspoken and addresses
social issues often, including those related to LGBTQ rights, pay equity, and the down-
sides of social media.122
Virtuous Leadership
Virtuousness represents “what individuals and organizations aspire to be when
they are at their very best.”123 The focus of virtuous leadership is to help individuals,
groups, and organizations to elevate, enrich, and flourish. Although Chapter 12 provides a
broad discussion of leadership, we consider it here as well due to its significant relation-
ship with organizational climate.124
OB scholars have proposed a variety of traits and individual differences that underlie
virtuous leadership. The four shown in Figure 7.4 were selected because they are most
frequently discussed in OB research. Virtuous leaders are more focused on the greater good
than on self-interest.
Virtuous leaders tend to promote trust by making sure their words match their actions,
and by treating people with respect and dignity. Integrity, which comes from being guided
by morals and honesty, fosters positive OB. For example, people who lied less over
10 weeks were found to have improved mental and physical health than people who lied
more frequently.125
The final component of virtuous leadership, forgiveness, is “the capacity to foster
collective abandonment of justified resentment, bitterness, and blame, and,
instead, it is the adoption of positive, forward-looking approaches in response to
harm or damage.”126 In addition to promoting positive outcomes, forgiveness can affect
your health. Research shows that unforgiveness is associated with bitterness, anger, health
problems, and premature death.127
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
283Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
THE BIGGER PICTURE
If asked what you want out of life, you might reply you want to be happy. One early leader in
the positive psychology movement eventually went beyond that goal and proposed another:
Flourishing. You may find this broadened goal to include even more of your true aspirations.
Flourishing, a key individual-level outcome in the Organizing Framework, includes five ele-
ments: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement (PERMA).
7.6 FLOURISHING: THE DESTINATION OF POB
Martin Seligman, a renowned psychologist from the University of Pennsylvania, has stud-
ied happiness and well-being for over 30 years. He is credited as the driver of today’s posi-
tive psychology movement, which is the forerunner of POB.128 Seligman originally believed
happiness was the most important outcome in our lives but has changed his mind over the
years. He now believes people equate happiness with being cheerful, and you don’t have to
be cheerful to be physically or psychologically healthy.
Seligman proposed that well-being was the combined impact of five elements—
positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and achievement (PERMA).
Well-being comes from freely pursuing one or more of these five elements.129
Flourishing represents the extent to which our lives contain PERMA. PERMA is
the most important outcome from the process of positivity shown in Figure 7.2 When we
flourish, our lives are characterized by “goodness . . . growth, and resilience.”130 We should
all strive to flourish because of its association with other positive outcomes like lower car-
diovascular risk, lower levels of inflammation, longer life, greater REM sleep, and positive
mental health.131 PERMA elements are also positively related to important outcomes in
the Organizing Framework—task performance, career satisfaction, organizational commit-
ment, and low turnover.132
An interesting study of first-year university students found the following experiences
contributed most to their flourishing:
• Socializing with new and old friends.
• Enjoying their academic subjects.
• Having more free time.
• Understanding and performing well in class.133
This demonstrates the importance of positive emotions, relationships, and achievement—
PERMA—in college.
Flourishing is also profitable. Many investors now include social responsibility and a
focus on the greater good when it comes to employees and communities as key criteria in
their investment decisions.
Positive Emotions
Although we thoroughly discussed positive emotions earlier in this chapter, one aspect of
Barbara Fredrickson’s “broaden and build” theory bears repeating because it enhances
your ability to experience the other components of PERMA. Positive emotions broaden
Create the conditions
for flourishing in your
job and career.
LO 7-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
PART 1 Individual Behavior284
your perspective as to how to overcome challenges in life. For example, the emotion of joy
is more likely to lead you to envision creative ideas during a brainstorming session. Posi-
tive emotions also build on themselves, resulting in a spreading of positive emotions within
yourself and to those around you.
Some companies understand the power of positive emotions and the significant
damage possible from negative emotions. The Applying OB box shows how this knowl-
edge is applied in the context of recruiting—not to those that are hired but to those that
are not.
Applying OB
The reality when interviewing for a job is only one
person can get it. If it isn’t you, then you join the often
hundreds of other applicants who were rejected. How
you feel about this is in part a function of how you
were treated by the prospective employer. Feeling
disappointed about the outcome is one thing; how-
ever, your feeling disrespected or even scorned
can make an enormous difference to that company’s
bottom line.
Talent Board, a nonprofit devoted to improving job
candidate experience, has a “candidate experiences
resentment calculator” to help organizations estimate
how much mistreated candidates can cost. They
approach each candidate as though they were a
potential or current customer for a given company’s
products or services, with the potential to spend $100
per year. Let’s say this same company has 100 appli-
cants for 10 jobs. This equates to 1,000 people to
delight, or at the very least not disappoint. You can see
how the numbers can get large, really large. Multiply
those numbers year after year and you can clearly see
the potential for both positive and negative impact. Tal-
ent Board has also showed that nearly three-quarters
of candidates would be inclined to do business with a
company which treated them well in the interview pro-
cess, and 46 percent said they would end the relation-
ship if treated poorly.134
Kimberly-Clark understands this potential. The
enormous consumer goods company (Huggies, Cot-
tonelle, and Kleenex) sends coupons to candidates
who are interviewed via phone, and also requires man-
agers to send thank you notes to those who interview
face-to-face. More importantly, they keep candidates
informed of the process.135
Research shows candidates expect and appreci-
ate interviews to be conducted as scheduled and
for hiring decisions to be made and communi-
cated as intended. Not surprisingly, the top reason
candidates withdraw from the process is prospective
employers not being respectful of their time. The
classic and all too common example is: “We plan to
hold interviews in two weeks and will get in touch,”
but six weeks pass by and still no communication or
action.136
So, how do you and your employer foster positive
candidate experiences? The following advice can help
you in evaluating the care and respect you have or
have not bestowed on candidates (or you have experi-
enced as a candidate).
1. Manage Expectations. This seems so obvious, yet
is too often ignored. Organizations need to give
thought to and communicate the details, and make
good on them, such as content and length of
resumes, what to expect during interviews (phone,
Skype, or face-to-face), timing, and other details
related to the process. If prospective employers
don’t provide them, candidates will, thus increas-
ing the chances of unmet expectations and unde-
sirable outcomes.
2. Listen. In almost any search and hiring process
candidates want to ask questions and to be heard.
It is helpful to train those involved in the process to
listen, ask if there are questions, and give candi-
dates opportunities to make their case.
3. Be Accountable. The hiring organization needs
to apply performance management techniques
(see Chapter 6), to ensure the goals and expec-
tations are clear, measured, evaluated, and rein-
forced. A good hiring process requires more
than filling the position; importantly, data needs
to be collected on those not hired too. This infor-
mation can provide valuable insights, such as
identifying candidates for future jobs and revis-
ing the recruiting messaging to attract better
candidates.
Converting Rejection into Business, or Not
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
285Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
4. Manage Decision Time and Communication.
Most processes involve a series of cuts or rounds,
and candidates should be informed promptly
when they are no longer being considered. For
candidates who make it far into the process, the
courtesy of a phone call should be given and for
others a promptly sent e-mail will do. Don’t wait
weeks and months to do this. Communicate final
decisions promptly as many candidates are not
sitting around waiting. Her or his application to
your company is unlikely to be the only one await-
ing a decision.
5. Fairness. You’ve learned about fairness many
times in this book already, and it is no surprise it
can make or break a candidate’s experience and
thus add to or subtract from the company’s bottom
line. If candidates feel they did not get a fair
chance, or were not appropriately considered,
there is a problem.
6. Be Sure to Include This Question. Regardless
of the job or process, consider asking every candi-
date, “Is there anything else you would like us to
know?”137
Apply this knowledge if you’re ever in the position of
hiring others because tending to these details can
have a significant impact on you and your organiza-
tion’s ability to make good hires in the short and long
term, as well as impact the potential to gain or lose
customers. Keep these factors in mind when interview-
ing for positions, as the way in which prospective
employers tend to these details may assist you in
determining whether they are worthy of your talents
and/or your business.
Engagement
You recall from Chapter 2 that employee engagement reflects the extent to which you
are physically, cognitively, and emotionally engaged in an activity, task, or project. This
state is sometimes called being “in the zone” or in a state of “flow.” Flow “is the state
of being completely involved in an activity for its own sake.”138 Flow is a positive
state because our well-being benefits from our deep attention to and engagement with an
activity.
Engagement and positive emotions are not one and the same. When we are in flow, we
are not necessarily thinking about anything; we are just doing! Our concentration is so
high during flow that we use all the cognitive and emotional resources normally needed for
thought and feelings.
How can you create engagement or flow for yourself? Seligman and others suggest this
is a two-part sequence consisting of (1) identifying your signature strengths and (2) learn-
ing to use them in daily personal and work activities.139 For us, working on this book,
teaching, and playing golf are activities that put us into flow. Once you have identified your
strengths, you can work with your manager to determine how to incorporate them into
your job.
Relationships
Think of the last time you had a belly-laugh, felt joyous, were inspired, or experienced awe.
Were you with someone else at the time? We suspect so, because positive emotions are
often associated with activities that include others.
Biologists explain that humans are creatures of the hive. After studying insects like
wasps, termites, and ants, researchers concluded the group is a natural unit of selec-
tion. In other words, both insects and people prefer to be in groups and to work
collaboratively with others to get things done. For insects it is building a fortress or
hive and for us it is completing tasks and projects, socializing, sharing memories, and
traveling.
While others may on occasion annoy us, positive relationships are a strong contribu-
tor to our well-being. They buffer us from stressors and provide resources enabling us to
more effectively accomplish tasks. Positive relationships fuel the giving and receiving of
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
286 PART 1 Individual Behavior
social support. Social support is the amount of perceived helpfulness we derive from
social relationships. There are four types.
• Esteem support: reassurance a person is accepted and respected despite any prob-
lems or inadequacies.
• Informational support: help defining, understanding, and coping with problems.
• Social companionship: time spent with others in leisure and recreational activities.
• Instrumental support: financial aid, material resources, or needed services.140
You can enhance your level of flourishing by seeking social support, but you will also
flourish by providing support to others, particularly in the form of kindness. Research
shows us the exhibition of kindness produces significant increases in well-being.141 Con-
duct a kindness exercise by doing a completely unexpected thing for someone else. It
can be as simple as holding a door open for another to pass through or helping some-
one with directions. Notice how you feel. You should experience one or more positive
emotions.
Meaningfulness
Viktor Frankl, an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist who survived the Holocaust, was a
strong proponent of using meaningfulness to promote well-being. His best-selling book
Man’s Search for Meaning chronicled his experiences in concentration camps and summa-
rized what he learned from these events. Frankl’s conclusion was “striving to find a mean-
ing in one’s life is the primary motivational force” for people.142 In other words, it is the
drive to find meaning in our lives that instills in us a sense of purpose and motivation to
pursue goals.
First responders, and the many others that assist in the recovery of natural disasters, work for more than just a
paycheck. It is safe to assume they find tremendous meaningfulness in their work.
Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
287Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Meaningfulness is the sense of “belonging to and serving something that you
believe is bigger than the self.”143 In our case, for instance, we derive meaning from writ-
ing this book because we believe it can enrich your life and help you manage others more
effectively. We have three suggestions for building meaning into your life.
1. Identify activities you love doing. Try to do more of these activities or find ways to build
them into your work role. Employees at Stryker, a medical devices company headquar-
tered in Michigan, are encouraged to witness the impact of their work. They observe
surgeries, interact with doctors and patients, and some have even performed proce-
dures on cadavers to get a different perspective. Stryker is #11 on Fortune’s 2019 Best
Places to Work.144
2. Find a way to build your natural strengths into your personal and work life. You assessed
your signature strengths earlier in Self-Assessment 7.4. Kimley-Horn, a planning and
design company (e.g., hospitals, resorts, and sports facilities) and #18 on Fortune’s
list, asks and allows employees to set up their own “mini-practices” where they identify
new locations for developing new projects for their diverse customers.145 The compa-
ny’s website states: “Employees know our culture and approach to business are built
on a desire to see our staff flourish, one and all.”146
3. Go out and help someone. Research shows people derive a sense of meaningfulness
from helping others.147 Accounting and consulting firm Crowe-Horwath clearly
believes in helping others; for instance, it provides its employees with 96 paid hours to
volunteer annually. That’s 12 eight-hour work days for each employee totaling about
30,000 hours of community, pro-bono, and volunteer service!148 Helping others cre-
ates the upward spiral of positivity we discussed earlier in this chapter.
Achievement
The final component of PERMA, achievement, pertains to the extent to which you have a
self-directed “achieving life.” In other words, we flourish when we pursue achievement for
its own sake. Doing so fosters feelings of competence and mastery, which in turn enhances
our self-esteem and self-efficacy. Companies help employees achieve by providing skills-
based training and professional developmental activities. Training magazine created a list
of the top 125 U.S. companies that invest in such training. The top five in 2018 were Lead-
ing Real Estate Companies of the World, New York Community Bancorp, Sonic Automo-
tive, BNSF Railway Company, and Dollar General Corporation.149
Let’s conclude this chapter with a few explicit applications of the knowledge and tools
from this chapter.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
288 PART 1 Individual Behavior
Takeaways for Me
There are six ways you can apply the material in this chapter:
1. Share important information and provide effective feedback. Since positive practices
amplify positive outcomes, you can improve your work environment by identifying and
emphasizing such practices, like sharing important information and providing effective
feedback.
2. If you are upset with your partner or coworker, try to think of at least three things you
like or appreciate about him or her. Similarly, if someone is upset with you, realize you
need several positive interactions or actions to compensate for each negative.
3. Develop a plan to be more mindful. Techniques like meditation and yoga can enhance
your ability to focus and hold your attention. Many good books and apps can help in
this pursuit.
4. Making your goals SMART and formulating effective action plans will help build your
level of hope (goal + path = hope). Hope should boost your goal commitment and
success.
5. You can contribute to a positive organizational climate by adhering to the values your
employer endorses and by trying to be more virtuous.
6. Develop a plan to build PERMA into your life by focusing on those components over
which you have more control. You can make a choice to be more positive, you can
work on building more positive relationships in your life, and you can strive for
achievement.
Takeaways for Managers
There are seven key implications for managers:
1. Identify existing positive practices, such as appropriately and regularly recognizing per-
formance, and emphasize them. Role-model these practices and watch your people
flourish.
2. Realize your emotions are contagious. To build a positive environment for your people,
be positive yourself. Random acts of kindness can go a long way (give someone a spot
bonus or an afternoon off or throw an impromptu celebration in the office).
3. Model mindfulness by being focused on the present moment whenever you are talking or
meeting with others. You can also establish a policy of not using web-based or mobile
technologies during meetings.
4. Encourage your employer to train employees in mindfulness techniques.
Describe the
implications of
positive organizational
behavior for you and
managers.
LO 7-7
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We conclude this chapter with a number of practical applications of POB knowledge and
tools to improve your effectiveness as both an employee and manager.
7.7 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I
FLOURISH AT SCHOOL, WORK, AND HOME?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
289Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
5. Learn about and utilize your strengths and those of the people you manage. Be sure to
verbally acknowledge others’ strengths and create opportunities for them to be used.
6. Endorse and model your employer’s stated corporate values and engage in more virtuous
leadership.
7. Support your employees’ level of PERMA by engaging in one or more of the following:
(1) display positive emotions at work, (2) identify the tasks or responsibilities that
engage your employees and find ways to design them into their jobs, (3) provide the
four sources of social support when possible, (4) use I-deals, discussed in Chapter 5,
to help employees find meaning in their work, and (5) encourage creative approaches
to achieving goals.
We hope you now have a greater understanding of the tangible and far-reaching benefits of
positivity and positive OB. Use this knowledge to improve not only your own well-being
and performance, but that of your coworkers and friends.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
290 PART 1 Individual Behavior
In this chapter, you learned positive OB focuses
on creating work environments in which people
flourish, and a number of techniques that can
help increase your positivity at school and home.
Reinforce and consolidate your learning with the
Key Points and Organizing Framework. Then chal-
lenge your mastery of the material by completing
the Problem-Solving Application Case and Legal/
Ethical Challenge below.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 7
You learned the following key points.
7.1 THE VALUE OF POSITIVITY
• Positive OB emphasizes positive inputs, pro-
cesses, and outcomes across all three levels
of OB.
• Positive OB operates via amplifying, buffer-
ing, and positivity.
• Positivity is more than positive thinking and
improves health, relationships, performance,
and many other aspects of your jobs and career.
7.2 THE POWER OF POSITIVE
EMOTIONS
• Negative emotions cause you to narrow your
focus, while positive emotions cause you to
broaden your thinking.
• Positive emotions are contagious and can be
actively increased.
• Research shows you need multiple positive
experiences to overcome or compensate for
each negative.
7.3 FOSTERING MINDFULNESS
• Mindfulness is fostered by paying attention to
the present moment in a nonjudgmental way.
• Mindfulness can be learned through a variety
of simple “meditative” techniques practiced
on a regular basis.
7.4 PSYCHOLOGICAL CAPITAL
AND SIGNATURE STRENGTHS
• Positive psychological capital (PsyCap) con-
sists of hope, efficacy, resilience, and opti-
mism (HERO).
• Hope includes not only a goal and determina-
tion to achieve it, but also one or more clear
paths for achieving it.
• Resilience is your ability to bounce back after
adversity and sustain yourself.
• Optimism attributes positive events to per-
sonal, permanent, and pervasive factors.
• Signature strengths are a handful of personal
attributes influencing your thoughts, feelings,
and behaviors.
7.5 POSITIVE ORGANIZATIONAL
CLIMATES
• Organizational climate represents employees’
perceptions of an organization’s policies,
practices, procedures, and routines.
• Positive organizational climates are a function
of organizational values, organizational prac-
tices, and virtuous leadership.
• The key components of virtuous leadership
are a focus on the greater good, trust, integ-
rity, and forgiveness.
7.6 FLOURISHING: THE
DESTINATION OF POB
• Flourishing reflects the extent to which our
lives contain positive emotions, engagement,
relationships, meaning, and achievement
(PERMA).
• Positive emotions are contagious.
• You can increase engagement by using your
signature strengths in everyday activities.
• Four key types of social support are esteem
support, informational support, social com-
panionship, and instrumental support.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
291Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
across the three levels of OB. You can also see
there are processes at the individual, group/
team, and organizational level that affect out-
comes. As for outcomes affected by the inputs
and processes shown in Figure 7.5, individual-
level ones include task performance, work atti-
tudes, flourishing, physical health, citizenship
behavior/counterproductive behavior, turnover,
and creativity. At the group/team level, outcomes
include group/team performance and group
cohesion and conflict. Finally, at the organiza-
tional level, outcomes include financial perfor-
mance, overall organizational performance, and
customer satisfaction.
7.7 HOW CAN I FLOURISH AT
SCHOOL, WORK, AND HOME?
• Well-being Is comprised of positive emotions,
engagement, relationships, meaning, and
achievement (PERMA).
• Flourishing reflects the extent to which our
lives contain PERMA.
• Meaningfulness can be enhanced by doing
things you love, utilizing your strengths, and
helping others.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 7
Figure 7.5 shows four person factors and five
situation factors contribute to positive outcomes
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Emotions
• Mindfulness
• Psychological capital
• Signature strengths
Situation Factors
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
• Organizational values
• Virtuous leadership
• Organizational practices
Individual Level
• Communication
• Decision making discretion
• Interpersonal conflict
Group/Team Level
• Communication
• Civility
• Group Dynamics
Organizational Level
• Communication
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Flourishing
• Physical health
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group/team cohesion and
conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Organizational performance
• Customer satisfaction
FIGURE 7.5 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
SOURCE: ©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
292 PART 1 Individual Behavior
HISTORY OF OPIOIDS AND
MEDICAL USE
The human experience contains both joy and pain, and
physical forms of the latter have many causes, from dis-
ease to trauma. Since the 1800s humans have been
treating pain with opioids, a class of very powerful pain-
killers extracted and created from the opium poppy,
such as heroin, morphine, and codeine. To provide a
sense of the long history and use of opioids, it is inter-
esting to note the Bayer Company manufactured heroin
for commercial sale in 1898. One of the major uses at
the time was as a cough suppressant, and not just for
pain relief. The addictive properties became well known
by the 1920s and the sale of heroin was banned.150
World War II was a turning point in opioid use. The
scale of the war resulted in enormous numbers of inju-
ries and soldiers who suffered from both acute and
chronic pain, but physicians then had a limited arsenal
with which to treat such conditions. Oxycodone, manu-
factured from a chemical in opium, was one of the
drugs used in what was then the early days of what we
now refer to as pain management. New drugs entered
the market in the 1970s, like Percodan (oxycodone and
aspirin) and Percocet (oxycodone and acetaminophen),
but most physicians were taught to avoid prescribing
such highly addictive medications to patients.151
CHANGING VIEWS
The scenario began to change in the 1980s when an
article printed in the New England Journal of Medicine
pushed back against the perceived dangers of prescrib-
ing opioids. The physician author claimed addictions were
rare in patients with no history of addiction, and adverse
effects were no greater than those of other drugs.152
People with chronic pain, such as those with termi-
nal illnesses, became the new patients for opioids. In a
few short years, physicians’ perceptions had changed,
and the risks of abuse and addiction were seen as rel-
atively low compared to the benefits for patients in
otherwise dire circumstances.153
Although addiction and abuse were very real, by the
1990s medical opinions were shifting and prioritizing
pain management as a primary motive and responsibil-
ity for physicians everywhere.154 This resulted in a
much greater use of opioids, which to this point had all
been very fast-acting. This was problematic for millions
of patients whose pain was more or less constant, such
as those with cancer, since fast-acting pain relievers
had to be taken about every four hours. Longer-acting
and safer alternatives were desperately needed.155
ENTER PURDUE PHARMA
AND OXYCONTIN
Purdue Pharma is a private company founded by three
Sackler brothers in 1952, and it has been run or at least
controlled by Sacklers ever since. The family has
amassed an enormous fortune, estimated at approxi-
mately $13 billion by Forbes in 2016, and have donated
generously to universities, medical schools, and muse-
ums around the world:156 Tuft’s University, University of
Nebraska, National Academy of Sciences, New York
Presbyterian Hospital, Dia Art Foundation, Global Pov-
erty Project, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the
Guggenheim, and the Brooklyn Museum.157
Purdue Pharma began testing OxyContin, an
extended release version of oxycodone (in use since
the early 1900s), in 1994 with the hopes of filling the
need in the market: effective and extended pain relief
with reduced addictive qualities. The drug was approved
and brought to market in 1996 as a safe alternative to
existing opioids. During the same space of time pain-
killer prescriptions increased from 2 million to over
10 million per year.158 One current estimate puts total
sales of OxyContin at $35 billion for Purdue.159
CONDUCT AND CONSEQUENCES
Purdue’s marketing efforts were aggressive and effec-
tive. For instance, a doctor in a promotional video
stated: “These drugs, which I repeat, are our best,
strongest pain medications, should be used much
more than they are for patients in pain.” Only a year
later painkiller prescriptions had jumped by 11 million,
not to 11 million but an additional 11 million. Sales
grew from $48 million in 1996 to nearly $1.1 billion in
2000, and this was spurred by dozens of pain man-
agement and speaker training conferences across the
U.S., attended by more than 5,000 physicians, pharma-
cists, and nurses (all-expenses-paid). In 2001 alone,
Purdue was said to have spent $200 million on pro-
moting the use of opioids and OxyContin.160 The goal
of course was to educate, and boost prescriptions.
After OxyContin’s launch in 1996, Purdue more than
doubled its number of sales reps and provided extremely
generous sales incentives. Average annual salaries for
reps were $55,000 and annual bonuses averaged over
$70,000 (ranging from $15,000 to more than $200,000).
To spur sales further still, representatives provided cou-
pons for physicians to offer to patients a free month’s
supply.161 Purdue didn’t just incentivize sales, it pres-
sured them too. Court documents show that a sales VP
sent a message chastising the representatives in the
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Opioids: Pain Relief, Grief, and Purdue
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
293Positive Organizational Behavior CHAPTER 7
Sackler family with exacerbating the opioid epidemic.
The indictment accuses them of personally micromanag-
ing a long-term deceptive marketing campaign to encour-
age hundreds of employees and tens of thousands of
physicians to inappropriately prescribe Oxycontin.
Citing the CDC, AG Healy claimed approximately
400,000 people died from opioid overdoses between
1999 and 2017, and the family’s role was central and
thus they should be held accountable. Thirty-five other
states are also suing Purdue Pharma for downplaying
the risks and promoting Oxy as a less additive alterna-
tive opioid.166
Assume you are the CEO and chair of the board of
Purdue, but not a member of the Sackler family. What
would you do?
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
Use the Organizing Framework in Figure 7.5 and the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify
inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework to help identify the important problem(s)
in this case. Remember that a problem is a gap
between a desired and current state. State your
problem as a gap and be sure to consider problems
at all three levels. If more than one desired outcome
is not being accomplished, decide which one is
most important and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are
generally viewed from a particular player’s per-
spective. You need to determine from whose
perspective—employee, manager, team, or the
organization—you’re defining the problem. In
this case, you’re asked to assume the role of
CEO and chair of the board of directors for
Purdue (but not a member of the Sackler family).
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current chapter,
because we generally select cases illustrating con-
cepts specifically located within the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify the causes of the
problem you identified in Step 1. Remember, causes
tend to appear in either the Inputs or Processes boxes.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 7.5) and decide which person factors, if
any, are most likely causes of the defined prob-
lem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause
Boston sales district. He threatened that if sales of
opioids didn’t increase then those representatives
should be fired; he wanted to send a message. The
sales manager allegedly agreed.162
By 2003 nearly half of all OxyContin prescriptions
came from primary care physicians, rather than anes-
thesiologists and other specialists who previously
dominated pain management and treatment.
WHERE ARE THE LEADERS IN
ALL OF THIS?
Amid the growing evidence of abuse in the early
2000s, Richard Sackler, then chairman and president of
Purdue, fought back, advising the company and its rep-
resentatives to push the blame onto the addicts them-
selves. He was quoted as saying, “We have to hammer
on abusers in every way possible. . . . They are the cul-
prits in the problem. They are reckless criminals.”163
These aggressive tactics ultimately cost the company
over $600 million in fines, when in 2007 three execu-
tives pled guilty for misrepresenting the dangers of Oxy-
Contin. The Sacklers, however, were not accused and
faced no personal repercussions. The Sacklers and Pur-
due Pharma pressed on and explored selling the prod-
uct in countries with no controls on such medications
while at the same time expanding promotions in the U.S.
OTHER CONTRIBUTORS
At the turn of the millennium some regulatory changes
accelerated the popularity of prescription painkillers.
The Joint Commission, a major governing body that
reviews and accredits hospitals and medical centers,
began requiring all patients to be assessed for pain
and failing to do so effectively would result in a sanc-
tion. The Joint Commission printed a book in 2000 to
be used by physicians in continuing education semi-
nars, citing the evidence for opioid addiction was lim-
ited and their use effective. (Note: The book was
sponsored by Purdue Pharma, and the Joint Commis-
sion removed this standard in 2009.)164
In 2010 Purdue Pharma released a new formulation of
OxyContin, one which was reformulated to make it more
difficult to crush and snort, as was commonly done by
those that abused it. This was done in response to the
growing evidence of abuse, but research and clinicians
continued to question the efficacy of this reformulation.
WHERE ARE WE NOW?
By 2016 the director of the Centers for Disease Control,
Dr. Tom Frieden, wrote in the New England Journal of
Medicine, “We know of no other medication routinely
used for a nonfatal condition that kills patients so fre-
quently.” He noted that data on long-term opioid use was
still lacking, but what he did know at the time was that
perhaps as many as 26 percent of patients using opioids
for chronic noncancer pain become dependent on it.165
In early 2019, Massachusetts Attorney General Maura
Healy charged Purdue Pharma and eight members of the
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
294 PART 1 Individual Behavior
problem and confirm the link or cause and effect
connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make your recommendations for solving the problem.
Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is
desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes you identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use material in the
current chapter that best suits the cause. Consider
the OB in Action and Applying OB boxes, because
these contain insights into what others have done.
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors—as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your rec-
ommendations and be sure your recommendations
map onto the causes and resolve the problem.
of the problem. Asking why multiple times is more
likely to lead you to root causes of the problem.
For example, do executive characteristics help
explain the problem you defined in Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, why is this a cause?
By asking why multiple times you are likely to
arrive at a complete and more accurate list of
causes. Again, look to the Organizing Frame-
work for this chapter for guidance. Did particular
policies or practices play a role?
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organiz-
ing Framework. Are any processes at the indi-
vidual, group/team, or organizational level
potential causes of your defined problem? For
any process you consider, ask yourself, why is
this a cause? Again, do this for several iterations
to arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Is Hiring Candidates with Criminal Records Wise or Risky?
Let’s start with some perspective: 33 percent. That is
the proportion of working-age Americans with a crimi-
nal record.167 Each year approximately 650,000 peo-
ple are released from prison,168 which is about the
same as the population of Memphis, TN, or Portland,
OR. All of their offenses are not equal of course, but
before hastily deciding whether you would hire some-
body with a record or not it helps to consider just how
many people have this label.
Many hiring managers and companies have knee-
jerk reactions to exclude such candidates, as reflected
on many applications with the infamous box, “Have you
ever been convicted of a crime? Yes or No.” When job
markets are flush with candidates, excluding these can-
didates may not be such a problem. However, when
the job market is hot and labor is tight, many compa-
nies across industries might think differently. And of
course, some companies, industries, and geographies
are confronted with seemingly eternal talent shortages
regardless of the economy. This means such exclusion-
ary policies may shrink an already small talent pool.
Putting the economy and labor market aside, indi-
viduals and companies excluding those with records
typically do so on the grounds of limiting their liability
and/or ensuring employee and customer safety. On
the other side of this argument are those who feel peo-
ple should be given a second chance: they’ve paid
their debt to society. Research done by the Society of
Human Resource Management found the three top
reasons reported for hiring candidates with criminal
records were: (1) desire to hire the best available can-
didate, (2) give workers a second chance, and
(3) improve the community.169
Many have argued it is unfair for criminals to be for-
ever handicapped in the job market because of a past
offense. This has led many states and cities to “ban the
box” and require companies to wait until a hiring decision
has been made before doing a criminal record check. On
the other side of this argument is that waiting until late in
the hiring process costs companies and individuals time
and money, and therefore they should be allowed to
gather and consider that information at the beginning.170
What Would You Do?
What would you do regarding candidates with criminal
records if you owned your company?
1. Would you use the “box” to identify and exclude
candidates with records if the law allows it in
your city and state? Justify your decision.
2. How would you justify the decision to not use
criminal records in the hiring criteria. Justify your
decision.
3. Would you take a middle-ground position and
use criminal records in some way or to some
extent? Explain how and why.
4. Invent other options.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Groups
PART TWO
Jan Havlicek/Johny87/123RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 8-1 Describe the key characteristics of groups and differentiate them from
those of teams.
LO 8-2 Explain the group development process.
LO 8-3 Apply your knowledge of teams to increase your value as an employee
and a team player.
LO 8-4 Build and repair trust.
LO 8-5 Illustrate your ability to foster team effectiveness.
LO 8-6 Describe the implications of groups and teams for you and
managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Groups and Teams8
Figure 8.1 summarizes what you will learn in this chapter. The main focus is on groups and
teams and the associated processes within the Organizing Framework. You’ll see that group
and team dynamics affect outcomes across all levels of OB. For instance, groups and teams
powerfully affect the individual-level outcomes of their members, for instance, task performance,
work attitudes, turnover, flourishing, and creativity. Groups and teams similarly affect their own
collective outcomes, such as group/team performance, group satisfaction, and group cohesion
and conflict. Finally, because many organizations consist of teams, they also affect organization-
level outcomes like financial performance, organizational performance, customer satisfaction,
and innovation.
Ja
n
H
av
lic
ek
/J
oh
ny
87
/1
23
RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
297Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
Situation Factors
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
Organizational Level
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and
conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
FIGURE 8.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
In addition to being responsible for important outcomes, like rescuing the injured or even saving their lives,
military medical teams illustrate most, if not all, of the team concepts covered in this chapter. For instance,
they serve both organizational and individual functions, complete complex tasks that individuals acting alone
cannot, and confirm individual team members’ self-esteem and sense of identity. The members of military
medical teams fulfill various task and maintenance roles essential to effective team dynamics and function-
ing, such as information seeker and encourager. Fundamental to all of this are the teamwork competencies
of the team members—possessing and applying their relevant knowledge and skills in constructive ways for
the benefit of the soldiers they save and the overall team. Source: Sgt. Daniel Schroeder/U.S. Army
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
298
Winning at Work
How to Charter Your Way to Success in Teams
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
We begin Part Two of this book with a discussion of
groups and teams. Your performance at work and
school improves when you understand the differences
between formal and informal groups, because the two
have different functions, roles, norms, and dynamics.
Next, we describe the group and team development
process, and we’ll differentiate groups from teams and
explore important team concepts, such as different
types of teams and the nature of their interdependence.
A number of key team characteristics also are explored,
including team competencies and teamwork. The value
of trust is covered next, because trust is a critical ele-
ment for group and team functioning. We close by
exploring facilitators for team effectiveness—common
purpose, composition, collaboration, and rewards.
task becomes even more useful if each member’s team-re-
lated strengths and responsibilities are included as well.
4. Boundaries: Boundaries identify the values, such as timely
and quality work, to which team members will commit.
Many effective teams also describe the legitimate activities
of the team, which are details about what the team will and
will not do and what members will and will not do in the
name of the team. It is also important to agree to and de-
scribe the key stakeholders affected by the team’s activi-
ties. This clarifies whom the team does and does not serve.
5. Operating guidelines: Describe the team structure and
processes, including how leadership and other roles will
function, how decisions will be made, how work will be
allocated, and how members will communicate with each
other and with those outside the team. It can be very
helpful to describe how conflict will be managed, insofar
as processes and consequences.
6. Performance norms and consequences: Team researchers
have shown that effective teams often outline the perfor-
mance expectations, including: how team and member per-
formance will be assessed; how members are expected to
interact with each other; how dysfunctional behaviors will be
managed; how team members will be disciplined for not ad-
hering to team norms; the process for terminating a member
from the team; expectations for team meetings; expecta-
tions for member contributions to team projects; conse-
quences for work that is late or of poor quality; how tasks for
team projects will be allocated to individual team members.5
7. Charter endorsement: Every team member should sign
an endorsement signifying commitment to the elements
of the charter.
When working in teams, most students and employees sim-
ply dive in and tackle the task at hand. Although this works
sometimes, many times it doesn’t. There are a variety of rea-
sons teams underperform and you will learn about many in
this chapter. Some of the most fundamental causes are a
lack of alignment on what needs to be done, how it needs to
be done, and by whom. One way to help overcome these
challenges is to create a team charter, which is a document
detailing members’ mutual expectations about how the
team will operate, allocate resources, resolve conflict, and
meet its commitments.1 Creating the charter may include
identifying member strengths, setting goals, agreeing on
processes for communication and decision making, and
deciding how to measure and use contributions from mem-
bers. The process of creating a charter gives the team an
opportunity to consider the capabilities of its members along
with important contextual factors that can either help or hin-
der the team’s efforts.2
Experts recommend including the following elements:3
1. Mission statement: Like organization mission statements
(Chapter 16), team charter mission statements describe
why a team exists—its overarching purpose. Be careful not
to describe this mission in terms of a goal, for example,
“get a good grade.” Missions focus on and articulate
a higher purpose. For example, the American Humane
Society’s is: “Celebrating animals, confronting cruelty.” This
statement tells people why the organization exists, not
how it achieves this mission.
2. Team vision: Vision statements are forward-looking and
describe what the team looks like when functioning at its
best. A vision has more detail than a mission statement
and describes how its actions and deliverables (products
and services) affect specific outcomes and stakeholders,
like other team members, customers, professors, other
students and coworkers, and suppliers. The Humane So-
ciety’s team mission is “to promote the human-animal
bond, protect street animals, advance farm animal wel-
fare, stop wildlife abuse, curtail and eliminate painful ani-
mal testing, respond to natural disasters and confront
animal cruelty in all its forms.”4
3. Team identity: It helps to create a team name and perhaps a
logo to help signify membership. These can serve as impor-
tant ways for team members to connect to the team and to
distinguish the team and its members from other individuals
and teams. Think of the names and mascots of sports teams
and the functions they serve. It can be helpful to use the
same elements in your own teams at school and work. Team
rosters including each member’s name, e-mail address,
phone number, and schedule can assist in making commu-
nication and planning teamwork much more efficient. This
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
299Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
Most fundamentally, we use groups and teams at work because the complexity and
demands are simply too great to be managed by individuals.6 Although we’ll address teams
separately later in the chapter, it is easiest and best if we define and differentiate groups
and teams upfront. It will eliminate the suspense, head off some obvious questions, prevent
you from looking ahead for the answer, and keep you focused on groups for the moment.
Groups and teams can be described using three characteristics:7
1. Dependence is the extent to which one member’s tasks and responsibilities are linked
to those of other members.
2. Accountability involves who is responsible for the tasks and related outcomes.
3. Time is the duration members spend to together completing tasks and responsibilities.
Using these characteristics, groups and teams are differentiated in Table 8.1.
Drawing on Table 8.1, we define groups as collections of two or more individuals with
low or no task dependency, who are not accountable to each other for their work, and who
may or may not assemble for a specified period of time. Teams are collections of two or
more individuals whose tasks and responsibilities depend on the other members, are col-
lectively accountable for the performance and outcomes associated with their work, and
work together for the time required for task completion.
To add more clarity, let’s use as an example an airplane’s passengers and crew.9 Pas-
sengers are a group and the crew are a team. Despite being on the same flight, passengers
have a variety of goals and reasons for flying. Your reasons are more often than not inde-
pendent of my reasons. The crew of the plane, however, is a team as their tasks and
8.1 GROUP CHARACTERISTICS
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Groups are different from teams, can be formal or informal, and serve multiple functions.
Group roles and norms are the means by which expectations are communicated to groups
and their members, and they are powerful forms of social control influencing group and mem-
ber behavior. They may also influence several important outcomes across the levels in the
Organizing Framework.
Describe the key
characteristics
of groups and
differentiate them
from those of teams.
LO 8-1
TABLE 8.1 Three Characteristics for Describing and Differentiating Groups and Teams.8
DIFFERENTIATING
CHARACTERISTICS GROUPS TEAMS
Task Dependency Independent. Members’ tasks and
responsibilities are independent from
each other.
Interdependent. Members’ tasks and
responsibilities are interdependent.
Accountability Individual. Performance and other
outcomes are the responsibilities of
individual members.
Shared. Performance and other
outcomes are shared responsibilities
among members.
Time Together Unspecified. May be unspecified as
most often not linked to a specific
task or goal.
Specific. Generally, for a specific
amount of time required to complete
a task or goal.
SOURCE: Nemeth, Bianka. “Group vs team: What’s the difference?” Session Lab, January 13, 2018. https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/working-with-groups-and-teams/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
300 PART 2 Groups
responsibilities are linked or interdependent. If a pilot or flight attendant doesn’t show up
for a flight, then other members of the crew are affected and unable to do their jobs, either
appropriately or at all.
Passengers are only accountable for their own actions. If you miss your flight, then it
is only you who is accountable for your actions and must pay for the consequences. Crew
members, in contrast, are accountable for each other as noted above. Pilots can’t do their
jobs without the flight attendants and vice versa. If one attendant doesn’t meet his respon-
sibilities, then another needs to pick up the slack (shared accountability).
Once the flight lands passengers may connect to other flights and continue their trav-
els, or not. Either way it has nothing to do with the other passengers. As for the crew, they
delivered the passengers from city A to city B, a common goal, and their job is done.
Groups are commonly further differentiated in terms of formal and informal, which
you’ll learn about next.
Formal and Informal Groups
Individuals join or are assigned to groups for various purposes. A formal group is
assigned by an organization or its managers to accomplish specific goals. Such
groups often have labels: work group, team, committee, or task force. An informal group
exists when the members’ overriding purpose in getting together is friendship or a
common interest.10 Formal and informal groups often overlap, for instance, when a team
of analysts play tennis after work.
Functions of Informal Groups Informal groups often form around particular inter-
ests or causes and typically do not have goals or objectives. This is not surprising as they
operate without formal rules or authority, and members generally come and go as they
please. Nearly all of your social media groups (people and causes you follow) are examples
of informal groups. The 120 million-plus people who follow Cristiano Ronaldo on Insta-
gram constitute an informal group, as do the 100 million that follow Dwayne Johnson and
another 100 million for Beyoncé.11
A particularly valuable and increasingly common informal group is former employees,
or what companies variously call comeback colleagues, boomerang employees, or simply
alumni. When treated well former employees can be extremely valuable, providing quality
job candidate referrals, partnering opportunities, and rehires. Some companies have truly
seized such opportunities. Sedexo, the food service company, has 9,000 management-level
former employees registered in its alumni network. And this group is the source of approx-
imately 20 percent of the hires it makes each year!12
Deloitte, an early adopter who launched its alumni program in 2000, has hundreds of
thousands of former employees in its alumni group, from which it made 2,800 hires in
2017. This makes perfect sense—former employees know the culture, know the work, and
ramp up very quickly.13
Functions of Formal Groups Formal groups fulfill two basic functions: organiza-
tional and individual (see Table 8.2). Complex combinations of these functions can be
found in formal groups at any given time.
Next, let’s learn about roles and norms, two of the most powerful influences on indi-
vidual behavior in groups.
Roles and Norms: The Social Building Blocks of
Group and Organizational Behavior
Groups transform individuals into functioning organizational members through subtle yet
powerful social forces. These social forces, in effect, turn “I” into “we” and “me” into “us.”
Group influence weaves individuals into the organization’s social fabric by communicating
and enforcing both role expectations and norms. That is, group members positively
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
301Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
reinforce those who adhere to roles and norms with friendship and acceptance. Noncon-
formists, in contrast, experience criticism and even ostracism or rejection by group mem-
bers. Anyone who has experienced the “silent treatment” from a group of friends knows
what a potent social weapon ostracism can be. Let’s look at how roles and norms develop
and why they are enforced.
What Are Roles and Why Do They Matter? A role is a set of expected behav-
iors for a particular position, and a group role is a set of shared expected behaviors
for members of the group as a whole. Each role you play is defined in part by the expec-
tations of that role.14 In the role of student, you are expected to be motivated to learn,
conscientious, participative, and attentive. Professors are expected to be knowledgeable,
prepared, and genuinely interested in student learning. Sociologists view roles and their
associated expectations as a fundamental basis of human interaction and experience.
Two types of roles are particularly important—task and maintenance. Effective groups
ensure that both are being fulfilled (see Table 8.3). Task roles enable the work group to
define, clarify, and pursue a common purpose; and maintenance roles foster sup-
portive and constructive interpersonal relationships. Task roles keep the group on
track, while maintenance roles keep the group together. Members can play more than one
role at a time, or over time.
To illustrate, think of a team for one of your classes, perhaps a team case analysis.
When the team meets and a member clarifies the deliverables for the assignment, that
person is playing a task role (information seeker/giver in Table 8.3). If another member
solicits input from all other members, to ensure their voices are heard, then this person is
playing a maintenance role (gatekeeper in Table 8.3). The group’s leader or any of its mem-
bers can play any of the task and maintenance roles in combination or in sequence.
The task and maintenance roles listed in Table 8.3 can serve as a handy checklist for
managers and group leaders who wish to ensure group development (discussed in the next
section of this chapter) and effectiveness (the last section of this chapter).
Learn about your own group role preferences by completing Self-Assessment 8.1. This
knowledge can help you understand why you might have been more or less satisfied with a
particular group or team of which you’ve been a member. Playing roles that don’t match
your preferences is likely to be less satisfying. Furthermore, understanding your own pref-
erences will enable you to set yourself up to be happy and productive in future groups,
because you can volunteer for or position yourself to play the roles you prefer.
TABLE 8.2 Formal Groups Fulfill Organizational and Individual Functions
ORGANIZATIONAL FUNCTIONS INDIVIDUAL FUNCTIONS
1. Accomplish complex, interdependent tasks that are
beyond the capabilities of individuals.
1. Satisfy the individual’s need for affiliation.
2. Generate new ideas and solutions. 2. Develop, enhance, and confirm the individual’s
self-esteem and sense of identity.
3. Coordinate inter-departmental and inter-
organizational efforts.
3. Give individuals an opportunity to test and share
their perceptions of (social) reality.
4. Provide a problem-solving mechanism for complex
problems requiring varied information and
assessments.
4. Reduce the individual’s anxieties and feelings
of insecurity and powerlessness.
5. Implement complex decisions. 5. Provide a problem-solving mechanism for
personal and interpersonal problems.
6. Socialize and train newcomers.
SOURCE: Schein, Edgar H. Organizational Psychology. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1988.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
302 PART 2 Groups
TABLE 8.3 Task and Maintenance Roles15
TASK ROLES DESCRIPTION
Initiator Suggests new goals or ideas
Information seeker/giver Clarifies key issues
Opinion seeker/giver Clarifies pertinent values
Elaborator Promotes greater understanding through examples
or exploration of implications
Coordinator Pulls together ideas and suggestions
Orienter Keeps group headed toward its stated goal(s)
Evaluator Tests group’s accomplishments with various criteria such
as logic and practicality
Energizer Prods group to move along or to accomplish more
Procedural technician Performs routine duties (handing out materials or
rearranging seats)
Recorder Performs a “group memory” function by documenting
discussion and outcomes
MAINTENANCE ROLES DESCRIPTION
Encourager Fosters group solidarity by accepting and praising
various points of view
Harmonizer Mediates conflict through reconciliation or humor
Compromiser Helps resolve conflict by meeting others halfway
Gatekeeper Encourages all group members to participate
Standard setter Evaluates the quality of group processes
Commentator Records and comments on group processes/dynamics
Follower Serves as a passive audience
Group and Team Role Preference Scale
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 8.1 in Connect.
1. Does your preferred role (the one with the highest score) match your percep-
tions? Justify your answer using examples of your behavior.
2. Given your preferred role, how can you be most effective in group assignments?
What challenges might playing your preferred role cause for you? For your group?
3. Describe how playing your least preferred role (the one with the lowest score)
has been problematic for you and one of your teams. Explain two ways you could
improve your performance and that of your team by working on this deficiency.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.1
SOURCE: Porteus, Ann. “Roles People Play in Groups.” Stanford University. Accessed April 4, 2019. https://web.stanford.edu/
group/resed/resed/staffresources/RM/training/grouproles.html
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
303Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
What Are Norms and Why Do They Matter? Norms are shared attitudes, opin-
ions, feelings, or behaviors that guide individual and group behavior. Norms are
more encompassing than roles, which tend to be at the individual level in the Organizing
Framework and pertain to a specific job or situation. Norms are shared and apply to the
group, team, or organization. They help create order and allow groups to function more
efficiently because they save groups from having to figure out how to do the same things
each time they meet. Norms also help groups move through the development process
you’ll learn about in the following section.
Although norms are typically unwritten and are seldom discussed openly, they have a
powerful influence on group and organizational behavior. Like organizational culture,
individual members and group behavior are guided in part by shared expectations and
norms. For example, the 3M Co. has a norm whereby employees devote 15 percent of their
time to thinking big, pursuing new ideas, or further developing something spawned from
their other work. The “15 percent time” program, as it is called, was started in 1948 and
supports the culture of innovation for which 3M is known. Terry Ceulemans, 3M’s Global
Director for Automotive and Aerospace Solutions, views this practice as the company
investing 15 percent of its labor costs into innovation, and the returns have been enor-
mous. Products like Post-It Notes, reflective traffic lights, and Scotchguard might have
never been invented otherwise.16
Although Google has abandoned its 20% practice, Gmail, AdSense, and Google Talk
were all attributed to projects employees developed during this time.17 Twitter and others
who do hack-a-thons provide other successful examples.
Researchers and others have utilized “blue sky” time with great success, such as Andre
Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, who won the Nobel Prize in physics with experiments
they did on Friday (on their “own time”). The idea is simply to be disciplined and be sure
to allocate time to think freely, pursue pet projects, or explore other ideas.18
Norms serve many purposes and are thus reinforced by the group. Some of these rea-
sons are listed in Table 8.4.
Norms can emerge on their own over time. For instance, think of the group of friends you
socialized with on Friday night. What were some of the norms of behavior? Were these norms
the result of discussion and explicit agreement? That’s highly unlikely. They just happened.
In contrast, norms can also be purposefully created, which is what we advocate. Why
leave things to chance when you can directly influence them for the better? The World
Health Organization (WHO) sets norms, as described in the OB In Action box related to
the Safe Surgery Checklist. Although the 19 items are an actual written list, they typically
are not formally required, which would make them rules.
TABLE 8.4 Why Norms Are Reinforced
NORM REASON EXAMPLE OF REINFORCEMENT
“Make our department look
good in top management’s
eyes.”
Group/organization survival A staff specialist vigorously defends the vital role
of her department at a divisional meeting and is
later complimented by her boss.
“Work hard and don’t make
waves.”
Clarification of behavioral
expectations
A senior manager takes a young associate aside
and cautions him to be a bit more patient with
coworkers who see things differently.
“Be a team player, not a
star.”
Avoidance of
embarrassment
A project team member is ridiculed by her peers
for dominating the discussion during a progress
report to top management.
“Make customer service our
top priority.”
Clarification of central
values
Two sales representatives are given a surprise
Friday afternoon party for winning best-in-the-
industry customer service awards from an
industry association.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
304 PART 2 Groups
Finally, another way to think about roles and norms is as peer pressure. Peer pressure
is about expectations, and we all know how effective or problematic expectations can be.
At its root, peer pressure is simply the influence of the group on the individual, and the
expectations of associated roles and norms are the means of this influence.
The mission of the World Health Organization (WHO)
is to improve health for people around the world,
including improving surgical outcomes. This mission
is reflected in the Safe Surgery Checklist which out-
lines three stages of surgery and the important tasks
associated with each. The aim is to reduce the most
common and avoidable surgical risks. To do this, the
checklist recommends that a surgery coordinator (a
specific task role) be assigned to ensure that each
task is complete before the surgical team moves to
the next stage.19
Stage 1—(Sign In) Before Administering Anesthesia:
Confirm patient identity, site, procedure, and consent;
mark the site of the surgery; perform anesthesia
safety check; turn pulse oximeter on.
Stage 2—(Time Out) Before Incision: Confirm all
team members have introduced themselves by
name and role; surgeon, anesthesiologist, and nurse
confirm patient, procedure, and site; surgeon
reviews critical steps and potential challenges; anes-
thesiologist checks for potential problems; nursing
team reviews that all equipment and personnel are
in place. Confirm appropriate medications have
been administered.
Stage 3—(Sign Out) Before Patient Leaves Operat-
ing Room: Nurse verbally confirms with the team—
name of procedure has been recorded; instrument,
sponge, and needle counts are correct; specimen is
labeled and includes patient’s name; surgeon, anes-
thesiologist, and nurse review post-op concerns,
medications, and pain management.
The list was created by a broad interdisciplinary
team of surgeons, gynecologists, anesthetists,
nurses, infection control experts, public health per-
sonnel, patient advocates, and biomedical engi-
neers. Central to the Safe Surgery Checklist’s
development and implementation is teamwork. The
intention is to improve surgical outcomes by embed-
ding norms related to communication and teamwork,
regardless of the location of a clinic or available
resources, such as technology and clinical training.20
Results have been impressive with studies
reporting a 47 percent reduction in mortality and a
36 percent reduction in complications.21 However,
other research has shown consistent and effective
implementation varies dramatically, depending on
individual, procedural, and contextual factors. Those
that helped facilitate effective use were well-
informed specialists, supporters for use of the list,
along with teams who are genuinely focused on the
intended benefits and content of the list.22
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Think of an effective team of which you are or
have been a member. What are some of the
norms to which you would attribute the team’s
effectiveness?
2. Now think of a team that is ineffective. What
norms do you think contribute to its lower
performance?
3. Now think of a team you belong to currently.
What are two norms you feel would improve its
effectiveness?
Improve Team Norms to Improve Surgical Outcomes
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
305Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You’ll find working in groups and teams much easier when you recognize that they often fol-
low a development process. One such process has five stages, and the other is called punctu-
ated equilibrium. We explore both and help you understand the problems and benefits
common to groups and teams as they evolve. Your application of this knowledge will enable
you to more effectively manage individual- and group-level outcomes in the Organizing
Framework and perform more successfully in work and school groups.
8.2 THE GROUP DEVELOPMENT PROCESS
At work and school groups and teams go through a development process. Sometimes this
development is like the life cycle of products in marketing or like human development in
biology. That is, it consists of stages of a specific number, sequence, length, and nature.
Other kinds of groups form, progress in a stable manner for a while, but then respond to
an event by radically changing their approach.23 We discuss both development processes,
beginning with the most popular—Tuckman’s five-stage model (see Figure 8.2).
Explain the group
development process.
LO 8-2
FIGURE 8.2 Tuckman’s Five-Stage Model of Group Development
Te
am
E
�
ec
tiv
en
es
s
Adjourning
Independence
Dependence/
Interdependence
Return to
Independence
Performing
Norming
Storming
Forming
Individual
issues
“How do I
fit in?”
“What’s my
role here?”
“What do the
others expect
me to do?”
“How can I
best perform
my role?”
“What’s
next?”
Group
Issues
“Why are we
here?”
“Why are we
fighting over
who is in
charge and
who does
what?”
“Can we agree
on roles and
work as a
team?”
“Can we do
the job
properly?”
“Can we help
members
transition
out?”
Time
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
306 PART 2 Groups
Tuckman’s Five-Stage Model of Group Development
Tuckman’s five-stage model of group development—forming, storming, norming, perform-
ing, adjourning—has great practical appeal because it is easy to remember and apply.24
Notice in the top part of Figure 8.2 how individuals give up an increasing amount of their
independence as a group develops. The lower box in the figure also describes some of the
issues faced by individual members and the larger group as it develops.
The five stages are not necessarily of the same duration or intensity. For instance, the
storming stage may be practically nonexistent or painfully long, depending on the goal
clarity, commitment, and maturity of the members.
Stage 1: Forming During the ice-breaking forming stage, group members tend to be
uncertain and anxious about the unknowns such as their roles, the people in charge, and
the group’s goals. Mutual trust is low, and there is a good deal of holding back to see who
takes charge and how.
Some research shows that conflict among group members is actually beneficial during
this stage. For instance, early conflict in product development teams can boost creativity.25
However, the results can also be quite different. For example, in the life-and-death situa-
tions sometimes faced by surgical teams and airline cockpit crews, the uncertainty inher-
ent in the early stages of development (forming and storming) can be dangerous.
Stage 2: Storming The storming stage is a time of testing. Individuals test the leader’s
policies and assumptions as they try to decide how they fit into the power structure. Sub-
groups may form and resist the current direction of a leader or another subgroup. In fact,
some management experts say the reason many new CEOs don’t survive is they never get
beyond the storming stage. Yet still other executive changes are made because the board
feels things need to be stirred up, as was the case at Volkswagen in 2018 when it inserted
Herbert Diess as the new CEO.
The infamous “defeat device” and emissions scandal continues to haunt VW, and as a
result several executives have been ousted. Diess came to VW from BMW after the scandal
broke, thus he is not ensnared in the
mess. This will make developing his
teams both easier and more difficult.26
On the one hand, he needs to make sig-
nificant changes, clean up the mess, and
get the company back on track. Presum-
ably the changes he’ll initiate will involve
considerable storming to improve pro-
cesses and products, as well as to ensure
the company stays on a scandal-free path.
On the other hand, because he is not a
long-time insider, he doesn’t know the
culture and how things work at VW. This
could make norming and performing
slower and more difficult.
Stage 3: Norming Groups that make
it through Stage 2 generally do so because
a respected member, other than the
leader, challenges the group to resolve its power struggles so work can be accomplished.
Questions about authority and power are best resolved through unemotional, matter-of-fact
group discussion, and soft influence tactics (Chapter 12). A feeling of team spirit is some-
times experienced during this stage because members believe they have found their proper
roles. Group cohesiveness, the degree to which members feel part of the collective
or “we” of the group,27 is the principal by-product of Stage 3. The Applying OB box
describes some practical tips for cultivating cohesiveness.
As CEO of VW, Herbert Diess has both the benefit and handicap
of coming from outside the company. He benefits from not being
entrenched in many of the norms and culture to which the emissions
scandal is attributed, but he also lacks the knowledge of how to
get things done effectively within the company.
Odd Andersen/AFP/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
307Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
Applying OB
3. Share and welcome. It’s one thing to offer your
insights, talents, and experiences for the benefit of
the team, but it is equally important, regardless of
your role, to welcome, expect, and facilitate the
same from others. You don’t have all the answers
or the best Ideas, so be aware and don’t act as
though you do.
4. Disagree respectfully. Disagreements are
expected and can be functional and desirable, as
you’ll learn In Chapter 10. However, few things
undermine cohesiveness faster than disrespectful
language and behaviors. Model it and don’t toler-
ate it.
5. Eat, play, love. You don’t have to love each other
to have a cohesive, high-performing group, but
engaging in social activities together can break
down barriers and loosen people up, enabling
them to reveal more about themselves and be
more vulnerable. This may lead to greater cohe-
siveness within the group at work or school.
There are other ways to cultivate cohesiveness,
but give some of these a try with a team from one of
your classes and make note of the benefits.
Cohesiveness can greatly improve the functioning of
groups and teams, and it thus is important to your
success as a team member and team leader. Founda-
tional to group cohesion are trust and cooperation,
topics you’ll learn about in different places in this
chapter. But here, several members of the Forbes
Coaches Council shared advice from their own expe-
riences to help you.
1. Clarify commitments. Individual and collective
roles and responsibilities must be determined,
communicated, measured, and reinforced.
Accountability is key, as team members not follow-
ing through or delivering as they are expected to
build resentment and erode cohesiveness.
2. Give trust to get trust. Most team members
understand the importance of trust, and leaders
commonly emphasize this point. However,
before expecting and lecturing others on trust
you should assess how trusting you’ve been.
Have you allowed others to take on important
responsibilities and do their part without your
oversight?
How to Cultivate Cohesiveness and Success28
Stage 4: Performing Activity during this vital stage is focused on solving task prob-
lems, as contributors get their work done without hampering others. This stage is charac-
terized by a climate of open communication, strong cooperation, and lots of helping
behavior. Conflicts and job boundary disputes are handled constructively and efficiently.
Cohesiveness and personal commitment to group goals help the group achieve more than
could any one individual acting alone.
Stage 5: Adjourning The group’s work is done; it is time to move on to other things.
The return to independence can be eased by rituals such as parties or award ceremonies
celebrating the end and new beginnings. During the adjourning stage, leaders must empha-
size valuable lessons learned.
Punctuated Equilibrium
In contrast to the discrete stages of Tuckman’s model, some groups follow a form of devel-
opment called punctuated equilibrium, as groups establish periods of stable func-
tioning until an event causes a dramatic change in norms, roles, and/or objectives;
the group then establishes and maintains new norms of functioning, returning to
equilibrium (see Figure 8.3). Extreme examples of punctuated equilibrium often occur
because of disruptive technologies, like Apple’s introduction of iTunes. This innovation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
308 PART 2 Groups
Time
Abrupt change
C
ha
ng
e
Abrupt change
FIGURE 8.3 Punctuated Equilibrium
caused all players in the music industry to radically change their approaches from digital
to streaming and from purchasing entire albums to buying individual songs and subscrip-
tions. Something similar happened when Netflix started renting out DVDs through the
mail, then streaming, and now they are the global streaming colossus.29
In such scenarios, companies and teams that adapt will realize tremendous new
opportunities, but those that don’t often find themselves obsolete and go out of business.
This phenomenon plays out at all levels of OB, such that punctuated equilibrium at the
organizational level drives significant change, development, and opportunity at the group
and individual levels too. Many careers have been extinguished and others ignited due to
punctuated equilibrium. Apply your new knowledge of OB to be sure yours is one that
benefits.
Although much of what you have learned thus far also applies to teams, they have
important differences and unique characteristics that we’ll explore next.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
309Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
THE BIGGER PICTURE
When you better understand the difference between groups and teams, you’ll be well
equipped to perform better in both. You’ll find practical tips in our discussion of critical team-
work competencies, along with a description of various types of teams. This section con-
cludes with a discussion of team interdependence, a characteristic that is fundamental to the
functioning of teams.
8.3 TEAMS AND THE POWER OF COMMON PURPOSE
Apply your knowledge
of teams to increase
your value as an
employee and team
player.
LO 8-3As noted previously, teams are a collection of individuals whose tasks and responsibili-
ties depend on the other members, are collectively accountable for the performance and
outcomes associated with their work, and who work together for the time required for
task completion or to fulfill their responsibilities. To further your understanding of the
differences between groups and teams, Self-Assessment 8.2 guides you through a simple
way of determining the maturity level of a past or present team of which you were or are
a member.
Is This a Mature Work Group or a Team?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 8.2 in Connect.
1. Does your evaluation help explain why the group or team was successful or
not? Explain.
2. Was (or is) there anything you could have done (or can do) to increase the
maturity of this group? Explain.
3. How will this evaluation help you be a more effective group member or leader
in the future?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.2
Besides being a central component of the Organizing Framework, teams are a corner-
stone of work life. This means practically all employees need to develop skills related to
being good team players and building effective teams. It also means that in today’s team-
focused work environment, organizations need leaders who are adept at teamwork them-
selves and can cultivate the level of trust necessary to foster constructive teamwork.30 To
help you be more effective in the team context, let’s begin by exploring what it means to be
a team player. But before doing this, read the OB in Action box which describes how
switching to teamwork has been essential to T-Mobile’s success and competitiveness.
Team Players versus Free-Riders
Teams collaborate and perform most effectively when companies develop and encour-
age teamwork competencies. Five common teamwork competencies are outlined in
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
310 PART 2 Groups
Common Scenario and Common Outcomes When
many people think of call centers, they envision
hordes of customer service representatives, slouch-
ing in front of screens, headsets on, semi-frantically
mowing through customer calls in attempts to
meet “handle time” (time spent with each caller)
expectations. Most of these same people have
a much clearer and even more unappealing view
of what it’s like to be a customer of one of these
representatives. One writer described the customer
experience this way: “They are forced to navigate
computerized call trees and, should they get a live
person, they’re often treated robotically and handed
from one agent or department to another if
their issue is outside a rep’s narrow repertoire.”
Combined, it is no wonder turnover for such employees
exceeds that of almost every type of job, and
customers are frequently frustrated and reluctant
to even bother calling.
The T-Mobile Scenario The above quite accurately
described T-Mobile’s call centers with groups of reps
toiling in less than inspiring conditions and delivering
less than satisfying service. Then things changed.
Reps are now organized into teams who gather in
shared spaces (pods) and collaboratively solve cus-
tomer issues as they see fit. More interesting still is
the customers they serve are organized into pools
for which particular teams are responsible.
Different Approach, Different Metrics Instead of
being preoccupied with handle times per call, the
teams are problem solvers and responsible for how
best to improve customer retention, loyalty, and
share of wallet (how much of a customer’s total tele-
com budget goes to T-Mobile). As for customers,
they know how to communicate with their appropri-
ate team and do not suffer through call trees.
Impressive Outcomes The results have been
impressive. In just three years, the new team
approach cut costs to serve customers 13 percent,
boosted customer loyalty measures by 50 percent,
and reduced customer churn to all-time lows for the
company. Better still, employee satisfaction is up,
and absenteeism and turnover are down.
Motives for the Changes Like many other Industries
and services, T-Mobile customers and their needs
have evolved. Billing, address changes, and plan mod-
ifications can often be handled by customers them-
selves (self-serve online). This means customers now
call and need direct service for more complex issues,
and more complex issues require a more sophisti-
cated and cooperative approach to service.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Differentiate T-Mobile’s previous group-based
to its new team-based approach to customer
service.
2. How would you contrast management chal-
lenges in the group- versus team-based
approaches at T-Mobile?
3. What do you think are the key challenges for
employees in the team approach?
At T-Mobile Groups Lose, But Teams Thrive!31
OB in Action
Table 8.5, along with examples of behaviors to assist in recognition and measurement.
Notice that all these competencies are action-oriented, which means being a team
player is more than a state of mind: It’s about doing!
Evaluating Teamwork Competencies There are at least two ways to use Table 8.5
and your knowledge of teamwork competencies. The first is as tools to enhance your self-
awareness. Do you behave in these ways on your teams? The second is as a means to mea-
sure your performance and that of other members of your team.
Many of your business courses require team assignments and some may also require
peer evaluations. Complete Self-Assessment 8.3 to learn about your own teamwork compe-
tencies and/or to evaluate the performance of the members of one of your teams at school
(for a class, sport, club, or fraternity/sorority). Knowledge of your teamwork competencies
can help determine which competencies are your strongest and those that are opportunities
for improvement. You can choose to play to your strengths and/or develop your deficiencies.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
311Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
TABLE 8.5 Common Teamwork Competencies
COMPETENCY EXAMPLES OF MEMBER BEHAVIORS
1. Contributes to the team’s work • Completed work in a timely manner
• Came to meetings prepared
• Did complete and accurate work
2. Constructively interacts with
team members
• Communicated effectively
• Listened to teammates
• Accepted feedback
3. Keeps team on track • Helped team plan and organize work
• Stayed aware of team members’ progress
• Provided constructive feedback
4. Expects high-quality work • Expected team to succeed
• Cared that the team produced high-quality work
5. Possesses relevant knowledge,
skills, and abilities (KSAs) for
team’s responsibilities
• Possessed necessary KSAs to contribute
meaningfully to the team
• Applied knowledge and skill to fill in as needed
for other members’ roles
Evaluate Your Team Member Effectiveness
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 8.3 in Connect.
1. Which competencies are your strongest (have the highest average scores)?
2. Do these scores match your impressions of your teamwork competencies?
3. Which competency is your lowest? Describe two things you can do to further
develop and display this competency.
4. Which competency do you feel low performers most often lack in the teams of
which you’re a member?
5. Describe the pros and cons of using this tool to do peer evaluations for team
assignments in school.
Adapted from M. W. Ohland, M. L. Loughry, D. J. Woehr, L. G. Bullard, R. M. Felder, C. J. Finelli, R. A. Layton, H. R. Pomeranz,
and D. G. Schmucker, “The Comprehensive Assessment of Team Member Effectiveness: Development of a Behaviorally
Anchored Rating Scale for Self- and Peer Evaluation,” Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2012, 609–630.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.3
What Does It Mean to Be a Team Player? Understanding and exhibiting the com-
petencies noted in Table 8.5 is an excellent start on becoming a team player. And while
everyone has her or his own ideas of the characteristics that are most important, many
people likely include the three Cs of team players:
Committed
Collaborative
Competent32
Think of it this way: The three Cs are the “cover charge” or the bare minimum to be
considered a team player. Effective team players don’t just talk about or feel the three Cs—they
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
312 PART 2 Groups
Social loafing, or free-riding, is common in teams, but this can be effectively overcome by applying OB knowledge and tools. Cashiers who
served separate lines of customers outperformed those who served customers who waited in groups for the next available cashier.
(Left) Robert Daly/Caia Image/Glow Images; (right) MikeDotta/Shutterstock
display them. Think of someone on one of your teams who clearly displays the three Cs
and someone who does not. How do the differences affect you? The team?
While there are many potential reasons some people are not team players, a particu-
larly common and problematic one is social loafing.
What Is Social Loafing? Social loafing is the tendency for individual effort to
decline as group size increases. To illustrate the point, consider a group or team in
which you’re a member and ask yourself: “Is group performance less than, equal to, or
greater than the sum of its parts?” Can three people working together, for example, accom-
plish less than, the same as, or more than they would working separately?
All of these outcomes are possible, but the intention is for more and not less than the
sum of the parts. Social loafing is a major reason for less, and this is problematic for many
reasons. Social loafers produce low-quality work, which causes others to work harder to
compensate, and they can also distract or disrupt the work of other team members. Such
situations are made worse when loafers expect the same rewards as other members of the
team, including those who picked up their slack.
As you already know, social loafing is common at school and work. One study
observed checkout lines in a supermarket. One area was configured such that each
cashier had a dedicated line of customers, and in another area, customers collected in a
pool and went to a cashier when one became available. The results? Cashiers in the
dedicated lines worked more than 10 percent faster, regardless of the length of their
lines. The explanation is they couldn’t rely on (loaf on) other cashiers as in the pooled
configuration. The researchers also suspect the dedicated scenario may have spurred a
bit of competition too.33
Studies of loafing in college produce useful insights. To begin, researchers in one study
assumed that students would loaf in team-based assignments, and they therefore were inter-
ested in ways of reducing loafing and boosting performance. They generated project teams
in three different ways. The first set of teams was created by matching students whose sched-
ules were compatible, and who also indicated they were highly motivated to do the work.
The second set of teams were comprised of students with compatible schedules but indi-
cated they were not particularly motivated for the work. The final set of teams were allowed
to self-select. The results were quite telling. The first set of teams performed the best, on
both team and individual assignments, suggesting that pairing students who are motivated
and available is the superior way of reducing loafing and increasing learning performance.34
Given that social loafing is so common and problematic, how can you guard against it?
1. Limit group size. Fewer people means fewer places to shift work or hide.
2. Accountability. Ensure members have clear roles and responsibilities, and that they
need to deliver.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
313Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
3. Build in feedback. Create a way that team members receive feedback, ideally both dur-
ing and at the end, of a project. This will help with accountability and discouraging
loafing in the first place, and it will “call them out” if they slack off.
4. Cultivate cohesion. Teams whose members are emotionally bonded are far less likely
to loaf.35
Now let’s discuss various types of teams. Understanding the differences can make you
a more effective team member and leader.
Types of Teams
As the world of work becomes more complex, so too do the types of teams. We can dif-
ferentiate some common ones by particular characteristics, such as:
1. Purpose of the team.
2. Duration of the team’s existence.
3. Level of member commitment.
Work Teams Work teams have a well-defined and common purpose, are more or less
permanent, and require complete commitment of their members. Professional sports
teams’ top priority is to win games, which they hope will also lead to higher ticket sales
and more television viewers. The same teams exist from season to season, and membership
is a full-time, all-consuming job for each player. An audit team at work is the same: It is full
of auditors who work full time auditing.
Project Teams Project teams are assembled to tackle a particular problem, task, or
project. Depending on the purpose, their duration can vary from one meeting to many
years. For instance, your employer may assemble a team to brainstorm ideas for generating
more business with an existing customer. This project team may be limited to only one
meeting, whether virtual or face-to-face. Or, the team may be responsible not only for creat-
ing ideas for more business with that customer, but also for executing the ideas over the
course of one or more years.
Members of project teams most often divide their time between the team and their
primary jobs and responsibilities. They may be from the same department, product, cus-
tomer, or service area in an organization, or possibly from different functional disciplines
such as finance, operations, or marketing. As you may have already experienced, any given
employee may be a member of multiple project teams at one time.
Cross-Functional Teams (CFTs) Cross-functional teams are created with mem-
bers from different disciplines within an organization, such as finance, operations,
and R&D. Cross-functional teams can be used for any purpose, they can be work or project
teams, and they may have a short or indefinite duration. New-product development is an
area in which many organizations utilize cross-functional teams. Such teams often contain
members with expertise in design, manufacturing, marketing, and sales.
Self-Managed Teams (SMTs) Self-managed teams have collective autonomy
and responsibility to plan, manage, and execute tasks interdependently to achieve
their goals.36 Many of these elements are normally performed by managers, but in self-
managed teams, members act as their own supervisors. Self-managed teams have a
defined purpose and their duration can vary, along with the level of member commit-
ment. Cross-functional, work, and project teams can all be self-managed. SMTs are very
common—the vast majority of Fortune 1000 companies have used them for many years
and they represent efforts by organizations to be more flexible and meet the demands of
increased complexity.37 Instead of needing and waiting on approval from someone at
headquarters, which may be in another state or country, SMT members decide and act
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
314 PART 2 Groups
more quickly. Leadership responsibilities often are shared and shift as the demands on
and members of self-managed teams change. Outside managers and leaders maintain indi-
rect accountability. This contrasts with the hierarchical or centralized types of manage-
ment historically found in teams.
Self-managed does not mean workers are simply turned loose to do their own thing.
Indeed, an organization embracing self-managed teams should be prepared to undergo
revolutionary changes in its management philosophy, structure, staffing and training prac-
tices, as well as its reward systems. Managers sometimes resist self-managed teams, due to
the perceived threat to their authority and job security.
Now that you’ve learned about some common team types and their characteristics,
we’ll turn our attention to virtual teams. Virtual teams are ever-more common and a criti-
cally important type of team with unique characteristics.
Virtual Teams
Virtual team members work across time,
space, and organizational boundaries to
achieve common goals. They are connected
using various technologies, which enable them
to utilize talent more efficiently than in a tradi-
tional office setting where work and people are
tied to places.38
Advocates say virtual teams are very flexi-
ble and efficient because they are driven by
information and skills, not by time and location.
Nevertheless, virtual teams have pros and cons
like every other type of team, which we will
address next, along with guidance on how to use
them most effectively.
Best Uses of Virtual Teams Virtual teams
and distributed workers present many potential
benefits. One notable benefit is reduced real
estate costs (limited or no office space). IBM
was an early adopter and calculated it saved over 58 million square feet of office space,
amounting to approximately $2 billion in savings.39 Virtual teams enable organizations to
leverage diverse knowledge, skills, and experience across geography and time; ability to
share knowledge of diverse markets; and reduced commuting and travel expenses. The flex-
ibility afforded by virtual teams also can reduce work–life conflicts for employees, which
some employers contend makes it easier for them to attract and retain talent.40
Challenges and Recommendations for Virtual Teams Virtual teams have many
challenges, too. Recent research identified the five most common, which are described in
Table 8.6 along with suggestions on how to overcome them. The solutions included are
derived from research done with companies in Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work over the
period of four years.
Face Time Researchers and consultants agree about one aspect of virtual teams—there
is no substitute for face-to-face contact. Meeting in person is especially beneficial early in
virtual team development, and team leaders are encouraged to meet even more frequently
with key members.42 Face-to-face interactions can be as simple as lunch, water-cooler con-
versations, social events, or periodic meetings. Whatever the case, these interactions
enable people to become familiar with each other and build credibility, trust, and under-
standing. This reduces misunderstandings and makes subsequent virtual interactions more
efficient and effective, and it also increases job performance and reduces conflict and
intentions to quit.43
Technology not only allows people to communicate where,
when, and with whom they wish, but it also allows people and
organizations to work without offices. What are the advantages
and disadvantages for you personally of telecommuting and
virtual work?
Image Source/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
315Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
TABLE 8.6 Most Common Challenges for Virtual Teams and Recommended Solutions41
CHALLENGE DESCRIPTION
RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS FROM
FORTUNE’S 100 BEST COMPANIES
Relationships Lack of interpersonal and face-to-face
interactions make building trusting
relationships difficult.
Build trust by modeling candid and respectful
communication. Create opportunities for
members to meet face-to-face, including
nonwork activities.
Communication Communicating via technology limits
nonverbal and other information com-
monly exchange. Feedback is limited
and delayed.
Create norms of transparency and openness
in all communications. Support telecommut-
ing, and ensure all members receive the
same/sufficient resources (training and
technology and support).
Decision making Biases and perceived inequities can
limit information shared and impair
decision making.
Train employees on effective distributed
decision making, ensure employee voice, and
reward efforts and success.
Leadership Rich relationships are difficult to build at a
distance. Also it’s difficult to monitor per-
formance, coach, and share leadership.
Make extra efforts to meet, get to know, support
team members. Be available, responsive, and
role model the behaviors you want and expect.
Diversity Differences are difficult to appreciate or
overcome, which may affect collabora-
tion and understanding of team norms.
Initiate and support informal interventions,
such as social networks and defense around
shared interests. Formal interventions,
diversity training and diverse hiring.
SOURCE: Eisenberg, Julia, and Aparna Krishnan. “Addressing Virtual Work Challenges: Learning From the Field.” Organization Management Journal 15, no.2
(May 2018): 78–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/15416518.2018.1471976.
Team Interdependence
One of the most important aspects of teams is interdependence, or the extent to which mem-
bers are dependent on each other to accomplish their own work.44 We discuss two common
forms of interdependence—task and outcome. Task interdependence is the degree to
which team members depend on each other for information, materials, and other
resources to complete their job tasks. The degree of task interdependence is determined
by the degree of interaction between members and the amount of coordination required
among them. There are four basic types of task interdependence, ranked by how much team
member interaction and coordination are required. The types are illustrated in Figure 8.4.
1. Pooled. Many pharmaceutical and other sales teams illustrate pooled interdependence.
Each member sells a given drug to his or her customers, which requires little or no
interaction or coordination with other representatives. At the end of the month all
reps’ sales are added together to arrive at a team sales total.
2. Sequential. Manufacturing or assembly processes are typically sequential. PC manu-
facturing teams, for example, require that motherboards and hard drives be installed
before the box can be closed and fastened.
3. Reciprocal. Hiring processes sometimes use reciprocal interdependence. Candidates
are interviewed by members of HR and then separately interviewed by the hiring man-
ager or members of the department. The two communicate and decide to whom an
offer should be made.
4. Comprehensive. Product development teams often utilize comprehensive interdepen-
dence. Online games, for instance, require significant back and forth among those
who create the idea, write the code, test, and market the game. It isn’t just a linear or
sequential process.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
316 PART 2 Groups
Outcome interdependence is “the degree to which the outcomes of task work are
measured, rewarded, and communicated at the group level so as to emphasize col-
lective outputs rather than individual contributions.”45 Outcome interdependence is
determined by the extent to which team members’ objectives and rewards are aligned.
Practically speaking, the type or degree of interdependence should match what is
required for the team to meet its objectives.
Now let’s learn about trust, which either facilitates or impedes interpersonal interac-
tions and relationships, and thus the effectiveness of teams.
FIGURE 8.4 Types of Team Interdependence
Sales Team
Total
Pooled
Interdependence
Hiring
Decision
Reciprocal
Interdependence
Team
Output
Comprehensive
Interdependence
Team
Product Output
Sequential
Interdependence
Sales
Rep 1
Sales
Rep 2
Sales
Rep 3
Dept
Members HR
Dept
Manager
Game
Programmer
Game
Marketer
Game
Story
Writer
Assembly
Worker 1
Assembly
Worker 2
Assembly
Worker 3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
317Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Trust sometimes seems like a rare commodity in the world of work and you’re about to see
why it’s so important at all levels of the Organizing Framework. Moreover, in the context of
teams, trust is essential because it facilitates all interactions within and between teams. With
this understanding you’ll be empowered to apply your knowledge to build trust and to repair
it when it has been damaged or diminished.
8.4 TRUST BUILDING AND REPAIR—
ESSENTIAL TOOLS FOR SUCCESS
Build and repair trust.
LO 8-4Trust is the willingness to be vulnerable to another person, and the belief that the
other person will consider the impact of how his or her intentions and behaviors
will affect you.46 We can’t overstate the value of trust in organizational life. It is the
lubricant of interpersonal relationships within and between all organizational levels in
the Organizing Framework, and thus it also drives performance across levels. Put simply,
trusting employees provide tremendous benefits to their employers (see Figure 8.5).
Two additional benefits of trust are faster communication and decision making.
Shiona Watson, Senior Director of HR for Pepsico Australia and New Zealand, described
how the trust she shares with CEO Robert Rietbroek enabled them to communicate more
quickly and arrive at critical decisions more efficiently during the process of merging
Smith’s Snackfood Company with Pepsi.48
FIGURE 8.5 Employer-Supportive Behaviors Enacted by Employees Based on
High v. Low Trust47
Trust advantage: +39
Advocacy
78
39
74
36
Loyalty
71
38
Engagement
83
52
Commitment
Trust their employer Do not trust their employer
+38 +33 +31
SOURCE: Edelman, R. “2019 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global Report,” Edelman.com, https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/
aatuss191/files/2019-02/2019_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report_2 (accessed May 4, 2019)
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
318 PART 2 Groups
Trust can also help guard against job stress. Specifically, firefighters who trusted mem-
bers of their team experienced less fatigue associated with the physical aspects of their
jobs. The rationale is that trusting your coworkers boosts rather than depletes your energy—
you don’t have to wonder if they have your back.49 Still other research suggests that trust in
individual accounting auditors increased the likelihood that employees of the audited com-
panies would report improper conduct (whistle-blow).50
Clearly, trust pays important dividends across industries, yet these have not been good
times for trust in the business world. As Richard Edelman, whose company produces the
famous Trust Barometer each year, said:
The past two decades have seen a progressive destruction of trust in societal institu-
tions, a consequence of the Great Recession, fears about immigration and economic
dislocation caused by globalization and automation. Traditional power elite figures,
such as CEOs and heads-of-state, have been discredited. The growth of social media
platforms fully shifted people’s trust from a top-down orientation to a horizontal one
in favor of peers or experts.51
On the bright side, respondents in the trust survey reported their employers as the
most trusted of institutions (government and media the lowest). Driving this, according to
Edelman and his colleagues, is employees’ expectation their employers will engage larger
societal issues and be agents of change.52 This in turn places much greater responsibility
on organizations and their leaders than in the past, making trust even more important now
and in the future. Let’s increase your understanding of and ability to build trust by outlin-
ing three fundamental forms of trust.
Three Forms of Trust and How to Build Them
For our purposes in OB, we discuss three particular forms of trust—contractual, communi-
cation, and competence. The practical application for building trust is to act in ways that
demonstrate each of the three types of trust:
1. Contractual trust. Trust of character. Do people do what they say they will do? Do
managers and employees make clear what they expect of one another? Keep track of
your commitments, be realistic (don’t overpromise), and be sure to deliver quality
work on time.
2. Communication trust. Trust of disclosure. How well do people share information and
tell the truth? Keep team members and employees informed by explaining policies and
decisions and providing accurate feedback. Be candid about your challenges and limi-
tations. And of course, tell the truth.
3. Competence trust. Trust of capability. How effectively do people meet or
perform their responsibilities and acknowledge other people’s skills and abilities?
Enhance your credibility by demonstrating good business sense, technical ability,
and professionalism.53
Finally, if trust is a matter of give and take, it will be helpful to know how trusting you are
of others. Self-Assessment 8.4 can help you learn about different aspects of your interper-
sonal trust. Besides improving your self-awareness, knowledge of your interpersonal trust
may provide guidance for how you can more effectively build trust with others—friends,
classmates, coworkers, and bosses.
Before moving on to how to repair trust, we encourage you to review and consider the
advice in the Applying OB box regarding microinternships. Building your experience and
skills during microinternships is an effective way of enhancing the level of competence
trust future employers will have in you.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
319Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
How Much Do You Trust Another?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 8.4 in Connect.
1. Which particular items in this questionnaire are most central to your idea of
trust? Why?
2. Does your score accurately depict the degree to which you trust (or distrust) the
target person?
3. Why do you trust (or distrust) this individual?
4. If you trust this person to a high degree, how hard was it to build that trust?
Explain.
5. Given your inclination to trust others (your score on the assessment), describe
three implications for your work in group assignments and project teams at school.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 8.4 CAREER READINESS
Applying OB
Like more conventional internships, microinternships
pay real money, and enable you to get a sense of
whether you like the work and industry while you
develop valuable skills and experience to add to
your resume. They differ in that they are short term,
outside of the typical summer internship format, and
are often more flexible in terms of time and place
(work can be done remotely). Microinternships are
gigs more so than traditional jobs, but in some
instances act like a mutual interview for future full-
time employment.
Benefits to You In addition to the above benefits,
microinternships can happen earlier and more fre-
quently than traditional internships offered through
career services at your university. The greater breadth,
depth, and length of your experience can make you a
more attractive candidate to potential employers.
Jeffrey Moss, the founder and CEO of Parker
Dewey, a Chicago-based placement company and pio-
neer in microinternships, describes them as projects
that require 5 to 40 hours over the span of a few
weeks. As with other gig arrangements, employers
post the specs of the projects, along with compensa-
tion, and students bid for the work.
What’s in It for Employers? Motivated, cheap, and
hopefully able labor and if things work out perhaps
even a valuable full-time employee. Using a firm like
Parker Dewey means little fuss and effort on the part
of the employer, as it is Parker Dewey that facilitates
the connections and handles all the administrative
details, including compensation. This means virtually
no involvement by the employing company’s HR
department.
Major Doesn’t Clearly Match Interests A reason
Mr. Moss started the company, and another potential
benefit for you, is that such gigs can help facilitate the
college-to-work transition. You may be uncertain as to
your major, which often disqualifies you from formal
internships where students are selected based on
major and year (juniors and seniors), or your major may
not match your interests. Microinternships can provide
alternatives and help you overcome these hurdles.
They’re a low risk means of career exploration.
College Credit Too? At least in the case of Parker
Dewey, which has an arrangement with more than
150 colleges and universities in the U.S., some colleges
also allow credit to be earned for microinternships.
Microinternships Can Produce Major Benefits54
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
320 PART 2 Groups
Acknowledge what caused trust to be compromised.
Forgive yourself and others.
Let go and move on.
Trust Restored
Distrust
Allow feelings and emotions to be discussed, constructively.
Get and give support to others in the process.
Reframe the experience and shift from being a victim to taking
a look at options and choices.
Take responsibility. Ask, “What did I do or not do that
caused this to happen?”
2.
1.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
FIGURE 8.6 Reina Seven-Step Model for Rebuilding Trust
SOURCE: Reina, Dennis S., and Michelle L. Reina. Rebuilding Trust in the Workplace: Seven Steps to Renew Confidence, Commitment, and Energy. Oakland, CA:
Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2010.
Repairing Trust
Sometimes trust is fragile and can be violated in many ways, even unwittingly. Regardless
of who is responsible for eroding or damaging trust, both parties need to be active in the
repair of trust. Dennis and Michelle Reina studied thousands of instances of broken trust
in business and developed seven steps for regaining it. Figure 8.6 illustrates their recom-
mendations as an upward staircase, to show how individuals must work their way back
from distrust, one step at a time, to finally regain what they have lost. This seven-step
process can help whether you are the perpetrator or the victim.
We conclude this section with an observation about the importance of trust for lead-
ers from Lars Dalgaard, long-time venture entrepreneur and venture capitalist:
The funny thing is that you’re actually a stronger leader and more trustworthy if
you’re able to be vulnerable and you’re able to show your real personality. It’s a trust
multiplier, and people really will want to work for you and be on a mission together
with you.55
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
321Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You will thrive in team settings when you better understand the characteristics of high-
performing teams. You can use these characteristics as facilitators to function more suc-
cessfully in group and team settings. You will also benefit from the practical suggestions,
supported by research and practice, with which we conclude the chapter, such as how to
foster and reward collaboration and teamwork.
8.5 KEYS TO TEAM EFFECTIVENESS
Illustrate your ability
to foster team
effectiveness.
LO 8-5Characteristics of High-Performing Teams
As stated earlier, effective work teams enable employees to accomplish more than they could
as individuals. They produce many desirable outcomes across levels of the Organizing Frame-
work, such as innovation, safety, and saved lives, to name but a few.56 Current research and
practice have identified the following eight attributes of high-performance teams:
1. Compelling team purpose and clear goals.
2. Clear goals and responsibilities.
3. Appropriate mix of knowledge, skills, and abilities.
4. Effective incentives and motivation.
5. Trust and communication.
6. Power and empowerment.
7. Early and effective conflict resolution.
8. Norms for collaboration.57
You’ve likely noticed that nearly all of these we’ve covered already in this chapter, but the
difference here is that true high-performing teams do all of these things. That’s what makes
them special and rare.
The 3 Cs of Effective Teams
With the above characteristics in mind, you might ask: How do you build a high-performing
team? The short answer is to use the three Cs. (Note: These three Cs are at the team level,
in contrast to the three Cs of effective team players discussed earlier that focus on the
individual or team member level.) The three Cs are:
Charters and strategies
Composition
Capacity
Charters and Strategies Both researchers and practitioners urge groups and teams
to explicitly plan before tackling their tasks, early in the group development process (the
storming stage). These plans should include team charters that describe how the team
will operate, for instance, how members will share information, hold members
accountable, deal with conflict, and make decisions.58 Team charters were discussed
in the Winning at Work feature at the beginning of this chapter, and since charters help
team members align, this is reason enough to give them a try.59 Teams should also create
and implement team performance strategies, deliberate plans that outline what
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
322 PART 2 Groups
exactly the team is to do, such as goal setting and defining particular member roles,
tasks, and responsibilities.60
Given that teamwork is a fact of life and one of the skills most sought by employers,
nearly 79 percent in a survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (just
behind communication and problem-solving skills),61 you are strongly encouraged to
build your understanding and skill using team charters and strategies, while you’re in col-
lege. Hone your skills now so you’re ready to use them when they really count—at work.
To help boost your motivation, research shows that medical students who implemented
team charters reported better group dynamics and improved communication within the
team. They also felt and exercised greater responsibility for their own learning, perfor-
mance, development, and team performance. These outcomes are especially encouraging
given that patient care, like many other services and industries, is a team-based job.62
Composition Team composition describes the collection of jobs, personalities,
knowledge, skills, abilities, and experience levels of team members.63 When we
think of it this way, it is no surprise that team composition can and does affect team per-
formance. Team member characteristics should fit the responsibilities of the team if the
team is to be effective. Fit facilitates effectiveness and misfit impedes it—you need the right
people on your team.
Although it may seem counterintuitive, fostering functional conflict can actually
enhance team effectiveness. The OB in Action box describes how.
The title of this box may seem ridiculous or at least
counterintuitive but read on and learn otherwise.
First, note you’ll learn much more about conflict In
Chapter 10, but some experts believe a key to effec-
tive teams is tension, not harmony. One such expert
is Liane Davey a team effectiveness consultant and
author of The Good Fight, You First.
Davey criticizes leaders and other employees
who describe and strive for happy and harmonious
teamwork, such as the rowing crew all synchronously
pulling in one direction. She argues teams that func-
tion this way are likely risk-adverse and composed of
members who are overly concerned about offending
other members or breaking from the status quo.
To clarify, Ms. Davey does not recommend chaos
and war, but instead coaches teams to purposefully
identify and benefit from tensions. Team members
should expect and improve due to conflict. This is
how she explains it.
1. Draw a circle and carve it up into the necessary
number of wedges for each role on the team.
2. Describe the value to the team of each role,
such as what does this role provide that none
of the others do. It helps to consider how
removing this role would negatively impact the
team. Perhaps the role is unnecessary or needs
to change.
3. Which stakeholders, internal and/or external to the
team, does each role serve, and how? How is the
effectiveness of this role determined and by whom?
4. Then, what are the most common and important
ways in which this role conflicts with or causes
tensions with other roles?
Davey contends doing this for each role not only
clarifies them for the role players, but it helps in
determining who is best to play each role for a given
project. As you can see, this approach makes con-
flict explicit and expected, which she believes
improves teamwork and outcomes. How?
The rationale is that team members will be more
comfortable speaking up, calling out unsubstanti-
ated positions, and collaborating.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What are the benefits to Liane Davey’s
approach?
2. Identify potential shortcomings.
3. Explain why you would or would not want to be
a member of a team using this approach.
Want Better Teamwork? Expect and Ensure Conflict
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
323Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
Research shows that in the early stages of team development (forming and storm-
ing), teams perform better when members have a high tolerance for uncertainty (a
personality trait). This same finding applies to self-managed and virtual teams, due to
their relative lack of imposed direction and face-to-face communication.64 Team
research also shows that teams with members who possess high levels of extraversion
and openness tended to provide better customer service than teams whose members
were lower on these traits.65
Research on Tour de France cycling teams revealed that teams with greater diversity
in tenure—with some new riders, some long-time riders, and some in between—had better
team performance, measured as the number of riders finishing in Paris. What makes this
finding intriguing is that diversity in terms of members’ skills, previous Tour stage wins,
age, and experience had no effect on team performance!66
Finally, in the university context, top management teams (presidents, vice presi-
dents, and chancellors) who were more diverse in terms of educational and disciplin-
ary backgrounds generated more funding for research and improved school
reputations.67
The bottom line: Create teams with the composition to match the desired objectives.
Knowledge of OB and the Organizing Framework, in particular, can be very helpful in this
regard.
Capacity Team adaptive capacity (adaptability) is the ability to make needed
changes in response to demands put on the team.68 Like individuals and organiza-
tions, teams must adapt in order to thrive (and in some instances survive). It is fostered by
team members who are both willing and able to adapt to achieve the team’s objectives.
Using the 3Cs will help you build a high-performing team.
King Lawrence/Blend Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
324 PART 2 Groups
Described in this way, team adaptive capacity is a matter of team composition—the charac-
teristics of individual team members. Team researchers explain how effective adaptation
often includes recognition of the need to change, reframing team member’s skills and
approach to the new demands, responding appropriately, and reflecting on the team’s
adaptive processes and outcomes. Considered together, it is clear that capacity is another
critical element of effective teams.69
Collaboration and Team Rewards
Collaboration is the act of sharing information and coordinating efforts to achieve
a collective outcome. It’s safe to assume that teams whose members collaborate are
more effective than those whose members don’t. Collaboration is what enables teams to
produce more than the sum of their parts. Many factors can influence collaboration,
including how teams are rewarded. In this final section we’ll explore how to foster collabo-
ration and the role rewards can play.
Collaboration—The Lifeblood of Teamwork As interdependence increases, so
too does the need for and value of collaboration. Today’s business landscape, character-
ized by globalization, outsourcing, strategic partnering, and virtual teams, makes collabo-
ration ever more important.70 That said, many things can interfere with collaboration, thus
it is important to:
1. Communicate expectations. Clarifying roles and responsibilities for each team member
is essential. Identify and communicate both individual and team accountability.
2. Set team goals. SMART goals for teams are a good place to start, but review goals
regularly as a team (weekly, monthly, or quarterly) and be sure individual roles and
responsibilities align with team goals.
3. Encourage creativity. Create a safe environment where employees can take risks with-
out fear of humiliation or career damage. Nurture a “can do” attitude within the team,
and foster it by asking “why” or “why not” instead of saying yes or no.
4. Build work flow rhythm. Technology can be of great assistance. Project management
software as well as other scheduling tools can help team members know exactly what
they need to do and when. This may also assist in coordination efforts and help assure
that interdependent needs of team members are met.
5. Leverage team member strengths. Set individuals up to win by identifying and utilizing
their strengths. The key to realizing the benefits of the team is to appropriately utilize
the strengths of its individual members.71
Reward Collaboration and Teamwork Rewards matter, and dissatisfaction with
rewards is a common cause for suboptimal team performance. Despite the need to work
collaboratively, many if not most professional service firms (law, accounting, and consult-
ing practices) measure and reward individual contributions, such as billable hours, up-
or-out promotion systems (either qualify for partner or find another job), and competition
between team members.72
Organizations that foster the greatest collaboration and assemble the most effective
teams typically use hybrid reward systems that recognize both individual and team perfor-
mance. Table 8.7 provides guidance on how to reward performance in teams, based on the
desired outcome (speed or accuracy) and the degree of interdependence (low, moderate,
high). These guidelines can give you a tremendous head start in determining how best to
reward and motivate team performance.73
Appropriate rewards for collaboration and teamwork motivate at both the individual
and team levels, and also positively influence important outcomes across all levels in the
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
TABLE 8.7 Recommendations for Improving the Coordination and Motivation of Teams
and Team Members
LOW
INTERDEPENDENCE
MODERATE
INTERDEPENDENCE
HIGH
INTERDEPENDENCE
Speed Relay Teams Road Cycling Teams Crew Teams
What to measure: Individual
performance
What to measure: Individual
performance
What to measure: Team
performance
How to measure: Managerial
assessment
How to measure: Managerial
assessment
How to measure: Managerial
and peer assessment
How to Reward: Competitive
rewards
How to reward: Competitive
rewards
How to reward: Cooperative
rewards
Accuracy Gymnastics Teams Basketball Teams
Synchronized Swimming
Teams
What to measure: Individual
performance
What to measure: Team
performance
What to measure: Team
performance
How to measure: Managerial
assessment
How to measure: Managerial
and peer assessment
How to measure: Managerial
and peer assessment
How to reward: Competitive
rewards
How to reward: Cooperative
rewards
How to reward: Cooperative
rewards
SOURCE: Gottfredson, Ryan K. “How to Get YOUR TEAMS to Work.” Industrial Management 57, no. 4 (July/August 2015): 25–30. https://www.questia.com/
read/1P3-3769151081/how-to-get-your-teams-to-work.
Organizing Framework. The following Problem-Solving Application illustrates how
collaboration, teamwork, and performance management were applied in hospitals and
nursing homes to improve patient and financial outcomes.
Hospitals and Nursing Homes Collaborate to Combat Common Foes
The Foes MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus
aureus) and CRE (carbapenem-resistant Enterobacte-
riaceae) are two especially resistant and dangerous
bacteria, and although you can catch these bugs any-
where, the most common and problematic places are
hospitals and nursing homes. When patients are
infected in these facilities they are referred to as
health care-associated infections (HCAIs). Some
patients enter both types of facilities with these
infections which need to be treated. But it also is
increasingly common for patients to be infection free
when admitted and then catch one of the bugs while
a patient. This major problem is made even worse
when infected patients are then transferred from one
facility to another along with their super bugs. This
means health care facilities are not islands with inde-
pendent challenges contained within, but instead
they are interconnected and literally share their prob-
lem bugs. And once the bugs are in a facility they
spread, often rapidly and mercilessly.74
Costs and Responsibilities The Centers for
Disease Control estimates approximately 15 percent
Problem-Solving Application
325Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
326 PART 2 Groups
of hospital patients and 65 percent of nursing home
patients carry resistant bacteria (not all will develop
infections), which result in more than 23,000
deaths.75 Medicare is increasingly rewarding or pun-
ishing hospitals based on performance outcomes,
like infection rates and readmissions. Hospitals and
nursing homes therefore have both moral and finan-
cial incentives to act.76
Causes and Solutions Besides rampant misuse
and overuse of antibiotics, which is the fundamental
cause for resistance in the first place, the transfer
from facility to facility and patient to patient is largely
attributed to insufficient hygiene—clinician handwash-
ing, patient bathing, and facility cleanliness, all of
which can be controlled by health care personnel, but
obviously any effort needs coordination, collabora-
tion, and commitment. One nurse may be
meticulously clean, but those efforts are undermined
by the first/next one that isn’t so conscientious.
Many efforts and programs have been initiated
to combat the spread of HCAIs, including some in
Southern California and Illinois. In fact, fifty facilities
(hospitals and nursing homes) are implementing a
new protocol funded by the CDC in which patients
are bathed with a particular antimicrobial soap, one
proven to kill MRSA, CRE, and some of the other
most resistant bugs.77
Such collaborations are unusual and difficult, as
in many cases the facilities in a particular area com-
pete daily for patients and health care dollars.
Put antibiotic prescribing practices aside,
assume you are a chief nursing officer in a metro-
politan hospital. Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving
Approach to help mitigate the problem of HCAIs.
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem(s) confronting hospitals and nursing homes.
Step 2: Identify the major causes of the problem(s).
Step 3: Make your recommendations. Provide details.
We conclude this section with perhaps the most incredible and challenging application
of teamwork—the International Space Station (ISS). ISS teamwork is literally out of
this world!
The International Space Station (ISS) was assem-
bled in space and has been continuously occupied
since 2000. More than 230 Individuals from 18
countries have visited the station whose operations
are handled by five agencies: NASA (US), Roscos-
mos (Russia), European Space Agency, Japanese
Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the Canadian
Space Agency. Control centers are located in each
of these same places, which have the tremendous
responsibilities and challenges of coordinating their
efforts 24/7, 365, year after year, decade after
decade, and through changes in political leaders
and economic conditions.78
The individuals and teams involved in the ISS
are confronted with some of the most challenging,
and also fulfilling, experiences in team diversity of
any workplace. Not only do the astronauts repre-
sent different countries, languages, and cultures,
but the countless people around the globe are
similarly diverse. The coordination of people, pro-
cesses, and outcomes is enormous, all of which is
made more complicated by the inevitable turn-
over. As with all other jobs and organizations,
employees from the agencies noted above get
promoted, rotate to different jobs, retire, and oth-
erwise quit.79
Space Travel Requires Teams of Teams
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
327Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
The teams of teams manage every detail nec-
essary to keep the ISS functional and to support
the 2–13 astronauts onboard at any given time
(3–6 is most common). Making matters even more
complex is the growing number of commercial
(nongovernment) partners who contribute to the
missions. For instance, as space programs are
retired, such as America’s space shuttle, other
means are needed to transport people and equip-
ment. Russia’s Soyouz rockets assumed much
of that work, but now Dragon (by SpaceX), and
CST-100 (Boeing) help. Each of these rockets has
different capabilities, which makes planning and
execution even more complex. Reliance on com-
mercial partners is increasing with Orbital ATK’s
and Antares and Sierra Nevada’s Dream Chaser
also expected to begin service.80
This makes us wonder: How do they do it? The
coordination and collaboration occur almost seam-
lessly, despite the complexity related to people, pro-
cesses, and culture.
Dynamic Composition Safety is among the rea-
sons astronauts’ time on the ISS is limited. Imagine
the time and resources required to continually pre-
pare new members to live on the space station.
Technical, physical, and cultural training require-
ments are immense, because all team members
must effectively communicate and execute their
responsibilities when on board.
Technology and Distance Communication is criti-
cal and an ever-present challenge. Ground control
must communicate with both the ISS and its various
locations on the ground at all times. It’s not as sim-
ple as making a cellular phone call or Skyping. Dis-
tance is an obvious obstacle. NASA and its partners
must overcome the “us” versus “them” dynamic
between the flight crew and mission control too. In
addition to language differences at both mission
control and on the ISS, isolation is a problem.
Astronauts can be on board the station for up to a
year at a time. The confined spaces and lack of
communication with family and friends are incredi-
bly stressful. Thankfully, new technology enables
the flight crew to communicate more frequently and
privately with others on the ground.
The Ultimate Telecommuters An interesting way
to think of astronauts is to think of them as the most
extreme telecommuters! Most if not all the chal-
lenges discussed in this chapter are experienced by
those involved in the ISS—both on the ground and
in space.81
YOUR THOUGHTS?
Imagine you’re a leader of the ISS flight crew.
1. What team challenges do you think would be
most enjoyable for you?
2. What team challenges do you think would be
most problematic for you?
3. What would you do to ensure the team aboard
the ISS works most effectively and safely?
One of the ISS teams gathered for a group photo.
Source: NASA
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
328 PART 2 Groups
8.6 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN
WORKING WITH OTHERS INCREASE MY
PERFORMANCE?
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You will thrive as an employee and manager by applying your knowledge of groups, teams,
and trust.
Describe the
implications of groups
and teams for you
and managers.
LO 8-6 As in previous chapters, we conclude this one with a number of explicit practical applica-
tions for you and for managers.
Takeaways for Me
There are five practical ways you can apply the material in this chapter:
1. Learn which individual functions of groups are most important to you. This knowledge
can help you understand why you are more satisfied in some groups than others.
Knowledge of organizational functions can help diagnose conflict and/or underper-
formance in some of the groups in which you are a member.
2. Apply your knowledge of task and maintenance roles to identify ways you can make
meaningful contributions to groups and teams. If a role is missing and important, use
your knowledge to fulfill it.
3. Develop your teamwork competencies. Table 8.5 provides examples of how to do it.
These competencies will serve you in any group or team and increase your value
throughout your career.
4. Apply your knowledge to combat social loafing. Don’t let free riders add to or under-
mine your hard work.
5. Pay attention to communication, support, respect, fairness, predictability, and compe-
tence to boost your trustworthiness. Your trustworthiness will make or break you.
When trust is diminished or violated, use Figure 8.6 to repair it.
Takeaways for Managers
There are six practical implications that will benefit you as a manager:
1. Identify the important task and maintenance roles in the various teams you manage or
belong to. Be sure these important roles are fulfilled effectively (not always by you).
2. Reduce frustrations when working in teams by understanding the group development
process. Identify the particular stage of development the group is in and apply your
knowledge to advance it to the next.
3. Evaluate those you manage in terms of the three Cs of a team player—committed,
collaborative, competent. These can help you identify top performers and underper-
formers.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
329Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
4. Always be mindful of trust, how trusting you are of your people and how trusting they are
of you. Managing people is infinitely more difficult when trust is an issue—never
underestimate its importance. Apply the knowledge gained in this chapter to both
build and repair trust (see Figure 8.6).
5. Use team charters to set up your various teams to win. Doing this work early can pay
great dividends and avoid conflict throughout the team’s existence.
6. Ensure the tangible and intangible rewards you offer support collaboration and
teamwork.
Your work life, and life more generally, is awash in teams. Apply the OB knowledge and
tools gained in this chapter to be more successful and fulfilled when you work with others.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
330 PART 2 Groups
You learned that working with others can increase
everyone’s performance because groups and
teams can, and often do, accomplish more than
individuals. You learned that roles and norms are
the building blocks of group and team behavior.
We explored group development processes,
along with ways to differentiate groups and teams
and the characteristics of effective team players.
We saw the different types of teams and the value
of interdependence. You learned how to boost
personal effectiveness further still by understand-
ing trust and knowing how to repair it. Finally, we
addressed the elements that foster team effective-
ness and collaboration. Reinforce and consolidate
your learning with the Key Points and Organizing
Framework. Then challenge your mastery of the
material by completing the Problem-Solving Appli-
cation Case and Legal/Ethical Challenge below.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 8
You learned the following key points:
8.1 GROUP CHARACTERISTICS
• Groups consist of two or more individuals
who have low/no task dependency, are not
accountable to each other, and may (not)
assemble for a specified period of time.
• Both formal and informal groups are useful.
• Roles are expected behaviors for a particular
job or position, and group roles set expecta-
tions for members of a group.
• Norms are shared attitudes, opinions, feelings,
or actions that help govern the behaviors of
groups and their members.
8.2 THE GROUP DEVELOPMENT
PROCESS
• Groups often develop along five defined steps:
forming, storming, norming, performing, and
adjourning.
• Punctuated equilibrium is another form of
group development.
8.3 TEAMS AND THE POWER OF
COMMON PURPOSE
• Teams are collections of two or more individu-
als whose tasks are interdependent, collec-
tively accountable for outcomes, and work
together for a specified time.
• Team players are committed, collaborative,
and competent.
• Common forms of teams are work, project,
cross-functional, self-managed, and virtual.
• Team interdependence describes the degree
to dependence between members for task
completion.
8.4 TRUST BUILDING AND
REPAIR—ESSENTIAL TOOLS
FOR SUCCESS
• Trust is a belief that another person will con-
sider the way his or her intentions and behav-
iors will affect you.
• Three common forms of trust are contractual,
communication, and competence.
• Damaged trust can be repaired using a
seven-step process.
8.5 KEYS TO TEAM EFFECTIVE-
NESS
• High-performing teams are characterized by
clarity, complementary skills, incentives and
motivation, trust and communication, empow-
erment, effective conflict resolution, and
collaboration.
• Charters and strategies, composition, and
capacity are the three Cs of effective teams.
• Rewards and collaboration are important
means of fostering team effectiveness.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
331Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
8.6 HOW CAN WORKING WITH
OTHERS INCREASE MY
PERFORMANCE?
• Understanding groups, teams, and trust are
keys to success as an employee.
• Understanding and applying your knowledge
of groups, teams, and trust are keys to suc-
cess as a manager.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 8
As shown in Figure 8.7, the process of group/
team dynamics leads to a large number of
outcomes at all three levels in the Organizing
Framework.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
Situation Factors
Individual Level
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
Organizational Level
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and
conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
FIGURE 8.7 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
332 PART 2 Groups
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Money, Design, and Disaster
Assume you’re the CEO of a company in which a sin-
gle product accounts for nearly 80 percent of current
sales (worth over $300 billion) and it is the fastest sell-
ing in the long and proud history of your company. The
product sells for approximately $100 million, and great
care was taken in its design with the strategy of ensur-
ing it easily fit with your company’s other products
which have been purchased by companies around the
world. However, this same product is responsible for
the deaths of 346 people in just six months. The CEO
is Dennis Muilenburg, the company is Boeing, and the
product is the 737 Max plane. Every one of these
planes sits on the ground across the globe.82
COSTS TO THE COMPANY
The value of the lives lost is of course immeasurable
but will require compensation. The quantifiable costs
are varied and potentially enormous, such as a drop in
the value of the stock, massive legal liabilities from the
families of the passengers, and increased scrutiny
from regulators. Boeing’s reputation is horribly tar-
nished, to say the least. Confidence in the quality and
safety of Boeing’s products has been deeply shaken
for a range of important stakeholders, notably airline
passengers who fly In Boeing’s products, investors
who buy the company’s stock, airlines who purchase
the planes, and the pilots and cabin crews who fly
them.
Another stakeholder who thus far has been largely
overlooked is Boeing’s employees. After all it is they
who built, tested, and helped certify the safety of the
planes. The crashes call into question their perfor-
mance, the collaboration between departments, and
importantly, management oversight. In addition to the
blame cast upon them, they too are concerned and
deeply saddened by the loss of life due to the product
failures.
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
Facts will no doubt continue to emerge for a long time,
but now we know several relevant details. The Max
was the latest model in the long line of 737s dating
back to the 1960s.83 The Max is more fuel efficient and
has longer range than its predecessors, making it more
attractive to airlines around the world. These gains are
due primarily to larger engines, but they in turn require
positioning farther forward and up than the previous
models. The design modification causes the plane’s
nose to tilt upward in some conditions which can cause
the plane to stall. To combat this potentially cata-
strophic event, Boeing created and installed software—
Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System
(MCAS)—to adjust the nose down. It is now clear the
MCAS and its accompanying sensors did not function
properly and wrestled control away from pilots and
caused the crashes.84
Adding to the problem, it appears Boeing cut cor-
ners in the design and certification of the Max. Many
experts have claimed the MCAS was a band-aid and
insufficiently addressed the underlying design prob-
lems. Also insufficient was that only one sensor trig-
gered the software, whereas most critical systems on
planes have redundancies to guard against a failure
in one element. It has also come to light that the Fed-
eral Aviation Association (FAA), the governmental
agency responsible for certifying new planes, actu-
ally had Boeing employees play a significant role in
the certification process, raising concerns of conflict
of interest. To elaborate, critics have accused the
FAA of having a “cozy” relationship with Boeing and
allowing the airline to exert undue influence in the
certification and safety testing. These certification
processes also in large part determined how much
training would be required by airlines and their pilots
to fly the new planes.85
TRAINING AND COMMUNICATION
One of the key selling points of the Max was it could
be easily integrated into existing fleets, in particular,
minimal pilot training would be required. This would
reduce costs and boost profits, making the plane more
attractive to airlines. However, it appears Boeing did
not appropriately train and inform pilots of the changes,
new systems, and potential challenges associated with
the Max, engine positioning, and MCAS.86
Some pilots have since commented that a lack of
training and communication related to these types of
changes are uncharacteristic of Boeing, meaning his-
torically pilots could trust they would be appropriately
informed and trained. Evidence for these deficiencies
was revealed in black-box and flight data recordings
and in subsequent simulations. These showed pilots of
the doomed flights had less than a minute to respond,
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
333Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
and when they did, were unable to regain control of
the planes due to the MCAS.87
WHAT HAPPENED IN THE HANGARS,
DESIGN ROOMS, AND IN
COUNTLESS MEETINGS?
From designers, to their managers, to safety engi-
neers, and regulators, their decision-making criteria
and processes failed. Senior leadership’s knowledge
and involvement is yet to be revealed, but as with the
emissions scandals in the auto industry in recent years,
it is likely that numerous senior leaders had intimate
involvement and knowledge. This could pose personal
liability (legal and financial), along with the jobs and
reputations of many executives. Some protestors are
already calling for CEO Muilenburg to resign.
Moreover, additional information has come to light
showing that Boeing engineers “believed” a key cock-
pit warning light was a standard feature on all new 737
Max planes. It wasn’t. Only the 20 percent of airlines
who had purchased the equivalent of a premium pack-
age had the working warning light. The light signaled
pilots when two key sensors register different readings
about the angle of the plane, which suggests there
may be a malfunction with the sensors that pilots
should investigate. But without the functioning light, it
seems pilots of the doomed flights were unaware the
sensors malfunctioned, activating the MCAS which
dramatically and inappropriately corrected the angle of
the planes. This scenario played out in seconds, not
minutes, and seems to be a major design flaw and fun-
damental cause of the fatalities.88
This scenario was exacerbated by a lack of commu-
nication by Boeing. After learning in 2017 the lights
didn’t function on all planes, Boeing conducted inter-
nal tests and concluded the planes were still safe and
no action was necessary. Because of this the company
did not notify airlines, pilots, or the FAA.89
Boeing’s troubles, however, are broader and deeper
than the 737 Max. Production processes and practices
for its 787 Dreamliner have been scrutinized for years.
(Remember the battery fires that grounded those
planes in 2013? The fixes were much more complex
than software.)90 Company norms were strong and
clear, such that criticisms of key products were dis-
couraged and or ignored. Numerous reports exist of
employees being intimidated and, in some instances,
retaliated against for speaking up. Critics, some of
whom are current and former employees, claim the
company values production speed over quality, and
similar concerns motivated Qatar airlines to stop
accepting planes from a plant in South Carolina. Many
now wonder if this reflects deeply embedded cultural
problems throughout Boeing and its products.91
CURRENT PREDICAMENT
For the Max to fly again, Boeing must develop and
implement a software fix, and have this certified by the
FAA, which will take several months. Many people
both inside and outside the airline industry doubt that
will be enough. Trust is gone. As stated by Ross Aimer,
aviation consultant and former Boeing training captain:
“Boeing in the past always told the pilots and airlines
exactly what was on those airplanes. . . . I have been a
Boeing pilot for over 50 years and have loved their
products, but they have lost my trust.” He further said
he feels Boeing was purely profit focused in these
decisions. A survey showed that 53 percent of
American adults would rather not fly in the 737 Max
even when it is approved for service.92
Mr. Muilenburg realizes the magnitude of the situa-
tion and began what is sure to be a long apology and
trust re-building tour.93 But again, many experts ques-
tion whether he or anyone else can do enough. Some
argue Boeing will need to replace the 737 Max alto-
gether; still, others say the flying public has short mem-
ories and such drastic action will not be required. To
elaborate, sadly planes do crash, and sometimes this
is due to design errors which are then corrected, and
the same model of planes returns back into service.
Assume you are the board of directors at Boeing,
and apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to the
predicament facing the company.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
Use the Organizing Framework in Figure 8.7 and the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify
inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework to help identify the important
problem(s) in this case. Remember that a prob-
lem is a gap between a desired and current
state. State your problem as a gap and be sure
to consider problems at all three levels. If more
than one desired outcome is not being accom-
plished, decide which one is most important and
focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are
generally viewed from a particular player’s
perspective. You need to determine from whose
perspective—employee, manager, team, or the
organization—you’re defining the problem. In
this case you’re asked to assume the role of the
board of directors for Boeing (they have ultimate
responsibility for the entire organization).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
334 PART 2 Groups
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current
chapter, because we generally select cases illus-
trating concepts specifically located within the
current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify the causes of the
problem you identified in Step 1? Remember, causes
tend to appear in either the Inputs or Processes boxes.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 8.7) and decide which person factors, if
any, are most likely causes of the defined prob-
lem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause
of the problem. Asking why multiple times is
more likely to lead you to root causes of the
problem. For example, do executive characteris-
tics help explain the problem you defined in
Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, why is this a cause?
By asking why multiple times you are likely to
arrive at a complete and more accurate list of
causes. Again, look to the Organizing Frame-
work for this chapter for guidance. Did particular
policies or practices play a role?
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organiz-
ing Framework. Are any processes at the indi-
vidual, group/team, or organizational level
potential causes of your defined problem? For
any process you consider, ask yourself, why is
this a cause? Again, do this for several iterations
to arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem and confirm the link or cause and effect
connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make your recommendations for solving the problem.
Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is
desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes you identified in Step 2, what
are your best recommendations? Use material in
the current chapter that best suits the cause.
Consider the OB in Action and Applying OB
boxes, because these contain insights into what
others have done.
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors—as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your rec-
ommendations and be sure your recommenda-
tions map onto the causes and resolve the
problem.
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Who’s Accountable?
Who is responsible for the performance and conduct
of a team? At work it is typically the team members and
the immediate manager, and to a lesser extent, the
manager’s manager and so on. In sports, most would
agree at the very least players and coaches. In colle-
giate and professional sports many others are involved
in creating, supporting, and contributing to the perfor-
mance of the teams, such as assistant coaches, gen-
eral managers and owners (in professional sports), and
athletic directors, presidents, and trustees at the col-
lege level. All of them, individually and collectively,
share some measure of the glory of victory and the
agony of defeat. But who, if anyone, shares the respon-
sibility for conduct off the field, court, pool, or arena? If
it’s misconduct, then who shares the responsibility is
unclear, or at least uneven.
The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA),
the governing body for college sports, routinely
sanctions violations of rules related to recruiting, aca-
demic eligibility, and illegal payments. Titles and wins
are vacated, schools can be banned from playoff par-
ticipation for a season, coaches and players are
suspended for a given number of games. Nevertheless,
misconduct is widespread, and at some schools and
with some coaches, violations occur repeatedly, sug-
gesting that current efforts to prevent unethical con-
duct in college sports are ineffective.
The most egregious misconduct sometimes quali-
fies as criminal, as was the horrific sex abuse case
involving team physician Larry Nassar (Michigan State
University and USA Gymnastics) and defensive coordi-
nating coach Jerry Sandusky (Penn State University
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
335Groups and Teams CHAPTER 8
football). They received prison sentences of 40 to
175 years and 30 to 60 years, respectively.94 Some mis-
conduct qualifies as bribery and fraud and also ends
up in courts. The vast majority of misconduct in college
sports Is wrong, but not illegal, and therefore is left up
to the NCAA, universities, and respective university
leaders at all levels to monitor, prevent, and punish.
With this as background, one can appropriately
argue that everyone makes mistakes. Indeed, it is part
of being human. It’s also reasonable to assert some
mistakes should be forgiven (get a second chance);
however, the larger issue in college sports is patterns
of misconduct that exist. Patterns of misconduct occur
in particular programs, universities, and with certain
coaches. Nassar’s and Sandusky’s crimes continued
for years, many people knew about it, and some of
these have also suffered consequences. What about
Rick Pitino? He had a prolific coaching career across
college and professional teams: Hawaii, Boston Uni-
versity, the Knicks, Providence, Kentucky, the Celtics,
and finally Louisville. He was implicated in various and
multiple types of misconduct in his first position, and
yet later Kentucky hired him when they were already in
the process of “paying for the sins” of their previous
coach. Eventually, the scandal at Louisville seemingly
ended his career.95
Then there is Larry Brown, who was hired to coach
basketball at Southern Methodist University in 2012.
Like Pitino, Brown had legendary success at both the
college and professional levels. But his UCLA champi-
onship team was stripped of its title because of NCAA
violations, and when he later coached the University of
Kansas it was banned from postseason play for a year
and placed on probation for three years. If that wasn’t
enough, while at SMU he and the team were hit with
additional NCAA sanctions for violations.96
With the preceding as background, the point of this
Legal/Ethical Challenge is determining who should
bear the consequences of such misconduct. It seems
that leaders at different levels of universities reap the
benefits of wins and championships, but rarely suffer
the consequences of the misconduct, even miscon-
duct they (should) have known about. Moreover, these
same university officials are routinely involved in the
hiring and annual reviews of these troubled coaches,
athletic directors, team physicians, etc.
If you agree this is a problem that needs to be
addressed, despite its intentions and efforts, the
NCAA is only part of the solution. Perhaps the ultimate
solution lies in the quality of university-level leader-
ship by boards of trustees, presidents, and athletic
directors.97 The NCAA gives college presidents wide
latitude to govern sports programs. They have official
authority, and typically report to boards of trustees
who are in effect their bosses and thus should be
responsible for their conduct. What if sanctions were
extended to university leaders? For instance, what if
the board of trustees at a given university said that if a
player is suspended, so are the coach(es) and the ath-
letic director, without pay. If the player is dismissed, so
too are the coach(es) and athletic director, and per-
haps even the college president. After all, business
executives and managers are fired every day when
their conduct, or that of their employees, jeopardizes
far less money than is at stake in major college sports
programs.
While this solution may seem extreme and even
unrealistic, it would certainly motivate presidents,
athletic directors, and trustees to take greater
responsibility for and oversight of the ethical conduct
of their sports teams and programs.98 These leaders
bask in the rewards when their teams win champion-
ships, but they are able to contain or even avoid the
costs of their misconduct. If both the rewards and the
punishments extended beyond individual players,
however, that behavior would likely change. It is also
more likely that leaders, such as university presi-
dents and trustees, would be more proactive. For
instance, they might think twice about hiring coaches
who bring not mistakes, but patterns of misconduct,
with them.99
In the current system, if anyone pays penalties in a
meaningful way, it is the players who lose postseason
opportunities and scholarships, compared to a token
few game suspensions for coaches who are already
wealthy. So what about the other leaders—athletic
directors, presidents, trustees?100
What Should Be Done about the
Unethical Conduct in College Sports?
1. Don’t change anything. The current means for
dealing with misconduct, including NCAA sanc-
tions, are sufficient. Justify.
2. Modify the NCAA authority and sanctions but
keep the system more or less as it is. Explain.
3. Hold university leadership accountable—some
combination of coaches, their bosses (athletic
directors), their bosses (university presidents),
and their bosses (boards of trustees). Explain.
4. Brainstorm another alternative and explain.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 9-1 Describe how the communication process works.
LO 9-2 Identify the key aspects of interpersonal communication.
LO 9-3 Explain how gender and age affect the communication process.
LO 9-4 Describe how using social media can increase your effectiveness at
work.
LO 9-5 Explain how communication skills can increase your effectiveness.
LO 9-6 Describe the implications of communication in the digital age for you and
managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework shown in Figure 9.1 summarizes what you will learn in this chapter.
You can see that communication is an important process at all three levels of OB—individual,
group/team, and organizational. The quality and effectiveness of your communication is influ-
enced greatly by person factors, such as your interpersonal, nonverbal communication, and lis-
tening skills. Of course many situation factors also influence the outcomes of your communication
efforts. Your choice of medium, spoken or written words, and of course social media are increas-
ingly important in the workplace. Collectively, these inputs impact communication across levels
and outcomes in the Organizing Framework.
Communication
in the Digital Age9
Ja
n
H
av
lic
ek
/J
oh
ny
87
/1
23
RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
337
FIGURE 9.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Nonverbal communication
• Active listening
• Nondefensive communication
• Empathy
• Ethical behavior
• Social media behaviors
(an individual employee)
• Communication skills
Situation Factors
• Choice of medium
• HR policies (hiring and firing)
• Social media practices
(managers and coworkers)
Individual Level
• Communication
Group/Team Level
• Communication
Organizational Level
• Communication
• HR policies (social media
policies)
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
• Reputation
• Legal liability
Your communication skills are important determinants of your opportunities and effectiveness throughout your
working life. Many jobs require teamwork and communication technology, meaning you are well served to
enhance your understanding of communication processes and improve the many type of communication skills
used in your professional life.
Hero Images Inc./Alamy Stock Photo
Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
338
Winning at Work
Communication Counts in Landing a Job
As a job seeker, you are responsible for proving you’re the
best candidate for the job. Performing well during a job
interview depends on what you say and how you say it!
Effective communication skills enable you both to sell your-
self as the best candidate and to calm your own nerves.
What You Say in a Job Interview
• Direct the conversation. Many people simply wait to be
asked questions, but you don’t need to. You can use
small talk to get things started, but be brief. Also
be sure you know your key selling points and guide
the conversation to these. You can even state them
upfront, saying, “I’d like to cover A, B, and C.”
• Pick your selling points. Identify and focus on only your
top two or three selling points. If you have little experi-
ence, focus on personal qualities or skills. If you have
experience, highlight significant achievements.
• Substantiate. Support and illustrate your selling points
with numbers and/or stories. For instance, be explicit
and say you were the number one in sales, increased
efficiency by 20 percent, ranked top 10 in your class, or
were member of a state champion team in a sport. Also
consider using stories to describe achievements (school,
work, or sports), how you dealt with a challenging situa-
tion, or what you appreciated most about a particular job
or experience.
• Describe what’s in it for them. Ask not what the job will
do for you, but what you can do on the job. Explain
why you’re a good match and why you can add value
to the organization.
• Do your homework. Be sure to thoroughly research
the company and people. Look online for information
relevant to past, current, and future company events
and initiatives. Use this knowledge when talking or
asking questions about the company.
• Anticipate challenging questions. Know you will be
asked, “What are your weaknesses?” The key here is
to briefly identify a challenge, then discuss how you
solved the problem and how it helped you grow.
How You Say It
• Show them you’ll bring it. Express your enthusiasm
and willingness to do anything, not just the most inter-
esting stuff. Remember, enthusiasm and other positive
emotions are both attractive to others and contagious.
Positivity sells . . . be positive in your words, nonverbals,
attitude, and emotions!
• Smile. It’s one of the easiest ways to win people over.
• Take your time. Nerves can make us speak more
quickly than usual. Slow yourself to a normal conversa-
tional pace. If you need time to phrase your answer,
say, “That’s a good question,” before you respond.
• Make eye contact. Don’t stare in the other person’s
eyes, but don’t stare at the floor or out the window
either.
• Dress the way they dress. Regardless of your own
style or wardrobe, your choices need to match what is
common at the company. The rule: Anything that dis-
tracts, diminishes.
• Close with a handshake. End the interview with a
“thank you” and a firm handshake (don’t crush bones).
• Follow up. At the end of the interview ask when the
interviewer would like you to follow up. Then drop your
interviewer a note of thanks.
Fighting Nerves
• Prepare.
• Breathe.
• Pause before answering.
• Never say you’re nervous.
• Use positive self-talk and visualization.1
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
We’re about to give you practical guidance on how to
communicate effectively. Communication is a critically
important process at all levels of OB—individual, group,
and organizational—and in most arenas of your life.
We’ll guide you through important elements at each
level, beginning with how individuals process informa-
tion. We’ll also highlight the characteristics of compe-
tent communicators and show you how to more
successfully communicate within and between genera-
tions and genders. We’ll conclude with the most practi-
cal tips of all: the do’s and don’ts of using social media
in your professional life, ways to develop effective pre-
sentation and conversational skills, and suggestions
for managing up.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
339Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
9.1 BASIC DIMENSIONS OF THE COMMUNICATION
PROCESS
Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw summed up a key issue with communication in stating
“the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.”2
The illusion that we have communicated when we have not can lead to catastrophic
consequences, such as the 2014 sinking of the Sewol, a South Korean ferry. Investigators
concluded that “crucial miscommunication between the crew and ship traffic controllers
who could have expedited rescue” was a key cause of 293 deaths. Many of the dead were
16- and 17-year-olds on a school outing.3
Effective communication helps individuals, groups, and organizations to achieve their
goals. Bridgewater Associates LP, the world’s largest hedge fund, is trying to enhance pro-
ductivity and customer service by fostering open communication. Employees are asked to
“tell it like it is,” according to The Wall Street Journal. They are “encouraged to air any
gripes and concerns about the hedge fund in a digital ‘issue log’ that can be seen by anyone
at Bridgewater. The comments usually are about bigger problems but also have included
difficulties formatting e-mail.” To improve individual performance, the company also gath-
ers and disseminates feedback collected on iPads on which workers use apps to rate each
other on dozens of strengths and weaknesses.4
TEKsystems, an IT recruiting firm, has employed a different communication strategy.
The company sent 18 senior leaders to visit more than 100 of its local offices over the
course of one month. The goal of these meetings was to update employees in person about
what was happening in the company and its plans.5
These examples illustrate why communication is a critical process at all three levels in
the Organizing Framework. We hope this chapter helps you develop your communication
skills.
Defining Communication
Communication is “the exchange of information between a sender and a receiver,
and the inference (perception) of meaning between the individuals involved.”6 It is
a circular and dynamic process in which people interpret and make sense of the
information they exchange. And it’s a very important activity in both our personal and
professional lives.7
A recent national survey of nearly 1,000 employers who recruit on business school
campuses revealed that communication skills top the list of skills and abilities these
employers will be looking for in new hires. One recruiter observed that candidates seem to
have the technological skills employers are looking for. However, many recent grads seem
to lack soft skills, such as communications and people skills, which tend to make the dif-
ference in an effective hire.8
Describe how the
communication
process works.
LO 9-1
THE BIGGER PICTURE
By this point in your study of OB, you probably realize that communication is a critical
and dynamic process within the Organizing Framework. It includes a sender, a message,
and a receiver; encoding and decoding; a medium; feedback; and the need to deal with
“noise” or interference. You will also see why you should match the communication medium
to the situation.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
340 PART 2 Groups
How the Communication Process Works
We all know communicating is neither simple nor clear-cut. Researchers have begun to
examine it as a form of social information processing in which receivers interpret messages
by cognitively processing information. This work has led to development of a perceptual
model of communication that depicts it as a process in which receivers create meaning in
their own minds.9 Let us consider the parts of this process and illustrate them with an
example (see Figure 9.2).
Sender, Message, and Receiver The sender is the person or group wanting to com-
municate information—the message. The receiver is the person, group, or organization for
whom the message is intended.
These students are working on a class project. Note how some of them are actively
involved while others appear a bit detached. Why do you think college students
overestimate their communication skills?
Jacob Lund/Shutterstock
FIGURE 9.2 Communication Process in Action
Noise
(any interference)
Let’s meet at
Starbucks to study.
2. Message is
transmitted through a
medium (e.g., text
message).
Which Starbucks?
We have two classes
together; which one
are you thinking about?
1. Sender encodes
message, selects
medium (e.g.,
cell phone).
4. Receiver sends
feedback through a
medium (e.g., text
message).
3. Receiver decodes
message and
decides that
feedback is needed.
(left): Wolf/Fuse/Getty Images; (right): paffy/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
341Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
Encoding Communication begins when a sender encodes an idea or thought. Encod-
ing means translating thoughts into a form or language that can be understood by others.
This language becomes the foundation of the message. For example, if a professor wants to
communicate with you about an assignment, he or she must first think about what infor-
mation to communicate. Once the professor has resolved this issue in his or her mind
(encoding), the next step is to select a medium in which to communicate.
Selecting a Medium Managers can communicate through a variety of media. These
include face-to-face conversations and meetings, telephone calls, charts and graphs, and
the many digital messaging forms—e-mail, texting, voice mail, videoconferencing, Twitter,
Facebook, Blackboard, and others. We discuss the best way to select a medium in the
next section.
Decoding and Creating Meaning Decoding, the process of interpreting or making
sense of a message, occurs when receivers receive a message. When a professor communicates
with you about an assignment, for example, you decode the message when you receive it.
The perceptual model of communication assumes the receiver creates the meaning of
a message in his or her mind. This means different people can interpret the same message
differently.
Feedback The first round of feedback occurs when the original receiver expresses a
reaction to the sender’s message. Once the initial sender has obtained this feedback, he or
she is likely to decode it and send corresponding feedback. This process continues until
sender and receiver believe they have effectively communicated.
Noise Noise is anything that interferes with the transmission and understanding
of a message. There are many other sources of noise: language differences, speech impair-
ment, illegible handwriting, inaccurate statistics, poor hearing and eyesight, environmental
noises, other people talking, faulty equipment, and physical distance between sender and
receiver. Noise affects all the links in the communication process. Nonverbal communica-
tion, discussed later in this chapter, also is a source of noise, as are cross-cultural differ-
ences between senders and receivers, and the physical work environment.
If noise is anything that interferes with the transmis-
sion and understanding of a message, what is the
absence of noise? For Amy Risley, CEO of award-
winning skin care company Skinfix, Inc., it’s a stan-
dard of communication transparency high enough
to make the company’s message crystal-clear—to
employees, clients, suppliers, and the industry.10
How does Skinfix achieve that transparency?
First, not only are its products tested and recom-
mended by impartial dermatologists; the number and
percentage of natural active ingredients are also ver-
ified and listed on the packaging. “We respect our
customers enough to be transparent with our formu-
lations,” says Risley. That includes not overpromising.
The company takes pride in its customers’ loyalty and
the high ratings its products earn as a result of rigor-
ous testing procedures. “If it doesn’t fix skin, it doesn’t
wear the Skinfix logo,” Risley says.
Transparency also extends to information shar-
ing among employees. Working on the principle that
“a fantastic product is not the work of one—it’s a col-
laborative effort along the way,” employees absorb
information from a wide variety of sources, including
beauty, fashion, and dermatology, and use it to col-
laborate. “We don’t silo teams,” Risley observes. “We
work across functions because we all wear many
hats in a small company. Collaboration is a necessity,
and one that enriches the work environment.”
Transparency Is the Message at Skinfix
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
342 PART 2 Groups
Selecting the Right Medium
One way in which we communicate effectively is by using the medium most appropriate
for the situation. That is, we match media richness with the situation’s complexity. Let’s
look at how.
Media Richness Media richness measures the capacity of a given communica-
tion medium to convey information and promote understanding.11 Media vary from
rich to lean. As shown in Figure 9.3, there are three zones of communication effectiveness.
Effective communication occurs when the richness of the medium is matched appropri-
ately to the complexity of the problem or situation. The richer a medium, the better it is at
conveying information.
Four factors affect communication richness:
1. Speed of feedback: Faster feedback offers more richness.
2. Channel: The visual and audio characteristics of a videoconference are richer than the
limited visual aspects of a written report.
The company also shares sensitive information
with employees, including profit and loss, cost of
goods sold, and profit margin. While some managers
might be cautious with these data, Risley finds that
choosing “transparency over fear” has worked to the
company’s advantage. “We don’t make a habit of
sharing detailed strategies with anyone and every-
one,” she says, “but we do share information when
it’s relevant and productive . . . when we share within
the industry, they share back! We learn so much from
our industry friends, mentors, and contacts. It often
helps us avoid pitfalls and mistakes that they have
made along the way—some of which we were
headed right for!”
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Which components of the communication process
are most likely to create noise among Skinfix
employees? Between employees and customers?
2. What most impresses you about Skinfix’s
approach to transparency? Explain.
FIGURE 9.3 Selecting the Right Medium for Effective Communication
Low
Complexity of problem/situation
Overload zone
(medium provides
more information
than necessary)
Oversimplification zone
(medium does not
provide necessary
information)
Face-to-face
Interactive media
(telephone,
videoconference)
Personal media
(memos, letters,
personal e-mail,
voice mail, texts,
social media)
Impersonal media
(newsletter, bulletins,
reports, general e-mail)
Zo
ne
of
e�
ect
ive
co
mm
un
ica
tio
n
R
ic
hn
es
s
of
c
om
m
un
ic
at
io
n
m
ed
iu
m
Lean
Rich
High
SOURCES: Daft, Richard L., and Robert H. Lengel. “The Selection of Communication Media as an Executive Skill.” Academy of
Management Perspectives 2, no. 3 (August 1998): 225–32. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.1988.4277259; and Daft, Richard L.,
and Robert H. Lengel. Information Richness: A New Approach to Managerial Behavior and Organization Design. Texas: Texas
A & M University, 1983.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
343Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
3. Type: Personal media such as phone calls and interpersonal speech are richer than
impersonal media such as memos and group e-mails.
4. Language source: The natural body language and speech in a face-to-face conversation
provide a richer medium than the numbers in a financial report.
Complexity of the Situation Situations can range from low to high in complexity.
Low-complexity situations are routine and predictable, such as a manager updating employ-
ees on last month’s sales or calculating someone’s paycheck. Highly complex situations,
such as a corporate reorganization or merger, are ambiguous, hard to analyze, and often
emotionally charged.
Picking the Right Medium A two-way face-to-face conversation is the richest form of
communication. It provides immediate feedback and allows participants to observe multi-
ple cues such as body language and tone of voice. Use face-to-face in situations that are
complex or that are highly important to receivers. In contrast, telephone conversations
and videoconferencing are not as informative as face-to-face exchanges even though they
are relatively high in richness. For example, webinars and WebEx presentations are well
suited for disseminating information, but we can say from experience that they are not as
good for ensuring the messaging has been understood. At the other end of the complexity
scale, newsletters, reports, and general e-mail blasts are lean media and best for less com-
plex situations. E-mail and social media messages vary in media richness: leaner if they
impersonally blanket a large audience, and richer if they mix personal textual and video
information that prompts quick conversational feedback.12
We conclude this section by noting that people have preferences for communicating in
different media. Research on individual differences identified the following trends:
• Improving the level of media richness reduces the cost of information search and
increases the number of options consumers consider when making choices.13
• Managers, not coworkers, can influence the media richness perception held by
employees, particularly when it comes to e-mail messages.14
• Employees targeted by coworkers’ negative workplace gossip are less likely to dem-
onstrate appropriate work behaviors.15
The photo on the right represents a less complex situation than the one on the left. Speaking to a group of
employees in an open forum is more complicated because the speaker has no idea what people might ask
or how they might respond to the message. How would you suggest managers prepare for an open forum
meeting?
(left): wavebreakmedia/Shutterstock; (right): LWA/Larry Williams/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
344 PART 2 Groups
9.2 COMMUNICATION COMPETENCE
Although there is no universally accepted definition of communication competence, it
is a performance-based index of an individual’s abilities to effectively use commu-
nication behaviors in a given context.16
Are you curious about your level of communication competence? Is it low, medium, or
high? Find out by completing Self-Assessment 9.1. If your score is lower than you prefer,
find ideas in the chapter for improving your interpersonal communication skills.
Identify the key
aspects of
interpersonal
communication.
LO 9-2
Let’s consider four key communication skills that affect your communication
competence:
• Nonverbal communication
• Active listening
• Nondefensive communication
• Empathy
Sources of Nonverbal Communication
Nonverbal communication is communication without words. According to communi-
cation experts “it includes observable behaviors such as facial expressions, eyes, touching,
and tone of voice, as well as less obvious messages such as dress, posture, and spatial dis-
tance between two or more people.”17
Nonverbal communication adds flavor to oral communication. That is, it helps you
understand the attitudes and emotions of those with whom you are speaking, which in turn
helps you more accurately interpret their message.18
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Communication competence is your ability to effectively communicate with others. Knowing
that recruiters look for communication skills in college graduates, you’ll be happy to learn
that you can improve these skills. You will learn how you can use nonverbal communication,
active listening, nondefensive communication, and empathy to enhance your communication
competence.
Assessing Your Communication Competence
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 9.1 in Connect.
1. Are you happy with the results?
2. Based on your scores, what are your top three strengths and your three biggest
weaknesses?
3. How might you use your strengths more effectively in your role as a student?
4. How might you improve on your weaknesses?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.1 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
345Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
Let’s consider four key sources of nonverbal messages:
• Body movements and gestures. • Facial expressions.
• Touch. • Eye contact.
Body Movements and Gestures Body movements, such as leaning forward or
backward, and gestures provide nonverbal information that can either enhance or detract
from the communication process. Open body positions, such as leaning backward or ges-
turing with palms facing up, communicate immediacy, a term used to represent openness,
warmth, closeness, and availability for communication. A recent study suggested that the
use of gestures can help in the process of learning and comprehension in both adults and
children.19 Defensiveness is communicated by gestures such as folding arms, crossing
hands, crossing legs, or pointing at others.
Touch Touching is another powerful nonverbal cue. People tend to touch those they
like. Research reveals that women do more touching during conversations than men.20
Touching conveys an impression of warmth and caring and can help create a personal
bond between people. Be careful about using touch with people from diverse cultures,
however, because norms for touching vary significantly around the world.
Facial Expressions Facial expressions convey a wealth of information. Smiling, for
instance, typically represents warmth, happiness, or friendship, whereas frowning conveys
dissatisfaction or anger. Are these interpretations universal? A summary of relevant research
revealed that the association between facial expressions and emotions varies across cul-
tures.21 A smile, for example, does not convey the same emotion in different countries. Be
careful when interpreting facial expressions among diverse groups of employees.
Eye Contact Eye contact is a strong nonverbal cue that varies across cultures. Western-
ers are taught at an early age to look at their parents when spoken to. In contrast, Asians
are taught to avoid eye contact with a parent or superior in order to show obedience and
subservience.22 Once again, you need to be sensitive to different orientations toward main-
taining eye contact with diverse employees.
Practical Tips Here is our advice for improving your nonverbal communication skills.
Body movements, gestures, and speech
• Lean forward to show the speaker you are interested.
• Don’t display slumped shoulders, downward head, flat tones, or inaudible voice, all
of which convey indecisiveness or lack of confidence.
• Don’t speak too fast or too slowly. Your tone of voice should match the tone of the
message.
• Use paraphrasing as a mechanism to check on communication accuracy.
Paraphrasing is restating what someone else has said or written.
Facial expressions like these can reveal the emotions behind a message, but they are easily misinterpreted. Which of these facial expres-
sions suggest happiness, worry, and anger?
(left to right): Jack Hollingsworth/Blend Images LLC; liza54500/Shutterstock; Aaron Amat/Shutterstock; SensorSpot/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
346 PART 2 Groups
Facial expressions
• Nod your head to show you are listening
or that you agree.
• Smile and show interest.
• Don’t close your eyes or tense facial
muscles.
Eye contact
• Maintain eye contact and don’t look away
from the speaker.
Listening
Listening is the process of actively decoding
and interpreting verbal messages. It requires
cognitive attention and information processing;
simply hearing does not. There is general consen-
sus that listening is a cornerstone skill of commu-
nication competence.
In studies that support this conclusion,
active listening made receivers feel more under-
stood. It also led people to conclude that their
conversations were more helpful, sensitive, and
supportive.23 Clearly, active listening yields pos-
itive outcomes.
Unfortunately, many of us think we are good listeners when evidence suggests just the opposite. For
example, researchers estimate that typical listeners retain only 20 to 50 percent of what they hear.24
Why do you think we miss or lose so much of what we hear? One reason is that we have the cogni-
tive capacity to process words at a much higher rate than people speak. This means our cognitive
processes are being underutilized, leading to daydreaming and distractions. Noise is another reason. A
third reason, and one you can control, is your motivation to listen and your listening style. It takes
effort to actively listen. You won’t be a better listener unless you are motivated to become one.
What’s Your Listening Style—or Styles? You can improve your communication competence by
understanding your typical listening style. There are four styles:25
1. Active—I’m fully invested. Active listeners are “all in.” That is, they are motivated to listen and give full
attention when others are talking. They focus on what is being communicated and expend energy by
participating in the discussion. They also use positive body language, such as leaning in or making
direct eye contact, to convey their interest.
2. Involved—I’m partially invested. Involved listeners devote some, but not all, of their attention and
energy to listening. They reflect on what is being said and halfheartedly participate in the discus-
sion. Their use of nonverbal cues tends to be inconsistent or intermittent, and they can show non-
verbal signs of interest and noninterest in the same conversation.
3. Passive—It’s not my responsibility to listen. Passive listeners are not equal partners in a speaking–
listening exchange. They assume the speaker is responsible for the quality of the interaction and
believe their role is to passively take in information. Passive listeners will display attentiveness, but
they can fake it at times. Overall, they don’t expend much motivation or energy in receiving and
decoding messages.
4. Detached—I’m uninterested. Detached listeners tend to withdraw from the interaction. They appear
inattentive, bored, distracted, and uninterested. They may start using mobile devices during the
speaking–listening exchange. Their body language will reflect lack of interest, such as slumping and
avoiding direct eye contact.
Which of the four styles do you tend to use? Do you consistently use one or two styles, or does your
style vary from one situation to the next? You can answer these questions by taking Self-Assessment 9.2.
As children, we all were instructed to listen. However, many adults seem
to suffer from poor listening skills. Why is this? For one, it takes effort
and motivation to be a good listener. To communicate and perform better,
we would all benefit from investing more effort into listening more
effectively.
Luis Molinero/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
347Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
Assessing Your Listening Style
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 9.2 in Connect.
1. Based on your results, how would you classify your style?
2. Are you surprised by the results?
3. Identify three things you can do to improve your listening skills.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.2 CAREER READINESS
Becoming a More Effective Listener Effective listening is a learned skill that requires
effort and motivation. It comes down to paying attention to the content of the message. The
suggestions in Table 9.1 can increase your listening skills at school, home, and work.
Researchers have now begun to study an emerging dimension of listening called social
listening, which pertains to how we communicate and listen to others using social media
and communication technologies that influence our personal engagement with others. The
increase in constant interaction brought about by social media and mobile devices appears
to be changing the way we react to stimuli (for example, social media posts, comments,
and likes) and listen and respond to messages.26
TIP EXPLANATION
Show respect. Give everyone the opportunity to explain his/her ideas without
interrupting. Actively try to help the sender convey his or her
message.
Listen from the
first sentence.
Turn off your internal thoughts and mentally put aside
whatever you were thinking about prior to the interaction.
Be mindful. Stay in the moment and focus on the sender. Don’t try to figure
out what the speaker is going to say.
Keep quiet. Use your ears more than your mouth, and try to follow the
80/20 rule. That is, your conversation partner should speak
80 percent of the time and you should speak 20 percent.
Ask questions. Asking questions helps you clarify what is being said, unlocks
learning, and improves interpersonal bonding.
Paraphrase and
summarize.
Paraphrasing repeats back to someone what you believe you
just heard him or her say. Summarizing consolidates an entire
conversation. Both these techniques enhance communication
accuracy because they help to ensure messages are being
understood correctly.
Remember what
was said.
Either take notes or make an effort to log critical information
into your mental computer.
Involve your body. Use nonverbal cues to demonstrate interest and involvement.
TABLE 9.1 Tips for Effective Listening
SOURCES: Brooks, Alison Wood, and Leslie K. John. “The Surprising Power of Questions.” Harvard Business Review, June
2018. https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-surprising-power-of-questions; Altman, Ian. “The Most Successful Entrepreneurs Possess This
One Crucial Skill.” Forbes Media, LLC, April 18, 2017. https://www.forbes.com/sites/ianaltman/2017/04/18/the-most-successful-
entrepreneurs-possess-this-one-crucial-skill/#61d4f4b25d67; and Keyser, John. “Active Listening Leads to Business Success.”
Association for Talent Development. https://www.td.org/magazines/td-magazine/active-listening-leads-to-business-success.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
348 PART 2 Groups
Nondefensive
Communication
Nondefensive communication occurs when
you ask questions and make statements in
an open and neutral manner. Using this
approach helps the communicator gather
accurate information and speak in an even-
tempered tone without jumping to conclu-
sions that may inf lame the situation.
Nondefensive communication also helps
individuals gain the respect of their col-
leagues and others in an organization while
strengthening personal and professional rela-
tionships. For example, if one of your cowork-
ers acts upset, you could simply state an
observation by asking the person, “Are you
angry about something?” This neutral ques-
tion will allow the person to explain his or
her emotions without getting more upset or
blaming others for the situation.27
Defensiveness occurs when people
perceive they are being attacked or
threatened. Our “first responder” to defen-
siveness is the brain’s amygdala. A neurosci-
ence expert noted the amygdala “accesses
emotional memories that identify a given
stimulus as potentially threatening and trig-
gers the emotional fear response that sets
the fight-or-flight biobehavioral response in
motion.”28 This reaction leads to defensive listening and destructive behaviors such as
shutting down or being passive-aggressive, standing behind rules or policies, creating a
diversion, or counterattacking.
Moreover, defensiveness from one person activates a similar response in the other
party. All told, defensiveness from either party in an exchange fosters the exchange of
inaccurate and inefficient communication.29
You may be surprised to learn that defensiveness is often triggered by nothing more
than a poor choice of words or nonverbal posture during interactions. In the language of
behavior modification, these triggers are antecedents of defensiveness. For example, using
absolutes like “always” or “never” is very likely to create a defensive response. Try to avoid
using absolutes because they are rarely true. Instead, you can increase your communica-
tion competence by avoiding the defensive antecedents and employing the positive ante-
cedents of nondefensive communication shown in Table 9.2.
Connecting with Others via Empathy
We first mentioned empathy in Chapter 3 when discussing the components of emo-
tional intelligence. Although researchers propose multiple types of empathy, the gen-
eral consensus is that empathy represents the ability to recognize and understand
another person’s feelings and thoughts.30 It is a reflective technique that fosters
open communication.
Being empathetic requires two key actions. The first is mindfulness. Empathy neces-
sitates that we place our attention on the feelings and emotions being displayed both ver-
bally and nonverbally by others. The second action is to incorporate our understanding of
another person’s feelings and thoughts into our communications. This will lead us to use
language that fits the receiver’s perspective.
Have you ever been in an auto accident? If yes,
then you likely have intimate knowledge of
defensiveness. In situations like this, one person
often tries to blame the other while both defend
themselves. Which toward-defensive styles in
Table 9.2 on the next page are likely to occur in
such situations?
Tom Merton/age fotostock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
349Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
TOWARD DEFENSIVENESS TOWARD NONDEFENSIVENESS
Style Example Style Example
Evaluative “Your work is sloppy.” Descriptive “Your work was two days late.”
Controlling “You need to . . .” Problem solving “What do you think are the
causes of the missed deadline?”
Strategizing “I’d like you to agree with me
during the meeting so that we
can overcome any challenges.”
Straightforward “Vote your conscience at the
meeting. You can agree or
disagree with my proposal.”
Neutral “Don’t worry about missing the
deadline. It’s no big deal.”
Empathetic “I sense disappointment about
missing the deadline. Let’s figure
out how we can get back on
schedule.”
Superior “Listen to me; I’ve worked here
20 years.”
Equal “Let’s figure out the causes of the
missed deadline together.”
Certain “We tried this idea in the past. It
just doesn’t work.”
Honest and
open
Using I-messages: “I am angry
about the way you spoke to the
customer because our department
looked unresponsive.”
TABLE 9.2 Antecedents of Defensive and Nondefensive Communication
SOURCES: Gibb, R. Jack. “Defensive Communication.” Journal of Communication 11, no. 3 (September 1961): 141–48. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1961.
tb00344.x; and “Reach Out: Effective Communication.” Sunday Business Post, April 14, 2013.
Empathy leads to more effective communication and interaction because people
feel heard. It also sends the message that we care about others. For example, a recent
study of audiotaped performance appraisal interviews revealed that managers’ empathetic
communication styles were positively related to employees’ intentions to change or
improve their performance and to employees’ perceptions of their supervisors’ likeability.31
British entrepreneur Maurice Ostro offers some advice on the importance of empathy in
the OB in Action feature.
British entrepreneur Maurice Ostro runs his family’s
gem company, Ostro Minerals, and Entrepreneurial
Giving, a network he founded for entrepreneurs who
donate some of their profits to charity. Convinced that
empathy is good for business, Ostro offers this advice:32
• Maintain a purpose beyond profit. Align it with
your values and make it part of every day.
• Write that purpose down. Encourage employees
to do likewise.
• To keep productive employees and loyal
customers, “tell everyone . . . about what
you’re doing for those around you.” Says
Ostro, “Research shows that employees at a
purposeful company can be up to three times
more productive.”
• Connect with like-minded people.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Do you agree that empathy is good for busi-
ness? Why or why not?
2. Can you think of any other contexts in which
empathy could be useful? Discuss.
Empathy Is Good for Business
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
350 PART 2 Groups
9.3 GENDER, GENERATIONS, AND COMMUNICATION
Assume you are about to work with someone who made the following statement during a
strategic planning meeting. “I’m not on board with the direction this decision is going. . . .
No, I’m not finished. I won’t back down from this position, and I’m not going to commit my
team and resources to this project until we have more conclusive evidence to work with.
Period.” What is your impression of this person? Would it be different if the speaker’s name
were Mary rather than Mark?
A team of researchers examined this question and found that women who disagreed in
a forceful manner like this were evaluated more negatively than men.33 This result held for
both male and female evaluators. Let’s consider two explanations.
The first is implicit cognition, or bias, which was discussed in Chapter 4. Implicit cog-
nition consists of any thoughts or beliefs that are automatically activated from memory
without our conscious awareness. It causes us to make biased decisions without realizing
we are doing so.34 Lawyer and former First Lady of the United States Michelle Obama
commented about this bias by noting, “No country can ever truly flourish if it stifles the
potential of its women and deprives itself of the contributions of half of its citizens.”35
The second explanation is linguistic styles. Deborah Tannen, a communication expert,
defines linguistic style as follows:
Linguistic style refers to a person’s characteristic speaking pattern. It includes
such features as directness or indirectness, pacing and pausing, word choice, and
the use of such elements as jokes, figures of speech, stories, questions, and apolo-
gies. In other words, linguistic style is a set of culturally learned signals by which we
not only communicate what we mean but also interpret others’ meaning and evalu-
ate one another as people.36
You can see how linguistic style helps explain communication differences between
women and men and across generations. This section will increase your understanding of
interpersonal communication across age and gender barriers.
Communication Patterns between Women and Men
There are two competing explanations about the origin of linguistic styles between men
and women. Some researchers believe interpersonal differences between women and men
are due to inherited biological differences between the sexes. This perspective, also called
the evolutionary psychology or Darwinian perspective, attributes gender differences in
communication to drives, needs, and conflicts associated with reproductive strategies used
by women and men. The second perspective, social role theory, suggests that girls and boys
are taught to communicate differently. Here is what these explanations suggest about male
and female communication patterns.37
The Male Perspective Males are expected to communicate more aggressively, interrupt
others more than women, and hide their emotions because they have an inherent desire to
possess features attractive to females. Men also see conversations as negotiations in which
people try to achieve and maintain the upper hand. Thus they feel it is important to protect
Explain how gender
and age affect the
communication
process.
LO 9-3
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Women and men have communicated differently since the dawn of time. So do people from
varying generations. You can improve your communication competence by understanding
and accommodating communication differences among men and women and various genera-
tions. This section will help you in this pursuit.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
351Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
themselves from others’ attempts to put them down or push them around. This perspective
increases a male’s need to maintain independence and avoid failure.38 Although males are
certainly not competing for mate selection during a business meeting, evolutionary psycholo-
gists propose that men cannot turn off the biologically based determinants of their behavior.39
The Female Perspective According to social role theory, females and males learn
ways of speaking while growing up. Research shows that girls learn conversational skills
and habits that focus on rapport and relationships, whereas boys learn skills and habits
that focus on status and hierarchies. Accordingly, women come to view communication as
a network of connections in which conversations are negotiations for closeness. This ori-
entation leads women to seek and give confirmation and support more than men.40
What Does Research Reveal? Research demonstrates that women and men com-
municate differently in a number of ways.41 Women are more likely to share credit for suc-
cess, to ask questions for clarification, to tactfully give feedback by mitigating criticism
with praise, and to indirectly tell others what to do. According to The Wall Street Journal,
women also are “more likely to add qualifiers (‘I’m not sure, but . . .’) and apologies (‘I’m
sorry to interrupt, but . . .’). When complimented on her work, a woman is more likely to
downplay it, saying she was ‘lucky.’”42 These tendencies allow women to be interrupted
more than men when communicating with others.43
In contrast, men are more likely to boast about themselves, to bluntly give feedback, to
withhold compliments, to ask fewer questions, and to avoid admitting fault or weaknesses.
Generational Differences in Communication
As discussed in Chapter 4, today’s workplace often includes people from four different
generations—traditionalists, baby boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials—with Gen Zers also start-
ing to make their mark. (Refer to Table 4.3 for additional details and characteristics.) Among
the challenges in this scenario is the fact that different generations prefer different media,
as discussed above, and they have different expectations and norms about communication.
The Role of Digital Devices When it comes to communication media, Millennials
and Gen Xers are more likely to love their digital devices than boomers and traditionalists.
Millennials were brought up with instant messaging and texting and prefer these media
over phone calls, letters, and reports. Several professional sports teams, including the
NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, acknowledge these trends and are making accommodations in
managing their operations and players.
Women are more likely to be interrupted during this meeting attended by a group of
global employees. What can women do to ensure that their voices are heard and not
overrun by others during a meeting?
oneinchpunch/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
352 PART 2 Groups
To help his Millennial players get their “social media fix,” Cardinals coach Kliff
Kingsbury recently announced he planned to allow cellphone breaks during team meet-
ings. According to Kingsbury, the breaks will come every 20 minutes—or sooner—if he
sees players starting to lose interest in the meetings. “They’re itching to get to those
things,” Kingsbury said. “We’ll let them hop over there and then get back in the meeting
and refocus.” The Cardinals are not the only team making changes to address the popu-
larity of digital devices. Baseball’s Toronto Blue Jays recently passed a team rule restrict-
ing the amount of time players can play the popular video game “Fortnite,” which seems
to be keeping some team members from getting enough rest.44
Communication Expectations and Norms Younger employees also are more
likely to use the Internet and social media to accomplish their work tasks. However,
advances in communication technology, along with scammers, have changed the approach
businesspeople of all ages use to call prospective clients on the phone.
According to recent research, almost 50 percent of all phone calls are robo-called
cold-calls from companies that are either real or fake. Thus, the act of cold-calling compa-
nies to seek new business may no longer be a viable communications strategy. In fact, the
invention of voice mail significantly reduced the effectiveness of trying to communicate
with potential clients via phone because it is no longer easy to get through to a key deci-
sion maker within any organization.45
Other more effective communication strategies regardless of whether you’re a
Millennial, Gen Zer, or Boomer may include seeking recommendations or referrals from
current customers about potential new clients and e-mailing the prospects directly; net-
working with industry organizations and other professional groups; communicating
through business or company accounts on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest,
or Instagram; and redesigning company websites to focus on selling products and services
and signing up potential clients through the use of online newsletters, podcasts, sales
discounts, and other business opportunities.46
Improving Communications between
the Sexes and Generations
It’s unwise to generalize any trends, preferences, or perceptions to all men, all women, or all
members of a particular generation. Some men, for instance, are less likely to boast about
their achievements, while some women are less likely to share the credit. Some traditionalists
embrace technology and new communication practices, while not all Millennials are techno-
logical whizzes. There are always exceptions to the rule. In recognition of that fact, here are
some suggestions that can enhance your communication competence:
• Clarify communication expectations and norms. If your manager fails to discuss
these, bring the topic up. It’s better to understand expectations than to guess wrong.
After all, you are the one who will lose if people form negative perceptions about
your communication skills and patterns.
• Use a variety of communication tools. Regardless of your preferred mode of commu-
nication (such as face-to-face or texting), employees from all generations should use
a variety of media according to the circumstances. This avoids alienating any par-
ticular generation.
• Be aware of implicit bias. Don’t assume, based on somebody’s gender or age, that he
or she only likes one mode of communication. If you find males interrupting, gently
call them out. If someone is quiet in a meeting, ask for his or her opinion.
• Make sure people get credit for their ideas and not their gender. Sometimes a woman
will propose an idea in a meeting and it’s not acknowledged until a man offers the
same suggestion later in the discussion. Researchers recently confirmed this sce-
nario when study results revealed that a bump in status and leader recognition as a
result of speaking up with ideas only happened for men, not women.47
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
353Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
Social media use web-based and mobile technologies to generate interactive
dialogue with members of a network. Social media are now woven throughout the
fabric of our lives. Their use affects many subjects covered in this book, highlighting
the importance of communication as an OB topic. Social media are now used by a sig-
nificant proportion of people across all age groups (see Figure 9.4 for utilization rates
by age).48
These figures suggest that employers and managers are wise to utilize social media
tools with employees of all generations. A communications expert put it this way:
A social media policy should apply to all platforms, and ultimately everything employees
post on line. Some employees may believe that while they use LinkedIn and Twitter
for business purposes, they use Facebook for personal use and can, therefore, post
indiscriminately. However, they are still company representatives, and inappropriate
posts may damage their employer’s brand, as well as their own.49
9.4 SOCIAL MEDIA AND OB
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Employers are continually challenged to reap the benefits of social media while controlling
the costs. Your own knowledge and behavior are part of the solution. In this section, you’ll
expand your understanding of how to use social media productively, the cost of social media,
the effective use of e-mail, and ways to manage issues related to social media policies,
privacy, and etiquette.
Describe how using
social media can
increase your
effectiveness at work.
LO 9-4
FIGURE 9.4 Age Distribution at the Top Social Networks
SOURCE: Marketing Charts. “Social Networking Platforms’ User Demographics Update 2018. Marketing Charts LLC.” Accessed
June 19, 2019. https://www.marketingcharts.com/digital/social-media-82642.
18–24 25–29 30–49 50–64 64+
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
0 20 40 60 80 100
Pinterest
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
YouTube
Snapchat
U.S. Data, Users Aged 18 and Over, March 2018
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
354 PART 2 Groups
The same applies to you and other employees. Everyone needs to realize the benefits and
avoid the pitfalls of social media. To do this, let’s begin our discussion with what experts
and researchers say about the effects of social media on productivity.
Social Media and Increased Productivity
A driving force behind the use of all forms of technology at work, including social media,
is to boost productivity. The key for employees, managers, and employers is to harness the
potential and enhance performance at the individual, group, and organizational levels. The
following quotation articulates this argument:
[W]ork is becoming a place to collaborate, exchange ideas, and communicate with
colleagues and customers. Your value as an employee will be determined not only
by how well you perform your job but also by how much you contribute your knowl-
edge and ideas back to the organization. The ways in which companies develop this
culture of collaboration will become a significant competitive factor in attracting and
engaging top talent in the twenty-first century.50
Social media is clearly a tool that can help both you and your employers realize these pro-
ductivity benefits.
Employee Productivity Evidence is mounting that social media provides a host of
benefits for employees, such as
• Increased job satisfaction and better work–life balance.51
• Performance and retention.52
• More creativity and collaboration.53
Two studies of thousands of employees even showed that those who used five or more social
networking sites had higher sales numbers than those who used only one to four.54 This
implies that more is better for salespeople! While you should be careful about drawing broad
conclusions from these findings, they are revealing.
Furthermore, if you think employees’ opinions matter, you’ll be interested in a study
by Microsoft showing that 46 percent of employees across generations and industries felt
social media tools would make them more productive at work.55
LinkedIn, for example, is far more than an online résumé-hosting site. It is cur-
rently the key professional networking tool for job search. Recent surveys reveal that as
many as 92 percent of recruiters use social media for hiring purposes, and, as Figure 9.5
shows, 77 percent use LinkedIn, 63 percent use Facebook, and 25 percent use
Instagram, especially Millennial recruiters and those working at technology companies.56
This means that more than three-quarters of job recruiters are using LinkedIn, and you
likely use it yourself. The following Applying OB box provides guidance on optimizing
LinkedIn for you.
Another productivity benefit of social media is that
they make digital information searchable. This capabil-
ity can reduce the time employees spend trying to retrieve
needed information by as much as 35 percent. What
would you do with 35 percent more time in a day,
month, or year?60 Finally, consider that many of social
media’s benefits for employees translate into benefits
for their employers.
Employer Productivity Companies of all sizes
and industries believe in the benefits of social media.
Domino’s, for example, gets more than 80 percent of
FIGURE 9.5 Percentage of Recruiters
Who Use Various Social Media
25%
63%
77%
200
Instagram
Facebook
LinkedIn
10060 8040
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
355Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
its sales through digital channels. The company enjoys a strong reputation as a leader in
making the customer experience seamless and launched its digital ordering tools more
than a decade ago. In addition to real-time tracking of orders on any mobile device, the
company uses Dom the Pizza bot to allow customers to order on Facebook Messenger,
Amazon’s Alexa, Twitter, Apple Watches, Android Wear, and Samsung Smart TVs.61 If
deployed effectively, social media enable businesses to realize the many benefits outlined
in Table 9.3.
Crowdsourcing occurs when companies invite nonemployees to contribute to
achieving particular goals and manage the input process via the Internet. Integra
Gold Corp, a mining company based in Canada, illustrates the benefits of utilizing tal-
ent and resources outside the organization to meet goals. The company acquired a firm
with mineral rights and six terabytes of geological surveys used to prospect for gold.
Applying OB
• Think in terms of quality, not quantity. It’s not a
scoreboard. Make connections that are meaning-
ful to you professionally.
• Don’t invite people to your network blindly, and
don’t accept invitations without first learning
why they reached out and how the connection
might be relevant.
• Connect beyond your current industry and pro-
fessional sphere. Drawing on diverse views is a
key way to expand your own knowledge and grow.
• Use the personal note option for inviting others to
connect.
• When inviting others, focus only on making the
connection. Other business can wait.
• Be a good connection for others. Respond to mes-
sages and write recommendations for and endorse
those whose skills you can confidently promote.59
Build a Reputation. You need to offer value to others,
which in turn earns you trust and respect. This requires
genuine thought and attention to what you post.
• Be a resource for others by liking (means “thanks”),
commenting on (means you’re interested), or
sharing (means you think others also will benefit)
relevant information within your network.
• Always explain why you are sharing or liking
content.
• Avoid controversy, criticism, and complaints. If you
can’t resist doing this, then don’t use LinkedIn. It
can torpedo your reputation.
To use LinkedIn effectively you need to:57
Build a Professional LinkedIn Profile. This is only
the first step, but it is essential to your success.
• Focus all sections (summary and experience) to
reflect your growth over time and your responsi-
bilities in your current job.
• Consider writing your summary and experience
sections in the first person and telling a story
instead of using bullet points. Describe what
you’ve accomplished and what you can do for
other employers. (Include the past but don’t
dwell on it—include more about what you do
today.)
• Learn and use the appropriate keywords. LinkedIn’s
search function is effective and recruiters use it
extensively. Learn what they are looking for and be
sure to include these words in your profile, and in
your headline as well.
• Spend the time necessary. Although obvious, think
of what you want to achieve with your LinkedIn
profile. Also, think of your profile as a living web
page, something that evolves over time. Explain
how your past experiences helped shape who you
are today.58
Build a LinkedIn Network. Simply building a profile
doesn’t mean recruiters (or anybody else) will view it.
You need to actively and wisely build and engage
your connections. Some helpful pointers and etiquette
follow:
How to Optimize LinkedIn
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
356 PART 2 Groups
Integra crowdsourced the analyses of this data instead of hiring people and managing
the work itself. It is offering a prize of $811,000 to whoever finds the next multimillion-
ounce gold deposit.62
The OB in Action box describes how other well-known companies now use social
media to innovate and solve problems using crowdsourcing.
TABLE 9.3 Social Media Benefits for Employers
BENEFIT DESCRIPTION
Connect in real time
over distance
Employees, customers, communities, suppliers, prospective talent, and many others
can communicate as needed and while work is being completed.
Collaborate within
and outside the
organization
Linking sources of knowledge is a means for realizing the potential of employee
diversity and enhancing productivity. Social media is by definition a way of connecting
people virtually, so its effective implementation benefits virtual teamwork.
Expand boundaries Social networks can become critical means for organizational innovation and
effectiveness, allowing them to utilize knowledge, skills, and experience of people
outside (not employed by) the organization.
SOURCE: McFarland, Lynn A., and Robert E. Ployhart. “Social Media: A Contextual Framework to Guide Research and Practice.” Journal of Applied Psychology
100, no. 6 (2015): 1653–1677. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0039244.
Lego Ideas is an official Lego website where fans
submit original ideas for new products, via written
descriptions and photos or 3D renderings. Ideas
must draw 100 supporters within 60 days and then
10,000 within the next two years. Winners are cho-
sen three times a year; their designers earn 1 per-
cent of the toy’s net revenue. Two recent winners
are a Steamboat Willie replica and the Central Perk
coffee shop from the TV series “Friends.”63
The fifth winner of Frito-Lay’s “Do Us a Flavor”
crowdsourcing challenge, which let customers sub-
mit ideas for new potato chip flavors for a $1 million
prize, is Crispy Taco. The company will also produce
runners-up Fried Tomato and Everything Bagel with
Cream Cheese. Frito-Lay hasn’t ruled out the possi-
bility of a sixth round.64
YOUR THOUGHTS
1. Describe at least two ways you crowdsource,
including reading product recommendations on
social media.
2. Identify a service you use or some element of
your job that could benefit from crowdsourcing.
Focus on how others can help you solve prob-
lems, which requires more than just soliciting
their opinions.
Expanding Organizational Boundaries with Crowdsourcing at Lego, Frito-Lay
OB in Action
Costs of Social Media
Lost productivity due to cyberloafing—using the Internet at work for personal use—is
a primary concern for employers in their adoption of social media. Some studies put the
cost at $85 billion per year and report that employees spend 60 to 80 percent of their time
at work pretending to do actual or legitimate work.65
How do employees waste time on social media?
• 50 percent are talking on a cell phone or texting.
• 39 percent are surfing the Internet.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
357Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
• 38 percent are on social media.
• 23 percent are sending personal e-mail.66
Perhaps the biggest problem with such productivity losses is that employees rarely
think about them. Have you ever thought you were cheating your employer by check-
ing Facebook, sending a tweet, or booking a trip during work hours? Did you ever
think the message you sent a friend about work might be shared and give a competitor
an advantage?
Then there is shopping online while at work. A recent survey by Careerbuilder found
that on average 53 percent of workers planned to shop online while at work, with nearly
50 percent of them using their personal mobile devices. And it seems the greater access
you have to technology at work, the more likely you are to use it to shop—68 percent of IT
workers said they were likely to shop online while at work.67
The following Problem-Solving Application regarding fantasy football highlights the
magnitude of the problem.
A Very Expensive Fantasy
Fantasy sports are a well-entrenched phenomenon.
Tens of millions of people play, and many of them do
so at work. Here are some statistics:68
1. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) esti-
mates that employers should expect to lose
approximately one hour of work per week for
each employee who plays fantasy football.
2. The Fantasy Sports Trade Association
estimates that approximately 57.4 million
people in the United States and Canada play
fantasy football.
3. About two-thirds of those players are
employed full time, and BLS data indicates
they earn an average of almost $26 an hour.
4. Given all that, the estimated price tag for pro-
ductivity lost to fantasy football was close to
$17 billion in 2016. For comparison, consider
that the real-world NFL took in only a little more
than $13 billion in revenue that same year.
Challenger, Gray & Christmas is the research
firm that compiled the data on productivity lost to
the distractions of fantasy sports leagues. However,
its CEO, John Challenger, says there may be a plus
side to all the time spent on the game, namely that—
unlike online shopping or reading and writing posts
on Facebook—it does get coworkers talking to each
other and perhaps even helps them collaborate bet-
ter at work. Creativity and morale may also get a
boost, says Challenger.69
Assume you own a business and know many of
your employees play in a fantasy league. Does this
information change your attitude about access to
and use of social media at work? Why or why not?
What would you do in this situation?
Problem-Solving Application
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: As a business owner, define the problem posed by employees playing fantasy football at work.
Step 2: Identify potential causes of the problem.
Step 3: As the owner, make your recommendations to remedy or at least reduce the problem defined
in Step 1.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
358 PART 2 Groups
Let’s explore the pros and cons of e-mail next.
Make E-mail Your Friend, Not Your Foe
E-mail is not only one of the most useful communication tools but also one of biggest
drains on your productivity. Recent research suggests that the average business profes-
sional spends nearly 30 percent of the work day reading and answering mail—which
translates into close to 3 hours a day reading, writing, and responding to e-mail
messages.70 If we add in some amount of nonwork e-mail, the time it consumes is truly
immense! In addition, analyzing more than 52,000 e-mails at a mid-sized company,
researchers found that employee communication patterns could potentially pinpoint
employees who were experiencing disengagement and job burnout.71 Most people
acknowledge that e-mail is essential, but handling it effectively can make it your friend
instead of your foe. See Table 9.4 for tips on managing e-mail.
Social Media Concerns and Remedies—
What Companies and You Can Do
Of course some employees waste time. This has been and always will be true. But when it
comes to social media, more than half of U.S. employers now block employees’ access to
social media sites at work.72 However, evidence is growing that this strategy can backfire.
Be Careful about Blocking Access Banning access can damage employee morale
and loyalty—potentially leading to even greater losses in productivity. Some experts argue,
and most employees would agree, that small breaks during the workday help boost produc-
tivity. Such breaks can take the form of going outside to get a breath of fresh air, talking
with a colleague over a cup of coffee, checking personal e-mail or Facebook, or checking
and sending tweets.73
TABLE 9.4 Tips for Managing E-mail
TIP DESCRIPTION
Set aside a specific time each work
day to read and respond to e-mails.
Don’t leave your e-mail open all day. Alerts can interrupt workflow and
cause distraction.
Use the 80-20 rule. Prioritize 20% of your e-mails and defer the other 80%.
Make decisions and respond imme-
diately to e-mails that require a brief
response.
If it takes less than 1 minute to answer an e-mail, make a decision and
send a response.
Realize you don’t need to reply to
every e-mail.
Sometimes no reply after a certain period of time can be considered
a reply.
Unsubscribe from sources you
don’t read.
If you find yourself routinely deleting e-mails from news alerts, e-mail
subscriptions, and other sources—unsubscribe.
Organize your inbox with folders
and categories.
Prioritize, sort, and file messages to keep your inbox organized.
Stop checking work e-mails at
all hours.
Your brain needs time to decompress and rejuvenate—break the habit
of checking your work messages at night, on weekends, and on the
way to work in the morning.
SOURCE: Chua, Celestine. “11 Simple Tips to Effective Email Management.” Lifehack. https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/11-simple-tips-effective-email-
management.html.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
359Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
If these reenergizing benefits of social media
breaks are not convincing enough for you or your
employer, consider other potential and undesir-
able results of the blocking policies:
• They could alienate employees. Young, old,
or in between, many people are accus-
tomed to being plugged into social sites
throughout the day. Blocking their access
can be off-putting. Moreover, organizations
can block access on company devices, but
most people have smartphones, tablets,
and other devices of their own. As a result,
many employees continue their typical use
of social media but simply do so on their
own devices—still on company time.
• You can’t have it only one way. If employers
expect employees to be connected and
responsive 24/7 to work-related e-mails,
such as those from managers, coworkers,
clients, or suppliers, it seems only fair to also allow them to reasonably tend to their
own business during work hours. This is especially true if employees work both within
and outside prescribed hours (such as at home in the evenings or on weekends).
• Blocking suggests a lack of trust. As one tech business reporter put it: “Banning
social media may send a message to your employees that you don’t trust them. . . .
This can cause a sharp divide in the team atmosphere you want to create.”74 It is
difficult to manage and influence others without trust, and one of the basic ways of
gaining trust from others is to trust them first.
In 2019, more than two dozen states either have passed or have pending legislation to
prevent employers from demanding passwords and access to employees’ social networking
sites.75 Whether an organization will consider adopting such practices depends in part on
leaders’ social media attitudes.
Phubbing and FOMO Acts of unconscious bias, or microaggressions, include a num-
ber of seemingly tiny but repeated actions, like interrupting others, mispronouncing or
mistaking someone’s name, avoiding eye contact, or phubbing. Phubbing is the act of
phone snubbing or ignoring those around us in order to pay attention to a mobile phone.
The urge to phub others springs from the fear of missing out—FOMO—or being out of
touch with something happening in our social network.76 This is a growing phenomenon,
although research shows that conversations are actually less satisfying for both parties
when interrupted by a person’s texting.77
A recent study found that employees who were phubbed by their manager felt they
could no longer trust that person to keep promises or treat them fairly, which led to nega-
tive effects on their psychological preparedness to work and, predictably, on their job sat-
isfaction and job performance.78 Phubbing tends to be more common among younger
people, who are more intimately connected to their phones, and among men, who view
interruptions as less onerous than women do.79 Even if unused, a cell phone on the table
can make people feel less connected to those they are with.80 Phubbing doesn’t have to
keep happening, however. The phubbed should calmly explain how they feel, and phubbers
should use empathy to understand the harm their microaggression is doing to their com-
munications and their relationships with others.81
Psychologists have demonstrated that FOMO causes anxiety. A recent study examined
college students’ anxiety levels after giving up their phones for an hour. Light users of smart-
phones experienced no increases in anxiety, while moderate users showed signs of increased
anxiety after 25 minutes without a phone. These levels of anxiety stayed steady for the
remaining time of the hour-long study. Heavy users, in contrast, revealed heightened anxiety
after only 10 phone-free minutes, and their level of anxiety increased over time.82
Although companies must protect their own interests when it comes
to blocking employee access to social media and other websites,
many experts warn the costs of blocking access could be larger than
the benefits.
LDProd/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
360 PART 2 Groups
FOMO is exacerbated by our habits, such as paying attention to our phones during
sleep hours. One study found that 40 percent of students reported waking at night to
answer phone calls, and 47 percent woke to answer text messages. Psychologists demon-
strated that “people of all generations seem to have succumbed to the phenomenon.”83
Assess and Manage Leadership’s Social Media Attitudes Consider the social
media readiness of an organization to which you belong. Self-Assessment 9.3 helps you
assess leadership’s attitude toward social media, such as:
• How supportive management is of creating communities.
• How well the culture fosters collaboration and knowledge sharing.
• How widely social media is used to collaborate.
With this knowledge you can determine how well your own attitudes fit with those of
the organization, and it may even unveil opportunities for you to improve the organiza-
tion’s readiness.
Assessing Social Media Readiness
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 9.3 in Connect.
1. Which of the dimensions has the highest score?
2. What are the implications for employees/members?
3. What are the implications for the organization and its interactions with stakeholders
other than employees/members?
4. Which dimension is the lowest?
5. Describe two things that could be done to improve the organization’s social
media readiness.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 9.3
If the attitudes you find are not as positive as you would like, have no fear. Attitudes
can be changed. Favorable leadership attitudes open the door to developing and imple-
menting productive social media policies.
Adopt a Social Media Policy As the use of social media continues to grow, esti-
mates suggest more than 80 percent of U.S. companies now have a formal social media
policy, and 70 percent of these firms report taking disciplinary action against an employee
for violating these policies.84 A social media policy should describe the who, how,
when, and for what purposes of social media use, and the consequences for non-
compliance. One way to avoid social media missteps is to create, communicate, and
enforce effective social media policies as outlined in Table 9.5. The OB in Action box
describes the Coca-Cola Company’s social media policy.
Privacy Any discussion of the effective use of social media by employees or their
employers must include privacy issues. People and companies have reputations, which
are built over time and can be extremely consequential professionally. They can also be
damaged in a variety of ways, with serious consequences including loss of employment or
business, social stigma, embarrassment and stress, lost opportunities, and, of course,
legal action.86
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
361Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
TABLE 9.5 Eight Elements of an Effective Social Media Policy
ELEMENT DESCRIPTION
Create safe channels for
employees to air their concerns
before going online.
The key words here are safe and before. Conflicts happen, but managers
and organizations should provide means by which employees’ concerns
are reported and handled without retaliation so they don’t feel the need
to take them to the Internet.
Clarify what is confidential. Clearly explain what information employees can and cannot share
online. Providing an approval process for the release of information may
help too.
Outline consequences for
violations.
Make it known that employees can be held responsible for what they
post (such as videos of undesirable behavior on the job or in company
uniform), and list the consequences.
Designate a spokesperson for
online policies.
You don’t want every employee fielding questions about company policies;
identify a spokesperson(s) so interpretations and communications are
consistent.
Discuss appropriate ways to
engage others online.
It is typically a poor idea to have any and all employees responding to
others’ comments about the company online. Instruct them to be polite
and nonconfrontational, and then to notify the designated person to
respond.
Explain what is considered illegal. It is illegal to divulge proprietary information and to violate trademarks
and copyrights. The organization is responsible for educating employees
on these matters.
Align social media policy with the
organization’s culture.
Your company’s social media policy is a great place to reaffirm what you
want your company culture to be, while conveying your stance on this
serious topic.
Educate employees. It’s not enough to have a social media policy; it is necessary to educate
and train people about it and to embed it in social media practices. (The
author, for instance, could not locate a social media policy, or a person
responsible for it, at his university.)
SOURCES: Carter, Rebekah. “Your Guide to Creating a Social Media Policy.” Sprout Social, Inc., October 18, 2018. https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-
policy/; PowerDMS. “Six Elements of a Good Social Media Policy.” Accessed June 19, 2019. https://www.powerdms.com/blog/six-elements-good-social-
media-policy/; and Thomson, Jimmy. “How to Write a Social Media Policy for Your Company.” Hootsuite Inc., May 22, 2018. https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-
media-policy-for-employees/.
The Coca-Cola Company formulated its policies with
the motive to “guide your participation in social
media, both personally as well as when you are act-
ing in an official capacity on behalf of the Company.
It is critical we always remember who we are—the
world’s largest beverage company, refreshing con-
sumers with more than 500 sparkling and still
brands—and what our Company’s role is in the social
media community—to inspire moments of optimism
and happiness and build our brands. The same con-
siderations that apply to our messaging and commu-
nications in traditional media still apply in the online
social media space, including on what you might
consider ‘internal’ platforms.”85
“Have fun, but be smart. Use sound judgment
and common sense, adhere to the Company’s
values, and follow the same Company policies that
you follow in the offline world. . . .” “Whether you are
Coca-Cola’s Online Social Media Principles
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
362 PART 2 Groups
Social media privacy becomes even more elusive given that better than 60 percent of
employees report they are connected to at least one coworker and over 40 percent with an
immediate supervisor.87 Employees are especially concerned about employers having
access to personal e-mails and attachments, voice mail, text and instant messages, lists of
apps on their devices, information in their mobile apps, and their location.88
What can employers do? Here are some recommendations:
1. Communicate what personal information from mobile devices is accessed by the
employer.
2. Be sure employees understand what is accessible depending on the operating system
used on their device (Apple or Android).
3. Create and communicate clear and sensible policies regarding potential employer
actions regarding information on employees’ mobile devices.
4. Do all of this when employees are setting up their devices, which is when they are
most likely thinking about and can do something about such matters.
5. Tell employees that anything on the company’s e-mail server is saved for legal purposes.
6. Use the available privacy controls.89
What Can You Do to Protect Yourself and Your Personal Brand (Reputation)?
First consider the recommendations above and other things you’ve learned in this chapter.
You also may be well served to keep the arenas of your life separate in cyberspace, at least
to the extent possible. Establishing and maintaining multiple accounts, and using discre-
tion about what you post, can be quite a challenge. But think of the potential implications—
your reputation and your job! If you don’t know what your company’s policy is, ask. The
author of this book did so and was told by its IT director that the university knew which
porn websites were being viewed at the fraternity houses.
Social Media Etiquette Before leaving this section we want to raise the issue of
“appropriate use.” Norms of acceptable social media behavior at school, work, and socially
are evolving, and it pays to be mindful of them.
Cellphones Because they are like extensions of our hands, cellphones are with us every-
where, at dinner, at work, in class, in bed, and in the bathroom. But that doesn’t mean it is
okay to use them in every situation.
an authorized Company spokesperson or not, when
you’re talking about our Company, our brands, or our
business on your personal social networks, keep in
mind that:
1. Our Company’s Information Protection Policy,
Insider Trading Policy, and other policies still apply.
2. You are responsible for your actions. We encour-
age you to get online and have fun, but use
sound judgment and common sense.
3. You are an important ambassador for our Com-
pany’s brands, and you’re encouraged to pro-
mote them as long as you make sure you disclose
that you are affiliated with the Company. How
you disclose can depend on the platform, but
the disclosure should be clear and in proximity
to the message itself.
4. When you see posts or commentary on topics
that require subject matter expertise, such as
ingredients, obesity, the Company’s environ-
mental impacts, or the Company’s financial per-
formance, avoid the temptation to respond to
these directly unless you respond with approved
messaging the Company has prepared for those
topics. When in doubt, contact your local Public
Affairs and Communications director.
5. Be conscientious when mixing your business
and personal lives; be sure to know your work
group’s policies regarding personal use of social
media at work or on Company devices.”
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What are two benefits you see in Coca-Cola’s
social media policy?
2. What gaps do you notice, based on your experi-
ences with social media at work and what you’ve
studied in this chapter?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
363Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
Here’s a good test: The next time you pull out your phone, for instance, during dinner
at a restaurant or when visiting with a friend, ask yourself, Is what I’m doing or looking at
going to enhance my interaction with the other person here and now? If it isn’t, don’t risk
being rude—put the phone away.
Videoconferencing Skype, FaceTime, and other services are growing in popularity
every year. They provide far richer communication than texts, e-mails, or even phone calls.
From an employer’s perspective they also save on travel costs. But effectively communicat-
ing on camera is quite different from doing so in other media. Videoconferencing has its
own code of conduct for participating in meetings, as well as for interviewing for a job. The
Applying OB box provides some tips for successful video interviews.
Now let’s move beyond social media and learn about how to deliver killer presenta-
tions, conduct crucial conversations, and manage up.
Applying OB
not at your own image on the screen. Don’t move
around too much but lean forward a little to show
interest and eagerness.
5. Remember this is a real, serious interview. The
employer is investing time and energy; you should
too. Be energetic and positive about your interest
in the organization. Speak clearly and don’t rush.
Remember to ask the questions you prepared.
6. Cover the basics. As in an interview situation,
thank the interviewer for his or her time, reiterate
your interest, and ask when and how you should
follow up.
Video interviews are increasingly common among
companies screening job candidates. They can save
time and travel costs for the company and the appli-
cant, and they convey more information than tele-
phone interviews. Suppose you’ve applied for a job
and will be interviewed via Skype. How will you pres-
ent yourself at your best and most professional? Here
are some tips.90
1. Prepare as you would for any job interview.
Learn as much as you can about the company, its
structure, its mission and goals, and the position
that’s open. Prepare a few specific questions to ask.
2. Select a quiet place with a well-lighted, unclut-
tered background. Be sure you won’t be inter-
rupted; tell family or roommates the time and
expected duration of the interview, keep pets out
of the room, and put away your phone.
3. Make the most of Skype’s features. Select an
appropriate profile picture and a professional-
looking profile that matches your resume, and line
up any documents, like your portfolio or work sam-
ples, that you may want to share during the call.
Check in advance that your equipment and set-
tings are all in order and obtain the employer’s
Skype username.
4. Dress the part from head to toe, not just from the
waist up. This will increase your confidence.
Avoid bright colors, loud prints, and noisy or shiny
jewelry and accessories. If you wear makeup, con-
sider using a little more than usual. To look the
interviewer in the eye, gaze straight at the camera,
Acing a Skype Interview
With video interviews becoming more common, job
seekers need to prepare for them as if they are interviewing
in person.
andreypopov/123RF
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
364 PART 2 Groups
9.5 COMMUNICATION SKILLS TO BOOST
YOUR EFFECTIVENESS
Some jobs require you to present regularly and others never. How well you present can
greatly affect others’ perceptions of you and your professional opportunities. We devote
this section to practical skills to help make you a more effective presenter. Improving your
presentation skills is always valuable, given that relatively few people are truly at ease or
actually enjoy speaking or presenting to a group.
Presenting—Do You Give Reports or Do You
Tell Stories?
You should probably start by answering the question in the above heading. Reports are
packed with data and information and can be exhausting in their detail. Stories, in con-
trast, are short in all these elements but are rich in emotion and help the presenter connect
with the audience.
As you learned earlier, different communication media are better than others for
any given message. The challenge for you is to know what your audience wants and
needs, and then to construct and deliver your presentation accordingly. It generally is
more effective if you present your message more as a colorful story with emotion than
as a detail-laden report. The people who organize the TED (Technology, Education,
Design) talks have a five-step protocol they use to guide their presenters to deliver with
impact.91
Step 1. Frame your story.
Step 2. Plan your delivery.
Step 3. Develop your stage presence.
Step 4. Plan your multimedia.
Step 5. Put it together.
Let’s consider these steps in more detail.
Step 1—Frame Your Story Think of your presentation as a journey and decide
where you want to start and end. Consider what your audience already knows about your
subject, start there, and quickly explain why it matters to you or why it should matter to
them. Include only the most relevant details or points and try to bring them to life with
examples.
Don’t try to do too much. Don’t just skim over all possible points either, but instead
pick the best and dive deeper into each of those.
Beware of jargon, boasting, and mind- numbing details. Plan to end your journey with a
solution, or even with a question to spur audience engagement and give them something to
think about afterward.
Explain how
communication skills
can increase your
effectiveness.
LO 9-5
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Presenting, crucial conversations, and managing up—master these communication skills, and
they will enhance your performance and career success throughout your life. These individual-
level process skills make you more effective when working with others and influence a host
of outcomes at both the individual and group levels in the Organizing Framework for OB.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
365Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
For example, you have learned about and applied a
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach throughout this
book. Perhaps your presentation might be structured
similarly—what is the problem, what are potential
causes or explanations, and what is your recommenda-
tion for action.
Step 2—Plan Your Delivery There are three basic
ways to deliver a talk:
1. Read it from a script.
2. Use bullet lists that outline what you will cover in
each section.
3. Memorize everything you wish to say and
REHEARSE.
Reading generally is ineffective. You will almost cer-
tainly lose your connection with the audience, if you ever
connect in the first place. (TED forbids presenters to read.) Memorizing can work, if your
audience is expected to simply sit and listen, but it takes a tremendous amount of time and
practice. Unless you have your presentation completely ingrained in your memory, your
audience can easily realize you are not as prepared as you hoped. If you use the bullet list
approach, be sure you know not only the content for each point, but also how you want to
transition from one to the next.
Step 3—Develop Your Stage Presence Getting your story or message right is
more important than the way you stand or whether you appear nervous. Nevertheless,
beware of how much you move—not too much or too little.
If you’re really nervous, pay particular attention to your lower body to prevent rocking
or shifting from one leg to the other. Walking around is fine, if it is natural for you. But if
it is not, then you may be well served to stand in particular spots for different lengths of
time or when making certain points. The nonverbal communication pointers you learned
earlier in this chapter are helpful too.
Your body aside, the most important element of stage presence is eye contact!
Find a handful of friendly faces around the room and deliver your talk while looking them
in the eyes.
We cannot learn about pre-
senting without addressing public
speaking head-on. The following
Applying OB box provides sugges-
tions. When combined with the
TED protocol, it should help you
overcome your nervousness and
light up the room.
As for nervousness, there are
many ways to help overcome this,
and many of them you’ve learned
in this book. For instance, what
you learned about self-efficacy in
Chapter 3 can be especially helpful,
and preparation is a critical element
in building your efficacy. But perhaps
one of the most useful things you can
do to overcome nervousness is to
realize that people expect you to be
nervous. Don’t make too much of it.
Amy Cuddy is a social psychologist who studies body
language. She argues that the way we hold and present
ourselves affects the way others perceive us and the way
we perceive ourselves.
Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images
Journalist and women’s rights activist Gloria Steinem delivers a talk at the
Watermark Conference for Women. Note her use of hand gestures and
eye contact with her audience. Both of these nonverbal communication
elements are important in developing a stage presence.
Marla Aufmuth/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
366 PART 2 Groups
Applying OB
match your audience. Don’t wear a suit or dress to
a construction site, or construction boots to pres-
ent a keynote at a conference. Be sharp but don’t
wear anything that will cause people to comment.
You want to exude confidence but not generate
fodder for the next TMZ episode.
5. Unshackle yourself. If possible, and it is most often
possible, lose the podium. Too often presenters
shackle themselves to the podium, which is a
physical barrier between you and the audience
and ties you to one spot. Have you ever seen an
excellent presentation and thought it would have
been better still if the speaker had stayed behind
the podium? Of course not.
6. Be funny if you can, but don’t try too hard. Every-
body likes to be funny, and when it works and is
appropriate it’s great, but when it doesn’t it can be
disastrous. Don’t try too hard, but if you have
something that you are confident will work with
the audience, use it.
7. Be gracious. Thank the host, the audience, and
the organization that invited you. Even if the con-
tent of your presentation will change their lives, it
nevertheless is your privilege to have the oppor-
tunity to do so. Express your gratitude.
The noted poet Maya Angelou once said, “I’ve learned
that people will forget what you said, people will forget
what you did, but people will never forget how you
made them feel.”92 When you speak in public, remem-
ber that as in any conversation, you want your listeners
to feel something. Here are some additional tips:93
1. Remember they are rooting for you. The audience
most often is on your side and hopes you give a
good presentation, if for no other reason than that
they don’t want to sit through a bad one.
2. Know your audience. You don’t have to be an
expert on your audience or know everything they
know. However, know enough to make a few mean-
ingful, audience-specific comments and show that
you care and your insights are relevant for them.
3. Compliment the audience. Building on No. 2, make
your audience feel special by acknowledging what
they do and its importance. For instance, if talking to a
group of executives, tell them they’ve worked very
hard and accomplished a lot. Or, if their jobs are espe-
cially difficult and uncelebrated, such as nurses or
teachers, acknowledge this and tell them how impor-
tant their work is and how much it’s appreciated.
4. Be snazzy, not distracting. Your clothes, jewelry,
and any other accessories should be neat and
How to Dazzle the Crowd—Tips on Public Speaking
Step 4—Plan Your Multimedia Don’t feel compelled to use the latest and greatest tech-
nology, or any technology at all. But whatever you choose, keep it simple and don’t let it dis-
tract the audience. If photos or images are appropriate, use them. People respond differently
to pictures and videos, which convey emotional content better than words. However, if you use
video clips, try to keep them to 60 seconds or less to prevent losing people’s attention.
PowerPoint continues to be widely used, although more sophisticated programs with
scaling features—zoomable user interfaces or ZUIs—are also gaining popularity. Regardless
of what presentation program you use, be sure to limit the number of words per slide;
make sure the font is big enough for easy reading from the back of the room; and don’t
read the slides out loud for your audience. While they read the slide’s wording, provide
some additional commentary or insight about the idea presented.94
Step 5—Put It Together Be prepared far enough in advance; think weeks if possible,
not days, hours, or minutes. If you practice in front of others, which is a good idea, be
selective. Anybody in the practice audience role will feel compelled to give you feedback,
but you need valuable feedback, not just any feedback.
Preparation aside, remember to focus on the framing and substance of your journey
and don’t get too wrapped up in the other steps and details. If you don’t think you have a
compelling story, go back to the drawing board and create one.
Lastly, be yourself. Use these steps as a guide and learn from them, but don’t try to
copy somebody else.
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
367Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
Crucial Conversations
“Crucial conversations are discussions between two or more people where (1) the
stakes are high, (2) opinions vary, and (3) emotions run strong.”95 Such conversations
can and do occur in all arenas of your life—school, work, and socially. Examples of relevant
occasions include:
• Ending a relationship.
• Talking to a coworker or classmate who behaves offensively.
• Giving the boss or a professor feedback.
• Critiquing a classmate or colleague’s work.
• Asking a roommate to move out.
• Talking to a team member who isn’t keeping commitments.
• Giving an unfavorable performance review.96
Recall what you learned in Chapter 6 related to feedback, because it also is very help-
ful with most crucial conversations. The consequences of these encounters can be
enormous for your job and career. Handling difficult communications effectively can
prevent problems, motivate teams members, increase collaboration, and improve bottom-
line results.97
When confronted with high-stakes interactions, you have three choices—avoid them,
face them and handle them poorly, or face them and handle them well. We’ll focus on the
last one. But first let’s explore why people often do so poorly in crucial situations, and it
will also serve as a bit of review of things you’ve learned already.
When It Matters Most, We Often Do Our Worst Joseph Grenny, who cowrote the
book Crucial Conversations, said this: “When conversations turn crucial, most of us toggle
between some form of silence or verbal violence: Either we withdraw from sharing
our information or try to force it on others by raising our voice or overstating our point.
Ironically, when it matters the most we do our very worst.”98 Our negative emotions (see
Chapter 3) kick in, and the fight-or-flight response takes over.
Moreover, crucial conversations often happen unexpectedly, which means we typically
are unprepared. When this happens, again, negative emotions can dominate and self-
efficacy decline. Research supports this observation. According to a recent survey of more
than 1,300 employees, one of three managers is unable to handle high-stakes, high pressure
situations, which leave their teams less successful in business situations.99
Knowledge on positive emotions and
positive OB can help you in crucial situa-
tions. Specifically, a good way to prepare for
crucial conversations is to foster your own
positive state. Then you can use the STATE
technique, described next, to conduct your
crucial conversations more effectively.
STATE: How to Be Effective When It’s
Crucial The acronym STATE will help
you address even the most difficult conversa-
tions with a plan or path to follow.
• Share your facts. Start with the least
controversial, most persuasive ele-
ments that support what you want for
yourself and for the relationship.
• Tell your story. Enhance what you want
by describing what has happened, how
you’ve arrived where you are, how
Many of your important conversations with coworkers, friends,
and classmates are full of emotions. Applying some of the
communication skills and tools described in this chapter can
help you improve the outcomes of crucial and high-stakes
conversations.
Bananastock/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
368 PART 2 Groups
you’d like to see it change, and why. It may help to add what you don’t want personally
or for the relationship.
• Ask for others’ facts and stories. This is key to creating dialogue, which is essential if
you’re to have a productive crucial conversation. Don’t talk at but instead talk with
others. Approach all crucial conversations as two-way exchanges. Don’t be accusa-
tory, but instead simply describe the situation, the way you feel, and what you would
like to see happen. Use “I” instead of “you.”
• Talk tentatively. Keep in mind that you’re telling a story, not stating facts. The facts
come first, then you can add “color” or describe the impact on you via your story. In
other words, don’t pound the podium and talk like you’re “preaching” facts.
• Encourage testing. Make it safe for others to share their (opposing) views. Allow
them to share or test their ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Don’t interrupt, steamroll,
or intimidate. It is critical to maintain mutual respect during crucial conversations.
One way to do this is to explain and focus on mutual purpose—what you both stand
to gain. Be sure the other person respects you in order to avoid defensiveness (recall
what you learned earlier in this chapter) and conflict. If it’s appropriate, apologize
to get back on track.100
Managing Up
You learned in Chapter 6 about more contemporary forms of feedback (such as
360 degree), and that knowledge is helpful here. We are going to build on that and on
crucial conversations to give you some guidance on how to manage your boss.
Gauge Receptiveness to Coaching Many organizations now claim they believe in
the merits of employee involvement and feedback, even upward feedback. Note that translat-
ing these values into action requires skill. For example, an HR professional was promoted to
a senior position with little previous experience dealing with senior management. She
focused on doing her new job well but failed to build strong relationships with her bosses,
leaving her with few supporters in the executive suite. When the company went public, she
“got taken out by a wave I didn’t see coming,” while the rest of the company’s management
team kept their jobs.101 The outcome might have been different had she learned to manage
her bosses.
The place to begin managing up is by assessing your manager’s receptiveness.
Regardless of your organization’s policy or comments from senior leadership, if your
manager is not receptive, you’re wise to put your efforts elsewhere.102 You can’t coach a boss
who doesn’t want to be coached. To gauge receptiveness, you can:103
1. Learn your manager’s view of you coaching. What
are his or her expectations? What are yours?
2. Explain what’s in it for him or her.
3. Ask for permission to provide coaching or feed-
back. For instance, “Would you mind if I share a
different perspective, one that might help us solve
the problem?”
4. Find out how best to deliver criticism. Learn where,
when, and how your manager wants to hear criticism—
in the moment, in private, via e-mail, face-to-face, or
another way.
5. Ask for agreement and commitment. After the first
two items in this list, confirm that your boss is
interested.
What to Do Next If your boss is receptive to upward
feedback, follow the steps in Table 9.6. If your boss is not
A boss who is receptive to coaching is especially
valuable. Be careful, however: Don’t assume
because you may appreciate coaching from your
boss that she or he will appreciate coaching from
you. Gauge your boss’s receptiveness first.
Roberto Westbrook/Blend Images LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
369Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
receptive, or you’re preparing for your first real job in the workplace, read the table any-
way. It provides helpful insight for managing others and helping others manage you.
We conclude this section with words of wisdom from Dana Rousmaniere, a contribu-
tor to the Harvard Business Review series on managing up:
The most important skill to master is figuring out how to be a genuine source of
help—because managing up doesn’t mean sucking up. It means being the most
effective employee you can be, creating value for your boss and your company.
That’s why the best path to a healthy relationship begins and ends with doing your
job, and doing it well.104
TABLE 9.6 How to Manage Up
Steps Description
Step 1—Prepare
your message.
Unlike crucial conversations that often happen in the moment,
attempts to manage up or coach your boss are an agreed-upon
arrangement that occurs over time. Therefore, use time to your
advantage and prepare.
• Know what you want to accomplish.
• Support your points with examples, data, or other evidence.
Step 2—Plan your
delivery and
tactics.
Plan the delivery of your message—the tone and choice of
words that will most likely achieve your desired result.
Role-playing is a very valuable practice tool—use it!
Step 3—Deliver. When conducting the coaching conversation, be sure you know
the right way to discuss problems with your boss:
• Be sensitive. Your boss has feelings just like you, and just as
you don’t like to get hammered with comments about how
horrible and disappointing you are, neither does your boss.
• Don’t generalize behavior. Speak to specific areas of your
boss’s job, specific behaviors, and specific situations.
• Provide ideas or suggestions in a polite and helpful manner.
Don’t introduce your ideas as if they are the only ones that
will work, or use language like “you must” or “you should.”
Step 4—Follow
up.
Coaching and managing both consist of more than simply
providing feedback. Follow up to see how your boss has been
doing in the areas discussed. Establishing a trusting relationship
with your boss may position you as the “go-to” person who can
pick up the slack when needed.
SOURCES: Shellenbarger, Sue. “The Right and Wrong Way to Manage Up at the Office.” The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2018.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-right-and-wrong-way-to-manage-up-at-the-office-1523366792; Reynolds, Justin. “What Does It
Mean to Manage Up?” TINYPulse, March 14, 2017. https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/what-does-it-mean-to-manage-up; Rosenthal,
Michael. “Last Word: Constructive Criticism for Managers.” Lakewood Media Group, LLC. https://trainingmag.com/content/
last-word-constructive-criticism-managers/; and Patton, Carol. “Coaching Up.” Lakewood Media Group, LLC. https://trainingmag.
com/content/coaching/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
370 PART 2 Groups
9.6 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I BECOME
A MORE EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR?
Takeaways for Me
Here are six things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive change in your
personal and professional life.
1. Communication is a perceptual process—what we say is not always what people hear:
Always be on the lookout for misinterpretations in your communications.
2. You can improve your communication competence: Follow the advice presented in
Section 9.2.
3. Miscommunication is likely to occur between men and women and across genera-
tions: Be sensitive to these differences and try to modify your communication
accordingly.
4. The pervasiveness of social media means that to distinguish yourself, you need to be bet-
ter than the rest: Learn how to use services such as LinkedIn like the pros; the time
and effort will make a difference in your job and career.
5. Learn your employer’s social media policies, and regardless of what you learn, you may
be wise to keep your digital worlds separate: Make appropriate use of mobile devices;
don’t be rude or embarrass yourself or others.
6. You are always presenting when communicating. The only things that differ in a formal
presentation are the number of people, the context, the objective, and the medium:
These are skills—learn, practice, improve!
Takeaways for Managers
There are eight key implications for managers.
1. It is easy to encounter miscommunication because communication is a perceptual process:
To overcome this, try paraphrasing and summarizing what others communicate to
ensure you are getting the intended message.
2. Your choice of communication medium needs to match the complexity of the situation:
You can improve your communication by considering this requirement when choosing
the best way to communicate with others.
3. Be aware of the linguistic differences between men and women: Failure to appreciate
these nuances can lead to inaccurate attributions and conclusions about others.
4. Assess how social media can boost your productivity and that of those you manage.
Learn specifically which forms help you and how. Also learn how workplace productiv-
ity is lost via social media: Collaborate with your employees to generate policies that
are both reasonable and legally defensible. Then communicate these policies and
expected practices.
Describe the
implications of
communication in the
digital age for you
and managers.
LO 9-6
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Effective communication helps individuals, groups, and organizations achieve their goals.
Here are some key points to consider.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
371Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
5. Get a handle on your e-mail as a way of boosting your productivity: Part of your solution
may be to use other technology, but another part is certainly being aware of your own
behaviors and using discipline.
6. Always be mindful of social media privacy.
7. Learn about and build your skills related to crucial conversations: These are critical for
your success when managing both down and up.
8. Model the communication behaviors, including use of social media, you expect from those you
manage: Your own behavior is one of your most powerful means for influencing others.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
372 PART 2 Groups
You learned that you can become a more effective
communicator by understanding communication
as a process that operates at all levels of the orga-
nization. You learned about the differences and
similarities between genders and generations, as
well as the benefits and costs of social media. You
also explored how the proper approach to com-
munication can allow you to manage up to higher
levels in the organization and how to prepare for
crucial conversations. Reinforce your learning with
the Key Points below. Then consolidate your learn-
ing using the Organizing Framework. Challenge
your mastery of the material by answering the
Major Questions in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 9
You learned the following key points.
9.1 BASIC DIMENSIONS OF THE
COMMUNICATION PROCESS
• All communication involves a sender, mes-
sage, and receiver.
• Noise has many sources and types and can
interfere with communications.
• Media richness varies from rich to lean and
helps convey information and promote under-
standing. It is influenced by feedback, channel,
type, and language source.
• Choosing the appropriate medium is critical
for effective communication.
9.2 COMMUNICATION
COMPETENCE
• Communication competence refers to an indi-
vidual’s ability to effectively use communica-
tion behaviors in a given context.
• Nonverbal communication is a component of
effective communication and includes many
potential elements, such as body movements
and gestures, touch, facial expressions, and
eye contact.
• Listening is the process of actively decoding
and interpreting verbal messages. Four
common listening styles are active, involved,
passive, and detached.
• The feeling of being attacked or threatened is
the cause of defensive communication.
• Empathy, the ability to recognize and under-
stand another person’s feelings and thoughts,
is an important communication skill.
9.3 GENDER, GENERATIONS, AND
COMMUNICATION
• Linguistic style is a person’s characteristic
speaking pattern.
• Women and men communicate differently.
Women are more likely to share credit and
ask clarifying questions, and men are more
likely to give blunt feedback and withhold
compliments.
• Each generation has its own communication
norms and preferences.
• It’s a mistake to generalize anything we know
about communication and apply it to entire
genders or generations.
9.4 SOCIAL MEDIA AND OB
• Social media can increase employee and
employer productivity.
• The use of social media at work also has
many costs, some potentially significant.
• E-mail can increase teamwork and flexibility and
reduce costs of paper and the distribution of
information. But it also has costs: decreased pro-
ductivity, information overload, and increased
time and money to organize, store, and monitor.
• Social media policies help outline what is
expected and what is off limits. They also help
guard employers against liability and undesir-
able events.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
373Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
process. We explored a host of inputs, both per-
son factors (nonverbal communication, active lis-
tening, empathy, communication skills, and social
media behaviors) and situation factors (choice of
communication medium, HR policies, and social
media practices of your manager and coworkers).
You learned that communication links to out-
comes across the three levels of OB. At the indi-
vidual level, communication relates to task
performance, work attitudes, citizenship behav-
ior/counterproductive behavior, turnover. Com-
munication also is related to group/team
performance, group satisfaction, and group cohe-
sion and conflict. Finally, communication influ-
ences organizational outcomes such as
accounting/financial performance, customer satis-
faction, innovation, reputation, and legal liability.
Challenge: Major Questions for
Chapter 9
You should now be able to answer the following
questions. Unless you can, have you really
processed and internalized the lessons in the
chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 9.6, the
chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and answer
the following major questions:
1. How can knowing about the basic communi-
cation process help me communicate more
effectively?
2. What key aspects of interpersonal communi-
cation can help me improve my communica-
tion competence?
3. How do gender and age affect the communi-
cation process?
4. How can social media increase my effective-
ness at work and in my career?
5. How can I increase my effectiveness using
presentation skills, crucial conversations, and
managing up?
• Organizations need to monitor and manage
privacy in the digital space. Individuals must
monitor and manage their personal brand
(their reputation) and their employer’s.
• Mobile technology etiquette is evolving. Dif-
ferent contexts and different technologies
come with different norms and expectations.
9.5 COMMUNICATION SKILLS TO
BOOST YOUR EFFECTIVENESS
• Effective presenters are more likely to tell
stories than give reports. It is helpful to
frame your story, plan the delivery, develop
stage presence and multimedia, and put it
all together.
• Crucial conversations are those between two
or more people in which the stakes are high,
opinions vary, and emotions run strong.
• Managing up is more effective if you gauge
your manager’s receptiveness, ask permis-
sion to provide feedback/input, prepare your
message, plan your delivery and tactics, and
follow up.
9.6 HOW CAN I BECOME A MORE
EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATOR?
• Recognizing that what we say is not always
what people hear will allow you to fine-tune
your approach to communications.
• Learning to master social media will help you
distinguish yourself in a good way and possi-
bly further your career.
• Choosing the right communication medium to
match the complexity of each situation will
help improve your communication skills.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 9
As shown in Figure 9.6, communication is a key
individual-, group/team-, and organizational-level
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
374 PART 2 Groups
FIGURE 9.6 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Nonverbal communication
• Active listening
• Nondefensive communication
• Empathy
• Ethical behavior
• Social media behaviors
(an individual employee)
• Communication skills
Situation Factors
• Choice of medium
• HR policies (hiring and firing)
• Social media practices
(managers and coworkers)
Individual Level
• Communication
Group/Team Level
• Communication
Organizational Level
• Communication
• HR policies (social media
policies)
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
• Reputation
• Legal liability
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
375Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
United Airlines is one of the world’s largest airlines
serving 353 destinations across five continents. The
Chicago-based carrier has approximately 92,000
employees and earned more than $41 billion in reve-
nue in 2018.105 Oscar Munoz started as United’s CEO
in 2015, and by March 2017 was named “Communica-
tor of the Year” by PRWeek. Unfortunately, he fell from
grace a month later due to United’s botched response
to a flight-related incident.106
Let’s consider how United communicated about the
incident.
SUNDAY, APRIL 9: CHAOS ON
FLIGHT 3411
A fully booked United flight 3411 was preparing to
depart from Chicago to Louisville when gate agents
realized that four airline crew members needed to get
to Louisville. The gate agents asked for four volunteers
to give up their seats in return for compensation. No
one accepted United’s offer because the flight was the
last one to Louisville that evening. United then decided
to enact an “involuntary de-boarding situation,” in
which four random passengers were directed to
deplane. Three of the passengers deplaned without
incident. The fourth, Dr. David Dao, refused, saying “I
can’t get off the plane. I have to get home. I’m a doctor.
I have to get to the hospital in the morning,” according
to The Sentinel News.107
United employees responded to Dao by contacting
the Chicago Department of Aviation Security. A scuffle
broke out between the officers and Dao when they
tried to forcibly remove him from the plane, resulting in
a concussion, broken teeth, a broken nose, and other
injuries for Dr. Dao. The bloodied image of Dr. Dao was
posted on social media and rapidly spread around the
world.108
MONDAY, APRIL 10: UNITED’S
INITIAL RESPONSE
A series of communication blunders transpired the
next day:
• United released a statement apologizing for the
“overbook situation.” The airline would later back-
track and clarify that the flight was not actually
overbooked, and passengers were removed to
make space for United employees.
• CEO Munoz released a public statement on Twitter
calling the incident an “upsetting event,” but did
not address the treatment of passenger Dao.
He apologized to the passengers who were
involuntarily deplaned but called their removal
“re-accommodation.”109 According to Sean Czarnecki
of PRWeek, the word “re-accommodate” was then
“lodged in the Internet lexicon as a United Airlines
euphemism for brutally assaulting your customers.”110
• CEO Munoz sent an internal letter to United
employees blaming Dr. Dao for what happened,
calling him “disruptive and belligerent.” He also
stated that he fully supported his employees’ han-
dling of the situation.111 The internal letter quickly
became public, which flamed the negative publicity.
News outlets compared videos of a bloodied and
bruised passenger being dragged off an aircraft
with United’s defensive, un-empathetic, written
responses.112 The result was outrage on social media
with thousands of flyers signing a petition demanding
Munoz’s resignation. Many also called for a boycott of
United, whose slogan of “Fly the Friendly Skies” was
tarnished by the incident.113 In fact, a survey conducted
by Morning Consult found that nearly half of the respon-
dents said they would pick a more expensive, longer
flight to avoid giving United their business.114
TUESDAY, APRIL 11: UNITED
CHANGES COURSE
A turbulent day on Wall Street kicked off after United’s
initial response to the incident. The airline started the
morning losing nearly $1 billion in stock value.
Munoz responded by releasing another written
statement. This time he struck a different tone and
took “full responsibility” for the episode and said that
Dr. Dao should not have been “mistreated” the way he
was. The airline also pledged to conduct a review and
quickly release findings. Although the statement
helped reduce the stock’s slide, United still closed the
day down around $250 million.115
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 12: MUNOZ
APPEARS ON TV
On Wednesday morning, Munoz utilized another
medium of communication by appearing on ABC’s
“Good Morning, America.” His body language was
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
United’s Turbulent Communications Strategy
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
376 PART 2 Groups
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a
problem? Focus on topics in the current chapter,
because we generally select cases that illustrate
concepts in the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, which has been summa-
rized in the Organizing Framework for Chapter 9 and
is shown in Figure 9.6. Causes will tend to show up in
either the Inputs box or the Processes box.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 9.6) and decide which person factors, if
any, are most likely causes of the defined problem.
For each cause, explain why this is a cause of the
problem. Asking why multiple times is more likely
to lead you to root causes of the problem. For
example, do employee characteristics help explain
the problem you defined in Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, Why is this a cause?
By asking why multiple times you are likely to
arrive at a more complete and accurate list of
causes. Again, look to the Organizing Frame-
work for this chapter for guidance.
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organiz-
ing Framework. Social media policies and prac-
tices can be but are not necessarily a cause. Are
any other processes at the individual, group/team,
or organizational level potential causes of your
defined problem? For any process you consider,
ask yourself, Why is this a cause? Again, do this
for several iterations to arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, map them onto the defined problem.
STEP 3: Make your recommendations for solving the
problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it,
solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom-
mendation is desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes you identified in Step 2, what
are your best recommendations? Use the mate-
rial in the current chapter that best suits the
cause. Remember to consider the OB in Action
and Applying OB boxes, because these contain
insights into what others have done that might
be especially useful for this case.
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors—as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations.
solemn as he said he felt “shame” when he saw the
video of Dao being dragged off the plane. “This can
never—will never—happen again on a United Airlines
flight. That’s my premise and that’s my promise,”
Munoz told viewers.116
The airline’s efforts may not have been enough to
turn the tide. A survey taken by LendEDU after Munoz’s
TV appearance found that 42 percent of Millennials,
the most frequent business travelers of any genera-
tion, would still not fly with United.117
A TOUGH COUPLE OF WEEKS FOR
MUNOZ AND UNITED
The crucial conversations spurred by flight 3411 con-
tinued for weeks after the incident. United published
full-page ads in several major U.S. newspapers in late
April. The ads included an apology from Munoz. “That
day, corporate policies were placed ahead of shared
values,” said United’s CEO. The ads also outlined how
the airline was changing its policies to prevent the
reoccurrence of such an incident.118
Munoz’s handling of the situation took a toll on his
career at United. The airline’s parent company, United
Continental Holdings, denied the CEO’s planned pro-
motion to chairman weeks after the incident.119 Ironi-
cally, he too lost a seat he expected to receive.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
Use the Organizing Framework in Figure 9.6 and the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify
inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework to help identify the important
problem(s) in this case. Remember that a prob-
lem is a gap between a desired and current
state. State your problem as a gap, and be sure
to consider problems at all three levels. If more
than one desired outcome is not being accom-
plished, decide which one is most important and
focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and
problems are generally viewed from a particular
protagonist’s perspective. In this case you’re
asked to assume the role of a business owner.
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
that are not included in the case.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
377Communication in the Digital Age CHAPTER 9
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Should Social Media Posts Impact Life Insurance Premiums?
Life insurance companies have traditionally used phys-
ical exams and questionnaires to determine custom-
ers’ premiums, but nowadays many are viewing social
media posts as well.120 These social media posts may
include customer tweets, pictures, videos, and likes/
dislikes of other posts. There had been limited legal
guidance on this matter until a 2019 ruling by New
York’s Department of Financial Services (NYFS). The
NYFS ruled that insurance companies operating in the
state may legally use social media posts to determine
customer risk propensity.121
Insurers typically don’t have their employees go
through millions of social media posts. Instead, they
use carefully crafted algorithms to browse the Internet
for policyholders’, or potential policyholders’, posts.
These algorithms speed up the processing of life
insurance applications by automatically greenlighting
applicants, allowing them to receive a policy without
invasive medical tests or waiting weeks for a doctor’s
appointment.122
Algorithms may help speed along the processing
of insurance applications, but they can also be used to
illegally discriminate against certain groups of people
based on built-in biases.123 For example, the MIT
Technology Review found algorithmic bias in systems
used to rank teachers and gender-biased models for
natural language processing.124 The NYFS is trying to
combat this by requiring insurers to monitor their
algorithms for bias due to “race, color, creed, national
origin, status as a victim of domestic violence, past
lawful travel, or sexual orientation in any manner, or
any other protected class.”125
This mandate may not be enough. For starters, many
insurance companies legally refuse to share details of
their social media algorithms with customers. Second,
if the algorithms were shared with customers, how
could they be interpreted by a lay person? Dr. Jessica
Baron, a tech ethics writer and reporter at TechEngage,
says that “it will be very difficult for customers who are
not well-versed in algorithmic bias to fight against unfair
decisions made about their life insurance premiums
based on data they don’t even realize they’re giving
away.”126
The Wall Street Journal has some advice for those
who decide to share aspects of their lives online: “Don’t
post photos of yourself smoking on social-media sites.
Do post photos of yourself running.”127 Those who
decide not to utilize social media are not in the clear
either. Research presented by Forbes shows that infor-
mation about a person can be constructed from the
comments of as few as eight of their online friends.128
If You Led an Insurance
Company Based in New York,
What Would You Do?
1. Utilize information gathered from social media
when making life insurance premium decisions.
It is legal and may also benefit some applicants.
2. Refuse to utilize information gathered from
social media. It is an invasion of privacy and may
lead to discrimination.
3. Invent other options and explain.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 10-1 Describe contemporary conflict.
LO 10-2 Differentiate conventional forms of work-related conflict.
LO 10-3 Explain common forms of contemporary work-related conflict.
LO 10-4 Apply your knowledge to manage conflict.
LO 10-5 Implement your negotiation skills.
LO 10-6 Describe the implications of managing conflict and negotiations for you
and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework in Figure 10.1 summarizes the key concepts you’ll learn in this
chapter. Notice that many person factors, such as personality, experience, conflict-handling
styles, mindfulness, and civility influence the type, frequency, and the intensity of conflict you
have in all arenas of your life. Many of these same factors influence how you negotiate. You can
also expect relationship quality, leadership, organizational climate, as well as norms and prac-
tices, to shape conflict and negotiations at work. The importance of these factors notwithstand-
ing, our primary focus in this chapter is understanding conflict and negotiation processes, and
how they impact nearly every outcome in the Organizing Framework. The complexity and broad
impact of conflict highlights the critical importance of managing conflict for your own satisfaction
and performance at work.
Managing Conflict
and Negotiations10
Ja
n
H
av
lic
ek
/J
oh
ny
87
/1
23
RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
379Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
FIGURE 10.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
SOURCE: ©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Experience
• Skills and abilities
• Conflict-handling styles
• Values
• Needs
• Mindfulness
• Ethics
• Incivility
• Moral character
Situation Factors
• Relationship quality
• Leadership
• Organizational climate
• Stressors
• Incivility
• Alternative dispute resolution
practices
Individual Level
• Conflict and negotiation
• Emotions
• Interpersonal skills
• Perceptions
• Performance management
practices
• Trust
• Communication
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
• Conflict and negotiation
• Decision making
• Performance management
• Leadership
• Communication
• Trust
Organizational Level
• Human resource policies and
practices
• Communication
• Leading and managing
change and stress
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
• Reputation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Winning at Work
Negotiating Salaries and Raises
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
We continue our discussion of the group and team level in
the Organizing Framework and address conflict and
negotiation in this chapter. Conflict is an inevitable part of
organizational life and can be both positive and negative.
We explore common forms of conflict at work, such as
personality and intergroup, and we’ll pay significant atten-
tion to work–life conflict and incivility (bullying, cyberbully-
ing, and harassment). We then provide practical guidance
on how to manage various forms of conflict, followed by
an explanation of negotiation, including types of negotia-
tions, the role of emotions, and ethical pitfalls.
your long-term career, for example, a chance to work on
an important assignment or have the company pay for
certification or other training.
Finally, as pointed out by Kim Churches, chief executive of the
American Association of University Women, when you’re offered a
job the company wants you to take that job. “Negotiating your sal-
ary shouldn’t change their decision.”4
Negotiating a Pay Raise
Even during robust job markets with low unemployment, 81 per-
cent of employers estimate offering raises of 3 percent or less.
This means getting a raise is largely on you, and to set yourself up
to win, preparation is critical. You need information, and the fol-
lowing are valuable sources and techniques for acquiring it.
• Ask current colleagues. Peers are the best source but may
also be the toughest. The best strategy is to be honest and
say: “I’m not sure my salary reflects market value, so I’m
checking with colleagues to find out what the current salary
range is in our field. Would you be willing to talk about com-
pensation?” Assure them you’ll keep this information confi-
dential, and, if they’re willing, start by giving a range where
your salary falls and asking how it compares with theirs.
• Query former colleagues. Ask former coworkers their
thoughts on an appropriate range for your job in a com-
pany of your employer’s size and industry. It may help to
keep the discussion in the third person: What do you think
is a competitive or appropriate salary for a solid performer
doing X type of work in a company like mine (or a com-
pany like yours)?
• Give to get. Another effective approach is to offer your
salary: “Does X dollars sound competitive with what
you’re making or what your company offers?”
• Ask recruiters. One of the very best sources is recruiters
who place people in jobs and companies like yours. Sal-
ary is almost always part of their discussions. So, if you’re
going to build out your network, adding a recruiter or two
who will share such info can be extremely valuable. But
you need the relationship first. It’s no use cold calling a
recruiter and expecting him or her to answer your ques-
tions—that expertise is part of what recruiters get paid for!
A good place to start is to realize salary negotiations are not as
common as you think. Recent research by Robert Half Staffing
and Hiring Solutions found only 39 percent of workers attempted
to negotiate salary with their last job offer. Breaking this down
further by gender and age, the survey showed 46 percent of men
versus 34 percent of women, 45 percent of 18–34-year-olds,
40 percent of 35–54-year-olds, and 30 percent of those 55 and
older engaged in salary negotiations. Asking can pay off, as one
study revealed 84 percent of those who negotiated received
more pay.1 With this in mind, experts offer the following advice for
getting the best compensation you can.
Negotiating Your Salary for a New Job
• Know the market rate. Research what companies are
paying other employees with similar jobs. Glassdoor.com,
Salary.com, PayScale, LinkedIn, and Randstad can help.
It’s a good Idea to gather information from multiple
sources. Be sure also to consider geographic differences;
sometimes they are substantial. A PayScale survey
revealed San Francisco has the largest year-to-year wage
growth (4.9 percent at the end of 2018), while Nashville’s
declined by a fraction of a percent.2
• Know your own value. Can you justify asking for more
than the market rate? If yes, then be prepared to justify
this premium with compelling examples of your perfor-
mance and accomplishments. You may also want to con-
sider particular combinations of skills that give you an
edge, such as engineering combined with project man-
agement, or experience and knowledge in hot industries,
such as cybersecurity, cloud computing, or whatever is in
demand in a particular city. Whether asking for premium
or not, it is always a good idea to focus on how you cur-
rently do or will benefit your future or present employers.3
• What’s in it for them? Of course, like everyone else you
pursue particular jobs because of how they will benefit you.
However, during interviews and negotiations for a new job
you are best served to focus on the ways you can benefit
your new employer, help the hiring manager reach her
goals, and the positive impact you’ll have in work teams.
• Be honest. Don’t exaggerate your current or past pay,
actual value, or accomplishments.
• Don’t go first. Try to wait for the other person to name a
number. If you must say something first, then say you
want to be paid the rate of a top performer with your qual-
ifications. If pressed for an answer, give a range and not a
specific dollar figure.
• Consider benefits, too. Some of the most valuable parts
of the compensation package may be insurance, retire-
ment savings, vacation time, or the ability to work from
home a certain percentage of time. Retirement may seem
like eons away, but an employer matching a 5 percent
contribution to your 401(k) plan is like giving you an extra
5 percent of pay—without an immediate tax bite.
• Look at the long term. If you can’t get a big pay package,
consider whether asking for something else that will help
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
381Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Conflict is an ever-present part of life and an important group-level process in the Organizing
Framework. To help you better understand and manage conflict, we explore several common
causes of conflict at school and work. Then you’ll learn what it means to have too little, too
much, and just enough conflict (the conflict continuum). We explain why not all conflict is bad
or dysfunctional; some forms are functional or desirable. Next, we describe some desired
outcomes of functional conflict.
10.1 A CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF CONFLICT
Because conflicts occur between people, a good place to begin is for you to learn about
your own tendencies for conflicts with others. You likely believe you have relatively few
conflicts and are easy to get along with, which may be true. However, many of the most
problematic bosses, coworkers, business partners, and classmates view themselves the
same way. Test your impressions of yourself by completing Self-Assessment 10.1.
Conflict Is Everywhere and It Matters
Conflict is a pervasive part of the human experience, and at work it can manifest as a lack
of cooperation, exclusion, insults, bullying, anger, and many other behaviors and emotions.
It also occurs within and between levels in the Organizing Framework and can affect most
of the outcomes. Among the many undesirable outcomes of conflict are reduced produc-
tivity, project failure, stress, damaged reputations, and termination.5 It also is safe and wise
to assume all forms of conflict at work are underreported.
However, it is important to realize conflict has both positive and negative conse-
quences. The goal of this chapter is to help you understand how to avoid the negative
consequences while also gaining from the positive outcomes. Let’s begin by defining con-
flict, describing the conflict continuum, then explaining the difference between functional
and dysfunctional conflict.
A Modern View of Conflict
Conflict is the energy created by the perceived gap between what we want and
what we’re experiencing, and as such, it is important to use this energy most effectively.6
Describe
contemporary
conflict.
LO 10-1
Interpersonal Conflict Tendencies
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 10.1 in Connect.
1. Does your score match your perception of yourself?
2. The assessment measures how well you get along with others and how they
treat you; both are sources of conflict. If you were to improve the measure, what
other factors do you think should be included?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
382 PART 2 Groups
Notice this definition describes conflict as a gap, just as we describe problems as gaps
between what we want and what we have in the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach. Also
notice the word energy, which means conflict is more than a simple difference of opinion.
You may disagree with someone and not care, but if you have no energy about it you have
no conflict due to the difference. And the word perceived reminds us that sources of con-
flict can be real or imagined, just like perceptions of fairness. A lack of fairness, inciden-
tally, perceived or real, is a major source of conflict at work. Your knowledge of OB will
therefore prove useful in understanding and managing conflict.
A Conflict Continuum
Historically, management experts believed all conflict ultimately threatened management’s
authority, reduced productivity, and thus should be avoided or quickly resolved. Experts
later recognized the inevitability of conflict and advised managers to learn to live with it.
As the understanding of conflict evolved, researchers and managers realized conflict had
both positive and negative outcomes, and the most productive way to think of it was in
terms of too much conflict or too little. Neither is desirable.
Appropriate types and levels of conflict energize people to move in constructive direc-
tions7 and are illustrated in Figure 10.2. The differences between types and levels of con-
flict lead to the distinction between functional and dysfunctional conflict discussed next.
Functional vs. Dysfunctional Conflict
The distinction between functional conflict and dysfunctional conflict pivots on whether the
organization’s interests are being served. Functional conflict, commonly referred to as
constructive or cooperative conflict, is characterized by consultative interactions, a
focus on the issues, mutual respect, and useful give-and-take. In such situations peo-
ple often feel comfortable disagreeing and presenting opposing views. Functional conflict
can foster several desirable outcomes, such as:
• Open-mindedness. When conflict is functional, people speak up, others listen,
which in turn can increase engagement.
• Increased understanding and strengthened relationships. Feeling understood, even
when views differ, cultivates respect and empathy. These of course facilitate produc-
tive problem solving.
• Innovation. Working through conflicts in a positive manner pushes people to con-
sider different views than they would otherwise, which often results in new and bet-
ter processes and outcomes.
• Accelerated growth. Functional conflict results in change—a break from the status
quo—and improves performance across levels of OB.8
Hopefully, these potential benefits will motivate you and others to invest the time and
energy to work through conflict rather than avoiding it.
Each of these beneficial factors is lacking in cases of dysfunctional conflict, which
are disagreements that threaten or diminish an organization’s interests.9 A primary
reason we study and manage conflict is because of its costs due to:
• Absenteeism. Conflict is a major driver of people not showing up. More conflict
generates more stress, more stress results in more time off.
• Turnover. Lack of fairness, bullying, or other forms of disrespect and incivility cause
people to quit altogether.
• Unionization. Again, a lack of fairness can be costly and motivate employees to
organize to combat poor treatment and practices.
• Litigation. If conflict is not dealt with effectively internal to the organization, many
employees will seek legal remedies which are often expensive not only in terms of
money, but also time and reputations.10
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
383Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
These outcomes highlight the critical role of management, and your own actions, in
determining whether conflict is positive or not. To effectively deal with any kind of con-
flict, we need to understand some of the common causes.
Common Causes of Conflict
Some causes are more common than others, and knowing these can help you and manag-
ers anticipate conflict and take steps to resolve it if it becomes dysfunctional. Table 10.1
lists several of the most common. Which have you experienced?
Proactive managers look for these early warnings and take appropriate action. For
example, conflict can sometimes be reduced by making decisions on the basis of majority
approval rather than striving for a consensus. However, if conflict is unnoticed or allowed
to continue, it can and does escalate.
Escalation of Conflict
When conflict escalates, the exchanges intensify and conflicting parties commonly turn to
destructive and negative attacks. When this happens those involved are often more about
undermining or hurting the other party than advancing one’s own interests. The involved
FIGURE 10.2 Relationship between Conflict Intensity and Outcomes
Positive
Neutral
Negative
Intensity
O
ut
co
m
es
Too little
conflict
Too much
conflict
Appropriate
conflict
HighModerateLow
Characterized by
apathy, lack of
creativity, indecision,
and missed deadlines
Characterized by eroding
performance, political
infighting, dissatisfaction,
lack of teamwork, and
aggression.
SOURCE: Donald, Carrie G., John D. Ralston, and Suzanne F. Webb. “Arbitral Views of Fighting: An Analysis of Arbitration Cases,
1989–2003.” Journal of Academic and Business Ethics 2 (July 2009): 1–19.
TABLE 10.1 Common Causes of Workplace Conflict11
Personality differences Competing responsibilities
Irritating workplace behaviors Change
Unmet needs at work Poor management
Perceived inequities of resources and
policies
Poor communication (including no
communication)
Unclear roles and responsibilities Differences in methods for doing work
SOURCE: Society of Human Resource Management. “Managing Workplace Conflict.” Accessed July 4, 2019. https://www.shrm.
org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingworkplaceconflict.aspx.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
384 PART 2 Groups
parties also tend to take more extreme positions and becoming less flexible.12 Common
warning signs of conflict escalation are:
1. Tactics change. Parties move from “light tactics,” such as persuasive arguments, prom-
ises, and efforts to please the other side, to “heavy tactics” that include threats, power
plays, and even violence.
2. Number of issues grows. More issues that bother each party are raised and included in
the conflict.
3. Issues move from specific to general. Small and specific concerns often become more
vague or general and can evolve into a general dislike of or intolerance for the other
party.
4. Number of parties grows. More people and groups are drawn into the conflict.
5. Goals change. Parties change their focus from “doing well” or resolving conflict to
winning and even hurting the other party.13
Sometimes conflict will result in wanting to quit your job—you’ve either had enough or you
don’t see the people or situation changing meaningfully. When this occurs, you’ll be look-
ing for a job while still in your conflict-ridden job and will thus need to explain in an effec-
tive way why you want to leave. The Applying OB box provides some guidance.
Applying OB
Many of your job searches will occur while you’re still
employed. This means you’ll often be asked during
interviews, “So, why do you want to leave your current
job?” There may be many specific reasons, but often
it’s because you’re unsatisfied, perhaps due to a lack
of opportunity, boring work, horrible boss, or low pay.
Of course, another common reason is conflict. What-
ever the reason, you need to have an effective
response to this question. The following tips should
help.
Acknowledge the Obvious
When you currently have a job and are interview-
ing for another, interviewers realize something
isn’t working for you and you’re willing to leave.
This obvious fact is often overlooked by job candi-
dates and undermines their performance in inter-
views. Don’t forget or feel uncomfortable with this
obvious fact.
What Not to Do
Don’t bash and don’t ramble. You’ve learned
already that most people believe it is best not to
trash or complain about your current employer.
You and many others realize this, but unfortunately
in your efforts to avoid doing so you may ramble.
This can be interpreted by the interviewer as
either a problem exists in your current job, and
that problem might be you, or you lack clarity on
what it is you are seeking. Neither is good for you.
To avoid these pitfalls you need clarity.
Identify the Reasons and Create the Message
List all the reasons you want to leave, and if there
are many pare the list to no more than two or
three. And even if the major reason is a horrible
boss or pay, it may be helpful to reflect more
broadly and consider: What are my career goals?
What do I like about my current and past positions?
What are my relationships with coworkers like and
how do these influence my job satisfaction? Then,
create a short, clear sentence for each reason and
practice saying them aloud. This is your script.
Frame Your Answer and Speak Confidently
Martin Yate, a career coach and HR professional,
suggests framing your thinking positively rather
than negatively. Instead of thinking of your current
job as a troubled situation you need to explain del-
icately, think of your motives for leaving as reason-
able and appropriate, and then talk as if they are.
During the interview look the person in the eye
and explain confidently the reasons you want to
leave, using the script you created and practiced.
You’ve Decided to Leave Your Job . . . How Do You Explain It During an Interview?14
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
385Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
Conflict Avoidance
Are you uncomfortable with conflict? Do you go out of your way to avoid it? If so,
you’re not alone. Fifty-three percent of people in one study reported “delay respond-
ing” as their first reaction to conflict, and avoidance is a key ingredient for escalation.15
Margaret Heffernan, business executive and thought leader, described conflict and
avoiding it this way:
We train people to be expert in managing technology, numbers, finance, and the
law. But this most fundamental characteristic of human interaction—conflict—is
something we are somehow just supposed to figure out as we go along, but we
don’t. . . . Not knowing how to handle it, we prefer to ignore it and hope it goes
away; unresolved conflict festers and grows. The good news is it doesn’t have to be
that way.16
This raises the question—why? Some of the most common reasons people avoid con-
flict are:
1. We’re social. Like other social animals, groups of humans (organizations) function
better without conflict. We therefore generally prefer not to cause or engage in ten-
sions with others.
2. It’s stressful. This too is a fact of life; conflict often causes stress and avoiding conflict,
at least in the immediate term, may reduce stress.
3. Agreeableness is rewarded. When we go along, or at least don’t disagree, with others
we’re generally rewarded. People like us, include us, and communications are smooth.
Conflict, however, is rarely rewarded and is often accompanied by undesirable conse-
quences, even punishment (termination).
4. Backlash. Last but not least is the fear of damaged relationships. Conflicts typically
strain relationships, and if you have conflicts with a coworker with whom you work
every day your worklife can be miserable.17
Conflict avoidance is a common reason otherwise qualified employees are passed over for
management and executive positions. Avoiding making tough decisions, confronting poor
performance, or challenging weak or faulty ideas are not ways to get ahead. So, what is the
alternative? Table 10.2 provides six useful suggestions for constructively engaging rather
than avoiding conflict.
We realize that embracing conflict or taking a more functional and constructive view
can be difficult if not counterintuitive. To help convince you it is worth the effort, we
explain about the payoff or benefits next.
Some common scripts to consider, modify, and use are:
• There is limited room for growth, and I’m ambitious
and determined. My hope is it is different here.
• I’m unable to contribute in the ways I would like
and am able, and I am looking for opportunities to
do so. This seems like an excellent place for me to
do just that.
• Compensation is out of sync with the market and
my level of skills and contributions, and this isn’t
going to change.
• I want to change career paths and am looking
for exciting new opportunities. This appears to be
just that.
• I am determined to grow my skill set and make
significant contributions, and I hope to do both
here.
Follow the above advice and prevent unnecessary
stress and missteps during interviews.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
386 PART 2 Groups
Desired Outcomes of Conflict Management
It’s best to view conflict management neither as a quest for agreement nor a quest for vic-
tory. Instead, frame and pursue it as an opportunity to produce positive outcomes, such as:
1. Change. Conflict is rarely productively resolved if nothing changes. Therefore, identify
positive elements in the various parties’ views and find a way forward—new, different,
better.
2. Goal alignment. Incongruent objectives are common sources of conflict for individu-
als, groups, and departments, and organizations. Confronting these is an opportunity
to review and realign goals to serve the parties involved.
3. Innovation. A cousin of change, innovation occurs when conflict generates new and
more effective processes, products, and mindsets.19
Think of the above this way: if you or the person with whom you have conflict simply
sticks to your position, then none of the above desirable outcomes are possible—change
doesn’t happen, goals are not aligned, and innovation is zero.
We therefore encourage you, when possible, to look at conflict not as a war or a battle,
but instead as an opportunity or a journey.
TABLE 10.2 How to Avoid Avoiding18
YOUR ROLE REASON
1. Stop ignoring a
conflict
Ignoring or working around a conflict won’t make it go away
and may cause further escalation. Instead, bring both sides
together to address the issues.
2. Act decisively
to improve the
outcome
Delay only causes the problem, real or perceived, to fester.
Addressing a conflict in short order can help unveil misunder-
standings or simple ovesights before they grow into some-
thing more or spread.
3. Make the path to
resolution open
and honest
Involve all relevant parties, collect information, and determine
a desired outcome. Doing so helps resolve misunderstandings
and focuses everyone on the end state instead of wallowing
in the (alleged) offenses.
4. Use descriptive
language instead
of evaluative
Beware of accusations and judgmental language. Both put
people on the defensive and impede progress. Instead, focus
on the problem (behaviors, feelings, implications) and solution
rather than the perpetrator.
5. Make the process
a team-building
opportunity
If the problem affects the team, then it may be beneficial to
approach the conflict and its solution as a team. Such resolu-
tions may improve relationships in such a way that the team
functions even better than it did before the conflict.
6. Keep the upside
in mind
Effective conflict resolution creates “success momentum.” In
other words, conflicts are signs along the road to the final and
desired destination. Don’t get bogged down and lose sight of
the ultimate goal or bigger picture.
SOURCE: Duncum, Karen. “Turning Conflict into Cooperation.” Bloomberg L.P., October 15, 2010. https://www.bloomberg.com/
news/articles/2010-10-15/turning-conflict-into-cooperation.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
387Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You can probably think of many types of conflicts from your own life, and you likely have a
good idea what caused most of them. But in this section we focus on two of the most com-
mon and consequential types of conflict in organizations—personality and intergroup. The
first occurs at the individual level and the other at the group level. Understanding both types
will make you more effective at managing an extremely valuable group-level process in the
Organizing Framework.
10.2 CONVENTIONAL FORMS OF CONFLICT
As discussed. opposition isn’t necessarily a problem. It can be a constructive way of chal-
lenging the status quo and improving behaviors, processes, and outcomes.20 New ideas, by
definition, contrast with old ideas or ways of doing things. Opposition becomes an issue if
it turns into dysfunctional conflict and impedes progress and performance. Personality
conflict and intergroup conflict can both cause numerous undesirable outcomes across lev-
els of the Organizing Framework for OB.
Personality Conflicts
Given the many possible combinations of personality traits (recall Chapter 3), it is clear
why personality conflicts are inevitable. How many times have you said or heard, “I just
don’t like him (or her)? We don’t get along.” One of the many reasons for these feelings
and statements is personality conflicts. We define a personality conflict as interper-
sonal opposition based on personal dislike or disagreement. Like other conflicts,
personality conflicts can escalate if not addressed. Think of personality conflicts you’ve
had at school or work. What were the consequences for you? The other person? Members
of your team, department, or class? Did things escalate? If the source of a conflict really is
personality, then dealing with such conflicts is particularly troublesome since personality
traits are by definition stable and resistant to change.
Research shows conflicts over work tasks can turn into personal conflicts and escalate
into bullying.21 But they have other undesirable outcomes too, such as negative emotions
related to particular coworkers and to work in general. If these feelings persist beyond
work, employees can ruminate and fail to recover appropriately, resulting in poor health
and strained nonwork relationships.22
Table 10.3 presents practical tips for both you and managers who are involved in or
affected by personality conflicts. Best practices vary and items 2 through 4 in the table
highlight how to proceed if the conflict is not resolved.
Conflicts between groups are another common form and are addressed next.
Intergroup Conflict
Conflict among work groups, teams, departments, and organizations is a threat to effec-
tiveness across organizational levels, as illustrated in the Organizing Framework. Airbnb,
for instance, has ongoing heated conflicts with many local governments in the United
States and abroad. Hosts or owners of properties want to make money on their investments
by providing accommodations for travelers, but many neighboring full-time residents and
Differentiate
conventional forms of
work-related conflict.
LO 10-2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
388 PART 2 Groups
TABLE 10.3 How to Respond When an Employee is in a Personality Conflict
FOR THE EMPLOYEE
FOR THIRD-PARTY
OBSERVERS
FOR THE EMPLOYEE’S
MANAGER
1. Be familiar with and follow company policies on diversity, discrimination, and sexual harassment.
2. Communicate directly with the other
person to resolve the perceived con-
flict (emphasize problem solving and
common objectives, not personalities).
Do not take sides in someone
else’s personality conflict.
Investigate and document the
conflict; if appropriate, take
corrective action (feedback or
behavior modification).
3. Resist dragging coworkers into the
conflict.
Suggest the parties work
things out for themselves in a
constructive and positive way.
If necessary, attempt informal
dispute resolution.
4. If dysfunctional conflict persists, seek
help from direct supervisors or human
resource specialists.
If dysfunctional conflict per-
sists, refer the problem to the
parties’ direct supervisors.
Refer difficult conflicts to human
resource specialists or hired
counselors for formal resolution
efforts and other interventions.
local governing bodies want to limit or prevent Airbnb’s
penetration. They do this in a variety of ways,
for example, zoning areas as residential and thus
ineligible for short-term rentals.
An article in the New York Times described a sce-
nario in Miami where a code compliance officer
went door-to-door in an apartment building asking
questions of those staying there to determine if they
were in compliance. In some instances, violators
were required to move out, immediately, which left
the renters in a tough spot and created additional
conflicts between them, their hosts, and Airbnb
itself. Making matters worse, the owner of the build-
ing described in the article was fined $40,000 for vio-
lating the zoning codes! Therefore, intergroup
conflict can escalate much like other forms of con-
flict discussed in the previous section.23
Because of the seemingly limitless number of
groups and differences both within and between, let’s
provide some guidance to you on how to handle such
conflicts.
How to Handle Intergroup Conflict
How have you attempted to solve conflicts between a group of which you are a member
and another group? While many techniques are successful in particular situations, the
contact hypothesis and creation of psychologically safe climates can help.
Contact Hypothesis The contact hypothesis suggests that the more members of
different groups interact, the less intergroup conflict they will experience. Those inter-
ested in improving race, international, and union–management relations typically encourage
cross-group interaction. The hope is that interaction will reduce stereotyping and diminish
differences. For instance, research in the IT context showed that contract employees working
side-by-side with their client representatives resulted in greater cross-cultural training
participation for both groups, and it also improved individual performance.24
Regulators often have conflicts with various groups, such as
code enforcement agencies and the owners of Airbnb
properties. An increasing number of communities are limiting
the use of properties, which puts owners, renters, property
managers, and community agency at odds.
Scott Baker/The New York Times/Redux Pictures
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
389Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
It helps to focus on the perceived security and quality of the interactions. If you and/
or your managers can make the minority (or out-group) feel there is nothing at stake (they
are not being evaluated), they are more likely to feel secure and satisfied with the interac-
tion. This reassurance can also reduce both groups’ prejudices about the other. We can
achieve such benefits by sharing social interests or social events where the focus is not on
work, particularly the minority group’s work.25
Creating a Psychologically Safe Climate One especially important organizational
level cause and remedy to conflict is a climate of psychological safety. A psychological
safety climate represents a shared belief among team members that it is safe to
engage in risky behaviors, such as questioning current practices without retribution
or negative consequences.26 When employees feel psychologically safe, they are more
likely to speak up and present their ideas and less likely to take disagreements personally.
This interaction results in increased team creativity,27 less conflict within and between
teams, and higher individual and team performance.28 Psychological safety climates also
help improve employee turnover, safe work behaviors, and job satisfaction.29
How can you and your employers foster a climate for psychological safety? Here are
four fundamental and widely applicable practices:
1. Frame work as a learning problem, not a performance problem.
2. Practice inclusive leadership.
3. Model curiosity and ask many questions.
4. Celebrate and reinforce risk taking and differences.30
Find out the level of psychological safety in one of your groups, teams, or organiza-
tions by completing Self-Assessment 10.2. It’s a quick, accurate, and valuable way to get a
sense of this important situation factor and unit-level process. Knowing the level of psycho-
logical safety can help you understand why some conflicts occur and how you can handle
them effectively.
Trying to understand and appreciate differing company, industry, or cultural customs is an effective way to
avoid conflicts and ensure all parties are more comfortable.
Dave and Les Jacobs/Blend Images/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
390 PART 2 Groups
Psychological Safety Climate
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 10.2 in Connect.
1. Identify a group at school or work of which you are a member. It helps if the one
you choose deals with opposing views and make decisions. Complete Self-
Assessment 10.2 focusing on this group.
2. Which items help you understand why the group deals with conflicts as it does?
3. Explain three things you and your group members can do to increase psycho-
logical safety and reduce conflict.
SOURCE: Edmondson, Amy. “Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams.” Administrative Science
Quarterly 44, no. 2 (June 1999): 350–83. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.2
Before leaving this section, read the Applying OB box and learn how Google deter-
mined the importance of psychological safety for team performance (as you learned in
Chapter 8).
Applying OB
Google employed its vast data and tremendous ana-
lytic skills to determine what makes an effective man-
ager in their company. The initiative, called Project
Oxygen, also helped identify the key ingredients of
successful teams. By far the most important factor
was psychological safety. Put simply, if people feel
they won’t be punished for making mistakes, it is
likely they work in a psychologically safe environ-
ment. This helps people speak up and ask questions,
make suggestions, and challenge the status quo. Not
only do these behaviors increase individual and team
performance, but they also help diminish conflict
avoidance. To increase and cultivate such a climate
within your team or organization, Google’s Head of
Industry, Paul Santagata, recommends:
1. When conflict occurs collaborate Instead of combat.
2. Emphasize empathy and respect for everyone,
regardless of differences.
3. Engage rather than avoid difficult topics and con-
versations.
4. Anticipate counterarguments and formulate
responses, but always be mindful of #1 and #2.
5. Search for win-win while being ever conscious of
discouraging dissent.
Keeping this advice in mind, and putting it into
practice, may increase your performance, satisfaction,
and team member effectiveness.
Psychological Safety Is Oxygen at Google31
Now let’s explore work–family conflict and incivility, two forms of conflict that are
growing in frequency and intensity.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
391Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We focus our discussion on two forms of conflict: work–life conflict and incivility. You face
demands at school and in other arenas of your life—work, social life, and perhaps family—
and these demands can compete and sometimes cause conflicts for you. These con-
flicts, along with incivility, can have dramatic and undesirable effects on your personal
health, well-being, opportunities, and other outcomes across all levels of the Organizing
Framework.
10.3 FORMS OF CONFLICT INTENSIFIED BY
TECHNOLOGY
Students, employees, and people everywhere have always experienced conflicts between
the various arenas of their lives, notably between work, school, and home. But historically,
various activities and their demands were confined to the physical locations in which they
occurred—work happened largely at the office—but those days are ancient history. Technol-
ogy has not only blurred the boundaries between these different arenas,32 but it has also
extended mistreatment to every arena. Our mobile devices and social media are ubiquitous
and devastating tools for bullies and other bad actors. For these reasons we give special
attention to these forms of conflict.
Work–Life Conflict
Work–life conflict is the perception that expectations and demands between work
and nonwork roles are mutually incompatible.33 It is important to realize conflict can
go both ways—work can interfere with family and family can interfere with work. For exam-
ple, suppose two managers in the same department have daughters playing on the same
soccer team. One manager misses the big soccer game to attend a last-minute department
meeting (work interferes with family), while the other manager skips the meeting to attend
the game (family interferes with work). If you receive and respond to a text from a friend
during class, this is a form of school–social life conflict, just as is skipping happy hour with
friends in order to study for an exam.
These various conflicts matter because they can negatively affect important outcomes
in the Organizing Framework and in your larger life, such as lower job and career satisfac-
tion, job performance, and marital and family satisfaction. The same conflicts are linked
to declines in emotional and physical health and to substance abuse.34
Self-Assessment 10.3 will help you see such conflicts from the point of view of
others, not just your own perceptions. It can also help you identify which conflicts
are the most and least serious, and this knowledge can assist in deciding what to do
about them.
Explain common forms
of contemporary
work-related conflict.
LO 10-3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
392 PART 2 Groups
However, like other forms of conflict, recent research shows work–life conflicts are
not all bad.35 Answering a work-related phone call or text when having dinner with your
partner, friend, or family can indeed be intrusive and undesirable, but if doing so enables
you to solve a problem for a coworker or customer in real-time, then this may enhance your
performance and satisfaction in the work domain. Conversely, if you take a call from your
sister or a friend while you’re working, this can interrupt your flow and productivity,
despite pleasing them. Therefore, the real challenge for you is not to avoid or eliminate
conflict, but instead to manage it in ways to realize the benefits and reduce the costs.36
Let’s explore this next.
Work–Life Balance, Harmony, Blend, Integration, or Rhythm Business
researchers and managers in America have argued for “work–life balance” since the 1980s,
which suggests achieving just the right level of demands from all of life’s domains is pos-
sible. Even if it is possible how would you know? This has led to more recent views and
concepts—harmony, blend, integration, and rhythm—that more accurately describe our
realities and the challenge facing all of us, which is to manage the competing demands
from your various roles and domains effectively.37
School–Non-School Conflict
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 10.3 in Connect.
1. What is your reaction?
2. Do any of your responses and sources of conflict surprise you?
3. Which do you think is greater, the social dimension (questions 1–6) or the cognitive
dimension (questions 7–9)?
4. What can you do to prevent or reduce the conflicts you identified?
SOURCE: Ezzedeen, Souha R., and Paul M. Swiercz. “Development and Initial Validation of a Cognitive-Based Work-Non-
work Conflict Scale.” Psychological Reports 100, no. 3 (March 2007): 979–99. https://doi.org/10.2466/pr0.100.3.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.3
Work, parenting, and life. For you, do they conflict, balance, or
integrate? We have many competing demands and managing
them effectively is critical for your success and well-being.
Zivica Kerkez/Shutterstock
To underscore the importance of effectively managing the boundaries between
domains and your energy, 33 percent of employees reported work–life balance as their
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
393Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
top criterion when selecting a job, above compensation and promotion opportunities.38
Work–life conflicts are intensified by technology and the nature of our lives. As in the
examples above, the boundaries between our roles and life domains are more permeable
and you need to manage the interruptions from one domain into another. The responsi-
bilities for doing this belong to both you and your employer.
Your responsibilities:
Designate time. Tell family and friends you’ll talk during your breaks, such as lunch
and when you grab a snack of coffee in the afternoon. You can coordinate the latter,
for instance, with the time when your kids get home from school. Do the same with
work colleagues; tell them not to expect e-mails or texts from you after a certain
time in the evening or on weekends. The important point here is to set and commu-
nicate the times.39
Designate space. Besides managing time boundaries, if you work part- or full-time
from home it is helpful to designate a particular space where work happens—an
office, unused bedroom, or some other space not in front of the TV or at the dining
room table—to reduce interruptions. This signals to you and others where work hap-
pens, and others should respect this space.
Share. Parents of course have child-rearing, household, and other responsibilities.
Research shows that parents, collectively and as individuals, are more satisfied at both
work and home when they share the load. Moreover, spousal support is an instrumen-
tal factor for career success, according to research involving senior-level executives.40
The objective is not to eliminate interruptions, but instead to manage them effectively
by considering time and space. As for the employer’s part, balance requires flexibility and
other accommodating attitudes and practices.
Employer responsibilities:
Flex space such as telecommuting, occurs when policies enable employees
to do their work from different locations besides the office (coffee shop,
home, or the beach). Flextime is flexible scheduling, covering either the
time when work must be completed (deadlines) or the limits of the workday
(9–5, 10-4, or any time today). Table 10.4 outlines some benefits of flexible
hours and locations.
Family supportive culture. An employer’s family-supportive culture is more important than
specific programs. Organizational culture must support the use of family-friendly pro-
grams for employees to benefit from them. To elaborate, it’s not enough to simply
provide child care; employees must also feel supported and comfortable using it.
The same goes for leaving work early to attend a child’s sporting event or recital.
TABLE 10.4 Key Benefits of Flexible Work Policies41
BENEFITS EXPLANATION
Lower expenses—
higher profits
Allowing employees to work from other places requires less formal office space, which
lowers real estate/rent costs, and in turn boosts profits.
Environmentally
friendly
Telecommuting saves energy from both the gasoline required to get to work, and the
utilities (gas, water, electric) for the office space.
Boosts productivity Some research shows those who work remotely actually work more (lunch breaks are
shorter and commuting time is short or zero).
Increased
retention
Flexibility enables employees—men and women—to tend their children’s needs and
schedules, as well as the inevitable doctor’s appointments and other commitments.
SOURCE: Castillo-Frick, Iliana. “Words of Wisdom: The Evolution of Workflex.” SHRM, November 21, 2017. https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/1217/
pages/words-of-wisdom-the-evolution-of-workflex-castillo-frick.aspx.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
394 PART 2 Groups
The magazine’s editor, Meredith Bodgas, said: “Not only does this help dads . . . it
helps moms succeed both at home and work and puts them on more equal footing.” Such
policies are a means for organizations, like those on this list, to earn employer of choice
status in the eyes of job candidates.44
Before moving on, a few words of caution are in order. The value of most flexible
work arrangements can be undermined if your immediate supervisor isn’t supportive.
This is especially critical considering a survey found 29 percent of participants’ bosses
expect them to work even on vacation!45 Put another way, supportive policies matter, but
what good is a policy if you aren’t allowed to use it?46 Your manager’s own behaviors are
a stronger signal and influence on behavior than most any policy, including those related
to flexible work arrangements. Fully half of companies surveyed offer some sort of flexi-
ble work arrangements, yet the same companies report that only a third of employees
utilize them.47
Cathy Engelbert, commissioner of the WNBA and former CEO of Deloitte, prac-
tices “work-life strategy.” As reported in a Time magazine article, she “has a black belt
in scheduling.”48 In one week she was in Washington, DC, Dallas, Singapore, and
Madrid. She also made time to coach her daughter’s lacrosse team, and later the day of
the Time interview, she promised her son to make it home by 5 p.m. to watch an
NCAA basketball game with him. Engelbert is disciplined, obviously, and sets aside
10-minute blocks for what she calls SMORs—small moments of reflection—in between
meetings to consider the previous and prepare for the next.
Now let’s turn our attention to a different category of conflict—incivility.
Family friendly policies aren’t just for women anymore. Organizations
are increasingly realizing the value (e.g., attracting and retaining) of
such benefits for male employees too.
Sorapop Udomsri/Shutterstock
Another point worth noting is that the benefit of work–life initiatives applies to
women and men. Specifically, organizations with flexible arrangements, leaves of
absence, and on-site child care are more likely to have employees (men and women) who
aspire to leadership roles.42 Working Mother magazine, well known for its annual list of
Best Companies for Moms, recently created its first list of Best Companies for Dads.
These companies work diligently to reduce the stigma long felt by (new) fathers related to
benefits historically only provided to women, if at all, such as paternity leave, phased
back-to-work, telecommuting, and f lexible schedules. American Express provides
20 weeks paternity leave, 20 weeks for adoption leave, and paid surrogacy expenses. Bank
of America, Deloitte, and EY all provide 16 weeks of paternity leave and the same amount
of time for adoptions.43
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
395Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
Incivility—Treating Others Poorly Has Real Costs
Incivility is any form of socially harmful behavior, such as aggression, interpersonal
deviance, social undermining, interactional injustice, harassment, abusive supervi-
sion, and bullying.49 At its foundation, incivility violates norms of respect, and like other
OB concepts it is perceptual and thus exists in the eyes of the abused. If you feel you’ve
been treated disrespectfully, then you’ve been treated disrespectfully. This perception is
what negatively affects numerous outcomes across levels of the Organizing Framework,
such as lower employee engagement and job satisfaction, reduced effort and commitment,
and increased stress and turnover.50
Incivility can be insidious, meaning it often happens in the background without notice,
until it accumulates or escalates and causes others to become involved. Subtle or not, statistics
regarding various forms of mistreatment are astounding and suggest a growing epidemic. It is
estimated that 13 percent of executives’ time at Fortune 1000 companies is spent dealing with
incivility. This equates to seven weeks per year!51 Beyond the executive ranks, 98 percent of
employees reported experiencing some form of incivility, and 50 percent said they had been
treated rudely at least once a week!52 Statistics from the Workplace Bullying Institute, shown
in Table 10.5, provide a brief glimpse of the pervasiveness and costs of the problem.
Like more conventional epidemics, incivility is contagious and being rude to one per-
son is associated with them being rude to others. And if not addressed by managers and
others, disrespectful behaviors can become embedded and create toxic cultures and nega-
tively impact an array of stakeholders—customers, employees, and suppliers.53
Even more shocking is the prevalence and impact of incivility in health care. For
instance, hospital workers whose supervisors mistreated them were less likely to share
knowledge and information, which diminished their team’s performance.54 Another study
found that almost 25 percent of physicians said incivility led to patient harm, and nearly
75 percent of those physicians said bad behavior in their team caused medical errors, even
contributing to patient deaths.55
Cathy Engelbert knows a thing or two about managing the demands of her professional and personal lives.
Most of her career was spent at Deloitte, living the life an auditor, manager and eventually becoming the
first female CEO of a Big 4 accounting firm. She has since taken her talents to the Women’s National
Basketball Association, where she is now the first commissioner in the league’s history. Along the way she
has both modeled and established policies and behaviors supportive to women.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters/Newscom
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
396 PART 2 Groups
The appropriate and obvious next question is “why?” In order to prevent and over-
come incivility we need to understand the causes.
Causes of Incivility It’s no surprise that both individuals and their employers can be
the root cause of mistreatment at work (see Figure 10.3). The causes, just like the out-
comes, can occur at all three levels in the Organizing Framework. Incivility, for instance,
has been shown to be catastrophic to teamwork, because it undermines collaboration and
individual member performance;56 it also undermines engagement and fosters intentions
to quit.57 This means bad behavior and disrespect is truly an organizational problem, even
if it starts with a single individual.
TABLE 10.5 Employees’ Responses to and the Costs of Incivility at Work
61% of Americans are aware of abusive conduct in the workplace
71% of employer actions are harmful to targets of incivility
60 million Americans are affected by it
61% of bullies are bosses
29% of targets remain silent about their experiences
40% of targets believe they suffer adverse health because of incivility
SOURCE: Namie, Gary. “2017 WBI U.S. Workplace Bullying Survey.” Workplace Bullying Institute. https://www.workplacebullying.
org/wbiresearch/wbi-2017-survey/.
FIGURE 10.3 Causes, Forms, and Outcomes of Incivility at Work
SOURCE: Singleton, R., L. A. Toombs, S. Taneja, C. Larkin, and M. G. Pryor. “Workplace Conflict: A Strategic Leadership Imperative.” International Journal of
Business and Public Administration 8 (2011): 149–56.
• Organizational justice—
distributive, procedural,
and interpersonal
• Destructive leadership—
autocratic (employee
involvement actively dis-
couraged) and laissez-faire
(lack of interest in
employees)
• HR policies and
procedures—unfair
performance review
process, lack of grievance
process
Organizational Causes
• Stress
• Decreased job satisfaction
and performance
• Post-traumatic stress
disorder (PTSD)
• Negative emotions (anger
and fear)
• Intentions to quit
• Uncivil behaviors by others
(sabotage and aggression)
• Lower group cohesiveness
and performance
• Damaged organizational
reputation
Outcomes
• Lack of character and ethics
• Past experience as target of
incivility
• Sensitivity to injustice and
harassment
• Di�erent goals
• Incompatible personalities
• Biases and stereotypes
Individual Causes
• Harassment
• Aggression
• Unfair treatment by
managers and coworkers
• Abusive supervision
• (Cyber) Bullying
Forms of Incivility
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
397Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
With this knowledge in hand, we’ll address some particular forms of incivility—bullying,
cyberbullying, and harassment.
Bullying is unwelcomed behavior that occurs over a period of time and is
meant to harm someone who feels powerless to respond.58 Bullying also occurs at
multiple levels in OB and is different from other forms of mistreatment or incivility in at
least three ways.59
1. Bullying is usually evident to others. Bullies at work don’t have to push you down or take
your lunch money, like they do in elementary school.60 Even when the bullying is less obvi-
ous and nonviolent, coworkers are commonly aware through either gossip or other forms
of communication (meetings, e-mail, and social media) that someone is being bullied.
2. Bullying affects even those who are NOT bullied. Research shows that employees who
are simply aware of bullying of colleagues but are not themselves a target are more
likely to quit their jobs. This means bullying has costs that extend well beyond the
harm to the person being bullied.61 Simply witnessing or being aware one of your col-
leagues is mistreated has negative effects on you.
3. Bullying has group-level implications. Because even those who are not targeted by bullies
can be affected, bullying often negatively affects group dynamics and group satisfaction
and performance,62 important processes and outcomes in the Organizing Framework.
Given the costs of bullying, what can you and employers do? Table 10.6 provides a collec-
tion of best practices from business and research.
Cyber Bullying Social media and mobile devices have created new avenues and weap-
ons for bullies at school, at work, and in our social lives. Many researchers now report that
virtual bullying is more common than face-to-face bullying, although the two often co-
occur.63 Making matters worse, the undesirable effects last over time. Employees who
experienced cyber-bullying at work today reported greater physical and emotional distress
at the end of the day and the next morning. And the targets are harmed both by the direct
assault or event, and the fear of future mistreatment.64
Besides the fact so much of our lives and communication is online, why else might cyber-
bullying be such a problem? One reason is organizations commonly have “norms of civility”
for face-to-face interactions, such as meetings where people are respectful in tone, content, and
nature of their communications. However, such norms are less clear or are absent via e-mail
and texts. You, and employees more generally, may say and do things online differently with-
out any ill intent. Second, nonverbal queues and information are absent and can dramatically
influence the way your message is perceived. Moreover, feedback is delayed and may further
TABLE 10.6 Anti-Bullying Strategies for Groups and Organizations
Develop a workplace bullying policy.
Encourage open and respectful communication.
Identify and model appropriate ways for people to interact with colleagues.
Develop and communicate a system for reporting bullying.
Identify and resolve conflicts quickly and fairly to prevent escalation.
Identify the situations, policies, and behaviors likely to cause bullying or allow it to occur.
Train employees to manage conflict.
Establish and enforce clear consequences for those who engage in bullying.
Monitor and review employee relationships, with particular attention to fairness.
SOURCE: Thomas, Helena Cooper, Dianne Gardner, Michael O’Driscoll, Bevan Catley, Tim Bentley, and Linda Trenberth.
“Neutralizing Workplace Bullying: The Buffering Effects of Contextual Factors.” Journal of Managerial Psychology 28, no. 4
(2013): 384–407. https://doi.org/10.1108/JMP-12-2012-0399.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
398 PART 2 Groups
alter the intended message.65 All of this applies before considering the shorthand language
that dominates texting and the infamous autocorrect, which is either your friend or your foe.
The situation is made worse when the communications and bullying occur at work.
The simple reason is that often you cannot avoid or otherwise delay or ignore responding
to your boss or other (powerful) coworkers and clients. The importance and impact of
cyber-bullying is captured extremely well by a group of researchers on the topic: “. . . [O]ur
results suggest that the distressing effects of cyber-incivility are persistent and strong.”66
Now let’s learn about a close relative of bullying—harassment.
Harassment Comes in many forms, but in essence harassment is discrimination
based on a protected class (race, gender, religion, pregnancy, age, disability), that
becomes illegal when it threatens your employment or is considered intimidating,
hostile, or abusive. That is a mouthful and very “legal.” It is important to note the major-
ity of inappropriate workplace behavior does not qualify as harassment unless it is related
to and targets a member of a protected class.67 This means if you’re a white American male
under 40 with no disabilities, almost any form of mistreatment you experience will not
qualify as harassment under the law. To be clear, any incivility is still problematic and
potentially devastating, but harassment is relatively narrow in terms of legal qualifications.
Sexual harassment is a pervasive and dramatically underreported form receiving
greater attention in the recent past. As stated by Johnny C. Taylor, CEO of the Society of
Human Resource Management, “Given that nearly every U.S. organization (98 percent)
has a sexual harassment policy, clearly the problem is bigger than policy; it’s a matter of
culture.”68 This means sexual harassment, like other forms of incivility we’ve discussed,
extends beyond individuals to groups, teams, and organizations.
The costs are enormous and growing, and thanks to the #MeToo movement attention
also is growing. Cases filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC) doubled in just the first year following the movement, and claims paid by employ-
ers increased from $47 million to $70 million. Regardless of your reaction to these num-
bers, it is important to realize that many more cases are filed outside of the EEOC, in civil
courts, and many more still are unreported (approximately 70 percent). As with other
forms of incivility, the target individuals and the units in which they work both suffer negative
Tarana Burke is credited with coining the term MeToo and igniting the movement in 2006. A tsunami of
allegations and scandals related to sexual harassment and sexual assault in the workplace have been
reported in recent years.
Chelsea Guglielmino/FilmMagic/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
399Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
consequences, as can the larger organization—damaged reputations, lost customers, and
lost job candidates.69
Sexual harassment comes in two principal forms—quid pro quo and hostile work envi-
ronment. Quid pro quo literally means “this for that.” If a person in power implies or
explicitly demands sex in exchange for a benefit (raise) or preventing something undesir-
able (termination), then this is quid pro quo. In contrast, “an intimidating or demeaning
environment or situation that negatively affects a person’s job performance” is considered
a hostile work environment. Among the many examples are inappropriate touching, sexual
jokes or comments, offensive photos or e-mails, and repeated requests for dates.70
A few additional details are worth knowing: (1) the harasser’s conduct must be unwel-
comed; (2) the victim does not have to be the target, but anyone who is affected by the
conduct; and (3) any form of harassment is equally illegal and uncivil.71
How to combat sexual and other forms of harassment? Experts recommend:
1. Don’t make definitions and policies overly legal. Legal terminology is good for attor-
neys, but it is best to create and communicate policies in simple language in terms
relevant to your workplace.
2. Use relevant examples. Identify offensive behaviors most likely to occur in your par-
ticular workplace, whether technically illegal or not, and explain why not to do them
and what employees are expected to do when they occur or are observed.
3. Make it everyone’s responsibility. This needs to be communicated and clear channels
for reporting known. Whom should you notify and how? Outside tip-lines can help.
4. Enforce top to bottom. Despite the high-profile cases associated with #MeToo, the fact
remains that many perpetrators are people in power who are often protected. People
need to believe every employee will be held accountable.72
Victim, Witness, or Perpetrator? Let’s conclude this section by having you assess
not just your experience but also your actions. Completing Self-Assessment 10.4 can help
you improve your own effectiveness.
Bullying Scale—Target and Perpetrator
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 10.4 in Connect.
1. Which three example items do you most commonly experience?
2. What do you think are the causes of these examples? Try to identify causes
across individual, group, and organizational levels using your OB knowledge.
3. To what extent do your most common experiences of being bullied match those
you most commonly engage in?
4. Describe some things that could be done to prevent or reduce these acts of bullying.
SOURCE: Glomb, Theresa M. “Predicting Workplace Aggression: Reciprocal Aggression, Organizational, and Individual
Antecedents.” International Journal of Organization Theory and Behavior 13, no. 2 (March 2010): 249–91. https://doi.
org/10.1108/IJOTB-13-02-2010-B005.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.4
Another way to be more effective and helpful when witnessing incivility is to take the
perspective of the target. Consciously think about what it is like to be him or her, walk in
his or her shoes, and experience what that person is going through. It may sound trite but
practicing the Golden Rule can go a long way in preventing inappropriate conduct. This
simple approach can prove useful, because in the heat of conflict most parties are so
focused on themselves that they never think to consider the other’s view.
Remember that mistreatment has more victims than the actual target. Don’t be a
silent bystander. Do your part to prevent and remedy various forms of incivility at school,
work, and home.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
400 PART 2 Groups
Programming Functional Conflict
Have you ever been on a team or committee that became so bogged down in details and
procedures it accomplished nothing? Many of us have. These experiences are both a waste
of time and frustrating. Thankfully, OB provides two programmed conflict techniques with
proven track records to help break out of these ruts—devil’s advocacy and the dialectic
method. Let’s explore each.
Devil’s Advocacy One individual is assigned the role of devil’s advocate and identifies
any potential shortcomings in the proposal. Figure 10.4 shows the steps in this approach.
Note how devil’s advocacy alters the usual decision-making process in steps 2 and 3 on the
left-hand side of the figure.
The Dialectic Method The dialectic method involves a structured dialogue or
debate of opposing viewpoints prior to making a decision. Steps 3 and 4 in the right-
hand side of Figure 10.4 set the dialectic approach apart from common decision-making
processes
Pros, Cons, and Practical Advice on Programmed Conflict It is a good idea
to rotate the job of devil’s advocate so no one person or group develops an unde-
served negative reputation. Moreover, periodically playing the devil’s advocacy role is
good training for developing analytical and communication skills and emotional intel-
ligence. The strengths of this approach are critical thinking and reality testing, but a
major drawback is that the goal of “winning the debate” might overshadow the issue
at hand. The dialectic method also requires more skilled training than does devil’s
advocacy.
Research on the relative effectiveness of the two methods ended in a tie, although
both methods were more effective than consensus decision making.73 However, another
study showed that devil’s advocacy produced more potential solutions and made better
recommendations for a case problem than did the dialectic method.74
Considering this mixed evidence, you have some latitude in choosing a method for
breaking the logjams that sometimes occur. It is likely that personal preference and other
members’ experiences may be the deciding factors in your decision. The important thing is
to actively stimulate functional conflict when possible, such as when the risk of blind con-
formity or groupthink is high.
Apply your knowledge
to manage conflict.
LO 10-4
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We extend your knowledge in this section by introducing several practical means for dealing
with a variety of conflicts. Specifically, we explore ways to program or create functional con-
flict, and you’ll also learn about various conflict-handling styles and when to use them. We
then explore how to implement alternative forms of dispute resolution (ADR). Combined, the
practical knowledge in this section will enable you to better manage conflicts and in turn
influence important outcomes in the Organizing Framework.
10.4 EFFECTIVELY MANAGING CONFLICT
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
401Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
Conflict-Handling Styles
As with the many other individual differences you’ve learned about, people have stable
preferences or styles for handling conflicts. Figure 10.5 distinguishes five of the most com-
mon styles based on an individual’s relative concern for others (x-axis) versus concern for
self (y-axis). Combinations of these produce the conflict-handling styles called integrating,
obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising.75
Integrating: Interested parties confront the issue and cooperatively identify it, gener-
ate and weigh alternatives, and select a solution.
Obliging: Tends to show low concern for yourself and a great concern for others.
Such people tend to minimize differences and highlight similarities to please the
other party.
FIGURE 10.4 Techniques for Stimulating Functional Conflict: Devil’s Advocacy
and the Dialectic Method
SOURCE: Cosier, Richard A., and Charles R. Schwenk. “Agreement and Thinking Alike: Ingredients for Poor Decisions.” The
Executive 4, no.1 (February 1990): 69–74.
A devil’s advocate decision program The dialectic decision method
6
The decision is monitored.
5
The decision to adopt, modify, or
discontinue the proposed course
of action is taken.
4
Any additional information
relevant to the issues is gathered.
3
The critique is presented to
key decision makers.
2
A devil's advocate (individual
or group) is assigned to criticize
the proposal.
1
A proposed course of action
is generated.
6
The decision is monitored.
5
The decision to adopt either position,
or some other position, e.g., a
compromise, is taken.
4
Advocates of each position present
and debate the merits of their
proposals before key decision makers.
3
A conflicting counterproposal is
generated based on dierent
assumptions.
2
Assumptions underlying the proposal
are identified.
1
A proposed course of action
is generated.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
402 PART 2 Groups
FIGURE 10.5 Five Common Conflict-Handling Styles
SOURCE: Rahim, M. Afzalur. “A Strategy for Managing Conflict in Complex Organizations.” Human Relations 38, no. 1 (January
1985): 81–89. https://doi.org/10.1177/001872678503800105.
Concern for self
High Low
Low
High
C
on
ce
rn
fo
r
ot
he
rs
Dominating
Integrating Obliging
Avoiding
Compromising
Dominating: High concern for self and low concern for others, often characterized by
“I win, you lose” tactics. The other party’s needs are largely ignored. This style is
often called forcing because it relies on formal authority to force compliance.
Avoiding: Passive withdrawal from the problem and active suppression of the issue are
common. We addressed the pitfalls of avoiding conflict earlier.
Compromising: Is a give-and-take approach with a moderate concern for both self and
others. Compromise is appropriate when parties have opposite goals or possess
equal power.
Before you learn about the characteristics of these styles and the best situations in
which to use each one, take Self-Assessment 10.5 to learn your own style. Then you’ll be
able to see whether what you learn matches your style. Better still, you’ll better understand
in which conflict situations your preferred style assists you and when it hurts you. For
instance, wouldn’t you like to know when an avoiding style is most effective?
Preferred Conflict-Handling Style
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 10.5 in Connect.
1. What is your style? On the surface, before reading below, does this make sense
to you? Why or why not?
2. Describe a conflict you’ve experienced in which your conflict-handling style
helped you.
3. Describe a conflict in which your style didn’t serve you well. Explain why.
4. Which style do you think would have been best for that particular conflict?
SOURCE: Rahim, M. Afzalur. “A Measure of Styles of Handling Interpersonal Conflict.” Academy of Management Journal 26,
no. 2 (June 1983): 368–76. https://doi.org/10.5465/255985.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 10.5 CAREER READINESS
When to Apply the Various Conflict-Handling Styles Consistent with the con-
tingency approach described throughout this book, conflict resolution is not a “one style
fits all” approach. Research and practice thankfully provide some guidance indicating
which styles seem to work best in particular situations (see Table 10.7).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
403Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
TABLE 10.7 Styles for Handling Conflict and the Situations where they are Appropriate and Inappropriate
STYLE APPROPRIATE INAPPROPRIATE
Integrating 1. Issues are complex.
2. Synthesis of ideas is needed to come up with
better solutions.
3. Commitment is needed from other parties for
successful implementation.
4. Time is available for problem solving.
5. One party alone cannot solve the problem.
6. Resources possessed by different parties are
needed to solve their common problem.
1. Task or problem is simple.
2. Immediate decision is
required.
3. Other parties are uncon-
cerned about outcome.
4. Other parties do not have
problem-solving skills.
Obliging 1. You believe that you may be wrong.
2. Issue is more important to the other party.
3. You are willing to give up something in exchange
for something from the other party in the future.
4. You are dealing from a position of weakness.
5. Preserving relationship is important.
1. Issue is important to you.
2. You believe that you are
right.
3. The other party is wrong or
unethical.
Dominating 1. Issue is trivial.
2. Speedy decision is needed.
3. Unpopular course of action is implemented.
4. Necessary to overcome assertive subordinates.
5. Unfavorable decision by the other party may be
costly to you.
6. Subordinates lack expertise to make technical
decisions.
7. Issue is important to you.
1. Issue is complex.
2. Issue is not important to you.
3. Both parties are equally
powerful.
4. Decision does not have to
be made quickly.
5. Subordinates possess high
degree of competence.
Avoiding 1. Issue is trivial.
2. Potential dysfunctional effect of confronting the
other party outweighs benefits of resolution.
3. Cooling-off period is needed.
1. Issue is important to you.
2. It is your responsibility to
make decision.
3. Parties are unwilling to defer.
4. Prompt attention is needed.
Compromising 1. Goals of parties are mutually exclusive.
2. Parties are equally powerful.
3. Consensus cannot be reached.
4. Integrating or dominating style is not successful.
5. Temporary solution to a complex problem is needed.
1. One party is more powerful.
2. Problem is complex enough
to need problem-solving
approach.
SOURCE: Rahim, M. Afzalur. “Toward a Theory of Managing Organizational Conflict.” International Journal of Conflict Management 13, no. 3 (October 2003):
206–35. https://DOI: 10.2139/ssrn.437684.
When to Avoid Pamela Valencia, an organizational development consultant and
trainer to Fortune 500 companies, recommends avoiding when:
You decide that the conflict has no value, and that you’re better off saving your time
and energy for other matters. Additionally, this can be a good temporary solution if
you need more time to gather facts, refocus, take a break, or simply change the set-
ting of the conflict. However, be sure not to avoid people in your attempt to avoid
conflict—don’t be evasive.76
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
404 PART 2 Groups
Why Styles Matter Because conflict is so pervasive, it is no surprise that researchers
and managers have both devoted considerable attention to the topic. Key points about
conflict-handling styles follow:
1. Culture. Conflict-handling styles are not just an individual-level phenomenon. Depart-
ments and entire organizations can develop the same styles—integrating, dominating,
and avoiding. And leaders’ own styles have the greatest influence in determining
which style becomes embedded in the group or organization.
2. Results. Cooperative styles (integrating and obliging) improved new-product
development performance between buyers and suppliers across several industries
in Hong Kong. In contrast, uncooperative styles (dominating and avoiding)
increased numerous types of conf licts and hampered new-product develop-
ment. Compromising had no effect on performance in these same situations.77
New-product development relationships are increasingly important in the global
economy. Give careful consideration to the styles you use when working with such
partners.
3. Reduced turnover. Research with nurses showed that those with high levels of
emotional intelligence were more inclined to use collaborative conflict-handling
styles and less likely to use accommodating styles.78 Given the intense shortage
of nurses in many parts of the world, turnover is a critical and top-of-the-mind
issue for nursing managers and health care administrators alike. Therefore,
reducing conflict (bullying) is an important and effective means for reducing
turnover.
4. You vs. Others. As you learned regarding personality conflict above, it is important to
consider your style versus that of the other person(s) in the conflict. Your styles might
be at odds, but it might also be your personalities. The OB in Action box can shed
light on this and help.
The following advice is useful to consider with
any type of conflict, but especially if it is personal
or you think it is due to differing conflict handling
styles.
1. Look in the Mirror. First, ask yourself: How am I
contributing to this conflict? It is possible “you
didn’t start it,” but often your reaction or inaction
played a role.
2. Styles Alignment. How does your conflict han-
dling style influence the conflict? What do you
think is the conflict handling style of the other
person? Use this Information to guide your
efforts.
3. Look for the Sunshine, Not the Rain. The other
person often tries to help resolve the situation;
be sure to look for and acknowledge these
efforts. It’s as simple as saying, “I know we differ,
and I appreciate your attempts to improve the
situation.”
4. Talk! Calmly talking to the person is generally an
essential, albeit obvious, part of the solution to
any conflict. (Remember, avoiding a conflict
rarely makes it go away.)
5. Keep Communicating. Too often during conflict
people avoid or otherwise limit communication
and contact. Don’t.
6. Be Equitable If Not Equal. The point is to be
sure not to single out the person with whom you
have a conflict, still include them in meetings,
e-mails, and social activities, such as the daily
Maybe It’s a Difference in Style, and Maybe It’s Yours79
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
405Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
In the next section you’ll learn about alternative means for resolving conflicts, collec-
tively called ADRs.
Third-Party Interventions: Alternative Dispute
Resolution (ADRs)
Disputes between employees, between employees and their managers or employers, and
between companies too often end up in lengthy and costly court battles. U.S. businesses
spend hundreds of billions of dollars per year on direct legal costs, but this number is puny
when compared to indirect legal costs, such as opportunities not pursued due to litigation
concerns, disclaimers, and extra testing. All such costs are ultimately passed on to con-
sumers in the form of higher prices.80
A more constructive, less expensive approach called alternative dispute resolution has
grown rapidly in recent years. Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is a means for solv-
ing disputes using an independent third party and avoids the costs and problems
associated with litigation or unilateral decision making.81
The Many Forms and Progression of ADR You may not realize it, but you already
know a few forms of ADR, such as peer review, arbitration, and mediation. These tech-
niques represent a progression of steps third parties can take to resolve conflicts, and they
have the following benefits when compared to litigation:
1. Speed. Mediation, for example, often takes only a few hours and has a 70 to 80 per-
cent success rate. This track record is in stark contrast to the months or even years it
can take for cases to get through litigation.
2. Low cost. ADRs generally cost 90 percent less than litigation.
3. Confidentiality. ADRs provide near-complete control over what’s disclosed and
what’s not, which contrasts with legal proceedings which are in the public record.
Moreover, ADR decisions are rarely formalized like the outcomes of lawsuits,
which means there is no record to be made public or to use as precedent in future
conflicts.
4. Winning solutions. Courts decide based on the law, and their decisions are almost
always win or lose, with one party writing a check to the other. ADRs, in contrast, can
reach win–win solutions arranged by the parties themselves.82
Table 10.8 ranks forms of ADR from easiest and least expensive to most difficult and
costly.
Read the nearby Problem-Solving Application case and perhaps you’ll decide a form
of ADR is appropriate. Whether you do or not, Wendy’s clearly has a conflict.
lunch group if that applies. Separation is a form
of avoidance and is often viewed as punishment
and escalation.
7. Agree to Disagree. Sometimes you just won’t
agree, and in some proportion of these situa-
tions you don’t have to. Therefore, consider
agreeing to disagree on a particular view or
method, and instead focus on the outcome.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Think of a conflict you’ve had that would benefit
from each of the points above.
2. Identify a current conflict and determine which
of the above applies and could help.
3. Explain which of the above tactics you would
use and how you could apply them to a team on
which you are a member at work or school.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
PART 2 Groups406
TABLE 10.8 Different Forms of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR)
FORM OF ADR DESCRIPTION
Facilitation A third party, usually a manager, informally urges disputing parties to deal directly with
each other in a positive and constructive manner.
Conciliation A neutral third party informally acts as a communication conduit between disputing parties.
This is appropriate when conflicting parties refuse to meet face-to-face. The immediate
goal is to establish direct communication, with the broader aim of finding common ground
and a constructive solution.
Peer Review A panel of trustworthy coworkers, selected for their ability to remain objective, hears both
sides of a dispute in an informal and confidential meeting. A decision by the review panel
may or may not be binding, depending on the company’s ADR policy. Membership on the
peer review panel often is rotated among employees.83
Ombudsman Someone who works for the organization and is widely respected and trusted by his or
her coworkers, hears grievances on a confidential basis and attempts to arrange a solu-
tion. This approach, more common in Europe than in North America, permits someone to
get help from above without relying on the formal chain of hierarchy.
Mediation A neutral and trained third party guides the others to find innovative solutions to the
conflict. To ensure neutrality, many organizations hire ADR qualified outsiders. Unlike
an arbitrator, a mediator does not render a decision. It is up to the disputants to reach
a mutually acceptable decision. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
(EEOC) implemented mediation in the 1990s and cut the average time to resolution
by 80 percent!84
Arbitration Disputing parties agree ahead of time to accept the decision of a neutral arbitrator in a
formal court-like setting, often complete with evidence and witnesses. Statements are
confidential, and decisions are based on the legal merits of the case. Trained arbitra-
tors, typically from outside agencies such as the American Arbitration Association, are
versed in relevant laws and case precedents. In many instances, employee arbitration
is mandatory for resolving disputes. Heated debate has occurred over the past
several years, however, regarding mandatory versus voluntary arbitration. On the
one hand, many employers have not reaped the time and cost savings promised
by arbitration and now prefer to litigate. On the other, many employees feel
arbitration unfairly benefits employers, who hire skilled arbitrators whose job
it is to handle such disputes.85
Food Fight on Campus86
A conflict between Wendy’s and students at col-
leges across America is growing and at the root
are tomatoes. Protestors are pressuring the ham-
burger chain to purchase its tomatoes from suppli-
ers who participate In the Fair Food Program (FFP).
This program isn’t so much about food as it is the
farm workers who grow, pick, process, and ship
tomatoes.
Who Are the Players and What Is Their Mission?
The FFP is an initiative by the Coalition of Immo-
kalee Workers, which is a worker-based human
rights organization that originated in Immokalee,
Florida. (You’ll learn more about coalitions In Chap-
ter 12.) The coalition’s aim is to improve labor stan-
dards for farm workers. The goals of the coalition
and the FFP are to prevent modern-day slavery,
Problem-Solving Application
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
407Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
sexual assault, harassment, unfair compensation,
and other abuses rampant in the industry. Advo-
cates of the program claim the FFP and Immokalee
have had dramatic and positive effects. For instance,
the program now covers about 35,000 workers,
largely In Florida, and has raised standards for the
tomato industry in that state from one of the lowest
to nearly the best in only a decade.
For their part, FFP participants such as Subway,
Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s purchase tomatoes
only from farmers in the program. They also agree
to pay 1 to 4 cents more per pound of tomatoes,
and the growers in turn agree to pay workers at
least the local minimum wage and a bonus in each
paycheck; provide training regarding sexual harass-
ment and assault; offer reasonable working condi-
tions (shade and water) and hours, and a 24-hour
independent hotline for complaints; and submit to
intensive auditing by third parties.
Why the Beef with Wendy’s? Wendy’s is a more
recent target of these efforts as they have quit
buying from Florida sources and FFP participants.
Instead, the company now gets most tomatoes from
farms in Mexico where labor standards are much
lower. This contrasts with McDonald’s, Walmart, and
other major brands who buy from FFP suppliers.
These factors combine to intensify the conflict. For
instance, when major brands, like Wendy’s, don’t
participate it signals to other buyers in the industry
it’s okay not to purchase from FFP suppliers, which
is then interpreted as a lack of concern and
oversight of worker well-being.
Wendy’s has countered by saying it plans to pur-
chase most of its tomatoes from greenhouse farmers
In the U.S. and Canada, but this does little to alleviate
the concerns of its critics. They argue conditions in
greenhouses are just as inhumane as those found in
non-FFP farms, and third party reviews done outside
of the FFP are superficial at best.
Pressure Grows Workers and students have
pressured universities to insist Wendy’s locations
on their campuses sign on to the FFP or be ousted.
They are in effect borrowing a page from the
playbook used against Taco Bell in the early 2000s,
which resulted in that company signing on and
being the first major company to do so. Both
companies are susceptible to this pressure, as a
key segment of their customer base is people in
their 20s.
The outcomes are not as simple as yes or no,
participate or don’t. A student boycott caused a
Wendy’s franchise at the University of Michigan to
not renew its lease. Presumably the franchisee will
relocate and purchase outside of the FFP as in the
past. Mayors and local legislators in other college
towns—University of Florida (Gainesville) and Uni-
versity of North Carolina (Chapel Hill)—have pre-
sented resolutions urging Wendy’s stores on their
campuses to join the FFP. Immokalee workers, along
with others, are protesting in some of these same
college towns.
Wendy’s Is Not Alone Costco, Publix, and Kroger
do not participate in the FFP. For its part, Publix said
it views the entire issue as a dispute between its
suppliers and their employees, and as such it is not
their business. With so many large brands not
participating, the market for non-FFP tomatoes is
significant, which means despite the challenges for
some growers, many others still feel little pressure
to ensure higher labor standards in order to sell
their products.
Assume you are the CEO of Wendy’s and have
decided to address this conflict on behalf of the
entire company. First, identify with whom the conflict
exists, then apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving
Approach defining the problem, identifying the
causes, and what to do about it. Note: Conflict itself
Is not a problem.
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem in this case.
Step 2: Identify the potential causes.
Step 3: Make your recommendations.
We close this section with a reminder. The time to consider the various forms of ADR
is when a conflict first arises. And regardless of the issue, you are wise to evaluate likely
costs and opportunities associated with conflict before it escalates and causes legal action,
fees, and anger. Once these things happen more functional or constructive outcomes are
increasingly difficult.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
408 PART 2 Groups
Negotiation is a give-and-take decision-making process between two or more par-
ties with different preferences. Common negotiations occur over salary, flextime and
hours, and job location. Negotiation is even more important today given the increasingly
complex and competitive workplace, wherein you’re expected to accomplish more things,
in more places, with more people, which increases the value of your negotiation skills.
Before we dive into the types of negotiation and other pertinent details, it is important
to address how you think of negotiation. Professor Linda Babcock of Carnegie Mellon
University and author of Ask for It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get
What They Really Want explains how many people think of negotiation as a form of con-
flict, even if only subconsciously. This means they view it in terms of “I have to win or at
least avoid losing.” As you learned earlier in the chapter, there are many reasons people
avoid conflict which means they also are likely to avoid negotiating as frequently or as well
as they should.87
We therefore encourage you to be mindful and not think of negotiation as a conflict.
Instead, framing negotiation as an art, a skill, a task, or even a game can greatly and posi-
tively impact your attitude, approach, and outcomes. Let’s move on.
Two Basic Types of Negotiation
Negotiation experts often distinguish between two fundamental types of negotiation—
position-based (distributive), and interest-based (integrative). Understanding the differ-
ence has great practical value.
Position-Based vs. Interest-Based A distributive negotiation usually concerns
a single issue—a “fixed pie”—in which one person gains at the expense of another.88
This win–lose approach is arguably the most common type of negotiation and is character-
ized by dividing up the pieces of a pie. Haggling over the price of a car is a position-based
or distributive negotiation. You have a particular price you want, and you get it only if the
seller compromises on the price he or she desires.
Many conflicts, however, bring together a variety of interests (not just the price of a
car), and each party in the negotiation values those interests differently. The outcome is no
longer a fixed pie distributed among all parties, but instead multiple interests are inte-
grated into a mutually satisfying solution. Such scenarios call for integrative negotiation,
in which numerous interests are considered, resulting in an agreement that is satis-
factory for both parties.89 This kind of interest-based negotiation is a more collaborative,
problem-solving approach. As one group of researchers puts it, instead of dividing a pie, as
in position-based negotiation, interest-based negotiations often generate win–win
outcomes—one party gets the crusts and the other the fruit (the part each prefers). Interest-
based negotiations may even lead to creative solutions. The parties may decide to build a
pie factory together instead of negotiating over individual pies.90
Implement your
negotiation skills.
LO 10-5
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Life is an endless series of negotiations. It therefore is valuable to better understand negotia-
tion and related strategies. We discuss different forms and tactics of negotiation in this sec-
tion because they are both the cause and remedy of many conflicts. You’ll also notice that
negotiations can influence outcomes across all three levels of the Organizing Framework.
10.5 NEGOTIATION
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
409Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
Table 10.9 describes some key differences between conventional position-based nego-
tiation and the more collaborative interest-based process.
Applying a Collaborative Interest-Based Approach The collaborative, interest-
based approach is explicitly based on problem solving and can be applied between two or
more individuals, between an individual and a group, or between two or more groups. The
following protocol is followed by renowned negotiator Christina Merchant.91
1. Define and frame the issue in terms of parties’ interests.
2. Explain the respective interests (listen, learn, and share).
3. Explore expanding the pie (create value rather than claiming it).
4. Generate options.
5. Evaluate options in light of the interests described in step 1.
6. Choose the option that best meets the interests described.
7. Develop and agree on a plan of implementation.
Factors to Consider in All Negotiations Regardless of your negotiation approach,
finding areas of common ground can be difficult. Successful negotiators weigh multiple
issues and gather information about which are most important to the other parties and
why. Research and practice provide some helpful hints:
• Know who you are. Personality matters. Research shows people with high levels of
agreeableness are best suited for integrative negotiations, whereas those low in this
personality characteristic are better at distributive negotiations.92 Why do you think
this is?
• Manage outcome expectations. In most negotiations, each party has an expected
outcome and compares it to the actual outcome.93 Skilled negotiators manage
expectations in advance of actual negotiations. For example, if two people paid
$35,000 for a car, then the one who expected to pay $33,000 was disappointed and
the one who expected to pay $37,000 was delighted. Similarly, managers will often
send out a message saying, “It’s been a tough year” in advance of annual reviews and
salary discussions to help adjust expectations.
TABLE 10.9 Key Characteristics of the Two Fundamental Forms of Negotiation
POSITION-BASED NEGOTIATION INTEREST-BASED NEGOTIATION
Adversarial Partner
Focus on winning Focus on challenge to be met
Acquire the most value Create value for all parties
Personal goal focused Solution focused
Impose or sell your own position Find mutual interests and satisfaction
Use salesmanship and manipulation Make honest disclosure of respective interests
Choose between relationship and
achieving goals
Emphasize relationship and substance
Yield reluctantly to other positions/
interests
Be open and willing to yield
Outcomes are win–lose or compromise Win–win collaborative outcomes are possible
SOURCE: Campbell, Kevin, and Rosemary O’Leary. “Big Ideas for Big Problems: Lessons from Conflict Resolution for Public
Administration.” Conflict Resolution Quarterly 33 (October 2015): 107–19. https://doi.org/10.1002/crq.21146.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
410 PART 2 Groups
• Adhere to standards of justice.95 Not only do the outcomes need to be perceived as
fair (distributive justice), but so too do the processes by which they were attained.
No one likes to be taken advantage of, which can happen when they have incom-
plete information. Again, think of buying a new car where the dealer knows all the
numbers, and despite the best information the Web has to offer, you are still never
as well informed.
• Remember your reputation.96 You may “win” today only to foreclose opportunities in
the future. Put another way, winning at all costs often has significant costs!
Considering these factors can help you decide whether you should pursue a particular
position (you win, they lose), or if you’re better off reaching an interest-based agreement
that leaves both parties satisfied. The OB in Action box provides an opportunity to apply
your knowledge.
Many people say we are negotiating all the time and throughout our lives.
Buying a car is one such instance. These transactions are excellent oppor-
tunities to apply your OB knowledge and improve your outcomes—more
car for less money.
Adam Gault /OJO Images Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
• Consider the other person’s outcome.94 Of course you negotiate for your own benefit,
but it also matters how the other party fares—is he or she satisfied?
When you watch shows on TV or your device, three of
the major players involved in their creation are writers,
agents, and studios. Writers write, studios buy, and
agents are in between making these deals happen.
The Writers’ Guild (a union representing thousands of
writers for TV and movies) and the Association of Tal-
ent Agents (a union representing major agencies) are
locked in a heated battle over the terms of their agree-
ment that have been in place since the mid-1970’s.
Issues. Writers have two principle complaints and
are willing to go on strike to affect change. First, they
take issue with agents “packaging” a group of writ-
ers for a given project. The agents get paid a pack-
aging fee by the studios, in exchange for arranging
all of the writers for a project, saving the studio from
having to identify and negotiate with each writer
individually. From the studios’ perspective this is
more efficient and perhaps, but not necessarily, less
Who Is Going to Eat More Pie, Writers or Agents?97
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
411Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
Many people believe good negotiators show no emotion, like Roger Federer on the
tennis court. But as you’ve learned, emotions are an integral part of the human experience
and of almost everything we do. Let us learn how they affect negotiations next.
Emotions and Negotiations
Negotiation experts and researchers provide guidance on how to use emotions to your
advantage. Remember that emotions are contagious. If you want the other party to be
calm, creative, or energetic, consider showing these emotions yourself.98
Preparation is critical to effective negotiations. The following tips can help you pre-
pare emotionally for an upcoming negotiation.
1. Identify your ideal emotions. How do you want to feel going into the negotiation? Why?
Many people answer this question quickly and say, “calm but assertive,” but when
probed further they reveal other, if not competing, emotions. The challenge is to realize
which emotions will best suit your objectives and be mindful of them while negotiating.
2. Manage your emotions. What can you do in advance to put yourself in the ideal emo-
tional state? Promote positive emotions. Choose appropriately—meditation to calm
you down or perhaps music that pumps you up. If you are ambushed or put on the
spot, such as by an unexpected phone call or somebody stopping by your office, buy
some time and say to your negotiating partner, “I just need to wrap up what I’m doing,
and I’ll call you back in 10 minutes.” This will give you time to regain the appropriate
emotional state.
3. Know your hot buttons. What can throw you off balance? Some people seem eternally
patient, others get frustrated easily, and some negotiators try to push your hot buttons
as a deliberate tactic. Know your own tendencies and be sure to manage them appro-
priately.
4. Keep your balance. Everyone loses balance occasionally. How will you regain yours if
lost? Taking a break is a good idea. Stepping out, going to the restroom, or simply call-
ing a “time-out” can provide a break in the action and enable you to regroup. These
same tactics can redirect a negotiation that has gone in the wrong direction. You may
also want to redirect to higher-level issues, especially if you are getting bogged down in
details.
5. Identify your takeaway emotions. How do you want to feel when you’re finished? Many
people say, “relieved,” which signifies the stress many of us feel while negotiating.
costly. The writers, however, argue this money
should go to them and not the agents. Their position
is reinforced by the claim compensation for their
work is either stagnant or declining, despite the cur-
rent time period being heralded as high-times for TV,
due in large part to streaming service expanding the
TV universe and generating demand for more con-
tent (writers and their writing).
Second, a number of major agencies (William
Morris Endeavor, Creative Artists, and United Talent)
are now producing their own shows, which histori-
cally has only been done by studios. This means
they now generate their own content, what writers
provide, which then is sold to studios. Writers claim
this is a conflict of interest as they are now compet-
ing with the people who are supposed to represent
them and sell their work.
Potential Actions. The contract formalizing the
arrangement has expired, and if the agencies don’t
come around the writers have been instructed to fire
agencies, work directly with studios, and do their
own deals on their own terms. For their part, agen-
cies have threatened to sue claiming it is unlawful (in
some states) for writers’ managers and attorneys to
act as agents. Also, the agents are unwilling to give
up the practices challenged by the writers.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What would you do if you were representing the
writers? The agencies? Explain.
2. Which conflict handling style do you think is
most suitable for each representative?
3. Do you think this scenario is best suited for a dis-
tributive, integrative, or ADR approach? Explain.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
412 PART 2 Groups
Others say, “satisfied,” which speaks more to performance. Whatever the case for you,
set goals for emotions just as you do for other outcomes in negotiations (and in the
Organizing Framework).99
Do emotions affect position-based and interest-based negotiations differently? The
answer appears to be yes. Research showed expressing emotional ambivalence—not clearly
positive or clearly negative—can be detrimental in position-based negotiations. The ratio-
nale is that it invites the other side to be assertive and take advantage of you. However, in
interest-based negotiations emotional ambivalence was shown to increase value creation.
Being ambivalent, rather than clearly positive or negative emotionally, tends to facilitate
cooperation and allow you the opportunity to integrate the negotiators’ interests.100
Nonverbal communications also help convey your emotions during negotiations. You
can smile, laugh, or flinch in reaction to a first offer, for example. These actions signal
your counterpart that his or her proposal is unacceptable.101
Although the Winning at Work feature at the beginning of this chapter addressed
negotiating salaries and pay raises, we feel the topic is so important that we offer addi-
tional insights at the end of this negotiation section. Our intention is for you to combine
the knowledge you’ve acquired throughout the chapter to become more effective, and to
this end we describe exchanges and associated scripts to help during these crucial conver-
sations in the following Applying OB box.
Applying OB
Knowing what to say can build your efficacy (Chapter 3)
and shape a more positive attitude (Chapter 4) around
your negotiations, which by themselves are likely to
improve the outcomes of your efforts. The scripts below
are equally useful when used via e-mail, over the
phone, or face-to-face.
Salary Discussions During the Interview
Interviewer: “What’s your current salary?”
Your responses: “I’m not really comfortable shar-
ing that information. I would prefer to focus on the
value I can add to this company and not what I’m
paid at my current job.” (Note: Such questions are
increasingly illegal In many states.)
Interviewer: “What’s your expected salary?”
Your response: “I want this move to a be a big step
forward for me in terms of both responsibility and
compensation.”
Note: If a prospective employer seems hung up on or
overly determined to learn your current pay and expec-
tations, this may be a red flag, suggesting they are try-
ing to underpay and get a bargain. Beware.
Getting More After Receiving an Offer:
The Counter Offer
Josh Doody, author of Fearless Salary Negotia-
tion, recommends considering four elements when
determining your counter request: (1) salary offered,
(2) your minimum acceptable salary (your walk away
number), (3) your perception of how bad they want you
to accept, and (4) how bad you need/want the job.
Prospective employer: The company offered you
$45,000.
My response: “I appreciate the offer. I however feel
$50,000 would more accurately reflect the impor-
tance and expectations for this position, especially
considering my qualifications and experience.”
If you’re fortunate enough to have an actual offer
from another company, then consider saying:
“Thank you for this offer. As I mentioned during the
interview process, I’m speaking with multiple com-
panies. If you’re able to adjust your offer to
$50,000, then I would be eager to accept.”
The company’s counter will likely be somewhere
in between, in which case Doody recommends antici-
pating these amounts and creating a script. For
instance, using the example above, if the company
comes back with $49,000 accept outright.
If the company comes back with a lower number
and seems firm, consider accepting that number along
with something else of value to you, such as vacation
time, working from home, or a signing bonus. Identify
How to Ask for More Money102
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
413Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
and prioritize your preferences so you know the appro-
priate order and value. For example:
Company: “The best we can do is $47,500.”
Your response: “I understand that is the most you
can offer in terms of salary, but if you can add in an
extra week of vacation time, then I’m on board.”
If they say, no, then move to your second most valu-
able benefit, perhaps working from home one day per
week or a $4,000 signing bonus. Once they agree,
you’re finished. Don’t try for more.
Asking for a Raise
Typically, the motive for asking is you feel your value to
the company has increased over time and is not
reflected in your salary. Put differently, your salary was
set some time ago, and now you have more experience
and have made real contributions. Doody recommends
making the request via e-mail.
“Boss, during our next meeting I would like to dis-
cuss compensation. It has been X period of time since I
was hired or received a raise, and I would like to revisit
my compensation now that I’m contributing more to the
company. I’ve done some research and it appears the
mid-point for this job in this industry is $Y. I thus would
like to request a pay raise to (insert target amount).”
It is a good idea to include your accomplishments
and justification for the raise in addition to the market
value of the job. Realize, however, the raise is for you,
not the job.
“Always remember, your talent Is precious, and
you deserve to be compensated for It. Learning to fos-
ter conversations about compensation is a vital skill
that yields rewards.”
TABLE 10.10 Questionable and Unethical Tactics in Negotiations
TACTIC DESCRIPTION/CLARIFICATION/RANGE
Lies Subject matter for lies can include limits, alternatives, the negotiator’s intent, authority to
bargain, other commitments, acceptability of the opponent’s offers, time pressures, and
available resources.
Puffery Among the items that can be puffed up are the value of one’s payoffs to the opponent, the
negotiator’s own alternatives, the costs of what one is giving up or is prepared to yield,
importance of issues, and attributes of the products or services.
Deception Acts and statements may include promises or threats, excessive initial demands, careless
misstatements of facts, or asking for concessions not wanted.
Weakening
the opponent
The negotiator here may cut off or eliminate some of the opponent’s alternatives, blame the
opponent for his own actions, use personally abrasive statements to or about the opponent,
or undermine the opponent’s alliances.
Strengthening
one’s own
position
This tactic includes building one’s own resources, including expertise, finances, and alli-
ances. It also includes presentations of persuasive rationales to the opponent or third parties
(e.g., the public, the media) or getting mandates for one’s position.
Nondisclosure Includes partial disclosure of facts, failure to disclose a hidden fact, failure to correct the
opponents’ misperceptions or ignorance, and concealment of the negotiator’s own position
or circumstances.
Information
exploitation
Information provided by the opponent can be used to exploit his weaknesses, close off his
alternatives, generate demands against him, or weaken his alliances.
Maximization Includes demanding the opponent make concessions that result in the negotiator’s gain and
the opponent’s equal or greater loss. Also entails converting a win–win situation into win–lose.
Now let’s close this section and chapter with a discussion of ethics and negotiations.
Ethics and Negotiations
Many people believe ethical negotiations are impossible, as individuals are self-interested
and will lie or otherwise deceive the other party the vast majority of the time in order to get
their desired outcome. (See Table 10.10 for a list of common questionable and unethical
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
414 PART 2 Groups
negotiation tactics.) Accordingly, most negotiation research focuses on and shows that
unethical tactics may have short term benefits but generally long-term costs, notably,
reduced trustworthiness and financial gains, as well as increased motivation by the
deceived to retaliate.103 But reality isn’t that simple. Like many other processes and out-
comes in the Organizing Framework, the causes of unethical negotiation behaviors can be
both person and situation factors.
Person Factors and Ethical Negotiations. Personality has been extensively stud-
ied and linked to first impressions of and satisfaction with negotiation partners, distributive
and integrative negotiation success, and speed of reaching final agreements, among others.
An especially relevant individual difference is moral character, which represents an
individual’s general tendency to think, feel, and behave in ways associated with
ethical and unethical behavior.104 As such, the assumption is that people with high moral
character are less likely to use the questionable tactics (see Table 10.10) and will instead
have more ethical and positive negotiation related attitudes, motives, and behaviors.105
Situation Factors and Ethical Negotiations. However, as you know by now, situa-
tion factors often influence person factors to produce outcomes different from what you
might expect. The same is true for negotiations. Incentives and dysfunctional competition—
where one party goes to any means to win—can influence otherwise well-intentioned ethical
negotiators. Also interesting is that groups tend to lie more often than individuals, which
suggests you may want to be especially careful when negotiating between teams, depart-
ments, or organizations.106 The rationale is the responsibility (guilt) is shared or diffused
among many people, as would any potential consequences.
Well, What’s the Answer? After considering all of this, you’re likely still left wonder-
ing—how do I determine what is ethical and what is not during negotiations? Sadly, the
answer isn’t simple either, but research provides three criteria to consider.107
1. Intent. If the deception is pro-social (benefits the target) it may be considered ethical,
whereas if information is withheld for your personal benefit then you have likely
crossed the line. When or why might you do deceive someone for their benefit? To
build goodwill, show good faith, because you’re generous, or because the other person
may indeed benefit more than you.
2. Content. Modifying your emotions to achieve a better outcome is viewed by many as
more acceptable than it is to change, omit, or lie about information. For instance, fak-
ing great disappointment with the process, offer, or outcome, or alternatively pretend-
ing to like the person illustrate deceptive emotions. Information can be manipulated
by providing false prices or dollar amounts (the most you’ll pay or the least you’ll
accept), or actually fabricating false information or lying about facts. Put more simply,
change your emotions but not the facts.
3. Activity. Lies of omission occur when one fails to reveal relevant information, and lies
of commission are just that, lies, as we commonly understand them—offering false
information. “The car’s transmission is like new,” when in fact it isn’t and has never
been serviced is a lie of commission. A lie of omission would be not telling the buyer
that the transmission has problems when you know it does.
One last thing to consider. Assume you’re searching for a job and have no offers in
hand. Would you still tell a prospective employer you do have concrete offers? Or, assume
you’ve been offered the job and the salary is $60,000. Would you say you have another and
higher offer, even if you didn’t, in an attempt to get the other party to boost the salary? Are
these tactics ethical? It might be worth answering these questions for yourself.
Let’s close the chapter with some practical and pointed applications.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
415Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We conclude this chapter with a number of practical applications for managing conflict and
negotiations to improve your effectiveness as both an employee and manager.
10.6 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN MANAGING
CONFLICT AND NEGOTIATING GIVE ME AN
ADVANTAGE?
Takeaways for Me
We highlight eight practical nuggets for you.
1. Realize that not all conflict is bad or should be avoided. Some amount of functional
conflict is desirable and can help you develop as an individual. Be especially mindful
of this if you run your own business or wish to do so someday. Conflict can lead to
growth.
2. Be sure to tend to dysfunctional conflict and don’t allow it to escalate, costing you jobs
and relationships.
3. Personality conflicts are almost certain to happen. Table 10.3 can be helpful in dealing
with them.
4. Be mindful of work–school–family conflicts. The way you manage them can dramati-
cally affect your personal fulfillment and flourishing in life. Do what you can to bal-
ance demands from the various arenas of your life and look for companies that are
also mindful of this and have family-friendly policies and leaders.
5. Beware of the many forms of incivility at work. Don’t underestimate their causes and
effects. Beyond what your employer requires through policies and practices, civility,
like ethical conduct, starts with the behavior of individuals. Table 10.6 can help clarify
what to do.
6. Use your knowledge of conflict-handling styles and your own preferences to be more
effective when dealing with groups and teams. Table 10.7 is an excellent guide to which
style to use in a given situation.
7. Continue to expand your knowledge and skill using interest-based negotiations. Doing
so can help you avoid and overcome the resistance common in position-based negotia-
tions. You’re often better off to approach the other parties as partners than adversaries.
8. The knowledge and tools in this chapter are essential if you hope to manage people effec-
tively. Apply your knowledge and build your skills!
Takeaways for Managers
We provide seven practical steps for you as a manager.
1. Distinguish between conflict states and conflict processes. Doing so will make you
more effective at avoiding and remedying conflict as a manager.
2. Managing intergroup conflict can make or break your own opportunities and successes.
Perhaps the single best way to prevent such conflicts, as well as to deal with them, is
to create a psychologically safe climate.
Describe the
implications of
managing conflict
and negotiations for
you and managers.
LO 10-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
416 PART 2 Groups
3. Beware of the many forms of incivility at work. As a manager you are responsible for
knowing what is happening, intervening, and following up. Do not underestimate how
destructive incivility is to individuals, your team, and your larger organization. Not
only the targets suffer. Your own actions are the single most powerful tool you have.
Don’t tolerate bad behavior. Use Table 10.6 as a guide.
4. Utilize devil’s advocacy and the dialectic method to arrive at better decisions and be
more inclusive.
5. Use your knowledge of conflict-handling styles and of your own preferences to become
more effective when dealing with groups and teams. Table 10.7 is an excellent guide for
which style to use in a given situation.
6. Become familiar with the alternative dispute resolution choices and use the appropriate
remedy (Table 10.8).
7. Taking an interest-based approach to negotiating with those you manage, and more gen-
erally with those with whom you work, can improve their level of trust in you and thereby
boost your effectiveness.
To summarize, conflict and negotiations are affected by and in turn influence many
elements in the Organizing Framework. They can determine your personal satisfaction and
performance throughout your professional life. Apply your knowledge of conflict and
negotiation to realize its true value and enhance your own effectiveness.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
417Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
In this chapter you learned that by managing con-
flict and applying sound principles in negotiation,
you gain an advantage in working for better out-
comes at work, school, and home, and across all
levels of organizations. Reinforce and consolidate
your learning with the Key Points and Organizing
Framework. Then challenge your mastery of the
material by completing the Problem-Solving
Application Case and Legal/Ethical Challenge.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 10
You learned the following key points:
10.1 A CONTEMPORARY VIEW OF
CONFLICT
• Conflict is the energy created by the per-
ceived gap between what we want and what
we’re experiencing.
• Conflict can be either functional or dysfunc-
tional.
• People avoid conflict for many reasons; how-
ever, doing so can cause it to escalate.
10.2 CONVENTIONAL FORMS OF
CONFLICT
• Common forms of conflict are personality and
intergroup.
• Personality conflicts can be overcome with or
without the help of others.
• Contact and safety climates can help prevent
intergroup conflict.
10.3 FORMS OF CONFLICT
INTENSIFIED BY
TECHNOLOGY
• Work–life conflict is the perception expecta-
tions and demands between work and non-
work roles are mutually incompatible.
• Designate time, designate space, and share
responsibilities to help overcome work–life
conflict.
• Incivility (bullying and harassment) has nega-
tive consequences not only for targeted
employees but also for coworkers who
witness it.
10.4 EFFECTIVELY MANAGING
CONFLICT
• Functional conflict can be fostered using pro-
grammed conflict, devil’s advocacy, and the
dialectic method.
• Five common conflict-handling styles are inte-
grating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and
compromising.
• Forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR)
include facilitation, conciliation, peer-review,
ombudsman, mediation, and arbitration.
10.5 NEGOTIATION
• Negotiation is a give-and-take decision-
making process involving two or more parties
with different preferences.
• Position-based negotiation focuses on a sin-
gle issue and dividing a fixed pie.
• Interest-based negotiation seeks agreements
that serve both parties varied interests.
• Emotions and ethics affect negotiations.
10.6 HOW CAN MANAGING
CONFLICT AND
NEGOTIATING GIVE
ME AN ADVANTAGE?
• Understanding and dealing with conflict is
critical to your job and career success.
• An inability to manage conflict is a common
reason managers don’t succeed or advance
to higher levels of responsibility.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 10
As shown in Figure 10.6, you learned that conflict is
an inevitable part of organizational life and serves
as an especially important group/team-level
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
418 PART 2 Groups
process of negotiation is a valuable tool for pre-
venting and managing conflict, as well as achiev-
ing goals.
process in the Organizing Framework. The way
you manage conflict can influence outcomes
across all levels of OB. You also learned the
FIGURE 10.6 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
SOURCE: ©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Experience
• Skills and abilities
• Conflict-handling styles
• Values
• Needs
• Mindfulness
• Ethics
• Incivility
• Moral character
Situation Factors
• Relationship quality
• Leadership
• Organizational climate
• Stressors
• Incivility
• Alternative dispute resolution
practices
Individual Level
• Conflict and negotiation
• Emotions
• Interpersonal skills
• Perceptions
• Performance management
practices
• Trust
• Communication
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
• Conflict and negotiation
• Decision making
• Performance management
• Leadership
• Communication
• Trust
Organizational Level
• Human resource policies and
practices
• Communication
• Leading and managing
change and stress
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial perfor-
mance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
• Reputation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
419Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
Facebook’s meteoric growth and central role in revolu-
tionizing social media has been overshadowed in
recent years by its many controversies, such as the
company’s role related to influencing the presidential
election in 2016, the improper harvesting and use of
nearly 90 million user accounts by Cambridge Analyt-
ica, and the widespread concerns by users and regula-
tors that the company insufficiently protects its more
than 2.2 billion users’ data and privacy. These issues
are significant, as they can and have cost the company
users, advertising revenues, damage to its reputation,
along with fines and restriction from regulators. Adding
to the troubles, top level executives like Mark Zucker-
berg and Sheryl Sandberg’s conduct has been ques-
tioned on ethical grounds for how they’ve responded.108
PRECIOUS JEWELS, NOW
COSTLY CONFLICT
However, the issues that grab fewer headlines but per-
haps signal other significant troubles are the depar-
tures of key executives of companies Facebook has
acquired, notably Instagram and WhatsApp. Facebook
bought Instagram in 2012 for $1 billion, when it had
only a few employees and about 30 million users. It
now has 1 billion users and an estimated value of $100
billion if it were independent. WhatsApp was purchased
in 2014 for $19 billion at a time when it had approxi-
mately 50 employees and about 450 million users. Just
two years later the number was over 1 billion users.
These acquisitions have been central to Facebook’s
strategy and growth, but the founders of these two
companies (Jan Koum and Brian Acton of WhatsApp,
and Kevin Systom and Mike Krieger of Instagram) have
all left in the period of a few months, signaling conflict
and trouble at the social networking icon.109
HARMONIOUS AUTONOMY
The founders of both Instagram and WhatsApp stayed
in place for several years after their companies were
acquired, which is not the norm given many cash out
and leave. They however were allowed to run their
companies much as they had, maintaining autonomy
and the ability to creatively realize their visions for the
companies they created. For WhatsApp founders,
Koum and Acton, their passion was the privacy of
communication. WhatsApp’s encrypted messaging
service exploded in parts of the world where messaging
services were either expensive or social networks like
Facebook had not penetrated. Mr. Koum, in particular,
valued secure communication due to his upbringing in
the Soviet Union where everyone was monitored all of
the time. The founders continued to develop Whats-
App’s end-to-end encryption after the Facebook acqui-
sition, avoided advertising, and maintained offices
separate from Facebook’s campus. In fact, WhatsApp’s
offices do not even bear the company’s name; how
about that for dedication to privacy?
As for Instagram, Systom and Krieger also pre-
served considerable autonomy over the app and grew
advertising revenues to $6 billion in 2018. The app is
growing and is particularly popular with younger peo-
ple. Despite the controversies consuming Facebook
and Zuckerberg, the founders’ relationship with Zuck-
erberg seemed harmonious and was often touted by
Zuckerberg and others as a model for how to acquire
and work with small tech companies.
ZUCKERBERG ASSERTS CONTROL
Facebook, fairly or not, is equated with its founder, Mr.
Zuckerberg, who maintains control and largely deter-
mines the direction and structure of the company he
founded. And therein lies the source of many of the
conflicts. Zuckerberg envisions integrating Facebook’s
apps (Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram) which will
require the sharing of user data between the products
in ways not done previously. Part of this effort has
included reorganizing senior management and install-
ing Adam Mosseri as VP of product design at Insta-
gram, a role previously filled by the founders. But it
didn’t stop there. Zuckerberg also inserted Chris Cox,
Facebook’s chief product officer, between him and
Systom and Krieger, which many internal to Instagram
viewed as a move to put a trusted “Facebook first” per-
son in place to control the direction and guard against
the departure of the founders.
CONFLICTS GROW AND
FOUNDERS EXIT
Instagram’s founders increasingly disagreed with
Zuckerberg and other Facebook executives during
meetings, and although historically quite cordial, the
disagreements became more severe and spilled over
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
With Trouble Comes Conflict, and with Conflict
Comes Trouble
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
420 PART 2 Groups
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
Use the Organizing Framework in Figure 10.6 and the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify
inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework to help identify the important
problem(s) in this case. Remember that a prob-
lem is a gap between a desired and current
state. State your problem as a gap and be sure
to consider problems at all three levels. If more
than one desired outcome is not being accom-
plished, decide which one is most important and
focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are gen-
erally viewed from a particular player’s perspec-
tive. You need to determine from whose
perspective—employee, manager, team, or the
organization—you’re defining the problem. In
this case you’re asked to assume the role of
CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current
chapter, because we generally select cases illus-
trating concepts specifically located within the
current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify the causes of the
problem you identified in Step 1. Remember, causes
tend to appear in either the Inputs or Processes boxes.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 10.6) and decide which person factors,
if any, are most likely causes of the defined
problem. For each cause, explain why this is a
cause of the problem. Asking why multiple times
is more likely to lead you to root causes of the
problem. For example, do executive characteristics
help explain the problem you defined in Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, why is this a cause?
By asking why multiple times you are likely to
arrive at a complete and more accurate list of
causes. Again, look to the Organizing Frame-
work for this chapter for guidance. Did particular
policies or practices play a role?
onto internal message boards. As for WhatsApp, Zuck-
erberg is determined for the app to start using adver-
tising and making money, which requires sharing user
data between the apps. Koum had taken issue with
how data was used by social media companies, espe-
cially by Facebook, and abruptly resigned. As one
reporter put it: “Instead of changing his values, Mr.
Koum is leaving Facebook.”110 His departure was fur-
ther complicated due to his seat on Facebook’s board
of directors (he resigned).
In the period of only a few months all of the found-
ers of these crown jewel acquisitions had left. Although
some of the motives were unique to individual execu-
tives, they appeared to share a growing dissatisfaction
with Zuckerberg and the direction of the company.
Power and decision making were shifting away to oth-
ers and becoming more centralized. It is likely the
departing executives felt their objections would not
prevail and resistance would be futile.
THE PROBLEM IS BIGGER AND THE
CONFLICTS MORE NUMEROUS
The problem is not just confined to WhatsApp and Ins-
tagram. Justin Rosenstein (creator of the “like” button),
Chamath Palihapitiya (head of user growth), and Sandy
Parakilas (platform operations manager) have all left.
They, too, have taken issue with protection of data and
privacy, the use of the platforms to manipulate thought
and behavior, as well as the lack of personal account-
ability by executives. Their issues reflect a growing
concern across the industry about increased growth
and connectivity, but at what cost. Zuckerberg and
other social media executives are being pressed to
justify if not alter their own values, or at least the prac-
tices of their companies, related to data protection,
usage, and privacy.111
Some view the conflicts and departures of key
executives as pushback against Zuckerberg’s mission
for Facebook, to “make the world more open and con-
nected.” Increasingly, as described in this case, impor-
tant players both inside and outside the company are
taking issue with the means for reaching this end.
Zuckerberg, as the founder and face of the company,
is now forced to confront challenges and genuine con-
flict on many fronts, and how effectively he does this
will determine the direction, path, and outcomes for
years to come.
Assume you are Mark Zuckerberg, and you can go
back in time before the departures of these key execu-
tives. Apply the knowledge and tools in this chapter
and the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to deter-
mine how you would deal with the conflicts described
above.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
421Managing Conflict and Negotiations CHAPTER 10
dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is
desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes you identified in Step 2, what
are your best recommendations? Use material in
the current chapter that best suits the cause.
Consider the OB in Action and Applying OB
boxes, because these contain insights into what
others have done.
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors—as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your rec-
ommendations and be sure your recommendations
map onto the causes and resolve the problem.
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organiz-
ing Framework. Are any processes at the indi-
vidual, group/team, or organizational level
potential causes of your defined problem? For
any process you consider, ask yourself, why is
this a cause? Again, do this for several iterations
to arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem and confirm the link or cause and effect
connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make your recommendations for solving the problem.
Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Arbitrate or Litigate? Employees Now Have a Choice
If you haven’t actually been involved in arbitration,
then you might be surprised to know you have likely
agreed to this form of alternative dispute resolution
(ADR) many times without knowing it. Most cell phone,
cable, Internet, online shopping, and credit card agree-
ments have contained arbitration clauses for quite
some time. In the fine print of their service agreements
are buried the words, “The company may elect to
resolve any claim by individual arbitration.” This means
you agree to be bound by the decision of a third party,
often hired by the company against which you have a
complaint. You cannot take matters to court, which
also means you cannot band together with coworkers
in a class action suit.112
Arbitration agreements are frequently included in
employment contracts with little or no room to negoti-
ate the terms. The potential benefit of maintaining the
confidentiality of the matters and people involved can
be negated by the inability to appeal decisions. More-
over, the confidentiality element (also governed by
nondisclosure agreements—NDAs) has come under
fire most recently for shielding the perpetrators of sex-
ual harassment and assault, such as those disclosed in
the #MeToo movement.
Google, along with Adobe and Intuit, made head-
lines when they eliminated forced arbitration for all
employee disputes. This is seen as a tectonic event.
Such agreements typically give the employer an
enormous advantage, as they have skill and experi-
ence in arbitrating, as well as financial resources, that
employees typically lack. For instance, research
shows employees on average receive larger settle-
ments in court than in arbitration.113
Changes at tech, and other, companies have been
motivated by protests over mandatory arbitration pro-
tecting executives and their employers from the
embarrassment and costs associated with sexual
harassment. This is viewed as a victory for employees
who can now more effectively pursue claims of dis-
crimination, wage theft and overtime issues, or many
other employee-employer disputes.114
However, it is important to recall the benefits of
arbitration: time, cost, and confidentiality (sometimes
names and offenses are best left out of public view).
And Google did not eliminate mandatory arbitration for
its contract workers who comprise approximately half
of its workforce.
What Should Be Done?
1. Nothing. Allow companies to include arbitration
agreements in employment contracts as they
choose. Explain your reasoning.
2. Modify the arbitration agreements to better pro-
tect employees. Explain your recommended
modifications.
3. Do away with arbitration agreements in employ-
ment contracts just as Google and other compa-
nies have done. Justify.
4. Create and explain other alternatives.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 11-1 Compare rational and nonrational models of decision making.
LO 11-2 Describe eight decision-making biases.
LO 11-3 Explain evidence-based decision making.
LO 11-4 Compare the four styles of decision making.
LO 11-5 Describe how to assess the ethics of decision making.
LO 11-6 Outline the basics of group decision making.
LO 11-7 Explain how creativity relates to decision making.
LO 11-8 Describe the implications of decision making and creativity for you
and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Throughout this book we encourage you to use the Organizing Framework to solve problems, a
skill recruiters say college graduates need.1 The goal of this chapter is to further help you
develop your problem-solving skills. The Organizing Framework in Figure 11.1 summarizes
what you will learn in this chapter. Although the chapter focuses on decision making, which is an
individual- and group/team-level process, a host of person and situation factors influence it.
Figure 11.1 further shows that many other individual, group/team, and organizational level pro-
cesses impact how we make decisions. We will touch on many of these in the sections to come.
Finally, take note of how the various decision-making processes affect numerous individual,
group/team, and organizational level outcomes.
Decision Making
and Creativity11
Ja
n
H
av
lic
ek
/J
oh
ny
87
/1
23
RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
423
FIGURE 11.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Intuition
• Judgmental heuristics
• Decision-making styles
• Ethical values
• Personality
• Self-efficacy
• National culture
Situation Factors
• Decision situation
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
Individual Level
• Rational/nonrational decision
making
• Ethical decision making
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Rational/nonrational decision
making
• Groupthink
• Minority dissent
• Consensus
• Creativity
Organizational Level
• Evidence-based decision
making
• Creativity
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Legal liability
• Innovation
• Customer satisfaction
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Decision making and problem solving affect all aspects of our lives. Consider the success of a basketball
team. Here we see a coach meeting with her team to discuss strategies to defeat the opposing team.
Making effective decisions during the game can make the difference between winning and losing.
Randy Faris/Corbis/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
424
Winning at Work
How to Practice Critical Thinking for Decision Making
We make decisions every day. Some are minor—bring the
umbrella or not? Others are consequential, like your choice
of career, and others can be life-changing. This chapter
explores types of decisions, useful models and tools for
management decision making, and logical biases and other
problems that can get in the way of making good decisions.
One skill that underlies all good
decision making, however, and one
you can begin practicing right now, is
critical thinking, the application of
logic and reasoning to problem solv-
ing. Here are some tips:
1. Get all available facts. Decisions
made in the absence of facts are
often flawed, based on biased
thinking or guesswork, or overly
reliant on emotional responses
to an uncertain situation. Getting
reliable factual information from
several different sources is an
essential first step.
2. Understand your motive. This
means being clear about whether
you’ve sought objective information or merely valida-
tion of what you already believe. If you’re looking for
validation, you’re not thinking critically, and you need
to ask yourself why. You may be heading for a biased
decision.2
3. Reconsider the facts. Look objectively at the facts. If
you are basing your decision on some unavoidable as-
sumptions, for instance, ask yourself how valid they
are in light of objective reality. How often do circum-
stances like yours lead to the outcome you’re hoping
for? Learning about probability (the measure of an
event’s likelihood of occurring) can help you avoid
many of the cognitive biases this chapter will discuss.3
4. Expect to be wrong. Realize that no one is right all the
time. (Most of us are wrong surprisingly often.) Instead
of seeing this as a roadblock, use it to avoid the mis-
take of overconfidence. Ask for and listen to others’
opinions, reconsider your own logic, and be open to
the possibility that you could change your mind.4
5. Choose your course of action. If you’ve collected
facts, looked at them objectively, made sure you’re not
just confirming your own opinion, and listened carefully
to input from others, you’re ready to make a decision
as grounded in critical thinking as possible.
Another useful idea that roughly parallels these sugges-
tions is the “six thinking hats” strategy popularized by Edward
De Bono.5 The six hats are symbols in a step-by-step deci-
sion process that asks you to imagine putting on a different-
colored hat for each step. The white
hat is first and calls for you to focus on
the available facts and keep your
thinking free of bias, just as white is
free of color. Next, the black hat allows
you to think negatively and assess
which ideas won’t work, followed by
the yellow hat, which focuses on the
positive (think sunshine) and the
potential for opportunity.
Like the shoots of a new plant, the
next hat is green for creativity and
insights from outside-the-box think-
ing, while red, suggesting hearts, puts
emotion in the picture so you can test
your intuition and feelings. The last
hat is blue like the sky and signals it’s
time to put all ideas together into an
action plan that will fly. One advantage of De Bono’s strat-
egy is that sequentially imagining the six hats helps keep
members of decision-making groups focused on the same
step at the same time. And it offers a good blueprint for indi-
viduals making decisions, too.
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
We contrast rational and nonrational decision mak-
ing and explain why it’s important to understand
both. We also show you eight decision-making
biases and the benefits of evidence-based decision
making. We explain why companies are leveraging
big data and utilizing artificial intelligence to make
decisions. Next we discuss general decision-making
styles and ethical decision making. We conclude by
distinguishing the pros and cons of group decision
making, group problem-solving techniques, and the
process of creativity. All this information will help
you improve your ability to make decisions.
Six different colored hats symbolize a popular
step-by-step decision process.
YolLusZam1802/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
425Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
11.1 RATIONAL AND NONRATIONAL MODELS OF
DECISION MAKING
Decision making matters deeply in your personal and work life. Let’s consider the
impact of decisions made by a few college graduates during the interview process. One
job applicant took a nonemergency call on his smartphone 15 minutes into the inter-
view. Do you think this decision made a positive impression? Another decided to bring
his father into a 45-minute interview: The recruiter was shocked. Paula Welch, a Cigna
HR representative, similarly noted how one recent grad asked his father to call and nego-
tiate a higher salary after the son received a job offer. Here’s another decision: A college
senior brought her cat to the interview in a cage and then proceeded to play with it dur-
ing the interview. The end results of these decisions were negative for all the applicants.6
Decision making entails identifying and choosing from among alternate solu-
tions that lead to a desired state of affairs. The above examples illustrate how decisions
affect your chances of getting a job after graduation, but successful decision making has
much broader applications. Among organizations, for example, Fortune concluded,
“Decision making at even the most basic level has slowed materially over the past five to
10 years.”7 Slower decision making leads to increased costs, lower efficiency, and lower
customer satisfaction.8 In sum, individuals, teams, and organizations are well served to
improve their decision-making skills.
Before discussing rational and nonrational models of decision making, we set the
context by discussing two ways of thinking that affect the way we make decisions.
Two Ways of Thinking
In his book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, a professor who received the 2002
Nobel Prize in economics, described two kinds of thinking, which he labeled System 1 and
System 2.9
System 1—Intuitive and Largely Unconscious Thought System 1 is our auto-
matic, instinctive, and emotional mode of decision making. It is fast because it relies on
mental shortcuts that create intuitive solutions to problems as they come up, for example,
when we hit the brakes at the sight of another car’s brake lights or pause when we detect
anger in someone’s voice.
System 2—Analytical and Conscious Thought System 2 is our slow, logical,
deliberate mode of decision making. It helps us identify when our intuition is wrong or
when our emotions are clouding our judgment. It requires more cognitive effort than
System 1 and is used when contemplating a discrete task such as parallel parking or how
to best climb a tree.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Decision making is a key process within the Organizing Framework for Understanding and
Applying OB. The process varies along a continuum of rational to nonrational. Four steps in
making rational decisions are (1) identify the problem, (2) generate alternative solutions,
(3) evaluate alternatives and select a solution, and (4) implement and evaluate the solution.
Examples of nonrational models include (1) satisficing and (2) intuition.
Compare rational and
nonrational models
of decision making.
LO 11-1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
426 PART 2 Groups
Both Systems Have Value There are pros and cons
to both systems of thinking. For example, System 1 think-
ing forms first impressions and judgments, which may be
automatic but may lead us to jump to conclusions that may
or may not be accurate. It can also lead to poor follow-
through on plans because it focuses on immediate payoffs,
which distract us from considering the long-term implica-
tions of our decisions.10
When System 1 runs into difficulties, we can call on
System 2 thinking for a more methodical approach to a spe-
cific situation or problem. System 2 thinking typically gets
involved only when we encounter something unexpected
that System 1 thinking can’t answer. In addition, System 2
thinking can be time consuming, especially when we don’t
have the cognitive energy or attention required to think
through a situation. For example, suppose you were looking
to purchase a new phone. Comparing two different smart-
phones to determine their features and price points requires
attention to detail and may take longer than a quick deci-
sion that occurs using System 1 thinking.11
Rational Decision Making:
Managers Make Logical and Optimal Decisions
The rational model of decision making explains how managers should make deci-
sions. It assumes that managers are completely objective and possess all information for
their decisions. In this model, decisions thus demonstrate excellent logic and promote the
organization’s best interests.
Four generic stages are associated with rational decision making (see Figure 11.2). We
discuss each one next.
Stage 1: Identify the Problem or Opportunity—Determining the Actual versus
the Desirable We defined a problem in Chapter 1 as a difference or gap between an
actual and a desired situation. By now you know that problem identification is the first step
in solving any type of problem. In addition to making decisions to solve problems, however,
managers also have to make decisions about optimizing opportunities. An opportunity is a
situation in which results that exceed goals and expectations are possible. For exam-
ple, U.S. medical schools must prepare to graduate more than 12,000 more medical students
each year over the next decade. This opportunity, however, will require some tough decisions
because the number of funded medical residencies has been frozen by the federal govern-
ment since 1997. Residencies are the three to seven years of additional on-the-job training
that medical students need before they can practice medicine on their own. Without Congress
approving the additional funding for more medical residencies, the Association of American
Medical Colleges predicts a shortage of as many as 121,000 doctors by 2030.12
What do you do when you see the rear brake lights like this
light up? Do you think about stepping on the brake, or do
you automatically hit the brakes? This automatic process is
an example of System 1 thinking.
Ingram Publishing
FIGURE 11.2 The Four Stages in Rational Decision Making
Stage 1
Identify the
problem or
opportunity.
Stage 2
Generate
alternative
solutions.
Stage 3
Evaluate
alternatives
and select a
solution.
Stage 4
Implement and
evaluate the
solution chosen.
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
427Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
Whether you face a problem or an opportunity, the goal is always the same: to
make improvements that change conditions from their current state to a more desirable
one. This requires you to diagnose the cause of the problem, or the nature of the
opportunity.
Stage 2: Generate Alternative Solutions—Both the Obvious and the Creative
For many people generating solutions is the exciting part of decision making, the step
where you get to be creative, think outside the box, and share your ideas about how things
should be done. Brainstorming, for instance, is a common technique (discussed later in the
chapter) that both individuals and groups use to generate potential solutions. A research
study of 400 strategic decisions revealed that managers struggled during brainstorming
because of three key decision-making blunders:13
1. Rushing to judgment. Managers simply make decisions too quickly without consider-
ing all relevant information.
2. Selecting readily available ideas or solutions. Managers take the easy solution without
rigorously considering alternatives. This can happen when emotions about the prob-
lem are running high.
3. Making poor allocation of resources to study alternate solutions. Managers don’t invest
the resources to properly study the problem and the alternate courses of action.
Decision makers thus are encouraged to slow down and use System 2 thinking (ana-
lytical and conscious) when making decisions. This should lead them to identify a broader
set of alternatives and potential solutions.14
Stage 3: Evaluate Alternatives and Select a Solution—Ethics, Feasibility,
and Effectiveness In the third stage, evaluate your alternatives on several criteria.
Costs and quality are important, but you should also consider the following questions:
(1) Is it ethical? (If not, don’t consider it.) (2) Is it feasible? (If time is an issue, costs
are high, resources are limited, new technology is needed, or customers are resistant,
for instance, then the alternative is not feasible.) (3) Will it remove the causes and
solve the problem?
Stage 4: Implement and Evaluate the Solution Chosen After the solution has
been implemented, stakeholders need to evaluate how effectively it solves the problem. If
effective, it should eliminate or significantly reduce the difference between the problem
state and the desired outcome. If not, either the problem was incorrectly identified or the
solution was inappropriately conceived or executed. Management can return to the first
step, problem identification. If the problem was correctly identified, management should
consider implementing one of the untried solutions. This process can continue until all
feasible solutions have been tried or the problem has changed. System 2 thinking is needed
to effectively work through this stage.
What Are the Pros and Cons of the Rational Model? The rational model is pre-
scriptive. It outlines a logical process managers should use, assuming they are optimizing
when making decisions. Optimizing means solving problems by producing the best
possible solution based on a set of highly desirable conditions—having complete
information, leaving emotions out of the decision-making process, honestly and accurately
evaluating all alternatives, having abundant and accessible time and resources, and having
people willing to implement and support decisions. Practical experience, of course, tells us
that these conditions are all rarely met, and assumptions to the contrary are unrealistic.
Social scientist Herbert Simon earned the 1978 Nobel Prize for his work on decision mak-
ing. He put it this way: “The assumptions of perfect rationality are contrary to fact. It is not
a question of approximation; they do not even remotely describe the processes that human
beings use for making decisions in complex situations.”15
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
428 PART 2 Groups
That said, there are three benefits of trying to follow a rational process as closely as is
realistically possible:
• Quality. The quality of decisions may be enhanced, in the sense that they follow
more logically from all available knowledge and expertise.
• Transparency. Rationality makes the reasoning behind a decision transparent and
available to scrutiny.
• Responsibility. The rational model discourages decision makers from acting on sus-
pect considerations (such as personal advancement or avoidance of bureaucratic
embarrassment) and therefore encourages more responsible decisions.16
Nonrational Models of Decision Making: Decision
Making Does Not Follow an Orderly Process
Nonrational models of decision making explain how managers actually make deci-
sions. These models typically build on assumptions that decision making is uncertain,
that decision makers do not possess complete information, and that managers struggle to
make optimal decisions. The choice to text while driving is an example of nonrational
decision making.
According to recent statistics, 9 percent of all U.S. fatal crashes involve texting while
driving, and texting while driving increases by 400 percent a driver’s time spent with their
eyes off the road. At 55 mph, that’s enough time to travel the length of a football field.17
Psychologist Dan Ariely noted, “This behavior embodies the way we’re capable of doing
things that can kill us without thinking about the long-term consequences.”18 Two nonra-
tional models that might explain this behavior are Herbert Simon’s normative model and
the intuition model.
Do you text and drive? Many of us do even in light of the fact that about 25 percent of all automobile
accidents involve the use of a cell phone. Sadly, the American Automobile Association estimates that
11 teens die every day from texting and driving. What can you do to reduce the extent to which you
text and drive?
kali9/Getty Images
Simon’s Normative Model: “Satisfactory Is Good Enough” Herbert Simon
proposed the normative model to describe the process that managers actually use when
making decisions. This process is guided by a decision maker’s bounded rationality.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
429Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
Bounded rationality represents the notion that decision makers are “bounded” or
restricted by a variety of constraints when making decisions. Lack of information is a
prime example of a decision-making constraint. Would you invest $500 million in the face
of bounded rationality? General Motors did.
GM invested more than $500 million in the car-hailing service Lyft. GM management
concluded that Lyft could help the automaker prepare for a time when people will want
self-driving cars. What will the market be for such cars? When will that market become
viable? Will the government block this market due to safety concerns? As of today, no one
really knows, but both companies see the world changing quickly and wanted to prepare
for the future.19
In addition to lack of information, bounded rationality is caused by any personal
characteristics and internal and external resources that reduce rational decision making.
Personal characteristics include personality and the limited capacity of the human mind.
Consider gender: Males tend to make riskier decisions than females.20 Examples of inter-
nal resources are the organization’s human and social capital, financial resources, technol-
ogy, plant and equipment, internal processes and systems, and the time available. External
resources include factors the organization cannot directly control, such as employment
levels in the community, capital availability, and government policies.21
Ultimately, bounded rationality leads managers to obtain manageable rather than optimal
amounts of information as described in the OB in Action feature. This practice makes it dif-
ficult for managers to identify all possible alternate solutions. In the long run, the constraints
of bounded rationality cause decision makers to fail to evaluate all potential alternatives,
thereby causing them to satisfice.
How do you make a decision that will affect the future
when you don’t know what will happen a week or a
year from now? Making choices in the face of incom-
plete information—that is, under the constraints of
bounded rationality—is a challenging situation we
face all the time, in our personal and professional
lives. For example, Charles Darwin, whose scientific
mind shaped the theory of evolution, was so con-
founded by the decision whether to marry and have
children or remain single that he made a list of pros
and cons for each option. (He opted to marry.)22
If you are looking for a decision-making strategy
that’s more reliable than subjectively comparing
pros and cons, consider the intensive collaborative
and interdisciplinary technique called “design char-
rette,” in which decision makers gather as a group
and divide their problem into multiple parts, each of
which is taken over by a small but diverse group
that works to find a solution. The groups then reas-
semble, each presents its work to the others, and a
process of giving feedback, making revisions, and
regrouping begins that lasts until a decision has
been made.23 The word charrette is French for cart
and refers to the wheeled container that was used
to gather students’ assignments in the classrooms
of 19th-century France.24 Here are some recent
examples of the charrette strategy in use.
• Consultants from MIG Inc., charged with plan-
ning a major update to the passenger terminal
at California’s Hollywood Burbank Airport,
recently held the first of several planned meet-
ings with local residents and other stakehold-
ers to discuss what they would like to see in
the new design. About 80 people attended
and split into small groups to offer their ideas,
which will be refined in more charrette work-
shops to follow.25
• Design students at the University of Kentucky,
University of Cincinnati, and Western Kentucky
University provided input to a building industry
design charrette intended to develop environ-
mentally sustainable and extreme weather-
resistant home-construction materials.26
Improving an Airport Terminal under Bounded Rationality
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
430 PART 2 Groups
Satisficing consists of choosing a solution that meets some minimum qualifica-
tions and thus is “good enough.” Satisficing resolves problems by producing solutions
that are satisfactory, as opposed to optimal. Finding a radio station to listen to in your car
is a good example of satisficing. You cannot optimize because it is impossible to listen to
all stations at the same time. You thus stop searching for a station when you find one play-
ing a song you like or do not mind hearing.
The Intuition Model: “It Just Feels Right” Intuition consists of judgments,
insights, or decisions that “come to mind on their own, without explicit awareness of
the evoking cues and of course without explicit evaluation of the validity of these
cues.”29 We all have the ability to use intuition.
EXAMPLE Ignoring recommendations from advisers, Ray Kroc purchased the
McDonald’s brand from the McDonald brothers: “I’m not a gambler and I didn’t have
that kind of money, but my funny bone instinct kept urging me on.”30 Zachary Bodish
bought a poster for a 1958 exhibition of ceramics by Pablo Picasso for $14.44 at an
Ohio thrift store. He had a hunch it might be worth much more. Turns out the piece
was actually signed by Picasso, and Bodish sold it for $7,000.”31
The use of intuition does not always lead to blockbuster decisions such as those by
Ray Kroc and Zachary Bodish, however. To enhance your understanding of the role of
intuition in decision making, this section reviews a model of intuition and discusses the
pros and cons of using intuition to make decisions.
A Model of Intuition Figure 11.3 presents a model of intuition. Note that it shows two
forms of intuition:
1. A holistic hunch is a judgment based on the subconscious integration of infor-
mation stored in memory. People using holistic intuition may not be able to explain
why they want to make a certain decision except that the choice “feels right.” This
reflects System 1 thinking (intuitive and largely unconscious).
2. Automated experience represents a choice based on a familiar situation and a
partially subconscious application of learned information related to it. For exam-
ple, when you have years of experience driving a car, you react to a variety of situa-
tions without conscious analysis. Apple co-founder, the late Steve Jobs, arguably one
of the most important entrepreneurs in the last 40 years, attributed his success to
intuition, saying that “intuition is a very powerful thing, more powerful than intellect,
in my opinion. That had a big impact on my work.”32
• The Board of Selectmen in Rye, NH, held a
design charrette including themselves, town
residents, and consultants from a local non-
profit group to discuss ways to improve the
town center and bring the community together
by attracting both young families and older
residents. The meeting was inspired by resi-
dents, who suggested the charrette idea to
the board.27
• Drexel University’s departments of design
and architecture have hosted charrettes for
several years. Most recently, an interdisci-
plinary design charrette was organized to
discuss transforming the urban landscape of
Philadelphia by closing selected single streets
and redesigning them to increase, rather than
limit, public access to the business and facili-
ties now located there. Students from all
majors were invited to participate in an effort
aimed at “reconceiving the street as a truly
public space.”28
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. How do you think design charrettes help deci-
sion makers working under bounded rationality?
2. What other applications of design charrettes can
you think of? What would make the strategy
most successful in those situations?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
431Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
In Figure 11.3, you can see that intuition is represented by the two distinct processes
we just described. One is automatic, involuntary, and mostly effortless. The second is quite
the opposite in that it is controlled, voluntary, and effortful. For example, when you are
trying to answer one of the Your Thoughts? questions at the end of the OB in Action
boxes, an answer may pop into your mind based on your recollection of what you’ve read
(an automatic process). But upon further reflection (a controlled process), you may decide
your initial thought was wrong and that you need to go back and reread some material to
arrive at another answer. This in turn may cause novel ideas to come to mind, and the two
processes continue.
These intuitive processes are influenced by two sources: expertise and feelings (see
Figure 11.3). Expertise is an individual’s combined explicit knowledge or informa-
tion that can easily be put into words, and tacit knowledge or information we gain
through experience that is difficult to express and formalize.
EXAMPLE Tim Cook uses a combination of explicit and tacit knowledge when
making business decisions as Apple’s CEO. When Steve Jobs was still running
the company, Cook was instrumental in setting up Apple’s plan of using contract
manufacturers to make products faster and in larger quantities than Apple’s own
factories while keeping costs relatively low. This strategy also meant that Apple’s
competitors had to fight for the small amount of factory capacity left to build their
own products, which gave Apple a serious lead in getting products to market
(and to waiting consumers) faster than the rest. As Apple crossed the trillion-
dollar valuation mark recently, Cook continues to be a driving force in technology
as well as a champion for data privacy, human rights, and the ethical use of artifi-
cial intelligence.33
• Pros and Cons of Using Intuition. There are two benefits of using intuition to make
decisions. (1) It can speed up the decision-making process, which is valuable when
you are under time constraints.34 (2) It is useful when resources are limited. On the
FIGURE 11.3 A Model of Intuition
• Tacit and
explicit
knowledge
Expertise
• Automatic, involuntary,
and e�ortless
• Controlled, voluntary,
and e�ortful
Intuitive Processes
Feelings
Holistic Hunch
Foundations Processes Forms
Automated
Experience
SOURCES: Kahneman, Daniel, and Gary Klein. “Conditions for Intuitive Expertise: A Failure to Disagree.” American Psychologist
64, no. 6 (September 2009): 515–26. https://DOI: 10.1037/a0016755; Sadler-Smith, Eugene, and Erella Shefy. “The Intuitive
Executive: Understanding and Applying ‘Gut Feel’ in Decision-Making.” Academy of Management Executive 18, no. 4 (2004):
76–91; and Miller, C. Chet, and R. Duane Ireland. “Intuition in Strategic Decision Making: Friend or Foe in the Fast-Paced 21st
Century?” Academy of Management 19, no. 1 (February 2005). https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.2005.15841948.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
432 PART 2 Groups
downside, however, intuition is subject to the same types of biases associated with
rational decision making, biases we discuss in the next section. In addition, the deci-
sion maker may have difficulty convincing others that the intuitive decision makes
sense, so a good idea may be ignored.
• What Is the Bottom Line on Intuition? We believe intuition and rationality are comple-
mentary and that managers should attempt to use both when making decisions.35 We
thus encourage you to use intuition when making decisions. You can develop your
intuitive awareness by using the recommendations in the Applying OB box.
• Improving Your Intuitive Awareness. Do you think being intuitive is a good
thing? Would you like to become more intuitive? If yes, you will find Self-
Assessment 11.1 valuable.
Applying OB
rate? If your intuition was wrong, assess why and
try to use this knowledge in the future.
• Try visualizing solutions. This will help engage
System 1 thinking to activate your intuition. And
relax—worry and anxiety will hinder it.
• Challenge your intuition. Rather than automatically
accepting your intuitive thoughts, challenge them.
Test your intuition by thinking of counterarguments.
Then challenge those counterarguments.36
• Trust your intuitive judgments. The 80-20 rule
says if you have 80 percent of the relevant
information, your intuition can fill in the remaining
20 percent.
• Seek feedback. Confirm your intuitive judgments
by asking trusted others for feedback.
• Test your intuitive success rate. Think back over
the last year and assess how many times you
relied on your intuition. What was your success
Tips for Improving Your Intuition
Assessing Your Intuition
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 11.1 in Connect.
1. What is your assessed level of intuitiveness? Do you agree with this
assessment?
2. What are the two highest-ranked items driving your intuition? When do you tend
to use these characteristics?
3. What are the two lowest-ranked items that detract from your intuition? When do
they get in the way of your making intuitive decisions?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
433Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
THE BIGGER PICTURE
All of us use heuristics when making decisions. By better understanding the nature of these
various rules of thumb, you can improve your ability to make more rational decisions. Heuristics
fall into eight categories: availability bias, representativeness bias, confirmation bias, anchoring
bias, overconfidence bias, hindsight bias, framing bias, and escalation of commitment bias.
11.2 DECISION-MAKING BIASES: RULES OF THUMB
OR “HEURISTICS”
Ever had a hard time explaining why you made a particular decision? That’s normal.
All of us use shortcuts or “rules of thumb” when making decisions. Academics call
these shortcuts judgmental heuristics, pronounced “hyur-ris-tiks.” Judgmental heuristics
are cognitive shortcuts or biases that are used to simplify the process of making
decisions.37
There are both pros and cons to the use of heuristics.38 Because these shortcuts derive
from knowledge gained from past experience, they can help managers make decisions.
At the same time, however, they can lead to bad decisions, particularly by people facing
time constraints, such as physicians and other health care professionals. For example,
diagnostic errors affect more than 12 million Americans each year. According to a
recent study of malpractice claims, more than 53 percent of the claims were related to
inaccurate diagnoses and treatment. Some researchers estimate that more than $100 bil-
lion may be wasted annually in the U.S. as a result of inaccurate diagnoses.39 We suspect
heuristics are partly to blame for these outcomes because physicians and other health
care professionals don’t have the time to consider all of a patient’s symptoms when
making diagnoses.40
Here are eight biases that commonly affect decision making:
1. Confirmation bias
2. Overconfidence bias
3. Availability bias
4. Representativeness bias
5. Anchoring bias
6. Hindsight bias
7. Framing bias
8. Escalation of commitment bias
Knowledge about these biases or heuristics can help you to avoid using them in the
wrong situation or being blinded by not knowing you are in fact using them.
1. Confirmation bias. Confirmation bias pertains to how we selectively gather infor-
mation and has two components. The decision maker (1) subconsciously decides
something even before investigating why it is the right decision—for example, making
a snap decision to purchase a particular smartphone—and (2) seeks information that
supports or confirms the decision while discounting information that does not.41 This
bias leads us to collect information that supports our beliefs or views.
2. Overconfidence bias. Overconfidence bias results in overestimating our skills
relative to those of others, such as our driving ability, and overestimating the
Describe eight
decision-making
biases.
LO 11-2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
accuracy of our predictions. This bias grows in strength when people are asked
moderate to extremely difficult questions rather than easy ones. (See the Problem-
Solving Application on the California wildfire.) Recent research suggests that indi-
viduals who believe they are “better-than-average” and in better social standing than
others can fall prey to this bias.42 Our advice: Don’t assume that overconfident and
assertive people have the best recommendations.
Overconfidence Bias Partly to Blame for California Wildfire
Biases on the part of PG&E’s management team contributed
to the disastrous Camp Fire in California that killed 85 peo-
ple, left hundreds homeless, and destroyed the entire town
of Paradise.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Problem-Solving Application
434 PART 2 Groups
In late November 2018, a wildfire took hold in a
dangerously dry area of California’s Sierra Nevada
foothills. Possibly sparked by the malfunction of an
electrical power line that initially affected a single
customer, it soon burst out of control. Later known
as the Camp Fire, the blaze became the deadliest
and most destructive in California’s history. Before
being contained two weeks later, it had roared
through 154,000 acres of land and destroyed the
entire town of Paradise. At least 85 people were
killed, and hundreds left homeless; nearly 16,000
buildings were burned.43
The malfunctioning tower, left in place 25 years
longer than intended, belonged to Pacific Gas &
Electric (PG&E), a utility company with a history of
safety problems. According to the New York Times,
“Five of the 10 most destructive fires in California
since 2015 have been linked to PG&E’s electrical
network. Regulators have found that in many fires,
PG&E violated state law or could have done more
to make its equipment safer.” The company’s
interim CEO admitted errors and promised change,
but Governor Gavin Newsom told an interviewer
that the company, which recently filed for bank-
ruptcy under the burden of responsibility for tens of
billions of dollars of damage from the fire, could not
be trusted.44
State investigators probing earlier disasters
that implicated PG&E, including many hundreds of
fires, heard from employees that the company rou-
tinely looked the other way when they complained
about outdated equipment and flawed reports.
Finding the company had spent millions of dollars
less on operations and maintenance than autho-
rized, California’s Public Utilities Commission con-
cluded it was prioritizing the bottom line over
safety. PG&E was also accused of undertaking
repairs and improvements only after a fire or
explosion had occurred, instead of conducting
needed maintenance on a timely basis. “Some
people believe that you run equipment to failure,”
said one former state regulator. “They believe ‘run
to failure’ to save money. This [the Camp Fire] is
the danger of run to failure.” The company had
earlier announced some steps to incentivize safety
but they were short-lived, and at the time of the
Camp Fire it was in court, pushing back against
legal principles that would hold the utility liable for
damage caused by its equipment even when it
acted properly.45
PG&E, which has already come through one
bankruptcy proceeding, was also fighting to expand
the protection of a new law allowing utilities to pay
for the costs of fires by raising fees to customers.
The company and other utilities claim that their
rates will increase anyway because banks will be
less willing to lend them money, and that climate
change and increased development of remote
areas have made fires more likely and harder to
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
435Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
fight. Meanwhile the company’s stock dropped
60 percent, its credit rating was downgraded, and it
may face criminal charges relating to the fire if it is
found to have behaved in a “reckless” manner. It is
now seeking new directors and advice on prevent-
ing future disasters.46
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem in this example.
Step 2: Identify the causes. How did overconfidence and any other biases contribute to this disaster?
Step 3: Make your recommendations about what PG&E should do differently in the future to avoid
such disasters.
3. Availability bias. The availability heuristic is a decision maker’s tendency to base
decisions on information readily available in memory. Because the information is
recent, we overestimate its importance. The problem, of course, is that recent informa-
tion is not necessarily the best or most accurate. The availability bias can be fueled by
the news media, which emphasize negative or unusual events like school shootings
and plane crashes and often cause us to overestimate their frequency.47
4. Representativeness bias. We use the representativeness heuristic when we estimate
the probability of an event’s occurrence based on our impressions about similar
occurrences. Representativeness bias leads us to look for information that sup-
ports previously formed stereotypes.48 A manager, for example, may hire a gradu-
ate from a particular university because the past three people hired from this university
turned out to be good performers. In this case, the “school attended” criterion is being
used to facilitate complex information processing associated with employment inter-
views. However, this shortcut can result in a biased decision.49
5. Anchoring bias. Is the population of Mexico greater than 40 million? What’s your best
guess about the population of Canada? If your answer to the second question was influ-
enced by the number 40 million suggested by the first question, you were affected by
the anchoring bias. Anchoring bias occurs when decision makers are influenced
by the first information they
receive about a decision, even if
it is irrelevant. Initial information,
impressions, data, feedback, or ste-
reotypes anchor our subsequent
judgments and decisions.50
6. Hindsight bias. Imagine you are
taking an OB course that meets
Tuesdays and Thursdays, and your
professor gives unannounced
quizzes each week. It’s the Monday
before a class, and you are
deciding whether to study for a
potential quiz or watch Monday
Night Football. Two of your class-
mates have decided to watch the
game rather than study because
they don’t think there will be a
quiz the next day. The next morn-
ing you walk into class and the
professor says, “Take out a sheet
Some people are afraid of flying because they overestimate the
chances of being in a plane crash. Plane crashes are actually
low-probability events. In 2017, there were more than 35 million
commercial jet takeoffs with only 1 fatal accident.
AF archive/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
436 PART 2 Groups
of paper for the quiz.” You turn to your friends and say, “I knew we were going to
have a quiz; why did I listen to you?” Hindsight bias occurs when knowledge of
an outcome influences our belief about the probability that we could have
predicted the outcome earlier. The danger of this bias is that, in retrospect, we get
overconfident about our foresight, which leads to bad decisions.51 For example, an
investor may look at the sudden death of an important CEO as something that
should have been expected because the individual was experiencing severe health
issues recently.52
7. Framing bias. Framing bias relates to the manner in which a question is posed
or framed. It leads us to change the way we interpret alternatives. For example,
customers have been found to prefer meat that is framed as “85 percent lean” instead
of “15 percent fat,” although, of course, the two mean the same thing. In general,
people view choices more favorably when they are framed in terms of gains rather
than losses.53 You would be more likely to invest in a product that had a 60 percent
chance of success rather than a 40 percent chance of failure. Try framing your deci-
sion questions in alternate ways to avoid this bias.
6. Escalation of commitment bias. Escalation of commitment bias is the tendency to
hold to an ineffective course of action even when it is unlikely the bad situa-
tion can be reversed. Would you invest more money in an old or broken car? The
Drug Enforcement Administration and the Pentagon continued to spend on a spy
plane for use in Afghanistan that was supposed to be completed in 2012 at a cost
of $22 million, even though the project had missed every projected delivery date.
By 2016, it had not yet left the ground, and total payouts had reached more than
$86 million.54
Researchers recommend the following actions to reduce the escalation of commitment:
• Set minimum targets for performance, and have decision makers compare their
performance against these targets.
• Regularly rotate managers in key positions throughout a project.
• Encourage decision makers to become less ego-involved with a project.
• Make decision makers aware of the costs of persistence.55
New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady being interviewed after his vic-
tory in Super Bowl 53 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta on February 3,
2019. Many of us fall prey to the hindsight bias when we evaluate the suc-
cess or failure of plays called by quarterbacks.
Jamie Squire/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
437Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You can improve the quality of your decisions by looking for the best evidence and the best
available data to make, inform, or support them. This section of the chapter will help you
understand the role of evidence in decision making and the move toward big data and
artificial intelligence.
11.3 EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION MAKING
Evidence-based decision making is the process of conscientiously using the best
available data and evidence when making managerial decisions. It holds the promise
of helping avoid the decision-making biases discussed earlier and improving performance
while reducing costs. Proponents also believe evidence-based decision making can help in
the use of “big data” to market and sell products and services.
Consider the applications to farming and cruising.
EXAMPLE The Riensche family has been farming 12,000 acres in Iowa for six gen-
erations. Recently they signed up with Bayer’s Climate Corp. for a data analysis ser-
vice, which among other things, helped reduce the seed they use by 6 percent and
fertilizer by 11 percent—all while growing the best crops they’ve ever planted. Ben
Riensche, the most recent family member to manage the farm, still has his grandfa-
ther’s spiral notebooks that meticulously list crop and egg yields. Before data analysis,
Explain evidence-
based decision
making.
LO 11-3
More and more farmers are signing up for data analysis services, which can provide them with important data that can
help them manage their crops more efficiently and make decisions based on solid evidence.
Nolanberg11/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
438 PART 2 Groups
Riensche says, “there was no secret sauce other than just keeping notes and making
field observations. Now we have all these digital tools.” Climate Corp. and its com-
petitors use information supplied by farmers who subscribe to their services and
feed it into software programs that predict combinations of seeds, fertilizer,
and sprays to maximize yield and revenues.56
EXAMPLE Carnival Cruise Lines has introduced a tracking device on its Princess
cruise ships to help the company collect and analyze passenger data and prefer-
ences. The Medallion is a wearable device the size of a poker chip worn on the
wrist or around the neck that syncs to each passenger’s information stored in the
cloud. Not only does this technology allow for quicker check-ins and boarding, it
also helps the company track each guest’s interaction with various digital and gam-
ing experiences created to enhance their sea-going adventures. In addition, the
data-tracking system includes avatars called Tagalongs that accompany each pas-
senger around the ship, appearing on nearby digital screens and on the more than
3,000 digital devices that cruisers bring along on their trips. The company expects
digital tracking and data collection to enhance passengers’ cruise experiences
while helping the company zero in on making decisions to entice passengers to
book for future vacations.57
Using Evidence to Make Decisions
Managers use evidence or data in three different ways: to make a decision, to inform a
decision, and to support a decision. Here is what a team of researchers had to say about
how we use data to make decisions.
“Evidence is used to make a decision whenever the decision follows directly from the
evidence.” For example, if you wanted to purchase a particular used car such as a Toyota
Carnival Corporation’s CEO and President, Arnold Donald, holds a Medallion tracking device.
Rick Wilking/Newscom
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
439Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
Prius based on price and color, you would obtain data from the Internet and classified ads
and then choose the seller offering the lowest-priced red Prius. “Evidence is used to inform
a decision whenever the decision process combines hard, objective facts with qualitative
inputs, such as intuition or bargaining with stakeholders.” For instance, when firms are
hiring new college graduates, objective data about their past experience, education, and
participation in student organizations is relevant input to the hiring decision. Nonetheless,
subjective impressions garnered from interviews and references are typically combined
with these objective data to make a final decision. These two uses of evidence are clearly
positive and should be encouraged. The same cannot be said about using evidence to
support a decision.
“Evidence is used to support a decision whenever the evidence is gathered or modi-
fied for the sole purpose of lending legitimacy to a decision that has already been
made.”58 This application of evidence has both positive and negative effects. On the
positive side, evidence collected after the fact can be used to convince an external audi-
ence that the organization is following a sound course of action in a complex and
ambiguous decision context. This can lead to confidence and goodwill about how a
company is responding to environmental events. On the negative side, the practice can
stifle employee involvement and input because people will come to believe that manage-
ment is going to ignore evidence and just do what it wants. In summary, because this
practice has both pros and cons, management needs to carefully consider when (if
ever) it might be appropriate to ignore disconfirming evidence and push its own agenda
or decisions.
Big Data: The Next Frontier in Evidence-Based
Decision Making
Researchers suggest that data creation has doubled in size every two years over the past
decade, and by 2025 the digital universe will grow to more than 163 zettabytes (ZB) or one
trillion gigabytes. This equates to ten times the 16 ZBs of data generated in 2016.59 The
term big data reflects the vast quantity of data available for decision making. It also
encompasses the collection, sorting, and analysis of that information, and the techniques
to do so.60 The analysis of big data has already revolutionized all aspects of our lives, and
companies are scrambling to hire qualified employees for the job.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the demand for people with data
analytic skills will increase by 27 percent between 2016 and 2026.61 Guess who is respond-
ing to this need? Universities. More universities are offering majors in data analytics to fill
the more than 2.7 million data and analytics positions that will be available in the U.S.
workforce by 2020.62 These degrees will train people to use quantitative and statistical tools
to analyze and interpret big data. Do you think you are suited for this career?
Managers and companies that effectively utilize big data, such as organizations in the
health care industry (see the OB in Action box), are expected to gain competitive advan-
tage. Big data creates value in the following ways:
• It can make information more transparent and usable.
• It allows organizations to measure and collect all types of performance information,
enabling them to implement initiatives to enhance productivity.
• It enhances decision making at all levels of the organization.
• It can be used to develop new products or services.63
One problem with big data is that private or sensitive information is more easily
obtained, which means it can be leaked to others. In a recent survey of senior managers,
the respondents ranked cybersecurity breaches as the single greatest data threat their
companies face.64
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
440 PART 2 Groups
Big Data Helps Advance the Health Care Industry
OB in Action
The health care industry continues to be revolutionized by
the use of big data to assist doctors and other professionals
in improving patient care and outcomes.
Ariel Skelley/Blend Images LLC
Health care today is being revolutionized by the
application of big data to many medical challenges,
especially the uncovering of hidden patterns and
correlations that can lead to better diagnosis and
treatment of new and existing diseases. It was
recently estimated that investments in big data by
the health care and pharmaceutical industries would
total $4.7 billion for 2018 and would grow 12 percent
a year over the next several years, reaching more
than $7 billion by 2021. Health care providers
around the world already report reductions in cost,
patient wait times, and emergency room visits, with
improved patient outcomes and revenues.65
Big data thus has the potential not only to trans-
form the way health care providers operate as busi-
nesses, allowing them to become more efficient and
reduce costs and errors. It can also speed and
improve the way they treat and care for their
patients.66 Here are just a few examples:67
• A company called Ginger.io gathers smart-
phone data from users with mental illness,
providing a mobile platform that allows experi-
enced health care professionals to deliver
better and more personalized care to those
patients.
• PeraHealth uses proprietary data sets and a
graphic tool called the Rothman Index, which
combines vital signs, lab results, and other live
patient data, to help identify patients who
might be at risk for certain complications
before they occur, and to suggest which
patients might need intensive-care treatment.
• RDMD, a health care start-up, uses artificial
intelligence tools to sift big data from medical
records of cases of rare diseases. It is then
able to market the data to pharmaceutical
companies to help advance the search for
treatments and cures.
• Seattle Children’s Hospital has adopted a sys-
tem to mine big data about patients to almost
instantly find reliable diagnoses and custom-
ized treatments that used to require days or
even weeks of work poring over thousands of
bits of information.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Can you think of any other applications for big
data in health care decision making? What kinds
of companies or organizations might be inter-
ested in such tools?
2. What drawbacks, if any, might arise from the col-
lection and use of big data in medical settings?
3. Do you foresee any privacy concerns in medical
applications of big data? How should the health
care industry safeguard patients’ individual
privacy?
Artificial Intelligence: Teaching Machines
to Make Decisions
New technologies are changing our world. Consider that Alphabet’s Waymo division
recently launched the United States’ first commercial self-driving taxi service and
China’s Xinhau News is using the first artificial intelligence–driven news anchor.68
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
441Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a form of computing that allows
machines to perform cognitive functions, such as acting or react-
ing to inputs, similar to the way humans do.69
There are three key ways that AI can help managers enhance
business operations: automating business processes, gaining insight
through data analysis, and engaging with customers and employees.70
Back-office administrative tasks and other financial activities lend
themselves to automation and are considered the “least smart” type
of AI activity. For example, updating customer files with address
changes; replacing lost or stolen credit cards; and managing customer
communications are all tasks that can be handled by automated sys-
tems fueled by AI.
AI can also be used to gain business insights by creating algorithms
that can be used to detect patterns in vast amounts of data and actually
interpret their meaning. This type of task is a more moderate level of AI
activity utilized by many organizations. For example, by using these
algorithms, machine learning can predict what product or service a spe-
cific type of customer is likely to buy; detect financial or insurance
claim fraud in real time; automate personalized targeting of digital ads
on websites; and analyze warranty data to identify safety or quality
problems in manufactured products.
Another way managers and organizations can use AI in business
operations is through customer and employee engagement. This
application may include chatbots, a form of artificial intelligence
that simulates conversations with humans. These AI tools can also
offer 24/7 customer service to provide answers to basic, technical
questions—in the customer’s natural language; product and service
recommendation systems for retailers that increase shopper person-
alization, engagement, and sales; and company internal websites for
answering employee questions about technology, benefits, HR poli-
cies, and even ethics. For example, LEADx developed a coaching bot
called “Coach Amanda” that provides tips, guidance, videos, and texts that managers
can consult for advice in real time. Ken Ryzner told the Wall Street Journal that Coach
Amanda has helped him run richer brainstorming sessions with colleagues by suggest-
ing he ask more questions.71
With increasing computing power and the ability to harness vast amounts of data,
managers need to decide how best to utilize artificial intelligence as part of their business
strategies.72 Companies that utilize AI effectively recognize machine learning alone is not
the key to gaining competitive advantage. Research suggests companies that decide to
automate certain activities as a way to eliminate jobs may be losing their competitive
edge.73 In contrast, companies that automate processes and shift employees to more value-
added job tasks may see significant returns on their AI and human collaboration efforts in
terms of increasing revenues, retaining employees, and sparking innovation.74
The rise of AI and machine learning is not without challenges, however. Sometimes
humans pose situations in which machine learning must choose between two actions with
negative or unpleasant consequences and ask what the device should do.75 For example,
in a recent study, researchers asked participants about several real-world events that
involved “poor decisions” on the part of AI software that could be attributed to human
biases. Can AI be racist, sexist, or possibly spread hate? Or, were the algorithms created
by humans who have inherent biases when it comes to such “moral violations”? This
study and others suggest the relationship between AI and humans is a complex one that
needs continuing study.76
Coach Amanda, LEADx’s AI tool and coaching
bot, provides tips, guidance, videos, and texts
that managers can consult for advice in real
time.
Courtesy of LEADx
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
442 PART 2 Groups
11.4 FOUR DECISION-MAKING STYLES
We make countless decisions on a daily basis—what to wear, what to eat, what route to take
driving to school, whether to confront a negative colleague. These decisions are guided by
our decision-making style. A decision-making style is the way an individual perceives
and comprehends stimuli and the general manner in which he or she chooses to
respond to such information.77 A team of researchers developed a model of decision-
making styles based on the idea that styles vary along two dimensions: value orientation
and tolerance for ambiguity.78
Value Orientation and Tolerance for Ambiguity
Value orientation is the extent to which an individual focuses on either task and technical
concerns or people and social concerns when making decisions. Some people, for instance,
are very task-focused at work and do not pay much attention to people issues, whereas oth-
ers are just the opposite.
The second dimension pertains to a person’s tolerance for ambiguity. This character-
istic indicates the extent to which a person needs structure or control in his or her life.
Some people desire a lot of structure. They have a low tolerance for ambiguity and find
ambiguous situations stressful and psychologically uncomfortable. Others do not have a
high need for structure and can thrive in uncertain situations; their tolerance for ambigu-
ity is high. Imagine the ambiguity faced by Andrés Sepúlveda as he worked to rig politi-
cal campaigns across Latin America. He and his team of hackers “stole campaign
strategies, manipulated social media to create false waves of enthusiasm and derision,
and installed spyware in oppositions offices, all to help Peña Nieto get elected president
of Mexico,” according to Bloomberg Businessweek. Ambiguous situations can energize
people like Sepúlveda with a high tolerance for ambiguity. He is currently serving a
10-year prison term for his actions.79
When we combine the dimensions of value orientation and tolerance for ambiguity,
they form four styles of decision making: directive, analytical, conceptual, and behavioral
(see Figure 11.4). Let’s look at each of these.
The Directive Style: Action-Oriented Decision
Makers Who Focus on Facts
People with a directive style have a low tolerance for ambiguity and are oriented toward
task and technical concerns when making decisions. They are efficient, logical, practical,
and systematic in their approach to solving problems. Directive decision makers are action
oriented and decisive and like to focus on facts. In their pursuit of speed and results, how-
ever, they tend to be autocratic, exercise power and control, and focus on the short run.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Your decision-making style reflects the manner in which you use information to make deci-
sions. It’s an input in the Organizing Framework. Knowing the four general styles of decision
making will help you understand how your managers and coworkers are making their deci-
sions; and it will help you know yourself that much better too. The four decision-making styles
are directive, analytical, conceptual, and behavioral.
Compare the four
styles of decision
making.
LO 11-4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
443Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos uses a directive style. Bezos is known to be decisive, makes
decisions quickly, and pivots at breakneck speed when a strategy or course of action needs
to be revised. According to Bezos, “Every day at Amazon is Day 1,” which means he
expects Amazon employees to embrace the characteristics of a start-up company—an orga-
nization that can shift its focus quickly to adjust to changing customer and market trends.80
The Analytical Style: Careful and Slow Decision
Makers Who Like Lots of Information
People with the analytical style have a much higher tolerance for ambiguity and tend to
overanalyze a situation. They like to consider more information and alternatives than do
those with a directive style. Analytical individuals are careful decision makers who take
longer to make decisions but who also respond well to new or uncertain situations. They
can often be autocratic.
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty appears to have an analytical style. She and her manage-
ment team must analyze business and technology trends worldwide to determine the best
course of action for increasing company revenues and moving the company forward in an
FIGURE 11.4 Decision-Making Styles
SOURCE: Rowe, Alan J., and Richard O. Mason. Managing with Style: A Guide to
Understanding, Assessing, and Improving Decision Making. San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 1987.
Analytical Conceptual
Directive
Task and
technical
concerns
Low
High
Tolerance
for
Ambiguity
People
and social
concerns
Value
Orientation
Behavioral
IBM CEO Ginni Rometty uses her analytic style to gather relevant data and evaluate
business and technology trends worldwide to assist in making critical decisions for her
organization.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
444 PART 2 Groups
era of digital disruption. As CEO, Rometty has shifted IBM’s focus from computers to
cloud computing, blockchain technology, big data, and artificial intelligence.81
The Conceptual Style: Intuitive Decision
Makers Who Involve Others in Long-Term
Thinking
People with a conceptual style have a high tolerance for ambiguity and tend to focus on
the people or social aspects of a work situation. They take a broad perspective on prob-
lem solving and like to consider many options and future possibilities. Conceptual types
adopt a long-term view and rely on intuition and discussions with others to acquire infor-
mation. They also are willing to take risks and are good at finding creative solutions to
problems. On the downside, however, a conceptual style can foster an idealistic and inde-
cisive approach to decision making. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings exhibits this style of
decision making.82
The Behavioral Style: Highly People-Oriented
Decision Makers
The behavioral style is the most people-oriented of the four. People with this style work
well with others and enjoy social interactions in which opinions are openly exchanged.
Behavioral decision makers are supportive, are receptive to suggestions, show warmth, and
prefer verbal to written information. Although they like to hold meetings, they prefer to
avoid conflict and can be too concerned about others. This can lead behavioral types to
adopt a conflict-avoidance approach to decision making and to have a hard time saying no.
Madeline Bell, CEO of Children’s Hospital of Pennsylvania, uses this decision-making
style successfully by identifying and engaging the key people who need to be on board with
major decisions made at one of the top children’s hospitals in the country.83
Which Style Are You?
Research reveals that very few people have only one dominant decision-making style.
Rather, most managers have characteristics that fall into two or three styles. Studies also
show that decision-making styles vary by age, occupation, personality type, gender, and
country.84 It’s important to understand your decision-making style because it affects the
quality of your decisions and team performance.85 Self-Assessment 11.2 will enhance your
understanding about your decision-making style.
What Is My Decision-Making Style?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 11.2 in Connect.
1. Do you agree with your results? Explain.
2. Which of these styles is most important in your role as a student and in your cur-
rent job?
3. Based on your answer to question 2, what might you do to modify your decision-
making style?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.2 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
445Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Sometimes you may find yourself confused about the ethics of a situation. One way to gain
some certainty is to graph the situation with a decision tree, which provides a framework for
ethical decision making.
11.5 A ROAD MAP TO ETHICAL DECISION MAKING
Although research tells us that ethical behavior is related to inputs such as personality,
values, locus of control, and a culture and climate for ethics,86 there are few tools for help-
ing individuals to navigate through ethical dilemmas or challenges. An approach sug-
gested by Harvard Business School Professor Constance Bagley can help fill the gap.
Bagley recommends a decision tree to help managers make ethical decisions.87
A decision tree is a graphical representation of the process underlying decisions,
and it shows the consequences of making various choices. You can follow Bagley’s decision
tree, shown in Figure 11.5, by asking the following questions about your decision:
Describe how to
assess the ethics of
decision making.
LO 11-5
FIGURE 11.5 An Ethical Decision Tree
SOURCE: Bagley, Constance E. “The Ethical Leader’s Decision Tree.” Harvard Business School Publishing, February 2003. https://hbr.org/2003/02/
the-ethical-leaders-decision-tree.
Is the proposed
action legal?
Don’t do it.
Yes
No
Don’t do it.
Don’t do it.
Do it.Yes
No
Do it, but disclose the
e�ect of the action to
shareholders.
Yes
No
Does it maximize
shareholder value?
Yes
No
Is it ethical?
(To answer, weigh the e�ect on customers,
employees, the community, the environment,
and suppliers against the benefit to the
shareholders.)
Would it be ethical not to take
the action?
(To answer, weigh the harm or cost that
would be imposed on shareholders against
the costs or benefits to other stakeholders.)
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
446 PART 2 Groups
1. Is the proposed action legal? This
may seem like a common-sense
question, but some managers and
companies fail to ask it. Owners
of Purdue Pharma, maker of the
highly addictive opioid drug
OxyContin, recently faced fraud
charges in New York as a result of
transferring funds from the com-
pany to various family trusts in
an effort to shield company assets
from ongoing litigation.88
2. If “yes,” does the proposed action
maximize shareholder value? A
decision maximizes shareholder
value when it increases profits for
an organization, because these
profits are eventually distributed to
shareholders. Regardless of share-
holder value, however, the decision
Unethical decision making by the parent company of the University of
Phoenix may have cost the for-profit education company dearly in
terms of student enrollment over the past several years.
Kristoffer Tripplaar/Alamy Stock Photo
tree shows that managers still need to consider the ethical implications of each deci-
sion or action.
3. If the decision maximizes shareholder value, the decision maker then considers
whether or not the action is ethical. Managers should answer this question by weigh-
ing the effect of the action on an organization’s other key constituents (customers,
employees, the community, the environment, suppliers) against the benefit to the
shareholders. For example, Apollo Education Group, the parent company of for-
profit University of Phoenix, has been the subject of both state and federal investiga-
tions that allege the company used aggressive and deceptive recruiting, advertising,
and financial aid practices. Negative perceptions of the University of Phoenix may
also be to blame for the substantial drop in student enrollment, more than 70 per-
cent between 2010 and 2017.89
4. If the decision does not maximize shareholder value, then the decision maker should
consider whether it would be ethical not to take the proposed action. If an action would
not directly benefit shareholders, consider whether it would be ethical not to take it.
The decision for the Apollo Education Group to continue to use existing, possibly
unethical practices could also have an impact on other stakeholders, such as Univer-
sity of Phoenix employees. A recent Glassdoor survey revealed that only 30 percent
of the school’s employees would recommend working at the university to a friend or
acquaintance.90
The decision tree cannot provide a quick formula that managers and organizations
can use to evaluate every ethical question. Ethical decision making is not always clear-
cut and is affected by cross-cultural differences and organizational culture and climate.
Organizations are encouraged to conduct ethics training and to increase awareness
about cross-cultural issues when the work engages people with mixed cultural back-
grounds.91 That said, the decision tree does provide a framework for considering the
trade-offs between managerial and corporate actions and managerial and corporate eth-
ics. Try using this decision tree the next time you are faced with a significant ethical
question or problem.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
447Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You’ve probably seen both good and poor results from a group decision. OB confirms that
group decisions can lead to mixed results. It identifies five potential advantages and
four disadvantages. Knowing them arms you with information to help you maximize the
advantages and minimize the disadvantages. In this section you will find contingency
recommendations for working with groups in decision making and three helpful group
problem-solving techniques: brainstorming, the nominal group technique, and computer-aided
decision making.
11.6 GROUP DECISION MAKING
Aristotle was an early proponent of group decision making. He concluded that “when
there are many who contribute to the process of deliberation, each can bring his share of
goodness and more prudence . . . some appreciate one part, some another, and all together
appreciate all.”92 Aristotle is suggesting that group decision making is more effective when
individuals in the group share and aggregate their information. As you well know, this does
not always happen when groups make decisions. This section will help you learn about
decision making in groups so you can achieve Aristotle’s proposed benefits.
Outline the basics
of group decision
making.
LO 11-6
Aristotle (384-322 bc) was a Greek philosopher and scientist. His writings span many subjects and he
highly believed in the value of using logic and empirical data when making decisions.
QEDimages/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
448 PART 2 Groups
Advantages and Disadvantages of Group Decision
Making
We often have to decide whether to make a decision alone or to consult with others. The
following list of advantages and disadvantages can help you decide what to do.
Advantages These five advantages are most likely to be found when the group has
experience with the issue at hand, and when it is diverse in terms of characteristics such as
personalities, gender, attitudes, and experience.93
• Greater pool of knowledge. A group possesses more information and knowledge
than one individual acting alone.
• Different approaches to a problem. Individuals with different backgrounds and expe-
riences bring varied perspectives to diagnosing and solving problems.
• Greater commitment to a decision. Participation and a voice in decision making are
more likely to result in commitment to a decision. This in turn leads group members
to accept and feel responsible for implementing a proposed solution.
• Better understanding of decision rationale. Participating in a decision increases
group members’ understanding about why the decision is being made and what
must occur to implement it. This in turn reduces miscommunication among people.
• More visible role modeling. Less experienced group members learn about group
dynamics and how to solve problems.94
Disadvantages The disadvantages of group-aided decision making relate to group
dynamics and interpersonal interactions.95
• Social pressure. The desire to look good in front of others, particularly the boss,
leads to conformity and stifles creativity.
• A few dominant participants. The quality of a group’s decision can be influenced by a few
vocal people who dominate the discussion. This is particularly problematic when the
vocal person is perceived as a powerful individual.
• Goal displacement. When the group is evaluating alternatives, secondary considerations
such as winning an argument, getting back at a rival, or trying to impress the boss can
override the primary goal of solving a problem. Goal displacement occurs when the
primary goal is overridden by a secondary goal.96
• Groupthink. Groupthink is “a mode of thinking that people engage in when
they are deeply involved in a cohesive in-group, when members’ strivings for
unanimity override their motivation to realistically appraise alternative
courses of action.”97 Groupthink is thoroughly discussed in the next section.
Groupthink
The term groupthink, defined above, originated from an analysis of the decision-making
processes underlying the war in Vietnam and other U.S. foreign policy fiascos. Groupthink
happens when members fail to exercise sufficient reality testing and moral judgment due
to pressures from the group. If they passively ignore the danger, modern managers can all
too easily become victims of groupthink. Consider the group of 14 teachers and other staff
members in an Idaho school district who decided to dress up as ethnic stereotypes for
Halloween recently and followed that up with an impersonation of a Mexican border wall.
Despite being taken down from Facebook, these photos quickly went viral and sparked
outrage both locally and nationally. “We are better than this,” said the school superintendent—
all 14 individuals were placed on administrative leave.98
As you might imagine, groupthink negatively affects group performance and is often
driven by high levels of cohesiveness.99 Cohesiveness or a sense of “we-ness” tends to
override individual differences and motives. Members of groups tend to be cohesive
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
449Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
for two fundamental reasons: (1) they like and enjoy each other’s company and
(2) they need each other to achieve a common goal. You can see how cohesiveness is a
double-edged sword in its effects on group-level outcomes in the Organizing Framework. It
can help you and your team reduce conflict, but it can also reduce performance if it limits
questioning and critical thinking and results in groupthink.100 How do you avoid group-
think? First, know the symptoms.
Symptoms of Groupthink There are eight common symptoms of groupthink. The
more that are present in a situation, the higher the probability that groupthink will occur.
1. Invulnerability. An illusion that the group cannot make a mistake breeds excessive
optimism and risk taking.
2. Inherent morality. Assuming the group is highly moral encourages members to ignore
ethical implications.
3. Rationalization. Members protect their personal or “pet” ideas and assumptions.
4. Stereotyped views of opposition. The group may underestimate opponents.
5. Self-censorship. Keeping ideas and questions to yourself stifles critical debate.
6. Illusion of unanimity. Members’ silence can be interpreted to mean consent.
7. Peer pressure. Be careful when the loyalty of dissenters is questioned.
8. Mindguards. Self-appointed protectors can shut out adverse information.101
Prevention Is Better than Treatment Prevention is better than treatment or cure
when dealing with groupthink. Table 11.1 provides excellent recommendations for removing
barriers to minority dissent. Minority dissent occurs when group members feel com-
fortable disagreeing with other group members. Research reveals that minority dissent
is positively related to participation in decision making and job satisfaction.102
Are you working on any project teams at school or work? If yes, you may be interested
in assessing the level of minority dissent and participation in decision making. Results from
Self-Assessment 11.3 can help you to improve your effectiveness within these teams.
TABLE 11.1 Techniques for Preventing Groupthink
1. Each member of the group should be assigned the role of critical evaluator or
dissenter. This role requires the active voicing of objections and doubts.
2. Top-level executives should not use policy committees to rubber-stamp decisions
that have already been made.
3. Different groups with different leaders should explore the same policy questions.
4. Managers should encourage subgroup debates and bring in outside experts to
introduce fresh perspectives.
5. Someone should be given the role of devil’s advocate when discussing major
alternatives. This person tries to uncover every conceivable negative factor.
6. Once a consensus has been reached, everyone should be encouraged to rethink
his/her position to check for flaws.
SOURCES: Thibodeaux, Wanda. “How to End Groupthink and Encourage Your Team to Be Creative.” Mansueto Ventures,
December 10, 2018. https://www.inc.com/wanda-thibodeaux/how-to-end-groupthink-encourage-your-team-to-be-creative.html;
Price, Dom. “Need Fresh Ideas? 5 Ways to Disrupt Groupthink.” Mansueto Ventures, October 23, 2018. https://www.inc.com/
dom-price/need-fresh-ideas-5-ways-to-disrupt-groupthink.html; and Janis, Irving L. “Victims of Groupthink.” Political Psychology 12,
no. 2 (June 1991): 247–78. https:// DOI: 10.2307/3791464.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
450 PART 2 Groups
Practical Contingency Recommendations for
Group Decision Making
There are three practical considerations in decision making.
1. Routine and frequency: If the decision occurs frequently and is of a routine nature,
such as deciding on promotions or who qualifies for a loan, use groups because they
tend to produce more consistent decisions than do individuals.
2. Time constraints: Given time constraints, let the most competent individual, rather
than a group, make the decision.
3. Information and communication: In the face of environmental threats such as time
pressure and potential serious effects of a decision, groups use less information and
fewer communication channels. This increases the probability of a bad decision.
Reaching Consensus: The Goal of Group
Problem-Solving Techniques
Groups asked to make decisions must generally reach a consensus. According to a
decision-making expert, a consensus “is reached when all members can say they
either agree with the decision or have had their ‘day in court’ and were unable to
convince the others of their viewpoint. In the final analysis, everyone agrees to sup-
port the outcome.”103 This definition indicates that consensus does not require unani-
mous agreement, because group members may still disagree with the final decision but are
willing to work toward its success. They must honestly and accurately communicate with
each other when trying to reach a consensus.
Practical Problem-Solving Techniques
Decision-making experts have developed a host of problem-solving techniques to aid in
problem solving. Three we discuss here are (1) brainstorming, (2) the Delphi technique,
and (3) decision support systems.
Brainstorming: A Tool for Generating Ideas Brainstorming helps groups gener-
ate multiple ideas and alternatives for solving problems. Developed by advertising exec-
utive A. F. Osborn, brainstorming can apply in a variety of contexts.104 They include solving
problems, developing creative ideas for new products, removing performance roadblocks,
and developing action plans to achieve goals. Brainstorming sessions begin by asking partici-
pants to silently generate ideas or solutions, which then are collected either in public or
anonymously and summarized in some fashion (such as on a whiteboard or a flip chart).
TIP It’s good to collect the ideas/solutions anonymously if the issue is emotional,
political, or highly salient/sensitive to some group members.105
Assessing Participation in Group Decision Making
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 11.3 in Connect.
1. What is your level of minority dissent and participation in decision making?
2. Are you happy with these results?
3. How might you increase the level of minority dissent and participation in this
group? Consider the ideas in Table 11.1.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
451Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
At a second session group members critique and evaluate the alternatives. Today, many
brainstorming sessions are conducted electronically. Electronic brainstorming, some-
times called brainwriting, allows participants to submit their ideas and alternatives
over the Internet. Webinars and other virtual collaboration tools such as MeetingRoom.
io, MURAL, and Appear.in work well for this purpose.106
Managers are advised to follow the seven rules for brainstorming used by IDEO, a
product design company (see Table 11.2).
Brainstorming is an effective technique for generating new ideas/alternatives, and
research reveals that people can be trained to improve their brainstorming skills.107
The Delphi Technique The Delphi technique was originally developed by the
RAND Corp. for technological forecasting.108 It now serves as a multipurpose plan-
ning tool. The Delphi technique is a group process that generates anonymous
ideas or judgments from physically dispersed experts in multiple rounds of
brainstorming.
This technique is useful when face-to-face discussions are impractical, when disagree-
ments and conflict are likely to impair communication, when certain individuals might
severely dominate group discussion, and when groupthink is a probable outcome of the
group process.109
Decision Support Systems The increased globalization of organizations, the
existence of big data, and the advancement of information technology have led to the
development of decision support systems. Decision support systems (DSS) are
“computer-based interactive systems that help decision makers to use data and
models to solve unstructured problems.”110 For example, Best Buy, Google, GE, Intel,
and Microsoft all use internal intranets to obtain input for their DSS from employees.
Both Best Buy and Google found DSS systems helpful in estimating the demand for new
products and services.111 They also improve information processing and decision making
within virtual teams.112
RULE DETAILS
1. Defer judgment. Don’t criticize during the initial stage of generating ideas. Avoid phrases
such as “We’ve never done it that way,” “It won’t work,” “It’s too expensive,”
and “Our manager will never agree.”
2. Build on the ideas of others. Encourage participants to extend others’ ideas by avoiding “buts” and
using “ands.”
3. Encourage wild ideas. Encourage out-of-the-box thinking. The wilder and more outrageous
the ideas, the better.
4. Go for quantity over quality. Guide participants to generate and write down as many new ideas as possible.
Focusing on quantity encourages people to think beyond their favorite ideas.
5. Be visual. Use different colored pens (e.g., red, purple, blue) to write on big sheets of
flip chart paper, whiteboards, or poster board that is put on the wall.
6. Stay focused on the topic. Appoint a facilitator to keep the discussion on target.
7. Keep to one conversation
at a time.
Set ground rules that no one interrupts another person, dismisses
someone’s ideas, shows disrespect, or otherwise behaves rudely.
TABLE 11.2 Seven Rules for Brainstorming
SOURCES: IDEO. “Effective Brainstorming Techniques.” Accessed May 22, 2019. https://www.ideou.com/pages/brainstorming; Shellenbarger, Sue. “Tactics to Spark
Creativity.” The Wall Street Journal, April 2, 2013. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323611604578398342398991844; “How Entrepreneurs Come
Up With Great Ideas.” The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2013. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324445904578283792526004684; and Lehrer,
Jonah. “How To Be Creative.” The Wall Street Journal, March 12, 2012. https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052970203370604577265632205015846.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
452 PART 2 Groups
11.7 CREATIVITY
Creativity is defined here as the process of producing “new and useful ideas con-
cerning products, services, processes, and procedures.”113 Being creative can be as
simple as locating a new place to hang your car keys or as complex as developing a pocket-
size microcomputer. You can create something new, combine or synthesize existing things,
or improve or change things. Recent research suggests that creativity and curiosity are
much more important to organizations than previously thought. Cultivating creativity at
all levels helps managers and leaders adapt to uncertain market conditions and other exter-
nal pressures. When our curiosity is triggered, we think more deeply about decisions and
come up with more creative solutions.114
Let’s consider a model of creativity to gain some insight into ways you can increase
your own creativity and, as a manager, do the same for your employees.
A Model of Creativity
Figure 11.6 illustrates a model of creativity. You can
see that it flows nicely from the Organizing Frame-
work for Understanding and Applying OB in that a
combination of person factors and situation factors
influence creative performance behaviors, which in
turn affect creative outcome effectiveness. Let’s
explore this model, starting with a discussion of the
difference between creative performance behaviors
and creative outcome effectiveness.
Creative Performance Behaviors Produce
Creative Outcome Effectiveness Creative
performance behaviors are four key behaviors
that drive the production of creative outcomes.
Creative outcome effectiveness is “the joint
novelty and usefulness (quality) of a product or
service” as judged by others.115
Researchers believe the four behaviors consti-
tuting creative performance behaviors unfold accord-
ing to the following sequence.116
• Problem formulation/definition. Problem formu-
lation is the familiar Step 1 in our 3-Step
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Can you become more creative if you need to? As a manager, can you improve the creativity
of your group? The answer to both questions is yes. When you consider creativity from an OB
perspective, you will see it as both a process and an outcome (see the Organizing Framework
in Figure 11.1). The process aspect of creativity includes four key behaviors: problem formu-
lation/definition, preparation/information gathering, idea generation, and idea evaluation/
validation. You can increase creativity by following some practical recommendations.
Explain how creativity
relates to decision
making.
LO 11-7
FIGURE 11.6 A Model of Creativity
Creative
performance
behaviors
Creative
outcome
e�ectiveness
Person factors Situationfactors
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
453Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
Problem-Solving Approach. The practice of accu-
rately defining the problem will enhance your cre-
ativity, and it requires System 1 thinking (System 1
thinking is intuitive and mainly unconscious).
• Preparation/information gathering. The preparation
stage reflects the notion that creativity starts from a
base of knowledge. Experts suggest that creativity
arises from the convergence of tacit and explicit
knowledge. Lowell Wood, the most prolific inventor
in U.S. history—he holds 1,761 patents, many more
than Thomas Alva Edison—is inventor in residence
at Intellectual Ventures.
EXAMPLE Wood is an astrophysicist, a self-taught
paleontologist, and a computer scientist. He works
hard at being creative. In commenting about his time
studying in college and graduate school, he told a
writer from Bloomberg Businessweek that he “often
failed or received the lowest score on the first exam
given in a particular course and improved his marks
through repetition and intense effort.” He credits his
ability to find creative solutions to problems to the
amount of reading he does. He religiously reads three
dozen academic journals from varying fields of study.
He got this habit from chemist and author Linus Paul-
ing. Wood asked Pauling how he comes up with all his
great ideas. Pauling said, “There’s really nothing to it
all. You just read, and you remember what you read.”117
As Lowell Wood’s career demonstrates, preparation/information gathering consists of
intentionally and actively searching for new information related to a problem.
• Idea generation. Generating ideas requires making new mental connections about
the task or problem at hand. This behavior is emphasized in brainstorming and calls
for System 1 thinking.
• Idea evaluation/validation. Selecting the most creative and promising idea from
among multiple options relies on System 2 thinking (System 2 thinking is analytical
and mainly conscious).
Drivers of Creative Performance Behaviors Figure 11.6 shows that person fac-
tors and situation factors go into producing the four creative performance behaviors (and
they are inputs in the Organizing Framework of OB). Here is a summary of person factors
and situation characteristics, identified through research, that drive creative performance
behaviors:
• Person factors. Creativity starts with motivation and domain-relevant knowledge.
Like Lowell Wood, people need to be motivated to apply their knowledge and
capabilities to create new ideas, new products, and solutions to all sorts of prob-
lems.118 Other drivers of creativity include the Big Five personality dimensions, self-
efficacy, national culture, willingness to tolerate ambiguity, and proactive
personality.119
• Situation factors. High-commitment work systems promote creative behavior.
High-commitment work systems rely on selective hiring, comprehensive
training, comparatively high pay, pay contingent on performance, and good
benefits.120 We suspect that high-performance work systems demonstrate a form
of social support for employees, leading them to put more effort into creative
Lowell Wood obtained his 1,761st patent in
August 2018, passing Thomas Edison as the
all-time most prolific inventor from the United
States.
Alex Wong/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
454 PART 2 Groups
behaviors. Other important situation factors include interpersonal diversity, time
pressure, positive relationships with supervisors and coworkers, mutual account-
ability among group members, and spatial configuration of work settings.121 For
example, many organizations, such as Google, Zappos, Salesforce.com, and Etsy,
are designing the work environment to encourage casual conversations among
employees who don’t generally work together. A Wall Street Journal reporter noted
that these companies do this by “squeezing workers into smaller spaces so they are
more likely to bump into each other.” They also are “installing playful prompts, like
trivia games, to get workers talking in traditional conversational dead zones, such
as elevators.”122
Organizational culture and climate also contribute to the expression of creative behav-
iors.123 Self-Assessment 11.4 measures creativity climate. If you are curious about whether a
current or former employer has a climate for creativity, complete this assessment.
This Google office in London illustrates the type of “cozy” work environment that promotes creativity.
Would you find this office distracting, or do you think it would increase your creative performance?
View Pictures/Universal Images Group/Getty Images
Assessing Climate for Creativity
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 11.4 in Connect.
1. What items most and least contributed to the company’s creative climate?
2. Based on your results and suggestions in the Applying OB box below, what
would you do to increase the level of creativity in this organization?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 11.4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
455Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
Practical Recommendations for
Increasing Creativity
While some consultants recommend hypnotism as a good way to increase employees’ cre-
ativity, we prefer suggestions derived from research and practical experience. The first
recommendation is to effectively manage the four creative performance behaviors. Another
is to allow yourself to enjoy boredom. According to experts, “when we experience bore-
dom, two areas of the brain may be busy working closely together—the executive network,
which solves problems, and the so-called default network, which takes over when your
brain isn’t involved with something external. The result is enhanced creativity.”124 This sug-
gests that doing “nothing,” such as “just sitting in a café, strolling in the park, lying on the
beach, or even staring into space while everyone else is running busily, may be one of the
most important creative things we can do,” according to management expert Manfred Kets
de Vries.125 Research also has uncovered some practical tips that all of us can use to
increase our creativity.
Applying OB
Tips for Sparking Creativity
You can often renew your creativity simply by shaking
up your routine. These tips offer a quick and powerful
creative boost.126
1. Change your commute. Take a different route to
work or walk part of the way. If you work at home,
take a walk before you start.
2. Listen to noise. Research by a Chinese university
found that a moderate level of noise, not silence,
makes people more productive.127 Listen to music
or an ambient-noise app like Coffivity (wear head-
phones if you have coworkers).
3. Move your lunch. Go somewhere new for lunch. If
you work at home, prepare a new dish or invite
someone over.
4. Change your workspace. Instead of your home
office, park at the kitchen counter or a coffee
shop. In an office environment, ask to borrow an
unused space.
5. Try a creativity exercise. Pick an everyday object
like a coffeepot and write a few sentences about
what it reminds you of.
There is one final issue to consider. Should organizations use extrinsic rewards such
as pay and promotions to enhance creativity? While it seems like common sense to do this,
research reveals rewards have conflicting effects on creative behavior. When rewards make
people feel like they are being controlled, they can reduce creativity. On the other hand,
when rewards provide information about what is important and valued, they can increase
creativity. Putting it all together, a team of researchers concluded, “The effects of rewards
on creative performance depend on the nature of rewards and the context in which the
rewards are being offered.”128 This tells us managers should not use a “one size fits all”
approach when linking rewards to creative behavior.129
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
456 PART 2 Groups
11.8 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I MASTER
DECISION-MAKING AND CREATIVITY SKILLS?
Takeaways for Me
Here are seven things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive change in your
personal and professional life.
1. Work on developing your critical thinking and problem-solving skills: You might begin
by trying to solve all the problem-solving application boxes and cases in this book. You
can also take an active role in case discussions in other classes.
2. Practice identifying problems at work: Consider recommending alternative solutions to
your manager.
3. Examine past decisions that turned out poorly and consider whether you were influenced
by any of the eight decision-making biases: Use awareness of these biases to avoid auto-
matically applying them in the future.
4. Assess your decision-making style: Consider its impact on your teamwork at school
and on the job.
5. Use the ethical decision-making tree when you try to solve the legal/ethical challenges at
the end of each chapter in the book.
6. Use the guidelines for brainstorming whenever you brainstorm with others.
7. Find ways to apply the tips for sparking creativity.
Takeaways for Managers
There are six key implications for managers.
1. Recognize that your decision-making skills affect your career progression as well as
influence a variety of important individual, group, and organizational outcomes.
2. Use awareness of decision-making biases to help you avoid them.
3. Analyze the strengths and weaknesses of your decision-making style: Then try to build
on your strengths.
4. Consider how you might use big data in your managerial role: If you lack the statistical
background to make this happen, you might take an internal training class or look for
one online.
5. Train your employees to effectively conduct brainstorming sessions.
6. Consider how you can spark creativity among your team by applying the model of
creativity: Remember, creative behavior from your team will positively affect a host
of important outcomes.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Developing effective decision-making skills takes practice and can be influenced by a
person’s creativity. Here are some key points to consider.
Describe the
implications of
decision making
and creativity for
you and managers.
LO 11-8
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
457Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
You learned that it is critical to master the skills of
both decision making and creativity and that you
have tools and techniques available to you to do
just that. Reinforce your learning with the Key
Points below. Consolidate your learning using the
Organizing Framework. Then challenge your mas-
tery of the material by answering the Major Ques-
tions in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 11
You learned the following key points.
11.1 RATIONAL AND
NONRATIONAL
MODELS OF DECISION
MAKING
• There are two fundamental ways of thinking.
System 1 is more intuitive and unconscious,
and System 2 is more analytical and
conscious.
• The rational model explains how managers
should make decisions.
• The four stages of rational decision making
are (1) identify the problem or opportunity,
(2) generate alternative solutions, (3) evalu-
ate alternatives and select a solution, and
(4) implement and evaluate the solution
chosen.
• Nonrational models explain how managers
actually make decisions. Two nonrational
models are the normative model and the intu-
itive model.
• According to the normative model, decision
makers are guided by bounded rationality,
which represents the fact that decision
makers are “bounded” or restricted by dif-
ferent constraints. This limitation leads to
satisficing.
• There are two types of intuition: holistic
hunches and automated experiences. Intuition
is represented by two distinct processes: one
is automatic and the second is controlled, and
there are two sources of intuition: expertise
and feelings.
11.2 DECISION-MAKING
BIASES: RULES OF
THUMB OR
“HEURISTICS”
• Decision-making bias results from the use of
judgmental heuristics. The eight biases are
(a) confirmation, (b) overconfidence, (c) avail-
ability, (d) representativeness, (e) anchoring,
(f) hindsight, (g) framing, and (h) escalation of
commitment.
11.3 EVIDENCE-BASED DECISION
MAKING
• The goal of evidence-based decision making
is to conscientiously use the best data when
making decisions.
• Evidence-based decision making has three
purposes: to make decisions, to inform deci-
sions, and to support decisions.
• Big data denotes the vast quantity of data
available for decision making. It makes infor-
mation more transparent and usable, allows
organizations to measure and collect many
types of performance data, allows the seg-
mentation of customers, and can help in
developing new products.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) is a form of comput-
ing that allows machines to perform cognitive
functions, such as acting or reacting to inputs,
similar to the way humans do. AI can help
managers enhance business operations by
automating business processes, gaining
insight through data analysis, and engaging
with customers and employees.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
458 PART 2 Groups
11.7 CREATIVITY
• Creativity is the process of using imagination
and skill to develop a new or unique product,
object, process, or thought.
• Four creative performance behaviors to increase
your creativity are problem formulation/
definition, preparation/information gathering,
idea generation, and idea evaluation/validation.
• Creative behaviors are influenced by a host of
person factors and situation factors.
11.8 HOW CAN I MASTER
DECISION-MAKING AND
CREATIVITY SKILLS?
• Work on developing your critical thinking and
problem-solving skills, which will be essential
to your professional success.
• Examine previous poor decisions and con-
sider whether you were influenced by any of
the decision-making biases discussed in this
chapter.
• Evaluate your decision-making style and
determine whether it will help or hinder you in
your professional career.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 11
You learned that decision making is a key process
at both the individual and group/team levels, and
it is affected by a host of person factors such as
intuition, decision making styles, personality, and
self-efficacy. Decision making also is influenced
by situation factors associated with the decision
situation, organizational culture, and organiza-
tional climate. As shown in Figure 11.7, a number
of additional processes affect outcomes associ-
ated with decision making. Decision making is
associated with the individual outcomes of task
performance, career outcomes, and creativity. At
the group level, it affects group/team perfor-
mance and group cohesion and conflict. Finally,
decision making affects an organization’s overall
financial performance, innovation, and customer
satisfaction.
11.4 FOUR DECISION-MAKING
STYLES
• The model of decision-making styles is based
on the idea that styles vary along two dimen-
sions: value orientation and tolerance for
ambiguity.
• There are four styles of decision making:
analytical, conceptual, behavioral, and
directive.
11.5 A ROAD MAP TO ETHICAL
DECISION MAKING
• A decision tree is a graphical representation
of the process underlying decisions.
• The ethical decision tree is a structured
approach for making ethical decisions.
• Answering a series of questions in the tree
leads to a recommended decision.
11.6 GROUP DECISION
MAKING
• There are both pros and cons to using groups
in the decision-making process.
• The advantages include (1) a greater pool of
knowledge, (2) different approaches to a
problem, (3) greater commitment to deci-
sions, and (4) more visible role modeling.
• The disadvantages to using groups include
(1) social pressure to make particular deci-
sions, (2) dominance by a few people, (3) goal
displacement, and (4) groupthink.
• Groupthink reduces the quality of decisions
and is caused by high levels of cohesiveness
among group members that overrides indi-
vidual differences.
• Seven symptoms of groupthink help predict
its occurrence.
• A contingency approach can help in deciding
whether to include groups in the decision-
making process.
• Three common problem-solving tools are
brainstorming, the Delphi technique, and
decision support systems (DSS).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
459Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
2. It’s hard to be rational. What biases get in the
way?
3. How can I more effectively use evidence-
based decision making?
4. How do I decide to decide?
5. How can I assess the ethics of my decisions?
6. What are the pros and cons of group decision
making and the various problem-solving
tools?
7. How can I increase my own creative behavior
and that of my employees?
Challenge: Major Questions for
Chapter 11
You should now be able to answer the following
questions. Unless you can, have you really pro-
cessed and internalized the lessons in the
chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 11.7,
the chapter discussion, and your notes to revisit
and answer the following major questions:
1. How can I integrate rational and nonrational
models of decision making?
FIGURE 11.7 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Intuition
• Judgmental heuristics
• Decision-making styles
• Ethical values
• Personality
• Self-efficacy
• National culture
Situation Factors
• Decision situation
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
Individual Level
• Rational/nonrational decision
making
• Ethical decision making
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Rational/nonrational decision
making
• Groupthink
• Minority dissent
• Consensus
• Creativity
Organizational Level
• Evidence-based decision
making
• Creativity
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Legal liability
• Innovation
• Customer satisfaction
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
460 PART 2 Groups
Airbus SE is Europe’s largest aircraft manufacturer with
revenues exceeding $71 billion in 2018. Boeing, the
company’s chief rival, dominated the long-haul market
with its flagship, double-decker 747 aircraft for
decades. In 2005 Airbus unveiled its A380 aircraft
with a range of 8,000 nautical miles to challenge
Boeing’s dominance of this important market. The
four-engine A380 superjumbo is certified for up to 853
passengers, making it the world’s largest passenger
aircraft.
We want you to consider how the decision-making
process led Airbus in 2019 to cease production of the
A380. Overall, the company expects to have sold 251
planes by the time it ceases production in 2021, well
under its breakeven target.130 The decision to stop
production also means a reduction of about 3,500
jobs, and the company will not recoup the roughly
$25 billion it invested in the aircraft project.131
CHANGING MARKET DEMANDS
Airbus began development of the A380 in the
1990s. The manufacturer believed it had identified
an opportunity: as air travel increased there would
be a need for larger aircraft. Airports in hub cities,
such as London, Tokyo, and New York, only had so
much capacity. So a massive aircraft that could seat
a large number of passengers seemed like an ideal
solution.132
The gigantic aircraft was a hit with airplane enthusi-
asts, but the industry was experiencing three unex-
pected changes. First, bilateral and multilateral
agreements eased airport congestion. Traditionally,
countries granted each other landing rights for a fixed
number of flights per week to a fixed destination. Then
came “Open Skies” agreements that provided unre-
stricted access to all airports.133 These agreements
facilitated the growth of secondary airports so passen-
gers could take advantage of lower fare tickets. “The
A380 was better suited to 1995, before air routes
fragmented,” said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation
expert.134 For example, London was no longer the
premier destination in the UK with cities such as
Manchester becoming hubs of their own.135
Second, Airbus grossly misjudged future passenger
preferences. The company’s initial research in the
1990s focused on Boeing’s 747, which offered fewer
flights, but more capacity on each one. The A380
launched more than a decade after this research was
conducted. Passenger preferences had actually
switched to wanting more flight times by the time the
A380 went into service. Business travelers needed
flexibility for flight departures between popular desti-
nations, and this often meant more flights with each
not operating at full capacity.136 An airline strategist
told Bloomberg that the A380 was “Too costly to fly
anything but near full, and unusable on any less dense
sectors.”137
Finally, many airlines have turned to smaller, fuel-
efficient aircraft, such as Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner.
“As smaller, more efficient planes flood the market . . .
[it kills] the case for larger aircraft,” according to the
New York Times.138 The two-engine Dreamliner has a
lightweight carbon fiber body with significantly less
fuel cost than the A380. The Dreamliner is much
smaller than the A380, but that works out just fine in
an era where each flight consists of fewer passen-
gers who demand flexibility in the number of flights
available to them.139
THE PRODUCTION PROCESS
Airbus had trouble delivering the first A380s on time
and within budget because the manufacturer realized
it had underestimated the complexity of wiring the air-
craft and it used a multinational design team. Airbus is
in fact a partnership between different European
nations. This results in different designers, using differ-
ent software, making group decisions on the design of
aircraft. Multinational representation at Airbus went all
the way to the upper echelons of the company until
2006. In fact, the manufacturer was led by French and
German co-CEOs throughout the development of the
A380. The superjumbo, dubbed the “Eighth Wonder of
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Airbus Decides to Permanently Land the A380
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
461Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
accomplished, decide which one is most
important and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and
problems are generally viewed from a particu-
lar protagonist’s perspective. Take the per-
spective of a member of the task force
investigating this problem.
C. Use details in the case to identify the key prob-
lem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that
are not included in the case.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, summarized in the
Organizing Framework shown in Figure 11.7.
Causes will appear in either the Inputs box or the
Processes box.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
to identify which person factors, if any, are
most likely causes to the defined problem.
For each cause, ask yourself, Why is this a cause
of the problem? Asking why multiple times is
more likely to lead you to root causes of the
problem.
B. Follow the same process for the situation factors.
C. Now consider the Processes box shown in
Figure 11.7. Consider concepts listed at all
three levels. For any concept that might be a
cause, ask yourself, Why is this a cause?
Again, do this for several iterations to arrive
at root causes.
C. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, map them onto the defined problem.
STEP 3: Make your recommendations for solving the
problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it,
solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom-
mendation is desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use the content in
Chapter 11 or one of the earlier chapters to
propose a solution.
B. You may find potential solutions in the OB in
Action boxes and Applying OB boxes within this
chapter. These features provide insights into
what other individuals or companies are doing in
relationship to the topic at hand.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations.
the World,” represented all that was great about the
European Union, including shared leadership.140 “From
its inception, the A380 was a grand European project,”
according to Bloomberg.141
This pride may have interfered in the production
group’s decision-making processes. “Airbus stum-
bled into this production fiasco because of overcon-
fidence in its own abilities,” company veterans told
The Wall Street Journal. These issues also caused
the goal of the project to shift. Steven Udvar-Hazy, a
pioneer of aircraft leasing, told the Journal that the
A380 went from its original goal of hub-to-hub trans-
port during congested times to pure “. . . political
ambition to outdo Boeing Co.’s 747 jumbo jet as the
world’s largest airliner.”142
EMIRATES IMPACTS DECISION
MAKING AT AIRBUS
Emirates Airlines is known as the chief sponsor of the
A380 and ordered more than 160 units, far more than
any other carrier.143 The Dubai-based airline also
placed an order for 20 additional planes in January
2018, giving life to the floundering program. Emirates
canceled the order a year later when it was not able to
secure price and performance concessions from
engine-maker Rolls-Royce.144 The cancellation was the
last straw for Airbus. “As a result of this decision we
have no substantial A380 backlog and hence no basis
to sustain production, despite all our sales efforts with
other airlines in recent years,” former Airbus CEO Tom
Enders said.145 Airbus was thus forced to terminate
production of an aircraft that could not match its popu-
lar appeal with revenues.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 11.7 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember
that a problem is a gap between a desired and a
current state. State your problem as a gap, and
be sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
462 PART 2 Groups
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Should Colleges Expel Students Whose Parents Cheated
to Get Them In?
The largest academic fraud scandal to date occurred
in March 2018. Federal prosecutors charged 50 indi-
viduals with a variety of crimes, including money
laundering. Wealthy television actresses, corporate
executives, hedge fund managers, and others are said
to have paid $25 million to college officials to secure
slots for their children.146
How Did the Scandal Work?
The admissions scheme had two parts. The first
involved college athletic departments admitting some
children as athletes, even if they did not play a sport.
Some of the college coaches were accused of taking
bribes. The second involved testing centers inflating
some students’ SAT and ACT scores or having some-
one else take the tests for the students.147 Indicted
college officials and parents will have their day in
court, but affected universities have a difficult decision
to make when it comes to students who were admitted
as part of the scheme.
The University of Southern California (USC) is one
institution involved with the charges, and it is review-
ing the status of students associated with the scandal.
The school said on Twitter, “Following the review, we
will take the proper action related to their status, up to
revoking admission or expulsion.”148 USC has also
placed holds on these students’ accounts, which
restricts them from registering for classes or acquiring
transcripts.149
Are There Innocent Bystanders?
Evidence suggests that some of the students associ-
ated with the scandal were innocent bystanders.
William Singer, a college admissions consultant who
ran the whole scheme, was recorded on a call say-
ing that “most of the kids” did not know their scores
were inflated after leaving the testing center. Fur-
ther, some of the students who were falsely classi-
fied as elite athletes did not know that their
applications were doctored. One USC student, for
example, confronted his parents about receiving
e-mails regarding practices and team events for
track and field: He was admitted to USC as a track
and field athlete. The student, who never partici-
pated in that sport, did not know his parents
arranged his fraudulent admission.150 “Your heart
goes out to these kids who in some ways seem like
innocent pawns of their parents’ machinations,” says
Amy Sepinwall, a University of Pennsylvania profes-
sor of law and business ethics.151
What Should Universities Do?
One solution is to investigate each student associated
with the scandal. Students who are determined to
have benefited from the scheme would be booted and
those who are found to be innocent get to stay. How-
ever, some of the cases are not that simple. According
to Bloomberg, students often exaggerate and pad
their resumes during the admissions cycle. So universi-
ties will have to determine which of these particular
cases warrant action. For example, Singer sometimes
created whole athletic careers that didn’t exist. Such
was the case for a student admitted to Stanford’s sail-
ing team who had never sailed. For others, Singer
advised parents to exaggerate their kids’ existing ath-
letic accomplishments.152
The impacted universities have difficult decisions
to make. They may come under harsh criticism if they
don’t take action against coddled students of the rich
and famous. Sadly, expulsion can ruin the lives of stu-
dents whose only crime was having parents who
cheated.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
463Decision Making and Creativity CHAPTER 11
If You Led a University and Found Out
That Some of Your Admitted Students
Were Associated with the Admissions
Scandal, What Would You Do?
1. Expel them whether or not they knew what their
parents were doing. These students are the
beneficiaries of an alleged crime and allowing
them to stay enrolled sends a poor message to
other students.
2. Only expel them if they were actively involved in
the scheme. It would not be fair to ruin the life
of a student who did not know what his or her
parents were up to.
3. Force students involved in the scandal to re-
apply, whether or not they knew what their par-
ents had done. Expel them if they don’t meet the
criteria for admissions based on their legitimate
applications.
4. Invent other options and explain.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 12-1 Understand the basic forms of power.
LO 12-2 Understand how to empower yourself and others.
LO 12-3 Describe and implement various influence tactics.
LO 12-4 Differentiate and apply the main forms of organizational politics.
LO 12-5 Determine how to implement effective impression management.
LO 12-6 Describe the implications of power, influence, and politics for you
and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Power, Influence,
and Politics12
Ja
n
H
av
lic
ek
/J
oh
ny
87
/1
23
RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
465Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
This chapter focuses on particular means for influencing others, and thus the concepts
in this chapter are especially important group/team-level processes in the Organizing
Framework for Understanding and Applying OB (see Figure 12.1). The reason for this
bold assertion is that you are being influenced by and attempting to influence others
every day of your life, especially at work. Thus, understanding and applying knowl-
edge related to power, influence, empowerment, political tactics, and impression man-
agement are extremely valuable to your success. You’ll see support for this claim in
the Organizing Framework, where power and influence relate to most outcomes
across all levels of OB. Many different person and situation factors are related to
power and influence, but our primary focus is on understanding the power and influ-
ence processes themselves and the numerous outcomes they affect.
FIGURE 12.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Skills and abilities
• Values
• Ethics
Situation Factors
• Relationship quality
• Leadership
Individual Level
• Conflict and negotiation
• Emotions
• Perceptions
• Motivation
• Trust
• Communication
• Psychological empowerment
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
• Conflict and negotiation
• Decision making
• Power, influence, and politics
• Performance management
• Leadership
• Trust
• Structural empowerment
• Impression management
Organizational Level
• Human resource policies and
practices
• Leading and managing
change and stress
• Impression management
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Stress
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Reputation
• Legal liability
© 2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
466
Make Meetings Work for You
required, then consider sending an e-mail. Otherwise, invite peo-
ple with the appropriate knowledge and responsibilities to con-
tribute, and be sure they do. (See #3 above—assign and
communicate roles and expectations for their contributions.)6
6. Set a time limit. Some experts suggest that meetings be limited
to no more than 45 minutes. There are at least two benefits to
this practice: (1) people typically schedule calendar items to be-
gin on the hour, and a 45-minute limit gives them time to get to
and prepare for their next appointment; and (2) tasks expand to
fill the time you give them, and allowing only 45 minutes will
help keep you disciplined and on task.7
7. Match complaints with solutions. Establish the expectation that
someone who raises an issue or complaint must also provide a
potential solution.
8. Control the conversation. Some people ramble, others complain
without offering solutions, and still others wander off on tan-
gents. You don’t want to be rude, but you must control the meet-
ing. To a rambler, say: “Interesting comment, Taylor. Let’s talk
about it after the meeting.” Complainer: “Robin, we’ve heard
your issue. What solution do you recommend?” Tangents:
“Sylvia, you’ve taken the discussion off the agenda. Is there
something we’re missing or something bothering you?”8
9. Be concise. Tell everyone you expect comments that are con-
cise and on topic, then reinforce this by modeling the same
behavior.
10. Stick to a schedule. Start on time and end on time.
11. Ask for input. You can use your knowledge of feedback and ask
those who attend your meetings, “What two or three things
made the meeting effective?” and “What are two or three ways
we can make future meetings more effective?”
Greg Caimi, a partner at Bain Consulting and author of the firm’s
time management study, said, “If time really was money, and
accounted for in the same way, many companies would be running
huge deficits.”9 Treat your time, and that of others, like money and
don’t run deficits!
As one business writer stated: “If you had to identify, in one word, the
reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve,
its full potential, that word would be ‘meetings.’ ”1 This cynical and
humorous quote resonates with employees everywhere. You’ve prob-
ably never heard anyone plead for more meetings. One estimate is
the average worker spends 21 percent of their work hours in meet-
ings and 25 percent of that is wasted. Managers suffer too. A study
conducted by the Society of Human Resource Management found
71 percent of managers said meetings were generally unproductive,
and 65 percent claimed meetings kept them from productive work.2
Yet despite the pain, we know people need to meet, and when man-
aged effectively, groups and teams of people can accomplish great
things. We therefore give you practical tools to get the most out of
your meetings, your colleagues, and your time. Doing so will not only
help combat boredom and frustration, but also increase your influ-
ence with others, and in turn improve your performance and that of
your colleagues.
Common Complaints
A survey by Accountemps revealed the following most common com-
plaints about meetings, ranked by the percentage of respondents
who indicated each:
0%
Attendees unprepared3
Attendees distracted (using their
phones or other devices)
Too much or not enough time
Unnecessary (could have been
communicated via e-mail)
Starts or ends late
20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Making all of this worse is the fact that managers and others who initi-
ate meetings think they are far, far more productive than those who
attend them, 79 percent versus 57 percent, respectively.
How to Improve Meetings
1. Make and distribute an agenda. Do more than simply state pur-
pose, day, time, and location. Tell participants specifically what
they need to do to prepare.
2. Set and communicate a goal for the meeting. Explain in advance
what you want to accomplish by the time you conclude the
meeting, such as a decision or plan of action. Tell participants
your goal again at the beginning of the meeting.
3. Assign responsibilities. Assign roles and responsibilities for the
meeting itself, and then assign follow-up or next steps.4
4. Limit the participants. Some research concludes no more than
eight people should be invited, and that when a meeting exceeds
this number more people are likely to check out and free-load.5
5. Choose carefully. Too often only one, two, or a few people domi-
nate meetings. If you or one other person is simply conveying
information to the others, with no genuine interaction or decisions
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
The purpose of this chapter is to give you a tool kit for navi-
gating the eternal and ubiquitous world of influence in orga-
nizational life. We explore the interrelated topics of power,
empowerment, influence and persuasion, organizational poli-
tics, and impression management. These topics are in the
group and team section of the book because they are about
influencing others—individuals and groups. They are impor-
tant group-level processes in the Organizing Framework for
Applying and Understanding OB. The way you influence oth-
ers affects their response and your effectiveness. Appropri-
ate, skilled, and ethical use of the knowledge in this chapter
will not only help set you apart from your peers, but also
close the gap between you and those with more experience
and bigger titles.
Winning at Work
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12 467
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You try to influence people all day, every day of your life, sometimes with great effort and
other times without even being aware. And others are doing the same to you. To influence
people, you draw on various types of power depending on the situation. You might simply tell
a subordinate to do what you want, or you might inspire a coworker with your charismatic
personality and persuasive prowess. The way you choose to influence others, and the types
of power you use, can have important implications for the responses you get. We will help
you gain and apply different forms of power to boost your effectiveness at managing out-
comes across the levels of the Organizing Framework for OB.
12.1 POWER AND ITS BASIC FORMS
Power is the discretion and the means to enforce your will over others.10 Given this
definition power is all about influencing others. The more influence you have, the more
powerful you are, and vice versa. The well-known phrase—“power tends to corrupt, and
absolute power corrupts absolutely”—is undoubtedly true in some instances. However, like
it or not, power is a fact of organizational life and you are wise to understand and use it
effectively and ethically. The following quote captures the idea well:
Power must be used because managers must influence those they depend on.
Power also is crucial in the development of managers’ self-confidence and willing-
ness to support subordinates. From this perspective, power should be accepted as a
natural part of any organization. Managers should recognize and develop their own
power to coordinate and support the work of subordinates; it is powerlessness, not
power, that undermines organizational effectiveness.11
To make our discussion of power more practical, we distinguish five common forms or
bases of power.
Five Bases of Power
The five common bases of power are: legitimate, reward, coercive,
expert, and referent. (See Figure 12.2.) Each represents a different
approach to influencing others and has advantages and drawbacks.
Let’s learn more.
Legitimate Power Legitimate power is what most people think of
as authority and is anchored to a formal position or job. Thus, manag-
ers who obtain compliance primarily by using their formal author-
ity to make decisions have legitimate power. Legitimate power may
be used positively or negatively.
• Positive legitimate power focuses constructively on job perfor-
mance. The CBS board of directors utilized this form of power
when it ousted CEO Les Moonves and refused to pay his
$120 million severance package. The board claimed Mr. Moonves
Understand the
basic forms of
power.
LO 12-1
FIGURE 12.2 The Five Bases of Power
Legitimate
Reward
Coercive
Referent
Expert
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
468 PART 2 Groups
lied and attempted to cover up multiple allegations related to sexual misconduct, thus
violating company policies and his contractual obligations.12 The board asserted its
legitimate power by punishing the CEO, which also sent a strong signal to the rest of
the organization that policies are enforced consistently—even at the top.
• Negative legitimate power, in contrast, tends to be threatening and demeaning to those
being influenced. Sometimes this is simply an exercise in building the power holder’s
ego, such as the many U.S. politicians who have used their legislative position power
to name various “monuments” after themselves. While a road here and a library
there are quite common, the late Robert Byrd from West Virginia had more than
30 monuments named after him.13 Citizens of Florida are considering banning such
practices. They are seeking to amend the state’s constitution and prevent city, county,
and state officials from naming taxpayer-funded facilities after elected officials.14
Recent ethics research found that powerful chief financial officers (CFOs), when compared
to those who are less powerful, were more likely to negotiate short-term compensation incen-
tives and manage company earnings in order to increase their pay and receive the funds
sooner, rather than vesting over longer periods of time.15 For instance, they are more likely to
arrange for cash and stock bonuses to be paid over three rather than five years. If you recall
the time value of money from finance, you’d rather have your entire annual salary paid today
instead of divided up with some paid each month. The idea is you could invest that large sum
and earn additional income over and above the value of your salary. CFOs certainly under-
stand this and may tend to use their legitimate power for their personal benefit.
Can you think of your own examples of both positive and negative legitimate power?
Reward Power Individuals or organizations have reward power if they can obtain
compliance by promising or granting rewards valued by the other party. As you
learned in Chapter 6, pay-for-performance plans and positive reinforcement practices rely
on reward power. The relationship between Barnes & Noble and Starbucks, along with
other alliances, is an excellent example of reward power. Books and coffee are a wonderful
combination for many people, and this partnership enables one party to help combat the
extinction of brick and mortar bookstores, while at the same time providing books to cus-
tomers without having to invest in inventory and manage the operation.16
Coercive Power The ability to make threats of punishment and deliver actual
punishment reflects coercive power. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a
lawsuit against DeVry University, one of the largest for-profit colleges in the United States.
The FTC charged the company falsely claimed 90 percent of its graduates gained employ-
ment within six months of graduation and earned 15 percent higher salaries a year after
graduation than graduates of all other colleges.17
Expert Power Valued knowledge or information gives an individual expert power
over those who need such knowledge or information. One way the power of supervisors is
enhanced stems from knowing about work assignments and pay raises before their employ-
ees do. Perhaps the most common source of expert power for employees more generally is
that derived from past experience and performance.
Referent Power Referent power is derived from personal characteristics and social
relationships that effectively gain others’ compliance. Charisma is commonly associated
with referent power, but you do not need to be the life of the party to possess such power. In
Asian cultures, for instance, characteristics such as age, gender, or family name are sources of
social status and referent power. One often overlooked and underestimated source of referent
power is your network of relationships. Assume a coworker calls and asks whether you can
help her with a project. You tell her you don’t have the knowledge or skill yourself, but that
Susan, a member of another department whom you happen to know, can provide the help
your coworker requires. You make the introduction. Because you introduced your coworker to
someone who helped her, you have referent power by virtue of your relationships.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
469Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
Referent power drives the success of a number of marketing schemes, such as those
used by Tupperware and Mary Kay. These companies and others use independent contrac-
tors to throw home parties to display and sell goods to friends and families. More gener-
ally, referral programs are examples of referent power. Airbnb provides dollar credits for
referring friends who then use its services, and Marriott Reward members can earn up to
50,000 points when up to five referrals book with one of the hotels in the same calendar
year. Referrals pay in the beauty and cosmetics industry too. Ulta Beauty awards
$15 toward your next salon treatment when you gift $15 to someone else.18
Reputation is another aspect of referent power. Many companies hire new CEOs in part
to reap the benefits of the executive’s reputation. Mattel, the toy maker, has truly put this to
the test by hiring three CEOs since 2015. Ynon Kreiz was the latest expected to reverse the
continuing decline in company revenues over the past several years. Amazon and the collapse
of Toys-R-Us and other brick-and-mortar retailers have made things especially difficult for toy
companies. As with other CEO replacements, Mattel is hoping the change and Kreiz’s reputa-
tion in television production will woo investors by connecting the company’s products with
movies featuring its products, such as a movie including Barbie, its iconic doll.19
Referent power is also a major means for converting your social media connections
and reputation into influence—and money. The following Applying OB box illustrates how
“influencers” do just this via Instagram.
Mattel partnered with Warner Bros. to produce a movie leveraging the iconic Barbie
doll to sell other products and promote positivity and confidence for girls and young
women. Margot Robbie was cast to play Barbie.
(Left): Keith Homan/Shutterstock; (right): Samir Hussein/WireImage/Getty Images
Applying OB
Social media has come a long way in a few short years,
so much so that “social media influencer” is a genuine
career path with many earning annual incomes similar
to more conventional professions. For instance, micro-
influencers (up to 50,000 followers) can earn a few
thousand dollars per post, and those with up to a
million followers might earn $10,000 per post.20
There are the elite influencers on YouTube and
Instagram who make many millions of dollars a year.
Whether you are micro or elite,21 the fundamental
Follow Me—All the Way to the Bank
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
470 PART 2 Groups
Now that you’ve learned about the five bases of power, complete Self-Assessment 12.1
to identify which bases you prefer to use. Answering the associated questions will help you
understand how the various forms of power can both help and hurt you when trying to
influence others.
reasons for success are the same—referent and
expert power.
Referent power for social media influencers is
reflected in influencers’ reputations, often their celebrity
status in sports or movies. People like celebrities, they
want to emulate them, and sometimes they identify with
a character or the team on which one plays. These
forms of conventional celebrity result in name recogni-
tion and attention and thus followers on social media.
Yet other influencers’ power is derived from their
expertise or relevance to particular areas of interest for
followers, the largest of which are fashion, fitness, and
gaming. Some of the highest paid influencers are
gamers—such as DanTDM, VanossGaming, and
PewDiePie—who reveal their tricks of the trade on
various games on YouTube and earn over $10 million
per year.22
Selena Gomez, the most-followed person on Insta-
gram, reportedly gets paid $550,000 per sponsored
post, while Kylie Jenner earns $400,000, and Cristiano
Ronaldo adds to his goal scoring fortune by earning
about the same as Jenner.23
Just like other types of relationships, social media
influencers rely on their authenticity to build follower
trust and commitment. Followers come to rely on the
influencers for sound, honest, and valuable advice and
recommendations, which is what keeps them coming
back and buying!24
What Kind of Power Do I Prefer?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 12.1 in Connect.
1. Which of the five bases of power do you prefer to use?
2. Describe how your preferred form of power helps you at school, at work, and
socially.
3. Which of the five bases is your least preferred? What are the implications for
you at school, at work, and socially?
4. What two specific things can you do to increase your expert power? And what
two things to increase your referent power?
Adapted from T. R. Hinkin and C. A. Schriesheim, “Development and Application of New Scales to Measure the French and
Raven (1959) Bases of Social Power,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 1989, 567, American Psychological Association.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.1 CAREER READINESS
Position vs. Personal Power
The first three forms of power—legitimate, reward, and coercive—are often referred to as
position power because the source of influence is associated with a particular job
or position within an organization. Managers, for instance, have legitimate, reward, and
coercive power because they control your pay, work assignments, hiring and firing, and
evaluations. In contrast, expert and referent are forms of personal power, which you
possess independent of your position or job. (See Figure 12.3.)
These two general sources of power frequently collide when you are promoted and
must manage the people who just yesterday were your peers. The following Applying OB
box offers good advice.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
471Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
FIGURE 12.3 Bases of Power: Position and Personal
Referent
ExpertLegitimate
Reward
Coercive
Personal
Power
Position
Power
Applying OB
If you’ve been promoted to manage your group, you
suddenly have more legitimate power. But to be an
effective manager you need to exercise that power
carefully, in a way that doesn’t alienate but instead
motivates your former peers.
What do Sam Hazen at HCA Healthcare25 and
Tony Lowings of Kentucky Fried Chicken26 have in
common? Certainly not their companies’ products and
services. Both were promoted within their companies
to the role of CEO and likely confronted the challenges
of becoming everyone’s boss, including other execu-
tives who had been their peers. Such transitions are
often difficult for the promoted and those passed over.
Of course, thousands if not millions of workers are pro-
moted every day, and they too face challenges similar
to those of executives. The following advice can help
you influence former peers who are now subordinates,
while at the same time making the transition easier on
you and them.
1. It’s awkward . . . admit it. Be honest and don’t act
as if it is no big deal or it isn’t awkward. Be vulner-
able, ask for others’ help and input, rather than act-
ing as though all the necessary knowledge and
answers came along with your new title.
2. Communicate boundaries. Be sure to consider
and communicate boundaries. You need to deter-
mine what you can talk about and share, and what
you can’t or would rather not. Your former peers
may be able to continue to confide in you as
before, but not always. And it is very likely there
will be things about your new role you cannot and
should not share with them. Figure it out and tell
them.27
3. Meet one-on-one. Meet with all your new direct
reports, especially those who were your peers and
are your friends. Doing this regularly can not only
help you set goals and communicate expectations,
but will also provide opportunities for them to learn
what you think of them and their work, now that
you’re their manager.28
4. Don’t show off. It might be tempting to strengthen
your leadership role with an aggressive, dominat-
ing style, overseeing every detail; however, that
approach can generate resentment.
5. Do accept responsibility. Don’t try to remain bud-
dies if it will undermine your ability to get the job
done. Collaborate when it’s the best way to accom-
plish goals, but not to save a friendship.
6. Do your homework. Work with your new supervi-
sor to define goals for yourself and your team.
Strengthen your network of mentors to improve
your management skills. Meet with your staff to go
over your vision and expectations. Setting a direc-
tion for the team enhances your credibility (via
expert power).
7. Pay attention to team members’ concerns. Show
them how meeting the group’s goals will put them
on track toward meeting their own needs.29
From Teammate to Manager: Taking Charge
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
472 PART 2 Groups
Power, but for What Purpose?
Asserting power is a necessary and sometimes even a subconscious activity in our lives.
However, we often overlook the potential outcomes. People tend to have three primary
reactions to our attempts to manage and otherwise influence them—resistance, compli-
ance, and commitment.
• Resistance. You know what resistance is, but have you ever thought of the many
forms and degrees? People can simply be indifferent, be passive-aggressive or
actively resist. They can also purposefully undermine or even sabotage your efforts.
The degree and form of resistance thus matter.
• Compliance. Those who comply do only what is expected, nothing more. They exert
no extra effort and provide no extra input.
• Commitment. Those who are committed believe in the cause and often go above and
beyond to ensure its success.
These outcomes are obviously different, and the differences matter! One factor that certainly
can affect others’ responses is how ethically or responsibly you utilize any form of power.
Using Power Ethically and Effectively People who do not use their power responsi-
bly risk losing it. This has been shown time and again in political uprisings and the ouster of
government leaders, as well as in the persistent waves of scandals in business and the result-
ing downfall of executives. For instance, as of late 2018 the #MeToo movement had toppled
over 200 men in positions of power due to allegations of sexual assault and harassment.30
Research is mounting that shows pro-social employees who ascend to leadership posi-
tions, and use their position to benefit the group instead of themselves, outperform pro-
self individuals (those who become leaders and use the position to benefit themselves).
These same pro-social leaders also were more effective at fostering contributions from
their teams.31
As a senior level commander, General Wesley Clark needed to influence
people all the time. Of course he had considerable position power as a
general, which in many instances enabled him to get others to comply with
his wishes and orders. However, he also knew that sometimes he needed
others to actually buy-in and commit. He therefore chose the bases of
power accordingly to be more effective.
John Thys/AFP/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
473Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
For managers who want to avoid the potential pitfalls and wield power responsibly,
a step in the right direction is understanding the difference between commitment and
mere compliance. Responsible managers strive to use power for the good of others,
rather than simply for personal gain. Retired General Wesley Clark, former NATO
commander, put it this way:
Sometimes threatening works, but it usually brings with it adverse consequences—like
resentment and a desire to get even in some way. People don’t like to be reminded
that they are inferior in power or status. And so, in business, it is important to motivate
through the power of shared goals, shared objectives, and shared standards.32
As Clark describes, sometimes you only need someone to comply, but at other times
you need genuine commitment. Choose the types of power you use accordingly.
How Do the Five Bases of Power Relate to Commitment and Compliance?
Research, practice, and perhaps your own experiences reveal that, as shown in Figure 12.4:
• Reward, coercive, and negative legitimate power tend to produce compliance (and
sometimes resistance).
• Positive legitimate power, expert power, and referent power tend to foster commitment.
Once again, commitment is superior to compliance because it is driven by internal or
intrinsic motivation. Committed employees tend to be self-starters who do not require
close supervision. Intrinsically motivated self-starters are success factors in today’s flatter,
team-oriented organizations. In contrast, employees who merely comply require frequent
jolts of power from the boss to keep them going.
Although most of our discussion thus far has focused on how an individual’s power
influences other individuals, the same concepts apply between organizations. For instance,
research shows that organizations can influence their suppliers and their suppliers’ suppli-
ers. Companies that engage in socially responsible management practices, such as those
related to fair labor (reasonable hours and employee rights) and fair trade (sustainable
farming and packaging), can most effectively get members of their supply chain to adopt
these practices if they share their own expertise, knowledge, and training. Trying to coerce,
reward, and require (legitimate) suppliers to adopt such practices is likely to result in
resistance and wasted time and efforts.33
FIGURE 12.4 Bases of Power: Commitment vs. Compliance
Tend to
Foster
Commitment
Tend to
Produce
Compliance
(or Resistance)
Reward
Coercive
Referent
ExpertLegitimate
negative
Legitimate
positive
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
474 PART 2 Groups
Bases of Power and Outcomes in the Organizing Framework Research gives
us some insights into how different bases of power affect important outcomes in the Orga-
nizing Framework, such as job performance, job satisfaction, and turnover. These relation-
ships are illustrated in Figure 12.5.
• Expert and referent power have a generally positive effect.
• Reward and legitimate power have a slightly positive effect.
• Coercive power has a slightly negative effect.
Now that you have a clearer sense of what power is and how it operates, let’s learn about
how sharing power can actually increase your own power.
FIGURE 12.5 Bases of Power and Effectiveness of Outcomes
Legitimate
Reward
Coercive
Slightly
Negative
E�ect
Slightly
Positive
E�ect
Generally
Positive
E�ect
Referent
Expert
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
475Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
THE BIGGER PICTURE
How much do you like being told what to do? Chances are you didn’t like it as a kid and like it
even less as an adult at work. Thankfully, many managers and organizations are looking to
employees to solve problems and make decisions, instead of always telling them what to do
and how to do it. This increased participation and sharing of authority is the result of empow-
erment. We explore different forms of empowerment (structural and psychological), various
degrees of empowerment, and ways to foster it in individuals, teams, and organizations.
Understand how to
empower yourself
and others.
LO 12-2
12.2 POWER SHARING AND EMPOWERMENT
Empowerment consists of efforts to “enhance employee performance, well-being,
and positive attitudes.”34 Empowerment has been shown to favorably influence many
outcomes in the Organizing Framework, such as job satisfaction, organizational commit-
ment, performance, turnover, and employee stress.35
In addition to these benefits, empowerment is becoming a necessity. Time-manage-
ment research done by two researchers at Harvard showed the CEOs in their study spent
nearly 25 percent of their time on e-mail!36 This means no individual, executive or not, can
accomplish all the necessary tasks alone. You must share the load. To help in this effort,
research and practice related to empowerment have focused on two general forms—
structural and psychological.
Structural Empowerment
Structural empowerment transfers authority and responsibilities from manage-
ment to employees. Some popular ways to do this are via the job design and job char-
acteristics forms of motivation. Managers and their employers can boost employee
empowerment by changing policies, procedures, job responsibilities, and team designs.
Any of these that increase the effectiveness of employee decision making are likely also
to increase their performance, well-being, and job-related attitudes. To better under-
stand and apply this knowledge about empowerment, it is necessary to think about the
issue correctly.
Thinking the Right Way about Empowerment Effective empowerment does not
include giving decision-making authority to just any employee in every situation. That
would be both foolish and irresponsible, and it would not be empowerment. Instead,
decision-making authority and other broader responsibilities should be shared only with
those who are competent to do what is necessary. There are two pitfalls to avoid:
1. Empowerment is not a zero-sum game in which one person’s gain is another’s loss.
Sharing power via empowerment is a means of increasing your own power. Think of it
this way: you cannot be everywhere, all the time, with all the answers. But if you allow
competent others to act, then you’ve increased your reach and your influence. This
means authoritarian managers who view employee empowerment as a threat to their
own power are missing the point because of their win–lose thinking.
2. Empowerment is a matter of degree, not an either–or proposition. Figure 12.6
illustrates how power can be shifted to the hands of nonmanagers step by step. The
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
476 PART 2 Groups
overriding goal is to increase productivity and competitiveness in organizations. Each
step in this evolution increases the power of organizational contributors who tradition-
ally were told what, when, and how to do things.
Sharing Power to Increase Your Power and Performance A common element
of empowerment is pushing decision-making authority to lower levels and is illustrated
in Figure 12.6. At the level of least empowerment, managers and leaders practice dom-
ination, characterized as authoritarian power wherein they make all of the decisions
and then hand them down to employees. Next is consultation which occurs when
employees are asked for their input, but managers ultimately make the decisions them-
selves. Participation takes place when managers and employees jointly identify prob-
lems and solutions—power is shared more or less evenly. Finally, delegation occurs
when managers turn over decision-making authority to employees and remove them-
selves from the process altogether. It is important to note that one level of empower-
ment is not necessarily better than another. Like many other things related to OB, the
degree of power sharing should match the needs of the situation and the capabilities of
the individuals or teams involved.37
Homewood Suites, part of Hilton Hotels, offers a 100 percent money-back guaran-
tee if a guest isn’t satisfied. Any employee from housekeeper to manager can make good
on that guarantee—no manager’s approval is needed. And the guest doesn’t have to go
through a chain of command to have a complaint resolved. “The return we get on every
dollar refunded is 20 to 1,” based on repeat business and referrals from those refunded
guests, said former executive Frank Saitta. The return on engaged employees “is much
higher.”38
Not to be outdone, Ritz Carlton allows employees up to $2,000 to remedy a customer
related incident. That’s right, employees don’t need approval and there is no limit on the
number of customers a given employee can assist with $2,000 awards, which can include
gifts, upgrades, and free nights. Wholesale club standout Costco is legendary for its return
policy. Customers don’t need a receipt and there is no time limit. Employees have the
latitude to accept items, make exchanges, or do whatever else they deem necessary to
resolve customer issues.39
FIGURE 12.6 The Evolution of Power from Domination to Delegation
D
eg
re
e
of
E
m
po
w
er
m
en
t
Management Style
DominationNone
High
Consultation Participation Delegation
Authoritarian
power
Manager/leader
imposes decisions.
Influence sharing
Manager/leader
consults followers
when making
decisions.
Power sharing
Manager/leader
and followers
jointly make
decisions.
Power distribution
Followers granted
authority to make
decisions.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
477Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
With your understanding of structural empowerment in hand, let’s move on and learn
about psychological empowerment.
Psychological Empowerment
Psychological empowerment occurs when we feel a sense of:
Meaning—Belief that your work values and goals align with those of your manager,
team, or employer.
Competence—Personal evaluation of your ability to do the job.
Self-determination—Sense that you have control over your work and its outcomes.
Impact at work—Feeling your efforts make a difference and affect the organization.40
How Do Structural and Psychological Empowerment Differ? While structural
empowerment draws on job design and characteristics, psychological empowerment is
related to self-efficacy and intrinsic motivation.41 “It is less concerned with the actual tran-
sition of authority and responsibility but instead focuses on employees’ perceptions or
cognitive states regarding empowerment.”42 Put simply, if you feel your work has meaning,
you are competent, and you have some control (self-determination), then you are very
likely to feel highly efficacious and perform at a high level.
It therefore is necessary to do more than simply delegate responsibilities if you wish to
psychologically empower others. For instance, assume you’re a janitor and you clean sinks
and do it very well. Would you feel empowered if your manager said, “Because you clean
the sinks so well, now I’d like you to clean the toilets too.” Empowered? No. Where is the
sense of meaning or impact? This is simply delegating more work to you (similar to simple
job enlargement in Chapter 5). Put plainly, don’t feel too confident you’re empowering
others if they don’t actually feel empowered.
Psychological Empowerment at the Team and Organizational Levels Both
research and practice show the same four elements that empower individuals—meaning,
competence, self-determination, and impact—also foster psychological empowerment in
teams.43 Moreover, the benefits to individuals also apply to teams and organizations—
higher performance and satisfaction44 and more positive emotions within the team.45
Toyota has successfully empowered teams for decades. In the company’s manufac-
turing facilities, for example, teams are expected to identify and solve problems as they
As part of their efforts to compete for guests’ business, Hilton and Ritz-Carlton both provide consider-
able levels of empowerment for employees to enable them to satisfy guests as they see appropriate.
No manager approval needed.
(Left): Lester Balajadia/Shutterstock; (right): Max_Ryazanov/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
478 PART 2 Groups
occur and not simply pass them along to
management to fix. Employees are further
encouraged to make efficiency and quality-
improvement suggestions to management.
These are typically reviewed by management,
but the problems are often assigned to
employee teams charged with identifying and
implementing solutions. Toyota’s practices
have been so effective that they have been
adopted not only by other auto companies,
but also by manufacturers in many other
industries the world over.
Since we’ve explored different forms of
empowerment and its various degrees and
levels, let’s conclude this section with a discus-
sion of how to increase or develop empower-
ment in individuals, teams, and organizations.
How to Empower Individuals, Teams,
and Organizations
Empowering others is not simple, but what makes it easier is the same levers operate across
all levels of an organization. Figure 12.7 illustrates some key inputs to empowering others
and their resulting outcomes. Notice how many are elements in the Organizing Framework.
Empowerment Inputs Structural empowerment is an input to psychological empow-
erment. This makes sense because job characteristics, policies, and practices can either
facilitate or impede feelings of empowerment for individuals and teams. In one case, hos-
pital policies and practices were changed (structural empowerment) which helped nurse
leaders find greater meaning in their jobs, provided more participative decision making,
Simply giving employees more responsibilities or tasks does
not mean they will feel empowered. Would you feel empow-
ered if your manager allowed you to clean toilets because
you’ve done such an excellent job of cleaning sinks?
BlueSkyImage/Shutterstock
FIGURE 12.7 Inputs and Outcomes of Psychological Empowerment Across
Organizational Levels
Inputs Empowerment Outcomes
• Structural empowerment
• Individual di
erences
(core self-evaluations,
psychological capital, and
need for achievement)
• Job characteristics
• Managerial support
• Leadership
• Organizational support
(access to resources from
other teams)
• Performance
• Organizational
citizenship behavior
• Job satisfaction
• Turnover intentions
• Stress
Psychological
Empowerment
Team Level Organization LevelIndividual Level
SOURCE: Maynard, M. Travis, Lucy L. Gilson, and John E. Mathieu. “Empowerment—Fad or Fab? A Multilevel Review of the Past Two Decades of Research.”
Journal of Management 38, no. 4 (2012): 1231–1281. https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206312438773.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
479Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
and reduced bureaucracy. These changes in turn increased the nurses’ feelings of psycho-
logical empowerment and their actual empowering behaviors.46
Also helpful to enhancing empowerment is the extent to which employees have positive
self-evaluations, such as core self-evaluations and positive psychological capital (Chapters 3 and
7, respectively). Your knowledge of motivation also is helpful to understanding and fostering
empowerment across levels of the Organizing Framework. Job characteristics, for instance, that
generate intrinsic motivational states (sense of meaningfulness and responsibility) clearly can
help, along with empowering leadership (Chapter 13). Finally, if teams have access to resources
such as the people and ideas in other teams, then they too are more likely to be empowered.
Empowerment Outputs Like many of the topics covered in this book, empowerment
is valuable because it positively influences performance for individuals, teams, and organi-
zations. But the benefits extend beyond performance and include citizenship behaviors,
job satisfaction, turnover intentions, and creativity. Empowerment also reduces stress for
individuals and teams.47
To help your empowerment efforts, we turn our attention in the next section to
particular tools for influencing others. But before moving on, apply your new knowledge in
the following Problem-Solving Application.
Empowering a Team of Your Peers48
Jennifer was a highly regarded and top-performing
marketing associate at an international pharmaceu-
tical company. Due to her exceptional performance
and other skills and abilities, she was promoted to
manager. This transition meant she was now the
supervisor of her former peers.
Her first assignment was a new product to be
launched in a foreign market. To formulate and ulti-
mately execute a successful product launch, Jenni-
fer and her team needed to gather market data,
learn and share information about the competition,
analyze financial details, coordinate with other prod-
uct managers, hire and work with an advertising
agency, and secure regulatory approval.
Jennifer had personal experience and success
doing most of these things, but now she had to do
them on a much larger scale and in the context of a
team she managed. As a high performer, she was
determined to get all the details right. Therefore,
when any element was late, done poorly, or just not
up to her expectations, she stepped in and did it
herself. Her work life quickly expanded to 15-hour
days and weekends.
Jennifer’s involvement in so many aspects of the
product launch prevented her from mentoring and
developing her team members in the ways they
clearly needed. They seemed to lack a sense of
accountability, knowing that if their work wasn’t up to
speed the boss would step in and complete or correct
it. Jennifer noticed this and feared her team was not
learning to produce high-quality work on its own. Not
only would this hurt the current project, but other
departments and teams would come to know it and
be less willing to work with them in the future, damag-
ing Jennifer’s own performance and that of her team.
Jennifer was extremely reluctant to go to her
boss for help, because she had been told she’d
earned her new position, and it was a test for
another role with still greater responsibility.
Assuming you are Jennifer, what would you do?
Problem-Solving Application
Apply the 3-Step Problem Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem in the case.
Step 2: Identify the potential causes.
Step 3: Recommend what you would do if you were Jennifer.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
480 PART 2 Groups
In a perfect world other people’s interests would align with your own and everyone would move
forward as one. However, the world isn’t perfect, and we often find a rather messy situation in
which self-interests override the collective mission of the department or organization. Personal
and hidden agendas are pursued, political coalitions are formed, false impressions are made,
and people end up working against rather than with each other. Managers, and you, need to
guide diverse individuals, all with their own interests, to pursue common objectives. At stake in
this tug-of-war between individual and collective interests is effectiveness at the personal, group,
and organizational levels. Your tools for managing such challenges are influence tactics.
Common Influence Tactics
Influence tactics are conscious efforts to affect and change behaviors in others.
The nine most common ways people try to influence their bosses, coworkers, and subordi-
nates are listed in Table 12.1, beginning with the most frequently used.
Describe and
implement various
influence tactics.
LO 12-3
THE BIGGER PICTURE
How do you get others to do as you wish? Do you attempt to dazzle them with your knowl-
edge and logical arguments? Or do you prefer a less direct approach, such as promising to
return the favor? Whatever approach you use, the crux of the matter is social influence. Many
of our interpersonal interactions are attempts to influence others, including parents, bosses,
coworkers, professors, friends, spouses, and children. Let’s start sharpening your influence
skills by exploring influence tactics and their effective and ethical application.
12.3 EFFECTIVELY INFLUENCING OTHERS
INFLUENCE TACTIC DESCRIPTION
1. Rational persuasion Trying to convince someone with reason, logic, or facts.
2. Inspirational appeals Trying to build enthusiasm by appealing to others’ emotions, ideals, or values.
3. Consultation Getting others to provide insights, experience or information you can use in
planning and making decisions.
4. Ingratiation Getting someone in a good mood prior to making a request. Being friendly and helpful
and using praise, flattery, or humor. A particular form of ingratiation is “brownnosing.”
5. Personal appeals Referring to friendship and loyalty when making a request.
6. Exchange Making explicit or implied promises and trading favors.
7. Coalition tactics Getting others to support your efforts to persuade someone.
8. Pressure Demanding compliance or using intimidation or threats.
9. Legitimating tactics Basing a request on authority or right, organizational rules or policies, or explicit/
implied support from superiors.
TABLE 12.1 9 Common Influence Tactics
SOURCE: Plouffe, Christopher R., Willy Bolander, Joseph A. Cote, and Bryan Hochstein. “Does the Customer Matter Most? Exploring Strategic Frontline Employees’
Influence of Customers, the Internal Business Team, and External Business Partners.” Journal of Marketing 80, no. 1 (January 2016): 106–123. https://doi.org/
10.1509/jm.14.0192.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
481Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
These are considered generic influence tactics because they can be used in all
directions—up (your boss), down (your subordinates), and sideways (your peers).
Research has shown this ranking to be fairly consistent regardless of direction, which
means you are likely to attempt to influence everyone the same way. And more gener-
ally, it means rational persuasion is the most common tactic we employ and encounter.
Actress Claire Foy, who portrayed Queen Elizabeth in the first two seasons of The
Crown, was effectively inf luential when she protested about the difference in pay
between her and the male counterpart in the show. She said, “I’d been working on that
show for two years . . . (and) loved everybody on it. And then I realized, there’s been a
big, fat, dirty secret that nobody’s ever talked about.” She shared that she felt the need
to be vocal about the pay gap for the sake of her fellow actresses. “But then there was
also that thing [of being] an inadvertent spokesperson . . . Why did it have to be me?
I could have said nothing. And I think everyone would have preferred that. But I
thought, if I do that, I will be cheating myself and all the other women I know.”49 It
worked! Foy’s pay was adjusted to match that of her male co-star (Matt Smith), and
Netflix, the show’s creator, subsequently reviewed and closed similar types of pay
disparities in other shows.50
Hard vs. Soft Tactics Some refer to the first five influence tactics—rational persuasion,
inspirational appeals, consultation, ingratiation, and personal appeals—as “soft” tactics
because they are friendlier than, and not as coercive as, the last four tactics—
exchange, coalition, pressure, and legitimating tactics, which are “hard” tactics because
they exert more overt pressure.
Which Do I Use Most? Least? When you read the list of tactics, each probably
means something to you. Which do you most commonly use? Knowing the answer can
help you better choose the appropriate tactic for any given situation and thus increase the
chance of achieving your desired outcome. The next step to realizing these benefits is to
complete Self-Assessment 12.2. Be sure to answer the associated questions to increase the
value of your knowledge.
Claire Foy used personal power and soft tactics to close the
pay gap between her and her male counterpart, Matt Smith,
on the Netflix blockbuster, The Crown. This contrasts with her
character, the Queen of England, who in real life has varying
degrees of position power and the ability to use hard tactics,
along with those used by Foy.
Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
482 PART 2 Groups
Some organizations routinely, if not masterfully, apply the same tactics as individu-
als. The following OB in Action box illustrates how Amazon obtains tax and other
concessions from city and state governments in exchange for locating its facilities
within their borders.
Which Influence Tactics Do I Use?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 12.2 in Connect.
1. Is your rational persuasion score the highest? Regardless, give some specific
examples of ways you use this tactic.
2. Which tactic is your least preferred (lowest score)? Provide examples of
situations of when and how you may use this tactic.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.2 CAREER READINESS
Amazon made headlines in early 2019 when it
backed out of plans to build a second headquarters
in New York City. NYC was a finalist in a field of
many cities and states that engaged in an intense
courtship to lure Amazon. Like others, the city
offered billions of dollars of tax incentives in
exchange for the company employing thousands of
workers and the associated economic benefits,
such as real estate development and sale, retail
sales and taxes, along with employees’ payroll and
income taxes.
Although many legislators, business people, and
others saw the concessions as justifiable and a vic-
tory, still others objected. The dissenters protested
that rich subsidies should not be given to the world-
dominating Amazon. Their rationale: The company is
extremely successful and can pay its own way.
The company has a history of extracting conces-
sions from city and state governments in exchange
for the perceived benefits of locating Amazon facili-
ties within their borders. Some estimates put the fig-
ure at nearly $2.5 billion, and they are tough or even
ruthless in the process. For instance, the company
closed its only Texas warehouse when the state
pressured the company to pay over $250 million
dollars in back taxes. Texas ultimately ended its pur-
suit of the taxes in return for more warehouses. In
South Carolina, Amazon threatened to halt hiring
unless it was given generous tax exemptions; the
state eventually went Amazon’s way.51
Such tactics and exchanges are nothing new
and not unique to Amazon. Companies and gov-
ernments at all levels have been doing such deals
for ages, even in New York City. The Hudson Yards
real estate development reportedly received
approximately $6 billion in tax breaks, and the
incentives didn’t stop there. Some tenants in the
development, such as BlackRock (the world’s big-
gest money manager), which has over $5 trillion
under management, also received tax credits in
the tens of millions to occupy the space.52 Again,
opponents of the incentives argue that the compa-
nies can certainly pay their way. And these argu-
ments are countered with companies effectively
saying: “Give us what we want, or we’ll leave and
take our jobs elsewhere.”53
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Make the case for granting tax and other
incentives to companies.
2. Argue against such concessions.
3. Now assume you are Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon,
and decide what you would do: continue with
such practices, stop, or something else. Justify
your position.
Hard Sell . . . Amazon Style
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
483Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
Match Tactics to Desired Outcomes
Research and practice provide some useful lessons about the relative effectiveness of
influence tactics. Rely on the core. Core influence tactics—rational persuasion, consulta-
tion, collaboration, and inspirational appeals—are most effective at building commitment.
Do not rely on pressure and coalition tactics. In one study, managers who were not very
effective at using downward influence relied most heavily on inspiration (an effective tac-
tic), ingratiation (a moderately effective tactic), and pressure (an ineffective tactic). More
generally, you are well served to:
• Be believable and trustworthy. Credible people tend to be the most persuasive.
• Consult rather than legitimate. Some employees are more apt to accept change when
managers rely on a consultative strategy and are more likely to resist change when
managers use a legitimating tactic.
• Expect little from schmoozing. Ingratiation improved short-term sales goal achieve-
ment but reduced it in the long term. Schmoozing can help today’s sales but not
tomorrow’s.
• Be subtle. Subtle flattery and agreement with the other person’s opinion (forms of
ingratiation) were shown to increase the likelihood executives would win recom-
mendations to sit on boards.
• Learn to influence. Research with corporate managers of a supermarket chain
showed influence tactics can be taught and learned. Managers who received
360-degree feedback on two occasions regarding their influence tactics showed an
increased use of core influence tactics.
These insights are helpful, but what is the bottom line? There is no one best influence
tactic. Customers may respond more favorably to one tactic while internal team members
and external business partners are influenced by another.54 You need to understand and
effectively apply a range of influence tactics to be effective. But, thankfully, you can learn
and improve influence tactics to move resisters to compliance and move those who are
compliant to commitment.
Influence in Virtual Teams
Work is increasingly done from a distance and mediated by technology, so it’s worth know-
ing which influence tactics are used most in virtual teams and how. The most common (in
order of use) are: pressure, legitimating, rational persuasion, consultation, and personal
appeals. These tactics obviously overlap with those used in face-to-face interactions. How-
ever, putting the word urgent in the subject line of an e-mail or typing the entire (short)
message there provides a quick jolt of pressure, as does marking a message as high priority.
Highlighting text is another way of focusing attention and asserting pressure.
Reducing ambiguity emerged as a unique influence tactic in virtual teams. Virtual team
members do three things to reduce ambiguity:55
1. Share information. Of course we share information face-to-face as well, but in virtual
teams sharing ensures members have the information necessary to complete their
work or fulfill a request. This differs from rational persuasion since it is not meant to
persuade someone to act,56 but instead it helps overcome the lack of nonverbal and
other cues in face-to-face interactions that communicate useful information.
2. Create accountability. Accountability is often more explicit in virtual interactions
because a written record is created. Clarifying and confirming performance expecta-
tions, such as deliverables and timelines, are important examples of accountability.
3. Provide examples. Attachments and screen sharing are common ways in which virtual
team members share examples. Again, examples are not a form of rational persuasion
intended to convince a team member of a particular position, but instead are a means
for clarifying intended messages and providing guidance.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
484 PART 2 Groups
Let’s not forget emoticons, which convey
friendliness or soften an otherwise stern text or
e-mail message. You can further enhance your
ability to persuade others by understanding and
applying the six principles of persuasion
described next.
Cialdini’s Six Principles
of Persuasion
Experiments by Robert Cialdini and others
have identified six principles for inf luencing
people.57 They are based on the idea that peo-
ple have fundamental responses, and if your
efforts align with these responses your influ-
ence increases. Read and learn about the
following to see what you think.
1. Liking. People tend to like those who like
them. Learning about another person’s likes
and dislikes through conversations builds
friendship bonds. Sincere and timely praise,
empathy, and recognition also help.
2. Reciprocity. The societal norm that says good
and bad deeds should be repaid in kind is vir-
tually universal. Managers who act unethi-
cally and treat employees with disrespect should expect the same in return, and their
employees are likely to treat each other and their customers unethically and with dis-
respect. Managers need to be positive and constructive role models and be fair-minded
to benefit from the principle of reciprocity.
3. Social proof. People tend to follow the lead of those most like themselves, and role
models and peer pressure are powerful cultural forces in social settings. Managers
are advised to build support for workplace changes by first gaining the enthusiastic
support of informal leaders who will influence their peers.
4. Consistency. People tend to do what they commit to, especially publicly or to others. A
manager who can elicit a verbal commitment from an employee has taken an impor-
tant step toward applying influence and persuasion.
5. Authority. People tend to defer to and respect credible experts. Too many managers
and professionals take their own expertise for granted, as did one hospital’s physical
therapy staff that grew frustrated by the lack of follow-through by patients. No matter
how much these professionals emphasized the importance of continuing therapy,
many patients stopped once they returned home. An investigation of the causes
revealed patients were unaware of the professional/clinical qualifications of their ther-
apists, and once diplomas and certifications were hung on the walls in the clinic,
patient compliance increased a remarkable 34 percent!58
6. Scarcity. People want items, information, and opportunities that have limited avail-
ability. Special opportunities and privileged information are influence-builders for
managers.
Cialdini says that when one or more principles naturally exist in a situation, using them
together can produce an additive effect. Because there are ethical implications to using
your influence, your goals need to be worthy and your actions need to be sincere and
genuine.
Robert Cialdini is one of the world’s foremost
authorities on influence. His principles are
based in research and proven in practice.
You too can benefit from the application of
these principles in every arena of your life—
in school, at work, and socially.
Courtesy of INFLUENCE AT WORK
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
485Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
Apply Your Knowledge
We conclude this section by giving you an opportunity to apply your knowledge in a famil-
iar scenario and recognize that effective influence starts with a plan. Follow these steps to
create your own influence plan.
Step 1: Set a goal and get a clear idea of what you want to achieve. It helps if achieving
clearly requires someone else’s effort or agreement.
Step 2: Identify the person or persons who can help you achieve that goal.
Step 3: Decide what type of influence outcome—compliance or commitment—you
want or need from the person(s) identified in Step 2.
Step 4: Decide which bases of power and tactics are most appropriate for the influ-
ence outcome you desire. (Be realistic about which are available to you.)
Step 5: Explicitly describe how you will apply the bases of power and tactics you chose.
Apply this approach to the following scenario. Assume your goal is to get a job in the prod-
uct development group at Salesforce, a leader in cloud-based customer relationship man-
agement services and No. 2 on Fortune’s 2019 list of Best Companies to Work For.59
To achieve this goal, you’ll want to learn more about the organization and its decision
makers. Fortunately, you learn that two years ago Salesforce hired Arica, who went to your
school. You plan to contact her on LinkedIn in the hope she will share her experiences
and put you in touch with the hiring manager in product development.
You do not need Arica’s enthusiastic commitment to your employment efforts, since
she doesn’t even know you. But what you would like is her compliance with your request for
more information and an introduction to the product development group manager. She is
probably willing to do this, if for no other reason than she is an alumna of your school, and
you were very charming in your e-mail and phone communications. Now you need to
decide which of the bases of power and influence tactics you have available with Arica,
and which of these are most appropriate for gaining her compliance.
We hope the practical tools you’ve gained in this section piqued your interest and you
are motivated to learn more about how you can influence others to affect processes and
outcomes in the Organizing Framework. Let’s continue to build your knowledge and skills
and focus on political tactics next.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
486 PART 2 Groups
Before we learn about organizational politics, let’s get a sense of how political you are by
completing Self-Assessment 12.3. This is another one of those personal attributes, similar
to trust, about which people often think more highly of themselves than others do. It there-
fore could be quite interesting to have some friends complete this same assessment in
terms of how they see you, especially considering this particular self-assessment also taps
into ethics and manipulation.
Differentiate and
apply the main forms
of organizational
politics.
LO 12-4
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Politics are not all bad. To make this point, and to increase your effectiveness at school, at
work, and socially, we explore this important and interesting topic in terms of causes, tactics,
and levels. You’ll learn how to manage politics in your favor. All this will help you better under-
stand and manage this ever-present aspect of organizational life and key group-level process
in the Organizing Framework.
12.4 POLITICAL TACTICS AND HOW TO USE THEM
How Political Am I?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 12.3 in Connect.
1. Does your score accurately capture your tendencies in organizational politics?
Why or why not?
2. Do you think a true organizational politician would complete the assessment
honestly? Explain.
3. Given knowledge of your political tendencies, describe how they could both
help or hurt you at school, at work, and in your career.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.3 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Politics—The Good and the Bad
When you hear the word politics, what comes to mind? The President, a deadlocked Congress,
or a conniving boss or coworker? Whatever the case, it is unlikely a smile comes to your
face. Likewise, people typically view organizational politics as consisting of negative or
counterproductive behaviors such as manipulation, controlling of information, and under-
mining. But it is important to realize that organizational politics also include positive
outcomes, such as restoring justice, providing opportunities and resources for followers,
and affecting change.60 If you understand organizational politics you can realize the bene-
fits and avoid or manage the shortcomings.
Organizational politics are intentional actions to improve individual or organiza-
tional interests. This definition clearly allows for positive behaviors and outcomes, but our
primary focus in OB is the use of influence to further self-interests, especially when these inter-
ests conflict with those of the organization. Managers are endlessly challenged to achieve a
workable balance or alignment between employees and organizational interests.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
487Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
When Are Politics Good? Positive uses of politics can occur when actions help an
organization adapt, such as when the organization’s leadership, policies, practices, and/or
strategies may be taking the organization in the wrong direction. In these situations, if an
individual or coalition operates counter to the organization’s goals, policies, or practices it
may ultimately be positive for the organization. Such instances of political action by
employees and other groups have exploded in the past few years. See the OB in Action box
for an example.
Influence has historically been top down—employers
say, employees do. The past few years, however, have
seen a growing trend of employee activism, wherein
the rank and file have asserted themselves to change
the policies and practices of their employers. For
instance, 20,000 Google employees walked out in the
summer of 2018 protesting against the company’s
protection of executives accused of sexual harass-
ment. This was followed by additional actions. In one
instance employees took issue with the company’s
contract with the Pentagon for which it was develop-
ing software for drone strike targeting. And in another
they applied pressure to alter practices pertaining to
the treatment of minority workers and contractors.
Claire Stapleton, marketing manager at YouTube
(owned by Google) and organizer of the employee
protests, explained that Google’s own technology
(Google Docs and Groups) helped facilitate this polit-
ical action. Employees are now organized, commit-
ted, and determined to shape the direction of the
company.61
This adds to concerns expressed by Googlers
about building a search engine censoring product
for the Chinese government. And such efforts are
not unique to Google. Along with employees from
Microsoft and Amazon, they’ve signed petitions pro-
testing the uses of their work, and some employees
have expressed their objections even more
strongly—they’ve quit!
An engineer from artificial intelligence start-up
Clarifai quit when he learned the project he was
working on was for the U.S. Defense Department.62
Again, this is part of a larger trend in which
employees want transparency regarding the custom-
ers and applications of their work.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Do employees have the right to know all details
related to their work, such as who the customer
is and what the intended uses are?
2. Does your opinion change if the nature of the
work is confidential or otherwise protected, as in
the case of products, services, or technology
related to national security? Justify your answer.
3. Assume you’re an employee and have concerns
about such matters regarding your own work.
What would you do? Explain.
Turning Politics Upside Down . . . Employees Rule!
OB in Action
When Are Politics Bad? Organizational politics can negatively affect outcomes
across all three levels in the Organizing Framework. At the individual level, politics can
increase stress and turnover intentions and reduce job satisfaction, organizational commit-
ment, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Undesirable effects on the group and orga-
nizational levels include wasted time and resources, diverted decision-maker attention, and
restricted and distorted information flow among decision makers.63
Uncertainty and Political Behavior
The causes of political behavior occur at all three levels of the Organizing Framework. For
instance, negative emotions and a lack of trust are the strongest individual- and group/
team-level causes, and a perceived lack of justice is the strongest organizational-level driver
of political behavior.64 Underlying most of these causes is a more fundamental or root
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
488 PART 2 Groups
cause—uncertainty. Uncertainty drives a great deal of political behavior, and research out-
lines five common sources of uncertainty within organizations:
1. Unclear objectives.
2. Vague performance measures.
3. Ill-defined decision processes.
4. Strong individual or group competition.65
5. Any type of change.
Reflecting items 1–4, unfair performance management procedures and outcomes are
major determinants of uncertainty. So too is a lack of trust in your boss or a coworker.
Individuals and organizations that do not treat their employees with respect, or that create
“cut-throat” cultures, also motivate political activity. Related to the fifth factor, many
changes at work increase uncertainty and employees’ efforts to protect their interests
(status, opportunities, and resources)—in other words, politics.
Frequently Used Political Tactics
Anyone who has worked in an organization has firsthand knowledge of blatant politicking.
Although there are many different ways to describe and categorize political tactics, Table 12.2
shows some of the most commonly used political tactics and a description of each.
TABLE 12.2 Most Commonly Used Political Tactics
TACTIC DESCRIPTION
1. Building a network of useful
contacts
Cultivating a support network both inside and
outside the organization
2. Using “key players” to support
initiatives
Getting prior support for a decision or issue;
building others’ commitment via participation
3. Making friends with power
brokers
Teaming up with powerful people who can
get results
4. Bending the rules to fit the
situation
Interpreting or (not) enforcing rules to serve your
own interests
5. Using self-promotion Blowing your own horn, but not doing the same
for others’ accomplishments
6. Creating a favorable image
(also known as impression
management, discussed next)
Dressing for success; adhering to organizational
norms and drawing attention to your successes
and influence; taking credit for others’
accomplishments
7. Praising others (ingratiation) Making influential people feel good (brownnosing)
8. Attacking or blaming others Avoiding or minimizing association with failure;
scapegoating; reducing competition for limited
resources
9. Using information as a
political tool
Withholding or distorting information; obscuring
an unfavorable situation by overwhelming
superiors with information
SOURCE: Allen, Robert W., Dan L. Madison, Layman W. Porter, Patricia A. Renwick, and Bronston T. Mayes. “Organizational
Politics: Tactics and Characteristics of Its Actors.” California Management Review 22, no. 1 (October 1979): 77–83.
https://doi.org/10.2307/41164852.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
489Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
The World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, has become one of the pre-
mier events on the planet for building political influence via networking. Leaders from
politics, business, government, and many other arenas meet with the goal of improving
the state of the world. Individuals are selling products, services, ideas, and themselves
by utilizing many of the tactics listed in Table 12.2, such as networking, making friends
with influential others, associating with power brokers, making a favorable impression,
and praising others.66
You may view some of the tactics in Table 12.2 very favorably, such as building a
network of useful contacts. Many management experts and career counselors agree it is
wise to build, maintain, and use networks both inside and outside your organization. This
is a positive use of politics. However, let’s explore another common and not-so-positive
political tactic—blaming others.
Blame and Politics
You may have noticed that politicking often occurs when things don’t work out; that is, in
situations of underperformance, scandal, or otherwise unethical conduct. People often
look to assign blame, in part, to help preserve their influence with others. Research in the
United States showed 70 percent of employees tend to assign blame for failures in one of
three ways:
1. Blame others
2. Blame self
3. Deny blame67
Blame occurs across levels of OB. Goldman Sachs, for instance, was embroiled in
allegations of looting nearly $3 billion from a Malaysian government investment fund,
The World Economic Forum brings leaders from many domains from around the globe. A wide variety of politi-
cal tactics are used by attendees to influence awareness, policy, and action.
Jason Alden/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
490 PART 2 Groups
known as 1MDB. Some reports show Goldman has gone to great lengths to aggressively
shift responsibility to one “rogue” partner, Tim Leissner, who they say duped a large num-
ber of Goldman employees across levels and over time.
In efforts to discredit Leissner, the company went so far as to create a PowerPoint presen-
tation for U.S. authorities wherein it alleged he was married to two women at once, converted
to Islam at least twice to impress Muslim women he was dating, and received a mail-order
PhD from a defunct university. It is worth noting that those with knowledge of the campaign
against Leissner question the evidence supporting the allegations, and they point out that
Goldman’s CEO and compliance department were aware of his actions. The courts will sort
out the legal implications, but regardless of those outcomes this is a clear and common exam-
ple of an organization blaming employees for mistakes attributed to the organization.68
Counterintuitively, blaming ourselves can be useful in some situations. Consider serial
entrepreneurs who may fail in one venture yet go on to start another. Research suggests it
is critical for them to accurately identify the appropriate reason for their business failures,
such as industry conditions or personal strategy or leadership. If they mistakenly attrib-
uted blame to the industry, they are likely to start their next venture in a different industry
but repeat the same personal errors (strategy or leadership) and fail again. In contrast, if
blaming the industry is correct, then they are likely to start their next venture in the same
industry and use what they learned from failure.69 Assigning blame correctly is important
not only to preserve your influence, but also to help guide your future behavior.
Three Levels of Political Action
Figure 12.8 illustrates three levels of political action: the individual level, the coalition level,
and the network level. At the individual level, we pursue our self-interests. The political aspects
of coalitions and networks are not so obvious, however, and thus require a bit of explanation.
Coalition-Level Politics A coalition is an informal group bound together by the
active pursuit of a single issue. Coalitions may or may not coincide with formal group
membership. When the coalition’s target issue has been resolved (when a sexually harass-
ing supervisor is fired, for example), the coalition disbands. Political coalitions have “fuzzy
boundaries,” meaning they are fluid in membership, flexible in structure, and temporary in
duration.70 Coalitions are a potent political force within and between organizations.
A very interesting coalition was developed between food delivery service UberEats of
London and one of its largest clients, McDonald’s. UberEats couriers decided to strike
and picket next to McDonald’s employees, both demanding higher pay. Employees of both
companies have long felt powerless against their enormous and resource rich employers,
but by banding together for a common cause, expanding to multiple cities, and including
employees of other client restaurants, they may have greater influence. For example, the
food delivery service companies know McDonald’s views delivery as a key to its future
growth. Although nothing has changed yet, the pressure is clearly on.71
FIGURE 12.8 Levels of Political Action in Organizations
Cooperative pursuit of
general self-interests
Cooperative pursuit of
group interests in
specific issues
Individual pursuit of
general self-interests
Distinguishing Characteristics
Network
Level
Coalition
Level
Individual
Level
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
491Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
The past few years have seen an increase in student activism and the application of
multiple political tactics to influence change. See the following OB in Action box.
Students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
in Parkland, Florida, garnered tremendous attention,
support, and influence when they rallied against gun
violence in schools after 17 students and teachers
were killed at their school in 2018. Student repre-
sentatives went to Washington, DC, were inter-
viewed on 60 Minutes and NPR, and were featured
in Time and Teen Vogue.72 The ensuing March for
Our Lives campaign is associated with a number of
changes in gun policies across the country, such as
67 gun-control measures, a historic surge in youth
voting in the 2018 midterm elections, and eight
states passing extreme risk protection measures.
What began as a coalition is now a formal organiza-
tion with chapters in 200 cities across America.73
These events and actions helped motivate
numerous companies to break ties with the National
Rifle Association (NRA). Delta and American Airlines
halted agreements to provide discounts to NRA
members, and MetLife stopped providing discounted
insurance rates for NRA members’ boats, RVs, and
motorcycles. And not surprisingly, the NRA then
advised its members not to use the services and
products of these companies.74 Political action can
and often does work in both directions. Yet still other
companies—Walmart, Meijer, and L. L. Bean—
stopped selling certain guns and put limits on the
purchase of others.
However, there is another angle. FedEx, for
instance, continued its NRA member discounts and
said, the company “has never set or changed rates
for any of our millions of customers around the world
in response to their politics, beliefs or positions on
issues.”75
More generally, such activities are part of a larger
trend in American business, which is that organiza-
tions and their leaders are increasingly expected to
actively engage social and political causes. Due in
part to social media, executives and the companies
they run are pressured to confront issues they could
historically avoid. They now are making such choices
on ethical grounds or organizational values. For
example, Dick’s no longer sells guns and CVS has
stopped selling tobacco products.76
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Should companies take action on what many
see as political matters? Explain your position.
2. If you were the CEO of American Airlines, justify
your decision to stop offering discounts to NRA
members.
3. Now assume you are CEO of a competing airline
that also has agreements to provide discounts to
NRA members. Justify honoring those commit-
ments and continuing to grant discounts.
Fed Up, Rise Up, Affect Change . . . Students Take Action
OB in Action
March for Our Lives is an excellent example of students
organizing to affect change.
The Asahi Shimbun/Getty Images
Network-Level Politics In terms of organizational politics, networks are people-oriented,
while coalitions are issue-oriented. Networks have broader and longer-term agendas than do
coalitions. The Time’s Up movement, initiated by some powerful women in Hollywood
(Reese Witherspoon and Shonda Rimes), is an excellent and recent example of network-level
politics. The mission of this movement is “that everyone, every human being, deserves a right
to earn a living, to take care of themselves, to take care of their families, free of the impedi-
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
492 PART 2 Groups
ments of harassment and sexual assault and discrimination. In short—fairness, safety, and
equity in the workplace,” said Christy Haubegger, one of the founders of Time’s Up.77
By focusing on more general characteristics at work, Time’s Up is an example of net-
work-level politics; it differs from the #MeToo movement which focuses specifically on
sexual violence.
Before moving on, remember you need to match political activity to the appropriate
level to meet your objectives. No particular tactic or level is good or bad, rather it is how
effectively either assists in meeting your goals that matters. Now let’s explore directly how
to use politics to your benefit.
Using Politics to Your Advantage
We close this section by highlighting the point that people’s perceptions of politics (POP)
matter, not just actual acts of politics. As perceptions, POPs are subjective evaluations of
the extent to which “the work environment is characterized by coworkers and supervisors
who demonstrate such self-serving behavior,”78 and these perceptions matter. POPs have
been linked to many undesirable outcomes in the Organizing Framework, such as:
• Decreased job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and commitment.
• Increased stress, frustration, and turnover intentions.79
Do these results suggest managers should attempt to stop people from being political?
Good luck. Organizational politics cannot be eliminated, but political behavior can and
should be managed to keep it constructive.
Not Too Much and Not Too Little An individual’s degree of political engagement is
a matter of personal values, ethics, and temperament. People who are either strictly non-
political or highly political generally pay a price for their behavior. The former may experi-
ence slow promotions and feel left out, while the latter may run the risk of being called
self-serving and lose credibility. People at both ends may be considered poor team players.
A moderate amount of prudent political behavior is generally considered a survival
tool in organizational life. And it is worth noting that the reason politics has a bad name is
due to politicians and their behavior. Politics is not inherently bad; the problem is the way
politics is practiced.
How to Build Support for Your Ideas Our discussion of politics might leave you
asking, “What should I do? How do I avoid the bad and take advantage of the good?” Here
are eight recommendations backed by research and practice:
1. Create a simple one-liner that captures your idea.
2. Get your idea on the agenda. Describe how it addresses an important need or objec-
tive and look for ways to make it a priority.
3. Score small wins early and broadcast them widely. Results build momentum and make
it easier for other people to commit.
4. Form alliances with people who have the power to decide, fund, and implement.
5. Persist and continue to build support. Persuading others is a process, not an event.
6. Respond and adjust. Be flexible and accepting of other people’s input; the more names
supporting your idea, the more likely you are to succeed.
7. Lock it in. Anchor the idea to the organization through budgets, job descriptions,
incentives, and other operating procedures.
8. Secure and allocate credit. You don’t want your idea to be hijacked, nor do you want
to blow your own horn. You need others to sing your praises to ensure you get the
credit you deserve.80
Now we turn our attention to a specific form of influence—impression management.
Doing this effectively is key to your job and career opportunities and success.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
493Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We all want to look good in the eyes of others, and to do this we often engage in impression
management. Like the other topics discussed in this chapter, impression management con-
sists of techniques for influencing others in all arenas of life. To help you manage your own
impressions, we define impression management and discuss what it means to make good
impressions, as well as how to make positive impressions during job interviews and effective
apologies. You will see how practical knowledge in this area helps boost your effectiveness
across levels of outcomes in the Organizing Framework.
Determine how to
implement effective
impression
management.
LO 12-5
12.5 IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
We pursue the basic human desire to impress others not only because it makes us feel good
about ourselves, but also because others can often provide what we desire, such as a job, a
good grade, or a date. Many of our attempts to influence others in such ways are impres-
sion management.
What Is Impression Management?
Impression management is any attempt to control or manipulate the images
related to a person, organization, or idea.81 It encompasses speech, behavior, and
appearance and can be aimed at anyone—parents, teachers, peers, employees, and
customers are all fair game. For instance, by positioning themselves as socially respon-
sible, companies can create positive impressions with many stakeholders, such as
potential customers, and in turn boost sales.82 Let’s dive into good and bad impressions
in more detail.
Good Impressions
Research conducted in the context of job interviews shows that impressions are
formed very quickly and often subtly. Interviewers gather information about job candi-
dates based on their handshake, smile, and manner of dress. All this information is
communicated before any questions have been asked or answered. These same factors
were also related to ultimate job offers. The following Applying OB box provides
additional guidance.
How to Make a Killer First Impression You’ve undoubtedly heard the saying,
“You have only one chance to make a good first impression.” Some argue people judge
you within one second of meeting you. Researchers tested this belief and found that
after viewing only a microsecond of a video of a political candidate, subjects predicted
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
494 PART 2 Groups
with 70 percent accuracy who would win an election. Table 12.3 provides recommenda-
tions to help you overcome the pressure and ensure that people’s snap judgments of
you are favorable.
Reciprocity and Impression Management Recall our discussion of reciprocity
earlier in this chapter (“Cialdini’s six Principles of Persuasion”) and the benefits of giving
in order to receive. Research tells us that when a CEO makes positive comments about
another executive and the other executive’s company, Wall Street analysts give more favor-
able reports of both the CEO and the company even when they come up short of earnings
forecasts.83 Put another way, saying something positive in the media means Wall Street
analysts are likely to be more forgiving if your performance is low. This is obviously a
powerful form of influence—one that really pays.
Favorable Upward Impression Management Tactics On a positive note, both
research and practice have revealed numerous forms of upward impression management
techniques which can be put in three categories:86
1. Job-focused—tactics that present information about your job performance in a
favorable light.
2. Supervisor-focused—praise and favors for your supervisor.
3. Self-focused—an image of yourself as a polite and nice person.
Recent work highlights two additional ways of impressing your boss. The first is to
associate yourself with so-called stars, those on the fast track who already have the atten-
tion of management. The second is to work on key projects that need help or refinement.
Applying OB
The bottom line? Etiquette matters. The following
are elements of etiquette you should carefully consider
and practice.
1. I address interviewers by their formal titles when
first meeting them.
2. I dress formally for interviews—dark business
suit—versus dressing more casually.
3. I carry a portfolio/notepad to the interview.
4. I extend my hand first when meeting the
interviewer.
5. I provide a firm handshake to the interviewer.
6. I provide the interviewer with an extra copy of my
resume at the time of the interview.
7. I keep my cell phone silenced and out of sight dur-
ing the interview.
8. I exchange business cards with the interviewer.
9. I thank the interviewer for his or her time at the
end of the interview.
10. I follow up with a thank you note (e-mail is accept-
able) after the interview.85
These are simple enough, be sure to implement them.
As much as jobs, careers, and technology change, some
things remain the same. Notably, the interview is still the
most critical determinant in hiring decisions. You there-
fore want to do what you can to get the interview and
perform well once you do. One important determinant
of your performance is presenting the appropriate
image, and etiquette is a key contributor to this. Those
involved in the hiring process may consciously assess
your etiquette as a part of your image, or they will sub-
consciously consider it. Either way, etiquette matters.
First, what is etiquette? Interview etiquette is “the
customary code of polite behavior that prospective
employees adhere to (or should adhere to) during
interactions with recruiters, hiring managers, and other
members of an organization throughout the interview
process.”84
Interesting research found interviewees’ etiquette
had similar importance to answer quality and perceived
person–organization fit. The same research also found
etiquette serves to amplify the positive effects of high-
quality answers to interview questions. And last but cer-
tainly not least, etiquette also predicted more job offers,
more than self-promotion or ingratiation!
Etiquette Gets You Hired
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
495Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
In both instances, managers have more positive emotions about the employee and perceive
him or her as more promotable.87
What are your own tendencies for using favorable impression management?
Self-Assessment 12.4 will help you understand the types of impression management—job-,
supervisor-, and self-focused—you use in work settings. Be sure to answer the accompany-
ing questions to get the most from your knowledge.
TABLE 12.3 How to Make a Killer First Impression
ACTION DESCRIPTION
Set goals When you’re preparing for an event (a meeting, social event, or confer-
ence), think of whom you’d like to meet and what you’d like to achieve
from that introduction. Then plan your energy, introduction, and com-
ments accordingly.
Consider your
ornaments
We’re not talking about Christmas trees or party favors, but instead
about your jewelry, makeup, and clothes. This advice is for both men
and women. Many people will draw conclusions from the type of watch
you wear and how well it aligns with your clothes (sporty, gaudy,
trendy). Makeup and jewelry are judged similarly. Be sure they match
your personality and your intended message.
Remember your
body speaks
We’ve all heard body language makes a difference, so pay attention to
nonverbals. Find a way to video yourself in a social setting. Use this evi-
dence to help manage your body language habits in the future.
Bust bad moods
and bad days
If you’re in a bad mood before an important event, find a way to snap out
of it—play some of your favorite music, work out, go shopping—or resched-
ule (or stay home). People will pick up on your mood, and you don’t want
your body language to convey: “Hello, my name is Bad Mood Bob.”
Be interested to be
interesting
The best way to appear interesting is to appear interested. People tend
to like people who like them; at least this is a good place to start. Rather
than blather on about yourself, an excellent way to show interest is to
ask questions about the other person. You may be able to do research
ahead of time about the person or persons you’ll meet, and make it part
of your goal to ask them about what you learned.
SOURCE: Adapted from V. Van Petten, “5 Ways to Make a Killer First Impression,” Forbes, November 2, 2011, http://www.forbes.com/sites/
yec/2011/11/02/5-ways-to-make-a-killer-first-impression/.
Your Impression Management—How and Who
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 12.4 in Connect.
1. Are you better suited for “Hollywood,” or are you better described as safe or a
free agent?
2. What are the benefits of your impression management tendencies?
3. What are the drawbacks?
4. Look at all the items in the assessment and select the two that could be most
useful to you. Describe specifically how you could use them.
5. What about ethical considerations? Which items potentially raise ethical flags for
you? Why and why not?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 12.4 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
496 PART 2 Groups
Let’s be clear: a moderate amount of upward impression management is a necessity,
but not all forms are effective and none are effective all the time. Ingratiation, for instance,
can slightly improve your performance appraisal results and make your boss like you sig-
nificantly more. Engage in too little impression management and busy managers are liable
to overlook some of your valuable contributions when they make job assignment, pay, and
promotion decisions. But do too much and you run the risk of being branded a
“schmoozer,” a “phony,” and other unflattering characterizations by your coworkers. Con-
sider, for instance, that the application of noticeable flattery and ingratiation can backfire
by embarrassing the target person and damaging your credibility.88
Impression Management and Job Interviews
Job interviews probably epitomize our experiences of impression management, as there
are few other instances in which we are more determined to make a good impression.
Researchers provide a number of insights we highlight next.
Deception Detection Many people are deceptive in interviews, and interviewers’
abilities to detect such tactics vary greatly. One study found that experienced interviewers
were no better at detecting deception than novices.89
Ethics aside, bending the truth in an interview can cause an organization to hire the
wrong person for the job. Deception that leads to bad hires can be very costly. Organizations
are wise to train their interviewers to identify the common impression management tactics
used in interviews, such as self-promotion, image repair, image protection, and image creation.
This is the first step in making them aware of the deceptive techniques candidates often use.90
Other research shows that both interviewers and coworkers are especially poor at
knowing whether a candidate is honest and humble, qualities increasingly valued in the
workplace. Employees lacking these characteristics are known to engage in more counter-
productive work behaviors and have lower performance.91 Of course, we encourage you to
be ethical, present your true self, and use the other knowledge in this chapter (and book)
to be more influential and impress interviewers.
Tattoos may also be part of your impression during an interview. Read the OB in
Action box and find out.
The frequency and perceptions of tattoos has
changed dramatically over time. For perspective, a
survey of over 9,000 people in 18 countries
revealed some interesting insights about preva-
lence and attitudes based on age and country.
Notably,
• 38% of respondents had at least one tattoo.
• 45% of those 30–49 years old did, vs. 32% of
those 14–29.
• 72% don’t regret getting inked.
• 75% of those with tattoos have more than one.
• Italy, Sweden, and the U.S. are the most tattooed
of the countries represented, with 48 percent,
47 percent, and 46 percent, respectively.
• Tattooed Americans are
more likely than people
in other countries to
have multiple tatts (the
median is 4).92
• In most countries the
prevalence of tattoos is
quite similar for men and
women.
Not long ago health
researchers found associa-
tions between youths’ tattoos
and sexual activity, alcohol
and drug use, eating disor-
ders and suicide. But more
Is Your Ink an Asset, a Liability, or Just Colorful?
OB in Action
Are tattoos a non-
issue or a hindrance
during job interviews?
Could they help your
prospects?
Frare Davis/Rubberball/
Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
497Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
Interviewers’ Attempts to Impress You There’s another angle on the story—inter-
viewers are trying to impress interviewees. Especially in tight labor markets, employers
compete intensely for top talent. This means they must impress candidates in order to
attract and hire the best, representing the organization favorably with a broad range of
tactics, including:
• Verbal—what they say and how they say it.
• Nonverbal—laughing, smiling, leaning in.
• Artifactual—dress, appearance of interview venue, visual and promotional items.
• Administrative—timing of communication, confirmation that application was
received, feedback, and follow-up.100
Ethics and Impression Management
It’s one thing to cast yourself in the best possible light, but it is quite another to lie. There-
fore, the ethics of impression management focuses on the gray area in between. One way
to help decide whether your favorable light is “too bright” (has gone too far) is to imagine
you have to explain what you said or did on the evening news. Would you be comfortable
with portraying that same impression to the entire community? Would people who know
you well, friends or coworkers (past and present), agree? Asking and answering these two
current evidence suggests otherwise and shows ink
and piercings (other than in one’s ears) are now
mainstream. However, nearly as many people today
as in 2008 still think such associations exist.93
Although health risks related to tattoos and
piercings persist, such as hepatitis C and infections
due to tainted ink, regulation of tattoo studios varies
dramatically from state to state.94 But what matters
more for OB is what such forms of body art say about
you, and how others’ impressions affect your job and
career opportunities.
Perceptions and Stereotypes
The reality is that, depending on who sits across the
table from you in an interview, your body art could
make a difference. As one HR writer put it, one sees
your tatts and concludes you’re an unreliable rene-
gade, while another may see you as creative and
expressive, a person to whom younger customers
will relate.95 But one recent study suggests there are
no hiring, wage, or earnings differences between
inked and non-inked candidates.96
What Do Hiring Managers Think?
Before rushing out to the tattoo studio on the way to
your next job interview, it is important to consider the
nature of your tattoo(s) and other body art. Some are
more obvious and potentially more offensive than
others. Some research has found biases against can-
didates with tatts. Many of the old stereotypes, like
tatts being associated with gang membership, still
linger and can cost you job offers and higher starting
salaries. The authors of this study explain that hiring
managers have limited information about candidates
during the recruiting process, and as a result may
resort to or be influenced by such stereotypes. Spe-
cifically, applicants with extreme tattoos were viewed
as less competent and committed. And manager ink
was related to the views of candidates. Managers
with tatts viewed candidates with tatts more favor-
ably, and those without tended to discount the value
of candidates with body art.97
Worth Considering
It’s also worth considering the industry in which you
want to work. If you’re an athlete without ink you’re
in a puny minority (only 14 percent), and the same
goes for primary school teachers. Nearly 60 percent
have at least one tatt according to research by the
Harris group.98
Finally, an employer can establish a dress code
requiring employees to cover body art, but at the
moment no laws exist governing such policies and
practices.99
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Assume you’re a hiring manager, how would you
perceive a candidate’s body art? Explain.
2. Would you allow it to influence your decisions?
Explain.
3. If approximately 40 percent of adults in the U.S.
have tattoos, then explain the implications of
hiring versus not hiring those with Ink.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
498 PART 2 Groups
questions can help you navigate the ethics of impression management. Research provides
some guidance and interesting details to consider.
A study of more than 600 companies surpassing $100 million in revenues showed that
unfavorable analyst comments prompted the CEOs to say their companies do have policies
and practices that are in shareholders’ best interests. Related research showed that CEOs
also routinely said their own compensation plan was aligned with shareholder interests,
although in both instances they regularly misrepresented the issues.101 For example, their
companies often made job and R&D cuts that undermined the long-term health of the
company (counter to shareholder interests), and their personal compensation often
increased even when the share price of their company plummeted.
Consider this story of impression management from a large bank:
EXAMPLE After 7 pm, people would open the door to their office, drape a spare
jacket on the back of their chair, lay a set of glasses down on some reading material
on their desk—and then go home for the night. The point of this elaborate gesture
was to create the illusion that they were just out grabbing dinner and would be
returning to burn the midnight oil.102
No one is always right. Sometimes an apology is necessary to save, repair, or even
enhance the impressions others have of you. Let’s look at how best to do this.
Apologies
One way to remedy or at least reduce the impact of bad impressions, negative uses of
power, or poor performance is an apology. Apologies are a form of trust repair in which we
acknowledge an offense and usually offer to make amends. It is a widely held norm in the
U.S. and other cultures (such as in Japan) to apologize when our action, or lack of action,
causes harm to another, whether intentionally or not.
And while harm can be perceived or actual, it is always real to those harmed. Apolo-
gies are effective to the extent they restore trust and positively affect your ability to influ-
ence the offended party in the future.103 To help ensure the effectiveness of your apologies,
make sure they include the following four characteristics:
1. Acknowledgment of wrongdoing.
2. Acceptance of responsibility.
3. Expression of regret.
4. Promise the offense will not be repeated.104
Deep and public bows are a sign of apology in Japanese cultures, as illustrated in the
photos of executives of Takada (defective airbags) and Toshiba (pattern of overstated prof-
its). Public apologies by leaders can either make or break the public relations and reputa-
tion of organizations. For example, Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) once ran out of
chicken in the United Kingdom, which resulted in the temporary closure of 900 restau-
rants there. The company responded with humor and took out a full-page ad in London
newspapers showing its emblematic bucket with the letters in its logo rearranged to read—
FCK—along with an explanation and assurances it wouldn’t happen again. Risky, but it was
effective.106
Another example was PWC’s mistake in the Best Picture category at the 2017 Oscars.
The company was responsible for the voting process and listed the wrong winner. Partici-
pants in the ceremony intervened in real time and rectified the situation.107 The company
briefly explained what happened, apologized, and then made and explained numerous
changes to ensure it wouldn’t happen again.108
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
499Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
It also is helpful to consider that a failure to apologize, or to do so in a timely manner,
can turn a bad situation worse and damage how others see you.
You are now far better equipped to influence people in many arenas of life. We close
this chapter with a reminder: You typically have more power than you think and don’t
need a fancy title or corner office. We encourage you to be more purposeful and accurate
in your application of power, empowerment, influence, politics, and impression manage-
ment. Doing so will dramatically increase your effectiveness across levels of the Organiz-
ing Framework. Besides, you’ll get your way more often!
Let’s conclude the chapter with a few pointed applications of the knowledge and tools
from this chapter.
Executives from some of Japan’s largest companies have issued very public apologies; among them were Shigehisa Takada, the CEO of
Takata, the maker of defective airbags responsible for the recall of over 60 million vehicles worldwide. Electronics giant Toshiba overstated
profits by more than a billion dollars over a number of years. Its CEO, Hisai Tanaka, resigned along with a number of board members.105
(Left): Nippon News/Aflo Co. Ltd./Alamy Stock Photo; (right): epa european pressphoto agency b.v./Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
500 PART 2 Groups
12.6 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I APPLY
POWER, INFLUENCE, AND POLITICS TO INCREASE
MY EFFECTIVENESS?
The following applications should help increase your own influence and increase your
performance and opportunities throughout your career.
Takeaways for Me
Here are five practical applications.
1. Be mindful that the power you use affects whether people resist, comply, or actually
commit to your wishes.
2. Use both position and personal power. You’ll find the most influential and successful
people you work with, even those with big titles and considerable position power,
derive much of their effectiveness by using personal power.
3. Develop your referent power. You can use your (social) network to help others, which in
turn builds your own power. If someone that has helped you in the past called you today
and asked for assistance, would you provide it? Of course you would. This illustrates the
power of reciprocity and shows helping others enhances your power and influence.
4. Increase your understanding and expand your use of influence tactics and political
tactics (see Table 12.1). Match the tactic to the situation and boost your effectiveness.
5. To make more favorable impressions in your professional life, follow the advice in Table 12.3.
Takeaways for Managers
There are five very important practical tools for managers.
1. Do not rely (heavily) on your position power. Use it when you need to, but if you consis-
tently rely on it to get things done you will dramatically undermine your power and
influence with others.
2. Identify and develop your particular sources of personal power. Even those with substan-
tial position power (like executives) get ahead in the long term by effectively blending
it with personal power.
3. Use both structural and psychological empowerment to more effectively manage others.
When done well, empowerment can supercharge the performance of those you man-
age and in turn your own. Besides, even if you’re a superhero, you can’t do everything
yourself—share your power to build your power.
4. Learn about and apply a larger variety of influence and political tactics. Don’t get stuck
playing your preferred tactics, such as rational persuasion, again and again across all
situations. Choose the right tactic for the situation to build your effectiveness.
5. Don’t be afraid to apologize. Willingness to apologize builds credibility and influence
with those you manage.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We conclude this chapter with a number of practical applications of power, empowerment,
influence, politics, and impression management. Use your new knowledge and tools to
improve your effectiveness as both an employee and manager.
Describe the
implications of power,
influence, and politics
for you and managers.
LO 12-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
501Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
You learned your effectiveness can be increased
by applying power, influence, politics, and impres-
sion management. You learned the bases of
power, common influence tactics, the causes of
politics, and which forms are most effective in dif-
ferent situations. You also learned sharing power
and empowering others are important means for
building your own influence and improving your
performance. Reinforce and consolidate your
learning with the Key Points and Organizing
Framework. Then challenge your mastery of the
material by completing the Problem-Solving
Application Case and Legal/Ethical Challenge.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 12
You learned the following key points.
12.1 POWER AND ITS BASIC
FORMS
• Power is the discretion and the means to
enforce your will over others.
• The five main bases of power are legitimate,
reward, coercive, expert, and referent.
• The first three bases are considered forms of
position power, and the last two are forms of
personal power.
• The bases of power we use often determine
whether others will resist, comply, or commit
to our wishes.
12.2 POWER SHARING AND
EMPOWERMENT
• Empowerment consists of efforts to enhance
employee performance, well-being, and posi-
tive attitudes.
• Structural empowerment transfers authority
and responsibilities from management to
employees.
• Power sharing can occur on a continuum from
domination to consultation, participation, and
finally delegation.
• Psychological empowerment occurs when
employees feel a sense of meaning, compe-
tence, self-determination, and impact.
12.3 EFFECTIVELY INFLUENCING
OTHERS
• Influence tactics are conscious efforts to
affect and change behaviors in others.
• Sharing information, creating accountability,
and providing examples are common influ-
ence tactics used by virtual teams.
• Six principles of persuasion are liking, reci-
procity, social proof, consistency, authority,
and scarcity.
12.4 POLITICAL TACTICS AND
HOW TO USE THEM
• Organizational politics are intentional acts to
improve individual or organizational
interests.
• Competition and uncertainty are major causes
of political actions.
• Political action occurs at three levels—
individual, coalition, and network.
12.5 IMPRESSION MANAGEMENT
• Impression management is any attempt to
control or manipulate the images related to a
person, organization, or idea.
• Impression management is especially impor-
tant in job interviews, but beware of decep-
tion as well as interviewers’ attempts to
impress you.
• Effective apologies are more than simply say
“sorry.”
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
502 PART 2 Groups
management. Collectively, these tools represent
important group-level processes. And the way
you use these tools often determines whether
people resist, comply with, or actually commit to
your wishes. You learned how using these tools
relates to individual-level outcomes, such as per-
formance, attitudes, well-being, (counter)produc-
tive citizenship behaviors, turnover, and career
outcomes. Power and influence are also associ-
ated with satisfaction, cohesion, and conflict at
the group/team level, and with survival, financial
performance, customer satisfaction, and reputa-
tion at the organizational level. Beyond this, you
explored the notion of empowerment and how
sharing power with others can increase your
own power and influence.
12.6 HOW CAN I APPLY POWER,
INFLUENCE, AND POLITICS
TO INCREASE MY
EFFECTIVENESS?
• Understanding and applying a broader array
of influence makes you more effective in all
jobs, levels, and career stages.
• How you influence subordinates is a key
determinant of whether they resist, comply, or
commit with your wishes.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 12
As shown in Figure 12.9, you learned practical
tools to help influence others—power, empower-
ment, influence, politics, and impression
FIGURE 12.9 The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Skills and abilities
• Values
• Ethics
Situation Factors
• Relationship quality
• Leadership
Individual Level
• Conflict and negotiation
• Emotions
• Perceptions
• Motivation
• Trust
• Communication
• Psychological empowerment
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
• Conflict and negotiation
• Decision making
• Power, influence, and politics
• Performance management
• Leadership
• Trust
• Structural empowerment
• Impression management
Organizational Level
• Human resource policies and
practices
• Leading and managing
change and stress
• Impression management
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Stress
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Reputation
• Legal liability
© 2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
503Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
Business events that move to strip clubs, e-mails in
your own inbox about parts of your body, lewd and
vulgar comments, and more commonly but similarly
troubling—unfair pay and promotion practices. These
are a subset of complaints revealed in a survey
conducted by female employees at Nike. The find-
ings illustrated systematic sexual harassment and
discrimination.
Supporting these claims are a long history of com-
plaints to HR and leaders within the company about
inappropriate behavior by a number of male leaders.
Women comprise nearly 50% of the company’s work-
force, but occupy only 38% of management level and
29% of vice president positions.109
Female employees shared these results with CEO
Mark Parker in an effort not only to improve the situa-
tion for women at Nike, but also to improve Nike. Their
efforts provide yet another example of how employees
are organizing and wielding power and influence to
change leadership, culture, and practices at their
employers.110
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?
The allegations and evidence are wide-ranging, but
many attribute misconduct not only to the perpetra-
tors, but also to their superiors who have tolerated or
looked the other way. For instance, numerous impli-
cated executives are linked to former company pres-
ident Trevor Edwards. His charismatic personality
and stellar performance had taken him to the heights
of the organization, and many believed he was next
in line for the CEO job. But many senior leaders who
ascended the ranks were largely male and consid-
ered a part of an elite group—F.O.T., or Friends of
Trevor.111
Although Nike claims the behaviors were the
actions of an insulated few, and has since fired at least
11 executives as a result, the fact remains that many
individuals in power destroyed relationships and
undermined the careers of others. Complicit were HR
policies, practice, and people who failed to sufficiently
act on and provide consequences for inappropriate
behavior. These detrimental actions eroded
performance, trust, and a sense of justice, along with
fostering conflict and a culture many describe as dis-
criminatory and abusive to women.
THE COSTS
In addition to damaging the careers of the terminated
executives, widespread misconduct exposes the com-
pany to tremendous legal liability, reputational dam-
age, investor pressure, and the alienation of women
both inside and outside the company. Expanding
product offerings for female customers is a major com-
ponent of the company’s strategy. Particularly trouble-
some for the remaining leaders is the likelihood of a
class action lawsuit, in which more than 500 employ-
ees will seek compensation from Nike for sexual
harassment, pay discrimination, and unfair promotion
practices.112
REACTIONS
CEO Parker and the remaining senior leadership team
have responded in several ways. Parker directly and
publicly acknowledged the problems and apologized
to employees in a town hall meeting, established a
complaint hotline, set up unconscious bias training,
required specific training for managers, appointed
Nike’s first chief diversity and inclusion officer,
revamped its pay structure and provided raises for
approximately 7500 employees, or 10% of its global
workforce. Nike also has adopted a gender-blind
resume review process, and is tying bonuses more
prominently to overall company performance.113
Part of Parker’s apology included, “I apologize to
the people on her team who were excluded, and I
apologize if some of those same people felt they had
no one to turn to . . . I want everyone at Nike to know
their voices do matter and your bravery is making us
better.”114 But even after all of the company’s correc-
tive actions, Parker and others feel the work is far from
finished.
Assume you are CEO Parker and you want to:
(1) make amends with the important stakeholders
involved, and (2) put Nike on a positive track for the
future. Drawing on what you learned in this chapter
what else would you do?
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
#MeToo—Just Do It!
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
504 PART 2 Groups
of the problem. Asking why multiple times is more
likely to lead you to root causes of the problem.
For example, do executive characteristics help
explain the problem you defined in Step 1?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, why is this a cause?
By asking why multiple times you are likely to
arrive at a more complete and accurate list of
causes. Again, look to the Organizing Frame-
work for this chapter for guidance. Did particular
policies or practices play a role?
C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organiz-
ing Framework. Are any processes at the indi-
vidual, group/team, or organizational level
potential causes of your defined problem? For
any process you consider, ask yourself, why is
this a cause? Again, do this for several iterations
to arrive at the root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem and confirm the link or cause and effect
connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make your recommendations for solving the problem.
Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is
desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes you identified in Step 2, what
are your best recommendations? Use material in
the current chapter that best suits the cause.
Consider the OB in Action and Applying OB
boxes, because these contain insights into what
others have done.
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors—as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations, and be sure your recommen-
dations map onto the causes and resolve the
problem.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
Use the Organizing Framework in Figure 12.9 and the
3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to help identify
inputs, processes, and outcomes relative to this case.
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework to help identify the important
problem(s) in this case. Remember a problem is
a gap between a desired and current state. State
your problem as a gap and be sure to consider
problems at all three levels. If more than one
desired outcome is not being accomplished,
decide which one is most important and focus
on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are gen-
erally viewed from a particular player’s perspec-
tive. You need to determine from whose
perspective—employee, manager, team, or the
organization—you’re defining the problem. In
this case you’re asked to assume the role of
CEO Mark Parker.
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
not included in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus
your thinking. Focus on topics in the current
chapter, because we generally select cases illus-
trating concepts in the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify the causes of the
problem you identified in Step 1. Remember, causes
tend to appear in either the inputs or Processes boxes.
A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework
(Figure 12.9) and decide which person factors, if
any, are most likely causes of the defined prob-
lem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
If You Work Here, You Can’t Eat Meat!115
Vegetarians might rejoice, but meat-eating WeWork
employees may lament that the company will no longer
serve or pay for red meat, poultry, or pork at company
functions. Companies have the right to determine what
they pay for, such as the food and beverages at functions
and what employee expenses they reimburse. Miguel
McKelvey, co-founder and CEO of the office sharing
company, justified this new policy in the name of the
environment, claiming that avoiding meat can have a
larger environmental impact than driving a hybrid car,
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
505Power, Influence, and Politics CHAPTER 12
part of a leader’s responsibility today. “Companies
have greater responsibility to their team members and
to the world these days . . . We’re the ones with the
power. Large employers are the ones that can move
the needle on issues.”
What Would You Do?
1. Assume you are the founder of a company, and
also assume you are fine with imposing your val-
ues on your employees. Name one value and
how would you ensure employees comply? Also
justify your decision.
2. Argue against such practices, explaining why
and how imposing your values can negatively
affect employees and your business.
3. Take a completely different course of action and
explain.
and the anticipated reduction in meat consumption by
WeWork employees alone will save over 15 million
animals in just a few years. McKelvey argued further the
policy is intended to heighten the awareness and
accountability of the company’s 6,000 employees.
Critics, however, note this is just another example of
employers imposing the values of their leaders on
employees. For instance, Hobby Lobby refuses to pay
for employees’ birth control, Koch Industries distrib-
utes messages encouraging employees about how to
vote, and IBM made a short-lived attempt to ban
employees from using ride-sharing apps.
Some policies are better aligned with business
objectives and cost savings. For instance, GE incentiv-
ized employees to quit smoking in order to improve
health and cut costs, and Scotts Miracle-Gro took it a
step further and adopted a policy of not hiring smokers
altogether.
When questioned about imposing his views on
WeWork employees, McKelvey explains he sees it as
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 13-1 Describe how an integrated model of leadership helps you become an
effective leader.
LO 13-2 Explain how using trait theories can improve your leadership skills.
LO 13-3 Describe four categories of leadership behaviors.
LO 13-4 Describe two theories of contingency leadership.
LO 13-5 Describe how to use transformational leadership to work with others.
LO 13-6 Compare more recent approaches to leadership theory.
LO 13-7 Describe the implications of leadership effectiveness for you and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
Leadership
Effectiveness13
The Organizing Framework shown in Figure 13.1 summarizes what you will learn in this chapter.
It shows a greater number of total inputs and processes than past chapters. This indicates that
effective leadership is not a simple activity. It requires that individuals possess a host of person
factors including specific traits, skills, and experience. It further requires an understanding of
how a variety of situation factors such as organizational culture and structure affect individual,
group/team, and organizational level processes.
Ja
n
H
av
lic
ek
/J
oh
ny
87
/1
23
RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
507Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
Figure 13.1 shows there are five key forms of individual level leadership you will
learn about. They are: task-oriented leadership, relationship-oriented leadership, pas-
sive leadership, transformational leadership, and leader-member exchange. Each of
these types of leadership rely on different types of leader behavior and they all in turn
affect a number of individual, group/team, and organizational-level outcomes. The
large number of outcomes shown in Figure 13.1 underscores the importance of lead-
ership. Research demonstrates that effective leadership impacts individual, group/
team, and organizational performance.
FIGURE 13.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Traits
• Skills
• Gender
• Prototypes
• Ethical beliefs and values
• Experience
• Self-concept
Situation Factors
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
• Task structure
• Work group dynamics
• Leader’s personality and style
• Trust between leaders and
followers
• Quality of followers
Individual Level
• Task-oriented leadership
• Relationship-oriented
leadership
• Passive leadership
• Transformational leadership
• Leader-member exchange
Group/Team Level
• Task-oriented leadership
• Relationship-oriented
leadership
• Passive leadership
• Transformational leadership
• Leader-member exchange
Organizational Level
• Task-oriented leadership
• Relationship-oriented
leadership
• Passive leadership
• Transformational leadership
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group collaboration
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Corporate reputation
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
508
Winning at Work
Learning to Lead
Step 3: Develop a Learning Goal Orientation
In Chapter 6 we discussed the difference between learning
goals and performance goals. Learning goals promote learn-
ing because they focus on what we can learn from both suc-
cess and failure, and they encourage us to seek input,
guidance, and coaching from effective leaders. We encour-
age you to set learning goals associated with leadership
development, such as “learn how to run better meetings,”
“learn to improve my influence skills,” or “learn to provide
more effective feedback.” We also encourage you to set
goals associated with your leadership development. For
instance, you might establish a goal to read one leadership
book or attend one leadership training course a year. Once
you do this, make and execute a plan to achieve your goals.
Step 4: Experiment and Seek Feedback
Try experimenting in low-risk situations with the different
leader behaviors discussed later in this chapter.7 Next,
assess the impact of your experimental approach to lead-
ership. Seek feedback from those you trust and reflect on
what you can learn from your many educational and work
experiences. It’s very hard to improve your leadership skills
without getting feedback. You may also find that some of
your colleagues, or even a future boss, may be reluctant to
provide accurate and honest feedback. If you feel your
feedback is unrealistically positive, push for more details
about how you can improve. A recent experimental study
showed that leadership effectiveness increased over time
for students who consistently reflected on what they could
learn from their experiences.8
Leadership effectiveness is more a function of your behav-
ior than a set of traits you are born with. This means leader-
ship skills can be learned, a conclusion supported by
research.1
Step 1: How Can I Begin the Learning
Process?
We believe effective leaders lead from the inside out. In
other words, self-leadership, or management of your own
life, is a prerequisite for being a good leader. How can you
lead others if you can’t lead yourself? This is where self-
awareness matters, by helping you understand your values,
motives, and behaviors. For example, a Hewlett Packard
report shows that women tend not to apply for promotions
unless they are already 100 percent qualified, while men
will apply while meeting only 60 percent of requirements.
Such underestimations of their abilities can reduce wom-
en’s career outcomes.2 The benefits of self-awareness are
the reason we include so many Self-Assessments in this
book. If you want to learn how to lead, the first step is to
identify the type of leader behaviors you tend to use.3 The
best way to do this is by getting feedback from others
about your leadership during the course of your career.4
Without feedback, it is very hard to improve.
Step 2: Claim a Leader Identity
The way we think of ourselves, our identity, affects our will-
ingness to take on leadership roles. This means that to be
a leader, you need to see yourself authentically as a leader,
even in a small way.5 You can do this in three ways. The
first is to take a direct approach, in which you refer to your-
self as a leader of some group, project, or task or engage
in typical leadership acts. For example, if you are meeting
with a student group to complete an assignment, you can
walk into the meeting with an agenda and then start run-
ning the meeting. The second way to see yourself as a
leader is to stake indirect claims of leadership, such as sit-
ting at the head of the table for a meeting, mentioning
your relationship with recognized leaders, or dressing the
part.6 The third way entails acting or behaving in ways that
meet people’s expectations about effective leadership.
For example, many people perceived that effective lead-
ers use styles that emphasize empowerment, fairness,
compassion, and supportiveness. You are more likely to
be perceived as a leader if you display these styles.
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
Improving your leadership skills will enhance both
your personal and professional life. The good news
is that leadership is available to all. Genetics and
privilege neither guarantee leadership abilities, nor
are they required. We are about to help you navi-
gate the many theories of leadership, grasp how
leadership traits and behaviors can be learned and
developed, identify and apply styles of leadership,
and finally apply what you learn about leadership to
being a better leader and follower and more effec-
tive at any level in an organization.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
509Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You’re about to learn why leadership is both an input and a process in the Organizing
Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. Organizations can’t really start or sustain
operations without leadership. You’ll acquire an overall model of leadership that
integrates the many leadership theories that have been proposed. Then you’ll hone
your understanding of effective leadership and parse the difference between leading and
managing.
13.1 MAKING SENSE OF LEADERSHIP THEORIES
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more,
do more and become more, you are a leader.”
—John Quincy Adams
Adams’s words underscore the value of leadership. Whether at home or work, effective
leadership matters! A recent study spanning 18,000 firm-years revealed that the impact of
individual chief executives on corporate financial performance has increased over the last
60 years.9
Leadership is “a process whereby an individual influences a group of individu-
als to achieve a common goal.”10 As Adams suggested, you do not need to have a formal
position of authority to be a leader. Anyone who exerts influence over others in the pursuit
of organizationally relevant matters is a leader.
This definition underscores the broad impact leaders have on organizations. Consider
that employee disengagement in the United States costs $483 billion to $605 billion each
year, and ineffective leadership is a key driver of disengagement.11 Researchers also have
estimated that half of all managers around the world are incompetent or ineffective.12
Those are pretty discouraging statistics. Further, results from a recent global survey of
more than 9,000 leaders from 31 countries suggested these negative trends are not going
away. In fact, 80 percent of respondents said that leadership was a very important issue
and that “21st-century leaders” face unique challenges to address critical new competen-
cies, such as leading through change, understanding digital and AI-driven technologies,
and embracing ambiguity and uncertainty.13
The topic of leadership has generated more OB-related research than any other
topic except motivation, so there are far too many leadership theories to cover in
this one chapter. Instead we have created a model that integrates the major theories.
We begin there and then focus on theories that have received some level of research
support.
An Integrated Model of Leadership
Figure 13.2 presents an integrated model of leadership. Starting at the far right of the
model, you see that leadership effectiveness is the outcome we explain in this chapter.
The center of the model shows this outcome is influenced by four types of leadership
behavior: task-oriented, relationship-oriented, passive, and transformational. Effective
Describe how an
integrated model of
leadership helps you
become an effective
leader.
LO 13-1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
510 PART 2 Groups
leadership also is affected by a combination of task-oriented traits and interpersonal
attributes (the left side of the model). Recall from Chapter 3 that individual differences
significantly affect performance, and they vary from relatively fixed (cognitive ability)
to somewhat flexible (self-efficacy). For example, a recent study of 19,000 people found
that gender predicted leadership potential over the past 25 years—men were more likely
than women to become leaders—although that result is slowly beginning to change.14
Demographics Situation Factors
Intelligence and Skills
Leadership E�ectiveness
Task-oriented Traits
Interpersonal Attributes
Leader Behaviors
• Task-oriented
• Relationship-oriented
• Passive
• Transformational
FIGURE 13.2 An Integrated Model of Leadership
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Do singers (from left: Macklemore, Mary Lambert, Madonna, Ryan Lewis, Queen Latifah) exert leadership when
they perform? Would a group of well-known singers like this exert more influence than one singer performing
alone? Why or why not?
Kevin Winter/WireImage/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
511Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
Moreover, Figure 13.2 shows how demographic characteristics such as gender and
age, task-oriented traits, and interpersonal attributes influence an individual’s use of leader
behaviors. The final component in leadership effectiveness, situation factors, suggests that
different situations call for different leader behaviors. That is, effective leadership requires
using the right behavior at the right time.
What Is the Difference between
Leading and Managing?
Bernard Bass, a leadership expert, concluded, “Leaders manage and managers lead, but
the two activities are not synonymous.”15 Broadly speaking, managers typically perform
functions associated with planning, investigating, organizing, and control, and leaders
focus on influencing others. Leaders inspire others, provide emotional support, and try
to get employees to rally around a common goal. Leaders also play a key role in creating
a vision and strategic plan for an organization. Managers, in turn, are charged with
implementing the vision and plan. We can draw several conclusions from this division
of labor.
First, good leaders are not necessarily good managers, and good managers are not
necessarily good leaders. Second, effective leadership requires effective managerial
skills at some level. For example, Nissan’s former CEO, Carlos Ghosn, was arrested in
Tokyo for allegedly underreporting his income by millions of dollars over the last
decade.16 In contrast, both Beth Ford, CEO of Land O’Lakes, and Chip Bergh, CEO of
Levi Strauss, are recognized for their use of good managerial skills when implementing
corporate strategies.17
Do you want to lead others or understand what makes a leader tick? Then take Self-
Assessment 13.1. It provides feedback on your readiness to assume a leadership role and
can help you consider how to prepare for a formal leadership position.
Assessing Your Readiness to Assume a Leadership Role
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 13.1 in Connect.
1. Do you agree with your results?
2. If you scored below 60 and desire to become a leader, what might you do to
increase your readiness to lead?
3. What is your biggest take-away from these results?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.1 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
512 PART 2 Groups
13.2 TRAIT THEORIES: DO LEADERS POSSESS UNIQUE
TRAITS AND PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS?
Trait theory is the successor to what was once called the “great man” theory of leader-
ship. This approach was based on the assumption that leaders such as Abraham
Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., and Angela Merkel are born with some innate ability
to lead. In contrast, trait theorists believe leadership traits are not inborn but can be
developed through experience and learning. The trait approach attempts to identify
personality characteristics or interpersonal attributes that differentiate leaders
from followers.
What Core Traits Do Leaders Possess?
Researchers have attempted to identify leadership traits for nearly 100 years. It has
been a frustrating pursuit that has not led to a consistent answer. Some have claimed
that effective leaders are taller, bald, or wear glasses.18 But if instead you believe in
drawing conclusions based on science, OB researchers offer you a statistical technique
called meta-analysis. A meta-analysis is a statistical procedure that effectively computes
an average relationship between two variables. Table 13.1 is a summary of what we
know from this research. Note the emphasis on task-orientation and the expansion into
interpersonal attributes.19
Explain how using
trait theories can
improve your
leadership skills.
LO 13-2
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Trait theories attempt to identify personal characteristics that differentiate leaders from fol-
lowers. They represent inputs within the Organizing Framework. After identifying key traits
established by research, we discuss the role of gender and perceptions in determining what
it takes to be an effective leader.
POSITIVE TASK-ORIENTED TRAITS
POSITIVE/NEGATIVE
INTERPERSONAL ATTRIBUTES
• Intelligence • Extraversion (+)
• Conscientiousness • Agreeableness (+)
• Open to Experience • Communication Skills (+)
• Emotional Stability • Emotional Intelligence (+)
• Narcissism (−)
• Machiavellianism (−)
• Psychopathy (−)
TABLE 13.1 Key Task-Oriented Traits and Interpersonal Attributes
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
513Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
All the traits and interpersonal attributes listed in Table 13.1 have been defined else-
where in this book except for the “dark triad” traits of narcissism, Machiavellianism, and
psychopathy.20
• Narcissism consists of “a self-centered perspective, feelings of superiority, and a
drive for personal power and glory.”21 Individuals with this trait have inflated views of
themselves, fantasize about being in control of everything, and like to attract the admira-
tion of others. It’s thus not surprising that narcissists tend to emerge as leaders, even
though they can promote counterproductive work behaviors from others.22
• Machiavellianism is the use of manipulation, a cynical view of human nature,
and a moral code that puts results over principles. It’s not surprising that indi-
viduals who believe everyone lies to get what they want and that it’s necessary to
cheat to get ahead are less likely to garner support from others.
• Psychopathy is characterized by a lack of concern for others, impulsive
behavior, and a lack of remorse or guilt when your actions harm others. This
type of person is toxic at work.
We can draw two more conclusions from Table 13.1. First, when selecting leaders, it’s
more useful to consider personality than intelligence.23 Second, displaying the “dark triad”
traits at work can lower your performance ratings and even get you demoted or fired.24
What Role Does Emotional Intelligence Play in
Leadership Effectiveness?
Recall from Chapter 3 that emotional intelligence is the ability to manage yourself and your
relationships in mature and constructive ways. Scientific evidence supports two conclu-
sions about emotional intelligence and leadership:25
1. Emotional intelligence is an input to transformational leadership. In other words, emo-
tional intelligence helps managers effectively enact the behaviors associated with
transformational leadership, discussed later in this chapter.
2. Emotional intelligence has a small, positive, and significant association with leadership
effectiveness. This suggests that emotional intelligence will help you lead more effec-
tively, but it is not the secret elixir of leadership effectiveness.
Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s long-serving president, has been
linked to chemical bombings that have killed thousands
of people, including children. Do you think al-Assad pos-
sesses any of the “dark side” traits?
Joseph Eid/Getty Images
Angela Merkel has been Germany’s Chancellor for
nearly 15 years. Which positive traits does she likely
possess?
Leon Neal/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
514 PART 2 Groups
Do Women and Men Display the
Same Leadership Traits?
The increase in the number of women in the workforce has
generated much interest in understanding the similarities
and differences between female and male leaders. Research
reveals the following four conclusions:
1. Men were observed to display more task leadership and
women more relationship leadership.26
2. Women used a more democratic or participative style
than men, and men used a more autocratic and directive
style.27
3. Female leadership was associated with more cohesion,
cooperative learning, and participative communication
among team members.28
4. Peers, managers, direct reports, and judges/trained
observers rated women executives as more effective
than men. Men rated themselves as more effective than
women evaluated themselves.29
How Important Are Knowledge
and Skills?
Knowledge and skills are extremely important! Table 13.2
identifies the four basic skills leaders need, according to
researchers.
Do Perceptions Matter?
Perceptions do matter, according to implicit leadership the-
ory. Implicit leadership theory proposes that people
have beliefs about how leaders should behave and
what they should do for their followers. These beliefs are summarized in a leadership
prototype.30 A leadership prototype is a mental representation of the traits and
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Nancy Pelosi is the first woman in U.S. history
to hold this leadership position. In fact, Pelosi
has held the Speaker’s position twice. As
Speaker, Pelosi is third in the line (after the
President and Vice President) of succession
to the presidency. It would seem that Pelosi
possesses the positive traits associated with
leadership effectiveness.
Mark Wilson/Getty Images
WHAT LEADERS NEED AND WHY
Cognitive abilities to identify problems
and their causes in rapidly changing
situations.
Leaders must sometimes devise effective
solutions in short time spans with limited
information.
Interpersonal skills to influence and
persuade others.
Leaders need to work well with diverse
people.
Business skills to maximize the use of
organizational assets.
Leaders increasingly need business skills as
they advance up through an organization.
Strategic skills to draft an organiza-
tion’s mission, vision, strategies, and
implementation plans.
Strategic skills matter most for individuals in
the top ranks in an organization.
TABLE 13.2 Four Basic Skills for Leaders
SOURCE: Mumford, Troy V., Michael A. Campion, and Frederick P. Morgeson. “Leadership Skills Strataplex: Leadership Skill
Requirements across Organizational Levels.” Leadership Quarterly 18 (2007): 154–66. https://doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2007.01.005.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
515Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
behaviors people believe leaders possess. For example, a recent study identified a
leadership prototype of physically imposing men: that they possess leadership ability
and thus are granted greater status.31
We tend to perceive someone as a leader who exhibits traits or behaviors consistent
with our prototypes. The person you voted for in the 2016 presidential election most
likely exhibited traits contained in your leadership prototype. A pair of researchers
recently investigated leadership prototypes regarding facial appearance. Here is what
they found:
People prefer leaders with dominant, masculine-looking faces in times of war and
conflict, yet they prefer leaders with more trustworthy, feminine faces in peacetime.
In addition, leaders with older-looking faces are preferred in traditional knowledge
domains, whereas younger-looking leaders are preferred for new challenges.32
As this study’s results suggest, we all need to be mindful that our prototypes can bias
our evaluation of leaders.
As result of their extensive behavioral research, Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner devel-
oped a leadership model based on five common behaviors leaders exemplify that reflect
honesty and integrity: (1) Model the way—establish principles about the way people
should be treated; (2) inspire a shared vision—believe you can make a difference and
envision what your organization can become; (3) challenge the process—look for ways to
shake things up to improve the organization; (4) enable others to act—foster collabora-
tion and build teams that engage others; and (5) encourage the heart—recognize the
contributions of others.33
What Are the Take-Aways from Trait Theory?
Trait theory offers us four conclusions.
1. We cannot ignore the implications of leadership traits. Traits play a central role in the
way we perceive leaders, and they do ultimately affect leadership effectiveness. For
example, the Cardiac Rhythm Disease Management Group within Medtronic Inc.
identified nine types of traits and skills necessary for leaders (such as giving clear
performance feedback and being courageous). The company then designed a leader-
ship development program to help its employees learn and apply these traits.34
More companies are using management development programs to build a pipe-
line of leadership talent. Total U.S. spending by organizations for leadership training
was $87.6 billion for 2018, a 6 percent decrease from the previous year.35
2. The positive and “dark triad” traits shown in Table 13.1 suggest the qualities you should
cultivate and avoid if you want to assume a leadership role in the future. Personality
tests, discussed in Chapter 3, and other trait assessments can help evaluate your
strengths and weaknesses on these traits. The website for this book contains a host of
tests you can take for this purpose.
3. Organizations may want to include personality and trait assessments in their selection
and promotion processes. For example, Nina Brody, head of talent for Take Care
Health Systems in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, used an assessment tool to assist in
hiring nurses, doctors, medical assistants, and others with traits that fit the organiza-
tion’s culture.36 Of course, companies should match only valid leadership traits.
4. A global mind-set is an increasingly valued task-oriented trait. As more companies
expand their international operations and hire more culturally diverse people for
domestic operations in the United States, they want to enhance employees’ global
mind-set.37 A global mind-set is the belief in one’s ability to influence dissimilar
others in a global context. For example, MasterCard and InterContinental Hotels
Group implemented leadership development programs aimed at enhancing employees’
cross-cultural awareness and ability to work with people from different countries.38
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
516 PART 2 Groups
13.3 BEHAVIORAL THEORIES: WHICH LEADER
BEHAVIORS DRIVE EFFECTIVENESS?
As you might expect, leaders rely on many different types of behaviors to influence
others and to accomplish goals. This realization spurred the behavioral styles
approach, which attempts to identify the unique behaviors displayed by
effective leaders.
Researchers have boiled down the unique leader behaviors into four categories: task-
oriented, relationship-oriented, passive, and transformational (see Figure 13.2). This sec-
tion discusses the first three, while transformational leadership is discussed later in the
chapter.
Task-Oriented Leader Behavior
The primary purpose of task-oriented behaviors is to assist others in accomplishing their
goals and those of the work unit.39 Although a host of behaviors fall under this category,
such as planning, clarifying, monitoring, and problem solving, researchers have mainly
studied two: initiating structure and transactional leadership.40
Initiating Structure Researchers at Ohio State University defined initiating struc-
ture as leader behavior that organizes and defines what group members should be
doing to maximize output. You witness this behavior style when someone organizes a
team meeting for a class project or seeks input from a knowledgeable source to help guide
the team’s work. This form of leadership has a moderately strong positive relationship with
measures of leadership effectiveness.41
Transactional Leadership Transactional leadership focuses on clarifying
employees’ role and task requirements and providing followers with positive and
negative rewards contingent on performance. Transactional leadership includes the
fundamental managerial activities of setting goals, monitoring progress toward goal
achievement, and rewarding and punishing people for their level of goal accomplishment.42
You can see that transactional leadership is based on using rewards and punishment to
drive motivation and performance. Research supports a positive association between
transactional leadership and leader effectiveness and group performance.43
Dabo Swinney, head football coach at Clemson University, uses task-oriented leader-
ship (see the OB in Action Box). His teams have won two national championships in
recent years, attesting to his effectiveness as a leader.44
Describe four
categories of
leadership behaviors.
LO 13-3
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Behavioral style theories identify key leader behaviors believed to affect leadership effec-
tiveness. We’ll focus on four leader behaviors confirmed to differentiate effective from
ineffective leaders: task-oriented behavior, relationship-oriented behavior, passive leadership,
and transformational leadership.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
517Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
After a drought of almost 40 years, college football
coach Dabo Swinney recently restored Clemson
University’s Tigers to the national championship in a
dramatic upset that some observers have called a
game for the ages. Later, in his speech on the White
House lawn following the celebration traditionally
offered to the winning team, Swinney outlined his
approach to coaching the team to victory. It’s not a
coincidence that in doing so he also described the
values many task-oriented leaders live by. Here are
the highlights:
1. “Run your race in such a way as to win.”
2. Quoting George Washington Carver, Swinney
said, “Do the common things in an uncommon
way, and you will command the respect of the
world.”
3. His next point was a reminder that life consists
not of just the big moments, like winning cham-
pionships and visiting the White House, but also
of all the little moments in between and how we
live them.
4. “Continue to be ‘all in.’ Continue to apply ‘best is
the standard.’ Continue to be a person of excel-
lence in everything you do.”
5. Swinney concluded by reminding his team that
their achievements “pale in comparison to the
daily commitments it took to get there.”45
Indeed, the entire campus and the town of Clemson,
South Carolina, have prospered dramatically since
Swinney was hired in 2008 and began steadily reviv-
ing the football team’s fortunes. More and better stu-
dents are applying to the university, donations to all
its teams are growing, new construction is under way
across the campus, and salaries in town are inching
up.46 Swinney’s leadership approach must be work-
ing: The Tigers won the national championship again
in January 2019.47
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. In what ways do Swinney’s five points exemplify
task-oriented leader behavior?
2. What aspects of initiating structure and
transactional leadership can you find in the five
points?
3. What aspects of Swinney’s approach do you see
as most applicable to a business organization,
and why?
Clemson University football coach Dabo Swinney
celebrates his team’s NCAA College Football
Championship in 2019.
Michael Zagaris/Getty Images
Dabo Swinney Uses Task-Oriented Leadership to Reclaim the Championship for Clemson
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
518 PART 2 Groups
Relationship-Oriented Leader Behavior
The purpose of relationship-oriented leadership is to enhance employees’ skills and create
positive work relationships among coworkers and between the leader and his/her
employees.48 OB researchers have investigated the impact of four relationship-oriented
behaviors:
• Consideration
• Empowerment
• Servant-leadership
• Ethical leadership
Consideration Consideration is leader behavior that creates mutual respect or
trust and prioritizes group members’ needs and desires. Consideration promotes
social interactions and identification with the team and leader. In fact, researchers at Ohio
State (who identified consideration) initially proposed that a high-initiating structure,
high-consideration style would be the best style of leadership. While research results did
not support this bold prediction, considerate leader behavior has a moderately strong pos-
itive relationship with measures of leadership effectiveness.49
What use do you make of initiating structure and consideration when interacting with
student peers or work colleagues? Which of these two types of leader behavior is a strength,
an opportunity, or a weakness for you? You can answer these questions by taking Self-
Assessment 13.2.
Assessing Your Task- and Relationship-Oriented Leader Behavior
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 13.2 in Connect.
1. Are you better at using initiating structure or consideration?
2. Looking at your two lowest scores for each type of leader behavior, suggest
ways to improve your leadership.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.2 CAREER READINESS
Empowering Leadership To explain the positive effects of empowering leadership,
we need to define two terms. Empowering leadership represents the leader’s ability
to create perceptions of psychological empowerment in others. Psychological
empowerment, employees’ belief that they have control over their work, is believed
to drive intrinsic motivation.50
Marc Benioff, co-founder and CEO of Salesforce, has learned to be an empowering
leader. A business analyst who tracks Salesforce for Pivotal Research says Benioff “knows
he can be a force for good and a force for change.”51
Leaders increase their followers’ psychological empowerment by engaging in behav-
iors that enhance perceptions of meaning, self-determination or choice, competence, and
impact. Let’s consider how Benioff creates psychological empowerment at Salesforce, the
tech company he co-founded 20 years ago.
• Leading for meaningfulness. Managers lead for meaningfulness by inspiring their
employees and modeling desired behaviors. One way to do this is by helping
employees to identify their passions at work and creating an exciting organizational
vision employees feel connected to. Benioff demonstrated this when he campaigned
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
519Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
vigorously for Proposition C in San Francisco,
a measured that called on companies in the city
with revenue over $50 million to pay a tax
toward homeless programs. In addition to
spending $8 million to help pass the bill,
Benioff convened meetings with local business
leaders, nonprofit organizations, and experts
on homelessness before the election. He also
tweeted about the proposed legislation more
than 50 times to show his support. Despite
strong opposition from several high-profile tech
companies headquartered in San Francisco,
Prop C passed easily.52
• Leading for self-determination or choice.
Managers lead for choice by delegating
meaningful assignments and tasks. When Benioff
took a two-week vacation—unplugged and
unreachable—he had a lot of time to meditate
and had a revelation: He’s too busy. In addition to running a 30,000-person com-
pany, a full-time endeavor for most people, Benioff is also deeply involved in
philanthropy, mentoring other business leaders, and making his voice heard on
various social and political issues. He decided to promote Keith Block, Sale-
force’s chief operating officer, to become co-CEO of the company. According to
Benioff, the move was a “divide and conquer strategy,” virtually unheard of in the
software industry.53
• Leading for competence. Leading for competence means supporting and coaching
employees. Managers first need to make sure employees have the knowledge needed
to successfully perform their jobs. Deficiencies can be handled through training and
mentoring. Managers can also combine positive feedback and sincere recognition
with challenging tasks to fuel employees’ intrinsic motivation. On their first day at
Salesforce, new employees spend the afternoon doing service work, as part of the
company’s “giving back” culture.54
• Leading for progress. Managers lead for progress by monitoring and rewarding
others. Over the past several years, Benioff directed Salesforce to spend more than
$6 million dollars to ensure that all employees were paid fairly, regardless of gender,
race, or ethnicity. In addition, he announced he would not hold meetings unless
30 percent of the attendees were women, a strategy he believed would make it like-
lier that female employees would be seen as leaders and improve their opportunities
for promotion within the company.55
Research supports the use of empowering leadership. It fosters psychological empower-
ment, which in turn improves outcomes such as intrinsic motivation, creativity, career
self-efficacy and satisfaction, performance, and team collaboration.56
Servant-Leadership The term servant-leadership was coined in 1970 by Robert Green-
leaf, who believed great leaders act as servants and make the needs of others, including
employees, customers, and community, their first priority. Servant-leadership focuses
on increased service to others rather than to oneself.57 Because the focus of servant-
leadership is on serving others, servant-leaders are less likely to engage in self-serving
behaviors that hurt others. Embedding servant-leadership into an organization’s culture
requires actions as well as words.
EXAMPLE Afni, Inc., a global customer contact services provider, launched a lead-
ership development program aimed at enhancing both servant and empowering
leadership. Heather Cushing, senior manager of leadership development, said the
Salesforce co-founder Marc Benioff is an empowering leader.
Inspiring employees and modeling desired behaviors, Benioff
has made valuable contributions not only to his staff but also
to his San Francisco community.
Tim Mosenfelder/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
520 PART 2 Groups
goal of the program is to help managers “exhibit an attitude of servant-hood, caring
for the coaching and development of each level reporting up through them.” Afni
wants managers to empower “others to reach their full potential, while also inspiring
teamwork and loyalty and improving employee engagement.”58
Servant-leadership is expected to promote leadership effectiveness because it focuses
on providing support and growth opportunities to employees. As you may recall from our
discussion of perceived organizational support (POS) in Chapter 2, people generally recip-
rocate with increased effort toward collective performance when they feel supported.
Servant-leaders have the characteristics listed in Table 13.3.
Does your current manager display the traits shown in Table 13.3? If yes, you are
likely to be happier, more productive, more creative, and more willing to go above
and beyond your role. This is precisely what researchers have uncovered.59 Self-
Assessment 13.3 measures the extent to which you possess a serving orientation.
Results from the assessment will enhance your understanding of what it takes to
really be a servant-leader.
TABLE 13.3 Characteristics of the Servant-Leader
SERVANT-LEADERSHIP
CHARACTERISTICS
DESCRIPTION
1. Listening Servant-leaders focus on listening to identify and clarify
the needs and desires of a group.
2. Empathy Servant-leaders try to empathize with others’ feelings and
emotions. An individual’s good intentions are assumed
even when he or she performs poorly.
3. Healing Servant-leaders strive to make themselves and others
whole in the face of failure or suffering.
4. Awareness Servant-leaders are aware of their own strengths and
limitations.
5. Persuasion Servant-leaders rely more on persuasion than on
positional authority when making decisions and trying
to influence others.
6. Conceptualization Servant-leaders take the time and effort to develop
broader-based conceptual thinking. They seek an
appropriate balance between a short-term, day-to-day
focus and a long-term, conceptual orientation.
7. Foresight Servant-leaders have the ability to foresee outcomes of a
current course of action or situation.
8. Stewardship Servant-leaders assume they are stewards of the people
and resources they manage.
9. Commitment to the
growth of people
Servant-leaders commit to people beyond their immediate
work role. They foster an environment that encourages
personal, professional, and spiritual growth.
10. Interest in building
community
Servant-leaders strive to create a sense of community
both within and outside the work organization.
SOURCES: Spears, Larry C. “Character and Servant Leadership: Ten Characteristics of Effective, Caring Leaders.” The Journal of
Virtues & Leadership 1, no. 1 (2010): 25–30; and Spears, Larry C. Reflections on Leadership: How Robert K. Greenleaf’s Theory
of Servant-Leadership Influenced Today’s Top Management Thinkers. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1995.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
521Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
Bono, lead singer of the Irish band U2, is a good example of a servant-leader. Here is
what reporter Ellen McGirt had to say about him.
EXAMPLE In 2005 he started the One campaign, a volunteer-led movement to
influence lawmakers to commit resources to funding programs that truly change the
lives of the poor—from Pepfar (which continues to provide lifesaving antiretroviral
drugs); to the Global Fund, the Geneva-based not-for-profit that finances select local
programs fighting AIDS, TB, malaria; to Gavi, a public-private partnership that pro-
vides needed vaccines to kids. Bono’s motto is adapted from St. Francis, who said,
“Go into the world to preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.” Bono com-
mented that “It’s about being useful, and that’s what I want to be.”60
Ethical Leadership OB scholars are interested in studying ethical leadership. Ethical
leadership represents normatively appropriate behavior that focuses on being a
moral role model. This includes communicating ethical values to others, rewarding ethi-
cal behavior, and treating followers with care and concern.61
Ethical leadership is clearly driven by personal factors related to our beliefs and val-
ues. It also has a reciprocal relationship with an organization’s culture and climate. In
other words, an ethical culture and climate promote ethical leadership, and ethical leader-
ship in turn promotes an ethical culture and climate. Although ethical leadership is a rela-
tively new area of study in OB, research already shows that it is positively related to
employee job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behav-
ior, motivation, and task performance. It also is negatively associated with job stress, coun-
terproductive work behavior, and intentions to quit.62 It appears that ethical leadership has
many positive benefits.
Abusive Supervision
Although most managers exhibit positive behavior toward their direct reports and others
in the organization, there are some who demonstrate abusive behavior in the workplace.
Abusive supervision is the sustained display of hostile verbal and nonverbal behav-
ior by managers.63 Examples of such behavior can include telling subordinates their ideas
are stupid; criticizing them in front of colleagues and other managers; reminding them of
past errors and missteps; and giving them the silent treatment.64
Research suggests that abusive supervision affects more than 13 percent of U.S.
workers, although that percentage may be understated because of employees’ fear of
retaliation if they speak up. Abusive supervision may also increase job dissatisfaction,
manifest as retaliatory behavior on the part of the abused worker, decrease productivity
and innovation, and actually encourage abused employees to act out or demonstrate the
same bad behavior as their supervisors to colleagues and others outside of work. In addi-
tion, costs of abusive supervision to organizations are estimated at nearly $24 billion
annually.65
Assessing Your Servant Orientation
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 13.3 in Connect.
1. To what extent do you possess a servant orientation? Are you surprised by
the results?
2. How might you demonstrate more servant-leadership in your teams at work or
school? Be specific.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.3 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
522 PART 2 Groups
Research suggests the reasons for supervisors’ abusive behavior may vary.66 Regardless
of the reasons, organizations can implement strategies to eliminate abusive behavior
including
• An anonymous tip line that employees can call to report abuse.
• Written company policies prohibiting abusive behavior.
• Acknowledgment by senior managers that there is no place for abusive behavior in
the company’s culture.67
Unfortunately, not all supervisors and managers recognize such inappropriate behavior, as
described in the OB in Action feature.
It’s hard to imagine a leader taking abuse of employees
to the extreme lengths that a court case alleges Joyce
Fogleman did. According to a federal suit filed by a
former employee, in the “sexually hostile work environ-
ment” at J&S Professional Pharmacy in West Frankfort,
Illinois, Fogleman, who has been the pharmacy’s presi-
dent and owner for almost 25 years, demanded
employees line up and kiss her on the mouth to receive
their pay checks, used public spanking as a disciplinary
measure, often went about the workplace naked; and
made comments about employees’ physical attributes
in front of other employees and customers. The former
employee had worked at J&S for 12 years and was
under the supervision of Fogleman’s sister at the time.
She claims that after seeking medical and psychiatric
help to deal with high blood pressure, anxiety, and
depression as a result of the situation at work, she was
unlawfully fired in March 2017.68
Fogleman, who has supported many local charities
and won various local business awards, told News-
week that the claims in the suit were “just crazy,” “totally
bogus,” and “ridiculous,” and that the alleged events
“Never happened.”69 Her company employs 13 people
and has annual revenues of nearly $5 million.70
Fogleman also said the former employee bringing suit,
Wendy Blades, was not fired, but Blades says not only
that she was let go in retaliation but also that she was
not the only victim of abuse. At least one other
employee backs her claims.71
Meanwhile, Workforce.com made Fogleman its
first nominee for the “worst boss of 2019.”72 If the
allegations against her are true, her performance will
be hard to top.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. If Blades is being truthful, do Fogleman’s alleged
actions fit the definition of abusive leadership?
Why or why not?
2. How might Fogleman clear her name if she is
innocent? What would she need to do?
3. What do you think would be the likely outcome
for J&S Pharmacy if Fogleman were found
guilty? Why?
Abusive Leadership at a Pharmacy
OB in Action
What Are the Take-Aways from Behavioral Theory?
There are four points to remember about behavioral theory.
1. Behavior is more important than traits when it comes to leaders’ effectiveness.73 Our
mantra for leaders is, “Every behavior matters.”
2. Leader behaviors can be systematically improved and developed.74 Organizations should
continue to invest in leadership development programs.
3. There is no one best style of leadership. The effectiveness of a particular leadership
style depends on the situation at hand.
4. Abusive supervision takes it toll on employees, managers, and the overall organization.
Leaders at all levels of the company must recognize abusive behavior and work
together to eliminate it.75
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
523Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Proponents of contingency leadership believe the effectiveness of leadership behaviors
depends on the situation. Makes common sense! Contingency theories help managers
recognize when they should use particular types of leader behavior. Two that have been
widely researched are Fred Fiedler’s contingency model and Robert House’s path-goal
theory.
13.4 CONTINGENCY THEORIES: DOES THE
EFFECTIVENESS OF LEADERSHIP DEPEND
ON THE SITUATION?
Contingency leadership theories grew out of the realization that there is no single “best”
style of leadership. Contingency theories propose that the effectiveness of a particu-
lar style of leader behavior depends on the situation. As situations change, different
styles become appropriate. As you will learn, however, the application of contingency
theories is more complicated than it appears.
Let’s examine two contingency theories: Fiedler’s contingency model and House’s
path-goal theory.
Fiedler’s Contingency Model
The oldest contingency-based theory was developed by Fred Fiedler. He labeled the model
contingency theory because it is based on the premise that a leader’s effectiveness
is contingent on the extent to which the leader’s style matches characteristics of
the situation at hand. To understand how this matching process works, we’ll consider the
key leadership styles Fiedler identified and the situational variables that constitute what he
labeled situational control.76
Two Leadership Styles: Task Orientation and Relationship Orientation
Fiedler believed leaders have one dominant or natural leadership style that is resistant
to change—either task-motivated or relationship-motivated. Recall these two orienta-
tions from our earlier discussion in this chapter. Task-motivated leaders focus on
accomplishing goals, whereas relationship-motivated leaders are more interested in
developing positive relationships with followers. Fiedler developed the least preferred
coworker (LPC) scale to measure the extent to which an individual takes a task-
or relationship-based approach toward leadership. The scale asks you to evaluate a
coworker you least enjoy working with on 16 pairs of opposite characteristics (such as
friendly/unfriendly and tense/relaxed). High scores on the survey (high LPC) indicate
that an individual is relationship-motivated, and low scores (low LPC) suggest a task-
motivated style.
Three Dimensions of Situational Control Situational control refers to the amount
of control and influence the leader has in her or his immediate work environment. There
Describe two
theories of
contingency
leadership.
LO 13-4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
524 PART 2 Groups
are three dimensions of situational control: leader–member relations, task structure, and
position power.
• Leader–member relations describe the extent to which the leader has the
support, loyalty, and trust of the work group. This dimension is the most impor-
tant component of situational control. Good leader–member relations suggest that
the leader can depend on the group, thus ensuring members will try to meet the
leader’s goals and objectives.
• Task structure measures the amount of structure contained within tasks per-
formed by the work group. For example, a managerial job contains less structure
than that of a bank teller. Because there are guidelines for the way structured tasks
should be completed, the leader has more control and influence over employees
performing such tasks. This dimension is the second-most important component of
situational control.
• Position power is the leader’s formal power to reward, punish, or otherwise
obtain compliance from employees.
The dimensions of situational control vary independently, forming eight combinations
in which control varies from high to low (see Figure 13.3). High control implies that the
leader’s decisions will produce predictable results because the leader has the ability to
influence work outcomes. Low control implies that the leader’s decisions may not influ-
ence work outcomes because the leader has very little influence.
When Is Each Style Most Effective? No leadership style is effective in all situa-
tions. Figure 13.3 illustrates when task- and relationship-motivated leadership are expected
to be most effective.
• Task-oriented leadership should be most effective in either high-control (situations
I–III in Figure 13.3) or low-control situations (situation VIII).
• Relationship-oriented leadership should be most effective in situations of moderate
control (situations IV–VII in Figure 13.3).
FIGURE 13.3 Representation of Fiedler’s Contingency Model
Situational
Control
Leader–Member
Relations
Task Structure
Position Power
Situation
Optimal
Leadership
Style
Task-
Motivated
Leadership
Relationship-
Motivated
Leadership
Task-
Motivated
Leadership
I II III IV V VI VII VIII
Good Good Good
High High Low
Strong Weak Strong
Good Poor Poor Poor Poor
Weak
Low High High Low Low
Weak Strong Weak Strong
High-Control
Situations
Moderate-Control
Situations
Low-Control
Situations
SOURCE: “Situational Control and a Dynamic Theory of Leadership.” In Managerial Control and Organizational Democracy, edited by Bert T. King, Siegfried
Streufert, and Fred Edward Fiedler. Washington: V. H. Winston, 1978.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Barnes & Noble Seeks a Leader
Struggling to halt losses from both its online business
and its brick-and-mortar stores, the venerable book-
seller Barnes & Noble is now trying to find a CEO who
can stay in the job for a while. With five CEOs at the
helm in the last five years, the company has suffered
through chaos and uncertainty while trying to retain its
600 remaining U.S. stores in the face of a long decline.
Barnes & Noble’s financial troubles have been caused
mainly by the market-dominating success of Amazon
and, ironically, a minor resurgence of independent
bookstores.80
Most recently, Barnes & Noble fired CEO
Demos Parneros, under whose leadership the com-
pany’s shares dropped 32 percent in value, over
unspecified violations of company policy that were
later revealed to be sexual harassment claims and
bullying. Parneros, formerly a 30-year veteran of
Staples, Inc., has denied any misconduct and
blames the company for disapproving of his busi-
ness decisions, including a failed plan to sell the
company. His countersuit claims defamation and
breach of contract. The company’s founder and
long-time chair, Leonard Riggio, whom Parneros
calls “volatile,” “erratic and unprofessional,” and
someone who “refuses to relinquish control,” has
said the company must “heal” and will begin the
search for a CEO yet again. The company also calls
Parneros’ characterization of Riggio “lies and mis-
characterizations,” though some industry analysts
believe Riggio has been heavy-handed and lacks a
vision for the company’s future.81 A group of lead-
ers will oversee the chain in the meantime, includ-
ing its chief financial officer, chief merchandising
offer, and vice president of stores.82
The CEO who preceded Parneros, Ronald Boire,
was let go after less than a year in the job, on the
grounds that he was not a “good fit” for the
company.83 Boire’s tenure had been marked by an
expansion of non-book offering such as games and
toys and by the introduction of workshops in coding
and 3D printing. All these were to bolster a focus on
“learning, personal growth and development [that]
Problem-Solving Application
525Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
What should you do if your dominant leadership style does not match the situation?
Then, Fiedler suggests, it is better to move to a more suitable situation than to try to
change your leadership style. This response is different from that of the behavioral styles
approach, which assumes we can learn different leader behaviors. Fiedler believes people
cannot change their leadership style. Do you agree with this proposition?
Take-Aways from Fiedler’s Model Although research provides only partial support
for Fiedler’s model and the LPC scale,77 there are three key take-aways.
1. Leadership effectiveness goes beyond traits and behaviors. The fit between a leader’s
style and the situational demands is influential. For example, a recent study found
that companies with task-oriented CEOs achieved greater financial performance
(higher return on assets) when the company had a relationship-focused culture,
whereas firms with relationship-oriented CEOs had higher firm performance in
task-focused cultures.78
2. Organizations should attempt to hire or promote people whose leadership styles fit or
match situational demands. Bookseller Barnes & Noble has gone through a series of
CEOs over the past several years as the company’s founder can’t seem to find a can-
didate with the right leadership skills he desires (see the Problem-Solving
Application box).
3. Leaders need to modify their style to fit a situation. A recent study found that too much
task-oriented leader behavior was viewed negatively by employees, whereas excessive
relationship leadership was not. Leaders need to experiment with finding the appro-
priate amount of leadership to exhibit in different situations.79
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
526 PART 2 Groups
House’s Path-Goal Theory
A second popular contingency-based theory, proposed by Robert House in the 1970s and
revised in 1996, is path-goal theory, which holds that leader behaviors are effective
when employees view them as a source of satisfaction or as paving the way to
future satisfaction. Leaders are expected to do this by (1) reducing roadblocks that inter-
fere with goal accomplishment, (2) providing the guidance and support employees need,
and (3) linking meaningful rewards to goal accomplishment.85
House’s revised model is presented in Figure 13.4. You can see that leadership
effectiveness is influenced by the interaction between eight leadership behaviors (see
Table 13.4) and a variety of contingency factors.
fits with our brand,” Boire told a New York Times
interviewer. But the company still racked up losses,
especially since the Nook, Barnes & Noble’s entry
into the e-book reader market, has stumbled badly,
costing the firm more money than it earned.84
Boire had followed Michael Huseby, who
resigned in 2015, and William Lynch, who left in
2013. After Boire’s departure, Riggio postponed his
retirement to serve as interim CEO, a job he may
find himself filling once more.
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Identify the problem in this case.
Step 2: Identify the cause of the problem. What leadership concepts or theories should Barnes &
Noble apply when choosing its next CEO?
Step 3: Make your recommendation. Do you think Barnes & Noble’s recent history will make it even
more difficult to recruit a new CEO?
The mountaineering guide (pulling the climber up) exemplifies path-goal leadership. His
job is to reduce roadblocks during an ascent and to provide coaching and support dur-
ing the journey. Of the two climbers, who do you think has the most fun? Who has the
greatest sense of accomplishment?
Javier Perini CM/Image Source
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
527Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
What Determines Leadership Effectiveness? The Match between Leadership
Behavior and Contingency Factors Figure 13.4 shows that two contingency factors—
employee characteristics and environmental factors—can cause some leadership behaviors
to be more effective than others.
FIGURE 13.4 Representation of House’s Revised Path-Goal Theory
• Path-goal clarifying
• Achievement oriented
• Work facilitation
• Supportive
• Interaction facilitation
• Group-oriented decision
making
• Representation and
networking
• Value based
Leader Behaviors
General Behaviors Specifics of Situation Resulting E�ectiveness
• Employee motivation
• Employee satisfaction
• Employee performance
• Leader acceptance
• Work-unit performance
Leadership E�ectiveness
• Task structure
• Work group dynamics
Environmental Factors
• Locus of control
• Task ability
• Need for achievement
• Experience
• Need for clarity
Employee Characteristics
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC
Putting the Theory into Action To better understand how these contingency factors
influence leadership effectiveness, we consider locus of control (see Chapter 3), an
employee characteristic, and task structure, an environmental factor.
EXAMPLE Locus of control can be internal or external.
Internal. Employees with an internal locus of control are
• More likely to prefer participative or achievement-oriented leadership because
they believe they have control over the work environment.
• Unlikely to be satisfied with directive leader behaviors that exert additional control
over their activities.
External. Employees with an external locus
• Tend to view the environment as uncontrollable, preferring the structure provided
by supportive or directive leadership.
EXAMPLE Task structure can be low or high.
Low. Low task structure occurs when
• Employees are not clear about their roles or performance expectations and have
high role ambiguity.
Directive and supportive leadership should help employees experiencing role ambiguity.
High. High task structure occurs when
• Employees work on routine and simple tasks.
Directive leadership is likely to frustrate such employees. Supportive leadership is
most useful in this context.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
528 PART 2 Groups
Does the Revised Path-Goal Theory Work? There are not enough direct tests of
House’s revised path-goal theory to draw overall conclusions. Nonetheless, the theory
offers us three key points.
1. Use more than one style of leadership. Effective leaders use multiple types of leader
behavior. Familiarize yourself with the eight types of leader behavior outlined in path-
goal theory and try new behaviors when the situation calls for them.
2. Help employees achieve their goals. Clarify the paths to goal accomplishment and
remove any obstacles that may impair an employee’s ability to achieve his or her
goals.
TABLE 13.4 Categories of Leader Behavior in Revised Path-Goal Theory
LEADER BEHAVIORS WHAT IT MEANS
Path-goal–clarifying
behaviors
Clarifying employees’ performance goals; providing guid-
ance on how employees can complete tasks; clarifying
performance standards and expectations; use of positive
and negative rewards contingent on performance
Achievement-oriented
behaviors
Setting challenging goals; emphasizing excellence;
demonstrating confidence in employees’ abilities
Work-facilitation
behaviors
Planning, scheduling, organizing, and coordinating work;
providing mentoring, coaching, counseling, and feedback
to assist employees in developing their skills; eliminating
roadblocks; providing resources; empowering employees
to take actions and make decisions
Supportive behaviors Showing concern for the well-being and needs of
employees; being friendly and approachable; treating
employees as equals
Interaction-facilitation
behaviors
Resolving disputes; facilitating communication; encourag-
ing the sharing of minority opinions; emphasizing collabo-
ration and teamwork; encouraging close relationships
among employees
Group-oriented decision-
making behaviors
Posing problems rather than solutions to the work group;
encouraging group members to participate in decision
making; providing necessary information to the group for
analysis; involving knowledgeable employees in decision
making
Representation and
networking behaviors
Presenting the work group in a positive light to others;
maintaining positive relationships with influential others;
participating in organizational social functions and
ceremonies; doing unconditional favors for others
Value-based behaviors Establishing a vision, displaying passion for it, and sup-
porting its accomplishment; demonstrating self-confidence;
communicating high-performance expectations and
confidence in others’ abilities to meet their goals; giving
frequent positive feedback
SOURCE: House, Robert J. “Path-Goal Theory of Leadership: Lessons, Legacy, and a Reformulated Theory.” The Leadership
Quarterly 7, no. 3 (Autumn 1996): 323–52. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1048-9843(96)90024-7.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
529Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
3. Modify your leadership style to fit various employee and environmental characteris-
tics. Remember that a small set of employee characteristics (ability, experience, and
need for independence) and environmental factors (task characteristics of autonomy,
variety, and significance) are relevant contingency factors.86
Applying Contingency Theories
Although researchers and practitioners support the logic of contingency leadership, its
practical applications have not been clearly developed. A team of researchers proposed a
general strategy managers can use across a variety of situations, however. It has five
steps.87 To describe them, let’s use the examples of a head coach of a sports team and a
sales manager.
Step 1: Identify important outcomes. Managers must first identify the goals they want
to achieve. For example, the head coach may have games to win or wish to avoid
injury to key players, whereas a sales manager’s goal might be to increase sales by
10 percent or reduce customers’ complaints by half.
Step 2: Identify relevant leadership behaviors. Next managers need to identify the
specific types of behaviors that may be appropriate for the situation at hand. The
list in Table 13.4 is a good starting point. A head coach in a championship game, for
instance, might focus on achievement-oriented and work-facilitation behaviors. In
contrast, a sales manager might find path-goal–clarifying, work-facilitation, and sup-
portive behaviors more relevant for the sales team. Don’t try to use all available
leadership behaviors. Rather, select the one or two that appear most helpful.
Step 3: Identify situational conditions. Fiedler and House both identify a set of poten-
tial contingency factors to consider, but there may be other practical considerations.
For example, a star quarterback on a football team may be injured, which might
require the team to adopt a different strategy for winning the game. Similarly, the
need to manage a virtual sales team with members from around the world will affect
the types of leadership most effective in this context.
Step 4: Match leadership to the conditions at hand. There are too many possible situa-
tional conditions for us to provide specific advice. This means you should use your
knowledge about organizational behavior to find the best match between your lead-
ership styles and behaviors and the situation at hand. The coach whose star quarter-
back is injured might use supportive and values-based behaviors to instill confidence
that the team can win with a different quarterback. Our sales manager also might
find it useful to use the empowering leadership associated with work-facilitation
behaviors and avoid directive leadership.
Step 5: Decide how to make the match. Managers can use guidelines from either con-
tingency theory or path-goal theory: change the person in the leadership role or
change his or her behavior. It is not possible to change the head coach in a champi-
onship game. This means the head coach needs to change his or her style or behav-
ior to meet the specific challenge. In contrast, the organization employing the sales
manager might move him or her to another position because the individual is too
directive and does not like to empower others. Or the sales manager could change
his or her behavior, if possible.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
530 PART 2 Groups
13.5 TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADERSHIP:
HOW DO LEADERS TRANSFORM
EMPLOYEES’ MOTIVES?
Transformational leadership represents a broad type of leader behavior that goes
beyond task and relational leadership. Its origins date to the 1940s, when German
sociologist Max Weber discussed the pros and cons of charismatic leadership.88
Charisma is a form of interpersonal attraction that inspires acceptance,
devotion, and enthusiasm. Weber’s initial ideas were examined and then incorpo-
rated into different models of transformational leadership during the 1970s and ’80s.
The dominant model of transformational leadership was proposed by a renowned
OB scholar, Bernard Bass.89 Bass believed transformational leaders used key leader
behaviors to influence others.
A Model of Transformational Leadership
Transformational leaders transform their followers to pursue organizational goals
over self-interests. They do this by appealing to followers’ self-concepts—their values,
motives, and personal identity. There are four key behaviors of transformational leaders:
inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individualized consideration, and intellectual
stimulation. Figure 13.5 provides a sketch of the way transformational leaders rely on the
four behaviors. Let’s look at each in more detail.
Inspirational Motivation “Let me share a vision that elevates us to a greater good.”
Inspirational motivation, which includes the use of charisma, relies on an attractive
vision of the future, emotional arguments, and demonstrated optimism and enthu-
siasm. A vision is “a realistic, credible, attractive future for your organization.”90 Accord-
ing to Burt Nanus, a leadership expert, the right vision unleashes human potential because
it serves as a beacon of hope and common purpose. It does this by attracting commitment,
energizing workers, creating meaning in employees’ lives, establishing a standard of excel-
lence, promoting high ideals, and bridging the gap between an organization’s present prob-
lems and its future goals and aspirations.
EXAMPLE Netflix co-founder and CEO Reed Hastings motivates employees by
stepping back and letting them make decisions, which empowers them to
acquire knowledge and share this knowledge with others at all levels of the
organization.91
Describe how to use
transformational
leadership to work
with others.
LO 13-5
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Transformational leaders use a combination of charisma, interpersonal skills, and leader
behaviors to transform followers’ goals, motives, and behavior. Four key behaviors they
adopt are inspirational motivation, idealized influence, individualized consideration, and
intellectual stimulation. We discuss a process by which these behaviors help produce
positive outcomes.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
531Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
Idealized Influence “Let me demonstrate how to work hard and do the right thing.”
The focus of idealized influence is to instill pride, respect, and trust within employees.
Managers do this by sacrificing for the good of the group, being a role model, and displaying
high ethical standards.
EXAMPLE Netflix’s core philosophy is
“people over process.” According to Hastings,
the company’s top core value is encourag-
ing employees to make decisions indepen-
dently that will foster a creative and
collaborative environment.92
Individualized Consideration “Let me
provide tangible support to help you reach your
goals.” The individualized consideration part of
transformational leadership is about relation-
ships. Specifically, individualized consider-
ation consists of behaviors that provide
support, encouragement, empowerment,
and coaching to employees. To enact these
behaviors, leaders must pay special attention to
the needs of their followers and search for ways
to help them develop and grow. Spend time talk-
ing with people about their interests and identify
new learning opportunities for them.
FIGURE 13.5 A Transformational Model of Leadership
• Traits • Inspirational
motivation
• Increased self-e�cacy
and collective self-e�cacy
• Increased individual,
group, and organizational
performance
• Positive work attitudes
• Increased individual and
group creativity/innovation
• Reduced stress and turnover
• Increased organizational
citizenship behavior
• Increased customer service
• Positive perceptions of leader
eectiveness
• Increased identification
with the leader and
work group members
• Increased perceptions
of psychological
empowerment and
perceived organizational
support
• Increased positive aect
• Increased perceptions
of task meaningfulness
• Increased perceptions
of organizational justice
• Increased trust and liking
with the leader
• Increased perceptions of
positive climates and work
group processes
• Idealized
influence
• Individualized
consideration
• Intellectual
stimulation
• Life experiences
• Leader trait aect
• Organizational
culture
Person and
situation
factors
Leader
behavior
E�ects on
followers and
work groups
Outcomes
SOURCE: Waldman, David A., and Francis J. Yammarino. “CEO Charismatic Leadership: Levels-of-Management and Levels-of-Analysis Effects.” The Academy of
Management Review 24, no. 2 (April 1999): 266–85. https: DOI: 10.2307/259082; and Knippenberg, Daan van, and Sim B. Sitkin. “A Critical Assessment of
Charismatic—Transformational Leadership Research: Back to the Drawing Board?” The Academy of Management Annals 7, no. 1 (January 2013): 1–60.
https://doi.org/10.1080/19416520.2013.759433.
Reed Hastings, Netflix’s co-founder and CEO, exhibits transformational
leadership skills that help him encourage employees to make deci-
sions independently and empower them to create a collaborative and
creative work environment.
Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
532 PART 2 Groups
EXAMPLE More than a decade ago, Hastings and the former chief talent officer put
together a slide presentation famously known as Netflix’s Culture Deck, which lays
out the company’s expectations when it comes to employee behavior. Although not
for everyone, this approach to shaping organizational culture and promising free-
dom, transparency, and responsibility has garnered Netflix a strong level of job satis-
faction from its employees.93
Intellectual Stimulation “Let’s establish challenging and meaningful goals.” The
intellectual component of transformational leadership is more task-oriented. Intellectual
stimulation behavior encourages employees to question the status quo and to seek
innovative and creative solutions to organizational problems. If effectively chal-
lenged, employees are more likely to view organizational problems as “my problems” and
proactively attempt to overcome performance roadblocks.
EXAMPLE One of Netflix’s underlying corporate values is “challenge everything,”
which leads everyone—both managers and employees—to question tasks and pro-
cesses, try new things, make mistakes, try other things, and learn from good and
bad outcomes. This collaborative approach reinforces the company’s commitment
to keeping employees intellectually engaged.94
How Does Transformational Leadership Work?
Figure 13.5 showed on the left-hand side that transformational leader behavior is first
influenced by both person and situation factors. On the person factor side of the equation,
research reveals that transformational leaders tend to have personalities that are more
extroverted, agreeable, and proactive and less neurotic than nontransformational leaders.
They also have higher emotional intelligence95 and tend to be female.96 Leader trait affect,
which represents a person’s tendency to feel either positive or negative, also influences
how well we use transformational leadership, because positive people are more likely to
engage in transformational leadership than negatively oriented individuals.97
Finally, Figure 13.5 also shows that organizational culture influences the extent to
which leaders are transformational. Cultures that are adaptive and flexible rather than
rigid and bureaucratic are more likely to foster the opportunity for leaders to demonstrate
transformational leadership.
The third column from the left in Figure 13.5 reveals that the use of transformational
leadership creates immediate positive effects on followers and work groups. These in turn
generate the additional positive outcomes shown in the fourth column of Figure 13.5 like
individual, group, and organizational performance; organizational commitment; organiza-
tional citizenship behaviors; reduced turnover intentions; and safety behaviors.98 By and
large, research supports the linkages the figure shows.99
Have you worked for a transformational leader? Self-Assessment 13.4 measures the
extent to which a current or former manager used transformational leadership. It also gives
you a good idea about the specific behaviors you need to exhibit if you want to lead in a
transformational manner.
Assessing Your Boss’s Transformational Leadership
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 13.4 in Connect.
1. What could your manager have done to be more transformational?
2. What three behaviors can you exhibit to increase your application of transforma-
tional leadership?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
533Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
Implications for Managers Support for transformational leadership underscores
five important managerial implications.
• The establishment of a positive vision of the future—inspirational motivation—should be
considered a first step in applying transformational leadership. Why? Because the
vision represents a long-term goal, and it is important for leaders to begin their
influence attempts by gaining agreement and consensus about where the team or
organization is headed.100 It also is critical to widely communicate the vision among
the team or entire organization.101 People can’t get excited about something they
don’t know about or don’t understand.
• The best leaders are not just transformational. Effective leaders also rely on other
task-oriented and relationship-oriented behaviors, and they avoid a laissez-faire or
“wait-and-see” style. Use all types of leader behavior discussed in this chapter, when
appropriate.
• Transformational leadership affects outcomes at the individual, group, and organiza-
tional levels.102 Managers can use the four types of transformational leadership
shown in Figure 13.5 (second column from left) as a vehicle to improve a host of
important outcomes.
• Transformational leadership works virtually. If you lead geographically dispersed
people, focus on how you can display the four transformational leader behaviors in
your e-mails, tweets, webinars, and conference calls.103
• Transformational leaders can be ethical or unethical. While ethical transforma-
tional leaders enable employees to enhance their self-concepts, unethical ones
select or produce obedient, dependent, and compliant followers.
Managers need to be more like Optimus Prime and his fellow
transformers. That is, managers can be more effective by morphing
their leadership styles to fit the situation at hand. Why do you think some
people struggle with changing their leadership style across situations?
Gustavo Caballero/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
534 PART 2 Groups
Three additional perspectives on leadership deserve attention:
• Leader–member exchange (LMX) theory.
• The use of humility.
• A follower perspective.
The Leader–Member Exchange (LMX)
Model of Leadership
Leader–member exchange (LMX) theory differs considerably from the theories already
discussed because it focuses on the quality of relationships between managers and subordi-
nates, as opposed to their behaviors or traits. It also does not assume that leader behavior
is characterized by a stable or average leadership style.
Leader–member exchange (LMX) theory is based on the assumption that
leaders develop unique one-to-one relationships (exchanges) with each of the
people reporting to them. Behavioral scientists call this sort of relationship a vertical
dyad (a dyad is something with two parts). The forming of vertical dyads is said to be a
naturally occurring process, resulting from the leader’s attempt to delegate and assign
work roles. Two distinct types of LMX relationships are expected to evolve, in-groups
and out-groups.104
In-Group vs. Out-Group Exchanges LMX relationships are based on the leader’s
attempt to delegate and assign work roles. This process results in two types of leader–
member dyads.
• In-group exchange: Creating trust and mutual obligation. High in-group exchanges,
also called high LMX, are characterized by a partnership of reciprocal influence,
mutual trust, respect and liking, and a sense of common fate. These relationships
become more social over time.
• Out-group exchange: Creating more formality in expectations and
rewards. Out-group exchanges, also known as low LMX relationships, tend to
focus on the economic exchange between leaders and followers. They tend to be
more formal and revolve around negotiating the relationship between
performance and pay. They do not create a sense of mutual trust, respect, or
common fate.105
Does the Quality of an LMX Matter? Whether an LMX is high or low influences many
important outcomes contained in the Organizing Framework. For example, a high LMX is
associated with individual-level behavioral outcomes such as task performance, turnover, orga-
nizational citizenship, counterproductive behavior, and attitudinal outcomes such as
organizational commitment, job satisfaction, and justice.106 An effective leader will treat
Compare more recent
approaches to
leadership theory.
LO 13-6
13.6 ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON LEADERSHIP
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You are about to discover how leader–member exchange theory, humility, and characteristics
of good followers can help you achieve your career aspirations.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
535Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
employees fairly in terms of assigning projects that are both challenging and interesting to
all group members in an effort to keep them on track to achieve success, both on an indi-
vidual and group level.
Differential treatment of team members (due to LMXs of different quality) can be
problematic.107 For example, a leader who plays favorites with employees she likes by con-
tinuously giving them the top projects while ignoring others in the group may discover she
is not only fostering a negative and hostile work environment, but her behavior may border
on abusive supervision, a topic discussed earlier in the chapter, which could have severe
consequences in terms of personal as well as organizational success.108 Recent research
suggests that leaders perceived by subordinates to feel remorse about such low LMX or
abusive treatment may actually improve relationships with their employees.109
The above findings underscore how important it is for you to have a high LMX with
your boss. We’ll offer solutions for fixing a low LMX below, but for now let’s consider how
LMXs are formed.
How Are LMX Relationships Formed? The quality of an LMX is influenced by
three categories of variables: follower characteristics, leader characteristics, and interper-
sonal relationship variables.110
1. Follower characteristics. Leaders tend to create higher LMXs with employees they
perceive as possessing competence, positive personalities, agreeableness, conscien-
tiousness, and extraversion. Do you possess these characteristics?
2. Leader characteristics. Leaders who use transactional and transformational leadership
tend to have higher LMXs. Not surprisingly, so do extroverted and agreeable leaders.
3. Interpersonal relationship variables. Far too many interpersonal factors affect an LMX
for us to discuss here, so we note three that have the greatest impact on a leader–
member relationship. High LMXs tend to occur when the parties:
• Trust each other.
• Perceive themselves as similar in terms of interests (both like sports or action
movies), values (both value honesty), and attitudes (both want work–life balance).
• Like each other.
Your dyadic relationship with your boss changes over time. A team of researchers
concluded this happens because the variables that affect LMX interact and accumulate
over time.111 For example, your author has had relationships with bosses that changed
from good to bad, and then back to good. This tells us that you should not easily give up
on trying to improve a low LMX.
These two photos illustrate a core aspect of LMX theory. Leaders and followers with a positive “in-group exchange”
tend to get along better and experience less conflict. In contrast, out-group exchanges are more likely to have a
negative tone and more conflict.
(Left): Fuse/Corbis/Getty Images; (right): John Lund/Nevada Wier/Blend Images/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
536 PART 2 Groups
Managerial and Personal Implications of LMX Theory Here are three impor-
tant managerial and personal implications of LMX theory.
• Expectations matter. Leaders are encouraged to establish high-performance expecta-
tions for all their direct reports, because favoritism and differential treatment lead to
negative outcomes. Leaders should also communicate their view of relationships
with their team.112
• Diversity still counts. Personality and demographic similarity between leaders
and followers may be associated with higher LMXs, but managers should avoid
creating a homogenous work environment just for the sake of having positive
relationships with their direct reports. Diversity’s many benefits are too powerful
to be ignored.
• The initiative is yours. Positive actions can improve a poor LMX (see the Applying
OB box). Take the lead rather than waiting for your boss to change the relationship.
Self-Assessment 13.5 will help you diagnose the quality of your relationship with a
boss and discover how you can improve it.
Assessing Your Leader–Member Exchange
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 13.5 in Connect.
1. Are you surprised by the results? Explain.
2. Based on your results, what do you think are the key causes of your LMX with
your boss? Be specific.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 13.5
Applying OB
3. Work on improving your relationship with your
manager. Begin by examining the level of trust
between you and then try to improve it by fre-
quently and effectively communicating. You can
also increase trust by following through on your
commitments and achieving your goals.115
4. Learn what your boss believes are the desired
characteristics of a good performer. Too many
people fail to clarify expectations with their
managers. For example, there are generational
differences about what is appropriate dress at
work. Violating these beliefs can land you in a
poor LMX.116
Your boss needs your contributions to achieve his or
her goals as a manager, and you need information,
direction, and support from your boss. But when it
comes to managing the relationship between you,
you’re the one who’s in charge.113
1. Stay focused on your department’s goals and
remain positive about your ability to accomplish
your own goals. An unsupportive boss is just
another obstacle to be overcome.
2. Be careful about the emotions you show at work.
Anger generally is not a good emotion to display.
Too much positivity can also be interpreted as
unrealistic or silly. Emotions should be appropriate
for the situation at hand.114
Tips for Improving the Quality of a Leader–Member Exchange
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
537Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
The Power of Humility
Humility is a relatively stable trait grounded in
the belief that “something greater than the self
exists.”117 Although some think it is a sign of
weakness or low self-esteem, nothing could be
further from the truth.
Humble leaders tend to display five key
qualities valued by employees: high self-
awareness, openness to feedback, appreciation
of others, low self-focus, and appreciation of
the greater good.118 Adam Robinson, co-
founder of Hireology, a talent management
consulting firm, says one of the top leadership
qualities companies are looking for in new
hires or when promoting new leaders is humility.
“Humble leaders appreciate their employees’
strengths and trust them to do effective work
to help move the company forward,” according
to Robinson.119
Although the scientific study of humility
is relatively new, it has shown proven benefits
for this trait. For example, a study of more
than 146 employee teams in China, Portugal,
and Singapore revealed that workers felt opti-
mistic, resilient, and engaged when the boss was humble.120 Another study conducted in
China demonstrated cascading positive effects of CEO humility across two organiza-
tional levels. CEO humility positively influenced employee engagement, commitment,
and performance.121
What can we conclude about humility in the context of OB? First, try to be more
humble by changing the focus of your accomplishment from “me” to “we.” Share credit
with others. Second, a humble style is better than an arrogant or complacent one.122 Third,
an organization’s culture can promote humility. Employee-owned construction company
TDIndustries does so with its agreed-upon set of cultural norms: “No rank in the room,
everyone participates—no one dominates, and listen as an ally.” Employees also strive to be
on a first-name basis with everyone.123
The Role of Followers in the Leadership Process
All the theories discussed in this chapter have been leader-centric. That is, they focused on
understanding leadership effectiveness from the leader’s point of view. We conclude the
chapter by discussing the role of followers in the leadership process.
To start, note how leaders and followers are closely linked. You cannot lead without hav-
ing followers, and you cannot follow without having leaders. Each needs the other, and the
quality of the relationship determines how we behave as followers. This is why both leaders
and followers must focus on developing a mutually rewarding and beneficial relationship.
Let’s consider some possible types of followers and the steps you can take to be a bet-
ter follower.
What Do Leaders Want from Followers? Followers vary in terms of the extent to
which they commit to, comply with, or resist a leader’s influence attempts. For example,
one researcher identified three types of followers: helpers, independents, and rebels.124
• Helpers show deference to and comply with the leadership.
• Independents distance themselves from the leadership and show less compliance.
• Rebels show divergence from the leader and are least compliant.
We don’t tend to see professional athletes as humble, but this one
surely is recognized for this attribute. Larry Fitzgerald is a wide receiver
for the Arizona Cardinals. He has been selected for the Pro Bowl 11
times and currently ranks second in all-time receiving yards per game in
NFL history. Despite these achievements, he does not assume he is
good enough for the Hall of Fame. He is recognized for continually
working on improving his game, being “nice” to opposing players, and
being involved with charity and community-based organizations.
Christian Petersen/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
538 PART 2 Groups
Leaders obviously want followers who are:
1. Productive 4. Cooperative
2. Reliable 5. Proactive
3. Honest 6. Flexible
Leaders do not benefit from followers who hide the truth, withhold information, fail to
generate ideas, are unwilling to collaborate, provide inaccurate feedback, or are unwilling
to take the lead on projects and initiatives.125
What Do Followers Want from Leaders? Followers seek, admire, and respect lead-
ers who foster three emotional responses in others:
• Significance
• Community
• Excitement
That is, followers want organizational leaders who make them feel what they do at work is
important and meaningful, who foster a sense of unity that encourages people to treat oth-
ers with respect and dignity and to work together, and who make them feel engaged and
energized at work.126
How Can I Become a Better Follower? A pair of OB experts developed a four-step
process for followers to use in managing the leader–follower relationship.127
1. Understand your boss. Gain an appreciation for your manager’s leadership style, inter-
personal style, goals, expectations, pressures, and strengths and weaknesses. One way
is to ask him or her these seven questions:128
a. How would you describe your leadership style? Does it change when you are under
pressure?
b. When would you like me to approach you with questions or information? Are any
situations off-limits (like social events)?
c. How do you want me to communicate with you?
d. Do you have any preferred or unique ways of working?
e. Are there behaviors or attitudes you won’t tolerate? What are they?
f. What is your approach to giving feedback?
g. How can I help you?
2. Understand your own style, needs, goals, expectations, and strengths and weaknesses.
3. Conduct a gap analysis between the understanding you have about your boss and the
understanding you have about yourself.
4. Build on mutual strengths and adjust or accommodate your boss’s divergent style, goals,
expectations, and weaknesses.129 For example, you might adjust your style of commu-
nication in response to your boss’s preferred method for receiving information. Or if
the boss prefers participative decision making, consult him or her in all decisions
regardless of your own style. Most managers are pushed for time, energy, and resources
and are more likely to appreciate followers who save rather than cost them these.
Avoid using your manager’s time discussing trivial matters.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
539Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
Becoming an effective leader is a challenging process for anyone and involves continuously
learning about yourself, as well as others. Here are some key points to consider.
13.7 MAKING THE CONNECTION: WHAT DOES IT TAKE
TO BE AN EFFECTIVE LEADER?
Takeaways for Me
Here are six things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive change in your
personal and professional life.
1. Give some thought to whether you want a managerial or leadership role in your career:
It’s not for everyone. For example, if you don’t like to participate in meetings, this role
is not for you. Self-Assessment 13.1 was created to help you with this decision.
2. The more you look and act like someone’s prototype of a leader, the more he or she will
see you that way: This implies you should seek to understand your employer’s expecta-
tions of leadership.
3. Experiment with the full repertoire of leadership behaviors at school and work: Reflect-
ing on this experience will help you understand the situational aspect of leadership.
4. Try being more transformational at meetings: You can do this by demonstrating the
four key behaviors underlying transformational leadership.
5. Take responsibility for your relationship with your boss: You can improve this relation-
ship by following our recommendations about being a good follower.
6. Get feedback on your leadership: It’s the only way to improve.
Takeaways for Managers
There are seven key implications for managers.
1. Take stock of the task-oriented traits and interpersonal attributes needed to lead.
2. Find out how others are assessing your leadership: You won’t get promoted if people
perceive you lack leadership ability.
3. Experiment with a contingency approach toward leadership: This requires you to gain
perspective about the different leadership behaviors your followers may need.
4. Being mindful can improve your leadership skills: Revisit our discussion of mindfulness
in Chapter 7 and incorporate mindfulness techniques into your leadership.
5. Try to develop positive relationships with all your followers.
6. Be a good follower to your boss.
7. Get feedback on your leadership: It’s the only way to improve
Describe the
implications of
leadership
effectiveness for you
and managers.
LO 13-7
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
540 PART 2 Groups
You learned that being an effective leader
requires appropriate leadership behavior that you
can learn and develop. The integrated model of
leadership allows you to understand the many
factors contributing to leadership effectiveness.
You also learned the importance of being a good
follower. Reinforce your learning with the Key
Points below. Consolidate your knowledge by
using the Organizing Framework. Then challenge
your mastery of the material by answering the
Major Questions in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 13
You learned the following key points.
13.1 MAKING SENSE OF
LEADERSHIP THEORIES
• You do not need to have a formal position of
authority to lead.
• Figure 13.2 shows an integrated model of
leadership. The extent to which people effec-
tively use the four key leader behaviors—
task-oriented, relationship-oriented, passive,
and transformational—is a function of demo-
graphic characteristics, intelligence and skills,
task-oriented traits, and interpersonal attri-
butes.
• Effective leadership requires effective mana-
gerial skills at some level.
13.2 TRAIT THEORIES: DO
LEADERS POSSESS UNIQUE
TRAITS AND PERSONAL
CHARACTERISTICS?
• Table 13.1 summarizes the positive task-
oriented traits and positive/negative interper-
sonal attributes leaders possess.
• Emotional intelligence contributes to transfor-
mational leadership and is positively associ-
ated with leader effectiveness.
• There are both similarities and differences in
the leadership traits possessed by men and
by women.
• Leaders need four key skills: cognitive abili-
ties, interpersonal skills, business skills, and
strategic skills.
• People hold mental prototypes of effective
and ineffective leaders.
13.3 BEHAVIORAL THEORIES:
WHICH LEADER
BEHAVIORS DRIVE
EFFECTIVENESS?
• Four categories of leader behavior are task-
oriented, relationship-oriented, passive, and
transformational.
• Task-oriented leadership includes the use
of initiating structure and transactional
leadership.
• Relationship-oriented leadership includes the
use of consideration, empowerment, servant
leadership, and ethical leadership.
• Followers experience psychological empow-
erment when leaders create perceptions of
meaningfulness, self-determination or choice,
competence, and impact.
• Servant-leadership focuses on increased
service to others rather than ourselves.
Servant-leaders display the characteristics in
Table 13.3.
• Ethical leadership focuses on doing the right
thing and establishing norms of ethical
behavior.
• Abusive leadership is demoralizing and coun-
terproductive to both employees and the
overall organization. Avoid it!
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
541Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
13.6 ADDITIONAL PERSPECTIVES
ON LEADERSHIP
• The LMX model revolves around the
development of dyadic relationships between
managers and their direct reports. These
leader–member exchanges result in either in-
group or out-group relationships.
• Humility is a stable trait associated with the
belief that something is more important
than the self. Humble leaders exhibit five
key qualities: high self-awareness, open-
ness to feedback, appreciation of others,
low self-focus, and appreciation of the
greater good.
• It is hard for leaders to be effective if they
have poor followers. Leaders want followers
who are productive, reliable, honest, cooper-
ative, proactive, and flexible. People are more
likely to be positive followers when the leader
creates feelings of significance, community,
and excitement.
• To improve the relationship with a boss,
followers should first understand the boss.
Second, followers should understand their
own style, needs, goals, expectations, and
strengths and weaknesses. Third, they should
conduct a gap analysis between the under-
standings they have about their boss and
about themselves. Finally, followers can build
on mutual strengths and adjust to or accom-
modate the leader’s different style, goals,
expectations, and weaknesses.
13.7 WHAT DOES IT TAKE
TO BE AN EFFECTIVE
LEADER?
• Give some thought to whether you want a
managerial or leadership role in your career—
it’s not for everyone.
• Experiment with various leadership behaviors—
this will help you understand the situational
aspect of leadership.
• Find out how others assess your leadership
skills—it’s the only way to improve.
13.4 CONTINGENCY THEORIES:
DOES THE EFFECTIVENESS
OF LEADERSHIP DEPEND ON
THE SITUATION?
• Contingency theories are based on the idea
that the effectiveness of leadership depends
on the situation at hand.
• Fiedler believes leadership effectiveness
depends on an appropriate match between
leadership style and situational control. Lead-
ers are either task- or relationship-oriented,
and the situation is composed of leader–
member relationships, task structure, and
position power.
• House’s path-goal theory holds that leader
behaviors are effective when employees
view them as a source of satisfaction or as
paving the way to future satisfaction. In this
respect, leaders exhibit eight styles or cate-
gories of leader behavior. In turn, the effec-
tiveness of these styles depends on various
employee characteristics and environmental
factors.
• Researchers suggest a five-step approach for
applying contingency theories.
13.5 TRANSFORMATIONAL
LEADERSHIP: HOW DO
LEADERS TRANSFORM
EMPLOYEES’ MOTIVES?
• Transformational leaders motivate employees
to pursue organizational goals above their
own self-interests.
• Transformational leaders rely on four unique
types of leader behavior: inspirational motiva-
tion, idealized influence, individualized con-
sideration, and intellectual stimulation.
• Person and situation factors influence the
extent to which people use transformational
leadership.
• The use of transformational leadership has
positive effects on followers and work
groups. In turn, these positive effects foster
positive individual, group, and organizational
performance.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
542 PART 2 Groups
chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 13.6, the
chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and answer
the following major questions:
1. How does having an integrated model of
leadership help me become an effective
leader?
2. How can I use trait theories to improve my
ability to lead?
3. Do effective leaders behave in similar ways?
4. How do I know when to use a specific leader
behavior?
5. How can I use transformational leadership
when working with others?
6. How can more recent approaches to leader-
ship improve my effectiveness at work?
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 13
As shown in Figure 13.6, you learned a host of
person and situation factors that influence the
leadership processes identified in the figure. You
also understand the breadth and power of lead-
ership by looking at the Outcomes box of the
framework. Here you see the individual-, group/
team-, and organizational-level outcomes
affected by leadership.
Challenge: Major Questions for
Chapter 13
You now should be able to answer the following
questions. Unless you can, have you really
processed and internalized the lessons in the
FIGURE 13.6 The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Traits
• Skills
• Gender
• Prototypes
• Ethical beliefs and values
• Experience
• Self-concept
Situation Factors
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
• Task structure
• Work group dynamics
• Leader’s personality and style
• Trust between leaders and
followers
• Quality of followers
Individual Level
• Task-oriented leadership
• Relationship-oriented
leadership
• Passive leadership
• Transformational leadership
• Leader-member exchange
Group/Team Level
• Task-oriented leadership
• Relationship-oriented
leadership
• Passive leadership
• Transformational leadership
• Leader-member exchange
Organizational Level
• Task-oriented leadership
• Relationship-oriented
leadership
• Passive leadership
• Transformational leadership
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being/flourishing
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group collaboration
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Corporate reputation
© 2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
543Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
Elon Musk is widely regarded as one of the most suc-
cessful entrepreneurs in history.130 He became a bil-
lionaire by age 31 after founding and selling several
successful start-ups—most notably the company that
would later be known as Paypal. In 2004 Musk
invested $6.3 million into Tesla Motors and soon after
became the company’s CEO.131
Musk has a keen ability to express ideas and get
people excited about them and has garnered praise
for his inspiring and visionary leadership.132 Author
Dale Buss argues that “. . . a huge part of Musk’s motiva-
tional quiver is to come up with and continually express
other-worldly goals that appeal to the passions of his
employees as well as to his own ambitions.”133 Todd
Maron, Tesla’s former general counsel, said Musk is
“someone who empowers you to be better than you
think you can be,” adding that “he has extraordinarily
high standards, and so he pushes you to be your abso-
lute best.” Another former employee described Musk
as “the smartest person I have ever met,” adding, “I
can’t tell you how many times I prepared a report for
him and he asked a question that made us realize we
were looking at the problem completely wrong.”134
MUSK’S LEADERSHIP STYLE
AND BEHAVIOR
Some have criticized Musk’s aspirations to change the
world as outlandish and his ideas as unachievable, but
Musk doesn’t believe in impossibilities. Says author
Christopher Davenport, “People are always telling him
he can’t do it. But he doesn’t like to hear it can’t be
done. He categorically rejects that. It’s all about, ‘How
can we do it?’ ”135 A recent example of Musk’s stub-
bornness is the production of the Model 3. After the
company revealed the concept to the public and
locked in production dates, Musk called a meeting to
tell executives he had a dream that the entire produc-
tion process had been fully automated. In other words,
vehicle production would require no humans from start
to finish. He wanted to make the dream a reality, he
wanted to do it with the Model 3, and he wanted to
begin production four months ahead of Tesla’s original
schedule. What followed were several months of what
former executives and employees describe as a famil-
iar pattern: executives told Musk his idea wasn’t
achievable, he disagreed, and engineers resigned
when they realized they couldn’t reason with him.136
Musk eventually conceded that his idea for fully
automated production of the Model 3 was a non-
starter, and he and his workers scrambled to get pro-
duction back on track by working 80–100 hour
weeks.137 Customers waited months past delivery
dates for their vehicles and took to social media to
lambast the company. Further, many of the Model 3s
that were delivered needed costly and time-consuming
repairs.138 Musk would later refer to the ordeal as
“production hell.”139
Some blame Musk’s inability to delegate for Tesla’s
problems and for the recent exodus of more than
36 VPs and other high-ranking executives.140 Musk
wants things done his way down to the tiniest detail
and often rejects industry best practices along with
advice from his senior leadership. For example, Musk
once instituted a new workflow management method
against the advice of his production workers. The
employees secretly reverted to Toyota’s Kanban
method when Musk’s technique ultimately slowed pro-
duction.141 Author Barry Enderwick believes Musk’s
micromanaging style “. . . displays a fundamental misun-
derstanding of what leadership means. No one person
can do everything at a company.”142
Others blame Musk’s mental health for his down-
ward spiral and describe him as emotionally unstable
and fragile. Musk developed a reputation on the pro-
duction floor for openly ridiculing, insulting, and bully-
ing workers who fell short of performance targets. He
appeared extremely sensitive to skeptics, often reas-
signing workers who questioned his ideas to new
departments, uninviting them to important meetings,
and even firing them. Musk also displayed frequent
emotional reactions to isolated customer complaints
on social media. As a former employee recalls, “Some
customer would tweet some random complaint, and
then we would be ordered to drop everything and
spend a week on some problem affecting one loud-
mouth in Pasadena, rather than all the work we’re sup-
posed to do to support the thousands of customers
who didn’t tweet that day.”143
Musk’s recent public appearances and social media
posts have raised consumer concerns about his ability
to deliver on his promises and successfully run his
companies. In one instance, he angrily tweeted that a
diver sent to rescue a trapped Thai boys’ soccer team
was a pedophile after Musk’s offer to assist with the res-
cue was declined. The diver filed a defamation lawsuit
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Leadership Matters!
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
544 PART 2 Groups
important problem(s) in this case. Remember
that a problem is a gap between a desired and a
current state. State your problem as a gap, and
be sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
accomplished, decide which one is most impor-
tant and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and
problems are generally viewed from a
particular protagonist’s perspective. Identify
the perspective from which you’re defining
the problem.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, summarized in the
Organizing Framework shown in Figure 13.6.
Causes will appear in either the Inputs box or
the Processes box.
A. Start by looking at Figure 13.6 to identify which
person factors, if any, are most likely causes to
the defined problem. For each cause, ask your-
self, Why is this a cause of the problem? Asking
why multiple times is more likely to lead you to
root causes of the problem.
B. Follow the same process for the situation
factors.
C. Now consider the Processes box shown in
Figure 13.6. Consider concepts listed at all
three levels. For any concept that might be a
cause, ask yourself, Why is this a cause? Again,
do this for several iterations to arrive at root
causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, map them onto the defined problem.
STEP 3: Make your recommendations for solv-
ing the problem. Consider whether you want to
resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5).
Which recommendation is desirable and
feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use the content in
Chapter 13 or one of the earlier chapters to pro-
pose a solution.
B. You may find potential solutions in the OB in
Action boxes and Applying OB boxes within this
chapter. These features provide insights into
what other individuals or companies are doing
in relationship to the topic at hand.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations.
against Musk for this damaging and unsubstantiated
claim.144 As another example, Musk chose to smoke
marijuana during an appearance on “The Joe Rogan
Experience” podcast.145 In August 2018, in what would
prove the most financially damaging of his social
media choices to date, Musk tweeted that he was tak-
ing Tesla private and had secured the funding to do so.
As a result of his tweet, the company’s shares skyrock-
eted 11 percent in one day. Musk had not actually
secured funding to take Tesla private and the SEC
charged him with securities fraud. He settled the case
and agreed to pay a $40 million fine to the SEC, step
down as Tesla’s chairperson, and allow others in the
company to regulate his social media activity.146 A few
months after reaching the settlement, Musk gave a
60 Minutes interview and said “I do not respect the
SEC.” While it is not illegal for Musk to criticize the regu-
latory agency, experts agree it’s an unwise choice, both
in terms of his relationship with the agency and his abil-
ity to attract board members to his companies.147
WHAT’S NEXT FOR ELON MUSK?
Musk’s quirkiness, overconfidence, and volatility
resemble the attributes and behaviors of other famous
entrepreneurs—most notably, Steve Jobs.148 As con-
sumers we allow for and even expect a certain amount
of idiosyncrasy in our leaders. Yale School of Manage-
ment’s Dr. Jeffrey Sonnenfeld argues that some mea-
sure of hubris is necessary for entrepreneurs to
succeed, saying, “The odds are against them succeed-
ing rationally, so they have to have an unrealistic sense
of their own efficacy to beat the odds.” But Sonnenfeld
also notes that Musk is likely to “take himself and the
company off a cliff” if he doesn’t dial things back.149
Tesla recently unveiled its new electric vehicle—the
Model Y crossover—to lukewarm reception. Pre-orders
started immediately and required a $2,500 initial
payment—$1,000 more than the company had
charged customers to reserve the Model 3. Market
analysts see this increase as cause for concern about
the company’s cash position and predict that initial
orders for the Model Y will be much lower than they
were for the Model 3.150
As for that tweet that cost him $40 million in SEC
fines and his position as chairman of Tesla’s board,
Musk says it was “worth it.”151
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 13.6 to help identify the
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
545Leadership Effectiveness CHAPTER 13
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Should Store Managers Force Employees to Pierce Kids’
Ears Against Their Wishes?
A former Claire’s employee in Edmonton, Canada, is
calling out the accessories chain for its piercing policies.
Raylene Marks believes store employees should
respect children’s boundaries with regard to their bod-
ies. She described a recent distressing situation in
which a 7-year-old child’s mother continually pres-
sured her to allow Marks to pierce her ears.
“The girl pleaded and sobbed for 30 minutes not to
be pierced” . . . “Despite mom saying, ‘Honey, we can
go home whenever you want,’ she was not letting her
daughter go home. She was putting a great deal of
pressure on her daughter to go through with the pierc-
ing,” said Marks. She added that the child was “articu-
late, smart and well aware of herself and her body”
and “expressed that she didn’t want us touching her,
that we were standing too close, that she was feeling
uncomfortable.” Marks says the child “made it clear
she no longer wanted to get her ears pierced.”
The mother eventually left the store without forcing
her child to have her ears pierced. Marks later informed
her manager that she would not have consented to do
the piercing without the child’s express consent to and
comfort with the procedure. Marks says her manager
told her the job required her to pierce children’s ears
even if they were being physically restrained by guard-
ians and in clear distress.
Policy 509 in the company’s manual states that “We
reserve the right to refuse an ear piercing if a success-
ful one cannot be done,” but Marks says the policy
makes no mention of physical restraint or employees’
rights to refuse to pierce due to child welfare concerns.
Marks quit her job at Claire’s after the conversation
with her manager. She says any subsequent refusals of
this sort would have resulted in her being disciplined
and potentially fired. Marks has written an open letter
to the company asking them to “Please do better” and
update their policy to address children’s domain over
their bodies. She says corporate has since informed
her that they are reviewing and revising their policy
and investigating how Marks’ store manager handled
the incident.152
What Would You Recommend to
Claire’s Regarding Their Store Policies
on Piercing?
1. Claire’s policy doesn’t specifically address child
consent, but it is ambiguous enough to allow for
employees to use discretion in such cases with-
out fear of termination. Marks’ manager simply
interpreted the policy incorrectly. Claire’s should
do a better job training their managers in the
application of company policies.
2. Stores should be allowed to come up with their
own policies and parents should be left to par-
ent as they see fit. The manager wasn’t breaking
any laws or violating company policy, therefore
she was correct in telling Marks that her job
would have required her to pierce without the
child’s consent. Claire’s should not have to
revise its policy.
3. Claire’s should revise its policy to clearly
address child safety concerns. No child should
be forced to be pierced against their will, and
employees should have the discretion to refuse
to pierce children’s ears for these reasons.
4. Invent other options.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
PA
R
T
O
N
E
PART THREE
Ferenc Szelepcsenyi/Shutterstock
Organizational
Processes
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 14-1 Describe the three levels and four functions of organizational
culture.
LO 14-2 Explain how to characterize an organization’s culture.
LO 14-3 Describe the process of culture change in an organization.
LO 14-4 Explain the three-phase model of organizational socialization.
LO 14-5 Describe how mentoring can foster personal and professional
success.
LO 14-6 Describe the implications of organizational culture, socialization, and
mentoring for you and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework in Figure 14.1 summarizes what you will learn in this chap-
ter. Two person factors—human and social capital—and four situation factors—culture
types, leader behavior, organizational climate, and human resource practices and policies—
influence key processes at the individual, group, and organizational levels. In turn, these
key processes support positive outcomes at all three levels. Concepts we discuss in
this chapter have greater impact on individual and organizational outcomes than on
group ones.
Organizational Culture,
Socialization, and
Mentoring14
Fe
re
nc
S
ze
le
pc
se
ny
i/S
hu
tte
rs
to
ck
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
549Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
FIGURE 14.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Human capital
• Social capital
Situation Factors
• Culture types
• Leader behavior
• Organizational climate
• Human resource practices
and policies
Individual Level
• P-O fit
• Socialization
• Mentoring
Group/Team Level
• Group dynamics
• Department/unit culture
Organizational Level
• Culture
• Socialization
• Mentoring
Individual Level
• Work attitudes
• Employee behaviors
• Career outcomes
• Task performance
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Customer service/satisfaction
• Innovation
• Product/service quality
• Operational efficiency
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
The Walt Disney Company was founded
in 1923 by brothers Walt and Roy Disney.
The company is much more than its theme
parks. Today Disney is a diversified multina-
tional mass media and entertainment com-
pany headquartered in Burbank, California.
The company has a long reputation of having
a strong culture aimed at being innovative
and a fun place to work. In recognition of this
theme, the Walt Disney Company was ranked
as the 4th Most Admired Company in 2019
by Fortune. Here we see a manifestation of
the company’s culture in front of Cinderella’s
Castle at Walt Disney World, Orlando, Florida.
Thousands of families visit their theme parks
to have fun and enjoy the outstanding
service provided by employees. The strong
customer-driven culture established by the
Disney brothers is alive and well. This chapter
will help you understand how companies like
Disney create such cultures.
Ilene MacDonald/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
550
Winning at Work
How Would I Assess Person–Organization Fit (P–O)
When Applying for Jobs?
Fitting in is important to everyone. When I was 7, my father
put me on a baseball team composed of 8- and-9-year-old
boys. He thought it would be good for my development,
but I was smaller and less skilled than the other boys, and
they treated me like an outsider who didn’t fit in. It did not
help that I was the coach’s son. I hated the experience.
I also experienced a lack of fit at some of my early job
positions. I valued things others did not and believed people
were engaging in counterproductive actions. Some of my
peers loved the job, the boss, and the work environment.
They could not understand why I wasn’t happy, but I felt dis-
engaged and started looking for a new job. That experience
opened my eyes to the importance of “fitting in” at work.
What Does It Mean to Fit?
Person–environment fit (P–E) is “the compatibility
between an individual and a work environment that
occurs when their characteristics are well matched.”1
Although there are many types of fit, we are interested in
person– organization fit (P–O), which reflects the extent
to which your personality and values match the climate
and culture in an organization. P–O fit matters because
good fit is associated with more positive work attitudes and
task performance, lower intentions to quit, and less stress.2
The process of assessing fit begins during the recruiting
phase. Your goal should be to discover whether you and
the job or the organization are a good fit for each other.3
How Can I Assess P–O Fit?
Assessing P–O fit will take some effort on your part. First,
evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, and values. Next, do
the same for the company or department at hand by
researching it online or talking with current employees.
Now prepare a set of diagnostic questions to ask during
the interview.4
Julian Pscheid, COO of Emerge Interactive, says, “The
best candidates will go as far as reflecting on our core
values―which are posted on our website. This is also an
early way to screen for a values match.”5
How Can I Improve My Level of Fit?
• Find ways to build your strengths into your work
role. Talk to your boss about how to redesign or
modify your job to incorporate your strengths.
• Decide whether weaknesses are affecting your
performance. If they are, seek developmental oppor-
tunities, coaching, or mentoring. If that does not
work, find another role.
• Assess any misalignment between your values and
those endorsed by the company. You can do this by
writing down your five most important values and
comparing them to your employer’s stated values. If
they don’t overlap and you can’t accept the discrep-
ancy, it’s time to move on.
• If you don’t fit at one job or location, consider a
lateral move to another department. You may just
need a different role or boss.6
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
This chapter begins your study of macro-level orga-
nizational behavior from the perspective of the
organization as a whole. We start by exploring the
foundation of organizational culture so you can
understand its drivers and functions. Next, we
review the four key types of organizational culture
and consider their relationships with various out-
comes. This is followed by a discussion of ways
managers can change organizational culture. Finally,
we discuss how socialization and mentoring serve
to embed organizational culture, and we focus on
how you can use knowledge of these processes to
enhance your career success and happiness.
Fitting in at work is like doing a puzzle. When the pieces
fit in the right pattern, all is well.
Lawrence Manning/Corbis/Punchstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
551Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Although you may have a small impact on your employer’s organizational culture, you
undoubtedly are affected by it. Culture affects outcomes at the individual, group, and organi-
zational level. You are about to learn what creates organizational culture and how culture
affects other organizational processes. You also will identify the three levels that constitute
culture and the functions it serves for organizations.
14.1 THE FOUNDATION OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE:
UNDERSTANDING ITS DRIVERS AND FUNCTIONS
The saying “Culture eats strategy for breakfast” was attributed to management expert Peter
Drucker. But no one takes that quote more seriously than T-Mobile CEO John Legere.
Holding the top spot at the wireless carrier for the past seven years, Legere has turned the
company’s culture upside down, starting with his signature magenta-colored T-Mobile
wardrobe. Legere has transformed himself from a “suit” in the corner office to a charis-
matic leader who spends time with his 50,000 employees at offices around the country and
connects with customers via social media every day.7 Others agree with Legere’s emphasis
on organizational culture.
Alan Murray, Fortune editor, studied the annual Best Companies to Work For lists and
concluded that great companies don’t just provide “free food, generous benefits, and nap
pods (although those clearly don’t hurt).” He believes that culture is the essence of what
makes great companies. “Today’s workers are looking for a corporate culture that values
them and their contributions,” he said.8
Richard Branson—entrepreneur, philanthropist, and founder of the Virgin Group—also
believes in the power of corporate culture. According to Branson, “there is no magic for-
mula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be
treated.”9
One of our primary goals in this chapter is to help you understand how managers can
use organizational culture as a competitive advantage. We start by considering the founda-
tion of organizational culture.
Defining Culture and Exploring Its Impact
Organizational culture is defined as “the set of shared, taken-for-granted implicit
assumptions that a group holds and that determines how it perceives, thinks about,
and reacts to its various environments.”10 This definition highlights four important
characteristics of organizational culture:
• Shared concept. Organizational culture consists of beliefs and values shared among
a group of people.
• Learned over time. Culture is passed to new employees through the processes of
socialization and mentoring, discussed later in this chapter.
Describe the three
levels and four
functions of
organizational
culture.
LO 14-1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
552 PART 3 Organizational Processes
• Influences behavior at work. Its influence on behavior is the reason “culture eats
strategy for breakfast.”
• Affects outcomes at multiple levels. Culture affects outcomes at the individual,
group/team, and organizational levels.
Figure 14.2 provides a conceptual framework for understanding the drivers and effects
of organizational culture. Five elements drive organizational culture:
• The founder’s values.
• The industry and business environment.
• The national culture.
• The organization’s vision and strategies.
• The behavior of leaders.
In turn, organizational culture influences the type of organizational structure a company
adopts and a host of internal processes (including human resource practices) it implements in
pursuit of its goals. These organizational characteristics then affect a variety of group and
social processes.11 This sequence ultimately affects employees’ work attitudes and behaviors
and a variety of organizational outcomes. All told, Figure 14.2 tells us that organizational
culture has a wide span of influence, ultimately influencing many individual, group, and orga-
nizational outcomes.12 Once again, this is the reason culture eats strategy for breakfast.
The Three Levels of Organizational Culture
Organizational culture operates on three levels:
1. Observable artifacts.
2. Espoused values.
3. Basic underlying assumptions.
These levels differ in their visibility and resistance to change, and each one influences
another. Let’s look at them one by one.
Level 1: Observable Artifacts At the most visible level, culture consists of observ-
able artifacts. Artifacts are the physical manifestation of an organization’s culture.
They include:
• Acronyms.
• Manner of dress.
• Awards.
FIGURE 14.2 Drivers and Flow of Organizational Culture
Organizational
Culture
Organizational
Structure and
Internal
Processes
Group and
Social
Processes
Work Attitudes
and Behaviors Outcomes
• The founder’s
values
• The industry and
business
environment
• The national
culture
• The organization’s
vision and
strategies
• The behavior
of leaders
Drivers of
Culture
SOURCE: Ostroff, Cheri, Angelo J. Kinicki, and Rabiah S. Muhammad. “Organizational Culture and Climate.” In Handbook of Psychology, edited by Irving B.
Weiner, 619–76. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2013.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
553Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
• Myths and stories told about the organization.
• Published lists of values.
• Observable rituals and ceremonies.
• Special parking spaces.
• Pictures and images handing on walls.
At Facebook, for example, the word hack is pasted
all around offices. It symbolizes “the hacker way” of
pursuing continuous improvement and challenging
the status quo.13 Zappos and its parent company
Amazon have a different take on artifacts: offering a
“quit bonus” to employees who no longer want to
work for the online giant. Started by Zappos more
than a decade ago and continued after Amazon
bought the company, the quit bonus pays employees
up to $5,000 to leave the company. According to an
Amazon spokesperson, “In the long-term, staying
somewhere you don’t want to be isn’t healthy for our
employees or our company.” The catch? Once an
employee accepts the offer to quit, they can never work at Amazon again.14 Artifacts are
easier to change than the less visible aspects of organizational culture.
Level 2: Espoused Values Values were defined in Chapter 2 as abstract ideals that
guide our thinking and behavior across all situations. In the context of organizational cul-
ture, we distinguish between values that are espoused and values that are enacted.
• Espoused values are the explicitly stated qualities and norms preferred by an
organization. They are generally established by the founder of a new or small com-
pany and by the top management team in a larger organization. Most companies
have a short list. For example, eyewear company Warby Parker has four espoused
values: (1) treat customers the way you would like to be treated; (2) create an envi-
ronment where employees can think big, have fun, and do good; (3) serve the com-
munity; and (4) going green is good.15
Because espoused values are explicitly communicated to employees, managers hope
they will directly influence employee behavior. But people do not always automatically
“walk the talk.” Leadership at Patagonia recognized this gap and made a key strategic
change to align its stated values with its actions.
EXAMPLE Patagonia, one of the world’s most environmentally conscious com-
panies, recently stopped selling its popular fleece vests to financial firms on Wall
Street that invested in companies and other financial ventures that did not engage in
sustainable business practices. The company said it shifted the focus of its corporate
sales program to “mission-driven companies that prioritize the planet.”16
• Enacted values are the qualities and norms that are exhibited or con-
verted into employee behavior. These are values employees ascribe to an
organization based on their observations of what occurs on a daily basis. As at
Patagonia, managers should reduce gaps between espoused and enacted values
because they can significantly influence employee attitudes and organizational
performance.
A survey from the Ethics Resource Center showed that employees were more likely
to behave ethically when management set a good behavioral example and kept its
promises and commitments.17 This finding was underscored by another study of
Zappos and its parent company Amazon put a different spin on
organizational artifacts: the companies offer a “quit” bonus to
employees who no longer want to work for them.
Helen H. Richardson/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
554 PART 3 Organizational Processes
129 mergers. Employees were more productive and post-merger performance was higher
when employees believed that behavior was consistent with the newly formed firm’s
espoused values.18
Level 3: Basic Underlying Assumptions Basic underlying assumptions are
organizational values so taken for granted over time that they become assump-
tions guiding organizational behavior. Underlying assumptions are employees’ deep-
seated beliefs about their company and are the core of organizational culture. As you
might expect, they are highly resistant to change. Consider the way some companies rein-
force a core belief in sustainability (see the OB in Action box).
Sustainability is “a company’s ability to make a profit without sacrificing the
resources of its people, the community, and the planet.”19 Achieving sustainability is
sometimes called “being green” and has become a priority for many companies in recent
years. In addition to helping reduce a company’s global footprint, sustainability can also
provide organizations with a competitive advantage when it comes to overall business strat-
egies and financial success.20 For example, Kering SA, a French conglomerate that owns
luxury goods companies such as Gucci, Saint Laurent, and Alexander McQueen, demon-
strates its commitment to sustainability by sourcing more than 40 percent of its products
from certifiable sources. In addition, Kering’s sustainability commitment extends to more
diversity among its top management and board of directors. More that 60 percent of the
company’s board of directors are women, far more than the gender makeup of most large
corporations. Kering was recently named to the second spot on the 2019 Global 100—a list
of large firms across the globe ranked on their performance in reducing waste, increasing
gender diversity among leadership, realizing revenues from clean products, and forging
overall sustainability practices.21
Ceres, a sustainability nonprofit organization that
seeks to “tackle the world’s biggest sustainability
challenges,” recently published a web-based analysis
of more than 600 large, publicly traded companies in
the United States that examined their performance
on 20 key areas of sustainability leadership. Ceres
found some encouraging results in the group, which
included Citi, Coca-Cola, CVS Health, Gap, Inc.,
General Mills, Intel, Kellogg, Nike, and PepsiCo:
• Nearly two-thirds of the companies plan to
reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
• More than half have adopted formal water-
management policies.
• Almost half are committed to protecting their
workers’ rights.
While a great deal more remains to be done,
“We have reached a turning point,” said Amy
Augustine, senior director of the Ceres Company
Network and co-author of the report. “It is no longer
just about raising the ceiling. It is about lifting the
floor. The time has come for bold and scalable
Being vs. Becoming Sustainable
OB in Action
Goods by Natura Brasil are made from sustainable
products.
Florian Kopp/Newscom
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
555Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
The Four Functions of Organizational Culture
An organization’s culture fulfills four important functions (see Figure 14.3):
1. Establish organizational identity.
2. Encourage collective commitment.
3. Ensure social system stability.
4. Act as sense-making device.
To help bring these four functions to life, let’s consider how each has taken shape
at Southwest Airlines. Southwest has grown to serve more customers domestically
than any other airline and has achieved 46 consecutive years of profitability. The com-
pany has been on Fortune’s list of Most Admired Companies in the World for 25 con-
secutive years, and it was named to Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list for a 10th
consecutive time.25
Function 1: Culture Provides Employees with an Organizational Identity
The identity of Southwest Airlines employees is focused on the belief that employee satis-
faction and customer loyalty are more important than corporate profits. Gary Kelly,
Southwest’s CEO, highlighted this theme by noting, “Our people are our greatest asset and
they deserve all the credit for our continued success.”26
Southwest reinforces this identity by demonstrating in a variety of ways that it
truly cares about its employees. The company’s catastrophe fund, for instance, is based
on voluntary contributions for distribution to employees experiencing serious per-
sonal difficulties. Its profit-sharing program paid out $544 million in 2018, adding
solutions, not just from a few leading companies, but
from com panies in all sectors and of all sizes who
need to transition from making commitments to tak-
ing concrete actions.”22
What does sustainability look like in action?
• Started by college-student siblings in an entre-
preneurship program and partially funded on
Kickstarter, New York–based Fair Harbor Cloth-
ing makes affordable boardshorts and swim-
wear of polyester spun from recycled plastic
bottles. “I started my company because I saw
all of the issues with single use plastic waste
and the effect that it has been having on our
environment,” said Jake Danehy, cofounder
and CEO. “Our objective was to create an awe-
some product that people loved, and show the
positive things we can create out of recycled
materials.”23
• NaturaBrasil, an award-winning global
cosmetics company that recently expanded to
the United States, was founded in Brazil
in 1969 with a mission to “build a better world
through our commitment to transparency,
sustainability and well-being.” A certified B cor-
poration (meeting the highest standards of
social and environmental performance), Natu-
raBrasil makes hair and skin care products,
perfumes, soaps, and creams from natural Bra-
zilian ingredients and works closely with more
than 30 local communities in the Amazon
region to “develop sustainable business mod-
els that benefit the forest.”24
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What do you think was the driving force behind
Fair Harbor’s and NaturaBrasil’s efforts to found
sustainable, profitable businesses?
2. What might differentiate the cultures of firms like
these from the ones in Ceres’ study?
3. What challenges face a company trying to
become a sustainable business, as opposed to
being founded as a sustainable business?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
556 PART 3 Organizational Processes
about 10.8 percent to each employee’s compensation.27 Southwest’s people-focused
identity also is reinforced by the fact that it is an employer of choice. The company
received 342,664 resumes for 7,207 job openings in 2016. It also was rated as provid-
ing outstanding opportunities for women, Hispanics, and members of the LGBTQ
community.28
Function 2: Culture Facilitates Collective Commitment The mission of Southwest
Airlines is “dedication to the highest quality of customer service delivered with a sense of
warmth, friendliness, individual pride, and company spirit.”29 This commitment to serving
others is endorsed by the company’s more than 58,000 employees. Southwest consistently
lands at the top of the list for best customer service among domestic airlines and has
received the lowest ratio of complaints by passengers based on statistics maintained by the
U.S. Department of Transportation over the last 30 years. Commitment to service doesn’t
just apply to customers at Southwest. Employees volunteered more than 190,000 hours to
local and national nonprofit organizations in 2018.30
Function 3: Culture Promotes Social System Stability Social system stability is
the extent to which the work environment is perceived as positive and reinforcing, and the
extent to which conflict and change are effectively managed. Southwest is noted for its
philosophy of having fun, holding parties, and celebrating. For example, staff in each city
FIGURE 14.3 Four Functions of Organizational Culture
SOURCE: Smircich, Linda. “Concepts of Culture and Organizational Analysis.” Administrative Science Quarterly 28, no. 3 (1983):
339–58. https://DOI: 10.2307/2392246.
Act as
sense-making
device
Encourage
collective
commitment
Organizational
culture
Establish
organizational
identity
Ensure
social system
stability
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
557Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
in which the firm operates are given a budget for parties. The company also uses a variety
of performance-based awards and service awards to reinforce employees’ efforts. Its posi-
tive and enriching environment is supported by the lowest turnover rates in the airline
industry.31
Function 4: Culture Shapes Behaviors by Helping Members Make Sense of
Their Surroundings Making sense of the surroundings is what helps employees
understand why the organization does what it does and how it intends to accomplish
its long-term goals. Keeping in mind that Southwest’s leadership originally viewed
ground transportation as its main competitor in 1971, employees understand why the
airline’s primary vision is to be the best short-haul, low-fare, high-frequency, point-to-
point carrier in the United States. Employees know they must achieve exceptional
performance, such as turning a plane around in 20 minutes, because they must keep
costs down to compete against Greyhound and automobiles. In turn, the company
reinforces the value it places on outstanding customer service and high performance
by using performance-based awards and profit sharing. Employees own about 10 per-
cent of the company stock.32
This photo demonstrates Southwest’s culture. Employees are having fun in an airport terminal to lighten
what can be a frustrating experience for passengers. Do you think these employees can lift the spirits of the
travelers in the background?
Glenn Asakawa/Denver Post/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
558 PART 3 Organizational Processes
To learn how different types of culture relate to outcomes, we need a way to classify cul-
ture types. While the complexity of culture makes agreement on a set of types difficult to
reach, academics have proposed and scientifically tested three different frameworks. The
competing values framework we discuss here is the most widely used. It also was named one
of the 40 most important frameworks in the study of organizations and has been shown to
be a valid approach for classifying organizational culture.33 We will also discuss relation-
ships among culture types and outcomes.
Identifying Culture Types with the Competing
Values Framework
The competing values framework (CVF) provides a practical way for managers to
understand, measure, and change organizational culture. It identifies four fundamen-
tal types of organizational culture—clan, adhocracy, hierarchy, and market—all shown in
Figure 14.4.34
The CVF was developed by a team of researchers trying to classify different ways to
assess organizational effectiveness. Their research showed that measures of organiza-
tional effectiveness varied along two fundamental dimensions or axes. One axis described
whether an organization focuses its attention and efforts on internal dynamics and
employees, or outward to its external environment and its customers and shareholders.
The second axis measured an organization’s preference for flexibility and discretion over
control and stability. Combining these two axes creates four types of organizational
culture, each with different core values and different sets of criteria for assessing organi-
zational effectiveness.
Figure 14.4 shows the strategic direction associated with each cultural type (collabo-
rate, create, and so on), along with the means and goals it pursues. Each type has different
characteristics, and while one type tends to dominate in any given organization, it is the
mix of types that creates competitive advantage. We begin our discussion of culture types
in the upper-left-hand quadrant of the CVF.
14.2 THE IMPACT OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
TYPES ON OUTCOMES
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Do you think companies rated on Fortune’s List of 100 Best Places to Work might have unique
cultures? How do we know what type of culture exists at these companies or your current
employer? In this section you will learn about the four types of culture defined by the compet-
ing values framework. You will also discover the extent to which these four culture types are
related to important outcomes.
Explain how to
characterize an
organization’s culture.
LO 14-2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
559Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
Clan Culture A company with a clan culture has an internal focus and values
flexibility rather than stability and control. It resembles a family-type organization
that achieves effectiveness by encouraging collaboration, trust, and support among
employees. This type of culture is very employee-focused and strives to instill cohesion
through consensus and job satisfaction, and commitment through employee involvement
and development.35 Clan organizations devote considerable resources to hiring and
developing their employees, and they view customers as partners. Collaborating is this
culture’s strategy.
EXAMPLE Blake Mycoskie, founder of Toms Shoes, the company famous for its
“buy-one-give one” model, came back from a year sabbatical with a deep resolve
to take care of his own employees in addition to giving shoes and backpacks to
others in need. Mycoskie and his managers have made a concerted effort to
implement practices to make their employees’ lives more fulfilling and balanced.
Employee-friendly practices include flexible work schedules, generous paid pater-
nity leave, and no-meeting Mondays. In addition, Toms is committed to better
aligning its organizational culture with the company’s overall mission by getting
employees involved in charitable activities. For example, as part of a “Happy
Helping Hour” each month, employees work with a charitable organization in a
philanthropic activity, such as preparing care packages for women in domestic
abuse shelters.36
EXAMPLE Property and casualty insurance company Acuity has been consistently
ranked as a top employer by Forbes, Fortune, and the American Business Awards
and strongly endorses a clan culture. On the occasion of his 20th year as president
and CEO of the company, Ben Salzmann remarked, “We have a tremendous team of
staff and agents who are committed to doing what is right for our customers and
Clan
Collaborate
Hierarchy
Control
Market
Compete
Adhocracy
Create
Means: Capable processes,
consistency, process control,
measurement
Ends: E�ciency, timeliness,
smooth functioning
Means: Cohesion, participation,
communication, empowerment
Ends: Morale, people,
development, commitment
Means: Adaptability,
creativity, agility
Ends: Innovation, growth,
cutting-edge output
Means: Customer focus,
productivity, enhancing
competitiveness
Ends: Market share,
profitability, goal
achievement
Flexibility and Discretion
External Focus
and Di�erentiation
Internal Focus
and Integration
Stability and Control
FIGURE 14.4 The Competing Values Framework
Culture varies along two axes of competing values: flexibility and discretion vs. stability and control,
and internal focus and integration vs. external focus and differentiation. This leads to four categories of
organizations, each with its own unique character.
SOURCE: Cameron, Kim S., Robert E. Quinn, Jeff Degraff, and Anjan V. Thakor. Competing Values Leadership: Creating Value in Organizations. Northampton,
MA: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
560 PART 3 Organizational Processes
working toward our mutual success. I simply could not ask to
work with better people.” Employees have generous perks and
are empowered to participate in the way the company is run.
The end result is profitability and an enviably low 2 percent
turnover rate.37
Adhocracy Culture The term adhocracy reflects an organi-
zation with less structure and bureaucracy. It also reflects a man-
agement team focused on responding to problems rather than
avoiding them. Companies with an adhocracy culture have an
external focus and value flexibility. Creation of new products
and services is their strategy, which they accomplish by being
adaptable, creative, and fast to respond to changes in the market-
place. Adhocracy cultures do not rely on the centralized power
and authority relationships that are part of market and hierarchi-
cal cultures (see below). They encourage and empower employ-
ees to take risks, think outside the box, and experiment with new
ways of getting things done.
An article in The Wall Street Journal noted that adhocracy
cultures are decreasing in the United States as many compa-
nies are becoming risk-averse. The downside of this trend is
that a certain amount of reasonable risk taking is necessary to
create new businesses, products, and ultimately jobs. On the
positive side, however, risk taking is still occurring in indus-
tries such as technology and energy, and in coastal cities such
as San Francisco and Boston and college towns like Boulder,
Colorado, and Austin, Texas.38
EXAMPLE As part of its mission, Menlo Innovations, a software development com-
pany, is strongly committed to “restoring joy to technology,” by offering employees
an open, active office environment conducive to being collaborative and taking risks
(and encouraging babies and dogs to be part of the office); by partnering with clients
to provide effective business solutions; and by maintaining a strict 40-hour work-
week for all.39
Market Culture Companies with a market culture have a strong external focus
and value stability and control. Competition is their strategic thrust. They have a strong
desire to deliver results and accomplish goals, and because they are focused on the
external environment, customers and profits take precedence over employee develop-
ment and satisfaction. Managers’ major goal is to improve productivity, profits, and
customer satisfaction.
EXAMPLE Grupo Bimbo is the world’s largest bakery company. Bimbo managers
operate in a low-margin business and thus focus heavily on execution. “Profits
depend heavily on getting the right amount of highly perishable products to stores at
the right moment and at a reasonable cost. . . . For instance, [the company] uses
tricycle delivery bikes in urban areas of China where streets are too narrow for trucks,
a practice it first implemented in Latin America,” according to a Harvard Business
Review author.40 Grupo Bimbo operates 171 plants and delivers more than 10,000
products to 22 countries.
Clan culture is on full display at Toms Shoes with
management making a concerted effort to imple-
ment practices to make employees’ lives more
fulfilling and balanced.
Yonhap News/YNA/Newscom
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
561Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
EXAMPLE Publix Super Markets, the largest employee-owned supermarket
chain in the United States, was ranked Fortune’s 12th of 100 best places to
work in 2019. The company is highly customer-focused and trains and rewards
employees to provide friendly and helpful service.41 According to a recent
American Customer Satisfaction Index, Publix had the highest customer satisfaction
score of any company in the retail sector.42
Hierarchy Culture Control is the strategy within a hierarchy culture. The hierarchy
culture has an internal focus, which produces a more formalized and structured
work environment, and values stability and control over flexibility. This orientation
leads to the development of reliable internal processes, the extensive use of measurement,
and the implementation of a variety of control mechanisms. Effectiveness is likely to be
measured in terms of efficiency, timeliness, quality, safety, and reliability in producing and
delivering products and services.43
EXAMPLE McDonald’s relies on the benefits of a hierarchical structure to
effectively manage its vast business operations throughout the world. However,
that doesn’t mean that top management is content with the status quo. The com-
pany has made several key changes to the company’s organization and culture in
an effort to shake things up, including moving the corporate offices from suburban
Chicago to the city in an effort to attract younger employees; implementing self-
ordering kiosks at many stores; and reshaping the company’s structure to create a
sense of urgency and agility across various departments.44
Imagine having to deliver over 10,000 products to 22 countries. Do you think this takes a lot of planning and
detailed execution? Bimbo’s market-based culture contributes to this effort.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
562 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Cultural Types Represent Competing Values The four cultural types include
some opposing core values. The internal values associated with clan and hierarchy can
conflict with the external ones associated with adhocracy and market cultures. Similarly,
the flexibility and discretion associated with clan and adhocracy cultures are at odds
with the stability and control values endorsed by companies with hierarchy and market
cultures.
These conf licts matter because an organization’s success may depend on its
ability to act on core values associated with competing cultural types. While this is
difficult to pull off, it can be done. Video game developer Activision Blizzard is a
good example.
Activision Blizzard Integrates Clan and Adhocracy Cultures
OB in Action
If you like video games, you’ve probably played
one from Activision Blizzard, a leading developer
of blockbusters like Call of Duty, World of Warcraft,
and Guitar Hero. Despite some recent weaken-
ing in its player base and competition from new
entries like Fortnite, Activision remains a strong
performer, with hundreds of millions of monthly
active users and record sales and earnings in
2018. It ranks 96th on Forbes’ list of 100 best
places to work for 2019, with more than 5,000
employees worldwide.45
Activision’s culture appears to be a combination
of all four culture types, but with an emphasis on clan
and adhocracy (see Figure 14.5). One employee
described it this way: “We are lucky to work in a busi-
ness where imagination, creativity, and play aren’t
only encouraged, they’re required.”46 Bobby Kotick,
Activision Blizzard CEO, reinforced this belief by say-
ing, “Everything we do starts with our employees’ tal-
ent, inspired creativity, and commitment to
excellence.” The culture is noted for being inspira-
tional, creative, and fun.47
Flexible
Internal External
Clan Adhocracy
Hierarchy Market
50 50
5050
50
25 25
2525
Control
FIGURE 14.5 Graph of Activision’s Culture
Based on multiple articles describing the work environment at Activision Blizzard.
McGraw-Hill Global Education Holdings, LLC.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
563Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
Are you curious about the type of culture that exists in a current or past employer? Do you
wonder whether you possess person–organization fit? Self-Assessment 14.1 allows you to
consider these questions.
Clan Dominates One of the company’s mantras is
“Gamers + gaming = fun.” “Activision Blizzard is a
community of people who love to have fun together,
and our employee camaraderie is fueled by our pas-
sion for gameplay,” according to the company’s web-
site.”48 This cultural characteristic is reinforced via
the Gaming Zone. Great Place to Work described
the Gaming Zone as “the heart of Activision Bliz-
zard’s headquarters. Employees are encouraged to
play games during their breaks, and the company
regularly hosts tournaments and biweekly get-
togethers like Gaming Zone Game Night, where
employees play video games together.”49
Personal development is encouraged. For exam-
ple, Activision Blizzard Studio Summit is an annual
event at which game development teams meet to
discuss experiences and learn from each other.
Great Place to Work noted that “development teams
share their combined knowledge and annual find-
ings across a variety of disciplines, including audio
and talent, art, design, animation, programming, and
production.”50 Other developmental activities include
a Master’s in the Business of Activision (the compa-
ny’s self-made MBA program) and Blizzard Academy,
where experts teach specialized classes.51
Other clan-related characteristics include a host of
positive employee perks such as company-paid health
benefits, a wellness program, free food and beverages,
massage therapy, and work–life balance programs.52
Adhocracy Dominates Creativity is at the core of
Activision’s success. “Bringing Activision Blizzard’s
franchises to our audiences is a massive, complex,
and very creative process,” says CEO Kotick.
“I think of our teams as symphony orchestras,
because they work hard to bring so many details
together in perfect harmony.”53
The company uses its Cultural Enrichment Series
to foster innovation and creativity. Part of the series
consists of TED-type talks called Activisionaries.
“This speaker and concert series features inspira-
tional leaders, entrepreneurs, world-class athletes,
military leaders, best-selling authors, musicians, and
others. The events not only provide intellectual stim-
ulation and consistent opportunities for community-
gathering, but also instill a sense of creativity that
inspires and guides our culture.”54
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What is the cultural thread that enables Activi-
sion to have a culture dominated by clan and
adhocracy?
2. Do you think Activision’s cultural profile is the
best one for a company whose strategic goal is
to grow its business? Explain.
3. Would you like to work at Activision? Why or
why not?
What Is the Organizational Culture at My Current Employer?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 14.1 in Connect.
1. How would you describe the organizational culture?
2. Do you think this type of culture is best suited to help the company achieve its
strategic goals? Explain.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
564 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Outcomes Associated with Organizational Culture
Both managers and academic researchers believe organizational culture can influence
outcomes at the individual, group, and organizational levels of the OB Organizing
Framework. A team of researchers tested this hypothesis by conducting a meta-analysis of
more than 38,000 organizational units and 616,000 individuals: An organizational unit is
either an organization as a whole or departments in different organizations. Figure 14.6
summarizes the findings.55
Figure 14.6 illustrates the strength of relationships among nine organizational
outcomes and the four culture types. As you probably expected, culture is positively
associated with a variety of outcomes. Most relationships were of moderate strength,
meaning they are important to today’s managers. Closer examination of Figure 14.6 leads
to the following six conclusions:
1. Organizational culture is related to organizational effectiveness. This means an organi-
zation’s culture can be a source of competitive advantage.
2. Employees have more positive work attitudes when working in organizations with clan
cultures. Employees clearly prefer to work in organizations that value flexibility over
stability and control, and those that are more concerned with satisfying employees’
needs than with customer or shareholder desires.
FIGURE 14.6 Correlates of Clan, Adhocracy, Market, and Hierarchy Organizational Cultures
SOURCE: Results were based on A. Ou, C. Hartnell, A. Kinicki, E. Karam, & D. Choi, “Culture in Context: A Meta-Analysis of the Nomological Network of Organiza-
tional Culture.” Presentation as part of a symposium, titled “Connecting Culture and Context: Insights from Organizational Culture Theory and Research,” at the
2016 National Academy of Management Meeting in Anaheim.
Positive work
attitudes
Positive employee
behavior
Customer satisfaction
Market share
Operational e�ciency
Product/service
quality
Innovation
Financial performance
Financial growth
Clan Adhocracy Market Hierarchy
Moderate StrongWeakNot significant
Va
ria
bl
es
Strength of relationship
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
565Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
3. Clan and market cultures are more likely to deliver higher customer satisfaction
and market share. We suspect this result holds because the positive employee
attitudes associated with clan cultures motivate employees to provide better cus-
tomer service.
4. Operational outcomes, quality, and innovation are more strongly related to clan, adhoc-
racy, and market cultures than to hierarchical ones. Managers should avoid the use of
too many rules and procedures—hierarchical characteristics—when trying to improve
these outcomes.
5. An organization’s financial performance (profit and revenue growth) is not strongly
related to organizational culture. Only market and hierarchy cultures were associ-
ated with financial outcomes. Managers should not expect to im mediately increase
financial performance when they try to change their organization’s culture. This
underscores the conclusion that culture change needs time to take hold.
6. Companies with market cultures tend to have more positive organizational outcomes.
Managers should make their cultures more market oriented.
Subcultures Matter
Thus far we have discussed organizational culture as if a company possessed a single
homogeneous culture. Most don’t. Rather, organizations develop subcultures.56
Two OB scholars describe organizational subcultures as consisting of “distinctive clus-
ters of ideologies, cultural forms [clan, adhocracy, market, hierarchy], and other practices
that identifiable groups of people in an organization exhibit.” They tend to vary from a
company’s overall culture, “either intensifying its understandings and practices or diverg-
ing from them.”57 Subcultures tend to form along the following lines, often leading to
noticeably different cultures:
• Functional/occupational groups
• Geographical areas
• Products, markets, or technology
• Divisions or departments
• Levels of management—senior management versus supervisors
• Work role—firefighter versus salesperson58
While subcultures develop naturally, senior leaders should link them with “common goals,
common language, and common procedures for solving problems,” according to OB
expert Edgar Schein.59 You don’t want highly different subcultures to develop, because they
can lead groups to focus on different goals, customers, or values, which lowers unit and
organizational performance.60 Such culture clashes frequently happen when subcultures
within an organization interpret rules differently based on their levels within the organiza-
tion. Research shows that failure to integrate subcultures within high-risk industries such
as oil and gas may lead to a gap in their ability to interpret and enact safety rules, leading
to different levels of rule compliance.61
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
566 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Edgar Schein, who has written a great deal about organizational culture, believes the
creation and management of culture is a leader’s most important role.62 We agree,
because culture can be a source of competitive advantage. You may not think organiza-
tional culture is important to you now while you’re still in school. However, after gradua-
tion when you’re out in the real world looking for a job and trying to decide which company
to pursue in your job search, you will want to learn about the company’s culture and why
(or why not) it would be the ideal place to start or continue your professional career.
Consider companies like Apple, Google, and Facebook. As suggested by Figure 14.2,
the cultures at these companies were first formed by their founders—Steve Jobs at
Apple, Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Google, and Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook.
Over time, the founders embedded or reinforced their desired cultures by adopting
specific types of organizational structure and implementing a
host of human resource practices, policies, and procedures. It is
not an easy task to change an organization’s culture, but let us
look at how it can be done.
First let’s review four truths about culture change.
1. Leaders are the architects and developers of organizational cul-
ture. This suggests that culture is not determined by fate. It is
formed and shaped by the ongoing behavior of everyone who
works at a company. John Mackey, co-founder and CEO of
Whole Foods Market, believes creating a healthy culture starts
with strong leadership. According to Mackey, “If you are lucky
enough to be someone’s employer, then you have a moral obliga-
tion to make sure people do look forward to coming to work in
the morning.”63
2. Changing culture starts with targeting one of the three levels of
organizational culture—observable artifacts, espoused values, or
basic underlying assumptions. The fastest way to start a culture
change project is through the use of observable artifacts. For
example, if you wanted to foster a market culture, you could post
graphs of performance metrics around the office to reinforce the
value of high performance. That said, culture will not change in a
significant way unless managers are able to change basic underly-
ing assumptions.64 It takes time to alter this deep-seated compo-
nent of culture.
14.3 MECHANISMS OR LEVERS FOR CULTURE CHANGE
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Some people suggest that culture change takes years, whereas others believe leadership
actions can change culture more quickly. Yet others contend that culture evolves and manag-
ers should not attempt to manage it. Where do you stand? We believe culture can and should
be nurtured and developed so it aligns with a company’s vision and strategic plan. You will
learn about 12 mechanisms or levers you can use to implement culture change. We discuss
them in the context of the managerial role, but knowing these techniques helps you at any
level in the organization.
Describe the process
of culture change in
an organization.
LO 14-3
Sergey Brin (left) and Larry Page met as Ph.D. students
at Stanford. They created the first version of the algorithm
underlying searches while students, and then incorporated
Google after graduation. Today, Brin is president of Alphabet,
Inc., Google’s parent company, and Page is the CEO. Although
Google is somewhat secretive about the number of searches
it conducts, the best estimate is more than 5 billion a day.
Matthew Staver/Bloomberg/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
567Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
3. The current culture probably closely aligns with the organization’s vision and strategic
plan. Remember the quote “culture eats strategy for breakfast” whenever you pursue
culture change. An organization’s culture must be consistent with its vision and strate-
gic goals. A vision is a long-term goal that describes what an organization wants
to become. A strategic plan outlines the organization’s long-term goals and the
actions necessary to achieve them.
EXAMPLE Although culture change is an organizationwide process, it must start at
the top. At Novelis, an industrial aluminum company in Atlanta, Georgia, several cul-
ture initiatives failed because one leader in particular was reluctant to support the
process, according to the company’s HR director. The company began to see real
results once leadership committed to the culture shift within the organization. It’s
important that every member of the executive team align around the same goals or
the change won’t take hold.65
4. A structured approach works best when implementing culture change. Our experi-
ence as consultants tells us that culture change frequently meets with resistance.
People become accustomed to the culture they know and prefer to leave things as
they are. Chapter 16 outlines several techniques you can use to overcome such
resistance.
Let’s now consider the specific methods or techniques managers can use to change an
organization’s culture.
12 Mechanisms or Levers for Creating
Culture Change
OB experts have proposed 12 mechanisms or levers for changing organizational cul-
ture. These levers can be pushed to create a preferred type of culture or they can be
pulled to reduce a particular culture type. Changing culture amounts to pushing and
pulling these levers to create a culture profile that is best suited to help an organization
achieve its goals. Any of these levers can be used to foster any of the culture types previ-
ously discussed. Table 14.1 shows the relationship between these levers and the three
levels of organizational culture.66 Let’s consider how these levers can be used to create
culture change.
1. Formal Statements Formal statements of organizational philosophy, mission,
vision, values, and materials can embed culture when used for recruiting, selection, and
socialization. They represent observable artifacts.
EXAMPLE Equipment manufacturer Caterpillar has a vision of “a world in which
all people’s basic needs—such as shelter, clean water, sanitation, food and reli-
able power—are fulfilled in an environmentally sustainable way and a company
that improves the quality of the environment and the communities where we live
and work.”
EXAMPLE The vision of the Alzheimer’s Association is quite simply “a world without
Alzheimer’s disease.”67
2. Design of Physical Space, Work Environments, and Buildings Physical
spacing among people and buildings and the location of office furniture are different ways
to send messages about culture. For example, an open office environment is more appropriate
for an organization that wants to foster collaboration and innovation.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
568 PART 3 Organizational Processes
EXAMPLE Instagram’s New York office is picture perfect to post on its own social media
site. From the two-floor high living plant wall complete with modern, inviting chairs that
add a pop of color to the giant mirror located at the top floor’s stairwell and the most
popular corner for selfies, the office is designed to be functional, flexible, and fun.68
3. Slogans, Language, Acronyms, and Sayings Corporate slogans, acronyms,
and specialized language often have a profound effect on the organization over time
because they are easy to remember and repeat.
EXAMPLE The New England Patriots have a tradition that started in 2003 when
then-linebacker Tedy Bruschi uttered two words, “Awww yeah,” at a pre-season prac-
tice. After a win over the Philadelphia Eagles early that season, Bruschi asked his
MECHANISM LEVEL OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Observable
Artifact
Espoused
Value
Basic
Assumption
1. Formal statements X X
2. Design of physical space,
work environments, and
buildings
X X
3. Slogans, language,
acronyms, and sayings
X X
4. Deliberate role modeling,
training programs, teaching,
and coaching by others
X X X
5. Explicit rewards, status
symbols, and promotion
criteria
X X X
6. Stories, legends, or myths
about key people and
events
X X X
7. Organizational activities,
processes, or outcomes
X X
8. Leader reactions to critical
incidents and organizational
crises
X
9. Rites and rituals X X X
10. Work flow and
organizational structure
X X
11. Organizational systems
and procedures
X X X
12. Organizational goals
and criteria throughout
employee cycle (hire
to retire)
X X X
TABLE 14.1 12 Mechanisms for Changing Organizational Culture
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
569Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
teammates a question in the locker room that has become a Patriots ritual after every
victory: “How do we feel about a victory?” The team responded: “Awww yeah,” and a
tradition began that continues today. After Bruschi retired, several other Patriots
stepped up to ask the question in the team’s locker room after a win—with a resound-
ing response from their teammates. The Patriots recently filed a request with the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office to trademark “Awww yeah” for use on sporting apparel
and entertainment services.69 What type of cultures are reinforced by these slogans
and sayings?
4. Deliberate Role Modeling, Training Programs, Teaching, and Coaching
by Others Companies such as Experian, one of the largest crediting-reporting services
in the world, use collaboration to model and empower organizational change through
networking. Justin Hastings, Experian North America’s chief human resource office, sees
his role as “not only to supply, maintain and retain talent, but to make sure those people
are motivated and see real meaning and value in their work.”70
EXAMPLE Hastings believes that organizational change doesn’t happen top-down
or bottom-up in an organization but rather it tends to move side-to-side, as a result of
horizontal connections among colleagues throughout the company. According to
Hastings, “You can’t just build a culture from the top down. To be authentic, you have
to build your culture organically, through informal networks.” He cites employees
who participate in the “Le Tour de Experian” bike rides to benefit charity. He explains
employees ride in the event to do some good and to have fun, but he noticed they
were also building strong bonds across company boundaries. These bonds with oth-
ers in the organization result in collaborations that have created value for Experian,
its customers, and its employees.71
5. Explicit Rewards, Status Symbols, and Promotion Criteria Because they are
meaningful and visible, reward systems have a strong impact on employees and are one of
the strongest ways to embed organizational culture. For example, team-based rewards rein-
force a clan culture, while individual rewards are better suited for market cultures. Dan
Price, CEO of Gravity Payments, a credit card processing company, made a decision
several years ago that has significantly affected the company’s culture.
Recognizing that “people should come first,” Gravity Payments CEO Dan Price
slashed his $1.1 million salary and raised his employees’ pay to a minimum of
$70,000 annually, which has allowed employees to save for retirement and,
in some instances, buy their first home.
Matthew Ryan Williams/Redux Pictures
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
570 PART 3 Organizational Processes
EXAMPLE Dan Price’s 120 employees at Gravity Payments in Seattle were stunned
a few years ago when Price announced he was raising their salaries to a minimum of
$70,000 a year, partly by slashing his $1.1 million pay to the same level. Since his
decision, despite several bumps in the road (i.e., several key employees quitting and
his brother threatening to sue him), Price says the company has more than doubled
its business and added 80 more employees. Price says his employees are now in a
better position to buy their first home, save for retirement, and raise their families
because they make a decent salary. “The purpose of an organization is to make the
humans’ lives better . . . People should come first,” Price says.72 What type of culture
is promoted by this decision?
6. Stories, Legends, or Myths About Key People and Events Storytelling is a
powerful way to send messages to others about the values and behaviors the organization
desires. Stories reinforce characteristics of the desired culture.
EXAMPLE According to myth, Steve Chen and Chad Hurley came up with the idea
for YouTube when they tried to upload video to the web they had taken at a dinner
party but failed. Although the founders admit the story is largely embellished, it
underscores how stories can influence organizational culture.73
EXAMPLE With her elderly father snowed in, a woman called a local Trader Joe’s in
Pennsylvania to see if they could deliver groceries to her stranded father. The com-
pany rep said they normally don’t make deliveries but would make an exception.
Thirty minutes later, groceries were delivered to the woman’s elderly father free of
charge, demonstrating Trader Joe’s strong commitment to its customers.74 What type
of culture does this action reinforce?
7. Organizational Activities, Processes, or Outcomes Leaders pay special
attention to activities, processes, and outcomes they can measure and control. This behav-
ior sends strong messages to employees about acceptable norms and behavior. For exam-
ple. if you want to create an adhocracy culture, then managers would pay attention to
innovation processes and outcomes such as number of patents or number of ideas submit-
ted to suggestion systems.
EXAMPLE Susan T. Carroll, chief regional executive officer at Inova Health System,
recognized health care practitioners encounter vast amounts of data that can be used
to improve patient outcomes, but too much data can make culture change difficult, if
not impossible. As a result, she focused the new company culture on a narrow, mea-
surable goal: do no harm to patients. By creating a simple, measurable goal that
employees could support, she enabled widespread change across the organization.75
EXAMPLE GM CEO Mary Barra is trying to move the company culture toward a
higher level of hierarchy and market. She started this change by establishing a vision
of GM as “the world’s most valued automotive company,” and by measuring its
achievement of this vision via strategic goals to improve customer satisfaction, qual-
ity, and financial results. To reinforce this strategic and cultural shift, she told the
company’s top 300 executives, “If you’re not in line with this vision . . . you don’t need
to be here.”76
8. Leader Reactions to Critical Incidents and Organizational Crises Neuro-
science research shows that people learn and pay attention to the emotions leaders exhibit.
Positive emotions spread, but negative emotions travel faster and farther.77 Market cul-
tures, for example, are reinforced by showing positive emotions after landing a new cus-
tomer or negative emotions such as anger after losing a customer because of bad service.
Consider how executives at Starbucks responded to a crisis eroding feelings of respect and
inclusiveness, both of which reinforce clan culture.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
571Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
EXAMPLE Executives at Starbucks responded quickly when two black men were
arrested at a company store in Philadelphia for loitering, and video of the two being
led off in handcuffs went viral. A local resident filmed the incident and posted it on
Twitter, writing “The police were called because these men hadn’t ordered anything.
They were waiting for a friend to show up, who did as they were taken out in hand-
cuffs for doing nothing.”78
Responding to the public outcry about the incident, Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson
in a statement called the incident “reprehensible,” and said the video shot by
customers was “hard to watch and not representative of our Starbucks Mission and
Values.”79 Johnson also announced that Starbucks would close down 8,000 U.S.
stores for an afternoon of racial bias training for nearly 175,000 employees. Howard
Schultz, Starbucks’ chairman, realizes that a four-hour training session on racial bias
“is not going to solve racial inequity. . . but we have to start the conversation.”80
9. Rites and Rituals Rites and rituals are the planned and unplanned activities
and ceremonies used to celebrate important events or achievements. Consider how
managers at Thumbtack reinforce several culture types at once.
EXAMPLE When Thumbtack, an online service that matches customers with local pro-
fessional services, was a start-up 10 years ago, CEO Marco Zappacosta cooked lunch
for the team. As the company grew, the founders made room in their budget for an in-
house chef who fed the team lunch at a big table in the middle of the office. Today, with
more than 300 employees at its San Francisco headquarters, Thumbtack’s single chef
has grown to a culinary team of 10 that makes lunch from scratch for everyone to nur-
ture both body and spirit. Chef April Word says, “If someone gets to eat their favorite
thing for lunch, they’re going to be jazzed, even if they had a meeting that didn’t go well.
They’re going to be happy because their belly’s happy and it gave them something to
laugh or talk about.” Facilitating both clan and adhocracy cultures, this lunch ritual helps
form relationships and create ideas while enjoying a tasty meal with colleagues.81
10. Work Flow and Organizational Structure Work flow is the way work gets
done—work flow and organizational structure are the way reporting relationships are orga-
nized. Both can become tools for changing organizational culture. For example, encourag-
ing brainstorming meetings to solve problems reinforces an adhocracy culture, whereas
having weekly progress meeting encourages both market and hierarchy cultures.
EXAMPLE Implementing clinical workflow changes and giving patients alternative
medications to opioids may help reduce readmission rates, length of stay, and cost of
care according to a recent study at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Noting that
the care transition plan from in-hospital care to out-of-hospital care seemed to be
where patients were most vulnerable for opioid abuse, the research team developed a
treatment pathway that combined pharmacy services, clinical education, and pain man-
agement consultations in an effort to increase collaboration and communication across
the care team. As a result of the workflow changes and increased collaboration, the
readmission rates for patients in the study were significantly reduced.82 These work
flow changes would serve to move the culture in the direction of hierarchy and market.
11. Organizational Systems and Procedures Companies are increasingly using
electronic networks as a tool to promote different types of cultures. Disney, for example,
has invested over $1 billion in big data technology to identify the best way to provide cus-
tomer service, a characteristic of market cultures.83
EXAMPLE Disco is an artificial intelligence tool that helps employers build a culture
of appreciation and recognition to improve employee retention and productivity
through the use of technology and analytics. In addition, companies can assign a
recognition emoji to each of their company values guiding recognition of employee
achievements to align with company priorities.84
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
572 PART 3 Organizational Processes
EXAMPLE Lifesize Communications, a videoconferencing company in Austin,
Texas, uses an internal online network to promote collaboration (clan) and
increased sales (market). A salesperson recently wanted advice about how to sell
a product against a competitor. To get ideas, the salesperson logged onto the net-
work to access content posted by a Lifesize partner in South Africa. The content
describes an approach the partner used to win business against that competitor.85
12. Organizational Goals and Criteria throughout the Employee Cycle An
organization’s culture is reflected in the goals it pursues. For example. the clan-type cultures
in companies such as Google and Zappos are reinforced by goals like increasing employee
development, satisfaction, or involvement. Walmart has decided to foster more of an adhoc-
racy and market culture in response to its strategic goal of growing revenue and market share.
EXAMPLE With the goal of offering grocery home delivery in more than 100 U.S.
cities (covering nearly 40 percent of all U.S. households), Walmart recently partnered
with several same-day delivery companies. This strategic move is the company’s
attempt to tackle one of the biggest challenges in retail: the “last mile” of delivering
goods to customers who order online. Walmart’s aggressive expansion plans into
grocery home delivery is in response to Amazon’s purchase of Whole Foods, which
offers home delivery for online grocery orders.86
Managers have many mechanisms at their disposal to change organizational culture
for the better. But what happens when managers are the reason the culture needs to
change? See the Problem-Solving Application feature for more details.
Sprouts Farmers Market: The Best Culture, or the Worst?
Founded in 2015, Arizona-based Sprouts Farmers
Market is a fast-growing organic grocery chain that
prides itself on its community ties, nutrition-education
efforts, philanthropic commitments, and concern for
people with learning disabilities, food scarcity, and
other needs. Its website advertises “Good Food.
Problem-Solving Application
Implementing workflow changes, increasing collaboration among the care
team, and giving patients alternative medications to opioids may help reduce
readmission rates, length of stay, and cost of care.
Javier Larrea/Pixtal/age fotostock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
573Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
What Type of Organizational Culture Do I Prefer?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 14.2 in Connect.
1. In rank order, what are your preferred culture types?
2. To what extent does your preferred culture type affect your job satisfaction?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.2
Good People,” and the company offers an enor-
mous variety of nearly 19,000 fresh and healthy
fruits, vegetables, meat, dairy, and fish items that
are local, seasonal, natural or organic, gluten-free,
non-GMO, and grass-fed or fresh caught. Deli and
bakery goods, vitamins, and beer and wine are
available too. Nearly 3 million customers visit its
300-plus stores around the country each week,
and Instacart orders placed online are filled within
an hour.87
The company promises customers a friendly,
well-trained staff eager to answer questions and
offer samples, and new employees are assured of
training, plenty of opportunities, and generous ben-
efits.88 In 2018, Sprouts was the only Arizona-based
company to earn a place on Fortune’s list of the
world’s most admired companies, ranking high on
social responsibility, people management, quality of
products/services, and quality of management.89
That same year, however, Sprouts came in sixth
on a much less prestigious list—the nation’s worst
companies to work for, based on a USA Today anal-
ysis of current and former employees’ reviews on
the job-listing site Glassdoor.com. Only 36 percent
of the employees who posted about Sprouts on
Glassdoor would recommend working there, and
the company’s overall rating was only 2.6 stars of a
possible 5 (the average rating is 3.4). The negative
factor in many of Sprouts’ reviews was company
management, including what USA Today called
“dozens” of complaints about “immaturity” and high
manager turnover that left workers unsure about
what to expect on the job. The report cited a Glass-
door expert who said “company culture” was first
among the top three reasons for employee satisfac-
tion (the other two were “career opportunities and
trust in senior leadership”).90
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem Sprouts appears to be facing.
Step 2: Identify the causes of the problem. What OB concepts help explain why there are such
differing perceptions of the company’s culture?
Step 3: Make your recommendation about which lever(s) for creating culture change might help solve
Sprouts’ apparent problem.
Remember Person–Organization Fit Now that we have described the four key
types of organizational culture and the mechanisms managers can use to change culture,
it’s time to reflect on your person–organization (P–O) fit. Recall that P–O fit reflects the
extent to which your personality and values match the climate and culture in an organiza-
tion. Your P–O fit matters because it links to your work attitudes and performance.91
Do you have a preference for one of the four types of culture in the CVF? Use Self-
Assessment 14.2 to explore this topic.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
574 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Organizational socialization is “the process by which individuals acquire the
knowledge, skills, attitudes, and behaviors required to assume a work role.”92
This definition highlights that organizational socialization is a key mechanism by which
organizations embed their cultures, particularly in new employees. In short, organiza-
tional socialization turns outsiders into fully functioning insiders by promoting and
reinforcing the organization’s core values and beliefs. This section introduces a three-
phase model of organizational socialization and examines the practical application of
socialization research.
A Three-Phase Model of Organizational
Socialization
Anyone’s first year in a complex organization can be confusing. There is a constant
swirl of new faces, strange jargon, conflicting expectations, and apparently unre-
lated events. Many organizations treat new members in a rather haphazard, sink-or-
swim manner. For example, a recent Gallup survey revealed that only 12 percent of
the respondents felt their organizations did a great job of introducing new employees
to organizational socialization.93 This is unfortunate because unstructured socializa-
tion is associated with decreased learning, performance, and satisfaction.94 It also
leads to increased turnover.95 There is a better way.
Organizational behavior researcher Daniel Feldman has proposed a three-phase
model of organizational socialization that promotes deeper understanding of this
important process. As illustrated in Figure 14.7, the three phases are:
1. Anticipatory socialization
2. Encounter
3. Change and acquisition
Each phase has associated perceptual and social processes. Feldman’s model also spec-
ifies behavioral and affective outcomes that reveal how well the individual has been
socialized. The entire three-phase sequence may take from a few weeks to a year to
complete, depending on individual differences and the complexity of the situation.
Let’s look at each phase.
14.4 EMBEDDING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
THROUGH THE SOCIALIZATION PROCESS
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Organizational culture spreads by means of a learning process. That is, people teach each
other about the values and norms the organization values and rewards. Organizational
socialization is one mechanism underlying this learning process. All of us have been
socialized at one time or another. It’s a natural aspect of starting a new job at any com-
pany, and it ultimately affects your work attitudes and performance. You will learn about
a three-phase model of organizational socialization and practical lessons based on social-
ization research.
Explain the three-
phase model of
organizational
socialization.
LO 14-4
Imagine the feelings this new employee
might have about starting a job. What
emotions might she be experiencing?
Excitement? Worry? Challenge? How can
companies help new employees begin to
fit in during the first few weeks of
employment?
Ingram Publishing/age fotostock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
575Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
Phase 1: Anticipatory Socialization The anticipatory socialization phase
occurs before an individual actually joins an organization. During this phase people
acquire information about different careers, occupations, professions, and organizations
that can come from many sources. An organization’s current employees are a powerful
source of information. So are the Internet, social media, internships, and job fairs.
Unrealistic expectations about the nature of the work, pay, and promotions are often
formulated during Phase 1. Because employees with unrealistic expectations are more
likely to quit their jobs in the future, organizations should offer realistic job previews. A
realistic job preview (RJP) gives recruits a realistic idea of what lies ahead by pre-
senting both positive and negative aspects of the job.
FIGURE 14.7 Model of Organizational Socialization
SOURCE: Feldman, Daniel Charles. “The Multiple Socialization of Organization Members.” The Academy of Management
Review 6, no. 2 (1981): 309–18. https:// DOI: 10.2307/257888.
1. Anticipatory socialization
Recruit learns about the
organization prior to joining
2. Encounter
Values, skills, and attitudes start to
shift as the new recruit discovers
what the organization is truly like
3. Change and acquisition
Recruit masters skills and roles
and adjusts to the work group’s
values and norms
• Anticipating realities about the organization
and the new job
• Anticipating the organization’s needs for
one’s skills and abilities
• Anticipating the organization’s sensitivity to
one’s needs and values
• Managing lifestyle-versus-work conflicts
• Managing intergroup role conflicts
• Seeking role definition and clarity
• Becoming familiar with task and group
dynamics
• Competing role demands are resolved
• Critical tasks are mastered
• Group norms and values are internalized
Phases
Behavioral Outcomes
• Performs role assignments
• Remains with organization
• Spontaneously innovates
and cooperates
A
ective Outcomes
• Feels generally satisfied
• Possesses high internal work
motivation
• Is highly involved with the job
Outsider
Socialized
Insider
Perceptual and Social Processes
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
576 PART 3 Organizational Processes
EXAMPLE Comcast uses RJPs that consist of three components found on the com-
pany’s job website. The first part is a description of the job and its responsibilities.
The second part is a video “job trailer” that runs an average of three minutes and
follows an employee through his or her day showing the types of tasks that occur on
an actual workday for the position the applicant is applying for. The final part of the
RJP is the application process, which involves creating a profile, applying for the
position, and then following through several more steps as the application goes
through the Comcast HR system.96
Research revealed that realistic job previews were related to higher performance and lower
attrition from the recruitment process. RJPs also lowered job applicants’ initial expecta-
tions and led to lower turnover among those who were hired.97
Phase 2: Encounter The next phase begins when the employment contract has been
signed. During the encounter phase employees come to learn what the organization
is really like. It is a time for reconciling unmet expectations and making sense of a new
work environment. Many companies use a combination of orientation and training
programs to socialize employees during the encounter phase. Onboarding is one such
technique. Onboarding programs help employees to integrate, assimilate, and
transition to new jobs by making them familiar with corporate policies, procedures,
culture, and politics and by clarifying work-role expectations and responsibili-
ties.98 One corporate survey revealed that nearly 66 percent of organizations say onboard-
ing practices have been underutilized and only 40 percent say onboarding is effective at
retaining new hires.99
There is no set way to onboard a new employee. The OB in Action box illustrates a
variety of methods used at different organizations. Video gaming company Riot Games,
Fortune’s 39th best place to work in 2016, has an interesting approach to onboarding. If
within the first 60 days new hires decide the company is not a good fit, Riot Games pays
them 10 percent of their annual salary, up to $25,000, to quit.100 Zappos similarly pays
new employees a month’s salary if they believe they are a bad fit after participating in the
company’s four-week onboarding program.101
Companies Use Different Approaches to Onboard Employees
OB in Action
The first day on the job can be filled with boring
paperwork regarding benefits and dull presentations
about the company’s history, mission, and values.
While these activities are important, some compa-
nies try to find more creative ways for employees to
spend their first few days and weeks at work.
Netflix Nourishes Its Culture At Netflix, new hires
are introduced to helpful coworkers as well as exec-
utive managers, and they are given a significant level
of responsibility from the start. The company com-
municates its values with plenty of resources
focused on its cultural diversity and inclusiveness
programs.102
Consulting Firm Protiviti Puts New Hires in
Groups A Fortune reporter stated, “The company
ushers in new hires in batches, then sends them on a
journey through Passport to Protiviti, a program that
integrates them into the environment as they collab-
orate as teams, work with peer advisers, and meet
regularly with leaders.”103
Twitter Offers Lots of Support Before they reach
their desk on the first day, new Twitter employees
have had breakfast with the CEO and been given
their company e-mail address, a company T-shirt,
and a celebratory bottle of wine. They go on to a tour
of the office and attend a group training session,
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
577Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
after which they can settle into their workspaces,
conveniently located near key colleagues who can
help and answer questions. A new-hire happy hour
with senior leadership takes place once a month.104
NCR Corp. Relies Heavily On an Online Portal Elec-
tronics and computer hardware maker NCR Corp. has a
year-long onboarding process that starts with an online
portal. HR Magazine noted that this enables “new hires
to interact with one another with built-in social network-
ing capabilities tied to virtual learning platform CorpU.
Managers can assign an onboarding plan for each new
hire, track his or her progress, and solicit feedback
about the individual’s performance.” HR also partnered
with the company’s “marketing staff to make the portal
design appealing and fun, as well as to ensure a consis-
tent branded experience for all employees,” according
to HR Magazine. Employees reported positive attitudes
about their onboarding experiences.105
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. Which of these onboarding methods is most
appealing to you? Why?
2. Which of these onboarding methods is least
appealing to you? Why?
3. How do these companies’ onboarding programs
compare to experiences you may have had
when starting a new job, or even when arriving
on campus?
Phase 3: Change and Acquisition The change and acquisition phase requires
employees to master important tasks and roles and adjust to their work group’s
values and norms. Mastery will occur only when employees have a clear understanding
about their roles and are effectively integrated within the work unit. Being successful in
Phase 3 also requires employees to have a clear understanding of the use of social media.
It is easy for you to create problems for yourself by not being aware of expectations regard-
ing surfing, texting during meetings, and use of company equipment for personal mes-
sages. Experts suggest setting ground rules on the first day of employment, coaching
employees on norms, and discussing how guidelines have changed.106
Table 14.2 presents a list of paired socialization processes or tactics organizations use
to help employees through this adjustment process.
To what extent have you been adequately socialized? If your socialization level is
high, then all is well. If it is medium to low, you may need to find a mentor. We discuss
mentoring in the next section. Take a moment to complete Self-Assessment 14.3. It mea-
sures the extent to which you have been socialized into your current work organization.
Have You Been Adequately Socialized?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 14.3 in Connect.
1. What is your level of socialization? Are you surprised by the results?
2. Based on your results and what you have learned about socialization,
what advice would you provide to your organization to improve its socializa-
tion process?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.3
Practical Applications of Socialization Research
Research suggests four practical guidelines for managers.
1. Managers should avoid a haphazard, sink-or-swim approach to organizational socializa-
tion, because formalized and proactive socialization tactics positively affect new hires.107
2. More organizations today use socialization tactics to reinforce a culture that promotes
ethical behavior. Managers should consider how they might best set expectations for
ethical behavior during all three phases of the socialization process.108
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
578 PART 3 Organizational Processes
ALTERNATIVE TACTICS AND DESCRIPTION
WHICH IS THIS AN
EXAMPLE OF?
Collective vs. Individual Example
Grouping newcomers
and exposing them
to a common set of
experiences.
Treating each newcomer individually
and exposing him or her to more
or less unique experiences.
All new hires attend an
orientation session on the
same day.
Formal vs. Informal Example
Segregating a newcomer
from regular organization
members during a defined
socialization period.
No effort to clearly distinguish a
newcomer from more experienced
members.
Army recruits must attend boot
camp before they are allowed
to work alongside established
soldiers.
Sequential vs. Random Example
The newcomer completes
a fixed progression of
steps culminating in his
or her new role.
No clear steps are given and
progression is ambiguous or
dynamic.
Doctors must follow a sequence
from medical school to
internship to residency before
they are allowed to practice
on their own.
Fixed vs. Variable Example
Management setting
a timetable for the
assumption of the role.
Management setting no timetable
and relying on contingencies for
assumption of the role.
American university students
typically spend one year apiece
as freshman, sophomores,
juniors, and seniors.
Serial vs. Disjunctive Example
The newcomer is
socialized over time
with the help of an
experienced organization
member.
The newcomer is not provided a
role model.
A buddy system is used during
orientation.
Investiture vs. Divestiture Example
The affirmation of a
newcomer’s incoming
global and specific role
identities and attributes.
The denial and stripping away of
the newcomer’s existing sense
of self and the reconstruction of
self in the organization’s image.
During police training, cadets
are required to wear uniforms
and maintain an immaculate
appearance; they are addressed
as “officer” and told they are no
longer ordinary citizens but repre-
sentatives of the police force.
TABLE 14.2 Socialization Tactics
Examples in each row illustrate one or the other of the alternatives. Which one appears in the example?
SOURCE: Ashforth, Blake. Role Transitions in Organizational Life: An Identity-Based Perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Routledge, 2000.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
579Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
3. Support for stage models is mixed. Although there are different stages of socializa-
tion, they are not identical in order, length, or content for all people or jobs.109 Man-
agers should use a contingency approach to organizational socialization. In other
words, keep in mind that different techniques are appropriate for different people at
different times.
4. Research finds that expatriates, workers who take an assignment in a foreign country,
experienced different socialization activities than other newcomers. In turn, these dif-
ferent experiences affected their long-term success and job satisfaction.110
Regardless of how well your employee handles the socialization process, you can
improve your own socialization experience. The Applying OB box provides recommenda-
tions for improving three skills essential for success at a new job.
Applying OB
Key Skills Needed for Success in a New Job111
1. Introducing yourself to strangers. Don’t assume
others will not want to meet you or are too busy to
spend time with you. As a new employee you are
expected to reach out and meet people. Gain con-
fidence in this activity by practicing your opening
lines. It helps to write them down, rehearse, and
experiment with different approaches. Preparing a
list of initial questions to ask people will help you
demonstrate interest and motivation. When talking
with others, try to make them feel heard, valued,
and respected. People will remember this more
than specific details about yourself. Finally, write
down what you learn about others and consult it
when you are next going to meet them.
2. Remembering people’s names. Neuroscientists
have shown that we encode and remember names
differently than other details about people, such as
their faces, jobs, or family status. This tells us that
weak neural connections exist between some-
one’s face and name. You can overcome this draw-
back by using a few key techniques:
a. Make a commitment to pay attention to people
when you first meet them.
b. Repeat the name in your mind several times
and use it during the conversation.
c. Write down the name as soon as you can to
increase recall.
d. Create a mental picture that provides a clue to
the person’s name, because we remember
things or objects better than names. For exam-
ple, when meeting Angelo, picture an angel.
e. Use cheat sheets before going to events or
meetings. Review the names and backgrounds
of people you expect to see during such
encounters.
3. Asking good questions. Research shows “the
more questions new employees ask and the more
help they seek, the better they perform . . . ques-
tion askers are also more satisfied in new jobs and
more committed to new organizations.”112 The
learning point is that most new employees do not
ask enough questions. Here are a few ideas for
asking better questions:
a. Be clear in your mind about what you want. The
clearer you are, the easier it is to ask the right
questions.
b. Find the best person to answer your questions.
If it is someone you just met, ask him or her
whether you can contact them later for advice.
c. There are no dumb questions coming from new
employees. Just ask what is on your mind.
d. Ask pointed questions. If you want a specific
piece of information, ask a closed question
such as, “When is the report due?” If you want
more detailed information, ask an open-ended
question such as, “What is the process for com-
pleting an expense report?”
e. Show appreciation and gratitude to those who
answer your questions.
f. Find a “newbie buddy,” a peer who can be
your initial “go-to” person for questions.
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
580 PART 3 Organizational Processes
14.5 EMBEDDING ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
THROUGH MENTORING
The modern word mentor derives from Mentor, the name of a wise and trusted coun-
selor in Greek mythology. Terms typically associated with mentoring include teacher,
sponsor, peer, and coach. Sometimes people use the words mentor and coach interchange-
ably. Note, however, there is a difference between terms as they relate to a working rela-
tionship.
Mentoring is the process of forming and maintaining intensive and lasting
developmental relationships between a variety of developers (people who pro-
vide career and psychosocial support) and a junior person (the protégé, if male,
or protégée, if female).113 Coaching is a process that focuses on improving an
individual’s behavior and performance to resolve work issues or handle specific
aspects of the job and may be short term.114
Mentoring can serve to embed an organization’s culture when developers and the
protégé/protégée work in the same organization for two reasons. First, mentoring contrib-
utes to creating a sense of oneness by promoting the acceptance of the organization’s core
values throughout the organization. Second, the networking aspect of mentoring also pro-
motes positive interpersonal relationships.
Not only is mentoring valuable as a tactic for embedding organizational culture, but
research suggests it can significantly influence the protégé/protégée’s future career.115 This
section reviews the functions of mentoring, the role of
human and social capital in mentoring, and the personal
implications of mentoring.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Mentoring is another mechanism for embedding organizational culture because mentors play
a key role in socializing newcomers. This section can help you understand how to benefit
from mentoring, which ultimately should help you obtain career satisfaction and promotions.
Describe how
mentoring can foster
personal and
professional success.
LO 14-5
Mentoring is the process of forming and maintaining lasting developmental
relationships between colleagues. It can serve to embed an organization’s
culture because it can create a sense of oneness by promoting the accep-
tance of the organization’s core values throughout the organization.
Onoky/Image Source
Functions of Mentoring
Kathy Kram, a Boston University researcher, con-
ducted in-depth interviews with 18 pairs of senior and
junior managers. As a by-product of this study,
Kram identified two general functions of the mentor-
ing process—career and psychosocial—that occur over
four phases. Table 14.3 provides examples of these
functions.
Five career functions that enhanced career
development were:
1. Sponsorship
2. Exposure and visibility
3. Coaching
4. Protection
5. Challenging assignments
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
581Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
Four psychosocial functions were:
1. Role modeling
2. Acceptance and confirmation
3. Counseling
4. Friendship
Four Phases of Mentoring The four phases of mentoring are initiation, cultivation,
separation, and redefinition. The initiation phase lasts 6 to 12 months and starts during
the encounter phase of socialization. Mentors socialize new employees about the values,
norms, and expectations associated with the organization’s culture during this phase. If
you don’t get connected to a mentor during this period of employment, we suggest
SOURCES: Porter, Jane. Yes, You Need A Mentor, But A Sponsor Will Really Boost Your Career. Mansueto Ventures, LLC., September
23, 2014. https://www.fastcompany.com/3036037/yes-you-need-a-mentor-but-a-sponsor-will-really-boost-your-career; “NextGen
Voices: Quality Monitoring,” Science, October 201 and Bradford, Laurence. 8 Tips For An Amazing Mentor Relationship. Forbes
Media LLC., January 31, 2018. https://www.forbes.com/sites/laurencebradford/2018/01/31/8-tips-for-an-amazing- mentor-
relationship/#14b22bba21e2.
FUNCTIONS EXAMPLES
Career
Sponsorship Mentor advocates for protégé/protégée, possibly put-
ting reputation on the line by suggesting him/her for
challenging projects or additional assignments.
Exposure and visibility Mentor introduces protégé/protégée to industry col-
leagues at professional meetings and offers sugges-
tions for other networking opportunities.
Coaching Mentor provides advice to protégé/protégée regard-
ing development of additional skills to expand job
experience portfolio.
Protection Mentor defends actions/decisions of protégé/protégée
to others while at the same time providing him/her with
constructive feedback regarding actions/decisions.
Challenging assignments Mentor encourages protégé/protégée to take on
projects outside his/her comfort zone in effort to gain
more experience and expand career opportunities.
Psychosocial
Role modeling Mentor works with protégé/protégée to think critically
about specific situations that might occur in work/
personal contexts and provides advice.
Acceptance and confirmation Mentor helps protégé/protégée develop a sense of
competence and self-identity.
Counseling Mentor provides advice to protégé/protégée about
positive and negative relationships with others in the
organization.
Friendship Mentor and protégé/protégée build relationship on
mutual respect, loyalty, and trust that may help both
individuals in their professional and personal lives.
TABLE 14.3 Examples of Career and Psychosocial Functions of Mentoring
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
582 PART 3 Organizational Processes
actively seeking someone out. The cultivation phase spans two to five years and entails
the protégé/protégée receiving a host of career and psychosocial guidance. Your ability
to learn the ropes and master the tasks during this phase is essential for future promo-
tions. In the separation phase you detach from your mentor and become more autono-
mous. During the redefinition phases, you and your mentor start interacting as peers.116
Benefits of Mentoring Mentoring leads to more positive outcomes for the
protégé/protégée when several conditions are present, some of which the protégé
cannot control.
• Both mentor and protégé/protégée possess emotional intelligence.
• The mentoring relationship is formal rather than informal.117
• The mentor is skilled at coaching, is a good role model, and possesses social capital.118
• The protégé/protégée possesses high levels of human and social capital—discussed
in the next section.119
Human and Social Capital Enhance
the Benefits of Mentoring
Human Capital Human capital is the productive potential of an individual’s
knowledge, skills, and experiences. Potential is the operative word in this definition.
When you are hungry, money in your pocket is good because it has the potential to buy a
meal. Likewise, a protégé/protégée with the right combination of knowledge, skills, and
motivation to excel possesses human capital with the potential to give the organization a
competitive advantage. Developing your human capital not only enables you to more effec-
tively do your job, but it also makes you more attractive to mentors, who have options when
selecting protégé/protégées. You may find this surprising, but a recent study showed that
lack of sleep depletes your human capital and lowers performance.120 Get the proper
amount of sleep to perform at your best.
Scripps Health, a nonprofit health care system in San Diego and the 41st best place to
work in 2018 according to Fortune, helps employees develop human capital by providing
career coaching and administering scholarships, tuition reimbursement, and discounts for
courses offered by universities that have partnerships with the company. In 2018, Scripps
invested more than $35 million in employee training and provided an additional $1.33 mil-
lion in tuition reimbursement and scholarships.121
Social Capital Social capital is the productive potential resulting from relation-
ships, goodwill, trust, and cooperative effort. Again, the word potential is key. Social
capital helps you during the anticipatory phase of socialization. For example, a national
survey of recruiters revealed that 74 percent found the highest-quality job applicants
were employee referrals. Referrals also tend to stay longer at their jobs, a result of better
P–O fit.122
Social capital is beneficial beyond the early stages of your career, particularly when you
are developing trusting relationships with others. Trusting relationships lead to more job
and business opportunities, faster advancement, greater capacity to innovate, and more
status and authority.123 In addition, social capital can also lead to a form of learning called
network intelligence, which draws on the knowledge of your social network,124 as
described in the following example.
EXAMPLE LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman solved a major business problem when
he was running PayPal by drawing on the knowledge of his social network. When the
company was trying to launch services in Japan, PayPal continued to run into legal
issues and major delays. Hoffman called eight friends with good connections in Japan
and three of them mentioned the same Japanese entrepreneur. One introduction from
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
583Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
one of his connections, and Hoffman was discussing the situation with the Japanese
businessman. The businessman found a consultant who obtained a letter from the
Japanese financial services agency that gave PayPal the go-ahead to launch its ser-
vices. Shortly thereafter, PayPal Japan was up and running, and Hoffman added the
Japanese entrepreneur to his social network as a friend and collaborator.125
The moral of the story is that it pays to have a rich network of good relationships. Social
capital helps make that possible. The Applying OB box provides some strategies for you
to consider as you begin to build your own network and seek mentors to help you
along the way.
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn
Tony Avelar/AP Images
Applying OB
Key Strategies for Cultivating a Network and a Mentoring Relationship
Here are four key strategies to consider as you begin
to build your network and seek a mentor:
1. Build a broad developmental network because
the number and quality of your contacts influ-
ences your career success. In doing this, keep in
mind the comments of two networking experts:
“Relationships are living, breathing things. Feed,
nurture, and care about them; they grow. Neglect
them; they die.”126 Invest time in your develop-
mental relationships.
2. Seek consistency or congruence between your
career goals and the type of developmental net-
work at your disposal. This alignment has a big
influence on job and career satisfaction. For exam-
ple, if you are interested in a job in finance, try to
develop relationships with people with a finance
background. If you want to start your own business
one day, try to network with a diverse group of
people. This should help broaden your under-
standing of what it takes to start a business.
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
584 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Are you being adequately mentored? If not, you are more likely to experience adverse
work attitudes, performance, and career outcomes. Self-Assessment 14.4 was created so
you can take stock of your level of mentoring.
3. A mentor’s willingness to provide career and
psychosocial assistance depends on the pro-
tégé/protégée’s ability and potential and the
quality of the interpersonal relationship.127 This
point underscores the value of building your
human and social capital.
4. Develop a mentoring plan. Experts suggest your
plan should include the following steps:128
• Base your mentoring goals on what you want to
learn, and then prioritize them.
• Identify people who are skilled or experienced in
areas where you want to improve. Don’t over-
look your peers; they are a good source of func-
tional, technical, and organizational knowledge.
• Decide how best to build a relationship with your
targeted individuals.
• Figure out how you can provide value to your
mentor. Because mentoring is a two-way street,
others are more likely to help you if they see
some value in assisting you to pursue your
career goals.
• Recognize when it is time to move on. Mentors
are not forever. If you believe your mentor is
ineffective or harming more than helping, find a
new mentor. It’s easy to become stuck with one
mentor. Expanding your horizons will not only
benefit you, but it can help the mentor develop
his or her mentoring skills as well.
Assessing My Level of Mentoring
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 14.4 in Connect.
1. What is your level of mentoring?
2. After identifying your three lowest-scoring items in the survey, propose steps you
can take to improve your level of mentoring.
3. How will you evaluate the success of these steps?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 14.4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
585Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
For an organization to be successful, managers must constantly evaluate its corporate cul-
ture, recognize how the organization socializes new employees into that culture, and foster
an environment of mentoring at all levels. Here are some key points to consider.
14.6 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I USE THESE
CONCEPTS TO FIT, DEVELOP, AND PERFORM?
Takeaways for Me
Here are seven things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive change in your
personal and professional life.
1. Person–organization fit matters: It’s important to assess your level of fit with current
and future employers. Use the recommendations discussed in the Winning at Work
feature at the start of the chapter to help in this effort.
2. Departments or work units contain subcultures: Be sure to assess your fit at this level,
too.
3. Awareness of the 12 mechanisms for changing culture provides insight you can use to
help your employer move its culture in a desired direction.
4. If you are not getting what you need to perform a new job, stop and ask for guidance:
Too many companies take an ad hoc approach toward socialization, which adversely
affects your level of success.
5. You can continually upgrade your human and social capital: Take ownership for enhanc-
ing your skills, abilities, and developmental networks as well as your interpersonal
relationships if you want to experience career advancement throughout your life; you
get what you give.
6. Don’t contact mentors only when you want something: Build and maintain relationships
by continuing to have regular contact with people in your developmental network.
7. Proficiency with social networking tools such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook will
help you find jobs throughout your career.
Takeaways for Managers
There are six key implications for managers.
1. Managing organizational culture is one of the most important aspects of your job:
Remember, culture eats strategy for breakfast.
2. Culture is important because it performs four key functions for employees: Use this
knowledge to help employees reach their maximum potential.
3. Consider the extent to which your unit’s culture is fostering the type of work environment
needed to help you achieve department goals: If the culture is conflicting with your strat-
egies or goals, consider using one of the 12 mechanisms for changing culture.
4. Assess the extent to which your unit’s culture is consistent with the company’s overall
culture: Make changes as needed.
5. Take an active role in socializing employees: It’s good for you and your employer.
6. We all benefit from mentoring: Spend time developing your own human and social
capital. You never know when a new opportunity will arise.
Describe the
implications of
organizational
culture, socialization,
and mentoring for
you and managers.
LO 14-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
586 PART 3 Organizational Processes
You learned that organizational culture helps
managers to create competitive advantage. You
examined the function and types of culture and
considered how managers can change culture.
Finally, you now know that socialization and
mentoring are two processes organizations use
to embed organizational culture. As an
employee you realize how to use this knowl-
edge to understand your employer’s culture
and how best to fit in. Reinforce what you
learned with the Key Points below. Then con-
solidate your learning using the Organizing
Framework. Finally, challenge your mastery of
this chapter by answering the Major Questions
in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 14
You learned the following key points.
14.1 THE FOUNDATION OF
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE:
UNDERSTANDING ITS
DRIVERS AND FUNCTIONS
• Culture is a shared concept that we learn over
time. It also influences our behavior at work
and outcomes at multiple levels.
• The three levels of organizational culture are
observable artifacts, espoused values, and
basic underlying assumptions.
• Espoused values are the explicitly stated val-
ues and norms an organization prefers.
Enacted values, in contrast, are the values
and norms we actually see in employee
behavior.
• Four functions of organizational culture are to
establish organizational identity, encourage
collective commitment, ensure social system
stability, and act as a device for sense-
making.
14.2 THE IMPACT OF
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
TYPES ON OUTCOMES
• The competing values framework identifies
four types of organizational culture. A clan
culture has an employee focus. Adhocracy
and market cultures have external foci that
emphasize innovation/growth and market
share/profitability, respectively. Hierarchical
cultures are internally focused on efficiency
and smooth functioning.
• There are six conclusions about outcomes
associated with organizational culture: (1) cul-
ture is related to the way an organization
measures its effectiveness; (2) employees are
more satisfied and committed to companies
with clan cultures; (3) clan and market cul-
tures are more likely to deliver higher cus-
tomer satisfactions and market share;
(4) operational outcomes, quality, and innova-
tion are more strongly related to clan, adhoc-
racy, and market cultures; (5) an organization’s
financial performance is not strongly related
to culture; and (6) companies with market cul-
tures tend to have more positive organiza-
tional outcomes.
• Subcultures should be integrated with a com-
pany’s overall culture.
14.3 MECHANISMS OR LEVERS
FOR CULTURE CHANGE
• Here are four key points about culture
change. First, leaders are the architects and
developers of organizational culture. Second,
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
587Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
• There are four important personal implications
of effective mentoring. First, build a broad
developmental network because the number
and quality of your contacts influences your
career success. Second, seek consistency or
congruence between your career goals and
the type of developmental network at your dis-
posal. Third, a mentor’s willingness to provide
career and psychosocial assistance depends
on the protégé/protégée’s ability and potential
and the quality of the interpersonal relation-
ship. Finally, develop a mentoring plan.
14.6 HOW CAN I USE THESE
CONCEPTS TO FIT, DEVELOP,
AND PERFORM?
• Assessing your level of fit with current and future
employers is important to your overall success.
• Stopping to ask for guidance in a new job is
an important strategy for personal and profes-
sional development.
• Managing organizational culture is one of the
most important aspects of any manager’s job.
The Organizing Framework
for Chapter 14
As shown in Figure 14.8, you learned that two
person factors and four situation factors influence
individual, group/team, and organizational pro-
cesses. You now understand the power of organi-
zational culture, having considered many
outcomes related to it. The Outcomes box shows
five individual-, two group/team-, and five organi-
zational-level outcomes influenced by culture,
socialization, and mentoring.
Challenge: Major Questions for
Chapter 14
You now should be able to answer the following
questions. Unless you can, have you really
processed and internalized the lessons in the
the process of culture change begins with tar-
geting the three layers of culture. Third, cul-
ture needs to be aligned with a company’s
vision and strategic plan. Finally, a structured
approach works best when implementing cul-
ture change.
• Managers can change organizational culture
in 12 ways.
• Good person–organization fit is associated
with positive work attitudes and performance.
14.4 EMBEDDING
ORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE THROUGH THE
SOCIALIZATION PROCESS
• Socialization is a key mechanism organiza-
tions use to embed their organizational cul-
tures. It turns outsiders into fully functioning
insiders.
• The three-phase model of socialization pro-
poses that anticipatory socialization, encoun-
ter, and change and acquisition take place.
• Six opposite pairs of socialization tactics are
collective versus individual, formal versus
informal, sequential versus random, fixed ver-
sus variable, serial versus disjunctive, and
investiture versus divestiture.
14.5 EMBEDDING
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
THROUGH MENTORING
• Mentoring helps embed organizational cul-
ture in two ways. First, it contributes to creat-
ing a sense of oneness by promoting
acceptance of the organization’s values. Sec-
ond, the socialization aspect of mentoring
promotes a sense of membership.
• Mentoring has two general functions: career
and psychosocial.
• Mentoring occurs in four phases: initiation,
cultivation, separation, and redefinition.
• The human and social capital of both parties
enhance the benefits of mentoring.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
588 PART 3 Organizational Processes
3. What mechanisms or levers can I use to
implement culture change?
4. How can I integrate the findings of sociali-
zation research with the three phases of
socialization?
5. How can I use mentoring to foster personal
and professional success?
chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 14.8, the
chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and answer
the following major questions:
1. What is culture and why is it helpful to under-
stand its layers and functions?
2. How are different types of organizational cul-
ture related to important outcomes?
FIGURE 14.8 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Human capital
• Social capital
Situation Factors
• Culture types
• Leader behavior
• Organizational climate
• Human resource practices
and policies
Individual Level
• P-O fit
• Socialization
• Mentoring
Group/Team Level
• Group dynamics
• Department/unit culture
Organizational Level
• Culture
• Socialization
• Mentoring
Individual Level
• Work attitudes
• Employee behaviors
• Career outcomes
• Task performance
• Turnover
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group cohesion and conflict
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial perfor-
mance
• Customer service/satisfaction
• Innovation
• Product/service quality
• Operational efficiency
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
589Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
Ford Motor Company revolutionized the auto manufac-
turing industry more than 100 years ago with the inven-
tion of the assembly line, but lately the company is
struggling to remain attractive to investors. Ford has
experienced costly recalls and lost hundreds of millions
of dollars from its international businesses in recent
years.129 New tariffs on steel and aluminum have eaten
up $1 billion of Ford’s profits, and Moody’s has down-
graded the company’s credit rating to one level above
“junk” status. By the fall of 2018, Ford’s stock price hit a
nine-year low.130 Meanwhile, rival manufacturers are
inching closer to delivering on new technologies like
fully autonomous and connected automobiles, and
Ford needs to reinvent itself to have any chance of sur-
viving, let alone thriving, in its rapidly shifting competi-
tive environment. But can a massive, entrenched,
116-year-old company change itself? Executive Chair-
man Bill Ford believes it can, and in May 2017 he
brought on CEO James Hackett to make it happen.
Hackett planned to drastically alter the way Ford
operated.131 Specifically, he wanted to change Ford’s
culture to one that was more open-minded, creative,
and adaptable so that it would be better equipped to
respond to rapidly shifting market demands.132 Stake-
holders had high expectations for Hackett’s ability to
deliver. In the two decades he spent as CEO of Steel-
case, Inc.—an office furniture company—Hackett was
a strong proponent of “design thinking.” This
approach to problem solving focuses on the
customer—what goes through their minds and how
they experience a product.133 At Steelcase, Hackett’s
teams of sociologists, anthropologists, and technol-
ogy experts used design thinking to transform the
company from a cubicle designer to a trailblazer in
today’s open, collaborative workspaces.134 Hackett
was hired to bring design thinking to Ford, overhaul
its culture, and reinvent the approach the automaker
took to creating its products.135
Hackett made some noticeable changes right away.
He reduced the number of people reporting directly to
him from 18 to 8 and decreased the frequency of
meetings with them to allow them more time for cre-
ative thinking and decision making. He hired 28-year-
old Clare Braun as his chief of staff, calling her a
“reverse mentor” who would help him understand how
people under 30 were thinking. Hackett also made
waves by removing a plaque that commemorated for-
mer CEO Alan Mulally’s “One Ford” plan. Mulally’s plan
had been credited with repairing Ford’s culture and
saving profits ten years earlier, but Hackett wanted to
make the point that old approaches only continue to
work if the past and future were identical. The space
on the wall became dedicated to drawing, mapping,
and diagramming out Ford’s strategy for competing in
its new reality.136
Hackett favors collaboration over traditional top-
down management. Many of his efforts to change the
culture inside Ford’s corporate offices have centered
around removing hierarchies to generate creative dis-
cussions across functional areas.137 For example,
Hackett launched “Team Edison” to focus exclusively
on electric vehicles. The cross-functional team occu-
pies an open space inside one of Ford’s former Detroit
factories and, according to director Darren Palmer,
knew that to succeed they needed to “be willing to
challenge every truth and every process we had
developed over the course of our careers.” Hackett
has encouraged the team to generate ideas from mul-
tiple viewpoints. According to Palmer, “On any given
day you can find yourself sitting next to someone
working to market our electric vehicles, someone
looking at the profit potential of our electric vehicles,
or be on a coffee break with someone involved in our
charging strategy.”138
FRUSTRATIONS WITH HACKETT
By mid-2018, approximately one year after Hackett
took over, Ford’s profits were down around $1 billion.
Key stakeholders were growing increasingly anxious
and impatient with the fact they still didn’t understand
exactly what was going on or how Hackett planned to
change the company.139
Analysts began criticizing Hackett for failing to artic-
ulate a compelling vision for exactly where he planned
to take Ford. Morgan Stanley analyst Adam Jonas said
what little Hackett had communicated was “vague and
unstructured” compared to Ford’s industry competi-
tors. One journalist said Hackett used “fuzzy terms
more common to urbanists and businesspeople, and
talking with him can feel like taking a college philoso-
phy seminar after a few bong rips.”140 Issues with
Hackett’s communication were present inside the
company as well, where executives were often calling
upon Braun, Hackett’s chief of staff, to translate Hack-
ett’s diagrams and cryptic messages after meetings.141
Ford dealership owners also expressed concerns
about communications from corporate headquarters.
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Cultures Clash at Ford
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
590 PART 3 Organizational Processes
industry leader, which he sees as particularly important
in Ford’s situation. Ford’s competitors are no longer
limited to other auto manufacturers and now include
Silicon Valley. Hackett thinks Ford’s best shot is to start
thinking like a tech start-up, saying, “Corporations tend
to reward action over thinking . . . But the truth is . . .
you’ll find the companies that didn’t do the deep think-
ing and acted quickly have to redo things.”150
Hackett acknowledges that it has been difficult for
his executive team to adjust to him and his penchant
for design thinking, but he believes they are starting to
see the method to his madness.151 One member of his
team said recently that they believe “People will look
back in a few years and say, ‘I understand now.’ ”152
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 14.8 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember
that a problem is a gap between a desired and a
current state. State your problem as a gap, and
be sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
accomplished, decide which one is most impor-
tant and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and prob-
lems are generally viewed from a particular pro-
tagonist’s perspective. Identify the perspective
from which you’re defining the problem.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, summarized in the Organiz-
ing Framework shown in Figure 14.8. Causes will
appear in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.
A. Start by looking at Figure 14.8 to identify which
person factors, if any, are most likely causes to
the defined problem. For each cause, ask your-
self, Why is this a cause of the problem? Asking
why multiple times is more likely to lead you to
root causes of the problem.
B. Follow the same process for the situation factors.
C. Now consider the Processes box shown in
Figure 14.8. Consider concepts listed at all three
levels. For any concept that might be a cause,
ask yourself, Why is this a cause? Again, do this
for several iterations to arrive at root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, map them onto the defined problem.
Jack Madden, owner of a Ford dealership in Norwood,
Massachusetts, said “There’s been a lot less exposure
to senior management . . . There’s just not enough
information flowing down to dealers about where the
company’s headed.”142
One thing Hackett did make clear was that reorga-
nizing and reinventing Ford would require that the
company become leaner in both its product offerings
and its workforce. Hackett moved quickly and explicitly
to slash Ford’s unprofitable vehicles and ventures. He
announced in early 2018 that the company would dis-
continue five of its sedans to focus on SUVs and
trucks.143 Ford also announced in 2019 that it was
closing its oldest factory in Brazil and pulling out of its
South American commercial truck business.144 Hackett
has been less transparent on how and when he plans
to trim Ford’s workforce. While the need for some job
cuts within Ford is not disputed, the manner in which
Hackett has communicated about the impending lay-
offs has been heavily scrutinized. Experts believe that
vague statements about layoffs, along with a long pro-
cess, have the potential to negatively impact employee
morale. Employees may feel undue stress and begin
job searching and underperforming if they worry about
losing their jobs.145
IS FORD TURNING A CORNER?
Ford reported first quarter earnings in 2019 that far out-
paced investors’ expectations.146 Around the same
time, Hackett gave what some felt was his most straight-
forward statement to date. He told analysts that Ford’s
two previous CEOs had allowed the company’s costs to
incrementally increase so much that the company had
to, as one article put it, “stop the bleeding before it
could start showing gains from herculean efforts to turn
the company around.” Hackett reported that by the end
of 2018, the company had finally been able to put a
stop to the spending and level off structural expenses.
Hackett said the company would be able to move much
more quickly to deliver new products to the market now
that this problem had been solved.147 Ford has
announced it will make substantial investments in elec-
tric vehicles, and Hackett recently told CNBC that driv-
ers should expect a “big surprise” on the horizon.148
Still, it’s likely that Hackett will continue to mystify
Ford’s stakeholders. In an industry looking for a savior
with a clear, concise plan of action, Hackett operates
more like a coach. He favors using things like TED
talks and Socratic exercises to slowly draw creativity
and organic solutions from his people, rather than
handing down personal dictates.149 Hackett’s quirky
style is closer to that of a tech CEO than an auto
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
591Organizational Culture, Socialization, and Mentoring CHAPTER 14
B. You may find potential solutions in the OB in
Action boxes and Applying OB boxes within this
chapter. These features provide insights into
what other individuals or companies are doing in
relationship to the topic at hand.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations.
STEP 3: Make your recommendations for solving the
problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it,
solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom-
mendation is desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use the content in
Chapter 14 or one of the earlier chapters to pro-
pose a solution.
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Should the Citadel Change Its Socialization Practices?
The Citadel—The Military College of South Carolina—
was founded in 1842. It has a student body of about
2,300 undergraduates (2,121 males and 171 females)
and about 1,000 graduate students. The college’s
vision is “achieving excellence in the education and
development of principled leaders.” Its “primary pur-
pose has been to educate undergraduates as mem-
bers of the South Carolina Corps of Cadets and to
prepare them for post-graduate positions of leadership
through academic programs of recognized excellence
supported by the best features of a military environ-
ment. The cadet lifestyle provides a structured envi-
ronment that supports growth and development of
each student’s intellect, discipline, physical fitness, and
moral and ethical values.”153
In socializing new students, the Citadel uses the
divestiture approach reviewed in Table 14.2. In this
method, organizations attempt to strip away a new-
comer’s existing sense of self and reorient it into one
that conforms to the institution’s image. College Presi-
dent Lt. General John Rosa said, “The cadet system is
based on common uniform and standardization of
cadets in appearance, actions, and privileges is essen-
tial to the military system.”154
A newly admitted female student requested to wear
a traditional Muslim headscarf, called a hijab. President
Rosa said the school respects students’ religious
views, but could not accommodate a request that
would disrupt the school’s core principles. “Uniformity
is the cornerstone of this four-year leader develop-
ment model,” said Rosa. The school does make accom-
modations for prayer and dietary needs.155
The student’s parents considered legal action because
the Citadel is a public university. She ultimately chose to
pursue naval officer training at Norwich University after
the school honored her request to wear the hijab with her
uniform. Norwich President Richard Schneider said in a
statement to the higher education community, “As educa-
tors of future leaders, it is our duty to matriculate a diverse
student body that reflects our society . . . Norwich pre-
pares traditional students and the young men and women
of our corps of cadets to welcome and respect diversity
and to be inclusive of all people.” 156
Solving the Dilemma
Assuming you were the president of the Citadel, what
would you do?
1. The college has the right to determine its own
mission, culture, and socialization techniques.
I would deny the request because such action is
consistent with the Citadel’s mission, culture,
and method of socialization.
2. The college is a public institution and it needs
to be more open-minded when it comes to
supporting diversity. I would accommodate the
woman based on religious considerations.
3. I would deny the request because the Citadel is
a military school. The prospective student knew
this coming in, and she should not have applied
if she could not abide by the dress code for reli-
gious reasons.
4. Invent other options.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 15-1 Describe the basics of organizational effectiveness.
LO 15-2 Describe the characteristics of an organization.
LO 15-3 Describe the seven types of organizational structure.
LO 15-4 Explain the relationship between contingency design and internal
alignment.
LO 15-5 Describe the importance of innovation in any organization.
LO 15-6 Explain how to assess an organization’s effectiveness.
LO 15-7 Describe the implications of organizational design, effectiveness,
and innovation for you and managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
The Organizing Framework shown in Figure 15.1 summarizes what you will learn in this chapter.
The influences on key processes at the individual, group, and organi zational levels are three
person factors (attitudes about freelancing, goal orientation and P–O fit) and six situation factors
(organizational structure, organizational culture, organizational climate, organizational vision
and values, contingency factors, and office design). The greater number of situation rather than
person factors impacting processes reveals that situation factors play a more important role
in explaining the OB outcomes discussed in this chapter. However, OB processes affect
outcomes at all three levels.
Organizational
Design, Effectiveness,
and Innovation15
Fe
re
nc
S
ze
le
pc
se
ny
i/S
hu
tte
rs
to
ck
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
593Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
FIGURE 15.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Attitudes about freelancing
• Goal orientation
• P-O fit
Situation Factors
• Organizational structure
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
• Organizational vision and
values
• Contingency factors
• Physical environment
Individual Level
• Decision making
Group/Team Level
• Postmortems of failure
• Decision making
• Communication
Organizational Level
• Organizational learning
• Human resource policies,
practices, and procedures
• Communication
• Balanced scorecard
• Strategy maps
• Innovation system
Individual Level
• Job satisfaction
• Performance
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Innovation
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Innovation
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
These two photos are great representations of how organizational design and innovation have changed over the years. The photo of
workers on the left depicts a typical department in the early 1900s. Note the linear set of desks and the seriousness with which people
are working. If you look toward the left edge of this photo you will see managers in the aisle watching over the workers. Organizations
tended to be structured more hierarchically and relied on more managerial oversight. In contrast, modern day offices tend to be more
open, which encourages more spontaneous interactions among coworkers. Research shows that creativity and innovation are enhanced
by spontaneous interactions.
SOURCE: (Left): Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division [LC-DIG-hec-29780]; (right): Robert Daly/Caia Image/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
594
Winning at Work
Working Virtually Takes Special Preparations
A recent report by careers website Flexjobs reveals that
3.9 million U.S. workers—nearly 3 percent of the workforce,
including freelancers—now work from home at least two or
three days a week. That’s a 115 percent increase from
2005, and the number is expected to keep growing, as
companies large and small both hire more freelancers and
extend more flexible work arrangements to a larger pool of
their in-house employees.1 Some estimates suggest that as
much as a third to half the U.S. workforce could be working
remotely in just the next few years.2 If you haven’t already
had the experience of working from home, your odds of
doing so soon are increasing all the time.
Why Is It Hard to Work Virtually?
Although you can work virtually from almost anywhere,
most virtual work is done at home. Three primary issues
make this challenging. The first is the need for personal
contact and social interaction. Many of us enjoy the social
contact and camaraderie that comes with working in an
office. Second, many people have difficulty creating bound-
aries between their work and home life. Finally, it takes dis-
cipline to work from home. There are no managers or
colleagues around to prompt you to get things done.
Tips for Working Virtually
1. Separate work life from home life. You need dedi-
cated space to work, free of clutter and distractions
(like the TV). It should feel like an office, be well lit, and
allow for privacy. One expert suggested that you “es-
tablish ‘do not disturb’ guidelines, work hours, break
times, and a policy on handling personal matters . . . no
doing dishes or laundry or taking out the trash during
work hours . . . treat your home office as if it were a
‘real’ office located somewhere else.”3
2. Set your work hours. Too much flexibility can lead to
distractions and wasted time. Commit to specific hours
just as if you were going to an office. Otherwise you
may find yourself putting off your work or working
around the clock to make up for it.
3. Establish and maintain a morning routine. You want
your morning routine to put you into a productive
mind-set. Business writer Shannon Cyr recommends
that virtual workers should “take a shower, get dressed,
brush your teeth, make the bed, exercise, make coffee,
eat breakfast, or meditate. Regardless of what you do
to start your day, the trick is to remain consistent in
your routine so you give your brain a signal it’s time to
start the workday.”4
4. Set expectations with family and friends. Talk to fam-
ily and friends about your need to minimize distrac-
tions while working from home. You need to be left
alone. It must be clear that working from home doesn’t
mean you are available to answer personal questions
any more than if you worked at an office. Interruptions
should be allowed for important issues.
5. Establish goals and to-do lists. A list of things you need
to get done will help you focus on the work and avoid
distractions or the tendency to procrastinate. Your
author, Angelo Kinicki, works virtually and starts every
day with a prioritized list of things to accomplish.
6. Communicate with people in your professional net-
work. Out of sight, out of mind. Proactive communica-
tion with your network is essential if you are working
virtually. This obviously includes your boss and cowork-
ers, but also customers, vendors, and personal contacts.
We recommend that you make an effort to lunch with
work colleagues and others in your network.
7. Get the desired level of human interaction. Schedule
time to meet face-to-face with coworkers and friends.
You will have to make a special effort because you are
the one away from the office.
8. Know yourself before saying yes. Working virtually is
not for everyone. It takes self-motivation, flexibility,
emotional intelligence, and sensitivity to what others
need.5 If you don’t have these skills, it may be better to
say no to telecommuting.
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
This second chapter on macro OB highlights
the way organizational structure and design affect
organizational-level outcomes. We begin by exploring
the basic foundation of an organization and then
review seven basic ways organizations are struc-
tured. Next, we review the contingency approach to
organizational design and explore innovation and
the ways in which you can foster it. We conclude by
discussing the four basic effectiveness criteria used
by organizations.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
595Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Organizations have common characteristics. Understanding how these characteristics
dynamically interact will help you contribute to organizational success. It will also assist you
in finding an employer whose structure and culture fit with your values and needs. We begin
this chapter by providing an overview of the basics of organizational effectiveness.
15.1 UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
Organizational behavior scholars attempt to understand why organizations do what they
do by treating organizations like individual entities. They isolate organizational character-
istics or features such as culture, climate, and structure and determine how they dynami-
cally work together to affect organizational performance or effectiveness.
This chapter provides an overview regarding the impact of two organizational
characteristics—organizational structure and innovation—on organizational effectiveness.
This awareness is fundamental to navigating your way through organizational life and to
understanding how and why managers implement organizational change. To guide our
journey into organizational effectiveness, consider that all organizations have three
things in common.
First, all organizations have a form or structure that acts like a fingerprint. An organi-
zation’s structure enables us to understand who reports to whom and how information is
expected to flow across organizational levels. For example, the federal government in the
U.S. is structured around many hierarchical levels, which can cause slow decision making
and duplication of efforts. This structure is one reason why the federal government has a
fingerprint of being sluggish and bureaucratic. In contrast, W.L. Gore, one of the 200 larg-
est privately held firms in the U.S., has a very different organizational fingerprint. It is
known as an innovative and nimble firm that uses a flatter structure to create the products
it sells to the medical, pharmaceutical and biology, oil and gas, automotive, aerospace and
semiconductor industries.
Second, all organizations share the desire to be effective. For many firms this
amounts to making money and satisfying employees, customers, and shareholders. For
others, such as nonprofit firms like the Red Cross or United Way, their goals include
feeding and housing the homeless and others in need. The point is that all organizations
desire to be effective in one way or another. Finally, all organizations generally find that
innovation is needed to remain in business. Innovation is a key driver of long-term orga-
nizational performance.
Figure 15.2 provides a broad illustration of the basic process underlying organiza-
tional effectiveness. It primarily highlights the role of organizational structure and innova-
tion. Starting at the far right of the diagram is the outcome of organizational effectiveness.
You will learn that a tool called the Balanced Scorecard is a good method for understand-
ing the criteria managers use to define organizational success. You will also learn
that organizational effectiveness is fundamentally driven by the way managers design
Describe the basics
of organizational
effectiveness.
LO 15-1
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
596 PART 3 Organizational Processes
an organization. Organizational design represents an organization’s fingerprint or structure
and is generally built around one of seven different structures. Choosing the best structure
entails considering how an organization’s external and internal environments influence an
organization’s mission, vision, and goals. You will learn that this is called contingency
design. Figure 15.2 further shows that organizational design influences organizational
innovation and ultimately organizational effectiveness.
FIGURE 15.2 The Basics of Organizational Effectiveness
Organizational Design
• Seven Structures
Organizational
Innovation
Organizational
E
ectiveness
External
Environment
Internal
Environment
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
597Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Whether they are for-profit, nonprofit, or mutual benefit, organizations possess some com-
mon characteristics. The better you understand these foundations, the better prepared you
will be to perform at any level of the organization. You’ll explore these commonalities and
more, such as the difference between closed and open systems and the way organizations
can become learning organizations. As a necessary springboard for this chapter, we formally
define the term organization, clarify the meaning of organization charts, and explore two
open-system perspectives of organizations.
15.2 THE FOUNDATION OF AN ORGANIZATION
What Is an Organization?
From a design perspective, an organization is “a system of consciously coordinated
activities or forces of two or more persons.”6 Earlier in this book, the everyday under-
standing of organization was adequate for our discussions. But this formal definition is
especially helpful now because the phrase “consciously coordinated” underscores the
importance of organizational design.
Embodied in the conscious coordination aspect of this definition are four common
denominators of all organizations: coordination of effort, aligned goals, division of labor,
and a hierarchy of authority.7
• Coordination of effort is achieved through formulation and enforcement of policies,
rules, and regulations.
• Aligned goals start with the development of a companywide strategic plan. These
strategic goals are then cascaded down through the organization so employees are
aligned in their pursuit of common goals.
• Division of labor occurs when the common goals are pursued by individuals per-
forming separate but related tasks.
• Hierarchy of authority, also called the chain of command, is a control mechanism
dedicated to making sure the right people do the right things at the right time.
Historically, managers have maintained the integrity of the hierarchy of authority
by adhering to the unity of command principle. The unity of command principle
specifies that each employee should report to only one manager. Otherwise,
the argument goes, inefficiency would prevail because of conflicting orders and
lack of personal accountability. As you will learn in this chapter, this philosophy of
managing and structuring organizations has been replaced by more dynamic
approaches.8
When operating in concert, the four foundational factors—coordination of effort,
aligned goals, division of labor, and a hierarchy of authority—enable an organization to
come to life and function.
Describe the
characteristics of
an organization.
LO 15-2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
598 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Organization Charts
An organization chart is a graphic representation of formal authority and division of labor
relationships. Within each box is the name and title of a current position holder. Infor-
mally, we can think of an organization chart as a family tree. To organization theorists,
however, organization charts reveal much more. The partial organization chart in
Figure 15.3 shows four basic dimensions of organizational structure: (1) hierarchy of
authority (who reports to whom), (2) division of labor, (3) spans of control, and (4) line
and staff positions.
Hierarchy of Authority As Figure 15.3 illustrates, an organization has an unmistak-
able structure or chain of command. Working from bottom to top, the 10 directors report
to the two executive directors who report to the president who reports to the chief execu-
tive officer. Ultimately, the chief executive officer answers to the hospital’s board of direc-
tors. The chart in Figure 15.3 shows strict unity of command up and down the line. A
formal hierarchy of authority also delineates the official communication network and
speaks volumes about compensation. Research shows that the difference in pay between
successive layers tends to increase over time.9
Division of Labor Our sample organization chart indicates extensive division of labor.
Immediately below the hospital’s president, one executive director is responsible for gen-
eral administration, while another is responsible for medical affairs. Each of these two
specialties is further subdivided, as indicated by the next layer of positions. At each succes-
sively lower level in the organization, jobs become more specialized.
FIGURE 15.3 Sample Organization Chart for a Hospital (Executive and Director
Levels Only)
Board of
Directors
President
Strategic
Planning
Adviser
Chief Executive
O�cer
Executive
Administrative
Director
Director of
Human
Resources
Director of
Admissions
Director of
Accounting
Director of
Nutrition
and Food
Services
Director of
X-Ray and
Laboratory
Services
Director of
Surgery
Director of
Pharmacy
Chief
Physician
Director of
Outpatient
Services
Director of
Patient and
Public
Relations
Executive
Medical
Director
Legal
Counsel
Cost-Containment
Sta€
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
599Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
Spans of Control Span of control describes the number of people reporting
directly to a given manager. Spans of control can range from narrow to wide. For
example, the president in Figure 15.3 has a narrow span of control of two. (Staff assistants
usually are not included in a manager’s span of control.) Narrow spans of control tend to
create “taller” or more hierarchical organizations. In contrast, a wide span of control leads
to a “flat” organization. The executive administrative director in Figure 15.3 has a wider
span of control of five. Historically, spans of 7 to 10 people were considered best. More
recently, however, corporate restructuring and improved communication technologies
have increased the typical span of control.10
Although there is no consensus regarding the optimal span of control, managers
should consider four factors when establishing spans of control: organizational size, man-
agers’ skill level, organizational culture, and managerial responsibilities. Let’s consider
each of these factors.11
1. Organizational size. Larger organizations tend to have narrower spans of control and
more organizational layers, whereas smaller ones have a wider span of control. Costs
tend to be higher in organizations with narrow spans due to the increased expense of
having more managers. Communication also tends to be slower in narrow spans
because information must travel throughout multiple organizational layers.
2. Skill level. Complex tasks require more managerial input, thereby suggesting a narrow
span of control. Conversely, routine tasks do not require much supervision, leading to
the use of a wider span of control.
3. Organizational culture. Narrow spans of control are more likely in companies with
a hierarchical culture because they focus on internal integration and stability and
control—recall Figure 14.4. In contrast, wider spans of control are more likely to be
found in companies that desire flexibility and discretion, cultures characterized as
clan or adhocracy. Wider spans also complement cultures that desire greater worker
autonomy and participation.
4. Managerial responsibilities. The most senior-level executives tend to have narrower
spans of control than middle managers because their responsibilities are broader in
scope and more complex. It’s important to consider the breadth of a person’s respon-
sibilities when deciding his or her span of control.
Line and Staff Positions The organization chart in Figure 15.3 also distinguishes
between line and staff positions. Line managers such as the president, the two executive
directors, and the various directors occupy formal decision-making positions within the
chain of command. Line positions generally are connected by solid lines on organization
charts. Dotted lines indicate staff relationships. Staff employees do background
research and provide technical advice and recommendations to their line managers.
Line managers generally have the authority to make decisions for their units.
For example, the cost-containment specialists in the sample organization chart merely
advise the president on relevant matters. Apart from supervising the work of their own
staff assistants, they have no line authority over other organizational members. Modern
trends such as cross-functional teams and matrix structures, discussed later in this chapter,
are blurring the distinction between line and staff.
An Open-System Perspective of Organizations
To better understand how organizational models have evolved over the years, we need to
know the difference between closed and open systems. A closed system is a self-
sufficient entity. It is “closed” to the surrounding environment. In contrast, an open
system depends on constant interaction with the environment for survival. The dis-
tinction between closed and open systems is a matter of degree. Because every worldly
system is partly closed and partly open, the key question is: How great a role does the
environment play in the functioning of the system? For instance, a battery-powered clock
is a relatively closed system. Once the battery has been inserted, the clock performs its
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
600 PART 3 Organizational Processes
time-keeping function hour after hour until the
battery goes dead. The human body, on the
other hand, is a highly open system because it
requires a constant supply of life-sustaining oxy-
gen from the environment. Nutrients and water
also are imported from the environment. Open
systems are capable of self-correction, adapta-
tion, and growth, thanks to feedback from the
environment.
Whole Foods Market’s approach to the
growing and selling of organic food is good
example of an open system. John Mackey,
cofounder and CEO of Whole Foods Market,
believes this industry can benefit from systems
thinking. “Organic has grown stale. Its guide-
lines prohibit the use of synthetic fertilizers and
pesticides, which is a good thing,” he says. But
they don’t address all the burgeoning issues—
from excessive water usage to the treatment of
migrant laborers—facing agriculture today. And
once farmers are certified as organic, Mackey
believes they have little incentive to improve
their practices. Whole Foods thus decided to
take a more open-systems approach by imple-
menting a new system called Responsibly
Grown. The program measures factors such as
energy conservation, waste reduction, and farm-
worker welfare. As you might imagine, many
local organic growers are angry about these changes, claiming they will increase their
costs. Whole Foods has made some small adjustments to the program based on this feed-
back, but Mackey is staying with it. He firmly believes an open-systems approach is better
for consumers and the planet. In addition, with Amazon’s recent purchase of Whole
Foods, it remains to be see what impact the acquisition will have on Mackey’s strong com-
mitment to responsible growing and sustainability practices.12
Historically, management theorists downplayed the environment because they used
closed-system thinking to characterize organizations as either well-oiled machines or
highly disciplined military units. They believed rigorous planning and control would elim-
inate environmental uncertainty. But that approach proved unrealistic. Drawing on the
field of general systems theory that emerged during the 1950s, organization theorists
suggested a more dynamic model for organizations.13 The resulting open-system model
likened organizations to the human body. Accordingly, the model in Figure 15.4 reveals
the organization to be a living organism that transforms inputs into various outputs.
(Notice the similarity to the Input, Process, and Outcome features of the Organizing
Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.) The outer boundary of the organiza-
tion is permeable. People, information, capital, and goods and services move back and
forth across this boundary.
Moreover, each of the five organizational subsystems—goals and values, technical, psy-
chosocial, structural, and managerial—is dependent on the others. Feedback about such
things as sales and customer satisfaction enables the organization to self-adjust and survive
despite uncertainty and change. In effect, the organization is alive.
Learning Organizations
In recent years, organizational theorists have extended the open-system model by adding
a “brain” to the “living body.” Organizations are said to have humanlike cognitive func-
tions, such as the abilities to perceive and interpret, solve problems, store information,
Whole Foods Market is putting increased pressure on farms like this
to produce products that are Responsibly Grown. This organic farm of
green and red lettuce would need to meet Whole Foods standards
if it wants to sell produce to the company. Do you think it is fair for
chains like Whole Foods to create additional standards that increase
a farmer’s costs?
Ingram Publishing
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
601Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
and learn from experience. This realization has led to a stream of research that examines
the process by which organizations learn. Peter Senge, a professor at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology, popularized the term learning organization in his best-selling
book The Fifth Discipline. He described a learning organization as “a group of people
working together to collectively enhance their capacities to create results that they truly
care about.”14 A practical interpretation of these ideas results in the following definition.
A learning organization proactively creates, acquires, and transfers knowledge
and changes its behavior on the basis of new knowledge and insights.15
We want to understand how organizations learn because organizational learning is
positively associated with organizational performance and innovation, a topic we discuss
later in this chapter.16 Researchers have shown that organizations learn by using five inde-
pendent subprocesses (see Figure 15.5): information acquisition, information distribution,
information interpretation, knowledge integration, and organizational memory.17 Let us
consider how these processes work.
FIGURE 15.4 The Organization as an Open System
SOURCE: Kast, Fremont E., and James E. Rosenzweig. Organization and Management: A System and Contingency Approach, 4th ed.
New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986.
Technical
OutputsInputs
Subsystems
The Organization
StructuralPsychosocial
Goals and
Values
Managerial
FIGURE 15.5 The Process of Organizational Learning
Organizational
Learning
Information
Distribution
Information
Interpretation
Knowledge
Integration
Organizational
Memory
Information
Acquisition
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
602 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Step 1: Information Acquisition
Information acquisition, also known
as scanning, is “the process through
which an organization obtains infor-
mation from internal and external
sources.”18 Because this is the first
step of learning, organizations should
cast a wide net in their acquisition of
information. For example, discus-
sions about past success and failure,
called postmortems, are critical
sources of information.
Step 2: Information Distribution
Information distribution consists of
the processes or systems that people,
groups, or organizational units use to
share information among themselves.
For example, Jill Nelson, the founder
of Ruby, a virtual receptionist service
in Oregon, asks employees to discuss their mistakes at weekly staff meetings. Nelson com-
mented, “We discuss the mistakes and what the employees learned from them. The sharing
of this information sends the message that it’s OK to make a low-stakes mistake—as long as
you learn from it and share your lesson with others.”19
Step 3: Information Interpretation This step is all about making sense of the infor-
mation organizations have acquired and distributed. In this process people are affected by
the perceptual biases discussed in Chapter 4 and the decision-making biases reviewed in
Chapter 11.
Step 4: Knowledge Integration Knowledge integration occurs when information is
shared and accumulated across different parts of an organization. This provides more and
better information for making decisions. This step can be accomplished by having post-
mortems in which different people or groups present their ideas about an opportunity or
problem. The point is to seek consensus about what the learned information means.
Step 5: Organizational Memory Learning will not last unless the organization finds a
method to save it. Knowledge needs to be put into some type of repository or organizational
memory if it is to be used in the future. Organizational memory is not an object. According
to a team of OB experts, it is the combined processes of “encoding, storing, and retrieving
the lessons learned from an organization’s history, despite the turnover of personnel.”20
What Can Be Done to Improve Organizational Learning? We have three rec-
ommendations for improving organizational learning.
1. Improve on the five steps just discussed. You might begin by using a survey to assess the
extent to which your organization is already following these steps. Self-Assessment 15.1
was created so that you could make this assessment on a current or former employer. You
can use the results to target organizational changes aimed at improving learning.
2. Realize that leader behavior, organizational climate, and organizational culture drive
organizational learning.21 If leaders do not support a vision and culture that promote
the value of learning, it won’t happen.
EXAMPLE U.S. Army leaders understand this conclusion. In the 1990s, the Army
coined the acronym VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) to describe
the post–Cold War operational environment it faced. To respond to this new reality,
the Army moved from a threat-based force to a capability-based force, which
This unit of firefighters has to rely on organizational learning to effectively
fight fires. It has to work as a team while adjusting to factors such as
weather, temperature, and breadth of the fire. Fire units also are known
for having postmortems after a fire to discuss the lessons learned.
Eric Schultz/The Huntsville Times/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
603Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
required the organization to leverage technology, align organizational structures,
and establish a learning organization. Learning strategies included war game simula-
tions; new concepts in tactical combat training; and a progressive system of profes-
sional education to prepare leaders for the organizational change.22
3. We can all be role models of learning from failure. Failure occurs when an activity
fails to deliver its expected results or outcomes. Unfortunately, failure or mistakes
are generally feared and penalized, which creates an environment of risk aversion. Bill
Gates, co-founder of Microsoft, concludes, “It’s fine to celebrate success, but it’s more
important to heed the lessons of failure. How a company deals with mistakes suggests
how well it will bring out the best ideas and talents of its people, and how effectively it
will respond to change.”23
Suggestions in the Applying OB box guide the way to learning from failure.
Are You Working for a Learning Organization?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 15.1 in Connect.
1. To what extent is the company a learning organization? Are you surprised by the
results?
2. Identify the three items receiving the lowest ratings. Propose solutions for
improving on these three areas.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.1
Applying OB
Learning from Failure
1. Conduct postmortems. Demonstrate leadership
and maturity by owning your mistake, even if it’s
hard. Then start at the beginning and consider
everything that occurred during the project,
reflecting on why it failed or a goal was missed.
You may need to collect data, and you can also
use the Organizing Framework to brainstorm
potential causes of the failure. Reflect on what you
learned regarding each of these factors:
a. Customers.
b. The organization’s vision, strategy, culture,
climate, and internal processes.
c. Yourself and those who worked on the project.
d. Group dynamics.
e. Organizational leadership and politics.24
2. Share the learning with others. The real value of
failure comes from sharing our experiences with
others.25 This is a form of “sharing best practices” in
which knowledge about what led to failure identifies
the best practice. Following this suggestion also
destigmatizes failure and can reduce our fear of it.26
This lesson is valuable because self-preservation
and fear of failure are big obstacles to innovation.27
3. Consider your goal orientation. In Chapter 6 we
defined two goal orientations that influence the
way we work and our willingness to learn from fail-
ure. A performance goal orientation is aimed at
demonstrating competence or avoiding percep-
tions of incompetence. People with this orientation
are less likely to take the risks needed for innova-
tion. In contrast, a learning or mastery orientation
focuses on learning and growing. For those with
this orientation, failure is just another way to learn
and develop. Employees should adopt more of a
learning goal orientation if they want to increase
their learning from failure.28
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
604 PART 3 Organizational Processes
15.3 ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
Organizational design sets “the structures of accountability and responsibility
used to develop and implement strategies, and the human resource practices and
information and business processes that activate those structures.”29 The general
idea behind the study of organizational design is that organizations are more effective or
successful when their structure supports the execution of corporate strategies. Keep in
mind that there is no one best structure for a company. Companies tend to change struc-
ture in response to changes in the marketplace or in their strategic goals. Consider the case
of McDonald’s Corporation.
EXAMPLE McDonald’s recently changed its corporate structure, eliminating U.S.
regional offices and implementing a “field office” approach, which resulted in layoffs
at the company’s corporate level. Chris Kempczinski, McDonald’s USA President,
says the new structure “is a significant shift in how we will incentivize our team,
resource our system, and even how we operate here at home office to better sup-
port our franchisees and restaurants.” The restructuring is expected to contribute to
the company’s plan to cut $500 million in general and administrative costs by the
end of 2019.30
Our consulting experience tells us that too many companies attempt structural
changes to solve performance problems. For example, Sony restructured nine times
between 1994 and 2009.31 A McKinsey & Co. survey of 1,890 executives supports a similar
conclusion; only 8 percent experienced positive results after making structural changes.
This finding is also consistent with a study of 57 reorganizations by consulting firm Bain
& Co., which demonstrated that most reorgs had no effect, and some led to lower organi-
zational performance.32
This section and the next provide information about how managers can increase their
chances of choosing an effective organizational design. The same information will allow
you to better understand which structure your employer adopts—and how you can better
function and perform within that structure.
We begin by reviewing three broad categories of organizational structure and then
turn to the seven fundamental types of designs found in the workplace today. The follow-
ing section then identifies when these structures may be most effective.33
Three Categories
Our changing world means businesses develop new forms of organization to respond to
emerging business opportunities. Management professor Richard L. Daft defined three eras
that each contributed its own broad category of organization and focus (see Table 15.1).
THE BIGGER PICTURE
An organization’s design or structure is like a fingerprint. It uniquely identifies an organiza-
tion and provides information about how things get done. You will learn about seven funda-
mental types of organizational structures, and the implications for you at any level of the
organization.
Describe the seven
types of organizational
structure.
LO 15-3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
605Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
Traditional Design Organizations defined by a traditional approach tend to have func-
tional, divisional, and/or matrix structures. Each of these structures relies on a vertical hier-
archy and attempts to define clear departmental boundaries and reporting relationships.
Historical Forces: Industrialization, mass production, and related capitalization. Mid-
1800s through 1970s.
Rationale: With industrialization and mass production, organizations were able to
achieve great economies of scale by specializing the application of labor to specific
and standardized functions.
Horizontal Design Organizations defined by a horizontal approach work hard to flat-
ten hierarchy and organize people around specific segments of the work flow. A horizontal
structure, sometimes called a team or process structure, relies on a horizontal work flow
and attempts to dissolve departmental boundaries and reporting relationships as much as
possible.
Historical Forces: Increased complexity and increasingly rapid development cycles for
new products. 1980s.
Rationale: The traditional approach of dividing up work according to functions, prod-
ucts, and customers frustrates managers who want to focus on bringing people
together, without internal boundaries keeping them apart. If you want people to
share knowledge, collaborate, and continually improve the way things are done, a
horizontal design is a good option.
Open Design Organizations defined by an open approach tend to have hollow,
modular, or virtual structures. Each of these structures relies on leveraging technology
and structural flexibility to maximize potential value through outsourcing and external
collaboration.
Historical Forces: Rapid technological improvements (including the Internet and
mobile phones) and the rise of emerging economies (China and India) with pools
of skilled workers willing to work for less than those in developed economies. Since
mid-1990s.
Rationale: Open designs help organizations respond more rapidly to customer and
market changes. They also potentially reduce costs and increase innovation.
TABLE 15.1 Categories and Eras of Organizational Design
SOURCE: N. Anand and R. L. Daft, “What Is the Right Organizational Design?” Organizational Dynamics, June 2007, 329–344.
CATEGORY ERA FOCUS TYPE
1. Traditional Mid-1800s through
1970s
Self-contained within
organization’s boundaries
• Functional
• Divisional
• Matrix
2. Horizontal 1980s Team- and process-
oriented
• Horizontal
3. Open Since mid-1990s Opened beyond organiza-
tion’s boundaries
• Hollow
• Modular
• Virtual
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
606 PART 3 Organizational Processes
The rationale of open systems led Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, to coin the
term boundaryless organization. A boundaryless organization is one in which
“management has largely succeeded in breaking down barriers between internal
levels, job functions, and departments, as well as reducing external barriers
between the association [organization] and those with whom it does busi-
ness.”34 This type of structure is fluid and flexible and relies on telecommuting between
geographically dispersed people using various technological tools such as texting, e-mail,
social media, and other virtual methods of communication.35 It is most appropriate for
businesses in fast-changing industries or environments.
All the structural forms outlined in Table 15.1 are in use today. Let’s consider each
design and an illustrative example.
Seven Types of Organizational Structures
The following seven types of organizational structure cover almost all organizations. We
provide historical background, with examples and schematic diagrams for each.
Functional Structure A functional structure groups people according
to the business functions they perform, for example, manufacturing,
marketing, and finance. A manager is responsible for the performance of each
of these functions, and employees tend to identify strongly with their particular
function, such as sales or engineering.
EXAMPLE The organization chart previously shown in Figure 15.3 illustrates
a functional structure. Responsibility at this hospital is first divided into admin-
istrative and medical functions, and within each category, directors are
responsible for each of the functions. This arrangement puts together people
who are experts in the same or similar activities. As a small company grows
and hires more production workers, salespeople, and accounting staff, it typi-
cally groups them with a supervisor who understands their function.
Some organizations have concluded that using a functional structure divides
people too much, ultimately creating silos within the organization. This detracts
from the extent to which employees collaborate and share best practices across
functions.
Divisional Structure In a divisional structure, employees are segre-
gated into organization groups based on industries, products or services,
customers or clients, or geographic regions. The divisional structure is some-
times called a product structure or profit center approach.
EXAMPLE Consumer-products giant Procter & Gamble recently reorga-
nized its division structure from 10 to 6 divisional units: Beauty; Baby and
Feminine Care; Fabric and Home Care; Family Care and New Ventures;
Grooming; and Health Care. The company’s CEO said the reorganization will
help P&G increase its agility in dealing with ongoing global volatility and com-
petitive disruption.36
As with functional structures, some organizations have concluded that using
a divisional structure can also create silos within the organization.
Matrix Structure Organizations use matrix structures when they need stron-
ger horizontal alignment or cooperation in order to meet their goals. A matrix
structure combines a vertical structure with an equally strong horizontal
overlay. Functional and divisional chains of command form a grid with two command
F1 F2 F3 F4
FUNCTIONAL
STRUCTURE
Work is organized
into separate
vertical functions,
such as finance,
sales, production,
and human
resources.
DIVISIONAL
STRUCTURE
Work is organized
into separate
vertical divisions,
which may focus
on products or
services,
customers or
clients, or even
geography.
D1 D2 D3 D4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
607Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
structures, one shown vertically by function and the other shown horizontally
by product line, brand, customer group, or geographic region.
EXAMPLE Starbucks is highly committed to the matrix structure. The
design allows the company’s three product-based divisions (coffee and
related products, baked goods, and merchandise) to intersect with func-
tional groups (such as HR, finance, and marketing) and three global geo-
graphic divisions (Americas; China and Asia-Pacific; and Europe, Middle
East, and Africa). In the U.S., Starbucks further divides its geographic divi-
sions into four regional sectors. The matrix structure allows Starbucks to
improve the customer experience and its overall financial performance.37
A matrix structure can also provide a reasonable counterbalance among
important stakeholders, but applying it to an organization is not easy. Matrix
organizations can be complex and confusing without an extra layer of
collaboration and integration to effectively implement the structure. Jay
Galbraith, an expert on the subject, noted that matrix structures frequently
fail because management fails to create complementary and reinforcing
changes to the organization’s IT systems, human resource procedures (perfor-
mance appraisals, rewards, selection criteria), planning and budgeting pro-
cesses, organizational culture, internal processes, and so on. He concluded,
“Organization structures do not fail; managements fail at implementation.”38
This type of structure is increasingly being used by companies expanding into
international markets.39
Horizontal Structure In a horizontal structure, teams or
work groups, either temporary or permanent, are created to
improve collaboration and work on common projects.
The horizontal approach to organizational design tends to
focus on work processes. A process consists of every task and
responsibility needed to meet a customer need, such as develop-
ing a new product or filling a customer order. Completing a pro-
cess requires input from people in different functions, typically
organized into a cross-functional team (described in Chapter 8).
W.L. Gore & Associates is a good example of a company that
has successfully implemented this structure (see the OB in
Action box).
HORIZONTAL
STRUCTURE
Several flexible teams—
T1–T4—organize around
the horizontal work flow or
processes. Some vertical
functions remain, but they
are minimized.
F1
WF
T1 T2 T3 T4
F2 F3 F4
MATRIX
STRUCTURE
The matrix can
be used with a
variety of vertical
and horizontal
elements. Shown
here are four
different functions
(F1, F2, and so
on) interlinked to
four product lines
(P1, P2).
F1
P1
P2
P3
P4
F2 F3 F4
W.L. Gore is a technologically driven company that
focuses on product innovation. It develops and man-
ufactures products that provide highly reliable perfor-
mance in varied environments ranging from the
surface of Mars to the inside of the human heart.
Today, Gore has more than $3 billion in annual reve-
nue and 9,500 employees working in more than
25 countries.40
The company has been profitable every year since
its founding in 1958, and it was ranked among
Fortune’s 100 Best Places to Work every year from
1998 to 2017. It has also been cited as a “best workplace”
in China, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Sweden.41
Culture and Values Founder Bill Gore wanted a
company free of bureaucracy and a command and
W.L. Gore & Associates Operates with a Horizontal Design
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
608 PART 3 Organizational Processes
The final three types of structures are all examples of open organizations. Before
learning about them in more detail, find out how well suited you are for telecommuting by
completing Self-Assessment 15.2. Telecommuting is a common practice in companies that
use open designs.
control style of leadership. To support this culture, the
company promotes the following values:42
• Belief in the individual—employees are
encouraged to trust and believe in each other.
• Power of small teams—a team-based struc-
ture with minimum hierarchy is used.
• All in the same boat—employees are part own-
ers through a stock plan.
• Long-term view—investments are based on
long-term payoffs.
Organizational Structure Gore’s structure is consis-
tent with its strategy and culture. It has a team-based
“lattice” organization. The company website describes
the structure as one with “no traditional organizational
charts, no chains of command, nor predetermined
channels of communication.” Employees, who are
called associates, are accountable to the members of
their multidisciplined teams. “Teams organize around
opportunities and leaders emerge,” according to the
corporate website.43
Associates are not hired for specific jobs. The
corporate website indicates employees are “hired for
general work areas. With the guidance of their spon-
sors (not bosses) and a growing understanding of
opportunities and team objectives, associates com-
mit to projects that match their skills. All of this takes
place in an environment that combines freedom with
cooperation and autonomy with synergy.”44
Sponsors help associates adjust to this flexible
work environment by providing feedback on perfor-
mance and by assisting in internal networking.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What type of people would like to work at Gore
given its structure and culture?
2. Would this type of structure enhance or reduce
organizational learning? Discuss your
rationale.
3. Do you think this type of structure would work in
most organizations? Explain.
Focusing on product innovation, W.L. Gore links organizational strat-
egy, culture, and structure.
Carolyn Jenkins/Alamy Stock Photo
What Is Your Preference for Telecommuting?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 15.2 in Connect.
1. Do you prefer telecommuting or a traditional work environment?
2. What bothers you most about telecommuting?
3. How might managers assess an employee’s preference for telecommuting
during a job interview?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.2
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
Gig Workers Are a Growing Force in the Labor Market
More than 40 percent of U.S. workers, male and
female, are now doing outsourced part-time, free-
lance, or “gig” work, according to Deloitte’s 2018
Global Human Capital Trends study.46 Harvard Busi-
ness Review puts the current number of indepen-
dent contractors in North America and Western
Europe at 150 million, and many people believe that
in the future nearly everyone will do at least some
freelancing, from management consulting and writ-
ing to errand-running and taxi driving.47
Some gig workers are filling gaps between reg-
ular jobs, while others view freelancing as a job in
itself and are not looking for a traditional career.
These workers enjoy the autonomy and variety that
contingent work can bring. In the United States
almost two-thirds of them are between 18 and 44;
close to half have a bachelor’s or graduate degree
and bring skills and experience to the table. “The
vast majority are folks who easily could go get [tradi-
tional full-time] jobs somewhere,” says Lori Williams,
a vice president at software developer Gigster,
whose 80 employees work with 1,000 freelancers.
“They’ve chosen this lifestyle.” Each new assign-
ment can be an opportunity for a freelancer to learn
new skills; gigs offering little financial or other com-
pensation can often be turned down.48
Gig work has clear downsides, however. Hiring
on a project basis saves hollow-structure companies
money; they benefit from not having to offer freelanc-
ers costly benefits like medical insurance, retirement
plans, paid vacations, or professional development.
Freelancers’ workflow can be uneven, and working
alone requires self-discipline and can be isolating.
Technology is so deeply embedded in the so-called
gig economy that one observer notes, “Gig workers
don’t have human bosses. They work for apps.”49
Problem-Solving Application
609Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
Hollow Structure A hollow structure, also known as a network
structure, is designed around a central core of key functions and out-
sources other functions to outside companies or individuals who can
do them cheaper or faster. An athletic shoe company, for example, might
decide it can excel at developing new designs, owing to its design talent and
knowledge of the market. Then it might find outsourcing partners to handle
other activities such as manufacturing, order taking, shipping, and manag-
ing employee benefits. The more processes that are outsourced, the more
the resulting organization is “hollow”—and focused on what it does best.
EXAMPLE Herman Miller, the furniture company, goes outside the orga-
nization for design expertise. CEO Brian Walker explained the advantages:
“This external network ensures that we are always taking a fresh look at
problems faced by our customers without subjecting [them] to our own
filters. If you have only an internal design staff, even an enormously talented one, you are
inherently limited by their existing world view and experiences. Our ability to tap into a
broader outside network lets us . . . get a fresh perspective on existing or emerging prob-
lems.” The company also uses other organizations for manufacturing; Walker says the
company is “more . . . an integrator than a manufacturer,” which makes it less resistant to
new product ideas because it doesn’t have to change manufacturing processes itself.45
A hollow structure is useful when an organization is faced with strong price competi-
tion and there are enough companies to perform the required outsourced processes.
The growing number of hollow structures has increased demand for freelance workers.
This has created an online industry that helps companies hire people for micro-tasks or
short-term assignments (see the Problem-Solving Application).
HOLLOW
STRUCTURE
Within the
organization, a
number of functions
are outsourced.
F1 F2 F3
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
610 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Modular Structure A modular organization, like a hollow organiza-
tion, uses outsourcing. But instead of outsourcing processes, it out-
sources production of parts of a product, such as components of a jet or
subroutines of a software program. In a modular structure, the com-
pany assembles product parts, components, or modules provided
by external contractors. The modular organization also is responsible
for ensuring that the parts meet quality requirements, that they arrive in
a timely fashion, and that the organization is capable of efficiently com-
bining the parts into the final whole. This design is useful when a com-
pany can identify product modules and create design interfaces that
allow it to assemble parts into a working order.
EXAMPLE A good example is Boeing, in the production of its 787
Dreamliner. Instead of using a traditional aviation manufacturing
process of building an aircraft from the ground up, Boeing engaged
a global group of suppliers to build some of the plane’s subassem-
blies off site and then deliver them to Boeing for final assembly.
According to the company, nearly 45 major companies have been
involved in building the 787’s fuselage, engines, bulkhead, and
other components. This approach helps keep the assembly process
efficient and lowers the number of parts a company needs to keep
on hand, thus reducing inventory.50
Virtual Structure The concept of
virtual organizations originated in the
1990s as an outgrowth of the benefits
of information technology. A virtual
structure is one whose members are
geographically apart, usually work-
ing with e-mail and other forms of
information technology, but that
generally appears to customers as a
single, unified organization with a
real physical location.
EXAMPLE Scopic Software, a web
and app developer, has more than
200 employees working in over
30 countries. Headquartered in the
U.S., the company believes great
software developers can be found in
every part of the world, and talent
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem that is leading companies to rely on the gig economy.
Step 2: Identify the causes of the problem. What OB theories or concepts explain why some people
want to work as freelancers?
Step 3: Recommend steps organizations can take to motivate, monitor, and compensate freelancers.
MODULAR STRUCTURE
The main part of the
organization (M) is
structured and managed
to make it easy to plug in
vendors for well-defined
functions (F1 through F3)
as parts of the business
process.
M
F1
F3
F2
These employees are conducting final assembly of a Boeing 787 air-
plane in the Everett, Washington, plant. The company used a global
network of suppliers to build some of the plane’s components and then
deliver them to Boeing for integration and final assembly. This is a
classic example of a modular structure.
Wang Ying/Xinhua/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
611Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
shouldn’t be limited by location and time zone. According to the
Careers page on its website, “Scopic’s entirely virtual structure
means you can work from anywhere, whether it’s a café, in bed,
or on the road.” The company encourages flexible hours so
employees can set their work schedule to accommodate their
lifestyle and spend more time with family and friends. To stay
connected, Scopic’s team members use real-time tools like
Slack and Skype to facilitate communication and software tools
to track productivity.51
The primary benefits of virtual structures such as Scopic Soft-
ware are the ability to tap into a wider talent pool, to get things done
more quickly, and to reduce costs because there is less need for
physical facilities and travel budgets.
Today, virtual structures are classified into two types: internal
and networked.52
1. Internal virtual structures. Internal virtual structures coordinate
the work of geographically dispersed employees working for one
organization, such as those at Scopic Software. This structure
primarily relies on the use of information technology, but it also
requires managers to consider three key issues:
• Do I have the right people? Not everyone is suited to work
virtually, as you may have learned from taking Self- Assessment 15.2. Managers must
consider the personal characteristics, needs, and values of their people who might
work virtually. For example, research about effective virtual leaders revealed that
constant feedback, clear communications, reliability, and trust were key competen-
cies required to be a successful manager of virtual teams.53
• How often should people get together? There is no clear answer to this question.
Our recommendation is to use a contingency approach. More frequent contact is
needed at the start of a project, and we suggest holding regular milestone
meetings online.
• What type of technology should be used to coordinate activities? Remote workers can
stay connected with a host of technologies. The choice depends on their skills and
the resources at hand.
2. Networked virtual structures. Networked virtual structures establish a collaborative
network of independent firms or individuals to create a virtual entity. The networked
individuals or companies join forces because each possesses core competencies
needed for a project or product. This structure is used in the movie/entertainment
industry. For example, writers, producers, actors, and studios join forces to make a
movie, not as one legal entity, but rather as a collaborative network. Once again, a
variety of information technologies coordinates the efforts of different members
within the network.
Now that we have reviewed all seven designs, consider Table 15.2. It lists the pros
and cons for each design and suggests situations when each may be most effective.
VIRTUAL STRUCTURE
One or more companies
(here we show companies
A and B) create or manage
a wide network of virtually
connected employees,
represented by the dots,
for a specific business
process that otherwise
appears as a traditional
company.
A B
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
612 PART 3 Organizational Processes
TABLE 15.2 Seven Structures of Organizational Design
SOURCE: Anand, N., and Richard L. Daft. “What Is the Right Organizational Design?” Organizational Dynamics 36, no. 4 (2007): 329–344.
https://doi:10.1016/j.orgdyn.2007.06.001.
STRUCTURE BEST FOR PROS CONS
Functional
F1 F2 F3 F4
Small companies, some
large government organi-
zations and divisions of
large companies.
Clear roles and
responsibilities.
Coordination and communication
lapses across functional silos;
most companies use dotted line
or other informal means to combat
this potential limitation.
Divisional
D1 D2 D3 D4
Large companies with
separate divisions built
on different technologies,
geographies, or different
bases of customers.
Clear roles and responsibilities.
Greater product focus, account-
ability, and flexibility for workers
in each division than in a
functional structure.
Coordination and communication
lapses across divisional silos; most
companies use dotted line or
other informal means to combat
this potential limitation.
Matrix
F1
P1
P2
P3
P4
F2 F3 F4
Organizations, increasingly
including international
ones, looking to avoid
problems associated with
silos by using a formal
level of horizontal
integration.
Lines of formal authority along
two dimensions, such as func-
tional/product or product/
region, that allow organizations
to work more cohesively.
Inadequate processes to ensure
success. Potential for conflict
when employees report to two
bosses if those managers fail to
coordinate.
Horizontal
F1
WF T1 T2 T3 T4
F2 F3 F4
Companies needing
greater efficiency or flex-
ibility to rapidly respond to
customer needs.
Rapid communication and
reduction in cycle time for work
done; greater flexibility; faster
organizational learning;
improved responsiveness
to customers.
Potential conflicts between pro-
cesses and nonprocess functions;
neglect of nonprocess parts of the
organization; reduced opportuni-
ties for functional specialization.
Hollow
F1 F2 F3
Companies facing heavy
price competition with
pressure to cut costs;
companies with options
outside the organization
that can perform required
processes.
Lower cost of entry and over-
head; access to best sources of
specialization and technology;
market discipline that leads to
supplier competition and inno-
vation; potential for further
cost reduction and quality
improvement.
Loss or decrease of in-house
skills, of internal capacity to inno-
vate, and of control over supply;
costs of transitioning to hollow
state; need for higher monitoring
to align incentives; danger of
being supplanted by suppliers.
Modular
M
F1
F2
F3
Organizations that can
specify the nature of
product modules and
design interfaces to multiple
vendors and join them.
Potential for cost savings,
greater responsiveness, and
competence beyond the orga-
nization’s boundaries; ability to
switch vendors for best fit and
product improvement.
A high proportion of products
unsuitable to chunking into mod-
ules; poorly specified interfaces;
slow or poor-quality collaborators.
Virtual
A B
Companies that need to
explore a new market
opportunity by partnering
with other organizations or
rapidly deploy a new
potential business model.
Ability to respond nimbly to
market opportunity; ability to
provide product extension or
one-stop-shop service; low exit
costs if initial opportunity van-
ishes.
High level of communication nec-
essary to avoid redundancy; low
trust and coordination among
widely distributed employees;
failure to promote strong employee
loyalty or organizational
identification.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
613Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
THE BIGGER PICTURE
The previous section showed that no one structure is appropriate for all organizations. This
section reviews five contingency factors to consider when choosing an organizational design.
We also discuss the need to align several organizational characteristics in this process and
show how you can use this knowledge to enhance your personal and career outcomes.
15.4 CONTINGENCY DESIGN AND INTERNAL ALIGNMENT
There is no one best form of structure for an organization. The choice of structure is
instead based on considering a host of contingency factors and internal organizational
characteristics. This section helps show how this is done by discussing the concept of con-
tingency organization design. According to the contingency approach to organization
design, organizations tend to be more effective when they are structured to fit the
demands of the situation, and when the structure is aligned with internal activities
and actions of the organization.54 The demands of the situation consist of five contin-
gency factors.
Contingency Factors
Experts suggest that managers should consider five key contingency factors when making
decisions about organization design: strategy and goals, market uncertainty, decision-
making processes, technology, and size.55
Strategy and Goals An organization’s strategy is the cornerstone of its decision
about the most appropriate design. Because setting a corporate strategy requires an orga-
nization to decide how it will compete given both internal and external considerations,
organizational design must be developed in tandem with establishing strategy. For exam-
ple, if a company has a strategy to grow by developing and
selling new products or services, a flatter or more horizon-
tal structure may be more effective. In general, more com-
plex organizational designs are needed as companies
pursue strategies to add products, services, markets, or
geographic expansion.
Market Uncertainty The level of market uncertainty
the organization faces helps determine the level of formal-
ization it needs. Organizations such as Intel and Facebook
that operate in dynamic markets need less formalized
structures. Horizontal or open structures are more appro-
priate in this case because they allow quicker responses to
marketplace threats and opportunities. Organizations may
need to change their structure due to marketplace changes
such as new competitors, alternate products, or customer
preferences.
Decision-Making Processes Decision-making
processes span a continuum from centralized to
Explain the
relationship between
contingency design
and internal
alignment.
LO 15-4
Selecting the best organizational design is akin to putting
together a puzzle. The organization’s strategy, market uncer-
tainty, decision-making processes, technology, and size must fit
together like this puzzle.
Adam Gault/OJO Images/age fotostock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
614 PART 3 Organizational Processes
decentralized. Centralized decision making occurs when key decisions are made by
top management. Decentralized decision making occurs when important decisions
are made by middle- and lower-level managers. A landmark study by a pair of British
behavioral scientists, Tom Burns and G. M. Stalker, found a relationship between decision-
making processes and organizational structure. In the course of their research, Burns and
Stalker drew a very instructive distinction between what they called mechanistic and
organic organizations.
Mechanistic organizations are rigid bureaucracies with strict rules, narrowly
defined tasks, top-down communication, and centralized decision making. A mech-
anistic organization generally would have one of the traditional organizational designs
described in the preceding section and a hierarchical culture. The “orderliness” of this
structure is expected to produce reliability and consistency in internal processes, resulting
in higher efficiency, quality, and timeliness.
Organic organizations are flexible networks of multitalented individuals who
perform a variety of tasks. Organic organizations are more likely to use decentralized
decision making and horizontal or open designs.56
Burns and Stalker discovered that one type was not superior to the other. Each
type had its appropriate place, depending on the environment.57 When the environment
was relatively stable and certain, the successful organizations tended to be mechanistic.
When the environment was unstable and uncertain, the successful ones tended to be
organic.58
Technology Technology consists of the information technology, equipment, tools,
and processes needed to transform inputs to outputs. It allows products and services
to be created and distributed and lets companies use big data in making decisions.
Experts suggest that the use of big data “will change organizational structures as orga-
nizations pursue the opportunities presented.”59 This implies that the technology a
company uses is a key consideration in deciding the best way to organize in pursuit of
strategic goals.
Size Size is measured by the number of employees, volume of sales, amount of assets,
and geographical locations. Larger size generally requires more complex organizational
designs.
Internal Alignment
The choice of best organizational form requires more than just considering the five contin-
gency factors. Organizations perform more effectively when various internal organiza-
tional-level characteristics are aligned and mutually reinforcing. For example, if a company
wants to grow through innovative product offerings (strategy), then it probably needs a
less hierarchical structure coupled with an adhocracy and market culture. It also would
help to have rewards tied to innovation and to employ people with high amounts of human
and social capital. Can you see the alignment that exists among strategy, culture, structure,
human resources practices, and employees’ capabilities?
In contrast, if a company wants to reduce costs by improving internal processes (strat-
egy), it would benefit from a more horizontal structure coupled with a hierarchical and
clan culture. This combination would be enhanced if rewards were linked to cost reduction
or efficiency, and if employees were knowledgeable about internal process control. Again,
you can see that alignment is needed across internal characteristics for organizations to
achieve higher performance. Although academics and consultants don’t completely agree
on the list of internal characteristics that need to be aligned, it is safe to recommend the
following for inclusion:60
1. Strategy. 4. Internal processes.
2. Structure. 5. Human resource practices, policies, and procedures.
3. Organizational culture. 6. Employees’ human and social capital.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
615Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
What Does This Mean to Me?
There are both short and long-term implications to con-
sider.
Short-Term Implications
• Structure affects your behavior and performance.
Imagine taking a class in which the seats are
arranged in a stair-step, theater-style set of rows in
which chairs are bolted to the ground. You can
swivel in your chair, but your position is set. Now
consider how this structure affects your interac-
tions with other students. You will tend to speak
with others on either side and will struggle to do
group work with four to five people. It’s inconve-
nient to turn and observe someone speaking from
the back of the room. This structure also stops
instructors from walking into the audience and
interacting with students as in a talk show. Con-
trast this with a classroom with a flat floor and
round tables with five or six students at each. Inter-
actions and group work are both easier and more
efficient. You can move to another table if you
want. The instructor can easily walk around and
interact with everyone. The point is that structure
affects behavior. The value of understanding the
various types of organization design is that you
can work around their strengths and limitations.
• You may want to start your own company. Yesterday,
the owner of an appliance repair company came to
the home of your author to fix an ice maker and
dishwasher. He has 15 employees. When asked how
he structured his small company, he said everyone reports to him, but this structure is
getting overwhelming and he needs someone to focus on getting new customers. He is
the only person doing this, but he also has to do repairs on certain types of equipment
like those in our home, leaving him less time to cultivate new business. We discussed
how he might use a divisional structure based on having offices in cities within the Phoe-
nix metropolitan area and creating incentives for those who bring in new customers. He
was thankful for the free advice. You need to know about various organizational designs
if you ever start your own company.
• Person–organization (P-O) fit matters. In Chapter 14 we defined P-O fit as the
extent to which your personality and values match the climate and culture in an
organization. You also learned that P-O fit is related to a host of important out-
comes such as job satisfaction, engagement, commitment, performance, and turn-
over. You will be happier, healthier, and more productive when you fit.61 For
example, if you prefer autonomy, flexibility, and empowerment, then you probably
won’t fit into a company with a mechanistic structure. You would be much happier
with an organic type of structure.62 Knowledge about organization design can help
you find a work environment that fits.
Long-Term Implications Decisions about organizational design generally are made
by senior leaders and consultants in medium and large firms. We have participated in this
process and it can get quite complicated. Assuming you want to move up the managerial
hierarchy, the day will come when you have to provide input on organizational designs that
can help your employer meets its strategic goals. Our discussion here will help.
How many times have you sat in a lecture hall or classroom
structured like the top photo? The experience is quite dif-
ferent from a small group meeting in which participants
interact in a less formal fashion. Both contexts have their
place, and our behavior is affected by the structure of a the
learning environment.
(Top): Aaron Roeth Photography;
(Bottom): Hero Images/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
616 PART 3 Organizational Processes
15.5 ORGANIZATIONAL INNOVATION
We live in a time of technological advancement that is creating transformative changes
in the way we live, work, and play. Organizations are feeling both the opportunity and
the pinch of this reality. Consider the situation faced by executives at Gap. Sales at the
global retailer have slumped, and the company has too many stores. An industry
expert further concluded, “Every retailer is competing for a shrinking pool of custom-
ers who lately spend more of their money on meals or services, such as manicures and
travel. Still, they demand greater value and discounts from their clothing purchases.”63
Despite the company’s promises to innovate, Gap recently announced it would close
more than 200 underperforming stores and spin off its Old Navy brand to a separate
company.64
Is Gap an anomaly or is the need to innovate widespread? It’s widespread! Results
from a recent survey of nearly 700 leaders revealed that although 85 percent of them said
innovation is important, more than three-quarters of them focus on incremental changes
in their businesses instead. In addition, close to 60 percent of the leaders said innovation
is a slow process—taking a year or longer to create new products.65
Innovation “is the creation of something new that makes money; it finds a
pathway to the consumer.”66 This definition underscores that innovations must be
both novel and useful. We now take a closer look at innovation and the way organiza-
tions foster it. You will learn that innovation is more likely to occur when organizations
create and support a system of innovation, which includes tailoring the characteristics
of the physical environment.
Approaches toward Innovation
We can classify innovations by crossing their type with their focus, producing four distinct
types (see Figure 15.6).
The Type of Innovation Managers often need to improve a product or service
they offer in response to competition or customer feedback. This response often
amounts to a technological innovation. Or managers may need to improve the process
by which a product is made or a service is offered. This need typically leads to a pro-
cess improvement.
More specifically, a product innovation is a change in the appearance or
functionalilty/performance of a product or a service or the creation of a new one.
Apple has made ten generations of iPhones that each added new features or functionality,
such as camera features, screen size, and Siri voice control system. Apple CEO Tim Cook
revealed that Apple has sold about 1.5 billion iPhones as of the end of 2018.67 PepsiCo’s
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Managers agree that the ability to innovate affects long-term success, and you will undoubt-
edly be asked to help your employer achieve this. This section provides insights into the ways
organizations approach the goal of innovation. After discussing approaches toward innova-
tion pursued by companies, we review the need to create an innovation system and summa-
rize the influence of office design on innovation and performance.
Describe the
importance of
innovation in any
organization.
LO 15-5
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
617Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
creation of Mountain Dew Kickstart is another example: higher juice content, fewer calo-
ries, new flavors. This new drink generated over $200 million in two years.68
A process innovation is a change in the way a product or a service is con-
ceived, manufactured, or distributed. Alcoa’s use of 3-D printing in its manufacturing
process of jet engine components is a great example. Fortune contrasted Alcoa’s old and
new manufacturing processes: “In the past, Alcoa built a die using a process called subtrac-
tive machining. It’s similar to sculpture: Start with a material—in this case, steel—then
whittle it down into the shape you need. Ten to 30 weeks later, the company ended up with
a custom die that it would then use to cast the needed engine part. Today Alcoa pairs
computer-aided design, or CAD, with 3-D printing to construct the die from a computer
file, layer by layer. A process that once took half a year could be completed in two to eight
weeks, allowing the company to dramatically increase its output.” The new process reduced
manufacturing costs by 25 percent.69
The Focus of the Innovation The focus continuum measures the scope of the innova-
tion. Improvement innovations enhance or upgrade an existing product, service, or process.
These types of innovations are often incremental and are less likely to generate significant
amounts of new revenue at one point in time. As is true for products like Apple’s iPhone and
PepsiCo’s Mountain Dew, however, improvement innovations can produce significant reve-
nue if the results are highly different
from past products or services.
In contrast, new-direction innova-
tions take a totally new or different
approach to a product, service, pro-
cess, or industry. These innovations
focus on creating new markets and
customers and rely on developing
breakthroughs and inventing things
that didn’t already exist. Experimental
driverless cars are a new-direction
innovation, and most major automo-
bile manufacturers are exploring their
market potential. Some industry
experts, including Christoph Grote,
head of BMW’s advanced technolo-
gies group, believe this innovation
might change the entire industry. “The
next 10 years will bring more change
than the last 30,” he said.70
FIGURE 15.6 Approaches Toward Innovation
Improvement
• Ten generations/versions
since first introduced in
June 2007
Apple iPhone
• Alcoa’s use of 3-D printing
in its manufacturing
process
3-D Printing
New Directions
• Major automobile
manufacturers and Google
Driverless Cars
Focus of Innovation
Ty
pe
o
f I
nn
ov
at
io
n
• Panelized homes
Home Construction
Product
Process
Three-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, is used to
create a three-dimensional object by having a computer control the
successive layers of material that comprise an object. Some people
believe that 3-D printing will create a third industrial revolution.
Zoonar GmbH/Cylonphoto/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
618 PART 3 Organizational Processes
The housing industry has experi-
enced a new-direction innovation that
changes the process of constructing
homes. The traditional way of building a
home is called “stick-built.” Architec-
tural plans are given to a general con-
tractor, who then hires subcontractors
to build the home in phases, starting
with pouring the foundation and fram-
ing the structure. The process is time
consuming, filled with quality issues,
and expensive. The new alternative is
“panelized homes,” in which all compo-
nents of a house are prefabricated at a
climate-controlled factory and then
shipped to the building site for construc-
tion. The weather-tight shell usually can
be assembled in a matter of days.71 An
industry study compared results of these
two constructions processes for a
2,600-square-foot home and found that panelized homes “required 26 percent less lum-
ber, wasted 76 percent less materials, and needed just over a third of the man-hours that
would be used in a comparable stick-built house.”72
An Innovation System:
The Supporting Forces for Innovation
Innovation won’t happen as a matter of course. It takes dedicated effort and resources, and
the process must be nurtured and supported. Organizations do this best by developing an
innovation system. An innovation system is “a coherent set of interdependent pro-
cesses and structures that dictates how the company searches for novel problems
and solutions, synthesizes ideas into a business concept and product designs, and
selects which projects get funded.”73 Research and practice have identified seven com-
ponents of an innovation system: innovation strategy; committed leadership; inno vative
culture and climate; required structure and processes; necessary human capital; human
resource policies, practices, and procedures; and appropriate resources (see
Figure 15.7).74 These must be aligned and integrated for innovation to blossom, hence the
dual-headed arrows in Figure 15.7.
Create an Innovation Strategy Many companies fail in their improvement
efforts because they lack an innovation strategy.75 An innovation strategy, which amounts
to a plan for being more innovative, requires a company to integrate its innovation
activities into its business strategies. This integration encourages management to invest
resources in innovation and generates employee commitment to innovation across the
organization.
Corning is a diverse company that used its expertise in glassmaking to become a
global manufacturer of specialty components needed for electronic displays, life sciences
instruments, and telecommunications systems among others. According to a writer for the
Harvard Business Review, “The company’s business strategy focuses on selling ‘keystone
components’ that significantly improve the performance of customers’ complex system
products. Executing this strategy requires Corning to be at the leading edge of glass and
materials science so that it can solve exceptionally challenging problems for customers
and discover new applications for its technologies. That requires heavy investments in
An example of building a panelized home. Note the section of a home
being raised so that it can be assembled with additional prefabricated
walls. As you can imagine, homes can be built more quickly using this
innovative method of construction.
Acontadini/E+/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
619Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
long-term research.”76 The company spearheads these innovation efforts via a centralized
R&D laboratory in upstate New York.
Commitment from Senior Leaders One of the biggest lessons we have learned
from our consulting experience is that the achievement of strategic goals is unlikely with-
out real commitment from senior leaders. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella knows this lesson
well. He is currently driving innovation by using empathy. His message to employees when
he took over as CEO in 2014: Empathy leads to understanding and collaboration, which
helps innovation push its way toward helpful, new products.
EXAMPLE A Microsoft engineer who is deaf had difficulty Skyping with her parents
in India because the fuzzy video made it difficult for her to read their lips. She always
had to ask them to turn off the lights in the background so she could focus better on
their faces. She kept wondering, “Why can’t we build technology that can do this for
us instead?” So the engineer came up with the idea of a background-blurring feature,
which has since been integrated into Skype and Microsoft Teams.77
Foster an Innovative Culture and Climate A recent survey by the Boston Con-
sulting Group identified risk-averse culture as the key obstacle to innovation.78 Academic
research also supports the conclusion that an innovative culture and climate are associated
with the creation of new ideas and products.79 These findings reflect the fact that innova-
tion requires experimentation, failure, and risk taking, and these are all aspects of an orga-
nization’s culture. Many senior leaders understand this link.
Nike co-founder Philip Knight says he learned early on in business to expect setbacks
and failure as part of trying to innovate. “The only time you must not fail is the last time
FIGURE 15.7 Components of an Innovation System
Innovation
Systems
Necessary
Human Capital
Required
Structure and
Processes
Human Resource
Policies, Practices
and Procedures
Committed
Leadership
Innovation
Innovation
Strategy
Innovative
Culture and
Climate
Appropriate
Resources
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
620 PART 3 Organizational Processes
you try,” he says. The founder of Honda Motor, Soichiro Honda, explained the link
between innovation, success, and failure as follows: “Success represents the 1 percent of
your work which results from the 99 percent that is called failure.”80
Managers can create an innovative culture and climate by using the 12 mechanisms
for creating culture change discussed in Chapter 14. These concerted efforts should facili-
tate the creation of values, norms, and rewards that support risk taking, adaptability, agil-
ity, and psychological safety to speak up and provide criticism.81
Can AMD Innovate without Risk?
AMD is a global maker of high-performance com-
puting and graphic technology for gaming, tech
platforms, and data management systems used by
hundreds of millions of end-user consumers. Based
in California and Texas and currently under the lead-
ership of president and CEO Lisa Su, the company is
celebrating 50 years in the computing industry. Sec-
ond only to Intel, AMD has been described as a
company that “always springs back with a ven-
geance, thanks in part to its commitment to innova-
tion, willingness to try something different
technologically, and maybe with a chip on its shoul-
der wanting to prove it has what it takes.”82
AMD has weathered many years of industry ups
and downs. Along the way it contributed to some
significant technology milestones, like the increas-
ing capacity and declining costs of computer pro-
cessors. Now, however, the company is posting
lower revenues (down almost 23 percent in the first
quarter of 2019), mirroring lower revenues in the
computing and graphics industry generally.83
The company has also been losing executive
talent to Intel and other tech companies. Its senior
vice president of global computing and graphics
sales, its graphics chip architect, and its senior
director of product marketing are all recent depar-
tures. Promotions from within have so far filled the
gaps.84
AMD’s stated goal is “to provide increasing
compute and graphics power to more and more
people globally, enabling the next generation of
global problem solvers.” However, the company is
“more focused on execution than taking huge risks,”
according to an analyst.85
Problem-Solving Application
The computer chip developed by AMD
Anatolii Mazhora/Shutterstock
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problem AMD faces as it celebrates 50 years in business.
Step 2: Identify the causes of the problem. What OB theories or concepts help explain them?
Step 3: Recommend what AMD’s leaders should to do ensure its continued success.
Have you worked for a company that has an innovative climate? Are you wondering what
it takes to create such a climate? If yes, take the innovation climate Self-Assessment 15.3.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
621Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
Required Structure and Processes Organizational structure and internal pro-
cesses can promote innovation if they foster collaboration, cross-functional communica-
tion, and agility. Our earlier discussion of organizational design suggests that organic
structures are better suited for innovation than mechanistic ones. For example, Juniper
Networks, a leader in computer network integration, concluded that its “formal organiza-
tional structure was not conducive to the types of rich interactions and conversations
required for innovation to thrive.” Vince Molinaro, executive vice president of worldwide
sales, commented, “We were not integrating diverse expertise and experience across engi-
neering, infrastructure, and sales teams the way we could when we were a small company.”
Juniper changed its structure.86
In Chapter 1, we defined organizational processes as an organization’s capabilities in
management, internal processes, and technology that turn inputs into outcomes. Processes
play a critical role in innovation. The design and consulting firm IDEO, for example,
employs a unique process when it helps companies to innovate (see the OB in Action box).
Crowdsourcing, defined as “the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or
content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people” typically via the
Internet, is being used by more companies to help innovate. For example, Procter & Gamble’s
crowdsourcing platform, Connect + Develop, has enabled the company to establish
more than 2,000 successful agreements with innovation partners around the world. LEGO
Ideas crowdsourcing platform has been a hit with adult LEGO fans for more than a
decade, with 26,000 ideas submitted for new LEGO products and 23 new products
launched.87 More research is being done on the effectiveness of crowdsourcing and sug-
gests that it is positively associated with firm performance.88
How Innovative Is the Organizational Climate?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 15.3 in Connect.
1. What is the level of innovation? Are you surprised by the results? Explain.
2. Select the three lowest survey item scores. Use the content of these items to
recommend what the company could do to become more innovative.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.3
IDEO (pronounced “EYE-dee-oh”) is a unique, award-
winning, and highly respected and influential global
design firm. It is responsible for such innovative prod-
ucts as the first mouse for Apple, heart defibrillators
that walk a user through the steps, and TiVo’s
“thumbs up–thumbs down” button. An intense focus
on end-user behavior is the foundation of all the com-
pany does and is embedded in the three steps of
its design thinking. The steps are inspiration, ideation,
and implementation.
• Inspiration. As defined by David Kelley,
IDEO’s legendary founder, inspiration is the
problem or opportunity that motivates the
search for solutions.
• Ideation. Ideation is the process of
generating, developing, and testing ideas.
• Implementation. The final step, imple mentation,
links the problem’s solution to people’s lives.
Design Thinking Your Way to Innovative Solutions
OB in Action
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
622 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Finally, a team of experts suggested that organizations can foster innovation by focus-
ing on four agility techniques.94
1. Place more emphasis on people than on processes and tools. Innovation initiatives or
projects should be built around motivated individuals who are empowered to get the
job done and have the resources to do it.
2. Be responsive to change rather than following a detailed plan. It helps to create project
plans, but don’t spend large amounts of time trying to identify each and every task to
be completed. Tasks frequently change as situations evolve. Teams thus need the free-
dom to diverge from project plans if the situation or customer requires it. Alaska Air-
lines is following this recommendation. As the airline grew and revenues rose, it
became more bureaucratic, with employees following a heavily scripted operations
playbook. This rigid approach tied employees’ hands when it came to pivoting to
address customer service issues. Recognizing the problem, Alaska Airlines returned to
its culture of giving employees autonomy and encouraging them to make decisions
independently.95
3. Develop and test prototypes rather than focusing on documentation. People learn more
and are happier when they observe their ideas being applied in real market conditions.
Teams should experiment with products and services on a small scale to see whether
customers like them. If they do, keep the new ideas; otherwise, it’s back to the drawing
board. For example, PepsiCo originally designed SunChips to be one-inch square and
to break into pieces when eaten. When the company pilot-tested the product in focus
groups, people said they preferred products that were smaller than one inch. PepsiCo
concluded the chips were too big and changed its molds and production processes.96
4. Collaborate with customers rather than adhering to rigid contracts. Customers often
don’t know what they want. Adhering to fixed contracts and deliverables rather than
Observing user behavior and working with proto-
types are important aspects of each step. They help
IDEO’s diverse problem-solving teams both define
client problems and gauge the effectiveness of their
solutions.
Thinking Like a Designer The company’s consulting
approach to products, services, processes, and strat-
egy brings together what is desirable from a human
point of view with what is technologically feasible and
economically viable. It also allows people who are
trained as designers to use creative tools to address a
vast range of challenges. The goal: to tap into abilities
we all have that are overlooked by more conventional
problem-solving practices. Thinking like a designer
relies on one’s ability “to be intuitive, to recognize pat-
terns, to construct ideas that are emotionally meaning-
ful as well as functional, and to express ourselves
through means beyond words or symbols.”89
Beyond Product Design IDEO’s design thinking
has been so successful that many nonbusiness and
nonproduct organizations are now engaging the
company. For instance, it is working with the City of
Los Angeles to design a revolutionary voting system
for its 5 million registered voters. The system must
be “useful and accessible to all types of voters: those
who are vision and hearing impaired, in wheelchairs,
have learning disabilities, are unfamiliar with technol-
ogy, speak languages other than English—voters of
all ages and backgrounds.”90 IDEO’s Ann Kim also
sees an opening to help with very human problems
like sleeplessness and loneliness. “Science has sur-
faced the myriad of ways we can cultivate emotional
and mental well-being—all of which are new chan-
nels for design,” she says. “You don’t have to have a
doctor or nurse to help people. Designers are
healers, too.”91
As an Organization IDEO has more than 700
employees in 9 offices, both in major U.S. cities and
overseas in London, Munich, Shanghai, Singapore,
and Tokyo.92 The firm has an organic design, the
result of merging four design companies. Its current
structure builds on project teams and a flat hierarchy,
in support of individual autonomy and creativity.93
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What is appealing to you about IDEO?
2. To what extent does IDEO’s approach to design
force companies to use the seven components
of an innovation system (see Figure 15.7)?
Explain.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
623Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
adjusting to customer preferences can reduce innovation when employees get too
focused on budgets and specifications. Constant collaboration with customers will
keep work focused on what they ultimately value.97
Develop the Necessary Human Capital We defined human capital in Chapter 14
as the productive potential of an individual’s knowledge and actions: a person factor in the
Organizing Framework. Research has identified several employee characteristics that can
help organizations innovate. For example, innovation has been positively associated with
the individual characteristics associated with creativity, creative-thinking skills, intrinsic
motivation, the quality of the relationship between managers and employees, and interna-
tional work experience.98
EXAMPLE Cornerstone OnDemand, an HR software company, recognizes people
get stuck in routines and put creativity aside. To get people away from their everyday
routines, the company hosts an annual “hackathon” that takes place over a 24-hour
period. People from all departments work alone or in teams to develop and pitch
ideas they think will help move the company forward. According to Cornerstone’s
chief technology officer, there is only one rule: “You cannot work on activities related
to your day job; only new thinking and new ideas are allowed.”99
Human Resource Policies, Practices, and Procedures Human resource poli-
cies, practices, and procedures need to be consistent with and reinforce the other six com-
ponents of an innovation system. Companies that know this are more likely to be innovative
and to have higher financial performance.100 For example, the practice of bringing people
from different disciplines together to both brainstorm and train is a good way to foster the
collaboration needed for innovation. The University of Michigan’s Biointerfaces Institute
“locates materials scientists, chemical engineers, biomechanical engineers, and medical
researchers near each other. The resulting collaborations led to the creation of a blood test
that both captures and cultures cancer cells for speedier cancer diagnoses,” according to a
writer for Training.101
A company’s performance management and incentive system are often at odds with
an innovation culture and climate. For example, GE changed its well-known annual perfor-
mance review process to make it more consistent with driving innovation and attracting
younger employees. In the past, the company ranked all employees and then eliminated the
bottom 10 percent. This process has been replaced with a more nurturing approach includ-
ing an app, PD@GE, to help employees, managers, and teammates share feedback for
continuous improvement.102 Companies also need to align their reward and recognition
systems with innovation-related goals. Research shows that receipt of extrinsic rewards is
associated with both creativity and innovation.103
Appropriate Resources Organizations need to put their money where their mouths
are. If managers want innovation, they must dedicate resources to its development.
Resources can include people, dollars, time, energy, knowledge, and focus. Heineken, for
example, spent $2 million on training employees in beer basics to help them innovate.104
Office Design
Office designs have gone through radical changes in the past 15 years. In an effort to
reduce costs, to promote cooperative behavior and camaraderie, to increase productiv-
ity, and to create more transparency in what we do, many companies have adopted
open-office design. Unlike traditional designs in which people have their own offices,
open-plan designs offer shared work space that accommodates anywhere from two to
several hundred people. The Washington Post reported that 70 percent of today’s orga-
nizations use some amount of open office space. All told, our personal space at work is
predicted to decrease from 2010 levels of 225 square feet to under 100 square feet in
the near future.105
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
624 PART 3 Organizational Processes
For us, the question is whether the move to open-office designs is leading to positive
individual, group, and organizational outcomes. What is your opinion? Here are some
findings from OB research:
• Privacy, defined as the ability to control incoming stimulation and interpersonal
contact and to limit outgoing information, is reduced in an open-plan office.106
• Few office cubicle dividers are tall enough to block the noise and distractions that
limit people’s ability to focus at work. The resulting overstimulation is stressful for
many people.107
• Spatially dense work environments (in which employees are crowded) have been
found to promote cooperative behavior and productivity, but they can also be detri-
mental to individual, group, and organizational performance.108
• Attitudes about personal space are culturally bound around the world. “Germans
allocate an average of 320 square feet per employee; Americans an average of 190.
For workers in India and China, the figures are 70 and 50 square feet respectively,”
according to a writer in the Harvard Business Review. Both Indian and Chinese
workers rated their work environments highly in terms of their ability to concentrate
and work without disruption, but this is not true in the United States.109
The above results demonstrate both positive and negative effects of open-office
designs. So what is management to do? For one, recognize that people have preferences.
For example, some people enjoy the social interaction of the workplace, while others find
the work environment too distracting to be productive and would rather work in a quiet
environment. Second, remember that open offices are not inherently good or bad when it
comes to innovation, collaboration, or performance. All told, we agree with these conclu-
sions by a team of office design professionals.
The key to successful work spaces is to empower individuals by giving them
choices that allow control over their work environment. When they can choose
where and how they work, they have more capacity to draw energy and ideas from
others and be re-energized by moments of solitude. Providing the ability to move
easily between group time and individual private time, create a rhythm—coming
together to think about a problem and then going away to let ideas gestate—that is
essential to the modern organization.110
This photo is quite typical for an open office environment. What are the pros and cons to
working in this area? Would you prefer this office design or a traditional office with a door?
Cathy Yeulet/123RF
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
625Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Organizations that measure and monitor their progress in achieving goals outperform those
that do not. The type of goals companies seek to achieve essentially define their mission and
vision. The purpose of this section is to discuss the effectiveness criteria organizations use.
15.6 ASSESSING ORGANIZATIONAL EFFECTIVENESS
Do you think top managers would like to have easy-to-read graphics that contain the latest
information about sales, quality problems, employee turnover, and the like, aggregated
from data pulled in real time from corporate software? The technology to track all these
metrics exists and is called a dashboard, like the instrument panel in a car.
Bob Parsons, founder of GoDaddy, believed in dashboards. “Measure everything of
significance. Anything that is measured and watched improves,” he said.111 Larry Bossidy,
former CEO of both Honeywell International and AlliedSignal, similarly noted, “When I
see companies that don’t execute, the chances are that they don’t measure, don’t reward,
and don’t promote people who know how to get things done.”112
In several chapters we emphasized the value of evidence-based management—the use
of real-world data rather than assumptions or hunches in making managerial decisions.
The dashboard is a tool that can help you manage this way. Two professors from Harvard,
Robert Kaplan and David Norton, have applied the dashboard idea in their balanced score-
card and strategy maps. These tools help companies establish their strategies and goals and
provide a vehicle for assessing organizational effectiveness. Hundreds of companies
around the globe have used them.113
The Balanced Scorecard: A Dashboard-Based
Approach to Measuring Organizational Effectiveness
Kaplan and Norton note, “The balanced scorecard (BSC) translates an organization’s
vision and strategy into a comprehensive set of performance measures that provides the
framework for a strategic measurement and management system.” It “retains an emphasis
on achieving financial objectives, but also includes the performance drivers of these finan-
cial objectives.”114 The BSC provides managers with a comprehensive view of the organiza-
tion in terms of four perspectives: (1) financial, (2) customer, (3) internal business
processes, and (4) learning and growth, which looks at employee welfare and development.
“Think of the balanced scorecard as the dials and indicators in an airplane cockpit,”
say Kaplan and Norton. For a pilot, “reliance on one instrument can be fatal. Similarly, the
complexity of managing an organization today requires that managers be able to view per-
formance in several areas simultaneously.”115
Four Perspectives Underlying the Balanced Scorecard The process of creating
a balanced scorecard requires managers to establish goals and measures for all four per-
spectives. Let’s look at each one.
1. Financial Perspective: How Do We Look to Shareholders? Corporate financial strategies
and goals generally fall into two buckets: revenue growth and productivity growth.
Revenue growth goals might focus on increasing revenue from both new and existing
customers. Equipment manufacturer John Deere, for instance, is pursuing new revenue by
developing software services and machine learning algorithms that provide information
Explain how to assess
an organization’s
effectiveness.
LO 15-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
626 PART 3 Organizational Processes
and guidance to farmers in the field. It is doing this to offset
a recent decrease in revenue.116 Productivity metrics such as rev-
enue per employee or total output produced divided by number
of employees are common organization-level goals. We can also
measure productivity in terms of costs. For example, Gap
recently announced plans to close more than 200 underperform-
ing retail stores to decrease costs and improve profitability.117
2. Customer Perspective: How Do Customers See Us? Many compa-
nies view customers as one of their most important constituents.
The balanced scorecard translates this belief into measures such
as market share, customer acquisition, customer retention, cus-
tomer satisfaction/loyalty, product/service quality, response
time—the time between order and delivery—and percentage of
bids won. Part of Amazon’s success, for example, is its response
time and pricing. The general idea behind the customer perspec-
tive is that companies will acquire and retain more customers,
thereby growing market share, when they provide high-quality
products and services people want, and in a timely manner.118
Management at the the Four Seasons resort chain places
high emphasis on customer satisfaction and loyalty. To achieve
the goal of providing the quietest rooms in the industry, a For-
tune reporter noted the company built facilities such that “no
plumbing touches concrete. To encourage personalized service
[the CEO], gave everyone from parking attendants on up the
authority to act instantly when a guest makes a request.”119
3. Internal Business Process Perspective: What Must We Excel
At? The internal business perspective focuses on “what the
organization must excel at” to effectively meet its financial
objectives and customers’ expectations. A team of researchers
has identified four critical high-level internal processes that managers are encouraged
to measure and manage:
• Innovation.
• Customer service and satisfaction.
• Operational excellence, which includes safety and quality.
• Good corporate citizenship.120
These processes influence productivity, efficiency, quality, safety, and a host of
other internal metrics. Companies tend to adopt continuous improvement programs
in pursuit of upgrades to their internal processes. Consider how Graycor Industrial
Constructors (Graycor) attempts to meet its goal of safety and quality.
EXAMPLE Chicago–based Graycor Industrial Constructors sets a safety standard
of zero incidents led by its tenet: “Nothing is more important than safety. Not produc-
tion, not sales, not profits.” As part of the general contractor’s safety and health pro-
gram, all company leaders and project team supervisors—from general foremen to
company president—must complete job site-specific safety training, which includes
the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) 30-hour course, inci-
dent investigation, task safety planning, and hazard recognition. One way the North
American builder encourages its employees to participate in the safety process is
through a “good catch” program, set up to motivate field workers and managers to
share lessons learned to prevent an incident from occurring. Graycor, founded in
1921, was named one of America’s safest companies in 2018 by EHS Today.121
Cotopaxi, an outdoor apparel company, makes corporate citizenship its top crite-
rion for evaluating organizational effectiveness. As part of its mission the company
funds global poverty alleviation, moves people to do good, and inspires adventure
These pilots monitor the dials and gauges in the
cockpit to safely navigate a plane. A balanced
scorecard is akin to the dials and gauges in a
cockpit. They inform managers as to the status
of achieving their goals.
Vladimir Maravic/Vetta/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
627Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
through innovative outdoor products and
experiences.122 According to Bloomberg
Businessweek, “Cotopaxi is one of about
1,700 businesses worldwide that have regis-
tered as a benefit corporation, or B Corp, a
legal category for corporations that hew to
the concept of a double bottom line, in
which financial goals don’t take precedence
over social ones.”123 The company gives
1 percent of its profits to organizations focused
on poverty alleviation around the world.124
4. Learning and Growth Perspective: Can We
Continue to and Create Value? The learning
and growth perspective focuses on providing
employees with the capabi lities, resources,
and work environment they need to achieve
customer, internal business processes, and
financial goals. It’s the foundation of all other goals in a scorecard. Typical metrics in this
perspective are employee satisfaction/engagement, employee retention, employee produc-
tivity, training budget per employee, technology utilization, and organizational climate
and culture. Many are tracked with employee surveys to gauge attitudes and opinions.
Based on theories and research discussed throughout this book, you might expect your job
satisfaction, engagement, and performance to be higher if you work for a company that
truly cares about the innovation and learning perspective. Are you curious about whether
a current or former employer is committed to this perspective? You can find out by
completing Self-Assessment 15.4.
In an industrial project’s “topping out,” Graycor Industrial Constructors
safely hoisted and placed a roof weighing approximately 170 tons as
a major milestone during an environmental retrofit project the general
contractor completed at a coal-fired power plant in the United States.
Courtesy of Graycor Industrial Constructors Inc.
Assessing the Learning and Growth Perspective of the
Balanced Scorecard
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 15.4 in Connect.
1. Where does the company stand in terms of commitment to innovation and
learning? Are you surprised by the results?
2. Use the three highest and three lowest scores to identify the strengths and
weaknesses of this company’s commitment to innovation and learning.
3. Based on your answer to question 2, suggest three ways management can
improve its commitment to innovation and learning.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 15.4
Strategy Mapping: Visual Representation of the
Path to Organizational Effectiveness
Have you ever worked for a company that failed to effectively communicate its vision and
strategic plan? If yes, then you know how it feels to be disengaged because you don’t know
how your work contributes to organizational effectiveness. Kaplan and Norton recognized
this common problem and developed a tool called the strategy map.
A strategy map is a “visual representation of a company’s critical objectives
and the crucial relationships among them that drive organizational performance.”
Maps show relationships among a company’s strategic goals. This helps employees
understand how their work contributes to their employer’s overall success.
We created an illustrative strategy map for Dr Pepper Snapple Group in Figure 15.8.
Starting with learning and growth, the arrows in the diagram show the logic that connects
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
628 PART 3 Organizational Processes
goals to internal processes, to customers, to financial goals, and finally to the long-term
goal of providing shareholder value. For example, you can see that organizational culture
affects the internal process goals related to innovation, operational improvements, and
good corporate citizenship. This causal structure provides a strategic road map of how the
company plans to achieve organizational effectiveness.
You can also detect which of the four perspectives is most important to Dr Pepper
Snapple by counting the number of goals in each perspective. For this strategy map, there
are four, five, eight, and four goals for the financial, customer, internal processes, and
learning and growth perspectives, respectively. You can also see that internal process goals
affect eight other goals—count the number of arrows coming from internal process goals.
All told, the beauty of a strategy map is that it enables leaders to present a strategic road
map to employees on one page. It also provides a clear statement about the criteria used to
assess organizational effectiveness. The strategy map for Dr Pepper Snapple Group may
be changing in the near future because the company was recently purchased by Keurig
Green Mountain, a merger that will create a new beverage giant with $11 billion in sales
and combines the Dr Pepper, 7UP, and Keurig’s single-serve coffee brands.125
Innovation
• Expand low and
zero-calorie drinks
• Make sodas part of
Keurig’s cold-drink
machine
Operational Excellence
• Reduce packaging
expense
• Competitive pricing
o�ers
Revenue Growth
• % increase in sales
• Increase in number of company-
owned vending machines
Productivity Growth
• Increase inventory turnover
• Reduce expenses
• Reduce turnover
• Amount of employee training
Organizational Culture
Employee Capabilities
and Attitudes
• Support employees by keeping
jobs in the U.S.
• Employee awareness of vision
and purpose
Long-Term Shareholder Value
Customer Intimacy
• Improve relationships
with distributors
• Increase customer
awareness
Product Leadership
• Roll out soda with
natural sweetener
Customer Value
• Reduce calories in
drinks
Operational
Improvements
• Continuous
improvement
• Shorter cycle time
• Decrease safety
accidents
Good Corporate
Citizenship
• Promote calorie
awareness
• Increase container
recycling rate
Internal
Process
Goals
Customer
Goals
Financial
Goals
Learning and
Growth Goals
FIGURE 15.8 Sample Strategy Map for Dr Pepper Snapple Group
SOURCES: The Shelby Report. “Dr Pepper Snapple Group To Boost Container Recycling, And More…” Accessed June 14, 2019. https://www.theshelbyreport.
com/2016/02/12/dr-pepper-snapple-group-to-boost-container-recycling-and-more/.; Choi, Candice. “Dr Pepper to Test Naturally Sweetened Sodas.” Advantage
Business Marketing, February 13, 2014. https://www.manufacturing.net/news/2014/02/dr-pepper-test-naturally-sweetened-sodas.; Gasparro, Annie, and Mike
Esterl. “Keurig Reels In Dr Pepper for Its Coming Soda Machine.” The Wall Street Journal, January 7, 2015. https://www.wsj.com/articles/keurig-reels-in-dr-pepper-
for-its-coming-soda-machine-1420590475.; Frizell, Sam. Coke and Pepsi Pledge to Cut Calories. TIME USA, LLC., September 23, 2014. https://time.com/3422724/
coca-cola-pepsi-dr-pepper-snapple-soda-calories/.; Esterl, Mike. “How Dr Pepper Cuts Costs. And Keeps Cutting.” The Wall Street Journal, February 21, 2016.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-dr-pepper-cuts-costs-and-keeps-cutting-1456110339.; and Keurig Dr Pepper, Inc. “Vision—Call to Breakthrough ACTION.”
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
629Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
15.7 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN
UNDERSTANDING ORGANIZATIONAL
DESIGN, EFFECTIVENESS, AND INNOVATION
HELP ME SUCCEED?
Takeaways for Me
Here are six things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive change in your
personal and professional life.
1. Take the time to learn from failure in both your personal and work life: It helps to adopt
a learning or mastery goal orientation.
2. Structure affects your behavior and performance: If you feel your employer’s organiza-
tional structure is constraining your effectiveness, try to find a solution for overcom-
ing the barrier.
3. Person–organization fit matters when it comes to organizational design: This means
you need to understand the pros and cons of the seven organizational designs so you
can assess whether a particular work environment is going to fit.
4. Build your human and social capital so you can help your organization innovate.
5. If your office environment does not suit your work style, talk to your boss about changes
that would make things better.
6. Try to establish goals at work that take the four perspectives in the balanced scorecard:
This will be more effective if your goals flow from those of your boss.
Takeaways for Managers
There are seven key implications for managers.
1. Do what you can to help your organization learn: Be seen as someone who promotes
learning rather than someone who hides from failure and constructive feedback.
2. Formalize the process of learning from failure within your work unit.
3. Familiarize yourself with the pros and cons of the seven core organizational designs:
This will enable you to participate in related discussions at work.
4. Assess the extent to which your organization’s current structure is based on the alignment
of the six key internal organizational-level characteristics: If they are not aligned, present
a proposal to someone higher in the managerial chain about improving this alignment.
5. Foster innovation by focusing on how you can enhance an innovation system: Improve
those factors under your control.
6. Talk to your team about the office design: Find out how everyone feels about it and ask
for recommendations about how it might be improved.
7. Use the balanced scorecard as a framework for setting goals for your work unit: Apply
strategy mapping as a mechanism to show how your goals flow upward from the
learning and growth perspective to the financial perspective.
Regardless of their size, organizations possess common characteristics such as structure and
innovation, which impact their overall effectiveness. Here are some key points to consider.
Describe the
implications of
organizational design,
effectiveness, and
innovation for you and
managers.
LO 15-7
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
630 PART 3 Organizational Processes
You learned that your knowledge of organizational
design, effectiveness, and innovation gives you
the ability to help both you and an organization to
achieve desired goals. Reinforce your learning with
the Key Points below. Then consolidate your learn-
ing with the Organizing Framework. Finally, chal-
lenge your mastery of the material by answering
the Major Questions in your own words.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 15
You learned the following key points.
15.1 UNDERSTANDING ORGANI-
ZATIONAL BEHAVIOR
• All organizations have three things in com-
mon: a form or structure, a desire to be effec-
tive, and the need to innovate.
• An organization’s structure acts like a finger-
print, helping us understand who reports to
whom and how information flows across orga-
nizational levels.
• An organization’s effectiveness amounts to
making money (for-profit firms) or helping
those in need (nonprofit organizations) and
satisfying employees, customers, and share-
holders.
• All organizations need to innovate to remain
in business. Innovation is a key driver of long-
term organizational performance.
15.2 THE FOUNDATION OF AN
ORGANIZATION
• Coordination of effort, aligned goals, division
of labor, and hierarchy of authority are four
common denominators of all organizations.
• There is no consensus about the optimal span
of control. In setting the span of control, man-
agers should consider the organization’s size,
the skill level needed to complete tasks,
the organization’s culture, and managerial
responsibilities.
• Closed systems, such as a battery-powered
clock, are relatively self-sufficient. Open sys-
tems, such as the growing and selling of
organic food, are highly dependent on the
environment for survival. Organizations are
open systems.
• A learning organization proactively creates,
acquires, and transfers knowledge and
changes its behavior on the basis of new
knowledge and insights.
• Figure 15.5 illustrates the five-step process
underlying organizational learning.
15.3 ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN
• There are three broad types of organizational
design: traditional, horizontal, and open. Each
has a different focus and is associated with
specific types of structure.
• Organizations are structured in seven basic
ways. Traditional designs include (1) func-
tional structures, in which work is divided
according to function; (2) divisional structures,
in which work is divided according to prod-
uct or customer type or location; and
(3) matrix structures, with dual-reporting lines
based on product and function. Organizations
also may be designed (4) horizontally, with
cross-functional teams responsible for entire
processes. Organization design can reduce
barriers between organizations, by means of
(5) hollow organizations, which outsource
functions; (6) modular organizations, which
outsource the production of a product’s com-
ponents; and (7) virtual organizations, which
temporarily combine the efforts of members
of different companies to complete a project.
• Table 15.2 summarizes the pros and cons of
each of the seven types of organizational
design.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
631Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
15.6 ASSESSING
ORGANIZATIONAL
EFFECTIVENESS
• The balanced scorecard is a dashboard
approach to measuring organizational effec-
tiveness. It is based on the use of four key
perspectives to measure organizational
effectiveness.
• The four perspectives underlying the bal-
anced scorecard are financial, customer,
internal business process, and learning and
growth.
• A strategy map is a visual representation of a
company’s strategic goals and the relation-
ships among them.
15.7 HOW CAN UNDERSTANDING
ORGANIZATIONAL DESIGN,
EFFECTIVENESS, AND INNO-
VATION HELP ME SUCCEED?
• Learning from failure in your personal and
work life can help you adopt a learning orien-
tation.
• Familiarizing yourself with the pros and cons
of the seven core organizational designs will
give you confidence to participate in related
discussions at work.
• Using the balanced scorecard framework to
set goals for your work unit will provide a
comprehensive look at what the organization
is trying to accomplish.
The Organizing Framework for
Chapter 15
As shown in Figure 15.9, more situation than per-
son factors serve as inputs to a host of processes
across all three organizational levels. These pro-
cesses in turn affect outcomes across the individ-
ual, group, and organizational levels.
15.4 CONTINGENCY DESIGN AND
INTERNAL ALIGNMENT
• There is no one best form of structure for an
organization. Organizations are more effec-
tive when they are structured to fit the
demands of the situation.
• Managers should consider five key contin-
gency factors when making decisions about
organizational design: strategy and goals,
market uncertainty, decision-making pro-
cesses, technology, and size.
• Six organizational characteristics—strategy;
structure; organizational culture; internal pro-
cesses; human resource practices, policies,
and procedures; and employees’ human and
social capital—need to be aligned and mutu-
ally reinforcing when selecting an effective
organizational design.
• There are both short- and long-term benefits
to knowing about organizational design.
15.5 ORGANIZATIONAL
INNOVATION
• Innovation is the creation of something new
and useful that gets commercialized.
• Crossing the types of innovation with the
focus of the innovation results in four
approaches toward innovation.
• Innovations can produce new products or
new processes and can vary in focus from
improvement to new directions.
• An innovation system’s seven components
are an innovation strategy, commitment from
senior leaders, an innovative culture and cli-
mate, required structure and processes, nec-
essary human capital, appropriate resources,
and human resource policies, practices, and
procedures.
• Office design affects innovation and
employee performance.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
632 PART 3 Organizational Processes
2. What are the seven basic ways in which organi-
zations are structured, and how do these struc-
tures relate to the organization’s purpose?
3. How can I use knowledge about contingent
organization design and internal alignment to
improve my satisfaction and performance?
4. How can I support my employer’s attempts to
innovate?
5. What does its choice of ways to measure its
effectiveness tell me about an organization?
Challenge: Major Questions for
Chapter 15
You now should be able to answer the following
questions. Unless you can, have you really pro-
cessed and internalized the lessons in the chap-
ter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 15.9, the
chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and answer
the following major questions:
1. How can knowledge about an organization’s
foundation help me in my career?
FIGURE 15.9 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Attitudes about freelancing
• Goal orientation
• P-O fit
Situation Factors
• Organizational structure
• Organizational culture
• Organizational climate
• Organizational vision and
values
• Contingency factors
• Physical environment
Individual Level
• Decision making
Group/Team Level
• Postmortems of failure
• Decision making
• Communication
Organizational Level
• Organizational learning
• Human resource policies,
practices and procedures
• Communication
• Balanced scorecard
• Strategy maps
• Innovation system
Individual Level
• Job satisfaction
• Performance
• Creativity
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Innovation
Organizational Level
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Innovation
© 2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
633Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
Barnes & Noble is the largest bookstore chain in the
United States having sold more than 6.7 billion books
since going public in 1993. Leonard Riggio, the book-
seller’s chairman, started with a single Manhattan loca-
tion and now operates 627 stores in all 50 states. The
New York–based company has approximately 26,000
employees.126
Barnes & Noble has fallen on hard times. The book-
seller has experienced declining revenues, resulting
in increased debt from $84 million in 2017 to
$178 million in 2018.127 The company also was forced
to lay off its entire full-time staff of 1,800 employees in
February 2018 to alleviate some of the mounting
financial pressure.128 These financial pressures have
taken a toll on the bookseller’s stock, which plunged
more than 60 percent between 2015 and 2018.129
Let’s explore the causes of Barnes & Noble’s downfall.
THE RETAIL BOOKSTORE INDUSTRY
HAS EVOLVED
Barnes & Noble was once vilified as a behemoth that
drove local bookstores out of business. The booksell-
ing giant grew at the turn of the century with the num-
ber of independent bookstores falling 43 percent from
1995 to 2009, according to the American Booksellers
Association.130 This growth was fueled by the
increased development of malls and shopping centers.
The company’s fortunes changed with two critical,
yet conflicting, events. First, the success of online
retailers, such as Amazon, has led to the decline of
storefront traffic, which Barnes & Noble relies on as a
primary revenue source. Second, independent book-
stores are making a comeback, aided by increased
customer interest in localization and a curated expe-
rience. In fact, the number of independent store loca-
tions has increased 67 percent between 2009 and
2018.131
STAGNATION AND CONFUSION
AT BARNES AND NOBLE
So why is Barnes & Noble failing in an industry that is
growing in the face of Amazon? Its flagship Union
Square location in New York City provides a clue. “The
CD and DVD sections, which still occupy a sizable
chunk of store space, are often deserted and
unmanned,” according to Andria Cheng, a Forbes con-
tributor. Customers don’t seem to have a reason to
come into a Barnes and Noble like they would a niche
independent bookstore. The national bookseller
doesn’t have a unique experience to offer; on the con-
trary, it seems to offer too much of everything. “Else-
where in the store, alongside bestsellers, signed
copies and books . . . are more examples of mismatched
merchandise: journals, toys, candles and diffuser sets,
tea and chocolate selections,” says Cheng.132
Business Insider compared New York’s Barnes &
Noble with Amazon stores and found Barnes & Noble
to be “like a dollar store” and that “the grab-bag inven-
tory strategy makes the store seem confused and des-
perate.” The Amazon store, on the other hand,
resembled “the future of chain retail.”133 In the end,
Barnes & Noble doesn’t seem to know what it stands
for, and what it wants to be, according to Forbes.134
WHO’S ATOP THE HIERARCHY?
It’s difficult to come up with an effective strategy when
you don’t have a leader. Chairman Leonard Riggio
stepped down as CEO of Barnes & Noble in 2002. The
company had stable leadership for another decade,
first led by Stephen Riggio (Leonard’s younger brother)
and then by William Lynch. Lynch is credited with
launching the company’s electronic bookstore and
introducing its electronic book reader, the Nook.135
Lynch stepped down in 2013, launching a turbulent
time for company leadership with five chief executives
leaving between 2013 and 2018.136
Some of the turnover atop the organization can be
attributed to Chairman Riggio. Riggio is notorious for
micromanaging his CEOs. An analyst at Gabelli & Com-
pany told The New York Times that, “Anyone who joins
there knows that the chairman is very hands on.”137
For example, Riggio fired former-CEO Ronald Boire
less than one year into Boire’s tenure. The chairman
simply stated that Boire “was not a good fit for the
organization” and declined to provide additional com-
mentary after letting him go in 2016.138 Riggio then
hired Demos Parneros as chief executive. Parneros
was fired for misconduct a year later and is now suing
Barnes & Noble for wrongful termination.139
The organization’s skyrocketing CEO turnover rate
has caught the attention of external stakeholders. For
example, book-publishing executives expressed con-
cerns to Riggio about continuing management instabil-
ity at the retail giant and the direction of the business,
according to The Wall Street Journal. Publishers argue
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Barnes & Noble Faces Its Last Chapter
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
634 PART 3 Organizational Processes
that Barnes & Noble needs to have a strategy to drive
performance. This is especially important when Amazon
is competing with it digitally and in stores, and small
bookstores are nipping at its heels. “I expressed
frustration that if they had a plan, we didn’t know it,” a
publishing executive who met with Riggio told the
Journal.140
Riggio disputes claims that Barnes & Noble is mired
in a leadership crisis. “I have a big stake in the busi-
ness, I founded it and I’ve been here forever, so I think
there’s a lot of stability that comes with that . . . If we’re
without a leader, I’m it,” Riggio told The New York
Times.141 The chairman and interim CEO firmly
believes he is the innovative leader the company cur-
rently needs. “We have a lot of work that needs to get
done, and I think I bring the necessary leadership,” he
told Publishers Weekly.
Riggio’s strategy is for Barnes & Noble to become an
innovative storefront bookstore. The new store in
Columbia, Maryland, is a prime example. It features a
contemporary design, USB and electricity ports in the
café, and “book theaters,” which offer a 360-degree in-
the-round browsing experience. Riggio believes these
types of retail outlets are the way of the future. He also
believes that the company will succeed with better
merchandising and a coherent pricing strategy.142
Riggio doesn’t appreciate having his strategy ques-
tioned, which is evident by the number of CEOs he’s lost
in a short amount of time. Only time will tell if Reggio’s
vision and strategy will fix what ails Barnes & Noble.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 15.9 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember
that a problem is a gap between a desired and a
current state. State your problem as a gap, and
be sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
accomplished, decide which one is most impor-
tant and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and prob-
lems are generally viewed from a particular pro-
tagonist’s perspective. Take the perspective of
Barnes & Noble employees.
STEP 2: Identify causes of the problem by using
material from this chapter, summarized in the Organiz-
ing Framework shown in Figure 15.9. Causes will
appear in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.
A. Start by looking at Figure 15.9 to identify which
person factors, if any, are most likely causes to
the defined problem. For each cause, ask your-
self, Why is this a cause of the problem? Asking
why multiple times is more likely to lead you to
root causes of the problem.
B. Follow the same process for the situation factors.
C. Now consider the Processes box shown in
Figure 15.9. Consider concepts listed at all three
levels. For any concept that might be a cause,
ask yourself, Why is this a cause? Again, do this
for several iterations to arrive at root causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, map them onto the defined problem.
STEP 3: Make your recommendations for solving the
problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it,
solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom-
mendation is desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use the content in
Chapter 15 or one of the earlier chapters to pro-
pose a solution.
B. You may find potential solutions in the OB in
Action boxes and Applying OB boxes within this
chapter. These features provide insights into
what other individuals or companies are doing in
relationship to the topic at hand.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
635Organizational Design, Effectiveness, and Innovation CHAPTER 15
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Does Tax-Exempt Status for Universities Make Them Good
Organizational Citizens?
You learned that the balanced scorecard identifies four
categories of organizational effectiveness criteria.
Community-related measures of effectiveness, such as
good corporate citizenship, are one component of
the internal business process perspective. This
challenge considers the issue of community-related
effectiveness.
Surely universities and colleges are good for
society, but could they do better? Consider the issue
of federal income taxation. According to the Associ-
ation of American Universities (AAU), “the vast
majority of private and public universities and col-
leges are tax-exempt entities as defined by the
Internal Revenue Code . . . because of their educa-
tional purposes—purposes that the federal govern-
ment has long recognized as fundamental to
fostering the productive and civic capacities of citi-
zens.”143 The AAU further notes that “income for
activities that are substantially related to the pur-
pose of an institution’s tax exemption, charitable
contributions received, and investment income are
not subject to federal income tax.”144
Local Community Uproar
Princeton University is New Jersey’s only Ivy League
school. Its $22.7 billion endowment is the fourth larg-
est in the United States.145 Not only has Princeton not
paid income taxes on investment income from this
endowment, but it has also been exempt from property
taxes. This property tax exemption is problematic for
the local Princeton community because residents end
up paying more in taxes to make up the difference.
“Those with the least resources . . . [are] subsidizing
the nonpayment of some of the wealthiest property
owners, namely Princeton University,” according to the
town’s former mayor.146
Local homeowners filed suit against Princeton Uni-
versity in 2011, challenging the tax-exempt status of
the school. The 27 plaintiffs were low-income, dis-
abled, or retirees. Bruce Afran, an attorney who repre-
sented the residents, told The Wall Street Journal that,
“We don’t want Princeton to just be a preserve of the
well-off . . . so we designed this lawsuit to try to stabi-
lize the tax base, to give these more disadvantaged
families a chance to keep up.”147 The university settled
the lawsuit in 2016 by agreeing to pay $18.2 million
over six years. However, the question of future prop-
erty tax liability remains unresolved.148
Congress Gets Involved
Congress passed a federal budget bill in 2018 that tar-
gets 35 colleges and universities that have large
endowments. The law enacts a 1.4% excise tax on
annual endowment income for institutions with assets
greater than $500,000 per full-time student. Yale Uni-
versity is one of the institutions impacted by this law
because it has a total of $2 million per full-time stu-
dent. Therefore, the university will have to pay an esti-
mated $30.8 million on its 2018 endowment income.
The tax will surely cause budgeting challenges for Yale
and other affected institutions, an expert on endow-
ments told the Yale Daily News. Yale is lobbying Con-
gress to repeal the law.149
If You Were a Lawmaker Evaluating
the Tax-Exempt Status of Princeton
and Yale, How Would You Vote?
1. I would continue to give universities tax-exempt
status on both endowments and property taxes.
Universities most likely spend the tax-exempt
money on scholarships, buildings, and funding
research. All these expenditures provide value
to society, suggesting that universities are good
citizens.
2. I would vote for tax-exempt status on invest-
ment income for the same reasons noted
above, but not for the property taxes. Everyone
else has to pay property taxes, and if colleges
and universities paid them too, the funds would
directly help the members of the surrounding
community by reducing their tax burden. This
is good citizenship.
3. I would revoke the tax-exempt status of invest-
ment income and collect property taxes from the
universities. Being a good corporate citizen
necessitates that these institutions pay taxes like
businesses and individuals do.
4. Invent other options.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
LO 16-1 Understand the major forces of organizational change.
LO 16-2 Apply knowledge of various models to effectively manage change.
LO 16-3 Outline and manage major causes of resistance to change.
LO 16-4 Explain both the benefits and problems associated with stress.
LO 16-5 Use OB knowledge and tools to manage change and stress.
LO 16-6 Describe the implications of managing stress and change for you and
managers.
After reading this chapter, you should be able to:
We conclude the book with how to manage change and stress. These organization-level
processes (see Figure 16.1) are fitting ways to conclude our OB journey, because they either
influence or are influenced by everything else you’ve learned. For instance, effectively managing
change involves person and situation inputs, as well as numerous processes at the individual,
group, and organizational levels. Similarly, the success of change initiatives is measured in terms
of outcomes across the three levels of OB. We discuss stress along with change because
change is one of the most common and significant causes of employee stress. Managing
change effectively will not only reduce the stress in your life, but also help you stand out from
the competition throughout your career.
Managing Change
and Stress16
Fe
re
nc
S
ze
le
pc
se
ny
i/S
hu
tte
rs
to
ck
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
637Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
FIGURE 16.1 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Demographics
• Skills and abilities
• Values
• Needs
• Ethics
• Stressors
Situation Factors
• Relationship quality
• Leadership
• Human resource problems/
prospects
• Managerial behavior/
decisions
• Culture (organizational)
• Technology
• Market forces
• Social, political, and
regulatory pressures
• Stressors
• Organizational mission
and vision
• Strategy
Individual Level
• Emotions
• Cognitive appraisals
• Coping strategies
• Perceptions
• Motivation
• Trust
• Communication
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
• Conflict and negotiation
• Decision making
• Power, influence, and politics
• Performance management
• Leadership
• Trust
Organizational Level
• Human resource policies and
practices
• Culture
• Organizational design and
effectiveness
• Leading and managing
change and stress
• Trust
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being
• Citizenship behavior/
counterproductive behavior
• Resistance to change
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Stress (physical and
emotional)
• Accidents
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and conflict
• Resistance to change
Organizational Level
• Survival
• Accounting/financial
performance
• Organizational performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
• Reputation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
638
Winning at Work
To Move or Not to Move, That Is the Question
Throughout your career you’ll likely have many jobs in
many locations, and some of the most appealing may
require you to relocate. Such opportunities can be very
exciting and the decision to pack and go easy. However,
depending on you (your age and career goals), the job
(responsibilities and future promotion prospects), your life
(proximity to family and your partner’s career), and the dis-
tance (another state or country), the decision may be quite
challenging. Relocation decisions often require you to bal-
ance professional and personal benefits and costs. The fol-
lowing considerations may help.
1. Think Big. This means consider your larger career and
life goals. Who do you want to become and what do
you want to accomplish professionally? What sort of
life do you want outside of work? How would the move
impact you as a partner and how will the move affect
your partner? If you have children or plan to have chil-
dren, what are the implications for them and for you as
their parent? In short, consider your happiness within
and between your professional and personal lives.
2. Keep a Foot in Each Place. Some moves, especially
those that are international, can disconnect you from
your previous network. Though you’ll presumably build
new relationships and skills in your new location, it
may be important also to work hard at preserving
those ties in your original location. Plan for this, includ-
ing who you’ll communicate with, how, and how often.
It may be wise to plan periodic return trips to the other
office, and/or make attempts to attend important
events at the old location, even if you have to pay for it
yourself.
3. Next Job. You’re relocating for a new position and the
opportunities you expect it to provide. What opportuni-
ties will likely be available to you because of the posi-
tion you’re relocating for? Consider whether the move
and associated cost (personal, social and professional)
is worth it.
4. Is there a Parachute? Sometimes things don’t work
out, you’re miserable, your family is miserable, or the
job and location just don’t meet your expectations.
Can you come back to your old position? Is there an-
other attractive position within the company you could
reasonably expect to obtain? Or, will you be on your
own to find a new job with a different company? Some
organizations provide employees a “leave of absence”
or a trial period and will even hold the old position, but
this is relatively rare (consider negotiating for this). And
if moving expenses were covered in the relocation
package, then you might have to pay back some por-
tion should you have a change of heart.
5. Your Partner. If you currently have a partner this will
likely be a major factor in your consideration. What
about his or her job and career? Are there opportuni-
ties for both of you? Does one need to make a com-
promise, and if so, is it temporary or long-term? You
may not be able to definitively answer these ques-
tions, but they should be thoroughly explored and
discussed.
6. Children. They of course matter too, especially de-
pending on their ages, schools, friends, and family.
Experts recommend talking to them as well, but how
much you weigh their input and consider them in the
decision is a deeply personal matter.1
What’s Ahead in This Chapter
You’ve heard the statement: “The only constant in
life is change.” Now we want you to think about
what this fact might mean for your job and career.
We created this chapter not only to help you figure
this out, but also to give you practical knowledge
and tools to help manage change at different levels
in the Organizing Framework for OB. We’ll explore
common forces or drivers for change, as well as
learn about some popular models for understanding
and managing change. Because it’s normal for peo-
ple to resist change, it helps to learn why and what
you can do about it. Since change is a major cause
of stress at work, and in your life as a whole, we
help you understand both its positive and negative
aspects. The chapter concludes with suggestions
for managing resistance, stress, and change more
generally.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
639Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
THE BIGGER PICTURE
There are a great many potential forces for organizational change. In order for you to under-
stand and manage them more effectively, we organize them into two broad categories—
external and internal.
16.1 FORCES FOR CHANGE
Before we dive into a discussion of the forces for change, we’d like you to assess your own
attitudes toward change. Remember that attitudes are tendencies to respond either favor-
ably or unfavorably to a given object or situation. Complete Self-Assessment 16.1 to learn
about your general attitudes toward change, and use what you learn in this chapter to help
strengthen an already positive attitude or improve one that is not.
Understand the
major forces of
organizational
change.
LO 16-1
Assessing Your Attitudes toward Change at Work
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 16.1 in Connect.
1. What is your overall attitude? Are you surprised?
2. Think of three examples from school or work that are consistent with your score.
3. Now think of a clearly negative attitude you held toward a particular change.
What made this response different from or similar to your general attitudes
toward change?
4. Describe two specific ways you can improve your attitudes toward change.
(Hint: Draw on what you learned about attitudes.)
SOURCE: Adapted from V. D. Miller, J. R. Johnson, and J. Grau, “Antecedents and Willingness to Participate in a Planned
Organizational Change,” Journal of Applied Communication Research, 1994, 22: 59–80.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 16.1 CAREER READINESS
Now that you have a sense of your own attitudes toward change, consider this question
about organizations: How do they know when they should change? What cues should they
look for? Although there is no perfect answer to this question, a good place to start is to
consider the forces for change. We categorize them into external and internal forces to
make them easier to understand and remember (see Figure 16.2).
External Forces
External forces for change originate outside the organization. They can either present
new opportunities for the organization to realize and grow, or they can cause its ultimate
demise. The advent of smartphones created an opportunity that Apple seized and
converted into a market-dominating platform with the iPhone. This same opportunity
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
640 PART 3 Organizational Processes
caused the downfall of the BlackBerry as a dominant mobile phone player. Video streaming
has been meteoric for Netflix, Hulu, and others, but it crushed and eliminated Blockbuster
and other video stores. Ride sharing—Lyft and Uber—have not eliminated taxis but it has
upended the industry around the world. Let us now consider the four key external forces
for change:
1. Demographic characteristics.
2. Technological advancements.
3. Shareholder, customer, and market changes.
4. Social, political, and regulatory.
Demographic Characteristics As shown in Figure 16.3, Asians are now the fastest-
growing immigrant group in the United States, surpassing Latin Americans (including
those from Mexico).2 Millennials (those born between 1981 and 1996) should pass Baby
Boomers as the largest generation in the U.S. population by 2019, and they are already the
largest generation in the workforce (35 percent of the total). Another interesting
statistic—20 percent of U.S. citizens live in multigenerational households, a trend that
exists across racial groups and is nearly as high as it was in 1950!3 Demographic factors
like these are motivating organizations to change benefits and aspects of the work environ-
ment in order to attract, motivate, and retain diverse employees. This has caused organiza-
tions to change many aspects of their business, from the products and services they offer,
how they are delivered, to how they attract, hire, and retain employees.
Persistently high unemployment levels among young people around the world are cre-
ating a strong force for change felt by governments and organizations alike. Many believe
much of the unrest in the Middle East and Europe is fueled by a younger population that
cannot find meaningful employment opportunities.
FIGURE 16.2 External and Internal Forces for Change
Internal Forces
• Unmet needs
• Job dissatisfaction
• Absenteeism and turnover
• Productivity
• Participation/suggestions
Human Resource
Problems/Prospects
Managerial Behavior
/Decisions
• Conflict
• Leadership
• Reward systems
• Structural reorganization
The need
for change
External Forces
Demographic Characteristics
• Age
• Education
• Skill level
• Gender
• Immigration
Technological Advancements
• Manufacturing automation
• Information technology
Shareholder, Customer, and
Market Changes
• Changing customer
preferences
• Domestic and international
competition
• Mergers and acquisitions
Social and Political Pressures
• War
• Values
• Leadership
• Regulatory/legislative
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
641Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
Technological Advancements Technology continues to be a common means for
improving productivity, competitiveness, and customer service. The effect of social media,
for instance, cannot be overstated as it has changed every dimension of our lives. Virtual
reality (VR) has already begun to revolutionize medicine, for example, by enabling physi-
cians to see 3-D images of tumors and organs without cutting the patient open. Microsoft
HoloLens VR allows medical students to virtually inspect parts of the human anatomy
in less than half the time required by students using only cadavers. The scalability of
such applications is impactful too, as the growing global population will require far more
clinicians to be trained, in more and sometimes remote places, and VR may be part of
the answer.4
Drones are doing much more than delivering packages and taking aerial videos of
your favorite hike or beach. They are also delivering blood and other emergency supplies.
Zipline is helping the government of Rwanda provide medical care to residents who are
isolated due to distance or a lack of infrastructure, such as roads, clinics, and hospitals.
Expertise and supplies are going to those in need via drone, rather than patients traveling
to find care.5
Chipotle, the fresh-Mex restaurant chain, is utilizing technology to further boost its
robust sales and fuel its tremendous growth. For instance, technology is used to build cus-
tomer loyalty. Chipotle, like others in the industry, now generates a significant and grow-
ing proportion of their sales from online orders—up 64 percent from a year earlier when
they accounted for 13 percent of total sales in early 2019. The company has partnered with
Venmo, a digital wallet, to facilitate sales and build customer loyalty. Chipotle has taken it
FIGURE 16.3 Racial Demographic Trends in the United States: 1965–2065
1965 1975 1985
Actual
Asians Projected to Become the Largest Immigrant Group,
Surpassing Hispanics
% of immigrant population
Notes: Whites, Blacks and Asians include only single-race non-Hispanics.
Asians include Pacific Islanders. Hispanics are of any race. Other races
shown but not labeled.
Projected
1995 2005 2015
80
59
38
25 21 18
1
4
6
7
7 8
14
25
36
44 48 47
5
11
19 23 23 26
2025 2035 2045 2055 2065
18 18 18 19 20
8 9 9 9 9
43 40 37 34 31
29 32 34 36 38
White Black Hispanic Asian
SOURCES: Pew Research Center estimates for 1965–2015 based on adjusted census data; Pew Research Center.
“Modern Immigration Wave Brings 59 Million to U.S., Driving Population Growth and Change Through 2065: Views
of Immigration’s Impact on U.S. Society Mixed.” Washington, DC, 2015.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
642 PART 3 Organizational Processes
a step further and installed separate food preparation lines to serve digital orders. The
reasoning is two-pronged—to meet the growing demand and avoid slowing down and erod-
ing the experience of in-store customers.6
Each of these may present job and career opportunities for you. OB will certainly play
a central role in the level of success individuals and organizations will have with each
trend. Put another way, it is people who design and use such technological tools, interpret
the data, formulate a plan, and then apply it effectively.
Shareholder, Customer, and Market Changes Increased shareholder activism is
one of the most significant forces for change public companies have faced in the past sev-
eral years. Shareholders have pressed organizations to be more efficient, respond to legal
lapses, address privacy issues and hacks, and justify executive compensation packages.
Wall Street firm Janna Partners and CalSTRS, the enormous California public school
teachers’ pension fund wrote a letter to Apple insisting it explore and address the detri-
mental effects of its products on children. In the letter, Jana stated: “we believe the long-
term health of its youngest customers and the health of the society, our economy, and the
company itself are inextricably linked.”7
Social, Political, and Regulatory Uber continues to battle regulators, governments,
unions, and others regarding business practices, infringement on taxi services and licenses,
and employee versus contractor status of its drivers. These challenges are routinely in the
news, including its especially consequential conflict with the London Transit Authority.
Taxi drivers, the famous black cabs, face some of the most stringent qualifications of any
in the world. They have argued Uber’s drivers have unfair advantage and are circumventing
Chipotle Mexican Grill has taken an especially effective approach to online orders. The app is only one
component, as they have also created a “second line” behind the counter to fill these orders. This prevents
the growing online sales from negatively impacting the quality and speed of service delivered to in-store
customers.
BestStockFoto/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
643Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
the same requirements they must meet. If the Authority revokes Uber’s license to operate
in the city, which it has done in the past, the company will lose one of its largest and most
lucrative markets in the world.8
Cross cultural and cross boarder differences can also drive change. Tech companies
often face tougher regulations and big fines in Europe, such as the billions of dollars
European Union regulators have levied against Google,9 and the Indian government’s
potentially severe restrictions on what Amazon and Walmart can sell on their sites in
the country.10
Internal Forces
Internal forces for change come from inside the organization. Internal forces for
change come from both human resource problems and managerial behavior and
decisions.
Human Resource Problems or Prospects Human resource challenges stem from
employee perceptions regarding the way they are treated at work and the match between
individual and organization needs and desires. Dissatisfaction is a symptom of unmet
needs or mistreatment and most often requires attention from company leadership and
may signal a need for change. Similarly, unusual levels of absenteeism, work slowdowns,
strikes, and turnover can be powerful internal forces for change. American Airlines’ on-
time performance, for instance, took a hit when mechanics slowed the pace of their work
due to a lack of progress in contract negotiations.11 To help combat these challenges,
leaders and managers of change should encourage employee participation early and
throughout the change process.
Regulators can be major forces for change, either helping or hurting a company or industry. Uber, for
instance, has battled regulators across the globe, perhaps most notably in London. Decisions by regulators
there could have significant consequences locally and globally if other cities and countries adopt similar
policies.
Anthony Devlin/PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
644 PART 3 Organizational Processes
The saying “the only constant is change” also applies
to the CEO’s office. The top bosses at some compa-
nies seem to turn over as frequently as call center
employees. Toy maker Mattel changed CEOs three
times between 2015 and 2019. Seemingly none has
been able to stem losses and achieve profitability, let
alone new growth.12
The Top Turns Fast and Often Investors’ desire for
improved performance has spurred a dramatic
increase in CEO change as a means for such
improvements. Outplacement firm Challenger, Gray,
& Christmas reported a 25 percent increase in top
executive turnover from 2017 to 2018,13 and this
increase occurred in a relatively strong economy.
Reasons for Turnover Of course, there are many
reasons CEOs leave—retirement, other opportunities,
#MeToo and other questionable conduct,14 and even
illness and death. Sadly, Sergio Marchionne, who was
credited with saving or at least reviving Fiat and
Chrysler, died due to complications of shoulder
surgery.15 But research provides some measure of
support for CEO change and performance
improvement, such as that changes aligning with
sound organizational strategy are more likely to
generate gains, specifically, when a CEO is replaced
due to differences with the Board’s view on
appropriate organizational strategy.16
Gains Are Not Quick The same research showed
that the best performing companies often suffered
stock price declines In the first year after the CEO’s
departure, but the prices rebounded and matched
the competition in about three years.17 The same
companies typically tied the new CEO’s
compensation to long-term incentives, rather than
short-term quarterly metrics, and they also tended to
limit stock buy-backs (a very common way of
improving short-term earnings per share). Companies
and new CEOs who were successful also increased
investment In the business (capital expenditures) by
36 percent annually, much higher than average.18
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. What are your thoughts about removing CEOs in
order to boost organizational performance?
2. Assume you’re on the board of directors, what
three elements of CEO performance would you
consider most important when deciding whether
to force a CEO out?
3. What are three potential drawbacks to CEO turn-
over?
The C-Suite Revolving Door
OB in Action
Managerial Behaviors and Decisions Excessive interpersonal conflict between
managers and their subordinates or the board of directors can be a sign that change is
needed, as can misconduct. 2018 alone saw numerous CEOs ousted or resign due to
alleged or actual misconduct. Martin Sorrell, founder and CEO of one of the world’s larg-
est advertising and marketing firms, WPP, stepped down due to allegations of misconduct,
and Brian Krzanich, former CEO of Intel, left after it was learned he had a consensual
relationship with a subordinate. No scandal, no abuse, but such relationships violate com-
pany policies.19
Andrew Mason, founder and former CEO of Groupon, was fired due to his strategy
and the firm’s underperformance. Mason had decided to take the firm aggressively into
selling goods and not just coupons for discounts with local merchants. These actions, com-
bined with a disappointing international expansion, led the board to conclude that his
decisions and direction were not right for the company. For his part, Mason said: “After
Both internal (employees) and external (investors) forces can lead to changes in
senior leadership, as described in the OB in Action box.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
645Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
four and a half intense and wonderful years as CEO of Groupon, I’ve decided I’d like to
spend more time with my family. Just kidding—I was fired today.”20
When leadership at the top changes, it is common for incoming executives to clean
house and insert their own team. Airbus, the European aerospace pioneer (more than just
airplanes), appointed a new CEO in early 2019, Guillaume Faury. His work was cut out for
him, as the company continues to face intense competition from the likes of Boeing, and
the challenges of overcoming bribery and corruption allegations. Faury is expected to
change things, and to do this he brought in his own executive team.21
Now that you have a sense of the various forces of change, let’s explore some of the
common forms of change and models used to both understand and manage change more
effectively.
Changes in an organization’s strategy can cause leadership to make a
wide array of other changes, including removing senior leaders. This
can even happen to founders, as was the case with Andrew Mason at
Groupon.
Christoph Soeder/dapd/AP Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
646 PART 3 Organizational Processes
16.2 TYPES AND MODELS OF CHANGE
To manage change effectively, a contingency approach suggests you’d be wise to have a
variety of approaches or change management tools and use the one best suited for a par-
ticular change. We provide such knowledge and tools in this section. Let’s start our discus-
sion by looking at three general types of changes.
Three General Types of Change
A useful high-level way to organize and think about change is in terms of its degree of
complexity, cost, and uncertainty, and classify it as either adaptive, innovative, or radically
innovative (see Figure 16.4).
1. Adaptive change reintroduces a familiar practice either in a different unit or in
the same unit at a different point in time. Adaptive changes are the least complex,
costly, and uncertain. Allowing the market research group to operate on flextime, after
allowing the sales group to do so, is an example of adapting the scheduling practices
in one group based on those in another. Adaptive changes are not particularly threat-
ening to employees because they are at least somewhat familiar.
2. Innovative change introduces a practice that is new to the organization and is
midway on the continuum of complexity, cost, and uncertainty. If competitors in your
industry utilize shared office space, but your company hasn’t, then doing so qualifies
as innovative change. Innovative changes bring more uncertainty and cause more con-
cern than adaptive changes.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
This section provides insights into general types of organizational changes, as well as reviews
of Lewin’s change model, a systems model of change, Kotter’s eight steps for leading
organizational change, and the organizational development approach. Each serves as an
organizational-level tool for managing outcomes across the levels of our Organizing Frame-
work for Understanding and Applying OB.
Apply knowledge of
various models to
effectively manage
change.
LO 16-2
• Degree of complexity,
cost, and uncertainty
• Potential for resistance
to change
HighLow
Introducing a practice new
to the organization
Innovative
change
Reintroducing
a familiar
practice
Adaptive
change
Introducing a practice
new to the industry
Radically
innovative
change
FIGURE 16.4 Generic Typology of Organizational Change
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
647Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
3. Radically innovative change introduces a practice new to the industry and is at
the high end of the continuum of complexity, cost, and uncertainty. The introduction
of the sharing economy has been a radical change for many industries, such as trans-
portation (Uber and Lyft) and housing (Airbnb).
Driverless cars are and will be radically innovative for multiple industries. Many players
are obvious and already involved. For instance, taxi companies will likely still exist but
without drivers, as will the likes of Uber, Lyft, and other ride sharing companies. Automo-
bile and technology companies are already deeply invested, but what about others? Who
else? It’s easy to see how health care providers could dispatch vehicles to transport patients
to appointments, but what will this mean for the legal driving age and car ownership?
Furthermore, as change moves from adaptive to radical it requires and results in an
increasingly profound role for people, processes, and culture.22 Therefore, if you want to
radically innovate you had better understand and apply OB.
Now that you have a way of describing and classifying types of change, we will explore
several models to help you understand and manage change more effectively.
Lewin’s Change Model
Most models of organizational change originated from the landmark work of social psy-
chologist Kurt Lewin. Lewin developed a three-stage model of planned change that
explained how to initiate, manage, and stabilize the change process.23 The three stages are
unfreezing, changing, and refreezing (see Figure 16.5).
Unfreezing The focus of the unfreezing stage is creating motivation to change. The
most common, but not necessarily most effective, way of communicating a convincing
reason to change is to demonstrate current practices are less than ideal. Data related to
employee or customer satisfaction, or showing market share gains made by competitors, is
often used. The driverless car example above will require unfreezing for, among others,
consumers. Some claim the end of conventional car ownership is quickly coming. Purchas-
ing, maintaining, insuring, and keeping a personal car is on the way out.24
Changing Because change calls for learning and doing things differently, this stage
entails providing employees with new information, new behavioral models, new processes
or procedures, new equipment, new technology, or new ways of getting the job done.
How does management know what to change? There is no simple answer to this ques-
tion. Organizational change can be aimed at improvement or growth, or it can focus on
solving a problem such as poor customer service or low productivity. Change also can be
targeted at different levels in an organization. The point to keep in mind is that change
should be targeted at some type of desired end-result. The Organizing Framework for
Understanding and Applying OB is a good tool to use for identifying specific targets or
purposes for change.
FIGURE 16.5 Lewin Model of Change
Unfreezing
Create the
motivation
to change
Changing
Introduce new
information,
models, &
procedures
Refreezing
Support &
reinforce
the change
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
648 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Refreezing The goal of refreezing is to support and reinforce the change. Managers
support change by helping employees integrate the new behavior or attitude into their
accustomed way of doing things. They can first give employees a chance to exhibit the new
behaviors or attitudes. Once this happens, positive reinforcement can encourage the
desired change. More specifically, continuous reinforcement with extrinsic rewards (recog-
nition, feedback, bonuses) is useful early in the change process. This helps establish clear
links between the desired new behaviors and the reinforcing reward or recognition. And
don’t forget role modeling. Walking the talk of change is arguably the most powerful way
to get others to follow.
A Systems Model of Change
The systems approach to change is based on the notion that any change, no matter how
large or small, has ripple effects. Promoting an individual to a new work group affects
group dynamics in both the old and new groups. Creating project or work teams may
necessitate revamping compensation practices. These examples illustrate that change
creates additional change.
A systems model of change is similar to the systems framework used in the Organizing
Framework but a bit more complex (see Figure 16.6). This systems model of change
FIGURE 16.6 Systems Model of Change
Inputs
Strategic
Plans
Target Elements of Change
• Mission
• Vision
• Readiness
(individual and
organizational)
• Internal strengths
and weaknesses
• External
opportunities
and threats
• Policies
• Procedures
• Roles
• Structure
• Rewards
• Physical setting
• Strategies
• Goals
Organizational
Arrangements
• Knowledge
• Ability
• Attitudes
• Motivation
• Behavior
People • Organizational
level
• Department/
group level
• Individual level
• Organization
culture
• Group processes
• Interpersonal
interactions
• Communication
• Leadership
Social Factors
Outputs
• Processes
• Work flow
• Job design
• Technology
Methods
SOURCES: Fuqua, D. R. and Kurpius, D. J., “Conceptual Models in Organizational Consultation,” Journal of Counseling and Development, July–August 1993,
602–618; and Nadler, David A., and Michael L. Tushman. “Organizational Frame Bending: Principles for Managing Reorientation.” Academy of Management
Executive 3, no. 3 (1989): 194–204. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/3250/e8a8f2f99c94e362fabcb2147a8ec1395d6e .
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
649Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
includes inputs, strategic plans, target elements of change, and outputs. It is a very practi-
cal approach that can diagnose what to change and how to evaluate the success of a change
effort. Let’s explore its individual components.
Inputs The starting point for organizational change should be asking and answering the
question: “Why change?” Leaders need to be clear about the overarching motive or reason
for change, and elements in the inputs box in Figure 16.6 can help. For instance, it is wise
to ensure the intended changes align with the organization’s mission, vision, and resulting
strategic plan.25
Mission statements express the reason an organization exists. Some examples of
clear and effective mission statements follow:
• Instagram—“To capture and share the world’s moments.”26
• TED (Technology, Entertainment, and Design)—“Spread ideas.”27
• Patagonia—“Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to
inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”28
• Sweetgreen—“To inspire healthier communities by connecting people to real food.”29
All well and good, you say, but how does an organization create an effective mission?
Sally Jewell, former CEO of REI, the outdoor clothing and equipment retailer, describes
how she and her team of 150 leaders went about formulating a mission for the company.
The details are in the Applying OB box.
Applying OB
Missions are big-picture, long term, and existential.
These qualities mean they are often quite general,
but they cannot be too general, because that would
make them abstract and meaningless. Sally Jewell,
when CEO of outdoor clothing and adventure retailer
REI, followed a very useful and repeatable process
when refining the company’s mission. She began by
assembling a representative team of leaders. It’s
best to be inclusive rather than exclusive here,
because engaging people in the process helps
ensure their interests are reflected in the mission
and they will be more likely to “live it.” Then she
asked team members:
1. Why does our organization exist? Ask this ques-
tion three to five times to get a deeper, richer
view.
2. What would happen if our organization went
away?
3. Why do I devote my creative energies to this orga-
nization?
4. Compile and consolidate the answers to these
questions.30
This process resulted in REI’s mission statement: “To
inspire, educate, and outfit for a lifetime of outdoor
adventure and stewardship.”31
How to Formulate a Meaningful Mission Statement
Another input in the systems model of change is vision, which is a compelling
future state for an organization. Missions typically imply little or nothing about change
and instead define the organization’s overall purpose. Effective visions, in contrast,
describe a highly desirable future and outline how the organization will get there, such as
which markets, services, products, and people will be involved, and how all these elements
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
650 PART 3 Organizational Processes
align with the organization’s values. Interface Inc., a
world leader in sustainability and commercial interi-
ors, captures all these and more in its vision:
Interface will become the first name in commercial
and institutional interiors worldwide through its
commitment to people, process, product, place,
and profits. We will strive to create an organization
wherein all people are accorded unconditional
respect and dignity; one that allows each person to
continuously learn and develop. We will focus on
product (which includes service) through constant
emphasis on process quality and engineering,
which we will combine with careful attention to our
customers’ needs so as always to deliver superior
value to our customers, thereby maximizing all
stakeholders’ satisfaction. We will honor the places
where we do business by endeavoring to become
the first name in industrial ecology, a corporation
that cherishes nature and restores the environment. Interface will lead by example
and validate by results, including profits, leaving the world a better place than when
we began, and we will be restorative through the power of our influence in the world.32
The following OB in Action box describes how founder of TOMS Shoes Blake Mycoskie’s
compelling vision has motivated him and now many others to build giving into their busi-
ness models.
Patagonia, an outdoor clothing and equipment retailer, was
one of the first to adopt a vision focused on the environment
and employee well-being.
lentamart/Shutterstock
Changing the World with Shoes and Much More
OB in Action
A vision for change and doing well by doing
good has always been a fundamental driving
force for entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie.
Gary Gershoff/Getty Images
Vision for Change The Idea for “Tomorrow’s
Shoes”—now known as TOMS—was born In 2006
during a trip to Argentina. This is when founder and
now serial entrepreneur Blake Mycoskie saw the
impact a pair of shoes could make for kids without
them. He quickly realized that giving one pair to one
person was not enough; after all, where and how
would they get their next pair? This is where the idea
of “buy one-give one” was born. Sell a pair of shoes
to someone who can afford them, and then use part
of the proceeds to make a pair to give to someone
that can’t. 33
Impact Besides being cool and trendy, the vision
of “improving lives” made the shoes even more
appealing to customers, as well as employees and
suppliers. Sales have since exploded, but perhaps
the better measure is more than 60 million pairs of
shoes have been donated.34 Mycoskie is quick to
point out, however, that shoes are simply a vehicle
or means for realizing his vision for changing
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
651Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
Readiness for change is the strength of our beliefs and attitudes about the
extent to which changes are needed and our capacity to successfully implement
them. Readiness can be an individual or an organization-level input.36 Put another way,
effective change at work requires both the employees and the employer have high readiness
and are willing and able to change. Readiness has four components:
1. Necessity for change.
2. Top-management support for change efforts.
3. Personal ability to cope with changes.
4. Perceived personal consequences of change.
The first two pertain to an organization’s readiness and the last two to your readiness.
Self-Assessment 16.2 will help you gauge your own readiness for change. You can also use
it to measure the readiness of an organization to which you belong.
What Is Your Readiness for Change?
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned
Self-Assessment 16.2 in Connect.
1. Focusing on your personal readiness, which component is higher?
2. Describe how you think this affects how you deal with this change? Think of how
it affects you and your interactions with coworkers.
3. Of the two organizational readiness components, which is the lowest?
4. How do you think this result will affect the success of the particular change?
Be specific.
5. Given what the readiness measure tells you, what do you recommend to improve
your readiness and your organization’s readiness?
SELF-ASSESSMENT 16.2 CAREER READINESS
people’s lives. He has since applied the make-one-
give-one practice in other ways, such as coffee,
more than 250,000 weeks’ supply of clean drinking
water, and over 360,000 pairs of glasses or medical
treatments to restore sight.35
YOUR THOUGHTS?
1. How or why is Mycoskie’s vision of “improving
lives” compelling to you?
2. Think of one other product or service you think
could improve lives.
3. What do you think are the challenges with a
business using a buy-one-make-one model?
4. Related to #3, why do you think we don’t see
more companies doing this? After all, Mycoskie
and TOMS have been incredibly successful.
Strategic Plans A strategic plan outlines an organization’s long-term direction and the
actions necessary to achieve planned results. Among other tools, strategic plans can use
SWOT analysis to identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. In the pro-
cess model of change, SWOT analysis provides input by helping managers develop an
organizational strategy for reaching their desired change goals, such as higher profits, cus-
tomer satisfaction, quality, or return on investment, acceptable levels of turnover and
employee satisfaction.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
652 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Target Elements of Change Target elements of change are the components of an
organization that can be changed. In the systems model they essentially represent levers
managers can push and pull to influence various aspects of an organization. The target
elements of change can also help diagnose problems and identify change-related solutions.
Figure 16.6 illustrates four target elements:
1. Organizational arrangements.
2. Social factors.
3. Methods.
4. People.
Each target element of change contains a subset of more detailed organizational fea-
tures, all of which are OB topics covered in this book and included in the Organizing
Framework.
There are two final issues to keep in mind about the target elements. First, the double-
headed arrows in the figure are intended to communicate that change ripples across an
organization. Changing a reward system, for instance, to reinforce team rather than indi-
vidual performance (an organizational arrangement) is likely to change organizational
culture (a social factor). Second, the “people” component is at the center of the target
elements of the change box because all organizational change ultimately affects
employees—and vice versa. This means organizational change is more likely to succeed
when managers proactively consider the impact of change on employees.
Outputs Goals or results are the final piece of the process model of change and should
be consistent with an organization’s strategic plan. Figure 16.6 indicates that change can
be directed at the individual, group, or organizational level, and change efforts are more
complicated and challenging to manage when targeted at the organizational level. This is
because organizational-level changes are more likely to affect more than one of the target
elements of change shown in the model.
Now that you’ve learned the details of the systems approach to change, we shift our
focus to one of the most popular approaches to organizational change since the 1990s—
Kotter’s eight steps.
Kotter’s Eight-Step Organizational
Change Process
John Kotter, a world-renowned expert in leadership and change management, believes
organizational change most often fails not because of inadequate planning but because of
ineffective implementation. To help overcome this challenge, he proposed an eight-step
process for leading change (see Figure 16.7). This approach differs from the systems model
in that it does not help diagnose the need for change or the targets of change. It is some-
what like Lewin’s model, however, as it also guides managers through a sequential process.
For instance, you could map Kotter’s first four steps onto Lewin’s “unfreezing,” steps 5, 6,
and 7 onto “changing,” and step 8 onto “refreezing.”
The value of Kotter’s approach is its recommendations about specific behaviors and
activities. Notice that vision and strategy are central components, as in the systems model.
But Kotter insists the steps need to be followed in sequence and none can be skipped. It
therefore requires a tremendous commitment of time, money, and people to implement
Kotter’s eight steps. This approach can prove very challenging for most organizations, and
particularly for individuals, to implement. Its hurdles, however, are partially overcome by
our final approach to change—organizational development (OD).
Creating Change through Organizational
Development (OD)
One way to think of organizational development (OD) is to approach the organization as
if it were a sick patient: “Diagnose” its ills, prescribe and implement an “intervention,” and
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
653Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
STEP DESCRIPTION
1. Establish a sense
of urgency.
Unfreeze the organization using a compelling reason why change
is needed.
2. Create the guiding
coalition.
Create a team with appropriate knowledge and enough power
to lead change.
3. Develop a vision
and strategy.
Create a vision to inspire and a strategic plan to guide the change
process.
4. Communicate the
change vision.
Implement a communication strategy and “overcommunicate”
the new vision and strategic plan.
5. Empower broad-
based action.
Eliminate obstacles (processes and people) and encourage risk
taking and creative problem solving.
6. Generate
short-term wins.
Plan for and create short-term “wins” or improvements. Recognize
and reward people who contribute to the wins.
7. Consolidate
gains and produce
more change.
Allow guiding coalition to use credibility from short-term wins to
create more change. Additional people are brought into the change
process as change cascades throughout the organization. Attempts
are made to energize the change process.
8. Anchor new
approaches in
the culture.
Reinforce the changes by highlighting connections between new
behaviors and processes and organizational success. Embed these
in performance management and other processes—hiring, promotion,
and leadership development and succession.
FIGURE 16.7 Eight Steps to Leading Organizational Change
SOURCE: Kotter, John P. Leading Change. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1996.
“evaluate” progress or effectiveness. If the evaluation reveals that positive change has not
occurred, this information provides feedback you can use to refine the diagnosis or con-
sider the extent to which the intervention was effectively implemented or appropriate in
the first place (see Figure 16.8).
FIGURE 16.8 Organizational Development Processes
SOURCE: French, Wendell L., and Cecil Bell. Organization Development: Behavioral Interventions for Organizational Improvement.
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978.
1. Diagnosis
What is the problem
and its causes?
2. Intervention
What can be done
to solve the problem?
4. Feedback
What does the
evaluation suggest
about the diagnosis
and the e
ectiveness
of the intervention?
3. Evaluation
Is the intervention
working?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
654 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Let’s improve your understanding by exploring each of these components in more
detail.
1. Diagnosis: What is the problem and its causes? Many means can be used to answer
this question: interviews, surveys, meetings, and direct observation. We recommend
the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach and the Organizing Framework to help. The
target elements in the systems model of change can also be useful. For example, you
might ask, “To what extent does the structure or the reward system contribute to the
problem?”
2. Intervention: What can be done to solve the problem? The treatment or intervention
represents the changes being made to solve the problem and are based on the causes.
If the cause of low-quality service is poor teamwork, then team building might be a
useful intervention. No single intervention is best in all circumstances—the best solu-
tion depends on the situation.
3. Evaluation: Is the intervention working? Evaluation requires measurement and the mea-
sures must match the problem. If the problem is job performance you are highly
unlikely to properly evaluate teamwork or quality of service if you measure only sales
volume. The final evaluation should compare measures of effectiveness obtained
before and after the intervention.
4. Feedback: What does the evaluation suggest about the diagnosis and the effectiveness of
the intervention? If the evaluation reveals the intervention worked, then the OD pro-
cess is complete and you can consider how best to “refreeze” the changes. However, a
negative evaluation means one of two things: either (1) the initial diagnosis was wrong,
or (2) the intervention was inappropriate or not implemented effectively. Negative
evaluations generally require you to collect more information about steps 1 and 2 in
the OD process shown in Figure 16.8.
Now that we’ve explored a number of key models of change, let’s learn about something
that affects almost every change, regardless of the model or approach—resistance.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
655Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
THE BIGGER PICTURE
You can’t think about change without also thinking about resistance. If you are going to
effectively manage change you need to understand and manage resistance. Your ability to
do this is fundamental to your effectiveness in managing this important organizational-level
process and its many related outcomes in the Organizing Framework for Understanding
and Applying OB.
16.3 UNDERSTANDING RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Resistance to change is any thought, emotion, or behavior that does not align with
actual or potential changes to existing routines. People can resist both actual and
imagined events, and both individuals and groups can resist. If you think about change in
terms of influence, you can assume people will either comply, commit, or resist.37 This
perspective leads many people to conclude that resistance to change represents a failed
influence attempt. And while resistance can indeed doom change initiatives, we are going
to challenge this assumption and approach resistance in a different and more useful way to
help you gain more compliance and commitment to change.
To better understand the nature of resistance to change, you can learn about the level
of your own dispositional resistance to change by completing Self-Assessment 16.3. Know-
ing this about yourself will help you manage your own tendencies and better recognize
them in others. Both insights will make you more successful with organizational change
throughout your career.
A Dynamic View of Resistance
Many managers of change see resistance as employees pursuing their own interests, if not
actively undermining the interests of the manager or larger organization. Accordingly, the
cause of resistance resides solely with the individual employee, a narrow view of resistance.
In contrast, some of the most widely recognized change experts argue that resistance does
Outline and manage
major causes of
resistance to change.
LO 16-3
Assessing Your Resistance to Change
Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-
Assessment 16.3 in Connect.
1. Which of the four components is highest?
2. Given your answer to question 1, what are the potential implications if your
manager changes?
3. Describe two things you can do to help reduce the negative impact of your
attribute with the lowest score.
4. Describe two things you can do to help reduce the negative impact of your
attribute with the second-lowest score.
SOURCE: Adapted with permission from S. Oreg, “Resistance to Change: Developing an Individual Differences Measure,”
Journal of Applied Psychology 88, no. 4, 682.
SELF-ASSESSMENT 16.3 CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
656 PART 3 Organizational Processes
not reside within the individual but instead is a result of the context in which change
occurs.38 Resistance is caused by an interaction between change recipients, change agents,
and the relationships between the two. This is a more complex and systems approach to
resistance, one that is dynamic and illustrated in Figure 16.9.
Causes of Resistance to Change
Figure 16.9 presents a model of resistance characterized by a dynamic interaction among
three causes, rather than being caused solely by irrational and stubborn recipients of
change. Recipients resist partly based on their perceptions of change, which are very much
influenced by the attitudes and behaviors exhibited by change agents and the level of trust
in the relationship between change agents and recipients. Similarly, change agents’ actions
and perceptions are affected by the recipients’ actions and inactions and the quality of
relationships with recipients.39 Let’s consider each cause of resistance.
Recipient Characteristics Recipient characteristics include perceptions and a vari-
ety of individual differences that help explain actions (engaging in new behaviors) and
inactions (failing to engage in new behaviors). Six of the most common recipient charac-
teristics are:40
1. Dispositional resistance to change. Individuals with high dispositional resistance
to change, a stable personality trait, are “less likely to voluntarily initiate
changes and more likely to form negative attitudes toward the changes [they]
encounter.”41
2. Surprise and fear of the unknown. When innovative or radically different changes are
introduced without warning, affected employees often become fearful of the implica-
tions. The same is true when managers announce new goals without explaining spe-
cifically how the goals will be achieved. Imagine how you would feel if your boss said
your department was going to increase sales by 25 percent without hiring any new
employees. Unrealistic or unclear goals commonly contribute to resistance.
3. Fear of failure. Many changes cause employees to doubt their capabilities. Self-doubt
erodes self-confidence and performance, and it also impedes personal growth and
development.
4. Loss of status and/or job security. Changes that threaten to alter power bases or elimi-
nate jobs can trigger strong resistance. Empowerment programs, when done well, will
FIGURE 16.9 Dynamic Model of Resistance to Change and Its Causes
Resistance
to
Change
Recipient
characteristics
Change
agent
characteristics
Change
agent–recipient
relationship
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
657Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
often shift responsibilities from managers to others, which can result in some feeling
threatened and resisting. Restructurings can include downsizing, and employees rarely
if ever support changes costing their jobs.
5. Peer pressure. Someone who is not directly affected by a change may actively resist it
to protect the interests of friends and coworkers.
6. Past success. Success can breed complacency. It also can foster a stubbornness to change
because people come to believe what has worked in the past will work in the future.
Change Agent Characteristics A change agent is someone who is a catalyst in
helping organizations deal with old problems in new ways. Change agents can be
external consultants or internal employees, and their characteristics can include actions or
inactions. For instance, opaque planning and a lack of participation and compassion dur-
ing implementation can undermine a change agent’s effectiveness. But in a more positive
light, research shows supportive change agents (managers) who communicate timely and
useful change-related information, clarify change-related expectations for employees and
from employees, and foster trust are more likely to have employees who perceived the
change positively and champion or commit rather than simply comply.42
More generally, change agents play an important role in helping others make sense of
the changes—why is it happening, how will it affect them, and what does it mean for the
future of the company and their own jobs and careers?43 Therefore, the role of change
agent can be extremely important, and we want you and other change agents to avoid some
common mistakes. Table 16.1 outlines five. Enhance your own effectiveness by becoming
aware of and avoiding these pitfalls.
TABLE 16.1 Common Pitfalls Effective Change Agents Should Avoid
Decisions that disrupt cultural traditions or group relationships. Whenever individuals are
transferred, promoted, or reassigned, cultural and group dynamics are often thrown into
disequilibrium. Resistance increases because of the uncertainty associated with dealing
with new team members and their expectations.
Personality conflicts. Change agents who display narcissism, excessive ego, lack of fair-
ness, or any of the traits of bad leaders are likely to engender resistance from recipients.
Lack of tact or poor timing. Undue resistance can occur because change agents
introduce change in an insensitive manner or at an awkward time. They should not
only “sell” the benefits of the change but also explain why it is strategically important
to the organization’s success and must occur at a particular time.
Poor leadership style. Research shows people are less likely to resist change when
the change agent uses transformational leadership and makes the change about the
organization and the employees, rather than about the leader him- or herself.44
Failing to legitimize change. Active, honest communication and aligned reward systems
help recipients understand and believe in the value of changes. Change agents must
also explain how change will lead to positive personal and organizational benefits.
They need a clear understanding about how recipients’ jobs will change and how they
will be rewarded.45 For example, an employee is unlikely to support a change effort he
or she perceives as requiring more work and more pressure without a commensurate
increase in pay.
Change Agent–Recipient Relationship In general, resistance is reduced
when change agents and recipients have a positive, trusting relationship. Trust consists of
mutual faith in others’ intentions and behavior. Mutual mistrust can doom to failure an
otherwise well-conceived change.46 Managers who trust their employees make the change
process an open, honest, and participative affair. Employees who trust management are
more willing to expend extra effort and take chances with something different.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
658 PART 3 Organizational Processes
16.4 THE GOOD AND THE BAD OF STRESS
Everyone experiences stress regardless of age or stage of their career. The American
Psychological Association (APA) report—Stress in America 2018—found Millennials
reported the most stress, followed by generations Z, X, Boomers, then older adults.
Figure 16.10 shows the major sources of stress for the youngest members of the
workforce—Generation Z (approximately 17–24 years old)—compared to adults overall.
On the upside, those in Gen Z are also the most likely to seek professional help for
mental health issues.47
The APA has also begun tracking what they call “emerging sources of stress”—
personal debt, housing instability, discrimination, and hunger/getting enough to eat (see
Figure 16.10).
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) defines job
stress “as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the
requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the
worker.”48 This definition implies stress can mean different things to different people. It
also describes stress as an interaction between person and situation factors, as illustrated
in the Organizing Framework you’ve applied throughout this book. It therefore is helpful
to think of both factors as potential causes and remedies for stress. But before we explain
this relationship in more detail we must recognize that not all stress is bad.
Stress—Good and Bad
Think of ways stress generates positive emotions, like excitement instead of anxiety. This
type of stress can motivate you to prepare and perform during an interview or presentation
at school or work. Positive stress adds to the excitement and fun of a first date or causes
you to take the game-winning shot. We call stress associated with positive emotions
and outcomes eustress (good stress).
However, the stress garnering the most attention is the bad kind, the kind epidemic at
work and so costly to employees and employers alike. Some studies estimate job stress
costs the U.S. economy more than $300 billion per year,49 and to make matters worse,
research shows levels of job stress have increased 20 percent since the 1980s!
Of the potential sources of work stress, which do you think is the biggest? Your
BOSS! Thirty-five percent of respondents in another study reported it was not only
the actions of the boss—a lack of fairness, a narcissistic personality—but also his or her
THE BIGGER PICTURE
This section addresses an outcome associated with almost every change—stress. Change
can be desirable or undesirable for you, but either results can be stressful. Realizing this
helps you understand the benefits and reduce the costs of stress, which will enable you to
be better equipped to effectively manage change as well as other possible outcomes across
levels of the Organizing Framework. To help your efforts, we will define stress, and introduce
a model to help explore the components of the stress process to improve your personal
effectiveness.
Explain both the
benefits and problems
associated with stress.
LO 16-4
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
659Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
own stress. Much like you learned about emotions, stress too is contagious.50 Perhaps it
is no surprise then that:
• 76% said job stress negatively impacted their personal relationships.
• 66% lost sleep because of it.
• 16% have quit their jobs.51
These details make clear stress is inevitable, which means your efforts should be directed
at understanding and managing stress, not escaping it altogether.
A Model of Job Stress
Figure 16.11 presents a comprehensive model of job stress. It originates from psychology
and health research and practice and can help you understand and manage your stress
more effectively.
Potential Stressors The model begins with four potential types of stressors, factors
that produce stress. The four types are:
1. Individual level. Job demands are the most common individual-level stressors, but
work overload, unclear or conflicting expectations, everyday hassles, perceived lack of
control over events occurring in the work environment, and job characteristics can
also be problematic.52 One of the heaviest stressors is job loss, which negatively affects
FIGURE 16.10 Sources of Stress
77%
Additional Personal Sources
of Stress for Gen Z
% reporting significant
sources of stress
Gen Z adults Adults overall
Emerging
Sources of Stress
% reporting significant
sources of stress
Common Stressors
Gen Z Adults vs Adults Overall
64%
81%
64%
75%
63%
46%48%
35% 33% 31% 28%
21% 21%
42%
28%
24%
20%
20%
0%
40%
60%
80%
100%
B
ul
ly
in
g/
In
te
rp
er
so
na
l
co
nfl
ic
ts
Pe
rs
on
al
d
eb
t
G
en
de
r i
de
nt
ity
/s
ex
ua
l
or
ie
nt
at
io
n
is
su
es
D
ru
g/
al
co
ho
l u
se
or
a
dd
ic
tio
n
H
un
ge
r/
ha
vi
ng
en
ou
gh
to
e
at
H
ou
si
ng
c
on
ce
rn
s
H
un
ge
r/
ha
vi
ng
en
ou
gh
to
e
at
D
is
cr
im
in
at
io
n
H
ou
si
ng
c
on
ce
rn
s
Pe
rs
on
al
d
eb
t
Ec
on
om
y
H
ea
lth
c
on
ce
rn
s
M
on
ey
W
or
k
SOURCE: American Psychological Association. “Stress in America: Generation Z.” October, 2018. https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2018/stress-gen-z .
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
660 PART 3 Organizational Processes
every aspect of people’s lives—financial, professional, health, and interpersonal rela-
tionships. If you lack opportunities for advancement, fear being laid off, or work at a
job that is not in your desired career path, you too are likely to be stressed.
2. Group level. As noted above, bad managers create stress for employees by (1) exhibiting
inconsistent behaviors, (2) failing to provide support, (3) showing lack of concern, (4)
giving inadequate direction, (5) creating a high-productivity environment, and
(6) focusing on negatives while ignoring good performance. Sexual harassment experi-
ences and bullying represent other group-level stressors. And let’s not forget annoying
coworkers, one of the most common and problematic sources of group-level stress.53
3. Organizational level. Organizational culture can also be a stressor. For instance, a
high-pressure environment that fuels employee fear about performing up to standard
can increase the stress response. Jobs on Wall Street have long been known for such
pressure, and the long hours expected from employees generate their own version of
stress-inducing organizational cultures in many tech companies.54
FIGURE 16.11 Model of Job Stress
Psychological/
Attitudinal
• Job satisfaction
• Organizational
commitment
• Job involvement
• Self-esteem
• Burnout
• Emotions
• Depression
• Tiredness and
fatigue
Behavioral
• Absenteeism
• Turnover
• Performance
• Accidents
• Substance abuse
• Violence
• Tiredness and
fatigue
Physical stress
• Cardiovascular system
• Immune system
• Musculoskeletal
system
• Gastrointestinal
system
• Tiredness and
fatigue
Cognitive
• Poor decision making
• Lack of concentration
• Forgetfulness
• Tiredness and
fatigue
Individual level
Potential stressors
Outcomes
• Job demands
• Work overload
• Underload and
monotony
• Role conflict
• Role ambiguity
• Job security
Extraorganizational
• Family
• Socioeconomic status
• Commuting time
• Noise, heat, crowding,
and air pollution
• Finances/Debt
Group level
• Group dynamics
• Managerial
behavior
• Harassment
Coping
strategies
• Control
• Escape
• Symptom
management
Organizational level
• Culture
• Structure
• Technology
• Introduction of
change in work
conditions
Cognitive
appraisal
• Primary
• Secondary
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
661Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
Can you relate? Demands of work and other arenas of our lives can
indeed be overwhelming and negatively impact our performance and
well-being.
Stokkete/Shutterstock
4. Extra-organizational. Extra-organizational
stressors originate outside the organization.
For instance, conflicts associated with bal-
ancing school with career or family life are
stressful. Socioeconomic status—a combina-
tion of relative income, education, and
occupation—is another extra-organizational
stressor. Stress is higher for people with
lower socioeconomic status.55
Fatigue v. Tiredness Fatigue is a pro-
longed state of physical and mental exhaus-
tion that cannot simply be remedied by a
good night’s sleep. In fact, a sign of fatigue is
its persistence despite sleep, and it is often
accompanied by feelings of depression and/or
anxiety, confusion, and difficulties concentrat-
ing and staying organized, whereas tiredness is
typically physical and short-term and is
resolved by rest and sleep.56
Too much work and a lack of sleep contribute to both. Americans now work an aver-
age of 48 hours per week compared to only 38 in 1976.57 Research estimates that 43 percent
of workers are sleep-deprived—don’t get the recommended 7 to 9 hours per night--and it
is worse for those who work nights or long and/or irregular shifts. The associated prob-
lems are numerous and not limited to your performance and health (depression, obesity,
and cardiovascular disease) as shown in Figure 16.11, but also affect your economic well-
being and safety:58
• Lost productivity of $1,200 to $3,100 per employee per year. Multiply this times the
approximately 50 percent of your company’s employees and the numbers become
very large—1,000 employees X $3,100/employee = $3,100,000 in lost productivity in
one company!
• Three times more likely to have an auto accident, and 5,000 people died due to
drowsy driving in 2014.
It is estimated that losing just two hours of sleep impairs your judgment and reaction
time to the same degree as having three beers.59 Other research translates fatigue into lost
productivity costing 10 times more than absenteeism,60 and many times more than
presenteeism, which occurs when employees show up but are sick or in no condition
to work productively.61
In case you’re not moved by these research findings, let’s make this more real. All
employees are tired sometimes, and too many are seemingly tired often or always. Although
this obviously affects productivity to varying degrees depending on the person and the job,
sometimes fatigue is dangerous if not catastrophic or even deadly. Imagine the potential
consequences for a tired and fatigued boat captain, pilot, bus driver, or surgeon! If indi-
viduals doing these jobs aren’t overly concerned, certainly their employers, coworkers,
customers, and patients are and should be.
What can you and your employer do?
1. Staffing. Maintain adequate staffing to cover the workload. This is especially neces-
sary for companies that have downsized, because they are likely to simply spread the
same amount of work across a smaller number of employees.
2. Scheduling. Consider overtime and commuting time when scheduling workers, to help
ensure they have enough time between shifts to obtain sufficient rest and sleep. Be
wary of disrupting people’s circadian rhythms with crazy shift-work schedules—nights,
days, and back again.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
662 PART 3 Organizational Processes
3. Environment. Light, sound, temperature, and other workplace elements can have sub-
tle yet meaningful effects on worker fatigue. For too long these elements were taken
for granted, but many managers and employers have found employees greatly appreci-
ate the ability to make their spaces “their own.”
4. Education. Educate workers to better manage their sleep and the factors that can
affect it. Covering sleep-disorder screening under employer-provided insurance may
also help, since many people have underlying clinical/health problems that reduce the
quantity and quality of sleep.62
Now that we’ve covered the causes of stress on the left side of our Model of Job Stress
in Figure 16.11, let’s move to how you process and cope with stress, beginning with cogni-
tive appraisals.
Cognitive Appraisals You’ve undoubtedly heard the expression: “It’s not what hap-
pens to you but the way you respond that matters.” This sentence essentially describes
cognitive appraisal, the process by which you evaluate the meaning of events and demands
in your life. Put another way, what makes stressors actually stressful is the way you think
about them. Two types of appraisals influence whether you experience a particular stressor
as stress, and the degree to which it is stressful.
1. Primary appraisals are your perceptions of whether a stressor is irrelevant,
positive, or negative. Negative primary appraisals are the most relevant to our cur-
rent discussion because they imply we perceive a situation or stressor as harmful,
threatening, or challenging.
2. Secondary appraisals are your perceptions of how able you are to cope with a
given demand. During secondary appraisals we consider which coping strategies are
available and most likely to help resolve the stressful situation.
Combined, these appraisals influence our choice of coping strategies and in turn the sub-
sequent outcomes.
Coping Strategies Coping strategies are specific behaviors and cognitions
(thoughts) we use to manage a situation. The appropriateness and thus the success of
any particular type of coping depends on the person and situation factors.63 People use
a combination of three approaches to cope with stressors and stress (see Figure 16.11).
The first, called a control strategy, consists of behaviors and cognitions that
directly anticipate or solve problems. A control strategy has a take-charge tone.
Examples include talking to your professor or boss about workload if you feel over-
whelmed with your responsibilities or confronting someone who is spreading negative
rumors. Some research shows health and other benefits from control coping. People
are more apt to use control coping when they possess high self-esteem, self-efficacy,
and problem-solving skills.64
Escape strategies are those in which you avoid or ignore stressors. These strate-
gies can be beneficial if you have no control over the stressors or their causes. If the presi-
dent of your company is an unpredictable and unlikable individual but is not your direct
supervisor, then it is best not to attempt control coping but instead to avoid stressful
encounters with him or her.
Symptom management strategies focus on reducing the symptoms of stress
and include relaxation, meditation, medication, and exercise. A vacation can be a good
way to reduce the symptoms of stress. The author of this book finds walking or playing
with his dog beneficial.
Stress Outcomes Stress has psychological, attitudinal, behavioral, cognitive, and
physical health outcomes. Besides your own personal experiences, a large body of research
supports the negative effects of perceived stress on many aspects of our lives.65 Workplace
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
663Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
stress is associated with undesirable effects on many outcomes in the Organizing Frame-
work for Understanding and Applying OB:
• Decreases in job satisfaction, organizational commitment, organizational citizen-
ship behavior, positive emotions, and performance.
• Increases in emotional exhaustion, burnout, absenteeism, and turnover.66
The undesirable effects extend beyond these, however. Stress is linked to many coun-
terproductive behaviors, such as yelling, verbal abuse, and violence toward others. It is
associated with frequent drinking and the taking of illicit drugs.67 These stress outcomes
are costly to individuals and organizations alike. Moreover, abundant research shows stress
also negatively affects our physical, psychological, and physical health in almost every way
imaginable.68
We think it is stressful to think about all these problems! We close this section with
some advice on how to deal with a particularly difficult stressor—underperformance and
failure.
Confronting and Overcoming Failures
We all have experiences at school and work wherein we underperform, whether doing
horribly on a test or presentation, providing an unclear answer to our boss, blowing it
with a customer, making poor job choices, or losing our temper with a classmate or
coworker. Some have little consequence (low score on a single homework assignment)
while others can be very problematic (taking a bad job or losing a key customer).
Since failure is universal, it is helpful to consider how to deal with such inevitable
experiences, how to recover from them, and how to use them as agents of change for
the future.
First, when you consider a particular experience a failure, it is important not to
hide from it. The surest way of not failing is not trying. Where would that mindset get
you, or the rest of the human race for that matter? Of course, no one is going to say to
celebrate failure, but the more typical and damaging reaction is to hide it from yourself
and others. One career expert explains it this way: it is every employee’s responsibility
to anticipate and avoid mistakes when possible, but also to make things go right when
they do occur.69
Experts recommend reflecting on the experience, then acting. For instance:
Talk About It. That’s right, instead of avoiding it, talk to your colleagues and/or boss
to gain their insights and learn. Instead of ranting or being defensive, ask: “I had a
bad experience, can you help me with this?” The goal is to get another’s perspective,
and at the same time show your vulnerability, willingness to own your mistakes, and
determination to learn and grow. Moreover, research suggests such behaviors can
develop closer, more productive relationships, especially when compared to leaders
and other employees who present themselves as perfect or flawless, which tends to
be perceived as inauthentic.70
Fail Productively. Many failures are due to complex interactions between people
and situations, in other words OB. And many times, it is the complexity and not
your fault. Neither you nor anyone else can possibly control the outcomes all of
the time but recognizing this and being vigilant can help improve processes, your
approach, and make you more effective over time. For instance, clinicians in
emergency departments and critical care units have extensive training and skills
and use processes to guide them, but sometimes bad things still happen to
patients. Productive failure can also occur when doing something new and when
no one has previous experience or knowledge on how best to succeed, such as a
new product, new technology, or a novel process. Failure will likely be common.
This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try, as this is the heart of change, innovation,
and growth.71
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
664 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Choose Your Audience. Of course, it not only matters how you frame your failure, but
who you share it with. Early in your career or a particular job it is admittedly more
difficult, but the important takeaway is to find someone you trust, someone who
will appreciate your situation and experience, and genuinely help you to change and
grow. Consider sharing experiences at lunch with coworkers, or perhaps at happy
hour with friends not in your company or industry. Or this could be an especially
good time and reason to get a mentor.72
Read and heed the advice provided in the following Applying OB box to learn how to
address interview questions aimed at failure.
Now that you’ve learned a great deal of knowledge about change and stress, let’s con-
clude the chapter with some useful and practical applications.
Applying OB
This is one of the most common behavioral interview
questions. We’re asked those questions because pro-
spective employers want to know how you’ll respond
when things go sideways when you work for them.
They ask such questions knowing full well we all
make mistakes, things go wrong, we fail. Sometimes it
is entirely our fault, sometimes it is not, but most
always we are expected to do something about it and
do our best to improve in the future. One career
expert describes failures in this way: it is every
employee’s responsibility to anticipate and avoid mis-
takes when possible, but also to make things right
when they do occur.73
When asked such a question, it is wise to think of
and share a past challenge, rather than one that is
pending or just happened. Why? Because you can bet-
ter show and explain the
1. Context and what happened.
2. What you did in response including who you may
have consulted.
3. How it helped you develop.
4. Why you are unlikely to make a similar mistake
in the future.74
This is about change and development. Put differently,
look at and communicate failures in terms of opportu-
nities for change and growth. Not only will this make
you more successful in interviews, but it will help you
cope with what can be painful experiences.
“Tell me about a time when you . . . experienced failure,
or when things didn’t work out.”
CAREER READINESS
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
THE BIGGER PICTURE
Since organizational change has implications for nearly every element of the Organizing
Framework, it is an excellent opportunity to consolidate and apply the knowledge gained
throughout the book. OB provides practical tools to make you a more effective manager of
change. Specifically, we’ll describe how to apply the systems model you learned about
earlier for strategic planning and diagnosis, and provide advice on how to overcome resis-
tance to change and manage stress. We conclude with some practical tips for successful
change management.
16.5 EFFECTIVE CHANGE AND STRESS MANAGEMENT
Applying the Systems Model of Change—Strategic
Planning and Diagnosis
There are two ways to apply the systems model of change. The first is as an aid during
the strategic planning process (why change?), and the second is to help identify the
necessary targets of change (change what and how?). Together, these uses can assist
leaders and managers in formulating and implementing effective organizational change
(see Figure 16.6).
Use the following Problem-Solving Application to apply the systems model of change
for diagnosing problems and identifying the targets for change.
Use OB knowledge
and tools to manage
change and stress.
LO 16-5
HBO + TNT + TBS + CNN + ETC = NEW AT&T75
There are more than 26 characters in the alphabet
soup created in the merger between AT&T and Time
Warner, given the latter included HBO, TNT, TBS,
CNN, Warner Bros. movie studio, and other assets.
AT&T finally prevailed in its efforts to acquire Time
Warner for over $85 billion, which required it to win
a suit filed by the Justice Department seeking to
block the merger. AT&T argued that such a marriage
would not be anti-competitive and limit choice for
consumers, but by combining the companies it was
necessary to be competitive in a radically different
landscape that blurs the previous lines between
content and distribution. This merger says a lot
about AT&T’s strategy for dealing with these chal-
lenges and how it plans to grow in the future.
History and Additional Motives for the Marriage
Telecom companies have historically offered
cable, telephone, and mobile services, however
now, AT&T not only needs to compete with Verizon
and T-Mobile/Sprint, but also the likes of Netflix,
Hulu, Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple,
many of whom create content and provide distri-
bution. The future is now, and it requires telecom
companies to combat the millions of people who
have cut the cable cord while at the same time
attracting the millions that sign up for streaming
services.
Some experts claim these changes are essen-
tial to the survival of a company like AT&T, and as
a result the company is expected to be more
Problem-Solving Application
665Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
666 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach
Step 1: Define the problems facing John Stankey and the new merged AT&T-Time Warner company.
Step 2: Identify the potential causes.
Step 3: Make your recommendations.
attractive to investors and consumers. Moreover, if
AT&T’s larger portfolio attracts more eyeballs it will
also attract more advertisers and boost revenues
and profits further still.
What Is Required to Realize the Value? The
merger expands the products and customer bases
of all of the brands involved in the merger, but this
complexity also requires masterful change leader-
ship. Many of these assets, notably HBO, have long
and very successful histories. The challenge will be
minimizing conflict and fostering collaboration and
cohesiveness among employees (nearly 270,000
in the combined company), processes (decision
making, HR, technology, and communication), and
products (streaming, content, technology, mobile,
and cable). This therefore represents an enormous
leadership challenge.
Leading the Change Efforts John Stankey, an
AT&T executive who was immediately put in charge
of Warner Media, put it simply: “If you don’t make a
change, you’re not going to get any change in the
product.” In this spirit he quickly made a number of
senior leadership moves. He brought in Robert
Greenblatt who had a long successful career at
NBC and Showtime, and effectively offered him his
dream opportunity, as he will now oversee HBO,
considered the crown jewel of the acquisition,
along with Warner’s planned streaming service.
Also joining the team is Jeff Zucker (formerly chief
at CNN) who will not only oversee larger business
than he did at his previous job, but also lead a port-
folio AT&T sees as especially important to its strat-
egy and future. However, the shakeup also includes
departures, such as Richard Plepler who worked at
HBO for more than two decades and has been its
chief executive and face of the company for the
past several years, and David Levy the president of
Turner Broadcasting. Neither was fired but both left
presumably because there were clear signals their
roles would be much smaller in the new company,
which would mean their previous considerable
autonomy and influence would be diminished.
Potential Obstacles With regulators seemingly out
of the way, the new and existing leadership has
many things to tend to. For instance, Mr. Stankey’s
leadership style has been questioned. Critics say he
is quite opaque in communicating his thoughts and
plans, which has been quite frustrating to many
employees. And given the enormous task ahead,
the skills of many leaders will be put to the test.
Among the many challenges will be to reduce con-
flict, foster collaboration, and integrate cultures.
Competitors certainly won’t relent and are likely to
respond with their own efforts, such as Apple’s
planned streaming service, alliances between con-
tent providers and telcos like Netflix and T-Mobile,
and Comcast’s acquisition of many of 20th Century
Fox’s assets. Reputations of the brands and their
associated leaders will undoubtedly both help and
hurt in the merger process, as will employee resis-
tance. Employees that are dissatisfied with their situ-
ation in the new company may resist the changes or
even quit, while those who are happy and satisfied
may see new opportunities and commit.
Assume you are Mr. Stankey. Apply the 3-Step
Problem-Solving Approach to identify the problems,
causes, and potential solutions included In the case.
How to Overcome Resistance to Change
We’ve noted resistance is a form of feedback and managers need to understand why it is
occurring before trying to overcome it. They can do this by considering the extent to which
the three sources of resistance shown in Figure 16.9 are contributing to the problem.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
667Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
Respond to Employee Characteristics Employees are more likely to resist change
when they perceive its personal costs outweigh the benefits. If this is the case, managers
are advised to:
1. Provide employees with as much information as possible about the change.
2. Inform employees about the reasons for the change.
3. Conduct meetings to address employees’ questions about the change.
4. Provide employees the opportunity to discuss how the proposed change might
affect them.
Improve Change Agent–Employee Relationships The four recommendations
described will also improve the agent–recipient relationship by enhancing the level of trust
between the parties.
When Jim Weber took over as CEO of Brooks Sports, the maker of the running shoes,
the company was languishing. In its long history, the company endured two bankruptcies
and multiple owners. He desperately needed to productively alter relationships with both
employees and customers. At the time he took the helm the company had expanded from
a specialty running shoe company to one also selling cleats, tennis shoes, and cross-trainers
at a variety of price points, but often cheap. He scrapped everything except its one
profitable and eternal line—high-end running shoes developed for elite runners. Since
these changes the company has experienced consistent and phenomenal growth for many
years. Although it still pales in comparison to the largest players in the market—Nike, Adi-
das, Asics, and New Balance—it is number one with its target. Specifically, it is the top
brand in specialty retailers devoted to running, first or second most popular in the Boston
Marathon over the past few years, and Olympic runners wore more Brooks’ shoes than any
other, including Nike.76
To achieve this, Mr. Weber has had to convince employees such changes were in their
best interest—the future depended on it. The R&D people had to be pushed to apply their
talents to different types of runners, rather than simply creating the best materials and
products. This meant everyone at the company had to engage customers and market in
Jim Weber had many challenges to overcome when he became CEO of Brooks. He chose to focus
on shoes for elite runners, which required enormous changes for many employees. His efforts have
paid off, as the company now leads in this category.
(Left): Courtesy of Brooks Sports, Inc.; (right): Miet Astlen/Shutterstock
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
668 PART 3 Organizational Processes
ways they hadn’t before. And now, to continue the growth, Weber and Brooks’ employees
must convince non-elite runners of the value in shelling out premium prices for their
shoes. Appeal to more than the running nerds, but the much larger running herds and
penetrate the athleisure market, including the tens of millions of non-elite but often seri-
ous runners.77
Implement Organizational Processes and Practices For starters, managers
should not assume people are consciously resisting change. Second, using the Organizing
Framework can be very helpful. Resistance to organizational changes is often caused by
some obstacle in the work environment, such as job design or performance management
practices that make the change difficult or counter to an employee’s self-interests. If
employees, for example, are still rewarded for doing their jobs the old way, then it is unre-
alistic or even foolish to expect them to do their jobs differently.
Soliciting and using feedback about the changes can be invaluable to achieving desired
change outcomes, and change agents should not be afraid to modify the targeted elements
of change or their approach toward change if people are resisting for valid reasons.
Take a Contingency Approach to Overcoming Resistance As you have learned
throughout this book, effective managers apply the knowledge and tools that match the
requirements of the situation (one size does not fit all). A similar contingency approach is
recommended for avoiding or overcoming resistance to change. You and other change
agents are likely to be more successful if you follow the six strategies:
1. Inspire. Do the best you can to describe a vivid and compelling vision of what the
changed organization will look like, and equally important, what role you see those
who report to you playing and the value they can provide.
2. Recognize progress, not just outcomes. Many if not most organizational changes
occur over long periods of time, which means changes will include multiple steps
along the way. Observe and recognize people for their efforts, and don’t wait for ulti-
mate performance outcomes. This is similar to Kotter’s advice from earlier in the
chapter to create and celebrate small wins. Don’t simply wait for performance metrics
at the end of the quarter, the year, or until the merger is close and the cultures or sys-
tems integrated.
3. Expect mistakes. Expect them, tell your people you expect them, and don’t panic
when they happen. Treat them as learning opportunities, which means you need to
analyze and identify what to do and what not to do in the future.
4. Model, measure, and reward collaboration. A common sign of resistance is a lack of
collaboration, and one way to overcome this is to apply what you learned in Chapter
6 to make collaboration part of the performance expectations. Communicate, model,
measure, and reward collaboration.
5. Positivity. As you learned previously, we tend pay attention to negative events, experi-
ences, and emotions more than positive ones, and this is especially common in the
context of organizational change. It therefore can be an excellent and productive
opportunity to exercise mindfulness, and for you and employees to identify and reflect
on the positive elements of the change.
6. Goals and time. Just as you learned in Chapter 6, setting SMART goals and being sure
to include a time element will help focus people’s efforts and actually change. It is bet-
ter to set a deadline and need to change it, rather than not setting one at all.78
As you can easily see, understanding and managing resistance can indeed reduce stress
indirectly. But now let’s look at how to manage stress directly.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
669Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
How to Manage Stress
Because stress influences many outcomes across levels of the Organizing Framework, it
is not surprising that organizations are increasingly implementing a variety of stress-
reduction programs to help employees cope. Let’s explore some that may benefit you,
other employees, and your employer.
Stress-Reduction It’s best if both you and your employer make efforts to reduce
stress. Some common, widely applicable, and effective ones are:
• Provide and encourage employees to utilize stress-management and wellness
resources—mediation and yoga.
• Take regular breaks, we all need them, and volumes of research show productivity
increases.
• Exercise, socialize, hobbies, and play. Get employees to regularly do other things.
Walk the talk and lead by example. If managers actively tend to their stress and follow the
above recommendations, then employees are more likely to do the same.79
But what has proven to be one of the most effective stress-reduction techniques is
cognitive restructuring.80
The ABCDEs of Cognitive Restructuring Many positive OB tools can help you
avoid and reduce stress, such as fostering positive emotions, using mindfulness, flourish-
ing, and developing a positive organizational climate. In addition, the following five-step
process of cognitive restructuring can help you to stop thinking pessimistically about an
event or problem. It’s called the ABCDEs:81
A—Name the event or problem. For example:
My roommate is going to move out, and I can’t afford to pay the rent by myself.
B—List your beliefs about the event or problem.
I don’t have any prospects for a new roommate, and I may have to move back
home and quit school. I could ask my parents for money, but they really can’t
afford to pay my rent or I could move to a lower-priced single apartment in a bad
part of town.
C—Identify the consequences of your beliefs.
I’m going to move back home for spring semester and will return in the fall.
D—Formulate a counterargument to your initial thoughts and beliefs. Pessimistic thoughts
are generally overreactions, so the first step is to correct inaccurate or distorted thoughts.
I have not reviewed my expenses closely, and I may be able to afford the apart-
ment. Even if I can’t afford the apartment right now, I could get a part-time job to
cover the additional expenses or I could advertise on Craigslist or in the school
newspaper for a new roommate. I don’t have to accept a bad roommate, but the
worst-case scenario is I will have to cover the added expenses for one semester.
E—Describe how energized and empowered you feel at the moment.
I’m motivated to find a new roommate and/or get a part-time job. I have taken
care of myself throughout college and there is no reason I can’t continue to
resolve this short-term problem.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
670 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Research and practice show this technique works well over time. The key is to stay
with your ABCDEs and not to expect instantaneous results.
Before moving on, read the Applying OB box for another means for dealing with
stress.
Pulling It All Together—Change Management
Tips for Managers
We conclude the chapter and book by asking you to return to the Organizing Frame-
work. You realize now how both person and situation inputs can have a major impact on
what needs to change, how it needs to change, and the ultimate success of any change
initiatives. And you know process always matters, such that employees react more posi-
tively to changes that are personally undesirable, even job cuts, when the process by
which they are formulated and implemented is perceived as fair. To be clear, employees
may still be unhappy, but not as unhappy as if changes were implemented in ways they
perceived as unfair.
Applying OB
In chapters 3 and 7 you learned about emotions and
how to use and manage them at work. One way to
deal with stress is to blow off steam, or RANT! Releas-
ing your emotions and associated energy can be an
effective means for relieving stress. To clarify, the fol-
lowing are ways to productively express your frustra-
tions without losing control and allowing your emotions
to cause additional problems. Here’s how:
1. Never Rant via E-mail. If you’re even the slight-
est bit concerned about how it will be per-
ceived, then don’t send it. At the very least,
leave it until the next day, review it again, tone it
down, and/or have somebody else review it first.
If you’re still concerned skip the e-mail and find
another, more productive path.
2. Not the Target, but Instead Your Friend. Ranting
isn’t ranting unless someone is listening. Although
your boss or coworker may be the source of
your disgust, frustration, or need to rant, you’ll
be better served to share your emotionally
charged thoughts with a friend, preferably not
one who also works at your company. An expert
provides a helpful script to use when asking
someone to help: “I need to get something off
my chest. You don’t have to actually listen.
Please wait until I’m done and agree with every-
thing I say.” This may help satisfy your need to
be heard and agreed with without causing
damage to relationships at work.
3. Back Stage, Not on Stage. It is wise to avoid
ranting in public. The potential for your rant to
come back to haunt you Is high, especially
because of the possibility for someone in the
crowd to record it.
4. Purging, Not Problem Solving. Ranting is an
emotional release that reduces stress. It’s for
you. Don’t rant expecting to solve problems with
somebody else. Emotions often do play a role in
problem solving, but ranting is different.
How Do You Spell Stress Relief? R-A-N-T!82
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
671Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
Effective managers of change therefore carefully consider the relevant inputs and pro-
cesses for any given change effort, because these are critical determinants of outcomes in
the Organizing Framework. Moreover, the outcomes in the Organizing Framework likely
overlap with the goals of a given change, such as employee satisfaction, team performance,
and organizational reputation. You therefore may want to start with the end in mind,
as suggested in the following Applying OB box that details five tips to successful change
management.
Let’s now pull it altogether and conclude not only our exploration of change and
stress, but also the larger journey in OB, with some practical tips.
Applying OB
We can safely predict your future is going to include
change and related stress. While accepting change is
neither simple nor easy, here are our best tips to help
stack the deck in your favor and improve your chances
for success. While some tips specifically address the
manager’s role, all will help you at any level of the
organization.
1. Set realistic change goals. Leaders of change
often think big and bold. This is fine so long as the
objectives are realistic and attainable for the situa-
tion and organization. As you learned previously,
SMART goals are challenging but attainable.
2. Ensure senior leader involvement and commit-
ment. CEOs and other senior leaders must be
visibly involved in change initiatives. They cannot
simply sit in their ivory tower and dictate change.
They need to be planners, cheerleaders, and
doers. This kind of deep involvement will help
shape employee perceptions and beliefs that lead-
ers are serious about the changes and they care
about employees
3. Walk the talk. Change can be difficult, even scary,
for many employees. It is beneficial if managers
and leaders change first. This means when
employees are asked to make sacrifices (give pay
concessions, work overtime, take on additional
responsibilities), leaders and managers make them
first and in-kind. Leaders and managers of change
need to make their actions visible and make them
count.
4. Be clear on “why.” Everyone wants to know why
the changes are happening. What are the motives,
what will be the personal impact, and what role will
individuals play in shaping the outcomes? Your
organization must avoid the situation in which “the
lower you go, the less you know.” Everyone
responsible for and affected by the change must
clearly understand why it is happening. Under-
standing is fundamental to building commitment to
change and reducing resistance. Communicate.
5. Align performance management practices. It is
difficult, even foolish, to expect your salespeople
to give full attention to selling your company’s new
product if the bulk of their compensation is still
focused on the old product. It is necessary not
only to align goals, but to also align recognition
and other rewards with the change-related goals.
Five Tips for Effective Change83
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
672 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Takeaways for Me
Here are five practical implications for you.
1. Learn about and be mindful of your own attitudes toward change. If you have a negative
approach, you are more likely to resist change and expect negative experiences and
outcomes. A more positive attitude, in contrast, means you’re more likely to frame
change as a challenge or an opportunity.
2. Pay attention to and utilize your knowledge of the internal and external forces of
change. This will enable you to understand, manage, and perform within the con-
text of change.
3. Change is complex. Using your knowledge of the types of change as well as the differ-
ent models can help you understand and perform better during the many changes you
will undoubtedly face in your career.
4. Resistance is a given. Apply your knowledge from Figure 16.9 to understand the
different causes of resistance and use this to reduce your resistance as well as that
of others.
5. Understand and apply your knowledge of occupational stress and coping (see Figure 16.11).
Cognitive restructuring is an especially effective tool—learn it and use it. This will
greatly improve your performance and satisfaction at work and in life.
Takeaways for Managers
There are seven practical implications for managers.
1. Taking a more strategic approach to change will help you get ahead in your professional
life. To do this, consider both internal and external forces for change.
2. Consider the complexity, cost, and perceived threat associated with the different types of
change—adaptive, innovative, and radical (see Figure 16.4).
3. Not all changes are alike, which means you’ll need different tools to be effective. The
models outlined in this chapter should help you better understand and manage the
various changes you’ll be confronted with in your professional life.
4. Utilize the systems model (see Figure 16.6) for both planning and diagnosing change.
When you are planning change, it will help ensure you consider important elements
you might not otherwise.
THE BIGGER PICTURE
We close the chapter and book with practical applications related to change, stress, and the
management of each. As with the previous chapters, use your new knowledge and tools to
improve your effectiveness as both an employee and manager.
16.6 MAKING THE CONNECTION: HOW CAN I APPLY OB
AND SHOW WHAT I’VE LEARNED?
Describe the
implications of
managing stress
and change for you
and managers.
LO 16-6
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
673Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
5. Employee resistance will make or break your effectiveness as a manager and viewing resis-
tance as a dynamic process with several different sources is a good starting point. Then,
utilize the knowledge within this chapter to help reduce and overcome resistance.
6. Stress affects your performance and that of those you manage. Be aware of your stress
and manage it effectively in order to better manage others.
7. The final Applying OB box provides five tips for managing change effectively--learn them
and use them!
Parting Words for Change and OB
Whether you work for someone else or run your own business, your ability to effectively
manage change will benefit you throughout your career. It is a challenge, but the rewards
are enormous if you can do it well. The knowledge and tools we’ve provided here can give
you a competitive edge on other employees and managers.
And don’t forget that managing change is about doing. Perhaps Charlie Strong, cur-
rently the head football coach for the University of South Florida, put it best in 2014
when he was hired at the University of Texas and outlined his expectations for players,
particularly the team’s leaders: “They can lead the new culture or be run over by it. . . .
I don’t want to talk about things. I’d rather do things. We just talked. Now it’s time
to do.”84
We wrote this book to help you perform better at work, at school, and in life more
generally. You’ve gained an enormous amount of knowledge throughout this book and
course, and you’ve had many opportunities to apply the knowledge. We encourage you to
continue learning and applying your knowledge, because it is the application of what you
know that will help you get ahead. We hope you enjoyed your journey and wish you the
very best both professionally and personally.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
674 PART 3 Organizational Processes
You learned change and stress will be two com-
panions throughout your professional life. You
learned how you can apply OB to help recognize
and respond appropriately to drivers of change
and to manage both the positive and negative
aspects of stress for greater effectiveness. Rein-
force and consolidate your learning with the Key
Points and Organizing Framework. Then chal-
lenge your mastery of the material by completing
the Problem-Solving Application Case and Legal/
Ethical Challenge.
Key Points for Understanding
Chapter 16
You learned the following key points.
16.1 FORCES FOR CHANGE
• Forces for change can be categorized as
external and internal.
• External forces are demographic, technologi-
cal, shareholder and market, social, political,
and regulatory.
• Internal forces often pertain to human resources
and managerial behavior and decisions.
16.2 TYPES AND MODELS OF
CHANGE
• Three general types of change—adaptive,
innovative, and radically innovative—differ in
complexity, cost, and uncertainty.
• Lewin’s change model proposes three stages:
unfreezing, changing, and refreezing.
• A systems model of change includes inputs,
strategic plans, target elements of change,
and outputs.
• Kotter’s eight-step model of change requires
organizations to move through each step
sequentially.
• An organizational development (OD) approach
to change consists of diagnosing, intervening,
evaluating, and feeding the evaluation back
to assess change effectiveness.
16.3 UNDERSTANDING RESIS-
TANCE TO CHANGE
• Resistance to change is any thought, emotion,
or behavior that does not align with actual or
potential changes to existing routines.
• Dynamic perspectives of resistance describe
it as an interplay of change recipient charac-
teristics, change agent characteristics, and
the relationship between the two.
16.4 THE GOOD AND THE BAD
OF STRESS
• Job stress contains both harmful physical and
emotional elements.
• Stressors can occur at multiple levels—
individual, group, organizational, and extra-
organizational.
• Primary and secondary are the two common
forms of cognitive appraisal.
• Common coping strategies are control,
escape, and symptom management.
16.5 EFFECTIVE CHANGE AND
STRESS MANAGEMENT
• The systems model of change provides multi-
ple targets for effective change management.
• Education and communication, involvement,
negotiation, and coercion are among the
many means for overcoming resistance to
change.
• Stress Is managed most effectively when
employers and employees take action.
16.6 HOW CAN I APPLY OB AND
SHOW WHAT I’VE LEARNED?
• Your attitudes towards change can make or
break you as an employee and manager.
• Identifying the factors that influence resistance
can help you as an employee and manager.
• Manage your stress and remember It is
contagious.
What Did I Learn?
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
675Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
The Organizing Framework for Chapter 16
As shown in Figure 16.12, you learned that the process of leading and managing
change and stress at the organizational level often includes a range of inputs, pro-
cesses, and outcomes across all levels of the organization.
FIGURE 16.12 Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB
©2021 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.
INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES
Person Factors
• Personality
• Demographics
• Skills and abilities
• Values
• Needs
• Ethics
• Stressors
Situation Factors
• Relationship quality
• Leadership
• Human resource problems/
prospects
• Managerial behavior/deci-
sions
• Culture (organizational)
• Technology
• Market forces
• Social, political, and regula-
tory pressures
• Stressors
• Organizational mission and
vision
• Strategy
Individual Level
• Emotions
• Cognitive appraisals
• Coping strategies
• Perceptions
• Motivation
• Trust
• Communication
Group/Team Level
• Group/team dynamics
• Conflict and negotiation
• Decision making
• Power, influence, and politics
• Performance management
• Leadership
• Trust
Organizational Level
• Human resource policies and
practices
• Culture
• Organizational design and
effectiveness
• Leading and managing
change and stress
• Trust
Individual Level
• Task performance
• Work attitudes
• Well-being
• Citizenship behavior/counter-
productive behavior
• Resistance to change
• Turnover
• Career outcomes
• Stress (physical and emo-
tional)
• Accidents
Group/Team Level
• Group/team performance
• Group satisfaction
• Group cohesion and conflict
• Resistance to change
Organizational Level
• Survival
• Accounting/financial perfor-
mance
• Organizational performance
• Customer satisfaction
• Innovation
• Reputation
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
676 PART 3 Organizational Processes
Toys-R-Us has long been known as a marquee toy
retailer with giant 40,000-square-foot stores and
nearly every item desired or imaginable for children
(and some adults). A large percentage of Americans,
as well as customers in international markets, can
recall visiting a Toys-R-Us store.
Sadly however, even icons fail, especially when
confronted with nearly $5 billion of debt, fierce online
competition from Amazon and Walmart, changing cus-
tomer preferences (video games instead of conven-
tional toys), and technology (e-commerce). Not even
3 billion dollars in annual sales could surmount these
challenges.
SEALED FATE
Some argue the company’s fate was sealed back in
2005 when Bain Capital took the company private
and buried it in debt to do so. Toys R Us never shed
this burden.85 The Toys R Us scenario is a familiar one.
In the years prior to the great recession (2006–2008),
private equity firms (PE), like Bain and KKR, went
shopping for retailers. They took the companies
private by borrowing money for the purchase and
planned to achieve high returns by making them
more efficient, selling off parts, or both, and in a
period of a few years take them public again. (Note:
PE firms generally collect large fees associated with
taking the companies public.)
However, the recession eroded the value of the
retailer’s real estate and at the same time e-commerce
exploded onto the market. Online sales have more
than quadrupled since 2007. For perspective, Neiman
Marcus, another PE-, debt-plagued retailer reaped
34 percent of total sales online in 2017. These same
factors also spurred the demise of other well-known
brands, like Gymboree, Payless Shoes, and Sports
Authority.86
To compete online requires massive investments in
technology and support, people, all while selling prod-
ucts at lower margins. In summary, competition is up,
debt is up, expenses for creating an online channel go
up, and profits go down–a tough scenario for any
retailer.87 Many have responded by only investing in
safe bets and cutting products and people, which in
turn has limited merchandise and degraded service.
For its part, Toys R Us tried bankruptcy in Septem-
ber 2017 to salvage the company but doing this
before the holiday shopping season (when it collects a
large percentage of annual revenue) hurt more than
helped. Company leadership and other employees
were in survival mode instead of executing and boost-
ing sales when it needed them most. The poor timing
was made even worse as it scared customers away, as
they were concerned that toys couldn’t be returned,
and gift cards redeemed.88
COMPETITORS POUNCED
Knowing Toys R Us was on the ropes, Walmart, Target,
and Amazon cut prices during the holiday season and
took an ever greater share of sales. For instance, com-
petitors sold some toys at a loss in order to get the
business. This practice isn’t sustainable, normally, but
each of these large competitors sells many, many
other products besides toys. As such, they could com-
pensate with sales from other products while Toys R
Us couldn’t. It sells only toys.89
Concerns spread and a domino effect ensued. Many
toy suppliers delayed shipments fearing they might not
be paid if the company went bankrupt, and creditors
also tightened terms making things even worse.
WHERE NOW?
All is not lost. Yes, the company did technically go
away–over 700 U.S. stores closed and nearly 33,000
employees lost their jobs, but a new company, Tru Kids
Brands, has emerged in 2019. Investors bought Toys R
Us trademarks, private toy and baby brands, its famous
PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE
Toys R Amazon, Walmart, and Others, but Not Us
Toys R Us is yet another iconic retailer to suffer due to changes in
technology, customer preferences, and new competitors.
Daysi Calavia-Robertson/Newsday/Getty Images
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
677Managing Change and Stress CHAPTER 16
mascot (Geoffrey the Giraffe), Babies R Us, and other
assets. The new CEO, Richard Barry, formerly the chief
marketing officer of Toys R Us, hired many of the for-
mer company’s leaders but none of its stores and
associated employees.90
Many industry experts note that although the major
competitors are indeed formidable, the demise of Toys R
Us leaves a notable gap in the market. Many people still
need or at least desire to shop in an actual toy store, and
this is especially true during the holidays. It’s nostalgic.91
NEW TEAM . . . NEW APPROACH
Time will tell, but at the time this case was written it is
clear it will involve new employees, new stores, and a
new strategy to go along with the new name.
Assume you are the new CEO Richard Barry and
apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach to chart a
path forward for Tru Kids Brands.
APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM-
SOLVING APPROACH TO OB
STEP 1: Define the problem.
A. Look first at the Outcomes box of the Organizing
Framework in Figure 16.12 to help identify the
important problem(s) in this case. Remember, a
problem is a gap between a desired and a cur-
rent state. State your problem as a gap and be
sure to consider problems at all three levels.
If more than one desired outcome is not being
accomplished, decide which one is most impor-
tant and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.
B. Cases have key players, and problems are gen-
erally viewed from a player’s perspective. You
need to determine from whose perspective—
employee, manager, team, or the organization—
you’re defining the problem. As in other cases,
whether you choose the individual or organiza-
tional level in this case can make a difference.
In this case you’re asked to assume the role of
new CEO Richard Barry.
C. Use details in the case to determine the key
problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems
that are not explicitly included in the case itself.
Only use what Is provided in the case.
D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, why is this a
problem? Explaining why helps refine your think-
ing. Focus on topics in the current chapter,
because we generally select cases that illustrate
concepts in the current chapter.
STEP 2: Identify causes.
Using material from this chapter and summarized in
the Organizing Framework, identify what are the
causes of the problem you identified in Step 1. Remem-
ber, causes tend to appear in either the Inputs or
Processes boxes.
A. Start by looking at Figure 16.12 to identify which
person factors, if any, are most likely causes of
the defined problem. For each cause explain
why or how It causes the problem. Asking why
multiple times is more likely to lead you to root
causes of the problem. In this case, for instance,
how do competitors factor in to your decisions?
What about the value of the brand? Expertise of
leadership?
B. Follow the same process for the situation fac-
tors. For each ask yourself, why is this a cause?
By following the process of asking why multiple
times, you are likely to arrive at a more complete
and accurate list of causes. Again, look to the
Organizing Framework for guidance.
C. Now consider the Processes box shown in
Figure 16.12. Consider concepts listed at all
three levels. For any concept that might be a
cause, ask yourself, why is this a cause? Again,
do this for several iterations to arrive at root
causes.
D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the
causes, be sure to map them onto the defined
problem and confirm the link or cause and
effect connection.
STEP 3: Recommend solutions.
Make your recommendations for solving the problem.
Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or
dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is
desirable and feasible?
A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are
your best recommendations? Use material in the
current chapter that best suits the cause.
Remember to consider the OB in Action and
Applying OB boxes, because these contain
insights into what others have done.
B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework—
both person and situation factors, as well as
processes at different levels.
C. Create an action plan for implementing your
recommendations and be sure your recommen-
dations map onto the causes and resolve the
problem.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
678 PART 3 Organizational Processes
LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE
Can Employers Ethically Force You to Change and Be Healthy?
Healthy employees provide many benefits for employ-
ers: improved employee engagement and perfor-
mance, attracting and retaining talent, job satisfaction,
thriving culture and morale, and reduced health care
costs. In fact, many leaders now view employee
wellness as a fundamental part of business strategy
and competitiveness.92 it therefore is no surprise
employers are using both carrots (incentives) and
sticks (penalties) to motivate healthier employee life-
styles. These efforts have raised legal and ethical con-
siderations regarding the means used to gain
employee compliance.
Carrots and Sticks
Many programs offer incentives for employee partici-
pation. The most common is reduced health insurance
premiums if employees participate in health screening,
stress reduction, nutrition counseling, weight loss,
smoking cessation, exercise, or other employer-
sponsored programs. Many more employers (some
estimate 60 percent) are penalizing employees for not
meeting health standards or participating in wellness
programs. Common penalties are increased health
care premiums or surcharges for smokers or for those
who are obese, and in some instances health expenses
are not reimbursed if employees do not adopt a
healthier lifestyle. At the extreme, some employers are
linking employment offers to health behaviors, refus-
ing to hire smokers or insisting current smokers must
quit to remain employed.93
Truly Voluntary or Actually Coercive?
Employers often argue wellness and the associated
carrots and sticks benefit all stakeholders. Opponents,
however, are concerned the carrot approaches are
actually coercive rather than voluntary.94 The incentives
and expectations may be so strong as to induce
employees to engage in activities, such as strenuous
exercise, that are unhealthy for those who are out of
shape or have underlying conditions.95 Others worry
that stick programs and their associated penalties may
be a form of harassment, and employees who choose
not to participate may be stigmatized and in effect
penalized. What about otherwise healthy employees,
for whom participation in any type of program may not
actually matter?
Some critics see employer-sponsored wellness as
a “slippery slope” that may lead to employers’ govern-
ing other nonwork activity, such as eating fast food or
participating in extreme sports.96 Particular concerns
arise when employers set consequences tied to out-
comes and not simply to participation. Of course,
measurable outcomes make sense, but what about
those who try but don’t meet the desired standard? Is
it fair to deny them discounts or penalize them with
higher premiums?
Although Equal Employment Opportunity Commis-
sion (EEOC) policy largely governs the legal parame-
ters, the reality is employers will continue to use
carrots and sticks to foster employee health and
wellness.97
Putting the EEOC aside, can employers fairly provide
consequences (incentives or penalties) for employees
who do not comply with their wellness standards,
including participation in wellness programs?
What Is Your Position?
1. No. Employers should not provide positive or
negative consequences for employees’ health
status. Justify.
2. Yes. Employers can provide incentives but not
penalties. Justify.
3. Yes. Employers can provide both incentives and
penalties. Justify.
4. Create and describe other possible alternatives
for motivating employee wellness.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN1
CHAPTER 1
1. A. Glusker, “Why People Skills Are So Important—And How You Can Pol-
ish Yours to Shine,” Forbes, June 8, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
anneglusker/2018/06/08/why-people-skills-are-so-important-and-how-
you-can-polish-yours-to-a-shine/#72c5e6022458.
2. S. Adams, “The College Degrees and Skills Employers Most Want
in 2015,” Forbes, April 15, 2015, http://www.forbes.com/sites/
susanadams/2015/04/15/the-college-degrees-and-skills- employers-
most-want-in-2015/print/.
3. “What Are Soft Job Skills and Why Are They Important?” CareerBuilder.
com, July 9, 2018, https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/what-are-soft-
job-skills-and-why-are-they-important.
4. Inspired by and adapted from C. Ellers, “Resume Keywords to Use: Step-
by-step Guide,” Zetsy, October 25, 2018, https://zety.com/blog/resume-
keywords.
5. Anne Glusker, “Why People Skills Are So Important—And How You Can Pol-
ish Yours to a Shine,” Forbes Media LLC, June 8, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/anneglusker/2018/06/08/why-people-skills-are-so-important-
and-how-you-can-polish-yours-to-a-shine/#77124fc62458.
6. As quoted in P. LaBarre, “The Industrialized Revolution,” Fast Company,
November 2003, 116, 118.
7. T. Eurich, “What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It),” Har-
vard Business Review, January 4, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-self-
awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it.
8. J. Zenger and J. Folkman, “We Like Leaders Who Underrate Themselves,”
Harvard Business Review, November 10, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/11/
we-like-leaders-who-underrate-themselves.
9. C. Esimai, “Great Leadership Starts with Self-Awareness,” Forbes, February
15, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ellevate/2018/02/15/self-
awareness-being-more-of-what-makes-you-great/#5f6a841340dd.
10. Burck, Charles, Larry Bossidy, and Ram Charan. Execution: The Discipline
of Getting Things Done. London: Random House, 2011.
11. T. Eurich, “What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It),” Har-
vard Business Review, January 4, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/01/what-
self-awareness-really-is-and-how-to-cultivate-it.
12. Adapted using R. Hougaard, J. Carter, and M. Afton, “Self-Awareness Can
Help Leaders More Than an MBA,” Harvard Business Review, January 12,
2018, https://hbr.org/2018/01/self-awareness-can-help-leaders-more-than-
an-mba-can; and A. K. Tjan, “5 Ways to Become More Self-Aware,” Harvard
Business Review, February 11, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/02/5-ways-to-
become-more-self-aware.
13. S. Vozza, “These Are the Five Soft Skills Recruiters Want Most,”
FastCompany, January 26, 2018, https://www.fastcompany.com/
40520691/these-are-the-five-soft-skills-recruiters-want-most.
14. M. S. Rao, “Myths and Truths about Skills,” T+D, May 7, 2012.
15. M. Curtin, “10 Skills Employers Will Want the Most in 2020,”
businessinsider.com, January 4, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.
com/10-skills-employers-will-want-the-most-in-2020-2018-1.
16. S. Vozza, “These Are the Five Soft Skills Recruiters Want Most,” FastCom-
pany, January 26, 2018: https://www.fastcompany.com/40520691/
these-are-the-five-soft-skills-recruiters-want-most.
17. Megan Elliott, “5 Essential Skills College Grads Need to Get a Decent
Job,” Showbiz Cheat Sheet, May 1, 2015, https://www.cheatsheet.com/
money-career/5-skills-todays-college-grads-need-to-get-a-job.
html/?a=viewall.
18. Melanie Curtin, “10 Skills Employers Will Want the Most in 2020,” Insider
Inc., January 4, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/10-skills-employers-
will-want-the-most-in-2020-2018-1?IR=T.
19. “What Are Soft Skills and Why Are They Important?” CareerBuilder, July
9, 2018, https://www.careerbuilder.com/advice/what-are-soft-job-skills-
and-why-are-they-important.
20. N. Scheiber, “A.I. as Talent Scout: Unorthodox Hires, and Maybe Lower
Pay,” The New York Times, December 6, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/12/06/business/economy/artificial-intelligence-hiring.html:
see also C. Scivicque, “What You Really Need to Get Promoted,” Ivy Exec
Blog, https://www.ivyexec.com/executive-insights/2014/show-soft-skills-
get-promoted/.
21. Adapted from R. Ryan, “How to Ace Your Next Job Interview,” Talent Devel-
opment, February 10, 2016, https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Career-
Development-Blog/2016/02/How-to-Ace-Your-Next-Job-Interview.
22. Roxanne Hori, “Why Soft Skills Matter,” Bloomberg L.P., December 5, 2012,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-12-05/why-soft-
skills-matter.
23. C. Scivicque, “What You Really Need to Get Promoted,” Ivy Exec Blog,
https://www.ivyexec.com/executive-insights/2014/show-soft-skills-
get-promoted/; see also R. Patterson, “Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills: Why
You Need Both to Succeed,” collegeinfogeek.com, March 25, 2019,
https://collegeinfogeek.com/hard-vs-soft-skills/.
24. B. Rothenberg and C. Clarey, “Review Finds ‘Tsunami’ of Fixed Matches
in Lower Level Tennis,” The New York Times, April 25, 2018, https://www.
nytimes.com/2018/04/25/sports/tennis/tennis-anti-corruption-
report.html.
25. “Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports Fast Facts,” CNN, May 7, 2018,
https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/06/us/performance-enhancing-drugs-in-
sports-fast-facts/index.html.
26. B. Y. Lee, “A Doping Scandal in Bridge? The World’s Top Player Fails Drug
Test,” forbes.com, March 4, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
brucelee/2019/03/04/a-doping-scandal-in-bridge-the-worlds-top-player-
fails-drug-test/#56852a6a7450.
27. M. Dreyer, “Rampant Chinese Cheating Exposed at the Boston Marathon,”
supchina.com, April 21, 2019, https://supchina.com/2019/04/21/rampant-
chinese-cheating-exposed-at-the-boston-marathon/.
28. E. M. Anderman, “Why Students at Prestigious High Schools Still Cheat on
Exams,” The Conversation, February 15, 2018, http://theconversation.
com/why-students-at-prestigious-high-schools-st i l l -cheat-on-
exams-91041.
29. “What Impact Is Technology Having on Student Cheating?” The NYU Dis-
patch, February 26, 2018, https://wp.nyu.edu/ ispatch/2018/02/26/what-
impact-is-technology-having-on- student-cheating/.
30. “What Impact Is Technology Having on Student Cheating?” The NYU Dis-
patch, February 26, 2018, https://wp.nyu.edu/dispatch/2018/02/26/
what-impact-is-technology-having-on-student-cheating/.
31. E. Whitford, “Study: Students Worldwide Pay to Cheat,” Inside Higher
Education, September 4, 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/quick-
takes/2018/09/04/study-students-worldwide-pay-cheat.
32. L. McKenzie, “Learning Tool of Cheating Aid,” Inside Higher Education,
May 14, 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2018/05/14/
professors-warned-about-popular-learning-tool-used-students-cheat;
see also E. B. Cadloff, “How Do You Solve a Problem Like Contract
Cheating?” University Affairs, April 4, 2018, https://www.universityaffairs.ca/
news/news-article/solve-problem-like-contract-cheating/.
33. E. L. Green and K. Benner, “Louisiana School Made Headlines for Send-
ing Black Kids to Elite Colleges. Here’s the Reality,” The New York Times,
November 30, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/30/us/tm-
landry-college-prep-black-students.html.
34. G. Chen, “When Teachers Cheat: The Standardized Test Controversies,”
Public School Review, August 6, 2018, https://www.publicschoolreview.
com/blog/when-teachers-cheat-the-standardized-test-controversies.
35. K. Nails, “Ousted Dean, False Rankings Data, AG Probe: A Guide to the
Temple Business School Scandal,” The Inquirer, July 17, 2018, http://
www.philly.com/philly/education/temple-business-school-dean-data-fox-
moshe-porat-explainer-20180717.html.
36. “College Admissions Scandal: Your Questions Answered,” The New York
Times, March 14, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/14/us/
college-admissions-scandal-questions.html?action=click&module=
RelatedCoverage&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer; See also J. Medina
and K. Taylor, “L.A.’s Elite on Edge as Prosecutors Pursue More Parents in
Admissions Scandal,” The New York Times, May 1, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/01/us/college-admissions-scandal.
h t m l ? e m c =e d i t _ n a _ 2 0 1 9 0 5 0 1 & n l =b r e a k i n g - n e w s & n l i d =
49995115ing-news&ref=cta.
37. C. Tejada, “Nissan Workers in Japan Falsified Emissions Tests, Review
Says,” The New York Times, July 9, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/07/09/business/nissan-falsified-emissions-inspections.html.
38. C. Ornstein and K. Thomas, “Top Cancer Researcher Fails to Disclose
Corporate Financial Ties in Major Research Journals,” The New York
Times, September 8, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/08/
health/jose-baselga-cancer-memorial-sloan-kettering.html?nl=top-storie
s&nlid=49995115ries&ref=headline.
39. Z. Wichter, “Southwest Airlines Mechanics Approve Contract, Ending
Long Impasse,” The New York Times, May 21, 2019, https://www.
nytimes.com/2019/05/21/business/southwest-airlines-mechanics-con-
tract.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_190522.
40. “You Asked, We Answered: Why Didn’t Any Wall Street CEOs Go to Jail
After the Financial Crisis? It’s Complicated,” Marketplace.org, https://
features.marketplace.org/why-no-ceo-went-jail-after-financial-crisis/
(accessed June 14, 2019).
CHAPTER NOTES
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN2 CHAPTER NOTES
41. K. Scannell and R. Milne, “Who Was Convicted Because of the Global
Financial Crisis,” ft.com, August 9, 2017, https://www.ft.com/content/
de173cc6-7c79-11e7-ab01-a13271d1ee9c.
42. J. Eaglesham, “Missing: Stats on Crisis Convictions,” The Wall Street
Journal, May 13, 2012.
43. CNBC LLC, “Bernanke: More Execs Should Have Gone to Jail,” https://
www.cnbc.com/2015/10/04/bernanke-more-bank-execs-should-have-
been-jailed-for-financial-crisis.html (accessed June 28, 2019).
44. J. Strasburg and J. Chung, “Investors Exit Fund Dogged by Probe,” The
Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2013.
45. M. Goldstein and A. Stevenson, “In Insider Trading Settlement, Steven
Cohen Will Be Free to Manage Outside Money in Two Years,” The New
York Times, January 8, 2016, http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/09/
business/dealbook/sec-and-steven—cohen-reach-settlement-in-insider-
trading-case.html?_r=0.
46. K. Burton, “Steven Cohen Needs to Prove Himself to Wall Street All Over
Again,” Bloomberg Businessweek, February, 2018, https://www.
bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-01/steve-cohen-needs-to-prove-
himself-to-wall-street-all-over-again; see also Bloomberg Billionaires
Index, May 22, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/billionaires/profiles/
steven-a-cohen/.
47. K. J. M. Baker, “What Do We Do with These Men?” The New York Times,
April 27, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/27/opinion/sunday/
metoo-comebacks-charlie-rose.html.
48. A. Carlsen, M. Salam, C. C. Miller, D. Lu, A. Ngu, J. K. Patel, and Z. Wichter,
“#MeToo Brought Down 201 Powerful Men. Nearly Half of Their Replace-
ments Are Women,” The New York Times, October 29, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/23/us/metoo-replacements.html.
49. Inspired by Editorial Board, “It’s Time for Pharmaceutical Companies to
Have Their Tobacco Moment,” The New York Times, February 24, 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/24/opinion/drug-prices-congress.html.
50. W. Pavlo, “Pharma Boy Martin Shkreli and His Prison Troubles,” Forbes.
com, March 11, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/walterpavlo/
2019/03/11/pharma-boy-martin-shkreli-and-his-prison-troubles/
#6a38a7e71404.
51. R. Khan, “Whistleblower: Warrior, Sabateur, or Snitch?” Forbes, July 5, 2018,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/roomykhan/2018/07/05/whistleblower-
warrior-saboteur-or-snitch/#39a75a856362.
52. “SEC Announces Its Largest-Ever Whistleblower Awards,” Securities and
Exchange Commission, March 19, 2018, https://www.sec.gov/news/
press-release/2018-44.
53. P. Schroeder, “U.S. SEC Awards Merrill Lynch Whistleblowers a Record $83
Million,” Reuters, March 19, 2018, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-
sec-whistleblower/u-s-sec-awards-merrill-lynch-whistleblowers-a-record-
83-million-idUSKBN1GV2MT.
54. L. Berlin, “J. P. Morgan Chase Whistleblower: ‘Essentially Suicide’ to
Stand Up to Bank,” The Huffington Post, August 5, 2012, http://www.
huff ingtonpost.com.au/entry/ l inda-almonte- jpmorgan-chase-
whistleblower_n_1478268.
55. P. Danner, “Regulators Slap JPMorgan Chase,” San Antonio Express News,
July 8, 2015, http://www.expressnews.com/business/local/article/
Regulators-slap-JPMorgan-Chase-6373817.php.
56. M. Bazerman and A. Tenbrunsel, “Ethical Breakdowns: Good People
Often Let Bad Things Happen, Why?” Harvard Business Review, April
2011, http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=39125.
57. B. Tepper, “When Managers Pressure Employees to Behave Badly: Toward
a Comprehensive Response,” Business Horizons 53, 2010, 591–598.
58. D. L. McCabe, K. D. Butterfield, and L. K. Trevino, “Academic Dishonesty in
Graduate Business Programs: Prevalence, Causes, and Proposed Action,”
Academy of Management Learning & Education, 2006, 294–305.
59. Pamela Babcock, “Spotting Lies,” SHRM, Octrober 1, 2003, https://www.
shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/1003babcock.aspx. Also
see D. Macsai, “. . . And I Invented Velcro,” BusinessWeek, August 4,
2008, 15.
60. J. T. O’Donnell, “85 Percent of Job Applicants Lie on Resumes. Here’s
How to Spot a Dishonest Candidate,” Inc., July 17, 2017, https://www.inc.
com/jt-odonnell/staggering-85-of-job-applicants-lying-on-resumes-.html.
61. D. Papandrea, “The Biggest Resume Lies to Avoid,” Monster Worldwide
Inc., https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/the-truth-about-
resume-lies-hot-jobs (accessed December 16, 2018).
62. Based on M. C. Gentile, “Keeping Your Colleagues Honest,” Harvard
Business Review, March 2010.
63. Loren Gary, “Want Better Results? Boost Your Problem-Solving Power,”
Harvard Business Review, October 1, 2004, https://hbr.org/product/want-
better-results-boost-your-problem-solving-power/U0410A-PDF-ENG.
64. T. Judge and C. Zapata, “The Person-Situation Debate Revisited, Effect of
the Situation Strength and Trait Activation on the Validity of The Big Five
Personality Traits in Predicting Job Performance,” Academy of Manage-
ment Journal, 2015, 1149–1179.
65. M. N., Conley and G. Saucier, “An Initial Broad-Level Mapping of Person-
ality-Situation Contingencies in Self-Report Data,” Personality and Indi-
vidual Differences, 2019, 166–172.
66. S. Kim and S. Yun, “The Effect of Coworker Knowledge Sharing on Per-
formance and Its Boundary Conditions: An Interactional Perspective,”
Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 575–582.
67. James R. Terborg, “Interactional Psychology and Research on Human
Behavior in Organizations,” The Academy of Management Review 6, no.
4 (October 1981): 569–76. https://DOI: 10.2307/257635.
68. J. Weber, “Mars Inc. CEO Grant Reid Is Thinking a Hundred Years Ahead,”
Bloomberg.com, January 23, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
features/2019-01-23/mars-inc -ceo-grant-reid-is-thinking-a-hundred-
years-ahead; along with C. Thompson, “The Company Behind Some of
the Most Popular Candies in the World Is Quietly Taking Over the
Pet-Care Industry,” businessinsider.com, June 13, 2018, https://www.
businessinsider.com.au/mars-plans-to-grow-products-services-
expand-digitally-2018-6.
69. M. C. Bush and C. Tkaczyk, “100 Best Companies to Work For,” Fortune,
2019, 57–80.
70. M. Moskowitz and R. Levering, “The 100 Best Companies to Work For,”
Fortune, March 15, 2015, 152.
71. M. Moskowitz and R. Levering, “The 100 Best Companies to Work For,”
Fortune, March 15, 2015, 152.
72. J. Weber, “Mars Inc. CEO Grant Reid Is Thinking a Hundred Years Ahead,”
Bloomberg.com, January 23, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
features/2019-01-23/mars-inc- ceo-grant-reid-is-thinking-a-hundred-
years-ahead.
73. J. Weber, “Mars Inc. CEO Grant Reid Is Thinking a Hundred Years Ahead,”
Bloomberg.com, January 23, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
features/2019-01-23/mars-inc-ceo-grant-reid-is- thinking-a-hundred-
years-ahead.
74. Mars.com, https://www.mars.com/news-and-stories/media-resources/mars-
volunteer-program (accessed March 10, 2019).
75. J. Weber, “Mars Inc. CEO Grant Reid Is Thinking a Hundred Years Ahead,”
Bloomberg.com, January 23, 2019, https://www. bloomberg.com/news/
features/2019-01-23/mars-inc- ceo-grant-reid-is-thinking-a-hundred-
years-ahead.
76. M. Moskowitz, R. Levering, O. Akhtar, E. Fry, C. Leahey, and A. Vandermey,
“The 100 Best Companies to Work For,” Fortune, February 4, 2013, 73–82.
77. J. Weber, “Mars Inc. CEO Grant Reid Is Thinking a Hundred Years Ahead,”
Bloomberg.com, January 23, 2019, https://www. bloomberg.com/news/
features/2019-01-23/mars-inc- ceo-grant-reid-is-thinking-a-hundred-
years-ahead.
78. G. Bhardwaj, A. Crocker, J. Sims, and R. D. Wang, “Alleviating the Plung-
ing-In Bias, Elevating Strategic Problem-Solving,” Academy of Manage-
ment Learning and Education, 2018, 17(3): 279–301.
79. R. L. Ackoff, “On the Use of Models in Corporate Planning,” Strategic
Management Journal, 1981, 353–359. See also R. Kreitner, Manage-
ment, 9th ed. (New York: Houghton-Mifflin, 2002), 271.
80. N. Morgan, “Are You Getting the Best Solutions for Your Problems?” Har-
vard Business Review, January 1, 2002, http://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cb/
web/he/product_view.seam?R5C0201D-PDF-ENG&T5EC&C5SEARCH&
CS505149d1977477612e265fff9eb8043c2 (accessed March 5, 2013).
81. M. P. Lynch, “Leave My iPhone Alone: Why Our Smartphones are Exten-
sions of Ourselves,” The Guardian, February 19, 2016, https://www.
theguardian.com/technology/2016/feb/19/iphone-apple-privacy-smart-
phones-extension-of-ourselves.
82. A. Perrin, “About a Quarter of U.S. Adults Say They Are ‘Almost Con-
stantly’ Online,” Pew Research Center, March 14, 2018, http://www.
pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/14/about-a-quarter-of-americans-
report-going-online-almost-constantly/.
83. A. Smith, “Walmart Adopts Bring-Your-Own-Device Policy,” SHRM.org,
October 26, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-
compliance/employment-law/pages/walmart-bring-your-own-device-
policy.aspx.
84. R. Haridy, “The Right to Disconnect: The New Laws Banning After-Hours
Work Emails,” Newatlas.com, August 14, 2018, https://newatlas.com/right-
to-disconnect-after-hours-work-emails/55879/.
85. M. Thomas, “Vacation Policy in Corporate America Is Broken,” Harvard
Business Review, June 26, 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/06/vacation-
policy-in-corporate-america-is- broken.
86. L. Nagele-Piazza, “Tips for Managing Workers’ After-Hours Use of Mobile
Devices,” SHRM.org, June 15, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resource-
sandtools/legal-and-compliance/employment-law/pages/tips-for-manag-
ing-worker-after-hours-use-of-mobile-devices.aspx.
87. “Mere Expectation of Checking Work Email After Hours Harms Health of
Workers and Families,” Eurekalert.org, August 10, 2018, https://vtnews.
vt.edu/articles/2018/08/pamplin-employer- emailexpectations.html.
88. C. Breen, “Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos Are Back in the News. Here’s
What You Need to Know About the Story. Holmes Said Theranos Would
Revolutionize Health Care. That Never Happened,” thelily.com, March 20,
2019, https://www.thelily.com/elizabeth-holmes-and-theranos-are-back-in-
the-news-heres-what-you-need-to-know-about-the-story/.
89. J. Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
(New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 2018).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN3CHAPTER NOTES
90. J. Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
(New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 2018).
91. J. Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
(New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 2018); and C. Breen, “Elizabeth Holmes and
Theranos Are Back in the News. Here’s What You Need to Know About
the Story. Holmes Said Theranos Would Revolutionize Health Care. That
Never Happened,” thelily.com, March 20, 2019, https://www.thelily.com/
elizabeth-holmes-and-theranos-are-back-in-the-news-heres-what-you-
need-to-know-about-the-story/.
92. J. Carreyrou, Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
(New York: Alfred A. Kopf, 2018).
CHAPTER 2
1. W. Thibodeaux, “How to Overcome the 3 Big Issues Killing Worker
Engagement,” Inc., September 27, 2018, https://www.inc.com/wanda-
thibodeaux/whats-actually-making-your-workers-disengaged-and-how-
to-inspire-them.html?cid=search; J. Hayes, “Want to Improve Employee
Engagement and Morale? Start By Addressing This 1 Huge Issue,” Inc.,
September 21, 2018, https://www.inc.com/julian-hayes-ii/70-percent-of-
employees-are-distracted-at-work-its-costing-you-money-heres-how-to-
fix-it.html?cid=search; C. Skaggs, “How to Be a More Engaged Employee,”
Glassdoor.com, January 5, 2018, https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/engaged-
employee/; B. Gleeson, “5 Powerful Steps to Improve Employee Engage-
ment,” Forbes, October 15, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
brentgleeson/2017/10/15/5-powerful-steps-to-improve-employee-
engagement/#7cbe4645341d; M. E. Slater, “6 Steps to Take When You’re
Not Feeling Engaged at Work,” Monster.com, https://www.monster.com/
career-advice/article/6-steps-take-not-engaged-at-work-0316; and
T. Chamorro-Premuzic and L. Garrad, “How to Tell Your Boss That You’re Not
Engaged at Work,” Harvard Business Review, October 18, 2017, https://hbr.
org/2017/10/how-to-tell-your-boss-that-youre-not-engaged-at-work.
2. B. Gleeson, “5 Powerful Steps to Improve Employee Engagement,”
Forbes , October 15, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
brentgleeson/2017/10/15/5-powerful-steps-to-improve-employee-
engagement/#7cbe4645341d.
3. See S. H. Schwartz, “An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Val-
ues,” Online Readings in Psychology and Culture, December 1, 2012, 8,
http://dx.doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116.
4. See A. K. Döring, S. H. Schwartz, J. Cieciuch, P. J. F. Groenen, V. Glatzel,
J. Harasimczuk, N. Janowicz, M. Nyagolova, E. R. Scheefer, M. Allritz, T. L.
Milfont, and W. Bilsky, “Cross-Cultural Evidence of Value Structure and
Priorities in Childhood,” British Journal of Psychology, November 2015,
675–699; and W. Bilsky, T. Gollan, S. Roccas, H. Grad, M. L. M. Teixeira,
M. Rodriguez, I. S. Gallo, and L. Segal-Caspi, “On the Relative Importance
of Personal Values,” Journal of Individual Differences, 2015, 119–129.
5. Company website, “Careers at Airbnb,” https://careers.airbnb.com,
(accessed February 25, 2019); and R. Brooks, “10 Companies with Core
Values That Actually Reflect Their Culture,” February 8, 2018, https://
peakon.com/blog/workplace-culture/best-company-core-values/.
6. J. Desjardins, “Meet Generation Z: The Newest Member of the Work-
force,” Visual Capitalist, February 14, 2019, https://www.visualcapitalist.
com/meet-generation-z-the-newest-member-to-the-workforce/; and R.
Tanner, “15 Influential Events That Shaped Generation Y,” May 12, 2018,
https://managementisajourney.com/15-influential-events-that-shaped-
generation-y-infographic/.
7. E. G. Dunn, “Not Enough Cooks,” Bloomberg Businessweek, November
23–29, 2015, 67.
8. A. Lancaster, “3 Ways Restaurants Are Measuring Employee Satisfaction,”
Restaurant Business Online, September 6, 2017, https://www.restaurant-
businessonline.com/workforce/3-ways- restaurants-are-measuring-
employee-satisfaction#page=2.
9. L. Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance (Palo Alto: Stanford Uni-
versity Press, 1957).
10. I. Ajzen, “The Theory of Planned Behavior,” Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, 1991, 188.
11. R. Abrams, “McDonald’s Workers Across the U.S. Stage #MeToo Pro-
tests,” The New York Times, September 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/09/18/business/mcdonalds-strike-metoo.html.
12. Rachel Abrams, “McDonald’s Workers Across the U.S. Stage #MeToo Pro-
tests.” The New York Times, September 18, 2018. https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/09/18/business/mcdonalds-strike-metoo.html.
13. Rachel Abrams, “McDonald’s Workers Across the U.S. Stage #MeToo Pro-
tests,” The New York Times, September 18, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/09/18/business/mcdonalds-strike-metoo.html.
14. J. Gassam, “McDonald’s Employees Strike to Protest Sexual Misconduct,”
Forbes, September 20, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/janicegas-
sam/2018/09/20/mcdonalds-employees-strike-to-protest-sexual-
misconduct-how-to-prevent-misconduct-at-your-company/#6bd9a89b2b13.
15. C. Dewberry and D. J. R. Duncan, “An Application of the Theory of
Planned Behavior to Student Retention,” Journal of Vocational Behavior,
August 2018, 100–110.
16. A. Buhmann and P. S. Brønn, “Applying Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behav-
ior to Predict Practitioners’ Intentions to Measure and Evaluate Commu-
nication Outcomes,” Corporate Communications: An International
Journal, August 2018, 377–391; and Y. Yang, J. N. Choi, and K. Lee,
“Theory of Planned Behavior and Different Forms of Organizational
Change Behavior,” Social Behavior and Personality 46, no. 10 (2018),
1657–1672.
17. S. Kim, Y.A. Park, and L. Headrick, “Daily Micro-Breaks and Job Perfor-
mance: General Work Engagement as a Cross-Level Moderator,” Journal
of Applied Psychology July 2018, 772–786.
18. S. Judd, E. O’Rourke, and A. Grant, “Employee Surveys Are Still One of
the Best Ways to Measure Engagement,” Harvard Business Review,
March 14, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/03/employee- surveys-are-still-
one-of-the-best-ways-to-measure-engagement.
19. J. P. Meyer and L. Herscovitch, “Commitment in the Workplace: Toward a
General Model,” Human Resource Management, Autumn 2001, 301.
20. L. Wang, K. S. Law, M. J. Zhang, Y. N. Li, and Y. Liang, “It’s Mine! Psycho-
logical Ownership of One’s Job Explains Positive and Negative Work-
place Outcomes of Job Engagement,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
February 2019, 229–246.
21. D. M. Rousseau, S. D. Hansen, and M. Tomprou, “A Dynamic Phase Model
of Psychological Contract Processes,” Journal of Organizational Behav-
ior, November 2018, 1081–1098.
22. “Fortune 2019 100 Best Companies to Work For: Hilton,” http://fortune.
com (accessed February 22, 2019); and Great Place to Work, “Hilton—
Hospitality for All,” https://www.greatplacetowork.com (accessed Febru-
ary 22, 2019).
23. “Fortune 2019 100 Best Companies to Work For: Salesforce,” http://
fortune.com (accessed February 22, 2019); and A. McBride, “How Sales-
force Philanthropy Chief Ebony Frelix Connects with People,” San
Francisco Chronicle, September 25, 2018, www.sfchronicle.com.
24. “Fortune 2019 100 Best Companies to Work For: Cisco,” http://fortune.
com (accessed February 22, 2019); and R. Hackett, “How Cisco Encour-
ages Everyone to Innovate,” Fortune, February 14, 2019, http://fortune.
com/2019/02/14/best-companies-cisco- innovation/.
25. William A. Kahn, “Psychological Conditions of Personal Engagement and
Disengagement at Work,” Academy of Management Journal 33, no. 4
(December 1990): 692–724.
26. W. A. Macy, B. Schneider, K. M. Barbera, and S. A. Young, Employee
Engagement: Tools for Analysis, Practice, and Competitive Advantage
(West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009), 20.
27. Aon, “2018 Trends in Global Employee Engagement,” https://www.aon.
com/2018-global-employee-engagement-trends/index.html.
28. B. Schneider, A. B. Yost, A. Kropp, C. Kind, and H. Lam, “Workforce
Engagement: What It Is, What Drives It, and Why It Matters for Organiza-
tional Performance,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, May 2018,
462–480.
29. M. Hernandez and C. L. Guarana, “An Examination of the Temporal
Intricacies of Job Engagement,” Journal of Management, May 2018,
1711–1735.
30. S. Sonnentag, E. J. Mojza, E. Demerouti, and A. B. Bakker, “Reciprocal Rela-
tions between Recovery and Work Engagement: The Moderating Role of
Job Stressors,” Journal of Applied Psychology, July 2012, 842–853.
31. J. Harter, “Employee Engagement on the Rise in U.S.,” August 26, 2018,
https://news.gallup.com/poll/241649/employee-engagement-rise.aspx.
32. A. Kohll, “Your Employee Engagement Strategy Needs More Wellness,”
Forbes, July 30, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alankohll/2018/07/30/
your-employee-engagement-strategy-needs-more-wel lness/
#25bae0c242b5; and L. Venz, A. Pundt, and S. Sonnentag, “What Matters
for Work Engagement? A Diary Study on Resources and the Benefits of
Selective Optimization with Compensation for State Work Engagement,”
Journal of Organizational Behavior, January 2018, 26–38.
33. A. Bonner, “Use Ritz-Carlton’s Gold Standards to Boost Customer
Service,” June 29, 2018, https://eyecareleaders.com/customer-service-
ritz-carlton/.
34. Ed Frauenheim, “The Secrets of One of Texas’s Best Companies to Work
For,” Fortune Media IP Limited, March 20, 2018, http://fortune.
com/2018/03/20/the-secrets-of-one-of-texass-best- companies-to-
work-for/.
35. Ed Frauenheim, and Great Place to Work. “How T-Mobile Became One of
the Best Workplaces in New York,” Fortune Media IP Limited, July 17,
2018, http://fortune.com/2018/07/17/t-mobile-became-one-of-the-
best-workplaces-in-new-york/.
36. Clifton Leaf, “Move Over, Gym Memberships. The Hot New Employee
Perk Involves Spitting Into a Cup.” Fortune Media IP Limited, April 19,
2018, http://fortune.com/2018/04/19/levi-strauss-ceo-dna-testing/.
37. REI, “Pay and Benefits,” https://rei.jobs/portal/11/docs/rei-pay-and-
benefits (accessed February 22, 2019).
38. H. R. Young, David R. Glerum, W. Wang, and D. L. Joseph, “Who Are the
Most Engaged at Work? A Meta-Analysis of Personality and Employee
Engagement,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, December 2018,
1330–1346.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN4 CHAPTER NOTES
Like 7th Grade,” Inc., June 14, 2018, https://www.inc.com/suzanne-
lucas/netflix-has-a-new-sexual-harassment-policy-its-like-7th-grade-on-
steroids.html?cid=search.
58. Y. H. Chun, S. Choi, and M. Song, “Analyzing the Link Between Job Satis-
faction and Performance in Educational Institutions,” International Jour-
nal of Public Administration, August 2018, 1–16.
59. Y. H. Chun, S. Choi, and M. Song, “Analyzing the Link Between Job Satis-
faction and Performance in Educational Institutions,” International Jour-
nal of Public Administration, August 2018, 1–16.
60. Dennis W. Organ, “The Motivational Basis of Organizational Citizenship
Behavior,” Research in Organizational Behavior 12 (1990): 43–72.
61. D. W. Organ, “The Motivational Basis of Organizational Citizenship
Behavior,” in Research in Organizational Behavior, ed. B. M. Staw and L.
L. Cummings (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1990), 46.
62. A. C. Klotz, M. C. Bolino, H. Song, and J. Stornelli, “Examining the Nature,
Causes, and Consequences of Profiles of Organizational Citizenship
Behavior,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, June 2018, 629–647.
63. P. S. Thompson and M. C. Bolino, “Negative Beliefs About Accepting
Coworker Help: Implications for Employee Attitudes, Job Performance,
and Reputation,” Journal of Applied Psychology, August 2018, 842–866.
64. S. J. Motowidlo and H. J. Kell, “Job Performance,” in Handbook of Psy-
chology (Vol. 12), ed. N. W. Schmitt and S. Highhouse (Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley & Sons 2012).
65. J. Bilski, “Workers Gone Wild: 7 Outrageous Cases of Employee Fraud,”
CFO Daily News, July 13, 2018, http://www.cfodailynews.com/workers-
gone-wild-7-outrageous-cases-of-employee-fraud/.
66. Z. E. Zhou, E. M. Eatough, and D. R. Wald, “Feeling Insulted? Examining
End-of-Work Anger as a Mediator in the Relationship Between Daily Ille-
gitimate Tasks and Next-Day CWB,” Journal of Organizational Behavior,
October 2018, 911–921.
67. “The High Costs of Staff Turnover,” The Economist, September 20, 2018,
https://www.economist.com/business/2018/09/20/the-high-costs-of-
staff-turnover.
68. L. Jiang and L. M. Lavaysse, “Cognitive and Affective Job Security: A
Meta-Analysis and a Primary Study,” Journal of Management, July 2018,
2307–2342.
69. R. Maurer, “Why Are Workers Quitting Their Jobs in Record Numbers?”
Society for Human Resource Management, December 12, 2018, https://
www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/
workers-are-quitting-jobs-record- numbers.aspx.
70. J. M. Rosenberg, “How to Deal with and Prevent Mass Employee Turn-
over at Your Small Business,” Inc., August 16, 2018, https://www.inc.com/
associated-press/how-to-deal-with-prevent-mass-employee-turnover.
html?cid=search.
71. See M. Krasman, “Three Must-Have Onboarding Elements for New and
Relocated Employees,” Employment Relations Today, July 2015, 9–14;
and “A Signature New-Hire Experience,” http://mycareer.deloitte.com/us/
en / l i f e -a t -de lo i t te / leadersh ip / lea rn ing -and-deve lopment /
a-signature-new-hire-experience (accessed June 24, 2014).
72. M. C. Sturman, L. Shao, and J. H. Katz, “The Effect of Culture on the Cur-
vilinear Relationship between Performance and Turnover,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, January 2012, 46–62.
73. J. M. Rosenberg, “How to Deal with and Prevent Mass Employee Turn-
over at Your Small Business,” Inc., August 16, 2018, https://www.inc.com/
associated-press/how-to-deal-with-prevent-mass-employee-turnover.
html?cid=search.
74. Y. Lai, G. Saridakis, and S. Johnstone, “Human Resource Practices,
Employee Attitudes and Small Firm Performance,” International Small
Business Journal, June 2017, 470–494.
75. M. S. Sohail and J. Jang, “Understanding the Relationships among Inter-
nal Marketing Practices, Job Satisfaction, Service Quality and Customer
Satisfaction: An Empirical Investigation of Saudi Arabia’s Service Employ-
ees,” International Journal of Tourism Sciences, March 2017, 67–85.
76. Y. G. T. van Rossenberg, Howard J. Klein, K. Asplund, K. Bentein, et al.,
“The Future of Workplace Commitment: Key Questions and Directions,”
European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, March 2018,
153–167.
77. “About Us,” https://corporate.walmart.com/our-story (accessed April 16,
2019).
78. Walmart Inc. “Walmart Core Values,” https://careers.walmart.com/values
(accessed May 22, 2019).
79. Rachel Abrams, “Walmart Is Accused of Punishing Workers for Sick Days,”
The New York Times, June 1, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/
business/walmart-workers-sick-days.html.
80. R. Abrams, “Walmart Is Accused of Punishing Workers for Sick Days,” The
New York Times, June 1, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/
business/walmart-workers-sick-days.html.
81. Vanessa Romo, “Federal Commission Sues Walmart for Alleged Discrimi-
nation Against Pregnant Employees,” NPR, September 21, 2018, https://
www.npr.org/2018/09/21/650620184/federal- commission-sues-
walmart-for-alleged-discrimination-against-pregnant-empl.
39. M. M. Joy and M. J. Chiramel, “Importance of Perceived Organizational
Support in Controlling Employee Withdrawal Behaviors,” International
Journal of Engineering Technology, Management and Applied Sciences,
2016, 37–41; and L. Rhodes and R. Eisenberger, “Perceived Organiza-
tional Support: A Review of the Literature,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
August 2002, 698–714.
40. P. C. Smith, L. M. Kendall, and C. L. Hulin, The Measurement of Satisfac-
tion in Work and Retirement (Skokie, IL: Rand-McNally, 1969).
41. D. B. Kline, “A Majority of U.S. Workers Are Actually Satisfied with Their
Jobs,” USA Today, September 7, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/
money/careers/employment-trends/2018/09/03/labor-day-majority-
workers-satisfied-jobs- survey/37670201/.
42. SHRM, “SHRM Survey: Equity and Openness Are Key Contributors to Job
Satisfaction; Employee Job Satisfaction Remains High,” https://www.
shrm.org/about-shrm/press-room/press-releases/pages/shrm-survey-
equity-and-openness-are-key-contributors-to-job-satisfaction.aspx
(accessed May 22, 2019).
43. E. F. Stone, “A Critical Analysis of Social Information Processing Models
of Job Perceptions and Job Attitudes,” in Job Satisfaction: How People
Feel about Their Jobs and How It Affects Their Performance, ed. C. J.
Cranny, P. Cain Smith, and E. F. Stone (New York: Lexington Books,
1992), 21–52.
44. J. P. Wanous, T. D. Poland, S. L. Premack, and K. S. Davis, “The Effects of
Met Expectations on Newcomer Attitudes and Behaviors: A Review and
Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Applied Psychology, June 1982, 288–297.
45. Results can be found in J. Cohen-Charash and P. E. Spector, “The Role of
Justice in Organizations: A Meta-Analysis,” Organizational Behavior and
Human Decision Processes, November 2001, 278–321.
46. A. M. Nofal, N. Nicolau, and N. Symeonidou, “Biology and Management:
A Review, Critique, and Research Agenda,” Journal of Management,
January 2018, 7–31; and W. D. Li, K. C. Stanek, Z. Zhang, D. S. Ones, and
M. McGue, “Are Genetic and Environmental Influences on Job Satisfac-
tion Stable over Time? A Three-Wave Longitudinal Twin Study,” Journal
of Applied Psychology, November 2016, 1598–1619.
47. S. D. Riza, Y. Ganzach, and Y. Liu, “Time and Job Satisfaction: A Longitu-
dinal Study of the Differential Roles of Age and Tenure,” Journal of Man-
agement, September 2018, 2558–2579.
48. See C. Dormann and D. Zapf, “Job Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis of Sta-
bilities,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, August 2001, 483–504.
49. D. Cyranoski, “The CRISPR-baby Scandal: What’s Next for Human Gene–
Editing,” Nature, February 26, 2019, https://www.nature.com; A. Ramzy
and S. Wee, “Scientist Who Edited Babies’ Genes Is Likely to Face
Charges in China,” The New York Times, January 21, 2019, https://www.
nytimes.com; P. Rana and W. Fan, “Chinese Gene-Editing Experiment
Loses Track of Patients, Alarming Technology’s Inventors,” The Wall
Street Journal, December 28, 2018, https://www.wsj.com.
50. “Telecommuting Trend Data (updated July 2018),” https://globalwork-
placeanalytics.com/telecommuting-statistics.
51. S. Mautz, “A 2-Year Stanford Study Shows the Astonishing Productivity
Boost of Working from Home,” Inc., April 2, 2018, https://www.inc.com/
scott-mautz/a-2-year-stanford-study-shows-astonishing-productivity-
boost-of-working-from-home.html; and S. Lynch, “Why Working from
Home Is a ‘Future-looking Technology,’” Stanford Business Insights, June
22, 2017, https://www.gsb. stanford.edu/insights/why-working-home-
future-looking-technology.
52. B. Braccio Hering, “5 Best Practices for Your Telecommuters,” Flexjobs.
com, April 26, 2017, https://www.flexjobs.com/employer-blog/best-
practices-for-telecommuters/; and M. R. Barrick and M. K. Mount, “The
Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis,”
Personnel Psychology, Spring 1991, 21.
53. S. P. Brown, “A Meta-Analysis and Review of Organizational Research on
Job Involvement,” Psychological Bulletin, September 1996, 235–255.
54. Bamboo HR Blog, “What People Really Want from Onboarding,” October
3, 2018, https://www.bamboohr.com/blog/onboarding-infographic/?utm_
source=Par-Bnusly-Ref&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=
10-surprising-employee-retention-statistics-you-need-to-know-blog.
55. A. Golden, “Some Companies Encourage Employees to Disconnect Dur-
ing Vacation,” NBC News, March 10, 2017, https://www.nbcnews.com/
nightly-news/some-companies-encouraging-employees-disconnect-
during-vacation-n732116.
56. Suzanne Lucas, “Netflix Has a New Sexual Harassment Policy. It’s Like
7th Grade on Steroids,” Inc.com, June 14, 2018. https://www.inc.com/
suzanne-lucas/netflix-has-a-new-sexual-harassment-policy-its-like-7th-
grade-on-steroids.html?cid=search.
57. K. Timpf, “Report: Netflix Bans Employees from Looking at Each Other for
More Than Five Seconds,” National Review, June 14, 2018, https://www.
nationalreview.com/2018/06/netflix-five- second-staring-rule/; K. Gur-
chiek, “Don’t Look! Reports of Netflix’s ‘No Staring’ Rule Raise Harass-
ment Questions,” Society for Human Resource Management, June 22,
2018, https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/netflix-five-second-star-
ing-rule/; and S. Lucas, “Netflix Has a New Sexual Harassment Policy. It’s
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN5CHAPTER NOTES
8. P. Agnello, R. Ryan, and K. Yusko, “Implications of Modern Intelligence
Research for Assessing Intelligence in the Workplace,” Human Resource
Management Review, 2015, 47–55.
9. S. Kanazawa, “Evolutionary Psychology and Intelligence Research,”
American Psychologist, May–June 2010, 279–289.
10. B. Azar, “People Are Becoming Smarter—Why?” APA Monitor, June 1996,
20.
11. A. Suarez, “21 Celebrities with Surprisingly High IQs,” Hollywood.com,
June 5, 2013, http://www.hollywood.com/celebrities/celebrities-with-
surprisingly-high-iqs-60471366/#/ms-22545/11.
12. H. Gardner, Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences, 10th
ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1993). See also H. Gardner, Intelligence
Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (New York: Basic
Books, 2000); and B. Fryer, “The Ethical Mind: A Conversation with Psy-
chologist Howard Gardner,” Harvard Business Review, March 2007,
51–56.
13. A. Smith, “Benefits of Being a Multilingual CEO: 10 Successful Entre-
preneurs Who Speak Multiple Languages,” CEO World Magazine, July
24, 2015, http://ceoworld.biz/2015/07/24/benefitsof-being-a-
multilingual-ceo-10-successful-entrepreneurs-who-speakmultiple-
languages.
14. D. Sacks, “Patagonia CEO Rose Marcario Fights the Fights Worth Fight-
ing,” Fast Company, January 1, 2015, http://www.fastcompany.
com/3039739/creative-conversations/patagonia-ceo-rose-marcario-
fights-the-fights-worth-fighting.
15. H. A. A. Popkin, K. Knowles, L. Aratani, and S. Marwan, “The World’s Top
50 Women in Tech,” Forbes.com, December 12, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/top- tech-women/#6d0a40654df0.
16. Grace Holliday, “Anne-Marie Imafidon: ‘My Dream in Life Is to Be a Hermit’ ”
Guardian News & Media Limited, October 27, 2018, https://www.theguard-
ian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/oct/27/anne-marie-imafidon-computer-scientist-
work-life-balance.
17. L. Sheahan, A. While, and J. Bloomfield, “An Exploratory Trial Exploring
the Use of a Multiple Intelligences Teaching Approach (MITA) for Teach-
ing Clinical Skills to First Year Undergraduate Nursing Students,” Nurse
Education Today, 2015, 1148–1154.
18. Robert J. Sternberg, “WICS: A Model of Leadership in Organizations,”
Academy of Management Learning & Education 2, no. 4 (December
2003): 386–4 01, https://DOI: 10.5465/AMLE.2003.11902088.
19. S. Randazzo, “A Plaintiffs’ Lawyer with Eye for Big Settlements,” The Wall
Street Journal, March 3, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/ articles/a-plaintiffs-
lawyer-with-eye-for-big-settlements-1457001002.
20. L. Denworth, “Do Brain-Changing Games Really Work?” Psychology
Today, July 14, 2017, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/brain-
waves/201707/do-brain-changing-games-really-work.
21. T. Lewis, “Here’s What the Science Really Says About Whether Brain
Training Helps Keep You Sharp,” Business Insider, January 29, 2016,
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/science-of-brain-training-2016-1.
22. K. Richardson and S. Norgate, “Does IQ Really Predict Job Performance?”
Applied Developmental Science, 2015, 153–169.
23. S. Weems, “Three Things to Know About ‘Brain-Training’ Programs,” Psy-
chology Today, February 2, 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/
blog/feed-your-head/201802/three-things-know-about-brain-training-
programs.
24. C. Goodbread, “Ryan Fitzpatrick: Wonderlic-Score Questions Are My
Least Favorite,” NFL.com, October 8, 2015, http://www.nfl.com/news/
story/0ap3000000552415/article/ryan-fitzpatrick-wonderlicscore-
questions-are-my-least-favorite; see also C. Bennett, “Ryan Fitzpatrick:
5 Fast Facts You Need to Know,” Heavy.com, August 11, 2015, http://
h e a v y. c o m / s p o r t s / 2 0 1 5 / 0 8 / r y a n - f i t z p a t r i c k - f o o t b a l l - n f l -
quarterbackcollege-career-stats-bio-wife-smart-wonderlic-geno-smith/.
25. J. Smith, “6 NFL Players with Genius IQs,” Cheatsheet.com, October 3,
2017, https://www.cheatsheet.com/sports/nfl-players-with-genius-
iqs.html/.
26. M. Tracy, “Let Us Tell You What Else Clemson’s Christian Wilkins Does,”
The New York Times, December 27, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/12/27/sports/clemson-christian-wilkins-.html.
27. C. Crouse, “On NFL Draft Day, a New IQ Test Takes Top Position in Player
Scouting,” CNBC.com, April 26, 2018, https://www.cnbc.
com/2018/04/26/on-nfl-draft-day-new-iq-test-takes-top-position-in-
player-scouting.html.
28. R. Klemko, “What Analytics Say About Baker Mayfield,” SI.com, March 22,
2018, https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/03/22/baker-mayfield-advance-
analytics-nfl-draft-oklahoma-pff.
29. R. Plomin, J. DeFries, V. Knopik, and J. Neiderhiser, “Top 10 Replicated Find-
ings from Behavioral Genetics,” Perspectives in Psychological Science,
2016, 3–23. See also C. J. Hopwood, M. B. Donnellan, D. M. Blonigen, R. F.
Krueger, M. McGue, W. G. Iacono, and S. A. Burt, “Genetic and Environ-
mental Influences on Personality Trait Stability and Growth During the
Transition to Adulthood: A Three-Wave Longitudinal Study,” Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, January 17, 2011, 1–12.
82. CBS Broadcasting Inc. “Customers Angry Walmart Greeter with Cerebral
Palsy May Lose Job After Policy Change,” https:// philadelphia.cbslocal.
com/2019/02/21/customers-angry-that-disabled-walmart-greeter-may-
lose-his-job-after-policy-change/ (accessed May 22, 2019).
83. See D. Hembree, “CEO Pay Skyrockets to 361 Times That of the Average
Worker,” Forbes, May 22, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/dianahembree/
2018/05/22/ceo-pay-skyrockets-to-361-times-that-of-the-average-
worker/#11be9b00776d; and S. Butler-Young, “Making Sense of Why
Walmart’s CEO Earns 1,200 Times the Pay of Its Median Employee,” Foot-
wear News, April 23, 2018, https://footwearnews.com/2018/business/retail/
walmart-ceo-doug-mcmillon-salary-compensation-2018-1202553529/.
84. Jonathan Tasini, “Why Walmart’s Bait and Switch Matters,” CNN, January
13, 2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/13/opinions/sams-club-
walmart-corporate-greed-tasini-opinion/index.html.
85. Jill Disis, “Walmart Is Raising Its Minimum Wage and Handing Out Tax Cut
Bonuses,” CNN, January 11, 2018, https://money.cnn.com/2018/01/11/
news/companies/walmart-minimum-wage-increase/index.html.
86. J. Tasini, “Why Walmart’s Bait and Switch Matters,” CNN, January 13,
2018, https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/13/opinions/sams-club-walmart-
corporate-greed-tasini-opinion/index.html.
87. M. Corkery, “Walmart’s Bumpy Day: From Wage Increase to Store Clos-
ings,” The New York Times, January 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/01/11/business/walmart-wages-tax-cuts.html.
88. J. Goodheart, “Ten Thousand Laid-Off Workers Later, Sam’s Club ‘Trans-
forms’ Its Business,” Fast Company, February 15, 2018, https://www.
fastcompany.com/40530984/ten-thousand-laid-off-workers-later-
sams-club-transforms-its-business.
89. M. Corkery, “Walmart’s Bumpy Day: From Wage Increase to Store Clos-
ings,” The New York Times, January 11, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/01/11/business/walmart-wages-tax-cuts.html.
90. P. Mourdoukoutas, “Minimum Wage Hikes Won’t Solve Walmart’s Cus-
tomer Service Problem,” Forbes, March 18, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/03/18/minimum-wage-hikes-
wont-solve-walmarts-customer-service-problem/#34fea3201e09.
91. Panos Mourdoukoutas, “Minimum Wage Hikes Won’t Solve Walmart’s
Customer Service Problem,” Forbes Media LLC, March 18, 2018, https://
www.forbes.com/sites/unicefusa/2019/04/25/born-a-refugee-baby-
mohammad-is-growing-up-healthy-thanks-to-unicef/#5880187e56ea.
92. P. Mourdoukoutas, “Minimum Wage Hikes Won’t Solve Walmart’s Cus-
tomer Service Problem,” Forbes, March 18, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/panosmourdoukoutas/2018/03/18/minimum-wage-hikes-
wont-solve-walmarts-customer-service-problem/#34fea3201e09.
93. “Walmart Core Values,” https://careers.walmart.com/values, accessed
April 16, 2019.
94. Susanna Kim, “NJ Town Tax Collector’s Office Accused of Abusing
Worker With ‘Wall of Shame’,” ABC News Internet Ventures, March 11,
2014, https://abcnews.go.com/US/gov-jay-inslee-signs-bill-making-
washington-1st/story?id=63189512.
95. Bill Borden, “Point Boro Tax Official Named in Lawsuit to Retire June 1,”
Patch Media, April 16, 2014, https://patch.com/new- jersey/pointpleas-
ant/point-boro-tax-official-named-in-lawsuit-to-retire-june-1.
96. S. Kim, “NJ Town Tax Collector’s Office Accused of Abusing Worker with
‘Wall of Shame,’” ABC News, March 11, 2014, http://abcnews.go.com/
Business/nj-boss-sued-abuse-urn-ashes-problem-employees/
story?id=22862773.
CHAPTER 3
1. Adapted from E. Moore, “How to Answer the 50 Most Common Interview
Questions: Parts 1-4,” Glassdoor.com, October 6, 2017, https://www.
glassdoor.com/blog/most-common-interview-questions-1/.
2. Adapted from R. Maurer, “Recruiters Need to Be Ready to Answer these
Candidate Questions,” SHRM.org, March 21, 2018, https://www.shrm.
org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/Pages/Recruiters-
Prepare-Answer-Candidate-Questions.aspx.
3. R. Plomin, J. DeFries, V. Knopik, and J. Neiderhiser. “Top 10 Replicated
Findings from Behavioral Genetics,” Perspectives in Psychological Sci-
ence, 2016, 3–23.
4. D. A. Briley and E. M. Tucker-Drob, “Genetic and Environmental Continu-
ity in Personality Development: A Meta-Analysis,” Psychological Bulletin,
June 23, 2014, 1–29.
5. T. A. Judge and C. Zapata, “The Person-Situation Debate Revisited:
Effect of Situational Strength and Trait Activation on the Validity of the
Big Five Personality Traits in Predicting Job Performance,” Academy of
Management Journal, 2015, 1149–1179.
6. B. Hyacinth, “Employees Don’t Leave Companies, They Leave Manag-
ers,” LinkedIn.com, December 27, 2017, https://www.linkedin.com/
pulse/employees-dont-leave-companies-managers-brigette-hyacinth/.
7. Adapted from B. Hyacinth, “Employees Don’t Leave Companies, They
Leave Managers,” LinkedIn.com, December 27, 2017, https://www.linkedin.
com/pulse/employees-dont-leave-companies- managers-brigette-hyacinth/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN6 CHAPTER NOTES
51. S. Woo, M. Chae, A. Jebb, and Y. Kim, “A Closer Look at the Personality-
Turnover Relationship: Criterion Expansion, Dark Traits, and Time,”
Journal of Management, 2016, 357–385.
52. H. R. Young, D. R. Glenrum, W. Wang, and D. L. Joseph, “Who Are the
Most Engaged at Work? A Meta-Analysis of Personality and Employee
Engagement,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2018, 1330–1346.
53. T. Chamorro-Premuzic, “Managing Yourself: Ace the Assessment,”
Harvard Business Review, July–August 2015, 118–121.
54. T. Chamorro-Premuzic, “Managing Yourself: Ace the Assessment,”
Harvard Business Review, July–August 2015, 118–121.
55. D. Meinert, “Heads Up: Personality Assessments Are Being Used More
Often in the Hiring Process. But What Do They Really Tell You?” HR Maga-
zine, June 2015, 88–98. See also I. S. Oh, G. Wang, and M. K. Mount,
“Validity of Observer Ratings of the Five-Factor Model of Personality Traits:
A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Applied Psychology, December 13, 2010,
1–12. For details on test bias, see H. Aguinis, S. A. Carpenter, and C. A.
Pierce, “Revival of Test Bias Research in Pre-Employment Testing,” Journal
of Applied Psychology, 2010, 648–680. For a discussion and advice on
using pre-employment tests see T. Minton-Eversole, “Avoiding Bias in Pre-
Employment Testing,” HR Magazine, December 2010, 77–80.
56. D. Meinert, “Heads Up: Personality Assessments Are Being Used More
Often in the Hiring Process. But What Do They Really Tell You?” HR Mag-
azine, June 2015, 88–98.
57. K. McNulty, “There Is No Place for the MBTI in Organizations,” LinkedIn.
com, September 10, 2018, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/youre-enfp-
im-leo-perfect-well-hit-off-keith-mcnulty/.
58. Z. Simsek, C. Heavey, and J. F. Veiga, “The Impact of CEO Core Self-
Evaluation on the Firm’s Entrepreneurial Orientation,” Strategic Manage-
ment Journal, 2010, 110–119.
59. J. Debusscher, J. Hofmans, and F. DeFruyt, “The Effect of State Core Self-
Evaluations on Task Performance, Organizational Citizenship Behavior,
and Counterproductive Work Behavior,” European Journal of Work and
Organizational Psychology, 2016, 301–315.
60. F. Giblin and B. Lakey, “Integrating Mentoring and Social Support
Research within the Context of Stressful Medical Training,” Journal of
Social and Clinical Psychology, 2010, 771–796.
61. Adapted from L. Debter, “Meet the Unknown Immigrant Billionaire Bet-
ting Her Fortune to Take On Musk in Space,” Forbes.com, July 12, 2018,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesdigitalcovers/2018/07/11/meet-the-
unknown-immigrant-billionaire-betting-her-fortune-to-take-on-musk-in-
space/#2aeefeb5f0da.
62. See P. C. Earley and T. R. Lituchy, “Delineating Goal and Efficacy Effects:
A Test of Three Models,” Journal of Applied Psychology, February 1991,
81–98.
63. See P. Tierney and S. M. Farmer, “Creative Self-Efficacy: Its Potential
Antecedents and Relationship to Creative Performance,” Academy of
Management Journal, December 2002, 1137–1148.
64. W. S. Silver, T. R. Mitchell, and M. E. Gist, “Response to Successful and
Unsuccessful Performance: The Moderating Effect of Self-Efficacy on the
Relationship between Performance and Attributions,” Organizational
Behavior and Human Decision Processes, June 1995, 286–299.
65. Taken from D. L. Ferris, H. Lian, D. J. Brown, F. X. J. Pang, and L. M. Keep-
ing, “Self-Esteem and Job Performance: The Moderating Role of Self-
Esteem Contingencies,” Personnel Psychology, 2010, 561–593.
66. F. Giblin and B. Lakey, “Integrating Mentoring and Social Support
Research within the Context of Stressful Medical Training,” Journal of
Social and Clinical Psychology, 2010, 771–796.
67. W. J. McGuire and C. V. McGuire, “Enhancing Self-Esteem by Directed
Thinking Tasks: Cognitive and Affective Positivity Asymmetries,” Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, June 1996, 1124.
68. T. Huddleston, “Uber CEO: It’s Time for Tech Founders to ‘Take Responsi-
bility for the Content on Your Platform,’” CNBC, November 28, 2018,
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/11/27/uber-ceo-khosrowshahi-silicon-val-
ley-needs-to-take-responsibility.html.
69. For an overall review of research on locus of control, see P. E. Spector,
“Behavior in Organizations as a Function of Employee’s Locus of Con-
trol,” Psychological Bulletin, May 1982, 482–497.
70. C. Wu, M. Griffin, and S. Parker, “Developing Agency through Good Work:
Longitudinal Effects of Job Autonomy and Skill Utilization on Locus of
Control,” Journal of Vocational Behavior, 2015, 102–108.
71. Adapted from S. Craig, “DealBook: A Female Wall Street Financial Chief
Avoids Pitfalls that Stymied Others,” The New York Times, November 9, 2010.
72. D. Joseph, J. Jin, D. Newman, and E. O’Boyle, “Why Does Self-Reported
Emotional Intelligence Predict Job Performance? A Meta-Analytic Investi-
gation of Mixed EI,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 298–342.
73. For a current review see D. Joseph, J. Jin, D. Newman, and E. O’Boyle,
“Why Does Self-Reported Emotional Intelligence Predict Job Perfor-
mance? A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Mixed EI,” Journal of Applied
Psychology, 2015, 298–342. See the box titled “Get Happy Carefully” in
D. Goleman, R. Boyatzis, and A. McKee, “Primal Leadership: The Hidden
Driver of Great Performance,” Harvard Business Review, Special Issue:
Breakthrough Leadership, December 2001, 49.
30. The landmark report is J. M. Digman, “Personality Structure: Emergence
of the Five-Factor Model,” Annual Review of Psychology 41, 1990, 417–
440. Also see P. Warr, D. Bartram, and A. Brown, “Big Five Validity:
Aggregation Method Matters,” Journal of Occupational and Organiza-
tional Psychology, September 2005, 377–386.
31. Data from S. V. Paunonen et al., “The Structure of Personality in Six Cul-
tures,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, May 1996, 339–353.
32. For supporting evidence see D. P. Schmitt, J. Allik, R. R. McCrae, and V.
Benet-Martinez, “The Geographic Distribution of Big Five Personality
Traits,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, March 2007, 173–212.
33. B. A. Macaluso, “15 Things You Should Know About Ruth Bader Gins-
burg,” Mentalfloss.com, December 25, 2018, http://mentalfloss.com/
article/76804/15-things-you-should-know-about-ruth-bader-ginsburg.
34. M. DeFelice, “5 of Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Qualities We Can Emulate for
Success in Work and Life,” Forbes, July 2, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/manondefelice/2018/07/02/5-of-ruth-bader-ginsburgs-qualities-
we-can-emulate-for-success-in-work-life/#2743d9ac7fe7.
35. T. S. Bateman and M. J. Crant, “The Proactive Component of Organiza-
tional Behavior: A Measure and Correlates,” Journal of Organizational
Behavior 14, March 1993, 103–118. See also J. P. Thomas, D. S. Whit-
man, and V. Chockalingam, “Employee Proactivity in Organizations: A
Comparative Meta-Analysis of Emergent Proactive Constructs,” Journal
of Occupational & Organizational Psychology, June 2010, 275 –300.
36. W. Li, D. Fay, M. Frese, and P. Harms, “Reciprocal Relationships between
Proactive Personality and Work Characteristics: A Latent Change Score
Approach,” Journal of Applied Psychology, September 2014, 948–965.
37. T. J. Maurer and E. F. Chapman, “Relationship of Proactive Personality
with Life Satisfaction During Late Career and Early Retirement,” Journal
of Career Development, 2018 (45), 345–360.
38. R. Fujioka, “How Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg All Thrive
as Introverts,” Inc. Magazine, February 23, 2016, http://www. inc.com/
russ-fujioka/how-bill-gates-larry-page-and-mark-zuckerbergall-thrive-as-
introverts.html.
39. Z. Zhang, M. Wang, and J. Shi, “Leader-Follower Congruence in Proactive
Personality and Work Outcomes: The Mediating Role of Leader Member
Exchange,” Academy of Management Journal, 2012, 111–130.
40. J. Dikkers, P. G. Jansen, A. de Lange, C. Vinkenburg, and D. Kooij, “Proactiv-
ity, Job Characteristics, and Engagement: A Longitudinal Study,” Career
Development International, 2010, 59–77; T. Kim, A. H. Hon, and J. M. Crant,
“Proactive Personality, Employee Creativity, and Newcomer Outcomes: A
Longitudinal Study,” Journal of Business Psychology, 2009, 93–103; and J.
M. Crant, “The Proactive Personality Scale as a Predictor of Entrepreneurial
Intentions,” Journal of Small Business Management, 1996, 42–50.
41. A. Lawrence, “Tennis Pro Finds a New Way to Serve,” Fortune, April 25,
2015, 41–45.
42. C. Smith, “Interesting Khan Academy Statistics and Facts (2019)—By the
Numbers,” DMR, January 28, 2019, https://expandedramblings.com/
index.php/kahn-academy- statistics-and-facts/.
43. C. E Vize, K. L. Colisson, J. D. Miller, and D. R. Lynam, “Examining the
Effects of Controlling of Shared Variance Among the Dark Triad Using
Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling,” European Journal of Per-
sonality, 2018 (32), 46–61.
44. S. Braun, N. Aydin, D. Frey, and C. Peus, “Leader Narcissism Predicts
Malicious Envy and Supervisor Targeted Counterproductive Work Behav-
ior: Evidence from a Field Experiment,” Journal of Business Ethics, 2016
(151), 725–741.
45. B. Eddy, “3 Steps to Identifying a Narcissist,” Psychology Today, August
1, 2018, https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/5-types-people-
who-can-ruin-your-life/201808/3-steps-identifying-narcissist.
46. N. Schutte, G. Blickle, R. E. Frieder, A. Wihler, F. Schnitzler, J. Heupel,
and I. Zettler, “The Role of Interpersonal Influence in Counterbalancing
Psychopathic Personality Trait Facets at Work,” Journal of Manage-
ment, 2018 (44), 1338–1368.
47. T. Judge and C. Zapata, “The Person-Situation Debate Revisited: Effect of
Situation Strength and Trait Activation on the Validity of the Big Five Per-
sonality Traits in Predicting Job Performance,” Academy of Management
Journal, 2015, 1149–1179.
48. M. R. Barrick and M. K. Mount, “The Big Five Personality Dimensions and
Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis,” Personnel Psychology, Spring 1991,
21. See also I. S. Oh, G. Wang, and M. K. Mount, “Validity of Observer
Ratings of the Five-Factor Model of Personality Traits: A Meta-Analysis,”
Journal of Applied Psychology, December 13, 2010, 1–12.
49. M. Gensowski, “The 3 Personality Traits Affect What You Earn—But Only
After 40,” Harvard Business Review, April 24, 2018, https://hbr.
org/2018/04/these-3-personality-traits-affect-what-you-earn-but-only-
after-age-40.
50. S. Woo, M. Chae, A. Jebb, and Y. Kim, “A Closer Look at the Personality-
Turnover Relationship: Criterion Expansion, Dark Traits, and Time,” Jour-
nal of Management, 2016, 357–385. See also D. Choi, I. Oh, and A.
Colbert, “Understanding Organizational Commitment: A Meta-Analytic
Examination of the Roles of the Five-Factor Model of Personality and
Culture,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 1542–1567.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN7CHAPTER NOTES
98. “Papa John’s: Revenue 2007-2018 | Statistic,” Statista, https://www.
statista.com/statistics/221441/papa-johns-total-revenue/ (accessed
June 08, 2019).
99. J. Valinsky, “Papa John’s Founder John Schnatter Kicked Out of His
Office,” CNN Business, July 16, 2018, https://money.cnn.
com/2018/07/16/news/companies/papa-johns-office/.
100. A. Wolfson, “The Rise and Fall of John Schnatter: His Mouth Was His
Own Worst Enemy,” Louisville Courier Journal, July 18, 2018, https://
www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2018/07/15/papa-johns-founder-
john-schnatter-mouth-his-own-worst-enemy/778278002/.
101. A. Bingham, “Papa John’s CEO Says ‘Obamacare’ Will Up Pizza Price,”
ABC News, August 09, 2012, https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/OTUS/
p a p a - j o h n s - j o h n - s c h n a t t e r - o b a m a c a r e - p i z z a - p r i c e s /
story?id=16962891.
102. M. Eltagouri, “Papa John’s Founder Will Step down as CEO after Criti-
cizing National Anthem Protests in the NFL,” The Washington Post,
December 21, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/business/
wp/2017/12/21/papa-johns-founder-replaced-as-ceo-weeks-after-
blaming-the-nfl-for-sagging-pizza-sales/?utm_term=.678b0ca98527.
103. K. Belson, “N.F.L. and Papa John’s Part Ways in Wake of C.E.O. Com-
mentary,” The New York Times, February 27, 2018, https://www.
nytimes.com/2018/02/27/sports/football/nfl-papa-johns.html.
104. N. Kirsch, “Papa John’s Founder Used N-Word On Conference Call,”
Forbes, July 13, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
noahkirsch/2018/07/11/papa-johns-founder-john-schnatter-allegedly-
used-n-word-on-conference-call/#3e87ee744cfc.
105. T. Hsu, “Papa John’s Founder, John Schnatter, to Leave Board After
Nasty Leadership Fight,” The New York Times, March 05, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/business/papa-johns-john-schnatter.
html.
106. J. Chrisman, “Papa John Is Getting Evicted From Company Headquar-
ters,” Thrillist, July 16, 2018, https://www.thrillist.com/news/nation/
papa-johns-john-schnatter-evicted-from-office.
107. “Save Papa Johns,” https://savepapajohns.com/ (accessed June 09,
2019); J. Wattles and J. Valinsky, “John Schnatter Files Lawsuit against
Papa John’s,” CNNMoney, July 26, 2018, https://money.cnn.
com/2018/07/26/news/companies/papa-johns-lawsuit-john-schnatter/
index.html; and A. Wolfson, “‘Papa John’ Schnatter Has Sent a Love
Letter to His Former Employees,” Louisville Courier Journal, August 22,
2018, https://www. courier-journal.com/story/news/2018/08/21/john-
schnatter-publishes-open- letter-papa-johns-employees/1053597002/.
108. N. Kirsch, “John Schnatter Resigns From Papa John’s Board, Ends
Lawsuits,” Forbes, March 05, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
noahkirsch/2019/03/05/john-schnatter-resigns-from-papa-johns-
board-ends-lawsuits/#4a8830bf2b0d.
109. J. Fantozzi, “John Schnatter’s Stock Sales Trim His Papa John’s Stake to
19%,” Nation’s Restaurant News, May 23, 2019, https://www.nrn.com/
quick-service/john-schnatter-s-stock-sales-trim-his-papa-john-s-
stake-19.
110. “Papa John’s, Restaurants by Country 2017-2018 | Statistic,” Statista,
https://www.statista.com/statistics/816446/number-of-papa-johns-res-
taurants-by-country/ (accessed June 09, 2019).
111. J. Maze, “Papa John’s Has a Franchisee Problem,” Restaurant Business,
February 20, 2019, https://www.restaurantbusinessonline.com/financing/
papa-johns-has-franchisee-problem.
112. J. Berke and S. Gould, “This Map Shows Every US State Where Pot Is
Legal,” Business Insider, January 4, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.
com/legal-marijuana-states-2018-1.
113. J. Reidy and D. Hewick, “Are Employer Drug-Testing Programs Obso-
lete?” SHRM.org, May 23, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/
hr-magazine/0618/pages/are-employer-drug-testing-programs-
obsolete.aspx.
114. K. J. Russo, M. Van Oot, and A. C. Zangara, “What Vermont’s Recre-
ational Marijuana Law Means for Employers,” SHRM.org, June 26,
2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/legal-and-compliance/
state-and-local-updates/pages/what-vermont-recreational-marijuana-
law-means-for-employers.aspx.
115. J. Reidy and D. Hewick, “Are Employer Drug-Testing Programs Obso-
lete?” SHRM.org, May 23, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/
hr-magazine/0618/pages/are-employer-drug-testing-programs-obso-
lete.aspx.
116. R. Maurer, “Eating Poppy-Seed Bagels and Other Excuses for Failing
Workplace Drug Tests,” SHRM.org, November 13, 2018, https://www.
shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/Pages/Com-
mon-Excuses-Failing-Workplace-Drug-Tests.aspx.
CHAPTER 4
1. M. Singer, “2018 Recruiter Nation Survey: The Tipping Point and the
Next Chapter in Recruiting,” Jobvite.com, November 8, 2018, https://
www.jobvite.com/jobvite-news-and-reports/2018-recruiter-nation-
report-tipping-point-and-the-next-chapter-in-recruiting/.
74. J. Bonazzo, “New Report Details How Uber’s Scandalous 2017 Led to
Travis Kalanick’s Downfall,” Observer.com, March 12, 2018, https://
observer.com/2018/03/uber-travis-kalanick-business-insider/.
75. Adapted from E. Newcomer, and B. Stone, “The Fall of Travis Kalanick,”
Bloomberg BusinessWeek, January 22, 2018, 46–51. See also K. Leland,
“Why Uber CEO is a Toxic Boss and Must Go,” Inc., June 13, 2017, https://
www.inc.com/karen-tiber-leland/how-uber-ceo-travis-kalanicks-toxic-boss-
behaviors-could-cost-him-the-company.html. See also A. Griswold, “There
Would Be No Uber without Travis Kalanick,” Quartz, June 22, 2017, https://
qz.com/1011300/uber-ceo-travis-kalanick-pissed-people-off-and-it-made-
the-company-great/.
76. D. Joseph, J. Jin, D. Newman, and E. O’Boyle, “Why Does Self-Reported
Emotional Intelligence Predict Job Performance? A Meta-Analytic Investi-
gation of Mixed EI,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 298–342.
77. C. Wilderom, Y. Hur, U. Wiersma, P. Van den Berg, and J. Lee, “From Man-
ager’s Emotional Intelligence to Objective Store Performance: Through
Store Cohesiveness and Sale-Directed Employee Behavior,” Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 2015, 825–844.
78. M. Parke, M. Seo, and E. Sherf, “Regulating and Facilitating: The Role of
Emotional Intelligence in Maintaining and Using Positive Affect for Cre-
ativity,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 917–934.
79. D. H. M. Pelt, D. Van der Linden, and M. P. Born, “How Emotional Intelli-
gence Might Get You the Job: The Relationship Between Trait Emotional
Intelligence and Faking Personality Tests,” Human Performance, 2018
(31), 33–54.
80. R. Carucci, “Is Your Emotional Intelligence Authentic, or Self- Serving?”
Harvard Business Review, May 23, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/05/is-
your-emotional-intelligence-authentic-or-self-serving.
81. Elle Kaplan, “EQ Can Make You Wealthy and Successful, According to
Science—Here’s How to Build Yours,” CNBC LLC, January 16, 2018,
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/16/ceo-elle-kaplan-eq-can-make-you-
successful-according-to-science.html.
82. L. Kroll and K. A. Dolan, “Forbes 400 Richest People 2018,” Forbes.com,
October 3, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/profile/ tilman-fertitta/
#534d0364271b.
83. D. Goleman and M. Nevarez, “Boost Your Emotional Intelligence with
These 3 Questions,” Harvard Business Review, August 16, 2018, http://
web.b.ebscohost.com.proxyau.wrlc.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?
vid=7&sid=c4333be5-dd2f-4a62-ae32-dc385b3920a1%40pdc-
v-sessmgr02.
84. The pros and cons are debated in the point-counterpoint, “Is Emotional
Intelligence a Good Measure of Leadership Ability?” HR Magazine,
November 2015, 22–23.
85. M. Fugate, A. J. Kinicki, and G. E. Prussia, “Employee Coping with Organi-
zational Change: An Examination of Alternative Theoretical Perspectives
and Models,” Personnel Psycho logy, 2008, 1–36.
86. U. Ulsheger, J. Lang, A. Schewe, and F. Zijlstra, “When Regulating Emo-
tions at Work Pays Off: A Diary and an Intervention Study on Emotion
Regulation and Customer Tips in Service Jobs,” Journal of Applied Psy-
chology, 2015, 263–277.
87. G. Van Kleef, H. van den Berg, and M. Heerdink, “The Persuasive Power
of Emotions: Effects of Emotional Expressions on Attitude Formation and
Change,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 1124–1142.
88. M. Wypych, J. Matuszewski, and W. Dragan, “Roles of Impulsivity, Motiva-
tion, and Emotion Regulation in Procrastination—Path Analysis and Com-
parison Between Students and Non-Students,” Frontiers in Psychology,
June 5, 2018, https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/
fpsyg.2018.00891/full.
89. R. S. Lazarus, Emotion and Adaptation (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1991), chapters 6, 7.
90. K. L. Wang and M. Groth, “Buffering the Negative Effects of Employee
Surface Acting: The Moderating Role of Employee-Customer Relation-
ship Strength and Personalized Services,” Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy, 99, 2014, 341–350.
91. K. Gurchiek, “How Does Your Workplace Handle Crying at Work?” SHRM.
com, December 12, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-news/
pages/crying-at-work-how-does-your-culture- handle-it.aspx.
92. S. Shellenbarger, “When the Boss Is a Screamer,” The Wall Street Jour-
nal, August 15, 2012.
93. J. Bauer and P. Spector, “Discrete Negative Emotions and
Counterproductive Work Behavior,” Human Performance, 2015, 307–331.
94. A. Rafaeli, A. Erez, S. Ravid, R. Derfler-Rozin, D. Treister, and R. Scheyer,
“When Customers Exhibit Verbal Aggression, Employees Pay Cognitive
Costs,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2012, 931–950.
95. D. Geddes and R. R. Callister, “Crossing the Line(s): A Dual Threshold
Model of Anger in Organizations,” Academy of Management Review,
2007, 721–746.
96. V. Salem, “How to Ride the Emotions of Your First Job Search,” Monster.
com, https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/how-to-ride-
emotions-first-job-search (accessed January 10, 2019).
97. “About Us,” https://www.papajohns.com/company/ (accessed June 11,
2019).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN8 CHAPTER NOTES
16. N. M. Wessels, J. Zimmermann, J. C. Biesanz, and D. Leising, “Differen-
tial Associations of Knowing and Liking with Accuracy and Positivity
Bias in Person Perception,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychol-
ogy, October 2018, 1–12; R. S. Rubinstein, J. Jussim, and S. T. Stevens,
“Reliance on Individuating Information and Stereotypes in Implicit and
Explicit Person Perception,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,
March 2018, 54–70.
17. M. Hebl, C. L. Nittrouer, A. R. Corrington, and J. M. Madera, “How We
Describe Male and Female Job Applicants Differently,” Harvard Busi-
ness Review, September 27, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/09/how-we-
describe-male-and-female-job-applicants-differently.
18. P. Dwivedi, A. Joshi, and V. F. Misangyi, “Gender-Inclusive Gatekeeping:
How (Mostly Male) Predecessors Influence the Success of Female
CEOs,” Academy of Management Journal, April 2018, 379–404.
19. C. H. Tinsley and R. J. Ely, “What Most People Get Wrong about Men
and Women,” Harvard Business Review, May-June 2018, 114–121.
20. “33 Companies Who Use Skype to Take Online Job Interviews,”
WebEmployed.com, March 28, 2018, https://www.webemployed.
com/companies-online-job- interviews-skype/.
21. Marcel Schwantes, “The Job Interview Will Soon Be Dead. Here’s What
the Top Companies Are Replacing It With,” Mansueto Ventures, March
6, 2017, https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/science-81-percent-
of-people-lie-in-job-interviews-heres-what-top-companies-are-.html.
22. S. McLaren, “8 Innovative Ways Companies Are Using Virtual Reality to
Recruit,” LinkedIn.com, July 18, 2017, https:// business.linkedin.com/
talent-solutions/blog/future-of-recruiting/2017/8-innovative-ways-
companies-are-using- virtual-reality-to-recruit.
23. Leadership characterization was studied by J. S. Phillips and R. G. Lord,
“Schematic Information Processing and Perceptions of Leadership in
Problem-Solving Groups,” Journal of Applied Psychology, August 1982,
486–492.
24. C. M. Judd and B. Park, “Definition and Assessment of Accuracy in
Social Stereotypes,” Psychological Review, 1993, 110. Emphasis
added.
25. B. J. Lyons, L. R. Martinez, E. N. Ruggs, M. R. Hebl, A. M. Ryan, K. R.
O’Brien, and A. Roebuck, “To Say or Not to Say: Different Strategies of
Acknowledging a Visible Disability,” Journal of Management, May
2018, 1980–2007.
26. “Cancer Stat Facts: Cancer of Any Site,” https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/
html/all.html (accessed March 6, 2019).
27. M. Feuerstein, A. K. Gehrke, B. T. McMahon, and M. C. McMahon, “Chal-
lenges Persist under Americans with Disabilities Act Amendment Act:
How Can Oncology Providers Help?” Journal of Oncology Practice,
June 2017, 543–551.
28. D. Kanze, L. Huang, Mark A. Conley, and E. T. Higgins, “We Ask Men to
Win and Women Not to Lose: Closing the Gender Gap in Startup Fund-
ing,” Academy of Management Journal, April 2018, 586–614; S. Keck
and L. Babcock, “Who Gets the Benefit of the Doubt? The Impact of
Causal Reasoning Depth on How Violations of Gender Stereotypes Are
Evaluated,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, March 2018, 276–291;
K. B. Coffman, C. L. Exley, and M. Niederle, “When Gender Discrimination
Is Not about Gender,” Harvard Business School Working Paper, No.
18-054, January 2018; and L. Rosenthal and M. Lobel, “Stereotypes of
Black American Women Related to Sexuality and Motherhood,” Psychol-
ogy of Women Quarterly, September 2016, 414–427.
29. H. Yan, “This Is Why Everyday Racial Profiling Is So Dangerous,” CNN,
May 11, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/11/us/everyday-racial-
profiling-consequences-trnd/index.html.
30. “Physiological & Psychological Impact of Racism and Discrimination for
African-Americans,” American Psychological Association, https://www.
apa.org/pi/oema/resources/ ethnicity-health/racism-stress (accessed
March 6, 2019); and D. M. Amodio and J. K. Swencionis, “Proactive
Control of Implicit Bias: A Theoretical Model and Implications for
Change,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, June 2018,
255–275.
31. C. von Hippel, E. K. Kalokerinos, K. Haanterä, and H. Zacher, “Age-
Based Stereotype Threat and Work Outcomes: Stress Appraisals and
Rumination as Mediators,” Psychology and Aging, February 2019,
68–84.
32. D. W. Sue, S. Alsaidi, M. N. Awad, E. Glaeser, C. Z. Calle, and N. Mendez,
“Disarming Racial Microaggressions: Microintervention Strategies for
Targets, White Allies, and Bystanders,” American Psychologist, January
2019, 128–142.
33. M. Ignatova, “New Report: Women Apply to Fewer Jobs Than Men, But
Are More Likely to Get Hired,” LinkedIn Talent Blog, March 5, 2019,
https://business.linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/diversity/2019/how-
women-find-jobs-gender-report.
34. Kelley’s model is discussed in detail in H. H. Kelley, “The Processes of
Causal Attribution,” American Psychologist, February 1973, 107–128.
35. R. Pishghadam and H. Abbasnejad, “Introducing Emotioncy as an Invis-
ible Force Controlling Causal Decisions: A Case of Attribution Theory,”
Polish Psychological Bulletin, 2017, 129–140.
2. Lauren Durfy, “Recruitment and Social Media Connection,” PostBeyond.
com, September 18, 2018, https://www.jobvite.com/jobvite-news-and-
reports/2018-recruiter-nation-report-tipping-point-and-the-next-chapter-
in-recruiting/.
3. “More than Half of Employers Have Found Content on Social Media That
Caused Them Not to Hire a Candidate, According to Recent Career-
Builder Survey,” PRNewswire, August 9, 2018, https://www.prnewswire.
com/news-releases/more-than-half-of-employers-have-found-content-
on-social-media-that-caused-them-not-to-hire-a-candidate-according-to-
recent-careerbuilder-survey-300694437.html.
4. Leslie Kwoh, “Beware: Potential Employers Are Watching You,” The
Wall Street Journal, October 29, 2012, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
SB10000872396390443759504577631410093879278?ns=prod/
accounts-wsj.
5. M. Singer, “2018 Recruiter Nation Survey: The Tipping Point and the
Next Chapter in Recruiting,” Jobvite.com, November 8, 2018, https://
www.jobvite.com/jobvite-news-and-reports/2018-recruiter-nation-
report-tipping-point-and-the-next-chapter-in-recruiting/; “10 Things You
Should Never Post on Social Media,” College Grad, https://collegegrad.
com/blog/10-things-you-should-never-post-on-social-media (accessed
March 11, 2019).
6. E. Rosch, C.B. Mervis, W.D. Gray, D. M. Johnson, and P. Boyes-
Braem, “Basic Objects in Natural Categories,” Cognitive Psychology,
1976, 383.
7. D. M. Amodio and K. G. Ratner, “A Memory Systems Model of Implicit
Social Cognition,” Current Directions in Psychological Science, June
2011, 143–148.
8. K. Kindelan, “Weight Watchers Rebrands as WW and Puts the Focus on
Wellness, Not Just Dieting,” ABC News, September 25, 2018, https://
abcnews.go.com/GMA/Wellness/weight-watchers-rebrands-ww-puts-
focus-wellness-dieting/story?id=58065632.
9. This figure is based on discussion in E. Hehman, Clare A. M. Sutherland, J. K.
Flake, and M. L. Slepian, “The Unique Contributions of Perceiver and Target
Characteristics in Person Perception,” Journal of Personality and Social Psy-
chology, October 2017, 513–529; C. N. Macrae and S. Quadflieg, “Perceiv-
ing People,” in S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, and G. Lindzey, eds., Handbook of
Social Psychology (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 428–463; and M.
Snyder and A. A. Stukas, Jr., “Interpersonal Processes: The Interplay of Cog-
nitive, Motivational, and Behavioral Activities in Social Interaction,” in J. T.
Spence, J. M. Darley, and D. J. Foss, eds., Annual Review of Psychology
(Palo Alto, CA: Annual Review, 1999), 273–303.
10. Conclusions about perceiver characteristics were derived from E.
Hehman, Clare A. M. Sutherland, J. K. Flake, and M. L. Slepian, “The
Unique Contributions of Perceiver and Target Characteristics in Person
Perception,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, October
2017, 513–529; C. N. Macrae and S. Quadflieg, “Perceiving People,” in S.
T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, and G. Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social Psychol-
ogy (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 428–463; and M. Snyder and
A. A. Stukas, Jr., “Interpersonal Processes: The Interplay of Cognitive,
Motivational, and Behavioral Activities in Social Interaction,” in J. T.
Spence, J. M. Darley, and D. J. Foss, eds., Annual Review of Psychology
(Palo Alto, CA: Annual Review, 1999), 273–303.
11. Conclusions about target characteristics were derived from E. Hehman,
Clare A. M. Sutherland, J. K. Flake, and M. L. Slepian, “The Unique Con-
tributions of Perceiver and Target Characteristics in Person Perception,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, October 2017, 513–529;
C. N. Macrae and S. Quadflieg, “Perceiving People,” in S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gil-
bert, and G. Lindzey, eds., Handbook of Social Psychology (New York:
John Wiley & Sons, 2010), 428–463; and M. Snyder and A. A. Stukas,
Jr., “Interpersonal Processes: The Interplay of Cognitive, Motivational,
and Behavioral Activities in Social Interaction,” in J. T. Spence, J. M. Darley,
and D. J. Foss, eds., Annual Review of Psychology (Palo Alto, CA:
Annual Review, 1999), 273–303.
12. “A Tattoo Won’t Hurt Your Job Prospects,” Harvard Business Review,
November–December 2018, 30–31.
13. J. H. Langlois, L. Kalakanis, A. J. Rubenstein, A. J. Larson, M. Hallam, and
M. Smoot, “Maxims or Myths of Beauty? A Meta-Analytic and Theoreti-
cal Review,” Psychological Bulletin 126, no. 3 (2000): 390–423. https://
DOI: 10.1037//0033-2909.126.3.390.
14. William W. Maddux, Peter H. Kim, Tetsushi Okumura, and Jeanne Brett,
“Why ‘I’m Sorry’ Doesn’t Always Translate,” Harvard Business Review,
June 1, 2012, https://hbr.org/product/why-im-sorry-doesnt-always-
translate/F1206B-PDF-ENG.
15. D. Rodneck, “What Practices Could You Implement to Increase Cultural
Sensitivity and Acceptance in the Workplace?” Small Business Chroni-
cle, https://smallbusiness.chron.com/practices-could-implement-
increase-cultural-sensitivity-acceptance-workplace-16661.html
(accessed March 5, 2019); “Seven Practices You Can Implement to
Increase Cultural Awareness in the Workplace,” DeakinCo.com,
September 22, 2017, https://www.deakinco.com/media- centre/news/
seven-practices-you-can-implement-to-increase-cultural-awareness-in-
the-workplace.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN9CHAPTER NOTES
Sex,” https://www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat39.htm (accessed March 8, 2019);
and N. Bach, “Getting an MBA Won’t Save You from the Pay Gap If
You’re a Woman or Minority,” Fortune, February 7, 2019, http://fortune.
com/2019/02/06/mba-graduates-pay-gap-women-minorities/.
58. H. Aguinis, Y. H. Ji, and H. Joo, “Gender Productivity Gap among Star
Performers in STEM and Other Scientific Fields,” Journal of Applied Psy-
chology, December 2018, 1283–1306.
59. See A. H. Eagly and L. L. Carli, Through the Labyrinth (Boston: Harvard
Business School Press, 2007).
60. See Catalyst, “Women CEOs of the S&P 500,” January 24, 2019, https://
www.catalyst.org/research/women-ceos-of-the-sp-500/; and Bureau of
Labor Statistics, “Table 39: Median Weekly Earnings of Full-Time Wage
and Salary Workers by Detailed Occupation and Sex,” for years 2018,
2009, and 1999, https://www.bls.gov (accessed March 8, 2019).
61. G. Knobler, “Women’s Underrepresentation in the Judiciary,”
https://www.representwomen.org (accessed March 8, 2019); Cata-
lyst, “Pyramid: Women in S&P 500 Companies,” July 11, 2019,
https://www.catalyst.org/research/women-in-sp-500-companies/;
E. D. Herman, “Redefining Representation: The Women of the 116th
Congress,” The New York Times, January 14, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/14/us/politics/women-
of-the-116th-congress.html; and J. Napolitano, “Women Earn More
College Degrees and Men Still Earn More Money,” Forbes,
September 4, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnapolitano/
2018/09/04/women-earn-more-college-degrees-and-men-still-earn-
more-money/#1578fbf139f1.
62. Alice Hendrickson Eagly, and Linda Lorene Carli, Through the Laby-
rinth: The Truth about How Women Become Leaders, (Boston Massa-
chusetts: Harvard Business Press, 2007).
63. J. Vespa, D. M. Armstrong, and L. Medina, “Demographic Turning Points
for the United States: Population Projections for 2020 to 2060,” https://
www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/
demo/P25_1144 (accessed March 8, 2019).
64. M. Toossi, “A Look at the Future of the U.S. Labor Force to 2060,”
https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/a-look-at-the-future-of-the-us-
labor-force-to-2060/pdf/a-look-at-the-future-of-the-us-labor-
force-to-2060 (accessed March 8, 2019).
65. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, “Performance and
Accountability Report for Fiscal Year 2017,” https://www.eeoc.gov/
eeoc/plan/2017par.cfm (accessed March 10, 2019).
66. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 37: Median Weekly Earnings of Full-
Time Wage and Salary Workers by Selected Characteristics,” https://
www.bls.gov/cps/cpsaat37 (accessed March 10, 2019).
67. GLAAD Media Reference Guide and Glossary of Terms. New York:
GLAAD. https://www.glaad.org/reference/lgbtq.
68. F. Newport, “In U.S., Estimate of LGBT Population Rises to 4.5%,” May
22, 2018, https://news.gallup.com/poll/234863/estimate-lgbt-popula-
tion-rises.aspx.
69. Human Rights Campaign Foundation, “A Workplace Divided: Under-
standing the Climate for LGBTQ Workers Nationwide,” https://www.hrc.
org/resources/a-workplace-divided-understanding-the-climate-
for-lgbtq-workers-nationwide (accessed March 10, 2019).
70. Human Rights Campaign Foundation, “LGBTQ Equality at the Fortune
500,” https://www.hrc.org/resources/lgbt-equality-at-the-fortune-500,
and “Employment,” https://www.hrc.org/state-maps/employment
(accessed March 10, 2019).
71. “Does the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Provide a List of Condi-
tions That Are Covered under the Act,” Society for Human Resource
Management, July 16, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/
tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/cms_011495.aspx.
72. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Persons with a Disability: Labor Force Char-
acteristics Summary—2018,” February 26, 2019, https://www.bls.gov/
news.release/disable.nr0.htm.
73. T. Prasad, “How Microsoft Is Changing the Face of Disability Employ-
ment: It Has Never Been More Important,” October 26, 2018, https://
www.popsugar.com/smart-living/Interview-Microsoft-About-Disability-
Inclusion-45326888.
74. R. Jenkins, “Why Generational Diversity Is the Ultimate Competitive
Advantage,” Inc., https://www.inc.com/ryan-jenkins/why-generational-
diversity-is-the-ultimate- competitive-advantage.html (accessed March
12, 2019); and M. Dimock, “Defining Generations: Where Millennials
End and Generation Z Begins,” Fact Tank, January 17, 2019, http://
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/01/17/where-millennials-end-
and-generation-z-begins/.
75. For a review of generational research, see S. Lyons and L. Kuron, “Gen-
erational Differences in the Workplace: A Review of the Evidence and
Directions for Future Research,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, Feb-
ruary 2014, 139–157.
76. K. Elsbury, “Five Proven Tactics for Hiring and Retaining Millennial
Employees,” Forbes, March 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
yec/2018/03/01/five-proven-tactics-for -hiring-and-retaining-millennial-
employees/#42e1e0752deb.
36. K. Cherry, “How the Self-Serving Bias Protects Self-Esteem,” https://
www.verywellmind.com/what-is-the-self-serving-bias-2795032
(accessed March 11, 2019).
37. See S. E. Moss and M. J. Martinko, “The Effects of Performance Attribu-
tions and Outcome Dependence on Leader Feedback Behavior Follow-
ing Poor Subordinate Performance,” Journal of Organizational
Behavior, May 1998, 259–274.
38. H. Gehlbach and C. C. Vriesema, “Meta-Bias: A Practical Theory of Moti-
vated Thinking,” Educational Psychology Review, November 2018, 1–21.
39. C. Zillman, “There Are the 12 Fortune 500 Companies with Zero
Women on Their Boards,” Fortune, May 22, 2018, https://business.
linkedin.com/talent-solutions/blog/ diversity/2019/how-women-find-
jobs-gender-report; and C. Post and K. Byron, “Women on Boards and
Firm Financial Performance: A Meta-Analysis,” Academy of Manage-
ment Journal, October 2015, 1546–1571.
40. D. DeZube, “Bye Bye Boomers: Who Will Fill Your Workforce Gap?”
Monster, https://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best- practices/recruiting-
hiring-advice/strategic-workforce-planning/baby-boomer-workforce-
gap.aspx (accessed March 7, 2019); and R. Fry, R. Igielnik, and E.
Patten, “How Millennials Today Compare with Their Grandparents 50
Years Ago,” Fact Tank (Pew Research Center), March 16, 2018, http://
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/03/16/how-millennials-com-
pare-with-their-grandparents/#!14.
41. J. Vespa, D. M. Armstrong, and L. Medina, “Demographic Turning Points
for the United States: Population Projections for 2020 to 2060,” https://
www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2018/
demo/P25_1144 (accessed March 7, 2019).
42. Irving B. Weiner, Neal W. Schmitt, and Scott Highhouse, Handbook of
Psychology: Industrial and Organizational Psychology, (New Jersey:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012).
43. H. Collingwood. “Who Handles a Diverse Work Force Best?” Working
Women, 1996.
44. Irving B. Weiner, Neal W. Schmitt, and Scott Highhouse, Handbook of
Psychology: Industrial and Organizational Psychology, (New Jersey:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2012).
45. Results can be found in D. A. Harrison, D. A. Kravitz, D. M. Mayer, L. M.
Leslie, and D. Lev-Arey, “Understanding Attitudes Toward Affirmative
Action Programs in Employment: Summary and Meta-Analysis of 35
Years of Research,” Journal of Applied Psychology, September 2006,
1013–1036.
46. V. Strauss, “What You Should Know about Race-Based Affirmative
Action and Diversity in Schools,” The Washington Post, July 3, 2018,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2018/07/03/
what-you-should-know-about-race-based-affirmative-action-and-diversity-
in-schools/?utm_term=.61f2269e1edc; and K. W. Phillips, T. L. Dumas,
and N. P. Rothbard, “Diversity and Authenticity,” Harvard Business
Review, March–April 2018, 132–136.
47. L. Shen, “Some Female Leaders Aren’t Huge Fans of California’s New
Law Requiring Women on Boards,” Fortune, October 4, 2018, http://
fortune.com/2018/10/03/women-boards-california/.
48. Ann. M. Morrison, The New Leaders: Leadership Diversity in America,
(New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1992).
49. M. Sawhney, “3 Keys for Making Products and Marketing for All,”
Forbes, June 19, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/mohanbirsawhney/
2018/06/19/3-keys-for-making-products-and-marketing-for-all/
#4d3c214c38a3.
50. Mark Wilson, “What You’re Getting Wrong About Inclusive Design,”
Mansueto Ventures LLC, April 4, 2018, https://www. fastcompany.
com/90166413/what-youre-getting-wrong-about-inclusive-design.
51. M. Sawhney, “3 Keys for Making Products and Marketing for
All,” Forbes, June 19, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
mohanbirsawhney/2018/06/19/3-keys-for-making- products-and-
marketing-for-all/#4d3c214c38a3.
52. D. Vinjamuri, “Diversity in Advertising Is Good Marketing,” Forbes,
December 11, 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidvinjam-
uri/2015/12/11/diversityinadsisgoodmarketing/#7c889e7d4248.
53. “The 2018 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity: #1: Johnson &
Johnson,” https://www.diversityinc.com/di_top_50/ (accessed March 8,
2019).
54. R. J. Ely and D. A. Thomas, “Cultural Diversity at Work: The Effects of
Diversity Perspectives on Work Group Processes and Outcomes,”
Administrative Science Quarterly, 2001, 243. Emphasis added.
55. D. R. Avery, P. F. McKay, S. Tonidandel, S. D. Volpone, and M. A. Morris,
“Is There Method to the Madness? Examining How Racioethnic Match-
ing Influences Retail Store Productivity,” Personnel Psychology, 2012,
167–199.
56. R. G. Netemeyer, C. M. Heilman, and J. G. Maxham III, “Identification
with the Retail Organization and Customer-Perceived Employee Simi-
larities: Effects on Customer Spending,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
September 2012, 1049–1058.
57. See Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 39: 2018 Median Weekly Earn-
ings of Full-Time Wage and Salary Workers by Detailed Occupation and
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN10 CHAPTER NOTES
97. This discussion is based on R. R. Thomas, Jr., Redefining Diversity (New
York: AMACOM, 1996).
98. J. Stensland, “Former Big 5 Employee Who Claimed Racism Gets
$165,000 in Settlement,” Whidbey News-Times, September 21, 2018,
https://www.whidbeynewstimes.com; “Big 5 to Pay $165,000 to Settle
EEOC Race Discrimination Lawsuit,” September 19, 2018, https://
www. jdsupra.com/legalnews/big-5-to-pay-165-000-to-settle-
eeoc-39417/.
99. P. Brinkmann and K. Arnold, “Darden to Pay $2.85 Million to Settle ‘Old
White Guys’ Discrimination Suit,” Orlando Sentinel, May 3, 2018, https://
www.orlandosentinel.com/business/brinkmann-on-business/os-bz-
darden-eeoc-settlement-20180503-story.html.
100. K. Flaim, “How Baird Learns from Millennials on Staff,” Fortune, February
14, 2019, http://fortune.com/2019/02/14/best-companies-baird-millennial-
mentors/.
101. “Defend Your Research: Women Benefit When They Downplay Gender,”
Harvard Business Review, July–August 2018, 30–31.
102. ACLU, “Know Your Rights: Transgender People and the Law,” https://
www.aclu.org/know-your-rights/transgender-people-and-law (accessed
March 12, 2019); “LGBTQ Equality at the Fortune 500,” https://www.hrc.
org/resources/lgbt-equality-at-the-fortune-500 (accessed March 12,
2019).
103. A. E. Jackson, “20 Companies That Champion LGBTQ Equality Hiring
Now,” Glassdoor, June 6, 2018, https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/com-
panies-lgbtq-equality/.
104. A. de Vogue and Z. Cohen, “Supreme Court Allows Transgender Mili-
tary Ban to Go into Effect,” CNN, January 22, 2019, https://www.cnn.
com/2019/01/22/politics/scotus-transgender-ban/index.html.
105. P. Morse, “What Brands Can Learn from Target’s Approach to Hispanic
Marketing,” Mobile Marketing Watch, December 21, 2017, https://
mobilemarketingwatch.com/brands-can-learn-targets-approach-
hispanic-marketing-74245/.
106. A. E. Jackson, “6 Companies Offering Returnship Programs,” Glassdoor,
November 9, 2017, https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/6-companies-
offering-returnship-programs/.
107. Shaw Industries, “Diversity: A Foundation for Our Business,” https://
shawinc.com (accessed March 12, 2019); “The Best Employers for Lati-
nos 2018: Arthrex,” Latino Leaders magazine, https://www.latinoleader-
smagazine.com (accessed March 12, 2019); and M. Estrada, P. R.
Hernandez, and P. W. Schultz, “A Longitudinal Study of How Quality
Mentorship and Research Experience Integrate Underrepresented
Minorities in STEM Careers,” CBE Life Sciences Education, Spring
2018, https://www.lifescied.org.
108. Michael Bloomberg, “The Fellowship Initiative,” JPMorgan Chase & Co,
https://www.jpmorganchase.com/corporate/About-JPMC/the-fellow-
ship-initiative.htm.
109. B. T. Parton, “Connecting High Schoolers to Apprenticeships,” School
Administrator, August 2018; and S. Harris, “Drilling Down into the Skills
Gap,” Training, March/April 2013, 22–23.
110. Forbes Coaches Council, “14 Smart Strategies to Prepare Your Com-
pany for an Aging Workforce,” Forbes, October 25, 2018, https://
www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/10/25/14-smart-
strategies-to-prepare-your-company-for-an-aging-workforce/
#534763936a94; and G. M. McEvoy and M. J. Blahana, “Engage-
ment or Dis engagement? Older Workers and the Looming Labor
Shortage,” Business Horizons, September–October 2001, 50.
111. J. Green, “Chowing Down on Boomers’ Brains,” Bloomberg Business
Week, January 15–21, 2016, https://www.chegg.com/homework-help/
chowing-boomers-brainsvikram- ravinder-little-nervous-faced-b-
chapter-15-problem-1bcn-solution-9781259732669-exc.
112. C. Garden, Opinion Analysis: Federal Age-Discrimination Law Applies
to All Public Employees, SCOTUS Blog, November 6, 2018, https://
www.scotusblog.com/2018/11/opinion-analysis-federal-age-discrimi-
nation-law-applies-to-all-public-employees/; H. Fischer, “US Supreme
Court Says Mount Lemmon Fire District Can Be Sued for Age
Discrimination,” Tuscon.com, November 6, 2018, https://tucson.com/
news/local/us-supreme-court-says-mount-lemmon-fire-district-can-be/
article_9ad583e2-0ccd-5bf6-a51b-d9d71dfc6804.html; and “Mount
Lemmon Fire District v. Guido,” Oyez, March 1, 2019, www.oyez.org/
cases/2018/17-587.
113. D. Brown, “Google Diversity Annual Report 2018,” Google, https://diversity.
google/annual-report/ (accessed March 11, 2019).
114. M. Burrage-Sims, “2017 Employer Information Report,” Apple, December
31, 2017, https://www.apple.com/ diversity/pdf/2017-EEO-1-Consoli-
dated-Report .
115. M. Williams, “Facebook 2018 Diversity Report: Reflecting on Our Journey,”
Facebook Newsroom, July 12, 2018, https://newsroom.fb.com/
news/2018/07/diversity-report/.
116. A. Hensel, “Pinterest Misses 2018 Hiring Goal for Underrepresented
Minorities in Tech Roles, Hits Other Targets,” Venture Beat, January 14,
2019, https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/14/pinterest-misses-2018-hiring-
goal-for-underrepresented-minorities-in-tech-roles-hits-other- targets/.
77. Lindsay Gellman, and Justin Baer, “Goldman Sachs Sweetens Deal for
Young Bankers,” The Wall Street Journal, November 5, 2015, https://
www.wsj.com/articles/goldman-sachs-brings-back-junior-banker-
program-1446753898.
78. U.S. Census Bureau, “Table 2: Educational Attainment of the Population
25 Years and Over, by Selected Characteristics, 2018,” https://www.
census.gov (accessed March 11, 2019).
79. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Table 6: Wage and Salary Workers Paid
Hourly Rates with Earnings at or below the Prevailing Federal Minimum
Wage, by Educational Attainment, 2017 Annual Averages,” https://www.
bls.gov (accessed March 11, 2019).
80. F. M. McKee-Ryan and J. Harvey, “‘I Have a Job, But . . .’: A Review of
Underemployment,” Journal of Management, July 2011, 962–996.
81. “Building Tomorrow’s Talent: Collaboration Can Close Emerging Skills
Gap,” Bloomberg Next, https://www.bna.com/uploadedFiles/BNA_V2/
Micro_Sites/2018/Future_of_Work/Workday%20Bloomberg%20Build-
Tomorrow-Talent_FINAL (accessed March 12, 2019); and S. Floren-
tine, “Class of 2018: This Year’s Grads Not Seen as a Skills Gap
Solution,” CIO, June 11, 2018, https://www.cio.com/ article/3280101/
class-of-2018-this-years-grads-not-seen-as-a-skills-gap-solution.html.
82. U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics,
The Condition of Education 2018 (NCES 2018-144) (accessed March
11, 2019).
83. R. Diemart, “32 Million American Adults Can’t Read: Why Literacy Is the
Key to Growth,” https://medium.com/@OneYoungWorld_/32-million-american-
adults-cant-read-why-literacy-is-the-key-to-growth-818996739523
(accessed March 11, 2019).
84. These barriers were taken from discussions in A. S. Pruitt, C. Brink-
worth, J. Young, and K. L. Aponte, “5 Things We Learned about Creating
a Successful Workplace Diversity Program,” Harvard Business Review,
March 30, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/03/5-things-we-learned-about-
creating-a-successful-workplace-diversity-program; A. Morrison, The
New Leaders (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996); M. Loden, Imple-
menting Diversity (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1995); and E. E. Spragins,
“Benchmark: The Diverse Work Force,” Inc., January 1993, 33.
85. Anne Tergesen, “To Age Well, Change How You Feel About Aging,” The
Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2015, https://www.wsj.com/articles/
to-age-well-change-how-you-feel-about-aging-1445220002.
86. J. A. Gonzalez and A. DeNisi, “Cross-Level Effects of Demography and
Diversity Climate on Organizational Attachment and Firm Effective-
ness,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, January 2009, 24.
87. A. Rattan and C. S. Dweck, “What Happens after Prejudice Is Confronted
in the Workplace? How Mindsets Affect Minorities’ and Women’s Outlook
on Future Social Relations,” Journal of Applied Psychology, June 2018,
676–687.
88. J. Ludema and A. Johnson, “Avoid Risk, Make Innovation Possible; Psy-
chological Safety as the Path to High Performance,” Forbes, September
24, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/amberjohnson-jim-
ludema/2018/09/24/avoid-risk-make-innovation-possible-psychologi-
cal-safety-as-the-path-to-high-performance/#6346c0043223.
89. “Hostile Work Environment & Discrimination Settlements,” Forensic
Notes, https://www.forensicnotes.com/eeoc- settlements/ (accessed
March 11, 2019).
90. “Beyond the Clichés: Top-Rated Workplaces by Millennials,” Indeed.
com, June 12, 2018, http://blog.indeed.com/2018/06/12/top-rated-
workplaces-millennials/.
91. K. Zimmerman, “Here Are the Best Companies for Millennials,” Forbes,
September 12, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kaytiezimmerman/
2018/09/12/here-are- the-best -companies- for -mi l lennia ls /
#558019403783.
92. “Profit Sharing,” Delta News Hub, February 15, 2019, https://news.
delta.com/tags/profit-sharing; Kaytie Zimmerman, “Here Are the Best
Companies for Millennials,” Forbes, September 12, 2018, https://
www.forbes.com/sites/kaytiezimmerman/2018/09/12/here-are-the-
best- companies-for-millennials/#558019403783; “Beyond the
Clichés: Top-Rated Workplaces by Millennials,” Indeed.com, June 12,
2018, http://blog.indeed.com/2018/06/12/top-rated-workplaces-
millennials/.
93. M. A. McCord, D. L. Joseph, L. Y. Dhanani, and J. M. Beus, “A Meta-
Analysis of Sex and Race Differences in Perceived Workplace Mistreat-
ment,” Journal of Applied Psychology, February 2018, 137–163.
94. “Employee Networks at American Express,” https://www.americanex-
press.com (accessed March 12, 2019); “Cisco Employee Resource
Organizations,” https://www.cisco.com (accessed March 12, 2019).
95. “The 2018 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity: AT&T,” https://
www.diversityinc.com/att/ (accessed March 12, 2019); S. Shinneman,
“AT&T CEO Doubles Down on ‘Tolerance Is for Cowards’ Comments,”
https://www. bizjournals.com/dallas/news/2017/05/17/at-t-ceo-doubles-
down-on- tolerance-is-for-cowards.html (accessed March 12, 2019).
96. B. Larmer, “Why Does Japan Make It So Hard for Working Women to
Succeed?” The New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN11CHAPTER NOTES
7. Aaron M. Schmidt, James W. Beck, and Jennifer Z. Gillespie, “Motivation,”
in Handbook of Psychology, Vol. 12, Industrial and Organizational Psy-
chology, edited by Irving B. Weiner, Walter C. Borman, Daniel R. Ilgen, and
Richard J. Klimoski, 311–40 (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2003).
8. “Southwest Airlines Employees Earn $544 Million in 2018 Profit Shar-
ing,” February 13, 2019, http://investors. southwest.com; and D. Camp-
bell, J. Case, and B. Fotsch, “More than a Paycheck,” Harvard Business
Review, January– February 2018, 118–124.
9. K. Woolley and A. Fishbach, “It’s About Time: Earlier Rewards Increase
Intrinsic Motivation,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, June
2018, 877–890; and J. R. Hackman, G. R. Oldham, R. Janson, and K.
Purdy, “A New Strategy for Job Enrichment,” California Management
Review, Summer 1975, 58.
10. “30-under-30: Kory and Mallory Stevens–Taft,” Forbes, www.forbes.
com, accessed March 25, 2019; “About Us,” https://taftclothing.com,
accessed March 25, 2019; M. Pineda, “How Taft Footwear Plans to
Become NBA Players’ Favorite Shoe Off the Court, with a Little Help
from Social Media,” CNBC, September 30, 2018, https://www.cnbc.
com/2018/09/28/how-taft-footwear-became-nba-players-favorite-
shoeoff-the-court.html; and T. Popomaronis, “How This Remarkable
Couple Bootstrapped Their Startup to Millions in Under 3 years,”
Forbes, https://www.forbes.com, August 9, 2017.
11. A review of content and process theories of motivation is provided by
“Motivation in Today’s Workplace: The Link to Performance,” Research
Quarterly (Society for Human Resource Management), Second Quarter
2010, 1–9.
12. See D. McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: McGraw-
Hill, 1960).
13. See L. Lawter, R. E. Kopelman, and D. J. Prottas, “McGregor’s Theory
X/Y and Job Performance: A Multilevel, Multi-Source Analysis,” Journal
of Managerial Issues, April 2015, 84–101; and S. Gürbüz, F. Sahin, and
O. Köksal, “Revisiting Theory X and Y: A Multilevel Analysis of the
Effects of Leaders’ Managerial Assumptions on Followers’ Attitudes,”
Management Decision, 2014, 1888–1906.
14. For a complete description of Maslow’s theory, see A. H. Maslow, “A The-
ory of Human Motivation,” Psychological Review, July 1943, 370–396.
15. “14 Companies with Incredible Employee Perks,” Salary.com, April 19,
2018, https://www.salary.com/articles/ 14-companies-with-incredible-
employee-perks/.
16. T. Rowe, “5 Ways to Motivate Small Business Staff,” https://www.theself-
employed.com/start_ups/5-ways-motivate-small-business-staff/
(accessed March 22, 2019).
17. D. C. McClelland, Human Motivation (New York: Guilford Press, 1985).
18. O. Kauppila, “How Does It Feel and How Does It Look? The Role of
Employee Motivation in Organizational Learning Type,” Journal of
Organizational Behavior, October 2018, 941–955; and C. L. Burk and
B. S. Wiese, “Professor or Manager? A Model of Motivational Orienta-
tions Applied to Preferred Career Paths,” Journal of Research in Per-
sonality, August 2018, 113–132.
19. L. A. Mark, “Why Restaurateur Cameron Mitchell Always Says Yes,”
Forbes, December 5, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/loisalter-
mark/2018/12/05/why-restaurateur- cameron-mitchell-always-says-
yes/#2a44734f45de; and P. Kavilanz, “Once a Teenage Runaway, He
Now Owns a $300 Million Restaurant Empire,” CNN Business, May 18,
2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/30/success/cameron-mitchell-
restaurants/index.html.
20. Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, “Message From Cameron,” https://
cameronmitchell.com/careers/message-from-cameron/ (accessed
May 30, 2019).
21. “My American Dream,” People, February 22, 2016, 93.
22. Lois Alter Mark, “Why Restaurateur Cameron Mitchell Always Says Yes,”
Forbes Media, LLC, December 5, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
loisaltermark/2018/12/05/why-restaurateur-cameron-mitchell-always-
says-yes/#2f906a8545de.
23. Cameron Mitchell Restaurants, “Careers,” https://cameronmitchell.com/
careers (accessed May 30, 2019).
24. H. Ozcelik and S. G. Barsade, “No Employee an Island: Workplace Lone-
liness and Job Performance,” Academy of Management Journal,
December 2018, 2343–2366.
25. R. M. Ryan and E. L. Deci, “Self-Determination Theory and the Facilita-
tion of Intrinsic Motivation, Social Development, and Well-Being,” Amer-
ican Psychologist, January 2000, 68–78.
26. E. L. Deci, R. Koestner, and R. M. Ryan, “A Meta-Analytic Review of
Experiments Examining the Effects of Extrinsic Rewards on Intrinsic
Motivation,” Psychological Bulletin, November 1999, 627–668.
27. C. Scott Rigby and R. M. Ryan, “Self-Determination Theory in Human
Resource Development: New Directions and Practical Considerations,”
Advances in Developing Human Resources, May 2018, 133–147; and
A. Thibault-Landry, R. Egan, L. Crevier-Braud, L. Manganelli, and J. For-
est, “An Empirical Investigation of the Employee Work Passion Appraisal
Model Using Self-Determination Theory,” Advances in Developing
Human Resources, May 2018, 148–168.
117. J. Griffin, “Two Years Ahead of Schedule, Intel’s Diversity & Inclusion
Campaign Has Major Traction,” Forbes, December 3, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/sites/jillgriffin/2018/12/03/two-years-ahead-of-schedule-
intels-diversity-inclusion-campaign-has- major-traction/#3fac548a16fd.
118. Heather R. Huhman, “STEM Fields and the Gender Gap: Where Are the
Women?” Forbes Media LLC, June 20, 2012, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/work-in-progress/2012/06/20/stem-fields-and-the-gender-gap-
where-are-the-women/#18914fca41ba.
119. CareerBuilder, LLC, “New CareerBuilder and Emsi Analysis Finds Col-
lege Degrees Are Not Keeping Up with Demand in Critical Area,”
https://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.asp
x?sd=3%2F3%2F2016&id=pr937&ed=12%2F31%2F2016 (accessed
May 30, 2019).
120. B. Flavin, “Women in Computer Science: 6 Assumptions to Avoid,” Rasmus-
sen College, February 21, 2018, https://www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/
technology/blog/women-in-computer-science-assumptions-to-avoid/.
121. C. Jones, “Girls Draw Even with Boys in High School STEM Classes, But
Still Lag in College and Careers,” EdSource, March 12, 2017, https://
edsource.org/2017/girls-now- outnumber-boys-in-high-school-stem-
but-still-lag-in- college-and-career/578444.
122. “State of Girls and Women in STEM,” National Girls Collaborative Proj-
ect, https://ngcproject.org/statistics (accessed March 11, 2019).
123. Bonnie Marcus, “The Lack Of Diversity in Tech is a Cultural Issue,”
Forbes Media LLC, August 12, 2015, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
bonniemarcus/2015/08/12/the-lack-of-diversity-in-tech-is-a-cultural-
issue/#38f03e5c79a2.
124. Vauhini Vara, “Inside Pinterest’s Plans to Fix Its Diversity Problem,” Fast
Company, October 12, 2015, https://www.fastcompany.com/3051659/
inside-pinterests-plans-to-fix-its-diversity-problem.
125. K. Williams, “Women in Tech: How to Attract and Retain Top Talent,”
Indeed, November 6, 2018, http://blog.indeed.com/2018/11/06/
women-in-tech-report/.
126. Kieran Snyder, “The ResumeGgap: Are Different Gender Styles Contrib-
uting to Tech’s Dismal Diversity?” Fortune Media IP Limited, March 26,
2015, http://fortune.com/2015/03/26/the-resume-gap-women-tell-
stories-men-stick-to-facts-and-get-the-advantage/.
127. J. Biswas, “Nurse Sues Hospital, Saying It Obeyed Patient Who Didn’t
Want a Black Caregiver,” ABC News, August 16, 2018, https://abcnews.
go.com/US/nurse-sues-hospital-obeyed-patient-black-carer/
story?id=57216585.
128. NBCUniversal Media, LLC, “Suit: Michigan Hospital Honored Patient’s
Request for No Black Nurse,” https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/
suit-hospital-honored-patients-request-for-no-black-nurse-491214811.
html (accessed May 30, 2019).
129. American Medical Association, “AMA Principles of Medical Ethics,”
https://www.ama-assn.org/sites/ama-assn.org/files/corp/media-
browser/code-of-medical-ethics-chapter-1 (accessed March 11,
2019).
130. B. Trogen and A. Caplan, “When a Patient Is a Bigot, What Can a Doctor
Do?” Chicago Tribune, June 29, 2017, https://www.chicagotribune.com/
news/opinion/commentary/ct-doctors-bigot-patients-discrimination-
perspec-20170629-story.html.
131. J. Karoub, “Hospitals Often Appease Bigotry,” The Arizona Republic,
February 24, 2013.
132. Staff, “The Patient Is Racist (or Sexist). Now What?” Medpage Today, April
5, 2018, https://www.medpagetoday.com/ hospitalbasedmedicine/
generalhospitalpractice/72169.
CHAPTER 5
1. L. Youngkin, “How to Negotiate the Raise You Deserve,” Forbes, April
10, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ laurayoungkin/2018/04/10/
how-to-negotiate-the-raise-you-deserve/#4f06fc7b277c.
2. S. Florentine and J. Camp, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Negotiating a Raise,”
CIO, July 19, 2018, https://www.cio.com/article/2438603/careers-
staffing-10-mistakes-to-avoid-when-negotiating-a-raise.html.
3. S. Florentine and J. Camp, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Negotiating a Raise,”
CIO, July 19, 2018, https://www.cio.com/article/2438603/careers-
staffing-10-mistakes-to-avoid-when-negotiating-a-raise.html.
4. Sharon Florentine, and Jim Camp, “The Do’s and Don’ts of Negotiating
a Raise,” IDG Communications, July 19, 2018, https://www.cio.com/
article/2438603/careers- staffing-10-mistakes-to-avoid-when-
negotiating-a-raise.html.
5. J. Doody, “How to Negotiate Beyond the Raise You Were Offered,”
Glassdoor.com, April 30, 2018, https://www. glassdoor.com/blog/how-
to-negotiate-beyond-the-raise-you-were-offered/.
6. Aaron M. Schmidt, James W. Beck, and Jennifer Z. Gillespie, “Motiva-
tion,” in Handbook of Psychology, Vol. 12, Industrial and Organizational
Psychology, edited by Irving B. Weiner, Walter C. Borman, Daniel R.
Ilgen, and Richard J. Klimoski, 311–40 (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons,
Inc., 2003).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN12 CHAPTER NOTES
Personnel and Human Resources Management (vol. 20) (New York: JAI
Press, 2001), 269–329.
48. “Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For 2019: #16: Baird,” http://
fortune.com/best-companies/baird/ (accessed March 22, 2019); and R.
Levering, “The 100 Best Companies to Work For 2016,” Fortune, March
15, 2016, 147.
49. J. A. Colquitt, D. E. Conlon, M. J. Wesson, C. O. L. H. Porter, and K. Y. Ng,
“Justice at the Millennium: A Meta-Analytic Review of 25 Years of Orga-
nizational Justice Research,” Journal of Applied Psychology, June
2001, 426.
50. R. C. Huseman, J. D. Hatfield, and E. W. Miles, “A New Perspective on
Equity Theory: The Equity Sensitivity Construct,” Academy of Manage-
ment Review, April 1987, 222–234.
51. G. Jeon and D. A. Newman, “Equity Sensitivity versus Egoism: A Recon-
ceptualization and New Measure of Individual Differences in Justice Per-
ceptions,” Journal of Vocational Behavior, August 2016, 138–155; and
H. J. R. Woodley, J. S. Bourdage, B. Ogunfowora, and B. Nguyen, “Exam-
ining Equity Sensitivity: An Investigation Using the Big Five and HEXACO
Models of Personality,” Frontiers in Psychology, January 2016.
52. Y. Han, G. Sears, and H. Zhang, “Revising the ‘Give and Take’ in LMX,”
Personnel Review, March 2018, 555–571; and J. S. Bourdage, A.
Goupal, T. Neilson, E. R. Lukacik, and N. Lee, “Personality, Equity Sensi-
tivity, and Discretionary Workplace Behavior,” Personality and Individual
Differences, January 2018, 144–150.
53. V. Khoreva and A. Tenhiälä, “Gender Differences in Reactions to Injus-
tice,” Journal of Managerial Psychology, April 2016, 790–804.
54. M. Mooijman and J. Graham, “Unjust Punishment in Organizations,”
Research in Organizational Behavior, November 2018, 95–106; and D.
B. Whiteside and L. J. Barclay, “When Wanting to Be Fair Is Not Enough:
The Effects of Depletion and Self-Appraisal Gaps on Fair Behavior,”
Journal of Management, November 2018, 3311–3335.
55. Michael Ramsay Bashshur, and Burak Oc, “When Voice Matters: A Mul-
tilevel Review of the Impact of Voice in Organizations,” Journal of Man-
agement 41, no. 5 (November 2014): 1530–554. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0149206314558302.
56. M. Zetline, “Salesforce Employees Objected to Its Immigration Work.
CEO Marc Benioff’s Response Was Brilliant,” Inc., November 26, 2018,
https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/salesforce-ethical-humane-office-
marc-benioff-kara-swisher-employee-activism.html?cid=search.
57. M. L. Frazier and W. M. Bowler, “Voice Climate, Supervisor Undermining,
and Work Outcomes: A Group-Level Examination,” Journal of Manage-
ment, March 2015, 841–863.
58. M. van Dijke, D. De Cremer, G. Langendijk, and C. Anderson, “Ranking
Low, Feeling High: How Hierarchical Position and Experienced Power
Promote Prosocial Behavior in Response to Procedural Justice,” Jour-
nal of Applied Psychology, February 2018, 164–181.
59. David Gelles, “The C.E.O. Who Stood Up to President Trump: Ken Fra-
zier Speaks Out,” The New York Times Company, February 19, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/19/business/merck-ceo-ken-frazier-
trump.html.
60. C. Rubino, D. R. Avery, P. F. McKay, Brenda L. Moore, D. C. Wilson, M. S.
Van Driel, L. A. Witt, D. P. McDonald, “And Justice for All: How Organiza-
tional Justice Climate Deters Sexual Harassment,” Personnel Psychology,
Winter 2018, 519–544.
61. C. Porath and C. Pearson, “You’re Rude Because Your Boss Is Rude,”
Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2013/01/youre-rude-
because-your-boss-is (accessed March 22, 2019); and D. McMahan,
“How to Handle Bad Customer Service . . . Without Holding a Grudge,”
NBC News, March 12, 2018, https://www.nbcnews.com/better/busi-
ness/how- handle-bad-customer-service-grace-ncna854806.
62. B. M. Galla, J. Amemiya, and M. T. Wang, “Using Expectancy-Value The-
ory to Understand Academic Self-Control,” Learning and Instruction,
December 2018, 22–33; H. Dai, B. J. Dietvorst, B. Tuckfield, K. L. Milkman,
and M. E. Schweitzer, “Quitting When the Going Gets Tough: A
Downside of High Performance Expectations,” Academy of Manage-
ment Journal, October 2018, 1667–1691; and M. S. Giarratana, M.
Mariani, and I. Weller, “Rewards for Patents and Inventor Behaviors in
Industrial Research and Development,” Academy of Management Jour-
nal, February 2018, 264–292.
63. “U.S. Navy Enlistment Bonuses,” https://www.navy.com/bonus
(accessed March 25, 2019).
64. M. Moskowitz and R. Levering, “The 100 Best Companies to Work For,”
Fortune, February 3, 2014, 96.
65. Michael Cooper, “The Chicago Symphony Goes on Strike Over Pension
Plan,” The New York Times Company, March 11, 2019, https://www.
nytimes.com/2019/03/11/arts/music/chicago-symphony-orchestra-
strike.html.
66. Cooper Michael, “The Chicago Symphony Goes on Strike Over Pension
Plan,” The New York Times Company, March 11, 2019, https://www.
nytimes.com/2019/03/11/arts/music/chicago-symphony-orchestra-
strike.html.
28. Isabel Thottam, “10 Companies with Awesome Training and Develop-
ment Programs,” Monster Worldwide, https://www.monster.com/career-
advice/article/companies-with-awesome-training-development-
programs.
29. K. Rogers, “Do Your Employees Feel Respected?” Harvard Business
Review, July–August 2018, 62–71.
30. I. Thottam, “10 Companies with Awesome Training and Development
Programs,” Monster, https://www.monster.com/career-advice/article/
companies-with-awesome-training-development-programs (accessed
March 22, 2019).
31. E. Spencer, “How to Grow and Scale a Culture Like 23andMe,” Forbes,
July 18, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/erinspencer1/2018/07/18/
how-to-grow-scale-a- culture-like-23andme/#4e3ff1922b79.
32. F. Herzberg, B. Mausner, and B. B. Snyderman, The Motivation to Work
(New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1959).
33. Frederick Herzberg, One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employ-
ees? (Boston Massachusetts: Harvard Business Review, 2003).
34. “REI Is a Best Place to Work,” https://www.rei.com/about-rei/100-best-
companies (accessed March 22, 2019); “Jerry Stritzke: A Conversation
about Store Hourly Pay and Benefits,” https://newsroom.rei.com
(accessed March 22, 2019); and A. Cain, “The Best Way to Stand Out in
a Job Interview at One of the Most Beloved Companies in America,”
Business Insider, February 27, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/
rei-jobs-biggest-mistake-2018-2.
35. N. El-Bawab, “More Millennials Are Demanding These Workplace
Perks,” CNBC, February 7, 2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/07/
millennials-are-demanding-these-workplace-perks.html; and A. D.
Wright, “Employers Say Accommodating Millennials Is a Business
Imperative,” Society for Human Resource Management, April 26, 2018,
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/
pages/accommodating-millennials-is-a-business-imperative.aspx.
36. M. Boyle and Bloomberg, “Walmart to Pay Hourly Workers for Sick
Leave in Overhaul of Employment Policies,” Forbes, February 1, 2019,
http://fortune.com/2019/02/01/walmart-to-pay-hourly-workers-for-sick-
leave-in-overhaul-of- employment-policies/.
37. K. Gibson, “Walmart Offers Paid Sick Leave to Its 1.1 Million Hourly
Workers,” CBS News, February 1, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/
news/walmart-sick-leave-policy-offered-to-11-million-hourly-workers/.
38. Kate Gibson, “Walmart Offers Paid Sick Leave to Its 1.1 Million Hourly Work-
ers,” CBS Interactive Inc., February 1, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/
news/walmart-sick-leave-policy-offered-to-11-million-hourly-workers/.
39. “Bernie Sanders Stands Up for Walmart Workers,” Yahoo! Finance
Video, February 5, 2019, https://finance.yahoo.com/video/bernie-sand-
ers-stands-walmart-workers-180646570.html.
40. Rep. Ro Khanna and M. Perrone, “American Workers Need Congress to
Stand Up to Amazon and Walmart,” The Hill, February 28, 2019, https://
thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/economy-budget/431867-american-
workers-need-congress-to-stand-up-to-amazon-and.
41. J. Herron, “Walmart Introduces Paid Time-Off for Sickness and Other
Absences,” USA Today, February 3, 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/
story/money/2019/02/03/walmart-workers-can-now-earn-paid-time-off-
sick-days/2762856002/.
42. E. Chuck, “Poultry Workers, Denied Bathroom Breaks, Wear Diapers:
Oxfam Report,” NBC News, https://www.nbcnews.com/business/
business-news/poultry-workers-denied- bathroom-breaks-wear-diapers-
oxfam-report-n572806 (accessed March 22, 2019).
43. H Xu, M. Strode, and A. Withers, “Poultry Processing Workers Still Face
High Number of Injuries,” Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting,
June 28, 2018, https://investigatemidwest.org/2018/06/28/poultry-
processing-workers-still-face-high-number-of-injuries/.
44. P. Lowe, “Tyson Foods Promises Better Conditions and Safety for Meat
Wo r k e r s ,” N P R , h t t p s : / / w w w. n p r. o r g / s e c t i o n s / t h e -
salt/2017/04/26/525736888/tyson-foods-promises-better-conditions-
and-safety-for-meat-workers (accessed March 22, 2019).
45. M. Valentine, “When Equity Seems Unfair: The Role of Justice Enforce-
ability in Temporary Team Coordination,” Academy of Management
Journal, December 2018, 2018–2105; and M. D. Baer, J. B. Rodell, R.
K. Dhensa-Kahlon, J. A. Colquitt, K. P. Zipay, R. Burgess, and R. Outlaw,
“Pacification or Aggravation? The Effects of Talking About Supervisor
Unfairness,” Academy of Management Journal, October 2018,
1764–1788.
46. “New PayScale Study Reveals Employees’ Perceptions about Pay Fair-
ness and Transparency Are Five Times More Impactful on Engagement
Than Actual Compensation,” November 17, 2017, https://www.globen-
ewswire.com/news-release/2017/11/07/1176260/0/en/New-
PayScale-Study-Reveals-Employees-Perceptions-About-Pay- Fairness-
and-Transparency-are- Five-Times-More-Impactful-on-Engagement-
Than-Actual-Compensation.html.
47. For a thorough review of organizational justice theory and research,
see R. Cropanzano, D. E. Rupp, C. J. Mohler, and M. Schminke, “Three
Roads to Organizational Justice,” in G. R. Ferris, ed., Research in
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN13CHAPTER NOTES
87. See B. K. Tarus, “Effects of Job Rotation Strategy on High Performance
Workplace in Lake Victoria North Water Services Board, Kenya,” Inter-
national Journal of Business and Management, 2014, 139–146.
88. E. Moore, “7 Companies with Amazing Office Rotation Options,” Glass-
door.com, November 29, 2017, https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/com-
panies-with-office-rotation-options/.
89. Stephanie Vozza, “Why This CEO Lets Other Executives Do His Job For
a Day,” Fast Company, January 11, 2017, https://www.fastcompany.
com/3066911/why-this-ceo-trades-jobs-with-other-execs.
90. S. M. Heathfield, “6 Keys to Successful Job Rotation,” The Balance,
September 17, 2018, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/keys-to-
successful-job- rotation-1918167.
91. “Who We Are,” https://hotdogmarketing.net (accessed March 25, 2019);
M. Tabaka, “These Founders Couldn’t Afford Traditional Employee Ben-
efits, So They Did Something Even Better,” Inc., July 11, 2018, https://
www.inc.com/marla-tabaka/these-founders-couldnt-afford-traditional-
employee-benefits-so-they-did-something-even-better.html?cid=search.
92. Definitions of the job characteristics model were adapted from J. R.
Hackman and G. R. Oldham, “Motivation through the Design of Work:
Test of a Theory,” Organizational Behavior and Human Performance,
August 1976, 250–279.
93. L. A. Wegman, B. J. Hoffman, N. T. Carter, J. M. Twenge, and N. Guenole,
“Placing Job Characteristics in Context: Cross-Temporal Meta-Analysis
of Changes in Job Characteristics Since 1975,” Journal of Manage-
ment, January 2018, 352–386.
94. W. G. M. Oerlemans and A. B. Bakker, “Motivating Job Characteristics
and Happiness at Work: A Multilevel Perspective,” Journal of Applied
Psychology, November 2018, 1230–1241.
95. A. E. Jackson, “14 Awesome Companies with Unlimited Vacation,”
Glassdoor, March 7, 2019, https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/cool-compa-
nies-offering-unlimited-vacation/; and D. Burkus, “How Adobe Structures
Feedback Conversations,” Harvard Business Review, July 20, 2017,
https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-adobe-structures-feedback-conversations.
96. Productivity studies are reviewed in R. E. Kopelman, Managing Produc-
tivity in Organizations (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1986).
97. P. Petrou, E. Demerouti, and W. B. Schaufeli, “Crafting the Change: The
Role of Employee Job Crafting Behaviors for Successful Organizational
Change,” Journal of Management, May 2018, 1766–1792.
98. S. Achor, A. Reece, G. R. Kellerman, and A. Robichaux, “9 Out of 10
People Are Willing to Earn Less Money to Do More Meaningful Work,”
Harvard Business Review, November 6, 2018, https://hbr.
org/2018/11/9-out-of-10-people-are-willing-to-earn-less-money-to-do-
more-meaningful-work.
99. P. F. Bruning and M. A. Campion, “A Role-Resource Approach-Avoid-
ance Model of Job Crafting: A Multimethod Integration and Extension of
Job Crafting Theory,” Academy of Management Journal, April 2018,
499–522; and M. Tims, D. Derks, and A. B. Bakker, “Job Crafting and Its
Relationships with Person-Job Fit and Meaningfulness: A Three-Wave
Study,” Journal of Vocational Behavior, February 2016, 44–53.
100. J. Amortegui, “Want a Job You Love? Stop Looking and Job Craft It,” Forbes,
January 22, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/sites/womensmedia/
2016/01/22/want-a-job-you-love-stop-looking-and-job-craft-it/
#162e4e9d1ed7; and S. Shellenbarger, “Feeling Stuck? Write Yourself a
New Job Description,” The Wall Street Journal, August 12, 2015, D1, D2.
101. Y. Rofcanin, A. Berber, S. Koch, and L. Sevinc, “Job Crafting and I-deals:
A Study Testing the Nomological Network of Proactive Behaviors,”
International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2016, 2695–
2726; and S. Hornung, D. M. Rousseau, J. Glaser, P. Angerer, and M.
Weighl, “Beyond Top-Down and Bottom-Up Work Redesign: Customiz-
ing Job Content through Idiosyncratic Deals,” Journal of Organizational
Behavior, February 2010, 188.
102. “Idea Watch: Why You Should Rotate Office Seating Assignments,” Har-
vard Business Review, March–April 2018, 22–24; and C. C. Rosen, D. J.
Slater, C.-H. Chang, and R. E. Johnson, “Let’s Make a Deal: Develop-
ment and Validation of the Ex Post I-Deals Scale,” Journal of Manage-
ment, March 2013, 709–742.
103. “Working at RSM: Culture of Flexibility,” https://rsmus.com/careers/work-
ing-at-rsm/culture-of-flexibility.html (accessed March 26, 2019); and T.
Hopke, “Go Ahead, Take a Few Months Off,” HRMagazine, September
2010, 71–74.
104. P. M. Bal, “Why Do Employees Negotiate Idiosyncratic Deals? An Explo-
ration of the Process of I-deal Negotiation,” New Zealand Journal of
Employment Relations, January 2018, 2–18; and C. Liao, S. J. Wayne,
and D.M. Rousseau, “Idiosyncratic Deals in Contemporary Organiza-
tions: A Qualitative and Meta-Analytical Review,” Journal of Organiza-
tional Behavior, February 2016, S9–S29.
105. See “Our Fulfillment Centers,” Aboutamazon.com, https://www.about-
amazon.com/amazon-fulfillment/our-fulfillment-centers (accessed
March 20, 2019); and “Amazon’s Fulfillment Network,” Aboutamazon.
com, https://www.aboutamazon.com/working-at-amazon/amazons-
fulfillment-network (accessed April 2, 2019).
67. M. Di Nunzio, “Strike by CSO Musicians Leads to Concert Cancellations
Through March 16,” Chicago Sun Times, March 12, 2019, https://chi-
cago.suntimes.com/news/strike-by-cso-musicians-leads-to-concert-
cancelations-riccardo-muti-symphony-center/.
68. E. Bachman, “Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is: Tying Executives’
Bonuses to Diversity Initiatives,” Forbes, June 7, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/sites/ericbachman/2018/06/07/put-your-money-where-
your-mouth- is- ty ing-execut ives-bonuses-to-diversi ty- in i t ia-
tives/#34a7b79f731f.
69. Payscale, 2019 Compensation Best Practices: Executive Summary,”
https://www.payscale.com/cbpr (accessed March 25, 2019); and L.
Bodell, “It’s Time to Put Performance Reviews on Notice,” Forbes, April
27, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisabodell/2018/04/27/why-
performance-reviews-are-irrelevant-today/#2709bdcc4b63.
70. S. Miller, “Employees Have High Hopes for Bonuses This Year,” Society for
Human Resource Management, January 14, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/
resourcesandtools/hr-topics/compensation/pages/employees-high-
hopes-for-bonuses.aspx.
71. Cathryn Creno, “Program Helps Students Succeed,” The Arizona
Republic, November 27, 2012, https://www. pressreader.com/usa/the-
arizona-republic/20121127/281702612007686.
72. G. H. Seijts and G. P. Latham, “Knowing When to Set Learning versus
Performance Goals,” Organizational Dynamics, 2012, 1–6.
73. See E. A. Locke and G. P. Latham, “Building a Practically Useful Theory
of Goal Setting and Task Motivation,” American Psychologist, Septem-
ber 2002, 705–717.
74. S. Shellenbarger, “The Downside of Carrying the Most Weight at Work,”
The Wall Street Journal, January 29, 2019, https://www.wsj.com/
articles/the-downsides-of- carrying-the-most-weight-at-work-
11548776660?mod=searchresults&page=3&pos=3.
75. “Statistics & Facts about the Volkswagen Diesel Scandal,” https://www.
statista.com/topics/3253/volkswagen-diesel-scandal-us-focus/
(accessed March 25, 2019).
76. J. Ewing, A. Stevenson, and M. Goldstein, “Ex-VW Chief Knew of Diesel
Scheme Years Earlier Than He Admitted, S.E.C. Says,” The New York
Times, March 15, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/15/busi-
ness/volkswagen- winterkorn-sec-fraud.html; and “VW Fights Investors
as Diesel-Scandal Cost Could Top $35 Billion,” Fortune, September 8,
2018, http://fortune.com/2018/09/08/volkswagen-vw- diesel-
scandal/.
77. T. Ballard, J. B. Vancouver, and A. Neal, “On the Pursuit of Multiple Goals
with Different Deadlines,” Journal of Applied Psychology, November
2018, 1242–1264.
78. A. Kelso, “KFC Announces Major Plastics Pledge, Achievement of Anti-
biotics Goal,” Forbes, January 24, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
aliciakelso/2019/01/24/kfc-announces-major-plastics-pledge-
achievement-of- antibiotics-goal/#1355d8c04b72.
79. E. Pofeldt, “Memphis’ Goal: To Grow Revenue at Minority-Owned Firms
by $50M in Five Years,” Forbes, February 20, 2019, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/elainepofeldt/2019/02/20/memphiss-goal-to-grow-revenue-
at-minority-owned-firms-by-50m-in-five-years/#7a0e0c196a68.
80. M. R. Parke, J. M. Weinhardt, A. Brodsky, S. Tangirala, and S. E. DeVoe,
“When Daily Planning Improves Employee Performance: The Impor-
tance of Planning Type, Engagement, and Interruptions,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, March 2018, 300–312.
81. John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, and Sabin C. Streeter, Gig: Americans Talk
about Their Jobs at the Turn of the Millennium, (New York: Crown Pub-
lishers, 2000).
82. For a review, see S. K. Parker, “Beyond Motivation: Job and Work
Design for Development, Health, Ambidexterity, and More,” Annual
Review of Psychology, 2014, 661–691.
83. A review of these approaches is provided by S. Hornung, D. M. Rousseau,
J. Glaser, P. Angerer, and M. Weigl, “Beyond Top-Down and Bottom-Up
Work Redesign: Customizing Job Content through Idiosyncratic Deals,”
Journal of Organizational Behavior, February 2010, 187–215; and
G. R. Oldham and J. R. Hackman, “Not What It Was and Not What It Will
Be: The Future of Job Design,” Journal of Organizational Behavior,
February 2010, 463–479.
84. George De Albert Babcock, and Reginald Trautschold, The Taylor Sys-
tem in Franklin Management (New York: The Engineering Magazine
Company, 1917).
85. See the related discussion in S. Wagner-Tsukamoto, “An Institutional
Economic Reconstruction of Scientific Management: On the Lost Theo-
retical Logic of Taylorism,” Academy of Management Review, January
2007, 105–117; and P. R. Lawrence, “The Key Job Design Problem Is
Still Taylorism,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, February 2010,
412–421.
86. This type of program was developed and tested by M. A. Campion
and C. L. McClelland, “Follow-Up and Extension of the Interdisciplin-
ary Costs and Benefits of Enlarged Jobs,” Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy, June 1993, 339–351.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN14 CHAPTER NOTES
125. See N. Bomey and K. Tyko, “Sears Store Closing List: 142 More Sears,
Kmart Locations Closing in Chapter 11 Bankruptcy,” USA Today,
October 15, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/10/
15/sears-holdings-bankruptcy-store-closures/1645971002/; and L.
Zumbach, “Sears Slashed More Than 50,000 Jobs Last Year,” Chicago
Tribune, March 23, 2018, https://www.chicagotribune.com/business/
ct-biz-sears-employee-cuts-store-closures-0324-story.html.
126. R. Beals, “Bankrupt Sears Can Give $25.3 Million in Bonuses to Top
Employees, Court Says,” MarketWatch, December 15, 2018, https://
www.marketwatch.com/story/bankrupt-sears-can-give-253-million-in-
bonuses-to-top-employees-court-says-2018-12-15.
127. M. Segarra, “How Companies Like Toys R Us Get Approval to Pay Exec-
utive Bonuses During Bankruptcy,” Marketplace, April 10, 2018, https://
www.marketplace.org/2018/04/10/business/how-companies-toys-r-us-
get-approval-pay-executive-bonuses-during-bankruptcy.
128. R. Beals, “Bankrupt Sears Can Give $25.3 Million in Bonuses to Top
Employees, Court Says,” MarketWatch, December 15, 2018, https://
www.marketwatch.com/story/bankrupt-sears-can-give-253-million-in-
bonuses-to-top-employees-court-says-2018-12-15.
129. David Dayen, “Sears Adds Further Insult to Its Workers–Bankruptcy
Bonuses for Execs,” The American Prospect, December 17, 2018,
https://prospect.org/article/sears-adds-further-insult-its-workers-
bankruptcy-bonuses-execs.
130. Mike Spector, and Tom McGinty, “The CEO Bankruptcy Bonus,” The
Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2012. https://www.wsj.com/articles/
SB10001424053111903703604576584480750545602.
CHAPTER 6
1. J. Stone, “5 Tips for Being Productive, Not Busy,” SHRM.org, January
10, 2019, https://blog.shrm.org/blog/5-tips-for-being-productive-not-
busy.
2. T. Bradberry, “11 Things Ultra-Productive People Do Differently,”
Forbes , May 13, 2015, http:/ /www.forbes.com/sites/
travisbradberry/2015/05/13/11-things-ultra- productive-people-do-
differently/print/. See also T. Bradberry, “Want to Be More Productive?
Never Touch Things Twice,” LinkedIn, October 14, 2015, https://www.
linkedin.com/pulse/productivity-hacks-want-more- productive-never-
touch-things-bradberry.
3. J. Rampton, “15 Ways to Increase Your Productivity at Work,” Inc.com,
February 4, 2015, http://www.inc.com/john-rampton/15-ways-to-
increase-productivity-at-work.html.
4. J. Stone, “5 Tips for Being Productive, Not Busy,” SHRM.org, January 10,
2019, https://blog.shrm.org/blog/5-tips-for-being-productive-not-busy.
5. Adapted from J. Stone, “5 Tips for Being Productive, Not Busy,” SHRM.
org, January 10, 2019, https://blog.shrm.org/blog/5-tips-for-being-
productive-not-busy.
6. Adapted from A. J. Kinicki, K. J. L. Jacobson, S. J. Peterson, and G. E.
Prussia, “Development and Validation of the Performance Management
Behavior Questionnaire,” Personnel Psychology, 2013, 1–45.
7. D. Schleicher, H. M. Baumann, D. W. Sullivan, P. E. Levy, D. C. Hargrove,
and B. A Barros-Rivera, “Putting the System into Performance Manage-
ment Systems: A Review and Agenda for Performance management
Research,” Journal of Management, 2018, 44, 2209–2245.
8. E. D. Pulakos, R. Mueller-Hanson, and S. Arad, “The Evolution of Perfor-
mance Management: Searching for Value,” Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior,” Annual Reviews, 2019,
6, 249–271.
9. E. D. Pulakos, R. Mueller-Hanson, and S. Arad, “The Evolution of Perfor-
mance Management: Searching for Value,” Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior,” Annual Reviews, 2019,
6, 249–271.
10. C. Groscurth, “Great Managers Can Fix Broken Performance Manage-
ment Systems,” Gallup Business Journal, June 14, 2015, http://www.
gallup.com/businessjournal/183770/great-managers-fix-broken-
performance- management-systems.aspx.
11. D. Schleicher, H. M. Baumann, D. W. Sullivan, P. E. Levy, D. C. Hargrove,
and B. A Barros-Rivera, “Putting the System into Performance Manage-
ment Systems: A Review and Agenda for Performance management
Research,” Journal of Management, 2018, 44, 2209–2245.
12. D. Schleicher, H. M. Baumann, D. W. Sullivan, P. E. Levy, D. C. Hargrove,
and B. A Barros-Rivera, “Putting the System into Performance Manage-
ment Systems: A Review and Agenda for Performance management
Research,” Journal of Management, 2018, 44, 2209–2245.
13. M. Yate, “Your Career Q&A: Defensive and Offensive Tactics for Career
Success,” SHRM.com, January 2, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourc-
esandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/
pages/your-career-qa- defensive-and-offensive-career-tactics.aspx.
14. B. Wigert and J. Harter, “Re-Engineering Performance Management,”
Gallup, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238064/
re-engineering-performance- management.aspx.
106. See E. Feinberg, “How Amazon Is Investing in Customer Experience by
Reimagining Retail Delivery,” Forbes, January 4, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/sites/forbescommunicationscouncil/2018/01/04/how-
amazon-is-investing-in-customer-experience-by-reimagining-retail-
delivery/#5c78fd7f2c2e; and B. Morgan, “Costco Takes Top Spot In
Online Customer Satisfaction over Amazon,” Forbes, February 27,
2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/02/27/
costco-takes-top-spot- in-onl ine-customer-satisfaction-over-
amazon/#1290d33949a7.
107. See L. Feiner, “Amazon Is the Most Valuable Public Company in the
World after Passing Microsoft,” CNBC, January 7, 2019, https://www.
cnbc.com/2019/01/07/amazon-passes-microsoft-market-value-
becomes-largest.html; and A. Levy, “The 7 Largest E-Commerce Com-
panies in the World,” The Motley Fool, December 26, 2018, https://
www.fool.com/investing/2018/12/26/the-7-largest-e-commerce-
companies-in-the-world.aspx.
108. S. Liao, “Amazon Warehouse Workers Skip Bathroom Breaks to Keep
Their Jobs, Says Report,” The Verge, April 16, 2018, https://www.thev-
erge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse-jobs-worker-
conditions-bathroom-breaks.
109. A. Semuels, “What Amazon Does to Poor Cities,” The Atlantic, February
1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/ business/archive/2018/02/
amazon-warehouses-poor-cities/552020/.
110. N. Godlewski, “Amazon Working Conditions: Urinating in Trash Cans,
Shamed to Work Injured, List of Employee Complaints,” Newsweek,
September 12, 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/amazon-drivers-
warehouse- conditions-workers-complains-jeff-bezos-bernie-
1118849.
111. C. Lieber, “Bernie Sanders Called Out Jeff Bezos for Poor Treatment of
Amazon Workers. In a Rare Move, the Company Fired Back,” Vox,
August 30, 2018, https://www.vox.com/2018/8/30/17797786/amazon-
warehouse- conditions-bernie-sanders.
112. S. Liao, “Amazon Warehouse Workers Skip Bathroom Breaks to Keep
Their Jobs, Says Report,” The Verge, April 16, 2018, https://www.
theverge.com/2018/4/16/17243026/amazon-warehouse-jobs-worker-
conditions-bathroom-breaks.
113. E. Fox, “Amazon Reportedly Has Scoreboards to Shame Its Workers,”
Vanity Fair, March 8, 2016, https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2016/03/
amazon-warehouse-theft.
114. I. A. Hamilton and Á. Cain, “Amazon Warehouse Employees Speak Out
about the ‘Brutal’ Reality of Working during the Holidays, When 60-Hour
Weeks Are Mandatory and Ambulance Calls Are Common,” Business
Insider, February 19, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-
employees-describe-peak-2019-2.
115. A. Semuels, “What Amazon Does to Poor Cities,” The Atlantic, February
1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/
amazon-warehouses-poor- cities/552020/.
116. Alana Semuels, “What Amazon Does to Poor Cities,” The Atlantic
Monthly Group, February 1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/
archive/2018/02/amazon-warehouses-poor-cities/552020/.
117. I. A. Hamilton and Á. Cain, “Amazon Warehouse Employees Speak Out
about the ‘Brutal’ Reality of Working during the Holidays, When 60-Hour
Weeks Are Mandatory and Ambulance Calls Are Common,” Business
Insider, February 19, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-
employees-describe-peak-2019-2.
118. Alana Semuels, “What Amazon Does to Poor Cities,” The Atlantic
Monthly Group, February 1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/
archive/2018/02/amazon-warehouses-poor-cities/552020/.
119. I. A. Hamilton and Á. Cain, “Amazon Warehouse Employees Speak Out
about the ‘Brutal’ Reality of Working during the Holidays, When 60-Hour
Weeks Are Mandatory and Ambulance Calls Are Common,” Business
Insider, February 19, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-
employees-describe-peak-2019-2.
120. A. Bhattarai, “Amazon Is Doling Out Raises of as Little as 25 Cents an
Hour in What Employees Call ‘Damage Control,’” The Washington Post,
September 24, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
business/2018/09/24/it-feels-like-damage-control-amazon-warehouse-
workers-say- company-is-quietly-doling-out-small-raises/?noredirect=
on&utm_term=.57415d467603.
121. K. Weise, “Some Amazon Workers Are Fuming About Their Raise,” The
New York Times, October 9, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/10/09/technology/amazon-workers-pay-raise.html.
122. Alana Semuels, “What Amazon Does to Poor Cities,” The Atlantic
Monthly Group, February 1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/busi-
ness/archive/2018/02/amazon-warehouses-poor-cities/552020/.
123. A. Semuels, “What Amazon Does to Poor Cities,” The Atlantic, February
1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/
amazon-warehouses-poor- cities/552020/.
124. A. Semuels, “What Amazon Does to Poor Cities,” The Atlantic, February
1, 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/02/
amazon-warehouses-poor- cities/552020/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN15CHAPTER NOTES
38. L. Katz, “Monitoring Employee Productivity: Proceed with Caution,”
SHRM, June 1, 2015, https://www.shrm.org/publications/hrmagazine/
editorialcontent/2015/0615/pages/0615-employee-monitoring.aspx.
39. M. Schlanenstein, “UPS Crunches Data to Make Routes More Efficient,
Save Gas,” Bloomberg Businessweek, October 30, 2013, http://www.
bloomberg.com/news/ articles/2013-10-30/ups-uses-big-data-to-make-
routes-more-efficient-save-gas.
40. D. L. Tomczak, L. A. Lanzo, and H. Aguinis, “Evidence-based Recom-
mendations for Employee Performance Monitoring,” Business Horizons,
2018, 61, 251–259.
41. L. Katz, “Monitoring Employee Productivity: Proceed with Caution,”
SHRM, June 1, 2015, https://www.shrm.org/ publications/hrmagazine/
editorialcontent/2015/0615/pages/0615-employee-monitoring.aspx.
42. D. L. Tomczak, L. A. Lanzo, and H. Aguinis, “Evidence-based Recom-
mendations for Employee Performance Monitoring,” Business Horizons,
2018, 61, 251–259.
43. C. E. Thiel, A. E. MacDougall, and Z. Bagdasarov, “Big (Benevolent)
Brother: Overcoming the Drawbacks of Employee Monitoring Through
Ethical Administration,” Organizational Dynamics, 2018.
44. Tribune Media, “March Madness Could Cost Employers $4 Billion in Pro-
ductivity,” WGNO.com, March 14, 2018, https://wgno.com/2018/03/14/
march-madness-could-cost-employers-4-billion-in-productivity/.
45. M. Dewhurst, M. Guthridge, and E. Mohr, “Motivating People: Getting
Beyond Money,” McKinsey Quarterly, November 2009, 2; K. Shaw,
“GPS Tracking of Employee Devices: How Much Is Too Much?” OnLabor.
org, May 8, 2017, https://onlabor.org/gps-tracking-of-employee-
devices-how-much-is-too-much/.
46. Adapted from D. L. Tomczak, L. A. Lanzo, and H. Aguinis, “Evidence-
based Recommendations for Employee Performance Monitoring,” Busi-
ness Horizons, 2018, 61, 251–259.
47. E. D. Pulakos, R. Mueller-Hanson, and S. Arad, “The Evolution of Performance
Management: Searching for Value” (Annual Review of Organizational Psy-
chology and Organizational Behavior), Annual Reviews, 2019, 6, 249–271.
48. A. Bryant, “He’s Not Bill Gates, or Fred Astaire,” The New York Times,
February 14, 2010.
49. J. Zenger and J. Folkman, “We Like Leaders Who Underrate Them-
selves,” Harvard Business Review, November 10, 2015, https://hbr.org/
2015/11/we-like-leaders-who- underrate-themselves.
50. B. Wigert and J. Harter, “Re-Engineering Performance Management,”
Gallup, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238064/
re-engineering-performance- management.aspx.
51. Christopher D. Lee, “Management Tools,” SHRM, November 01, 2006,
h t tps : / /www.shrm.org/hr - today/news/hr -magaz ine/pages/
1106managementtools.aspx.
52. Anne D’innocenzio, and Rachel Beck, “Wal-Mart CEO Talks Leadership,
Life,” Associated Press, February 6, 2011.
53. V. Lipman, “65% of Employees Want More Feedback (So Why Don’t
They Get It?),” Forbes.com, August 8, 2016, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/victorlipman/2016/08/08/65-of-employees-want-more-feedback-
so-why-dont-they-get-it/#5d992f2c914a.
54. B. Huisman, N. Saab, J. Van Driel, and P. Van den Broek, “Peer Feed-
back on Academic Writing: Undergraduate Students’ Peer Feedback
Role, Peer Feedback Perceptions, and Essay Performance,” Assess-
ment & Evaluation in Higher Education, 2018, 43, 955–968.
55. Interview with Zappos employee Lori Johnson on April 17, 2019.
56. S. Heathfield, “Find Out How Zappos Reinforces Its Company Culture,”
TheBalanceCareers.com, September 21, 2018, https://www.
thebalancecareers.com/zappos-company-culture-1918813.
57. E. D. Pulakos, Performance Management: A New Approach for Driving
Business Results (West Sussex, UK: Wiley- Blackwell, 2009), 15; and
interview with Zappos employee Lori Johnson on April 17, 2019.
58. E. D. Pulakos, Performance Management: A New Approach for Driving
Business Results (West Sussex, UK: Wiley- Blackwell, 2009), 15; and
interview with Zappos employee Lori Johnson on April 17, 2019.
59. For complete details, see P. M. Podsakoff and J.-L. Farh, “Effects of Feed-
back Sign and Credibility on Goal Setting and Task Performance,” Organi-
zational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, August 1989, 45–67.
60. S. Berinato, “Negative Feedback Rarely Leads to Improvement,” Har-
vard Business Review, January–February, 2018, 1–3.
61. Adapted from T. Eurich, “The Right Way to Respond to Negative Feed-
back,” Harvard Business Review, May 31, 2018, https://hbr.
org/2018/05/the-right-way-to-respond-to-negative-feedback.
62. Adapted from J. Miller, “Four Steps to Giving Effective Feedback at
Work,” Forbes.com, October 25, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2018/10/25/four-steps-to-giving-
effective-feedback-at-work/#15cb517368ec.
63. These disadvantages are based on N. R. F. Maier, “Assets and Liabilities
in Group Problem Solving: The Need for an Integrative Function,” Psy-
chological Review, July 1967, 239–249; and C. R. Sunstein and R. Has-
tie, “The New Science of Group Decision Making,” Harvard Business
Review, December 2014, 91–98.
15. W. F. Cascio, “Global Performance Management Systems,” in I. Bjork-
man and G. Stahl, eds., Handbook of Research in International Human
Resources Management (London, UK: Edward Elgar Ltd., 2006), 176–
196. See also E. D. Pulakos, Performance Management: A New
Approach for Driving Business Results (West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Black-
well, 2009).
16. J. Light, “Human Resource Executives Say Reviews Are Off Mark,” The
Wall Street Journal, November 7, 2010.
17. Adapted from B. Wigert and J. Harter, “Re-Engineering Performance
Management,” Gallup, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/work-
place/238064/re-engineering-performance-management.aspx.
18. B. Wigert and A. Mann, “Give Performance Reviews that Actually Inspire
Employees,” Gallup, September 25, 2017, https://www.gallup.com/
workplace/236135/give-performance-reviews-actually-inspire-employees.
aspx.
19. E. Bank, “Reinventing Performance Management at Deloitte,” Talent
Development, January 13, 2015, https://www.td.org/Publications/
Blogs/Learning-Executive-Blog/2016/01/ Reinventing-Performance-
Management-at-Deloitte.
20. M. Buckingham and A. Goodall, “Reinventing Performance Manage-
ment,” Harvard Business Review, April 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/04/
reinventing-performance-management.
21. E. Bank, “Reinventing Performance Management at Deloitte,” Talent
Development, January 13, 2015, https://www.td.org/Publications/
Blogs/Learning-Executive-Blog/2016/01/Reinventing-Performance-
Management-at-Deloitte.
22. E. Bank, “Reinventing Performance Management at Deloitte,” Talent
Development, January 13, 2015, https://www.td.org/Publications/
Blogs/Learning-Executive-Blog/2016/01/Reinventing-Performance-
Management-at-Deloitte.
23. K. Fenty, “Employee Performance Management Needs a Promotion,”
Forrester Research Group, February 2018, https://www.workday.com/
en-us/forms/reports/employee-performance-management-needs-a-
promotion.html.
24. K. Fenty, “Employee Performance Management Needs a Promotion,”
Forrester Research Group, February 2018, https://www.workday.com/
en-us/forms/reports/employee-performance-management-needs-a-
promotion.html; B. Wigert and J. Harter, “Re-Engineering Performance
Management,” Gallup, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/work-
place/238064/re-engineering-performance-management.aspx.
25. P. Cappelli and A. Tavis, “HR Goes Agile,” Harvard Business Review,
March-April 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/03/the-new-rules-of-talent-man-
agement.
26. C. Groscurth, “Managers Could Do a Lot Better at Performance Man-
agement,” Gallup Business Journal, June 30, 2015, http://www.gallup.
com/businessjournal/183821/managers-lot-better-performance-
management.aspx.
27. National Center for Education Statistics, https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/
display.asp?id=40.
28. D. Morisano, J. B. Hirsh, J. B. Peterson, R. O. Pihl, and B. M. Shore, “Set-
ting, Elaborating, and Reflecting on Personal Goals Improves Academic
Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, March 2010, 255.
29. S. Bhargava and H. Pradhan, “Effect of Goal Orientation on Job Perfor-
mance,” Journal of Management Research,” April–June 2018, 90–101.
30. W. Craig, “Why Communicating Company Goals is Key for Employee
Growth,” Forbes.com, August 14, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
williamcraig/2018/08/14/why- communicating-company-goals-is-key-
for-employee-growth/#1d31c0063b85.
31. From E. D. Pulakos, R. A. Mueller-Hanson, R. S. O’Leary, and M. M. Mey-
rowitz, “Building a High-Performance Culture: A Fresh Look at Perfor-
mance Management,” SHRM Foundations Effective Practice Guidelines
Series, July 24, 2012, 9.
32. T. Sitzmann and S. K. Johnson, “The Best Laid Plans: Examining the Con-
dition under Which a Planning Intervention Improves Learning and
Reduces Attrition,” Journal of Applied Psychology, September 2012,
967–981.
33. Adapted from C. Downing, N. Capriola, and S. Greller, “Preventing Credit
Card Fraud: A Goal-Setting and Prompting Intervention to Increase
Cashiers’ ID-Checking Behavior,” Journal of Organizational Behavior
Management, 2018, 38, 335–344.
34. Adapted from, “Total Rewards Model,” WorldatWork, 2015, https://www.
worldatwork.org/aboutus/html/aboutus-whatis.jsp.
35. E. R. Shell, “The Employer-Surveillance State,” The Atlantic, October 15,
2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2018/10/
employee-surveillance/568159/.
36. D. L. Tomczak, L. A. Lanzo, and H. Aguinis, “Evidence-based Recom-
mendations for Employee Performance Monitoring,” Business Horizons,
2018, 61, 251–259.
37. L. Katz, “Monitoring Employee Productivity: Proceed with Caution,”
SHRM, June 1, 2015, https://www.shrm.org/ publications/hrmagazine/
editorialcontent/2015/0615/pages/0615-employee-monitoring.aspx
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN16 CHAPTER NOTES
88. P. Gooderman, M. Fenton-O’Creevy, R. Croucher, and M. Brookes, “A
Multilevel Analysis of the Use of Individual Pay-for-Performance Sys-
tems,” Journal of Management, April 2018, 1479–1504.
89. J. Han, K. Bartol, and S. Kim, “Tightening Up the Pay-for-Performance
Linkage: Roles of Contingent Reward Leadership and Profit-Sharing in
the Cross-Level Influence of Individual Pay-for-Performance,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, 2015, 417–430.
90. “Variable Pay Trends into 2018: Who Gets It, What Types and Why?” Pay-
scale.com, April 30, 2018, https://www. payscale.com/compensation-
today/2018/04/variable-pay-trends.
91. A. J. Nyberg, M. A. Maltarich, D. Abdusalam, S. M. Essman, and O. Cra-
gun, “Collective Pay for Performance: A Cross-Disciplinary Review and
Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Management, 2018, 44, 2433–2472.
92. “Variable Pay Trends into 2018: Who Gets It, What Types and Why?”
Payscale.com, April 30, 2018, https://www. payscale.com/compensation-
today/2018/04/variable-pay-trends.
93. “Variable Pay Trends into 2018: Who Gets It, What Types and Why?”
Payscale.com, April 30, 2018, https://www. payscale.com/compensa-
tion-today/2018/04/variable-pay-trends.
94. L. Brunelli, “What Is a Per-Piece Pay Rate or Piecework?” TheBalanceC-
areers.com, September 9, 2018, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/
what-is-per-piece-work-3542479.
95. S. Strauss, “Get Your Gig: Here Are the 9 Best Sites to Visit for Free-
lance or Contract Work,” USAToday.com, July 12, 2018, https://www.
usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/strauss/2018/07/12/strauss-col-
umn-gig-economy/773914002/.
96. S. Rossman, “Girl Scout Cookies Sales Start Today, The Popular Cookie
Is . . .”, USAToday.com, January 3, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/
story/news/nation-now/2018/01/03/girl-scout-cookie-sales-start-today-
best-selling-cookie/1000299001/.
97. Forbes Business Development Council, “Nine Commission Structures
That Will Keep Your Sales Team Motivated,” Forbes.com, August 1,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelopmentcoun-
cil/2018/08/01/nine- commission-structures-that-will-keep-your-sales-
team- motivated/#671b7dda4cd8.
98. Forbes Media LLC, “Nine Commission Structures That Will Keep Your Sales
Team Motivated,” https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinessdevelop-
mentcouncil/2018/08/01/nine-commission-structures-that-will-keep-your-
sales-team-motivated/#671b7dda4cd8 (accessed June 14, 2019).
99. K. Maas, “Do Corporate Social Performance Targets in Executive Com-
pensation Contribute to Corporate Social Performance?” Journal of Busi-
ness Ethics, 2018, 148, 573–585.
100. Adapted from S. Miller, “Study: Keys to Effective Performance Pay,” Soci-
ety for Human Resource Management, December 15, 2010.
101. E. D. Pulakos, R. Mueller-Hanson, and S. Arad, “The Evolution of Perfor-
mance Management: Searching for Value” (Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior), Annual Reviews, 2019,
6, 249–271.
102. See E. L. Thorndike, Educational Psychology: The Psychology of Learn-
ing, Vol. II (New York: Columbia University Teachers College, 1913).
103. See B. F. Skinner, The Behavior of Organisms (New York: Appleton-
Century-Crofts, 1938).
104. G. C. Hazan and D. Mattioli, “BP Links Pay to Safety in Fourth Quarter,”
The Wall Street Journal, October 19, 2010.
105. W. Neuman, “Flights at JFK Sit on Tarmac for Hours,” The New York
Times, December 29, 2010.
106. D. Gilbertson, “Allegiant Air Fined $225,000 for Keeping Planes Too Hot
During Tarmac Delays,” USAToday.com, October 5, 2018, https://www.
usatoday.com/story/travel/flights/todayinthesky/2018/10/05/allegiant-
fined-225-k-dot-hot-planes-during-tarmac-delays/1534101002/.
107. R. Channick, “Study: Rule to Prevent Tarmac Delays Backfires for Airline
Passengers,” ChicagoTribune.com, January 5, 2016, https://www.chicago-
tribune.com/ business/ct-tarmac-delays-0105-biz-20160104-story.html.
108. Kaiser Family Foundation, “2018 Employer Health Benefits Survey,”
KFF.org, October 3, 2018, https://www.kff.org/report-section/2018-
employer-health-benefits-survey- summary-of-findings/.
109. B. C. Skaggs, C. C. Manz, M. C. B. Lyle, and C. L. Pearce, “On the Folly of
Punishing A While Hoping for A: Exploring Punishment in Organiza-
tions,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, March 2018, 812–815.
110. S. Jayachandran, “Lottery-Like Prizes Coax Savings. What’s the Risk in
Expanding Them?” The New York Times, December 21, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/business/lotteries-savings-accounts.html.
111. S. Jayachandran, “Lottery-Like Prizes Coax Savings. What’s the Risk in
Expanding Them?” The New York Times, December 21, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/12/21/business/lotteries-savings-accounts.html.
112. M. Egan, “The Two-Year Wells Fargo Horror Story Just Won’t End,” Mon-
eyCNN.com, September 7, 2018, https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/07/
news/companies/wells-fargo- scandal-two-years/index.html.
113. S. Cowley and J. A. Kingson, “Wells Fargo to Claw Back $75 Million
from Two Former Executives,” The New York Times, April 10, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/ business/wells-fargo-pay-
executives-accounts-scandal.html.
64. For a comprehensive collection of articles and research related to feed-
back, see “Guide to Giving Effective Feedback,” Harvard Business
Review, February 9, 2011.
65. S. Denning, “The Netflix Pressure-Cooker: A Culture that Drives Perfor-
mance,” Forbes.com, October 26, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
stephaniedenning/2018/10/26/the-netflix-pressure-cooker-a-culture-
that-drives-performance/#2275a16a151a.
66. B. Wigert and J. Harter, “Re-Engineering Performance Management,”
Gallup, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/workplace/238064/
re-engineering-performance- management.aspx.
67. A. Reitman and S. Benatti, “Mentoring versus Coaching: What’s the Dif-
ference,” Training and Development, August 8, 2014, https://www.
td.org/Publications/Blogs/Human-Capital-Blog/2014/08/Mentoring-
Versus-Coaching-Whats-the-Difference.
68. Mark Wayland, “Providing Positive Feedback to Your Sales Stars,” Asso-
ciation for Talent Development (ATD), August 17, 2012, https://www.
td.org/insights/effective-coaching-connections.
69. B. Wigert and J. Harter, “Re-Engineering Performance Management,”
Gallup, 2018, https://www.gallup.com/ workplace/238064/
re-engineering-performance- management.aspx.
70. A. Konrad, “This VC Firm is Gifting Founders 1% of Every Dollar Invested
to Spend on Coaching and Mental Health,” Forbes.com, September 10,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alexkonrad/2018/09/10/vc-firm-
pledges-1-percent-to-founder-health/#701a63572ec1.
71. Adapted from B. Wigert and J. Harter, “Re-Engineering Performance
Management,” Gallup, 2018, https://www. gallup.com/work-
place/238064/re-engineering- performance-management.aspx.
72. “Coaching in a Business Environment,” SHRM Templates, March 21, 2013.
73. I. Fulmer and W. Walker, “More Bang for the Buck? Personality Traits as
Moderators of Responsiveness to Pay-for-Performance,” Human Perfor-
mance, 2015, 40–65.
74. A. Goodnough, “Kaiser Permanente’s New Medical School Will Waive
Tuition for Its First 5 Classes,” The New York Times, February 19, 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/19/health/kaiser-medical-school-
free-.html.
75. J. Del Rey, “Andreesen Horowitz Schools You on Your Phony Startup
Metrics,” Re/code, August 22, 2015, http:// recode.net/2015/08/22/
andreessen-horowitz-schools-you-on-your-phony-startup-metrics/; see
also “16 Startup Metrics,” Andreesen Horowitz, http://a16z.
com/2015/08/21/16-metrics/; L. Gannes. “Andreessen and Mixpanel
Call for an End to ‘Bullshit Metrics,’” All Things D, December 17, 2012,
http://allthingsd.com/20121217/andreessen-and-mixpanel-call-for-an-
end-to-bullshit- metrics/, accessed April 12, 2013.
76. Adapted from B. McKay, “The Six Most Effective Social Media Metrics to
Understand Your Campaign’s Success,” Forbes.com, July 14, 2018,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/07/14/the-
six-most-effective-social-media-metrics-to-understand-your-campaigns-
success/#2b2b8d9c64cb.
77. L. Gannes, “Andreessen and Mixpanel Call for an End to ‘Bullshit Met-
rics,’” All Things D, December 17, 2012, http://allthingsd.
com/20121217/andreessen-and-mixpanel-call-for-an-end-to-bullshit-
metrics/ (accessed April 12, 2013).
78. Convenience Store News, “QuikTrip Makes Inaugural List of Best Millennial
Workplaces,” http://www.csnews.com/industry-news-and-trends/ corporate-
store-operations/quiktrip-makes-inaugural-list-best-millennial-workplaces
(accessed June 14, 2019).
79. C. Weaver, “Treatment Woes Can Bolster Hospital’s Profit,” The Wall
Street Journal, April 16, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142
4127887324345804578426693303833964.
80. D. Agarwal, J. Bersin, and G. Lahiri, “New Rewards: Personalized, Agile,
and Holistic,” Deloitte Insights, March 28, 2018, https://www2.deloitte.
com/insights/us/en/focus/human-capital-trends/2018/personalized-
incentives-talent-management-strategies.html.
81. © 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate.
82. M. C. Bush and S. Lewis-Kulin, “100 Best Companies to Work For
2018,” Fortune, March 1, 2018, 53–78; M. Bush and C. Tkaczyk, “100
Best Companies to Work for 2019,” Fortune, March 1, 2019, 57–80.
83. “How We Do It: Performance Management Tips from the Top,” McKin-
sey Quarterly, 2018, 2, 52–59.
84. Hilcorp company website, Hilcorp.com.
85. “Taking Aim with Talent How to Lead a People-First Company,” McKinsey
Quarterly, no. 2 (2018): 52–59, https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/
McKinsey/ McKinsey%20 Quarterly/Digital%20Newsstand/2018%20
Issues%20McKinsey%20Quarterly/Q2-2018_McK- Quarterly-Full-
Issue.ashx.
86. A. Colquitt, “A Pleasant Death of Performance-Based Pay,” Administra-
tion, August 31, 2015, http://www.hrps.org/blogpost/1297410/225487/
A-Pleasant-Death-of- Performance-Based-Pay.
87. Adapted from J. Carpenter, “Millions Spent on Incentives Failed to Get
Better Teachers in High-Need HISD Schools,” Houston Chronicle,
December 7, 2018, https://www. houstonchronicle.com/news/education/
article/Millions-spent-on-incentives-failed-to-get-better-13450913.php.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN17CHAPTER NOTES
16. See P. M. Gollwitzer, “Implementation Intentions,” American Psycholo-
gist, July 1999, 493–503.
17. See S. Pinker, “Mind & Matter: An Attitude of Gratitude Brings Better
Health,” The Wall Street Journal, December 19–20, 2015, C2.
18. Research on generosity is discussed by S. Begley, “Stingy Brain, Gener-
ous Brain,” Mindful, August 2016, 20–22.
19. E. Bernstein, “An Emotion We Need More Of,” The Wall Street Journal,
March 22, 2016.
20. See E. Bernstein, “An Emotion We Need More Of,” The Wall Street Jour-
nal, March 22, 2016, D1, D4.
21. See R. Hanson and R. Mendius, Buddha’s Brain (Oakland, CA: New Har-
binger Publications, 2009).
22. G. Spreitzer and C. Porath, “Creating Sustained Performance,” Harvard
Business Review, January–February 2012, 3–9.
23. Adapted from G. Spreitzer and C. Porath, “Creating Sustained Perfor-
mance,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2012, 3–9.
24. E. Fry and M. Heimer, “Change the World,” Fortune, September 2018,
60–78.
25. A. Bryant, “Three Good Hires? He’ll Pay More for One Who’s Great,”
The New York Times, March 13, 2010, http://www.nytimes.com/
2010/03/14/business/14corners.html? pagewanted=all&_r=0, accessed
April 1, 2013.
26. K. Gurchiek, “Chief Relaxation Officer, Fairy Godmother: Job Titles Get
Creative,” SHRM.org, March 29, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/
news/hr-news/pages/chief-relaxation-officer-fairy-godmother-job-titles-
get-creative.aspx.
27. A. Hirsch, “Doing Well by Doing Good,” SHRM.org, January 5, 2019,
https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/Pages/Doing-Well-
by-Doing-Good.aspx.
28. M. Heimer, “Doing Well by Doing Good: 5 Stocks to Buy for 2019, Yahoo
Finance, December 5, 2018, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/doing-
well-doing-good-5-135901765.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=ma.
29. Walmart.com, https://corporate.walmart.com/2016grr/enhancing-sustain-
ability/moving-toward-a-zero-waste-future (accessed January 27, 2019).
30. V. Chang, P. Kuo, and P. Wai, “Doing Well by Doing Good: Linking Access
with Quality,” The American Journal of Surgery, 2015, 457–462.
31. R. Derousseau, “Good Behavior, Heavenly Returns,” Fortune, Septem-
ber 1, 2018, 45–48.
32. R. Derousseau, “Good Behavior, Heavenly Returns,” Fortune, Septem-
ber 1, 2018, 45–48.
33. A. Sorkin, “A Fund to Feel Good About,” The New York Times, June 15,
2018, 7.
34. M. C. Bush and S. Lewis-Kulin, “100 Best Companies to Work For
2018,” Fortune, March 2018, 53–78. And M. C. Bush and C. Tkaczyk,
“100 Best Companies to Work For 2019,” Fortune, March 2019, 57–80.
35. R. Feloni, “15 Major Companies That Treat Employees Well, Value Their
Customers, and Put Their Communities First,” BusinessInsider.com,
January 30, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/best-companies-
of-2017-ranking-just-capital-2018-1.
36. Michael Blanding, “Amazon vs. Whole Foods: When Cultures Collide,”
Harvard Business School Working Knowledge, May 14, 2018, https://
hbswk.hbs.edu/item/amazon-vs-whole-foods-when-cultures-collide.
37. Barbara L. Fredrickson, Positivity (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009).
38. X. Zheng, W. Zhu, H. Zhao, and C. Zhang, “Employee Well-Being in
Organizations: Theoretical Model, Scale Development, and Cross- Cultural
Validation,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2015, 621–644.
39. S. Barsade and O. O’Neill, “Manage Your Emotional Culture,” Harvard
Business Review, January–February 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/01/
manage-your-emotional-culture.
40. O. Siu, F. Cheung, and S. Lui, “Linking Positive Emotions to Work Well-
Being and Turnover Intention among Hong Kong Police Officers: The
Role of Psychological Capital,” Journal of Happiness Studies, 2015,
367–380.
41. Barbara L. Fredrickson, Positivity (New York: Three Rivers Press, 2009).
42. D. Barnes, N. Ponder, and C. Hopkins, “The Impact of Perceived Cus-
tomer Delight on the Frontline Employee,” Journal of Business
Research, 2015, 433–441.
43. A. Knight and N. Eisenkraft, “Positive Is Usually Good, Negative Is Not
Always Bad: The Effects of Group Affect on Social Integration and Task
Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 1214–1227.
44. A. Shrira, E. Bodner, and Y. Pagli, “Positivity Ratio of Flourishing Individu-
als: Examining the Moderation Effects of Methodological Variations and
Chronological Age,” The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2016, 109–123.
45. A. Shrira, E. Bodner, and Y. Pagli, “Positivity Ratio of Flourishing Individuals:
Examining the Moderation Effects of Methodological Variations and
Chronological Age,” The Journal of Positive Psychology, 2016, 109–123.
46. See D. Goleman, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (New York:
Harper Collins, 2013).
47. John W. Michel, Michael Tews, and David Allen, “Fun in the Workplace:
A Review and Expanded Theoretical Perspective,” Human Resource
Management Review 29, no. 1 (March 2019): 98–110. https://doi.org/
10.1016/j.hrmr.2018.03.001.
114. M. Egan, “The Two-Year Wells Fargo Horror Story Just Won’t End,” Mon-
eyCNN.com, September 7, 2018, https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/07/
news/companies/wells-fargo- scandal-two-years/index.html.
115. G. Morgenson, “Wells Fargo Forced Unwanted Auto Insurance on Bor-
rowers,” The New York Times, July 27, 2017, https://www.
nytimes.com/2017/07/27/business/wells-fargo-unwanted-auto-
insurance.html.
116. E. Wolff-Mann, “Every Wells Fargo Consumer Scandal Since 2015: A
Timeline,” YahooFinance.com, August 8, 2018, https://finance.yahoo.
com/news/every-wells-fargo- consumer-scandal-since-2015-
timeline-194946222.html.
117. S. Cowley and J. A. Kingson, “Wells Fargo to Claw Back $75 Million
from Two Former Executives,” The New York Times, April 10, 2017,
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/ business/wells-fargo-pay-execu-
tives-accounts-scandal.html.
118. Elizabeth C. Tippett, “How Wells Fargo Encouraged Employees to Com-
mit Fraud,” The Conversation Media Group Ltd., October 7, 2016,
https://theconversation.com/how-wells-fargo-encouraged-employees-
to-commit-fraud-66615.
119. M. Corkery and S. Cowley, “Wells Fargo Warned Workers Against Sham
Accounts, but ‘They Needed a Paycheck,’” The New York Times, Sep-
tember 16, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/17/business/deal-
book/wells-fargo-warned-workers-against-fake-accounts-but-they-
needed-a-paycheck.html.
120. CBS This Morning, January 25, 2019.
121. R. Merle, “After Years of Apologies for Customer Abuses, Wells Fargo
CEO Tim Sloan Suddenly Steps Down,” The Washington Post, March
28, 2019, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/03/28/
we l l s - fa rgo-ceo- t im-s loan-s tep -down- immedia te ly / ?u tm_
term5.27bf62d146f8.
122. Adapated from S. Milligan, “Are Salary Histories History?” HR Magazine,
March 2018, 54–59.
CHAPTER 7
1. J. Rogers and C. Ciaccia, “NASA’s Insight Mars Lander Arrives on the
Red Planet, Ends Successful Journey,” Foxnews.com, November 26,
2018, https://www.foxnews.com/science/nasas-insight-mars-lander-set-
for-seven-minutes-of-terror-as-it-prepares-to-land-on-red-planet.
2. Adapted from E. H. Jensen, “Contagious Positivity: The Secret Weapon
of Successful Leaders,” LinkedIn, July 20, 2018, https://www.linkedin.
com/pulse/contagious-positivity-secret-weapon-successful-emil-hauch-
jensen/.
3. F. Luthans and B. J. Avolio, “The ‘Point’ of Positive Organizational
Behavior,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2009, 291–307.
4. M. Meyer, “The Evolution and Challenges of the Concept of Organiza-
tional Virtuousness in Positive Organizational Scholarship,” Journal of
Business Ethics, 153, 2018, 245–264.
5. Kim Cameron and Jane Dutton, Positive Organizational Scholarship:
Foundations of a New Discipline (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Pub-
lishers, 2003).
6. Kim Cameron and Jane Dutton, Positive Organizational Scholarship:
Foundations of a New Discipline (San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Pub-
lishers, 2003).
7. B. L. Fredrickson and T. Joiner, “Reflections on Positive Emotions and
Upward Spirals,” Perspectives on Psychological Science, March 2018,
194–199.
8. J. Halbesleben and A. Wheeler, “To Invest or Not? The Role of Coworker
Support and Trust in Daily Reciprocal Gain Spirals of Helping Behavior,”
Journal of Applied Psychology, September 2015, 1628–1650.
9. M. Meyer, “The Evolution and Challenges of the Concept of Organiza-
tional Virtuousness in Positive Organizational Scholarship,” Journal of
Business Ethics, 153, 2018, 245–264.
10. S. Koeppen, “ ‘Not Letting Each Other Quit’: Two Women Hold Hands,
Motivate One Another to Finish Pittsburgh Marathon,” Pittsburgh.
CBSlocal.com, May 7, 2019, https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2019/05/07/
marathon-finishers-hold-hands/.
11. M. Meyer, “The Evolution and Challenges of the Concept of Organiza-
tional Virtuousness in Positive Organizational Scholarship,” Journal of
Business Ethics, 153, 2018, 245–264.
12. Kim Cameron, Carlos Mora, Trevor Leutscher, and Margaret Calarco,
“Effects of Positive Practices on Organizational Effectiveness,” The Jour-
nal of Applied Behavioral Science 47, no. 3 (August 2011): 266–308.
https://DOI:10.1177/ 0021886310395514.
13. M. Meyer, “The Evolution and Challenges of the Concept of Organiza-
tional Virtuousness in Positive Organizational Scholarship,” Journal of
Business Ethics, 153, 2018, 245–264.
14. A. Whillans, “Time for Happiness,” Harvard Business Review, January
2019, https://hbr.org/cover-story/2019/01/time-for-happiness.
15. G. Spreitzer and K. Cameron, “Applying the POS Lens to Bring Out the
Best in Organizations,” Organizational Dynamics, 2012, 85–88.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN18 CHAPTER NOTES
72. S. L. Shapiro, L. E. Carlson, J. A. Astin, and B. Freedman, “Mechanisms
of Mindfulness,” Journal of Clinical Psychology, March 2006, 373–386.
73. See C. Morey-Nase, “Mind Where You Walk,” Mindful, August 2016,
72–76; and His Holiness the Dalai Lama and L. V. D. Muyzenberg, The
Leader’s Way (New York: Broadway Books, 2009).
74. See K. Kennedy, “Meditation Made Easy,” The Arizona Republic, March
7, 2016, 1d, 3d.
75. R. Bachman, “The Gym Class Where You Never, Ever Sweat,” The Wall
Street Journal, March 23, 2016, D1, D2.
76. T. Pitichat, R. Reichard, A. Kea-Edwards, E. Middleton, and S. M. Nor-
man, “Psychological Capital for Leader Development,” Journal of Lead-
ership & Organizational Studies, February 2018, 25, 47–62.
77. S. A. Davis, C. E. Fretwell, and M. Scharaeder, “Enhancing Expatriate
Success: A Psychological Capital Perspective,” Organization Develop-
ment Journal,” Summer 2018, 36, 39–48.
78. A. Newman, D. Ucbasaran, F. Zhu, and G. Hirst, “Psychological Capital:
A Review and Synthesis,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 2014,
120–138.
79. J. Ahmad, M. R. Athar, R. I. Azam, M. R. W. Hamstra, and M. Hanif, “A
Resource Perspective on Abusive Supervision and Extra-Role Behav-
iors: The Role of Subordinates’ Psychological Capital,” Journal of Lead-
ership and Organizational Studies, 2019, 26, 73–86.
80. V. E. Jancenelle, “Organizational Psychological Capital During Earnings
Conference Calls: Mitigating Shareholders’ Sell-Off in the Face of Earn-
ings Surprises,” Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies,
2018, 25, 469–480.
81. J. B. Avey, F. Luthans, and S. M. Jensen, “Psychological Capital: A Posi-
tive Resource for Combating Employee Stress and Turnover,” Human
Resource Management, September–October 2009, 677–693.
82. M. Helft, “Silicon Valley’s Stealth Power,” Fortune, February 27, 2014,
http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/27/technology/ben-horowitz.pr.fortune/.
83. Miguel Helft, “Silicon Valley’s Stealth Power,” Fortune Media IP Limited,
February 27, 2014, https://fortune.com/ 2014/02/27/silicon-valleys-
stealth-power/.
84. H. P. Madrid, M. T. Diaz, S. Leka, and P. I. Leiva, “A Finer Grained
Approach to Psychological Capital and Work Performance,” Journal of
Business Psychology, 2018, 33, 461–477.
85. K. Strauss, K. Niven, C. McClelland, and B. Cheung, “Hope and Opti-
mism in the Face of Change: Contributions to Task Adaptivity,” Journal
of Business Psychology, 2015, 733–745.
86. K. Thompson, G. Lemmon, and T. Walter, “Employee Engagement and Pos-
itive Psychological Capital,” Organizational Dynamics, 2015, 185–195.
87. J. B. Avey, F. Luthans, and S. M. Jensen, “Psychological Capital: A Posi-
tive Resource for Combating Employee Stress and Turnover,” Human
Resource Management, September—October 2009, 682.
88. A. Rego, K. C. Yam, B. P. Owens, J. S. P. Story, M. Cunha, D. Bluhm, and
M. P. Lopes, “Conveyd Leader PsyCap Predicting Leader Effectiveness
Through Positive Energy,” Journal of Management, April 2019, 45,
1689–1712; and J. B. Avey, F. Luthans, and S. M. Jensen, “Psychologi-
cal Capital: A Positive Resource for Combating Employee Stress and
Turnover,” Human Resource Management, September–October 2009,
682.
89. K. Thompson, G. Lemmon, and T. Walter, “Employee Engagement
and Positive Psychological Capital,” Organizational Dynamics, 2015,
185–195.
90. “The Importance of Addressing Resilience in the Workplace: An Inter-
view with Kathy Gerwig,” American Journal of Health Promotion, March
1, 2018, 832–833.
91. CEO Roundtable of the American Heart Association, “Resilience in the
Workplace: An Evidence Review and Implications for Practice,” Ameri-
can Heart Association, May 2018, http://ceoroundtable.heart.org/wp-
content/uploads/ 2018/05/ucm_496856 .
92. “The Importance of Addressing Resilience in the Workplace: An Inter-
view with Kathy Gerwig,” American Journal of Health Promotion, March
1, 2018, 832–833.
93. CEO Roundtable of the American Heart Association, “Resilience in the
Workplace: An Evidence Review and Implications for Practice,” Ameri-
can Heart Association, May 2018, http://ceoroundtable.heart.org/wp-
content/uploads/ 2018/05/ucm_496856 .
94. J. B. Avey, F. Luthans, and S. M. Jensen, “Psychological Capital: A Posi-
tive Resource for Combating Employee Stress and Turnover,” Human
Resource Management, September–October 2009, 681.
95. D. L. Devitt and D. L. Schacter, “An Optimistic Outlook Creates a Rosy
Past: The Impact of Episodic Simulation on Subsequent Memory,” Psy-
chological Science, June 2018, 29, 936–946.
96. F. Luthans, J. B. Avey, B. J. Avolio, and S. J. Peterson, “The Development
and Resulting Performance Impact of Positive Psychological Capital,”
Human Resource Development Quarterly, Spring 2010, 41–66.
97. F. Luthans, J. B. Avey, B. J. Avolio, and S. J. Peterson, “The Development
and Resulting Performance Impact of Positive Psychological Capital,”
Human Resource Development Quarterly, Spring 2010, 41–66.
48. J. W. Michel, M. J. Tewes, and D. G. Allen, “Fun in the Workplace: A
Review and Expanded Theoretical Perspective,” Human Resource Man-
agement Review, 29, 2019, 98–110.
49. E. Chester, “Southwest Airlines Is Dead Serious about Employee Fun,”
ericchester.com, https://ericchester.com/southwest-airlines-is-dead-
serious-about-employee-fun/. Downloaded January 6, 2019.
50. Adapted from J. W. Michel, M. J. Tewes, and D. G. Allen, “Fun in the
Workplace: A Review and Expanded Theoretical Perspective,” Human
Resource Management Review, 29, 2019, 98–110.
51. Adapted from J. W. Michel, M. J. Tewes, and D. G. Allen, “Fun in the
Workplace: A Review and Expanded Theoretical Perspective,” Human
Resource Management Review, 29, 2019, 98–110.
52. Advice in this section comes from B. L. Fredrickson, Positivity (New
York: Three Rivers Press, 2009).
53. Brian Pinelli, “In Pole Vault, Sam Kendricks Is a Team Player,” The New
York Times Company, July 4, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/07/04/sports/pole-vault-sam-kendricks.html.
54. Advice in this section comes from B. L. Fredrickson, Positivity (New
York: Three Rivers Press, 2009).
55. Jon Kabat-Zinn, “Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context: Past,
Present, and Future,” Clinical Psychology Science and Practice 10, no.
2 (June 2003): 144–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/clipsy.bpg016.
56. F. C. M. Geisler, M. N. Becholdt, N. Oberlander, and M. Schacht-
Jablonowsky, “The Benefits of a Mindfulness Exercise in a Performance
Situation,” Psychological Reports, 121, 853–876.
57. A. Walton, “Yoga and Meditation Continue to Gain Popularity in the US,”
Forbes.com, November 8, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/aliceg-
walton/2018/11/08/yoga-and-meditation-continue-to-gain-popularity-in-
the-u-s/#4f67068d3782.
58. Fidelity, “Making Well-Being Work,” Fidelity.com, https://workplace.fidel-
ity.com/sites/default/files/nbgh-wellness-survey-results .
59. InsightTimer website, InsightTimer.com (accessed January 6, 2019).
60. M. Levin, “Why Google, Nike, and Apple Love Mindfulness Training, and
How You Can Easily Love It Too,” Inc.com, June 12, 2017, https://www.
inc.com/marissa-levin/why-google-nike-and-apple-love-mindfulness-
training-and-how-you-can-easily-love-html.
61. A. LaVito, “Meditation App Headspace on Track to Double Corporate
Clients, Bring Mindfulness to Work,” CNBC.com, Sunday, September 2,
2018, https://www.cnbc.com/ 2018/09/02/companies-are-turning-to-
headspace-to-help-their-workers-meditate.html.
62. David Gelles, “Mark Bertolini of Aetna on Yoga, Meditation and Darth
Vader,” The New York Times Company, September 21, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/business/mark-bertolini-aetna-corner-
office.html.
63. C. Connley, “The Surprising Way Office Yoga Helped This CEO Raise
the Minimum Wage of His Company,” CNBC.com, Friday, October 12,
2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/12/aetna-how-office-yoga-
helped-one-ceo-raise-his-companys-minimum-wage.html.
64. Angelica LaVito, “Meditation App Headspace on Track to Double Cor-
porate Clients, Bring Mindfulness to Work,” CNBC LLC, September 2,
2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/02/companies-are-turning-to-
headspace-to-help-their-workers-meditate.html.
65. D. J. Good, C. J. Lyddy, T. M. Glomb, J. E. Bono, K. W. Brown, M. K. Duffy,
R. A Baer, J. A Brewer, and S. W. Lazar, “Contemplating Mindfulness at
Work: An Integrative Review,” Journal of Management, 43, 114–142.
66. J. DeMers, “5 Successful Business Leaders That Have Used Meditation
to Improve Productivity, Creativity, and Business Acumen,” Businessin-
sider.com, April 3, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/5-successful-
leaders-that-have-used-meditation-to-be-more-productive-2018-4.
67. D. J. Good, C. J. Lyddy, T. M. Glomb, J. E. Bono, K. W. Brown, M. K. Duffy,
R. A Baer, J. A Brewer, and S. W. Lazar, “Contemplating Mindfulness at
Work: An Integrative Review,” Journal of Management, 43, 114–142.
68. His Holiness The Dalai Lama, and Laurens van den Muyzenberg, The
Leader’s Way: The Art of Making the Right Decisions in Our Careers,
Our Companies, and the World at Large (New York: Crown Publishing
Group, 2009).
69. See S. Hickman, “Am I Doing This Right?” Mindful, August 2016, 36–37;
J. Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go There You Are (New York: Hyperion
Books, 1994); R. Hanson and R. Mendius, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical
Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Oakland, CA: New
Harbinger Publications, 2009); and His Holiness the Dalai Lama and L. V.
D. Muyzenberg, The Leader’s Way (New York: Broadway Books, 2009).
70. J. J. Arch and M. G. Craske, “Mechanisms of Mindfulness: Emotion Reg-
ulation Following a Focused Breathing Induction,” Behavior Research
and Therapy, 2006, 1849–1858; and D. M. Levy, J. O. Wobbrock, A. W.
Kaszniak, and M. Ostergren, “The Effects of Mindfulness Meditation
Training on Multitasking in a High-Stress Information Environment,”
Graphics Interface, May 2012, 45–52.
71. R. Hanson and R. Mendius, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience
of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom (Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publica-
tions, 2009).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN19CHAPTER NOTES
119. See R. R. Kehoe and P. M. Wright, “The Impact of High- Performance
Human Resource Practices on Employees’ Attitudes and Behaviors,”
Journal of Management, February 2013, 366–391.
120. R. Eisenberger and F. Stinglhamber, Perceived Organizational Support:
Fostering Enthusiastic and Productive Employees (Washington, DC:
APA, 2011); and J. D. Nahrgang, F. P. Morgeson, and D. A. Hofmann,
“Safety at Work: A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Link between Job
Demands, Job Resources, Burnout, Engagement, and Safety Out-
comes,” Journal of Applied Psychology, January 2011, 71–94.
121. M. C. Bush and S. Lewis-Kulin, “100 Best Companies to Work For 2018,”
Fortune, March 2018, 53–78; and M. C. Bush and C. Tkaczyk, “100
Best Companies to Work For 2019,” Fortune, March 2019, 57–80.
122. D. Gelles, “Marc Benioff of Salesforce: ‘Are We Not All Concerned?’” The
New York Times, June 15, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/
business/marc-benioff-salesforce-corner-office.html.
123. K. Cameron, D. Bright, and A. Caza, “Exploring the Relationships between
Organizational Virtuousness and Performance,” American Behavioral
Scientist, February 2004, 767.
124. See C. Ostroff, A. J. Kinicki, and R. S. Muhammad, “Organizational Cul-
ture and Climate,” in I. B. Weiner, N. W. Schmitt, and S. Highhouse, eds.,
Handbook of Psychology, vol. 12, 2nd ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2012),
643–676.
125. See “Lying Less Linked to Better Health, New Research Finds,” http://
www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2012/08/lying-less.aspx, August 4,
2012 (accessed April 27, 2016).
126. Cameron, Kim S., and Arran Caza. “Organizational and Leadership Vir-
tues and the Role of Forgiveness.” Journal of Leadership & Organiza-
tional Studies 9, no. 1 (August 2002): 33–48. https://doi.
org/10.1177/107179190200900103.
127. D. Cole, “The Healing Power of Forgiveness,” The Wall Street Journal,
March 21, 2016, R8.
128. F. Luthans, “The Need for Meaning of Positive Organizational Behavior,”
Journal of Organizational Behavior, September 2002, 695–706.
129. M. P. Seligman, Flourish (New York: Free Press, 2011).
130. B. L. Fredrickson and M. F. Losada, “Positive Affect in the Complex Dynam-
ics of Human Flourishing,” American Psychologist, 2005, 678–686.
131. C. L. M. Keyes and E. J. Simoes, “To Flourish or Not: Positive Mental
Health and All-Cause Mortality,” American Journal of Public Health,
November 2012, 2164–2172; M. P. Seligman, Flourish (New York: Free
Press, 2011).
132. See K. Cameron, C. Mora, T. Leutscher, and M. Calarco, “Effects of Positive
Practices on Organizational Effectiveness,” The Journal of Applied Behav-
ioral Science, September 2011, 266–308; and M. Losada and E. Heaphy,
“The Role of Positivity and Connectivity in the Performance of Business
Teams,” American Behavioral Scientist, February 2004, 740–765.
133. R. Knoesen and L. Naude, “Experiences of Flourishing and Languishing
During the First Year at University,” Journal of Mental Health, 27, 2018,
269–278.
134. Adapted from D. Brin, “Make You Job Candidates Happier,” SHRM.org,
January 14, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/
talent-acquisition/pages/make-your-job-candidates-happier-in-2019.aspx.
135. Adapted from D. Brin, “Make You Job Candidates Happier,” SHRM.org,
January 14, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/
talent-acquisition/pages/make-your-job-candidates-happier-in-2019.aspx.
136. Adapted from D. Brin, “Make You Job Candidates Happier,” SHRM.org,
January 14, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/
talent-acquisition/pages/make-your-job-candidates-happier-in-2019.aspx.
137. Adapted from D. Brin, “Make You Job Candidates Happier,” SHRM.org,
January 14, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/
talent-acquisition/pages/make-your-job-candidates-happier-in-2019.aspx.
138. B. A. Wallace, “Mental Balance and Well-Being: Building Bridges
between Buddhism and Western Psychology,” American Psychologist,
October 2006, 696.
139. M. E. P. Seligman, Flourish (New York: Free Press, 2011).
140. S. Cohen and T. A. Wills, “Stress, Social Support, and the Buffering
Hypothesis,” Psychological Bulletin, September 1985, 310–357.
141. M. E. P. Seligman, Flourish (New York: Free Press, 2011).
142. V. E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning (New York: Pocket Books, 1959).
143. M. E. P. Seligman, Flourish (New York: Free Press, 2011).
144. M. C. Bush and S. Lewis-Kulin, “100 Best Companies to Work For 2018,”
Fortune, March 2018, 53–78; and M. C. Bush and C. Tkaczyk, “100
Best Companies to Work For 2019,” Fortune, March 2019, 57–80.
145. M. C. Bush and S. Lewis-Kulin, “100 Best Companies to Work For 2018,”
Fortune, March 2018, 53–78; and M. C. Bush and C. Tkaczyk, “100
Best Companies to Work For 2019,” Fortune, March 2019, 57–80.
146. Kimley-Horn and Associates, Inc. “WHY KIMLEY-HORN?” https://www.
kimley-horn.com/about-us/why-kimley-horn/ (accessed July 1, 2019).
147. M. E. P. Seligman, Flourish (New York: Free Press, 2011).
148. M. C. Bush and S. Lewis-Kulin, “100 Best Companies to Work For 2018,”
Fortune, March 2018, 53–78; and Crowe Horvath website, https://www.
crowe.com/careers/why-crowe.
98. J. B. Avey, R. J. Reichard, F. Luthans, and K. H. Mhatre, “Meta-Analysis of
the Impact of Positive Psychological Capital on Employee Attitudes,
Behaviors, and Performance,” Human Resource Development Quar-
terly, 2011, 127–152. See also M. H. Jafri, “Psychological Capital and
Innovative Behavior: An Empirical Study on Apparel Fashion Industry,”
The Journal Contemporary Management Research, 2012, 42–52.
99. S. Lavy and H. Littman-Ovadia, “My Better Self: Using Strengths at Work
and Work Productivity, Organizational Citizenship Behavior, and Satis-
faction,” Journal of Career Development, February 25, 2016, http://jcd.
sagepub.com/content/early/2016/02/24/0894845316634056.
abstract.
100. C. Harzer and W. Ruch, “The Application of Signature Character
Strengths and Positive Experiences at Work,” Journal of Happiness
Studies, 2013, 965–983.
101. B. Allan and R. Duffy, “Examining Moderators of Signature Strengths Use
and Well-being: Calling in Signature Strengths Level,” Journal of Happi-
ness Studies, 2014, 323–337.
102. N. Dvorak, C. Deweese, and B. Ott, “Why Clifton Strengths Help Manag-
ers Lead Winning Teams,” Gallup.com, November 30, 2018, https://
www.gallup.com/workplace/245093/why-cliftonstrengths-helps-
managers-lead-winning-teams.aspx.
103. J. Asplund and G. Elliot, “Employees Who Use Their Strengths Outper-
form Those Who Don’t,” Gallup, October 8, 2015, http://www.gallup.
com/businessjournal/186044/employees-strengths-outperform-don.
aspx.
104. J. Asplund and G. Elliot, “Employees Who Use Their Strengths Outper-
form Those Who Don’t,” Gallup, October 8, 2015, http://www.gallup.
com/businessjournal/186044/employees-strengths-outperform-don.
aspx.
105. Peter Flade, Jim Asplund, and Gwen Elliot, “Employees Who Use Their
Strengths Outperform Those Who Don’t,” Gallup, Inc., October 8, 2015.
https://www.gallup.com/workplace/236561/employees-strengths-out-
perform-don.aspx.
106. N. S. Schutte and J. M. Malouff, “The Impact of Signature Character
Strengths Interventions: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Happiness Stud-
ies, 2019, 20, 1179–1196.
107. J. Asplund and G. Elliot, “Employees Who Use Their Strengths Outper-
form Those Who Don’t,” Gallup, October 8, 2015, http://www.gallup.
com/businessjournal/186044/employees-strengths-outperform-don.
aspx.
108. S. V. Marinova, X. Cao, and H. Park, “Constructive Organizational Values
Climate and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Configurational
View,” Journal of Management, May 2019, 45, 2045–2071.
109. T. M. Probst, “Organizational Safety Climate and Supervisory Safety
Enforcement: Multilevel Explorations of the Causes of Accident Under-
reporting,” Journal of Applied Psychology, November 2015, 1899–
1907.
110. K. Alfes, A. D. Shantz, and A. Ritz, “A Multilevel Examination of the Rela-
tionship Between Role Overload and Employee Subjective Health: The
Buffering Effect of Supportive Climates,” Human Resource Manage-
ment, March 2018, 57, 659–673.
111. See M. Priesemuth, M. Schminke, M. L. Ambrose, and R. Folger, “Abu-
sive Supervision Climate: A Multiple-Mediation Model of Its Impact on
Group Outcomes,” Academy of Management Journal, October 2014,
1513–1534; and D. Meinert, “Scared Stiff: Do You Have a Workplace
Culture of Fear?” HR Magazine, December 2015/January 2016, 12.
112. D. Galarza, “How Sweetgreen Got to $1 Billion,” Eater.com, November 15,
2018, https://www.eater.com/2018/11/15/ 18096104/sweetgreen-
1-billion-unicorn-tech-company-lifestyle-brand.
113. A. Kohll, “How to Build a Positive Company,” Forbes.com, August 14,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alankohll/2018/08/14/how-to-
build-a-positive-company-culture/#8fdf8d349b5b.
114. A. Kohll, “How to Build a Positive Company,” Forbes.com, August 14,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/alankohll/2018/08/14/how-to-
build-a-positive-company-culture/#8fdf8d349b5b.
115. S. V. Marinova, X. Cao, and H. Park, “Constructive Organizational Values
Climate and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors: A Configurational
View,” Journal of Management, May 2019, 45, 2045–2071; see also R.
Fehr and M. J. Gelfand, “The Forgiving Organization: A Multilevel Model
of Forgiveness at Work,” Academy of Management Review, October
2012, 664–688.
116. Ryan Fehr and Michele J. Gelfand, “The Forgiving Organization: A Multi-
level Model of Forgiveness at Work,” Academy of Management Review
37, no. 4 (October 2012): 664–88. https://doi.org/10.5465/
amr.2010.0497.
117. A. Peticca-Harris, “Managing Compassionately? Managerial Narratives
about Grief and Compassion,” Human Relations, March 2019, 72,
588–612.
118. G. Seijts, J. Gandz, M. Crossan, and M. Reno, “Character Matters: Char-
acter Dimensions’ Impact on Leader Performance and Outcomes,”
Organizational Dynamics, January 2015, 65–74.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN20 CHAPTER NOTES
2. S. H. Courtright, B. W. McCormick, S. Mistry, and J. Wang, “Quality Charters
or Quality Members? A Control Theory Perspective on Team Charters and
Team Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 102, 1462–1470.
3. Adapted from P. Hunsaker, C. Pavett, and J. Hunsaker, “Increasing Stu-
dent-Learning Team Effectiveness with Team Charters,” Journal of Edu-
cation for Business, 2011, 127–138; and J. R. Aaron, W. C. McDowell,
and A. O. Herdman, “The Effect of Team Charter on Student Team
Behaviors,” Journal of Education for Business, 89, 90–97.
4. Human Society International, “2018 Annual Report,” https://www.hsi.
org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Annual-report-2018-HSI
(accessed July 2, 2019).
5. S. H. Courtright, B. W. McCormick, S. Mistry, and J. Wang, “Quality Char-
ters or Quality Members? A Control Theory Perspective on Team Char-
ters and Team Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 102,
1462–1470; see also P. Hunsaker, C. Pavett, and J. Hunsaker, “Increas-
ing Student-Learning Team Effectiveness with Team Charters,” Journal
of Education for Business, 2011, 127–138.
6. T. A. O’Neill and E. Salas, “Creating High Performance Teamwork in
Organizations,” Human Resource Management Review, 2018, 28,
325–331.
7. B. Nemeth, “Group v. Team: What’s the Difference?” Sessionlab.com,
January 13, 2018, https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/working-with-
groups-and-teams/.
8. B. Nemeth, “Group v. Team: What’s the Difference?” Sessionlab. com,
January 13, 2018, https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/ working-with-
groups-and-teams/.
9. Adapted from B. Nemeth, “Group v. Team: What’s the Difference?” Ses-
sionlab.com, January 13, 2018, https://www.sessionlab.com/blog/working-
with-groups-and-teams/.
10. See R. Cross, N. Nohria, and A. Parker, “Six Myths about Informal Net-
works—and How to Overcome Them,” MIT Sloan Management Review,
Spring 2002, 67–75; and C. Shirky, “Watching the Patterns Emerge,”
Harvard Business Review, February 2004, 34–35.
11. “The Top 10 Most Followed Celebrities on Instagram in 2019, BigBan-
gram.com, https://bigbangram.com/blog/the-top-10-most-followed-
celebrities-on-instagram-in-2018.
12. G. Tucker, “Why Companies Should Stay Connected with Ex-Employ-
ees,” SHRM.org, March 19, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/
hr-magazine/0418/pages/corporate-alumni-programs-mean-never-
having-to-say-goodbye.aspx.
13. G. Tucker, “Why Companies Should Stay Connected with Ex-Employ-
ees,” SHRM.org, March 19, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/
hr-magazine/0418/pages/corporate-alumni-programs-mean-never-hav-
ing-to-say-goodbye.aspx.
14. T. Driskell, J. E. Driskell, C. S. Burke, and E Salas, “Team Roles: A Review
and Integration,” Small Group Research, 48, 2017, 482–511.
15. Ann Porteus, “Roles People Play in Groups,” Stanford University, https://
web.stanford.edu/group/resed/resed/staffresources/RM/training/
grouproles.html (accessed April 4, 2019).
16. D. Weis, “Giving Employees Permission to Fail Is a Formula for Innova-
tion at 3M,” AEM.org, June 21, 2018, https://www.aem.org/news/giving-
employees-permission-to-fail-is-a-formula-for-innovation-at-3m/.
17. A. Ross, “Why Did Google Abandon 20% for Innovation?” HRZone.com,
June 3, 2015, https://www.hrzone.com/lead/culture/why-did-google-
abandon-20-time-for-innovation.
18. C. L. Pedersen, “How to Use 20% Time to Manage Pet Projects,” Nature.
com, January 17, 2019, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-
00179-w.
19. T. G. Weiser and A. B. Haynes, “Ten Years of the Surgical Safety Check-
list,” British Journal of Surgery, May 17, 2018, 105, 927–929; and World
Health Organization, Surgical Safety Checklist and Manual, 2015,
http://who.int/patientsafety/safesurgery/ss_checklist/en/.
20. T. G. Weiser and A. B. Haynes, “Ten Years of the Surgical Safety Check-
list,” British Journal of Surgery, May 17, 2018, 105, 927–929.
21. T. G. Weiser and A. B. Haynes, “Ten Years of the Surgical Safety Check-
list,” British Journal of Surgery, May 17, 2018, 105, 927–929; and R.
Schwendimann, C. Blatter, M. Lüthy, G. Mohr, T. Girard, S. Batzer, E.
Davis, and H. Hoffmann, “Adherence to the WHO Surgical Safety
Checklist: An Observational Study in a Swiss Academic Center,” Patient
Safety in Surgery, March 12, 2019, 23, 1–6.
22. R. Schwendimann, C. Blatter, M. Lüthy, G. Mohr, T. Girard, S. Batzer, E.
Davis, and H. Hoffmann, “Adherence to the WHO Surgical Safety
Checklist: An Observational Study in a Swiss Academic Center,” Patient
Safety in Surgery, March 12, 2019, 23, 1–6.
23. N. R. Quigley, C. G. Collins, C. B. Gibson, and S. K. Parker, “Team Perfor-
mance Archetypes: Toward a New Conceptualization of Team Performance
Over Time,” Group & Organization Management, August 2018, 787–824.
24. See B. W. Tuckman, “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups,” Psy-
chological Bulletin, June 1965, 384–399; and B. W. Tuckman and M. A.
C. Jensen, “Stages of Small-Group Development Revisited,” Group &
Organization Studies, December 1977, 419–427.
149. L. Freifeld, “Training Magazine Ranks 2018 Training Top 125 Organiza-
tions,” TrainingMagazine.com, February 13, 2018, https://trainingmag.
com/training-magazine-ranks-2018-training-top-125-organizations/.
150. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/ index.html.
151. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/ index.html.
152. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/ index.html.
153. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/ index.html.
154. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/ index.html.
155. L. Skarnulis, “Oxycontin: Pain Relief vs. Abuse,” Webmd.com, n.d.,
https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/features/oxycontin-pain-
relief-vs-abuse#1.
156. B. Meier, “Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin,
Court Filing Claims,” The New York Times, January 15, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/health/sacklers-purdue-oxycontin-
opioids.html.
157. M. Scutari, “Toxic Gifts? Coming to Terms with Sackler Family Philan-
thropy,” Inside Philanthropy, March 12, 2018, https://www.insidephilan-
thropy.com/home/2018/3/12/sack ler - fami ly -ph i lanthropy-
controversial-gifts.
158. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/ index.html.
159. M. Scutari, “Toxic Gifts? Coming to Terms with Sackler Family Philan-
thropy,” Inside Philanthropy, March 12, 2018, https://www.insidephilan-
thropy.com/home/2018/3/12/sack ler - fami ly -ph i lanthropy-
controversial-gifts.
160. A. Van Zee, “The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial
Triumph, Public Health Tragedy,” American Journal of Public Health,
February 2009, 99, 221–226.
161. A. Van Zee, “The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial
Triumph, Public Health Tragedy,” American Journal of Public Health,
February 2009, 99, 221–226.
162. R. Frehse and T. Marco, “Opioid Maker Purdue Pharma Fights to Prevent
Documents Involving Sackler Family from Going Public,” CNN.com, Jan-
uary 30, 2019, https://www.cnn.com/2019/01/30/health/purdue-
pharma-stay-bn/ index.html.
163. Barry Meier, “Sacklers Directed Efforts to Mislead Public About OxyContin,
Court Filing Claims,” The New York Times Company, January 15, 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/15/health/sacklers-purdue-oxycontin-
opioids.html.
164. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/index.html.
165. S. Moghe, “Opioid History: From ‘Wonder Drug’ to Abuse Epidemic,”
CNN.com, October 14, 2016, https://www.cnn.com/2016/05/12/health/
opioid-addiction-history/ index.html.
166. CBS News, “Family Behind OxyContin Maker Engineered Opioid Crisis,
Massachusetts AG Says,” January 24, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/
news/purdue-pharma-lawsuit-massachusetts-attorney-general-blames-
sackler-family-for-creating-opioid-crisis-oxycontin/.
167. “Workers with Criminal Records,” SHRM.org, May 17, 2018, https://
www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/
pages/second-chances.aspx.
168. J. C. Taylor, “They’ve Paid Their Debt: Now Let’s Help People with Crim-
inal Records Get Back to Work,” SHRM.org, January 28, 2019, https://
blog.shrm.org/blog/they-ve-paid-their-debt-now-let-s-help-people-with-
criminal-records- get-bac.
169. “Workers with Criminal Records,” SHRM.org, May 17, 2018, https://
www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-and-surveys/
pages/second-chances.aspx.
170. R. Mauer, “‘Ban the Box’ Turns 20: What Employers Need to Know,”
SHRM.org, November 12, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesand-
tools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/ban-the-box-turns-20-what-
employers-need-to-know.aspx.
CHAPTER 8
1. T. Sverdrup and V. Schei, “‘Cut Me Slack’: The Psychological Contracts
as a Foundation for Understanding Team Charters,” Journal of Applied
Behavioral Science, 2015, 451–478.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN21CHAPTER NOTES
50. A. B. Wilson, C. McNellis, and C. K. Latham, “Audit Firm Tenure, Auditor
Familiarity, and Trust: Effect on Auditee Whistleblowing Reporting Inten-
tions,” International Journal of Auditing, 22, 2018, 113–130.
51. R. Edelman, “2019 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global Report,” Edelman.
com, https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2019-
02/2019_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report_2 (accessed
May 4, 2019).
52. R. Edelman, “2019 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global Report,” Edelman.com,
https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2019-02/2019_
Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report_2 (accessed May 4, 2019).
53. R. Hastings, “Broken Trust Is Bad for Business,” Society of Human
Resource Management, March 7, 2011.
54. Adapted from R. Maurer, “Microinternships Offer New College-to-
Career Path,” SHRM.org, April 19, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resourc-
esandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/microinternships-
offer-new-college-to-career-path.aspx.
55. A. Bryant, “Lars Dalgaard: Build Trust by Daring to Show that You’re
Human,” The New York Times, October 17, 2015, http://www. nytimes.
com/2015/10/18/business/lars-dalgaard-build-trust-by-daring-to-show-
that-youre-human.html.
56. T. A. O’Neill and E. Salas, “Creating High Performance Teamwork in Orga-
nizations,” Human Resource Management Review, 2018, 28, 325–331.
57. Adapted from “Developing and Sustaining High-Performing Work
Teams,” SHRM.org, March 27, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resource-
sandtools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/developingandsustaining-
high-performanceworkteams.aspx.
58. C. Curry, “Managing Conflict in Global Teams,” Training, January/Febru-
ary 2016, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.access.library.unisa.edu.au/
ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=6&sid=d82496f2-0036-407c-8177-
a25b4767d243%40sessionmgr4005&hid=4209.
59. C. Edmonds, “Team Charters Align Goals,” peopledevelopmentmaga-
zine.com, February 19, 2019, https://peopledevelopmentmagazine.
com/2019/02/19/team-charters-align-goals/.
60. Based on J. E. Mathieu and T. L. Ra, “Laying the Foundation for Success-
ful Team Performance Trajectories: The Roles of Team Charters and Per-
formance Strategies,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2009, 90–103.
61. “Employers Want to See These Attributes on Students’ Resumes,” nace-
web.org, December 12, 2018, https://www.naceweb.org/talent-acquisi-
tion/candidate-selection/employers-want-to-see-these-attributes-
on-students-resumes/.
62. R. W. Doughtery, C. C. Wyles, W. Pawlina, and N. Lachman, “‘The Team
is More than the Sum of Its Parts’: Implementation of Charters to
Improve Team Dynamics in an Anatomy Course,” theasiapacificscholar.
org, 3, January 2, 2018, 6–14.
63. “Employers Want to See These Attributes on Students’ Resumes,” nace-
web.org, December 12, 2018, https://www.naceweb.org/talent-acquisition/
candidate-selection/employers-want-to-see-these-attributes-on-
students-resumes/.
64. C. Cheng, R. Y. J. Chua, M. W. Morris, and L. Lee, “Finding the Right Mix:
How the Composition of Self-Managing Multicultural Teams’ Cultural
Value Orientation Influences Performance over Time,” Journal of Orga-
nizational Behavior, 2012, 389–411.
65. M. S. Prewett, M. I. Brown, A. Goswami, and N D. Christiansen, “Effects
of Team Personality Composition on Member Performance: A Multilevel
Perspective,” Group & Organization Management, 43, 2018, 316–348.
66. J. Prinz and P. Wicker, “Diversity Effects on Team Performance in the
Tour de France,” Team Performance Management, 2016, 22–35.
67. F. Hattke and S. Blaschke, “Striving for Excellence: The Role of Top
Management Team Diversity in Universities,” Team Performance Man-
agement, 2015, 121–138.
68. Adapted from S. E. Frick, K. A. Fletcher, P. S. Ramsey, and W. L. Boswell,
“Understanding Team Maladaptation Through the Lens of the Four R’s of
Adaptation,” Human Resource Management Review, 28, 2018, 411–422.
69. S. E. Frick, K. A. Fletcher, P. S. Ramsey, and W. L. Boswell, “Understand-
ing Team Maladaptation Through the Lens of the Four R’s of Adapta-
tion,” Human Resource Management Review, 28, 2018, 411–422.
70. N. Hill and K. Bartol, “Empowering Leadership and Effective Collaboration in
Geographically Dispersed Teams,” Personnel Psychology, 2016, 159–198.
71. Adapted from K. Goldstein, “Fostering Team Collaboration,” Leadership
Excellence Essentials, January 2016, http://web.a.ebscohost.com.
access . l i b ra ry.un i sa .edu .au /ehos t /pd fv iewer /pd fv iewer?
vid=46&sid=d82496f2-0036-407c-8177-a25b4767d243%40session
mgr4005&hid=4209.
72. J. S. Smock, “Meaningful Compensation for Practice and Industry Team
Leaders (and Teams)—How Important Is It?” managinpartnerforum.org,
March 30, 2018, http://www.managingpartnerforum.org/tasks/sites/
mpf/assets/image/MPF%20FEATURED%20ARTICLE%20-%20Compen-
sation%20for%20Law%20Firm%20Team%20Leaders%20-%20
SMOCK%20-%203-30-18 ; and H. Gardner, “When Senior Managers
Won’t Collaborate,” Harvard Business Review, March 2015, https://hbr.
org/2015/03/when– senior-managers-wont-collaborate.
25. J. L. Farh, C. Lee, and C. I. C. Farh, “Task Conflict and Team Creativity: A
Question of How Much and When,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
2010, 1173–1180.
26. J. Ewing, “Volkswagen’s New C.E.O. Is an Outsider: That’s an Asset, and
a Liability,” The New York Times, April 12, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/04/12/business/volkswagen-chief.html.
27. D. Courpasson and D. Younes, “Double or Quits: Understanding the
Links Between Secrecy and Creativity in a Project Development Pro-
cess,” Organization Studies, 2018, 39, 271–295.
28. Adapted from J. M. O’Connor, “14 Ways for Business Leaders to Build
Team Cohesion,” Forbes.com, December 28, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2018/12/28/14-ways-for-business-
leaders-to-build-team-cohesion/#4e13dd1857f4.
29. J. Moore, “How 3 Companies Used Disruptive Innovation to Transform
Their Industries,” Ideadrop.com, November 16, 2017, https://ideadrop.
co/how-3-companies-used-disruptive-innovation-to-transform-their-
industries/.
30. J. E. Mathieu, P. T. Gallagher, M. A. Domingo, and E. A. Klock, “Embrac-
ing Complexity: Reviewing the Past Decade of Team Effectiveness
Research,” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organiza-
tional Behavior, 6, 2019, 17–46.
31. Matthew Dixon, “Reinventing Customer Service,” Harvard Business
Review, December 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/11/reinventing-cus-
tomer-service.
32. Harvard Business Essentials: Creating Teams with an Edge (Boston,
MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2004).
33. J. Wang and Y. P. Zhou, “Impact of Queue Configuration on Service
Time: Evidence from a Supermarket,” Management Science, July 2018,
64, 3055–3075.
34. L. M. Harding, “Students of a Feather ‘Flocked’ Together: A Group
Assignment Method for Reducing Free-riding and Improving Group and
Individual Learning Outcomes,” Journal of Marketing Education, 40,
2018, 117–127.
35. Inspired by K. Dower, “Stop Social Loafing: 6 Ways to Get Everyone
Working,” rapidstartleadership.com, https://www.rapidstartleadership.
com/social-loafing/. Accessed May 1, 2019.
36. N. C. Magpili and P. Pazos, “Self-Managing Team Performance: A Sys-
tematic Review of Multilevel Input Factors,” Small Group Research, 49,
2018, 3–33.
37. N. C. Magpili and P. Pazos, “Self-Managing Team Performance: A Sys-
tematic Review of Multilevel Input Factors,” Small Group Research, 49,
2018, 3–33.
38. J. Ferrell and K. Kline, “Facilitating Trust and Communication in Virtual
Teams,” People & Strategy, 41, Spring 2018, 30–35; and adapted from
“Developing and Sustaining High-Performing Work Teams,” SHRM.org,
March 27, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-
samples/toolkits/pages/developingandsustaininghigh-performance-
workteams.aspx.
39. D. Wilkie, “Why Are Companies Ending Remote Work?” SHRM.org, May
7, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-
relations/pages/drawbacks-to-working-at-home-.aspx.
40. J. Eisenberg and A. Krishnan, “Addressing Virtual Work Challenges: Learn-
ing from the Field,” Organization Management Journal, 15, 2018, 78–94.
41. Julia Eisenberg and Aparna Krishnan, “Addressing Virtual Work Challenges:
Learning From the Field,” Organization Management Journal 15, no. 2 (May
2018): 78–94. https://doi.org/10.1080/15416518.2018.1471976.
42. J. Ferrell and K. Kline, “Facilitating Trust and Communication in Virtual
Teams,” People & Strategy, 41, Spring 2018, 30–35.
43. E. Martinez-Mareno, A. Zornoza, P. Gonzalez-Navarro, and L. F. Thomp-
son, “Investigating Face-to-Face and Virtual Teamwork over Time:
When Does Early Task Conflict Trigger Relationship Conflict?” Group
Dynamics: Theory, Research, and Practice, 2012, 159–171.
44. S. Courtright, G. Thurgood, G. Stewart, and A. Pierotti, “Structural Inter-
dependence in Teams: An Integrative Framework and Meta-Analysis,”
Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 1825–1846.
45. S. Courtright, G. Thurgood, G. Stewart, and A. Pierotti, “Structural Inter-
dependence in Teams: An Integrative Framework and Meta-Analysis,”
Journal of Applied Psychol ogy, 2015, 1829.
46. M. Baer, R. Dhensa-Kahlon, J. Colquitt, J. Rodell, R. Outlaw, and D. Long,
“Uneasy Lies the Head That Bears the Trust: The Effects of Feeling
Trusted on Emotional Exhaustion,” Academy of Management Journal,
2015, 1637–1657.
47. R. Edelman, “2019 Edelman Trust Barometer: Global Report,” Edelman.
com, https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2019-
02/2019_Edelman_Trust_Barometer_Global_Report_2 (accessed
May 4, 2019).
48. T. Cowie, “That Fizz Effect,” HRM Magazine, May 2018, 30.
49. M. J. Burtscher, B. Meyer, K. Jonas, S. Freese, and G. Troster, “A Time to
Trust? The Buffering Effect of Trust and Its Temporal Variations in the
Context of High-Reliability Teams,” Journal of Organizational Behavior,
38, 2018, 1099–1112.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN22 CHAPTER NOTES
96. T. Durkee, “NCAA Didn’t Consider Larry Brown’s History of Infractions in
SMU Case,” Sporting News, September 29, 2015, http://www.sporting-
news.com/ncaa-basketball-news/4656662-larry-brown-smu-infractions-
ncaa-penalty-ucla-kansas-violations.
97. M. Powell, “The Most Honest Man in College Basketball Is Going to
Prison,” The New York Times, May 3, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/2019/05/03/sports/college-basketball-trial.html; and C. Turner,
“Conflicts of Interest in the Intercollegiate Athletics Management Struc-
ture—The Impetus for Nullification of Presidential Authority,” United
States Sports Academy, February 9, 2015, http://thesportjournal.org/
article/conflicts-of-interest-in-the-intercollegiate-athletics-management-
structure-the-impetus-for-nullification-of– presidential-authority/.
98. M. Powell, “The Most Honest Man in College Basketball Is Going to
Prison,” The New York Times, May 3, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/2019/05/03/sports/college-basketball-trial.html.
99. T. Durkee, “NCAA Didn’t Consider Larry Brown’s History of Infractions in
SMU Case,” Sporting News, September 29, 2015, http://www.sporting-
news.com/ncaa-basketball-news/4656662-larry-brown-smu-infractions-
ncaa-penalty-ucla-kansas-violations.
100. E. Graney, “Scandals Never Out of Season in College Basketball,” Las
Vegas Review Journal, October 6, 2015, http://www.reviewjournal.
com/opinion/columns-blogs/ed-graney/scandals-never-out-season-
college-basketball.
CHAPTER 9
1. Alison Doyle, “16 Things to Say in a Job Interview,” The Balance/
Careers, updated February 27, 2019, https://www.thebalancecareers.
com/what-to-say-in-a-job-interview-4158527; Catherine Conlan, “What
to Say at a Job Interview,” Monster.com, https://www.monster.com/
career-advice/article/best-things-say-in-interview/ (accessed March 25,
2019); and M. Civiello, “Communication Counts in Landing a Job,”
Training & Development, February 2009, 82–83.
2. George Bernard Shaw (playwright and critic).
3. J. Bacon, “Miscommunication Added to Chaos as Ferry Sank,” USA
Today, April 20, 2014, http://usat.ly/1kNTGGv (accessed April 3, 2019).
4. Rob Copeland and Bradley Hope, “Bridgewater, World’s Largest Hedge
Fund, Grapples with Succession,” The Wall Street Journal, March 16,
2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/bridgewater-worlds-largest-hedge-
fund-grapples-with-succession-1458144347.
5. R. Levering, “The 100 Best Companies to Work for 2016,” Fortune,
March 15, 2016, 143–165.
6. James L. Bowditch, Anthony F. Buono, and Marcus M. Stewart. A Primer
on Organizational Behavior, 4th ed. (New York: John Wiley & Sons,
1997).
7. Y.-C. Huang and S.-H. Lin, “An Inventory for Assessing Interpersonal Com-
munication Competence of College Students,” British Journal of Guid-
ance & Counselling, July–August 2018, 385–401; and C. Johansson, V.
D. Miller, and S. Hamrin, “Conceptualizing Communicative Leadership,”
Corporate Communications: An International Journal, April 2014, 147–
165.
8. “Employers Seek Communication Skills in New Hires,” January 1,
2018, https://www.mba.com/mbas-and-business-masters/articles/your-
career-path/employers-seek-communications-skills.
9. See R. S. Wyer, Jr., and L. J. Shrum, “The Role of Comprehension Pro-
cesses in Communication and Persuasion,” Media Psychology, April
2015, 163–195.
10. Kevin Daum, “This Skin Care CEO Shows How Your Business Communi-
cation Should Be As Clear Your Pores,” Mansueto Ventures, October
26, 2018, https://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/this-skin-care-ceo-shows-
how-your-business-communication-should-be-as-clear-your-pores.html.
11. R. L. Daft and R. H. Lengel, “Information Richness: A New Approach to
Managerial Behavior and Organizational Design,” in Research in Orga-
nizational Behavior, ed. B. M. Staw and L. L. Cummings (Greenwich, CT:
JAI Press, 1984), 196.
12. For a good discussion see A. M. Kaplan and M. Haenlein, “Users of the
World, Unite! The Challenges and Opportunities of Social Media,” Busi-
ness Horizons, January–February 2010, 59–68.
13. M. Maity, M. Dass, and P. Kumar, “The Impact of Media Richness on Con-
sumer Information Search and Choice,” Journal of Business Research,
June 2018, 36–45.
14. X. Armengol, V. Fernandez, P. Simo, and J. M. Sallan, “An Examination of
the Effects of Self-Regulatory Focus on the Perception of the Media
Richness: The Case of E-Mail,” International Journal of Business Com-
munication, October 2017, 394–407.
15. L.-Z. Wu, T. A. Birtch, F. F. T. Chang, and H. Zhang, “Perceptions of Neg-
ative Workplace Gossip: A Self-Consistency Theory Framework,” Jour-
nal of Management, May 2018, 1873–1898.
16. A. R. Sanchez, A. Pico, and L. B. Comer, “Salespeople’s Communication
Competence: A Study of the Mexican Market,” Journal of Business &
Economic Studies, Spring 2010, 1–19.
73. R. K. Gottfredson, “How to Get Your Teams to Work,” Industrial Manage-
ment, July/August 2015, 25–30.
74. A. Gorman, “Hospitals Look to Nursing Homes to Help Stop Drug-Resistant
Infections,” npr.org, April 2, 2019, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2019/04/02/707842736/enter-title.
75. A. Gorman, “Hospitals Look to Nursing Homes to Help Stop Drug-Resistant
Infections,” npr.org, April 2, 2019, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2019/04/02/707842736/enter-title.
76. B. McKay, “Rochester Hospitals Unite to Defeat a Common Foe: C. Dif-
ficile,” The Wall Street Journal, February 15, 2016, http://www.wsj.com/
articles/rochester-hospitals-unite-to-defeat-a-common-foe-c-diffi-
cile-1455592271.
77. A. Gorman, “Hospitals Look to Nursing Homes to Help Stop Drug-Resistant
Infections,” npr.org, April 2, 2019, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2019/04/02/707842736/enter-title.
78. Adapted from D. Howell, “International Space Station: Facts, History,
and Tracking,” Space.com, February 8, 2018, https://www.space.
com/16748-international-space-station.html.
79. Adapted from D. Howell, “International Space Station: Facts, History,
and Tracking,” Space.com, February 8, 2018, https://www.space.
com/16748-international-space-station.html.
80. D. Howell, “International Space Station: Facts, History, and Tracking,”
Space.com, February 8, 2018, https://www.space.com/16748-international-
space-station.html.
81. T. Sharp, “International Space Station: Facts, History, and Tracking,”
Space.com, April 5, 2016, http://www.space.com/16748-international-
space-station.html. See also K. E. Keeton, L. L. Schmidt, K. J. Slack, and
A. A. Malka, “The Rocket Science of Teams,” Industrial and Organiza-
tional Psychology, March 2012, 32–35.
82. Z. Wichter, “What You Need to Know After Deadly Boeing 737 Max
Crashes,” The New York Times, April 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/interactive/2019/business/boeing-737-crashes.html; and P. Ausick,
“How Much Does a Boeing 737 Max Cost?” 247wallst.com, March 11,
2019, https://247wallst.com/aerospace-defense/2019/03/11/how-
much-does-a-boeing-737-max-cost-2/.
83. J. Nicas and J. Creswell, “Boeing’s 737 Max: 1960’s Design, 1990s
Computing Power and Paper Manuals,” The New York Times, April 8,
2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/08/business/boeing-
737-max-.html.
84. Z. Wichter, “What You Need to Know After Deadly Boeing 737 Max
Crashes,” The New York Times, April 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/interactive/2019/business/boeing-737-crashes.html.
85. Z. Wichter, “What You Need to Know After Deadly Boeing 737 Max
Crashes,” The New York Times, April 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/interactive/2019/business/boeing-737-crashes.html.
86. Z. Wichter, “What You Need to Know After Deadly Boeing 737 Max
Crashes,” The New York Times, April 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/interactive/2019/business/boeing-737-crashes.html.
87. Z. Wichter, “What You Need to Know After Deadly Boeing 737 Max
Crashes,” The New York Times, April 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/interactive/2019/business/boeing-737-crashes.html.
88. D. Gelles and N. Kitroeff, “Boeing Believed a 737 Max Warning Light
Was Standard. It Wasn’t,” The New York Times, May 5, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/05/business/boeing-737-max-warning-
light.html.
89. D. Gelles and N. Kitroeff, “Boeing Believed a 737 Max Warning Light
Was Standard. It Wasn’t,” The New York Times, May 5, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/05/05/business/boeing-737-max-warning-
light.html.
90. C. Isidore, “Boeing Will Keep Building New 737 Max Planes as it Scram-
bles to Get Them Back in the Air,” CNN.com, March 15, 2019, https://
www.cnn.com/2019/03/14/business/boeing-to-keep-building-
737-max/index.html.
91. N. Kitroeff and D. Gelles, “Claims of Shoddy Production Draw Scrutiny
to a Second Boeing Jet,” The New York Times, April 20, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/04/20/business/boeing-dreamliner-production-
problems.html.
92. Zach Wichter, “What You Need to Know After Deadly Boeing 737 Max
Crashes,” The New York Times Company, April 30, 2019, https://www.
nytimes.com/interactive/2019/business/boeing-737-crashes.html.
93. N. Kitroeff, “Boeing Chief Seeks to Reassure Shareholders on Safety of
the 737 Max Jets,” The New York Times, April 29, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/04/29/business/boeing-737-max-annual-
meeting.html.
94. V. Ryckaert, “Larry Nassar Case: What You Need to Know About the
Abuser of More than 150 Young Athletes,” USAToday.com, January 25,
2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/01/25/
larry-nassar-usa-gymnastics-sex-abuse-what-we-know/1066355001/.
95. V. Mather, “The Fall of Rick Pitino: One Scandal Too Many,” The New
York Times, September 27, 2017, https://www.nytimes.
com/2017/09/27/sports/pitino-louisville-scandals.html.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN23CHAPTER NOTES
40. See A. H. Eagly and W. Wood, “The Origins of Sex Differences in Human
Behavior,” American Psychologist, June 1999, 408–423.
41. S. R. Stryker, “Language Barriers to Gender Equity in Senior Executive
Leadership,” Journal of Management Policy and Practice, June 2018,
111–120; and W. H. Locander and D. M. Ladik, “CEO Tweet Behavior: The
Use of Metaphors and Gendered Communication Style,” Journal of Mana-
gerial Issues, Winter 2017, 365–379.
42. Joanne Lipman, “Women at Work: A Guide for Men,” The Wall Street
Journal, December 12, 2014, https://www.wsj.com/articles/women-at-
work-a-guide-for-men-1418418595.
43. T. Burrell, “The Science Behind Interrupting: Gender, Nationality and
Power, and the Roles They Play,” Post Magazine, March 14, 2018,
https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/
2137023/science-behind-interrupting-gender-nationality.
44. Scooby Axson, “Cardinals’ Kliff Kingsbury Allowing Cellphone Breaks
During Team Meetings,” Meredith Corporation, March 27, 2019, https://
www.si.com/nfl/2019/03/27/arizona-cardinals-kliff-kingsbury-meeting-
cellphone-breaks.
45. G. James, “It’s Official: Cold-Calling Is Dead and Buried,” Inc., January
12, 2019, https://www.inc.com.
46. G. James, “It’s Official: Cold-Calling Is Dead and Buried,” Inc., January
12, 2019, https://www.inc.com; and G. James, “The 10-Minute Website
Tweak That Increases Sales,” Inc., January 7, 2019, https://www.inc.com.
47. S. R. Martin, “Research: Men Get Credit for Voicing Ideas, but Not Prob-
lems. Women Don’t Get Credit for Either,” Harvard Business Review,
https://hbr.org/2017/11/research-men-get-credit-for-voicing-ideas-but-
not-problems-women-dont-get-credit-for-either (accessed April 2, 2019);
and J. Lipman, “Women at Work: A Guide for Men,” The Wall Street Jour-
nal, December 12/13, 2014, C1, C2.
48. Data taken from A. Smith and M. Anderson, “Social Media Use in 2018,”
March 1, 2018, https://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-
use-in-2018/.
49. “Why Your Business Needs a Social Media Policy and Eight Things It
Should Cover,” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbeshumanre-
sourcescouncil/2017/05/25/why-your-business-needs-a-social-media-
policy-and-eight-things-it-should-cover/#7e5b805d5264 (accessed
April 3, 2019).
50. C. Jeanne Meister, and Karie Willyerd, The 2020 Workplace: How Inno-
vative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees
Today (New York: Harper Collins, 2010).
51. S. Baer, “Social Media Proves to Boost Employee Engagement,” Forbes,
February 13, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycoun-
c i l /2018/02/13/soc ia l -med ia -proves - to -boos t -employee-
engagement/#2d5a2bcc4db5.
52. S. S. Cetinkaya and M. Rashid, “The Effect of Social Media on Employ-
ees’ Job Performance: The Mediating Role of Organizational Structure,”
Journal of Organizational Psychology, November 2018, 103–125.
53. L. Bizzi, “Employees Who Use Social Media for Work Are More Engaged—
But Also More Likely to Leave Their Jobs,” Harvard Business Review, May
17, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/05/employees-who-use-social-media-for-
work-are-more-engaged-but-also-more-likely-to-leave-their-jobs.
54. J. Meister, “Want to Be a More Productive Employee? Get on Social Net-
works,” Forbes, April 18, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/
jeannemeister/2013/04/18/want-to-be-a-more-productive-employee-
get-on-social-networks/ (accessed April 3, 2019); and T. Kunsman, “25
Social Selling Statistics That Matter for Sales Teams and Beyond,”
Everyone Social, October 30, 2018, https://everyonesocial.com/blog/
social-selling-statistics/.
55. M. C. Long, “How Social Media Actually Boosts Efficiency in an Office
Environment,” AdWeek, May 10, 2018, https://www.adweek.com/digital/
how-social-media-actually-boosts-efficiency-in-an-office-environment/.
56. Jobvite, “2018 Recruiter Nation Survey: The Tipping Point—The Next
Chapter in Recruiting,” November 2018, https://www.jobvite.com/jobvite-
news-and-reports/2018-recruiter-nation-report-tipping-point-and-the-
next-chapter-in-recruiting/; and Society for Human Resource
Management, “Using Social Media for Talent Acquisition,” September 20,
2017, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/trends-and-forecasting/research-
and-surveys/pages/social-media-recruiting-screening-2015.aspx.
57. Adapted from T. Burriss, “Maximize the Value of LinkedIn by Con-
necting and Engaging,” T+D, March 15, 2016, https://www.td.org/
Publications/Blogs/Career-Development-Blog/2016/03/Maximize-
the-Value-of LinkedIn-by-Connecting-and-Engaging.
58. T. Burriss, “How to Build an Eye-Catching LinkedIn Profile,” T+D, Febru-
ary 4, 2016, https://www.td.org/Publications/Blogs/Career-Develop-
ment- Blog/2016/02/How-to-Build-An-Eye-Catching-LinkedIn-Profile.
59. R. Ryan, “How to Write a LinkedIn Headline That Gets You Noticed,”
Forbes, March 7, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/robin-
ryan/2019/03/07/how-to-write-a-linkedin-headline-that-gets-you-
noticed/#3e978f2a2d7e; and A. George, “3 Ways to Be a Better LinkedIn
Connection,” Inc., February 11, 2019, https://www.inc.com/amy-
george/3-ways-to-be-a-better-linkedin-connection.html?cid=search.
17. Conflict Resolution Education, “What Is Nonverbal Communication? Non-
verbal Communication for Educators,” https://creducation.net/resources/
nonverbal_communication/what_is_nonverbal_communication.html
(accessed June 19, 2019).
18. J. A. Hall, T. G. Horgan, and N. A. Murphy, “Nonverbal Communication,”
Annual Review of Psychology, January 2019, 271–294.
19. N. Dargue and N. Sweller, “Not All Gestures Are Created Equal: The
Effects of Typical and Atypical Iconic Gestures on Narrative Compre-
hension,” Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, September 2018, 327–345.
20. Related research is summarized by J. A. Hall, “Male and Female Non-
verbal Behavior,” in Multichannel Integrations of Nonverbal Behavior,
ed. A. W. Siegman and S. Feldstein (Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum,
1985), 195–226; and M. J. Simmering, J. Bryan Fuller, L. E. Marler, S. S.
Cox, and R. J. Bennett, “Tactile Interaction Norms and Positive Work-
place Touch,” Journal of Managerial Issues, Spring 2013, 132–153.
21. D. Marinova, S. K. Singh, and J. Singh, “Frontline Problem-Solving Effec-
tiveness: A Dynamic Analysis of Verbal and Nonverbal Cues,” Journal of
Marketing Research, April 2018, 178–192; and D. B. Rane, “Effective
Body Language for Organizational Success,” Journal of Soft Skills,
2010, 17–26.
22. Norms for cross-cultural eye contact are discussed by C. Engholm,
When Business East Meets Business West: The Guide to Practice and
Protocol in the Pacific Rim (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1991).
23. G. Itzchakov, K. G. DeMarree, A. N. Kluger, and Y. Turjeman-Levi, “The
Listener Sets the Tone: High-Quality Listening Increases Attitude Clarity
and Behavior-Intention Consequences,” Personality and Social Psy-
chology Bulletin, May 2018, 762–778; and S. E. Spataro and J. Bloch,
“‘Can You Repeat That?’ Teaching Active Listening in Management Edu-
cation,” Journal of Management Education, April 2018, 168–198.
24. See J. Keyser, “Active Listening Leads to Business Success,” T+D, July
2013, 26–28.
25. This discussion is based on C. G. Pearce, I. W. Johnson, and R. T. Barker,
“Assessment of the Listening Styles Inventory: Progress in Establishing
Reliability and Validity,” Journal of Business and Technical Communica-
tion, January 2003, 84–113.
26. M. C. Stewart and C. L. Arnold, “Defining Social Listening: Recognizing
an Emerging Dimension of Listening,” International Journal of Listening,
May 2018, 85–100.
27. L. Girardin, “3 Non-Defensive Tricks for Dealing with Tricky Coworkers,”
https://www.govloop.com/community/blog/3-non-defensive-tricks-dealing-
tricky-coworkers/ (accessed March 29, 2019).
28. L. Leanna Holmer, “Understanding and Reducing the Impact of Defen-
siveness on Management Learning: Some Lessons from Neuroscience,”
Journal of Management Education 38, no. 5 (October 2014): 618–41.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562913505568.
29. J. R. Gibb, “Defensive Communication,” Journal of Communication,
1961, 141–148.
30. See D. Goleman, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (New York:
HarperCollins Publishers, 2013).
31. A. L. Meinecke and S. Kauffeld, “Engaging the Hearts and Minds of Fol-
lowers: Leader Empathy and Language Style Matching During Appraisal
Interviews,” Journal of Business and Psychology, July 2018, 1–17.
32. Kevin Daum, “This Entrepreneur and Son of a Holocaust Survivor Proves
Empathy Can Lead to Business Success,” Mansueto Ventures, June 15,
2018, https://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/this-entrepreneur-son-of-a-
holocaust-survivor-proves-empathy-can-lead-to-business-success.html.
33. I. I. Szymanska and B. A. Rubin, “Gender and Relationship Differences in
the Perceptions of Male and Female Leadership,” Gender in Manage-
ment: An International Journal, June 2018, 254–281; and N. Ellemers,
“Gender Stereotypes,” Annual Review of Psychology, 2018, 275–298.
34. D. G. Smith, J. E. Rosenstein, and M. C. Nikolov, “The Different Words
We Use to Describe Male and Female Leaders,” Harvard Business
Review, May 25, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/05/the-different-words-we-
use-to-describe-male-and-female-leaders; and H. Murphy, “Who’s the
Boss? Research Reveals Unconscious Gender Bias,” The New York
Times, April 24, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com.
35. K. Daum, “23 Inspiring Quotes from Strong Businesswomen,” Inc.,
https://www.inc.com/kevin-daum/inspiring-quotes-from-strong-
businesswomen.html (accessed March 29, 2019).
36. D. Tannen, “The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why,” in R. J.
Lewicki and D. M. Saunders, eds., Negotiation: Readings, Exercises,
and Cases, 3rd ed. (Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 1999), 160–173.
37. See A. H. Eagly and W. Wood, “The Origins of Sex Differences in Human
Behavior,” American Psychologist, June 1999, 408–423.
38. See D. Tannen, “The Power of Talk: Who Gets Heard and Why,” in R. J.
Lewicki and D. M. Saunders, eds., Negotiation: Readings, Exercises,
and Cases, 3rd ed. (Boston: Irwin/McGraw-Hill, 1999), 160–173.
39. For a thorough review of the evolutionary explanation of sex differ-
ences in communication, see A. H. Eagly and W. Wood, “The Origins of
Sex Differences in Human Behavior,” American Psychologist, June
1999, 408–423.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN24 CHAPTER NOTES
82. K. Weir, “(Dis)connected,” Monitor on Psychology, March 2017, 42–48.
83. K. Weir, “(Dis)connected,” Monitor on Psychology, March 2017, 42–48.
84. “Managing and Leveraging Workplace Use of Social Media,” Society for
Human Resource Management, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesand-
tools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingsocialmedia.aspx
(accessed April 3, 2019).
85. The Coca-Cola Company, “Social Media Principles.” https://www.coca-
colacompany.com/stories/online-social-media-principles, (accessed
June 19, 2019).
86. J. Oravec, “Deconstructing ‘Personal Privacy’ in an Age of Social Media:
information Control and Reputation Management Dimensions,” Interna-
tional Journal of the Academic Business World 6, Spring 2012, 95–101.
87. G. Schmidt and K. O’Connor, “Fired for Facebook: Using NLRB Guid-
ance to Craft Appropriate Social Media Policies,” Business Horizons,
2015, 571–579.
88. Kathy Gurchiek, “Workers Using Own Devices for Work Expect Employ-
ers to Respect Their Privacy,” SHRM, July 20, 2015, https://www.shrm.
org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/technology/pages/why-byod-and-
privacy-are-important.aspx
89. Adapted from K. Gurchiek, “Workers Using Own Devices for Work
Expect Employers to Respect Their Privacy,” Society for Human
Resource Management, July 20, 2015, https://www.shrm.org/hrdisci-
plines/technology/pages/why-byod-and-privacy-are-important.aspx.
90. J. Robbins, “How to Ace Your interview on Skype,” blogs.skype.com,
April 3, 2018, https://blogs.skype.com/tips/2018/04/03/how-to-ace-
your-interview-on-skype/; “The New Secrets to Rocking Your Skype
Interview,” The Muse.com, https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-new-
secrets-to-rocking-your-skype-interview (accessed March 30, 2019); P.
Loretto, “How to Ace a Skype Interview,” The Balance Careers.com,
January 21, 2019, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/learn-how-to-
ace-a-skype-interview-1986906.
91. C. Anderson, “How to Give a Killer Presentation,” Harvard Business
Review, https://hbr.org/2013/06/how-to-give-a-killer-presentation
(accessed April 3, 2019).
92. “Top 20 Public Speaking Quotes,” Institute of Public Speaking, https://
www.instituteofpublicspeaking.com/public-speaking-tips/top-20-public-
speaking-quotes/ (accessed March 30, 2019).
93. A. Bryant, “How to Speak in Public,” The New York Times, https://www.
nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-speak-in-public
(accessed April 3, 2019); B. Liu, “5 Simple Ways to Become a More
Impressive Public Speaker,” Inc., June 30, 2015, http://www.inc.com/
betty-liu/5-easy-ways-to-improve-your-stage-presence.html; and J.
Moore, “How Anyone Can Become a Good Public Speaker,” Time, April
1, 2015, http://time.com/3758692/become-good-public-speaker.
94. A. Bryant, “How to Speak in Public,” The New York Times, https://www.
nytimes.com/guides/year-of-living-better/how-to-speak-in-public
(accessed April 3, 2019); and P. Armstrong, “Stop Using PowerPoint, Har-
vard University Says It’s Damaging Your Brand and Your Company,”
Forbes, July 5, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/paularmstrong-
tech/2017/07/05/stop-using-powerpoint-harvard-university-says-its-dam-
aging-your-brand-and-your-company/#213ede7e3e65.
95. Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and AI Switzler, Crucial
Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (New York:
McGraw-Hill Education, 2012).
96. K. Patterson, J. Grenny, R. McMillan, and S. Switzler, Crucial Conversa-
tions: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (New York: McGraw-Hill,
2012).
97. D. Stam D. van Knippenberg, B. Wisse, and A. N. Pieterse, “Motivation in
Words: Promotion- and Prevention-Oriented Leader Communication in
Times of Crisis,” Journal of Management, September 2018, 2859–
2887; and D. W. Robertson, “Training Resilient Leaders during Times of
Change,” Leadership Excellence, August 2018, 16–18.
98. Joseph Grenny, “How Can We Significantly Improve Bottom-Line Results?”
Association for Talent Development, March 16, 2015, https://www.td.org/
insights/how-can-we-significantly-improve-bottom-line-results.
99. “The Manager Effect: 1 Out of 3 Managers Can’t Handle High-Stakes Situ-
ations and as a Result, Their Teams Are Less Successful,” PR Newswire,
November 13, 2018, https://www.prnewswire.com.
100. Adapted from K. Patterson, J. Grenny, R. McMillan, and S. Switzler, Cru-
cial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (New York:
McGraw-Hill, 2012), 154.
101. Sue Shellenbarger, “The Right and Wrong Way to Manage Up at the
Office,” The Wall Street Journal, April 10, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/
a r t i c l e s / t h e - r i g h t - a n d - w r o n g - w a y - t o - m a n a g e - u p - a t - t h e -
office-1523366792; Justin Reynolds, “What Does It Mean to Manage
Up?” TINYPulse, March 14, 2017, https://www.tinypulse.com/blog/
what-does-it-mean-to-manage-up; Michael Rosenthal, “Last Word: Con-
structive Criticism for Managers,” Lakewood Media Group, LLC, https://
trainingmag.com/content/last-word-constructive-criticism-managers/;
and Carol Patton, “Coaching Up,” Lakewood Media Group, LLC, https://
trainingmag.com/content/coaching/.
60. J. Meister, “Want to Be a More Productive Employee? Get on Social Net-
works,” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeannemeister/2013/04/18/
want-to-be-a-more-productive-employee-get-on-social-net -
works/#39a92ab5753d (accessed April 3, 2019).
61. “18 Companies with Brilliant Digital Strategies,” Econsultancy, February
26, 2019, https://econsultancy.com/how-digital-helped-dominos-over-
take-pizza-hut/; P. Robles, “How Digital Helped Domino’s Overtake
Pizza Hut,” Econsultancy, February 22, 2018, https://econsultancy.com/
how-digital-helped-dominos-overtake-pizza-hut/.
62. G. De Vynck, “Crowdsourcing Is Canadian Miner’s Answer to Slumping
Gold,” Bloomberg, June 23, 2015, http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/
2015-06-23/gold-crowdsourcing-is-miner-s-answerto-slumping-price.
63. Company website, https://ideas.lego.com/guidelines, and https://ideas.
lego.com/blogs (accessed April 2, 2019).
64. L. Jackson, “Cashing In on Americans’ No-Rules Approach to Snacking,”
The Motley Fool, August 25, 2018, https://www.fool.com/invest-
ing/2018/08/25/cashing-in-on-americans-no-rules-approach-to-snack.
aspx; and “Marketer’s Brief: Lay’s ‘Do Us a Flavor’ Is Over, But Quirky
Flavors Aren’t,” AdAge, July 18, 2018, https://adage.com/article/
marketers-brief/marketer-s-lay-s-a-flavor/314259/.
65. C. Zakrzewski, “The Key to Getting Workers to Stop Wasting Time
Online,” The Wall Street Journal, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-key-
to-getting-workers-to-stop-wasting-time-online-1457921545
(accessed April 3, 2019); and K.-Y. Koay and P. Chin-Hooi Soh, “Should
Cyberloafing Be Allowed in the Workplace?” Human Resource Man-
agement International Digest, October 2018, 4–6.
66. C. Conner, “Wasting Time at Work: The Epidemic Continues,” Forbes,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2015/07/31/wasting-
time-at-work-the-epidemic-continues/#76c722f51d94 (accessed
April 3, 2019).
67. “Careerbuilder: 53% of Employees Are Using Time at Work to Shop
Online, Increase from Last Year, Finds Annual CareerBuilder Survey,”
http://www.careerbuilder.com/share/aboutus/pressreleasesdetail.aspx?
ed=12%2F31%2F2016&id=pr978&sd=11%2F22%2F2016 (accessed
April 3, 2019).
68. B. Darrow, “Employers Pay the Real Cost of Fantasy Football,” Fortune,
August 30, 2016, http://fortune.com/2016/08/30/why-fantasy-football-
costs-money/.
69. “Does Fantasy Football Sack Productivity?” press release, Challenger,
Gray & Christmas, August 30, 2016, http://www.challengergray.com/
press/press-releases/fantasy-football-could-cost-17b-worth-it.
70. C. C. Rosen, L. S. Simon, R. S. Gajendran, R. E. Johnson, H. W. Lee, and
S.-H. Lin, “Boxed in by Your Inbox: Implications of Daily E-Mail Demands
for Managers’ Leadership Behaviors,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
January 2019, 19–33.
71. C. P. Estévez-Mujica and E. Quintane, “E-mail Communication Patterns
and Job Burnout,” PLoS ONE, March 8, 2018, 1–25.
72. S. Holtz, “The Debate about Blocking Social Media in the Workplace,”
Monster, https://hiring.monster.com/hr/hr-best-practices/workforce-
management/employee-performance-management/blocking-social-
media-us.aspx (accessed April 3, 2019).
73. M. C. Long, “How Social Media Actually Boosts Efficiency in an Office
Environment,” AdWeek, May 10, 2018, https://www.adweek.com/digital/
how-social-media-actually-boosts-efficiency-in-an-office-environment/.
74. Stephanie Vozza, “Why Banning Facebook at Work Is a Stupid Move,”
Entrepreneur Media, Inc., September 30, 2013, https://www.entrepreneur.
com/article/228641.
75. National Conference of State Legislatures, “Access to Social Media
Usernames and Passwords,” March 15, 2019, http://www.ncsl.org/
research/telecommunications-and-information-technology/employer-
access-to-social-media-passwords-2013.aspx.
76. N. Goodman, “Micro-Aggressions and Phubbing in the Age of FoMO,”
Training, https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/micro-aggressions-
and-phubbing-age-fomo (accessed April 3, 2019).
77. J. Ducharme, “‘Phubbing’ Is Hurting Your Relationships. Here’s What It
Is,” Time, March 29, 2018, http://time.com/5216853/what-is-phubbing/.
78. N. Goodman, “Micro-Aggressions and Phubbing in the Age of FoMO,”
Training, https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/micro-aggressions-
and-phubbing-age-fomo (accessed April 3, 2019).
79. N. Goodman, “Micro-Aggressions and Phubbing in the Age of FoMO,”
Training, https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/micro-aggressions-
and-phubbing-age-fomo (accessed April 3, 2019); and J. Ducharme,
“‘Phubbing’ Is Hurting Your Relationships. Here’s What It Is,” Time,
March 29, 2018, http://time.com/5216853/what-is-phubbing/.
80. J. Ducharme, “‘Phubbing’ Is Hurting Your Relationships. Here’s What It
Is,” Time, March 29, 2018, http://time.com/5216853/what-is-phubbing/.
81. N. Goodman, “Micro-Aggressions and Phubbing in the Age of FoMO,”
Training, https://trainingmag.com/trgmag-article/micro-aggressions-
and-phubbing-age-fomo (accessed April 3, 2019); and J. Ducharme,
“‘Phubbing’ Is Hurting Your Relationships. Here’s What It Is,” Time,
March 29, 2018, http://time.com/5216853/what-is-phubbing/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN25CHAPTER NOTES
125. J. Baron, “Life Insurers Can Use Social Media Posts to Determine Premi-
ums, As Long As They Don’t Discriminate,” Forbes, February 4, 2019,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicabaron/2019/02/04/life-insurers-can-
use-social-media-posts-to-determine-premiums/#4b99378023ce.
126. Jessica Baron, “Life Insurers Can Use Social Media Posts to Determine
Premiums, As Long As They Don’t Discriminate,” Forbes Media, LLC,
February 4, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicabaron/
2019/02/04/life-insurers-can-use-social-media-posts-to-determine-
premiums/#60e5fd6023ce.
127. L. Scism, “New York Insurers Can Evaluate Your Social Media Use—If
They Can Prove Why It’s Needed,” The Wall Street Journal, January 30,
2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-insurers-can-evaluate-
your -soc ia l -med ia -use i f - they -can -prove-why- i t s -needed-
11548856802.
128. J. Baron, “Life Insurers Can Use Social Media Posts to Determine Premi-
ums, As Long As They Don’t Discriminate,” Forbes, February 4, 2019,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicabaron/2019/02/04/life-insurers-can-
use-social-media-posts-to-determine-premiums/#4b99378023ce.
CHAPTER 10
1. R. Maurer, “Salary Negotiations Aren’t Happening as Much as You
Think,” SHRM.org, February 20, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resource-
sandtools/hr-topics/talent-acquisition/pages/salary-negotiations-are-
not-happening.aspx.
2. Adapted from G. Moran, “These Are the Salary Trends You Need to
Know Before Your Next Negotiation,” FastCompany.com, February 25,
2019, https://www.fastcompany.com/90309036/these-are-the-salary-
trends-you-need-to-know-before-your-next-negotiation; and “7 Negoti-
ating Tricks to Get the Salary You Deserve in 2016,” Business Insider,
January 10, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com.au/tips-to-negotiate-
your-salary-2015-12#/#keep-silent-until-the-interview-process-is-
over-1.
3. Adapted from G. Moran, “These Are the Salary Trends You Need to
Know Before Your Next Negotiation,” FastCompany.com, February 25,
2019, https://www.fastcompany.com/90309036/these-are-the-salary-
trends-you-need-to-know-before-your-next-negotiation; and “7 Negoti-
ating Tricks to Get the Salary You Deserve in 2016,” Business Insider,
January 10, 2016, http://www.businessinsider.com.au/tips-to-negotiate-
your-salary-2015-12#/#keep-silent-until-the-interview-process-is-
over-1.
4. Eilene Zimmerman, “How to Benchmark Your Salary,” CBS Interactive
Inc., July 23, 2009, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-to-bench-
mark-your-salary/.
5. Adapted from Society of Human Resource Management, “Managing
Workplace Conflict,” SHRM.org, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesand-
tools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingworkplaceconflict.
aspx (accessed March 23, 2019).
6. Adapted from N. Regier, Conflict Without Casualties (Berrett-Koehler,
2017), as cited in D. Meinert, “Why Workplace Conflict Can Be Healthy,”
SHRM.org, April 18, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/
hr-magazine/0517/pages/why-workplace-conflict-can-be-healthy.aspx.
7. D. Meinert, “Why Workplace Conflict Can Be Healthy,” SHRM.org, April
18, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0517/
pages/why-workplace-conflict-can-be-healthy.aspx.
8. Adapted from C. Coats, “Workplace Conflict: Friend or Foe?” Forbes.
com, October 16, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoaches-
c o u n c i l / 2 0 1 8 / 1 0 / 1 6 / w o r k p l a c e - c o n f l i c t - f r i e n d - o r - f o e /
#4d5d4af7549d.
9. G. R. Massey and P. L. Dawes, “The Antecedents and Consequence of
Functional and Dysfunctional Conflict between Marketing Managers
and Sales Managers,” Industrial Marketing Management, 2007, 1118–
1129. See also S. Alper, D. Tjosvold, and K. S. Law, “Interdependence
and Controversy in Group Decision Making: Antecedents to Effective
Self-Managing Teams,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
Processes, April 1998, 33–52.
10. Adapted from Society of Human Resource Management, “Managing
Workplace Conflict,” SHRM.org, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesand-
tools/tools-and-samples/toolkits/pages/managingworkplaceconflict.
aspx (accessed March 23, 2019).
11. Society of Human Resource Management, “Managing Workplace
Conflict,” https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/
toolkits/pages/managingworkplaceconflict.aspx (accessed July 4,
2019).
12. C. E. Thiel, J. Harvey, S. Courtright, and B. Bradley, “What Doesn’t Kill
You Makes You Stronger: How Teams Rebound from Early-Stage Rela-
tionship Conflict,” Journal of Management, 45, 2019, 1623–1659.
13. “General Information on Escalation,” International Online Training Pro-
gram on Intractable Conflict, Conflict Research Consortium, University of
Colorado, http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/problem/escalation.
htm, accessed June 12, 2013.
102. J. Brady, “Managing Up: Is Upwards Feedback Too Great a Challenge
for Leadership?” Journal of Applied Linguistics and Professional Prac-
tice, December 2018, 34–55; and E. Leonard, “Managing Up as a Posi-
tive, Collaborative Approach,” Reference & User Services Quarterly,
Winter 2018, 70–72.
103. Adapted from M. Rosenthal, “Constructive Criticism for Managers,”
Training, July/August 2013, 64; and C. Patton, “Coaching Up,” Training,
July/August 2013, 29–31.
104. D. Rousmaniere, “What Everyone Should Know about Managing Up,”
Harvard Business Review, https://hbr.org/2015/01/what-everyone-
should-know-about-managing-up.
105. “United Airlines Annual Form 10-K for Year Ended December 31, 2018,”
http://ir.united.com/investor-relations (accessed March 27, 2019).
106. M. Castillo, “United CEO Oscar Munoz Was Recently Named ‘Communi-
cator of the Year’ by PR Week,” CNBC, https://www.cnbc.com/2017/04/
11/united-ceo-oscar-munoz-recently-named-communicator-of-the-year.
html (accessed March 27, 2019).
107. Ashley Sutter, “Shelby Woman on United Flight Says Incident Was Avoid-
able,” The Sentinel News, April 14, 2017, https://www.sentinelnews.
com/content/shelby-woman-united-flight-says-incident-was-avoidable.
108. C. Zdanowicz and E. Grinberg, “Passenger Dragged Off Overbooked
United Flight,” CNN, April 10, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/
travel/passenger-removed-united-flight-trnd/index.html.
109. E. McCann, “United’s Apologies: A Timeline,” The New York Times, April
14, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/business/united-air-
lines-passenger-doctor.html.
110. S. Czarnecki, “Timeline of a Crisis: United Airlines,” PRWeek, June 6, 2017,
https://www.prweek.com/article/1435619/timeline-crisis-united-airlines.
111. N. Khomami and J. Lartey, “United Airlines CEO Calls Dragged Passen-
ger ‘Disruptive and Belligerent,’” The Guardian, April 11, 2017, https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/united-airlines-boss-oliver-
munoz-says-passenger-belligerent.
112. C. Zdanowicz and E. Grinberg, “Passenger Dragged Off Overbooked
United Flight,” CNN, April 10, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2017/04/10/
travel/passenger-removed-united-flight-trnd/index.html.
113. N. Khomami and J. Lartey, “United Airlines CEO Calls Dragged Passen-
ger ‘Disruptive and Belligerent,’” The Guardian, April 11, 2017, https://
www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/united-airlines-boss-oliver-
munoz-says-passenger-belligerent.
114. J. Passy, “Survey: Nearly Half of Young Americans Say They Won’t Fly
United Anymore,” MarketWatch, April 21, 2017, https://www.market-
watch.com/story/nearly-half-of-young-americans-wont-fly-united-any-
more-2017-04-21.
115. S. Czarnecki, “Timeline of a Crisis: United Airlines,” PRWeek, June 6,
2017, https://www.prweek.com/article/1435619/timeline-crisis-united-
airlines.
116. E. McCann, “United’s Apologies: A Timeline,” The New York Times, April
14, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/business/united-
airlines-passenger-doctor.html.
117. J. Passy, “Survey: Nearly Half of Young Americans Say They Won’t Fly
United Anymore,” MarketWatch, April 21, 2017, https://www.market-
watch.com/story/nearly-half-of-young-americans-wont-fly-united-any-
more-2017-04-21.
118. C. Thompson, “United’s CEO Bought a Full Page Ad in Dramatic Apol-
ogy for Passenger Dragged Off Plane,” Business Insider, April 27, 2017,
https://www.businessinsider.com/united-ceo-apologizes-in-ad-for-
passenger-dragged-from-flight-2017-4.
119. B. Meier, “Oscar Munoz Won’t Get Planned Promotion to Chairman of
United,” The New York Times, April 21, 2017, https://www.nytimes.
com/2017/04/21/business/united-airlines-ceo.html?_r=0.
120. Jessica Baron, “Life Insurers Can Use Social Media Posts to Determine
Premiums, As Long As They Don’t Discriminate,” Forbes Media, LLC,
February 4, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicabaron/
2019/02/04/life-insurers-can-use-social-media-posts-to-determine-
premiums/#60e5fd6023ce.
121. L. Scism, “New York Insurers Can Evaluate Your Social Media Use—If
They Can Prove Why It’s Needed,” The Wall Street Journal, January 30,
2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-insurers-can-evaluate-
your-social-media-useif-they-can-prove-why-its-needed-11548856802.
122. A. Chen, “Why the Future of Life Insurance May Depend on Your Online
Presence,” The Verge, February 7, 2019, https://www.theverge.
com/2019/2/7/18211890/social-media-life-insurance-new-york-algo-
rithms-big-data-discrimination-online-records.
123. J. Baron, “Life Insurers Can Use Social Media Posts to Determine Premi-
ums, As Long As They Don’t Discriminate,” Forbes, February 4, 2019,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jessicabaron/2019/02/04/life-insurers-can-
use-social-media-posts-to-determine-premiums/#4b99378023ce.
124. W. Knight, “Biased Algorithms Are Everywhere, and No One Seems to
Care,” MIT Technology Review, July 12, 2017, https://www.technolo-
gyreview.com/s/608248/biased-algorithms-are-everywhere-and-no-
one-seems-to-care/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN26 CHAPTER NOTES
35. E. M. Hunter, M. A. Clark, ad D. S. Carlson, “Violating Work-Family
Boundaries: Reactions to Interruptions at Work and Home,” Journal of
Management, 45, 2019, 1284–1308.
36. E. M. Hunter, M. A. Clark, ad D. S. Carlson, “Violating Work-Family
Boundaries: Reactions to Interruptions at Work and Home,” Journal of
Management, 45, 2019, 1284–1308.
37. R. Montanez, “The Highest-Rated Companies for Work-Life Balance in
2018,” Forbes.com, October 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
rachelmontanez/2018/10/01/the-2018-highest-rated-companies-for-
work-life-balance/#34651ce07cb1.
38. R. Montanez, “The Highest-Rated Companies for Work-Life Balance in
2018,” Forbes.com, October 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
rachelmontanez/2018/10/01/the-2018-highest-rated-companies-for-
work-life-balance/#34651ce07cb1.
39. Adapted from E. M. Hunter, M. A. Clark, ad D. S. Carlson, “Violating
Work-Family Boundaries: Reactions to Interruptions at Work and Home,”
Journal of Management, 45, 2019, 1284–1308.
40. “Flexible Work Plans Key to Retention,” HR Magazine, December 2010,
105.
41. Iliana Castillo-Frick, “Words of Wisdom: The Evolution of Workflex,”
SHRM, November 21, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-
magazine/1217/pages/words-of-wisdom-the-evolution-of-workflex-
castillo-frick.aspx.
42. C. Fritz and D. Van Knippenberg, “Gender and Leadership Aspiration:
The Impact of Work-Life Initiatives,” Human Resource Management, 57,
2018, 855–868.
43. K. Gurchiek, “‘Best Companies for Dads’ Spotlights Exemplary Support
for Working Fathers,” SHRM.org, December 6, 2018, https://www.shrm.
org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/global-and-
cultural-effectiveness/pages/best-companies-for-dads-support-
working-fathers.aspx.
44. Kathy Gurchiek, “‘Best Companies for Dads’ Spotlights Exemplary Sup-
port for Working Fathers,” SHRM, December 6, 2018, https://www.shrm.
org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/global-and-
cultural-effectiveness/pages/best-companies-for-dads-support-work-
ing-fathers.aspx.
45. R. Montanez, “The Highest-Rated Companies for Work-Life Balance in
2018,” Forbes.com, October 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
rachelmontanez/2018/10/01/the-2018-highest-rated-companies-for-
work-life-balance/#34651ce07cb1.
46. S. C. Paustian-Underdahl and J. R. B. Halbesleben, “Examining the Influ-
ence of Climate, Supervisor Guidance, and Behavioral Integrity on
Work-Family Conflict: A Demands and Resources Approach,” Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 2014, 447–463.
47. R. Maurer, “Flexwork Participation Lagging,” HR Magazine, April 2015, 75.
48. B. Luscombe, “How Deloitte CEO Cathy Engelbert Rose to the Top,”
Time, March 22, 2018, http://time.com/5210505/how-deloitte-ceo-
cathy-engelbert-rose-to-the-top/.
49. M. Houshmand, J. O’Reilly, S. Robinson, and A. Wolff, “Escaping Bully-
ing: The Simultaneous Impact of Individual and Unit-Level Bullying on
Turnover Intentions,” Human Relations, 65, 2012, 901–918.
50. T. Vahle-Hinz, A. Baethge, and R. Van Dick, “Beyond One Work Day? A
Daily Diary Study on Causal and Reverse Effects Between Experienced
Workplace Incivility and Behaving Rude Towards Others,” European
Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,” 28, 2019, 272–285;
and A. Murrell, “Stopping the Downward Spiral of Workplace Incivility,”
Forbes.com, July 16, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/audreymur-
rell/2018/07/16/stopping-the-downward-spiral-of-workplace-
incivility/#4967a87954ef.
51. C. Porath and C. Pearson, “The Price of Incivility—Lack of Respect Hurts
Morale and the Bottom Line,” Harvard Business Review, January–
February 2013, 115–121.
52. C. Porath and C. Pearson, “The Price of Incivility—Lack of Respect Hurts
Morale and the Bottom Line,” Harvard Business Review, January–
February 2013, 115–121.
53. T. Vahle-Hinz, A. Baethge, and R. Van Dick, “Beyond One Work Day? A
Daily Diary Study On Causal and Reverse Effects Between Experienced
Workplace Incivility and Behaving Rude Towards Others,” European
Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology,” 2019, 28, 272–285;
and A. Murrell, “Stopping the Downward Spiral of Workplace Incivility,”
Forbes.com, July 16, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/audreymur-
rell/2018/07/16/stopping-the-downward-spiral-of-workplace-
incivility/#4967a87954ef.
54. M. Sharifirad, “Can Incivility Impair Teams’ Creative Performance
Through Paralyzing Employees’ Knowledge Sharing? A Multi-Level
Approach,” Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 2016,
200–225.
55. C. Porath, T. Fould, and A. Erez, “How Incivility Hijacks Performance: It
Robs Cognitive Resources, Increases Dysfunctional Behavior, and
Infects Team Dynamics and Functioning,” Organizational Dynamics,
2015, 258–265.
14. Inspired by M. Yate, “Your Career Q&A: How to Explain Why You Want to
Leave a Job,” SHRM.org, January 16, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/
resourcesandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-develop-
ment/pages/your-career-qa-how-to-explain-why-you-want-to-leave-a-
job.aspx.; and “How to Explain Your Reasons for Leaving a Job,” Indeed.
com, https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/interviewing/how-to-
explain-your-reasons-for-leaving-a-job, downloaded February 19, 2019.
15. C. Hanson, “Viewpoint: The Art and Science of Conflict Management,”
SHRM.org, August 7, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/
hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/viewpoint-the-art-and-science-of-
conflict-management.aspx.
16. Cynthia B. Hanson, “Viewpoint: The Art and Science of Conflict Man-
agement,” SHRM, August 7, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesand-
tools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/viewpoint-the-art-
and-science-of-conflict-management.aspx.
17. Adapted from Managing Mental Health Matters, “Why Dealing with
Conflict is Difficult,” Centre for Mental Health in the Workplace, October
2018, https://www.workplacestrategiesformentalhealth.com/mmhm/
pdf/articles/Why_Dealing_with_Conflict_is_Difficult .
18. Karen Duncum, “Turning Conflict into Cooperation,” Bloomberg L.P.,
October 15, 2010, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/
2010-10-15/turning-conflict-into-cooperation.
19. D. Adams, “Positive and Negative Consequences of Conflict in Organi-
zations,” Chron.com, March 6, 2019, https://smallbusiness.chron.com/
positive-negative-consequences-conflict-organizations-10254.html.
20. C. E. Thiel, J. A. Griffith, J. H. Hardy, D. R. Peterson, and S. Connelly, “Let’s
Look at This Another Way: How Supervisors Can Help Subordinates
Manage the Threat of Relationship Conflict,” Journal of Leadership and
Organizational Studies, 25, 368–380.
21. J. Leon-Perez, F. Medina, A. Arenas, and L. Munduate, “The Relationship
between Interpersonal Conflict and Workplace Bullying,” Journal of
Managerial Psychology, 2015, 250–263.
22. I. Martinez-Corts, E. Demerouti, A. Bakker, and M. Boz, “Spillover of
Interpersonal Conflicts from Work into Nonwork: A Daily Diary Study,”
Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 2015, 326–337.
23. T. Mzezewa, “Airbnb and Miami Beach Are at War. Travelers Are Caught
in the Crossfire,” The New York Times, March 9, 2019, https://www.
nytimes.com/2019/03/09/travel/airbnb-miami-beach-war.html.
24. A. Presbitero and L. S. Toledano, “Global Team Members’ Performance
and the Roles of Cross-Cultural Training, Cultural Intelligence, and Con-
tact Intensity: The Case of Global Teams in IT Offshoring Sector,” The
International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2018, 29,
2188–2208.
25. G. Boccato, D. Capozza, E. Trifiletti, and G. Di Bernardo, “Attachment
Security and Intergroup Contact,” Journal of Applied Social Psychology,
2015, 629–647.
26. H. Deng, K. Leung, C. K. Lam, and X. Huang, “Slacking Off in Comfort: A
Dual-Pathway Model for Psychological Safety Climate,” Journal of Man-
agement, 2019, 45, 1114-1144.
27. Q. Zhou and W. Pan, “A Cross-Level Examination of the Process Linking
Transformational Leadership and Creativity: The Role of Psychological
Safety Climate,” Human Performance, 2015, 405-424.
28. J. Wang, K. Lueng, and F. Zhou, “Dispositional Approach to Psychologi-
cal Climate: Relationships between Interpersonal Harmony Motives and
Psychological Climate for Communication Safety,” Human Relations,
2014, 489–515.
29. A. Nixon, J. Lanz, A. Manapragada, V. Bruk-Lee, A. Schantz, and J. Rodri-
guez, “Nurse Safety: How Is Safety Climate Related to Affect and Atti-
tude?” Work & Stress, 2015, 401–419.
30. Created from Re:Work, “Understanding Team Effectiveness,” Google.
c o m , h t t p s : / / r e w o r k .w i t h g o o g l e . c o m / p r i n t / g u i d e s /
5721312655835136/, as cited in A. S. Hirsch, “Working with People
Who Avoid Conflict,” SHRM.org, September 12, 2018, https://www.
shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/work-
ing-with-people-who-avoid-conflict.aspx; and J. Wang, K. Lueng, and F.
Zhou, “Dispositional Approach to Psychological Climate: Relationships
between Interpersonal Harmony Motives and Psychological Climate for
Communication Safety,” Human Relations, 2014, 489–515.
31. Adapted from A. S. Hirsch, “Working with People Who Avoid Conflict,”
SHRM.org, September 12, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesand-
tools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/working-with-people-who-
avoid-conflict.aspx.
32. E. M. Hunter, M. A Clark, and D. S. Carlson, “Violating Work-Family
Boundaries: Reactions to Interruptions at Work and Hom,” Journal of
Management, 2019, 45, 1284–1308.
33. I. Spieler, S. Scheibe, and C. S. Robnagel, “Keeping Work and Private
Life Apart,” Age-Related Differences in Managing the Work-Nonwork
Interface,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39, 2018, 12334-1251.
34. I. Spieler, S. Scheibe, and C. S. Robnagel, “Keeping Work and Private
Life Apart,” Age-Related Differences in Managing the Work-Nonwork
Interface,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, 39, 2018, 12334-1251.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN27CHAPTER NOTES
81. K. Shonk, “What is Alternative Dispute Resolution?” Harvard Law School
Program on Negotiation, December 27, 2018, https://www.pon.
harvard.edu/daily/dispute-resolution/what-is-alternative-dispute-
resolution/.
82. P. Holtzman, “Why Litigate When You Can Mediate?” HR Magazine,
September 2015, 86–87.
83. For more, see M. M. Clark, “A Jury of Their Peers,” HR Magazine, Janu-
ary 2004, 54–59.
84. P. Holtzman, “Why Litigate When You Can Mediate?” HR Magazine,
September 2015, 86–87.
85. For an excellent description of the pros and cons from both employee
and employer perspectives, see C. D. Coleman, “Is Mandatory Employ-
ment Arbitration Living Up to Its Expectations? A View from the Employ-
er’s Perspective,” ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law, Winter 2010,
227–239. The EEOC website also has excellent additional information
on ADR techniques: http://www.eeoc.gov/ federal/adr/typesofadr.cfm.
86. Adapted from N. Scheiber, “Why Wendy’s Is Facing Campus Protests
(It’s All About the Tomatoes),” The New York Times, March 7, 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/07/business/economy/wendys-
farm-workers-tomatoes.html; and Coalition of Immokalee Workers web-
page, https://ciw-online.org/about/ (accessed March 31, 2019).
87. A. C. Shilton, “How to Be an Ace Salary Negotiator (Even if You Hate
Conflict),” The New York Times, August 10, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/08/10/smarter-living/how-to-negotiate-salary.html.
88. J. Sebenius, “Why a Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiation Remains a
Triumph at 50 but the Labels ‘Distributive’ and ‘Integrative’ Should Be
Retired,” Negotiation Journal, October 2015, 335–347.
89. K. Campbell and R. O’Leary, “Big Ideas for Big Problems: Lessons from
Conflict Resolution for Public Administration,” Conflict Resolution Quar-
terly, Winter 2015, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/
crq.21146/abstract. See also P. L. Stockli and C. Tanner, “Are Integrative
or Distributive Outcomes More Satisfactory? The Effects of Interest-
Based versus Value-Based Issues on Negotiator Satisfaction,” Euro-
pean Journal of Social Psychology, 2014, 202–208.
90. J. Graham, L. Lawrence, and W. Requejo, “Inventive Negotiation: Get-
ting Beyond Yes,” Organizational Dynamics, 2015, 35–46.
91. Adapted from K. Campbell and R. O’Leary, “Big Ideas for Big Problems:
Lessons from Conflict Resolution for Public Administration,” Conflict
Resolution Quarterly, Winter 2015, http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
doi/10.1002/crq.21146/abstract.
92. N. Dimotakis, D. E. Conlon, and R. Ilies, “The Mind and Heart (Literally) of
the Negotiator: Personality and Contextual Determinants of Experiential
Reactions in Economic Outcomes in Negotiation,” Journal of Applied
Psychology, 2012, 183–193.
93. L. Schiff, “Revisiting ’Win-Win’ Negotiation: It’s Still a Losing Game,”
Forbes, March 13, 2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/jimcamp/
2013/03/11/revisiting-win-win-negotiation-its-still-a-losing-game/
(accessed August 19, 2013).
94. C. Porath and C. Pearson, “The Price of Incivility—Lack of Respect Hurts
Morale and the Bottom Line,” Harvard Business Review, January–
February 2013, 115–121.
95. C. Porath and C. Pearson, “The Price of Incivility—Lack of Respect Hurts
Morale and the Bottom Line,” Harvard Business Review, January–
February 2013, 115–121.
96. N. A. Welsh, “The Reputational Advantages of Demonstrating Trustwor-
thiness: Using the Reputation Index with Law Students,” Negotiation
Journal, January 2012, 117–141.
97. Adapted from J. Koblin, “Hollywood Upended as Unions Tell Writers to
Fire Agents,” The New York Times, April 12, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/2019/04/12/business/media/hollywood-writers-agents-fire.html.
98. G. A. Van Kleef and S. Cote, “Emotional Dynamics in Conflict and Nego-
tiation: Individual, Dyadic, and Group Processes,” Annual Review of Orga-
nizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5, 2018, 437–464.
99. Adapted from K. Leary, J. Pillemer, and M. Wheeler, “Negotiating with
Emotion,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2013, 96–103.
See also A. Wood Brooks, “Emotion in the Art of Negotiation,” Harvard
Business Review, December 2015, 57–64.
100. N. Rothman and G. Northcraft, “Unlocking Integrative Potential:
Expressed Emotional Ambivalence and Negotiation Outcomes,” Orga-
nizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 2015, 65–76.
101. G. A. Van Kleef and S. Cote, “Emotional Dynamics in Conflict and Nego-
tiation: Individual, Dyadic, and Group Processes,” Annual Review of Orga-
nizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 5, 2018, 437–464.
102. Eileen Hoenigman Meyer, “Salary Negotiation Scripts for Any Job,”
Glassdoor, April 1, 2019, https://www.glassdoor.com/blog/salary-
negotiation-scripts-for-any-job/.
103. B. Gunia, “Ethics in Negotiation: Causes and Consequences,” Academy
of Management Perspectives, 33, 2019, 3–11.
104. Lily Morse and Taya R. Cohen, “Moral Character in Negotiation,” Acad-
emy of Management Perspectives 33, no. 1 (February 2019): 12–25.
https://doi.org/10.5465/amp.2017.0051.
56. C. Porath, T. Fould, and A. Erez, “How Incivility Hijacks Performance: It
Robs Cognitive Resources, Increases Dysfunctional Behavior, and
Infects Team Dynamics and Functioning,” Organizational Dynamics,
2015, 258–265.
57. M. Coetzee and J. Van Dyk, “Workplace Bullying and Turnover Inten-
tion: Exploring Work Engagement as a Mediator,” Psychological
Reports, 2018, 121, 375–392.
58. L. Nagele-Piazza, “Workplace Bullying and Harassment: What’s the Dif-
ference?” SHRM.org, March 28, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/resource-
sandtools/legal-and-compliance/state-and-local-updates/pages/
workplace-bullying.aspx.
59. S. Einarsen, A. Skogstad, E. Rorvik. A. B. Lande, and M. B. Nielsen, “Cli-
mate for Conflict Management, Exposure to Workplace Bullying and
Work Engagement: A Moderated Mediation Analysis,” The International
Journal of Human Resource Management, 29, 2018, 549–570.; and M.
Houshmand, J. O’Reilly, S. Robinson, and A. Wolf, “Escaping Bullying,”
Human Relations, July 12, 2012, 901–918.
60. S. Valentine and G. Fleischman, “From Schoolyard to Workplace: The
Impact of Bullying on Sale and Business Employees’ Machiavellianism,
Job Satisfaction, and Perceived Importance of an Ethical Issue,” Human
Resource Management, 57, 2018, 293–305.
61. S. Branch and J. Murray, “Workplace Bullying: Is Lack of Understanding
the Reason for Inaction?” Organizational Dynamics, 2015, 287–295.
62. S. Branch and J. Murray, “Workplace Bullying: Is Lack of Understanding
the Reason for Inaction?” Organizational Dynamics, 2015, 287–295.
63. D. P. Ford, “Virtual Harassment: Media Characteristics’ Role in Psycho-
logical Health,” Journal of Managerial Psychology 28, 2013, 408–428.
64. Y. Park, C. Fritz, and S. M. Jex, “Daily Cyber Incivility and Distress: The
Moderating Roles of Resources at Work and Home,” Journal of Man-
agement, 44, 2018, 2535–2557; and D. P. Ford, “Virtual Harassment:
Media Characteristics’ Role in Psychological Health,” Journal of Mana-
gerial Psychology 28, 2013, 408–428.
65. Y. Park, C. Fritz, and S. M. Jex, “Daily Cyber Incivility and Distress: The
Moderating Roles of Resources at Work and Home,” Journal of Man-
agement, 44, 2018, 2535–2557.
66. Y. Park, C. Fritz, and S. M. Jex, “Daily Cyber Incivility and Distress: The
Moderating Roles of Resources at Work and Home,” Journal of Man-
agement, 44, 2018, 2554.
67. EEOC, “Harassment,” EEOC.gov, https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/
harassment.cfm (accessed April 9, 2019).
68. Johnny C. Taylor, “#MeToo: Where Was HR?” SHRM, January 30, 2018,
https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0218/pages/metoo-
where-was-hr.aspx.
69. C. R. Feldblum and S. P. Masling, “Convincing CEOs to Make Harass-
ment Prevention a Priority,” SHRM.org, November 19, 2018, https://
www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/
convincing-ceos-to-make-harassment-prevention-a-priority.aspx.
70. EEOC, “Harassment,” EEOC.gov, https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/types/
harassment.cfm (accessed April 9, 2019).
71. Society of Human Resource Management, “What Are the Different
Types of Sexual Harassment?” SHRM.org, January 12, 2018, https://
www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-samples/hr-qa/pages/type-
sofsexualharassment.aspx.
72. J. A. Segal, “Strengthen Your Harassment Complaint Process,” HR
Magazine, April 2018, 64–65; and J. A. Segal, “Upgrade Your Anti-
Harassment Policy,” HR Magazine, March 2018, 64–65.
73. See J. S. Valacich and C. Schwenk, “Devil’s Advocacy and Dialectical
Inquiry Effects on Face-to-Face and Computer-Mediated Group Deci-
sion Making,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes,
August 1995, 158–173.
74. See D. M. Schweiger, W. R. Sandberg, and P. L. Rechner, “Experiential
Effects of Dialectical Inquiry, Devil’s Advocacy, and Consensus
Approaches to Strategic Decision Making,” Academy of Management
Journal, December 1989, 745–772.
75. T. Yasir, J. Qi, A. Umair, and T. Anum, “Antecedents of Frontline Manager
Handling Relationship Conflicts,” International Journal of Conflict man-
agement, 29, 2018, 2–23.
76. Pamela Valencia, “Trouble Is Brewing,” Association for Talent Develop-
ment, April 2015, https://www.td.org/magazines/td-magazine/trouble-
is-brewing.
77. P. K. Lam and K. S. Chin, “Managing Conflict in Collaborative New Prod-
uct Development: A Supplier Perspective,” International Journal of
Quality and Reliability Management, 2007, 891–907.
78. J. Morrison, “The Relationship between Emotional Intelligence Compe-
tencies and Preferred Conflict Handling Styles,” Journal of Nursing
Management, August 2008, 974–983.
79. Adapted from the American Management Association, “Answers to Per-
sonality Conflicts,” January 24, 2019, https://www.amanet.org/articles/
answers-to-personality-conflicts/.
80. F. Aquila, “Taming the Litigation Beast,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April
6, 2010.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN28 CHAPTER NOTES
12. AAMC News, “New Research Shows Increasing Physician Shortages in
Both Primary and Specialty Care,” April 11, 2018, https://news.aamc.
org/press-releases/article/workforce_report_shortage_04112018/.
13. This study was conducted by P. C. Nutt, “Expanding the Search for
Alternatives During Strategic Decision Making,” Academy of Manage-
ment Executive, November 2004, 13–28.
14. Adapted from I. Janis, Groupthink, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1982, 174–175. Also see J. M. Wellen and M. Neale, “Deviance, Self-
Typicality, and Group Cohesion: The Corrosive Effects of the Bad Ales
on the Barrel,” Small Group Research, 2006, 165–186.
15. Herbert A. Simon, “Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations,”
The American Economic Review 69, no. 4 (September 1979): 493–513.
16. G. G. Marchisotti, M. L. C. Domingos, and R. L. De Almeida, “Decision-
Making at the First Management Level: The Interference of the Organiza-
tional Culture,” Human and Social Management, May/June 2018, 1–26.
17. “Texting and Driving Statistics 2019,” The Zebra, January 2, 2019,
https://www.thezebra.com/texting-and-driving-statistics/.
18. Kirsten Weir, “Totally Irrational,” Monitor on Psychology 47, no. 3 (March
2016): 31.
19. A. Alaniz, “How the Lyft IPO Will Benefit General Motors,” GM Authority,
March 1, 2019, http://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/03/how-the-lyft-ipo-
will-benefit-general-motors/; and M. Wayland, “GM-Lyft Relationship? It’s
Complicated,” Automotive News, December 11, 2017, https://www.
autonews.com/article/20171211/MOBILITY/171219939/gm-lyft-
relationship-it-s-complicated.
20. C. To, G. J. Kilduff, L. Ordoñez, and M. Schweitzer, “Going for It on Fourth
Down: Rivalry Increases Risk Taking, Physiological Arousal, and Promotion
Focus,” Academy of Management Journal, August 2018, 1281–1306.
21. Bounded rationality is discussed by A. R. Memati, A. M. Bhatti, M. Maqsal,
I. Mansoor, and F. Naveed, “Impact of Resource Based View and Resource
Dependence Theory on Strategic Decision Making,” International Journal
of Business Management, December 2010, 110–115; and H. A. Simon,
Administrative Behavior, 2nd ed. (New York: Free Press, 1957).
22. Joshua Rothman, “The Art of Decision-Making,” The New Yorker, Janu-
ary 14, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/21/the-
art-of-decision-making.
23. Joshua Rothman, “The Art of Decision-Making,” The New Yorker, Janu-
ary 14, 2019, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/21/the-
art-of-decision-making.
24. “The Residence of the Future to Be Designed in Lexington, Kentucky,
Sponsored by VANHOOSECO,” PR Newswire, May 9, 2019, https://
www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-residence-of-the-future-to-
be-designed- in- lex ington-kentucky-sponsored-by-vanhoo-
seco-300847591.html.
25. Anthony Clark Carpio, “Hollywood Burbank Airport Gathers Input
Regarding Replacement Terminal,” L.A. Times, March 29, 2019, https://
www.latimes.com/socal/burbank-leader/news/tn-blr-me-replacement-
terminal-charrette-20190329-story.html.
26. “The Residence of the Future to Be Designed in Lexington, Kentucky,
Sponsored by VANHOOSECO,” PR Newswire, May 9, 2019, https://
www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-residence-of-the-future-to-be-
designed-in-lexington-kentucky-sponsored-by-vanhooseco-
300847591.html.
27. Erin Hayes, “Rye Charrette to Re-imagine Town Center,” Seacostonline.
com, updated May 16, 2019, https://www.seacoastonline.com/
news/20190514/rye-charrette-to-re-imagine-town-center.
28. “2019 Charrette: Re-Imagining Streets as Pedestrian Spaces,” Drexel
University, March 11, 2019, https://drexel.edu/westphal/news-events/
news/2019/March/charrette-april-2019/.
29. Daniel Kahneman and G. Klein, “Conditions for Intuitive Expertise: A
Failure to Disagree.” American Psychologist 64, no. 6 (September
2009): 515–26. https://doi: 10.1037/a0016755.
30. C. Chet Miller and R. Duane Ireland, “Intuition in Strategic Decision Mak-
ing: Friend or Foe in the Fast-Paced 21st Century?” The Academy of
Management Executive 19, no. 1 (February 2005): 19–30.
31. B. Herzog, “Best of Luck: Why Good Fortune Isn’t Just a Game of
Chance,” Southwest Magazine, October 2015, 59–61.
32. Ruth Umoh, “Steve Jobs Attributed His Success to Intuition— Here’s
How to Use Yours,” CNBC LLC, May 23, 2018, https://www.cnbc.
com/2018/05/23/how-to-trust-your-intuition-like-apple-co-founder-
steve-jobs.html.
33. C. Mui, “Tim Cook Is Right—We Must Not Shrink from This Moment,”
Forbes, October 26, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/chunka-
mui/2018/10/26/tim-cook-is-right-we-must-not-shrink-from-this-
moment/#3d4c7374b916; M. Weinberger, “The Rise of Apple CEO Tim
Cook, the Leader of the First $1 Trillion Company in the U.S.,” Business
Insider, August 2, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/the-rise-of-
apple-ceo-tim-cook-2016-1; Z. Mejia, “Tim Cook: Listening to Steve
Jobs Rather Than My Friends Was ‘the Best Decision of My Life,’”
CNBC, June 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/20/tim-cook-says-
joining-apple-was-the-best-decision-of-his-life.html.
105. L. Morse, and T. R. Cohen, “Moral Character in Negotiation,” Academy
of Management Perspectives, 33, 2019, 12–25.
106. M. R. Rees, A. E. Tenbrunsel, and M. H. Bazerman, “Bounded Ethicality
and Ethical Fading in Negotiations: Understanding Unintended Unethi-
cal Behavior,” Academy of Management Perspectives, 33, 2019,
26–42.
107. J. P. Gaspar, R. Methasani, and M. Schweitzer, “Fifty Shades of Decep-
tion: Characteristics and Consequences of Lying to Negotiators,” Acad-
emy of Management Perspectives, 33, 2019, 62–81.
108. S. Frenkel, N. Confessore, C. Kang, M. Rosenberg, and J. Nicas, “Delay,
Deny, and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis,” The
New York Times, November 14, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/11/14/technology/facebook-data-russia-election-racism.html.
109. M. Isaac, “When Zuckerberg Asserted Control, Instagram’s Founders
Chafed,” The New York Times, September 25, 2018, https://www.
nytimes.com/2018/09/25/technology/instagram-cofounders-resign-
zuckerberg.html.
110. S. Frenkel and C. Metz, “WhatsApp Co-Founder Leaving Facebook Amid
User Data Disputes,” The New York Times, April 30, 2018, https://www.
nytimes.com/2018/04/30/technology/whatsapp-facebook-jan-koum.html.
111. N. Bowles, “Facebook Made Him a Billionaire. Now He’s a Critic,” The
New York Times, March 21, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
03/21/technology/brian-acton-facebook-critic.html.
112. J. Silver-Greenberg and R. Gebeloff, “Arbitration Everywhere, Stacking
the Deck of Justice,” The New York Times, October 31, 2015, http://
www.nytimes.com/2015/11/01/business/dealbook/arbitration-every-
where-stacking-the-deck-of-justice.html?_r=0.
113. R. Mabud, “Google Put an End to Forced Arbitration—And Why That’s
So Important,” Forbes.com, February 26, 2019, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/rakeenmabud/2019/02/26/worker-organizing-results-in-big-
change-at-google/#19e2ba954399.
114. R. Mabud, “Google Put an End to Forced Arbitration—And Why That’s
So Important,” Forbes.com, February 26, 2019, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/rakeenmabud/2019/02/26/worker-organizing-results-in-big-
change-at-google/#19e2ba954399.
CHAPTER 11
1. M. Rowh, “Transferable Skills for College Students,” College Xpress,
https://www.collegexpress.com/articles-and-advice/career-search/
articles/career-success-after-college/transferable-skills-college-
students-secret-getting-job/ (accessed April 16, 2019).
2. R. Jenkins, “How to Improve Generation Z’s Critical Thinking Skills,” Inc.,
June 27, 2018, https://www.inc.com/ryan-jenkins/2-simple-steps-for-
improved-critical-thinking.html?cid=search//.
3. W. Frick, “3 Ways to Improve Your Decision Making,” Harvard Business
Review, January 22, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/01/3-ways-to-improve-
your-decision-making.
4. M. Plummer, “Top Universities Struggle to Develop One of Today’s Most
In-Demand Skills. Here’s How You and Your Company Can,” Inc., February
26, 2019, https://www.inc.com/matt-plummer/top-universities-struggle-to-
develop-one-of-todays-most-in-demand-skills-heres-how-you-your-
company-can.html?cid=search.
5. Organization website, De Bono Group, http://www.debonogroup.com/
six_thinking_hats.php (accessed April 2, 2019); H. Schacter, “What
Colour Hat Do You Wear in Meetings,” The Globe and Mail, April 21,
2018, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/manage-
ment/article-what-colour-hat-do-you-wear-in-meetings/.
6. P. Davidson, “Watch Interview Behavior,” The Arizona Republic, May 15,
2013, CL1.
7. Adapted from I. Janis, Groupthink, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1982, 174–175. Also see J. M. Wellen and M. Neale, “Deviance, Self-
Typicality, and Group Cohesion: The Corrosive Effects of the Bad Ales
on the Barrel,” Small Group Research, 2006, 165–186.
8. G. P. Hodgkinson and E. Sadler-Smith, “The Dynamics of Intuition and
Analysis in Managerial and Organizational Decision Making,” Academy
of Management Perspectives, November 2018, 473–492.
9. D. Kahneman, Thinking, Fast and Slow (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 2011).
10. V. A. Thompson, G. Pennycook, D. Trippas, and J. St. B. T. Evans, “Do
Smart People Have Better Intuitions?” Journal of Experimental Psychol-
ogy, July 2018, 945–961; and J. Okoli and J. Watt, “Crisis Decision-
Making: The Overlap between Intuitive and Analytical Strategies,”
Management Decisions, May 2018, 1122–1134.
11. D. Kahneman, “Of 2 Minds: How Fast and Slow Thinking Shape Percep-
tion and Choice [Excerpt],” Scientific American, https://www.scientifi-
camerican.com/article/kahneman-excerpt-thinking-fast-and-slow/
(accessed April 16, 2019); and A. Ranadive, “What I Learned from
‘Thinking, Fast and Slow,’” https://medium.com/leadership-motivation-
and-impact/what-i-learned-from-thinking-fast-and-slow-a4a47cf8b5d5
(accessed April 16, 2019).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN29CHAPTER NOTES
56. Andrew Noel, “A Bumper Crop of Information,” Bloomberg Business-
week, March 18, 2019, https://www.scribd.com/article/401923809/
A-Bumper-Crop-Of-Information.
57. J. Gaudiosi, “Your Personal Avatar Can Now Board a Cruise Ship with
You,” Wired, January 3, 2019, https://www.wired.com/story/carnival-
medallion-cruise-tagalong-avatar/.
58. Peter M. Tingling and Michael J. Brydon, “Is Decision-Based Evidence
Making Necessarily Bad?” MIT Sloan Management Review Summer
2010, https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/is-decision-based-evidence-
making-necessarily-bad/.
59. B. Griffiths, “Data Growth and the Network,” https://www.scc.com/scc-
insights/data-growth-network/ (accessed April 17, 2019).
60. A. Mohamed, M. K. Najafabadi, Y. B. Wah, E. A. K. Zaman, and R. Maskat,
“The State of the Art and Taxonomy of Big Data Analytics: View from
New Big Data Framework,” Artificial Intelligence Review, February
2019, 1–49.
61. “Operations Research Analysts,” Occupational Outlook Handbook,
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/math/operations-research-analysts.htm#tab-6
(accessed April 17, 2019).
62. S. Colino, “8 College Majors with Great Job Prospects,” US News &
World Report, September 11, 2018, https://www.usnews.com/educa-
tion/best-colleges/articles/2018-09-11/8-college-majors-with-great-
job-prospects.
63. A. Merendino, S. Dibb, M. Meadows, L. Quinn, D. Wilson, L. Simkin, and
A. Canhoto, “Big Data, Big Decisions: The Impact of Board Level Decision-
Making,” Journal of Business Research, December 2018, 67–78; and
S. Blake-Plock, “Where’s the Value in Big Data?” Forbes, April 14, 2017,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/04/14/wheres-
the-value-in-big-data/#463623d430da.
64. C. Harvey, “Big Data Pros and Cons,” Datamation, August 9, 2018,
h t tps : / /www.datamat ion .com/b ig -data /b ig -data -pros -and-
cons.html.
65. “Big Data in the Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Industry: 2018–2030:
Opportunities, Challenges, Strategies & Forecasts,” PR Newswire, July
26, 2018, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/big-data-in-
the-healthcare–pharmaceutical-industry-2018–2030–opportunities-
challenges-strategies–forecasts-300687336.html.
66. “Top Benefits of Big Data in the Healthcare Industry,” Business Wire,
February 7, 2018, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/
20180207005640/en/Top-Benefits-Big-Data-Healthcare-Industry-
Quantzig.
67. B. Morgan, “Healthcare Innovation: 10 Recent Examples of Powerful
Innovation in Healthcare,” Forbes, March 12, 2019, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/blakemorgan/2019/03/12/healthcare-innovation-10-recent-
examples-of-powerful-innovation-in-healthcare/#5412f88457dc; and
K. Rands, “5 Companies Using Big Data to Disrupt Healthcare,” CIO,
October 30, 2017, https://www.cio.com/article/3235445/5-companies-
using-big-data-to-disrupt-healthcare.html.
68. See K. Schwab, “Why Business Must Step Up to Shape the Next Indus-
trial Revolution,” Fortune, January 1, 2019, 45–46.
69. “Big Data vs. Artificial Intelligence,” Datamation, https://www.datamation.
com/big-data/big-data-vs.-artificial-intelligence.html (accessed April 17,
2019).
70. Artificial intelligence and its impact on the workplace are discussed in E.
Sage-Gavin, M. Vazirani, and F. Hintermann, “Getting Your Employees
Ready for Work in the Age of AI,” MITSloan Management Review,
February 27, 2019, https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/getting-your-
employees-ready-for-work-in-the-age-of-ai/; and T. H. Davenport and R.
Ronanki, “Artificial Intelligence for the Real World,” Harvard Business
Review, January–February 2018, 108–116.
71. S. Shellenbarger, “Robots That Manage the Managers,” The Wall Street
Journal, April 16, 2019, A11.
72. G. Anthes, “Artificial Intelligence Poised to Ride a New Wave,” Commu-
nications of the ACM, July 2017, 19–21; and S. Makridakis, “The Forth-
coming Artificial Intelligence (AI) Revolution: Its Impact on Society and
Firms,” Futures, 2017, 46–60.
73. M. H. Jarrahi, “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work: Human–AI
Symbiosis in Organizational Decision Making,” Business Horizons July–
August 2018, 577–586.
74. B. J. Grosz and P. Stone, “A Century-Long Commitment to Assessing
Intelligence and Its Impact on Society,” Communications of the ACM,
December 2018, 68–73; and H. J. Wilson and P. R. Daugherty, “Collab-
orative Intelligence: Humans and AI Are Joining Forces,” Harvard Busi-
ness Review, July–August 2018, 114–123.
75. D. L. Parnas, “The Real Risks of Artificial Intelligence,” Communications
of the ACM, October 2017, 27–31.
76. D. B. Shank and A. DeSanti, “Attributions of Morality and Mind to Artifi-
cial Intelligence after Real-World Moral Violations,” Computers in
Human Behavior, September 2018, 401–411; and J. Keating and I.
Nourbakhsh, “Viewpoint: Teaching Artificial Intelligence and Humanity,”
Communications of the ACM, February 2018, 29–32.
34. J. Haden, “How Experts Make Smart, Fast Decisions: A Nobel Prize Win-
ning Economist Reveals When to Trust Your Intuition and Instinct,” Inc.,
December 10, 2018, https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/how-experts-
make-smart-fast-decisions-a-nobel-prize-winning-economist-reveals-
when-to-trust-your-intuition-instinct.html.
35. K. C. Williams, “Business Intuition: The Mortar among the Bricks of Analy-
sis,” Journal of Management Policy and Practice, December 2012, 48–65.
36. L. Colan, “How to Use Your Intuition to Make Faster Decisions,” Inc.,
April 4, 2018, https://www.inc.com/lee-colan/how-to-use-your-intuition-
to-make-faster-decisions.html?cid=search; J. Stillman, “Science: Your
Anxiety Is Killing Your Intuition,” Inc., October 25, 2017, https://www.inc.
com/jessica-stillman/science-stress-silences-your-gut-instincts.
html?cid=search; and E. Sadler-Smith and E. Shefy, “The Intuitive Execu-
tive: Understanding and Applying ‘Gut Feel’ in Decision Making,” Acad-
emy of Management Executive, November 2004, 88.
37. Biases associated with using shortcuts in decision making are dis-
cussed by A. Tversky and D. Kahneman, “Judgment under Uncertainty:
Heuristics and Biases,” Science, September 1974, 1124–1131.
38. J. J. Starns and Q. Ma, “Response Biases in Simple Decision Making:
Faster Decision Making, Faster Response Execution, or Both?” Psycho-
nomic Bulletin & Review, August 2018, 1535–1541.
39. Society to Improve Diagnosis in Medicine, “Frequently Asked Ques-
tions,” https://www.improvediagnosis.org/facts/ (accessed April 16,
2019); and R. Hanscom, M. Small, and A. Lambrecht, “Diagnostic Accuracy:
Room for Improvement,” https://coverys.com/PDFs/Coverys_Diagnostic_
Accuracy_Report.aspx (accessed April 16, 2019).
40. M. Castellucci, “Diagnostic Errors Are Largest Contributor to Medical
Malpractice Claims,” Modern Healthcare, March 13, 2018, https://www.
modernhealthcare.com/article/20180313/NEWS/180319965/diagnostic-
errors-are-largest-contributor-to-medical-malpractice-claims.
41. C. W. Von Bergen and M. S. Bressler, “Confirmation Bias in Entrepre-
neurship,” Journal of Management Policy and Practice, September
2018, 74–84.
42. J. M. Logg, U. Haran, and D. A. Moore, “Is Overconfidence a Motivated
Bias? Experimental Evidence,” Journal of Experimental Psychology, Octo-
ber 2018, 1445–1465; and I. B. S. Mahdi and M. B. Abbes, “Risk and
Inefficiency: Behavioral Explanation through Overconfidence in Islamic
and Conventional Banks,” Managerial Finance, June 2018, 688–703.
43. J. Bacon, “Five Things to Know a Dozen Days into California’s Horrific
Camp Fire,” USA Today, November 19, 2018, https://www.usatoday.
com/story/news/nation/2018/11/19/california-fire-look-camp-fire-
12-days/2056034002/; C. Lombardo, “Northern California Camp Fire
Contained,” NPR, November 25, 2018, https://www.npr.
org/2018/11/25/670652466/northern-california-camp-fire-contained.
44. I. Penn, P. Eavis, and J. Glanz, “How PG&E Ignored Fire Risks in Favor of
Profits,” The New York Times, March 18, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/interactive/2019/03/18/business/ pge-california-wildfires.html.
45. I. Penn, P. Eavis, and J. Glanz, “How PG&E Ignored Fire Risks in Favor of
Profits,” The New York Times, March 18, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/interactive/2019/03/18/business/pge-california-wildfires.html.
46. I. Penn, “As Fires Ravaged California, Utilities Lobbied Lawmakers for
Protection,” The New York Times, January 5, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/2019/01/05/business/energy-environment/california-wildfire-
electric.html.
47. M. I. H. Lindeman, A. M. Durik, and G. J. Hall, “Sometimes Less Is More:
The Role of Subjective Task Experience in Self-Generated Value Inter-
ventions,” Social Psychology of Education, April 2018, 371–381.
48. M. H. Bazerman, Judgment in Managerial Decision Making (Hoboken,
NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 9.
49. M. Kang and M. J. Park, “Employees’ Judgment and Decision Making in
the Banking Industry: The Perspective of Heuristics and Biases,” Inter-
national Journal of Bank Marketing, February 2019, 382–400.
50. L. Meub and T. Proeger, “Are Groups ‘Less Behavioral’? The Case of
Anchoring,” Theory and Decision, August 2018, 117–150.
51. I. von der Beck, U. Cress, and A. Oeberst, “Is There Hindsight Bias with-
out Real Hindsight? Conjectures Are Sufficient to Elicit Hindsight Bias,”
Journal of Experimental Psychology, March 2019, 88–99; and J. Groß
and T. Pachur, “Age Differences in Hindsight Bias: A Meta-Analysis,”
Psychology and Aging, January 2019, 1–17.
52. J. Chen, “Hindsight Bias,” Investopedia, March 19, 2018, https://www.
investopedia.com/terms/h/hindsight-bias.asp.
53. M. Gearon, “Cognitive Biases—Framing Effect,” Medium, December 22,
2018, https://medium.com/@michaelgearon/cognitive-biases-framing-
effect-e37d45012dc5.
54. J. Davidson, “DEA Drug Fighting Plane Doesn’t Fly, But Costs Soar,” The
Washington Post, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/
wp/2016/03/30/dea-drug-fighting-plane-doesnt-fly-but-costs-
soar/?utm_term=.db37e0bc4c8c (accessed April 16, 2019).
55. See J. Ross and B. M. Staw, “Organizational Escalation and Exit: Les-
sons from the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant,” Academy of Manage-
ment Journal, August 1993, 701–732.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN30 CHAPTER NOTES
https://www.inc.com/erik-sherman/this-group-of-teachers-made-a-
disastrous-decision-heres-how-to-avoid-doing-same.html?cid=search;
and “Report: 14 Middleton School Staffers on Leave after Costume
Controversy,” Idaho News, November 2, 2018, https://idahonews.com/
news/local/middleton-school-superintendent-says-staff-halloween-cos-
tumes-were-poor-decision.
99. A. Bonime-Blanc and D. A. Disparte, “Pale, Stale, and Male: Does Board
Diversity Matter?” Risk Management, September 2018, 20–24.
100. A. Hill, “Why Groupthink Never Went Away,” Financial Times, May 7,
2018, https://ft.com.
101. Adapted from I. Janis, Groupthink, 2nd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin,
1982), 174–175. See also J. M. Wellen and M. Neale, “Deviance, Self-
Typicality, and Group Cohesion: The Corrosive Effects of the Bad
Apples on the Barrel,” Small Group Research, April 2006, 165–186.
102. B. Oc, M. R. Bashshur, and C. Moore, “Head Above the Parapet: How
Minority Subordinates Influence Group Outcomes and the Conse-
quences They Face for Doing So,” Journal of Applied Psychology, Janu-
ary 2019, 1–17.
103. Glenn M. Parker, Team Players and Teamwork: The New Competitive
Business Strategy (San Francisco: Wiley, 1990).
104. A. F. Osborn, Applied Imagination: Principles and Procedures of Cre-
ative Thinking, 3rd ed. (New York: Scribners, 1979).
105. H. Gregersen, “Better Brainstorming,” Harvard Business Review, March-
April 2018, 65–71.
106. “3 Helpful Tools for Virtual Brainstorming,” https://remote.co/helpful-tools-
virtual-brainstorming/ (accessed April 17, 2019); and W. Burns, “The
Demons of Traditional Brainstorming Are Slain with Brainwriting,” Forbes,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/willburns/2016/08/16/the-demons-of-
traditional-brainstorming-are-slain-with-brainwriting/#317961e82b6d
(accessed April 17, 2019).
107. D. K. Hassan, “Potentiating the Innovation Capacity of Brainstorming
Testing Approaches in Architecture Education Medium,” International
Journal of Technology and Design Education, May 2018, 1–20; and B.
R. Johnson and C. J. D’Lauro, “After Brainstorming, Groups Select an
Early Generated Idea as Their Best Idea,” Small Group Research, April
2018, 177–194.
108. See N. C. Dalkey, D. L. Rourke, R. Lewis, and D. Snyder, Studies in the
Quality of Life: Delphi and Decision Making (Lexington, MA: Lexington
Books, 1972).
109. An application of the Delphi technique can be found in A. Graefe and J.
S. Armstrong, “Comparing Face-to-Face Meetings, Nominal Groups,
Delphi and Prediction Markets on an Estimating Task,” International
Journal of Forecasting, January–March 2011, 183–195.
110. A.-M. Suduc, M. Bîzoi, M. Cioca, and F. G. Filip, “Evolution of Decision
Support Systems Research Field in Numbers,” Informatica Economica,
2010, 78.
111. See P. Dvorak, “Best Buy Taps ‘Prediction Market’; Imaginary Stocks Let
Workers Forecast Whether Retailer’s Plan Will Meet Goals,” The Wall
Street Journal, September 16, 2008, B1.
112. E. Turban, T.-P. Liang, and S. P. J. Wu, “A Framework for Adopting Col-
laboration 2.0 Tools for Virtual Group Decision Making,” Group Decision
Negotiations, March 2011, 137–154.
113. J. Zhou and C. E. Shalley, “Deepening Our Understanding of Creativity
in the Workplace: A Review of Different Approaches to Creativity
Research,” in S. Zedeck, ed., Handbook of Industrial and Organiza-
tional Psychology (Washington, DC: American Psychological Associa-
tion, 2011), 275–302.
114. F. Gino, “The Business Case for Curiosity,” Harvard Business Review,
September–October 2018, 48–57.
115. T. Montag, C. P. Maertz, Jr., and M. Baer, “A Critical Analysis of the Work-
place Creativity Criterion Space,” Journal of Management, July 2012,
1369.
116. This discussion is based on T. Montag, C. P. Maertz, Jr., and M. Baer, “A
Critical Analysis of the Workplace Creativity Criterion Space,” Journal of
Management, July 2012, 1362–1386.
117. Ashlee Vance, “How An F Student Became America’s Most Prolific
Inventor: Lowell Wood Broke Edison’s Patent Record and Helped Bring
Down the Soviet Union,” Bloomberg L.P., October 20, 2015, https://www.
bloomberg.com/features/2015-americas-top-inventor-lowell-wood/.
118. Y.-Q. Zhu, D. G. Gardner, and H.-G. Chen, “Relationships Between Work
Team Climate, Individual Motivation, and Chemistry,” Journal of Man-
agement, May 2018, 2094–2115.
119. J. L. Schoen, J. L. Bowler, and M. C. Schilpzand, “Conditional Reasoning
Test for Creative Personality: Rationale, Theoretical Development, and
Validation,” Journal of Management, April 2018, 1651–1677.
120. I. Jeong and S. J. Shin, “High-Performance Work Practices and Organi-
zational Creativity During Organizational Change: A Collective Learning
Perspective,” Journal of Management, March 2019, 909–925.
121. O. A. Acar, M. Tarakei, and D. van Knippenberg, “Creativity and Innova-
tion Under Constraints: A Cross-Disciplinary Integrative Review,” Jour-
nal of Management, January 2019, 96–121.
77. Definition derived from A. J. Rowe and R. O. Mason, Managing with
Style: A Guide to Understanding, Assessing, and Improving Decision
Making (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).
78. See A. J. Rowe and R. O. Mason, Managing with Style: A Guide to
Understanding, Assessing, and Improving Decision Making (San Fran-
cisco: Jossey-Bass, 1987).
79. E. Gallagher, “Interview with Colombian Hacker Andrés Sepúlveda,”
Medium, February 8, 2018, https://medium.com/@erin_gallagher/
interview-with-colombian-hacker-andr%C3%A9s-sep%C3%BAlveda-
f985fe860f7f; and J. Robertson, M. Riley, and A. Willis, “How to Hack an
Election,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 4, 2016.
80. E. Larson, “How Jeff Bezos Uses Faster, Better Decisions to Keep Amazon
Innovating,” Forbes, September 24, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
eriklarson/2018/09/24/how-jeff-bezos-uses-faster-better-decisions-to-
keep-amazon-innovating/#690f7f7a7a65.
81. H. Merry, “InterConnect Keynote: Ginni Rometty,” https://www.ibm.com/
blogs/internet-of-things/ginni-rometty-interconnect-cloud/ (accessed
April 17, 2019); and H. P. Levy, “IBM’s Ginni Rometty on Leading
Through Disruption,” October 17, 2018, https://www.gartner.com/
smarterwithgartner/ibms-ginni-rometty-on-leading-through-disruption/.
82. D. Pontefract, “The Netflix Decision Making Model Is Why They’re So
Successful,” Forbes, February 4, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
danpontefract/2019/02/04/the-netflix-decision-making-model-is-why-
theyre-so-successful/#15f76e3173bc.
83. “Four Essential Leadership Behaviors,” http://fcpacompliancereport.
com/2017/05/12539/ (accessed April 17, 2019); and “Why They Serve:
Madeline Bell,” https://www.chop.edu/giving/our-campaign/why-they-
serve-madeline-bell (accessed April 17, 2019).
84. F. Jiang, S. Ananthram, and J. Li, “Global Mindset and Entry Mode Deci-
sions: Moderating Roles of Managers’ Decision-Making Style and Mana-
gerial Experience,” Management International Review, June 2018,
413–447.
85. M. Geisler and C. M. Allwood, “Relating Decision-Making Styles to
Social Orientation and Time Approach,” Journal of Behavioral Decision
Making, July 2018, 415–429.
86. S. R. Valentine, D. Hollingworth, and P. Schultz, “Data-based Ethical
Decision Making, Lateral Relations, and Organizational Commitment:
Building Positive Workplace Connections through Ethical Operations,”
Employee Relations, October 2018, 946–963; and J. McManus, “Hubris
and Unethical Decision Making: The Tragedy of the Uncommon,” Journal
of Business Ethics, April 2018, 169–185.
87. The decision tree and resulting discussion are based on C. E. Begley,
“The Ethical Leader’s Decision Tree,” Harvard Business Review, Febru-
ary 2003, 18–19.
88. J. S. Hopkins and S. Randazzo, “Purdue’s Sackler Family Accused of
Fraud in Transfers of Opioid Profits,” The Wall Street Journal, March 28,
2019, https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-attorney-general-files-new-
allegations-against-opioid-maker-purdue-pharma-and-sackler-family-
owners-11553781600.
89. S. Stebbins, E. Comen, M. B. Sauter, and C. Stockdale, “Bad Reputation:
America’s Top 20 Most-Hated Companies,” USA Today, February 12,
2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/02/01/
bad-reputation-americas-top-20-most-hated-companies/1058718001/.
90. S. Stebbins, E. Comen, M. B. Sauter, and C. Stockdale, “Bad Reputation:
America’s Top 20 Most-Hated Companies,” USA Today, February 12,
2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2018/02/01/
bad-reputation-americas-top-20-most-hated-companies/1058718001/.
91. J. C. Blewitt, J. M. Blewitt, and J. Ryan, “Business Forums Pave the Way
to Ethical Decision Making: The Mediating Role of Self-Efficacy and
Awareness of a Value-Based Educational Institution,” Journal of Busi-
ness Ethics, April 2018, 235–244.
92. Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie, “Making Dumb Groups Smarter,” Har-
vard Business Review, December, 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/12/mak-
ing-dumb-groups-smarter.
93. T. Connolly, L. Ordóñez and S. Barker, “Judgment and Decision Making,”
in N. W. Schmitt and S. Highhouse, eds., Handbook of Psychology, 2nd
ed., vol. 12 (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2013), 493–522.
94. These advantages are based on N. R. F. Maier, “Assets and Liabilities in
Group Problem Solving: The Need for an Integrative Function,” Psycho-
logical Review, July 1967, 239–249.
95. These disadvantages are based on N. R. F. Maier, “Assets and Liabilities
in Group Problem Solving: The Need for an Integrative Function,” Psy-
chological Review, July 1967, 239–249; and C. R. Sunstein and R. Hastie,
“The New Science of Group Decision Making,” Harvard Business
Review, December 2014, 92.
96. C. R. Sunstein and R. Hastie, “Smarte: The New Science of Group Deci-
sion Making,” Harvard Business Review, December 2014, 92.
97. Irving Lester Janis, Groupthink: Psychological Studies of Policy Deci-
sions and Fiascoes (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1982).
98. E. Sherman, “A Tone-Deaf Halloween Costume Decision by Some
Teachers Shows the Danger of Groupthink,” Inc., November 5, 2018,
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN31CHAPTER NOTES
141. B. Katz and B. Kammel, “Airbus Will Stop Making the World’s Largest
Passenger Jet,” Bloomberg, February 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2019-02-14/airbus-buries-a380-flagship-drawing-
curtain-on-jumbo-jet-era.
142. Robert Wall, and Daniel Michaels, “How Airbus’s A380 Went from Wonder
to Blunder,” The Wall Street Journal, February 19, 2019, https://www.
wsj.com/articles/how-airbuss-a380-went-from-wonder-to-blunder-
11550599532.
143. B. Katz and B. Kammel, “Airbus Will Stop Making the World’s Largest
Passenger Jet,” Bloomberg, February 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2019-02-14/airbus-buries-a380-flagship-drawing-
curtain-on-jumbo-jet-era.
144. “Airbus A380 Superjumbo, How It Happened and What Went Wrong,”
Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-02-14/
airbus-a380-superjumbo-how-it-happened-and-what-went-wrong
(accessed April 1, 2019).
145. Benjamin D. Katz and Benedikt Kammel, “Airbus Will Stop Making the
World’s Largest Passenger Jet,” Bloomberg L.P., February 14, 2019,
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-14/airbus-buries-
a380-flagship-drawing-curtain-on-jumbo-jet-era.
146. G. Korte, “College Admissions Scandal: What Did the Students Know
about ‘the Side Door,’ and What Should Happen Next?” USA Today,
March 18, 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/educa-
tion/2019/03/18/college-admissions-scam-what-did-students-know-
what-should-happen/3164580002/; and M. Burke, “USC Students
Linked to Admissions Scandal Can’t Enroll in Classes, Get Transcripts,
University Says,” NBC News, March 19, 2019, https://www.nbcnews.
com/news/us-news/usc-students-linked-admissions-scandal-can-t-enroll-
classes-get-n983656.
147. “Here’s How the F.B.I. Says Their Parents Cheated to Get Their Kids into
Elite Colleges,” The New York Times, March 12, 2019, https://www.
nytimes.com/2019/03/12/us/admissions-scandal.html.
148. M. Burke, “USC Students Linked to Admissions Scandal Can’t Enroll in
Classes, Get Transcripts, University Says,” NBC News, March 19, 2019,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/usc-students-linked-admis-
sions-scandal-can-t-enroll-classes-get-n983656.
149. B. Pascus, “USC May Expel Students Associated with College Admis-
sions Scandal,” CBS News, March 19, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/
news/college-admissions-scandal-usc-admissions-scam-explusion-lori-
loughlin-olivia-jade/.
150. N. Feldman, “Expel the Students? It’s Not an Easy Choice for Duped
Colleges,” Bloomberg, March 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/
opinion/articles/2019-03-14/college-admissions-scandal-should-
students-be-expelled.
151. G. Korte, “College Admissions Scandal: What Did the Students Know
about ‘the Side Door,’ and What Should Happen Next?” USA Today,
March 18, 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/
2019/03/18/college-admissions-scam-what-did-students-know-what-
should-happen/3164580002/.
152. N. Feldman, “Expel the Students? It’s Not an Easy Choice for Duped
Colleges,” Bloomberg, March 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/
opinion/articles/2019-03-14/college-admissions-scandal-should-
students-be-expelled.
CHAPTER 12
1. Dave Barry quoted in A. Buzzese, “Make Your Meetings Work for You,”
Arizona Republic, May 5, 2013, D6.
2. D. Meinert, “7 Steps to Running Better Meetings,” SHRM.org, October
30, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/1118/
pages/7-steps-to-running-better-meetings.aspx.
3. D. Meinert, “7 Steps to Running Better Meetings,” SHRM.org, October
30, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr- magazine/1118/
pages/7-steps-to-running-better-meetings.aspx.
4. A. Buzzese, “Make Your Meetings Work for You,” Arizona Republic, May
5, 2013, D6.
5. D. Meinert, “7 Steps to Running Better Meetings,” SHRM.org, October
30, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr- magazine/1118/
pages/7-steps-to-running-better-meetings.aspx.
6. D. Meinert, “7 Steps to Running Better Meetings,” SHRM.org, October
30, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr- magazine/1118/
pages/7-steps-to-running-better-meetings.aspx.
7. A. Buzzese, “Make Your Meetings Work for You,” Arizona Republic, May
5, 2013, D6
8. A. Gallo, “The Seven Imperatives to Keeping Meetings on Track,” Har-
vard Business Review, December 20, 2013, https://hbr.org/2013/12/
the-seven-imperatives-to-keeping-meetings-on-track/.
9. “Busy CEOs Spend Nearly One Day Each Week Managing Communica-
tions, Two Days In Meetings,” Bain.com, May 6, 2014, http://www.bain.
com/about/press/press-releases/Busy-ceos-spend-nearly-one-day-
each-week-managing-communications.aspx.
122. R. E. Silverman, “The Science of Serendipity in the Workplace,” The Wall
Street Journal, April 30, 2013, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142
4127887323798104578455081218505870.
123. C. Bouquet, J.-L. Barsoux, and M. Wade, “Bring Your Breakthrough
Ideas to Life,” Harvard Business Review, November–December 2018,
102–113.
124. Boogaard, K. “20 of the Most Creative Companies to Work For Right
Now,” The Muse, https://www.themuse.com/advice/20-of-the-most-
creative-companies-to-work-for-right-now, accessed April 17, 2019;
and Elizabeth Bernstein, “Why a Little Boredom Could Be Good for Your
Relationship,” The Wall Street Journal, February 22, 2016, https://www.
wsj.com/articles/why-a-little-boredom-could-be-good-for-your-relation-
ship-1456167350.
125. Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries, “Doing Nothing and Nothing to Do: The
Hidden Value of Empty Time and Boredom,” INSEAD Institut privé
d’enseignement supérieur, July–September 2015.
126. N. Cole, “7 Ways to Give Your Creativity Muscle a Quick Jolt,” Inc., March
8, 2018, https://www.inc.com/nicolas-cole/want-to-hack-your-creativity-
muscle-here-are-7-ways-to-give-yourself-a-quick-jolt.html?cid=search; C.
DiRisio, “5 Easy Ways to Spark Creativity When You Feel Stuck,” Inc.,
October 5, 2017, https://www.inc.com/quora/5-easy-ways-to-spark-
creativity-when-you-feel-stuck.html?cid=search; and K. Holst, “Feeling
Uninspired? How to Spark Creativity When You Work from Home,” Inc.,
March 4, 2019, https://www.inc.com/karen-holst/feeling-uninspired-
how-to-spark-creativity-when-you-work-from-home.html?cid=search.
127. K. Holst, “Feeling Uninspired? How to Spark Creativity When You Work
from Home,” Inc., March 4, 2019, https://www.inc.com/karen-holst/feel-
ing-uninspired-how-to-spark-creativity-when-you-work-from-home.
html?cid=search.
128. Muhammad Abdur Rahman Malik, Arif N. Butt, and Jin Nam Choi,
“Rewards and Creative Performance: Moderating Effects of Creative
Self-Efficacy, Reward Importance, and Locus of Control,” Journal of
Organizational Behavior 36, no. 1 (January 2015): 59–74. https://doi.
org/10.1002/job.194.
129. See J. Mueller, S. Melwani, J. Loewenstein, and J. J. Deal, “Reframing
the Decision-Makers’ Dilemma: Towards a Social Context Model of
Creative Idea Recognition,” Academy of Management Journal,
February 2018, 94–110; and M. S. Giarratana, M. Mariani, and I. Weller,
“Rewards for Patents and Inventor Behaviors in Industrial Research and
Development,” Academy of Management Journal, February 2018,
264–292.
130. “Airbus Reports Strong Full-Year 2018 Results, Delivers on Guidance (press
release),” https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/press-releases/en/2019/02/
airbus-reports-strong-fullyear-2018-results-delivers-on-guidance.html
(accessed April 7, 2019); and R. Wall and D. Michaels, “How Airbus’s A380
Went from Wonder to Blunder,” The Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2019,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-airbuss-a380-went-from-wonder-to-blun-
der-11550599532.
131. B. Katz and B. Kammel, “Airbus Will Stop Making the World’s Largest
Passenger Jet,” Bloomberg, February 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2019-02-14/airbus-buries-a380-flagship-drawing-
curtain-on-jumbo-jet-era.
132. H. Gosai, “Airbus A380: The Plane That Tried,” Airline Geeks, April 27,
2018, https://airlinegeeks.com/2018/04/27/airbus-a380-the-plane-
that-tried/.
133. US Airlines for Open Skies, “What Are Open Skies Agreements?” http://
openskiescoalition (accessed April 7, 2019).
134. J. Ewing, “Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Pro-
duction,” January 15, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/
business/airbus-a380-emirates.html.
135. H. Gosai, “Airbus A380: The Plane That Tried,” Airlines Geeks, April 27,
2018, https://airlinegeeks.com/2018/04/27/airbus-a380-the-plane-
that-tried/.
136. H. Gosai. “Airbus A380: The Plane that Tried,” Airline Geeks, April 27,
2018, https://airlinegeeks.com/2018/04/27/airbus-a380-the-plane-
that-tried/.
137. B. Katz and B. Kammel, “Airbus Will Stop Making the World’s Largest
Passenger Jet,” Bloomberg, February 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2019-02-14/airbus-buries-a380-flagship-drawing-
curtain-on-jumbo-jet-era.
138. J. Ewing, “Airbus A380, Once the Future of Aviation, May Cease Produc-
tion,” The New York Times, January 15, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/01/15/business/airbus-a380-emirates.html.
139. B. Katz and B. Kammel, “Airbus Will Stop Making the World’s Largest
Passenger Jet,” Bloomberg, February 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.
com/news/articles/2019-02-14/airbus-buries-a380-flagship-drawing-
curtain-on-jumbo-jet-era.
140. R. Wall and D. Michaels, “How Airbus’s A380 Went from Wonder to
Blunder,” The Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2019, https://www.wsj.
com/articles/how-airbuss-a380-went-from-wonder-to-blunder-
11550599532.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN32 CHAPTER NOTES
34. M. T. Maynard, L. L. Gilson, and J. E. Mathieu, “Empowerment—Fad or
Fab? A Multilevel Review of the Past Two Decades of Research,” Jour-
nal of Management, 2012, 1–51.
35. D. Simonet, A. Narayan, and C. Nelson, “A Social-Cognitive Moderated
Mediated Model of Psychological Safety and Empowerment,” The Jour-
nal of Psychology, 2015, 818–845.
36. M. Lansat, “An Analysis of CEOs’ Schedules Scrutinized 60,000 Hours and
Found Email Is an Even Bigger Time Sink than People Realize,” Busines-
sInsider.com, June 28, 2018, https://www.businessinsider.co.za/email-dan-
gerous-time-sink-for-ceos-study-2018-6.
37. A. Lee, S. Willis, and A. W. Tian, “When Empowering Employees Works,
and When it Doesn’t,” HBR.org, March 2, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/03/
when-empowering-employees-works-and-when-it-doesnt.
38. A. Fox, “Raising Engagement,” HR Magazine, May 2010, 39. See also
“How May We Help You?” Inc., March 2011, 63.
39. B. Morgan, “10 Companies That Arm Employees with Tools to Fix Cus-
tomer Problems,” Forbes.com, March 14, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/blakemorgan/2018/03/14/10-companies-that-arm-employees-
with-tools-to-fix-customer-problems/#bd4f0354a301.
40. Y. Woon Chung, “Workplace Ostracism and Workplace Behaviors: A
Moderated Mediation Model of Perceived Stress and Psychological
Empowerment,” Anxiety, Stress, and Coping, 31, 2018, 304–317.
41. Y. Li, F. Wei, S. Ren, and Y. Di, “Locus of Control, Psychological Empow-
erment and Intrinsic Motivation Relation to Performance,” Journal of
Managerial Psychology, 2015, 422–438.
42. M. Travis Maynard, Lucy L. Gilson, and John E. Mathieu, “Empowerment—
Fad or Fab? A Multilevel Review of the Past Two Decades of Research,”
Journal of Management 38, no. 4 (2012): 1231–281. https://doi.org/
10.1177/0149206312438773.
43. M. T. Maynard, J. E. Mathieu, L. L. Gilson, E. H. O’Boyle, and K. P. Cigu-
larov, “Drivers and Outcomes of Team Psychological Empowerment: A
Meta-Analytic Review and Model Test,” Organizational Psychological
Review, 3, 2012, 101–137.
44. M. M Luciano, J. E. Mathieu, and T. M. Ruddy, “Leading Multiple Teams:
Average and Relative External Leadership Influences on Team Empower-
ment and Effectiveness,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014, 322–331.
45. M. M Luciano, J. E. Mathieu, and T. M. Ruddy, “Leading Multiple Teams:
Average and Relative External Leadership Influences on Team Empower-
ment and Effectiveness,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2014, 322–331.
46. M. Macphee, V. S. Dahinten, S. Hejazi, H. Lachinger, A. Kazanjian, A.
McCutcheon, J. Skelton-Green, and L. O’Brien-Pallas, “Testing the
Effects of an Empowerment-Based Leadership Development
Programme: Part 1—Leader Outcomes,” Journal of Nursing Manage-
ment, 2014, 4–15.
47. M. Macphee, V. S. Dahinten, S. Hejazi, H. Lachinger, A. Kazanjian, A.
McCutcheon, J. Skelton-Green, and L. O’Brien-Pallas, “Testing the
Effects of an Empowerment-Based Leadership Development
Programme: Part 1—Leader Outcomes,” Journal of Nursing Manage-
ment, 2014, 4–15.
48. Adapted from R. Ashkenas, “First-Time Managers, Don’t Do Your Teams’
Work for Them,” Harvard Business Review, September 21, 2015, https://
hbr.org/2015/09/first-time-managers-dont-do-your-teams-work-for-them.
49. Hayley Fitzpatrick, “Claire Foy Addresses the Gender Pay Gap in Holly-
wood and ‘The Crown’,” ABC News Internet Ventures, January 10, 2019,
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/claire-foy-addresses-gender-pay-
gap-hollywood-crown/story?id=60284140.
50. K. Fitzpatrick, “The Crown Gender-Pay Gap Made Netflix Investigate
Other Salaries, Too,” Vanityfair.com, February 9, 2019, https://www.
vanityfair.com/hollywood/2019/02/netflix-pay-gap?verso=true.
51. A. R. Sorkin, M. de la Merced, and J. Condliffe, “How Amazon Is Squeez-
ing Cities Across American,” DealBook Briefing, The New York Times,
March 4, 2019, NYT.com.
52. M. Haag, “Amazon’s Tax Breaks and Incentives Were Big. Hudson Yards’
Are Bigger,” The New York Times, March 9, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/2019/03/09/nyregion/hudson-yards-new-york-tax-breaks.html.
53. K. Weise, M. Fernandez, and J. Eligon, “Amazon’s Hard Bargain Extends
Far Beyond New York,” The New York Times, March 3, 2019, https://
www.nytimes.com/2019/03/03/technology/amazon-new-york-politics-
jobs.html.
54. C. Plouffe, W. Bolander, J. Cote, and B. Hochstein, “Does the Customer
Matter Most? Exploring Strategic Frontline Employees’ Influence of Cus-
tomers, the Internal Business Team, and External Business Partners,”
Journal of Marketing, January 2016, 106–123.
55. M. Wadsworth and A. Blanchard, “Influence Tactics in Virtual Teams,”
Computers and Human Behavior, 2015, 386–393.
56. M. Wadsworth and A. Blanchard, “Influence Tactics in Virtual Teams,”
Computers and Human Behavior, 2015, 386–393.
57. “The Uses (and Abuses) of Influence,” Harvard Business Review, July–
August 2013, 76–81. Also adapted from R. B. Cialdini, “Harnessing the
Science of Persuasion,” Harvard Business Review, October 2001,
72–79.
10. R. Sturm and J. Antonakis, “Interpersonal Power: A Review, Critique, and
Research Agenda,” Journal of Management, January 2015, 136–163.
11. A. D. Wright, “Survey: Nonprofits Fall Short on Ethics,” HR Magazine,
May 2008, 24; and R. Riney, “Heal Leadership Disorders,” HR Maga-
zine, May 2008, 62–66.
12. E. Lee and R. Abrams, “CBS Says Les Moonves Will Not Receive $120
Million Severance,” The New York Times, December 17, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/12/17/business/media/les-moonves-cbs-
severance.html.
13. S. Forbes, “Deficit Size Egos,” Forbes, April 11, 2011, https://www.forbes.
com/forbes/2011/0328/billionaires-11-fact-comment-steve-forbes-
deficit-size-egos.html#2ae063151d87.
14. J. Turner, “Voters May Get to Ban Politicians Naming Things After Them-
selves,” OrlandoSentinel.com, March 27, 2018, https://www.orlandosentinel.
com/news/politics/political-pulse/os-state-naming-politicians-
20180327-story.html.
15. D. Collins, G. Fleishman, S. Kaden, and J. M. Sanchez, “How Powerful
CEOs Camouflage and Exploit Equity-Based Incentive Compensation,”
Journal of Business Ethics, 153, 2018, 591–613.
16. K. Leonard, “Examples of Successful Strategic Alliances,” Chron.com,
February, 4, 2019, https://smallbusiness.chron.com/examples-successful-
strategic-alliances-13859.html.
17. D. Douglas-Gabriel, “Federal Trade Commission Sues DeVry University for
Deceptive Advertising,” The Washington Post, January 27, 2016, https://
www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/27/federal-
trade-commission-sues-devry-university-for-deceptive-advertising/.
18. Extole, “An Epic List of 75 Best Referral Programs for 2018,” Extole.com,
https://www.extole.com/blog/an-epic-list-of-75-besties- referral-programs-
for-2018/.
19. R. Derousseau, “4 Stocks that Could Soar under New CEOs,” Fortune.
com, January 27, 2019, http://fortune.com/2019/01/27/4-stocks-that-
could-soar-under-new-ceos/.
20. C. Lieber, “How and Why Do Influencers Make So Much Money?” Vox.
com, November 28, 2018, https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/
11/28/18116875/influencer-marketing-social-media-engagement-
instagram-youtube.
21. R. Romis, “The Influencer Blueprint: Find, Maximize and Profit with
Brand Partners,” Forbes.com, August 27, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2018/08/27/the-influencer- blueprint-
find-maximize-and-profit-with-brand-partners/#4302938f5af5.
22. “25 of the Highest-Paid Social Media Influencers,” Izea.com, April 5, 2018,
https://izea.com/2018/04/05/highest-paid-social-media-influencers/.
23. “25 of the Highest-Paid Social Media Influencers,” Izea.com, April 5,
2018, https://izea.com/2018/04/05/highest-paid-social-media-
influencers/.
24. R. Romis, “The Influencer Blueprint: Find, Maximize and Profit with Brand
Partners,” Forbes.com, August 27, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
forbesagencycouncil/2018/08/27/the-influencer- blueprint-find-maximize-
and-profit-with-brand-partners/#4302938f5af5.
25. A. Baxter, “HCA Healthcare CEO to Retire, COO Promoted,” HealthExec.
com, September, 11, 2018, https://www.healthexec.com/topics/leadership/
hca-healthcare-ceo-retire-coo-promoted.
26. “Tony Lowings Promoted to KFC Division CEO, Effective January 1,
2019,” MarketWatch.com, September 28, 2018, https://www.market-
watch.com/press-release/tony-lowings-promoted-to-kfc-division-ceo-
effective-january-1-2019-2018-09-28.
27. Adapted from M. Markey, “Three Tasks to Ease the Transition from Peer
to Manager,” Forbes.com, November 6, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2018/11/06/three-tasks-to-ease-
the-transition-from-peer-to-manager/#5223058b6ea7.
28. Adapted from M. Markey, “Three Tasks to Ease the Transition from Peer
to Manager,” Forbes.com, November 6, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/forbeshumanresourcescouncil/2018/11/06/three-tasks-to-ease-
the-transition-from-peer-to-manager/#5223058b6ea7.
29. E. Garone, “Managing Your Former Peers Takes Extra Effort,” The Wall
Street Journal, March 10, 2008, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/
SB12049012131471.
30. A. Carlsen, M. Salam, C. Cain Miller, D. Lu, A. Ngu, J. K. Patel, and Z. Wich-
ter, “#MeToo Brought Down 201 Powerful Men. Nearly Half of Their
Replacements Are Women,” The New York Times, October 29, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/10/23/us/metoo-replace-
ments.html?nl=top-stories&nlid=49995115ries&ref=cta.
31. A. Harrell and B. Simpson, “The Dynamics of Pro Social Leadership:
Power and Influence in Collective Action Groups,” Social Forces, March
2016, 1283–1308.
32. W. Clark, “The Potency of Persuasion,” Fortune, November 12, 2007,
48.
33. D. Marshall, L. McCarthy, M. Claudy, and P. McGrath, “Piggy in the Mid-
dle: How Direct Customer Power Affects First-Tier Suppliers’ Adoption of
Socially Responsible Procurement Practices and Performance,” Journal
of Business Ethics, 154, 2019, 1081–1102.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN33CHAPTER NOTES
80. Adapted from “Best Practices for Managing Organizational Politics,”
Nonprofit World, July–August 2010.
81. H. Zhao and R. C. Liden, “Internship: A Recruitment and Selection Per-
spective,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2011, 221–229.
82. M. S. Kim, D. T. Kim, and J. I. Kim, “CSR for Sustainable Development:
CSR Beneficiary Positioning and Impression Management Motivation,”
Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management,
2014, 14–27.
83. J. D. Westphal, S. Hyun, M. L. McDonald, and M. L. A. Hayward, “Helping
Other CEOs Avoid Bad Press: Social Exchange and Impression Manage-
ment Support among CEOs in Communications with Journalists,” Adminis-
trative Science Quarterly, June 2012, 217–268.
84. Michael Tews, Kathryn Stafford, and John W. Michel, “Interview Etiquette
and Hiring Outcomes,” International Journal of Selection and Assess-
ment (December 2018): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/ijsa.12228.
85. M. Tews, K. Stafford, and J. W. Michel, “Interview Etiquette and Hiring
Outcomes,” International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 26,
2018, 164–175.
86. M. C. Bolino, K. M. Kacmar, W. H. Turnley, and J. B. Gilstrap, “A Multi-
Level Review of Impression Management Motives and Behaviors,” Jour-
nal of Management, 34, 2008, 1080–1109.
87. D. Long, M. Baer, J. Colquitt, R. Outlaw, and R. Dhensa-Kahlon, “What
Will the Boss Think? The Impression Management Implications of Sup-
portive Relationships with Star and Project Peers,” Personnel Psychol-
ogy, 2015, 463–498.
88. M. C. Bolino, K. M. Kacmar, W. H. Turnley, and J. B. Gilstrap, “A Multi-
Level Review of Impression Management Motives and Behaviors,” Jour-
nal of Management, 34, 2008, 1080–1109.
89. J. S. Bourdage, N. Roulin, and R. Tarraf, “‘I (might be) Just that Good’:
Honest and Deceptive Impression Management in Employment Inter-
views,” Personnel Psychology, 71, 597–632.
90. J. S. Bourdage, N. Roulin, and R. Tarraf, “‘I (might be) Just that Good’:
Honest and Deceptive Impression Management in Employment Inter-
views,” Personnel Psychology, 71, 597–632.
91. J. Bourdage, J. Wiltshire, and K. Lee, “Personality and Workplace
Impression Management: Correlates and Implications,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, 2015, 537–546.
92. “Global Tattoo Survey Results,” Daliaresearch.com, May 16, 2018,
https://daliaresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/2018-05-16_
Pressrelease_Tattoo_Survey .
93. M. Newman, “Report: More Young People Have Tattoos and Piercings
than Ever Before,” USAToday, September 20, 2017, https://www.indys-
tar.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/09/20/young-people-tattoos-and-
piercings-report/686360001/.
94. M. Mercer, “Explosion in Tattooing, Piercing Tests State Regulators,”
Pew Research, June 14, 2017, https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-
and-analysis/blogs/stateline/2017/06/14/explosion-in-tattooing-piercing-
tests-state-regulators.
95. D. Wilkie, “What Are an Applicant’s Tattoos Telling Potential Employ-
ers?” SHRM.org, September 18, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/Resourc-
esAndTools/hr-topics/employee-relations/Pages/tattoos-at-work.aspx.
96. M. T. French, K. Mortensen, and A. R. Timming, “Are Tattoos Associated
with Employment and Wage Discrimination? Analyzing the Relation-
ships between Body Art and Labor Market Outcomes,” Human Rela-
tions, August 7, 2018, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/
10.1177/0018726718782597.
97. C. A. Henle, T. H. Shore, and A. Marshall, “Body Art as a Source of
Employment Discrimination,” Academy of Management Proceedings,
July 9, 2018, https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/AMBPP.2018.
12589abstract?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_
campaign=newsletter_axiosfutureofwork&stream=future-of-work.
98. D. Wilkie, “What Are an Applicant’s Tattoos Telling Potential Employers?”
SHRM.org, September 18, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/Resources
AndTools/hr-topics/employee-relations/Pages/tattoos-at-work.aspx.
99. D. Wilkie, “What Are an Applicant’s Tattoos Telling Potential Employ-
ers?” SHRM.org, September 18, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/Resourc-
esAndTools/hr-topics/employee-relations/Pages/tattoos-at-work.aspx.
100. A. Wilhelmy, M. Kleinmann, C. Konig, K. Melchers, and D. Truxillo, “How
and Why Do Interviewers Try to Make Impressions on Applicants? A
Qualitative Study,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2016, 313–332.
101. J. D. Westphal and M. E. Graebner, “A Matter of Appearances: How Corpo-
rate Leaders Manage the Impressions of Financial Analysts about the Con-
duct of Their Boards,” Academy of Management Journal, 2010, 15–43.
102. S. Friedman, “What Do You Really Care About? What Are You Most
Interested In?” Fast Company, March 1999, 90.
103. K. T. Dirks, P. H. Kim, D. L. Ferrin, and C. D. Cooper, “Understanding the
Effects of Substantive Responses on Trust Following Transgression,”
Organizational Behavior and Decision Processes, 2011, 87–103.
104. K. T. Dirks, P. H. Kim, D. L. Ferrin, and C. D. Cooper, “Understanding the
Effects of Substantive Responses on Trust Following Transgression,”
Organizational Behavior and Decision Processes, 2011, 87–103.
58. “The Uses (and Abuses) of Influence,” Harvard Business Review, July–
August 2013, 77.
59. M. C. Bush and C. Tkaczyk, “Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work
For 2019,” Fortune, March 1, 2019, https://www. greatplacetowork.
com/best-workplaces/100-best/2019.
60. G. R. Ferris, B. P. Ellen III, C. P. McAllister, and L. P. Maher, “Reorganizing
Organizational Politics Research: A Review of the Literature and Identi-
fication of Future Research Directions,” Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 2019, 299–323.
61. F. Manjoo, “Why the Google Walkout Was a Watershed Moment in Tech,”
The New York Times, November 7, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/11/07/technology/google-walkout-watershed-tech.html.
62. K. Conger and C. Metz, “Tech Workers Now Want to Know What Are We
Building This For?” The New York Times, October 7, 2018, https://www.
nytimes.com/2018/10/07/technology/tech-workers-ask-censorship-
surveillance.html.
63. M. Kreutzer, J. Walter, and L. Cardinal, “Organizational Control as Anti-
dote to Politics in the Pursuit of Strategic Initiatives,” Strategic Manage-
ment Journal, 2015, 1317–1337.
64. G. R. Ferris, B. P. Ellen III, C. P. McAllister, and L. P. Maher, “Reorganizing
Organizational Politics Research: A Review of the Literature and Identi-
fication of Future Research Directions,” Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 2019, 299–323.
65. G. R. Ferris, B. P. Ellen III, C. P. McAllister, and L. P. Maher, “Reorganizing
Organizational Politics Research: A Review of the Literature and Identi-
fication of Future Research Directions,” Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 2019, 299–323.
66. R. Blumenstein and K. Safdar, “Business Leaders, Policy Makers Gather
in Davos,” The Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2016, http://www.wsj.
com/articles/business-leaders-policy-makers-gather-in-davos-for-world-
economic- forum-1453292480.
67. B. Dattner and R. Hogan, “Can You Handle Failure?” Harvard Business
Review, April 2011.
68. M. Goldstein, E. Flitter, and K. Kelly, “Goldman Sachs’s Tactic in Malay-
sian Fraud Case: Smear an Ex-Partner,” The New York Times, January
16, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/16/business/goldman-
malaysia-1mdb-leissner.html.
69. J. Eggers and L. Song, “Dealing with Failure: Serial Entrepreneurs and
the Costs of Changing Industries Between Ventures,” Academy of Man-
agement Journal, 2015, 1785–1803.
70. An excellent historical and theoretical perspective of coalitions can be
found in W. B. Stevenson, J. L. Pearce, and L. W. Porter, “The Concept of
‘Coalition’ in Organization Theory and Research,” Academy of Manage-
ment Review, April 1985, 256–268.
71. E. Mellino, “UberEats Workers May Have Accidentally Found the Com-
pany’s Achilles Heel,” Forbes.com, October 4, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/sites/emilianomellino/2018/10/04/ubereats-workers-may-
have-accidentally-found-the-companys-achilles-heel/#6972a5c16555.
72. E. Witt, “The March for Our Lives Presents a Radical New Model for
Youth Protest,” The New Yorker, March 25, 2018, https://www.newy-
orker.com/news/dispatch/the-march-for-our-lives-presents-a-radical-
new-model-for-youth-protest.
73. L. Beckett, “Parkland One Year On: What Victories Have Gun Control
Advocates Seen?” TheGuardian.com, February 14, 2019, https://www.
theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/14/parkland-school-shooting-
anniversasry-gun-control-victories.
74. C. Morris, “Delta, REI, and Now Yeti Coolers. Here’s a List of Brands Cut-
ting Ties with the NRA,” Fortune.com, April 23, 2018, http://fortune.
com/2018/04/23/yeti-coolers-cuts-ties-with-nra-boycott-complete-list/.
75. Pamela N. Danziger, “When Corporate Social Responsibility Veers Into
Political Action: Safe Or Sorry?” Forbes Media LLC, March 12, 2018,
https://www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2018/03/12/when-corpo-
rate-social-responsibi l i ty-veers-into-polit ical-action-safe-or-
sorry/#13f20aab257d.
76. P. Danziger, “When Corporate Social Responsibility Veers into Political
Action: Safe Or Sorry?” Forbes.com, March 12, 2018, https://
www.forbes.com/sites/pamdanziger/2018/03/12/when-corporate-
social-responsibil ity-veers-into-political-action-safe-or-sorry/
#13f20aab257d.
77. Alix Langone, “#MeToo and Time’s Up Founders Explain the Differences
between the 2 Movements—And How They’re Alike,” TIME USA, LLC,
March 22, 2018, http://time.com/5189945/whats-the-difference-
between-the-metoo-and-times-up-movements/.
78. G. R. Ferris, B. P. Ellen III, C. P. McAllister, and L. P. Maher, “Reorganizing
Organizational Politics Research: A Review of the Literature and Identi-
fication of Future Research Directions,” Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 2019, 299–323.
79. G. R. Ferris, B. P. Ellen III, C. P. McAllister, and L. P. Maher, “Reorganizing
Organizational Politics Research: A Review of the Literature and Identi-
fication of Future Research Directions,” Annual Review of Organiza-
tional Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 6, 2019, 299–323.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN34 CHAPTER NOTES
14. K. L. Badura, E. Grijalva, D. A. Newman, T. T. Yan, and G. Jeon, “Gender
and Leadership Emergence: A Meta-Analysis and Explanatory Model,”
Personnel Psychology, Autumn 2018, 335–367.
15. B. M. Bass and R. Bass, The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory,
Research, and Managerial Applications, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press,
2008), 654.
16. “The Best and Worst CEOs of 2018,” 24/7 Wall Street, December 5, 2018,
https://247wallst.com/special-report/2018/12/05/the-best-and-worst-
ceos-of-2018/2/.
17. L. Dishman, “These Are the Best and Worst Leaders of 2018,” Fast
Company, December 19, 2018, https://www.fastcompany.
com/90278934/these-are-the-best-and-worst-leaders-of-2018.
18. D. Akst, “Flex the Muscles of Leadership,” The Wall Street Journal,
March 12–13, 2016, C4.
19. These results are based on K. Landay, P. D. Harms, and M. Credé, “Shall
We Serve the Dark Lords? A Meta-Analytic Review of Psychopathy and
Leadership,” Journal of Applied Psychology, January 2019, 183–196;
J. M. Hoobler, C. R. Masterson, S. M. Nkomo, and E. J. Michel, “The Busi-
ness Case for Women Leaders: Meta-Analysis, Research Critique, and
Path Forward,” Journal of Management, July 2018, 2473–2499; and P.
J. Fuller, B. M. Galvin, and B. E. Ashforth, “Larger Than Life: Narcissistic
Organizational Identification in Leadership,” Organizational Dynamics,
January–March 2018, 8–16.
20. See S. M. Spain, P. Harms, and J. M. Lebreton, “The Dark Side of Per-
sonality at Work,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, February 2014,
S41–S60.
21. B. M. Galvin, D. A. Waldman, and P. Balthazard, “Visionary Communication
Qualities as Mediators of the Relationship between Narcissism and Attri-
butions of Leader Charisma,” Personnel Psychology, Autumn 2010, 510.
22. B. Nevicka, A. E. M. Van Vianen, A. H. B. De Hoogh, and B. C. M. Voorn,
“Narcissistic Leaders: An Asset or a Liability? Leader Visibility, Follower
Responses, and Group-Level Absenteeism,” Journal of Applied Psy-
chology, July 2018, 703–723.
23. R. E. Frieder, G. Wang, and I.-S. Oh, “Linking Job-Relevant Personality
Traits, Transformational Leadership, and Job Performance via Perceived
Meaningfulness at Work: A Moderated Mediation Model,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, March 2018, 324–333; and W. Lam, C. Lee, M. S.
Taylor, and H. H. Zao, “Does Proactive Personality Matter in Leadership
Transitions? Effects of Proactive Personality on New Leader Identifica-
tion and Responses to New Leaders and Their Change Agendas,”
Academy of Management Journal, February 2018, 245–263.
24. See J. Hogan, R. Hogan, and R. B. Kaiser, “Management Derailment,” in
S. Zedeck, ed., APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psy-
chology (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2011).
Also see M. F. R. Kets de Vries, “Coaching the Toxic Leader,” Harvard
Business Review, April 2014, 101–109; and M. B. Smith, J. C. Wallace,
and P. Jordan, “When the Dark Ones Become Darker: How Promotion
Focus Moderates the Effects of the Dark Triad on Supervision Perfor-
mance Ratings,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, February 2016,
236–254.
25. D. S. Whitman, “Emotional Intelligence and Leadership in Organizations:
A Meta-Analytic Test of Process Mechanisms,” dissertation submitted
for Doctor of Philosophy, Florida International University, 2009; and F.
Walter, R. H. Humphrey, and M. S. Cole, “Unleashing Leadership Poten-
tial: Toward an Evidence-Based Management of Emotional Intelligence,”
Organizational Dynamics, July–September 2012, 212–219.
26. V. K. Gupta, S. Han, S. C. Mortal, S. Silveri, and D. B. Turban, “Do Women
CEOs Face Greater Threat of Shareholder Activism Compared to Male
CEOs? A Role Congruity Perspective,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
February 2018, 228–236.
27. H. McLaughlin, J. Silvester, D. Bilimoria, S. Jané, R. Sealy, K. Peters, H.
Möltner, M. Huse, and J. Göke, “Women in Power: Contributing Factors
That Impact on Women in Organizations and Politics; Psychological
Research and Best Practice,” Organizational Dynamics, July–Septem-
ber 2018, 189–199.
28. P. Dwivedi, A. Joshi, and V. F. Misangyi, “Gender-Inclusive Gatekeeping:
How (Mostly Male) Predecessors Influence the Success of Female
CEOs,” Academy of Management Journal, April 2018, 379–404.
29. I. I Szymakska and B. A. Rubin, “Gender and Relationship Differences in
the Perceptions of Male and Female Leadership,” Gender in Manage-
ment: An International Journal, June 2018, 254–281.
30. Implicit leadership theory is discussed by B. M. Bass and R. Bass, The
Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory, Research, and Managerial
Applications, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press, 2008), 46–78; and J. S.
Mueller, J. A. Goncalo, and D. Kamdar, “Recognizing Creative Leader-
ship: Can Creative Idea Expression Negatively Relate to Perceptions of
Leadership Potential?” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47,
2001, 494–498.
31. See A. W. Lukaszewski, Z. L. Simmons, C. Anderson, and J. R. Roney,
“The Role of Physical Formidability in Human Social Status Allocation,”
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, March 2016, 385–406.
105. N. Smith, “Corporate Japan Needs to Do More Than Apologize,” Bloom-
berg, February 3, 2016, http://www.bloomberg.com/view/arti-
cles/2016-02-03/saying-sorry-isn-t-enough--in-corporate-japan.
106. B. Morgan, “10 Powerful Examples of Corporate Apologies,” Forbes.
com, October 24, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
blakemorgan/2018/10/24/10-powerful-examples-of-corporate-
apologies/#44d61d9f40de.
107. B. Morgan, “10 Powerful Examples of Corporate Apologies,” Forbes.
com, October 24, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
blakemorgan/2018/10/24/10-powerful-examples-of-corporate-
apologies/#44d61d9f40de.
108. D. McNary, “After Oscars Mishap, PricewaterhousCoopers Tightens
Envelop Procedures,” Variety.com, January 22, 2018, https://variety.
com/2018/film/news/oscars-new-envelope-procedures-pricewater-
housecoopers-1202672294/.
109. J. Creswell, K. Draper, and R. Abrams, “At Nike, Revolt Led by Women
Leads to Exodus of Male Executives,” The New York Times, April 28,
2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/business/nike-women.html.
110. S. Cowley, “Nike Will Raise Wages for Thousands after Outcry Over
Inequality,” The New York Times, July 23, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/07/23/business/nike-wages-raises.html.
111. J. Creswell, K. Draper, and R. Abrams, “At Nike, Revolt Led by Women
Leads to Exodus of Male Executives,” The New York Times, April 28,
2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/28/business/nike-women.html.
112. R. Greenfield and E. Novy-Williams, “Nike Gets Tripped Up While Trying to
Change Its Culture,” Bloomberg BusinessWeek, August 30, 2018, https://
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-30/nike-gets-tripped-up-
while-trying-to-change-its-culture.
113. S. Cowley, “Nike Will Raise Wages for Thousands after Outcry Over
Inequality,” The New York Times, July 23, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/07/23/business/nike-wages-raises.html.
114. Kevin Draper and Julie Creswell, “Nike’s CEO Vows Changes After
Claims of Workplace Harassment and Bias,” The New York Times Com-
pany, May 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/05/business/
mark-parker-nike.html.
115. David Gelles, “Memo from the Boss: You’re a Vegetarian Now,” The
New York Times Company, July 20, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/07/20/business/wework-vegetarian.html.
CHAPTER 13
1. H. B. Cohen, “An Inconvenient Truth about Leadership Development,”
Organizational Dynamics, 2019, 8–15.
2. J. Zenger, “The Confidence Gap in Men and Women: Why It Matters and
How to Overcome It,” Forbes, April 8, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/jackzenger/2018/04/08/the-confidence-gap-in-men-and-women-
why-it-matters-and-how-to-overcome-it/#c834ba53bfa1.
3. M. Buckingham, “Leadership Development in the Age of the Algorithm,”
Harvard Business Review, June 2012, 86–94.
4. See D. A. Garvin and J. D. Margolis, “The Art of Giving and Receiving
Advice,” Harvard Business Review, June 2012, 146–154.
5. R. S. Peterson and K. O’Connor, “Time to Rethinking Bringing Your Whole
Self to Work?” Forbes, April 1, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
lbsbusinessstrategyreview/2019/04/01/time-to-rethink-bringing-your-
whole-self-to-work/#3db7e9f67b68; and D. Meinert, “Fake It Till You
Make It,” HR Magazine, October 2015, 19.
6. These steps are based on S. J. Ashford and D. S. DeRue, “Developing
as a Leader: The Power of Mindful Engagement,” Organizational
Dynamics, April–June 2012, 146–154.
7. Peter Bregman, “To Develop Leadership Skills, Practice in a Low-Risk Envi-
ronment,” Harvard Business Review, April 5, 2019, https://hbr.org/2019/04/
to-develop-leadership-skills-practice-in-a-low-risk-environment.
8. D. S. DeRue, J. D. Nahrgang, J. R. Hollenbeck, and K. Workman, “A
Quasi-Experimental Study of After-Event Reviews and Leadership Devel-
opment,” Journal of Applied Psychology, September 2012, 997–1015.
9. T. J. Quigley and D. C. Hambrick, “Has the ‘CEO Effect’ Increased in
Recent Decades? A New Explanation for the Great Rise in America’s
Attention to Corporate Leaders,” Strategic Management Journal, June
2015, 821–830.
10. P. G. Northouse, Leadership: Theory and Practice, 6th ed. (Thousand
Oaks, CA: Sage, 2012), 3.
11. C. Robinson, “The Real Cost of Employee Disengagement,” Shiftboard,
February 14, 2018, https://www.shiftboard.com/blog/real-cost-
employee-disengagement/.
12. See J. Hogan, R. Hogan, and R. B. Kaiser, “Management Derailment,” in
S. Zedeck, ed., APA Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psy-
chology (Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2011),
555–575.
13. Leading the Social Enterprise: Reinvent with a Human Focus, 2019
Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends, https://www2.deloitte.com
(accessed April 19, 2019).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN35CHAPTER NOTES
56. P. Schilpzand, L. Houston, and J. Cho, “Not Too Tired to Be Proactive:
Daily Empowering Leadership Spurs Next-Morning Employee Proactiv-
ity as Moderated by Nightly Sleep Quality,” Academy of Management
Journal, December 2018, 2367–2387; J. Zhu, Z. Liao, K. C. Yam, and R.
E. Johnson, “Shared Leadership: A State-of-the-Art Review and Future
Research Agenda,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, September
2018, 834–852; and A. Lee, S. Willis, and A. W. Tian, “Empowering
Leadership: A Meta-Analytics Examination of Incremental Contribution,
Mediation, and Moderation,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, March
2018, 306–325.
57. An overall summary of servant-leadership is provided by L. C. Spears,
Reflections on Leadership: How Robert K. Greenleaf’s Theory of Ser-
vant-Leadership Influenced Today’s Top Management Thinkers (New
York: Wiley, 1995).
58. Weinstein, Margery. “The Secret Sauce for a Better Boss.”
Lakewood Media Group, LLC, https://trainingmag.com/secret-sauce-
better-boss/.
59. See Z. Chen, J. Zhu, and M. Zhou, “How Does Servant Leader Fuel the
Service Fire? A Multilevel Model of Servant Leadership, Individual Self-
Identity, Group Competition Climate, and Customer Service Perfor-
mance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, March 2015, 511–121; and S.
J. Peterson, B. M. Galvin, and D. Lange, “CEO Servant Leadership:
Exploring Executive Characteristics and Firm Performance,” Personnel
Psychology, 2012, 565–596.
60. McGirt, Ellen. “Bono: I Will Follow.” Fortune Media IP Limited, March 24,
2016. http://fortune.com/bono-u2-one/.
61. C. E. Thiel, J. H. Hardy III, D. R. Peterson, D. T. Welsh, and J. M. Bonner,
“Too Many Sheep in the Flock? Span of Control Attenuates the Influ-
ence of Ethical Leadership,” Journal of Applied Psychology, December
2018, 1324–1334.
62. C. Moore, D. M. Mayer, F. F. T. Chiang, C. Crossley, M. J. Karlesky, and T.
A. Birtch, “Leaders Matter Morally: The Role of Ethical Leadership in
Shaping Employee Moral Cognition and Misconduct,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, January 2019, 123–145.
63. B. J. Tepper, “Consequences of Abusive Supervision,” Academy of
Management Journal, 43, 178.
64. M. H. Tu, J. E. Bono, C. Shum, and L. LaMontagne, “Breaking the
Cycle: The Effects of Role Model Performance and Ideal Leadership
Self-Concepts on Abusive Supervision Spillover,” Journal of Applied
Psychology, July 2018, 689–702; and H. Park, J. M. Hoobler, J. Wu,
R. C. Liden, J. Hu, and M. S. Wilson, “Abusive Supervision and
Employee Deviance: A Multifoci Justice Perspective,” Journal of Busi-
ness Ethics, December 2017, 1–19.
65. “Study: Abusive Supervisors Impact Victims and Coworkers Alike,”
https://hr.blr.com/whitepapers/Staffing-Training/ Leadership/Study-Abu-
sive-supervisors-impact-victims-and-cowor (accessed April 21, 2019);
J. Zhu and B. Zhang, “The Double-Edged Sword Effect of Abusive
Supervision on Subordinates Innovative Behavior,” Frontiers in Psychol-
ogy, January 2019, 66; and H. Park, J. M. Hoobler, J. Wu, R. C. Liden, J.
Hu, and M. S. Wilson, “Abusive Supervision and Employee Deviance: A
Multifoci Justice Perspective,” Journal of Business Ethics, December
2017, 1–19.
66. L. Yu, M. K. Duffy, and B. J. Tepper, “Consequences of Downward Envy:
A Model of Self-Esteem Threat, Abusive Supervision, and Supervisory
Self-Improvement,” Academy of Management Journal, December
2018, 2296–2318.
67. C. Woolston, “Bad Bosses: Dealing with Abusive Supervisors,”
Knowable Magazine, https://www.knowablemagazine.org/ article/
society/2018/bad-bosses-dealing-abusive-supervisors (accessed
April 21, 2019); and S. G. Taylor, M. D. Griffith, A. K. Vadera, R. Folger,
and C. R. Letwin, “Breaking the Cycle of Abusive Supervision:
How Disidentification and Moral Identity Help the Trickle-Down Change
Course,” Journal of Applied Psychology, January 2019,
164–182.
68. M. L. Nestel, “Pharmacy Boss Allegedly Forced Employees to Kiss Her
for Their Paychecks, Get Spanked for Punishment, Lawsuit Says,”
Newsweek, December 11, 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/
pharmacy-js-professional-pharmacy-joyce- fogleman-wendy-blades-
spankings-kiss-1253777; and “West Frankfort Business Owner Sued
for Sexual Harassment,” WSILTV, December 27, 2018, http://www.
wsiltv.com/story/39639959/west-frankfort-business-owner-sued-for-
sexual-harassment.
69. M. L. Nestel, “Pharmacy Boss Allegedly Forced Employees to Kiss Her
for Their Paychecks, Get Spanked for Punishment, Lawsuit Says,”
Newsweek, December 11, 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/
pharmacy-js-professional-pharmacy-joyce- fogleman-wendy-blades-
spankings-kiss-1253777.
70. “J&S Professional Pharmacy,” D&B Hoovers, http://www.hoovers.com/
company-information/cs/company-profile. j__s_professional_
pharmacy.94dd023d1717663d.html?aka_re=1#financials-anchor
(accessed April 14, 2019).
32. Vugt, Mark Van, and Allen E. Grabo. “The Many Faces of Leadership: An
Evolutionary-Psychology Approach.” Current Directions in Psychologi-
cal Science 24, no. 6 (December 2015): 484–89. https://doi.
org/10.1177/0963721415601971.
33. For more information on Kouzes and Posner’s leadership model and
their extensive research, see “Our Approach,” The Leadership Chal-
lenge, https://www.leadershipchallenge.com (accessed April 22, 2019).
34. M. Buck and M. Martin, “Leaders Teaching Leaders,” HR Magazine, Sep-
tember 2012, 60–62.
35. “2018 Training Industry Report,” Training, https://trainingmag.com/trg-
mag-article/2018-training-industry-report/ (accessed April 21, 2019).
36. D. Zielinski, “Effective Assessments,” HR Magazine, January 2011,
61–64.
37. M. Javidan, A. Bullough, and R. Dibble, “Mind the Gap: Gender Differ-
ences in Global Leadership Self-Efficacies,” Academy of Management
Perspectives, February 2016, 59–73.
38. M. Weinstein, “World-Class Leaders,” Training, May/June 2012, 18–21.
39. G. Yukl, “Effective Leadership Behavior: What We Know and What
Questions Need More Attention,” Academy of Management Perspec-
tives, November 2012, 69.
40. D. S. DeRue, J. D. Nahrgang, N. Wellman, and S. E. Humphrey, “Trait and
Behavioral Theories of Leadership: An Integration and Meta-Analytic
Test of Their Relative Validity,” Personnel Psychology, 2011.
41. T. A. Judge, R. F. Piccolo, and R. Ilies, “The Forgotten Ones? The Validity
of Consideration and Initiating Structure in Leadership Research,” Journal
of Applied Psychology, February 2004, 36–51.
42. A definition and description of transactional leadership is provided by
B. M. Bass and R. Bass, The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory,
Research, and Managerial Applications, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press,
2008), 618–648.
43. D. S. DeRue, J. D. Nahrgang, N. Wellman, and S. E. Humphrey, “Trait and
Behavioral Theories of Leadership: An Integration and Meta-Analytic
Test of Their Relative Validity,” Personnel Psychology, 2011.
44. G. Sapakoff, “Dabo Swinney’s First Order of Clemson Spring Practice
Business: Find New Leaders,” The Post and Courier, February 27, 2019,
https://www.postandcourier.com/columnists/dabo-swinney-s-first-order-
of-clemson-spring-practice-business/article_fb887f00-392d-11e9-
938c-6fe8fcc97897.html.
45. M. Given, “5 Leadership Secrets Shared by Clemson’s Dabo Swinney
During His White House Speech,” Inc., June 14, 2017, https://www.inc.
com/matt-given/5-leadership-secrets-shared-by-clemsons-dabo-swin-
ney-during-his-white-house-spee.html.
46. J. Tamny, “Dabo Swinney, the Clemson Tigers, and the Genius of Rising
Inequality,” Forbes, September 23, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
johntamny/2018/09/23/dabo-swinney-the-clemson-tigers-and-the-
genius-of-rising-inequality/#4ffc360e4cc4.
47. J. Boozell, “Clemson Dominates Alabama for Second College Football
Playoff Title, Third National Championship,” NCAA.com, January 8,
2019, https://www.ncaa.com/news/football/article/2019-01-08/
c l e m s o n - d o m i n a t e s - a l a b a m a - s e c o n d - c o l l e g e - f o o t b a l l -
playoff-title.
48. G. Yukl, “Effective Leadership Behavior: What We Know and What
Questions Need More Attention,” Academy of Management Perspec-
tives, November 2012, 69.
49. T. A. Judge, R. F. Piccolo, and R. Ilies, “The Forgotten Ones? The Validity
of Consideration and Initiating Structure in Leadership Research,” Jour-
nal of Applied Psychology, February 2004, 36–51.
50. M. T. Maynard, L. L. Gilson, and J. E. Mathieu, “Empowerment—Fad or
Fab? A Multilevel Review of the Past Two Decades of Research,” Jour-
nal of Management, July 2012, 1231–1281.
51. S. Fiegerman, “Forget Bezos. Marc Benioff Is Having a Moment,” CNN
Business, October 4, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/03/tech/
marc-benioff-profile/index.html.
52. A. Levy, “Salesforce’s Marc Benioff Unplugged for Two Weeks, and Had
a Revelation That Could Change the Tech Industry,” CNBC, January 5,
2019, https://www.cnbc.com/2018/12/30/salesforce-marc-benioff-
talks-tech-ethics-time-magazine-and-vacation.html.
53. I. A. Hamilton, “Marc Benioff Says Ditching His iPhone and iPad on Holi-
day Helped Him Make a Huge Decision about Salesforce’s Future,”
Business Insider, January 7, 2019, https://www.businessinsider.com/
marc-benioff-hired-keith-block-as-salesforce-co-ceo-after-ditching-
phone-2019-1.
54. B. Mikel, “To Keep Its 30,000 Employees Happy, Salesforce Offers a
Refreshing, But Peculiar Perk,” Inc., June 25, 2018, https://www.inc.
com/betsy-mikel/new-salesforce-employees-dont-actually-work-on-
their-first-day-they-get-to-do-this-instead.html.
55. M. Schwantes, “The CEO of Salesforce Found Out His Female Employ-
ees Were Paid Less Than Men. His Response Is a Priceless Leadership
Lesson,” Inc., July 26, 2018, https://www.inc.com/marcel-schwantes/
the-ceo-of-salesforce-found-out-female-employees-are-paid-less-than-
men-his-response-is-a-priceless-leadership-lesson.html.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN36 CHAPTER NOTES
93. “Learning from Netflix: How to Build a Culture of Freedom and Respon-
sibility,” Knowledge@Wharton, May 29, 2018, https://knowledge.
wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-netflix-built-its- company-culture/.
94. R. Jenkins, “3 Ways Netflix Created a Culture of High-Performing
Employees,” Inc., September 5, 2018, https://www.inc.com/ryan-jenkins/
this-is-how-netflix-built-a-culture-of-highly-motivated- employees.html.
95. Supportive results can be found in P. D. Harms and M. Credé, “Emo-
tional Intelligence and Transformational and Transactional Leadership:
A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, Feb-
ruary 2010, 5–17.
96. See A. Eagly, M. C. Johannesen-Schmidt, and M. L. van Engen, “Trans-
formational, Transactional, and Laissez-Faire Leadership Styles: A Meta-
Analysis Comparing Women and Men,” Psychological Bulletin, July
2003, 569–591.
97. See D. L. Joseph, L. Y. Dhanani, W. Shen, B. C. McHugh, and M. A.
McCord, “Is a Happy Leader a Good Leader: A Meta-Analytic Investiga-
tion of Leader Trait Affect and Leadership,” Leadership Quarterly,
August 2015, 558–577.
98. See S. Clarke, “Safety Leadership: A Meta-Analytic Review of Transfor-
mational Leadership and Transactional Leadership Styles as Anteced-
ents of Safety Behavior,” Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, March 2013, 22–49; G. Wang, I.-S. Oh, S. H. Courtright,
and A. E. Colbert, “Transformational Leadership and Performance
across Criteria and Levels: A Meta-Analytic Review of 25 Years of
Research,” Group & Organizational Management, 2011, 223–270; and
D. A. Waldman, M. Z. Carter, and P. W. Hom, “A Multi-Level Investigation
of Leadership and Turnover Behavior,” Journal of Management, Sep-
tember 2015, 1724–1744.
99. B. J. Tepper, N. Dimotakis, L. S. Lambert, J. Koopman, F. K. Matta, H. M.
Park, and W. Goo, “Examining Follower Responses to Transformational
Leadership from a Dynamic, Person– Environment Fit Perspective,”
Academy of Management Journal, August 2018, 1343–1368; and J.
Vergauwe, B. Wille, J. Hofmans, R. B. Kaiser, and F. De Fruyt, “The Double-
Edged Sword of Leader Charisma: Understanding the Curvilinear
Relationship Between Charismatic Personality and Leader Effective-
ness,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January 2018,
110–130.
100. Visionary leadership is studied by C. A. Hartnell and F. O. Walumbwa,
“Transformational Leadership and Organizational Culture,” in N. M.
Ashkanasy, C. P. M. Wilderom, and M. F. Peterson, eds., The Handbook
of Organizational Culture and Climate, 2nd ed. (Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage, 2011), 225–248.
101. Communicating visions is discussed by A. M. Carton and B. J. Lucas,
“How Can Leaders Overcome the Blurry Vision Bias? Identifying an
Antidote to the Paradox of Vision Communication,” Academy of Man-
agement Journal, December 2018, 2106–2129; and Y. Berson,
N. Halevy, B. Sharmir, and M. Erez, “Leading from Different Psychological
Distances: A Construal-Level Perspective on Vision Communication,
Goal Setting, and Follower Motivation,” The Leadership Quarterly,
2015, 143–155.
102. D. K. Goodwin, “Lincoln and the Art of Transformative Leadership,” Har-
vard Business Review, September–October 2018, 126–134.
103. T. Whitford and S. A. Moss, “Transformational Leadership in Distributed
Work Groups: The Moderating Role of Follower Regulatory Focus
and Goal Orientation,” Communication Research, December 2009,
810–837.
104. See F. Dansereau Jr., G. Graen, and W. Haga, “A Vertical Dyad Linkage
Approach to Leadership within Formal Organizations,” Organizational
Behavior and Human Performance, February 1975, 46–78.
105. Based on J. H. Dulebohn, W. H. Bommer, R. C. Liden, R. L. Brouer, and G.
R. Ferris, “A Meta-Analysis of Antecedents and Consequences of
Leader-Member Exchange: Integrating the Past with an Eye toward the
Future,” Journal of Management, November 2012, 1715–1759.
106. J. Seo, J. D. Nahrgang, M. Z. Carter, and P. W. Hom, “Not All Differentia-
tion Is the Same: Examining the Moderating Effects of Leader-Member
Exchange Configurations,” Journal of Applied Psychology, May 2018,
478–495; and R. Martin, G. Thomas, A. Legood, and S. Dello Russo,
“Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Differentiation and Work Outcomes:
Conceptual Clarification and Critical Review,” Journal of Organizational
Behavior, February 2018, 151–168.
107. A. Yu, F. K. Matta, and B. Cornfield, “Is Leader–Member Exchange Dif-
ferentiation Beneficial or Detrimental for Group Effectiveness? A Meta-
Analytic Investigation and Theoretical Integration,” Academy of
Management Journal, June 2018, 1158–1188.
108. H. H. M. Tse, C. K. Lam, J. Gu, and X. S. Lin, “Examining the Interpersonal
Process and Consequence of Leader–Member Exchange Comparison:
The Role of Procedural Justice Climate,” Journal of Organizational
Behavior, October 2018, 922–940.
109. D. L. Haggard and H. M. Park, “Perceived Supervisor Remorse, Abusive
Supervision, and LMX,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, December
2018, 1252–1267.
71. M. L. Nestel, “Pharmacy Boss Allegedly Forced Employees to Kiss Her
for Their Paychecks, Get Spanked for Punishment, Lawsuit Says,”
Newsweek, December 11, 2018, https://www.newsweek.com/
pharmacy-js-professional-pharmacy-joyce- fogleman-wendy-blades-
spankings-kiss-1253777.
72. J. Hyman, “The 1st Nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 is . . . the
Philandering Pharmacist,” Workforce.com, December 11, 2018, https://
www.workforce.com/2018/12/11/the-1st-nominee-for-the-worst-
employer-of-2019-is-the-philandering-pharmacist/.
73. See D. S. DeRue, J. D. Nahrgang, N. Wellman, and S. E. Humphrey, “Trait
and Behavioral Theories of Leadership: An Integration and Meta-
Analytic Test of Their Relative Validity,” Personnel Psychology, 2011, 7–52.
74. See S. T. Hannah and B. J. Avolio, “Ready or Not: How Do We Acceler-
ate the Developmental Readiness of Leaders?” Journal of Organiza-
tional Behavior, November 2010, 1181–1187.
75. A. K. Khan, S. Moss, S. Quratulain, and I. Hameed, “When and How Sub-
ordinate Performance Leads to Abusive Supervision: A Social Dominance
Perspective,” Journal of Management, September 2018, 2801–2826.
76. For more on this theory, see F. E. Fiedler, “A Contingency Model of Leader-
ship Effectiveness,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, vol. 1,
ed. L. Berkowitz (New York: Academic Press, 1964); and F. E. Fiedler, A
Theory of Leadership Effectiveness (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967).
77. See L. H. Peters, D. D. Hartke, and J. T. Pohlmann, “Fiedler’s Contin-
gency Theory of Leadership: An Application of the Meta- Analysis Pro-
cedures of Schmidt and Hunter,” Psychological Bulletin, March 1985,
274–285; and C. A. Schriesheim, B. J. Tepper, and L. A. Tetrault, “Least
Preferred Co-Worker Score, Situational Control, and Leadership Effec-
tiveness: A Meta- Analysis of Contingency Model Performance Predic-
tions,” Journal of Applied Psychology, August 1994, 561–573.
78. C. A. Hartnell, A. J. Kinicki, L. S. Lambert, M. Fugate, and P. D. Corner,
“Do Similarities of Differences between CEO Leadership and Organiza-
tional Culture Have a More Positive Effect on Firm Performance? A Test
of Competing Predictions,” Journal of Applied Psychology, June 2016,
846–861.
79. See L. S. Lambert, B. J. Tepper, J. C. Carr, D. T. Holt, and A. J. Barelka,
“Forgotten but Not Gone: An Examination of Fit between Leader Con-
sideration and Initiating Structure Needed and Received,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, September 2012, 913–930.
80. N. Meyersohn, “Barnes & Noble Is Overrun with Problems,” CNN Busi-
nesss.com, September 6, 2018, https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/06/
news/companies/barnes-and-noble-books-amazon/index.html.
81. N. Meyersohn, “Barnes & Noble Is Overrun with Problems,” CNN Busi-
nesss.com, September 6, 2018, https://money.cnn.com/2018/09/06/
news/companies/barnes-and-noble-books-amazon/index.html; and T.
Hsu and A. Alter, “Barnes & Noble Says Former CEO Demos Parneros
Was Fired for Sexual Harassment,” The New York Times, August 28,
2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/28/business/barnes-noble-
ceo-sexual-harassment-lawsuit.html.
82. C. Wang, “Barnes & Noble Fires CEO Demos Parneros for Violating
Company Policies,” CNBC, July 3, 2018, https://www.cnbc.
com/2018/07/03/barnes--noble-fires-ceo-demos-parneros.html.
83. C. Wang, “Barnes & Noble Fires CEO Demos Parneros for Violating
Company Policies,” CNBC, July 3, 2018, https://www.cnbc.
com/2018/07/03/barnes--noble-fires-ceo-demos-parneros.html.
84. A. Alter, “Ronald D. Boire Steps Down as Chief of Barnes & Noble,” The
New York Times, August 16, 2016, https://www.nytimes.
com/2016/08/17/business/media/ronald-d-boire-steps-down-as-chief-
of-barnes-noble.html.
85. B. Y. Farhan, “Application of Path-Goal Leadership Theory and Learning
Theory in a Learning Organization,” Journal of Applied Business
Research, January/February 2018, 13–22.
86. J. T. Bickle, “Developing Remote Training Consultants as Leaders—Dialogic/
Network Application of Path-Goal Leadership Theory in Leadership
Development,” Performance Improvement, October 2017, 32–39.
87. The steps were developed by H. P. Sims Jr., S. Faraj, and S. Yun, “When
Should a Leader Be Directive or Empowering? How to Develop Your
Own Situational Theory of Leadership,” Business Horizons, March–April
2009, 149–158.
88. M. Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1947).
89. A historical review of transformational leadership is provided by D. V.
Knippenberg and S. B. Sitkin, “A Critical Assessment of Charismatic–
Transformational Leadership Research: Back to the Drawing Board?”
Academy of Management Annals, 2013, 1–60.
90. B. Nanus, Visionary Leadership (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1992), 8.
91. A. Quito, “Netflix’s CEO Says There Are Months When He Doesn’t Have
to Make a Single Decision,” Quartz, April 19, 2018, https://qz.com/
work/1254183/netflix-ceo-reed-hastings-expounds-on-the-netflix-
culture-deck-at-ted-2018/.
92. “Netflix Culture,” https://jobs.netflix.com/culture (accessed April 21,
2019).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN37CHAPTER NOTES
134. Charles Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production
Hell.” Condé Nast, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/
elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
135. Dale Buss, “For Insights Into Elon Musk’s Leadership Of Tesla, Look At
How He Leads SpaceX, Author Says.” Forbes Media LLC, August 31,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/dalebuss/2018/08/31/for-
insights-into-elon-musks-leadership-of-tesla-look-at-how-he-leads-
spacex-author-says/#2aea54f263a4.
136. C. Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production Hell,”
Wired, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-
tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
137. C. Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production Hell,”
Wired, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-
tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
138. R. Mitchell, “As Tesla Struggles to Exit ‘Production Hell,’ Buyers Com-
plain of Delivery Limbo,” Los Angeles Times, September 14, 2018,
https://www.latimes.com/business/autos/la-fi-hy-tesla-sales-delivery-
problems-20180912-story.html.
139. S. Fairyington, “What We Can Learn About How NOT to Lead From Elon
Musk,” Thrive Global, January 10, 2019, https://thriveglobal.com/sto-
ries/elon-musk-leadership-style-hamper-tesla-growth-lessons-tips/.
140. C. Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production Hell,”
Wired, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-
tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
141. L. Kolodny, “Elon Musk’s Extreme Micromanagement Has Wasted Time
and Money at Tesla, Insiders Say,” CNBC, October 19, 2018, https://
www.cnbc.com/2018/10/19/tesla-ceo-elon-musk-extreme-micro-man-
ager.html.
142. B. Enderwick, “What Elon Musk Gets Wrong About Leadership,”
Medium, August 24, 2018, https://medium.com/s/story/what-elon-
musk-gets-wrong-about-leadership-b97794a0e330.
143. Charles Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production
Hell.” Condé Nast, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/
elon-musk-tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
144. C. Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production Hell,”
Wired, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-
tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
145. M. Castillo, “Elon Musk May Have Violated Tesla’s Business Conduct
Policy by Smoking Weed,” CNBC, September 7, 2018, https://www.
cnbc.com/2018/09/07/elon-musk-may-have- violated-tesla-conduct-
policy-by-smoking-weed.html.
146. J. Wingard, “Elon Musk and the Pitfalls of Creative Leadership,” Forbes,
April 10, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonwing-
a r d / 2 0 1 9 / 0 4 / 1 0 / e l o n - m u s k- a n d - t h e - p i t f a l l s - o f - c r e a t i v e -
leadership/#6317b78f3f3e.
147. J. McGregor, “Elon Musk, The Say-Anything CEO,” The Washington
Post, December 13, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/
bus iness/2018/12/13/e lon-musk-say-anyth ing-ceo/?utm_
term=.9eaf03d4ee48.
148. A. Pressman, “Data Sheet—Why Elon Musk’s Visionary Leadership Falls
Short,” Fortune, November 8, 2018, http://fortune.com/2018/11/08/
data-sheet-elon-musk-tesla-chairman-robyn-denholm/.
149. Stephanie Fairyington, “What We Can Learn about How NOT to Lead
from Elon Musk,” Thrive Global, January 10, 2019, https://thriveglobal.
com/stories/elon-musk-leadership-style-hamper-tesla-growth-lessons-
tips/.
150. D. Hull, “Tesla Sinks After Model Y Unveiling Rekindles Concerns over
Cash,” Bloomberg, March 14, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/2019-03-15/elon-musk-reveals-tesla-model-y-crossover-to-
start-at-39-000.
151. C. Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production Hell,”
Wired, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-
tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
152. Jen Juneau, “Claire’s Employee Quits, Calls Out Policy After Refusing to
Pierce a Non-Consenting Child’s Ears.” Meredith Corporation, April 10,
2019, https://people.com/parents/claires-employee-quits-after-child-
doesnt-consent-ear-piercing-policy/.
CHAPTER 14
1. A. L. Kristof-Brown, R. D. Zimmerman, and E. C. Johnson, “Conse-
quences of Individuals’ Fit at Work: A Meta-Analysis of Person-Job,
Person-Organization, Person-Group, and Person-Supervisor Fit,” Per-
sonnel Psychology, Summer 2005, 281.
2. W. Lam, Y. Huo, and Z. Chen, “Who Is Fit to Serve? Person–Job/Organi-
zation Fit, Emotional Labor, and Customer Service Performance,”
Human Resource Management, November 2017, 483–497.
3. Fit perceptions during recruiting were examined by B. W. Swider, R. D.
Zimmerman, and M. R. Barrick, “Searching for the Right Fit: Development
of Applicant Person-Organization Fit Perceptions During the Recruit-
ment Process,” Journal of Applied Psychology, May 2015, 880–893.
110. G. Wang, C. H. Van Iddekinge, L. Zhang, and J. Bishoff, “Meta-Analytic
and Primary Investigations of the Role of Followers in Ratings of Leader-
ship Behavior in Organizations,” Journal of Applied Psychology, Janu-
ary 2019, 70–106.
111. X. Huang, E. Xu, and L. Huang, “Nonlinear Consequences of Promotive
and Prohibitive Voice for Managers’ Responses: The Roles of Voice Fre-
quency and LMX,” Journal of Applied Psychology, October 2018,
1101–1120.
112. Z. Liao, W. Liu, X. Li, and Z. Song, “Give and Take: An Episodic Perspective
on Leader-Member Exchange,” Journal of Applied Psychology, January
2019, 34–51; and J. D. Mackey, C. P. McAllister, L. P. Maher, and G. Wang,
“Leaders and Followers Behaving Badly: A Meta-Analytic Examination of
Curvilinear Relationships Between Destructive Leadership and Followers’
Workplace Behaviors,” Personnel Psychology, June 2018, 3–47.
113. S. M. Heathfield, “10 Tips to Help You Get Along With Your Boss,” The
Balance, October 1, 2018, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/get-
along-with-boss-1919375.
114. A. Kinicki, “How Can You Improve Your Work Image?” Arizona Republic,
September 7, 2014, E6.
115. S. M. Heathfield, “10 Tips to Help You Get Along With Your Boss,” The
Balance, October 1, 2018, https://www.thebalancecareers.com/get-
along-with-boss-1919375.
116. A. Kinicki, “How Can You Improve Your Work Image?” Arizona Republic,
September 7, 2014, E6.
117. A. Y. Ou, D. A. Waldman, and S. J. Peterson, “Do Humble CEOs Matter?
An Examination of CEO Humility and Firm Outcomes,” Journal of Man-
agement, March 2018, 1147–1173.
118. L. Wang, B. P. Owens, J. Li, and L. Shi, “Exploring the Affect Impact,
Boundary Conditions, and Antecedents of Leader Humility,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, September 2018, 1019–1038.
119. A. Robinson, “The Most Successful Companies Have Humble
Leaders. Here’s Why,” Inc., November 2, 2018, https://www.inc.com/
adam-robinson/this-1-leadership-quality-will-motivate-your-employees-
to-do-great-work.html.
120. A. Rego, B. Owens, K. C. Yam, D. Bluhm, M. Pina de Cunha, A. Silard, L.
Gonçalves, M. Martins, A. Volkmann Simpson, and W. Liu, “Leader
Humility and Team Performance: Exploring the Mediating Mechanisms of
Team PsyCap and Task Allocation Effectiveness,” Journal of Manage-
ment, March 2019, 1009–1033.
121. J. Hu, B. Erdogan, K. Jiang, T. N. Bauer, and S. Liu, “Leader Humility and
Team Creativity: The Role of Team Information Sharing, Psychological
Safety, and Power Distance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, March
2018, 313–323.
122. A. C. Weidman, J. T. Cheng, and J. L. Tracy, “The Psychological Structure
of Humility,” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, January
2018, 153–178.
123. R. Levering, “The 100 Best Companies to Work for 2016,” Fortune,
March 15, 2016, 160.
124. See B. M. Bass and R. Bass, The Bass Handbook of Leadership: Theory,
Research, and Managerial Applications, 4th ed. (New York: Free Press,
2008).
125. See L. Bossidy, “What Your Leader Expects of You and What You Should
Expect in Return,” Harvard Business Review, April 2007, 58–65.
126. See R. Goffee and G. Jones, “Followership: It’s Personal, Too,” Harvard
Business Review, December 2001, 148.
127. This checklist was proposed by J. J. Gabarro and J. P. Kotter, “Managing
Your Boss,” Harvard Business Review, January 2005, 2–11.
128. Partially based on S. Vozza, “How to Be a Good Follower (And Why It’s
a Skill You Need),” Fast Company, February 21, 2018, https://www.fast-
company.com/40544722/how-to-be-agood- follower-and-why-its-a-skill-
you-need; and B. Dattner, “Forewarned Is Forearmed,” BusinessWeek,
September 1, 2008, 50.
129. M. Alvesson and M. Blom, “Beyond Leadership and Followership: Work-
ing with a Variety of Modes of Organizing,” Organizational Dynamics,
January–March 2019, 28–37.
130. D. Buss, “For Insights into Elon Musk’s Leadership of Tesla, Look at How
He Leads SpaceX, Author Says,” Forbes, August 31, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/sites/dalebuss/2018/08/31/for-insights-into-elon-musks-
leadersh ip -o f - tes la - look-a t -how-he- leads-spacex-author -
says/#6ad83fb763a4.
131. C. Duhigg, “Dr. Elon & Mr. Musk: Life Inside Tesla’s Production Hell,”
Wired, December 13, 2018, https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-
tesla-life-inside-gigafactory/.
132. J. Wingard, “Elon Musk and the Pitfalls of Creative Leadership,” Forbes,
April 10, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonwingard/2019/04/10/
elon-musk-and-the-pitfalls-of-creative-leadership/#6317b78f3f3e.
133. Dale Buss, “For Insights Into Elon Musk’s Leadership Of Tesla, Look At
How He Leads SpaceX, Author Says.” Forbes Media LLC, August 31,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/dalebuss/2018/08/31/for-
insights-into-elon-musks-leadership-of-tesla-look-at-how-he-leads-
spacex-author-says/#2aea54f263a4.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN38 CHAPTER NOTES
Reports Fourth Quarter and Annual Profit; 46th Year of Profitability,”
PRNewswire, January 24, 2019, https://www.prnewswire.com/news-
releases/southwest-airlines-reports-fourth-quarter-and-annual-profit-
46th-consecutive-year-of-profitability-300783458.html.
26. “Southwest Airlines Employees Earn $544 Million in 2018 Profit Shar-
ing,” February 13, 2019, http://investors.southwest.com/news-and-
events/news-releases/2019/02-13-2019-195947063.
27. “Southwest Airlines Employees Earn $544 Million in 2018 Profit Shar-
ing,” February 13, 2019, http://investors.southwest.com/news-and-
events/news-releases/2019/02-13-2019-195947063.
28. Human Rights Campaign Foundation, “Corporate Equality Index 2019,”
https://assets2.hrc.org/files/assets/resources/CEI-2019-FullReport ?_
ga=2.29417855.1901208044.1556308587-1780781685.1556308587
(accessed May 2, 2019); and C. Smith, “30 Interesting Southwest Airlines
Statistics and Facts (2019): By the Numbers,” DMR, January 28, 2019,
https://expandedramblings.com/index.php/southwest-airlines-
statistics-facts/.
29. Southwest Airlines Co. “About Southwest: The Mission of Southwest
Airlines.” Accessed May 22, 2019, https://www.southwest.com/html/
about-southwest/index.html.
30. “Southwest Airlines Highlights Corporate Citizenship Through 2018 One
Report,” PRNewswire, April 22, 2019, https://www.prnewswire.com/
news-releases/southwest-airlines-highlights- corporate-citizenship-
through-2018-one-report-300835050.html; and O. Blanco, “Best and
Worst Airlines According to Consumer Reports Readers,” Consumer
Reports, March 13, 2018, https://www.consumerreports.org/airline-
travel/best-and-worst-airlines/.
31. T. Avakian, “Here’s What It’s Like to Work for Southwest, One of Glass-
door’s Best Places to Work for 10 Years in a Row,” Travel + Leisure,
February 26, 2019, https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/
working-for-southwest-airlines-career.
32. D. Dahl, “Why Do Southwest Airlines Employees Always Seem So
Happy?” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/darrendahl/2017/07/28/
w h y - d o - s o u t h w e s t - a i r l i n e s - e m p l o y e e s - a l w a y s - s e e m - s o -
happy/#312fc6e359b0 (accessed May 2, 2019).
33. See C. Ostroff, A. J. Kinicki, and R. S. Muhammad, “Organizational Cul-
ture and Climate,” in I. B. Weiner, N. W. Schmitt, and S. Highhouse, eds.,
Handbook of Psychology, vol. 12, 2nd ed. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2013),
643–676.
34. A thorough description of the CVF is provided in K. S. Cameron, R. E.
Quinn, J. Degraff, and A. V. Thakor, Competing Values Leadership
(Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar, 2006).
35. Y. Li, M. Wang, D. D. Van Jaarsveld, G. K. Lee, and D. G. Ma, “From
Employee-Experienced High-Involvement Work System to Innovation:
An Emergence-Based Human Resource Management Framework,”
Academy of Management Journal, October 2018, 2000–2019; and C.
G. L. Nerstad, R. Searle, M. Cerne, A. Dysvik, M. Skerlavaj, and R.
Scherer, “Perceived Mastery Climate, Felt Trust, and Knowledge Shar-
ing,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, May 2018, 429–447.
36. L. Buchanan, “Why This Company’s Mission Includes No-Meeting Mon-
days,” Inc., https://www.inc.com/magazine/201605/leigh-buchanan/
toms-employee-culture-programs.html (accessed May 2, 2019).
37. Acuity, “Ben Salzmann Marks 20 Years as Acuity CEO,” https://www.acuity.
com/about/media-center/in-the-news/2019/ben-salzmann-marks-
20-years-as-acuity-ceo (accessed May 22, 2019).
38. B. Casselman, “Risk-Averse Culture Infects U.S. Workers, Entrepre-
neurs,” The Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2013, A1, A14.
39. Company website, “Our Mission,” https://menloinnovations.com/our-
way (accessed May 2, 2019).
40. Mauro F. Guillén and Esteban García-Canal, “Execution as Strategy.”
Harvard Business Review, October, 2012, https://hbr.org/2012/10/
execution-as-strategy.
41. “Fortune’s 100 Best Companies: #12 Publix Super Markets,” http://fortune.
com/best-companies/publix-super-markets/ (accessed May 2, 2019).
42. G. Acosta, “Why Publix Is America’s Most Popular Retailer,” Retail
Leader, February 27, 2018, https://retailleader.com/why-publix-americas-
most-popular-retailer.
43. See A. Srinivasan and B. Kurey, “Creating a Culture of Quality,” Harvard
Business Review, April 2014, 23–26.
44. A. Thompson, “McDonald’s Organizational Structure & Its Characteristics—
An Analysis,” Panmore Institute, February 26, 2019, http://panmore.
com/mcdonalds-organizational-structure-analysis; and S. Oches, “Inside
the Plan to Fix McDonald’s,” QSR Magazine, May 2018, https://www.
qsrmagazine.com/reports/inside-plan-fix-mcdonalds.
45. “Fortune 100 Best: 96 Activision Blizzard,” http://fortune.com/best-
companies/activision-blizzard/ (accessed May 2, 2019); and Keith
Noonan, “Why the Best Is Yet to Come for Activision Blizzard,” The Motley
Fool.com, March 30, 2019, https://www.fool.com/investing/2019/03/30/
why-the-best-is-yet-to-come-for-activision-blizzar.aspx.
46. “Careers: You are Only as Great as the Characters on Your Team,” Activ-
ision.com, https://www.activision.com/careers (accessed May 5, 2016).
4. See C. Boho, “How to Find the Right Cultural Fit,” Arizona Republic,
November 15, 2015.
5. Mansueto Ventures. “8 Entrepreneurs Share How They Weed Out Job
Candidates Based on Cultural.” Accessed May 22, 2019, https://www.
inc.com/entrepreneurs-organization/8-proven-ways-to-identify-job-
candidates-with-a-strong-cultural-fit.html?cid=search.
6. These suggestions are based on A. Kinicki, “It’s Important to Fit in with
Fellow Workers,” Arizona Republic, May 31, 2015.
7. R. Feloni, “T-Mobile’s CEO Says Reinventing Himself Was Key to Trans-
forming the Company’s Culture,” Business Insider, https://www.busines-
sinsider.com/t-mobile-ceo-john-legere-company-culture-2016-10
(accessed May 2, 2019).
8. Alan Murray, “The Pinnacles and Pitfalls of Corporate Culture,” Fortune
Media IP Limited, March 3, 2016, http://fortune.com/2016/03/03/best-
companies-to-work-for-editors-desk/.
9. “Virgin Group in Numbers,” https://www.virgin.com (accessed May 2,
2019); and C. Paton, “37 Company Culture Quotes That Will Inspire
Your Team,” https://blog.enplug.com/37-company-culture-quotes
(accessed May 2, 2019).
10. Edgar H. Schein, “Culture: The Missing Concept in Organization Stud-
ies,” Administrative Science Quarterly 41, no. 2 (1996): 229–40. https://
DOI: 10.2307/2393715.
11. I. S. Oh, J. H. Han, B. Holtz, Y. J. Kim, and S. Kim, “Do Birds of a Feather
Flock, Fly, and Continue to Fly Together? The Differential and Cumula-
tive Effects of Attraction, Selection, and Attrition on Personality-Based
Within-Organization Homogeneity and Between-Organization Hetero-
geneity Progression over Time,” Journal of Organizational Behavior,
December 2018; and W. Vleugels, R. De Cooman, M. Verbruggen, and
O. Solinger, “Understanding Dynamic Change in Perceptions of
Person– Environment Fit: An Exploration of Competing Theoretical Per-
spectives,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, November 2018.
12. E. H. Follmer, D. L. Talbot, A. L. Kristof-Brown, S. L. Astrove, and J. Bills-
berry, “Resolution, Relief, and Resignation: A Qualitative Study of
Responses to Misfit at Work,” Academy of Management Journal, April
2018, 440–465.
13. M. Helft and J. Hempel, “Inside Facebook,” Fortune, March 19, 2012,
113–122.
14. R. Umoh, “Why Amazon Pays Employees $5,000 to Quit,” CNBC, https://
www.cnbc.com/2018/05/21/why-amazon-pays-employees-5000-to-quit.
html, May 21, 2018.
15. “Culture: We Have a Couple of Ground Rules at Warby Parker,” https://
www.warbyparker.com (accessed May 2, 2019).
16. A. Otani, “Patagonia Triggers a Market Panic over New Rules on Its
Power Vests,” The Wall Street Journal, April 8, 2019, https://www.wsj.
com/articles/patagonia-triggers-a-market-panic-over-new-rules-on-its-
power-vests-11554736920.
17. Results are discussed in “Executing Ethics,” Training, March 2007, 8.
18. See M. Cording, J. S. Harrison, R. E. Hoskisson, and K. Jonsen, “Walking
the Talk: A Multistakeholder Exploration of Organizational Authenticity,
Employee Productivity, and Post-Merger Performance,” Academy of
Management Perspectives, February 2014, 38–56.
19. A. Fox, “Get in the Business of Being Green,” HR Magazine, June 2008,
45–46.
20. S. Cantele and A. Zardini, “Is Sustainability a Competitive Advantage for
Small Businesses? An Empirical Analysis of Possible Mediators in the
Sustainability–Financial Performance Relationship,” Journal of Cleaner
Production, May 2018, 166–176.
21. “Sustainability: Our Strategy,” https://www.kering.com/en/sustainability/
(accessed May 2, 2019); and K. Strauss, “The Most Sustainable Compa-
nies in 2019,” Forbes, January 22, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
karstenstrauss/2019/01/22/the-most-sustainable-companies-in-
2019/#216203c56d7d.
22. Ceres, “Companies Show Signs of Progress, But New Ceres Analysis Calls
for More Action on Sustainability Commitments,” https://www.ceres.org/
news-center/press-releases/companies-show-signs-progress-new-ceres-
analysis-calls-more-action (accessed May 22, 2019).
23. E. Chhabra, “ How Two Young Entrepreneurs Are Tackling the Plastic
Problem with Swimwear,” Forbes, June 13, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/eshachhabra/2018/06/13/how-two-young-entrepreneurs-
are-tackling-the-plastic-problem-with-swimwear/#50f840216422; and
M. Peretz, “5 Companies Who Succeed by Prioritizing Sustainability
Over Profits,” Forbes, December 12, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/marissaperetz/2017/12/12/5-companies-who-succeed-by-
prioritizing-sustainability-over-profits/#1ebf92935585.
24. Company website, www.naturabrasil.com (accessed April 29, 2019);
and M. Peretz, “5 Companies Who Succeed by Prioritizing Sustainability
Over Profits,” Forbes, December 12, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/marissaperetz/2017/12/12/5-companies-who-succeed-by-
prioritizing-sustainability-over-profits/#1ebf92935585.
25. “Southwest Corporate Fact Sheet,” https://www.swamedia.com/pages/
corporate-fact-sheet (accessed May 2, 2019); and “Southwest Airlines
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN39CHAPTER NOTES
47. M. Osako, “Activision Blizzard Recognized on Fortune’s 100 Best Com-
panies to Work For List in 2016,” Activision.com, http://investor.activision.
com (accessed May 5, 2016).
48. Blizzard Entertainment, Inc., “Why Activision Blizzard?” http://www.activ-
isionblizzard.com/careers (accessed May 22, 2019).
49. Great Place to Work, “Great Place to Work 2016,” Greatplacetowork.com,
http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/activision-blizzard (accessed May
22, 2019).
50. Great Place to Work, “Great Place to Work 2016,” Greatplacetowork.com,
http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/activision-blizzard (accessed May
22, 2019).
51. “Life at Activision: Leveling Up,” Activisionblizzard.com, http://www.
activisionblizzard.com/careers (accessed May 5, 2016).
52. “Great Place to Work 2016,” Greatplacetowork.com, http://reviews.great-
placetowork.com/activision-blizzard (accessed May 5, 2016).
53. “King of Fun,” Fortune, March 15, 2016, 14.
54. Great Place to Work, “Great Place to Work 2016,” Greatplacetowork.com,
http://reviews.greatplacetowork.com/activision-blizzard (accessed May
22, 2019).
55. See A. Ou, C. Hartnell, A. Kinicki, E. Karam, and D. Choi, “Culture in
Context: A Meta-Analysis of the Nomological Network of Organizational
Culture” presentation as part of a symposium, Connecting Culture and
Context: Insights from Organizational Culture Theory and Research, at
the 2016 National Academy of Management Meeting in Anaheim,
California.
56. See C. Ostroff, A. J. Kinicki, and R. S. Muhammad, “Organizational Cul-
ture and Climate,” in Handbook of Psychology, vol. 12, 2nd ed., I. B.
Weiner, N. W. Schmitt, and S. Highhouse, eds. (Hoboken, NJ: Wiley,
2013), 643–676.
57. Harrison Miller Trice and Janice M. Beyer, The Cultures of Work Organi-
zations. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1993).
58. See E. H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th ed. (San
Francisco: Wiley, 2010), 259–271; and D. Losonci, R. Kasa, K. Demeter,
B. Heidrich, and I. Jenei, “The Impact of Shop Floor Culture and Subcul-
ture on Lean Production Practices,” International Journal of Operations
and Production Management, 37(2), 2017, 205–225.
59. E. H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership, 4th ed. (San Fran-
cisco: Wiley, 2010), 271.
60. V. Bush, A. J. Bush, J. Oakley, and J. E. Cicala, “The Sales Profession as
a Subculture: Implications for Ethical Decision Making,” Journal of Busi-
ness Ethics, 2017, 549–565; and K. Bezrukova, S. M. B. Thatcher, K. A.
Jehn, and C. S. Spell, “The Effects of Alignments: Examining Group
Faultlines, Organizational Cultures, and Performance,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, January 2012, 77–92.
61. E. A. Lofquist, P. K. Dyson, and S. N. Trønnes, “Mind the Gap: A Qualita-
tive Approach to Assessing Why Different Sub-Cultures within High-
Risk industries Interpret Safety Rule Gaps in Different Ways,” Safety
Science, 2017, 241–256.
62. E. H. Schein, Organizational Culture and Leadership (San Francisco:
Jossey-Bass, 2010).
63. John Mackey in C. Wright, “10 Culture Quotes to Inspire Leadership,”
HuffPost, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/10-culture-quotes-to-
inspire-leadership_b_5976aa21e4b0c6616f7ce4c4 (accessed May 2,
2019).
64. R. E. Quinn and A. J. Thakor, “Creating a Purpose-Driven Organization,”
Harvard Business Review, July–August 2018, 78–85.
65. Partners in Leadership, “3 Top Executives Spill Their Secrets on How to
Successfully Manage Workplace Culture,” Inc., March 9, 2018, https://
www.inc.com/partners-in-leadership/these-3- executives-successfully-
guided-companywide-culture-shifts-heres-how.html.
66. The 12 mechanisms were based on material contained in E. H. Schein,
“The Role of the Founder in Creating Organizational Culture,” Organiza-
tional Dynamics, Summer 1983, 13–28.
67. Caterpillar. “Vision, Mission, Strategy, & Principles.” Accessed May 22,
2019. https://www.caterpillar.com/en/company/sustainability/vision-
mission-strategy.html; and Alzheimer’s Association. “Alzheimer’s
Vision.” Accessed May 22, 2019. https://www.alz.org/dm/fy13-sus-
tainer-ask/general-a.html.
68. M. Cheng, “How Instagram Made Its New York Office Highly Instagram-
mable,” Inc., August 22, 2018, https://www.inc.com/michelle-cheng/
how-instagram-made-its-new-york-office-highly-instagrammable.html.
69. J. Haden, “The New England Patriots Like These 2 Words So Much,
They Applied for a Trademark,” Inc., January 29, 2019, https://www.inc.
com/jeff-haden/new-england-patriots-say-same-2-words-after-every-
win-trademarked-phrase.html.
70. Greg Satell, How Experian’s Networked Culture Drives Innovation, Man-
sueto Ventures, April 6, 2019, https://www.inc.com/greg-satell/how-
experians-networked-culture-drives-innovation.html.
71. Greg Satell, How Experian’s Networked Culture Drives Innovation,
Mansueto Ventures, April 6, 2019, https://www.inc.com/greg-satell/
how-experians-networked-culture-drives-innovation.html.
72. N. Kristof, “Opinion: The $70,000-a-Year Minimum Wage,” The New
York Times, March 30, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/30/
opinion/sunday/dan-price-minimum-wage.html; and J. Ludema and A.
Johnson, “Gravity Payment’s Dan Price on How He Measures Success
after His $70K Experiment,” Forbes, August 28, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/sites/amberjohnson-jimludema/2018/08/28/gravity-pay-
ments-dan-price-on-how-he-measures-success-after-his-70k-
experiment/#3b7df17174b6.
73. C. Dillow, “Corporate Creation Myths, and Why We Need Them,” Fast
Company, https://www.fastcompany.com (accessed May 2, 2019).
74. “This Trader Joe’s Customer Service Story Will Make Your Day,” Survey
Junkie, March 1, 2018, https://blog.surveyjunkie.com/this-trader-joes-
customer-service-story-will-make-your-day/.
75. Partners in Leadership, “3 Top Executives Spill Their Secrets on How to
Successfully Manage Workplace Culture,” Inc., March 9, 2018, https://
www.inc.com/partners-in-leadership/these-3- executives-successfully-
guided-companywide-culture-shifts-heres-how.html.
76. R. Feloni, “GM CEO Mary Barra Said the Recall Crisis of 2014 Forever
Changed Her Leadership Style,” Business Insider, November 14, 2018,
https://www.businessinsider.com/gm-mary-barra-recall-crisis-
leadership-style-2018-11; and J. B. White, “GM CEO Looks to Switch
Gears, Set Strategy,” The Wall Street Journal, September 30,
2014, B1.
77. See W. J. Becker and R. Cropanzano, “Organizational Neuroscience:
The Promise and Prospects of an Emerging Discipline,” Journal of
Organizational Behavior, October 2010, 1055–1059.
78. Kelly McCleary, and Amir Vera, “A Video of Black Men Being Arrested at
Starbucks. Three Very Different Reactions,” CNN, April 16, 2018, https://
edition.cnn.com/2018/04/14/us/philadelphia-police-starbucks-arrests/
index.html.
79. “Starbucks CEO Calls Arrest of Men at Philadelphia Store ‘Reprehensi-
ble,’” CNN, April 15, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/04/15/us/star-
bucks-statement-philadelphia-arrest/index.html.
80. S. Hyken, “Starbucks Closes 8,000 Stores for Racial Bias Training–Is It
Enough?” Forbes, June 1, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
shephyken/2018/06/01/starbucks-closes-8000-stores-for-racial-bias-
training-is-it-enough/#3d04119e2831.
81. Workopolis, “The Daily Ritual That These 3 Companies Have in Com-
mon,” WP Online Holdings Limited, July 14, 2017, https://hiring.workop-
olis.com/article/daily-ritual-3-companies-common/.
82. J. Bresnick, “Workflow Changes May Improve Patient Safety, Cut Hospi-
tal Stays,” Health IT Analytics, https://healthitanalytics.com/news/work-
flow-changes-may-improve-patient-safety-cut-hospital-stays (accessed
May 2, 2019).
83. “Disney Uses Big Data, IoT and Machine Learning to Boost Customer
Experience,” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernard-
marr/2017/08/24/disney-uses-big-data-iot-and-machine-learning-to-
boost-customer-experience/#65bd694b3387 (accessed May 2, 2019);
and C. Palmeri and B. Faries, “Big Mickey Is Watching,” Bloomberg Busi-
nessweek, March 7, 2014, 22–23.
84. C. BasuMallick, “5 Ways Technology Can Help Build a Strong Company
Culture,” HR Technologist, December 4, 2018, https://www.hrtechnolo-
gist.com/articles/culture/5-ways-technology-can-help-build-a-strong-
company-culture/.
85. “Lifesize: Communication for the Modern Workplace,” https:// lifesize.
com/en/why-lifesize (accessed May 2, 2019); and D. Zielinski, “Group
Learning,” HR Magazine, May 2012, 49.
86. N. Bose, “Walmart Partners with Four More Grocery Delivery Companies,”
Reuters, January 19, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-walmart-
services/walmart-partners-with-four-more-grocery-delivery-companies-
idUSKCN1PB2K9.
87. Company website, www.sprouts.com (accessed April 30, 2019).
88. Company website, www.sprouts.com (accessed April 30, 2019).
89. “Sprouts Farmers Market,” http://fortune.com/worlds-most-admired-
companies/sprouts-farmers-market/ (accessed April 30, 2019).
90. G. Suneson and S. Stebbins, “What Are the Worst Companies to Work
for? New Report Analyzes Employee Reviews,” USA Today, June 15,
2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/ business/2018/06/15/
worst-companies-to-work-for-employee-reviews/35812171/.
91. See B. W. Swider, R. D. Zimmerman, and M. R. Barrick, “Searching for
the Right Fit: Development of Applicant Person-Organization Fit Per-
ceptions During the Recruitment Process,” Journal of Applied Psychol-
ogy, May 2015, 880–893; and A. L. Kristof-Brown, J. Y. Seong, D. S.
Degeest, W-W. Park, and D-S. Hong, “Collective Fit Perceptions: A Mul-
tilevel Investigation of Person-Group Fit with Individual-Level and Team-
Level Outcomes,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, October 2014,
969–989.
92. A. M. Ellis, S. S. Nifadkar, T. N. Bauer, and B. Erdogan, “Newcomer
Adjustment: Examining the Role of Managers’ Perception of Newcomer
Proactive Behavior During Organizational Socialization,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, June 2017, 993–1001.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN40 CHAPTER NOTES
115. J. Sills: “NextGen Voices: Quality Mentoring,” Science, October 5, 2018,
22–24.
116. See related discussion in M. Block and K. L. Florczak, “Mentoring: An
Evolving Relationship,” Nursing Science Quarterly, April–June 2017,
100–104.
117. The first three conclusions were derived from J. Dickson, K Kirkpatrick-
Husk, D. Kendall, J. Longabaugh, A. Patel, and S. Scielzo, “Untangling
Protégé Self-Reports of Mentoring Functions: Further Meta-Analtyic
Understanding,” Journal of Career Development, August 2014, 263–
281. and R. Opengart and L. Bierema, “Emotionally Intelligent Mentor-
ing: Reconceptualizing Effective Mentoring Relationships,” Human
Resource Development Review, September 2015, 234–258.
118. See S. N. Colakoglu, and O. Gokus, “Mentoring Functions’ Relationship
with Socialization Facets and Stages: A Conceptual Framework,” Jour-
nal of Organizational Culture, Communications and Conflict, June
2015, 1–13.
119. J. A. Felício, E. Couto, and J. Caiado, “Human Capital, Social Capital and
Organizational Performance,” Management Decision, March 2014,
350–364.
120. C. M. Barnes, K. Jiang, and D. P. Lepak, “Sabotaging the Benefits of Our
Own Human Capital: Work Unit Characteristics and Sleep,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, February 2016, 209–221.
121. “100 Best Companies to Work For: Scripps Health,” http://fortune.com/
best-companies/2018/list/filtered?searchByName=scripps%20health
(accessed May 3, 2019); and “Fortune Names Scripps to National Best
Companies List for 11th Straight Year,” February 15, 2018, https://www.
scripps.org/news_items/6309-fortune-names-scripps-to-national-best-
companies-list-for-11th-straight-year.
122. See M. Feffer, “New Connections,” HR Magazine, April 2015, 46–52.
123. Z. Wang, L. Chen, Y. Duan, J. Du, “Supervisory Mentoring and Newcom-
ers’ Work Engagement: The Mediating Role of Basic Psychological
Need Satisfaction,” Social Behavior and Personality, October 2018,
1745–1760.
124. R. Hoffman, C. Yeh, and B. Casnocha, “Learn from People, Not Classes,”
Harvard Business Review, March–April 2019, 50–51.
125. R. Hoffman, C. Yeh, and B. Casnocha, “Learn from People, Not Classes,”
Harvard Business Review, March–April 2019, 50–51.
126. R. Hoffman and B. Casnocha, “The Real Way to Build a Network,” For-
tune, February 6, 2012, 30.
127. See L. T. Eby, J. R. Durley, S. C. Evans, and B. R. Ragins, “Mentors’ Percep-
tions of Negative Mentoring Experiences: Sale Development and Nomo-
logical Validation,” Journal of Applied Psychology, March 2008, 358–373.
128. D. Sitar, “5 Tips to Learn from a Mentor When You Don’t Want to Ask for
Their Time,” Inc., January 26, 2019, https://www.inc.com/dana-sitar/
how-to-find-a-mentor-without-bothering-everybody-you-respect.html;
and G. Kawasaki, “Managing Yourself: The Art of Evangelism,” Harvard
Business Review, May 2015, 108–111.
129. I. Thibodeau, “Ford to Cut Jobs, Idle Plants, Change Lineup in Europe,
Detroit News, January 10, 2019, https://www.detroitnews.com/story/
business/autos/ford/2019/01/10/ford-announces-belt-tightening-
europe/2534466002/.
130. See N. Boudette, “Ford, an Automaker at a Crossroads, Seeks Cuts and
Partners,” The New York Times, October 5, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/10/05/business/ford-motor-cars.html; and M. Huffman, “Ford
to Downsize Its Workforce in Major Reorganization Plan,” Consumer
Affairs, October 10, 2018, https://www.consumeraffairs.com/news/ford-
to-downsize-its-workforce-in-major-reorganization-plan-101018.html.
131. M. Martinez, “The Tension Rises at Ford,” Automotive News, October 15,
2018, https://www.autonews.com/article/20181015/OEM/181019765/
the-tension-rises-at-ford.
132. C. Rogers, “Ford’s New CEO Has a Cerebral Style—and to Many, It’s
Just Baffling,” The Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2018, https://www.
wsj.com/articles/fords-new-ceo-has-a-cerebral- styleand-to-many-its-
baffling-1534255714.
133. M. Martinez, “The Tension Rises at Ford,” Automotive News, October 15,
2018, https://www.autonews.com/article/20181015/OEM/181019765/
the-tension-rises-at-ford.
134. J. Useem, “Why Ford Hired a Furniture Maker as CEO,” The Atlantic, March
2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/03/ford-ceo-
jim-hackett-ux-design-thinking/580438/.
135. M. Martinez, “The Tension Rises at Ford,” Automotive News, October 15,
2018, https://www.autonews.com/article/20181015/OEM/181019765/
the-tension-rises-at-ford.
136. C. Rogers, “Ford’s New CEO Has a Cerebral Style—and to Many, It’s
Just Baffling,” The Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2018, https://www.
wsj.com/articles/fords-new-ceo-has-a-cerebral-styleand-to-many-its-
baffling-1534255714.
137. P. Howard, “CEO Jim Hackett Pushing Future for Ford Team as Investors
Watch with Caution,” Detroit Free Press, January 28, 2018, https://www.
freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2018/01/26/ceo-jim-hackett-pushing-
ford-team-investors-watch-caution/1045218001/.
93. “Study Finds that a Bad Onboarding Experience May Disengage New
Hires,” Human Resources Today, http://www.humanresourcestoday.
com/2018/onboarding/?open-article-id=8855796&article-title=must-
read-articles-to-reinvigorate-your-onboarding-experience&blog-
domain=clearcompany.com&blog-title=clearcompany-hrm (accessed May
3, 2019).
94. C. Caldwell and R. Peters, “New Employee Onboarding— Psychological
Contracts and Ethical Perspectives,” Journal of Management Develop-
ment, January 2018, 27–39.
95. P. D. Gupta, S. Bhattacharya, P. Sheorey, and P. Coelho, “Relationship
Between Onboarding Experience and Turnover Intention: Intervening
Locus of Control and Self-Efficacy,” Industrial and Commercial Training,
2018, no. 2, 61–80.
96. “Comcast Launches Video ‘Job Trailers’ in Their Job Descriptions,”
ONGIG, https://blog.ongig.com/video-job-descriptions/comcast-launches-
video-job-trailers-in-their-job-descriptions (accessed May 3, 2019).
97. F. Boag-Munroe, “Recent Police Recruits’ Existing Knowledge of the
Police and Organisational Commitment,” Journal of Police and Criminal
Psychology, April 2018, 1–11; and C.-L. Yen, “The Tradeoff between Fit
Perceptions across Recruitment Stages by New Job Seekers,” Interna-
tional Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, October
2017, 2610–2628.
98. Onboarding programs are discussed in D. Robb, “New-Hire Onboarding
Portals Provide a Warmer Welcome,” HR Magazine, December 2015/
January 2016, 58–60; and L. A. Korver, “Make It or Break It: Onboard-
ing for Mid-Career Leaders,” Training, March/April 2016, 12–13.
99. Human Capital Institute, “Talent Pulse: Onboarding Outcomes,” http://
www.hci.org (accessed May 3, 2019).
100. R. Levering, “The 100 Best Companies to Work for 2016,” Fortune,
March 15, 2016, 154.
101. K. Vasel, “New Job Not Working Out? Your Employer May Pay You to
Leave,” CNN, October 3, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/30/suc-
cess/companies-pay-unhappy-workers-to-leave/index.html.
102. V. Fitoussi, “Top 10 Employee Onboarding Programs,” Sapling.com,
March 1, 2019, https://www.saplinghr.com/blog/top-employee-
onboarding-programs.
103. “Protiviti: At This Consulting Firm, a Restless Pursuit to Solve Problems
Drives Excellence,” Fortune, March 15, 2016, https://customcontenton-
line.com/download/160315-protiviti-pdf/.
104. V. Fitoussi, “Top 10 Employee Onboarding Programs,” Sapling.com,
March 1, 2019, https://www.saplinghr.com/blog/top-employee-
onboarding-programs.
105. Drew Robb, “New-Hire Onboarding Portals Provide a Warmer Wel-
come,” HR Magazine, December 2015/January 2016, https://www.
questia.com/read/1P3-3884137661/new-hire-onboarding-portals-pro-
vide-a-warmer-welcome.
106. H. R. Rafferty, “Social Media Etiquette: Communicate Behavioral Expecta-
tions,” SHRM, March 24, 2010, http://www.shrm.org.hrdisciplines/
technology/Articles/Pages/SocialMediaEtiquette.aspx.
107. S. S. Nifadkar, “Filling in the ‘Blank Slate’: Examining Newcomers’ Sche-
mas of Supervisors During Organizational Socialization,” Journal of
Management, October 2018, 1–28; and S. Livi, A. Theororou, M. Rullo,
L. Cinque, and G. Alessandri, “The Rocky Road to Prosocial Behavior at
Work: The Role of Positivity and Organizational Socialization in Prevent-
ing Interpersonal Strain,” PLOS ONE, March 1, 2018, 1–14.
108. M. Karambelkar and S. Bhattacharya, “Onboarding Is a Change: Apply-
ing Change Management Model ADKAR to Onboarding,” Human
Resource International Digest, July 2017, 5–8; and J. D. DeBode, K. W.
Mossholder, and A. G. Walker, “Fulfilling Employees’ Psychological Con-
tracts: Organizational Socialization’s Role,” Leadership & Organization
Development Journal, January 2017, 42–55.
109. A review of stage model research can be found in B. E. Ashforth, Role
Transitions in Organizational Life: An Identity-Based Perspective (Mah-
wah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001).
110. “Smoothing the Transition: How Onboarding Helps Expatriate Workers,”
Development and Learning in Organizations, March 2017, 29–31.
111. These suggestions were based on K. Rollag, “Managing Yourself: Suc-
ceed in New Situations,” Harvard Business Review, December 2015,
112–115; and K. Rollag, “Success in New Situations: Five Key Skills,” Psy-
chology Today, September 29, 2015, https://www.psychologytoday.com/
blog/being-good-being-new/201509/ success-innew-situations-five-key-
skills (accessed May 7, 2016).
112. Keith Rollag, “Managing Yourself: Succeed in New Situations,” Harvard
Business Review 93, no. 1 (2015): 112–15.
113. This definition is based on the network perspective of mentoring pro-
posed by M. Higgins and K. Kram, “Reconceptualizing Mentoring at
Work: A Developmental Network Perspective,” Academy of Manage-
ment Review, April 2001, 264–288.
114. A. Reitman and S. Benatti, “Mentoring versus Coaching: What’s the Dif-
ference?” https://www.td.org/insights/mentoring-versus-coaching-
whats-the-difference (accessed May 3, 2019).
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN41CHAPTER NOTES
2. “Fifty Percent of U.S. Workforce Will be Remote by 2020; ULTATEL’s
Cloud-Based Technology Paves the Way,” PR Newswire, February 14,
2018, https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/fifty-percent-
of-u-s-workforce-will-be-remote-by-2020-ultatel-s-cloud-based-
technology-paves-the-way-1015773617.
3. John Egan, “10 Tips for Telecommuting Success,” Huffington Post,
December 6, 2017, https://www.huffpost.com/entry/10-tips-for-
telecommuting_b_5433833.
4. Shannon Cyr, “Tips for Effective Telecommuting,” Virtual Vocations, Inc.,
https://www.virtualvocations.com/blog/telecommuting- survival/tips-for-
effective-telecommuting/ (accessed May 6, 2019).
5. M. M. Biro, “Telecommuting Is the Future of Work,” Forbes, http://www.
forbes.com/sites/meghanbiro, 2014/01/12/telecommuting-is-the-
future-of-work/#50598553758f (accessed May 6, 2019).
6. C. I. Barnard, The Functions of the Executive (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1938), 73.
7. Drawn from E. H. Schein, Organizational Psychology, 3rd ed. (Engle-
wood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1980), 12–15. See also, J. R. Mueller,
“Alternative Organizational Design and Its Impact on the Future of
Work,” Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability, January 2014,
48–58.
8. See J. R. Mueller, “Alternative Organizational Design and Its Impact on
the Future of Work,” Journal of Strategic Innovation and Sustainability,
January 2014, 48–58.
9. See V. Smeets and F. Warzynski, “Too Many Theories, Too Few
Facts: What the Data Tell Us about the Link between Span of Control,
Compensation, and Career Dynamics,” Labour Economics, August 2008,
688–704.
10. See C. E. Thiel, J. H. Hardy III, D. R. Peterson, D. T. Welsh, and J. M. Bon-
ner, “Too Many Sheep in the Flock? Span of Control Attenuates the
Influence of Ethical Leadership,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
December 2018, 1324–1334; and A. Acharya, R. Lieber, L. Seem, and
T. Welchman, “How to Identify the Right ‘Spans of Control’ for Your
Organization,” McKinsey & Co., December 2017, https://www.mckinsey.
com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/how-to-identify-the-
right-spans-of-control-for-your-organization.
11. This discussion is based on K. Remenova, Z. Skorkova, and N. Jan-
kelova, “Span of Control in Teamwork and Organizational Structure,”
Montenegrin Journal of Economics, June 2018, 155–165; and P.
Graves, “What Kinds of Factors Should Determine How Many Direct
Reports a Manager Supervises?” HR Magazine, July 2013, 19.
12. “Organic Produce,” https://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/ department/
produce (accessed May 6, 2019); H. Peterson, “‘I Ultimately Am Not
Afraid to Get Fired’: Leaked Audio Captures Whole Foods CEO John
Mackey Describing Clashes with Amazon,” Business Insider, June 13,
2018, https://www.businessinsider.com/whole-foods-ceo-john-mackey-
clashes-with-amazon-2018-6; A. Salzman, “Amazon’s Unnatural
Approach with Whole Foods,” Barron’s, March 12, 2018, https://www.
barrons.com/articles/amazons-unnatural-approach-with-whole-
foods-1520887207; and B. Kowitt, “John Mackey: The Conscious Capi-
talist,” Fortune, August 20, 2015, http://fortune.com/2015/08/20/
whole-foods-john-mackey/.
13. A management-oriented discussion of general systems theory can be
found in K. E. Boulding, “General Systems Theory—The Skeleton of Sci-
ence,” Management Science, April 1956, 197–208. For more recent
systems-related ideas, see A. J. Kinicki, K. J. L. Jacobson, B. M. Galvin,
and G. E. Prussia, “A Multi-Systems Model of Leadership,” Journal of
Leadership & Organizational Studies, May 2011, 133–149.
14. R. M. Fulmer and J. B. Keys, “A Conversation with Peter Senge: New
Development in Organizational Learning,” Organizational Dynamics,
Autumn 1998, 35.
15. This definition was based on D. A. Garvin, “Building a Learning Organi-
zation,” Harvard Business Review, August 1998, 35.
16. K. Kim, K. E. Watkings, and Z. Lu, “The Impact of a Learning Organiza-
tion: Focusing on Knowledge Performance and Financial Performance,”
European Journal of Training and Development, no. 2, 2017, 177–193.
17. L. G. Flores, W. Zheng, D. Rau, and C. H. Thomas, “Organizational Learn-
ing: Subprocess Identification, Construct Validation, and an Empirical Test
of Cultural Antecedents,” Journal of Management, March 2012, 643.
18. L. G. Flores, W. Zheng, D. Rau, and C. H. Thomas, “Organizational Learn-
ing: Subprocess Identification, Construct Validation, and an Empirical Test
of Cultural Antecedents,” Journal of Management, March 2012, 643.
19. Robert Biswas-Diener, “Embracing Errors,” SHRM, January 1, 2012,
https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/pages/0112tools.aspx.
20. L. G. Flores, W. Zheng, D. Rau, and C. H. Thomas, “Organizational Learn-
ing: Subprocess Identification, Construct Validation, and an Empirical Test
of Cultural Antecedents,” Journal of Management, March 2012, 643.
21. E.-E. Halmaghi, “From the Traditional Organization to the Learning
Organization,” Journal of Defense Resources Management, 9 (2), 2018,
98–103; and D. Heaton, “Consciousness Development for the Learning
Organization,” The Learning Organization, September 2017, 401–407.
138. Darren Palmer, “The Stakes Are High: Inside the Team Developing
Ford’s New Generation of Electric Vehicles,” Ford Motor Company,
https://corporate.ford.com/articles/propulsion-choices/new-generation-
electric-vehicles.html.
139. J. Muller, “Ford CEO James Hackett, under Fire from Wall Street, Shows
Forbes the Early Fruits of His Turnaround Plan,” Forbes, September 6,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2018/09/06/ford-ceo-
james-hackett-under-fire-from-wall-street-shows-forbes-the-early-fruits-
of-his-turnaround-plan/#4cbcf6b35b6f.
140. Phoebe Wall Howard, “CEO Jim Hackett Pushing Future for Ford Team as
Investors Watch with Caution,” www.freep.com, January 28, 2018, https://
www.freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2018/01/26/ceo-jim-hackett-
pushing-ford-team-investors-watch-caution/1045218001/.
141. C. Rogers, “Ford’s New CEO Has a Cerebral Style—and to Many, It’s
Just Baffling,” The Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2018, https://www.
wsj.com/articles/fords-new-ceo-has-a-cerebral-styleand-to-many-its-
baffling-1534255714.
142. Michael Martinez, “The Tension Rises at Ford: Dealers Wonder: Where’s
the Company Headed?” Crain Communications, Inc., October 15, 2018,
https://www.autonews.com/article/20181015/OEM/181019765/the-
tension-rises-at-ford.
143. I. Thibodeau, “Only Mustang, Focus Crossover to Survive Ford Car
Cuts,” Detroit News, April 25, 2018, https://www.detroitnews.com/story/
business/autos/ford/2018/04/25/ford-cutting-car-lineup-earn-
ings/34244867/.
144. M. Rochabrun, “Ford to Close Oldest Brazil Plant, Exit South America Truck
Biz,” Reuters, February 19, 2019, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ford-
motor-southamerica-heavytruck/ford-to-close-oldest-brazil-plant-exit-
south-america-truck-biz-idUSKCN1Q82EB.
145. M. Martinez, “The Tension Rises at Ford,” Automotive News, October 15,
2018, https://www.autonews.com/article/20181015/OEM/181019765/
the-tension-rises-at-ford.
146. J. Rosevear, “Why Shares of Ford Motor Company Are Surging Today,”
Yahoo Finance, April 26, 2019, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-
shares-ford-motor-company-150900673.html.
147. K. Naughton, “Ford, Hackett Feel Wall Street’s Pain over Slow-Motion
Turnaround,” Automotive News, January 24, 2019, https://www.
autonews.com/executives/ford-hackett-feel-wall-streets-pain-over-
slow-motion-turnaround.
148. Y. Li, “Ford CEO Says a ‘Big Surprise’ Coming Next Year with Electric
Vehicles,” CNBC, January 13, 2019, https://www.cnbc.
com/2019/01/13/ford-ceo-says-a-big-surprise-coming-next-year-with-
electric-vehicles.html.
149. P. Howard, “CEO Jim Hackett Pushing Future for Ford Team as Investors
Watch with Caution,” Detroit Free Press, January 28, 2018, https://www.
freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2018/01/26/ceo-jim-hackett-pushing-
ford-team-investors-watch-caution/1045218001/.
150. Christina Rogers, “Ford’s New CEO Has a Cerebral Style—and to Many,
It’s Baffling,” The Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2018, https://www.wsj.
com/articles/fords-new-ceo-has-a-cerebral-styleand-to-many-its-
baffling-1534255714.
151. J. Muller, “Ford CEO James Hackett, under Fire from Wall Street, Shows
Forbes the Early Fruits of His Turnaround Plan,” Forbes, September 6,
2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/joannmuller/2018/09/06/ford-ceo-
james-hackett-under-fire-from-wall-street-shows-forbes-the-early-fruits-
of-his-turnaround-plan/#4cbcf6b35b6f.
152. P. Howard, “CEO Jim Hackett Pushing Future for Ford Team as Investors
Watch with Caution,” Detroit Free Press, January 28, 2018, https://www.
freep.com/story/money/cars/ford/2018/01/26/ceo-jim-hackett-pushing-
ford-team-investors-watch-caution/1045218001/.
153. The Citadel, “The Citadel’s Mission Statement,” http://www.citadel.edu/
root/mission-statement (accessed May 22, 2019).
154. Associated Press, “Military School Denies Muslim’s Request to Wear
Headscarf,” VOA News, May 10, 2016, https://www.voanews.com/a/
military-school-in-us-denies-muslim-student-request-to-wear-heads-
carf/3323479.html.
155. D. Farrington, “Citadel Military College Says Prospective Student Can’t
Wear Hijab,” NPR, May 10, 2016, https://www.npr.org/ sections/thetwo-
way/2016/05/10/477534442/citadel-military-college-says-prospec-
tive-student-cant-wear-hijab.
156. Wilson Ring, “Norwich University Officials Say Yes to Student’s Hijab,”
Burlington Free Press, June 1, 2016, https://www. burlingtonfreepress.
com/story/news/local/vermont/2016/06/01/norwich-university-offi-
cials-say-yes-students-hijab/85256268/.
CHAPTER 15
1. Michael Guta, “3.9 Million Americans—Including Freelancers—Now
Work from Home at Least Half the Week,” Small Business Trends, April
2, 2018, https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/04/2018-remote-work-
statistics.html.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN42 CHAPTER NOTES
48. S. Milligan, “Gig Workers Challenge Old Order,” SHRM.org, January 26,
2019, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/gig-
workers-challenge-old-order.aspx.
49. J. Frazer, “How the Gig Economy Is Reshaping Careers for the Next
Generation,” Forbes, February 15, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
johnfrazer1/2019/02/15/how-the-gig-economy-is-reshaping-careers-
for-the-next-generation/#2ac7d9ed49ad.
50. Wikipedia. “Boeing 787 Dreamliner.” Accessed June 14, 2019. https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_787_Dreamliner.
50. P. Kavilanz, “Dreamliner: Where in the World Its Parts Come From,” CNN
Business, https://money.cnn.com/2013/01/18/news/companies/
boeing-dreamliner-parts/index.html (accessed October 1, 2019); and
“Boeing 787 Dreamliner Family Passes 1 Million Passenger Flights,”
https://www.boeing.com/commercial/787/dreamliner/#/1-million
(accessed May 6, 2019).
51. “Working at Scopic,” https://scopicsoftware.com/careers/, accessed
May 6, 2019; and “How Do the Top 10 Biggest Virtual Companies in
the World Make It Work?” Scopic Software Blog, February 1, 2018,
https://scopicsoftware.com/blog/about-scopic/how-virtual-companies-
work/.
52. The following discussion is based on K. Reimer and N. Vehring, “Virtual
or Vague? A Literature Review Exposing Conceptual Differences in
Defining Virtual Organizations in IS Research,” Electronic Markets,
2012, 267–282.
53. N. S. Maduke, H. Edwards, D. Greenwood, A. Osborne, S. O. Babatunde,
“Analysis of Competencies for Effective Virtual Team Leadership in
Building Successful Organisations,” Benchmarking: An International
Journal, March 2018, 696–712; and S. J. Han, C. Chae, P. Macko, W. Park,
and M. Beyerlein, “How Virtual Team Leaders Cope with Creativity Chal-
lenges,” European Journal of Training and Development, vol. 41, no. 3,
2017, 261–276.
54. Contingency design is discussed by P. R. Lawrence, and J. W. Lorsch,
Organization and Environment (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1967).
55. This discussion is partly based on L. Donaldson and G. Jofee, “Fit—The
Key to Organization Design, Journal of Organization Design, December
2014, 38–45.
56. F. Mallén, R. Chiva, J. Alegre, and J. Guinot, “Organicity and Performance
in Excellent HRM Organizations: The Importance of Organizational
Learning Capability,” Review of Managerial Science, July 2016, 463–
485.
57. B. Moore and A. Brown, “The Application of TQM: Organic or Mechanistic?”
International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, August 2006.
58. Details of this study can be found in T. Burns and G. M. Stalker, The
Management of Innovation (London: Tavistock, 1961). Also see S. A.
Al-Abbadi, “Market Environment and Centralized Decision-Making and
Their Impact on the Effectiveness of Organizations,” International Busi-
ness Research, 2015, 129–142.
59. G. Slinger and R. Morrison, “Will Organization Design Be Affected by
Big Data?” Journal of Organizational Design, December 2014, 17.
60. See J. R. Galbraith, “The Evolution of Enterprise Organization Designs,”
Journal of Organization Design, August 2012, 1–13; “McKinsey 7s
Framework,” Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKinsey_7S_
Framework, last modified March 14, 2019; and I. M. H. Smirat and M. N.
M. Shariff, “Strategy, Structure, and Family Firm Performance: The Rela-
tionships of the Resource-Based View and the Contingency Approach,”
Australian Journal of Business and Management Research, June
2014, 1–8.
61. N. Eva, S. Sendjaya, D. Prajogo, A. Cavanagh, and M. Robin, “Creating Stra-
tegic Fit: Aligning Servant Leadership with Organizational Structure and
Strategy,” Personnel Review, February 2018, 166–186.
62. See S. B. Dust, C. J. Resick, and M. B. Mawritz, “Transformational Lead-
ership, Psychological Empowerment, and the Moderating Role of Mech-
anistic-Organic Contexts,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, April
2014, 413–433.
63. Lindsey Rupp, “Resuscitating Gap,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 22,
2016, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/ articles/2016-04-21/gap-
goes-back-to-basics-in-yet-another-bid-for-growth.
64. Y. J. Yu, “Gap Announces Plan to Close More Than 200 Stores in the
Next Two Years,” Today, March 1, 2019, https://www.today.com/style/
gap-announces-plan-close-more-200-stores-next-two-years-t149677.
65. CB Insights, “State of Innovation Report,” https://www.cbinsights.com/
research-state-of-innovation-report (accessed May 6, 2019).
66. A. Fisher, “America’s Most Admired Companies,” Fortune, March 17,
2008, 66.
67. “Global Apple iPhone Sales from 3rd Quarter 2007 to 4th Quarter
2018 (in millions of units),” Statista, https://www.statista.com/statis-
tics/263401/global-apple-iphone-sales-since-3rd-quarter-2007/
(accessed May 6, 2019).
68. A. Ignatius, “How Indra Nooyi Turned Design Thinking into Strategy,”
Harvard Business Review, September 2015, 83–84.
22. G. Forsythe, K. Kuhla, and D. Rice, “Can You Do VUCA? 5 Key Strategies
for Success,” Chief Executive, January 23, 2018, https://chiefexecutive.
net/5-key-strategies-success/.
23. Roy Saunderson, “Talent Tips: Oops! Learning from Our Mistakes,”/it/
Training,/xit/December 2012, 63. Lakewood Media Group, LLC, https://
trainingmag.com/content/talent-tips-oops-learning-our-mistakes/.
24. R. Abed, “Billionaire Charlie Munger Says Admitting Failure Is Key to
Success. Here Are 5 Ways to Embrace Failure,” Inc., March 29, 2019,
https://www.inc.com/robbie-abed/want- happiness-success-take-this-
simple-advice-from-warren- buffetts-right-hand-man.html?cid=search; J.
Birkinshaw and M. Haas, “Increase Your Return on Failure,” Harvard
Business Review, May 2016, 88–93.
25. A. Darabi, T. L. Arrington, and E. Sayilir, “Learning from Failure: A Meta-
Analysis of the Empirical Studies,” Educational Technology Research &
Development, October 2018, 1101–1118; and M. Stein and M. Muzzin,
“Learning from Failure: Insights from a University and STARBASE ONE
Partnership Program,” Science and Children, April/May 2018, 62–65.
26. F. Gino and B. Staats, “Why Organizations Don’t Learn,” Harvard Busi-
ness Review, November 2015, 111–118.
27. L. Freifeld, “Fear of Failure Hampers Innovation,” Training, May/June
2015, 6.
28. I. C. Chadwick and J. L. Raver, “Motivating Organizations to Learn: Goal
Orientation and Its Influence on Organizational Learning,” Journal of
Management, March 2015, 957–986.
29. Royston Greenwood and Danny Miller. “Tackling Design Anew: Getting
Back to the Heart of Organizational Theory,” Academy of Management
Perspectives, (2010): 78–88. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/
015c/eb09b8bf9f28f400e08945f059cd11ef3978 ?_ga=
2.144156860.860095876.1560356081-1108834537.1560356081.
30. Heather Hartel, “McDonald’s Reveals Corporate Restructure, Layoffs,”
Chicago Business Journal, June 12, 2018. https://www.bizjournals.
com/chicago/news/2018/06/12/mcdonalds-reveals-corporate-
restructure-layoffs.html.
31. D. Ishneet, and G. Sonam, “Organizational Restructuring and Collabora-
tive Creativity: The Case of Microsoft and Sony,” Journal of Business
Strategy, March 2015, 53–65.
32. See M. C. Mankins and P. Rogers, “The Decision-Driven Organization,”
Harvard Business Review, June 2010, 56–57; and “Full Speed Ahead,”
HR Magazine, March 2011, 18.
33. The following discussion is based on N. Anand and R. L. Daft, “What Is the
Right Organizational Design?” Organizational Dynamics, 2007, 329–344.
34. WebFinance Inc., “Boundaryless Organization,” http://www.businessdic-
tionary.com/definition/ boundaryless-organization.html (accessed June
14, 2019).
35. O. Durden, “The Structure of a Boundaryless Organization,” Chron.com,
December 10, 2018, https://smallbusiness.chron.com/structure-bound-
aryless-organization-2764.html.
36. A. Al-Muslim, “P&G Moves to Streamline Its Structure,” The Wall Street
Journal, November 8, 2018, https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-moves-
to-streamline-its-structure-1541713822.
37. P. Meyer, “Starbucks Coffee’s Organizational Structure & Its Character-
istics,” Panmore Institute, February 14, 2019, http://panmore.com/star-
bucks-coffee-company-organizational-structure.
38. J. R. Galbraith, Designing Matrix Organizations That Actually Work (San
Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009), ix.
39. M. Sytch, F. Wohlgezogen, and E. J. Sajac, “Collaborative by Design?
How Matrix Organizations See/Do Alliances,” Organization Science,
November–December 2018, 1130–1148.
40. Company website, https://www.gore.com/about/the-gore-story
(accessed May 6, 2019).
41. Company website, https://www.gore.com/about/the-gore-story
(accessed May 6, 2019).
42. “Fundamental Beliefs,” https://www.gore.com/about/our-beliefs-and-
principles (accessed May 6, 2019).
43. “Our Culture,” https://www.gore.com/about/culture (accessed May 6,
2019).
44. “Our Culture,” https://www.gore.com/about/culture (accessed May 6,
2019).
45. P. Lawrence, “Herman Miller’s Creative Network,” interview with Brian
Walker, BusinessWeek, February 15, 2008, http://www.businessweek.
com/stories/2008-02-15/herman-millers-creative-networkbusiness-
week-business-news-stock-market-and-financial-advice.
46. S. Milligan, “Gig Workers Challenge Old Order,” SHRM.org, January 26,
2019, https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/all-things-work/pages/gig-
workers-challenge-old-order.aspx.
47. J. Frazer, “How the Gig Economy Is Reshaping Careers for the Next Gen-
eration,” Forbes, February 15, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/john-
frazer1/2019/02/15/how-the-gig-economy-is-reshaping-careers-for-
the-next-generation/#2ac7d9ed49ad; and S. Milligan, “Gig Workers Chal-
lenge Old Order,” SHRM.org, January 26, 2019, https://www.shrm.org/hr-
today/news/all-things-work/pages/gig-workers-challenge-old-order.aspx.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN43CHAPTER NOTES
E. Botha, “Crowdsourcing in a Time of Empowered Stakeholders: Les-
sons from Crowdsourcing Campaigns,” Business Horizons, March–April
2017, 247–253.
89. IDEO, “IDEO on Design Thinking,” http://sds.parsons.edu/designmanage-
ment/ideo-on-design-thinking/ (accessed June 14, 2019).
90. IDEO, “One Device for All,” http://idea.com/work/one-device-for-all,
project date 2015, (accessed May 24, 2016).
91. Mark Wilson, “The 9 Big Design Trends of 2019,” Fast Company & Inc.,
December 19, 2018, https://www.fastcompany.com/90281299/the-
9-big-design-trends-of-2019.
92. Company website, www.ideo.com (accessed May 6, 2019).
93. F. Dobbin, “High Commitment Practices,” lecture, Harvard University,
October 10, 2012, as referenced in Wikipedia article, “IDEO.”
94. These suggestions are based on D. K. Rigby, J. Sutherland, and H.
Takeuchi, “Embracing Agility,” Harvard Business Review, May 2016,
41–50.
95. R. Gulati, “Structure That’s Not Stifling,” Harvard Business Review,
May–June 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/05/structure-thats-not-stifling.
96. A. Ignatius, “How Indra Nooyi Turned Design Thinking into Strategy,”
Harvard Business Review, September 2015, 81–85.
97. Techniques for building agility are also discussed by S. Winby and C. G.
Worley, “Management Processes for Agility, Speed, and Innovation,”
Organizational Dynamics, July–September 2014, 225–234.
98. T. Wang and C. D. Zatzick, “Human Capital Acquisition and Organiza-
tional Innovation: A Temporal Perspective,” Academy of Management
Journal, February 2019, 99–116.
99. C. Coy, “3 Ways to Grow a Culture of Creativity and Innovation,” TLNT,
July 19, 2018, https://www.tlnt.com/3-ways-to-grow-a- culture-of-
creativity-and-innovation/.
100. T. Kraśnicka, W. Glód, M. Wronka-Pośpiech, “Management Innovation,
Pro-Innovation Organisational Culture and Enterprise Performance:
Testing the Mediation Effect,” Review of Managerial Science,
July 2018, 737–769; and R. Nanda and M. Rhodes-Kropf, “Financing
Risk and Innovation,” Management Science, April 2017,
901–918.
101. Gail Dutton, “A Eureka! Moment,”/it/Training,/xit/January/February 2016,
114–115. Lakewood Media Group, LLC, https://trainingmag.com/
trgmag- article/eureka-moment/ (accessed June 14, 2019).
102. L. Bodell, “It’s Time to Put Performance Reviews on Notice,” Forbes,
April 27, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/ l isabodell/
2018/04/27/why-performance-reviews-are-irrelevant-today/
#5a356c3b4b63.
103. See B. Gerhart and M. Fang, “Pay, Intrinsic Motivation, Extrinsic Motiva-
tion, Performance, and Creativity in the Workplace: Revisiting Long-
Held Beliefs,” Annual Review of Organizational Psychology, 2015,
489–521.
104. D. Meinert, “Wings of Change,” HR Magazine, November 2012,
30–36.
105. J. Pochepan, “This Office Design Trend Is Causing a Privacy Crisis.
Here’s What It Means to You,” Inc., February 14, 2018, https://www.inc.
com/jeff-pochepan/this-office-design-trend-is-causing-a-privacy-crisis-
heres-what-it-means-for-you.html.
106. D. DePaoli and A. Ropo, “Creative Workspaces—a Fad or Making Real
Impact?” Journal of Corporate Real Estate, September 2017, 157–167;
and B. Haynes, L. Suckley, and N. Nunnington, “Workplace Productivity
and Office Type: An Evaluation of Office Occupier Differences Based on
Age and Gender,” Journal of Corporate Real Estate, April 2017,
111–138.
107. C. M. Lindberg, K. Srinivasan, B. Gilligan, J. Razjouyan, J. Lee, B. Najafi,
K. J. Canada, M. R. Mehl, F. Currim, S. Ram, M. M. Lunden, J. H. Heerwa-
gen, K. Kampschroer, and E. M. Sternberg, “Effects of Office Worksta-
tion Type on Physical Activity and Stress,” Occupational Environment
Medicine, September 2018, 689–695; and M. Yadav, J. Kim, D. Cabrera,
and R. de Dear, “Auditory Distraction in Open-Plan Office Environments:
The Effect of Multi-Talker Acoustics,” Applied Acoustics, November
2017, 68–80.
108. E. N. Yunus and E. Ernawati, “Productivity Paradox? The Impact of Office
Redesign on Employee Productivity,” International Journal of Productiv-
ity and Performance Management, September 2018; and C. B. Daniels-
son and T. Theorell, “Office Employees’ Perception of Workspace
Contribution: A Gender and Office Design Perspective,” Environment
and Behavior, April 2018, 1–32.
109. Christine Congdon, Donna Flynn, and Melanie Redman, “Balancing “We”
and “Me”: The Best Collaborative Spaces Also Support Solitude,”
Harvard Business Review, October 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/10/
balancing-we-and-me-the-best-collaborative-spaces-also-support-
solitude.
110. Christine Congdon, Donna Flynn, and Melanie Redman, “Balancing “We”
and “Me”: The Best Collaborative Spaces Also Support Solitude,” Har-
vard Business Review, October 2014, https://hbr.org/2014/10/balancing-
we-and-me-the-best-collaborative-spaces-also-support-solitude.
69. Ben Geier, “Using 3-D Printing to Make Jet Engines,” Fortune Media IP
Limited, November 13, 2014, http://fortune.com/2014/11/13/3-d-print-
ing-jet-engines-alcoa/.
70. B. Dumaine, “The Ultimate Driving Machine Prepares for a Driverless
World,” Fortune, March 1, 2016, 126.
71. A. Josephson, “The Pros and Cons of Prefab Homes,” Smart Asset,
August 13, 2018, https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-pros-and-cons-
of-prefab-homes.
72. Ken Hamey, “Panelized Homes: Factory-Built Components Assembled
on Site,” Builders Digital Experience, LLC, http://www.newhomesource.
com/resourcecenter/articles/panelized-homes-factory-built-compo-
nents-assembled-on-site (accessed June 14, 2019).
73. Gary P. Pisano, “You Need an Innovation Strategy,” Harvard Business
Review, June 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/06/you-need-an-innovation-
strategy.
74. D. Añón Higón, J. Gómez, and P. Vargas, “Complementarities in Innova-
tion Strategy: Do Intangibles Play a Role in Enhancing Firm Perfor-
mance?” Industrial and Corporate Change, October 2017, 865–886;
and R. Sharmelly, “Crafting a Winning Innovation Strategy,” Strategic
Direction, March 2017, 8–11.
75. See M. S. S. Jajja, V. R. Kannan, S. A. Brah, and S. Z. Hassan, “Linkages
between Firm Innovation Strategy, Suppliers, Product Innovation, and
Business Performance,” International Journal of Operations &
Production Management, August 2017, 1054–1075; and G. P. Pisano,
“You Need an Innovation Strategy,” Harvard Business Review,
June 2015, 46.
76. Gary P. Pisano, “You Need an Innovation Strategy,” Harvard Business
Review, June 2015, https://hbr.org/2015/06/you-need-an-innovation-
strategy.
77. S. Ray, “Empathy and Innovation: How Microsoft’s Cultural Shift Is Lead-
ing to New Product Development,” February 13, 2019, https://news.
microsoft.com/innovation-stories/empathy- innovation-accessibility/.
78. J. Birkinshaw and M. Haas, “Increase Your Return on Failure,” Harvard
Business Review, May 2016, 88–93.
79. M. Tian, P. Deng, Y. Zhang, M. P. Salmador, “How Does Culture Influence
Innovation? A Systematic Literature Review,” Management Decision,
May 2018, 1088–1107; and D. Cropley and A. Cropley, “Innovation
Capacity, Organisational Culture and Gender,” European Journal of
Innovation, August 2017, 493–510.
80. Jenny Luna, “Philip Knight: ‘For an Entrepreneur, Every Day Is a Crisis’.”
Mansueto Ventures, December 8, 2017, https://www.inc.com/stanford-
business/philip-knight-for-an-entrepreneur-every-day-is-a-crisis.html
(accessed May 6, 2019); and Jim Ludema and Amber Johnson, “Failure
Is 99% of the Work: How to Fail Fast on the Way to Spectacular Innova-
tion,” Forbes Media LLC, February 18, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/amberjohnson-jimludema/2019/02/18/failure-is-99-of-the-work-
how-to-fail-fast-on-the-way-to-spectacular-innovation/#250135f24c1e.
81. J. Euchner, “Creating a Culture of Innovation,” Research- Technology
Management, November–December 2017, 10–11; and G. Manso,
“Creating Incentives for Innovation,” California Management Review,
November 2017, 18–32.
82. Patrick Moorhead, “AMD’s 50th Anniversary Reminds Us Why the Com-
pany Matters,” Forbes Media LLC, May 2, 2019, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2019/05/02/amds-50th-anniversary-
reminds-us-why-the-company-matters/#43819ebd5818.
83. “AMD Reports First Quarter 2019 Financial Results,” Yahoo
Finance, April 30, 2019, https://finance.yahoo.com/news/amd-reports-
first-quarter-2019-202000154.html.
84. P. Alcorn, “AMD Exec Resigns, Company Moves 7nm Chip Production
To TSMC (Update),” Tomshardware.com, August 28, 2018, https://www.
tomshardware.com/news/amd-moves-to-tsmc-7nm,37703.html.
85. Patrick Moorhead, “AMD’s 50th Anniversary Reminds Us Why the Com-
pany Matters,” Forbes Media LLC, May 2, 2019, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2019/05/02/amds-50th-anniversary-
reminds-us-why-the-company-matters/#43819ebd5818.
86. Rob Cross, Chris Ernst, Dimitris Assimakopoulos, and Dan Ranta,
“Investing in Boundary-Spanning Collaboration to Drive Efficiency and
Innovation,” Organizational Dynamics 44, (2015): 204–216. http://
www.chrisernst.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Boundary-Spanning-
Collaboration .
87. Deloitte, “The Three Billion Enterprise Crowdsourcing and the Growing
Fragmentation of Work,” https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/
Deloitte/de/Documents/Innovation/us-cons- enterprise-crowdsourcing-
and-growing-fragmentation-of-work%20(3) (accessed May 6, 2019);
and “Celebrating 10 Years of Crowdsourcing and Co-Creation with
LEGO Fans,” November 8, 2018, https://www.lego.com/en-my/aboutus/
news-room/2018/november/ideas-10th-anniversary/.
88. K. B. Wilson, V. Bhakoo, and D. Samson, “Crowdsourcing: A Contempo-
rary Form of Project Management with Linkages to Open Innovation and
Novel Operations,” International Journal of Operations & Production
Management, June 2018, 1467–1494; and M. Wilson, K. Robson, and
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN44 CHAPTER NOTES
111. “6 Benefits to Building Your Dashboard Today,” http:// guidingmetrics.
com/benefits-of-metrics/6-benefits-to-building-your-dashboardtoday/
(accessed May 6, 2019).
112. Larry Bossidy, and Ram Charan. Execution: The Discipline of Getting
Things Done (New York: Crown Business, 2002).
113. See K. A. Al-Tarawneh, “The Possibility of Applying the Balanced
Scoreboard: A Tool of Evaluating the Strategic Performance of the Jor-
danian,” Academy of Marketing Studies Journal, January 2018, 1–25;
J. Kopia, A, Kompalla, M. Buchmüller, and B. Heinemann, “Performance
Measurement of Management System Standards Using the Balanced
Scorecard,” Amfiteatru Economic, November 2017, 981–1002; A. H. Aly
and M. E. Mansour, “Evaluating the Sustainable Performance of Corpo-
rate Boards: The Balanced Scorecard Approach,” Managerial Auditing
Journal, February 2017, 167–195; and A. Aščić and Z. Skelo, “Utiliza-
tion of Balanced Scorecard as a Management Tool in Statistical Insti-
tutes,” Sarajevo Business and Economics Review, 2017, 181–201.
114. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard:
Translating Strategy into Action (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School
Press, 1996).
115. Robert S. Kaplan and David P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard:
Translating Strategy into Action (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School
Press, 1996).
116. B. Marr, “The Incredible Ways John Deere Is Using Artificial Intelligence
to Transform Farming,” Forbes, March 9, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/
sites/bernardmarr/2018/03/09/the-incredible-ways-john-deere-is-
using-artificial-intelligence-to-transform-farming/#5f44454d330d.
117. Y. J. Yu, “Gap Announces Plan to Close More than 200 Stores in the
Next Two Years,” Today, March 1, 2019, https://www.today.com/style/
gap-announces-plan-close-more-200-stores-next-two-years-t149677.
118. R. S. Kaplan and D. P. Norton, The Balanced Scorecard: Translating
Strategy into Action (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press,
1996), 61–91.
119. Dinah Eng, “How the Founder of Four Seasons Stumbled Into the Hotel
Business,” Fortune Media IP Limited, March 29, 2016, http://fortune.
com/2016/03/29/four-seasons-hotels-isadore-sharp/.
120. See R. S. Kaplan and D. P. Norton, “Having Trouble with Your Strategy?
Then Map It,” Harvard Business Review, September–October 2000,
167–176.
121. D. Blanchard and S. Valentic, “America’s Safest Companies 2018: Gray-
cor Industrial Constructors,” EHS Today, November 7, 2018, https://
www.ehstoday.com/americas-safest-companies-awards/americas-
safest-companies-2018-graycor-industrial-constructors.
122. “What We Do,” https://www.cotopaxi.com/pages/gear-for-good
(accessed May 6, 2019).
123. Lindsey Kartochwill, “Outdoor Gear Maker Cotopaxi Stitches Its Social
Goals into Every Backpack,” Bloomberg Businessweek, April 25, 2016,
https://www.pressreader.com/australia/bloomberg-businessweek-
asia/20160425/282381218725695.
124. “The Cotopaxi Foundation,” https://www.cotopaxi.com/pages/founda-
tion (accessed May 6, 2019).
125. Zacks, “Why Is Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP) Up 11.2% Since Last Earnings
Report?” Nasdaq, March 30, 2019, https://www. nasdaq.com/article/
why- is -keur ig -dr -pepper -kdp-up-112-s ince- las t -earn ings-
report-cm1122425; and L. Hirsch, “K-Cup Maker Keurig Bets Big on
Beverages, Buying Dr Pepper Snapple,” CNBC, January 31, 2018,
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/01/29/dr-pepper-snapple-and-keurig-
green-mountain-to-merge.html.
126. “About B&N,” http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/about-bn/ (accessed
April 17, 2019); and A. Alter and T. Hsu, “As Barnes & Noble Struggles
to Find Footing, Founder Takes Heat,” The New York Times, August 12,
2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/business/media/barnes-
noble-leonard-riggio.html.
127. A. Cheng, “Barnes & Noble’s Problem Is No Longer Just Amazon,”
Forbes, September 6, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/
andriacheng/2018/09/06/barnes-nobles-problem-is-no-longer-about-
amazon/#21e4ca0444d0.
128. C. Quackenbush, “Barnes & Noble Is Laying Off Workers Amid Declin-
ing Sales,” Fortune, February 13, 2018, http://fortune.com/2018/02/13/
barnes-noble-layoff-workers-declining-sales/.
129. A. Alter and T. Hsu, “As Barnes & Noble Struggles to Find Footing,
Founder Takes Heat,” The New York Times, August 12, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/business/media/barnes-noble-leonard-
riggio.html.
130. A. Alter and T. Hsu, “As Barnes & Noble Struggles to Find Footing,
Founder Takes Heat,” The New York Times, August 12, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/business/media/barnes-noble-leonard-
riggio.html.
131. A. Alter and T. Hsu, “As Barnes & Noble Struggles to Find Footing,
Founder Takes Heat,” The New York Times, August 12, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/business/media/barnes-noble-leonard-
riggio.html.
132. A. Alter and T. Hsu, “As Barnes & Noble Struggles to Find Footing,
Founder Takes Heat,” The New York Times, August 12, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/business/media/barnes-noble-leonard-
riggio.html.
133. Chris Meadows, “Barnes & Noble Lays Off Hundreds of Experienced
Employees, May Not Be Long for This World,” Teleread, February 14,
2018. https://teleread.org/2018/02/14/barnes-noble-lays-
off-hundreds-of-experienced-employees-may-not-be-long-for-
this-world/.
134. A. Cheng, “Barnes & Noble’s Problem Is No Longer Just Amazon,”
Forbes, September 6, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/andri-
acheng/2018/09/06/barnes-nobles-problem-is-no-longer-about-
amazon/#21e4ca0444d0.
135. J. Bosman, “Chief Leaves Barnes & Noble After Losses on E-Readers,”
The New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/09/
business/barnes-nobles-chief-executive-resigns.html (accessed
April 17, 2019).
136. J. Trachtenberg. “Publishers Are Tiring of Revolving Door in Barnes &
Noble’s C-Suite,” The Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2018, https://
www.wsj.com/articles/publishers-are-tiring-of-revolving-door-in-barnes-
nobles-c-suite-1533895200.
137. A. Alter and T. Hsu, “As Barnes & Noble Struggles to Find Footing,
Founder Takes Heat,” The New York Times, August 12, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/08/12/business/media/barnes-noble-leonard-
riggio.html.
138. A. Alter, “Ronald D. Boire Steps Down as Chief of Barnes & Noble,” The
New York Times, August 16, 2016, https://www.nytimes.
com/2016/08/17/business/media/ronald-d-boire-steps-down-as-chief-
of-barnes-noble.html?action=click&module=inline&pgtype=Article&re
gion=Footer.
139. J. Trachtenberg, “Barnes & Noble Details Why Former CEO Demos
Parneros Was Fired,” The Wall Street Journal, October 30, 2018, https://
www.wsj.com/articles/barnes-noble-details-why-former-ceo-demos-
parneros-was-fired-1540935642.
140. J. Trachtenberg, “Publishers Are Tiring of Revolving Door in Barnes &
Noble’s C-Suite,” The Wall Street Journal, August 10, 2018, https://
www.wsj.com/articles/publishers-are-tiring-of-revolving-door-in-barnes-
nobles-c-suite-1533895200.
141. Alexandra Alter and Tiffany Hsu, “As Barnes & Noble Struggles to Find
Footing, Founder Takes Heat,” The New York Times Company, August
12, 2018, https://www.seattletimes.com/ business/barnes-founder-is-
confident-of-turnaround/.
142. J. Milliot, “Len Riggio Says He’s Ready to Lead B&N Through the Holidays,”
Publishers Weekly, September 28, 2018, https://www.publishersweekly.
com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/bookselling/article/78177-len-riggio-says-
he-s-ready-to-lead-b-n-through-the-holidays.html.
143. The Association of American Universities (AAU), “Tax Exemption for Uni-
versities and Colleges: Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c) (3) and
Section 115,” http://www.aau.edu/workarea/downloadasset.
aspx?id=14246 (accessed June 14, 2019).
144. The Association of American Universities (AAU), “Tax Exemption for Uni-
versities and Colleges: Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c) (3) and
Section 115,” http://www.aau.edu/workarea/downloadasset.
aspx?id=14246 (accessed June 14, 2019).
145. K. King, “Princeton University Settles Tax Suit Filed by Local Homeown-
ers.” The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/
articles/princeton-university-settles-tax-suit-filed-by-local-homeown-
ers-1476742298; and C. Huckabee, “Princeton Will Pay $18 Million to
Settle Suit Over Property-Tax Exemption,” The Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation, October 17, 2016, https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/
princeton-will-pay-18-million-to-settle-suit-over-property-tax-exemp-
tion/115119.
146. K. King, “Princeton University Settles Tax Suit Filed by Local Homeowners,”
The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/
articles/princeton-university-settles-tax-suit-filed-by-local-homeowners-
1476742298.
147. Kate King, “Princeton University Settles Tax Suit Filed by Local Home-
owners,” The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2016, https://www.wsj.
com/articles/princeton-university-settles-tax-suit-filed-by-local-home-
owners-1476742298?ns=prod/accounts-wsj.
148. K. King, “Princeton University Settles Tax Suit Filed by Local Homeown-
ers,” The Wall Street Journal, October 17, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/
articles/princeton-university-settles-tax-suit-filed-by-local-homeown-
ers-1476742298; and C. Huckabee, “Princeton Will Pay $18 Million to
Settle Suit Over Property-Tax Exemption,” The Chronicle of Higher Edu-
cation, October 17, 2016, https://www.chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/
princeton-will-pay-18-million-to-settle-suit-over-property-tax-
exemption/115119.
149. S. Cho and L. Arvanitis, “University Prepares for Endowment Tax,” Yale
Daily News, November 8, 2018, https://yaledailynews.com/blog/
2018/11/08/university-prepares-for-endowment-tax-2/.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN45CHAPTER NOTES
27. L. Kolowich, “17 Truly Inspiring Company Vision and Mission Statement
Example,” Hubspot, January 27, 2019, https://blog.hubspot.com/
marketing/inspiring-company-mission-statements.
28. L. Kolowich, “17 Truly Inspiring Company Vision and Mission Statement
Example,” Hubspot, January 27, 2019, https://blog.hubspot.com/mar-
keting/inspiring-company-mission-statements.
29. L. Kolowich, “17 Truly Inspiring Company Vision and Mission Statement
Example,” Hubspot, January 27, 2019, https://blog.hubspot.com/mar-
keting/inspiring-company-mission-statements.
30. Adapted from J. Mackey and R. Sisodia, Conscious Capitalism (Boston,
MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2013), 46.
31. Adapted from J. Mackey and R. Sisodia, Conscious Capitalism (Boston,
MA: Harvard Business School Publishing, 2013), 46.
32. Interface, Inc., “Company Perspectives,” https://www.referenceforbusi-
ness.com/history2/69/Interface-Inc.html (accessed June 14, 2019).
33. L. Handley, “Blake Mycoskie: Sole Trader to Serial Philanthropist,”
CNBC.com, November 6, 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/blake-mycoskie--
sole-trader-to-serial-philanthropist/.
34. L. Handley, “Blake Mycoskie: Sole Trader to Serial Philanthropist,”
CNBC.com, November 6, 2018, https://www.cnbc.com/blake-mycoskie--
sole-trader-to-serial-philanthropist/.
35. B. Mycoskie, “The Founder of TOMS on Reimagining the Company’s
Mission,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2016,
https://hbr.org/2016/01/the-founder-of-toms-on-reimagining-the-
companys-mission.
36. A. E. Rafferty, N. L. Jimmieson, and A. A. Armenakis, “Change Readiness:
A Multilevel Review,” Journal of Management 39, 2013, 110–135.
37. I. Cinite and L. E. Duxbury, “Measuring the Behavioral Properties of
Commitment and Resistance to Organizational Change,” Journal of
Applied Behavioral Science, 54, 2018, 113–139.
38. B. Burnes, “Understanding Resistance to Change—Building on Coch and
Branch,” Journal of Change Management, 2015, 92–116.
39. C. J. Grimolizzi-Jensen, “Organizational Change: Effect of Motivational
Interviewing on Readiness to Change,” Journal of Change Manage-
ment, 18, 54–69.
40. Adapted from R. J. Marshak, Covert Processes at Work (San Francisco,
CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2006); and A. S. Judson, Changing
Behavior in Organizations: Minimizing Resistance to Change (Cam-
bridge, MA: Blackwell, 1991).
41. M. Fugate and G. Soenen, “Predictors and Processes Related to
Employees’ Change-Related Compliance and Championing,” Personnel
Psychology, 71, 2018, 109–132.
42. M. Fugate and G. Soenen, “Predictors and Processes Related to
Employees’ Change-Related Compliance and Championing,” Personnel
Psychology, 71, 2018, 109–132.
43. A. Kraft, J. L. Sparr, and C. Peus, “Giving and Making Sense about
Change: The Back and Forth Between Leaders and Employees,” Jour-
nal of Business Psychology, 33, 71–87.
44. See D. M. Harold, D. B. Fedor, S. Caldwell, and Y. Liu, “The Effects of
Transformational and Change Leadership on Employees’ Commitment
to Change: A Multilevel Study,” Journal of Applied Psychology, March
2008, 346–357.
45. See R. H. Miles, “Accelerating Corporate Transformations (Don’t Lose
Your Nerve!),” Harvard Business Review, January–February 2010,
69–75, http://hbr.org/2010/01/accelerating-corporate-transformations-
dont-lose-your-nerve/ar/1.
46. T. Thundiyil, D. Chiaburu, I. Oh, G. Banks, and A. Peng, “Cynical About
Change? A Preliminary Meta-Analysis and Future Research Agenda,”
Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 2015, 429–450.
47. American Psychological Association, “Stress in American—Generation
Z,” October 2018, https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/
2018/stress-gen-z .
48. U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, “Stress . . . At Work,”
https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/docs/99-101/default.html (accessed June
14, 2019).
49. American Psychological Association, “Work Stress,” http://www.apaex-
cellence.org/resources/special-topics/work-stress (accessed January
11, 2019).
50. V. Lipman, “Workplace Trend: Stress Is on the Rise,” Forbes.com, Janu-
ary 9, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2019/01/09/
workplace-trend-stress-is-on-the-rise/#4c38083a6e1b.
51. V. Lipman, “Workplace Trend: Stress Is on the Rise,” Forbes.com, Janu-
ary 9, 2019, https://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2019/01/09/
workplace-trend-stress-is-on-the-rise/#4c38083a6e1b.
52. See J. D. Nahrgang, F. P. Morgeson, and D. A. Hoffman, “Safety at Work:
A Meta-Analytic Investigation of the Link between Job Demands, Job
Resources, Burnout, Engagement, and Safety Outcomes,” Journal of
Applied Psychology, January 2011, 71–94; and S. Ohly and C. Fritz,
“Work Characteristics, Challenge Appraisal, Creativity, and Proactive
Behavior: A Multi-Level Study,” Journal of Organizational Behavior, May
2010, 543–565.
CHAPTER 16
1. Adapted from R. Knight, “How to Decide Whether to Relocate for a Job,”
Harvard Business Review, December 3, 2018, https://hbr.org/2018/12/
how-to-decide-whether-to-relocate-for-a-job.
2. D. Cohn and A. Caumont, “10 Demographic Trends That Are Shaping
the US and the World,” Pew Research Center, March 31, 2016, http://
www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/31/10-demographic-trends-
that-are-shaping-the-u-s-and-the-world/.
3. A. Cilluffo and D. Cohn, “7 Demographic Trends Shaping the U.S. and
the World in 2018,” Pew Research Center, April 25, 2018, http://www.
pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/25/7-demographic-trends-shap-
ing-the-u-s-and-the-world-in-2018/.
4. A. Zaleski, “VR Gets Real in the OR,” Fortune, January 1, 2019, 27–28.
5. T. Jackson, “Forget Pie in the Sky, Drones are Saving Lives,” Fortune,
January 1, 2019, 40–41.
6. CNBC.com video, https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/03/12/chipotle-
teams-up-with-venmo-to-encourage-loyalty-program-sign-ups.html
(accessed March 12, 2019).
7. Andrew Ross Sorkin, “BlackRock’s Message: Contribute to Society, or
Risk Losing Our Support,” The New York Times, January 15, 2018,
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/15/business/dealbook/blackrock-
laurence-fink-letter.html.
8. K. Wiggins, “Uber’s London License Is under Threat,” Bloomberg.
com, February 13, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/
2019-02-13/uber-s-london-license-under-threat-as-cab-drivers-fight-back.
9. A. Sarariano, “Google Fined $1.7 Billion by E.U. for Unfair Advertising
Rules,” The New York Times, March 20, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/2019/03/20/business/google-fine-advertising.html?emc=edit_th_
190321&nl=todaysheadlines&nlid=499951150321.
10. V. Goel, “India Curbs Power of Amazon and Walmart to Sell Products
Online,” The New York Times, December 26, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/12/26/technology/india-amazon-walmart-online-retail.html.
11. T. Reed, “American Airlines Encounters Labor Slowdowns Due to Slow
Pace of Contract Talks,” Forbes.com, July 14, 2018, https://www.forbes.
com/sites/tedreed/2018/07/14/american-airlines-encounters-labor-
slowdowns-due-to-slow-pace-of-contract-talks/#62249fe63cdb.
12. Adapted from R. Derousseau, “The Hidden Upside to CEO Drama,” For-
tune, February 1, 2019, 45–48.
13. Adapted from R. Derousseau, “The Hidden Upside to CEO Drama,” For-
tune, February 1, 2019, 45–48.
14. Adapted from R. Derousseau, “The Hidden Upside to CEO Drama,” For-
tune, February 1, 2019, 45–48.
15. N. E. Boudette and E. Povoledo, “Sergio Marchionne, Who Revived Fiat
and Chrysler, Dies at 66,” The New York Times, July 25, 2018, https://
www.nytimes.com/2018/07/25/business/sergio-marchionne-dies-fiat-
chrysler.html.
16. Adapted from R. Derousseau, “The Hidden Upside to CEO Drama,”
Fortune, February 1, 2019, 45–48.
17. Adapted from R. Derousseau, “The Hidden Upside to CEO Drama,”
Fortune, February 1, 2019, 45–48.
18. Adapted from R. Derousseau, “The Hidden Upside to CEO Drama,”
Fortune, February 1, 2019, 45–48.
19. K. Strauss, “The 10 Biggest CEO Departures in 2018,” Forbes.com,
December 18, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/
2018/12/18/the-10-biggest-ceo-departures-of-2018/#34de40e21ef7.
20. Evelyn M. Rusli, Geoffrey A. Fowler, and John Letzing, “Struggling Grou-
pon Ousts Its Quirky CEO,” The Wall Street Journal, February 28, 2013,
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142412788732466240457833
2084043537590.
21. S. Pfeifer, “Faury Gears Up to Take the Controls at Airbus,” Financial-
Times.com, February 15, 2019, https://www.ft.com/content/f9b3cbe6-
311a-11e9-ba00-0251022932c8.
22. C. Hopp, D. Antons, J. Kaminski, and T. O. Salge, “What 40 Years of
Research Reveals about the Difference Between Disruptive and Radical
Innovation,” Harvard Business Review, April 9, 2018, https://hbr.
org/2018/04/what-40-years-of-research-reveals-about-the-difference-
between-disruptive-and-radical-innovation.
23. B. Burnes, “Understanding Resistance to Change—Building on Coch and
French,” Journal of Change Management, 2015, 92–116.
24. K. Swisher, “Owning a Car Will Soon Be as Quaint as Owning a Horse,”
The New York Times, March 22, 2019, https://www.nytimes.
com/2019/03/22/opinion/end-of-cars-uber-lyft.html.
25. L. R. Hearld and J. A. Alexander, “Governance Processes and Change
within Organizational Participants of Multi-Sectoral Community Health
Care Alliances: The Mediating Role of Vision, Mission, Strategy Agree-
ment and Perceived Alliance Value,” American Journal of Community
Psychology, 2014, 185–197.
26. E. M. Rusli, “Even Facebook Must Change,” The Wall Street Journal,
January 30, 2013, B1, B7, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001
424127887323829504578272233666653120.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
CN46 CHAPTER NOTES
74. Adapted from M. Yate, “Accounting for ‘Failure’ to Prospective Employ-
ers,” SHRM.org, September 26, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/resource-
sandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/
accounting-for-a-failure-to-prospective-employers.aspx.
75. Adapted from E. Lee and J. Koblin, “AT&T Assembles a Media Team,
Joining a Battle with Giants,” The New York Times, March 4, 2019,
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/04/business/media/att-warner-
greenblatt.html.
76. S. A. Ward, “Growing at an Athleisurely Pace,” Bloomberg Business-
week, January 8, 2018, 42-45.
77. S. A. Ward, “Growing at an Athleisurely Pace,” Bloomberg Business-
week, January 8, 2018, 42-45.
78. S. K. Hayashi, “Strategies for Managing Employees Who Resist,” Forbes.
com, March 17, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoaches-
council/2017/03/17/strategies-for-managing-employees-who-resist-
change/#176a88ae6c71.
79. Adapted from D. Wilkie, “What Managers Can Do to Ease Workplace
Stress,” SHRM.org, April 26, 2018, https://www.shrm.org/Resource-
sAndTools/hr-topics/employee-relations/Pages/how-managers-can-
help-stressed-workers-.aspx.
80. Results are presented in K. M. Richardson and H. R. Rothstein, “Effects
of Occupational Stress Management Intervention Programs: A Meta-
Analysis,” Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, January 2008,
69–93.
81. These steps were based on a discussion in L. Dzubow, “Optimism 101,”
The Oprah Magazine, April 2011, 130.
82. Adapted from C. Richards, “A 4-Step Guide to Ranting Productively,”
The New York Times, May 22, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/05/22/your-money/how-to-rant-productively.html.
83. Adapted from V. Lipman, “New Study Explores Why Change Manage-
ment Fails—and How to (Perhaps) Succeed,” Forbes, September 4,
2013, http://www.forbes.com/sites/victorlipman/2013/09/04/new-study-
explores-why-change-management-fails-and-how-to-perhaps-succeed/.
84. Jeffrey Kahn, “Report: Texas Football in for Major Culture Change under
Charlie Strong,” Bleacher Report, Inc., January 15, 2014, https://bleach-
erreport.com/articles/1923529-texas-football-in-for-major-culture-
change-under-charlie-strong.
85. N. Bomey, “5 Reasons Toys R Us Failed to Survive Bankruptcy,” USATo-
day.com, March 18, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/
money/2018/03/18/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-liquidation/436176002/.
86. P. Wahba, “Retail Reckoning,” Fortune, May 1, 2018, 76–81.
87. P. Wahba, “Retail Reckoning,” Fortune, May 1, 2018, 76–81.
88. N. Bomey, “5 Reasons Toys R Us Failed to Survive Bankruptcy,” USATo-
day.com, March 18, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/
money/2018/03/18/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-liquidation/436176002/.
89. N. Bomey, “5 Reasons Toys R Us Failed to Survive Bankruptcy,” USAToday.
com, March 18, 2018, https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2018/
03/18/toys-r-us-bankruptcy-liquidation/436176002/.
90. S. Min, “Toys R Us Plots a 2nd Act with New Look, New Name,” Money-
watch, February 12, 2019, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/toys-r-us-
coming-back-under-new-name/.
91. D. Green, “Toys R Us Is Being Revived, but It Probably Won’t Be the
Store You Remember,” Businessinsider.com, February 13, 2019, https://
www.businessinsider.com/toys-r-us-revival-wont-be-l ike-old-
store-2019-2.
92. N. Beheshti, “Adopt These 4 Trends in Corporate Wellness to Gain a
Competitive Edge,” Forbes.com, December 28, 2018, https://www.
forbes.com/sites/nazbeheshti/2018/12/28/adopt-these-4-trends-in-
corporate-wellness-to-gain-a-competitive-edge-in-2019/#1ce585a37c3d.
93. W. Koch, “Workplaces Ban Not Only Smoking, But Smokers Them-
selves,” USA Today, January 6, 2012, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/
money/industries/health/story/2012-01-03/health-care-jobs-no-
smoking/52394782/1.
94. Fisher Phillips, “3 Options for Providing Wellness Program Incentives in
2019 . . . And Beyond,” Fisherphillips.com, December 14, 2018, https://
www.fisherphillips.com/resources-alerts-3-options-for-providing-
wellness-program-incentives.
95. J. Sorrell, “Ethics: Employer-Sponsored Wellness Programs for Nurses:
The Ethics of Carrots and Sticks,” The Online Journal of Issues in Nurs-
ing, January 5, 2015.
96. F. Cavico and B. Mujtaba, “Health and Wellness Policy Ethics,” Interna-
tional Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2013, 111–113.
97. J. D. Arendshorst and L. X. Gionnette, “2019 Wellness Program Incen-
tives Affected by Final EEOC Rules,” The National Law Review, January
17, 2019, https://www.natlawreview.com/article/2019-wellness-
program-incentives-affected-final-eeoc-rules.
53. C. K. Goodman, “Survey: Most Americans Stressed Out about Work,”
Dallas Morning News, April 21, 2013, D2.
54. S. Denning, “How Stress Is the Business World’s Silent Killer,” Forbes.
com, May 4, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephanieden-
ning/2018/05/04/what-is-the-cost-of-stress-how-stress-is-the-business-
worlds-silent-killer/#2ec913946e06.
55. See R. A. Clay, “Stressed in America,” Monitor on Psychology, January
2011, 60–61.
56. M. Guta, “What Is Fatigue and Why Does It Plague Your Small Business
Team?” Smallbiztrends.com, February 5, 2019, https://smallbiztrends.
com/2019/02/workplace-fatigue.html.
57. M. Guta, “What Is Fatigue and Why Does It Plague Your Small Business
Team?” Smallbiztrends.com, February 5, 2019, https://smallbiztrends.
com/2019/02/workplace-fatigue.html.
58. National Safety Council Report, “Fatigue—You’re More than Just Tired,”
https://www.nsc.org/work-safety/safety-topics/fatigue (accessed Febru-
ary 12, 2019).
59. National Safety Council Report, “Fatigue—You’re More than Just Tired,”
https://www.nsc.org/work-safety/safety-topics/fatigue (accessed Febru-
ary 12, 2019).
60. A. Luksyte, D. Avery, and G. Yeo, “It Is Worse When You Do It: Examining
the Interactive Effects of Coworker Presenteeism and Demographic
Similarity,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 2015, 1107–1123.
61. S. B. Gingerich, E. L. D. Seaverson, and D. R. Anderson, “Association
Between Sleep and Productivity Loss Among 598,676, Employees from
Multiple Industries,” American Journal of Health Promotion, 32, 2018,
1091–1094.
62. Adapted from D. Meinert, “Sleepless in Seattle . . . and Cincinnati and
Syracuse,” HR Magazine, October 2012, 55–58.
63. R. Wright, C. Mohr, R. Sinclair, and L. Yang, “Sometimes Less Is More:
Directed Coping with Interpersonal Stressors at Work,” Journal of Orga-
nizational Behavior, 2015, 786–805.
64. A. Kurtovic, I. Vukovic, and M. Gajic, “The Effects of Control on Univer-
sity Students’ Mental Health: Possible Mediation through Self-Esteem
and Coping,” The Journal of Psychology, 2018, 152, 341–357; aee
also J. D. Kammeyer-Mueller, T. A. Judge, and B. A. Scott, “The Role of
Core Self-Evaluations in the Coping Process,” Journal of Applied Psy-
chology, January 2009, 177–195.
65. M. F. Dollard and J. A. Gordon, “Evaluation of a Participatory Risk Man-
agement Work Stress Intervention,” International Journal of Stress Man-
agement, 2014, 27–42.
66. Supportive results can be found in R. Ilies, N. Dimotakis, and I. E. De
Pater, “Psychological and Physiological Reactions to High Workloads:
Implications for Well-Being,” Personnel Psychology, Summer 2010, 407–
436; and E. R. Crawford, J. A. LePine, and B. L. Rich, “Linking Job Demands
and Resources to Employee Engagement and Burnout: A Theoretical
Extension and Meta-Analytic Test,” Journal of Applied Psychology,
September 2010, 834–848.
67. See M. R. Frone, “Are Work Stressors Related to Employee Substance
Use? The Importance of Temporal Context in Assessments of Alcohol
and Illicit Drug Use,” Journal of Applied Psychology, January 2008,
199–206.
68. T. Wright, “More than Meets the Eye: The Role of Employee Well-Being
in Organizational Research,” Oxford Handbook of Positive
Psychology and Work (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2010),
143–154.
69. M. Yale, “Accounting for ‘Failure’ to Prospective Employers,” SHRM.org,
September 26, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/
organizational-and-employee-development/pages/accounting-for-a-
failure-to-prospective-employers.aspx.
70. O. Babur, “Talking About Failure Is Crucial for Growth. Here’s How to Do
It Right,” The New York Times, August 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/08/17/smarter-living/talking-about-failure-is-crucial-for-
growth-heres-how-to-do-it-right.html.
71. O. Babur, “Talking About Failure Is Crucial for Growth. Here’s How to Do
It Right,” The New York Times, August 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/08/17/smarter-living/talking-about-failure-is-crucial-for-
growth-heres-how-to-do-it-right.html.
72. O. Babur, “Talking About Failure Is Crucial for Growth. Here’s How to Do
It Right,” The New York Times, August 17, 2018, https://www.nytimes.
com/2018/08/17/smarter-living/talking-about-failure-is-crucial-for-
growth-heres-how-to-do-it-right.html.
73. Adapted from M. Yate, “Accounting for ‘Failure’ to Prospective Employ-
ers,” SHRM.org, September 26, 2017, https://www.shrm.org/resource-
sandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/
accounting-for-a-failure-to-prospective-employers.aspx.
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-1
glossary/subject index
Bold page numbers indicate definitions.
Italic page numbers indicate material in
figures, illustrations, or tables.
A
ABCDEs of cognitive restructuring,
669–670
absenteeism, 382
abusive supervision The sustained
display of hostile verbal and
nonverbal behavior by managers,
521–522
academic fraud, 12, 462
access-and-legitimacy perspective
Recognition that the organization’s
markets and constituencies are
culturally diverse, 140
accountability
in groups versus teams, 299, 299
in performance management, 206
accounting. See financial performance
accuracy, of feedback, 221
achievement
in acquired needs theory, 166
in PERMA, 287
acquired needs theory States that
three needs—achievement,
affiliation, and power—are the key
drivers of employee behavior,
165–168, 166
acronyms, and organizational culture
change, 568–569, 568
action plans, in goal setting, 210
active listening, 346
adaptability (team adaptive capacity)
The ability to make needed
changes in response to demands
put on the team, 323–324
adaptive change Reintroduces a
familiar practice either in a
different unit or in the same
unit at a different point in time,
646, 646
adhocracy culture One that has an
external focus and values
flexibility, 560, 562–563,
564, 565
adjourning, in group development, 307
ADR (alternative dispute resolution)
A means for solving disputes using
an independent third party and
avoids the costs and problems
associated with litigation or
unilateral decision making,
405–407, 406
affective component of an attitude
Our feelings or emotions about a
given object or situation, 50
affiliation, in acquired needs theory,
166, 168
affirmative action An intervention
aimed at giving management a
chance to correct an imbalance,
injustice, mistake, or outright
discrimination that occurred
in the past, 137–138
African Americans, 141, 142, 641
age
communication styles and, 351–352
in diversity management, 151–152
social media use, 353
stereotypes, 130
values and, 47
workforce trends, 142–144, 143
age discrimination, 151–152
agreeableness, 88, 93
AI (artificial intelligence) A form of
computing that allows machines
to perform cognitive functions,
440–441
alignment of goals, 597
alternative dispute resolution
(ADR) A means for solving dis-
putes using an independent third
party and avoids the costs and
problems associated with litigation
or unilateral decision making,
405–407, 406
altruism, 258
ambiguity
reducing in virtual teams, 483
tolerance for, 442
Americans with Disabilities
Act Prohibits discrimination
against those with disabilities and
requires organizations to reason-
ably accommodate an individual’s
disabilities, 142
amplifying effect Positive practices
from one individual result in addi-
tional positive practices by others,
which spur positivity in others,
which generate other positive
outcomes, 254–255
amusement (emotion), 263
analytical style (decision making),
443–444, 443
analytical thought, 425–426
anchoring bias Occurs when decision
makers are influenced by the first
information they receive about
a decision, even if it is
irrelevant, 435
anger management, 111–112, 112
antecedents, in communication,
348, 349
anti-bullying strategies, 397
anticipatory socialization Informa-
tion gathered and expectations
formed before an individual actu-
ally joins an organization, 575, 575
apologies, 498–499
appeals process, 178
appearance, in person perception, 127
applicant tracking software (ATS), 3
arbitration, 406, 421
artifacts The physical manifestation of
an organization’s culture, 552–553
artificial intelligence (AI) A form of
computing that allows machines
to perform cognitive functions,
440–441
Asians, 141, 640, 641
Ask for It: How Women Can Use the
Power of Negotiation to Get What
They Really Want (Babcock), 408
assimilation, in diversity
management, 149
ATS (applicant tracking software), 3
attention The process of becoming
consciously aware of someone or
something, 124
attitudes Our feelings or opinions about
people, places, and objects and
range from positive to negative, 48
cognitive dissonance and, 50–51
components of, 50
employee surveys of, 49, 54
implications of, 70
intention and, 51–53, 51
job satisfaction outcomes, 64–65
Organizing Framework, 42
versus values, 48, 49
workplace, 48, 54–59
attribution theory, 132–133, 133
authority, in persuasion, 484
automated experience A choice
based on a familiar situation and a
partially subconscious application
of learned information related to
it, 430
autonomy
as innate need, 168, 169
in job characteristics model, 189
availability bias A decision maker’s
tendency to base decisions on
information readily available in
memory, 435
avoiding style (conflict management),
402, 403
awe, 263
B
baby boomers, 47, 143, 143, 152, 658
balanced scorecard (BSC), 595,
625–627
basic underlying assump-
tions Organizational values so
taken for granted over time that
they become assumptions guiding
organizational behavior, 554
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-2 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
change management
implications of, 672–673
overcoming resistance, 666–668
Problem-Solving Case, 676–677
stress management and, 669–670
systems model application, 665–666
tips for managers, 670–671
character strengths, 277–278, 277
charisma A form of interpersonal
attraction that inspires acceptance,
devotion, and enthusiasm, 530
cheating, 11–12, 17–18, 462–463
clan culture One that values internal
focus and flexibility rather than
stability and control, 559–560,
559, 562–563, 564, 564, 565
closed system A self-sufficient entity,
599–600
coaching A customized process
between two or more people with
the intent of enhancing learning
and motivating change or improv-
ing an individual’s behavior and
performance to resolve work issues
or handle specific aspects of the
job and may be short term, 224,
580
as mentoring function, 581
organizational culture change
and, 568, 569
in performance management, 206,
224–225
self-efficacy and, 99
coalition An informal group bound
together by the active pursuit of a
single issue, 490
coalition-level politics, 490–491, 490
coalition tactics, 480
coercive power Power to make
threats of punishment and deliver
actual punishment, 468, 474
cognitive abilities, in leaders, 514
cognitive appraisals of stress, 661–662
cognitive bias, 434–435
cognitive categories Groups of
objects that are considered
equivalent, 124
cognitive component of an attitude
Our beliefs or ideas about an
object or situation, 50
cognitive dissonance The psycho-
logical discomfort a person experi-
ences when simultaneously holding
two or more conflicting cognitions
(ideas, beliefs, values, or emotions),
50–51
cognitive load, 126
cognitive restructuring, 669–670
cohesiveness A sense of “we-ness”
that tends to override individual
differences and motives, 448–449
breathing meditations, 271–272
broaden-and-build theory, 254–255,
283–284
BSC (balanced scorecard), 595,
625–627
buffering effect The reduction of the
impact of negative events and
stressors through positive practices
and resources, 255
bullying Unwelcomed behavior that
occurs over a period of time and is
meant to harm someone who feels
powerless to respond,
397–398, 397
business skills, in leaders, 514
busyness, versus productivity, 200
C
career planning, 203
categorization, in stereotyping, 130
category-based knowledge, 125–126,
129
causal attributions Suspected or
inferred causes of behavior,
132–134, 132, 133
celebrations, as rewards, 242
centralized decision making Occurs
when key decisions are made by
top management, 614
central tendency, 215
chain of command, 597
change
diversity management and, 147
employee relocation, 638
external forces for, 639–643, 640
internal forces for, 640, 643–645
Kotter’s process, 652, 653
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 678
Lewin’s model, 647–648, 647
organizational development
approach, 652–654, 653
Organizing Framework, 637
Problem-Solving Application,
665–666
resistance to, 655–657, 656
self-assessment, 639, 651
systems model, 648–652, 648
types of, 646–647, 646
change agent Someone who is a
catalyst in helping organizations
deal with old problems in new
ways, 657
common pitfalls of, 657
relationship with employees, 667–668
change and acquisition
phase Socialization phase which
requires employees to master
important tasks and roles and
adjust to their work group’s values
and norms, 575, 577
behavior
causal attribution, 132–134, 132, 133
job satisfaction outcomes, 66–68
organizational culture effects on, 557
reinforcement and consequences,
236–242, 237
Theory of Planned Behavior,
51–53, 51
behavioral component of an
attitude The way we intend or
expect to act toward someone or
something, 50
behavioral style (decision making),
443, 444
behavioral styles
approach Attempts to identify
the unique behaviors displayed by
effective leaders, 516
behaviorism, 236
bias
in attribution, 134
communication and, 350, 352
in decision making, 433–436
in performance management, 204
big data The vast quantity of data
available for decision making,
439–440, 614
Big Five Personality Dimensions:
Extroversion, agreeableness, con-
scientiousness, emotional stability,
and openness to experience,
88–89, 88, 93
blame, as political tactic, 488, 489–490
blindness, in unethical behavior, 18
bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, 84
body movements, in communication,
345
body shape, in person perception, 126
bonuses, 197, 242
boredom, and creativity, 455
bottom-up job design, 185, 185, 189–190
boundaries, in team charter, 298
boundaryless organization One in
which management has largely
succeeded in breaking down
barriers between internal levels,
job functions, and departments, as
well as reducing external barriers
between the association [organiza-
tion] and those with whom it does
business, 606
bounded rationality Represents the
notion that decision makers are
“bounded” or restricted by a
variety of constraints when
making decisions, 429–430
brainstorming, 427, 450–451, 451
brainwriting (electronic brainstorm-
ing) Allows participants to submit
their ideas and alternatives over
the Internet, 451
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-3GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
consultation (influence tactic), 480
contact hypothesis Suggests that the
more members of different groups
interact, the less intergroup con-
flict they will experience, 388
content theories of motiva-
tion Based on the idea that an
employee’s needs influence his
or her motivation, 164
acquired needs theory, 165–168, 166
motivator-hygiene theory, 169–171
need hierarchy theory, 164–165, 165
self-determination theory, 168–169
theory comparison, 172
Theory X and Theory Y, 164
contingency approach Calls for
using the OB concepts and tools
that best suit the situation, instead
of trying to rely on “one best way,”
5, 211, 211, 668
contingency approach to organiza-
tion design Organizations tend
to be more effective when they are
structured to fit the demands of
the situation, and when the struc-
ture is aligned with internal activi-
ties and actions of the
organization, 613–615
contingency theories of leadership
Propose that the effectiveness
of a particular style of leader
behavior depends on the
situation, 523
application of, 529
Fiedler’s model, 523–525, 524
path-goal theory, 526–529, 526,
527, 528
continuous reinforcement (CRF) A
reinforcement schedule in which
every instance of a target behavior
is reinforced, 239–240
contractual trust, 318
contrast effect, 215
control strategy Behaviors and
cognitions that directly anticipate
or solve problems, 662
cooperative (functional or
constructive) Characterized by
consultative interactions, a focus
on the issues, mutual respect, and
useful give-and-take, 382, 400
coordination of effort, 597
core self-evaluations (CSEs) Four
narrow and positive individual
traits: (1) generalized self-efficacy,
(2) self-esteem, (3) locus of
control, and (4) emotional
stability, 96, 96
emotional stability, 88, 93, 101, 102
locus of control, 100–101
practical considerations, 102–103
conciliation, 406
confidence, in giving feedback, 218
confirmation bias Pertains to how we
selectively gather information, 433
conflict management
alternative dispute resolution,
405–407, 406
programmed conflict techniques,
400, 401
self-assessment, 402
styles of, 401–405, 402, 403
conflict The energy created by the
perceived gap between what we
want and what we’re experiencing,
381–382, 383
avoidance of, 385, 386
causes of, 383, 383
contemporary types of, 391–399
continuum of, 382, 383
conventional types of, 387–390
escalation of, 383–384
functional versus dysfunctional, 382
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 421
as opportunity, 386
Organizing Framework, 379
Problem-Application Case, 419–421
self-assessment, 381, 392
in teamwork, 322
conscientiousness, 88, 93
conscious thought, 425–426
consensus (in attribution theory)
Compares an individual’s behavior
with that of his or her peers,
132, 133
consensus (in decision making)
When all members can say they
either agree with the decision or
have had their ‘day in court’ and
were unable to convince the others
of their viewpoint. In the final
analysis, everyone agrees to
support the outcome, 450
consequences
contingent, 237–239, 237
law of effect, 236
in team charter, 298
conservation, in value theory, 44, 45, 46
consideration Leader behavior that
creates mutual respect or trust and
prioritizes group members’ needs
and desires, 518
consistency, in persuasion, 484
consistency Judges whether the
individual’s performance on a
given task is consistent over time,
132, 133
constructive (functional or cooper-
ative conflict) Characterized by
consultative interactions, a focus
on the issues, mutual respect, and
useful give-and-take, 382, 400
collaboration The act of sharing infor-
mation and coordinating efforts to
achieve a collective outcome,
324–327, 668
commitment
bases of power and, 473, 473
in organizational culture, 556
common sense, limits of, 7
communication competence A
performance-based index of an
individual’s abilities to effectively
use communication behaviors in
a given context, 344
communication The exchange of
information between a sender and
a receiver, and the inference
( perception) of meaning between
the individuals involved, 339
as change agent pitfall, 657
crucial conversations, 367–368
empathy and, 348–349
gender differences in, 350–351, 352
generational differences in, 351–352
implications of, 370–371
in job interviews, 338
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 377
listening, 346–347, 346, 347
nondefensive, 348, 349
nonverbal, 344–346, 345, 412
Organizing Framework, 337
presentations, 364–366
Problem-Solving Application Case,
375–376
process of, 340–341, 340
self-assessment, 344, 347
social media, 353–363
in team collaboration, 324
transparency in, 341–342
upward feedback, 368–369, 369
in virtual teams, 315
communication trust, 318
comparison, in equity theory, 175
compassion A shared value that
drives people to help others who
are suffering, 281
compensation. See pay and benefits
competence, as innate need, 168
competence trust, 318, 319
competing values framework
(CVF) Provides a practical way for
managers to understand, measure,
and change organizational culture,
558–565, 559
compliance, and bases of power,
473, 473
comprehensive task
interdependence, 315
compromising style (conflict
management), 402, 403
conceptual style (decision making),
443, 444
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-4 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
interactions, such as attitudes,
opinions, and values, 137
defensiveness A behavior that occurs
when people perceive they are
being attacked or threatened,
348, 349
delphitechnique A group process
that generates anonymous ideas or
judgments from physically dispersed
experts in multiple rounds of
brainstorming, 451
demographics The statistical mea-
surements of populations and their
qualities (such as age, race, gender,
or income) over time, 135
diversity management and, 150
as force for change, 640, 641
Organizing Framework, 121
denial, in diversity management, 148
detached listening, 346
devil’s advocacy, 400, 401
diagnosis, in organizational
development, 654
dialectic method A structured
dialogue or debate of opposing
viewpoints prior to making a
decision, 400, 401
directive style (decision making),
442–443, 443
discrimination Occurs when employ-
ment decisions about an individual
are based on reasons not associ-
ated with performance or related
to the job, 137
age, 151–152
racial, 130, 142, 159
reverse, 147
dishonesty, in negotiation, 413, 414
dispositional/genetic model, 62
dispositional resistance to
change A stable personality trait
characterized by being less likely to
voluntarily initiate changes and
more likely to form negative
attitudes toward the changes
encountered, 656
distinctiveness Compares a person’s
behavior on one task with his or
her behavior on other tasks,
132, 133
distributive justice The perceived
fairness of the way resources and
rewards are distributed or allocated,
175, 177
distributive negotiation Concerns a
single issue—a “fixed pie”—in which
one person gains at the expense of
another, 408, 409
diversity climate A subcomponent of
an organization’s overall climate
defined as the employees’
customer service and satisfaction, 69
CVF (competing values framework)
Provides a practical way for manag-
ers to understand, measure, and
change organizational culture,
558–565, 559
CWB. See counterproductive work
behavior
cyber-bullying, 397–398
cyberloafing Using the Internet
at work for personal use, 356
D
Dark Triad, 92
Darwinian perspective, 350
decentralized decision mak-
ing Occurs when important
decisions are made by middle-
and lower-level managers, 614
deception
in job interviews, 496
in negotiation, 413
decision making Entails identifying
and choosing from among
alternate solutions that lead
to a desired state of affairs, 425
centralized versus decentralized, 614
as change agent pitfall, 657
critical thinking in, 424
ethical, 445–446, 445
evidence-based, 437–441
group decision making, 447–451
heuristics (biases) in, 433–436
implications of, 456
nonrational models, 428–432, 431
Organizing Framework, 423
Problem-Solving Application Case,
460–461
rational model, 426–428, 426
self-assessment, 444, 450
styles of, 442–444, 443
in virtual teams, 315
ways of thinking and, 425–426
decision-making style The way an
individual perceives and compre-
hends stimuli and the general
manner in which he or she chooses
to respond to such information,
442–444, 443
decision support systems (DSS)
Computer-based interactive
systems that help decision makers
to use data and models to solve
unstructured problems, 451
decision tree A graphical representa-
tion of the process underlying
decisions, 445–446, 445
decoding, in communication, 341
deep-level characteristics Those
that take time to emerge in
core self-evaluations (CSEs) (Cont.)
self-assessment, 103
self-efficacy, 97–99, 97, 99
self-esteem, 99–100
counseling, as mentoring function, 581
counterproductive work behavior
(CWB) Behavior that harms other
employees, the organization as a
whole, and/or organizational
stakeholders such as customers
and shareholders, 67–68
creative outcome effectiveness
The joint novelty and usefulness
(quality) of a product or service as
judged by others, 452
creative performance behav-
iors Four key behaviors that
drive the production of creative
outcomes, 452–454
creativity The process of producing
new and useful ideas concerning
products, services, processes, and
procedures, 452
implications of, 456
increasing, 455
model of, 452–454, 452
Organizing Framework, 423
rewards and, 455
self-assessment, 454
self-efficacy and, 99
as sought-after skill, 8
in team collaboration, 324
credibility
of feedback, 221
performance and, 10
criminal records, in job candidates, 294
critical thinking
in decision making, 424
as sought-after skill, 8
cross-functional teams Teams
created with members from
different disciplines within an
organization, such as finance,
operations, and R&D, 313
crowdsourcing Practice of inviting
nonemployees to contribute to
achieving particular goals and
manage the input process via the
Internet, 355–356, 621
Crucial Conversations (Grenny), 367
crucial conversations Discussions
between two or more people where
(1) the stakes are high, (2) opin-
ions vary, and (3) emotions run
strong, 367–368
CSEs. See core self-evaluations
culture, in person perception, 127–128.
See also organizational culture
customers
balanced scorecard and, 626
as force for change, 642
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-5GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
perceptions of psychological
empowerment in others, 518–519
empowerment Efforts to enhance
employee performance, well-being,
and positive attitudes, 475
evolution of, 476–477, 477
individual, team, and organization
levels, 477–479, 478
Problem-Solving Application, 479
psychological, 477–478
structural, 475–476
enacted values The qualities and
norms that are exhibited or
converted into employee
behavior, 553
encoding, in communication, 341
encounter phase Socialization phase
when employees come to learn
what the organization is really like,
575, 576
engagement, in PERMA, 285. See also
employee engagement
entrepreneurs, 91–92, 91
environment, and worker fatigue, 661
EPM (electronic performance
monitoring) Technology used to
gather, store, analyze, and report
employee behavior, 213–214
equity sensitivity, 176
equity theory A model of motivation
that explains how people strive for
fairness and justice in social
exchanges or give-and-take
relationships, 173
elements of, 174–175, 174
equity sensitivity in, 176
of job satisfaction, 62
justice components, 175–176, 177
motivating employees with,
176–178
escalation of commitment bias
The tendency to hold to an ineffec-
tive course of action even when it
is unlikely the bad situation can be
reversed, 436
escape strategies A coping strategy
in which stressors are ignored or
avoided, 662
ESG investing, 259
espoused values Explicitly stated
qualities and norms preferred by
an organization, 553
ethical dilemmas Situations with two
choices, neither of which resolves
the situation in an ethically
acceptable manner, 15–17. See also
Legal/Ethical Challenge
ethical leadership Normatively
appropriate behavior that
focuses on being a moral role
model, 521
among them, and to use this
information to guide your thinking
and actions, 104
benefits of, 107
developing, 105, 107–108
individual differences and, 108
Problem-Solving Application, 106
role in leadership, 513
self-assessment, 105
emotional stability Tendency to be
relaxed, secure, unworried, and
less likely to experience negative
emotions under pressure, 88, 93,
101, 102
emotions Complex, relatively brief
responses aimed at a particular tar-
get, such as a person, information,
experience, or event. They also
change psychological and/or
physiological states, 77, 109
implications of, 114
during job search, 113
management of, 111–112, 112
mixed, 110
negative, 110, 112, 264
negotiation and, 411–413
Organizing Framework, 77
past versus future focus, 111
in person perception, 126
positive, 110, 261–267, 263,
283–284
procrastination and, 110
empathy The ability to recognize and
understand another person’s
feelings and thoughts, 348–349
employee benefits. See pay and
benefits
employee engagement The harness-
ing of organization members’
selves to their work roles; in
engagement, people employ and
express themselves physically,
cognitively, and emotionally during
role performance, 56–57
creating own sense of, 43, 285
increasing, 58–59
Organizing Framework, 57
outcomes of, 57–58
self-assessment, 58
in U.S., global workforce, 57, 57
employee positivity, 257, 257–258
employee turnover
conflict management and, 404
dysfunctional conflict and, 382
job satisfaction and, 68–69
employers
communicating with, 3
skills desired by, 8
employment tests, 93–95
empowering leadership Represents
the leader’s ability to create
aggregate perceptions about the
organization’s diversity-related
formal structure characteristics
and informal values, 146, 147
diversity management Enables
people to perform to their
maximum potential, 138
barriers and challenges, 145–147
business rationale, 139–140
organizational practices, 148–152
Problem-Solving Application Case,
157–158
versus affirmative action, 137–138
diversity The multitude of individual
differences and similarities that
exist among people, 135
implications of, 153
layers of, 135–136, 136
Organizing Framework, 121
self-assessment, 152
in virtual teams, 315
workplace trends, 140–144
divisional structure Segregates
employees into organization
groups based on industries,
products or services, customers
or clients, or geographic regions,
606, 612
division of labor, 597, 598
doing well and doing good,
257–258
dominating style (conflict management),
402, 403
drug tests, 119
DSS (decision support systems)
Computer-based interactive
systems that help decision makers
to use data and models to solve
unstructured problems, 451
dysfunctional conflict Disagreements
that threaten or diminish an
organization’s interests, 382
E
education, and worker fatigue, 661
education-work mismatches, 144,
150–151
efficacy. See self-efficacy
electronic brainstorming (brainwrit-
ing) Allows participants to submit
their ideas and alternatives over
the Internet, 451
electronic performance monitoring
(EPM) Technology used to gather,
store, analyze, and report employee
behavior, 213–214
e-mail management, 358, 358
emotional intelligence The ability to
monitor your own emotions and
those of others, to discriminate
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-6 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
instructional versus motivational,
218–219, 219
in job characteristics model, 189
lack of, 204
negative, 222–223, 223
in organizational development, 654
perceptions of, 221–222
reasons for lack of, 218
self-assessment, 221
sources of, 219–220
trends in, 224
upward feedback, 368–369, 369
The Fifth Discipline (Senge), 601
financial performance
employee job satisfaction and, 69
organizational culture and, 565
in organizational effectiveness,
625–626
first impressions, 493–494, 495
flex space Policies that enable
employees to do their work from
different locations besides the
office (coffee shop, home, or the
beach), 393, 393
flextime A policy of giving employees
flexible work hours so they can
come and go at different times, as
long as they work a set number
of hours or meet deadlines, 56,
393, 393
flourishing The extent to which our
lives contain PERMA, 251, 283
flow The state of being completely
involved in an activity for its own
sake, 285
followers, role in leadership, 537–538
FOMO (fear of missing out), 359–360
forgiveness The capacity to foster
collective abandonment of justified
resentment, bitterness, and blame,
and instead adopt positive, forward-
looking approaches in response to
harm or damage, 282
formal group A group assigned by an
organization or its managers to
accomplish specific goals,
300, 301
formal statements, and organizational
culture change, 567, 568
forming, in group development, 306
Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple
Intelligences (Gardner), 83
framing bias Relates to the manner in
which a question is posed or
framed. It leads us to change the
way we interpret alternatives, 436
freelancers, 609–610
friendship, as mentoring function, 581
frustration, as negative emotion, 112
frustration, management of, 113
fun, in workplace, 265
external factors Factors within the
environment (such as a difficult
task), 132, 133
external forces for change Forces
that originate outside the organiza-
tion, 639–643, 640
external locus of control A belief
that one’s performance is the
product of circumstances beyond
their immediate control, 101
extinction Weakening a behavior by
ignoring it or making sure it is not
reinforced, 239
extra-organizational stressors,
659–660, 660
extrinsic motivation Result of poten-
tial or actual receipt of external
rewards, 162
extrinsic rewards Financial, material,
and social rewards originating from
the environment, 226
extroversion, 88, 93
eye contact, in communication,
345, 346
F
facial expressions, in communication,
345, 346
facial features, in person
perception, 126
facilitation, 406
failure Occurs when an activity fails to
deliver its expected results or
outcomes, 603
coping with, 663
fear of, in resistance to change, 656
in innovation, 619–620
interview questions on, 664
learning from, 603
self-efficacy in, 97
fairness
in feedback perception, 221
in performance monitoring, 214
family leave policies, 394
fatigue A prolonged state of physical
and mental exhaustion that cannot
simply be remedied by a good
night’s sleep, 660
fear
emotion management, 112, 113
FOMO (fear of missing out),
359–360
in resistance to change, 656
feedback Information about
individual or collective
performance shared with those
in a position to improve the
situation, 217
in communication, 341
do’s and don’ts, 224
ethics Guides our behavior by identify-
ing right, wrong, and the many
shades of gray in between, 11
cheating as breach of, 11–12
in decision making, 445–446, 445
importance of, 14–15
impression management and,
497–498
lapses in, 13–20
negotiation and, 413–414, 413
power use and, 472–473
Problem-Solving Application Case,
39–40
self-assessment, 20
upholding, 20
ethnocentrism, 145
etiquette
in interviews, 494
for social media, 362–363
eustress (good stress) Stress associ-
ated with positive emotions and
outcomes, 658
evaluation, in organizational
development, 654
event memory, 124–125
evidence-based decision making
The process of conscientiously
using the best available data and
evidence when making managerial
decisions, 437
artificial intelligence in, 440–441
big data in, 439–440
evidence use in, 438–439
examples of, 437–438
evolutionary psychology, 350
exchange (influence tactic), 480
excitement, management of, 113
expectancy An individual’s belief that
a particular degree of effort will be
followed by a particular level of
performance, 179
expectancy theory Holds that people
are motivated to behave in ways
that produce desired combinations
of expected outcomes, 178
elements of, 179–180, 179
management implications, 181, 181
Problem-Solving Application,
180, 182
expectations
in performance management,
206, 222
in stereotyping, 131
expertise An individual’s combined
explicit knowledge and tacit
knowledge, 431
expert power Influencing others with
valued knowledge or information,
468, 474
explicit knowledge Information that
can easily be put into words, 431
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-7GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
hard skills The technical expertise and
knowledge to do a particular task
or job function, 7, 10
helpers, followers as, 537
HERO (hope, efficacy, resilience, and
optimism), 273
hierarchy culture One that has an
internal focus, which produces a
more formalized and structured
work environment, and values
stability and control over
flexibility, 561, 564
hierarchy of authority, 597, 598
high-commitment work sys-
tems Rely on selective hiring,
comprehensive training, compara-
tively high pay, pay contingent
on performance, and good
benefits, 453
high-school dropouts, 144
hindsight bias Occurs when knowl-
edge of an outcome influences our
belief about the probability that we
could have predicted the outcome
earlier, 435–436
hiring process
candidates with criminal records, 294
core self-evaluation use, 103
employment tests, 93–95
etiquette and, 494
perception and, 122, 128
rejection of job candidates, 284–285
requirements for, 9
salary question, 249
social media use, 122, 354, 354
Hispanics, 141, 142, 150, 641
holistic hunch A judgment based on
the subconscious integration of
information stored in memory, 430
hollow structure (network struc-
ture) Designed around a central
core of key functions and out-
sources other functions to outside
companies or individuals who can
do them cheaper or faster, 609, 612
hope Believing the future will be bet-
ter than the present and that you
have some power to make it
happen, 256
components of, 273–274
developing, 276
as frequent positive emotion, 263
in psychological capital, 273
horizontal loading, 186
horizontal structure A structure in
which teams or work groups, either
temporary or permanent, are created
to improve collaboration and work
on common projects, 605, 605,
607–608, 612
hostile work environments, 75, 146, 399
in person perception, 125
reasonable, 222
self-efficacy and, 99
SMART goals, 208, 209
in team collaboration, 324
goal-setting theory, 182–183
goal specificity Indicates whether a
goal has been quantified, 183
The Good Fight, You First (Davey), 322
government regulations, as force for
change, 642–643
gratitude, 256, 263
group cohesiveness The degree to
which members feel part of the
collective or “we” of the group,
307, 307
group decision making
advantages, disadvantages, 448
goal of, 450
groupthink in, 448–449, 449
problem-solving techniques for,
450–451
self-assessment, 450
group-level stressors, 659, 660
group role A set of shared expected
behaviors for members of the
group as a whole, 301–302
groups Collections of two or more
individuals with low or no task
dependency, who are not account-
able to each other for their work,
and who may or may not assemble
for a specified period of time, 299
decision making in, 447–451
development models, 305–308, 305
formal versus informal, 300
implications of, 328–329
Organizing Framework, 297
roles and norms in, 300–304,
302, 303
self-assessment, 302
versus teams, 299–300, 299
groupthink A mode of thinking that
people engage in when they are
deeply involved in a cohesive
in-group, when members’ strivings
for unanimity override their
motivation to realistically appraise
alternative courses of action,
448–449, 449
H
halo effect, 215
harassment Discrimination based on
a protected class (race, gender,
religion, pregnancy, age, disability),
that becomes illegal when it threat-
ens your employment or is consid-
ered intimidating, hostile, or
abusive, 398–399
functional conflict (constructive or
cooperative conflict) Character-
ized by consultative interactions, a
focus on the issues, mutual respect,
and useful give-and-take, 382, 400
functional structure Groups people
according to the business functions
they perform, for example, manu-
facturing, marketing, and finance,
606, 612
fundamental attribution bias
Tendency to attribute another
person’s behavior to his or her
personal characteristics, rather
than to situation factors, 134
G
gaze, in person perception, 125, 126
gender
communication and, 350–351, 352
in person perception, 126
stereotypes, 130
workplace diversity trends, 140–141
generational differences
communication, 351–352
diversity management and, 152
stress levels, 658
values, 47
workforce, 142–144, 143
genetic factors, in job satisfaction, 62
Gen Xers, 143, 152, 658
Gen Y. See Millennials
Gen Zers, 47, 143, 144, 658
gestures, in communication, 345
gig workers, 609–610
glass ceiling An invisible but absolute
barrier that prevents women from
advancing to higher-level positions,
140–141
global mind-set The belief in one’s
ability to influence dissimilar
others in a global context, 515
goal commitment, 209, 209
goal displacement Occurs when the
primary goal is overridden by a
secondary goal, 448
goals and goal setting
alignment of, in organizations, 597
in career planning, 203
in change management, 668, 671
contingency approach, 211, 211
emotional reactions to, 110
goal-setting process, 208–211, 209
hope and, 274
ill-conceived, 18
organizational culture change and,
568, 572
performance and, 184
performance versus learning goals,
207–208
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-8 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
initiating structure Leader behavior
that organizes and defines what
group members should be doing
to maximize output, 516
innate needs, 168
innovation system A coherent set of
interdependent processes and
structures that dictates how the
company searches for novel prob-
lems and solutions, synthesizes
ideas into a business concept and
product designs, and selects which
projects get funded, 618, 619
innovation The creation of something
new that makes money; it finds a
pathway to the consumer, 616
culture and climate for, 619–620
failure and, 619
human capital for, 623
human resource practices for, 623
implications of, 629
leadership commitment, 619
in office design, 623–624, 624
organizational structure and
processes for, 621–623
Problem-Solving Application, 620
resources for, 623
self-assessment, 621
types and focus of, 616–617, 617
innovative change Introduces a prac-
tice that is new to the organization,
646, 646
inputs, in equity theory, 174
inspiration, 263, 668
inspirational appeals, 480
inspirational motivation Includes
the use of charisma, relies on an
attractive vision of the future,
emotional arguments, and
demonstrated optimism and
enthusiasm, 530
institutional power, 166
instructional feedback, 218–219, 219
instrumentality The perceived
relationship between performance
and outcomes, 179, 180
integrating style (conflict management),
401, 403
integrative negotiation Negotiation
in which numerous interests are
considered, resulting in an
agreement that is satisfactory for
both parties, 408–409, 409
intellectual stimulation Encourages
employees to question the status
quo and to seek innovative and
creative solutions to organizational
problems, 532
intelligence An individual’s capacity
for constructive thinking, reasoning,
and problem solving, 82
interpersonal deviance, social
undermining, interactional
injustice, harassment, abusive
supervision, and bullying, 395
bullying, 397–398, 397
causes and outcomes of, 396, 396
harassment, 398–399
pervasiveness and cost of, 396
include/exclude, in diversity
management, 148
inclusive design, 139
independent contractors, 609–610
independents, followers as, 537
indirect blindness, 18
individual differences (IDs) The
many attributes, such as traits and
behaviors, that describe each of us
as a person, 77, 79
core self-evaluations, 96–103, 96
emotional intelligence and, 108
fixed versus flexible, 79–80, 80
implications of, 114
intelligence, 82–86
Organizing Framework, 77
personality, 87–95
positive psychological capital,
273–276
recipient characteristics, 656–657
signature strengths, 277–278, 277
individualized consideration
Consists of behaviors that provide
support, encouragement,
empowerment, and coaching
to employees, 531
individual-level politics, 490
individual-level stressors, 659, 660
inferences, in stereotyping, 130
influence tactics Conscious efforts to
affect and change behaviors in
others, 480
common, 480, 481–482
effective use of, 483
implications of, 500
impression management, 493–499
Organizing Framework, 465
persuasion principles, 484
self-assessment, 482
using in influence plan, 485
in virtual teams, 483–484
informal group A group whose
overriding purpose in getting
together is friendship or a common
interest, 300
information acquisition (scanning), 602
information distribution, 602
information exploitation, 413, 488
information gathering (creative
behavior), 453
information interpretation, 602
ingratiation, 480, 488, 496
in-group exchange, 534, 535
human capital The productive poten-
tial of an individual’s knowledge,
skills, and experiences, 582
human resources
as force for change, 643
innovation and, 623
humility, in leaders, 537
hygiene factors Include company
policy and administration,
technical supervision, salary,
interpersonal relationships with
supervisors, and working condi-
tions. They cause a person to move
from a state of no dissatisfaction to
dissatisfaction, 170, 171
I
idea evaluation/validation, 453
idea generation, 453
idealized influence To instill pride,
respect, and trust within
employees, 531
identity
in organizational culture, 555–556
in team charter, 298
idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) Employ-
ment terms individuals negotiate
for themselves, taking myriad
forms from flexible schedules to
career development, 186, 191
illegal behavior, versus unethical, 13–14
implicit cognition Any thoughts or
beliefs that are automatically
activated from memory without
our conscious awareness, 128,
350, 352
implicit leadership theory Proposes
that people have beliefs about how
leaders should behave and what
they should do for their
followers, 514
impression management Any
attempt to control or manipulate
the images related to a person,
organization, or idea, 493
apologies, 498–499
ethics and, 497–498
first impressions, 493–494, 495
job interviews and, 494, 496–497
as political tactic, 488
reciprocity and, 494
self-assessment, 495
upward impression management,
494–496
improvement innovations Enhance
or upgrade an existing product,
service, or process, 617
inadequacy, as negative emotion, 112
incivility Any form of socially harmful
behavior, such as aggression,
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-9GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
goal achievement and, 183
job content and context in,
170–171, 170
measurement of, 60–61
models of, 61–62
organizational-level outcomes, 68–69
self-assessment, 60
telecommuting and, 62–63
job search, and emotions, 113
job security, in resistance to change,
656–657
job stress The harmful physical and
emotional responses that occur
when the requirements of the job
do not match the capabilities,
resources, or needs of the worker,
658, 660
cognitive appraisals of, 661–662
coping strategies, 662
stressor types and outcomes,
659–661, 662
job swapping, 187
joy, 263
judgmental heuristics Cognitive
shortcuts or biases that are used
to simplify the process of making
decisions, 433
justice theory components, 175–176,
177. See also equity theory
K
kindness, 266
King Kong managers, 81
knowledge
category-based, 125–126, 129
explicit, 431
integration of, 602
tacit, 431
Kotter’s change process, 652, 653
L
language, and organizational culture
change, 568–569, 568
Latinx, 141, 142, 150
law of effect Behavior with favorable
consequences tends to be
repeated, and behavior with unfa-
vorable consequences tends to
disappear, 236
leader–member exchange (LMX)
theory Based on the assumption
that leaders develop unique one-to-
one relationships (exchanges) with
each of the people reporting to
them, 534–536
leader–member relations The
extent to which the leader has the
support, loyalty, and trust of the
work groups, 524
mind on their own, without
explicit awareness of the evoking
cues and of course without explicit
evaluation of the validity of these
cues, 430
improving, 432
model of, 430–431, 431
pros and cons of, 431–432
self-assessment, 432
intuitive thought, 425–426
involved listening, 346
isolation, in diversity management, 149
J
job applications
communication for, 3
person–organization fit and, 550
unethical behavior and, 18–19
job characteristics model Promotes
high intrinsic motivation by design-
ing jobs that possess five core job
characteristics, 188–189, 188
job crafting Employees’ attempts to
proactively shape their work char-
acteristics, 189–190, 189, 190
job design (job redesign or work
design) Any set of activities that
alter jobs to improve the quality of
employee experience and level of
productivity, 185
bottom-up approaches, 189–190
idiosyncratic deals, 186, 191
models overview, 185–186, 185
moderators of, 189
self-efficacy and, 99
top-down approaches, 186–189
job enlargement Puts more variety
into a worker’s job by combining
specialized tasks of comparable
difficulty, 186
job enrichment Modifies a job such
that an employee has the opportu-
nity to experience achievement,
recognition, stimulating work,
responsibility, and advancement,
188
job interviews. See interviews
job involvement Represents the
extent to which an individual is
personally engaged in his or her
work role, 65
job performance. See performance
job rotation Moving employees from
one specialized job to another,
186–187
job satisfaction An affective or
emotional response toward various
facets of your job, 60
attitudinal outcomes, 64–65
behavioral outcomes, 66–68
genetics in, 82
multiple intelligences, 83–84, 84
practical intelligence, 84–85
testing, in sports, 86
training or improving, 85–86
intentions The end point or goal you
want to achieve; they drive your
behavior, 51–53, 51, 256
interactional justice The quality of
the interpersonal treatment people
receive when procedures are
implemented, 175, 177
interactional perspective States that
behavior is a function of interde-
pendent person and situation
factors, 24
interest (emotion), 263
interest-based negotiation, 408–409,
409
intergroup conflict, 387–390
intermittent reinforcement A rein-
forcement schedule in which some
but not all instances of a target
behavior are reinforced, 240
internal alignment, 614
internal business perspective, 626–627
internal factors Factors within a
person (such as ability), 132, 133
internal forces for change Forces
that come from inside the organi-
zation, 640, 643–645
internal locus of control A belief
that one can control the events
and consequences that affect their
lives, 101
internal virtual structures, 611
interpersonal intelligence, 84
interpersonal skills, 8, 514
interpersonal treatment, 176
intervention, in organizational
development, 654
interviews
communication in, 338
etiquette in, 494
explanation for leaving current job,
384–385
impression management and, 494,
496–497
questions on failure, 664
questions to answer and ask, 78
tips for, 9
virtual, 129, 363
intrapersonal intelligence, 84
intrinsic motivation Inspired by the
positive internal feelings that are
generated by doing well, 162, 168
intrinsic rewards Self-granted awards,
such as psychic rewards, 226
introversion, 89, 90
intuition Consists of judgments,
insights, or decisions that come to
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-10 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
logical-mathematical intelligence, 84
long-term memory, 124–125
love, 263
LPC (least preferred coworker)
scale Measures the extent to
which an individual takes a task
or relationship-based approach
toward leadership, 523
M
Machiavellianism A belief that the
ends justify the means, mainte-
nance of emotional distance, and
use of manipulation, 92, 513
maintenance roles Roles that foster
supportive and constructive inter-
personal relationships, 301, 302
management. See also leadership
abusive supervision, 521–522
bad bosses, 80–81
causal attributions in, 132, 134
change management tips for, 670–671
expectancy theory and, 181, 181
as force for change, 644–645
LMX theory implications, 536
motivation for, 5, 6
OB implications, 36
person perception implications,
128–129
as sought-after skill, 8
stereotype reduction, 131
transformational leadership
implications, 533
value theory in, 46
versus leadership, 511
Man’s Search for Meaning (Frankl), 286
marionette managers, 80–81
market changes, as force for
change, 642
market culture One that has a strong
external focus and values stability
and control, 560–561, 564, 565
matrix structure Combines a vertical
structure with an equally strong
horizontal overlay, 606–607, 612
maximization, in negotiation, 413
MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), 94
meaningfulness The sense of belong-
ing to and serving something that
you believe is bigger than the self,
286–287
mechanistic organizations Rigid
bureaucracies with strict rules,
narrowly defined tasks, top-down
communication, and centralized
decision making, 614
media richness Measures the capac-
ity of a given communication
medium to convey information and
promote understanding, 342–343
least preferred coworker (LPC)
scale Measures the extent to
which an individual takes a task
or relationship-based approach
toward leadership, 523
Legal/Ethical Challenge
bankruptcy and CEO bonuses, 197
cheating, 462–463
company values, 504–505
conflict, 421
description of, 23
drug tests, 119
employee health and wellness, 678
hostile work environment, 75
job candidates with criminal
records, 294
leadership and piercing policies, 545
organizational socialization, 591
racial discrimination, 159
salary question, in hiring, 249
social media impact, 377
team accountability, 334–335
universities’ tax-exempt status,
634–635
whistle-blowers, 41
legitimate power Having the formal
authority to make decisions,
467–468, 474
legitimating tactics, 480
leniency, in performance
evaluations, 215
Lewin’s model of change, 647–648, 647
LGBT A widely recognized acronym to
represent lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender, 142
lies, in negotiation, 413, 414
liking
personality and, 87
in persuasion, 484
line managers Generally have the
authority to make decisions for
their units, 599
linguistic intelligence, 84
linguistic style A person’s characteris-
tic speaking pattern, 350
listening The process of actively
decoding and interpreting verbal
messages, 346–347, 346, 347
litigation, 382
LMX (leader–member exchange)
theory Based on the assumption
that leaders develop unique one-to-
one relationships (exchanges) with
each of the people reporting to
them, 534–536
locus of control A relatively stable
personality characteristic that
describes how much personal
responsibility we take for our
behavior and its consequences,
100–101, 527
leadership A process whereby an indi-
vidual influences a group of indi-
viduals to achieve a common goal,
509. See also management
basic skills of, 514
behavioral theories, 516–522
as change agent pitfall, 657
change management and, 671
contingency theories, 523–529
emotional intelligence in, 513
empowering, 518–519
equity/justice theory and, 178
ethical, 521
followers’ role in, 537–538
as force for change, 644–645
gender differences in, 514
humility and, 537
implications of, 539
innovation commitment, 619
integrated model of, 509–511, 510
leader-member exchange theory,
534–536
learning to lead, 508
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 545
organizational culture and, 566, 568,
570–571
Organizing Framework, 507
path-goal theory, 526–529, 526,
527, 528
perception and, 129, 514–515
Problem-Solving Application,
525–526
Problem-Solving Application Case,
543–544
self-assessment, 511, 518, 521,
532, 536
self-efficacy and, 99
servant-leadership, 519–521, 520
trait theories, 512–515
transactional, 516
transformational, 530–533, 531
versus management, 511
in virtual teams, 315
virtuous, 282
leadership prototype A mental
representation of the traits and
behaviors people believe leaders
possess, 514–515
The Leader’s Way (Dalai Lama, van den
Muyzenberg), 271
learning goals Goals that promote
enhancing your knowledge or
skill, 207
learning organization One that
proactively creates, acquires, and
transfers knowledge and changes
its behavior on the basis of new
knowledge and insights, 600–603,
601, 601
learning perspective, in organizational
effectiveness, 627
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-11GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
N
narcissism Having a grandiose sense
of self-importance; requiring or
even demanding excessive admira-
tion; having a sense of entitlement;
lacking empathy; and tending to be
exploitative, manipulative, and
arrogant, 92, 513
naturalist intelligence, 84
need fulfillment models, 61
need hierarchy theory States that
motivation is a function of five
basic needs: physiological, safety,
love, esteem, and self-actualization,
164–165, 165
needs Physiological or psychological
deficiencies that arouse behavior,
61, 125, 164
negative emotions
awareness of, 257
balance with positive, 264
management of, 110, 112
strategies to avoid, 266–267
negative reinforcement The process
of strengthening a desired behavior
by contingently withdrawing
something displeasing, 237,
238, 238
negotiation A give-and-take decision-
making process between two or
more parties with different
preferences, 408
emotions and, 411–413
ethics and, 413–414, 413
factors to consider, 409–410
implications of, 415–416
Organizing Framework, 379
of pay raises, 161, 380, 413
of salaries, 380, 412–413
types of, 408–409, 409
networked virtual structures, 611
network-level politics, 490,
491–492
network structure (hollow
structure) Designed around a
central core of key functions and
outsources other functions to
o utside companies or individuals
who can do them cheaper or faster,
609, 612
new-direction innovations Take a
totally new or different approach
to a product, service, process, or
industry, 617–618
noise Anything that interferes with the
transmission and understanding of
a message, 341
nondefensive communication,
348, 349
nondisclosure, in negotiation, 413
self-assessment, 271
minority dissent Occurs when group
members feel comfortable disagree-
ing with other group members, 449
mission statements An expression
of the reason an organization
exists, 649
organizational change and, 567, 649
in team charter, 298
modular structure One in which the
company assembles product parts,
components, or modules provided
by external contractors, 610, 612
moral character An individual’s gen-
eral tendency to think, feel, and
behave in ways associated with eth-
ical and unethical behavior, 414
motivated blindness, 18
motivating factors (motiva-
tors) Include achievement, recog-
nition, characteristics of the work,
responsibility, and advancement.
They cause a person to move from
a state of no satisfaction to
satisfaction, 170, 171
motivational feedback, 218–219, 219
motivation The psychological pro-
cesses that underlie the direction,
intensity, and persistence of
behavior or thought, 162
content theories, 164–172
extrinsic versus intrinsic, 162
implications of, 192
as job satisfaction outcome, 64
to manage others, 5, 6
Organizing Framework, 160
Problem-Solving Application Case,
195–196
process theories, 173–184
through job design, 185–191
values and, 46, 46
motivator-hygiene theory Proposes
that job satisfaction and dissatisfac-
tion arise from two different sets of
factors—satisfaction comes from
motivating factors and dissatisfac-
tion from hygiene factors, 169–172
motivators (motivating factors)
Include achievement, recognition,
characteristics of the work,
responsibility, and advancement.
They cause a person to move
from a state of no satisfaction to
satisfaction, 170
multiple intelligences (MI), 83–84, 84
musical intelligence, 84
mutual adaptation, 149
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
(MBTI), 94
myths, in organizational culture change,
568, 570
mediation, 406
meditation techniques, 271–272, 272
medium of communication, 341,
342–343, 342
meetings, 466
memory, in social perception, 124–125
men
communication patterns, 350–351
family leave for, 394
leadership traits, 514
mental abilities, 142
mentoring The process of forming
and maintaining intensive and
lasting developmental relationships
between a variety of developers
(people who provide career and
psychosocial support) and a junior
person (the protégé, if male, or
protégée, if female), 580
benefits of, 582
developmental networks for,
583–584
functions and phases of,
580–582, 581
human and social capital and,
582–583
implications of, 585
Organizing Framework, 549
self-assessment, 584
message, in communication, 340, 340
meta-analysis, 512
met expectations The difference
between what an individual expects
to receive from a job, such as good
pay and promotional opportunities,
and what she or he actually
receives, 61
#MeToo movement, 15–16, 398, 472,
503–504
MI (multiple intelligences), 83–84, 84
microaggressions, 359
microinternships, 319
Millennials (Gen Y)
best companies for, 146
digital device use, 351–352
generational differences and,
143–144, 143, 152
population of, 640
stress levels, 658
values of, 47
workplace benefits desired, 171
mindfulness The awareness that
emerges through paying attention
on purpose, in the present
moment, and nonjudgmentally to
the unfolding of experience
moment by moment, 268, 268
benefits of, 270–271
in building self-awareness, 6
business use of, 269–270
practicing, 271–272
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-12 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
assumptions that a group holds and
that determines how it perceives,
thinks about, and reacts to its
various environments, 551
adhocracy culture, 560
clan culture, 559–560, 559
competing values in, 562–563
conflict management in, 404
drivers of, 552, 552
functions of, 555–557, 556
hierarchy culture, 561
implications of, 585
for innovation, 619–620
levels of, 552–554
market culture, 560–561
mentoring in, 580–584
Organizing Framework, 549
outcome correlations, 564–565, 564
Problem-Solving Application Case,
589–591
self-assessment, 563, 573
socialization process in, 574–579,
575, 578
spans of control and, 599
subcultures, 565
organizational design Sets the
s tructures of accountability and
responsibility used to develop and
implement strategies, and the
human resource practices and
information and business processes
that activate those structures, 604
change over time, 593
contingency approach, 613–614
divisional, 606, 612
eras of, 604–606, 605
functional, 606, 612
hollow (network), 609, 612
horizontal, 605, 605, 607–608, 612
implications of, 615, 629
influence of, 596
innovation and, 621–623
internal alignment and, 614
matrix, 606–607, 612
modular, 610, 612
open, 605–606, 605
organizational culture change and,
568, 571–572
Organizing Framework for, 593
Problem-Solving Application,
609–610
traditional, 605, 605
virtual, 610–611, 612
organizational development (OD),
652–654, 653
organizational effectiveness
basics of, 595–596, 596
implications of, 629
measuring with balanced scorecard,
625–627
organizational culture and, 564
optimism Attribution of successes to
personal, permanent, and perva-
sive causes, and negative events to
external, temporary, and situation-
specific ones, 273, 274–276, 275
optimizing Solving problems by pro-
ducing the best possible solution
based on a set of highly desirable
conditions, 427
organic organizations Flexible net-
works of multitalented individuals
who perform a variety of tasks, 614
organizational activities, and organiza-
tional culture change, 568, 570
organizational behavior
(OB) Describes an interdisciplin-
ary field dedicated to understand-
ing and managing people at
work, 4
benefits of, 4–5
as common sense, 7
contingency perspective, 5
implications of, 36
Organizing Framework, 27–30, 27,
31–33, 32
person-situation distinction, 23–25
problem solving and, 21–26
three levels of, 2, 26
Organizational citizenship behavior
(OCB) Individual behavior that is
discretionary, not directly or
explicitly recognized by the formal
reward system, and that in the
aggregate promotes the effective
functioning of the organization,
66–67
organizational climate Employees’
shared perceptions of organiza-
tional policies, practices, proce-
dures, and routines, 279, 281
creativity and, 454–455, 454
for innovation, 619–620
leadership and, 282
organizational practices and,
281–282
values and, 280–281
organizational commitment The
extent to which an individual
identifies with an organization and
commits to its goals, 54–55
drivers of, 55
increasing, 55–56
organizational crises, and organizational
culture change, 568, 570–571
organizational culture change
mechanisms for, 567–572, 568
Problem-Solving Application,
572–573
truths about, 566–567
organizational culture The set of
shared, taken-for-granted implicit
nonrational models of decision
making Explain how managers
actually make decisions, 428
intuition model, 430–431, 431
Simon’s normative model, 428–430
nonverbal communication Commu-
nication without words, 344–346,
345, 412
nonverbal cues, in person
perception, 127
normative model, 428–430
norming, in group development, 307
norms Shared attitudes, opinions,
feelings, or behaviors that guide
individual and group behavior,
298, 303, 303
O
OB. See organizational behavior
obliging style (conflict management),
401, 403
OCB (Organizational citizenship
behavior) Individual behavior
that is discretionary, not directly or
explicitly recognized by the formal
reward system, and that in the
aggregate promotes the effective
functioning of the organization,
66–67
OD (organizational development),
652–654, 653
ombudsman, 406
onboarding programs Help employ-
ees to integrate, assimilate, and
transition to new jobs by making
them familiar with corporate
policies procedures, culture, and
politics and clarifying work-role
expectations and responsibilities,
69, 576–577
On-ramping Encourages people to
reenter the workforce after a
temporary career break, 150
openness to change, 44, 44, 46
openness to experience, 88, 93
open organizational design,
605–606, 605
open system Depends on constant
interaction with the environment
for survival, 599–600, 601
operant behavior Behaviors that are
learned and occur when we
“ operate on” the environment to
produce desired consequences,
236–239, 237
operant conditioning. See operant
behavior
opportunity A situation in which
results that exceed goals and
expectations are possible, 426
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-13GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
of feedback, 221–222
in hiring process, 122, 128
implications of, 153
leadership and, 129, 514–515
performance appraisals and,
128–129
person perception model,
125–129, 126
of politics, 492
stages of, 123–125, 124
stereotypes in, 130–131
performance
credibility and, 10
employee engagement and, 57–58
goals effects on, 184
job satisfaction and, 66
personality effects on, 93
positivity and, 252
reinforcement schedules and,
241–242, 242
underperformance and failures, 663
verbal recognition and, 171
performance appraisals
diversity management and, 147
perception and, 128–129
typical scenario, 204
versus performance management, 201
Performance Conversations: An Alternative
to Appraisals (Lee), 217
performance evaluation The pro-
cess of comparing performance at
some point in time to a previously
established expectation or goal,
214–216, 215
performance goals Goals that garner
a specific end result, 207
performance management (PM)
A set of processes and managerial
behaviors that include defining,
monitoring, measuring, evaluat-
ing, and providing conse-
quences for performance
expectations, 201
coaching in, 206, 224–225
common uses of, 202–203
effective, 201–202, 202, 206
feedback in, 217–224
goal setting in, 207–211
implications of, 243–244
monitoring and evaluating in,
212–216, 215
Organizing Framework, 199
pay for performance in, 233–235,
233, 234
pitfalls of, 203–205
Problem-Solving Application Case,
247–249
reinforcement and consequences in,
236–242
rewards in, 226–232
versus performance appraisals, 201
outcome interdependence The
degree to which the outcomes of
task work are measured, rewarded,
and communicated at the group
level so as to emphasize collective
outputs rather than individual
contributions, 316
out-group exchange, 534
outputs, in equity theory, 174
overconfidence bias Results in
overestimating our skills relative to
those of others and overestimating
the accuracy of our predictions,
433–435
overqualification, 144
overvaluation, in unethical behavior, 18
P
paraphrasing Restating what some-
one else has said or written, 345
passive listening, 346
path-goal theory Holds that leader
behaviors are effective when
employees view them as a source
of satisfaction or as paving the way
to future satisfaction, 526–529,
526, 527, 528
pay and benefits. See also rewards
desired by Millennials, 171
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 197, 249
pay raise negotiation, 161, 380, 413
as performance management
focus, 204
Problem-Solving Applications,
171–172, 180
salary negotiations, 380, 412–413
variable pay, 233–235, 233, 234
pay for performance Merit and/or
bonus pay based on individual-,
group-, or organization-level
measures and involving individual,
group, or organization rewards,
233–235, 233, 234
peer pressure, 304, 657
peer review, 406
people management, as sought-after
skill, 8
people with disabilities, 142
perceived behavioral control, 51, 53
perceived organizational support
(POS) The extent to which employ-
ees believe their organization
values their contributions and
genuinely cares about their well-
being, 59
perceiver, in person perception,
125–126, 126
perception A cognitive process that
enables us to interpret and under-
stand our surroundings, 123
Problem-Solving Application Case,
633–634
strategy mapping for, 627–628, 628
organizational identity, 555–556
organizational justice, 175
organizational-level stressors, 659, 660
organizational memory, 602
organizational politics Intentional
actions to improve individual or
organizational interests, 486
behavior drivers, 487–488
common tactics, 488–490, 488
implications of, 500
Organizing Framework, 465
political action levels, 490–492, 490
positive and negative, 486–487
Problem-Solving Application Case,
503–504
self-assessment, 486
using, 492
organizational practices The proce-
dures, policies, practices, routines,
and rules that organizations use to
get things done, 281, 668
organizational processes
in change management, 668
innovation and, 621–623
organizational culture change
and, 568, 570
organizational socialization The
process by which individuals
acquire the knowledge, skills,
attitudes, and behaviors required
to assume a work role, 574
application of, 577–579
implications of, 585
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 591
Organizing Framework, 549
self-assessment, 577
tactics of, 578
three-phase model of, 574–577, 575
tips for improving, 579
organizational structure. See
organizational design
organizational systems and procedures,
568, 572
organization A system of consciously
coordinated activities or forces of
two or more persons, 597
common characteristics, 597
learning organizations, 600–603, 601
line versus staff positions in, 599
open-system perspective, 599–600,
601
spans of control in, 599
organization charts, 598–599, 598
Organizing Framework. See also specific
topics
basic version, 27–29, 27
summary version, 31–33, 32
using for problem solving, 29–30
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-14 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
positive reinforcement The process
of strengthening a behavior by
contingently presenting something
appealing, 237
positivity
balance with negativity, 264
benefits of, 262
contagious aspect, 262
in employees, 257, 257
most frequent positive emotions, 263
performance and, 252
resistance to change and, 668
as resource, 261–262
self-assessment, 267
strategies for increasing, 256–257,
265–267
positivity effect The attraction of all
living systems toward positive
energy and away from negative
energy, or toward that which is life
giving and away from that which is
life depleting, 255
POS (perceived organizational
support) The extent to which
employees believe their organiza-
tion values their contributions
and genuinely cares about their
well-being, 59
P-O (person–organization fit) The
extent to which your personality
and values match the climate and
culture in an organization, 550,
573, 615
power The discretion and the means
to enforce your will over
others, 467
in acquired needs theory, 166, 168
bases (forms) of, 467–470, 467,
473, 474
commitment versus compliance,
473, 473
empowerment, 475–479, 476
ethical and effective use of, 472–473
implications of, 500
influence tactics, 480–485, 485
Organizing Framework, 465
outcomes of, 472, 474, 474
political tactics, 486–492
position versus personal power,
470–471, 471
self-assessment, 470
practical intelligence The ability to
solve everyday problems by utiliz-
ing knowledge gained from experi-
ence in order to purposefully adapt
to, shape, and select environments,
84–85
praise, as political tactic, 488
prejudice, 145
preparation/information gathering
( creative behavior), 453
P-E (person–environment fit) The
compatibility between an individ-
ual and a work environment that
occurs when their characteristics
are well matched, 550
phubbing, 359
physical abilities, 142
physical attractiveness, in person
perception, 127
PM. See performance management
politics. See organizational politics
pooled task interdependence, 315
portable skills Relevant in every job,
at every level, and throughout your
career, 8
position-based negotiation, 408, 409
position power A source of influence
associated with a particular job or
position within an organization;
also a leader’s formal power to
reward, punish, or otherwise
obtain compliance from
employees, 470, 471, 524
positive deviance Successful
performance that dramatically
exceeds the norm in a positive
direction, 255–256, 256, 257
positive emotions. See positivity
positive organizational behavior
(positive OB) The focus on posi-
tive human characteristics that can
be measured, developed, effectively
managed for performance
improvement, 253
amplifying effect in, 254–255
benefits of, 255–259
buffering effect in, 255
challenges of, 259–260
for employee positivity, 257
flourishing in, 251, 283–287
framework for, 254, 254
implications of, 288–289
mindfulness and, 268–272
organizational climate, 279–282
Organizing Framework, 251
performance and, 252
positive emotions and,
261–267, 263
positive psychological capital in,
273–276
positivity effect in, 255
Problem-Solving Application, 260
Problem-Solving Application Case,
292–294
signature strengths in, 277–278, 277
positive psychological capital
(PsyCap) Considerable levels
of hope, efficacy, resilience, and
optimism (HERO), 273
developing, 273–276
self-assessment, 276
performance monitoring Measuring,
tracking, or otherwise verifying
progress and ultimate outcomes,
212–214, 212
performance norms, in team
charter, 298
performing, in group development, 307
PERMA (positive emotions, engagement,
relationships, meaning, and
achievement), 283
personal appeals, 480
personal competence, 105
personality conflict Interpersonal
opposition based on personal
dislike or disagreement, 387,
388, 657
personality testing, 93–95, 95
personality The combination of rela-
tively stable physical, behavioral,
and mental characteristics that
gives individuals their unique
identities, 87
Big Five Dimensions of, 88–89,
88, 93
Dark Triad, 92, 513
as diversity layer, 136
“ideal employee,” 95
introversion, 89, 90
leadership traits, 512–513, 512
liking and fit in, 87
performance and, 93
proactive, 89–92
self-assessment, 88
personal power A source of influ-
ence independent of position or
job, 166, 470, 471
person–environment fit (P-E) The
compatibility between an individ-
ual and a work environment that
occurs when their characteristics
are well matched, 550
person factors Infinite characteristics
that give individuals their unique
identities, 24. See also specific
factors
in creative performance
behaviors, 453
in employee engagement, 57
in negotiation, 414
in Organizing Framework, 27, 31, 32
in problem solving, 26
in transformational leadership, 531
person memory, 125
person–organization fit (P-O) The
extent to which your personality
and values match the climate and
culture in an organization, 550,
573, 615
person perception model, 125–129
person-situation distinction, 24–26
persuasion principles, 484
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-15GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
reciprocal exchange between him-
or herself and another party, 55
psychological empower-
ment Employees’ belief that they
have control over their work;
believed to drive intrinsic
motivation, 518
psychological empower-
ment Occurs when employees feel
a sense of meaning, competence,
self-determination, and impact at
work. Reflects employees’ belief
that they have control over their
work, 477
psychological safety climate A
shared belief among team members
that it is safe to engage in risky
behaviors, such as questioning
current practices without
retribution or negative
consequences, 389–390
psychological safety The extent to
which people feel free to express
their ideas and beliefs without fear
of negative consequences, 146
psychopathy A lack of guilt, remorse
or concern for others when their
own actions do others harm,
92, 513
public speaking, 364–366
puffery, in negotiation, 413
punctuated equilibrium Form of
group development in which
groups establish periods of stable
functioning until an event causes a
dramatic change in norms, roles,
and/or objectives; the group then
establishes and maintains new
norms of functioning, returning to
equilibrium, 308, 308
punishment The process of weaken-
ing behavior through either the
contingent presentation of some-
thing displeasing or the contingent
withdrawal of something positive,
238–239
purpose. See meaningfulness
Q
quality improvement, and
self-efficacy, 99
quid pro quo sexual harassment, 399
R
race
in person perception, 127–128
stereotypes, 130
workforce diversity trends, 141–142
racial discrimination, 130, 142, 159
organizational culture, 589–591
organizational effectiveness,
633–634
organizational politics, 503–504
performance management, 247–249
teams, 332–334
problem solving A systematic pro-
cess for closing gaps between an
actual and a desired situation, 21
OB applied to, 26
Organizing Framework, 29
person-situation distinction in, 24–26
practice scenario, 34–35
selecting solution, 29–30
self-assessment, 23
skills reinforcement tools, 23
as sought-after skill, 8
3-Step Approach, 21–22, 31
procedural justice The perceived fair-
ness of the process and procedures
used to make allocation decisions,
175, 177
process innovation A change in
the way a product or a service is
conceived, manufactured, or
distributed, 616
process theories of motiva-
tion Describe how various person
factors and situation factors in
the Organizing Framework affect
motivation, 173
equity/justice theory, 173–178,
174, 177
expectancy theory, 178–182, 179, 181
goal-setting theory, 182–184
procrastination, 110
product design, inclusive, 139
product innovation A change in the
appearance or functionality/perfor-
mance of a product or a service or
the creation of a new one, 616
productivity
social media and, 354–356
versus business, 200
worker fatigue and, 661
project teams, 313. See also teams
promotions
diversity and, 146
organizational cultural change and,
568, 569
requirements for, 9–10
skills and job level, 10
prosocial behaviors Positive acts per-
formed without the expectation of
anything in return, 255
PsyCap. See positive psychological
capital
psychological capital. See positive psy-
chological capital
psychological contracts An individ-
ual’s perception about the
presentations, 364–366
presenteeism Occurs when employ-
ees show up but are sick or in no
condition to work productively,
661
pressure (influence tactic), 480
pride, 263
primary appraisals Perceptions of
whether a stressor is irrelevant,
positive, or negative, 662
privacy, and social media, 360–362
proactive personality An attribute of
someone relatively unconstrained
by situational forces and who effects
environmental change. Proactive
people identify opportunities and
act on them, show initiative, take
action, and persevere until mean-
ingful change occurs, 89
in entrepreneurs, 91–92, 91
in managers, 90
self-assessment, 90
problem Difference or gap between
an actual and a desired state or
outcome, 21
problem formation/definition (creative
behavior), 452–453
Problem-Solving Application
age discrimination, 151–152
change, 665–666
cognitive bias, 434–435
conflict resolution, 406–407
description of, 23
emotional intelligence, 106
employee benefits, 171–172, 180
empowerment, 479
expectancy theory, 180, 182
innovation, 620
leadership, 525–526
organizational culture change,
572–573
organizational design, 609–610
positive organization behavior, 260
rewards, 232
sexual harassment, 52, 65–66
social media costs, 357–358
teams, 325–326
technology and performance, 33–34
Problem-Solving Application Cases
change management, 676–677
communication, 375–376
company values, 73–74
conflict, 419–421
controversial spokesperson, 117–118
decision making, 460–461
description of, 23
diversity management, 157–158
fraud, 39–40
leadership, 543–544
motivation, 195–196
organizational behavior, 292–294
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-16 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
sayings, and organizational culture
change, 568–569, 568
scanning (information acquisition), 602
scarcity, in persuasion, 484
scheduling, and worker fatigue, 661
schema A person’s mental picture or
summary of a particular event or
type of stimulus, 124
scientific management The kind of
management which conducts a
business or affairs by standards
established by facts or truths
gained through systematic
observation, experiment, or
reasoning, 186, 186
secondary appraisals Perceptions
of how able you are to cope with a
given demand, 662
Self-Assessments
acquired needs, 166
attitude toward older employees, 144
balanced scorecard, 627
bullying, 399
change, 639, 651, 655
communication, 344
conflict management, 402
conflict tendencies, 381
core self-evaluations, 103
creativity, 454
decision making, 444, 450
description of, 23
diversity climate, 147
diversity profile, 152
emotional intelligence, 105
employee engagement, 58
ethics, 20
group and team roles, 302
Idiosyncratic deals, 191
impression management, 495
influence tactics, 482
innovation, 621
interpersonal treatment, 176
intuition, 432
job crafting, 191
job satisfaction, 60
leadership, 511, 518, 521, 532, 536
learning organization, 603
listening style, 347
mentoring, 584
mindfulness, 271
motivation to manage, 6
organizational culture, 563, 573
organizational socialization, 577
performance feedback, 221
personality profile, 88, 90
political tendencies, 486
positive psychological capital, 276
positivity, 267
power, 470
problem-solving potential, 23
psychological safety climate, 390
resistance to change Any thought,
emotion, or behavior that does not
align with actual or potential
changes to existing routines, 655
causes of, 656–657
dynamic model of, 655–656, 656
overcoming, 666–668
self-assessment, 655
respondent behavior Automatic
reactions to stimuli, or stimulus-
response (S-R), 236
response–stimulus (R–S) model. See
respondent behavior
restorative justice A shared belief in
the importance of resolving
conflict multilaterally through the
inclusion of victims, offenders,
and all other stakeholders, 280
resumes, lies on, 18–19
reverse discrimination, 147
reward power Obtaining compliance
by promising or granting rewards
valued by the other party, 468, 474
rewards
creativity and, 455
desired outcomes, 228–229
distribution criteria, 228
diversity management and, 147
effectiveness of, 231–232
organizational culture change
and, 568, 569–570
pay for performance, 233–235,
233, 234
Problem-Solving Application, 232
reinforcement schedules and,
241–242
self-assessment, 227
teamwork and, 229, 324, 325
total rewards, 230, 230
types of, 226–227
rites and rituals The planned and
unplanned activities and ceremo-
nies used to celebrate important
events or achievements, 568, 571
role A set of expected behaviors for a
particular position, 301–302, 302
role modeling
as mentoring function, 581
organizational culture change,
568, 569
S
salary
interview question, 249
negotiations for, 380, 412–413
salient stimuli, 124
satisficing Consists of choosing a
solution that meets some minimum
qualifications and thus is “good
enough,” 430
radically innovative change
Introduces a practice new to the
industry, 646, 647
ranting, for stress relief, 670
rational model of decision
making Explains how managers
should make decisions,
426–428, 426
rational persuasion, 480
readiness for change The strength
of our beliefs and attitudes about
the extent to which changes are
needed and our capacity to suc-
cessfully implement them, 651
realistic job preview (RJP) Give
recruits a realistic idea of what lies
ahead by presenting both positive
and negative aspects of the job,
575–576
rebels, followers as, 537
receiver, in communication, 340, 340
recency effect, 215
recipient characteristics, 656–657
reciprocal task interdependence, 315
reciprocity, 484, 494
referent power Use of personal charac-
teristics and social relationships to
effectively gain others’ compliance,
468–470
refreezing stage of change, 647, 648
regulatory agencies, as force for change,
642–643
reinforcement
negative, 237, 238, 238
positive, 237, 237, 239
schedules (timing) of, 239–242,
240, 242
rejection
of job candidates, 284–285
as negative emotion, 112
relatedness, as innate need, 168, 169
relationship-oriented leadership
in behavioral models, 518–521
in contingency models, 524–525
relationships
in diversity management, 149
emotional intelligence and, 105
feedback and, 218
social support in, 285–286
in virtual teams, 315
relocation, 638
representativeness bias Leads us to
look for information that supports
previously formed stereotypes, 435
reputation
negotiation and, 410
social media and, 362
resilience The capacity to consistently
bounce back from adversity and to
sustain yourself when confronted
with challenges, 273, 274, 275, 276
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-17GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
social media The use of web-based
and mobile technologies to
generate interactive dialogue with
members of a network, 353
blocking access to, 359
as communication platform, 352
costs of, 356–357
effective use of, 353–354, 355
email management, 358, 358
employer benefits, 356
etiquette, 362–363
hiring process and, 122, 354, 354
leader’s attitudes toward, 360
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 377
policy for, 360, 361–362, 361
privacy issues, 360–362
Problem-Solving Application,
357–358
productivity and, 354–356
referent power of influencers,
469–470
reputation and, 362
self-assessment, 360
use by age, 353
social perception. See perception
social proof, 484
social responsibility, 259
social role theory, 350, 351
social support The amount of
perceived helpfulness we derive
from social relationships, 286
social system stability, 556–557
soft skills Relate to our human
interactions and include both
interpersonal skills and personal
attributes, 7–8, 8, 10
spans of control The number of
people reporting directly to a given
manager, 599
spatial intelligence, 84
spokesperson, controversial, 117–118
spot rewards, 241–242
staff employees Perform background
research and provide technical
advice and recommendations to
their line managers, 599
staffing, and worker fatigue, 661
stage presence, for presentations, 365
STATE technique, 367–368
stereotypes An individual’s set of
beliefs about the characteristics or
attributes of a group, 130
as diversity management barrier, 145
formation and maintenance,
130–131
managerial challenges, 131
Organizing Framework, 121
types of, 130
storming, in group development, 306
storytelling, in organizational culture
change, 568, 570
sense of fulfillment and meaning,
277–278, 277
Simon’s normative model, 428–430
situational control, 523–524
situation factors All the elements
outside us that influence what
we do, the way we do it, and the
ultimate results of our actions, 24
in communication, 343
in contingency perspective, 5
in creative performance behaviors,
453–454
in employee engagement, 57
in negotiation, 414
in Organizing Framework, 27, 32
in person perception, 126, 127
in person-situation distinction,
24–26
in problem solving, 26
Problem-Solving Application, 33–34
six thinking hats strategy, 424
skills
desired by employers, 8
hard vs. soft, 7–8
job level correlation, 10
lacking in college graduates, 144
for leaders, 514
skill variety, in job characteristics
model, 188
Skype interviews, 363
slippery slope, 18
slogans, and organizational culture
change, 568–569, 568
SMART goals An acronym for
specific, measurable, attainable,
results oriented, and time bound,
208, 209
SMTs (self-managed teams) Teams
with collective autonomy and
responsibility to plan, manage, and
execute tasks interdependently to
achieve their goals, 313–314
social capital The productive poten-
tial resulting from relationships,
goodwill, trust, and cooperative
effort, 582–583
social competence, 105
social context, in person
perception, 127
social interactions, 265
socialization. See organizational
socialization
social loafing The tendency for indi-
vidual effort to decline as group
size increases, 312–313, 312
social media policy Describes the
who, how, when, and for what pur-
poses of social media use, and the
consequences for noncompliance,
360, 361–362, 361
cyber-bullying, 397–398
resistance to change, 655
rewards, 227
school–non-school conflict, 392
signature strengths, 278
social media, 360
team maturity, 309
team member effectiveness, 311
telecommuting, 608
trust, 319
values, 47
self-awareness, 5, 6, 105
self-determination theory Assumes
that three innate needs influence
our behavior and well-being—the
needs for competence, autonomy,
and relatedness, 168–169
self-efficacy A person’s belief about
his or her chances of successfully
accomplishing a specific task, 97
application at work, 99
developing, 276
managerial implications, 99
model of, 97–98, 97
in psychological capital, 273, 274
self-enhancement, 44, 44, 46
self-esteem General belief about your
self-worth, 99–100
self-managed teams (SMTs) Teams
with collective autonomy and
responsibility to plan, manage, and
execute tasks interdependently to
achieve their goals, 313–314
self-management, 99, 105
self-promotion, 488
self-serving bias Tendency to take
more personal responsibility for
success than for failure, 134
self-transcendence, 44, 44, 46
semantic memory, 125
sender, in communication, 340, 340
sequential task interdependence, 315
serenity, 263
servant-leadership Focuses on
increased service to others rather
than to oneself, 519–521, 520
sexual harassment
pervasiveness and costs of, 398–399
Problem-Solving Application, 52,
65–66
Problem-Solving Application Case,
503–504
types of, 399
sexual orientation, 142, 150
shareholders
balanced scorecard and, 625–626
decision making and, 446
as force for change, 642–643
sick-leave pay, 171–172
signature strengths Positive human
traits that influence thoughts, feel-
ings, and behaviors and provide a
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-18 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
who work together for the time
required for task completion or to
fulfill their responsibilities, 309
collaboration in, 324–327
effective and high-performing,
321–324
empowerment of, 477–479, 478
implications of, 328–329
interdependence of, 315–316, 316
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 334–335
military, 297
Organizing Framework, 297
Problem-Solving Application,
325–326
Problem-Solving Application Case,
333–334
rewards and, 229, 324, 325
self-assessments, 302, 309, 311
social loafing in, 312–313, 312
team players, 311–312
teamwork competencies, 309–310,
311
three Cs of, 321–324
types of, 313–314
versus groups, 299–300, 299
technology. See also social media
conflict and, 391–399
cyber-bullying, 397–398
electronic performance monitoring,
213–214
as force for change, 641–642
organizational structure and, 614
Problem-Solving Application, 33–34
virtual interviews, 129, 363
virtual teams, 314, 315
telecommuting Allows employees to
do all or some of their work from
home, using advanced telecommu-
nications technology and Internet
tools to send work electronically
from home to the office, and vice
versa, 62–63, 393, 393, 608
temperance A shared belief in
showing restraint and control
when faced with temptation and
provocation, 281
Theory of Planned Behaviour, 51–53, 51
Theory X A pessimistic view of
employees: They dislike work,
must be monitored, and can be
motivated only with rewards
and punishment (“carrots and
sticks”), 164
Theory Y A modern and positive set
of assumptions about people at
work: They are self-engaged,
committed, responsible, and
creative, 164
Thinking, Fast and Slow
(Kahneman), 425
T
tacit knowledge Information we gain
through experience that is difficult
to express and formalize, 431
target
in person perception, 125,
126–127, 126
in systems model of change, 652
task dependency, 299, 299
task identity, in job characteristics
model, 188
task interdependence The degree to
which team members depend on
each other for information,
materials, and other resources to
complete their job tasks, 315
Taskmaster bosses, 81
task-oriented leadership
in behavioral models, 516–517
in contingency models, 524–525
in trait theories, 512–513, 512
task roles Enable the work group
to define, clarify, and pursue a
common purpose, 301, 302
task significance, in job characteristics
model, 189
task structure The amount of
structure contained within tasks
performed by the work group,
524, 527
tattoos, and impression management,
496–497
team adaptive capacity (adaptabil-
ity) The ability to make needed
changes in response to demands
put on the team, 323–324
team charter A document detailing
members’ mutual expectations
about how the team will operate,
allocate resources, resolve conflict,
and meet its commitments,
298, 321
team composition The collection of
jobs, personalities, knowledge, skills,
abilities, and experience levels of
team members, 322–323
team identity, 298
team performance strategies Delib-
erate plans that outline what
exactly the team is to do, such as
goal setting and defining particular
member roles, tasks, and responsi-
bilities, 321–322
teams Collections of individuals
whose tasks and responsibilities
depend on the other members, are
collectively accountable for the
performance and outcomes
associated with their work, and
strategic plan Outlines the organiza-
tion’s long-term goals and the
actions necessary to achieve
them, 567
organizational design and, 613
in systems model of change, 651
strategic skills, in leaders, 514
strategy map A visual representation
of a company’s critical objectives
and the crucial relationships among
them that drive organizational
performance, 627–628, 628
stress
generational differences in, 658
good versus bad, 658–659
job satisfaction and, 65
job stress, 658, 659–662, 660
outcomes of, 662
sources of, 659
trust and, 318
stress management
coping strategies, 662, 663,
669–670
as emotion management, 112
implications of, 672–673
Organizing Framework, 637
stressors Environmental characteris-
tics that cause stress, 57, 659
structural empowerment Transfers
authority and responsibilities from
management to employees, 475
subcultures, of organizational
cultures, 565
subjective norm, 51, 53
success
in new job, 579
in resistance to change, 657
self-efficacy in, 97
Superman bosses, 81
suppression, in diversity
management, 149
surface-level characteristics Those
that are quickly apparent to inter-
actants, such as race, gender, and
age, 136
surprise, and resistance to change, 656
sustainability A company’s ability to
make a profit without sacrificing
the resources of its people, the
community, and the planet,
554–555
SWOT analysis, 651
symptom management Coping
strategies that focus on reducing
the symptoms of stress, including
relaxation, meditation, medication,
and exercise, 662
systems model of change
application of, 665–666
description of, 648–652, 648
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-19GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
glossary/subject index
Schwartz’s theory, 44–47, 44, 46
self-assessment, 47
versus attitudes, 48, 49
variable pay, 233–235, 233, 234
variable rewards, 242
verbal recognition, 171
vertical dyad, 534
vertical loading, 188
virtual interviews, 129, 363
virtual reality (VR), 641
virtual structure One whose members
are geographically apart, usually
working with e-mail and other
forms of information technology,
but that generally appears to cus-
tomers as a single, unified organi-
zation with a real physical location,
610–611, 612
virtual teams Teams that work across
time, space, and organizational
boundaries to achieve common
goals, 314, 314, 315, 483
virtual work, 594, 608
virtuousness What individuals and
organizations aspire to be when
they are at their very best, 282
vision A long-term goal that describes
what an organization wants to
become, 567, 649
in leadership, 511, 530
in organizational change, 567,
649–651
in team charter, 298
voice climate Climate in which
employees are encouraged to
freely express their opinions and
feelings, 178
voice The discretionary or formal
expression of ideas, opinions, sug-
gestions, or alternative approaches
directed to a specific target inside
or outside of the organization with
the intent to change an objection-
able state of affairs and to improve
the current functioning of the
organization, 177
VR (virtual reality), 641
W
walking meditation, 272, 272
waypower The ability to see one
or more paths to achieve a
goal, even when faced with
adversity, 274
well-being The combined impact of
five elements—positive emotions,
engagement, relationships,
meaning, and achievement
(PERMA), 283
intentions and behaviors will
affect you, 317
benefits of, 317–318, 317
in giving negative feedback, 223
in group cohesiveness, 307
in high-quality connections, 265
repairing, 320, 320, 498–499
self-assessment, 319
types of, 318
U
unconscious thought, 425–426
underemployment Working at jobs
that require less education than
attained, 144
underperformance, coping with, 663
unethical behavior
causes of, 17, 18
cheating, 11–12, 17–18
confronting, 20
by job applicants, 18–19
in negotiations, 413–414, 413
versus illegal, 13–14
unfreezing stage of change, 647, 647
unions, 382, 642–643
unity of command principle
Specifies that each employee
should report to only one
manager, 597
upward spirals of positivity Positive
behaviors, feelings, and attitudes
that generate the same in others in
a continually reinforcing process,
262, 264
V
valence Describes the positive or
negative value people place on
outcomes, 180
value attainment Satisfaction that
results from the perception that a
job allows for fulfillment of an
individual’s important values, 62
value orientation, 442
values Abstract ideals that guide our
thinking and behavior across all
situations, 44
dynamics of, 47
generational differences in, 47
implications of, 70
Legal/Ethical Challenge, 504–505
in organizational climate, 280–281
in organizational commitment, 55
in organizational culture, 553–554,
562–563
Organizing Framework, 42
Problem-Solving Application Case,
73–74
thought processes
critical thinking, 8, 424
intuitive versus analytical, 425–426
360-degree feedback Individuals
compare perceptions of their own
performance with behaviorally
specific (and usually anonymous)
performance information from
their manager, subordinates, and
peers, 215–216
3-Step Problem Solving Approach,
21–22, 31
time duration, of groups versus teams,
299, 299
tiredness Typically physical and short-
term and is resolved by rest and
sleep, 660
tolerance
for ambiguity, 442
in diversity management, 149
top-down job design, 185, 185, 186–189
total rewards Rewards encompassing
not only compensation and ben-
efits, but also personal and profes-
sional growth opportunities and a
motivating work environment that
includes recognition, job design,
and work–life balance, 230, 230
touch, in communication, 345
traditionalist generation, 143, 152
training and development
core self-evaluation use, 103
organizational culture change and,
568, 569
self-efficacy and, 99
trait approach Attempts to identify
personality characteristics or inter-
personal attributes that differenti-
ate leaders from followers, 512
transactional leadership Focuses
on clarifying employees’ role and
task requirements and providing
followers with positive and
negative rewards contingent on
performance, 516
transformational leadership Lead-
ers who transform their followers
to pursue organizational goals over
self-interests, 530–533, 531
transgender Applies to anyone
whose gender identity or gender
expression is different from sex
at birth, 150
transparency
in communication, 341–342
in performance monitoring, 214
trust The willingness to be vulnerable
to another person, and the belief
that the other person will consider
the impact of how his or her
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-20 GLOSSARY/SUBJECT INDEX
gl
os
sa
ry
/s
ub
je
ct
in
de
x
employee engagement, 43, 56–59
employee surveys of, 54
job satisfaction (See job satisfaction)
organizational commitment,
54–56
perceived organization support, 59
workspace
change over time, 593
open office design, 623–624, 624
organizational culture change and,
567, 568
work teams, 313. See also teams
glass ceiling, 140–141
leadership traits, 514
work flow, and organizational culture
change, 568, 571–572
work–life conflict The perception
that expectations and demands
between work and nonwork roles
are mutually incompatible,
391–394
workplace attitudes An outcome of
various OB-related processes,
including leadership, 48
whistle-blowers, 16–17, 41
willpower The determination
to achieve a goal, 274
withdrawal cognitions An individual’s
overall thoughts and feelings about
quitting, 65
women
on boards of directors, 138
career-family balance, 147
career navigation help, 150
communication patterns, 350–351
family leave for, 394
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-21
nam
e index
A
Acho, Sam, 86
Ackoff, Russell, 29–30
Acton, Brian, 419
Adams, J. Stacey, 174, 174
Ajzen, I., 51–53, 51
Alexandra, Martins, 108
Allen, Herb, III, 274
Allen, R. W., 488
Almonte, Linda, 17
Alsop, R., 143
Amortegui, Jessica, 190
Anand, N., 605, 612
Anchor, Shawn, 252
Andreesen, Marc, 228
Angelou, Maya, 366
Ariely, Dan, 428
Aristotle, 447, 447
Armstrong, Lance, 11
Ashforth, B. E., 578
Augustine, Amy, 554
B
Babcock, Linda, 408
Bagley, Constance, 445
Bandura, A., 97
Barra, Mary, 570
Barrick, Murray R., 88
Baselga, Jose, 13–14
Bass, Bernard, 530
Bates, S., 95
Bazerman, Max, 17, 18
Bell, C. H., Jr., 653
Bell, Madeline, 444
Beltran, Ivan, 58–59
Benioff, Marc, 178, 281–282,
518–519
Bentley, T., 397
Bergh, Chip, 59
Bernanke, Ben, 14
Bertolini, Mark, 270
Bezos, Jeff, 21, 443
Bi, Wenfen, 177
Biles, Simone, 182, 183
Blades, Wendy, 522
Blatter, Sepp, 13
Block, Keith, 519
Bloomberg, Michael, 151
Bodgas, Meredith, 394
Bodish, Zachary, 430
Boire, Ronald, 525–526, 633
Bolander, W., 480
Bono, 521
Bossidy, Larry, 6, 625
Boyatzis, Richard E., 105
Bradford, Laurence, 581
Branson, Riochard, 551
Braun, Clare, 589
Brin, Sergey, 566
Brody, Nina, 515
Brooks, Alison Wood, 347
Brown, K. A., 133
Brown, Larry, 335
Bruschi, Tedy, 568
Bullard, L. G., 311
Burns, Tom, 614
Buss, Dale, 543
C
Cabraser, Elizabeth, 85, 85
Cameron, K., 255–256, 559
Campbell, Kevin, 406, 409
Campion, M. A., 514
Carli, Linda, 141
Carroll, Susan T., 570
Carter, Rebekah, 361
Castillo-Frick, Iliana, 393
Cately, B., 397
Ceulemans, Terry, 303
Challenger, John, 357
Charan, Ram, 6
Chen, Mengyan, 177
Chen, Steve, 570
Cheng, Andria, 633
Christensen, Clayton, 5
Chua, Celestine, 358
Cialdini, Robert, 484, 484
Clark, Susie, 249
Clark, Wesley, 472, 473
Cohen-Charash, Y., 177
Cohen, Steven, 14
Colquitt, J. A., 177
Conlon, D. E., 177
Cook, Tim, 431
Coomes, Steve, 117
Cornell, Andrew, 111–112
Cosier, Richard A., 401
Cote, Joseph A., 480
Cox, Chris, 419
Curry, Steph, 102
Cushing, Heather, 519–520
D
Daft, Richard L., 342, 604–605,
605, 612
Dalgaard, Lars, 320
Danehy, Jake, 555
Dao, David, 375–376
Dara Khosrowshahi, 98
Darwin, Charles, 429
Davenport, Christopher, 543
Davey, Liane, 322
De Bono, Edward, 424
Deci, Edward, 168
Degraff, J., 559
Devine, Tom, 16
Diess, Herbert, 306, 306
Dimon, Jaime, 151
Donald, C. G., 383
Drucker, Peter, 551
Dudley, Bob, 237
Duke, Mike, 217–218
Duncum, Karen, 386
Durant, Kevin, 102
E
Eagly, Alice, 141
Easterbrook, Steve, 561
Ebbers, Bernie, 13
Edelman, Richard, 318
Edwards, Trevor, 503
Eichinger, R., 10
Einstein, Albert, 22
Eisenberg, Julia, 315
Enderwick, Barry, 543
Engelbert, Cathy, 394
Esteri, Mike, 628
Extremera, N., 108
Ezzedeen, Souha R., 392
F
Fassina, N. E., 177
Faury, Guillaume, 645
Felder, R. M., 311
Feldman, Daniel, 574–577, 575
Fernández-Berrocal, P., 108
Fertitta, Tillman, 107
Festinger, Leon, 51
Fiedler, Fred, 523–525, 524
Finelli, C. J., 311
Fishbach, A., 208
Fishbein, M., 51–53, 51
Fitzpatrick, Ryan, 86
Fogleman, Joyce, 522
Ford, M. T., 177
Foy, Claire, 481
Frankiewicz, Becky, 3
Frankl, Viktor, 286
Frazier, Kennety, 178
Fredrickson, Barbara, 261–262,
263, 267, 283
French, W. L., 653
Frieden, Tom, 293
Frier, Jon, 59
Frizell, Sam, 628
Fugate, Mel, 242
G
Gardenswartz, Lee, 136, 136
Gardner, D., 397
Gardner, Howard, 83, 84
Gary, Loren, 21
Gasparro, Annie, 628
Gates, Bill, 89, 603
Geim, Andre, 303
Gerwig, Kathy, 275
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-22 NAME INDEX
na
m
e
in
de
x
Locke, Edwin, 183–184
Locken, M., 136
Lofquist, L. H., 60
Lombardo, M., 10
Loughry, M. L., 311
Lowings, Tony, 471
Luthans, Fred, 274
Lynch, William, 526, 633
M
Mackey, John, 566, 600
Macklemore, 510
Madden, Jack, 590
Madison, D. L., 488
Madoff, Bernie, 13
Madonna, 510
Malinkosk, Adam, 270
Marchionne, Sergio, 644
Marks, Raylene, 545
Maron, Todd, 543
Maslow, Abraham, 164–165
Mason, Andrew, 644–645, 645
Mason, R. O., 440
Mathieu, J. E., 478
Maulik, Pete, 122
Mayes, B. T., 488
Mayfield, Baker, 86
Maynard, M. T., 478
Mazur, Laura, 255, 255
McClelland, David, 165–168
McGirt, Ellen, 521
McGregor, Douglas, 164
McInally, Pat, 86
McKee, Annie, 105
McKelvey, Miguel, 504–505
McNulty, Keith, 94
Meister, J. C., 143
Merchant, Christina, 409
Meyer, M., 256
Michaels, Paul S., 28
Milken, Michael, 13
Miller, C. C., 431
Mitchell, Cameron, 167, 167
Molinaro, Vince, 621
Moonves, Les, 467–468
Morgenson, F. P., 514
Morin, Estelle, 108
Morris, Donna, 224
Morrison, Ann, 138
Moss, Jeffrey, 319
Mosseri, adam, 419
Mount, Michael K., 88
Muhammad, R. S., 552
Muilenburg, Dennis, 332–333
Mullenweg, Matt, 129
Mumford, T. V., 514
Munoz, Oscar, 375–376
Murray, Alan, 551
Musk, Elon, 543–544
Jing Jin, 108
John, Leslie K., 347
Johnson, Kevin, 571
Johnson, Lori, 220
Jonas, Adam, 589
Jones, D. A., 177
Jones, Karen Sparck, 87
Jones, Paul Tudor III, 259
Jordan, Jason, 234–235
Joseph, Dana L., 108
K
Kahneman, D., 425, 431
Kalanick, Travis, 106
Kaplan, Robert, 625, 627
Kast, F. E., 601
Kelley, David, 621
Kelley, Harold, 132
Kelly, Gary, 162, 555
Kempczinski, Chris, 604
Kendricks, Sam, 266, 266
Kets de Vries, Manfred.
F. R., 455
Khan, Sal, 91, 91
Khanna, Ro, 172
Khosrowshahi, Dara, 101
King, Bert T., 524
Kingsbury, Kliff, 352
Kinicki, A., 184, 202, 552, 564
Klein, G., 431
Knight, Philip, 619–620
Kotick, Bobby, 562–563
Kotter, John, 652, 653
Koum, Jan, 419
Kouzes, Jim, 515
Kreiz, Ynon, 469
Krieger, Mike, 419
Krishnan, Aparna, 315
Kroc, Roy, 430
Krzanich, Brian, 644
L
Lalicker, Greg, 231
Lambert, Mary, 510
Lamm, Julia, 183
Landry, Michael, 13
Landry, Tracey, 13
Larkin, C., 396
Latham, Gary, 183–184
Lay, Kenneth, 13, 19
Layton, R. A., 311
Lee, Christopher, 217
Legere, John, 551
Lehrer, J., 451
Leissner, Tim, 490
Lengei, Robert H., 342
Levy, David, 666
Lewin, Kurt, 647–648
Lewis, Ryan, 510
Gibb, J. R., 349
Gilson, L. L., 478
Ginsburg, Ruth Bader, 89, 89, 151
Goldie, Dan, 91
Goleman, Daniel, 105, 107
Gomez, Selena, 470
Gore, Bill, 607–608
Gorsky, Alex, 140
Gottfredson, R. K., 325
Graf, Nikki, 143
Greenblatt, Robert, 666
Greenleaf, Robert, 519
Grenny, Joseph, 367
Grossman, Mindy, 125
Grote, Christoph, 617
Guido, John, 151
Gurchiek, K., 19
Gwin, Bonnie, 138
H
Hackett, James, 589
Hackman, J. Richard, 188–189, 188
Hao, Zhichao, 177
Harrington, William, 197
Hartnell, C. A., 564
Hastings, Justin, 569
Hastings, Reed, 224, 444, 530,
531, 532
Haubegger, Christy, 492
Haven, Sam, 471
Healy, Maura, 293
Heffernan, Margaret, 385
Heider, Fritz, 132
Helgemo, Geir, 11
Hinkin, T. R., 470
Hochstein, B., 480
Hoffman, Reid, 582–583
Holder, Eric, 14
Holmes, Elizabeth, 13, 39–40
Holmes, Kat, 139
Honda, Soichiro, 620
Hori, Roxanne, 10
Horowitz, Ben, 274
House, Robert, 526–529, 528
Hurley, Chad, 570
Huseby, Michael, 526
I
Igielnik, Ruth, 143
Imafidon, Anne-Marie, 83, 83
Ireland, R. D., 431
J
Jacobson, K. J. L., 202
James, G., 112
Janis, Irving L., 449
Jenner, Kylie, 470
Jewell, Sally, 649
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-23NAME INDEX
nam
e index
Shellenbarger, S., 369, 451
Shkreli, Martin, 16
Simon, Herbert, 427, 428–430
Singer, William, 12, 13
Singleton, R., 396
Skilling, Jeff, 13, 19
Skinner, B. F., 236–237, 237
Sloan, Tim, 248
Smircich, L., 556
Sonnenfeld, Jeffrey, 544
Sorrell, Martin, 644
Spacey, Kevin, 65
Spears, L. C., 520
Spector, P. E., 177
Spreitzer, Gretchen,
255–256, 257
Stalker, G. M., 614
Stankey, John, 666
Stapleton, Claire, 487
Sternberg, Robert J., 84–85
Stevens, Kory, 162–163
Stevens, Mallory, 162–163
Streufert, S., 524
Strong, Charlie, 673
Stumpf, John, 247
Su, Lisa, 620
Swiercz, Paul M., 392
Swinney, Dabo, 516–517
Systom, Kevin, 419
T
Tadin, Jen, 234
Takata, Shigehisa, 13, 499
Tanaka, Hisai, 499
Tanaka, Hisao, 13
Taneja, C., 396
Tannen, Deborah, 350
Taylor, Frederick, 186
Taylor, Johnny C., 398
Tenbrunsel, Ann, 17, 18
Tetrick, L. E., 177
Thakor, A. V., 559
Thibodeaux, Wanda, 449
Thomas, Helena Cooper, 397
Thomas, R. Roosevelt, Jr., 148
Thomson, Jimmy, 361
Thorndike, Edward L., 236
Tindell, Kip, 258
Tippett, Elizabeth, 247
Tolstedt, Carrie, 247
Toombs, L. A., 396
Toor, Patty Jo, 213
Trenberth, L., 397
Tuckman, Bruce, 305–307
Tushman, M. L., 648
U
Uggerslev, K. L., 177
Q
Queen Latifah, 510
Quinn, R. E., 559
R
Rahim, M. A., 402, 403
Ralston, J. D., 383
Ramalho, Nelson, 108
Rankin, Dennis, 151
Reid, Grant, 29
Reina, Dennis, 320, 320
Reina, Michelle, 320, 320
Renwick, P. A., 488
Reynolds, Justin, 369
Riensche, Ben, 437–438
Riggio, Leonard, 525–526,
633–634
Rimes, Shonda, 491
Risley, Amy, 341–342
Robbins, J. M., 177
Robertson, Jessica, 255, 255
Robinson, Adam, 537
Rometty, Ginni, 443
Ronaldo, Cristiano, 470
Rosener, J. B., 136
Rosenthal, M., 369
Rosenzweig, J. E., 601
Rousmaniere, Dana, 369
Rowe, A. J., 443
Rowe, Anita, 136, 136
Ruppert, Michelle, 75
Ryan, Joe, 258
Ryan, Richard, 168
S
Sackler, Richard, 293
Sadler-Smith, E., 431
Saitta, Frank, 476
Salzmann, Ben, 559
Sánchez-Álvarez, N., 108
Sanders, Bernie, 172
Sandusky, Jerry, 334–335
Scanlon, Jessica, 188
Schein, Edgar H., 301, 565, 566
Schmucker, D. G., 311
Schnatter, John, 117–118
Schrage, M., 211
Schriesheim, C. A., 470
Schroeder, J., 208
Schwartz, S. H., 44–47, 46
Schwenk, Charles R., 401
Scivicque, Chrissy, 10
Seligman, Martin, 283
Senge, Peter, 601
Sepinwall, Amy, 462
Sepúlveda, Andrés, 442
Shaw, George Bernard, 339
Shefy, E., 431
Muti, Richard, 180
Mycoskle, Blake, 559, 650–651
N
Nadella, Satya, 619
Nadler, D. A., 648
Namie, Gary, 396
Nanus, Burt, 530
Nassar, Larry, 334–335
Nayar, Vineet, 216
Nevarez, Michelle, 107
Newman, Daniel A., 108
Newsom, Gavin, 434–435
Ng, K. Y., 177
Norton, David, 625, 627
Novoselov, Konstantin, 303
O
Obama, Michelle, 350
Ohland, M. W., 311
Oldham, Greg, 188–189, 188
Ostro, Maurice, 349
Ostroff, C., 552
Ou, A. Y., 564
Ozmen, Eren, 98
O’Driscoll, M., 397
O’Leary, R. S., 406, 409
P
Page, Larry, 89, 566
Palihapitiya, Chamath, 420
Palmer, Darren, 589
Pan, Xiaofu, 177
Parakilas, Sandy, 420
Parker, Kim, 143
Parker, Mark, 503
Parneros, Demos, 525–526, 633–634
Parsons, Bob, 625
Patak, Kim, 58
Pauling, Linus, 453
Pearce, Bernadine, 75
Perrone, Marc, 172
Peterson, S. J., 202
Phillips, Shashauna, 172
Pitino, Rick, 335
Plepler, Richard, 666
Plouffe, C. R., 480
Pomeranz, H. R., 311
Porath, C., 257
Porter, C. O. L. H., 177
Porter, Jane, 581
Porter, L. W., 488
Porteus, Ann, 302
Posner, Barry, 515
Price, Dan, 569–570
Prussia, G. E., 202
Pryor, M. G., 396
Pscheid, Julian, 550
Pulakos, Elaine, 201
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-24 NAME INDEX
na
m
e
in
de
x
Woehr, D. J., 311
Wojcicki, Anne, 169
Wood, Lowell, 453, 453
Word, April, 571
Y
Yammarino, F. J., 531
York, Travis, 187
Z
Zappacosta, Marco, 571
Zucker, Jeff, 666
Zuckerberg, Mark, 21, 89, 419–420
Webb, Suzanne F., 383
Weber, Jim, 667–668
Weber, Max, 530
Weiss, D. J., 60
Welch, Jack, 606
Welch, Paula, 425
Wesson, M. J., 177
Wilkins, Christian, 86
Williams, Lori, 609
Williams, Teoka, 159
Willyerd, K., 143
Winterkorn, Martin, 183
Witherspoon, Reese, 491
V
Valencia, Pamela, 403
Van Petten, V., 495
Vitale, Nancy, 269
Vitale, Susan, 7
Vroom, Victor, 179–182
W
Waldman, D. A., 531
Walker, Brian, 609
Walton, Sam, 73
Watson, Shiona, 317
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-25
A
Abbott, 187
Activision Blizzard, 562–563
Acuity, 559
Adobe Systems, 189, 224, 421
Aetna, 269
Afni, Inc., 519–520
Agilent Technologies, 151
Airbnb, 47, 387–388, 469
Airbus SE, 460–461, 645
Alcoa, 617
Allegiant Airlines, 238
Alzheimer’s Association, 567
Amazon
customer perspective and, 626
employee motivation, 168, 172, 195–196
external change forces, 643
influence tactics, 482
Whole Foods acquisition, 260
AMD, 620
American Airlines, 643
American Express, 146, 394
Apollo Education Group, 446
Apple, 157, 431
Arthrex, 150
Atlassian, 230
AT&T, 147, 665–666
Automattic, Inc., 129
B
BAE, 151
Bank of America (BoA), 394
Baptist Health South Florida, 230
Barnes & Noble, 525–526, 633–634
Bayer Company, 292
Beaumont Hospital, 159
Best Buy, 451
Big 5 Corporation, 148
Big Brothers Big Sisters, 580
Boeing, 332–333, 610, 610
Bridgewater Associates LP, 339
Brooks Sports, 667–668
C
CalSTRS, 642
Carnival Cruise Lines, 438
Caterpillar, 567
CBS, 467–468
Ceres, 554
Chicago Symphony Orchestra, 180
Chipotle, 641
Cisco Systems, 56, 146
The Citadel, 591
Claire’s, 545
Coca Cola Company, 150, 361–362
Columbia University, 227
Comcast, 576
Cornell Iron Works, 111–112
Corning, 618
Costco Wholesale Corp., 476
Cotopaxi, 626–627
CSAA Insurance Group, 258
D
Deloitte, 205, 300, 394
Domino’s Pizza, 354–355
Drexel Burnham Lambert, 13
Drexel University, 430
Dropbox, 189
Dr Pepper Snapple Group, 627–628, 628
E
Edelman, 187
Emerson, 187
Enron, 13, 19
Entrepreneurial Giving, 349
Experian, 569
EY, 394
F
Facebook
conflict within, 419–420
culture of, 553
employee diversity, 157–158
employee productivity, 354
employee surveys, 54
ethics scrutiny, 21
Fahrenheit 212, 122
Fair Food Program (FFP), 406–407
Fair Harbor Clothing, 555
Felicis Ventures, 225, 225
FIFA, 13
Florida Hospital Celebration Health, 213
Forbes Coaches Couneil, 307
Ford Motor Company, 270, 589–591
Four Seasons, 626
Freese and Nichols, 58
Frito-Lay, 356
G
Gallagher, 234
Gallup, 278
The Gap, 616, 626
Genentech, 230, 269, 270
General Electric (GE), 270, 451, 505
General Motors, 429, 570
Gigster, 609
Ginger.io, 440
Girl Scouts, 234, 235
Goldman Sachs Group, 144, 150,
489–490
Google
conflict resolution, 421
culture of, 265, 390, 454
decision making in, 451
employee diversity, 157–158
employee protests, 487
external change forces, 643
founders, 566
norms of, 303
Gravity Payments, 569–570
Graycor Industrial Constructors,
626, 627
Groupon, 644–645, 645
Grupo Bimbo, 560, 561
H
HCL Technologies, 216
Headspace, 269
Herman Miller, 609
Hilcorp, 231
Hilton Hotels, 55
Hobby Lobby, 505
Homewood Suites, 476
Hot Dog Marketing, 188
Houston Independent School
District, 232
HSBC Holdings, 187
Hudson Yards, 482
I
IBM, 314, 443, 505
IDEO, 621–622
Inova Health System, 570
Insight Timer, 269
Instagram
conflict within, 419–420
employee productivity, 354
mission statement, 649
social media influencers, 469–470
work space, 568
Integra Gold Corp., 355–356
Intel, 451
InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG), 515
Interface Inc., 650
Intermex Wire Transfer, 214
International Space Station, 326–327
Intuit, 421
J
JANA Partners, 642
Jet.com, 129
John Deere, 625–626
Johnson & Johnson, 206
JPMorgan Chase & Co., 150–151
J&S Professional Pharmacy, 522
Juniper Networks, 621
Just Capital, 259
K
Kaiser Permanent, 227, 275
Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC),
184, 498
Kering SA, 554
Khan Academy, 91
com
pany index
Organizational Behavior: A Practical,
Problem-Solving Approach
I-26 COMPANY INDEX
co
m
pa
ny
in
de
x
Theranos, 13, 39–40
3-M, 303
Thumbtack, Inc., 571
Time Warner, 665–666
T.M. Landry College, 12, 13
T-Mobile, 58–59, 310, 551
TOMS shoes, 559, 650–651
Toshiba, 13, 498, 499
Toyota, 477–478
Toys-R-Us, 676–677
Trader Joe’s, 570
Tupperware, 469
23andMe, 169
Twitter, 576
Tyson Foods, 173
U
Uber, 106, 642
UberEats, 490
Ulta Beauty, 469
United Airlines, 375–376
United States Army, 602–603
University of Phoenix, 446
University of Southern California
(USC), 462
UPS, 213
V
Volkswagen, 183, 306, 306
W
Walmart
culture of, 572
employee benefits, 171–172
employee technology use, 33–34
external change forces, 643
social consciousness, 258
values, 73–74
Walt Disney Company, 549
Wegmans Food Market, 230
Weight Watchers, 125
Wells Fargo, 247–248
Wendy’s, 406–407
WeWork, 504–505
WhatsApp, 419–420
Wheeler Machinery Co., 151
Whole Foods Market, 260, 600, 600
W. L. Gore, 595, 607–608
Workday, 230
WorldCom, 13
World Health Organization (WHO), 304
Y
YouTube, 469–470, 570
Z
Zappos, 220, 553, 576
Zipline, 641
PeraHealth, 440
Pinterest, 157
Procter & Gamble, 606, 621
Protiviti, 576
Publix Super Markets, 561
Purdue Pharma, 292–294, 446
PWC, 491
Q
QuikTrip, 228
R
RDMD, 440
REI (Recreational Equipment), 170
Riot Games, 576
Ritz Carlton, 58, 476
Robert W. Baird & Co., 175
RSM, 191
S
Salesforce, 270
employee commitment, 56
employee voice, 178
empowering leadership in, 518–519
organizational practices, 281–282
stakeholder balance, 259
Schneider Electric, 169
SC Johnson, 165
Scopic Software, 610–611
Scotts Miracle-Gro, 505
Scripps Health, 582
Sears Holdings, 197
Seasons 52, 148
Seattle Children’s Hospital, 440
Sedexo, 300
Selectmen, 430
Shaw Industries Inc., 150
Sierra Nevada, 98
Skinfix, Inc., 341–342
Skype, 363
Sony, 604
Southwest Airlines
culture of, 265, 555–557, 557
profit sharing, 162
unethical employee behavior, 14
Sprouts Farmers Market, 572–573
Starbucks, 570–571, 607
Stemettes, 83
Sweetgreen, 279–280, 649
T
Taft shoe company, 162–163
Takada, 13, 498, 499
Take Care Health Systems, 515
Talent Board, 284
Target, 150
TED, 649
TEKsystems, 339
Kimberly-Clark, 284
Koch Industries, 505
L
LEGO, 356, 621
Levi Strauss, 59
LinkedIn, 270, 354, 355
Lockheed Martin, 151
Logitech, 189, 190
Lumosity, 85
Lyft, 429
M
Madoff Investment Securities, 13
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High
School, 491
Marriott, 265
Mars, Inc., 28–29
Mary Kay, 469
MasterCard, 515
Mattel, 469, 644
Mayo Clinic, 159
McDonald’s, 52, 490, 561, 604
Menlo Innovations, 560
Merck, 178
Microsoft, 234, 451, 619
MIG Inc., 429
Mount Lemmon fire district, 151
N
National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA), 251
National Football League (NFL), 187
National Rifle Association
(NRA), 491
NaturaBrasil, 555
NCR Corp., 577
Netflix
feedback in, 224
onboarding in, 576
pay disparities in, 481
sexual harassment response, 65–66
transformational leadership in,
530, 531, 532
New England Patriots, 568
New York University, 227
Nike, 503–504
Novelis, 567
O
Ostro Minerals, 349
P
Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), 434–435
Papa John’s Pizza, 117–118
Parkey Dewey, 319
Patagonia, 553, 649
PayPal, 582–583
Cover
About the Author
Preface
Brief Contents
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Essay Writing Service Features
Our Experience
No matter how complex your assignment is, we can find the right professional for your specific task. Achiever Papers is an essay writing company that hires only the smartest minds to help you with your projects. Our expertise allows us to provide students with high-quality academic writing, editing & proofreading services.
Free Features
Free revision policy
$10Free bibliography & reference
$8Free title page
$8Free formatting
$8How Our Dissertation Writing Service Works
First, you will need to complete an order form. It's not difficult but, if anything is unclear, you may always chat with us so that we can guide you through it. On the order form, you will need to include some basic information concerning your order: subject, topic, number of pages, etc. We also encourage our clients to upload any relevant information or sources that will help.
Complete the order form
Once we have all the information and instructions that we need, we select the most suitable writer for your assignment. While everything seems to be clear, the writer, who has complete knowledge of the subject, may need clarification from you. It is at that point that you would receive a call or email from us.
Writer’s assignment
As soon as the writer has finished, it will be delivered both to the website and to your email address so that you will not miss it. If your deadline is close at hand, we will place a call to you to make sure that you receive the paper on time.
Completing the order and download