Current Debates About Human Resources and Diversity

1. Current Debates About Affirmative Action Affirmative  action refers to government-mandated programs that focus on providing opportunities to women and members of minority groups who previously faced discrimina- tion. It is not the same thing as diversity,  but affirmative action has facilitated greater re- cruitment, retention, and promotion of minorities and women. Affirmative action

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The Changing Workplace

Diversity is no longer just the right thing to do; it has become a business imperative  and perhaps the single most important factor of the twenty-first century for organizational performance.125  One reason is the dramatic change taking place in the workplace, in our society, and in the economic environment.  These changes include globalization  and

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Organizational Behavior

Organizational behavior, commonly called OB, is an interdisciplinary  field dedicated to the study of human attitudes, behavior, and performance in organizations. OB draws concepts from many disciplines, including  psychology, sociology, cultural anthropology, industrial  engineering,  economics, ethics, and vocational  counseling, as well as the disci- pline of management. The concepts and principles of organizational  behavior

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Perception in organization

Another critical aspect of understanding behavior is perception. Perception is the cogni- tive process people use to make sense out of the environment by selecting, organizing, and interpreting information from the environment. Attitudes affect perceptions, and vice versa. For example, a person might have developed the attitude  that managers are insensitive  and arrogant,  based

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Personality and Behavior in organization

Another area of particular interest to organizational behavior is personality. In recent years, many employers showed heightened interest in matching  people’s personalities to the needs of the job and the organization. In the workplace, we find people whose behavior is consistently pleasant or aggressive or stubborn in a variety  of situations. An individual’s personality

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Learning in organization

Years of schooling condition many of us to think that learning is something students do in response to teachers in a classroom. With this view, in the managerial world of time dead- lines and concrete action,  learning  seems remote—even  irrelevant. However,  successful managers need specific knowledge and skills as well  as the ability to

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Stress and Stress Management

Just as organizations can support or discourage learning, organizational  characteristics also interact with individual differences to influence other behaviors. In every organization, these characteristics include  sources of stress. Formally  defined,  stress is an individual’s physiological and emotional response to external stimuli that place physical or psychologi- cal demands on the individual  and create uncertainty

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Introduction to leadership

1. The Nature of Leadership No topic is probably more important to organizational success  today than leadership. Leadership matters. In most situations, a team, military unit, or volunteer organization is only  as good as its leader. Consider the situation in Iraq,  as U.S.  military advisors strive to build Iraqi forces that can take over

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Behavioral Approaches of leadership

The inability to define effective leadership based solely on traits led to an interest in look- ing at the behavior of leaders and how it might contribute to leadership success or failure. Perhaps any leader can adopt the correct behavior with appropriate training. Two basic leadership behaviors identified as important for leadership  are task-oriented

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Contingency Approaches

Several models of leadership explain the relationship between leadership styles and specific sit- uations. They are termed contingency approaches and include  the situational theory of Hersey and Blanchard, the leadership model developed by Fiedler and his associates, the path– goal theory presented by Evans and House, and the substitutes-for-leadership concept. 1. HERSEY AND BLANCHARD’S

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Leading Change

In Chapter 1, we defined management to include the functions of leading, planning, orga- nizing, and controlling. But recent work on leadership has begun to distinguish leadership as something more: a quality that inspires and motivates people beyond their normal levels of performance. We are living in an era when leadership is needed  more

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Power and Influence of leadership

Recall our definition of leadership, which is the ability to influence people to achieve goals. Particularly for leaders in- volved in major change initiatives,  the effective and appro- priate  use of power is crucial. One way to understand how leaders get things done is to look at the sources of leader power and the

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Enduring Leadership Approaches

To close our chapter, let’s look at two timeless leadership approaches that are gaining re- newed attention in today’s environment of ethical scandals and weakened employee trust. Characteristics of servant leadership and moral leadership can be successfully used by lead- ers in all situations to make a positive difference. 1. SERVANT  LEADERSHIP Some leaders

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Introduction to motivation at work

1. The Concept of Motivation Most of us get up in the morning, go to school or work, and behave in ways that are predictably  our own. We respond to our environment and the people in it with little thought as to why we work hard, enjoy certain classes, or find some recreational activities

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Content Perspectives on Motivation

Content theories emphasize the needs that motivate  people. At any point in time, people have basic needs such as those for monetary reward, achievement, or recognition. These needs translate  into an internal drive that motivates specific behaviors in an attempt to fulfill the needs. In other words, our needs are like a hidden  catalog

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Process Perspectives on Motivation

Process theories explain  how people select behavioral  actions to meet their needs and determine whether their choices were successful. The two basic process theories are equity theory and expectancy theory. 1. EQUITY THEORY Equity theory focuses on individuals’ perceptions of how fairly they are treated comp- ared with others. Developed by J. Stacy Adams,

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Reinforcement Perspective on Motivation

The reinforcement  approach to employee motivation sidesteps the issues of employee needs and thinking processes described in the content and process theories. Reinforcement theory simply looks at the relationship between behavior and its consequences. It focuses on changing or modifying employees’ on-the-job behavior through the appropriate use of immediate rewards and punishments. 1. REINFORCEMENT 

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Job Design for Motivation

A job in an organization  is a unit of work that a single employee is responsible for perform- ing. A job could include writing tickets for parking violators in New York City, performing MRIs at Salt Lake Regional Medical Center, reading meters for Pacific Gas and Electric, or doing long-range planning for The WB

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Innovative Ideas for Motivating

Despite the controversy over carrot-and-stick  motivational practices discussed in the Spot- light on Skills box earlier in this chapter, organizations are increasingly using various types of incentive compensation as a way to motivate employees to higher levels of performance. Exhibit 12.9 summarizes several popular  methods  of incentive pay. Variable compensation and forms of “at

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Communication and the Manager’s Job

How important is communication? Consider this: Managers spend at least 80 percent of every working day in direct communication with others. In other words, 48 minutes of every hour is spent in meetings, on the telephone, communicating online, or talking informally while walking around. The other 20 percent of a typical manager’s time is

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