UGBA105: Organizational Behavior Fall 2006 Professor Jim Lincoln

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UGBA105 Organizational BehaviorFall
2006Professor Jim Lincoln
Walter A. Haas School of Business University of
California, Berkeley

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Class Agenda for Today

• Introduction to OB
• Course mechanics
• 2. Overview of topics

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When organizations do well or poorly, what is
the first explanation that comes to mind?

• The CEO did it!
• Beware of attribution bias!
• The tendency to attribute causation/agency to the
  actions of individuals
• Organizational behavior teaches that the
  effectiveness of people in organizations depends
  on their situation-specific relationships with
  one another

Louis V. Gerstner, CEO of IBM, 1993-2002
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What Is Organizational Behavior?
The Study of General/People Management
The study of behavior and attitudes of
individuals or groups in organizations (Micro OB)
The study of structure and culture of org. in
relation to their tasks and environments (Macro
OB)
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OB draws on all of social behavioral science

• Psychology
• Sociology
• Economics
• Political Science
• Anthropology
• History
• Even some engineering now and then

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Some OB journals

• Practitioner-oriented
• Academy of Management Executive
• Business Horizons
• California Management Review
• Harvard Business Review
• Sloan Management Review
• Scholar-oriented
• Academy of Management Journal
• Administrative Science Quarterly
• Journal of Applied Psychology
• Organizational Behavior and Human Decision
  Processes
• Organization Science
• Strategic Management Journal

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Some OB Gurus

• Warren Bennis
• Peter Drucker
• Michael Hammer
• Rosabeth Kanter
• Raymond Miles
• Henry Mintzberg
• Tom Peters
• Jeffrey Pfeffer

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Research methods in OB run the social science
gamut

• Experiments (both lab and field)
• Surveys
• Ethnographies
• Archival Research (documents records)

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How does OB differ from other fields of business
education?

• Finance, economics, accounting
• Marketing
• Operations
• Strategy
• Human resource management

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How does OB differ from HR?

• OB is a line, not a specialized staff,
  responsibility
• Much OB management is CEO-level
• Vision and culture
• Re-orgs
• OB is about principles, policies, strategies
• HR is more about tools and implementation

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Why should business students study OB?

• Managers
• How to organize and motivate your employees
• How to initiate and manage change
• Entrepreneurs
• You have the big idea, you have the venture
  capital lined up. How do you organize and
  motivate your team?

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Why should business students study OB?

• Consultants
• problem-solving tool
• useful for case interviews
• Investors
• will that merger work?
• will that reorganization actually add shareholder
  value?
• is that CEO as competent as s/he thinks s/he is?

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Why should business students study OB?

• Issues critical to managing your career
• understanding culture and person-job fit
• Getting and using power and influence
• implementing your ideas and goals

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Some criticisms of OB

• Isnt it obvious or common-sensical?
• Many things are obvious after-the-fact.
  Example
• The best form of organization is flat, flexible,
  empowering
• The best form of organization depends on the
  context
• (e.g., tasks, people, competition, technology,
  etc.)
• Beware of hindsight bias!

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Other criticisms

• OB might be important, but its an art, not a
  science
• i.e., cant be systematically analyzed or taught
• Is only be learned by doing
• Maybe its religion
• There is an element of preaching in OB
• OB may be important for maintaining an
  organization, but it is not strategic

Tom Peters as bible-thumping evangelist.
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OB is strategicOB and HR are key to the
development of critical hard-to-imitate
capabilities

• Such capabilities refer to an organizations
  core skills and knowledge that give it
  sustainable competitive advantage allow it to
  better serve customers and clients than the
  competition
• Examples
• Clear vision and strong culture
• Motivated people
• Effective teams and networks

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There is abundant evidence that people management
is key to competitive strategy and success

• Studies of IPOs among 200 firms showed that
  people-centered practices were associated with
  faster time to IPO and higher survival rates.

• Watson, Wyatt, an HR consulting firm, concluded
• that Companies that link employee development
• to business strategy have 40 higher total
  share-
• holder returns than companies that do not.

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All organizations now routinely say, People
are our greatest asset. Yet few practice what
they preach, let alone truly believe it
Peter F. Drucker (1909-2005)
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Dilberts Perspective on HRM
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• You got a problem with the guy in the cubicle
  next to you? I dont care shoot him

Marc Andreessen, Co-founder of Netscape
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In the new economy, competition is global,
capital is abundant, ideas are developed quickly
and cheaply, and people are willing to change
jobs often. In that kind of environmentall
that matters is talentsuperior talent will be
tomorrows prime source of competitive
advantage.
E. Chambers et al. (1998). The War for
Talent. The McKinsey Quarterly, 2-15.
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• The problem, then, is how to get,
• keep, and utilize talented people
• It is not just a question of pay
• Even talented people must be
• organized and led

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Jack Welch as hands-on manager of talent
While analysts on Wall Street or GE's own
investors view Welch's likely legacy as creating
the world's most valuable company in stock market
terms, Welch himself sees things quite
differently. The man who spends more than 50 of
his time on people issues considers his greatest
achievement the care and feeding of
talent. ''This place runs by its great people,''
says Welch. ''The biggest accomplishment I've had
is to find great people. An army of them. They
are all better than most CEOs. They are big
hitters, and they seem to thrive here.'' He
believes he has to know people well enough to
trust them and their judgments. Welch knows by
sight the names and responsibilities of at least
the top 1,000 people at GE.
John F. Welch, Jr. GE Chairman CEO, 1981
to 2001
How Jack Welch runs GE. Business Week, May 29,
1998.
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And some organizations get excellent results
with merely OK people
See C. A. O'Reilly III and J. Pfeffer Hidden
Value How Great Companies Achieve Extraordinary
Results With Ordinary People. Harvard Business
School Press, 2000.
Only 10 of people are in the top 10. Great
companies not only hire talent, they build it and
unleash the energy and talent of all their people.
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So how do they do it? What is the
(general) managers job? (Kotter, 1996
Mintzberg, 1973 ) No job is more vital to
our society than that of the manager
(Mintzberg, 1975)

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Management is Janus-faced

• Manager as engineer trained technician who
  uses a professional body of knowledge to create
  formal systems that plot strategy, make
  decisions, incent people, and coordinate units in
  maximally efficient ways.

Janus The Roman God of doorways

• Manager as leader individual who
  leverages highly personal resources (energy,
  stamina, charisma, vision, warmth, charm,
  gregariousness, toughness, daring, know-how) to
  inspire, empower, and channel the actions of
  others.

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The historical thrust of management science and
education has been to

• Develop formal systems and tools that relieve
  managers of the personal work of leading

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The structure of the course reflects this
dichotomy

• Sections on organization design incentive
  systems represent the engineering perspective

• Sections on culture, leadership, networks,
  power represent the leadership perspective

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How has the managers role changed in the new
economy?

• Less a boss , more a coach, cheerleader,
  
  
  
  politician, networker, hustler
• --More a leader, less an engineer
• --More an entrepreneur,
• less a bureaucrat

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Lets get to down to business

• So now that youre psyched

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Reader and Website

• Electronic Course reader available thru Catalyst
• Course Website (loginba105, pworganize)
• Instructor info
• Syllabus
• Supplementary readings
• Useful links
• Course announcements
• Lecture powerpoints
• Posted on the website the day before the class
• Discussion section business

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Class meetings

• Thursday
• Introduce a new topic
• Lecture/discussion
• Tuesday (GSIs Jennifer Kurkoski Nydia
  MacGregor)
• Class business
• Review of lecture and readings
• Case analysis
• Videos exercises
• Team project discussions

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Other course business

• Enrollment issues
• Go to the Undergraduate Program Office (S450)
• This course uses instructor drop
• If you do not attend the section in which you are
  registered in the first two weeks you may be
  dropped from enrollment.
• SORRY- NO SECTION SWITCHING
• Arrival and attendance
• Class attendance is important (roll taken in
  sections)
• Arrive Thursday by 810AM. Late arrivals use rear
  door.
• Email (contact GSIs first use your full name)
• Face cards name tents (see website
  announcements)
• Class reps

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Course Requirements

• Class participation (15)
• In-class discussions, particularly of cases
• Oral presentation on team projects
• Team member ratings
• Midterm and final exams (50)
• Take home essay exam (analysis of a case)
• Objective (true-false/multiple choice) in-class
  exam
• SORRY NO CHANGE IN MIDTERM OR FINAL EXAM TIMES
• Team project (30)
• You will be assigned to teams of 4-5 persons each
• You will study OB problems/issues in a real
  organization
• Oral presentation and paper (12-15 pages)
• In general, all members will receive the same
  grade
• Participation in research experiments (5)

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Course overview.
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Schedule of topics

• Part 1 Introduction (1 week)
• An introduction to course themes
• The managers job and the congruence perspective
• Part 2 The (semi-) hard stuff formal org (2
  weeks)
• Strategic grouping, coordination and authority,
  designing and managing teams
• Part 3 The soft stuff informal organization I
  (2 weeks)
• Leadership and culture

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Course overview

• Part 4 Soft/hard and micro Motivation,
  incentives, and decision-making (3 weeks)
• Part 5 Informal organization II (1 weeks)
• Politics and networks
• Part 6 Managing diversity at home and abroad
• (2 weeks)

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Next Tuesday discussion session

• Introduction to discussion section
• Read and prepare to discuss
• What general managers do
• Read Kotter article
• The congruence model as a framework for
  organizational problem-solving
• Read Nadler and Tushman chapter