What is the definition of organizational behavior and why is it an important topic?

Organizational behavior can be defined as a field of study that is focused on understanding, explaining and improving the attitudes of individuals and groups within an organization. An organization is a structured arrangement of people working together to accomplisch specific goals. Organizational behavior focuses on figuring out how individual employees and groups of employees behave and why they behave the way they do. Gaining an understanding into these topics provides advantages: We learn how to explain organizational behavior, we learn to predict and anticipate organizational behavior and we can learn how to influence organizational behavior. Although explaining and predicting behavior are useful skills, influencing behavior is one of the greatest interests for managers.

A typical manager carries out a variety of functions, inlcuding planning, organizing, leading and controlling:

• In planning, a manager evaluates an organization's current position and where it wants to be in the future, and sets goals, designs strategies and identifies action and resources that are needed to achieve success.
• Organizing refers to the arrangement of resources, such as people and funcitons, in order to implement the strategy that was made during the planning phase.
• Managers also engage in leading teams and individuals within an organization by motvating them and communicating with them.
• Lastly, managers engage in controlling, which refers to monitoring employee performance, ensure milestones are being reached and take corrective or preventative actions when that is necessary.

Organizational members need a variety of skills in order to carry out their roles effectively:

• Technical skills refer to the aptitude to perform and apply specialized tasks.
• Human skills refer to the ability to relate to other people. A key facet of human skills is emotional intelligence, which is the ability to understand emotions in oneself and in others in order to effectively manage one's own behaviors and relationship with others. 
• Conceptual skills refer to the capacity to see the organization as a whole and understand how each part relates to each other and how it fits into its overall environment. 

A strategic organizational behavior approach is based on the idea that people are the key to the productivity, competitive edge and financial success of a company. Therefore managers should place a high value on human capital, which is the sum of people's skills, knowledge, experience and general attributes.

How can we manage the human capital?

Organizations have tangible resources, which are physical assets such as property and equipment, and intangible resources, such as the organization's reputation and culture and the trust between employees. The human capital falls into the cateogry of intangible resources. It is essential for gaining a competitive advantage, which is the edge that gives organizations a more beneficial position than their competitors and allows them to generate more profits and retain more customers. Managers often focus on nurturing and enhancing the knowledge and skills of their employees in order to improve the human capital of their company.

Employees can add value to the human capital of their company in many different ways.

• The human capital value refers to the way employees work toward the strategic goals of their organization to achieve competitive advantage. Employees can aim to increase the value.
• Employees can increase rareness. The human capital rareness refers to the set of skills and talents that the people of an organization possess that are unique to the industry. 
• Lastly, employees can focus on adding value and skills that are inimitable. The human capital inimitability is the degree to which the skills and talents of employees can be emulated by other organizations. The higher the level of inimitability, the more competitive an organization will be.

What disciplines of behavioral science contribute to organizational behavior?

Five different disciplines of behavioral science are linked to the study of organizational behavior.

1. Firstly, psychology, which is the scientific study of the human mind that seeks to measure and explain behavioral characteristics, relates to organizational behavior. Organizational psychology focuses on factors affecting work performance, work efficiency and mental health.
2. Sociology is the social science that blends concepts from sociology and psychology and focuses on how people relate to each other in a social setting. It contributes to organizational behavior as it provides insight in the way groups behave and communicate.
3. Social psychology is the social science that blends concepts from sociology and psyuchology and focuses on how people influence each other in a social setting. 
4. Political science is the study of the behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment. It relates to organizational behavior as it focuses on how conflict is managed and structures, how power is distributed and how power can be abused.
5. Anthropology is the study of people and their activities in relation to societal, environmental and cultural influences. It contributes to organizational behavior as it provides an understanding of other cultures and the values and attitudes that are held by the members of these cultures.

What is a critical thinking approach to organizational behavior?

In contemporary business, the skill of critical thinking is becoming increasingly important. Critical thinking refers to the aiblity to use intelligence, knowledge and skills to question and carefully explore situations and arrive at thoughtful conclusions based on evidence and reason. The critical thinking approach is a powerful analytical method that helps managers consider intended and unintended consequences of individual behaviors on their teams and within their organizations. Businesses are increasingly eager to attract employees that possess these critical thinking skills. The process of critical thinking provides you with the tools to make better decisions as a manager and helps you to predict the effects and consequences of those decisions.

There are five steps in the critical thinking-framework that is aimed to manage and change behavior:

1. Firstly, the behavior should be observed.
2. Then, the behavior should be interpreted, meaning that the causes and effects of the behavior are determined.
3. The behavior is analyzed by further investigating the causes and effects of the behavior.
4. Then, the consequences of changing behavior are determined in the process of evaluation.
5. Lastly, the change to behavior is justified in the process of explanation.

In research, we often start with a theory that consists of a set of principles intended to explain behavioral phenomena in organizations. Another option is to use a model, which is a simplified snapshot of reality that is aimed to summarize and illustrate the reasons behind a behavior. The independent variable is the factor that remains unchanged. The dependent variable is the factor that is affected by the independent variable(s). Researchers come up with a hypothesis, which is a statement that specifies the relationships between the two variables. Sometimes a correlation, a reciprocal relationship between two or more factors, is detected. Organizational behavior researchers use critical thinking to examine theories. Contingency thinking is the approach that describes actions as dependent on the nature of the situation: There is no one-size-fits-all policy that managers can apply in every single organization. Related to contingency thinking is evidence-based management, which is the practice of using research-based factrs to make decisions. 

The open-systems theory is the assumption that organizations are systems that interact with their environment to obtain resources or inputs and transofmr them into outputs that are returned for the environment for consumption. According to this theory, all organizations are unique. When open systems work well, they create a value chain, which is the sequence of activities carried out by organizations to create valued goods and services to consumers. Open systems strive to find a balance between themselves and their environment. 

What are the challenges and opportunities of organizational behavior?

• Globalization is a process by which the world has become increasingly interconnected through trade, culture, technology and politics. It has a huge influence on organizational behavior, as location and cultural background can create a challenging situation for an organization.
• Economic events can also have a significant influence on companies. Recessions and financial crises can lead to unemployment, bankruptcy and labor shortages.
• Forming and building good working relationships is central to achieving professional success, even when there is a wide diversity of people and backgrounds in the workplace.
• Organizations are creating customer-responsive cultures to meet the increasing needs and changing demands of their customers. Companies are therefore striving to understand these needs.
• Managers and employees must have excellent people skills, such as the ability to communicate and interact with others, in order to create a harmonious working environment.
• Organizations need to stimulate innovation and change by becoming faster and more agile than the competition. Critical thinkings skills are imperative to this factor.
• Many organizations in contemporary society are striving to build a more sustainable and responsible global marketplace. They do this by taking environmental factors into consideration during decision making and goal setting. 

What are the three levels of analysis in organizational behavior?

We distinguish three main levels of analysis within the organizational behavioral model: individuals, team and organizations. Each level of this model builds on the previous one.

• Individuals are the foundation of an organization. The way they work and behave affects the business they work for. The role of managers is to integrate individuals into the organization, nurture their skills and attirbutes, and balance their needs and expectations accordingly.
• The functioning of the different groups and teams within an organization is essential to the success of this company. 
• Organizations provide the individuals and groups within the organization with the tools and systems they need in order to achieve their goal. The attitudes and behavior of employees are inevitably influenced by the structure of an organization.

How can we stimulate positive organizational behavior?

Scholarship on positive organizational behavior focuses on the strengths, virtues, vitality and resilience of organizations and the individuals within that organization. The idea behind this is the nurturing the strengths of individuals is far more beneficial to achieve organizational goals than focusing on their weaknesses. When employees gain more self-confidence and feel more positive about their personal skills and abilities, this will lead to better work performance. Managers that practice positive organizational behavior will see great benefits for their company. 

Positive organizational behavior places the highest priority on the well-being of employees. High involvement management is the strategy in which managers empower employees to make decisions, provde them with extensive training and opportunities to increase their knowledge base, share important information, and provide incentive compensation. This approach only works when the right employees are selected to work in the particular organization. In a world where the only constant is change, it is more important than ever to manage our own behavior, feelings and attitudes and those of others around us. In this way, we can work harmoniously and productively and succeed in a complex working environment.