Organizational behavior chapter 1 summary

Organizational behavior is a developing field of study. Changes in the environment constantly challenge the ability of organizations and their owners, managers, employees to adapt to change work behaviors and procedures to increase the effectiveness with which they operate.

Organizations exist to provide goods and services that people want, and the amount and quality of these goods and services are products of the behaviors and performance of an organization's employees.

Organizational behavior is a study of the many factors that have an impact on how people and groups act, think, feel, and respond to work in organizations and how organizations respond to their environments. Organizational behavior provides a set of tools -- theories and concepts -- to understand, analyze, describe, and manage attitudes and behavior in organizations.

The study of organizational behavior can improve and change individual, group, and organizational behavior to attain individual, group, in organizational goals.

Organizational behavior can be analyzed at three levels; the individual, the group, and the organization as a whole.A full understanding is impossible without an examination of the factors that affect behavior at each level.

A significant task for organizations managers and employees is to use the tools of organizational behavior to increase organizational effectiveness, that is, an organization's ability to achieve its goals.

The activities of most organizations can be modeled as an open system in which an organization takes and resources from its external environment and converts or transforms them into good and services that are sent back to that environment, where customers buy them.

Changing pressures or forces in the social and cultural, global, technological, and employment or work environment posed many challenges for organizational behavior, and organizations must respond effectively to those challenges if they are to survive and prosper.

Two major challenges of importance to organizational behavior today from the social and cultural environment are those that derive from a breakdown in ethical values and from the increasing diversity of the workforce.

Two important challenges facing organizations from the global environment are to appreciate the differences that exist between countries and then to benefit from this new global knowledge to improve organizational behaviors and procedures.

Changes in the technological environment, and particularly advances in information technology, are also having important effects of organizational behavior and procedures. IT has improved effectiveness by helping an organization improve the quality of its products, lower their costs, and by promoting creativity and organizational learning and innovation.

Many changes have also been taking place in the employment or work environment and important developments that have affected organizational behavior include a shortening employment relationship because of downsizing, the growth in the number of contingent or temporary employees, and outsourcing.