Organizational Behavior Ch. 1

Front 1

managers

Back 1

individuals who achieve goals through other people

Front 2

Organization

Back 2

a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of two or more people, that functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve a common goal or set of goals

Front 3

planning

Back 3

determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom and where decisions are to be made

Front 4

leading

Back 4

a function that includes motivating employees, directing others, selecting the most effective communication channels, and resolving conflicts

Front 5

controlling

Back 5

monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations

Front 6

technical skills

Back 6

the ability to apply specialized knowledge or expertise

Front 7

human skills

Back 7

the ability to work with, understand and motivate other people, both individually and in groups

Front 8

conceptual skills

Back 8

the mental ability to analyze and diagnose complex situations

Front 9

organizational behavior

Back 9

a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organizations's effectiveness

Front 10

systematic study

Back 10

looking at relationships, attempting to attribute causes and effects and drawing conclusions based on scientific evidence

Front 11

intuition

Back 11

a gut feeling not necessarily supported by research

Front 12

psychology

Back 12

the science that seeks to measure, explain and sometimes change the behavior of humans and other animals

Front 13

social psychology

Back 13

an area within psychology that blends concepts from psychology and sociology and that focuses on the influence of people on one another

Front 14

sociology

Back 14

the study of people in relation to their fellow human beings

Front 15

anthropology

Back 15

the study of societies to learn about human beings and their activities

Front 16

political science

Back 16

the study of behavior of individuals and groups within a political environment

Front 17

contingency variables

Back 17

situational factors: variables that moderate the relationship between two or more other variables

Front 18

workforce diversity

Back 18

the concept that organizations are becoming more heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and inclusion of other diverse groups

Front 19

quality management

Back 19

the constant attainment of customer satisfaction through the continous improvement of all organizational processes

Front 20

process reengineering

Back 20

reconsidering how work would be done and an organization structured if it were starting over

Front 21

empowering employees

Back 21

putting employees in charge of what they do

Front 22

ethical dilemmas

Back 22

situations in which individuals are required to define right and wrong conduct

Front 23

model

Back 23

an abstraction of reality. a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon

Front 24

dependent variable

Back 24

a response that is affected by an independent variable

Front 25

productivity

Back 25

a performance measure that includes effectiveness and efficiency

Front 26

effectiveness

Back 26

achievement of goals

Front 27

efficiency

Back 27

the ratio of effective output to the input required to achieve it

Front 28

absenteeism

Back 28

the failure to report to work

Front 29

turnover

Back 29

the voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization

Front 30

organizational citizenship behavior

Back 30

discretionary behavior that is not part of an employees formal job requirements, but that nevertheless promotes teh effective functioning of the organizations