MGT 128 - Organizational Behavior

1. Describe factors that directly influence individual behavior.
   1. Describe the “big five” personality traits.
   2. Explain the Myers-Briggs type Indicator (MTBI) types.
   3. Discuss self-concept and explain how social identity theory relates to self-concept.
   4. Identify vlaues commonly studies across cultures and how they influence behavior.
   5. Describe factors that influence ethical behavior.
2. Explain perception and learning in organizations.
   1. Outline the perceptual process.
   2. Discuss the effects of stereotyping, attribution, self-fulling prophecy, halo, primacy, recent and false-consensus effects on the perceptual process.
   3. Discuss ways to improve social perception, with specific application to organizational situations.
   4. Describe three features of social learning theory.
3. Identify causes and effects of workplace emotions, attitudes and stress.
   1. Explain how emotions and cognition influence attitudes and behavior.
   2. Discuss emotional labor and the role of emotional intelligence in the workplace.
   3. Summarize the consequences of job dissatisfaction and strategies to increase organizational commitment.
   4. Describe three major stressors in the workplace and how stress can be managed.
4. Explain the elements of employee motivation.
   1. Apply needs based theories of motivation.
   2. Discuss the effects of expectancy, justice and goal setting on motivation.
   3. Apply elements of job design to employee motivation.
   4. Demonstrate how emplowerment supports motivation.
5. Apply elements of decision-making and creativity in the workplace.
   1. Demonsttrate the decision making process.
   2. Discuss the role of employee involvement in the decision process.
   3. Demonstrate elements of creativity in the workplace.
6. Discuss the elements of team and team dynamics.
   1. Explain the benefits and limitations of teams.
   2. Demonstrate elements of effective teams.
   3. Explain how to improve team processes and results.
   4. Explain the design of an information age organization
7. Demonstrate effective communication in teams and organizations.
   1. Explain the importance of effective communication in teams and organizations.
   2. Compare and contrast the advantages and problems with e-mail and other communication media.
   3. Discuss important factors to consider when selecting a communication channel.
   4. Demonstrate ability to build effective two way communication in teams and organizations
   5. Identify barriers to effective communication and describe strategies for communicating a message and engaging in active listening.
   6. Summarize communication strategies in teams and organizations including grapevie communication.
8. Explain the roles of power and influence in teams and organizations.
   1. Demonstrate the sources of power organizations and how they are used to influence action.
   2. Discuss the types of influence in organizations.
   3. Identify the organizational conditions and personal characteristics that support organizational politics as well as ways to minimize their influence.
9. Demonstrate strategies for managing conflice in teams and organizations.
   1. Debate the positive and negative consequences of conflict in the workplace.
   2. Distinguish constructive from relationship conflict and describe three strategies to minimize relationship conflict.
   3. Outline the five conflict handling styles and discuss the circumstances in which each would be the most appropriate.
10. Demonstrate the concepts of leadership and shared leadership in organizations.
    1. Describe the competency and behavioral perspectives of leadership.
    2. Discuss the key elements of path-goal theory, Fiedler’s contingency model, and leadership substitutes.
    3. Describe the four elements of transformational leadership and distinguish this theory from transactional and charismatic leadership.
    4. Discuss the similarities and differences in leadership across cultures and between genders.
11. Discuss the elements of organizational structure.
    1. Describe three types of coordination in organizational structures.
    2. Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of span of control, centralization and formalization and relate threse elements to organic and mechanistic organizational structures.
    3. Identify and evaluate six tipes of departmenalization.
    4. Explain how the external environmnent, organizational size, technology, and strategy are relevant when designing and organizational structure.
12. Demonstrate the ways to establish a strong organizational culture.
    1. Describe the elements of organizational culture and discuss the importance of organizational subcultures.
    2. List four categories of artifacts through wich corporate culture is deciphered.
    3. Discuss the importance of organizational culture and the conditions under which organizational culture strength improves organizational performance.
    4. Compare and contrast four strategies for merging organizational cultures.
    5. Identify four strategies for changing or strengthening an organization’s culture, including the application of attraction-selection-attrition theory.
    6. Describe the organizational socialization process and identify strategies to improve that process.
13. Identify effective strategies to implement organizational change.
    1. Apply the elements of Lewin’s force field analysis model.
    2. Discuss the reasons why people resist organizational change and outline six strategies for minimizing this resistance.
    3. Demonstrate the importance of leadership in organizational
    4. Describe and compare action research, appreciative inquiry, large group interventions, and parallel learning structures as formal approaches to organizational change.
    5. Discuss two cross-cultural and three ethical issues in organizational change.