Organizational Behavior Courses Research Articles

Failure does not define me: personal experience and self-efficacy

ABSTRACTThis short case is about an intern for the food and beverage area at a private country club. She has been assigned to wait tables in one of the dining rooms after 2 weeks of mentorship-style training in which she shadowed others. She is unsure whether she feels qualified and, on her first day alone, finds that she is somewhat unprepared. The intern faces several issues with her competence and confidence while attempting to perform “routine” job tasks, in this case serving large parties. Self-efficacy serves as an insightful framework to understand issues related to the task. This short case is appropriate for undergraduate courses in hospitality and human resource management focused on training, food and beverage, or customer service. An additional area that may utilize this short case is management and organizational behavior courses discussing manager or employee efficacy.

Finding a Healthy Balance: Managerial Considerations Regarding the Work–Life Interface of Interns and Graduate Assistants Working in Collegiate Sport

Craig Johnson is an associate athletic director for marketing and promotions in an athletic department at the collegiate level. Through conversation, he has recently realized that the graduate students working in his department as interns and graduate assistants feel that balancing work, school, and a personal life is impossible. As a mentor for working in sport, as well as their direct manager, he feels something must be done to assist these graduate students in managing the work–life interface, but is unsure where to start. Drawing from research in sport management and from the general management literature, the case gives insight into the issues, outcomes, and theories that inform the work–life interface. Undergraduate and graduate students in human resource management or organizational behavior courses who work through this case will have an opportunity to contemplate, discuss, and develop strategies for managing the issues surrounding balancing work and a personal life.

Stardust Petroleum Sendirian Berhad: how to inculcate the pro-active safety culture?

Learning outcomes The learning objectives of using this case are as follows: to understand the concepts of organizational structure, organizational culture and organizational change; to expose students to the problems that may encounter organization when it intends to bring changes in culture; to stimulate students’ understanding of the necessity to build positive organizational culture; to advance students’ knowledge about oil and gas industry; to develop students’ understanding of using Levin’s model of cultural change; and to illustrate the challenges that an organization might face while changing its existing culture. Case overview/synopsis This case teaches about the importance of boosting positive organization culture to accept organizational change. Stardust was established in 2013 as Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd’s subsidiary. The company was established to manage small and marginal field in Malaysia which was under the oil and gas field that had smaller reservoir and lasted for four to five years. On 2014, Stardust was given an opportunity to take over one of the fields to manage. However, during the process of handing over the facility and field from the parent to the new company, the tanker caught fire in one of its pump in the pump room. The fire resulted substantial damage to the pump room; two out of four pumps were totally damaged. It delayed the oil production for more than a month. Total estimated damage due to the fire incurred RM19m losses. Direct cost included replacing two new 400 kW pumps, repairing the damaged pump room with new manifolds and painting, and cost of shutdown production for 40 days. Investigation was initiated to identify the causes of the fire which revealed that human error, mostly peoples’ negligence was one of the major reasons along with location, equipment and procedure. The Health, Safety and Environment department of the company was given the task to create ‘Living Safety’ culture among the crew. Being the head of this department, Tarmizi found it very challenging to inculcate the culture ‘Action Today, Perfect Day Tomorrow’ and was thinking how to instill this culture with zero failure by the end of the calendar year which is December 2016. The time was running fast as the parent company emphasized to handle the situation urgently and to ensure that the similar incident will not happen in the future. If it re-occurs, it will jeopardize the trustworthiness of Stardust with the other parties involved and also the parent company might not allow the company to operate other facilities, which will put the company at stake to remain competitive in the oil and gas business. Complexity academic level This case is suitable to use in advanced undergraduate level, MBA and MSc to teach organizational behavior and organizational theory courses. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS 7: Management Science.

Sweet Rewards: An Exercise to Demonstrate Process Theories of Motivation

Motivation is a fundamental component in management and organizational behavior courses. At the same time, it can be a complicated topic for teaching and learning due to the number of popular models and theories. The activity described here is a simple and fast way to illustrate the components of two of the most important and practical motivation theories—Equity Theory and Expectancy Theory. The impact of the activity will be realized the moment a disproportional reward is made. We outline implementation steps and provide an extensive list of questions to check students’ understanding of motivation theories. We also provide additional resources (i.e., media suggestions, discussion slides) to enhance classroom presentations. This exercise is designed primarily for management and organizational behavior courses. It can be used effectively with a variety of audiences (i.e., undergraduate, graduate, executive).

Mobile Learning Application to Facilitate Ubiquitous Collaborative Learning: An Organizational Behavior Course

This paper proposed further development of a recently created mobile learning app as a platform to facilitate graduate business major students’ interaction and collaborative learning. The objectives of this app are 1) facilitate students’ learning through ubiquitous approach, 2) facilitate social interaction among students and faculty, and 3) enhance learning motivation and develop cultural competence. The paper discusses the needs of the app development, describes the implementation and goals to improve the app design. Targeting students’ learning with an App across global campuses will advance the knowledge in mobile learning in international organizational behavior course. This paper provides insights on the prototype based on these discussions and the instructional needs.

Student-Authored Ethics Vignettes: Giving Voice to Values All Semester

Critics of ethics education suggest that students need to learn about contextual pressures of workplace ethical decisions and develop skills to handle them. Thus, instructors are often challenged to integrate an ethics unit into organizational behavior courses in ways that complement, rather than duplicate, what may have been covered in their degree program’s stand-alone ethics course. This article outlines a multistage class exercise that incorporates student-authored cases. As homework, students write about a firsthand work or team ethical decision. The instructor selects several for subsequent class discussions and activities that foster skill development around contextual analysis and anticipatory strategies adapted from the Giving Voice to Values methodology. Students report peers’ ethics vignettes to be interesting and relevant, and a multiperspective exploration and strategizing of these situations prepares them to face future ethical dilemmas in the workplace.

Overcoming the HR challenge: a case of merger of Kotak Mahindra Bank and ING Vysya Bank

Subject area Human Resources and Organizational Behavior – dealing with the HR issues in mergers and acquisitions (M&As). Study level/applicability MBA and other similar programs at the post-graduation level. Case overview The current case deals with human resource (HR) issues in the merger of Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) and ING Vysya Bank (IVB). The case discusses various aspects of the merger process and focuses on the key challenges that firms face while integrating the employees of the merged entities. The case also highlights the steps taken by KMB to ensure that the merger process is smooth and employees are adequately motivated. The case also discusses the process adopted by the merged entity to efficiently integrate the employees. Expected learning outcomes The case can be a part of an organizational behavior course and a banking course. The current case allows students to make decisions while dealing with situations pertaining to employees’ integration in an M&A deal. The major expected learning outcomes of the current case include being able to: understand industry structure using the Indian banking industry as a case in point; identify the major challenges in any M&A deal; list down key HR issues in any merger activity; analyse strategies that can be adopted to deal with HR challenges; and construct a plan of action for integrating employees in a merged entity. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes. Subject code CSS: 6: Human Resource Management.

An Entrepreneur in the Educational World (a): Principal Matthew Landahl

This case reviews the facts behind an effort to transform an underachieving elementary school through the lens of the school principal and the district superintendent. Written from two different perspectives, the principal's A case (UVA-OB-1004) has Matthew Landahl, a principal at a high functioning school at central office meeting with superintendent and talking about his experiences as a Teach For America (TFA) teacher and how much he missed it. The superintendent asks him if he would be interested in taking on the principalship at Greer Elementary, explaining that it was about as close to a TFA school as he would find in a small city. Although he was told to take some time and think about it, Landahl immediately imagined himself in the role of principal at Greer and the challenges he would face. Would the position at Greer really offer the kind of leadership challenges and rewards he wanted? If he took the job, what strategies would be needed to help Greer students and staff succeed? And what kind of support would he need to ask of the superintendent? This case has been taught in an executive education school turnaround program for district administrators and principals. It could also be used in a first-year MBA leadership and organizational behavior course as an introduction on creating value through people-management and design. Excerpt UVA-OB-1004 August 30, 2010 AN ENTREPRENEUR IN THE EDUCATIONAL WORLD (A): PRINCIPAL MATTHEW LANDAHL A former Teach for America educator and a seasoned principal at a middle-class school in Charlottesville, Virginia, Matthew Landahl had all the right credentials. And he was bored. Although he was grateful for the opportunity to hone his leadership skills in a well-heeled, high-functioning elementary school, it was time for a change. Landahl intended to put some feelers out back home in Chicago about jobs openings for principals and decided it was only fair to let Albemarle County Public School Superintendent Pamela Moran know. They met in her office in the spring of 2007. As the two talked, the superintendent brought up Mary Carr Greer Elementary (Greer)—one of the two Title I elementary schools in the county system. Why was she talking to him about Greer? Was she thinking of making some changes there? If that school opened up, would he even be interested? . . .

Corporate Brand as Social Contract

This technical note is used at Darden in the Business Communications course and would also work well in Organizational Behavior courses. The role of branding at the corporate level, distinct from product marketing, has evolved to serve as an expression of corporate values. This note surveys current thinking about the ways corporations consider the alignment of brand with the business model and corporate social responsibility (CSR). Excerpt UVA-BC-0244 Rev. Nov. 21, 2013 Corporate Brand as social contract A corporate brand is the most tangible of intangible assets. You can ride an Otis elevator or fly in a plane with Pratt & Whitney jet engines—both made by companies owned by United Technologies Corporation (UTC)—but, to paraphrase its CFO, you cannot hold a UTC. Product brands, franchises of the conglomerate, are seen by managers and consumers as having more brand power than the conglomerate as a whole, which management typically views as significant primarily to Wall Street: less UTC than UTX. Yet for some time, large companies with multiple business units have taken corporate branding quite seriously. Consider IBM from “THINK” to “Smarter Planet” or General Electric (GE) from “We bring good things to life” to “ecomagination.” The more recent of these tag lines are considered particularly deft encapsulations that demonstrate the excellence of these American institutions' corporate communication functions and the commitment their leaders have made to communications as an assertion of corporate values. More Than Just a Promise? . . .

An Entrepreneur in the Educational World (a): Superintendent Pamela Moran

The superintendent's A case has Pamela Moran concerned about losing one of her up-and-coming administrative stars, who had accepted the position of principalship at Greer two years earlier. Moran had also heard whispers that she may lose a former TFA educator and a seasoned principal in a middle-class school because of his desire to lead in a more challenging environment. What should she do about the principal who was struggling and the principal who was bored? Would it make sense to offer the at-risk school leadership position to the ex-TFA principal? And if he accepted, what expectations would she set for him? And what about the school? What level of support should Moran provide Greer relative to the other 27 schools in the district? This case has been taught in an executive education school turnaround program for district administrators and principals. It could also be used in a first-year MBA leadership and organizational behavior course as an introduction on creating value through people-management and design. Excerpt UVA-OB-1006 August 30, 2010 AN ENTREPRENEUR IN THE EDUCATIONAL WORLD (A): SUPERINTENDENT PAMELA MORAN The irony, that Mary C. Greer Elementary in Charlottesville Virginia was named after a woman of color who devoted her life to educating youth, and that economically disadvantaged students at the school, many of whom were also of color, consistently failed to achieve ratings necessary to pass the Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) benchmarks in either reading and mathematics or both, was not lost on Albemarle County School Superintendent Pamela Moran. Nor was the staffing problem she found herself thinking about during the spring of 2007. One of her most passionate, well-liked, and promising administrative stars had accepted the position of principalship at Greer two years earlier, and Moran was worried she was going to lose her because of that experience. In addition, Moran had heard whispers that she may also lose a former Teach for America (TFA) educator and a seasoned principal in a middle-class school because of his desire to lead in a more challenging environment. What should she do about the principal who was struggling and the principal who was bored? Would it make sense to offer the at-risk school leadership position to the ex-TFA principal? And if he accepted, what expectations would she set for him? And what about the school? What level of support should Moran provide Greer relative to the other 27 schools in the district? . . .

Classroom Covenant: Yes? No?

Junior and senior faculty members collaborate on crafting a classroom covenant. Excerpt UVA-PHA-0073 Aug. 6, 2015 Classroom Covenant: Yes? No? A Junior Faculty Member Assistant Professor Raj Minorajon stared at his calendar with a healthy combination of nervousness and anticipation. His teaching career at the Harris Graduate School of Business would commence in one week. He had been assigned to one of the first-semester sections of the school's required finance course. Years of anticipation and preparation were finally coming to a climactic new beginning. His scholarly research agenda was underway. The course syllabus he had had a small part in developing in conjunction with the other members of the required finance course teaching team had been turned in and posted on the school portal. On his desk, he had a complete packet of the course materials, and, in his mind's eye, he could see the course as it would unfold during the next eight weeks. But what he could not quite get a firm grip on pertained to the ethos of the classroom—the expectations students had of him and what he was willing to commit to for them. Similarly, he wondered if he really had a robust, appropriate handle on what he could and should expect of students, and he had no clue if they had any inkling of what those expectations were. Not only was this collection of expectations a seemingly dynamic, evolving, never-quite-concrete array of wants, hopes, and musings, it also evoked the question, “Should they be explicitly communicated to the students if clarified and articulate, and if so, when and how?” Minorajon wasn't sure what to do with those questions. A Senior Faculty Member Marcia Morton, the Harry S. Holt Professor of Organizational Behavior (OB), stared at her calendar with a healthy combination of nervousness and anticipation. She was beginning her 30th year at the Harris School in a few days. Like last year, she was heading up the teaching team of four other instructors for the school's first-semester required OB course and teaching one of the sections herself. Morton enjoyed teaching and over the years she had garnered her fair share of teaching accolades from the school and from her students. It was pretty clear at this stage in her career that her reputation as a teacher preceded her at the start of a new term. The student grapevine was alive and active. All summer, however, she had wrestled with a concern that would not recede. It seemed to her that whenever she or her colleagues began a new term, with a classroom of new students, there was a host of expectations that were never quite voiced, never quite sanctioned or debunked, and never quite committed to. Those expectations pertained to what students could expect from her and what she expected in return from them. After all these years, Morton was beginning to think it would make for a clearer, more energizing start to the course if those expectations were codified and shared. If nothing else, such shared communication would satisfy a deep-seated desire on her part to be as forthcoming and transparent as possible and to also establish the foundations for what she perceived as most conducive to student learning and effective/enjoyable class discussions. The Dean's Welcome Reception . . .

Teaching Leaders to Lead Themselves

This article describes an exercise that allows students to experience and understand the importance of perception in leader emergence. Based on implicit leadership theories, this exercise asks students to provide one another with anonymous feedback about what extent they exhibit various trait-based leader behaviors. This exercise, which can be implemented either over the course of a semester or in two sessions, facilitates students’ understanding of perceptions and from where they stem. It allows students to become aware of how they are perceived by their peers and the implications of these perceptions on leader emergence. Thus, the exercise invites students to move beyond their comfort zones through developing self-awareness, it challenges various perception biases that influence their own views of leadership, and it creates awareness regarding their ability to change behaviors in order to obtain desired responses from others. The exercise is appropriate for use in leadership and organizational behavior courses for students near graduation or graduate-level courses.

Web-of-Communication

The web-of-communication exercise is a fun, highly interactive experiential activity that facilitates learning about team communication patterns. A ball of string is used to visually map the communication pattern that emerges during a team conversation. The exercise helps participants learn how patterns they create reinforce or break down barriers that shape meaning and exert influence on behavior. This exercise requires only a ball of string for each team, is easy to facilitate, takes very little time, energizes participants, and provides substantial learning opportunities. The exercise works with student teams in an organizational behavior course with modules on communication, team development, power and influence, or conflict management. The exercise works well with organizational teams, too.

New Approaches to Introduction to Management Courses

Introduction to management courses present particular challenges for faculty, students, and business program curriculum. In many programs, Principles of Management or Introduction to Organizational Behavior courses are the only management classes (other than Strategy) that business students complete in their undergraduate or graduate program. As such, introductory courses are learners’ first, and in some cases principle, impression of what business management is and should be, thus playing a central role in creating a vision of what is “good” managerial behavior.

Cost of employee loyalty@Anand Finance

Subject area Organizational Behavior and Strategic Management. Study level/applicability MBA, Management/Executive development programs. Case overview This case study can be used effectively for understanding the nuances of employee loyalty, especially if there is a cost of employee loyalty. While Anand Finance is happy that its workforce has largely been loyal, the volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous times force it to chart new course of action. The newly appointed Business Head, Ashok Singh's challenges compound when he finds that there was not’t a single innovation or best practice adopted over the past three years. Given his mandate to make Anand Finance as the Walmart of financial services, can he aspire to rally the forces behind the new mission? This case study facilitates an interesting discussion on the significance of operational and strategic alignment at organizations in the backdrop of an interesting story of Anand Finance, one of the leading non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) in India. The non-alignment was noticed by Ashok Singh (Singh) who took over as the Business Head of Anand Finance. While the company boasted of long-standing employees, Singh was quick to notice that the company had been paying a cost for employee loyalty. What was the cost of employee loyalty? Singh could also sense that the company was in a state of active inertia. Expected to make Anand Finance Walmart for financial services by 2025, Singh had a big task at hand given the lack of strategic orientation of the employees. What would be the likely course of Singh's actions? As the case study deals with strategic dilemmas related to the organizational culture, it can be suitably used for organizational behavior and strategic management courses. This case study is meant highlight that even if an organization is operationally sound and successful, it cannot afford to be strategically disoriented, as its strengths may prove to be its weaknesses with changing business conditions. Expected learning outcomes At the end of this case discussion, the participants are expected to know the merits and demerits of employee loyalty and the implications of the same for organizational change; whether employees’ relatively longer stints at companies would contribute to active inertia (as defined by Donald N. Sull in Harvard Business Review article, “Why Good Companies Go Bad”); and the ways to align operational orientation with strategic mindset, especially in the case of employees who rose through the ranks and had been serving the company for relatively longer period. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

The Big Event

The Big Event is a nationally recognized, student-run day of service where students, faculty, and staff give back to their university’s surrounding community by performing volunteer work. The Big Event can also be used as a resource to teach and reinforce corporate social responsibility (CSR) theories to management students. Students participating in the Big Event see firsthand application of the many CSR concepts they learn in the classroom. By utilizing the Big Event as a service project, students also gain a better appreciation of the real-world issues and problems that modern organizations often encounter. The service project can be used in a business law or ethics course, in an introductory management course, or in an organizational behavior course, among others. The Big Event is therefore an excellent resource for management educators to use when teaching CSR theories, and it is a wonderful way for students, faculty, and staff to give back to the community.

Using keywords to construct wuzzle-picture-puzzles for the purpose of mastering management and organisational behaviour terminology

ABSTRACTA pedagogical exercise for the purpose of mastering terms associated with management and organisational behaviour terminology was tested in four sections of an undergraduate, Introduction to Business Administration and Organizational Behaviour course at a regional university. The example required students to draw from terminology across the liberal arts and sciences curriculum. Four sections of the class were examined. Two sections were exposed to a treatment effect and were designated as ‘experimental groups’. Two sections were not exposed to this treatment effect and were designated as ‘control groups’. It was hypothesised that the students in the experimental sections who were exposed to the wuzzle-picture-puzzle treatment effect would outscore the students in the control sections who were not. A one-way t-test showed that the experimental groups significantly outscored the control groups. Limitations are noted and suggestions for future research are given.

How do you solve a problem like Lucinda?

SynopsisA room attendant in a small hotel with approximately 63 employees undermines her supervisors and disregards authority in deliberate defiance of company policies, rules, regulations and procedures. Disrespect is shown in several behaviours that include interfering with the work of other employees, spreading rumours, gossiping to other room attendants and complaining about unfair treatment.Research methodologyThis case was field researched and the company and individuals are disguised.Relevant courses and levelsThis case is suitable for third- or fourth-year undergraduate students. Within human resource management it is suited for use in a course or series of classes on employee relations or performance management. The case could also be used for an organizational behaviour course to explore conflict and struggle in organizations and the range of passive and active resistance practices that occur. In this particular case the context of women and minorities working in low-skilled roles could be examined.Theoretical basesIn advance of this case students should have a background in performance management theory and practice, disciplinary systems and practice and the behaviours associated with workplace resistance, insubordination and misconduct.

Making a tough personnel decision at Nova Waterfront Hotel

Synopsis Laura Green, Director of Event Planning at the Nova Waterfront Hotel in Baltimore, had been through the hiring process many times. She was comfortable with Nova's selection and behavioral interviewing processes. They had only interviewed two candidates for the open senior event manager position, yet they had been discussing what decision to make for two and a half hours. Normally, these kinds of meetings wrapped up in 30 minutes with a clear consensus. Today, they were gridlocked, unable to agree on a path forward. Green suggested that they all “sleep on it.” They would get together first thing in the morning, when they were fresh, and decide what to do. Research methodology The data for this case were collected via personal interviews with employees of the hotel and from information on the company's website, other company resources, and publicly available information about the company. Only the hotel's name, parent company's name, and people's names have been disguised to protect the confidentiality and anonymity of the individuals. The author has no relationship to the host organization or protagonist. Relevant courses and levels This case is appropriate for an undergraduate or graduate course in Human Resources Management, Organizational Behavior, or Recruiting and Selection. Theoretical bases This case may be used to illustrate, analyze, and evaluate the selection process and interviewing approaches (e.g. behavioral interviewing). The importance of selection, best practices for selection, candidate assessment methods, best practices for candidate interviews, and common biases which affect the fairness of selection processes are reviewed.

Enhancing research-teaching link in organizational behavior: Illustration through an actual example

The existing literature has noted that there is inadequate connection between research and teaching in management and in organizational behavior (OB). It has also noted that the reciprocal relationship between research and teaching in management has been inadequately studied. This paper addresses this research inadequacy. It briefly outlines that OB courses are unfavorably viewed in the business education and that there is inadequate transmission of research knowledge in teaching. It discusses the need for transmitting OB research-based knowledge in teaching and outlines some of the suggestions contained in the existing research for facilitating such transmission. In light of these suggestions contained in the literature, it describes an actual example that illustrates how OB research-teaching link can be strengthened through two complementary processes of research-based teaching and teaching-inspired research. The example outlined in the paper is in the form of an “illustration”. The specific and concrete example serves to illuminate and illustrate the generalized issue of research-teaching link. The example illustrates one way of addressing the generalized issue of enhancing the research-teaching link. The example also illustrates how the generalized research-teaching-research cycle can operate iteratively to enhance the research-teaching link.