Organizational Behavior Essentials: Trust, Justice, Teams, Culture, Influence

Posted on May 24, 2025 in Energy Resources, Fuels, and Explosives Engineering

1. Trust, Justice, and Ethics in Organizations

Trust: Building Positive Workplace Relationships

Trust is the willingness to be vulnerable to a trustee based on positive expectations. It is crucial for effective workplace functioning.

Types of Trust:

• Disposition-based Trust: Rooted in an individual’s personality, reflecting a general propensity to trust others.
• Cognition-based Trust: Developed through rational assessment of a trustee’s:
  • Ability: Competence and skills in a particular area.
  • Benevolence: Belief that the trustee wants to do good for the trustor, apart from selfish motives.
  • Integrity: Adherence to a set of values and principles that the trustor finds acceptable.
• Affect-based Trust: Rooted in emotion, often developing over time through mutual care and concern.

Justice: Ensuring Fairness in Decision-Making

Justice refers to the perceived fairness of an authority’s decision-making processes and outcomes.

Dimensions of Justice:

• Distributive Justice: Perceived fairness of decision outcomes (e.g., pay, promotions, assignments).
• Procedural Justice: Perceived fairness of the processes and systems used to make decisions. Rules include:
  • Voice: Opportunity to provide input into decisions.
  • Correctability: Opportunity to appeal or correct unfair decisions.
  • Consistency: Procedures are applied consistently across people and time.
  • Bias Suppression: Procedures are neutral and unbiased.
  • Representativeness: Procedures consider the needs of all groups.
  • Accuracy: Procedures are based on accurate information.
• Interpersonal Justice: Perceived fairness of the treatment received by employees from authorities. Rules include:
  • Respect: Treating employees with dignity and sincerity.
  • Propriety: Refraining from improper or offensive remarks.
• Informational Justice: Perceived fairness of the communications provided to employees from authorities. Rules include:
  • Justification: Providing clear and thorough explanations for decisions.
  • Truthfulness: Communications are honest and candid.

Maximizing Justice: Some types of justice are inherently harder to maximize than others, requiring careful attention to both outcomes and processes.

Ethics: Aligning Behavior with Moral Norms

Ethics is the degree to which behaviors align with accepted moral norms.

Reasons for Unethical Behavior:

• Competing values or pressures.
• Motivated blindness (failing to see unethical behavior when it is in one’s interest to remain ignorant).
• Omnipotence (a sense of invincibility or entitlement).
• Cultural numbness (desensitization to unethical practices).
• Justified neglect (rationalizing unethical actions).

Strategies to Reduce Unethical Behavior:

• Veil of Ignorance: Making decisions without knowing how they will affect oneself, promoting impartiality.
• Code of Ethics: Formal statements outlining an organization’s values and ethical expectations.
• Nudges: Subtle interventions that steer individuals toward ethical choices.

2. Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace

Understanding Diversity

Diversity is the degree to which members of a group or organization are different from one another.

Inclusion: The extent to which employees feel valued, respected, and supported within the organization, allowing them to fully participate and contribute.

Types of Diversity:

• Surface-level Diversity: Differences in overt, observable characteristics like race, gender, ethnicity, and age. These differences are often recognized quickly but tend to diminish in importance as people get to know each other.
• Deep-level Diversity: Differences in attitudes, beliefs, values, and personality traits that emerge over time as people interact. These can lead to more profound disagreements but also richer perspectives.
• Hidden Diversity: Deep-level diversity that may be concealed or revealed at discretion by individuals who possess them (e.g., sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, invisible disabilities).

Stereotypes: Oversimplified generalizations about groups of people that can perpetuate incorrect assumptions and biases.

Diversity, when managed effectively, can be a significant competitive advantage for organizations.

Similarity-attraction Phenomenon: The tendency for individuals to be attracted to and prefer to associate with others who are similar to themselves, which can hinder diversity efforts if not addressed.

Glass Ceiling: An invisible barrier that prevents women and minorities from advancing to top leadership positions within organizations.

Glass Cliff: A phenomenon where women are more likely to be appointed to precarious leadership positions, particularly in times of crisis, where the risk of failure is high.

Strategies for Building a Diverse and Inclusive Organization:

• Targeted recruiting to attract diverse talent.
• Double-blind recruitment processes to reduce unconscious bias in hiring.
• Flexible work arrangements to accommodate diverse needs and lifestyles.
• Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) to provide support and community for various identity groups.
• Replacing biased assessments with more objective evaluation methods.
• Sponsorship programs where senior leaders advocate for and mentor diverse talent.

3. Team Characteristics and Dynamics

Groups vs. Teams: Key Distinctions

Teams are an interdependent collection of individuals who are mutually accountable and share responsibility for specific outcomes for their organization. They work collaboratively towards a common goal.

Groups, in contrast, consist of people who learn from one another and share ideas but are otherwise not interdependent; their individual contributions may not directly affect others’ work.

Team Interdependence

Team interdependence is the degree to which task requires interaction among team members to complete their work.

Types of Interdependence:

• Task Interdependence: The degree to which team members interact with and rely on other team members for the information, materials, and resources needed to accomplish work for the team.
• Sequential Interdependence: Tasks are performed in a prescribed order, with members specializing in specific tasks.
• Outcome Interdependence: The degree to which team members share in the rewards and feedback that result from team performance.

Team Development Models

Team Development Model (Tuckman’s Stages):

• Forming: Members orient themselves, establish ground rules, and begin to define roles.
• Storming: Conflict emerges as members express individuality and resist group influence.
• Norming: Members develop cohesion, establish norms, and resolve conflicts.
• Performing: The team focuses on task accomplishment and achieves high levels of performance.
• Adjourning: The team disbands after completing its task.

Limitations: This model is linear and may not apply to all teams, especially those with fluid memberships or short-term projects.

Punctuated Equilibrium Model:

This model suggests that teams experience static periods of activity interrupted by brief bursts of revolutionary change, often triggered by deadlines or critical events.

Factors Influencing Team Effectiveness:

• Team Size: Important for team effectiveness; optimal size often depends on the task, but smaller teams tend to be more cohesive and efficient.
• Member Roles: Categories of roles (e.g., task-oriented, socio-emotional, individualistic) that members adopt, influencing team dynamics and performance.
• Process Gain vs. Loss:
  • Process Gain: When teams perform better than the sum of their individual members’ capabilities (synergy).
  • Process Loss: When teams perform worse than the individuals would have alone, due to coordination problems or motivational issues.
• Brainstorming: Effective strategies include encouraging all ideas, deferring judgment, and building on others’ suggestions.
• Team Decision-Making: Factors impacting it include communication patterns, leadership style, and conflict resolution.
• Conflict: Can be beneficial (functional conflict, leading to better ideas) or harmful (dysfunctional conflict, hindering performance).
• Psychological Safety: A shared belief that the team is safe for interpersonal risk-taking, assessing low vs. high levels is crucial for open communication and learning.

Team States:

• Cohesion: The emotional attachment and commitment of team members to the team.
• Transactive Memory: A shared system for encoding, storing, and retrieving information, where team members know who knows what.

4. Organizational Culture

Definition of Organizational Culture

Organizational culture is the shared social knowledge regarding norms, values, and rules that shape attitudes and behaviors within an organization. It dictates ‘the way things are done around here.’

Components of Organizational Culture:

• Artifacts: Visible manifestations of culture, easily observable but often difficult to interpret without understanding underlying values. Examples include:
  • Symbols: Logos, uniforms, office decor.
  • Language: Jargon, slogans, metaphors.
  • Stories: Anecdotes about founders, heroes, or past events.
  • Rituals: Daily routines, weekly meetings, annual celebrations.
  • Ceremonies: Formal events like awards nights or new employee orientations.
  • Physical Structures: Office layout, building architecture.
• Espoused Values: Explicitly stated beliefs, philosophies, and norms that a company or organization publicly declares. These are the values that management hopes will guide employee behavior.
• Basic Underlying Assumptions: Taken-for-granted beliefs and philosophies that are so ingrained they are rarely questioned. These are the deepest and least visible aspects of culture, often unconscious.

Strong vs. Weak Cultures:

A strong culture is characterized by high agreement among members about organizational values and intense commitment to those values, leading to consistent behavior. A weak culture has less agreement and commitment, resulting in more varied behaviors and potentially less organizational unity.

Types of Culture:

Common typologies include:

• Clan Culture: Collaborative and family-like, emphasizing teamwork, consensus, and employee development.
• Adhocracy Culture: Dynamic and entrepreneurial, focusing on innovation, risk-taking, and rapid adaptation.
• Market Culture: Results-oriented and competitive, prioritizing achievement, profitability, and market share.
• Hierarchy Culture: Structured and controlled, emphasizing efficiency, stability, and adherence to rules and procedures.

Maintaining Organizational Culture:

• Attraction-Selection-Attrition (ASA) Framework: Proposes that people are attracted to, selected by, and remain in organizations whose cultures align with their own personalities and values. Those who don’t fit tend to leave.
• Socialization: The process by which new employees learn the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to function effectively within the organization’s culture.

5. Power and Influence in Organizations

Defining Power and Influence

Power: The possession of asymmetric control over valuable resources, giving one party leverage over another.

Influence: The ability to get someone else to comply with a request or to change their behavior or attitudes.

Consequences of Power:

• Positive Consequences: Can lead to goal achievement, increased job effectiveness, and efficient decision-making.
• Negative Consequences: Can result in insensitivity, decreased perspective-taking, and a tendency to objectify others.

Sources of Power:

Power-dependence Theory: Power originates from others’ dependence on a resource that one controls. This dependence is influenced by:

• Scarcity: The uniqueness or limited availability of the resource.
• Importance: The significance of the resource to the dependent party.
• Substitutability: The availability of alternative resources.

French & Raven’s Bases of Power:

• Positional Power (Organizational):
  • Legitimate Power: Derived from a person’s formal position or role in the organization.
  • Reward Power: The ability to provide positive outcomes or remove negative ones.
  • Coercive Power: The ability to punish or create negative outcomes.
• Personal Power (Individual):
  • Referent Power: Derived from a person’s charisma, respect, or admiration.
  • Expert Power: Derived from a person’s specialized knowledge, skills, or expertise.
  • Information Power: Derived from access to and control over valuable information.

Influence Tactics:

Specific behaviors used to change the attitudes or behaviors of others:

• Rational Persuasion: Using logical arguments and factual evidence.
• Inspirational Appeals: Appealing to values and ideals to arouse enthusiasm.
• Consultation: Allowing the target to participate in deciding how to carry out a request.
• Collaboration: Offering to help the target complete the request.
• Ingratiation: Using flattery or praise before making a request.
• Exchange: Offering a reward or favor in exchange for compliance.
• Coalition Tactics: Enlisting the support of others to influence the target.
• Pressure: Using demands, threats, or persistent reminders.
• Legitimating Tactics: Appealing to authority or organizational rules.

Responses to Influence Tactics:

• Resistance: The target is opposed to the request and attempts to avoid it.
• Compliance: The target is willing to perform the request but does so with indifference.
• Commitment: The target agrees with the request and enthusiastically carries it out.

Impression Management:

The process of shaping the way you are perceived by others, often through strategic self-presentation.

Organizational Politics:

Self-serving behaviors that are not sanctioned by the organization and are often used to achieve personal goals, sometimes at the expense of organizational objectives.