chapter - Pearson

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Chapter 1 Organizational Behavior and Management
Human skills
The ability to understand, work
with, lead, and control the behavior
of other people and groups.
Technical skills
Job-specific knowledge and techniques.
conceptual skill, as do the decisional roles discussed above. The study of organizational
behavior provides managers with many of the conceptual tools they need to
analyze organizational settings and to identify and diagnose the dynamics of individual
and group behavior in these settings.
Human skills enable a manager to understand, work with, lead, and control
the behavior of other people and groups. The study of how managers can influence
behavior is a principal focus of organizational behavior, and the ability to learn and
acquire the skills that are needed to coordinate and motivate people is a principal difference
between effective and ineffective managers.
Technical skills are the job-specific knowledge and techniques that a manager
requires to perform an organizational role (e.g., manufacturing, accounting, or marketing).
The specific technical skills a manager needs depend on the organization the
manager is in and on his or her position in the organization. The manager of a
restaurant, for example, needs cooking skills to fill in for an absent cook, accounting
and bookkeeping skills to keep track of receipts and costs and to administer the payroll,
and artistic skills to keep the restaurant looking attractive for customers.
Effective managers need all three kinds of skills—conceptual, human, and
technical. The lack of one or more of these skills can lead to a manager’s downfall.
One of the biggest problems that entrepreneurs who found their own businesses
confront—a problem that is often responsible for their failure—is lack of appropriate
conceptual and human skills. Similarly, one of the biggest problems that scientists,
engineers, and others who switch careers and go from research into management
confront is their lack of effective human skills. Management functions, roles, and
skills are intimately related, and in the long run the ability to understand and manage
behavior in organizations is indispensable to any actual or prospective manager.
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CHALLENGES FOR ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
In the last 10 years, the challenges facing managers in effectively utilizing human
resources and managing organizational behavior have been increasing. Among
these challenges, those stemming from changing forces in the technological, global,
and social or cultural environments stand out. As mentioned previously, the impact
of new information technologies such as the internet and intranet has dramatically
changed the way organizations manage and utilize their human resources. With
information more accurate, plentiful, and freely available and as the use of computers
increasingly takes over routine tasks, employees have more time to engage in
constructive, innovative activities. Indeed, the use of modern information technologies
has increased the degree to which employees can engage in creative, workexpanding
kinds of activities such as finding ways to give customers better service or
to find better way of performing a task. Indeed, managing organizational behavior
to allow employees to act creatively is a major challenge facing organizations that
wish to survive and prosper in today’s highly competitive world, as we discuss
below. 14
Challenges from technology are ones that derive from changing social conditions.
For example, in the last 10 years the number of women and minorities assuming
managerial positions in the workforce has increased by over 25 percent.
Similarly, in the last decade, companies have come under increasing scrutiny because
of ethical concerns about the safety of the products they produce and their employment
policies toward the people who make those products both in the United States
and abroad. Organizations have also been facing increased global competition from
low-cost countries like Malaysia and China, and technological change has significantly
reduced the employment opportunities for U.S. manufacturing workers.