Organizational Behavior

Organizational Behavior (hereinafter, the Course) is the course delivered by Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology as Vaughn College MGT210 and Shanghai Jian Qiao University as a part of its Aviation Maintenance Management Program in order to cover organizational behavior concepts. Introduction to Management is the prerequisite.

Syllabus

This syllabus is an outline of the subjects.

Title Organizational Behavior
Credits 3
Grading System Letter Grade
Prerequisites Vaughn College MGT110

Instructor

Instructor: Igor Irkho
Title: Adjunct Instructor
Office: virtual
Office Hours: 9am-9pm weekdays
Cell phone: please find in any announcement
E-mail: college email can be found in the courseware; however, course messages are preferable

Course Description

As individuals, we have spent most of our lives in organizations (from schools, day care centers, and sport and communities activities). Our work life will also involve working in and for organizations and, very likely at some point, (for some of you) creating your own business enterprise and /or a service organization to help your community.

The purpose of this course is to help you understand how people and organizations function, based on the latest social science research on work, workers, and organizations. Topics include: motivation, morale, leadership effectiveness, interpersonal dynamics and communications.

Learning Techniques

Depending on student's choice, this course can be taught using a variety of techniques including:

Lecture
Text readings
Class examples and discussion
Case analysis
Supplemental articles and readings
Computer / problem simulations.

Course Objectives

Course objectives are to understand:

Terminology associated with organizational behavior
The systems approach as applied to human and organizational behavior
How workers and managers influence individual and group motivation and behavior
The impact of diversity and globalization issues facing organizations
Related topics such as leadership and the use of teams in organizations
Organizational structure, organizational culture and managing change

Course Outcomes

After successful completion of this course, students will have acquired the ability to:

Apply management skills and awareness of organizational behavior
Relate learnings to real life business situations and interactions.
Be more proficient communicators, both in oral and written communication skills
Apply the learning objectives listed for each session of the course

Course Requirements

Assignments

All assignments, lectures and examinations are based on comprehension and utilization of concepts and their applications incorporated in the assigned material. Those concepts and applications are represented by key terms, which are printed on darker backgrounds in the bottom of the textbook's pages.

Forum participation(14% of the course grade). Post any message in the Forum section of the course to get the full participation credit.
Communication(2% of the course grade). Schedule a discussion of course outline and objectives.

Quizzes and examinations

Weekly quizzes (28% of the course grade) are posted each week. They include scored true-or-false questions and unscored essay-type questions, which will become scored questions in the midterm and final exams.
Mid-term and final exams (28% of the course grade each) include essay-type questions from weekly quizzses.

Required Text

One of four:

Organizational Behavior by Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge (17th edition), ISBN-13: 978-0-13-410398-3, ISBN-10: 0-13-410398-X (Pearson)
Organizational Behavior by Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge (16th edition), ISBN-13: 978-0-13-350764-5, ISBN-10: 0-13-350764-5 (Pearson)
Organizational Behavior by Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge (15th edition), ISBN-13: 978-0-13-283487-2, ISBN-10: 0-13-283487-1 (Pearson)
Organizational Behavior by Stephen P. Robbins and Timothy A. Judge (14th edition), ISBN-13: 978-0-13-612401-6, ISBN-10: 0-13-612401-1 (Pearson/Prentice Hall)

Grading Policy

Course grade

Grade source	Number of items	Course grade percentage for a single item	Total percentage within the course
Quizzes	14	2%	28%
Forum participation	14	1%	14%
Examinations	2	28%	56%
Communication	one-time	2%	2%
Total			100%

Grading Scale

Grade	Numeric Value	Standard
A	90-100	Excellent
B+	85-89	Good
B	80-84	Good
C+	75-79	Average
C	70-74	Average
D	60-69	Minimal passing
F	Below 60	Failure

Incomplete Grades

Requests for Incomplete grades must be made in writing before the course ends, and after the mid-term has been passed.

Course Schedule (subject to change)

Week #	Topics	14-17 edition	Presentations
Week 0	Planning the course
Week 1	Organizational behavior, manager, management, organization, managerial skills, workplace, diversity	Chapters 1-2	OB introductory concepts
Week 2	Attitudes, job satisfaction, emotions, moods, personality, values	Chapters 3-5	OB personality concepts
Week 3	Perception, decision making, individual decision making	Chapter 6	OB intent concepts
Week 4	Motivation concept	Chapter 7	OB motivation concepts
Week 5	Motivation application	Chapter 8	OB motivation concepts
Week 6	Group behavior	Chapter 9	OB social concepts
Week 7	Work team	Chapter 10	OB team concepts
Week 8	Communication	Chapter 11	OB communication concepts
Week 9	Leadership, power, politics	Chapters 12-13	OB leadership concepts
Week 10	Conflict, negotiation	Chapter 14	OB conflict concepts
Week 11	Organizational structure	Chapter 15	OB culture concepts
Week 12	Organizational culture	Chapter 16	OB culture concepts
Week 13	Human resource	Chapter 17	OB HR concepts
Week 14	Organizational change	Chapter 18	OB change concepts

Coursework

The coursework includes quizzes and exams.

Planning the Course (Module 0)

[What is a wiki]? - click the link on the left to know. In order to get to a specific project, you can click on any link below:

Diversity and Organizational Behavior (Module 1)

Module 1 Scored Questions (true or false statements)
- A manager can be defined as someone who manages organizational human and other resources to achieve organizational goals.
- Overall, it is better to be efficient than effective.
- Diversity is good; greater diversity always positively influences organizational performance.
- Diversity is bad; greater diversity always negatively influences organizational performance.
Module 1 Pre-Midterm Questions (essay type; these questions will emerge later in the midterm exam)

Attitudes, Job Satisfaction, Emotions, Moods, Personality, and Values (Module 2)

Module 2 Scored Questions (true or false statements)
- No personality indicator or assessment result can fully predict worker's productivity.
- Job satisfaction tends to have cognitive and behavioral components, but not to have the affective one.
- Since job satisfaction can be defined as a positive feeling about one's job, job dissatisfaction can be defined as a negative feeling about one's job.
- The fact that someone is fully satisfied with his or her job means that this person works for a successful organization.
Module 2 Pre-Midterm Questions (essay type; these questions will emerge as scored in the midterm exam)

Perception and Individual Decision Making (Module 3)

Module 3 Scored Questions (true or false statements)
- In individual decision making, a role of perception is little.
- Usually, an individual judges other individual well.
- Every decision is somewhat biased.
- Common biases and errors in decision making entirely arrive from personality traits and/or values.
Module 3 Pre-Midterm Questions (essay type; these questions will emerge as scored in the midterm exam)
- Discuss when the rational decision-making model (in other sources, also known as 5-, 6-, 7-, or 8-step one) shouldn't be used according to the textbook. What should be used instead then? Why?

Motivation Concepts and Applications (Module 4)

Module 4 Individual Project
- Give one or more suggestions for how specifically we can utilize motivation concepts and/or applications in our classroom and/or virtual environment to motivate you, students, better.
Module 4 Quiz (true or false statements)
- No theory of motivation grants proven results.
- If the Reinforcement Theory can be best linked back to the Theory X, the Self-Efficacy Theory can be considered as the main successor for the Theory Y.
- No single job compensation system ensures employee's motivation.
- Making a decision to shift a significant degree of decision-making power to the subordinates, the manager shall take their engagement, competence, mutual trust and confidence into consideration.

Group Behavior (Module 5)

Module 5 Individual Project
- Comparing groups in the workplace and those in classroom, which are more successful from your point of view and why?
Module 5 Quiz (true or false statements)
- In regards to group properties, roles, size, and diversity tend to get introduced in the forming stage of group development, while norms, status, and cohesiveness tend to get finalized in the norming stage.
- Decision makers shall estimate the likelihood and impact of every risk and create suitable risk response strategies.
- A manager should avoid groupthink and groupshift since they are negative by-products of group decision making.
- Top officers usually deal with more unstructured problems and make more nonprogrammed decisions than first-line managers.

Work Teams (Module 6)

Module 6 Individual Project
- You manage an organization that works only on government contracts. A small staff is responsible for bringing new contracts and, generally speaking, support organization's activities. When you land a new contract, you recruit new employees to work on it. When the contract is closed, you decruit those hires who worked on the project. Describe how would you structure your organization.
Module 6 Quiz (true or false statements)
- Effectiveness may refer to doing right things and efficiency may refer to doing things rightly. Effective teams may not be efficient and efficient teams may not be effective.
- Electronic meetings may reduce groupthink and group shift.
- Ethics may vary from one group of people to another one.
- Organizational Behavior (OB) and management sciences define how managers should behave in every situation.

Communication (Module 7)

Module 7 Individual Project
- Suggest what data in this very course is processed automatically.
Module 7 Quiz (true or false statements)
- Greater diversity simplifies communication.
- While selecting a type of organizational communication network (Chain, Wheel, All-Channel, etc.), managers shall mostly rely on employees' personalities.
- Managerial practice well supports the Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs Theory.
- The perspective that one's culture or religion is better than anyone else's one is an example of a geocentric attitude.

Leadership, Power, and Politics (Module 8)

Module 8 Individual Project
- Briefly describe the best style of leadership.
Module 8 Quiz (true or false statements)
- A manager can be defined as a person who is able to influence a group toward the achievement of a vision or set of goals.
- Trust development is more important for leaders than for managers.
- Managers should always plan before they act.
- Based on solid research, contingency models are more accurate in describing leadership phenomena than trait and attribution theories.
- Good leaders should always be proactive.
- Democratic leadership styles are better than authoritative and/or dictatorial ones.

Conflict and Negotiation (Module 9)

Module 9 Individual Project
- Discussing different types of intentions in conflict, create five scenarios in which every of intentions will be the best choice of actions. For every scenario, give a concrete reason or reasons of why your chosen conflict management technique is better than the four others.
Module 9 Quiz (true or false statements)
- If distributive bargaining can be paired with compromising intentions, integrative bargaining can be paired with collaborating intentions.
- Collaborating is the best conflict-handling intention; every party must try to collaborate regardless of another party's indications.
- Managers should avoid conflicts because it is an essential part of managerial work.

Organization Structure and Culture (Module 10)

Module 10 Individual Project
- Suggest a type of organizational structures for a US presidential hopeful's team.
Module 10 Quiz (true or false statements)
- Matrix structures are good for fast changes in organizations.
- Mechanistic structures are better for innovation than organic structures.
- Organic structures are best for cost minimization.
- Personnel administration, work authorization, and other management practices can be a part of an organizational culture.
- Organizational willingness to take risks can be a part of an organizational culture.

Human Resource (Module 11)

Module 11 Individual Project
- Imagine that an Ukrainian aircarier is interviewing you for a new position to lead their office in New York. They have just asked you to state three most important steps you do first. List them here.
Module 11 Quiz (true or false statements)
- Managers should use the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) as a selection test for job candidates because the MBTI tends to be closely related to job performance.
- Instrumental values tend to depend on the generational and international values, while terminal values don't tend to depend on those.
- You are a hiring manager for a company. Third-party recruiters provided you with three candidacies, which the recruiters found in job site databases. All three were screened, particularly, during phone interviews. You are in your last interview and see that the candidate you are interviewing right now fits way better than two others. However, you fear that this candidate can go with another offer. You need to unconditionally offer her a job immediately.

Organizational Change (Module 12)

True/false questions
- According to the textbook, organizational changes could be divided in two types, structural changes and technology changes.
- According to the textbook, cultural, structural, and human resource variables stimulate innovation.
Essay-type question
- Discuss whether regular employees in common organizations welcome changes. Why or why not? What organizations can do about it?

Final exam

Essay-type question
- Imagine that you have just been hired to organize a new Speakers Series at Vaughn College to serve its students. Your Boss is its VP Marketing and you are the first employee in the team. Your team's budget is $50,000 this year. This is your first day at Vaughn. Besides general recommendations such as being nice or introducing yourself, describe in some details what you shall professionally do before you may or may not evaluate, design solutions, solve problems, find an office or choose a place, integrate, distribute, setup departments, layout a team, recruit, train, motivate, encourage, make other organizational, structural and human resource decisions, balance inconsistencies, forecast, report, inform, advertise, produce leaflets, etc.