Organizational Behavior by Harris, Hartman

Organizational Behavior by Harris, Hartman is the book edited by Organizational Behavior by O. Jeff Harris, PhD and Sandra J. Hartman, PhD and published by Best Business Books, an imprint of The Haworth Press, Inc., Binghamton, NY in 2002.

The copyright belongs to O. Jeff Harris and Sandra J. Hartman.

• Code of conduct. A set of guidelines specifying how the members of a unit (organization, profession) should behave.
• Culture. The social setting in which people live, including the values, norms, and procedures to be utilized. The culture develops over a period of time as individuals and groups interact and experience personal and social change.
• Deontology. The view that social responsibility is a duty or an obligation to be fulfilled.
• Employee theft. Any form of stealing from one's employer, by taking time, materials, or money for personal use.
• Enlightened self-interest. The belief that if an organization acts in a socially responsible way everyone, including the organization itself, will benefit. The greatest good for the greatest number of people will be achieved.
• Ethical behavior. Actions consistent with society's code of conduct. Doing what is considered morally right.
• Ethics. A set of values representing what a particular society believes to be right as well as what it considers to be wrong.
• Honesty tests. One form of evaluation that checks the level of an employee's truthfulness or proneness to being truthful.
• Ombudsman. An individual who listens to the needs and complaints of employees (or other groups and individuals) and represents the employees or groups to management.
• Polygraph test. A means for evaluating the truthfulness of an individual through the use of electronic sensory devices attached to the individual's body to measure reactions to questions.
• Social responsibility. The obligations a specific unit -- an organization, for example -- is perceived to have to act beneficially for the community at large.
• Baby Boomer Generation. Individuals born following World War II on into the mid 1960s. This group is sometimes called the "me" generation.
• Discrimination. Treating or giving attention to one person or group differently from other individuals or groups. Discrimination frequently is seen as giving attention to others in an unfavorable or unfair way.
• Equity. Fair treatment by managers and supervisory personnel. Equity includes fairness in wages, rewards, discipline, and any other type of attention given to workers.
• Generation X. The youngest group of significant number in today's work force. Members were born between the early 1960s and the early 1980s. Computers, television, and videos have been strong influences in the lives of these individuals.
• GI Generation. Individuals born between 1900 through 1924. Not too many individuals in this age group are still active members of the workforce.
• Minority. Any segment of the workforce that makes up less than one-half of the total population in the work environment or has less power than another group. The majority is usually considered to be dominant, while the minority is thought of as subservient. In this chapter, women, older workers, African Americans, Hispanics, disabled people, and people with AIDS are viewed as minorities.
• Realistic job preview. Accurate representations of both the good points and the negative features of a job given to a prospective employee. Weaknesses are shown graphically so that the prospective employee's perceptions of what to expect are not more positive than they should be.
• Silent Generation (or Builder Generation). Individuals born between 1925 through the mid 1940s. This group is seen as rather flexible and adaptive.
• Stereotyping. Applying a generalization to all persons who are considered to be in a single category. Stereotypes in this chapter refer in particular to generalizations made about sex, age, and race.
• Achievement-versus-leisure orientation. A cultural dimension that indicates whether task accomplishments are more or less important when compared against having a happy, harmonious set of work relationships.
• Acronym. A series of letters used as an abbreviation for a sequence of words. For example, the acronym ASAP replaces the four words as soon as possible.
• Collectivism. A cultural value in which individuals are strongly concerned for groups and other social units around them.
• Femininity. A cultural value that shows concern for relationships, the welfare of others, and the overall quality of life.
• Formality versus informality. A cultural priority indicating which is more important -- the observation of tradition, ceremony, and sound rules or flexibility, spontaneity, and reaction as the dominant factors.
• Idioms. A sequence of words placed together to have a unique meaning different from the meanings the words have when used separately.
• Individualism. A cultural value in which individuals show more concern for themselves and their immediate family than they show for groups and others outside their close circle.
• Initiative. A cultural factor indicating the degree to which employees are self-starting, self-directing, and self-motivating. Individuals seek solutions to their own problems and act responsibly.
• Masculinity. A cultural value that shows the degree to which people are assertive and interested in the acquisition of money and material things.
• Multinational. Anything in which the cultures of more than one nation are involved.
• Multiphrase combination. A communication term where more than one word is used in a situation where one word could be sufficient.
• Power distance. The degree to which nonpowerful individuals accept the unequal distribution of power around them -- the acceptance of the fact that others have more authority than they have.
• Slang. The jargon (terminology) of a particular class or society that is often unknown by outsiders.
• Time orientation. A cultural value indicating the importance of promptness in meeting obligations and deadlines as well as the length of time for which planning and goal setting occurs.
• Uncertainty avoidance. The degree to which members of a specific culture feel threatened by ambiguous situations. High uncertainty avoidance cultures are those that feel much stress when ambiguity develops.
• Authority relationships. The situation in which an individual has the right to give orders and instructions to another individual and can expect the orders to be followed.
• Communication channel. The path through which messages are expected to pass within an organization.
• Downsizing. Planned reduction in the number of employees an organization will retain. The purposes of downsizing are usually to increase worker productivity and to increase profitability.
• Formal structure. The set of relationships and boundaries formulated by an organization's management to facilitate the organization's achievement of its goals. The formal structure represents the design planned by management to regulate and influence the organization's culture.
• Mechanistic structure. The managerially designed set of relationships, usually in the form of a pyramid, that is appropriate when the environment is stable and internal functions require few changes.
• Mission statements. Descriptions of the purposes and directions an organization is expected to pursue.
• Norms. Standards of behavior to which individuals and groups are expected to conform.
• Organic structure. The managerially designed set of relationships, sometimes in the form of a network, where frequent change and the need for flexibility prevail.
• Organizational culture. The values, norms, and attitudes of the people who make up an organization. The culture lets people know what is important in an organization, how to behave, and how to perceive things.
• Outsourcing. Allowing individuals, groups, and/or organizations other than the primary unit to perform duties traditionally performed by the primary unit. In outsourcing, the performance units serve by doing whatever they do best.
• Span of supervision. The number of people who are directly accountable to an individual supervisor or manager.
• Specialization. The structuring of a job that results in an individual's doing a small number of tasks repetitively. Only a limited number of skills are required. Training is simplified as a result of the use of this procedure.
• Barracuda. A term used for an individual (not a fish) who has neither friends nor allies, and insists on fighting whoever and whatever comes along. The barracuda is by nature combative.
• Cluster approach. The technique most frequently used by the grapevine (informal communication network) in which one person tells a few others (one cluster) and each subsequent person tells a few other members, forming additional clusters.
• Coercive power. The right to dominate people or things based upon the ability to give out undesirable reinforcements.
• Cohesiveness. The degree of strength or attractiveness a group has for its members. Where members find their group to be highly attractive, the cohesiveness level is said to be high.
• Conformity. The acceptance of group values and norms to the point that behavior is consistent with group directives.
• Expert power. Respect earned by an individual based upon the possession of supervisor skills, knowledge, or abilities.
• Grapevine. The informal communication network through which information is spread.
• Informal work organizations. The unplanned groups that develop spontaneously as workers interact. Sets of relationships not bound by formal authority that provide important support and fulfillment of needs for members.
• Legitimate power. The right to dominate and control based upon an offered role or position held.
• Referent power. The ability to dominate others based upon attractiveness such that the persons dominated want to be associated with the power holder on a continuing basis even when the cost is heavy.
• Reward power. The right to dominate people or things as a result of control over desirable reinforcements.
• Stars (informal leaders). Individuals who frequently are the center of much communication.
• Zone of authority. A range of duties and responsibilities an employee feels that a supervisor has the right to ask for and to receive good performance for. Things asked for that fit this zone are readily accepted and performed. Directives and requests falling outside the zone may be rejected.
• Bounded rationality. The decision process where potential solutions are simplified and data collection is limited. With this, the first workable solution encountered is chosen as the decision.
• Decision-making group. A team formally assigned to work together to solve a problem or make a decision.
• Delphi technique. A technique for making group decisions where experts are chosen as participants. Group members never meet together directly. They receive information, respond in written form, receive written feedback, vote, and so forth, until a consensus is reached.
• Groupthink. The cohesiveness that develops in a group causing its members to seek a unanimous decision at the risk of failing to identify or consider factors that might result in a better decision.
• Implicit favorite. The decision process in which the preferred choice of the decision maker is selected before all options have been reviewed. Further solution comparisons are considered from a biased perspective so that the decision maker's preferred choice is chosen.
• Intuition. The decision method that draws from previous actions and experiences as choices are made. Many believe this process to be rational rather than emotional.
• Nominal Group Technique (NGT). A group decision-making approach in which individuals identify solutions, share them in round-robin fashion, and eventually vote to select the best choice. At certain points during the group's effort, members may discuss the votes before making other votes.
• Operational group. A team of individuals formally assigned to perform a specific function or set of functions in an organization. This type of group may be a department or a set of functionally interrelated individuals.
• Quality circle. A voluntary grouping of a small number of individuals who work together within an organization. The group is joined together to pursue ways of improving and protecting the quality of the product on which they work. The circle concept originated in Japan.
• Satisficing. The decision process in which the first workable solution identified is accepted as the decision answer.
• Scientific decision making. The process in which the scientific method beginning with problem identification then following with possible alternative development, data collection, and rational choice selection. The most accurate decision possible is the goal.
• Team building. A concept including many stages in which the intention is to improve the quality and effectiveness of performance in a specific group. Several exercises may be performed to build group cohesiveness as well as to produce more goal-oriented behavior.
• Traditional interacting group. The most typical decision-making group, where group discussion is used as the method for reaching a decision.
• Beautiful room. As applied here, a beautiful work area -- one that has pleasing colors, lights, and furnishings.
• Conventional design. A floor plan or design in which people are separated from one another by walls and other permanent partitions. In this arrangement, the work locations of individuals and some groups of people will be set apart from the work areas of others by structural dividers.
• Decibel (dB). The unit used to measure the loudness of sounds.
• Executive row. Usually a series of offices occupied by managerial personnel. All managers are located within the series, and the offices are usually set apart from nonmanagerial personnel.
• Open office. An office or room plan in which there are no permanent partitions or dividers separating employees in a working area. Partial partitions may be used, but in most cases the plan is to allow people to be free to interact with others without structural interference.
• Physical climate. The environment in the workplace. The elements surrounding employees as they work, including such things as the air, temperature, noise, lighting, and humidity, as well as the physical objects, including furniture, machinery, and windows.
• Ugly room. A work location in which the colors and other decorations are unattractive, the lighting is inadequate, and furnishings are poorly suited to the work situation.
• Visual stimuli. Things seen by the eye that cause reactions, moods, or behaviors in individuals.
• External person. An individual who thinks things, life events, and happenings are controlled by external factors, such as the boss or the economy.
• Internal person. An individual who thinks things, life events, and happenings are controlled by one's own abilities and actions.
• Life position. A form of perception in which interpretations of one's previous performance and the manner and amount of stroking received from others lead to interpretations of self and others.
• Locus of control. An individual's perception of whom or what controls the events in life and affects the outcomes related to personal efforts.
• Perception. A sensory experience in which an individual observes (experiences) a behavior, event, or condition, forms an interpretation of the experience, develops an attitude or frame of reference toward the object observed, and allows the interpretation to be a factor influencing behavior.
• Pygmalion effect. A concept, named after a character in Greek mythology, in which an individual's performance is consistent with others' expectations. Those who sense high expectations give back high performance, for example. This concept is also known as the self-fulfilling prophecy.
• Role. A pattern of behavior expected of an individual by others.
• Role ambiguity. An individual's uncertainty about what others expect the individual to do for them or for others.
• Role perception. An individual's view of the obligations he or she has to fulfill the expectations of others.
• Self-esteem. An attitude of approval or disapproval or an indication of the extent to which the individual believes self to be capable, sufficient, and worthy.
• Stroking. The giving of attention psychologically, physically, or both to another individual. Stroking can be positive when the attention given is supportive and rewarding, and it can be negative when the attention is in a chastising or penalizing form. Stroking fulfills a common need among human beings.
• Transactional analysis. A method of studying and analyzing behavior that concentrates on the type of interactions an individual has with other individuals. Three parts of the human personality (parent, adult, and child) provide the mechanism for looking at past and present behavior. Recordings of past experiences are stored away for future reference.
• Achievement need. The desire to accomplish feats or tasks that are very challenging; the desire to do things that have an element of risk involved.
• Affiliation need. The desire to belong, to be accepted, to be able to associate with others.
• Competence need. The desire to feel adequate to meet the expectations and requirements that one must face.
• Esteem need. The desire to be respected (considered to be valuable) by self and others.
• Hope need. The desire to be able to believe that future conditions or circumstances will be better than those existing presently or in the past.
• Human need. A personal, unfilled vacancy that exists within an individual.
• Institutional power person. A type of individual who wants to be in control to benefit the organization.
• Latent need. A need, according to Murray, that lies dormant because nothing has happened to stimulate it.
• Love need. Sometimes called the social need. The desire to give and receive affection from others. Belongingness and acceptance by others are important here.
• Manifest need. A need, according to Murray, that has been activated by a stimulus or cue.
• Personal-power seeker. A type of individual who wants to dominate or be in control for personal gain.
• Physical maintenance need (or physiological need). The seeking of biological survival for food, clothing, and shelter.
• Power need. The seeking of the capacity to control people or things in one's environment. To wish to be dominant, influential.
• Reputation need. The desire to have the respect of others, to have one's competencies recognized by others.
• Security need. The yearning for safety or for the ability to overcome threats and dangers.
• Self-actualization need. The desire or yearning to become self-fulfilled, to achieve one's potential, to excel at something.
• Service need. The desire to do things that will be helpful or supportive of other people.
• Status. A form of recognition in which an individual is esteemed in a way that distinguishes self from other individuals and groups. A high-status person is held in positive esteem. A low-esteem person is given little recognition.
• Behavior theories of leadership. Explanations of why individuals are followed by others based on the concept that successful leaders perform activities or duties differently from other less successful individuals.
• Leadership approaches or styles. A pattern of interacting with others for leadership purposes that consistently uses the same methods or techniques.
• Leadership Grid©. A leadership style concept developed by Robert Blake and Anne McCanse for purposes of diagnosing leadership styles and proposing an idealistic style (the 9,9 approach).
• Nine-nine (9,9) leadership. The idealistic style of leadership proposed in the Leadership Grid in which the best leader pursues task and human goals to the fullest degree possible.
• Situational leadership. The view of leadership activities that suggests that there is no single best way leaders should perform. Each leadership situation must be judged and responded to based upon its own unique needs.
• System 4. A leadership style proposed by Rensis Likert that calls for participative leadership using a team-oriented concept of people in organizations.
• Trait approach. The theory of leadership that states that individuals are granted the right to give direction because they possess certain respected traits, such as physical and mental qualities, knowledge, and skills.
• Cognitive motivation. The view that people are stimulated to action because individuals make rational choices based on the incentive opportunities they will respond to. Cognitive motivation is needs oriented, looking to future fulfillment.
• Equity theory. A concept of motivation in which each performer evaluates rewards received against the rewards received by other employees as well as against inputs required to earn the rewards. Outcomes (rewards) equal to inputs are considered against the outcomes and inputs of others. Where outcomes and inputs differ from those of reference persons, results will be perceived as inequitable.
• Expectancy theory. The model of motivation that operates on the premise that people do the things they do because they believe their actions will result in future rewards to fulfill their important needs. People "expect" their efforts to result in good things they will earn.
• Incentive. The reward offered to a worker to stimulate the worker to act.
• Motivating Potential Score. A number arrived at by using the Hackman-Oldham test of job design that reveals the degree of skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback of a specific job. The larger the number of these characteristics of a job, the greater the motivating potential score.
• Motive. An inner state that energizes, activates, moves, directs, or channels behavior toward goals.
• Negative motivational process. A view of the way to stimulate people to action where fear is used as the incentive. Employees are threatened with punitive action if they do not perform successfully. If performance is successful, the penalty is avoided. If performance is not successful, the penalty is applied.
• Positive motivational model. A view of the way to stimulate people to action that is very similar to expectancy theory. Behavior results from the perception that incentives offered are worthwhile and attainable. Satisfaction occurs after rewards are received and evaluated favorably.
• Discipline. The process by which an individual learns self-control that leads to doing the correct things so that rewards are earned and penalties are avoided.
• Extinction. A form of conditioning in which behavior goes unrewarded as a method of getting that behavior discontinued.
• Hot stove disciplining. The process used by an organization to get "correct" behaviors from employees by the use of immediate, consistent, impersonal, prewarned penalties.
• Primary reinforcer. Basic items such as food, clothing, and shelter that are used to provide the continuation of a desirable behavior or the elimination of an undesirable behavior.
• Punishment. A form of reinforcement in which penalties are applied to get a behavior decreased or stopped.
• Reinforcement. Providing either a reward or a penalty following an employee's behavior to encourage the continuation of desirable behavior or the elimination of an undesirable behavior.
• Reinforcement schedule. A designated pattern by which behaviors will be rewarded or penalized. The sequence and frequency is determined usually by ratio or interval on a variable or fixed basis.
• Secondary reinforcer. Reward or penalty following a behavior in which the reward takes the form of a promotion, praise, or recognition.
• Active listening. Making a concentrated effort to hear what the communicator is attempting to convey rather than passively absorbing the message, seeking the purpose and intent of someone else's messages.
• Aggressiveness. Directly standing up for one's own rights at the expense of others' rights.
• Assertiveness. Communication in which the rights of self and others are respected. As a result, communication is honest and forthright.
• Command and instruction function. A function of communication that makes an employee aware of his or her obligation to the organization.
• Communication. The transfer of a mental concept from the brain of one person to the brain of another.
• Complementary transaction. An exchange between two individuals in which both parties are correctly aware of the personality parts doing the communicating.
• Crossed transaction. An exchange between two individuals in which the parties involved incorrectly determine the personality part doing the sending, the receiving, or both.
• Decoding. The process by which the receiver of a message takes the symbols communicated and gives meaning to them.
• Directive counseling. A structured communicative interaction in which the counselor leads in the identification of problems, alternatives, and solutions by asking questions and giving answers.
• Encoding. The process in which the sender of a message selects symbols to communicate to the receiver so that a message will be interpreted correctly.
• Filtering. The action of a receiver in which the receiver hears only what the receiver wishes to hear.
• Influence and persuasion function. One of the purposes of communication primarily known as motivation, used to encourage individuals to perform or behave in specific ways.
• Information function. One of the purposes of communication which provides knowledge to individuals, including data concerning jobs, the organization, and other related materials.
• Innovation function. The purpose of communication intending to help the organization and its members to adapt to internal and external influences as they occur.
• Integrative function. The purpose of communication used to relate the activities of workers so that they complement rather than detract from one another.
• Nonassertiveness (passive behavior). Communication in which the rights of self or others are infringed upon. Passive behavior tends to be self-denying. Inactivity rather than activity tends to occur.
• Nondirective counseling. Communication between counselor and counselee in which the counselor listens to and encourages the counselee to identify problems, alternatives, and solutions. The role of the counselor is supportive rather than dominating.
• Probe. An effort to get the counselee to talk about problems, alternatives, and solutions that seeks to be stimulating without being too demanding.
• Restatement. A technique used by the counselor to get the counselee to talk more by repeating what the counselee has just said.
• Receiver. The person in the organization who takes in a message issued by the sender in the communication process.
• Sender. The person in an organization who begins the communication process by issuing symbols with meaning.
• Ulterior transaction. An exchange between two individuals in which one or both parties deliberately hide personality parts when sending and receiv- ing a message.
• Behavioral adjustment. Modification of the actions of employees as a result of change.
• Change. A behavior, event, or condition that is different from a previous behavior, event, or condition.
• Change agent. Often called the consultant. The individual with the responsibility for leading an organization in the process of renewal and growth, called Organizational Development. The change agent serves as a catalyst to bring about innovation within an organization.
• Organizational Development. A form of planned change where the members of an organization, with the help of a consultant, audit themselves and their organization, then are led in a program of improvement and revitalization based upon the findings of the evaluation.
• Planned change. Behavior, events, or conditions that are different as a result of deliberate actions. In this chapter, planned change takes place as a result of managerial planning.
• Psychological effect. The results of change that causes mental strategies different from previous strategies.
• Social adaptation. The result of change that causes new relationships and affiliations to be formed.
• Tentative approach. A method of bringing about change in which modifications done on a trial basis can be reversed if the employee doesn't like the adjustment after using it for a time.
• Unplanned change. Behavior, events, or conditions that are different as a result of unpredicted, spontaneous factors forcing alteration to occur.
• Collaboration (nine, nine conflict handling, 9,9 conflict handling). A technique for achieving positive results from conflict through bringing together people with disagreements, encouraging open discussion, confronting differences, and seeking outcomes beneficial to the parties as well as for the organization.
• Contemporary view. An attitude that considers conflict to be inevitable when people work together. The role of the manager, therefore, is to attempt to turn conflict into desirable consequences with constructive results for the organization and its people.
• Functional duties. In this context, sources of conflict result from varying job responsibilities, disputes over access to limited resources, intraorganizational competition, and goal incompatibility related to the job being performed.
• Individual differences. In this context, variances in temperament, background, and philosophy of employees are seen as sources of conflict.
• Organizational characteristics. Sources of conflict resulting from size, departmentation, spans of supervision, and other structural factors.
• Perceptual differences. In this concept, perceptual differences are assessments individuals make about the authority they possess, the roles they play, treatment they receive from others, the status they possess, the rights that accompany their status, and the goals being pursued that may be construed in ways that would put individuals at odds with one another.
• Problem solving. Terminology used for the technique of managing conflict in which causes are identified, alternative solutions are sought, and a course of action believed to be optimal for everyone is chosen.
• Smoothing. A technique for handling conflict in which common interests are talked about but discussions of differences are avoided so that conflict is minimized.
• Superordinate goals. A way of avoiding, reducing, or handling conflict in which the sharing of common purposes unifies the efforts of the parties involved.
• Traditional view. An attitude toward conflict that anticipates that each situation of dispute and disagreement can have only bad results. Since this is expected, conflict is considered to be something to avoid or eliminate.
• Alcoholic. A person who consumes large amounts of alcohol over a considerable length of time and whose addiction causes chronic, increasing incapacitation.
• Drug abuser. An individual who uses any form of drug excessively beyond or against purposes for which the drug was intended.
• Drug testing. A method to evaluate the presence of (and to what degree) a drug is in the body systems of an individual.
• Negative stress. The state or condition wherein the pressures applied to an individual causes a threatening, fearful sort of tension within the individual. Often in this kind of stress, the individual feels incapable and inadequate to meet the challenges lying ahead.
• Overload. A situation in the workplace wherein the demands made by a work-related component are so high that tensions develop.
• Problem drinkers. Individuals who may not be addicted to alcohol but whose behavior as a result of alcohol consumption causes trouble for themselves and/or for others.
• Stress. A state or condition wherein external factors (time pressures, social norms, success-failure conditions, and so forth) interact with an individual psychologically or physiologically so that tensions develop inside the individual.
• Stressor. Factor that causes tensions to build within an individual to the point that stress occurs. A strong command from a superior or a rapid decline in the market may be an externally caused stressor. A strong achievement need or a demanding growth need may be an internally originated stressor.
• Type A personality. The nature and disposition of an individual to be fast living, impatient, self-preoccupied, competitive, accepting of excess responsibility, and so forth. The Type A person drives self to the point that health is threatened.
• Type B personality. The nature and disposition of an individual to take things slowly, to avoid unrealistic demands, and to be deliberate rather than reactive.
• Underload. A situation in the workplace wherein the demands of a work-related component are less than normal or expected so that tensions develop.
• Artificial intelligence. The capacity of computers to make humanlike decisions.
• CIM (computer integrated manufacturing). CIM is achieved when computers and other technological devices coordinate the activities involved in a production process from the beginning of the process (planning and scheduling) to the end of the process (distribution).
• Cottage industry. A development in which individuals work in their own homes to produce or process products, materials, services, or information rather than working at a central location.
• CTO (chief technology officer). The CTO in an organization is responsible for seeing that the technology appropriate for the organization is identified, implemented, and correctly utilized. This person's responsibilities are organization-wide.
• CTD (cumulative trauma disorders). Pain and stiffness of wrist, arm, and shoulder resulting from data input into computers over an extended period of time.
• E-commerce. The process whereby individuals buy, sell, or otherwise exchange goods or services by using the computer Web.
• Economies of integration. Computer technology enables organizations to concentrate on the production of one product efficiently and then switch to production of another product without costly retooling and setup. In this way, both economies of scale and economies of scope can be achieved.
• Economies of scale. Production of a larger quantity of units so that the cost per unit is reduced as fixed costs are spread over more units.
• Economies of scope. Economies of scope occur when an organization can produce two or more products at a cost less than or equal to the cost of producing only one product.
• Electronic mail. Written information is exchanged between individuals at different locations by sending messages through their computers.
• Ergonomics. The study of the relationship between the worker and the workplace. In particular, the goal of ergonomics is to increase health, comfort, and productivity for each employee.
• Expert system (ES). A knowledge-based program whereby rules, probabilities, facts, and relationships are entered into a computer database by a human expert in a particular field. The computer can then give expert-like responses to questions and problems that arise.
• IS (information system). The total set of processes used by an organization to collect, store, analyze, and communicate data.
• Neighborhood work center. A building located away from headquarters where people go to work rather than commute to the headquarters. Equipment and services are provided. Employees of several different organizations may go to a single work center.
• Robotics. The creation of mechanical units that act like humans and take the place of humans in the production process of an organization.
• Video display terminal (VDT). A technical term describing the screen on which desktop computer operators view the work they have put into the computer system.
• Voice mail. Through a network (usually of telephone lines), messages are sent using telephones. Machines record, store, replay, forward, or distribute messages for the appropriate individuals.