Second class notes:

Personality, Perception& Attribution; Attitudes& Values

There are some individual differences in which attitudes, perceptions, values play an important role on the main topic we analyze in the class, and that is just because those kind of factors differ from one individual to another. Furthermore, personality means that are some characteristics that influence an individual’s behavior.

Personality dispositions include: emotions, cognitions attitudes, expectancies, fantasies.

Taking into account Source: http://www.business.unr.edu/faculty/simmonsb/mgt486/amjjobattitudes.pdf i think that the most important role of personality dispositions are attitudes because if it is performance well enough, it can endure in individual-level organizational very well constructed. But not only like that, attitudes represents a capability that represents good competencies  with the purpose of responding to change dynamics into an organization development or even in every single society that every person is involved in. this is for sure a key of behavior and adaptability that make a combinative capability. Consequently, attitudes is a tendency in which is expressed by evaluating an entuty with some degree of favor or disfavor. I think that our tendency to look only for one path doesn’t allow us to progress in a specific point without paying attention to the others.

Now, talking about personality in organizations we can analyze first a very common issue that is the Core self-evaluation (CSE): is a broad set of personality traits that refers to self-concept. It is comprised of: locus of control, self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, emotional stability. The most important ones for me to pay more attention as an individual tendency to accentuate the positive aspects of himself or herself are:

·         Locus of control: An individual’s generalized belief about internal control (self-control) versus external control (control by the situation or by others). Now according to source: http://www.jstor.org/pss/25123901?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Doff%26Query%3Dwhat%2Bis%2Blocus%2Bof%2Bcontrol%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dlocus%2Bof%2Bcontrol%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff&Search=yes

Locus of control play an important role on ethics and the education we have got during the whole life and also the behavior control we have in a specific case.

·         Self efficacy: An individual’s general belief that he or she is capable of meeting job demands in a wide variety of situations. Source: Retrieved from January 2011: http://www.eruptingmind.com/what-is-self-efficacy-self-respect/

You have to believe in yourself in order to do things right and to be confortable in what you are doing. That will make you a big advantage faceing the issues or problems in live.

Attribution Theory:

•A theory that explains how individuals pinpoint the causes of their own behavior and that of others.

•Internal attribution (something within one’s control)

•External attribution (something outside one’s control)

There is an ABC model as an attitude wich means Affect ( like I don’t like my classmates ), Behavioral intentions ( like I want to go to another university ) and Cognition ( I belief that my girlfriend cheat on me). This is a model in wich we can analize the common attitudes people make.

A job satisfaction source:http://www.egestionar.com.ar/HR%20Job.htm is when people is confortable and very pleasure on a job experience or something made that caused a lot of emotion. The point is that is due to a work attitude that every person experiments during the whole live. Besides in order to get the success its neccesarily to have a good organizational commitment that consist in: affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Taking into account source: Gregorio Martin-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. “ Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm”: I can complement that depending on delegate in a company and distribute the employees regarding their capabilities, the structure will be for sure a good complement to work in group and have a good organization to achieve the expected goal. That is a competitive advantage for the company or the organization.

Source: Gregorio Martin-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. “ Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm”: talks about values and it is good explained there that values is the utility of the resource for successful competition in a certain industry, I think value interacts with the relation of the capabilities and resources and that makes a good strategy for the conditions in the organization to fulfill. However exist a work values that are presented and has some sort of interaction with a good quality of values, those are achievement, concern for others, honesty and fairness. Consequently the work will last for a lot of time as a good strategy to carry on their daily activities.

Question:

To what do you attribute the success of JICA?

JICA: Japan International Cooperation agency. It is a part of the government in order to reduce poverty and protect the people who really need help. Japanese government really helps a lot to these kind of people with their own volunteers that are sent to different countries for make their contribution to get the world peace. Those volunteers do not get any earnings or salary, its their motivation to help and teach people who really need a hand. For them it’s a pleasure to go to different villages and cities only for help the others. Japanese government provides to these volunteers only a few things to get by in those places they go, such us: food, accommodation, tickets for their transportation, etc. Just only to survive and do well their commitment. In fact, that is a good attribution and motivation for those voluntarees to make a good job. JICA exist since 30 years ago and has carried on just because the felling that every volunteer has to get improve those people who really need help. Volunteers like in a completely way to go to those places and collaborate with the social environment because if people like that doesn’t help, who will?. I think JICA will continue increasing a lot of success because there are a lot of people waiting for help to get better in any aspect of poverty, education, etc.

First class notes.

How will knowledge of organizational behaviour make a difference for you?.

R= just about technology make the difference in a company trying to keep the right info, and manage it well. We also study organizational behavior because to learn about yourself and how to deal with others, for example I can eat fruits at the breakfast and mi brother would rather eat bread. It also provides a set of tools that allows: people to understand, analyse and describe behavior in organization.

There are some levels: individual process, group process and organizational process.

*The context:

Opportunities: ( favorable times or changes for progress and advancement).

Change: ( the transformation or modification of an organization and/or its shareholders).

Challenge: ( the call to competition, contest, or battle).

*Understanding human behavior.

*Internal perspective ( considers factors inside the person to understand behavior), for example if you are in China you will act different.

*External perspective ( focuses on factors ouside the person to understand behavior).

*The challenge of change: the crisis, complaining staff, new competitors, decreasing profits and sales, demanding customs, merger of recognization

*How do you view change?

Threat( decreasing), opportunity ( increasing).

*International competition in business:

Driving forces creating and shaping change at work: globalization, diversity, ethics, technology.

Success will recquiere:

. positive response to the competition in the international marketplace.

. responsiveness to ethnic, religious, and gender diversity in the workforce

*Costumer focused for high quality:

A potential means for giving organization in viable industries a competitive edge in international competition ( what customers wants and what they are expecting).

*Quality: cannot be optimized ( always in changing), is not a fad ( shor time), is not an end in itself.

Questions in evaluating quality-improvement ideas:

. does the idea improve customers responde?

. does the idea accelerate results?

. does the idea raise the effectiveness of resources?

*TQM: total quality management

The total dedication to continous improvement and to customers so that the customers needs are met their expectation exceed, ( development and maintainance of the system).

*Sig sigma: a high performance system to execute business strategy that is customer driven enphasis quantitative decisions making and places apriority on saving money.

Each student must accept responsibility for his/her own behavior.

Source: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/savaskan/opnsquality/mot_six_sigma.pdf: according to this source I think is very important to take into account the six sigma versus the total quality management inn wich is very good described and presented.

Six sigma	Total Quality Management
Executive ownership	Self-directed work teams
Business strategy execution system	Quality initiative
Truly cross-functional	Largely within a single function
Focused training with verifiable	No mass training in statistics and quality
Return on investment	Return on investment
Business results oriented	Quality oriented

Challenges to Managing Organizational Behavior.

Increasing globalization of organizations’ operating territory

2. Increasing diversity of organizational workforces

3. Continuing technological innovation with its companion need for skill enhancement

4. Continuing demand for higher levels of moral & ethical behavior at work

Source: Gregorio Martin-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. “ Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm”:

I think the best description of organizational culture is presented in this document in wich is explained that organizational culture is defined as a complez set of values, belifs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in wich a firm drive its business.

Source: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/

What are the practical applications for Geert Hofstede's research on cultural differences?

For those who work in international business, it is sometimes amazing how different people in other cultures behave. And I think is true because always We tend to have a human instinct that 'deep inside' all people are the same - but they are not. Therefore, if we go into another country and make decisions based on how we operate in our own home country - the chances are we'll make some very bad decisions. Consequently before going international we have to learn more about that country´s culture in order to be more effective when interacting with that sort of people.

 Hofstede (1984) defines culture as:

… the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another… Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture (p.21).
Source: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/180/decision-making-factors-that-influence-decision-making-heuristics-used-and-decision-outcomes
Every single day people have decisions, even if those are big or small and we have to be aware oh those decision making. Most of the time decisions are very complex and we have to be quite carefull about those decisions before to implement them. Here, are some of the main decisions we take evry day and has to be presented in order to let people understand the different ones that exist and be aware that before to approach them we have to be patient and think before make the final decision:

Decisions made by competitors; suppliers; customers

Labor markets, Technology, The national, regional, and world economies, Financial markets, Local, national, regional, and international politics, Law and regulations, Infrastructure factors (transport, power, etc), Trade unions, Consumer groups, Ethical and religious systems, Factors in the green environment, INDUSTRY INTERESTS, NATIONAL CULTURE.