Behavioural Science in Organization

• Decision making

  Process by which managers respond to opportunities and threats by analyzing options, and making determinations about specific organizational goals and courses of action
• Programmed decision

  Routine, virtually automatic decision making that follows established rules or guidelines
• Non-programmed decisions


  Nonroutine decision making that occurs in response to unusual, unpredictable opportunities and threats
• Intuition

  Feelings, beliefs, and hunches that come readily to mind, require little effort and information gathering, result in on-the-spot decisions
• Reasoned judgment


  Decisions that take time and effort, result from careful information gathering, generation of alternatives, and evaluation of alternatives
• The Classical Model of Decision Making

  • Prescriptive model that assumes the decision maker can identify and evaluate all possible alternatives and their consequences and rationally choose the most appropriate course of action
  • Optimum decision: Most appropriate decision in light of what managers believe to be the most desirable consequences for the organization
• The Administrative Model of Decision Making

  • Explains why decision making is inherently uncertain and risky and why managers usually make satisfactory rather than optimum decisions
  • Bounded rationality, incomplete information
• Causes of Incomplete Information

  • Risk
  • Uncertainty
  • Ambiguous information
  • Time constraints and information costs
  • Satisficing
• Six Steps in Decision Making


  1. Identify the problem or opportunity

  2. Gather relevant information

  3. Generate alternative courses of action

  4. Evaluate alternatives

  5. Choose the best alternative

  6. Implement the decision and evaluate the results
• General Criteria for Evaluating Possible Courses of Action

  • Effectiveness
  • Efficiency
  • Acceptability
  • Feasibility
• Groupthink

  Pattern of faulty and biased decision making that occurs in groups, where members strive for agreement among themselves at the expense of accurately assessing information relevant to a decision
• Devil's advocacy

  Critical analysis of a preferred alternative to ascertain its strengths and weaknesses before it is implemented
• Promoting diversity improves group decision making by bringing together managers of both genders from various ethnic, national, and functional backgrounds, which broadens the range of life experiences and opinions
• Team

  A group of people who work together to achieve a common goal
• Group

  Two or more persons who are interacting with one another in such a way that each person influences and is influenced by each other
• Tuckman's Approach to Group Development

  1. Forming

  2. Storming

  3. Norming

  4. Performing
• Forming stage


  • Group gets together and familiarise themselves with each other, finding out their strengths and weaknesses and deciding where they fit in within the group
• Storming stage


  • Heightened tension associated with role differentiation, competition for status, restructuring of the team and developing team rules
• Norming stage


  • Norms, rules and standards of behaviour begin to stabilise and co-operation takes over to form a unity. Group begins to work as a team to achieve common goals
• Performing stage


  • Group able to work together effectively, little to no hostility with strong relationships built
• Factors promoting team cohesion

  • Open new friendship groups
  • Integrate outsiders
  • Issue shared problems
  • Breakdown cliques
  • Use of attribution
  • Promote team satisfaction in performance
  • Identify common team goals
  • Reinforce team success
• Factors affecting team cohesion

  • Communication
  • Difficulties with the coach/manager
  • Language difficulties
  • Payment of players
  • The introduction of new players
  • The influence of the media
  • Previous encounters at other clubs
  • The influence of the supporters
  • Athletes personal lives
  • Squad rotation
• Interactive group

  Group required to work together and ensure co-ordination to achieve their goal
• Coactive group

  Group that requires little co-ordination between the team to achieve their goal
• Some teams require both coactive and interactive groups within their team
• Group performance decreases with the size of the group
• Social loafing

  When a member of the team is not putting in 100% effort
• How to decrease social loafing

  • Highlight individual performances
  • Monitor individual performances with feedback
  • Use positive reinforcement
  • Promote cohesion in the team
  • Set individual games
  • Give specific roles
  • Apply peer pressure within the group
• Actual Productivity

  The actual result or achievement of the group
• Potential Productivity


  The group's best possible performance depending on how individuals perform physically, mentally, technically and tactically
• Faulty Processes

  Things that go wrong, e.g. lack of coordination and motivational loss, that prevent the group from reaching their potential
• Power

  The ability to influence another person
• Influence

  The process of affecting the thoughts, behavior, & feelings of another person
• Authority

  The right to influence another person
• Types of Position Power

  • Legitimate
  • Reward
  • Coercive
• Types of Individual Power

  • Information
  • Expert
  • Referent
• Expert power is the most effective type of power
• Information Power

  Access to and control over important information
• Ways to use power effectively

  • Use power in ethical ways
  • Understand and use all types of power and influence
  • Seek out jobs that allow you to develop your power skills
  • Use power tempered by maturity and self-control
  • Accept that influencing people is an important part of the management job
• Organizational Politics

  The use of power and influence in organizations