Organisational Behaviour

Gert Alblas is an social and organisational psychologist and used to be a university lecturer at the University of Groningen and the open University of the Netherlands. He currently works as a writer. He has written several books on psychology, management, and organisation for Noordhoff Uitgevers. Ella Wijsman is a psychologist specialising in organisational psychology and management theory and taught at various (vocational) universities. In addition, she also designed and coordinated management trainings and provided training and coaching in both the profit and non-profit sectors. She is the author of Psychology & Sociology, a standard reference work in this branch of study in the Netherlands.

Introduction

1 Individual and organisation

1.1 Behaviour and motivation

1.2 Abilities and competences

1.3 Personality

1.4 Attitudes

1.5 The relationship between individual and organisation

1.6 Commitment

1.7 Job satisfaction

1.8 Equitability

1.9 Changing relationships

2 Integration and motivation

2.1 Recruitment and selection

2.2 Integration

2.3 Methods of integration

2.4 Motivation

2.5 Effects of motivation

2.6 Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: conclusions

2.7 Retaining people in an organisation

3 Groups in organisations

3.1 The group concept

3.2 The organisation as a collection of groups

3.3 Types of groups in organisations

3.4 Functions of groups

3.5 The group as a social environment

3.6 Phases in group development

3.7 Structural characteristics of groups

3.8 Relationships between groups

3.9 Improving relationships between groups

4 Collaboration and decision-making in groups

4.1 Effective collaboration in groups

4.2 Process losses in executive groups

4.3 Optimising group performance

4.4 Effective decision-making in groups

4.5 Advantages and disadvantages of a group approach

4.6 Criteria for effective decision-making

in a group context

4.7 Process losses in decision-making

4.8 Improving decision-making in groups

4.9 Leadership in decision-making

4.10 Collaboration and consultation in self-managing and virtual teams

5 Communication in organisations

5.1 Communication

5.2 The communication process

5.3 Aspects of communication

5.4 Communication in organisations

5.5 Impediments to communication

5.6 Problems in formal communication

5.7 Improving communication

6 Power and leadership

6.1 Power and influence

6.2 Sources of power

6.3 Use of power

6.4 Effects of use of power

6.5 Use of power for political purposes

6.6 Abuse of power

6.7 Leadership in organisations

6.8 Leadership and effectiveness

6.9 Improving leadership

6.10 Influence of leadership

7 Organisational structure

7.1 Creating structure

7.2 Distribution of labour

7.3 Functional division

7.4 Coordination of activities

7.5 Grouping activities

7.6 Responsibilities and relationships

7.7 Additional forms of authority and mutual relationships

7.8 Designing communication channels

7.9 Organic and mechanistic structures

7.10 Developments in structural design

7.11 Design questions

8 Organisational culture

8.1 The concept of culture

8.2 Organisational culture

8.3 Types of organisational culture

8.4 Organisational culture and effectiveness

8.5 Establishing the culture of organisations

8.6 The development of organisational culture

8.7 Transmitting organisational culture

8.8 Organisational culture and nationality

8.9 Cultural bias

8.10 Changing the organisational culture

9 Decision-making in

organisations

9.1 Characteristics of problems

9.2 Areas of decision-making in organisations

9.3 Problems in decision-making

9.4 Impediments to decision-making

9.5 Decision-making models

9.6 Strategic decision-making

9.7 Model for strategy formulation

9.8 Organizing strategic decision-making

10 Stress and conflict

10.1 Psychological load

10.2 Work-related causes of stress and burn-out

10.3 Person-related causes of stress and burn-out

10.4 Preventing or combating stress and burn-out

10.5 Physical load

10.6 Reducing the physical load

10.7 Conflicts at work

10.8 Conflict management

10.9 Conditions that influence conflict management

10.10 Escalation of conflicts

10.11 Organisational intervention in conflict resolution

11 Organisational change

11.1 Necessity for change

11.2 Causes of change

11.3 Deciding to change

11.4 Planned organisational change

11.5 Types of change

11.6 Two approaches to planned change

11.7 Impediments to the change process

11.8 The role of management in change processes

11.9 Creating a structure for handling change

11.10 Reducing resistance and increasing support

Bibliography

About the authors

Index

Illustration acknowledgement