Organizational Behavior, 3rd Edition

Book Preface

Afew years ago, the following statement appeared on the cover of Fast Company, “The best leaders know where all of the great companies start. It’s the people. …” Despite all of the major technological advances made and the substantial increases in the power of computers (both hardware and software) that allow us to perform many functions more easily than in the past and to accomplish some tasks that we could not do in the past, all of this activity is driven by people. People developed Apple’s iPod and iPad. People developed and implemented Twitter and Facebook. We communicate on cell phones and small laptop computers developed by people. Our automobiles are serviced by people; at restaurants we eat food prepared by people; we enjoy college and professional sports played by people. People are the drivers of organizations and make or break their success. Ed Breen, CEO of Tyco suggests that ideas provided by people are the basis of winning competitive battles because companies compete with their brains as well as their brawn. In support of this argument, Anne Mulcahy, former chairman of the board and former CEO of Xerox argues that people were the primary reason for Xerox’s turnaround in performance. They attracted highly talented employees, motivated them and they were highly productive.1

Purpose

We wrote this book for several reasons. First, we wanted to communicate in an effective way the knowledge of managing people in organizations. The book presents up-to-date concepts of organizational behavior (OB) in a lively and easy-to-read manner. The book is based on classic and cutting-edge research on the primary topic of each chapter. Second, we wanted to emphasize the importance of people to the success of organizations. We do so by communicating how managing people is critical to implementing an organization’s strategy, gaining an advantage over competitors, and ensuring positive organizational performance. This approach helps students to better understand the relevance of managing people, allowing the student to integrate these concepts with knowledge gained in other core business courses. To emphasize the importance of people, we use the term human capital. People are important assets to organizations; application of their knowledge and skills is necessary for organizations to accomplish their goals.