Although skills in finance, accounting, marketing, operations, and strategy are crucial for organizational success, the ability to manage an organization, its groups, and its individuals are equally important. In your careers, you will depend on people to accomplish tasks, goals, and projects; you will need to work for other people, work with other people, and supervise other people. An understanding of the human side of management is an essential complement to the technical skills you are learning in other core business courses.

Although we will focus on business organizations, you will find that the course concepts have valuable applications to other types of organizations, including non-profits, athletic teams, social clubs, and religious and political groups.

This course is an introduction to the basic concepts and topics in organizational behavior (OB) and management. The course focuses on OB at three levels: individual, interpersonal, and collective. We will start at the individual level, covering decision-making, motivation, and personality. We will then turn to the interpersonal level, covering power, influence, and negotiations. Finally, we will move up to the collective level, covering leadership and organizational context.