Chapter 1

1. If a friend came to me and told me that taking organizational behavior courses would only be useful to people wanting to go into management careers, I would say that's wrong. That is because these courses would help with making your working experience more understandable. They can also help a company become one of the best like the book mentioned about Google with how they are taking the different aspects of OB and making a great and highly profitable company. They also let you see a little bit more of the bigger picture as in how people and the company act affects how the company will succeed.

2. The employees that were looking at the efficiency of water distribution ended up hurting the output of the open systems external environment. When they were disregarding the rules of their company for their project they ended up hurting the companies reputation. Furthermore it didn't help when some of their ideas that were obtained in this way were implemented. Thus there was an outrage among consumers resulting in more money lost for the company.

3. I would say that knowledge is more powerful then having land and physical capital. In the case of Google again they have a big foundation for knowledge sharing and encourage wherever possible. Knowledge helps give a company a cutting edge look at the market and what can help be the next big thing. As said in the book human capital, structural capital and relationship capital is key. The company can't expect to move forward with the intelligence of it workers, organizational systems and structures, and relationships with the people your company interacts with. All of these things go a lot farther then the two things mentioned from the Executive.

8. I would say the statement about the contingency approach is true. Not all situation are alike, thus you can't expect the same solution to work on everything. Sometimes people are going to have to look at a problem that may have some of the similarities of another issue but have to look at it a different way in order to get the issue solved.