The OB Model and Its Variables

The OB model is a way of organising what we know about behaviour in organisations. It separates causes (independent variables) from effects (dependent variables). For a school head, the model is a working tool: when something goes wrong, which independent variable is producing the bad outcome, and at which level?

What a model is

The handout starts with a definition:

A model is an abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon.

Models are not reality. They are useful simplifications. A model that captures the important features of reality is a good model even if it leaves things out. A model that gets the important features wrong is a bad model even if it includes many details.

The OB model captures four important effects (the dependent variables) and three categories of cause (the independent variables). It is a working framework, not the whole truth.

The four dependent variables

The OB model focuses on four outcomes.

Productivity

An organisation is productive if it achieves its goals, and does so by transferring inputs to outputs at the lowest cost. Productivity measures performance, including effectiveness, efficiency, and economy. Major concern of OB.

Productivity in a school is the relationship between what the school invests (teacher time, money, materials) and what it produces (student learning, well-rounded graduates, parent satisfaction). A productive school produces more learning per unit of input than a less productive one.

OB tries to identify the factors that improve productivity. Teacher motivation. Curriculum design. Leadership style. Organisational culture.

Absenteeism

Failure to report to work. Sometimes alright, for illness, fatigue, stress; take rest instead of causing poor output or accidents. Beyond normal range, directly impacts the organisation’s effectiveness and efficiency negatively.

A teacher who is absent because of genuine illness is doing the right thing. A teacher who is absent because she is disengaged is a problem. The same outward behaviour can have very different underlying causes.

A school with high chronic absenteeism among staff has an OB problem. The cause may be at any of the three levels: individual (some teachers are disengaged), group (the staffroom culture tolerates absence), or system (HR policies do not penalise it).

Turnover

Voluntary or involuntary permanent withdrawal from the organisation. Acceptable if poor performers leave. High turnover results in high costs of re-hiring and re-training. Efficiency loss due to replacement of lost knowledge and skill.

Not all turnover is bad. A school benefits when an underperforming teacher leaves. The school suffers when a strong teacher leaves.

A useful diagnostic question: who is leaving? If the strongest staff are leaving, the school has an OB problem. If the weakest are leaving, the school is healthy. The aggregate turnover rate is less informative than the composition of who is leaving.

Job satisfaction

A pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences (Locke, 1976). A satisfied employee is more productive. Quality is important with quantity, intrinsic value and challenge.

Job satisfaction is the worker’s own appraisal of her work. A satisfied teacher likes her work, finds meaning in it, and feels respected by her school. A dissatisfied teacher does her job but does not engage with it.

Satisfaction and productivity are correlated but not identical. A highly satisfied teacher may still underperform if she lacks skill. A highly productive teacher may still be dissatisfied if the school is exploiting her. OB attends to both.

The three categories of independent variable

Causes of the four outcomes sit at three levels.

Individual-level variables

People carry some personal characteristics when they join a job: age, gender, marital status, values, attitude, personality, ability; and behaviour, perception, decision-making, learning, and motivation. The organisation cannot alter them.

Individual variables come with the person. The school does not choose her age, her personality, or her values. The school chooses whether to hire her and how to develop her once hired.

For a school head, individual variables matter most at hiring and onboarding. After that, the variables are mostly fixed; the school works with what it has.

Group-level variables

People’s behaviour is different in groups than when alone. This level includes communication patterns, leadership styles, power and politics, intergroup relations, and levels of conflict.

Group variables are about the dynamics among people. The same teacher in two different teams produces different work. The same staff in different schools produces different staffroom cultures.

For a school head, group variables are highly malleable. Changing team composition, leadership style, or communication patterns can shift outcomes substantially. This is one of the most useful levers a school head has.

Organisation system-level variables

Includes design of the formal organisation, work processes and jobs, human resource policies and practices, and the internal culture. All have an impact on dependent variables.

System variables are about the school as a whole: its structure, its policies, its culture, its values. These change slowly but have wide effects when they change.

For a school head, system variables are her direct responsibility. The culture and policies of the school reflect her choices over time.

How to use the model

A school head facing an OB problem can use the model as a diagnostic.

1. Identify the dependent variable. Which outcome is the problem? Productivity? Absenteeism? Turnover? Satisfaction?
2. Check each independent variable level. Is the cause individual, group, or system? Often it is more than one level.
3. Design the intervention at the right level. Individual problems need individual interventions (coaching, transfer, exit). Group problems need group interventions (team restructuring, new leadership). System problems need system interventions (policy change, culture work).

A common mistake is to address an outcome at the wrong level. Treating a system problem (low pay relative to market) as an individual problem (this teacher is greedy) does not work. Treating a group problem (toxic staffroom) as a system problem (write a new policy) does not work either.

A worked example

A school has rising teacher turnover. The principal investigates:

She investigates by talking with leavers, with stayers, with senior staff. She gathers data. She finds that the dominant cause is system-level: pay has not kept up with the market, and the advancement structure is opaque.

The intervention follows from the diagnosis. She works with the board on pay structure (system) and publishes clear advancement criteria (system). She does not, primarily, give pep talks to individual teachers (the level the problem does not live at).

A year later, turnover drops. The model worked.

Flashcard

What are the four dependent variables in the OB model and the three levels of independent variables?

Tap to reveal

Answer

Dependent: Productivity, Absenteeism, Turnover, Job Satisfaction. Independent: Individual, Group, Organisational System.

Outcomes at the four dependent variables are caused by factors at the three independent levels. A school head uses the model as a diagnostic: when something is wrong, check all three levels and intervene where the cause lives.