HRMT11010 - Organisational Behaviour – Library Guidebook Page 1

Section 1 - Introduction

Welcome to the Library guidebook for HRMT11010, Organisational Behaviour. This guidebook has been written by Library staff in conjunction with your Lecturer to help you develop the skills needed to complete your assignments at Central Queensland University. The skills taught in this guidebook are not just to help in this course but to help with all the courses you complete for your degree.

We suggest you print this guidebook since the information provided in it will be useful for other courses in your degree. However once you have completed HRMT11010, Organisational Behaviour, you will no longer have access to this guidebook.

It wasn’t that long ago that the library was seen only as a place to store books. Things have changed and libraries have changed with the times. A library is now an “information gateway”: a place you can visit, either physically or electronically, to access information. A lot of information is now accessed through the use of computers, rather than books. Yes, the library still has many books, but it is now so much more.

There have been changes in the way information is distributed. Information is now being developed and distributed faster than ever. As a student, you need to develop confidence in using electronic and print resources to find this information and evaluate it. The aim of this guidebook is to help you achieve this.

This guidebook has been divided into ten sections. Each section provides examples of the concepts you will be exploring. There are also exercises for you to complete to check your understanding. These exercises will NOT beexamined. Answers to some of these exercises are provided at the end of this guidebook. Some of the exercises relate to your assignments for the course.

Throughout the guidebook you will notice the light bulb icon. The information following the icon is a tip to help you.

If you have difficulty with any of the sections, please contact the Business Liaison Librarian for help:

Samantha Rannard

Ph 1300 369 038

Email:

Section 2Starting your Search Strategy -Keywords

Objectives

On completion of this section you will have:

  • Analysed an assignment question and identified a list of relevant keywords

In order to successfully find information for your assignment in the library catalogue, databases or the Internet, you need to analyse your assignment question. This includes deciding what keywords best describe your assignment question. Keywords are the main words or phrases that outline what your topic is about.

Example Assignment Question

Discuss the influence of “groupthink” in decision making.

The keywords in the above example are “groupthink” and decision making. These are the two terms you would use to start searching catalogues, databases and the Internet. The other words are not keywords as they do not provide meaning. Using them in a search would not direct you to information relevant to your assignment/topic.

Exercise 1

Choose the keywords from the following assignment topic:

Discuss the differences between Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs Theory” and Alderfer’s “ERG Theory”

Exercise 2

Identify and write down the keywords for your chosen topic for the Online Analytical Submission

Section 3Synonyms

Objectives

On completion of this section you will have:

  • Understood the importance of synonyms in your search strategy
  • Identified where and how to find synonyms for keywords

One of the biggest challenges when searching for information is finding the right words to use. Often there are many words that describe the same concept. For example, an organisation can also be described as a company, association, or institution. You should also be aware of alternative spellings, eg. organisation and organization.

Words that have the same or similar meaning are called synonyms. Once you have chosen your keywords, you will need to identify as many synonyms as you can. It is important to identify synonyms because catalogues, databases and websites often use different terms to describe the same concept.

There are several ways of identifying synonyms;

  • Use a dictionary
  • Use a thesaurus
  • Use an encyclopaedia
  • Talk to other people (lecturers, tutors, friends).

For example, “The Blackwell encyclopedic dictionary of organizational behaviour” by Nigel Nicholson and the “Dictionary of Synonyms and Antonyms” by Alan Spooner are good books for finding synonyms. The Oxford Reference Online is also an excellent source to find synonyms. This online dictionary provides access to 100 language and subject dictionaries as well as some reference works. To access the Oxford Reference Library:

  1. Go to
  2. Click on SearchSMART under Finding Information
  3. Using the Select a database to search for journal & newspaper articles box, go to Browse Databases by Title and select the letter “O”.
  4. Scroll down until youfind Oxford Reference Online.

It sometimes helps if you do up a table with your keywords and synonyms.

Example keyword/synonym table

Identify four group decision making techniques used by organisations:

Keyword 1 / Keyword 2 / Keyword 3
Group / Decision making / Organisations
Synonym/related term: / Synonym/related term: / Synonym/related term:
Employee / Decisions / Companies
Team / Planning / Business
Committee / Group Decisions / Organizations
Work team / - / Groups
Work unit / - / Association
- / Institution
Organisational

Exercise 3

Identify synonyms for the keywords you identified in Exercise 2:

Keyword 1 / Keyword 2 / Keyword 3 / Keyword
Synonym/related term: / Synonym/related term: / Synonym/related term: / Synonym/related term:
-
-
-
-

Need more help getting started on your search

Look at the library’s online tutorial “Compass”

Section 4 Search Strategies

Objectives

On completion of this section you will have:

  • Learnt how to combine your keywords/synonyms using Boolean Operators (AND/OR)
  • Understood how and when to use truncation
  • Understood how and when to use phrase searching

Once you have developed your keywords and synonyms, you need to develop a search strategy that will help you find the information in the catalogue, databases and the Internet efficiently and effectively. To develop a search strategy, there are several tools that make searching easier. The most common tools are:

1)Boolean Operators

2)Truncation and

3) Phrase searching

When using these search tools correctly, you can find information on your topic faster and the information is more closely related to your keywords. We will look at each tool separately.

4.1Boolean Operators

Boolean operators are used to combine terms together to tell the search facility how to combine the search terms. “AND” “OR” “NEAR” and “NOT” are the most common Boolean operators. This section will explore two of these – “AND” and “OR”.

And

When you combine keywords/phrases with “AND” you are searching for records of books, articles, or webpages that include both keywords (I want this AND I want that). Using “AND” allows you to narrow your search and gain more specific search results.

Example: “AND” Search

Group AND decision making searches for all records that contain BOTH keywords. These are represented by the red area in the following diagram.

You can combine more than two keywords with “AND” in the following way:

Organization AND Decision Making AND Group

This search would retrieve records that include all 3 keywords. This is represented by the shaded area in the following diagram:

OR

When you combine Keywords with “OR” you are searching for books, articles or web sites that include any of the terms. (I want one of these OR I want one of those) “OR” is used to combine your synonyms or similar concepts. Using “OR” will broaden your search. It is also useful when there are alternative ways to spell a keyword, eg. colour OR color

Example: “OR” Search

1. Organisation OR organization will search for all records which contain EITHER of these terms

2. Institution OR Company will search for all records which contain EITHER, of these terms

AND/OR

Sometimes the catalogue, databases or the Internet may use different words or symbols to represent “AND” or “OR”. In order to know what to use in your search strategy to combine your keywords, use the “help” or “search tips” function of the catalogue, database or Internet search engine you are using.

Not all databases and search engines require you to enter the words AND in a search. Google for example automatically inserts the word AND between your search terms. However it is a good idea to always use AND as some databases have different rules. For example, some search services automatically use OR between each search term, and in Proquest, it depends how many search terms you use. If you only use two terms in a box, it will automatically look for a phrase, whereas if there are three or more words in a box, AND will automatically be inserted between each term. If you use AND where it is not required, the search will still work.

Truncation

Truncation is a tool that allows us to find different variations of the same word. For example, the word manage can have the following variations or ‘extensions’:

  • Managing
  • Manager
  • Managers
  • Management
  • Managerial

Instead of combining all these words with “OR”, we truncate the word(sometimes this is referred to as stemming). To do this, we type the beginning of the word that is common to all the different variations followed by the truncation symbol (the truncation symbol varies from one database to another – but it is often an asterisk *, eg. manag*

Using thetruncated term manag* will search for all of the above extensions of the word manage. Notice that the truncation symbol “*” was used in place of the “e”. If we had placed it after the “e”, the term “managing” would not be retrieved.

Not all catalogues, databases or Internet search engines allow the use of truncation. To find out if you can use truncation and what symbol is used (sometimes it is not the asterix “*”, but another symbol), go to the“help” or “search tips”function of the catalogue/database/Internet search engine you are using.

Phrase Searching

Phrase searching allows two or more words to be searched together without separating them. For example, if we wanted to search for decision making, we need to put double quotation marks (“ ”) around the phrase to force the database, catalogue or Internet search engine to find the words beside each other, eg “decision making”.

If we didn’t use double quotation marks, then the catalogue, database or Internet may separate the words and find decision in one paragraph and making in a separate paragraph further down the page.

Exercise 4

Identify which boolean operator (OR/AND) to use to combine the following Keywords

A)Your Lecturer has set an assignment on “Maslow’s Theory of Motivation”. Which boolean operator would you use to combine the keywords:

Motivation, Maslow, Theory

B)Your Lecturer has given you an assignment on Marketing. She has suggested that the following words are synonyms for marketing. Which boolean operator would you use to combine these synonyms:

Advertise, promote, publicise, market

Exercise 5

A)Where would you place the truncation symbol (the asterix *) so you can search for all the following variations of the keyword motivation:

  • Motivate
  • Motivated
  • Motivating
  • Motivational

B)Where would you place the truncation symbol (the asterix *) so you can search for the keyword family and also search for families

Need more help in formulating a search strategy? Look at the Library’s online tutorial “Compass”

Section 5 - Catalogue Searching

Objectives

On completion of this section you will have learnt:

  • how to perform title searches for items in the catalogue
  • how to perform author searches in the catalogue
  • how to perform a keyword search in the catalogue

The Library Catalogue provides details and the locations of:

  • books,
  • cd-roms,
  • videos
  • journals (the catalogue only provides details of call numbers and publishing details of the journal titles, not the articles within the journals. To find journal articles you need to search the databases.)
  • maps
  • newspapers

There are several ways to search the catalogue. The three main ways are Title, Author and Keyword searching. We will look at each individually.

5.1Title search

A title search is useful when you already have the citation of an item or know the title of the item you want (a citation or reference, consists of the publication details of the book/video/cd-rom/journal; it includes the author, title, publisher, and the date of publication).

To do a title search:

  1. Go to the CQU Library home page
  1. Click on SearchSMART under Finding Information
  1. Click on the link for Library Catalogue
  1. Click on Title in the left column.

  1. Enter the title
  1. A list of titles will be retrieved for you. Click on the relevant title to retrieve its record.

You will be presented with a record for the title. In this case, there is more than one record available for this title. If you look at the records, you will notice that they are different editions of the same book.

To see where the 2nd edition is located, click on the copies held link. The copy information page will provide details of which campus library the book is located and what the call number is.

Use the Author and title search if the book you are looking for has a very common title, such as Human Resource Management, as there may be many books with exactly the same title and it may be difficult to identify the correct item.

Exercise 6

Perform a title search to find the following book:

Gibson, J.L., 2003 “Organizations: behavior, structure, processes”

.

A)What is the call number?

B)Is it available at the Bundaberg campus library?

5.2Author search

To perform an Author search:

  1. Go to the CQU Library home page
  1. Click on SearchSMART under Finding Information
  1. Click on Library catalogue
  1. Select Author from the left column.
  1. For the best search results, type in the author’s last name, leave a space, and then type the first initial or the author’s first name if you know it.
  1. Click on the author you want from the list. In this case, the first name of the author you want is Jerald

You will be provided with the list of books by the author that the library holds. If there is more than one edition, each edition will have a separate record.

Exercise 7

Try an author search for Bowditch, James L. He authored “A primer on organizational behaviour”.

A)What is the call number of the 5th edition of this book?

B) How many books by this author are held across all campuses of the CQU Library?

Do not include - The, an, or a when they are the first word of a title. For example, if you search for The psychology of behaviour at work : the individual in the organization, you will not find the book. If you search for psychology of behaviour at work : the individual in the organization, you will find the item.

When doing title searches you don’t need to include punctuation.

It does not matter if you use capitals or not in title or author searches.

If you can’t find the title you are looking for, consider any variations in spelling, eg, if you can’t find “Organisational behaviour”, try searching for “Organizational Behavior”

Beware of different variations of a person’s name, eg. Johnstone vs Johnson, Brooke vs Brook, Le Brun vs Lebrun.

5.3Keyword searching

Having identified your keywords in your search strategy, you can now conduct a keyword search in the catalogue.

To do a Keyword search:

  1. go to the CQU Library home page
  1. Click on SearchSMART under Finding Information
  1. Select Library Catalogue
  1. Click on Keyword in the left column
  1. Type in the keywords you have identified (don’t forget to use Boolean, synonyms, truncation and phrase searching as explained in sections 3 and 4).

You will be presented with a series of records to choose from. If what you are looking for is not there, try other synonyms.

Exercise 8

Perform a keyword search in the library catalogue to find items relating to one your assignment topics. Write down your search strategy.

Need more help in searching the catalogue?

Look at the library’s online tutorial “Compass”


Section 6Journals

Objectives

On completion of this section you will have:

  • Learnt how to locate a journal in the catalogue
  • Understood how to differentiate between print and electronic access to journals
  • Identified the different types of journals
  • Understood what a citation is

What are journals?

Journal is the name for any publication that is published on an ongoing basis, eg. weekly, monthly, quarterly, annually. Because they usually focus on a very specific area of interest or research, journals often provide more in-depth information than books. They also offer the latest published research in a particular field. Journals are also called serials, periodicals, magazines and newspapers.

A journal is usually made up of a series of volumes, and each volume is usually made up of a series of issues (or ‘numbers’). Each issue contains a number of journal articles.

Why use a journal

Journals can offer more detailed and often, more current information than books because they are published regularly. They are also a useful source of current news and information about a particular field of research or profession.