Organizational Behaviour PDF

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR PART 1: What is OB? A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.It studies three determinants of beh...

ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR PART 1: What is OB? A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups, and structure have on behavior within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge toward improving an organization’s effectiveness.It studies three determinants of behavior in organizations: individuals, groups, and structure. In addition, OB applies the knowledge to make organizations work more efficiently. Intuition + Evidence-based management (EBM)+ Systematic study Behaviour is generally predictable, and the systematic study of behaviour is a means to making reasonably accurate predictions. When we use the term “systematic study” we mean looking at a relationship, attempting to attribute causes and effects and basing our conclussions on scientific evidence. Evidence based management (EMB) complements systematic study by basing managerial decisions on the best scientific evidence. Disciplines t hat constribute to OB: psychology, social psychology, sociology, anthropology - psycology: measure, explain and change the behavour of humans - social psycologyst: focus on peoples influence os one another (change) - spciology: studies people in relation to their social environment or culture - anthropology: study of societies OB concepts must reflect situational, or contingency, conditions. (contingency variables. ) The science of OB was developed by applying general concepts to a particular situation, person, or group. CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR OB Responding to economic pressure: The difference between good and bad management can be the difference between profit and loss or, ultimately, between survival and failure. OB approaches sometimes differ. In good times, understanding how to reward, satisfy, and retain employees is at a premium. In bad times, issues like stress, decision making, and coping come to the fore. Responding to globalization: The world has become a global village. In the process, the manager’s job has changed. Effective managers will anticipate and adapt their approaches to the global issues we discuss next. Increased foreign assingment: understanding other cultures Working with people from different countries: adapt management to different styles overseeing movement of jobs to countries with low cost labour adapting to cultural and regulatory norms Managing Workforce diversity: Whereas globalization focuses on differences among people from different countries, workforce diversity addresses differences among people within given countries. (sex, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation…) Improving costumer Service: OB can help managers increase the success of these interactions by showing how employee attitudes and behavior influence customer satisfaction. Improving people skills: Working in networked organizations: Networked organizations allow people to communicate and work together even though they may be thousands of miles apart. Enhancing Employee well beeing at work: Some problems are the hpurs that the companies demant to their employees. Individuals look for a job with flexibility Creating a positive work environment: Positive organizational scholarship tudies how organizations develop human strengths, foster vitality and resilience, and unlock potential. Positive organizational scholars have studied a concept called “reflected bestself ”—asking employees to think about when they were at their “personal best” in order to understand how to exploit their strengths. Improving Ethical Behavior: ncreasingly employees face ethical dilemmas and ethical choices, in which they are required to identify right and wrong conduct. COMING ATTRACTIONS: DEVELOPING AN OB MODEL We conclude this chapter by presenting a general model that defines the field of OB and stakes out its parameters, concepts, and relationships. An Overview A model is an abstraction of reality, a simplified representation of some real-world phenomenon. The model illustrates that inputs lead to processes which lead to outcomes. The model also shows that outcomes can influence inputs in the future, which highlights the broad-reaching effect OB initiatives can have on an organization’s future PART 3: ATTITUDES AND JOB SATISFACTION Attitudes are evaluative statements—either favorable or unfavorable—about objects, people, or events. They reflect how we feel about something. What Are the Main Components of Attitudes? Typically, researchers have assumed that attitudes have three components: cognition, affect, and behavior. 1. The statement “My pay is low” is the cognitive component of an attitude—a description of or belief in the way things are. 2. It sets the stage for the more critical part of an attitude —its affective component. Affect is the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude and is reflected in the statement “I am angry over how little I’m paid.” 3. Finally, affect is often an immediate precursor to behavior. The behavioral component of an attitude describes an intention to behave in a certain way toward someone or something—to continue the example, “I’m going to look for another job that pays better. Example, an employee didn’t get a promotion he thought he deserved; a coworker got it instead. The employee’s attitude toward his supervisor is illustrated as follows: The employee thought he deserved the promotion (cognition), he strongly dislikes his supervisor (affect), and he has complained and taken action (behavior). Does Behavior Always Follow from Attitudes? Early research on attitudes assumed they were causally related to behavior—that is, the attitudes people hold determine what they do. Cognitive dissonance: any incompatibility an individual might perceive between two or more attitudes or between behavior and attitudes. Research has generally concluded that people do seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior. Festinger proposed that the desire to reduce dissonance depends on three factors, including the importance of the elements creating it and the degree of influence we believe we have over them. The third factor is the rewards of dissonance Moderating Variables The most powerful moderators of the attitudes relationship are the importance of the attitude, its correspondence to behavior, its accessibility, the presence of social pressures, and whether a person has direct experience with the attitude. Important attitudes reflect our fundamental values, self-interest, or identification with individuals or groups we value. These attitudes tend to show a strong relationship to our behavior. Specific attitudes tend to predict specific behaviors, whereas general attitudes tend to predict general behaviors. You’re mre likely to remember attitudes you frequently express and attitudes our memories can easily access are more likely to predict our behavior. Discrepancies between attitudes and behaviors tend to occur when social pressures to behave in certain ways hold exceptional power, as in most organizations. Finally, the attitude–behavior relationship is likely to be much stronger if an attitude refers to something with which we have direct personal experience WHAT ARE THE MAJOR JOB ATTITUDES? 1. Job Satisfaction:describes a positive feeling about a job, resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics. 2. Job involvement: measures the degree to which people identify psychologically with their jobs and consider their perceived performance levels important to self-worth. Another closely related concept is psychological empowerment, employees’ beliefs in the degree to which they influence their work environments, their competencies, the meaningfulness of their jobs, and their perceived autonomy (high levels of both job involvement and psychological empowerment are positively related to citizenship behavior) 3. Organizational Commitment: An employee with organizational commitment identifies with a particular organization nd its goals and wishes to remain a member. 4. Perceived Organizational Support(POS) is the degree to which employees believe the organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. 5. Employee Engagement: an individual’s involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for, the work she does. Evidence suggests these attitudes are highly related. There is some distinctiveness among attitudes, but they overlap greatly for various reasons, including the employee’s personality. Managers tend to identify their employees as belonging to one of four distinct categories: enthusiastic stayers, reluctant stayers, enthusiastic leavers (planning to leave), and reluctant leavers (not planning to leave but should leave). JOB SATISFACTION Measuring Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction—a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteritics. An employee’s assessment of his satisfaction with the job is thus a complex summation of many discrete elements. How, then, do we measure it? Two approaches are popular. 1. The single global rating is a response to one question, such as “All things considered, how satisfied are you with your job?” Respondents circle a number between 1 and 5 on a scale from “highly satisfied” to “highly dissatisfied.” 2. The second method, the summation of job facets, is more sophisticated. It identifies key elements in a job such as the nature of the work, supervision, present pay, promotion opportunities, and relationships with coworkers. What Causes Job Satisfaction? Interesting jobs that provide training, variety, independence, and control satisfy most employees. There is also a strong correspondence between how well people enjoy the social context of their workplace and how satisfied they are overall. Interdependence, feedback, social support, and interaction with coworkers… Research has shown that people who have positive core self-evaluations (CSEs)—who believe in their inner worth and basic competence—are more satisfied with their jobs than those with negative core self- evaluations. THE IMPACT OF SATISFIED AND DISSATISFIED EMPLOYEES ON THE WORKPLACE Exit. The exit response directs behavior toward leaving the organization, including looking for a new position as well as resigning. To measure the effects of this response to dissatisfaction, researchers study individual terminations and collective turnover, the total loss to the organization of employee knowledge, skills, abilities, and other characteristics.48 Voice. The voice response includes actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions, including suggesting improvements, discussing problems with superiors, and undertaking some forms of union activity. Loyalty. The loyalty response means passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, including speaking up for the organization in the face of external criticism and trusting the organization and its management to “do the right thing.” Neglect. The neglect response passively allows conditions to worsen and includes chronic absenteeism or lateness, reduced effort, and increased error rate. Job Satisfaction and Job Performance When we gather satisfaction and productivity data for the organization as a whole, we find organizations with more satisfied employees tend to be more effective than organizations with fewer satisfied employees. Job Satisfaction and OCB It seems logical to assume job satisfaction should be a major determinant of an employees organizational citycenship behaviour (OCB). Satisfied employees would seem more likely to talk positively about their organizations, help others, and go beyond the normal expectations in their jobs, perhaps because they want to reciprocate their positive experiences. OCB also has to do with an individuals personality or their mood. Job Satisfaction and Customer Satisfaction: Satisfied employees appear to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Job Satisfaction and Absenteeism: We find a consistent negative relationship between satisfaction and absenteeism, but the relationship is moderate to weak. Job Satisfaction and Turnover: The relationship is stronger than between satisfaction and absenteeism. Managers looking to determine who might be likely to leave should focus on employees’ job satisfaction levels over time, because levels do change. A pattern of lowered job satisfaction is a predictor of possible intent to leave. ( Also has as an environmental connection) PART 4: EMOTIONS AND MOODS: WHAT ARE EMOTIONS AND MOODS? We’ll need three terms that are closely intertwined: affect, emotions, and moods. Affect is a generic term that covers a broad range of feelings people experience, including both emotions and moods. Emotions are intense feelings directed at someone or something Moods are less intense feelings than emotions that often arise without a specific event acting as a stimulus. The basic emotions: It’s unlikely that we will ever completely agree on a set of basic emotions, or even on whether there is such a thing. Still, many researchers agree on six essentially universal emotions—happiness—surprise— fear—sadness— anger—disgust. The closer two emotions are to each other on this continuum, the more likely people will confuse them. The Basic Moods: Positive and Negative Affect Positive emotions express a favorable evaluation or feeling. Negative emotions express the opposite. Keep in mind that emotions can’t be neutral. Being neutral is being nonemotional. The two categories of emotions now represent overall mood states, known as positive and negative affect. positive affect: mood dimension consisting of positive emotions such as excitement, enthusiasm, and elation at the high end; and boredom, depression, and fatigue at the low end Negative affect is a mood dimension consisting of nervousness, stress, and anxiety at the high end (high negative affect), and contentedness, calmness, and serenity at the low end Experiencing Moods and Emotions Research finds a positivity offset, meaning that at zero input (when nothing in particular is going on), most individuals experience a mildly positive mood. Another research finding is that negative emotions are likely to become negative moods THE FUNCTION OF EMOTIONS AND MOODS Organizational behaviorists have been finding that emotions can be critical to an effectively functioning workplace. There is two critical areas—rationality and ethicality—in which emotions can enhance performance. Do Emotions Make Us Irrational? Research is increasingly indicating that emotions are critical to rational thinking. We must have the ability to experience emotions to be rational. Why? Because our emotions provide a context for how we understand the world around us. Do Emotions Make Us Ethical? Numerous studies suggest that moral judgments are largely based on feelings rather than on cognition. However, we tend to see our moral boundaries as logical and reasonable, not as emotional. We therefore must be careful to objectively analyze our ethical decisions. SOURCES OF EMOTIONS AND MOODS - PERSONALITY Moods and emotions have a personality trait component (Affectively intense people experience emotions more deeply) Other: time of the dat, day of the week, weather, stress, coaila activities, age, sex... EMOTIONAL LABOR Employees expend physical and mental labor by putting body and mind, respectively, into the job. But jobs also require emotional labor, an employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work. To analyze emotional labor, we divide emotions into felt or displayed emotions.33 Felt emotions are our actual emotions. Displayed emotions are those that the organization requires workers to show and considers appropriate in a given job. They’re not innate; they’re learned, and they may or may not coincide with felt emotions. Displaying fake emotions requires us to suppress real ones. Surface acting is hiding inner feelings and emotional expressions in response to display rules. A worker who smiles at a customer even when he doesn’t feel like it is surface acting. Deep acting is trying to modify our true inner feelings based on display rules. Surface acting deals with displayed emotions, and deep acting deals with felt emotions When employees have to project one emotion while feeling another, this disparity is called emotional dissonance (you cant distinguish between what you are fakeing and what you actually feel) Longterm emotional dissonance is a predictor for job burnout. ➔ Surface acting is stressful to employees, while mindfulness (learning to objectively evaluate our emotional situation in the moment, akin to deep acting) is beneficial to employee well-being. AFFECTIVE EVENTS THEORY We’ve seen that emotions and moods are an important part of our personal lives and our work lives. But how do they influence our job performance and satisfaction? A model called affective events theory (AET) demonstrates that employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at work, and this reaction influences their job performance and satisfaction. The theory begins by recognizing that emotions are a response to an event in the work environment. Work events trigger positive or negative emotional reactions, to which employees’ personalities and moods predispose them to respond with greater or lesser intensity. AET provides us with valuable insights into the role emotions play in primary organizational outcomes of job satisfaction and job performance. EMOTIONAL INTELIGENCE: Emotional intelligence (EI) is a person’s ability to (1) perceive emotions in the self and others (2) understand the meaning of these emotions (3) regulate one’s emotions accordingly in a cascading model Pople who know their own emotions are more likely to be effective The Case for EI The arguments in favor of EI include its intuitive appeal, the fact that it predicts criteria that matter, and the idea that it is biologically based. INTUITIVE APPEAL Intuition suggests that people who can detect emotions in others, control their own emotions, and handle social interactions well have an advantage in the business world. EI PREDICTS CRITERIA THAT MATTER Evidence suggests a high level of EI means a person will perform well on the job. EI IS BIOLOGICALLY BASED There is evidence that EI is genetically influenced, further supporting the idea that it measures a real underlying biological factor. The Case Against EI EI has just as many critics who say it is vague and impossible to measure, and they question its validity. EI RESEARCHERS DO NOT AGREE ON DEFINITIONS :it’s not clear what EI is EI CAN’T BE MEASURED EI IS NOTHING BUT PERSONALITY WITH A DIFFERENT LABEL Some critics argue that because EI is so closely related to intelligence and personality, once you control for these factors, it has nothing unique to offer. EMOTION REGULATION Have you ever tried to cheer yourself up when you’re feeling down, or calm yourself when you’re feeling angry? If so, you have engaged in emotion regulation. The central idea behind emotion regulation is to identify and modify the emotions you feel. There are different way to change or act with our emotions: surface acting deep acting venting: expression of emotions can be helpful to the individual rather than hiding them OB APPLICATIONS OF EMOTIONS AND MOODS Selection: Research indicates that employers should consider EI a factor in selecting employees, especially for jobs that demand a high degree of social interaction Decision Making: Positive emotions and moods seem to help people make sound decisions. Positive emotions furthermore enhance problem-solving skills Creativity: One goal of leadership is to maximize employee productivity. All the activating moods, whether positive or negative, seem to lead to more creativity, whereas deactivating moods lead to less. This would suggest managers should try to increase the energy in the workplace rather than focus on enhancing positive moods Motivation: the findings suggest a manager may enhance employee motivation and performance by encouraging good moods. Leadership: Research indicates that when leaders are in good moods, group members are more positive; as a result, they cooperate better. Negotiation: the best negotiators are probably the ones who remain emotionally detached. Customer Service Workers’ emotional states influence customer service, which influences levels of repeat business and customer satisfaction.This is primarily due to emotional contagion—the “catching” of emotions from others. Job Attitudes: the relationship between moods and job attitudes is reciprocal—how our workday goes colors our moods, but our moods also affect how we see our job. Deviant Workplace Behaviors: Evidence suggests that people who feel negative emotions are more likely than others to engage in short-term deviant behavior at work such as gossiping or searching the Internet. Safety and Injury at Work: Bad moods can contribute to injury at work in several ways. PART 5: PERSONALITY AND VALUES PERSONALITY: Personality: The sum of ways in which an individual reacts to and intercats with the world arround them Personality traits: enduring, characteristics that describe an individuals behaviour What makes a “good” theory of personality? Scientifically rigorous (A theory that makes clear, testable predictions) Usefulness (Could be applied to improve people’s everyday lives) Comprehensiveness Measuring personality: The most common way is through self-report surveys in which individuals evaluate themselves on a series of factors. Problems: individuals might choose to lie, its inaccuare (a bad mood might interfere with the responses) Personality determinants: Heredity refers to factors determined at conception. Physical stature, facial features, gender, temperament… The heredity approach argues that the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes. (genetics accounts for about 50 percent of the personality similarities between twins) DOMINANT PERSONALITY FRAMEWORKS The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the most widely used personalityassessment instrument in the world.9 It is a 100-question personality test that asks people how they usually feel or act in situations. - Attitude Extraverted individuals are outgoing, sociable, and assertive. Introverts are quiet and shy. information gathering (sensing / Intiition), Sensing types are practical, prefer routine and order, and focus on details. Intuitives rely on unconscious processes and look at the “big picture.” Decision-making (thinking / Feeling) Thinking types use reason and logic to handle problems. Feeling types rely on their personal values and emotions Structure orientation (judging/perceiving) Judging types want control and prefer order and structure. Perceiving types are flexible and spontaneous These classifications describe personality types by identifying one trait from each of the four pairs. Does MBTI actally work? Evidence is mixed about its validity as a measure of personality (mostly against…) Forces a person into one type or another (there is no in-between). When people retake the assessment, they often receive different results. Results from the MBTI tend to be unrelated to job performance. The Big Five Personality Model The MBTI may lack strong supporting evidence, but an impressive body of research supports the thesis of the Big Five Model—that five basic dimensions underlie all others and encompass most of the significant variation in human personality. Test scores of the Big Five traits do a very good job of predicting how people behave in a variety of real-life situations. These are the Big Five factors: BIG FIVE: 1. emotional stability 2. extraversion 3. openess 4. agreeableness 5. conscientiousness 1. Conscientiousness is the best overall predictor of job performance (highly conscientious people learn more ande are less likely to engage in counterproductive work behaviors) 2. Emotional stability is most strongly related to life satisfaction and job satisfaction, as well as to reduced burnout and intentions to quit 3. Extraversion is a relatively strong predictor of leadership emergence and behaviors in group 4. While openness is not related to initial performance on a job, individuals higher in openness are less susceptible to a decline in performance over a longer time period 5. Agreeableness is associated with lower levels of career success OTHER PERSONALITY FRAMEWORKS The Dark Triad With the exception of neuroticism, the Big Five traits are what we call socially desirable researchers have found that three other socially undesirable traits. 1. MACHIAVELLIANISM: The degree to which an individual is pragmatic, maintains emotional distance, and believes that ends can justify means. 2. NARCISSISM: The tendency to be arrogant, have a grandiose sense of self importance, require excessive admiration, and have a sense of entitlement. (Some evidence suggests that narcissists are more adaptable and make better business decisions than others when the decision is complex. They also tend to like their work more) 3. PSYCHOPATHY: The tendency for a lack of concern for others and a lack of guilt or remorse when actions cause harm. Approach–Avoidance The MBTI, the Big Five, and the Dark Triad are not the only theoretical frameworks for personality. Recently, the approach–avoidance framework has cast personality traits as motivations. Approach and avoidance motivation represent the degree to which we react to stimuli whereby approach motivation is our attraction to positive stimuli, and avoidance motivation is our aversion to negative stimuli. OTHER PERSONALITY TRAITS RELEVANT TO OB Core Self-Evaluations People who have positive core self-evaluations (CSE) like themselves and see themselves as effective, capable, and in control of their environment. They perform better than others because they set more ambitious goals, are more committed and persist longer. They perform especially well if they feel their work provides meaning and is helpful to others. People with negative CSE tend to dislike themselves, question their capabilities, and view themselves as powerless over their environment. Self-Monitoring SM describes an individual’s ability to adjust her behavior to external, situational factors. High self- monitors are highly sensitive to external cues and can behave differently in varying situations. Low SM tend to display their true dispositions and attitudes in every situation Proactive Personality Those with a proactive personality identify opportunities, show initiative, take action...compared to others who passively react to situations. Proactive individuals have many desirable behaviors that organizations covet. They also have higher levels of job performance and career success. PERSONALITY AND SITUATIONS Situation strength theory proposes that the way personality translates into behavior depends on the strength of the situation. By situation strength, we mean the degree to which norms, cues, or standards dictate appropriate behavior. Researchers have analyzed situation strength in organizations in terms of four elements: 1. Clarity, or the degree to which cues about work duties and responsibilities are available and clear. Jobs high in clarity produce strong situations because individuals can readily determine what to do, thus increasing the chances that everyone behaves similarly. 2. Consistency, or the extent to which cues regarding work duties and responsibilities are compatible with one another. Jobs with high consistency represent strong situations because all the cues point toward the same desired behavior.(The job of acute care nurse, for example, probably has higher consistency than the job of manager) 3. Constraints, or the extent to which individuals’ freedom to decide or act is limited by forces outside their control. Jobs with many constraints represent strong situations because an individual has limited discretion. (Bank examiner is probably a job with stronger constraints than forest ranger) 4. Consequences, or the degree to which decisions or actions have important implications for the organization or its members, clients, supplies, and so on. Jobs with important consequences represent strong situations because the environment is probably heavily structured to guard against mistakes. A surgeon’s job, for example, has higher consequences than a foreign-language teacher’s. Trait activation theory (TAT). TAT predicts that some situations, events, or interventions “activate” a trait more than other. Together, situation strength and trait activation theories show that the debate over nature versus nurture might best be framed as nature and nurture. Not only does each affect behavior, but they interact with one another VALUES Values represent basic convictions that “a specific mode of conduct or end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end-state of existence.” Values contain a judgmental elemen- They have two attributes: - The content attribute says a mode of conduct or end-state of existence is important. - The intensity attribute specifies how important it is. When we rank values in terms of intensity, we obtain that person’s value system. How can we organize values? (Milton Rokeach) 1. Terminal values: desirable endstates, Goals a person would like to achive during its lifetime (Ex: world peace, economic succes, health and well being...) 2. Instrumental values: preferable modes of behaviour or means of achieving terminal values ( Ex: personal discipline, kindess…) Personality and values in the workplace: Person–Job Fit The effort to match personality and a jibs requirements is shown in Jhons Holland peronality-job fit theory. He presents six personality types (realistic, investigative, social, conventional, enterprising and astistic) and proposes that satisfaction and the propensity to leave a position depend on how well individuals match their personalities to a job. What does all this mean? Personality–job fit theory argues that satisfaction is highest and turnover lowest when personality and occupation are in agreement. The person–organization fit theory essentially argues that people are attracted to and selected by organizations that match their values, and they leave organizations that are not compatible with their personalities (incongruent job). INTERNATIONAL VALUES Unlike personality which is largelly genetically determined, values are learned from our environments. Different values systems have been developed over time in different cultures. Hofstede’s Framework Power distance: describes the degree to which people in a country accept that power in institutions and organizations is distributed unequally (high powe distance = inequality) Individualism versus collectivism. Individualism is the degree to which people prefer to act as individuals rather than as members of groups. Collectivism emphasizes a tight social framework. Masculinity versus femininity. Hofstede’s construct of masculinity is the degree to which the culture favors traditional masculine roles such as achievement, power, and control, as opposed to viewing men and women as equals. A high femininity rating means the culture treats women as the equals. Uncertainty avoidance. The degree to which people in a country prefer structured over unstructured situations. In cultures that score high on uncertainty avoidance, people have an increased level of anxiety about uncertainty and ambiguity and use laws and controls to reduce uncertainty. Long-term versus short-term orientation: measures a society’s devotion to traditional values. People in a culture with long-term orientation look to the future and value thrift, persistence, and tradition. In a short-term orientation, people value the here and now; they accept change more readily and don’t see commitments as impediments to change. The GLOBE Framework The GLOBE team has identified nine dimensions on which national cultures differ. Some dimensions— such as power distance, individualism/collectivism, uncertainty avoidance, gender differentiation, and future orientation resemble the Hofstede dimensions. The main difference is that it added other dimensions like humane orientation (the degree to which a society rewards individuals for being altruistic, generous..) and performance orientation (the degree to which a society encourages and rewards group members for performance improvement and excellence). PART 6: PERCEPTION AND INDIVIDUAL DECISION MAKEING WHAT IS PERCEPTION? Perception is a process in wich individuals organize and interpret sensory impressions in order to give a meaning to their envoronment. (it can be different from the objective reality). Whay is perception important for OB? Because poples behaviours is based on their perception on relity not reality itself. Factors That Influence Perception: a number of factors shape reality: these can be in the 1.perceiver, the 2.subject or the 3.situation. PERSON PERCEPTION: MAKING JUDGMENTS ABOUT OTHERS Now we turn to the application of perception concepts most relevant to OB—person perception, or the perceptions people form about each other. Attribution theory Attribution theory tries to explain the ways we judge people differently, depending on the meaning we attribute to a behavior.It suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused. That determination depends largely on three factors: (1) distinctiveness, (2) consensus, and (3) consistency. Internally caused behaviors are those an observer believes to be under the personal control of another individual. (late for work) Externally caused behavior is what we imagine the situation forced the individual to do (accident) Three determining factors. Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual + displays different behaviors in different situations. Consenuous: If everyone who faces a similar situation responds in the same way, the behavior shows consensus. (The behavior of our tardy employee meets this criterion if all employees who took the same route were also late) Consistency: The more consistent the behavior, the more we are inclined to attribute it to internal causes. Fundamental attribution theory: individuals and organizations tend to attribute their own successes to internal factors such as ability or effort, while blaming failure on external factors such as bad luck or unproductive coworkers. self-serving bias: People also tend to attribute ambiguous information as relatively flattering, accept positive feedback, and reject negative feedback. Common shortcuts judging others Selective perception: we select what we perceive according to our interests, background, experience and attitudes. It can lead to drawing an inaccurate picture Halo effect:we draw an impression about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic (positive characteristic) Contrast effect: we don't evaluate in isolation, our reaction is influenced by other persons we have encountered Stereotyping: When we judge someone on the basis of our perception of the group to which he belongs to (heuristics) DECISION MAKING IN ORGANIZATIONS: Rational decision making: We often think the best decision maker is rational and makes consistent, value-maximizing choices within specified constraints. These decisions often follow a six-step rational decision-making model. The rational decision-making model assumes that the decision maker has complete information, is able to identify all the relevant options in an unbiased manner, and chooses the option with the highest utility. Bounded rationality: Often, we don’t follow the rational decision-making model for a reason: Our limited information-processing capability makes it impossible to assimilate all the information necessary to optimize. People tend to satisfice; they seek solutions that are satisfactory and sufficient. We tend to reduce complex problems to a level we can readily understand. Because the human mind cannot formulate and solve complex problems with full rationality, we operate within the confines of bounded rationality. We construct simplified models that extract the essential features from problems without capturing all their complexity.24 INTUITION Perhaps the least rational way of making decisions is intuitive decision making, a nonconscious process created from distilled experience. Intuitive decision making occurs outside conscious thought; relies on holistic associations, or links between disparate pieces of information; is fast; and is affectively charged, meaning it engages the emotions. COMMON BIASES: Overconfidence bias: we tend to be overconfident about our abilities and about the abilities of others. Individuals whose intellectual and interpersonal abilities are weakest are most likely to overestimate their performance and ability. ( the more optimistic the entrepreneur, the less successful ) Anchoring bias is a tendency to fixate on initial information and fail to adequately adjust for subsequent information. (our mind appears to give a disproportionate amount of emphasis to the first information it receives) Confirmation bias represents a case of selective perception: we seek out information that reaffirms our past choices, and we discount information that contradicts them. We also tend to accept at face value information that confirms our preconceived views, while we are skeptical of information that challenges them. Availability bias is our tendency to base judgments on information readily available. Escalation of commitment refers to our staying with a decision even if there is clear evidence it’s wrong. Risk aversion: This tendency to prefer a sure thing over a risky outcome is risk aversion Hindsight bias is the tendency to believe falsely, after the outcome is known, that we would have accurately predicted it.44 When we have feedback on the outcome, we seem good at concluding it was obvious. ORGANIZATIONAL CONSTRAINT ON DECISION MAKING: Performance evaluation: Managers are influenced by the criteria on which they are evaluated. Reward system: The organization’s reward system influences decision makers by suggesting which choices have better personal payoffs.(ex: If the organization rewards risk aversion, managers are more likely to make conservative decisions )  Formal regulation: All but the smallest organizations create rules and policies to program decisions and get individuals to act in the intended manner. In doing so, they limit decision choices. System-Imposed Time Constraints: Almost all important decisions come with explicit deadlines. A report on new-product development may have to be ready for executive committee review by the first of the month. Such conditions often make it difficult, if not impossible, for managers to gather all the information before making a final choice. Historical Precedents: Choices made today are largely a result of choices made over the years. ETHICS IN DECISION MAKING: Three Ethical Decision Criteria: 1. Utilitarianism, which proposes making decisions solely on the basis of their outcomes, ideally to provide the greatest good for the greatest number. This view dominates business decision making. It is consistent with goals such as efficiency, productivity, and high profits. 2. Decisions consistent with fundamental liberties and privileges. An emphasis on rights in decision making means respecting and protecting the basic rights of individuals, such as the right to privacy, free speech, and due process.( This criterion protects whistleblowers ) 3. Impose and enforce rules fairly and impartially to ensure justice or an equitable distribution of benefits and costs. CREATIVITY IN ORGANIZATIONS: Although the rational decision-making model will often improve decisions, a decision maker also needs creativity, the ability to produce novel and useful ideas. Three stage model of creativity: The core of the model is creative behavior, which has both causes (predictors of creative behavior) and effects (outcomes of creative behavior). Creative behavior: Creative behavior occurs in four steps, each of which leads to the next: 1. Problem formulation. Any act of creativity begins with a problem that the behavior is designed to solve. Thus, problem formulation is defined as the stage of creative behavior in which we identify a problem or opportunity that requires a solution as yet unknown. 2. Information gathering is the stage of creative behavior when possible solutions to a problem incubate in an individual’s mind. 3. Idea generation is the process of creative behavior in which we develop possible solutions to a problem from relevant information and knowledge. Increasingly, idea generation is collaborative. 4. Idea evaluation is the process of creative behavior in which we evaluate potential solutions to identify the best one. Causes of Creative Behavior Having defined creative behavior, the main stage in the three-stage model, we now look back to the causes of creativity: creative potential and creative environment. CREATIVE POTENTIAL Is there such a thing as a creative personality? Indeed. While creative genius is scarce, most people have some of the characteristics shared by exceptionally creative people. The more of these characteristics we have, the higher our creative potential. Smart people are more creative because they are better at solving complex problems. Expertise is the foundation for all creative work and thus is the single most important predictor of creative potential. CREATIVE ENVIRONMENT In order to be creative we need to be in an environment where creative potential can be realized. The most important factor is motivation. Freedom from excessive rules also encourages creativity. Creative outcome: We can define creative outcomes as ideas or solutions judged to be novel and useful by relevant stakeholders. Novelty itself does not generate a creative outcome if it isn’t useful. Thus, “off-the-wall” solutions are creative only if they help solve the problem. PART 7: MOTIVATION CONCEPTS We define motivation as the processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort toward attaining a goal.While general motivation is concerned with effort toward any goal, we’ll narrow the focus to organizational goals toward work-related behavior. Intensity describes how hard a person tries. This is the element most of us focus on when we talk about motivation. However, high intensity is unlikely to lead to favorable job-performance outcomes unless the effort is channeled in a direction that benefits the organization. Therefore, we consider the quality of effort as well as its intensity. Effort directed toward, and consistent with, the organization’s goals is the kind of effort we should be seeking. Finally, motivation has a persistence dimension. This measures how long a person can maintain effort. Motivated individuals stay with a task long enough to achieve their goals. EARLY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION Hierarchy of Needs Theory Maslow hypothesized that within every human being, there exists a hierarchy of five needs: 1. Physiological. Includes hunger, thirst, shelter, sex, and other bodily needs. 2. Safety. Security and protection from physical and emotional harm. 3. Social. Affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship. 4. Esteem. Internal factors such as self-respect, autonomy and external factors (status,recognition) 5. Self-actualization. Drive to become what we are capable of becoming Theory X and Theory Y (Mc Gregor) One theory that is consistent with the needs hierarchy is Douglas McGregor’s Theory. Under Theory X, managers believe employees inherently dislike work and must therefore be directed or even coerced into performing it (thus assuming that lower-order needs dominate). Under Theory Y, in contrast, managers assume employees can view work as being as natural as rest or play, and therefore the average person can learn to accept, and even seek, responsibility. (McGregor believed Theory Y assumptions were more valid) Two-Factor Theory (Frederick Herzberg) Believing an individual’s relationship to work is basic, and that the attitude toward work can determine success or failure, psychologist Frederick Herzberg wondered, “What do people want from their jobs?” He asked people to describe, in detail, situations in which they felt exceptionally good or bad about their jobs. The responses differed significantly and led Herzberg to his two-factor theory—also called motivation-hygiene theory. According to Herzberg, the factors that lead to job satisfaction are separate and distinct from those that lead to job dissatisfaction. Therefore, managers who seek to eliminate factors that can create job dissatisfaction may bring about peace, but not necessarily motivation. McClelland’s Theory of Needs 1. Need for achievement is the drive to excel, to achieve in relationship to a set of standards. 2. Need for power is the need to make others behave in a way they would not have otherwise. 3. Need for affiliation is the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships. CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION Early theories of motivation either have not held up under close examination or have fallen out of favor. In contrast, contemporary theories have one thing in common: Each has a reasonable degree of valid supporting documentation. Self-Determination Theory This theory proposes that people prefer to feel they have control over their actions, so anything that makes a previously enjoyed task feel more like an obligation than a freely chosen activity will undermine motivation. Much research on self-determination theory in OB has focused on cognitive evaluation theory, a complementary theory that hypothesizes that extrinsic rewards will reduce intrinsic interest in a task. Ex: When people are paid for work, it feels less like something they want to do and more like something they have to do. Self-determination theory proposes that in addition A more recent outgrowth of self-determination theory is self-concordance, which considers how strongly people’s reasons for pursuing goals are consistent with their interests and core values. ➔ What does all this mean? For individuals, it means choose your job for reasons other than extrinsic rewards. For organizations, it means managers should provide intrinsic as well as extrinsic incentives Goal-Setting Theory Goal setting involves the development of an action plan designed in order to motivate and guide a person or group toward a goal. In general, specific goals produce a higher level of output than the generalized goal “do your best. Why are people motivated by difficult goals? First, challenging goals get our attention and help us focus. Second, difficult goals energize us because we have to work harder to attain them. People do better when they get feedback on how well they are progressing toward their goals. But all feedback is not equally potent. Self-generated feedback is more powerful than externally generated feedback In addition to feedback, three other factors influence the goals–performance relationship: goal commitment, task characteristics, and national culture 1. An individual is committed to the goal and determined not to lower or abandon it.The individual (1) believes he can achieve the goal and (2) wants to achieve it. 2. Goals seem to affect performance more strongly when tasks are simple rather than complex, well learned rather than novel, independent rather than interdependent, and are on the high end of achievability. On interdependent tasks, group goals are preferable 3. Setting specific, difficult, individual goals may have different effects in different cultures. Research has found that people differ in the way they regulate their thoughts and behaviors during goal pursuit. Generally, people fall into one of two categories, though they could belong to both. - Those with a promotion focus strive for advancement and accomplishment, and they approach conditions that move them closer toward desired goals. - Those with a prevention focus strive to fulfill duties and obligations and avoid conditions that pull them away from desired goal. (Ideally, it’s probably best to be both promotion and prevention oriented.) A more systematic way to utilize goal setting is with management by objectives (MBO). MBO emphasizes participatively set goals that are tangible, verifiable, and measurable. Four ingredients are common to MBO programs: goal specificity, participation in decision making , an explicit time period, and performance feedback. The only area of possible disagreement between MBO and goal-setting theory is participation: MBO strongly advocates participation, whereas goal-setting theory demonstrates that managers’ assigned goals are usually just as effective. OTHER CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF MOTIVATION Self-Efficacy Theory Also known as social cognitive theory or social learning theory, refers to an individual’s belief that he is capable of performing a task. The higher your self-efficacy, the more confidence you have in your ability to succeed. How can managers help their employees achieve high levels of self-efficacy? By bringing goal- setting theory and self-efficacy theory together. The researcher who developed self-efficacy theory, Albert Bandura, proposes four ways self-efficacy can be increased: 1. Enactive mastery. (i’ve done it In the past I can do it in the future) 2. Vicarious modeling (becoming more confident because you see someone else doing the task) 3. Verbal persuasion ( “ because someone convinces you that you are capable) 4. Arousal (Arousal leads to an energized state, so the person gets “psyched up” and performs better) The best way for a manager to use verbal persuasion is through the Pygmalion effect or the Galatea effect. The Pygmalion effect is a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in which believing something can make it true Equity Theory/Organizational Justice According to equity theory, employees compare what they get from their job (their “outcomes,” such as pay, promotions, recognition) to what they put into it (their “inputs,” such as effort, experience, and education). They take the ratio of their outcomes to their inputs and compare it to the ratio of others, usually someone similar. Based on equity theory, employees who perceive inequity will make one of six choices: 1. Change inputs (exert less effort if underpaid or more if overpaid). 2. Change outcomes 3. Distort perceptions of self (“I used to think I worked at a moderate pace, but now I realize I work a lot harder than everyone else.”). 4. Distort perceptions of others (“Mike’s job isn’t as desirable as I thought.”). 5. Choose a different referent (“I may not make as much as my brother-in-law, but I’m doing a lot better than my Dad did when he was my age.”). 6. Leave the field (quit the job) Organizational justice is concerned with how employees feel authorities and decision makers treat them. For the most part, employees evaluate how fairly they are treated along four dimensions, shown in Exhibit Expectancy Theory (Victor vroom) One of the most widely accepted explanations of motivation is Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory. Expectancy theory argues that the strength of our tendency to act a certain way depends on the strength of our expectation of a given outcome and its attractiveness. The theory, therefore, focuses on three relationships 1. Effort–performance relationship. The probability perceived by the individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to performance. 2. Performance–reward relationship. The degree to which the individual believes performing at a particular level will lead to the attainment of a desired outcome. 3. Rewards–personal goals relationship. The degree to which organizational rewards satisfy an individual’s personal goals or needs and the attractiveness of those potential rewards for the individual. WORKPLACE MOTIVATION Job Engagement The investment of an employee’s physical, cognitive, and emotional energies into job performance. What makes people more likely to be engaged in their jobs? One key is the degree to which an employee believes it is meaningful to engage in work. Another factor is a match between the individual’s values and those of the organization. CHAPTER 8: MOTIVATION, FROM CONCEPTS TO APPLIANCES The Job Characteristics Model Developed by J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldhamdescribes jobs by five core dimensions: 1. Skill variety is the degree to which a job requires different activities using specialized skills and talents. 2. Task identity is the degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work. (A cabinetmaker who designs furniture, selects the wood, builds the object, and finishes it has a job that scores high on task identity. A job scoring low on this dimension is operating a lathe to make table legs) 3. Task significance is the degree to which a job affects the lives or work of other people. 4. Autonomy is the degree to which a job provides the worker freedom, independence... 5. Feedback is the degree to which carrying out work activities generates direct and clear information about your own performance. Job Rotation If employees suffer from over-routinization of their work, one alternative is job rotation, or the periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another with similar skill requirements at the same organizational level (also called cross-training). - Negative factor: costs of training in new tasks and changing tasks takes time… Job Enrichment Job enrichment expands jobs by increasing the degree to which the worker controls the planning, execution, and evaluation of the work. ALTERNATIVE WORK ARRANGEMENTS Flex time short for “flexible work time.” Employees must work a specific number of hours per week but may vary their hours of work within limits.Claimed benefits include reduced absenteeism, increased productivity, reduced overtime expenses, reduced hostility toward management, reduced traffic congestion… Job sharing allows two or more individuals to split a traditional forty-hour-a-week job Telecommuting: at least two days a week on a computer linked to the employer’s office. EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT Employee involvement is a participative process that uses employees’ input to increase their commitment to organizational success. Examples of Employee Involvement Programs PARTICIPATIVE MANAGEMENT = joint decision making, in which subordinates share a significant degree of decisionmaking power with their immediate superiors. In reality, for participative management to be effective, followers must have trust and confidence in their leaders. REPRESENTATIVE PARTICIPATION redistributes power within an organization, putting labor on a more equal footing with the interests of management and stockholders by letting workers be represented by a small group of employees who participate in decision making. - The two most common forms of representation are works councils and board representatives USING PAY TO MOTIVATE EMPLOYEES What to pay emploees? The process of initially setting pay levels entails balancing internal equity—the worth of the job to the organization (job evaluation)—and external equity—the competitiveness of an organization’s pay relative to pay in its industry (pay surveys). How to Pay: Rewarding Individual Employees Piece-rate, merit-based, bonus, skill-based, profit sharing, gain-sharing, and employee stock ownership plans are all forms of a variable-pay program, which bases a portion of an employee’s pay on some individual and/or organizational measure of performance. PIECE-RATE PAY: compensating production workers with a fixed sum for each unit of production. A pure piecerate plan provides no base salary and pays the employee only for what he or she produces MERIT-BASED PAY pays for individual performance basedon performance appraisal ratings. BONUSES An annual bonus is a significant component of total compensation for many jobs. SKILL-BASED PAY is an alternative to job-based pay that centers pay levels on how many skills employees have or how many jobs they can do. PROFIT-SHARING PLANS distributes compensation based on some established formula designed around a company’s profitability. Compensation can be direct cash outlays or, particularly for top managers, allocations of stock options. GAINSHARING Gainsharing70 is a formula-based group incentive plan that uses improvements in group productivity from one period to another to determine the total amount of money allocated (popular large manufacturing companies). The benefits accrue to groups of workers, high performers pressure weaker ones to work harder, improving performance for the group as a whole. EMPLOYEE STOCK OWNERSHIP PLANS (ESOP) is a company-established benefit plan in which employees acquire stock, often at belowmarket prices, as part of their benefits. EVALUATION OF VARIABLE PAY Studies generally support the idea that organizations with profit- sharing plans have higher levels of profitability than those without them. USING BENEFITS TO MOTIVATE EMPLOYEES Flexible Benefits: Developing a Benefits Package Consistent with expectancy theory’s thesis that organizational rewards should be linked to each employee’s goals, flexible benefits individualize rewards by allowing individuals to choose the compensation package that best satisfies his current needs and situation. USING INTRINSIC REWARDS TO MOTIVATE EMPLOYEES Employee Recognition Programs: Rewards are intrinsic in the form of employee recognition programs and extrinsic in the form of compensation systems. Employee recognition programs range from a spontaneous and private thank-you to widely publicized formal programs in which specific types of behavior are encouraged and the procedures for attaining recognition are clearly identified. Some research suggests that financial incentives may be more motivating in the short term, but in the long run nonfinancial incentives motivate best. CHAPTER 9: Fundations of group behaviour DEFINING AND CLASSIFYING GROUPS A formal group is defined by the organization’s structure, with designated work assignments establishing tasks. In formal groups, the behaviors team members should engage in are stipulated by and directed toward organizational goals. An informal group is neither formally structured nor organizationally determined. Informal groups in the work environment meet the need for social contact (employees who regularly have lunch together ) The Five-Stage Model The five-stage group-development model characterizes groups as proceeding through the distinct stages of forming, storming, norming, performing, and adjourning. The forming stage, is characterized by uncertainty about the group’s purpose, structure, and leadership. Members determine acceptable behavior for themselves in the group by trial and error. This stage is complete when members have begun to think of themselves as part of a group. The storming stage is one of intragroup conflict. Members accept the group but resist the constraints it imposes on individuality. There is conflict over who will control the group. When this stage is complete, there will be a relatively clear hierarchy of leadership. This norming stage is complete when the group structure solidifies and the group has assimilated a common set of expectations of what constitutes correct member behavior The fourth stage is performing The structure is now fully functional. Group energy has advanced from understanding each other to performing the task at hand. The adjourning stage is for wrapping up activities and preparing to disband Goups with finite deadlines don’t seem to follow the usual five-stage model. Studies indicate they have their own unique sequencing of actions (or inaction): 1. Their first meeting sets the group’s direction, 2. the first phase of group activity is one of inertia and thus slower progress, 3. a transition takes place exactly when the group has used up half its allotted time,4 4. this transition initiates major changes, 5. a second phase of inertia follows the transition, and 6. the group’s last meeting is characterized by markedly accelerated activity. This pattern is called the punctuated-equilibrium model One of the most interesting discoveries in work team studies6 was that groups experienced their transition precisely halfway between the first meeting and the official deadline. The midpoint appears to work like an alarm clock, heightening members’ awareness that their time is limited and they need to get moving. This transition ends phase 1 and is characterized by a concentrated burst of changes, dropping of old patterns, and adoption of new perspectives. The transition sets a revised direction for phase 2, a new equilibrium or period of inertia in which the group executes plans created during the transition period. The group’s last meeting is characterized by a final burst of activity to finish its work. In summary, the punctuated-equilibrium model characterizes groups as exhibiting long periods of inertia interspersed with brief revolutionary changes triggered primarily by members’ awareness of time and deadlines. GROUP PROPERTY 1: ROLES Role Perception: Our view of how we’re supposed to act in a given situation. We get role perceptions from stimuli all around us. Apprenticeship programs allow beginners to watch an expert so they can learn to act as they should. Role expectations are the way others believe you should act in a given context. Role Conflict: When compliance with one role requirement may make it difficult to comply with another, the result is role conflict. GROUP PROPERTY 2: NORMS All groups have established norms—acceptable standards of behavior shared by their members that express what they ought and ought not to do under certain circumstances. When agreed to by the group, norms influence behavior with a minimum of external controls. Norms can cover any aspect of group behavior.Probably the most common is a performance norm, providing explicit cues about how hard members should work. Other norms include appearance norms, social arrangement norms (with whom to eat lunch...), and resource allocation norms. reference groups: a person is aware of other members, defines himself as a member or would like to be a member, and feels group members are significant to him. GROUP PROPERTY 3: STATUS Status—a socially defined position or rank given to groups or group members by others— permeates every society. Status is a significant motivator and has major behavioral consequences when individuals perceive a disparity between what they believe their status is and what others perceive it to be. What Determines Status? 1. The Power a Person Wields Over Others.: people who control the group outcomes tend to be perceived as high status. 2. A Person’s Ability to Contribute to Group Goals. 3. An Individual’s Personal Characteristics. Someone whose personal characteristics are positively valued by the group typically has higher status than someone with fewer valued attributes GROUP PROPERTY 4: SIZE Does the size of a group affect the group’s overall behavior? Yes, but the effect depends on what dependent variables we examine. Groups with a dozen or more members are good for gaining diverse input. If the goal is fact-finding, larger groups should be more effective. Smaller groups of about seven members are better at doing something productive. One of the most important findings about the size of a group concerns social loafing, the tendency for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than alone. GROUP PROPERTY 5: COHESIVENESS Groups differ in their cohesiveness—the degree to which members are attracted to each other and motivated to stay in the group. If cohesiveness is low and performance norms are high, productivity increases, but less than in the high-cohesiveness/high-norms situation. When cohesiveness and performancerelated norms are both low, productivity tends to fall into the low-to-moderate range. What can you do to encourage group cohesiveness? (1) Make the group smaller, (2) encourage agreement with group goals, (3) increase the time members spend together, (4) increase the group’s status and the perceived difficulty of attaining membership, (5) stimulate competition with other groups, (6) give rewards to the group rather than to individual members, and (7) physically isolate the group. GROUP PROPERTY 6: DIVERSITY Diversity appears to increase group conflict, especially in the early stages. Culturally and demographically diverse groups may perform better over time—if they can get over their initial conflicts. Why might this be so? One researcher argued, “The mere presence of diversity you can see, such as a person’s race or gender, actually cues a team that there’s likely to be differences of opinion.”Although those differences can lead to conflict, they also provide an opportunity to solve problems in unique ways. Faultlines: One possible side effect of diverse teams—especially those that are diverse in terms of surface-level characteristics—is faultlines, or perceived divisions that split groups into two or more subgroups based on individual differences. GROUP DECISION MAKING EFFECTIVENESS AND EFFICIENCY Group decisions are generally more accurate than the decisions of the average individual in a group, but less accurate than the judgments of the most accurate person. In terms of speed, individuals are superior. If creativity is important, groups tend to be more effective. Groupthink and Groupshift Groupthink relates to norms and describes situations in which group pressures for conformity deter the group from critically appraising unusual, minority, or unpopular views. Groupthink attacks many groups and can dramatically hinder their performance. Groupshift describes the way group members tend to exaggerate their initial positions when discussing alternatives and arriving at a solution. In some situations, caution dominates and there is a conservative shift, while in other situations groups tend toward a risky shift. GROUP DECISION-MAKING TECHNIQUES Brainstorming can overcome the pressures for conformity that dampen creativity59 by encouraging any and all alternatives while withholding criticism. (individuals working alone generate more ideas than a group in a brainstorming session. One reason for this is “production blocking.”) The nominal group technique restricts discussion or interpersonal communication during the decision-making process, hence the term nominal. Group members are all physically present, as in a traditional committee meeting, but they operate independently. CHAPTER 10: UNDERSTANDING WORK TEAMS DIFFERENCES BETWEEN GROUPS AND TEAMS Group: two or more individuals, interacting and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives. A work group is a group that interacts primarily to share information and make decisions to help each member perform within that member’s area of responsibility. A work team, on the other hand, generates positive synergy through coordinated effort. The individual efforts result in a level of performance greater than the sum of those individual inputs. TYPES OF TEAMS 1) Problem solving team: are temporary structures that bring together leaders and team members from across the organization to focus on solving a specific problem. 2) Self-managed work teams are groups of employees (typically 10 to 15 in number) who perform highly related or interdependent jobs; these teams take on some supervisory responsibilities. 3) Cross-functional teams are an effective means of allowing people from diverse areas to exchange information, develop new ideas, solve problems, and coordinate complex projects. Due to the high need for coordination, cross-functional teams are not simple to manage. 4) Virtual teams use computer technology to unite physically dispersed members to achieve a common goal. Multiteam systems, collections of two or more interdependent teams that share a superordinate goal. In other words, multiteam systems are a “team of teams.” CREATING EFFECTIVE TEAMS We can organize the key components of effective teams into three general categories. - Context: First are the resources and other contextual influences that make teams effective - Composition: The second relates to the team’s composition. - Process: Finally, process variables are events within the team that influence effectiveness Context: What Factors Determine Whether Teams Are Successful ADEQUATE RESOURCES This support includes timely information, proper equipment, adequate staffing, encouragement, and administrative assistance. LEADERSHIP AND STRUCTURE Teams can’t function if they can’t agree on who is to do what and ensure all members share the workload. Agreeing on the specifics of work and how they fit together to integrate individual skills requires leadership and structure Leadership is especially important in multiteam systems (shared leadership is more effective than a traditional single- leader structure ) CLIMATE OF TRUST Members of effective teams trust each other ans their leaders. PERFORMANCE EVALUATION AND REWARD SYSTEMS: Groupbased appraisals, profit sharing, gainsharing, small-group incentives, and other system modifications can reinforce team effort and commitment. Team Composition The team composition category includes variables that relate to how teams should be staffed 1. abilities of members: leader, group member… 2. personality of the members 3. allocation of roles Members should be selected to ensure all the various team roles are filled. 4. Diversity of members: Organizational demography suggests that diversity in attributes such as age or the date of joining should help us predict turnover. 5. Size of teams: keeping teams small is key to improving group effectiveness (5-9 members) 6. members preferences: when selecting team members,managers should consider individual preferences along with abilities, personalities, and skills Team processes: Why are processes important to team effectiveness? Teams should create outputs greater than the sum of their inputs, as when a diverse group develops creative alternatives COMMON PLAN AND PURPOSE: Effective teams show reflexivity, meaning they reflect on and adjust their master plan when necessary. SPECIFIC GOALS Successful teams translate their common purpose into specific, measurable, and realistic performance goals TEAM EFFICACY Effective teams have confidence in themselves; they believe they can succeed. MENTAL MODELS Effective teams share accurate mental models—organized mental representations of the key elements within a team’s environment that team members share. CONFLICT LEVELS - Relationship conflicts: based on interpersonal incompatibility are almost always dysfunctional - Task conflicts—stimulate discussion and can lead to better team decisions. SOCIAL LOAFING members should be clear on what they are individually responsible for and what they are jointly responsible for on the team. TURNING INDIVIDUALS INTO TEAM PLAYERS 1. Selecting: hiring team players (they already posses the interpersonal skills) 2. Training: creating team players (Training specialists conduct exercises= workshop) 3. Rewarding: Providing Incentives to Be a Good Team Player (instrinsic and extrinsic rewards) How do you know whether the work of your group would be done better in teams? 3 tests. First, can the work be done better by more than one person? Simple tasks that don’t require diverse input are probably better left to individuals. Second, does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the people in the group that is more than the aggregate of individual goals? The final test is to determine whether the members of the group are interdependent: Using teams makes sense when there is interdependence among tasks CHAPTER 12: LEADERSHIP Leadership: ability to influence a group towards the achivement of a vision or set of goals )not all managers are leaders, not all leaders are managers). Leaders can rise from within a group as well as by formal appointment. (nonsanctioned leadership= outside the formal structire from the organization) TRAIT THEORIES Leadership has a strong relationship with ones personality. The trait thepry uses the big Five framework. It has found that extraversion is the most predictable trait of leaders (relates more to how they emerge and not their effectivenes).Conscientiousness and openess also predict leadership. Trait theories help us predict leadership, but they don’t help us explain leadership. It tells ase the traits an emerging leader will have but not his effectiveness in the future. BEHAVIORAL THEORIES The most comprehensive behavioral theories in use today resulted from the Ohio State Studies,the studies narrowed the list to two dimensions that substantially accounted for most of the effective leadership behavior described by employees: initiating structure and consideration. Initiating structure is the extent to which a leader is likely to define and construct her role and those of employees in the search for goal attainment. It includes behavior that attempts to organize work, work relationships, and goals. Consideration is the extent to which a person’s job relationships are characterized by mutual trust, respect for employees’ ideas, and regard for their feelings. The Michigan group identified two behavioral types: the employee-oriented leader emphasized interpersonal relationships by taking a personal interest in employees’ needs and accepting individual differences production-oriented leader emphasized technical or task aspects of jobs, focusing on accomplishing the group’s tasks. CONTINGENCY THEORIES The Fiedler Model (Fred Fiedler )developed the first comprehensive contingency model for leadership, still The Fiedler contingency model proposes that effective group performance depends on the proper match between the leader’s style and the degree to which the situation gives the leader control. IDENTIFYING LEADERSHIP STYLE With the Fiedler model, a key factor in leadership success is the individual’s leadership style, which is assumed to be permanent. The model’s least preferred co-worker (LPC) questionnaire identifies leadership style by measuring whether a person is task-oriented or relationship-oriented. DEFINING THE SITUATION a fit must be found between the organizational situation and the leader’s style for there to be leadership effectiveness.We can assess the situation in terms of three situational dimensions: 1. Leader–member relations : degree of confidence, trust... members have in their leader. 2. Task structure is the degree to which the job assignments are procedurized (structured or unstructured). 3. Position power is the degree of influence a leader has over power variables such as hiring, firing, discipline, promotions, and salary increases. According to Fiedler’s model, the higher the task structure becomes, the more procedures are added; and the stronger the position power, the more control the leader has. MATCHING LEADERS AND SITUATIONS Combining the three contingency dimensions yields eight possible categories of leadership situations. Fiedler later condensed these eight situations down to three, with the same general findings:Task-oriented leaders perform best in situations of high and low control, while relationship-oriented leaders perform best in moderate control situations. Other Contingency Theories SITUATIONAL LEADERSHIP THEORY (SLT) focuses on the followers. It says successful leadership depends on selecting the right leadership style contingent on the followers’ readiness, the extent to which followers are willing and able to accomplish a specific task. A leader should choose one of four behaviors depending on follower readiness. 1. unable and unwilling to do a task, the leader needs to give clear and specific directions. 2. unable but willing, the leader needs to display high task orientation to compensate for followers’ lack of ability, and high relationship orientation to get them to “buy into” the leader’s desires. 3. able but unwilling, the leader needs to use a supportive and participative style 4. able and willing, the leader doesn’t need to do much PATH–GOAL THEORY (Robert House) suggests it’s the leader’s job to provide followers with information, support, or other resources necessary to achieve goals. TYPES OF LEADERSHIP: Charismatic Leadership: WHAT IS CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP? Charisma IS DEFINED as “a certain quality of an individual personality, by virtue of which he or she is set apart from ordinary people and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. According to House’s charismatic leadership theory, followers attribute heroic or extraordinary leadership abilities when they observe certain behaviors and tend to give these leaders power. (charismatic leaders are born and made) HOW CHARISMATIC LEADERS INFLUENCE FOLLOWERS By articulating an appealing vision, a long-term strategy for attaining a goal by linking the present with a better future for the organization. A vision needs an accompanying vision statement, a formal articulation of an organization’s vision or mission. Research indicates that charismatic leadership strategies work as followers “catch” the emotions and values their leader is conveying DOES EFFECTIVE CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP DEPEND ON THE PERSON AND THE SITUATION? One factor that enhances charismatic leadership is stress. People are especially receptive to charismatic leadership when they sense a crisis (feeling like bold leadership is needed). Some personalities are especially susceptible to charismatic leadership (example: someone with low self esteem) Transformational Leadership Charismatic leadership theory relies on leaders’ ability to inspire followers to believe in them. In contrast, Fiedler’s model describes transactional leaders, who guide their followers toward established goals by clarifying role and task requirements. Transformational leaders are most effective when their followers are able to see the positive impact of their work through direct interaction with customers or other beneficiaries. Transactional and transformational leadership complement each other = Transformational leadership builds on transactional leadership (not the other way arround) AUTHENTIC LEADERSHIP: ETHICS AND TRUST What Is Authentic Leadership? Authentic leadership focuses on the moral aspects of being a leader. Authentic leaders know who they are, know what they believe in, and act on those values and beliefs openly and candidly (ethical people). To integrate ethical and charismatic leadership, scholars have advanced the idea of socialized charismatic leadership—leadership that conveys other-centered values by leaders who model ethical conduct. Servant Leadership Scholars have recently considered ethical leadership from a new angle by examining servant leadership.Servant leaders go beyond their self-interest and focus on opportunities to help followers grow and develop. They don’t use power to achieve ends; they emphasize persuasion. What Are the Consequences of Trust? Trust encourages taking risks. Trust facilitates information sharing Trusting groups are more effective Trust enhances productivity