COMM 222

FINAL REVIEW

Chapter 1
What Are Organizations?

Social inventions for accomplishing common goals through group effort

Social inventions: The coordinated presence of people

Goals: Organizational survival and adaptation to change are important goals

Group Effort: Interaction and coordination among people to accomplish goals

What Are Organizations?

The field of organizational behaviour is:

about understanding people and managing them to work effectively
concerned with how organizations can survive and adapt to change
concerned with how to get people to practise effective teamwork
What Is Organizational Behaviour?

The attitudes and behaviours of individuals and groups in organizations

How organizations can be structured more effectively

How events in the external environment affect organizations

Goals of Organizational Behaviour

Predicting organizational behaviour and events.

Explaining organizational behaviour and events in organizations.

Managing organizational behaviour.

Management

Management is the art of getting things accomplished in organizations

through others.

Prediction and explanation involves analysis while management is about

action.
Early Prescriptions Concerning Management

Attempts to prescribe the correct way to manage an organization and

achieve its goals:
Classical view and bureaucracy
Human relations view

The classical view advocates a high degree of specialization of labour and

coordination and centralized decision making

Scientific management is Frederick Taylor Winslows system for using

research to determine the optimum degree of specialization and
standardization of work tasks.

Bureaucracy

Bureaucracy is Max Webers ideal type of organization that includes:

Strict chain of command
Selection and promotion criteria based on technical competence
Detailed rules, regulations, and procedures
High specialization
Centralization of power at the top of the organization
The Human Relations Movement and a Critique of Bureaucracy

The human relations movement began with the Hawthorne Studies of the
1920s and 1930s at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric

Concerned with the impact of fatigue, rest pauses, and lighting on

employee productivity

The studies illustrated how psychological and social processes affect

productivity and work adjustment

Suggested there could be dysfunctional aspects to how work was organized

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7RHjwmVGhs
Critique of Bureaucracy

The human relations movement called attention to certain dysfunctional

aspects of classical management and bureaucracy:
Employee alienation
Limits innovation and adaptation
 Resistance to change
Minimum acceptable level of performance
Employees lose sight of the overall goals of the organization
The Human Relations Movement

Advocated more people-oriented and participative styles of management

that catered more to the social and psychological needs of employees.

The movement called for:

more flexible systems of management
the design of more interesting jobs
open communication
employee participation in decision making
less rigid, more decentralized forms of control

Contemporary Management The Contingency Approach

The general answer to many of the problems in organizations is: It

depends.

Dependencies are called contingencies

The contingency approach to management recognizes that there is no one

best way to manage

An appropriate management styles depends on the demands of the

situation
What Do Managers Do?

The field of organizational behaviour is concerned with what managers

actually do in organizations.

Research on what managers do has focused on:

Managerial roles
Managerial activities
Managerial agendas
Managerial minds
International managers
Managerial Roles

Mintzberg discovered a rather complex set of roles played by managers:

Interpersonal roles: figurehead, leadership, liaison
Informational roles: monitor, disseminator, spokesperson
Decisional roles: entrepreneur, disturbance-handler, resource
allocator, negotiator

Managerial Activities

Luthans, Hodgetts, and Rosenkrantz found that managers engage in four

basic types of activities:
Routine communication (formal sending and receiving information)
Traditional management (planning, decision making, controlling)
Networking (interaction with people outside of the organization)
Human resource management (motivating, reinforcing, disciplining,
punishing, managing conflict, staffing, training and developing
employees)

Summary of Managerial Activities

Managerial Agendas

Kotter studied the behaviour patterns of successful general managers and

identified the following categories of behaviour:
Agenda setting: What they wanted to accomplish for the
organization and almost always informal and unwritten and
concerned with people issues
Networking: Established a wide formal and informal network of key
people inside and outside of the organization that provides managers
with information and established cooperative relationships relevant
to their agendas.
Agenda implementation: Managers used networks to implement the
agendas and employed a wide range of influence tactics

Managerial Minds
 Simon and Isenberg explored how managers think

Experienced managers use intuition to guide many of their actions:

To sense that a problem exists
To perform well-learned mental tasks rapidly
To synthesize isolated pieces of information and data
To double-check more formal analyses

Good intuition is problem identification and problem solving based on a

long history of systematic education and experience

Enables the manager to locate problems within a network of previously

acquired information

International Managers

The style in which managers do what they do and the emphasis they give
to various activities will vary greatly across cultures

Cultural variations in values affect both managers and employees

expectations about interpersonal interaction

National culture is one of the most important contingency variables in

organizational behaviour

The appropriateness of various leadership styles, motivation techniques,

and communication methods depends on where one is in the world

Some Contemporary Management Concerns

Five issues with which organizations and managers are currently

concerned:
Diversity Local and Global
Employee-Organization Relationships
A Focus on Quality, Speed, and Flexibility
Talent Management
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)
Diversity Local and Global

The Canadian workforce is becoming increasingly diverse

 Many organizations have not treated certain segments of the population
fairly in many aspects of employment

Global business has increased and so has the need to understand how
workers and customers in other countries are diverse and culturally
different

Organizational behaviour is concerned with issues that have to do with the

management of a diverse workforce and how to benefit from the
opportunities that a diverse workforce provides

Employee-Organization Relationships

Downsizing, restructuring, re-engineering, and outsourcing have had a

profound effect on organizations

Major structural change in work arrangements (e.g., part-time,

temporary, contract work)

Changes in the workplace have changed the nature of employee-

organization relationships

The consequences of these changes:

Decreased trust, lower morale and loyalty
Decline in job satisfaction and organizational commitment (low
levels of employee engagement)
Increase in work-related illness and stress and increased
absenteeism

Work-Life Conflict in Canadian Organizations

A significant number of Canadian employees report:

High levels of role overload
Negative spillover from work to family
High levels of stress
High levels of burnout
Highly depressed mood
High levels of absenteeism
 Organizational behaviour offers many solutions to these problems and for
building and maintaining strong and positive employee-organization
relationships
A Focus on Quality, Speed, and Flexibility

Intense competition has given rise to the need for organizations to

improve quality, speed, and flexibility

This requires a high degree of employee involvement, commitment, and

teamwork

Organizational behaviour is concerned with these issues

Talent Management

Talent management refers to an organizations processes for attracting,

developing, retaining, and utilizing people with the required skills to meet
current and future business needs

Two most important management challenges:

Recruitment of high-quality people across territories
Improving the appeal of the company culture and work environment

Organizational behaviour can help companies improve their recruitment

and retention by providing the means for organizations to be designed and
managed in ways that optimize talent attraction, development, retention,
and performance.

Management Practices of the Best Companies to Work for in Canada

Flexible work schedules

Stock-options, profit-sharing, and bonuses

Training and development programs

Family assistance programs

Career development programs

Wellness and stress reduction programs

Employee recognition and reward programs

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

CSR refers to an organization taking responsibility for the impact of its

 decisions and actions on its stakeholders

It extends beyond the interests of shareholders to the interests and needs

of employees and the community in which it operates

Many CSR issues have to do with organizational behaviour (e.g., work-

family balance, employee well-being)

CSR has implications for the recruitment and retention of employees as

well as employee attitudes, motivation, and firm performance

Chapter 2

What Is Personality?
The relatively stable set of psychological characteristics that influences
the way an individual interacts with his or her environment and how he or
she feels, thinks, and behaves
Dimensions and traits that are determined by genetic predisposition and
ones long-term learning history
People have a variety of personality characteristics
Personality and Organizational Behaviour
Personality has a long history in organizational behaviour
The role of personality in organizational behaviour has often been debated
in what is known as the person-situation debate
This has led to three approaches:
The dispositional approach
The situational approach
The interactionist approach
The Dispositional Approach
Focuses on individual dispositions and personality
Individuals possess stable traits or characteristics that influence their
attitudes and behaviours
Individuals are predisposed to behave in certain ways
The Situational Approach
Characteristics of the organizational setting such as rewards and
punishment influence peoples feelings, attitudes and behaviour
Many studies have shown that situational factors such as the
characteristics of work tasks predict job satisfaction
The Interactionist Approach
 Organizational behaviour is a function of both dispositions and the
situation
To predict and understand organizational behaviour, we need to know
something about an individuals personality and the work setting
This is the most widely accepted approach to organizational behaviour
Personality and the Situation
Situations can be described as being either weak or strong
In weak situations, roles are loosely defined, there are few rules and
weak reinforcement and punishment contingencies
Personality has the strongest effect in weak situations
In strong situations, the roles, rules, and contingencies are more defined
Personality has less of an impact in strong situations

Implications of the Interactionist Approach

Some personality characteristics are useful in certain organizational
situations
There is no one best personality
Appreciate the advantages of employee diversity
The importance of fit - putting the right person in the right job, group, or
organization
The Five-Factor Model of Personality
Five basic but general dimensions that describe personality:
Extraversion
Emotional stability/neuroticism
Agreeableness
Conscientiousness
Openness to experience
The Five-Factor Model of Personality and OB
The Five-Factor Model of Personality: Research
Each of the Big Five dimensions is related to job performance
Best predictors of job performance depends on the occupation
Conscientiousness is the strongest predictor of overall job performance
across all occupations
The Big Five are related to work motivation, job satisfaction, and life
 satisfaction
The Big Five predict job search outcomes and career success
The effects of personality on career success are relatively enduring

Locus of Control
A set of beliefs about whether ones behaviour is controlled mainly by
internal or external factors
Internals believe that the opportunity to control their own behaviour
resides within themselves
Externals believe that external forces determine their behaviour
Locus of Control: Research
Internals are more satisfied with their jobs, earn more money, and
achieve higher organizational positions
Internals perceive less stress, cope with stress better, and engage in more
careful career planning
What is Learning?
A relatively permanent change in behaviour potential as a result of
practice or experience
The practice or experience that prompts learning stems from an
environment that provides feedback concerning the consequences of
behaviour
What Do Employees Learn?
Practical skills:
Job-specific skills, knowledge, technical competence
Intrapersonal skills:
Problem solving, critical thinking, alternative work processes, risk
taking
Interpersonal skills:
Interactive skills such as communicating, teamwork, conflict
resolution
Cultural awareness:
The social norms of organizations, company goals, business
operations, expectations, and priorities

Operant Learning Theory

 The subject learns to operate on the environment to achieve certain
consequences.
Operantly learned behaviour is controlled by the consequences that follow
it.
It is the connection between the behaviour and the consequence that is
learned.
Increasing the Probability of Behaviour
One of the most important consequences that influences behaviour is
reinforcement
Reinforcement is the process by which stimuli strengthen behaviours
A reinforcer is a stimulus that follows some behaviour and increases or
maintains the probability of that behaviour
Positive and Negative Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement
The application or addition of a stimulus that increases or maintains
the probability of some behaviour
The stimulus is the positive reinforcer
The reinforcer is dependent or contingent on the occurrence of
some desired behaviour
Negative reinforcement
The removal of a stimulus from a situation that increases or
maintains the probability of some behaviour
Negative reinforcement occurs when a response prevents some
event or stimulus from occurring
The removed or prevented stimulus is a negative reinforcer

Organizational Errors Involving Reinforcement

Rewards fail to serve as reinforcers when they are not made contingent on
some specific desired behaviour
Organizations often fail to appreciate individual differences in preferences
for reinforcers
Managers often neglect important sources of reinforcement such as those
administered by co-workers or intrinsic to the job
Two important sources of reinforcement that managers often ignore are
performance feedback and social recognition
Performance Feedback
Performance feedback involves providing quantitative or qualitative
information on past performance for the purpose of changing or
maintaining performance.
Performance feedback is most effective when it is:
Conveyed in a positive manner
Delivered immediately after observing performance
Represented visually (graph or chart form)
Specific to the behaviour that is being targeted for feedback

Social Recognition
Social recognition involves informal acknowledgement, attention, praise,
approval, or genuine appreciation for work well done from one individual
to another
When social recognition is made contingent on employee behaviour it can
be an effective means for performance improvement

Reinforcement Strategies
For fast acquisition of some response, continuous and immediate
reinforcement should be used
Behaviour tends to be persistent when it is learned under conditions of
partial and delayed reinforcement
Managers have to tailor reinforcement strategies to the needs of the
situation and often must alter their strategies over time to achieve
effective learning and maintenance of behaviour

Summary of Reinforcement Strategies and their Effects

Reducing the Probability of Behaviour
Sometimes learned behaviours are detrimental to the operation of an
organization and they need to be reduced or eliminated
Two strategies that can reduce the probability of learned behaviour:
Extinction
Punishment
Extinction & Punishment
Extinction
The gradual dissipation of behaviour following the termination of
reinforcement
If the behaviour is not reinforced, it will gradually dissipate or be
extinguished
Extinction works best when coupled with the reinforcement of some
desired substitute behaviour
Punishment
The application of an aversive stimulus following unwanted
behaviour to decrease the probability of that behaviour
A nasty stimulus is applied after some undesirable behaviour in
order to decrease the probability of that behaviour

Summary of Learning Effects

Problems Using Punishment
Punishment has some unique characteristics that often limit its
effectiveness in eliminating unwanted behaviour
It does not demonstrate which behaviours should replace the punished
response
Punishment indicates only what is not appropriate
Punishment only temporarily suppresses the unwanted behaviour
Punishment can provoke a strong emotional reaction from the punished
individual

Using Punishment Effectively

Provide an acceptable alternative response for the punished response
Limit the emotions involved in punishment
Make sure the chosen punishment is truly aversive
Punish immediately or reinstate the circumstances surrounding the
problem behaviour at a more appropriate time
Do not reward unwanted behaviours before or after punishment
Do not inadvertently punish desirable behaviour
Social Cognitive Theory
Emphasizes the role of cognitive processes in regulating peoples
behaviour
People learn by observing the behaviour of others and can regulate their
own behaviour by thinking about the consequences of their actions,
setting goals, monitoring performance, and rewarding themselves
Human behaviour can best be explained through a system of triadic
reciprocal causation in which personal factors and environmental factors
work together and interact to influence peoples behaviour
Peoples behaviour also influences personal factors and the environment

Components of Social Cognitive Theory

Observational learning
Self-efficacy
Self-regulation

Observational Learning
The process of imitating the behaviour of others:
Examining the behaviour of others
Seeing the consequences they experience
Thinking about what might happen if we act the same way
Imitating the behaviour if we expect favourable consequences
Involves self-reinforcement
Attractive, credible, competent, high-status people are most likely to be
imitated
It is important that the models behaviour result in positive consequences
and that it is vivid and memorable

Self-Efficacy
Beliefs people have about their ability to successfully perform a specific
task
It is a cognitive belief that can be changed and modified in response to
different sources of information
Self-efficacy influences the activities people choose to perform, the
 amount of effort and persistence devoted to a task, affective and stress
reactions, and job performance.
Self-efficacy is influenced by four sources of information
Self-Regulation
The use of learning principles to regulate ones own behaviour
A key part of the process is peoples pursuit of self-set goals that guide
behaviour
Discrepancy reduction and discrepancy production lie at the heart of the
self-regulatory process
Self-regulation involves the following activities:
Collect self-observation data
Observe models
Set goals
Rehearse
Reinforce oneself

Self-Regulation (continued)
Self-regulation can improve learning and result in a change in behaviour
Self-regulation training has been shown to improve work attendance and
sales performance
Self-regulation has been shown to change a variety of behaviours and it is
an effective method of training

Chapter 3

What were talking about when we talk about perception, stereotypes and
diversity
What Is Perception?
The process of interpreting the messages of our senses to provide order
and meaning to the environment.
People base their actions on the interpretation of reality that their
perceptual system provides, rather than on reality itself.
Components of Perception
Perception has three components:
A perceiver
A target that is being perceived
 Some situational context in which the perception is occurring
Each component influences the perceivers impression or interpretation of
the target.
The Perceiver
Past experiences lead the perceiver to develop expectations that affect
current perceptions.
Needs unconsciously influence perceptions by causing us to perceive what
we wish to perceive.
Emotions, such as anger, happiness, or fear, can influence our
perceptions.
Perceptual defence: The tendency for the perceptual system to defend
the perceiver against unpleasant emotions.
People often see what they want to see and hear what they want to
hear.

The Target
Ambiguous targets are especially susceptible to interpretation and the
addition of meaning.
Perceivers have a need to resolve ambiguities.
The perceiver does not or cannot use all the information provided by the
target.
A reduction in ambiguity might not be accompanied by greater accuracy.
The Situation
Perception occurs in some situational context, and this context can affect
what is perceived.
The most important effect that the situation can have is to add
information about the target.
The perception of a target can change with the situation even when the
perceiver and target remain the same.
Bruners Model of the Perceptual Process
When the perceiver encounters an unfamiliar target, the perceiver is very
open to the informational cues in the target and the situation.
The perceiver will actively seek out cues to resolve ambiguity.
As the perceiver encounters some familiar cues, a crude categorization of
the target is made.
 The search for cues then becomes less open and more selective.
The perceiver will search for cues that confirm the categorization of the
target.
As the categorization becomes stronger, the perceiver will ignore or even
distort cues that violate initial perceptions.

Bruners Model of the Perceptual Process: An Example

Perception is: Selective, Constant and Consistent
Perceivers do not use all of the available cues, and those they use are
given special emphasis.
Perception is efficient but this can aid and hinder perceptual accuracy.
The tendency for the target to be perceived in the same way over time
and across situations.
Getting off on the wrong foot.
The tendency to select, ignore, and distort cues so that they fit together
to form a homogenous picture of the target.
We strive for consistency in our perception of people.

Basic Biases in Person Perception

The impressions we form of others are susceptible to a number of
perceptual biases:
Primacy and recency effects
Reliance on central traits
Implicit personality theories
Projection
Stereotyping
Primacy and Recency Effects
The reliance on early cues or first impressions is known as the primacy
effect.
Primacy often has a lasting impact.
The tendency for a perceiver to rely on recent cues or last impressions is
known as the recency effect.
Reliance on Central Traits
People tend to organize their perceptions around central traits.
 Central traits are personal characteristics of a target person that are of
particular interest to a perceiver.
Physical appearance is a common central trait in work settings.
Conventionally attractive people fare better than unattractive people in
terms of a variety of job-related outcomes (e.g., getting hired).
Physical height is an obvious aspect of physical appearance that is related
to job performance, promotions, and career success.
Individuals who are overweight tend to be evaluated negatively on a
number of workplace outcomes.

Implicit Personality Theories

Personal theories that people have about which personality characteristics
go together.
Perhaps you expect hardworking people to also be honest, or people of
average intelligence to be most friendly.
If such implicit theories are inaccurate, they provide a basis for
misunderstanding.
Projection
The tendency for perceivers to attribute their own thoughts and feelings
to others.
In some cases, projection is an efficient and sensible perceptual strategy.
Projection can lead to perceptual difficulties and can serve as a form of
perceptual defence.
Stereotyping
The tendency to generalize about people in a social category and ignore
variations among them.
Categories on which people might base a stereotype include race, age,
gender, ethnic background, social class, and occupation.
There are three specific aspects to stereotyping:
We distinguish some category of people
We assume that the individuals in this category have certain traits
We perceive that everyone in this category possesses these traits

Stereotyping (continued)
People can evoke stereotypes with incredibly little information.
 Stereotypes help us develop impressions of ambiguous targets.
Most stereotypes are inaccurate, especially when we use them to develop
perceptions of specific individuals.
Why Do Stereotypes Persist?
Several factors work to reinforce inaccurate stereotypes.
Even incorrect stereotypes help us process information about others
quickly and efficiently.
Inaccurate stereotypes are often reinforced by selective perception.
Attribution: Perceiving Causes and Motives
Attribution is the process by which we assign causes or motives to explain
peoples behaviour.
An important goal is to determine whether some behaviour is caused by
dispositional or situational factors.
Dispositional attributions suggest that some personality or intellectual
characteristic unique to the person is responsible for the behaviour.
Intelligence, greed, friendliness, or laziness.
Situational attributions suggest that the external situation or environment
in which the target person exists was responsible for the behaviour.
Bad weather, good luck, proper tools, or poor advice.

Attribution Cues
We rely on external cues and make inferences from these cues when
making attributions.
Three implicit questions guide our decisions as to whether we should
attribute some behaviour to dispositional or situational causes.
Does the person engage in the behaviour regularly and consistently?
(Consistency cues).
Do most people engage in the behaviour, or is it unique to this
person? (Consensus cues).
Does the person engage in the behaviour in many situations, or is it
distinctive to one situation? (Distinctiveness cues).

Consistency Cues
Attribution cues that reflect how consistently a person engages in a
 behaviour over time.
High consistency behaviour leads to dispositional attributions.
When behaviour occurs inconsistently, we begin to consider situational
attributions.
Consensus Cues
Attribution cues that reflect how a persons behaviour compares with that
of others.
Low consensus behaviour leads to dispositional attributions.
The informational effects of low-consensus behaviour are magnified when
the actor is expected to suffer negative consequences because of the
deviance.
Distinctiveness Cues
Attribution cues that reflect the extent to which a person engages in some
behaviour across a variety of situations.
Low distinctiveness behaviour leads to a dispositional attribution.
When a behaviour is highly distinctive, in that it occurs in only one
situation, we are likely to assume that some aspect of the situation
caused the behaviour.
Attribution in Action
Observers put information about consistency, consensus, and
distinctiveness together to form attributions.
Consider three employees who are absent from work.
Roshani is absent a lot, her co-workers are seldom absent, and she was
absent a lot in her previous job.
Mika is absent a lot, her co-workers are also absent a lot, but she was
almost never absent in her previous job.
Sam is seldom absent, her co-workers are seldom absent, and she was
seldom absent in her previous job.

Biases in Attribution
Although observers often operate in a rational, logical manner in forming
attributions about behaviour, this does not mean that such attributions
are always correct.
Three biases in attribution:
Fundamental attribution error: The tendency to overemphasize
dispositional explanations for behaviour at the expense of situational
explanations.
 Actor-observer effect: The propensity for actors and observers to
view the causes of the actors behaviour differently.
Self-serving bias: The tendency to take credit for successful
outcomes and to deny responsibility for failures.
Person Perception and Workforce Diversity
Workforce diversity refers to differences among recruits and employees in
characteristics, such as gender, race, age, religion, cultural background,
physical ability, or sexual orientation.
The workforce is becoming more diverse.
Many organizations have not successfully managed workforce diversity.
The Changing Workplace
The Canadian population and labour force is becoming increasingly
multicultural and multi-ethnic.
The number of visible minorities in Canada is expected to double by 2017.
In less than a decade, 48 percent of the working-age population will be
between the ages of 45 and 64.
Many organizations are seeking to recruit more representatively.
Many employees are required to interact with people from substantially
different national or corporate cultures.
Increased emphasis on teamwork as a means of job design and quality
enhancement.

Valuing Diversity
Some have argued that organizations should value diversity not just
tolerate it.
A critical motive is the basic fairness of valuing diversity.
Diversity and its proper management can yield strategic and competitive
advantages:
Improved problem solving and creativity
Improved recruiting and marketing
Improved competitiveness in global markets
Organizations are adopting diversity as part of their corporate strategy.

Competitive Advantages to Valuing and Managing a Diverse Workforce

Cost
 Resource-Acquisition
Marketing
Creativity
Problem-Solving
System Flexibility
Stereotypes and Workforce Diversity
A major barrier to valuing diversity is the stereotype.
The tendency to generalize about people in a certain social category and
ignore variations among them.
Common workplace stereotypes are based on gender, age, race, and
ethnicity.
Stereotypes can have negative effects on how individuals are treated in
organizations.
Stereotype Threat: Members of a social group feel they might be judged or
treated according to a stereotype and that their behaviour or performance
will confirm the stereotype.

Racial and Ethnic Stereotypes

Racial and ethnic stereotypes are pervasive, persistent, frequently
negative, and often contradictory.
Whites have been found to advance further in the hiring process than
blacks.
Career tracking based on racial or ethnic stereotyping is common.
Organizations are reflections of the environments of which they are a
part.
Gender Stereotypes
One of the most problematic stereotypes for organizations is the gender
stereotype.
Women are severely underrepresented in managerial and administrative
jobs and hold only 14.4 percent of corporate officer positions.
Stereotypes of women do not correspond well with stereotypes of
businesspeople or managers.
Successful managers are perceived as having traits and attitudes that are
generally ascribed to men.
Successful managers are seen as more similar to men in qualities such as
leadership ability, competitiveness, self-confidence, ambitiousness, and
 objectivity.
Gender stereotypes lead to biased human resource decisions.
Women suffer from a stereotype that is detrimental to their hiring,
development, promotion, and salaries.

Gender Stereotypes (continued)

The detrimental effects of gender stereotypes are reduced or removed
when decision makers have good information about the qualifications and
performance of particular women and an accurate picture of the job that
they are applying for or seeking promotion into.
Women have made the most significant progress moving into senior
management and executive positions in the financial services industry.
Industries that tend to be stereotypically male have the lowest
representation of women in senior positions.

Age Stereotypes
Knowing that a person falls into a certain age range or belongs to a
particular age generation, we have a tendency to make certain
assumptions about the persons physical, psychological, and intellectual
capabilities.
Older workers are seen as having less capacity for performance.
They are viewed as less productive, creative, logical, and capable of
performing under pressure, and as having less potential for development.
They are perceived as more rigid and dogmatic, and less adaptable to new
corporate cultures.
They are perceived as more honest, dependable, and trustworthy.

Age Stereotypes (continued)

These stereotypes are inaccurate.
Age seldom limits the capacity for development until post-employment
years.
Research has found that age and job performance are unrelated.
Age stereotypes affect human resource decisions regarding hiring,
promotion, and skills development.
 Older workers are often passed over for merit pay and promotions and
pressured to take early retirement.
Some organizations have implemented programs and practices to promote
the hiring of older workers.

Managing Workforce Diversity

Diversity needs to be managed to have a positive impact on work
behaviour and an organization.
What can organizations do to achieve and manage a diverse workforce?
Select enough minority members to get them beyond token status.
Encourage teamwork that brings minority and majority members together.
Ensure that those making career decisions about employees have accurate
information about them.
Train people to be aware of stereotypes.

Diversity Training Programs

One of the most common approaches for managing diversity.
They can cause disruption and bad feelings when all they do is get people
to open up and generate stereotypes.
Awareness training should be accompanied by skills training that is
relevant to the particular needs of the organization.

Success Factors for Diversity Programs

Build senior management commitment and accountability.
Conduct a thorough needs assessment.
Develop a well-defined strategy tied to business results.
Emphasize team-building and group process training.
Establish metrics and evaluate the effectiveness of diversity initiatives.

Chapter 4
What Are Values?
A broad tendency to prefer certain states of affairs over others.
Values have to do with what we consider good and bad.
Values are motivational and very general.
People tend to hold values structured around such factors as achievement,
 power, autonomy, conformity, tradition, and social welfare.

Generational Differences in Values

There are four distinctive generations in the workplace today:
Traditionalists (1922-1945)
Baby Boomers (1946-1964)
Generation X (1965-1980)
Millennials (Generation Y) (1981-2000)
These generations grew up under rather different socialization
experiences.
These differences have led to notable value differences between the
generations.
Such value differences might then underlie the differential assets and
preferences for leadership style.

Four Generations in Todays Workplace

Generational Stereotypes
Traditionalists: Respectful of authority and a high work ethic.
Boomers: Optimistic workaholics.
Gen X: Cynical, confident, and pragmatic.
Gen Y: Confident, social, demanding of feedback, and somewhat
unfocused.
Are these stereotypes accurate?

Generational Differences in Values

Most research points to more similarities than differences in values across
generations.
Some indication that Gen X and Y are more inclined to value status and
rapid career growth than are boomers.
Gen Ys especially value autonomy and Xers, compared to boomers, are
less loyal, more wanting of promotion, and more inclined toward work-life
balance.
Some research has concluded that all work generations share the same
values but express them differently.
Generational differences in work values or the way values are expressed is
 important because a good fit between a persons values and those of the
organization (person-organization fit) leads to more positive work
attitudes and behaviours.

Cultural Differences in Values and Work

There are basic differences in work-related values across cultures.
A lack of understanding of cross-cultural differences can cause foreign
assignments to terminate early and business negotiations to fail.
Work is valued differently across cultures.
There are cross-national differences in the extent to which people
perceive work as a central life interest.
People for whom work was a central life interest work more hours.
Cross-cultural differences in work centrality can lead to adjustment
problems for foreign employees and managers.

Hofstedes Study
Geert Hofstede questioned over 116,000 IBM employees in 40 countries
about their work-related values.
He discovered four basic dimensions along which work-related values
differed across cultures:
Power distance
Uncertainty avoidance
Masculinity/femininity
Individualism/collectivism
Subsequent work with Canadian Michael Bond that catered more to
Eastern cultures resulted in a fifth dimension:
Long-term/short-term orientation

Power Distance
The extent to which an unequal distribution of power is accepted by
society members.
In small power distance cultures, inequality is minimized, superiors are
accessible, and power differences are downplayed.
 In large power distance cultures, inequality is accepted as natural,
superiors are inaccessible, and power differences are highlighted.
Out of 40 societies, Canada and the United States rank 14 and 15, falling
on the low power distance side of the average.

Uncertainty Avoidance
The extent to which people are uncomfortable with uncertain and
ambiguous situations.
Strong uncertainty avoidance cultures stress rules and regulations, hard
work, conformity, and security.
Cultures with weak uncertainty avoidance are less concerned with rules,
conformity, and security, and hard work is not seen as a virtue and risk
taking is valued.
Canada and the United States are well below average on uncertainty
avoidance.

Masculinity/Femininity
Masculine cultures clearly differentiate gender roles, support the
dominance of men, and stress economic performance.
Feminine cultures accept fluid gender roles, stress sexual equality, and
stress quality of life.
In Hofstedes research, Japan is the most masculine society followed by
Austria, Mexico, and Venezuela.
The Scandinavian countries are the most feminine.
Canada ranks about mid-pack and the United States is fairly masculine
falling about halfway between Canada and Japan.

Individualism/Collectivism
Individualistic societies stress independence, individual initiative, and
privacy.
Collective cultures favour interdependence and loyalty to family or clan.
The United States, Australia, Great Britain, and Canada are among the
most individualistic societies.
Venezuela, Columbia, and Pakistan are among the most collective, with
Japan falling about mid-pack.
Long-term/Short-term Orientation
Cultures with a long-term orientation stress persistence, perseverance,
thrift, and close attention to status differences.
Cultures with a short-term orientation stress personal steadiness and
stability, face-saving, and social niceties.
China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea tend to be
characterized by a long-term orientation.
Canada and the United States are more short-term oriented.

Cross-Culture Value Comparisons

Implications of Cultural Variation
Organizational behaviour theories, research, and practices from North
America might not translate well to other societies.
The basic questions remain the same it is just the answers that will
differ.
A good fit between company practices and the host culture is important.
Not all theories and practices that concern organizational behaviour are
designed in North America or even in the West.
The most obvious examples are Japanese management techniques, such
as quality circles, total quality management, and just-in-time production.
Organizations need to tailor management practices to the home cultures
concerns.

Appreciating Global Customers and developing global employees

An appreciation of cross-cultural differences in values is essential to
understanding the needs and tastes of customers or clients around the
world.
Appreciating the values of global customers is also important when the
customers enter your own culture.
Success in translating management practices to other cultures, importing
practices, and appreciating global customers does not happen by accident.
Companies need to select, train, and develop employees to have an
appreciation of differences in cultural values and the implications of these
differences for behaviour in organizations.
What Are Attitudes?
An attitude is a fairly stable evaluative tendency to respond consistently
to some specific object, situation, person, or category of people.
Attitudes involve evaluations directed toward specific targets.
They are more specific than values.
Attitudes are tendencies to respond to the target of the attitude.
Attitudes often influence our behaviour toward some object, situation,
person, or group.
Attitudes are a function of what we think and what we feel.
Attitudes are the product of a related belief and value.
Belief + Value = Attitude Behaviour

What Are Attitudes? (continued)

Organizations often attempt to change employee attitudes.
Most attempts at attitude change are initiated by a communicator who
tries to use persuasion of some form to modify the beliefs or values of an
audience that supports a currently held attitude.
Persuasion that is designed to modify or emphasize values is usually
emotionally oriented.
Persuasion that is slanted toward modifying certain beliefs is usually
rationally oriented.

What Is Job Satisfaction?

A collection of attitudes that workers have about their jobs.
Two aspects of satisfaction.
Facet satisfaction refers to the tendency for an employee to be more or
less satisfied with various facets of the job:
The work itself, compensation, career opportunities, recognition and
benefits
Overall satisfaction is a summary indicator of a persons attitude toward
his or her job that cuts across the various facets.
An average or total of the attitudes individuals hold toward various facets
of the job.
 Two employees might express the same level of overall satisfaction for
different reasons.

What Is Job Satisfaction? (continued)

The most popular measure of job satisfaction is the Job Descriptive Index
(JDI).
It is designed around five facets of satisfaction.
Employees respond yes, no, or ? in describing whether a particular
word or phrase is descriptive of particular facets of their jobs.
The Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) is also a carefully
constructed measure of job satisfaction.
Respondents indicate how happy they are with various aspects of their job
on a scale ranging from very satisfied to very dissatisfied.

Determining job satisfaction: Discrepancy

A theory that job satisfaction stems from the discrepancy between the job
outcomes wanted and the outcomes that are perceived to be obtained.
There is strong evidence that satisfaction with ones pay is high when
there is a small gap between the pay received and the perception of how
much pay should be received.
Fairness and distributive fairness
Issues of fairness affect both what people want from their jobs and how
they react to the inevitable discrepancies in organizational life.
There are three basic kinds of fairness:
Distributive fairness
Procedural fairness
Interactional fairness
Fairness that occurs when people receive what they think they deserve
from their jobs.
It involves the ultimate distribution of work rewards and resources.
Individuals want whats fair.
Equity theory provides a way of understanding how people determine
what is fair.

Equity Theory
 Job satisfaction stems from a comparison of the inputs one invests in a job
and the outcomes one receives in comparison to those of another person
or group.
Equity will be perceived when the following distribution ratios exist:
My outcomes = Others outcomes
My inputs Others inputs
Inputs refer to anything that people give up, offer, or trade to their
organization in exchange for outcomes (e.g., education).
Outcomes are factors that an organization distributes to employees in
exchange for their inputs (e.g., pay).
The other in the ratio might be a co-worker performing the same job, a
number of co-workers, or even ones conception of all the individuals in
ones occupation.

Equity Theory (continued)

Equity theory has important implications for job satisfaction.
Inequity is a dissatisfying state, especially when we are on the short end
of the stick.
Cross-cultural differences in values suggests that there are differences
across cultures in how to achieve equity and distributive fairness.

Procedural Fairness
Fairness that occurs when the process used to determine work outcomes is
seen as reasonable.
It is concerned with how outcomes are decided and allocated.
It is particularly relevant to outcomes such as performance evaluations,
pay raises, promotions, layoffs, and work assignments.
In allocating outcomes, the following factors contribute to perceptions of
procedural fairness. The allocator:
Follows consistent procedures over time and across people.
Uses accurate information and appears unbiased.
Allows two-way communication during the allocation process.
Welcomes appeals of the procedure or allocation.
Procedural Fairness (continued)
Procedural fairness is especially likely to provoke dissatisfaction when
people also see distributive fairness as being low.
Dissatisfaction will be maximized when people believe that they would
have obtained better outcomes if the decision maker had used other
procedures that should have been implemented.
Interactional Fairness
Fairness that occurs when people feel that they have received respectful
and informative communication about an outcome.
Interactional fairness is important because it is possible for absolutely fair
outcomes or procedures to be perceived as unfair when they are
inadequately or uncaringly explained.
People who experience interactional unfairness are most likely dissatisfied
with the boss.
Both procedural and interactional fairness can to some extent offset the
negative effects of distributive unfairness.

Disposition
The dispositional view of job satisfaction is based on the idea that some
people are predisposed by virtue of their personalities to be more or less
satisfied despite changes in discrepancy or fairness.
Studies that point to a missing dispositional link in job satisfaction:
Identical twins reared apart tend to have similar levels of job
satisfaction.
Job satisfaction tends to be fairly stable over time, even when
changes in employer occur.
Disposition measured early in adolescence is correlated with ones
job satisfaction as a mature adult.

Disposition (continued)
These findings suggest that some personality characteristics originating in
genetics or early learning contribute to adult job satisfaction.
People who are extraverted and conscientious tend to be more satisfied
with their jobs.
Those high in neuroticism are less satisfied.
People who are high in self-esteem and internal locus of control are more
satisfied.
 In general, people who are optimistic and proactive report higher job
satisfaction.
Mood and emotion may contribute to this connection.

Mood and Emotion

Affect is a broad label for feelings that includes emotions and moods.
Emotions are intense, often short-lived feelings caused by a particular
event such as a bad performance appraisal.
Moods are less intense, longer-lived, and more diffuse feelings.
How do emotions and moods affect job satisfaction?

Affective Events Theory

Jobs consist of a series of events and happenings that have the potential
to provoke emotions or to influence moods, depending on how we
appraise these events and happenings.
Emotions and moods can in turn influence job satisfaction.
Emotional Contagion and Regulation
Mood and emotion can also influence job satisfaction through emotional
contagion.
Emotional contagion is the tendency for moods and emotions to spread
between people or throughout a group.
Peoples moods and emotions tend to converge with interaction.
Mood and emotion can also influence job satisfaction through the need for
emotional regulation.
Emotional regulation is the requirement for people to conform to certain
display rules in their job behaviour in spite of their true mood or
emotions.
This is often referred to as emotional labour.

Emotional Labour
In some jobs, employees must exaggerate positive emotions while in
others they must suppress negative emotions.
All jobs have their implicit display rules, however, service roles are
especially laden with them.
What are the consequences of the requirement for emotional regulation?
 The frequent need to suppress negative emotions can lower job
satisfaction and increase stress.
Some research suggests that the need to express positive emotions
improves job satisfaction.
Do organizations pay a premium for emotional labour?

Emotional Labour and Cognitive Demands

How Discrepancy, Fairness, Disposition, Mood, and Emotion Affect Job
Satisfaction
Some Key Contributors to Job Satisfaction
Mentally challenging work: Work that tests employees skills and abilities,
allows them to set their own working pace, and provides clear feedback.
Adequate compensation: Although pay and satisfaction are positively
related, not everyone is equally desirous of money.
Career opportunities: Promotions contain material and social signals about
a persons self-worth.
People: Friendly, considerate, good-natured superiors and co-workers
contribute to job satisfaction.
The ability of others to help us with our work also contributes to job
satisfaction especially when pay is tied to performance, jobs are
complex, or as promotion opportunities increase.
Friendliness is most important in lower-level and dead-end jobs.

Consequences of Job Satisfaction

Job satisfaction has a number of consequences:
Absence from work
Turnover
Performance
Organizational citizenship behaviour
Customer satisfaction and profit
Absence from Work
Absenteeism is an expensive behaviour.
Less satisfied employees are more likely to be absent.
 Satisfaction with the content of the work is the best predictor of
absenteeism.
The absence-satisfaction connection is not very strong.
Several factors constrain the ability to convert like or dislike of work into
attendance patterns:
Some absence is unavoidable.
Opportunities for off-the-job satisfaction on a missed day vary.
Some organizations have attendance control policies.
It might be unclear to employees how much absenteeism is
reasonable or sensible.

Absence from Work (continued)

The norm for absenteeism and the absence culture might have a
stronger effect than an individual employees job satisfaction.
The connection between job satisfaction and good attendance probably
stems in part from the tendency for job satisfaction to facilitate mental
health and satisfaction with life in general.
Turnover
Turnover refers to resignation from an organization and it can be very
expensive.
Research indicates a moderately strong connection between job
satisfaction and turnover.
Less-satisfied workers are more likely to quit.
The relationship is far from perfect.

A Model of Employee Turnover

Turnover (continued)
The model shows that job satisfaction as well as commitment to the
organization and various shocks can contribute to intentions to leave.
Research shows that such intentions are very good predictors of turnover.
Why do satisfied people sometimes quit their jobs and dissatisfied people
stay?
Turnover (continued)
Certain shocks might stimulate turnover despite satisfaction with the
current job.
 An employees dissatisfaction with his or her job might be offset by a
strong commitment to the overall values and mission of the organization.
An employee might be so embedded in the community that he or she is
willing to endure a dissatisfying job rather than move.
A weak job market might result in limited employment alternatives.

The Honeymoon-Hangover Effect

A decrease in job satisfaction often precedes turnover, and those who quit
experience a boost in job satisfaction on their new job.
Some of this boost might be due to a honeymoon effect, in which the
bad facets of the old job are gone, the good facets of the new job are
apparent, and the bad facets of the new job are not yet known.
Over time, as the bad facets of the new job are recognized, a hangover
effect can occur in which overall satisfaction with the new job decreases.

Performance
Research has found that job satisfaction is associated with higher job
performance.
However, the connection is complicated; many factors influence
motivation and performance.
The most important satisfaction facet is the content of the work itself.
The connection between job satisfaction and performance is stronger for
complex, high-tech jobs and less strong for more routine labour jobs.
Although job satisfaction contributes to performance, performance could
also contribute to job satisfaction.
When good performance is followed by rewards, employees are more
likely to be satisfied.
Research indicates that satisfaction is more likely to affect performance,
rather than the reverse.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB)

OCB is voluntary, informal behaviour that contributes to organizational
effectiveness.
In many cases, the formal performance evaluation system does not detect
and reward it.
Job satisfaction contributes greatly to the occurrence of OCB, more than
 it does to regular task performance.
The defining characteristics of OCB:
The behaviour is voluntary.
The behaviour is spontaneous.
The behaviour contributes to organizational effectiveness.
The behaviour is unlikely to be explicitly picked up and rewarded by
the performance evaluation system.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) (continued)

The various forms that OCB might take:
Helping behaviour and offering assistance.
Conscientiousness to the details of work.
Being a good sport.
Courtesy and cooperation.
How does job satisfaction contribute to OCB?
Fairness seems to be the key.
Although distributive fairness is important, procedural and interactional
fairness from a supportive manager seem especially critical.
OCB is also influenced by employees mood at work.

Organizational Citizenship Behaviour (OCB) (continued)

People in a pleasant, relaxed, optimistic mood are more likely to provide
special assistance to others.
Recent research has shown that OCB contributes to organizational
productivity and efficiency and to reduced turnover.
As a result, some firms now try to formally recognize OCBs.

Customer Satisfaction and Profit

A growing body of evidence has established that employee job satisfaction
is translated into customer or client satisfaction and organizational
profitability.
 Organizations with higher average levels of employee satisfaction are
more effective.
The same applies to units within larger organizations.
How does employee satisfaction translate into customer satisfaction?
Reduced absenteeism and turnover contribute to the seamless delivery of
service.
OCBs stimulate good teamwork.
A good mood among employees can be contagious for customers.

What Is Organizational Commitment?

An attitude that reflects the strength of the linkage between an employee
and an organization.
This linkage has implications for whether someone tends to remain in an
organization.
Researchers Meyer and Allen identified three different types of
organizational commitment.
Affective: Commitment based on a persons identification with an
organization (People with high affective commitment stay because
they want to).
Continuance: Commitment based on the costs that would be
incurred in leaving an organization (People with high continuance
commitment stay because they have to.)
Normative: Commitment based on a feeling of obligation to an
organization (People with high normative commitment stay because
they think they should do so.)

Contributors to Organizational Commitment

The causes of the three forms of commitment differ.
The best predictor of affective commitment is interesting, satisfying work
of the type found in enriched jobs.
Role clarity and having ones expectations met after being hired also
contribute to affective commitment.
Continuance commitment occurs when people feel that leaving the
organization will result in personal sacrifice or they perceive that good
 alternative employment is lacking.
Continuance commitment increases with the time a person is employed by
an organization.
Normative commitment can be fostered by benefits that build a sense of
obligation to the organization.
Strong identification with an organizations product or service can also
foster normative commitment as can socialization practices that
emphasize loyalty to the organization.

Consequences of Organizational Commitment

All three forms of commitment reduce turnover.
Affective commitment is positively related to performance.
Continuance commitment is negatively related to performance.
An especially bad combination for both the employee and the organization
is high continuance commitment coupled with low affective commitment.
Is there a downside to organizational commitment?
Very high levels of commitment can cause conflicts between family life
and work life.
High levels of commitment have often been implicated in unethical and
illegal behaviour.
High levels of commitment to a particular form or style of organization
can cause a lack of innovation and lead to resistance when a change in
culture is necessary.

Changes in the Workplace and Employee Commitment

Changes in the workplace have implications for organizational
commitment in three main areas:
Changes in the nature of employees commitment to the
organization.
Changes in the focus of employees commitment.
The multiplicity of employer-employee relationships within
organizations.
The Nature of Employees Commitment
Employees levels of affective, continuance, and normative commitment
can increase or decrease.
Maintaining high levels of affective commitment will be especially
 challenging.
Changes that are made in the organizations best interest but that are
detrimental to employees well-being are most likely to damage affective
commitment.
The Focus of Employees Commitment
Employees have multiple commitments directed to others within in the
organization as well as entities outside the organization.
Changes in the workplace might alter the focus of employees
commitment within and outside the organization.
Changes that threaten employees future in the organization might result
in a shift in commitment to entities outside the organization.
The Multiplicity of Employer-Employee Relationships
Organizations need to be flexible enough to shrink and expand their
workforce.
This requires different relationships with employee groups.
Core employees who perform the key operations required for
organizational success should have high affective commitment.
High affective commitment is less important for employee groups that do
not perform core tasks.

CHAPTER 5
Why Study Motivation?
It is one of the most traditional topics in organizational behaviour.
Motivation is especially important in contemporary organizations:
Global competitiveness
Rapid changes
Flexibility
Attention to customers
What Is Motivation?
The extent to which persistent effort is directed toward a goal.
The basic characteristics of motivation:
Effort
Persistence
Direction
Goals

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation

Self-Determination Theory
A theory of motivation that considers whether peoples motivation is
 autonomous or controlled.
Autonomous motivation occurs when people are self-motivated by intrinsic
factors.
Controlled motivation occurs when people are motivated to obtain a desired
consequence or extrinsic reward.
Extrinsic factors can lead to autonomous motivation.
Autonomous motivation facilitates effective performance, especially on
complex tasks.

Motivation and Performance

Performance refers to the extent to which an organizational member
contributes to achieving the objectives of the organization.
While motivation contributes to performance, the relationship is not one-to-
one because a number of other factors also influence performance.
Factors Contributing to Individual Job Performance
General Cognitive Ability
A persons basic information processing capacities and cognitive resources.
General cognitive ability predicts learning, training success, and job
performance in all kinds of jobs and occupations.
It is an even better predictor of job performance for more complex and higher-
level jobs.
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
The ability to understand and manage ones own and others feelings and
emotions.
Peter Salovey and John Mayer developed an EI model that consists of four
interrelated sets of skills or branches.
The four skills represent sequential steps that form a hierarchy.
Emotional Intelligence: Research
EI predicts performance in a number of areas including job performance and
academic performance.
EI is most strongly related to job performance in jobs that require high levels
of emotional labour.
EI has been found to be most important for the job performance of employees
with lower levels of cognitive ability.

The Motivation-Performance Relationship

It is possible for performance to be low even when a person is highly
motivated.
We cannot consider motivation in isolation.
High motivation will not result in high performance if employees are deficient
 in important skills and abilities.

Need Theories of Work Motivation

Motivation theories that specify the kinds of needs people have and the
conditions under which they will be motivated to satisfy these needs in a
way that contributes to performance.
Needs are physiological and psychological wants or desires that can be satisfied
by acquiring certain incentives or achieving particular goals:
NEEDS BEHAVIOUR INCENTIVES AND GOALS
Need theories are concerned with what motivates workers.
Process theories are concerned with exactly how various factors motivate
people.
McClellands Theory of Needs
A non-hierarchical need theory of motivation that outlines the conditions under
which certain needs result in particular patterns of motivation.
Needs reflect relatively stable personality characteristics.
Concerned with the specific behavioural consequences of three needs:
achievement, affiliation, and power.
Need for Achievement
A strong desire to perform challenging tasks well.
Individuals with a high need for achievement exhibit the following
characteristics:
A preference for situations in which personal responsibility can be taken
for outcomes.
A tendency to set moderately difficult goals that provide for calculated
risks.
A desire for performance feedback.
Need for Affiliation
A strong desire to establish and maintain friendly, compatible interpersonal
relationships.
People with a high need for affiliation have an ability to learn social
networking quickly and a tendency to communicate frequently with
others.
They prefer to avoid conflict and competition with others.
Need for Power
A strong desire to influence others, making a significant impact or impression.
People with a high need for power seek out social settings in which they can be
influential.
Power can be used to serve the power seeker, other people, or the
organization.
McClellands Theory of Needs (continued)
McClelland predicts that people will be motivated to seek out and perform well
in jobs that match their needs.
People with high need for achievement:
Sales jobs or entrepreneurial positions
People with high need for affiliation:
Social work or customer relations
People with high need for power:
Journalism and management

Managerial Implications of Need Theories

Appreciate diversity of the needs of individual employees and offer incentives
or goals that correspond to them.
Appreciate the motivational potential of intrinsic motivators and the existence
of higher-order needs.
Higher-order needs will fail to develop unless lower-level needs are reasonably
well gratified.

Process Theories of Work Motivation

Motivation theories that specify the details of how motivation occurs.
Three important process theories:
Expectancy theory
Equity theory
Goal setting theory
Expectancy Theory
A process theory that states that motivation is determined by the outcomes
that people expect to occur as a result of their actions on the job.
The basic components of Victor Vrooms expectancy theory are:
Outcomes
Instrumentality (performance outcome link)
Valence
Expectancy (effort performance link)
Force

Outcomes
The consequences that may follow certain work behaviours.
First-level outcomes are of particular interest to the organization (e.g.,
 productivity).
Expectancy theory is concerned with specifying how an employee might
attempt to choose one first-level outcome (e.g., high productivity) over
another (e.g., average productivity).
Second-level outcomes are of particular interest to the individual worker such
as pay, a sense of accomplishment, acceptance by peers, and so on.
They are the consequences that follow the attainment of a particular first-level
outcome.

Instrumentality, valence, expectancy and force

Instrumentality: The probability that a particular first-level outcome (e.g., high
productivity) will be followed by a particular second-level outcome (e.g.,
pay).
Valence: The expected value of outcomes - the extent to which they are
attractive or unattractive to the individual.
The valence of a first-level outcome depends on the extent to which it leads to
favourable second-level outcomes.
The probability that the worker can actually achieve a particular first-level
outcome.
Force is the end product of the other components of the theory.
It represents the relative degree of effort that will be directed toward various
first-level outcomes.

The Premises of Expectancy Theory

People will be motivated to perform in those work activities that they find
attractive and that they feel they can accomplish.
The attractiveness of various work activities depends on the extent to which
they lead to favourable personal consequences.
Expectancy theory is based on the perceptions of the individual worker.
It can handle any form of second-level outcome that has relevance for the
person in question (extrinsic and intrinsic).

Managerial Implications of Expectancy Theory

Boost Expectancies: One of the most basic things managers can do is ensure
that their employees expect to be able to achieve first-level outcomes.
Expectancies can usually be enhanced by:
 Providing proper equipment
Training
Demonstrating correct work procedures
Explaining how performance is evaluated
Listen to employee problems
Clarify Reward Contingencies: Employees should be convinced that first-level
outcomes are clearly instrumental in obtaining positive second-level
outcomes and avoiding negative outcomes.

Managerial Implications of Expectancy Theory (continued)

Appreciate Diverse Needs: Managers should analyze the diverse preferences of
employees and attempt to design individualized motivational packages
to meet their needs.
Equity Theory
Motivation stems from a comparison of the inputs one invests in a job and the
outcomes one receives in comparison with the inputs and outcomes of
another person or group.
Individuals are motivated to maintain an equitable exchange relationship.
Possible tactics for reducing inequity:
Perceptually distort ones own inputs or outcomes
Perceptually distort the inputs or outcomes of the comparison person or
group
Choose another comparison person or group
Alter ones inputs or alter ones outcomes
Leave the exchange relationship

Equity Theory Example

Terry is a middle manager. He has:
5 years work experience
M.B.A. degree
Good performance
A salary of $75,000 a year
Terry learns that Maxine, a co-worker makes the same salary he does. She has:
1 year of work experience
A Bachelors degree
Average performance
What will Terry conclude when he compares his outcome/input ratio to
Maxines?
What might Terry do?
Equity Theory Example (continued)
In Terrys view, he is underpaid and should be experiencing inequity.
He might resolve this inequity psychologically or behaviourally.
If Maxine views the exchange relationship identically to Terry same inputs and
same outcomes - what will she be experiencing?
What might she do?
Maxine will also experience inequity but from overpayment.
Equity theory is somewhat vague about when individuals will employ various
inequity reduction strategies.

Gender and Equity

Both men and women tend to choose same-sex comparison persons.
This might provide a partial explanation for why women are paid less than
men, even for the same job.
Research Support for Equity Theory
Research supports the theory when inequity occurs because of underpayment.
When workers are underpaid on an hourly basis, they tend to lower their inputs
by producing less work.
When workers are underpaid on a piece-rate basis, they tend to produce a high
volume of low-quality work.
Some evidence that underpayment inequity leads to resignation.
The theorys predictions regarding overpayment inequity have received less
support.
Suggests that people tolerate overpayment more than underpayment or they
use perceptual distortion to reduce overpayment inequity.

Managerial Implications of Equity Theory

Perceived underpayment will have a variety of negative motivational
consequences for the organization.
Understanding the role of comparison people is especially crucial.
Awareness of the comparison people chosen by workers might suggest
strategies for reducing perceptions of inequity.

Goal Setting Theory

A goal is the object or aim of an action.
Personal performance goals are vague or nonexistent for many organizational
members.
Research has demonstrated when and how goal setting can be effective.
Goal setting theory states that goals are motivational when they are specific,
challenging, and when organizational members are committed to them
and feedback about progress toward goal attainment is provided.

Why are Goals Motivational?

Goals are motivational because of four mechanisms:
They direct attention toward goal-relevant activities.
They lead to greater effort.
They increase and prolong persistence.
They lead to the discovery and use of task-relevant strategies for goal
attainment.

The Mechanisms of Goal Setting

Goal Specificity
Specific goals are goals that specify an exact level of achievement for people
to accomplish in a particular time frame.
I will enroll in five courses next semester and achieve a B or better in each
course is a specific goal.
I will do my best is not a specific goal since level of achievement and time
frame are both vague.
Goal Challenge
Goals that are easy or impossible to achieve will not be motivational.
Goal challenge is best when it is pegged to the competence of individual
workers and increased as the particular task is mastered.
Base initial goals on past performance.
Goal Commitment
Individuals must be committed to specific, challenging goals if the goals are to
be motivational.
The effect of goals on performance is strongest when individuals have high goal
commitment.
Goal Feedback
Specific and challenging goals are most effective when they are accompanied
by ongoing feedback that enables the person to compare current
performance with the goal.
To be most effective, feedback should be accurate, specific, credible, and
timely.
Enhancing Goal Commitment
Factors that might affect commitment to challenging, specific goals:
 Participation
Rewards
Management support

Participation
Participation can improve goal commitment and facilitate performance in some
situations:
When a climate of distrust exists between management and employees.
When participation provides information that assists in the establishment
of fair, realistic goals.
Research shows that participation can improve performance by increasing the
difficulty of the goals that employees adopt.

Rewards
Goal setting has led to performance increases without the introduction of
monetary incentives for goal accomplishment.
Goal setting should be compatible with any system to tie pay to performance.
Supportiveness
When supervisors behave in a coercive manner to encourage goal
accomplishment, they can badly damage employee goal commitment.
Supervisors must demonstrate a desire to assist employees in goal
accomplishment and behave supportively if failure occurs.
Threat and punishment in response to failure will be extremely
counterproductive.

Goal Orientation
An individuals goal preferences in achievement situations.
A stable individual difference that affects performance.
Three goal orientations:
Learning goal orientation: A preference to learn new things and develop
competence in an activity by acquiring new skills and mastering new
situations.
Performance-prove goal orientation: A preference to obtain favourable
judgments about the outcome of ones performance.
Performance-avoid goal orientation: A preference to avoid negative
judgments about the outcome of ones performance.

Goal Orientation (continued)

Goal orientation is important for learning and performance.
A learning goal orientation is positively related to learning as well as academic,
 task, and job performance.
A performance-avoid goal orientation is negatively related to learning and
lower task and job performance.
A performance-prove goal orientation is not related to learning or performance
outcomes.
A learning goal orientation is most effective for learning and performance
outcomes.
A performance-avoid goal orientation is detrimental for learning and
performance.

Learning and Performance Goals

Goals can be distinguished in terms of whether they are performance goals or
learning goals.
The effectiveness of a learning or performance goal depends on the nature of
the task.

Proximal and Distal Goals

A distal goal is a long-term or end-goal such as achieving a certain level of sales
performance.
A proximal goal is a short-term or sub-goal that is instrumental for achieving a
distal goal.

Research Support for Goal Setting Theory

Research has demonstrated that specific, difficult goals lead to improved
performance and productivity on a wide variety of tasks and occupations.
The effects of goal setting on performance depend on a number of factors.
When individuals lack the knowledge or skill to perform a complex task, a
specific and challenging performance goal can decrease performance.
When a task is straightforward, a specific, high performance goal results in
higher performance.
A specific, high learning goal is more effective when individuals are learning to
perform a novel or complex task.

Research Support for Goal Setting Theory (continued)

Proximal goals are especially important for novel and complex tasks.
When distal goals are accompanied with proximal goals they have a significant
positive effect on the discovery and use of task-relevant strategies, self-
efficacy, and performance.
The effect of group goal setting on group performance is similar to the effect
 of individual goal setting.
Managerial Implications of Goal Setting Theory
Managers should set specific and challenging goals and provide ongoing
feedback to employees so they can compare their performance with the
goal.
When a task is novel or complex and individuals need to acquire new
knowledge and skills, setting a specific learning goal will be more
effective than setting a high performance goal.
Proximal goals should be set in conjunction with distal goals when employees
are learning a new task or performing a complex one.

Do Motivation Theories Translate Across Cultures?

Most theories that revolve around human needs will come up against cultural
limitations to their generality.
Equity theory will be constrained by what is considered fair in a particular
culture (e.g., equity versus equality).
Because of its flexibility, expectancy theory is very effective when applied
cross-culturally.
Setting specific and challenging goals should be motivational when applied
cross-culturally.
Goal setting has been found to predict, influence, and explain behaviour in
many countries around the world.
The goal setting process must be adjusted to the culture (e.g., individual
versus group goals).
Appreciating cultural diversity is critical for maximizing motivation.

CHAPTER 6
Money as a Motivator
Employees and managers seriously underestimate the importance of pay as a
motivator.
Pay may well be the most important and effective motivator of performance.
Pay can satisfy lower-level needs as well as social, self-esteem, and self-
actualization needs.
If pay can satisfy a variety of needs, it should be a good motivator to the
extent that it is clearly tied to performance.
Financial incentives and pay-for-performance plans have been found to
increase performance and lower turnover.
The ability to earn money for outstanding performance is a competitive
advantage for attracting, motivating, and retaining employees.
Linking Pay to Performance on Production Jobs
The prototype of all schemes to link pay to performance on production jobs is
piece-rate.
Piece-rate refers to a pay system in which individual workers are paid a certain
sum of money for each unit of production they complete.
Various schemes to link pay to performance on production jobs are called wage
incentive plans.
The introduction of wage incentives usually leads to substantial increases in
productivity.
One of the best examples of the successful use of a wage incentive plan is the
Lincoln Electric Company.

Potential Problems with Wage Incentives

Lowered Quality: Wage incentives can increase productivity at the expense of
quality.
Differential Opportunity: A threat to the establishment of wage incentives
exists when workers have differential opportunities to produce at a high
level.
Reduced Cooperation: Wage incentives that reward individual productivity
might decrease cooperation among workers.
Incompatible Job Design: The way jobs are designed can make it very difficult
to implement wage incentives.
Restriction of Productivity: A major psychological impediment to the use of
wage incentives is the tendency for workers to restrict productivity by
coming to an informal agreement about what constitutes a fair days
work.

Reasons for Restriction of Productivity

Employees feel that increased productivity due to the incentive will lead to
reductions in the workforce.
Employees fear that if they produce at an especially high level, an employer
will reduce the rate of payment to cut labour costs.
Restriction is less likely when a climate of trust and a history of good relations
exist between employees and management.

Linking Pay to Performance on White-Collar Jobs

Merit pay plans are systems that attempt to link pay to performance on white-
 collar jobs.
Managers evaluate the performance of employees and then recommend some
amount of merit pay be rewarded.
Although merit pay can improve performance, many merit pay systems are
ineffective.
Individuals who work under such a system often do not see a link between their
job performance and pay.
There is also evidence that pay is not related to performance under some merit
pay plans.
In most organizations, seniority, number of employees, and job level account
for more variation in pay than performance does.

Potential Problems with Merit Pay Plans

Low Discrimination: Managers might be unable to discriminate between good
and poor performers.
Small Increases: Sometimes merit increases are too small to be effective
motivators.
Some firms conventional merit pay with a lump sum bonus paid out all at once
and not built into base pay.
Pay Secrecy: Extreme secrecy that surrounds salaries in most organizations.
Pay secrecy can severely damage the motivational impact of a well-designed
merit plan.
Managers overestimate the pay of their employees and their peers and
underestimate the pay of their superiors.

Using Pay to Motivate Teamwork

Some firms have either replaced or supplemented individual incentive pay with
plans designed to foster more cooperation and teamwork.
Organizations have to choose pay plans that support their strategic needs.
Four major types of teamwork related pay:
Profit sharing
Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs)
Gainsharing
Skill-based pay

Profit Sharing
The return of some company profit to employees in the form of a cash bonus or
a retirement supplement.
One of the most commonly used group-oriented incentive systems.
A major problem is that many factors beyond the control of the workforce can
affect profits no matter how well people perform their jobs.
In a large firm, it is difficult to see the impact of ones own actions on profits.
Works best in small firms that regularly turn a profit.

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)

Incentive plans that allow employees to own a set amount of a companys
shares and provide employees with a stake in the companys future
earnings and success.
Aligns employees goals and interests with those of the organization and
creates a sense of legal and psychological ownership.
Some evidence that ESOPs improve employee retention and profitability.
They work best in small organizations that regularly make a profit.
They lose their motivational potential in a weak economy when a companys
share price goes down.

Gainsharing
A group pay incentive plan based on productivity or performance improvements
over which the workforce has some control.
Such plans often include reductions in the cost of labour, material, or supplies.
When measured costs decrease, the company pays a monthly bonus according
to a predetermined formula that shares this gain between employees
and the firm.
The most common gainsharing plan is the Scanlon Plan.
Stresses participatory management and joint problem solving between
employees and managers, and uses the pay system to reward
employees for this cooperative behaviour.
Pay is used to align company and employee goals.

Skill-Based Pay
A system in which employees are paid according to the number of job skills
they have acquired.
The idea is to motivate employees to learn a wide variety of skills and work
tasks.
The more skills that are acquired, the higher the persons pay.
Encourages employee flexibility in task assignments and provides employees
with a broader picture of the work process.
Especially useful for self-managed teams and in flexible manufacturing.
Training costs can be high.
Have been found to improve productivity, lower labour costs, and reduce the
amount of scrap.

Job Design as a Motivator

The goal of job design is to identify the characteristics that make some tasks
more motivating than others and to capture these characteristics in the
design of jobs.
An attempt to capitalize on intrinsic motivation.
From the advent of the Industrial Revolution until the 1960s, the prevailing
philosophy regarding the design of most non-managerial jobs was job
simplification.
The zenith of job simplification occurred in the early 1890s with Taylors
principles of Scientific Management that advocated:
Extreme division of labour and specialization.
Careful standardization and regulation of work activities and rest
pauses.
The motivational strategies consisted of close supervision and piece-rate pay.

Job Scope and Motivation

Job scope refers to the breadth and depth of a job.
Breadth refers to the number of different activities performed on the job.
Depth refers to the degree of discretion or control the worker has over how
these tasks are performed.
Jobs that have great breadth and depth are called high-scope jobs.

Stretch Assignments and Job Rotation

One way to increase the scope of a job is to assign employees stretch
assignments.
They provide employees challenging opportunities to broaden their skills by
working on a variety of tasks with new responsibilities.
Another approach for increasing the scope of an individuals job is job rotation.
Employees are rotated to different tasks and jobs in an organization.
It can involve working in different functional areas and departments.
It can provide a variety of challenging assignments, develop new skills and
expertise, and prepare employees for future roles.

The Job Characteristics Model

Proposes that there are several core job characteristics that have a certain
psychological impact on workers.
The psychological states induced by the nature of the job lead to certain
outcomes.
Several factors called moderators influence the extent to which these
relationships hold true.
There are five core job characteristics that have particularly strong potential
to affect worker motivation.
Skill variety
Task identity
Task significance
Autonomy
Job feedback

The Job Characteristics Model

The five core characteristics
Skill variety: The opportunity to do a variety of job activities using various skills
and talents.
Autonomy: The freedom to schedule ones own work activities and decide work
procedures.
Task significance: The impact that a job has on other people.
Task identity: The extent to which a job involves doing a complete piece of
work, from beginning to end.
Feedback: Information about the effectiveness of ones work performance.

Job Diagnostic Survey

The Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) is a questionnaire to measure the core job
characteristics.
Individuals report the amount of the various core job characteristics contained
in their jobs.
An overall measure of the motivating potential of a job can be calculated from
scores on the core job characteristics.

Motivating Potential Score

The motivating potential score (MPS) measures the potential of a job to
stimulate intrinsic motivation and is calculated using the following
formula:
 Skill Task Task
MPS = variety + identity + significance x Autonomy x Feedback
3

Critical Psychological States

Jobs that are higher on the core job characteristics are more intrinsically
motivating because of their effect on three psychological states:
Experienced meaningfulness of the work
Experienced responsibility for the outcomes of the work
Knowledge of the actual results of the work activities
Jobs that are high on skill variety, task significance, and task identity are
perceived as more meaningful.
Jobs that are high on autonomy provide for greater personal responsibility for
work outcomes.
Jobs that are high on performance feedback provide workers with knowledge
of the results of their work activities.

Outcomes
The presence of the critical psychological states leads to a number of outcomes
that are relevant to both the individual and the organization:
High intrinsic motivation
High-quality productivity
Satisfaction with higher-order needs
General satisfaction with the job
Reduced absenteeism and turnover

Moderators
Jobs that are high in motivating potential do not always lead to favourable
outcomes.
Three moderator or contingency variables intervene between job
characteristics and outcomes.
Job-relevant knowledge and skill of the worker.
Growth need strength which refers to the extent to which people desire to
achieve higher-order need satisfaction by performing their jobs.
Workers who are dissatisfied with the context factors that surround their job
 (e.g., pay) will be less responsive to challenging work.

Research Evidence
Workers respond more favourably to jobs that are higher in motivating
potential.
All five job characteristics are related to work outcomes.
Among the psychological states, strongest support for experienced
meaningfulness.
Evidence for the role of growth needs and context satisfaction is weak or
contradictory.
Job Enrichment
The design of jobs to enhance intrinsic motivation, quality of working life, and
job involvement.
Job enrichment involves increasing the motivating potential of jobs via the
arrangement of their core job characteristics.

Job Involvement
A cognitive state of psychological identification with ones job and the
importance of work to ones total self-image.
All of the core job characteristics are positively related to job involvement.
Employees who are more involved in their job have higher job satisfaction and
organizational commitment, and are less likely to consider leaving their
organization.
Job Enrichment Procedures
Many job enrichment schemes include the following:
Combining tasks
Establishing external client relationships
Establishing internal client relationships
Reducing supervision or reliance on others
Forming work teams
Making feedback more direct

Combining Tasks
This involves assigning tasks that might be performed by different workers to a
single individual.
Should increase the variety of skills employed and might contribute to task
identity.

Establishing External Client Relationships

This involves putting employees in touch with people outside the organization
who depend on their products or services.
Might involve the use of new interpersonal skills, increase the identity and
significance of the job, and increase feedback about ones performance.

Establishing Internal Client Relationships

This involves putting employees in touch with people who depend on their
products and services within the organization.
Advantages are similar to those that result from establishing external client
relationships.

Reducing Supervision or Reliance on Others

This increases the autonomy or control one has over their own work.

Forming Work Teams

Teams can be formed when a product or service is too large or complex for one
person to complete alone or to complete an entire product.
This can result in the development of a variety of skills and increase the
identity of the job.

Making Feedback More Direct

Permit workers to be identified with their own product or service so that if a
customer encounters problems, he or she can contact the worker directly.
Is usually used in conjunction with other job design procedures that permit
workers to be identified with their own product or service.

Potential Problems with Job Enrichment

Job enrichment can encounter a number of challenging problems:
Poor diagnosis
Lack of desire or skill
Demand for rewards
Union resistance
Supervisory resistance
Poor Diagnosis
Problems with job enrichment can occur when it is instituted without a careful
diagnosis of the needs of the organization and the particular jobs in
question.
An especially likely error involves increasing job breadth or what is known as
job enlargement.
Job Enlargement
Increasing job breadth by giving employees more tasks to perform at the same
level while leaving the other crucial core characteristics unchanged.
Workers are given more boring, fragmented, routine tasks to do.

Lack of Desire or Skill

Some workers do not desire enriched jobs.
Some workers might lack the skills and competence necessary to perform
enriched jobs effectively.
Enrichment might entail substantial training costs.
It might be difficult to train some workers in certain skills required by enriched
jobs.

Demand for Rewards

Workers who experience job enrichment often expect greater extrinsic
rewards, such as pay, to accompany their redesigned jobs.
This is because enriched jobs often require the development of new skills and
entail greater responsibility.

Union Resistance
North American unions have traditionally not been enthusiastic about job
enrichment.
Companies and unions have begun to dismantle restrictive contract provisions
regarding job design.
Fewer job classifications mean more opportunities for flexibility by combining
tasks and using team approaches.

Supervisory Resistance
Job enrichment can fail due to unanticipated effects on other jobs or parts of
the organizational system.
Enrichment increases the autonomy of employees and it might disenrich the
supervisors job.
One solution is for the supervisor to become a trainer and developer of
individuals on enriched jobs.

Work Design
Acknowledges both the job and the broader work environment that consists of
a wider variety of work design characteristics.
Work design characteristics: Attributes of the task, job, and social and
organizational environment.
Three categories:
Motivational characteristics
Social characteristics
Work context characteristics

Motivational Characteristics
Includes task characteristics which are similar to the core job characteristics of
the Job Characteristics Model.
Knowledge characteristics refer to the kinds of knowledge, skill, and ability
demands required to perform a job.
Note distinction between task variety and skill variety.
Social Characteristics
Has to do with the interpersonal and social aspects of work and includes:
Social support
Interdependence
Interaction outside of the organization
Feedback from others
Work Context Characteristics
Refers to the context within which work is performed and consists of:
Ergonomics
Physical demands
Work conditions
Equipment use
Research Evidence
Each category of work design characteristics is related to work attitudes and
behaviours.
The social characteristics are more strongly related to some outcomes (e.g.,
turnover intentions) than the motivational characteristics.
Overall, work design characteristics have a large and significant effect on
employee attitudes and behaviours.
Management by Objectives
An elaborate, systematic, ongoing program designed to facilitate goal
establishment, goal accomplishment, and employee development.
Objectives for the organization as a whole are developed by top management
and diffused down through the organization.
Organizational objectives are translated into specific behavioural objectives for
individual members.
Management by Objectives Process (continued)
The MBO process involves manager-employee interactions:
The manager meets with individual workers to develop and agree on
employee objectives which can include job performance and
personal development objectives.
There are periodic meetings to monitor employee progress in achieving
objectives.
An appraisal meeting is held to evaluate the extent to which the agreed
objectives have been achieved.
The MBO cycle is repeated.
Research Evidence
Research evidence shows clear productivity gains associated with MBO.
A number of factors are associated with the failure of MBO programs:
Lack of commitment from top management.
An overemphasis on measurable objectives at the expense of more
qualitative objectives.
Excessive short-term orientation.
Performance review becomes an exercise in browbeating or punishing
employees for failure to achieve objectives.

Alternative Working Schedules as Motivators for a Diverse Workforce

The purpose is to meet diverse workforce needs and promote job satisfaction.
Alternative working schedules can also facilitate recruitment and reduce costly
absenteeism and turnover.
Examples include:
Flex-time
Compressed workweek
Job and work sharing
Telecommuting

Flex-Time
An alternative work schedule in which arrival and quitting times are flexible.
Flex-time is well suited to meeting the needs of a diverse work-force and is
most frequently implemented in office environments.
Employees prefer it compared to fixed hours.
Work attitudes are more positive.
Has a positive effect on productivity, job satisfaction, and satisfaction with
work schedule.
Lowers employee absenteeism.

Compressed Workweek
An alternative work schedule in which employees work fewer than the normal
five days a week but still put in a normal number of hours per week.
The most common compressed workweek is the 4-40 system.
Potential roadblocks to implementation:
Possible reduced customer service
Negative effects of fatigue
Research shows a positive effect on job satisfaction and satisfaction with work
schedule but no effect on absenteeism or productivity.

Job and Work Sharing

Job sharing is an alternative work schedule in which two part-time employees
divide the work of a full-time job.
Work sharing involves reducing the number of hours employees work to avoid
layoffs when there is a reduction in normal business activity.
Work sharing cuts costs, saves jobs, avoids layoffs and allows organizations to
retain skilled workers.
Job sharing can result in coordination problems if communication is not
adequate.
Job sharers must make a concerted effort to communicate well with each other
as well as with superiors, co-workers, and clients.

Telecommuting
A system by which employees are able to work at home but stay in tough with
their offices through the use of communications technology, such as a
computer network, voice mail, and electronic messages.
Distant staffing enables employees to work for a company without ever having
to come into the office or even be in the same country.
Telework centres provide workers all of the amenities of a home office in a
location close to their home.
Distributed work programs involve a combination of remote work arrangements
that allow employees to work at their business office, a satellite office,
and a home office.

Telecommuting (continued)
Telecommuting has a small but positive effect on perceived autonomy and
 lower work-family conflict.
It has a positive effect on job satisfaction and job performance and results in
lower stress and turnover intentions.
It does not have detrimental effects on the quality of workplace relationships
or ones career prospects.
A greater frequency of telecommuting is associated with a greater reduction in
work-family-conflict and stress.
The positive effects of telecommuting are mostly due to an increase in
perceived autonomy.

Telecommuting: Potential Problems

Negative consequences can result due to a lack of informal communication.
Can have a negative effect on relationships with co-workers.
Distractions in the home environment.
Feelings of isolation and overwork.
Concerns about trust and control.
May not be appropriate for all organizations, jobs, and employees.
Requires careful planning and clear guidelines.

Motivation Practices in Perspective

The motivational system used by an organization should fit the strategic goals
of the organization.
Balance among the components of a motivational system is critical.
The choice of motivational practices requires a thorough diagnosis of the
organization and consideration of employee needs.
The most effective approach will depend on:
Employee needs (e.g., money)
The nature of the job (e.g., individual)
Organizational characteristics (e.g., culture)
Motivational outcome (e.g., learning)
Systems that use a variety of motivators in conjunction with one another are
likely to be the most effective.
Chapter 9 Continuation

Houses Path-Goal theory

-concerned with thee situations under which various leader beha are most
effective
-the most important activities of leaders are those that clarify the paths to
various goals of interest to emp
-the opportunity to achieve such goals should include job satis, leader
acceptance and high effort
effective leaders form connections btwn org goals and emp goals
leaders must base rewards on perf and clearly illustrate how to achieve
rewards. (immediately or near future satisfaction
Leader beha: Directive, participative, supportive, and achievement oriented.
Sitch Factors: employee and env characteristics
-employee high need achievers- achievement oriented
-emp who like being told what to do- directive
-low ability-directive
Work Env: when asks are clear and routine. Directive-participative
leadership is useless
When tasks are challenging, directive-participative are good
Frustrating dissatisfying jobs can increase emp appreciationof supportive
beha
*effective leadership should motivate and satify and offset or compensate for those
that demotivate or dissatisfy.
*supportive or considerate is the most beneficial-frustrating, dissatisfying
*directive-ambiguous less structured jobs
*theory works better at predicting job satis + acceptance of leader than predicting
job perf

Participative Leadership
Involves employees in making work-related decisions.
-minimally asks for emp opinion before decision, maximally lets emp make their
own decisions
-include indi emp or entire group

ADV:
-motivation
-quality-emp take directive to solve rather than run it by boss
-Acceptance of decisions

DIS:
-Time and energy- not appropriate for quick decisions
-Loss of power
-Lack of receptivity or knowledge
Vroom and JAGO
-AI: solve problem solo using info available to you atm.
-AII: obtain info from emp, and solve problem solo.
-CI: share the problem with relevant emp individually, getting their ideas w/o
assembling as a group and make decision solo.
-CII: share with group, getting their collective ideas, and make decision solo.
GI: share the problem with the group, generate and evaluate alternative together

Leader Member exchange theory

-dyadic relationship btwn leader and an employee. Over time throughout
interactions diff type of relationship dev btwn leader and emp.

Transactional and transformational Leadership

Transactional-based on exchange relationship btwn the leader and followersemp

perf well, leader rewards them, leader-participatory and emp have ideas.
*Management by exception is the degree to which leaders take corrective action
on the basis of results of leader-follower transactions.

-Transformational- because the leader decisively changes the beliefs and attitudes
of followers to correspond to this new vision and motivates them to achieve perf
beyond expectations

Intellectual Stimulation: ppl are stimulated to think about problems, issues,

and strategies in new ways.
Individualized Consideration: treating emp as distinct indi, indicating
concern for their needs and pers dev and serving as a mentor or coach when
appropriate.
Inspirational motivation:involves the comm of visions that are appealing and
inspiring to followers.
Charisma: greek for favoured or gifted, personal qualities that hold
extraordinary influence over others-emo aspect- goals set have moral or
ideological flavor to them.

Transformational has stronger emp satis + leader effectiveness, while contigent

reward to follower job satis and leader perf.

Ethical Leadership:
Involves the demonstration of of normative appropriate conduct through personal
actions and interpersonal relations and the promotion of such conduct to followers
through 2-way comm, reinforcement and decision making.
-comm a clear and consistent positive ethics message from the top
-create and embracce opportunities for everyone in the org to communication
positive ethics, values and practices.
-ensure consequences for ethical and unethical conduct.
*positively associated with employee perceptions of honesty, fairness and with less
counterproductive beha.

Authentic Leadership:
Is a positive form of leadership that involves being true to one self. Authentic
leaders know ow to act upon their true values, beliefs and strengths and they help
others do the same.
-self-awareness-relational transparency-balanced processing-internalized moral
perspective
*higher org citizenship behavior, org commitment, job satis, job perf and satis with
supervisor

Culture and Global Leadership:

-indi hold a set of beliefs and values about the kinds of attributes, personality
characteristics, skills and behavours that contribute to or impede outstanding
leadership
-citizens from diff nations have implicit assumptions about leadership qualities
-charismatic/value based: ability to inspire
-team oriented
-participative
-autonomous
-self-protective

Global leadership
Having leadership capabilities to function effectively in different cultures and being
able to cross language, social, econ and political barriers.
-unbridled inquisitiveness: relish opportunity to see and experience new things
-Personal character:emo connection- maintain high ethical std and loyal to org
-Duality: manage uncertainty and balance global and local tensions
-Savvy: business and org savvy

Gender and leadership:

Women leaders tend to be more intuitive, less hierarchical and more collaborative
than men.
*laisser-faire leadership: a style that involves the avoidance or absence of
leadership.
*glass ceiling: invisible barrier that prevents women from advancing to senior
leadership positions in organizations
*labyrinth: twist, turns, dead ends women face along the way to org hierarchy.
-vestiges of prejudice
-resistance to woman leader-men have agentic (assertion_control) and women have
communal(compassion and concern).
-issues of leadership style
-demands of family life
-Underinvestment in social capital.
Chapter 10

Decision making- the process of developing a commitment to some course of

action (or process of problem solving)
*it involves making a choice among several action alts
*it is a process
*commitment of resources
*problem: gap btwn existing state and desired state

Well-structured Problems
-problem where existing, desired states are clear as is the coarse of action
-simple, little controversy
-repetitive and familiar, can be programmed (std way of solving a problem)
*programs allow to go directly from problem ID to solution, dependant on d-
making process that led to its adoption

Ill-structured Problem
Existing and desired are unclear, coarse of action is unknown
-have not encountered problem before
-complex, high degree of uncertainty
-arouse controversy, no program d-making, can entail high risk

Rational D-making model

Perfect Rationality
Decision strategy that is completely informed, logical and oriented toward econ
gain.
-prototypeecon person who is perfec, cool, calculating d-maker
 -can gather info w/o cost and is completely informed
-logical
-only criterion: econ gain
these characteristics do not exist in real d-making

Bounded rationality
Decision strategy that relies on limited info and that reflects the time constraints
and political considerations
-framing refers to aspects of the presentation of info about a problem that are
assumed by d-makers
-how problems and d-alts are made can have powerful impact on resulting decisions
-Cognitive biaises are tendencies to acquire and process info in a particular way that
is prone to error (assumptions and shortcuts that can improve d-making efficiency
but lead to errors in judgement)

Bounded rationality can lead to the following difficulties in problem

identification:
Perceptual defence.
Problem defined in terms of functional specialty.
Problem defined in terms of solution.
Problem diagnosed in terms of symptoms.

Info search:
-perfect: free and live info necessary
-bounded: slow and costly

Too lil info:

Several cognitive biases contribute to this such as using whatever
information is most readily available and the tendency to be overconfident.
Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to seek out information that
conforms to ones own definition of or solution to a problem.

Too much info:

Information overload is the reception of more information than is necessary
to make effective decisions.
Information overload can lead to errors, omissions, delays, and cutting
corners.

Alt dev, eval and choice

The perfectly rational decision maker exhibits maximization the choice of

the decision alternative with the greatest expected value.
 For the decision maker working under bounded rationality, alternative
solutions and probabilities of success are not all known.
The anchoring effect illustrates that decision makers do not adjust their
estimates enough from some initial estimate that serves as an anchor.
The decision maker who is bounded by reality might have to factor in other
criteria such as political acceptability.

Satisficing: d-maker establishes an adequate level of acceptability for a solution to a

problem and then screens solutions until one that exceeds that solution is found.

Risky Decision making

Choosing between decision alternatives often involves an element of risk.
When people view a problem as a choice between losses, they tend to make
risky decisions.
When people frame the alternatives as a choice between gains they tend to
make conservative decisions
Beware of reference point

Solution Implementation:
d-makers are dependant on other to implement the D, difficult to anticipate ability
or motivation to implement
-cross-functional team can help prevent these implementation problems

Solution Eval
Perfect: calm and objective detachment:
Rational:
Justification
Substantial dissonance can be aroused when a decision turns
out to be faulty.
To prevent such dissonance, decision makers sometimes avoid
careful evaluations or devote their energy to trying to justify a
faulty decision.
Hindsight
Sunk cost: permanent losses of resources incurred as the result of a
decision (justification of faulty D is seen n the irrational treatment of
sunken costs.)

Escalation of commitment:
Tendency to invest more resources to save a faulty D. Groups are more prone to
escalate commitment.
-reasons:
Dissonance reduction
Social norm for consistent beha
Motivation to not appear wasted
The way the problem is framed
Personality, moods and emotions
-prevent escalade:
Encourage continuous experimentation with reframing the problem.
Set specific goals for the project in advance that must be met if more
resources are to be invested.
Place more emphasis in evaluating managers on how they made decisions
and less on decision outcomes.
Separate initial and subsequent decision making.

Hindsight
Tendency to review the D-making process that was used to find what was done right
or wrong.
-reflects cognitive bias: tendency to assume, after the fact, that we knew all along
what the outcome would be
-tendency to take resp for good decisions and deny resp for bad ones

How emo and mood affect D-making

Emotions can help decision making but strong emotions can also be a
hindrance
Mood affects what and how people think when making decisions.
Mood has the greatest impact on uncertain, ambiguous decisions of the type
that are especially crucial for organizations.
Research on mood and decision making reveals that:
People in a positive (negative) mood tend to remember positive
(negative) information.
People in a positive (negative) mood tend to evaluate objects, people,
and events more positively (negatively). People in a good mood tend
to overestimate the likelihood that good events will occur and
underestimate the occurrence of bad events. People in a bad mood do
the opposite.
People in a good mood adopt simplified, shortcut decision-making
strategies, more likely violating the rational model.
People in a negative mood are prone to approach decisions in a more
deliberate, systematic, detailed way.
Positive mood promotes more creative, intuitive decision making.
Group D-making
Decision Quality
Groups or teams should make higher-quality decisions than
individuals.
Decision Acceptance and Commitment
A group decision will be more acceptable to those involved.
This is especially important in getting a decision implemented.
Diffusion of Responsibility
The ability of group members to share the burden of the
negative consequences of a poor decision.

DIS:
-more time
-conflict
-domination

Groupthink:
Capacity for group pressure to damage the mental efficiency, reality testing and
moral judgment.
-unanimous acceptance of decision is stressed over quality of D
-atmosphere of unreality that should lead to low-quality D
Groupthink is caused by:
High group cohesiveness.
Strong identification with the group.
Concern for approval from the group.
Isolation of the group from other sources of information.
Promotion of a particular decision by the group leader (this appears
to be the strongest cause).
Symptoms:
Illusion of invulnerability
Rationalization
Illusion of morality
 Stereotypes of outsiders
Pressure for conformity
Self-censorship
Illusion of unanimity
Mindguards
Prevent: avoid exerting pressure for a d outcome and concentrate on good d-
processes
-establish norms that encourage and reward resp dissent
-outside experts

A risky shift is the tendency for groups to make riskier decisions than the
average risk initially advocated by their individual members.
A conservative shift is the tendency for groups to make less risky decisions
than the average risk initially advocated by their individual members.

Group discussion generates ideas and arguments that individual

members have not considered before.
Group members try to present themselves as basically similar to other
members but even better.

Chapter 11

Power is the capacity to influence others who are in a state of dependence.

-it is not always perceived or exercised, it is the capacity to influence.
-Dependence does not indicate a poor relationship.
-Power can flow in any direction, broad concept that applies to both indi and groups.

Legitimate: (compliance)
Derives from a persons position or job in the org. it constitutes the org judgement of
who is formally permitted to influence whom (authority).
-ppl are socialized to accept its influence

Reward: (compliance)
The power holder can exert influence by providing positive outcomes and
preventing negative outcomes. (positive reinforcement)
-any org member can attempt to exert influence over others with praise,
compliments and flattery (rewards).

Coercive: (resistance)
Available when power holder can exert influence using punishment and threat.
Not perfectly correlated with legitimate power.

Referent: (commitment)
When power holder is well liked, stems from identification with the power holder.
-anyone in the organization can be well liked, irrespective of bases of power.
-interpersonal relations often permit influence to extend across the organization,
outside the usual channels of legitimate, reward and coercion.

Expert: (commitment)
When person has special info or expertise that the org values.
-corresponds to difficulty of replacement.
-valuable asset for managers, most consistently linked with emp effectiveness.
-women mgmt. are perceived as being higher in expert power.

Influence Tactics:
Tactics used to convert power into actual influence
-Assertiveness: ordering, nagging, setting deadlines
-Ingratiation: friendly, polite, humble
-Rationality: logic, reason
-Exchange: favours
-Upward appeal: making formal or informal appeal to org supervisors for
intervention
-Coalition formation: seeking united support from org members

Ethics in ORG:
Systematic thinking about the moral consequences of decisions. Moral
consequences can be framed in terms of the potential for harm to any stakeholder in
the decision.
A large majority agrees that unethical practices occur in business.
BTWN 40-90 have been pressured to compromise their own ethical std when
making organizational decisions.
Managers see themselves as having higher ethical std than their peers and
superiors.

The nature of ethical dilemmas:

Ethical issues are often occupationally specific.
There are also common themes that run through ethical issues that managers
face.
A study of an occupationally diverse group of managers discovered seven
themes that defined their moral standards for decision-making.

Common themes:
Honest communication
Fair treatment
Special consideration
Fair competition
Responsibility to organization
Corporate social responsibility
Respect for law

Causesfor unethical behavior:

Gain:
The anticipation of healthy reinforcement for following an unethical course of
action, especially if no punishment is expected should promote unethical decisions.
Role conflict:
Many ethical dilemmas are actually forms of role conflict that get resolved in an
unethical way. bureaucratic role as an org emp is at odds with ones role as the
member of a profession.
Competition:
Stiff competition for scarce resources can stimulate unethical behavior.
Personality:
The cynical and those with external locus of control are less tuned in to ethical.
There are individual differences in the degree of sophistication that
people use in thinking about moral issues.
Less disengagement and more attentiveness is associated with more ethical
behaviour
ORG and Industry Culture:
These differences involved factors such as consideration for employees, respect for
the law, and respect for org rule.
Aspects of an organizations culture (and its subcultures) can
influence ethics.
Corporate cultures that reward unethical behaviour.
A culture of greed and exclusive focus on positive financial results.
Corporate codes of conduct might have an impact on culture and
ethical decision making.

Whistle blowing
Disclosure of illegitimate practices by a current or former organizational member to
some person o organizational that might be able to take corrective action on these
practices. (inside or outside offending organization)
-most ORG have vague open door policies instead of spec procedures for whistle-
blowers.

Sexual Harassment:
Sexual harassment is a form of unethical behaviour that stems, in part, from
the abuse of power and the perpetuation of a gender power imbalance.
It involves coercion of sexual cooperation by threat of job-related
consequences and unwanted and offensive sex-related verbal or physical
conduct.
The most severe forms of sexual harassment are committed by supervisors.
The most frequent perpetrators are co-workers.
Sexual harassment is also prevalent in hostile work environments and is
most likely in male-dominated industries and organizations in which men
attempt to maintain their dominance relative to women.
Many organizations are slow to react to complaints of sexual harassment.
The deaf ear syndrome refers to the inaction or complacency of organizations
in the face of charges of sexual harassment.
 Why do organizations fail to respond?
Inadequate organizational policies and procedures for managing harassment
complaints;
defensive managerial reactions; and organizational features that contribute
to inertial tendencies.

Recommendations for dealing with sexual harassment:

Examine the characteristics of deaf ear organizations.
Foster management support and education.
Stay vigilant.
Take immediate action.
Create a state-of-the-art policy.
Establish clear reporting procedures.

Organizations that are responsive to complaints of sexual harassment have:

Top management commitment.
Provide comprehensive education programs.
Continuously monitor the work environment.
Respond to complaints in a thorough and timely manner.
Have clear policies and reporting procedures.

Employing Ethical Guidelines:

Identify the stakeholders that will be affected by any decision.
Identify the costs and benefits of various decision alternatives to these
stakeholders.
Consider the relevant moral expectations that surround a particular decision.
Be familiar with common ethical dilemmas that decision makers face in your
organizational role or profession.
Discuss ethical matters with decision stakeholders and others.
Convert your ethical judgments into appropriate action.
Training and education in ethics is also important and has a positive impact
on ethical attitudes.

Chapter 12
Conflict:
Interpersonal conflict is a process that occurs when one person, group, or
organizational subunit frustrates the goal attainment of another.
Conflict often involves antagonistic attitudes and behaviours.
 Group Identification and Intergroup Bias
The identification with a particular group or class of people.
People develop a more positive view of their own in-group.
Self-esteem is a critical factor.
Independence
When individuals or subunits are mutually dependent on each other
to accomplish their own goals.
It necessitates interaction and implies that each party has some power
over the other.
Interdependence does not always lead to conflict.
Causes of Organizational Conflict
Differences in Power, Status, and Culture
Power: If dependence is not mutual, but one way.
Status: Status differences provide little impetus for conflict when people
of lower status are dependent on those of higher status.
Culture: When two or more very different cultures develop in an
organization, the clash in beliefs and values can result in overt
conflict.
Ambiguity
Ambiguous goals, jurisdictions, or performance criteria can lead to
conflict.
Scarce resources
Conflict often surfaces in the process of power jockeying
Limited budget money, secretarial support, or lab space can contribute
to conflict

Types of Conflict
It is useful to distinguish among three types of conflict:
Relationship conflict:
Interpersonal tensions among individuals that have to do with their
relationship per se, not the task at hand
Personality clashes are examples of relationship conflicts
Task conflict
Disagreements about the nature of work to be done
Differences of opinion about goals or technical matters are examples of
task conflict
Process conflict
Disagreements about how work should be organized and accomplished
Disagreements about responsibility, authority, resource allocation, and
who does what

Types of Conflict (continued)

In the context of work groups and teams, task, relationship, and process
conflict tend to be detrimental to member satisfaction and team
 performance.
Such conflict prevents the development of cohesiveness.
Occasionally, some degree of task conflict might be beneficial for team
performance.
Not all conflict is detrimental.

Conflict Dynamics
When conflict begins, the following events often transpire:
Winning the conflict becomes more important than a good solution.
The parties conceal information from each other or distort it.
Each side becomes more cohesive.
Contact with the opposite party is discouraged.
Opposite party is negatively stereotyped and image of ones own
position is boosted.
More aggressive people who are skilled at engaging in conflict may
emerge as leaders.
The problem can escalate to the point that the conflict process itself becomes
an additional problem and works against the achievement of a peaceful
solution.

Modes of Managing Conflict

How do you tend to react to conflict situations?
There are several basic reactions that can be thought of as styles, strategies,
or intentions for dealing with conflict.
These approaches to managing conflict are a function of:
How assertive you are in trying to satisfy your own or your groups
concerns, and
How cooperative you are in trying to satisfy those of the other party or
group.

Modes of Managing Conflict (continued)

There are five styles for dealing with conflict.
None of the five styles is inherently superior.
Each style might have its place given the situation in which the conflict episode
occurs.
Avoiding
A conflict management style characterized by low assertiveness of ones own
interests and low cooperation with the other party.
Short-term stress reduction but it does not really change the situation.
It might be a sensible response when:
The issue is trivial.
Information is lacking.
 People need to cool down.
The opponent is very powerful and hostile.
Accommodating
A conflict management style in which one cooperates with the other party,
while not asserting ones own interests.
It can be an effective strategy when:
You are wrong.
The issue is more important to the other party.
You want to build good will.

Competing
A conflict management style that maximizes assertiveness and minimizes
cooperation.
It can be effective when:
You have a lot of power.
You are sure of your facts.
The situation is truly win-lose.
You will not have to interact with the other party in the future.
Compromise
A conflict management style that combines intermediate levels of assertiveness
and cooperation.
It does not result in the most creative response to conflict.
It is not useful for resolving conflicts that stem from power asymmetry.
It is a sensible reaction to conflict stemming from scarce resources and it is a
good fall-back position if other strategies fail.

Collaborating
A conflict management style that maximizes both assertiveness and
cooperation.
It is an attempt to secure an integrative agreement that fully satisfies the
interests of both parties (a win-win resolution).
It works best when the conflict is not intense and when each party has
information that is useful to the other.
Although it takes time and practice to develop, it frequently enhances
productivity and achievement.

Is All Conflict Bad?

There are some potential benefits of organizational conflict.
Conflict can be functional when it promotes change:
CONFLICT CHANGE ADAPTATION SURVIVAL
How does conflict promote change?
Consideration of new ideas.
Each party monitors the others performance more carefully
Signals that a redistribution of power is necessary
Managers might use a strategy of conflict stimulation to cause change.
 A strategy of increasing conflict to motivate change.
The causes of conflict such as scarcity and ambiguity, can be
manipulated by managers to achieve change.
Conflict in organizations often causes considerable stress.

A Model of Stress in Organizations

Stress has become a serious concern for individuals and organizations.
The levels of stress in the workplace are at an all time high.
Work is reported to be a potent source of stress, edging out health and
relationships.
Stress is part of the everyday routine of organizations.
Model of a Stress Episode
Stressors
Stressors are environmental events or conditions that have the potential to
induce stress.
Some conditions would be stressful for just about everyone (e.g., extreme heat
or cold).
Personality often determines the extent to which a potential stressor becomes
a real stressor and induces stress.
Stress
Stress is a psychological reaction to the demands inherent in a stressor that has
the potential to make a person feel tense or anxious because the person
does not feel capable of coping with these demands.
Stress is not intrinsically bad.
Moderate levels of stress can provide an appropriate level of stimulation.
Stress becomes a problem when it leads to high levels of anxiety and tension.

Stress Reactions
Stress reactions are the behavioural, psychological, and physiological
consequences of stress.
Some of these reactions are passive responses, over which the individual has
little direct control (e.g., elevated blood pressure).
Other reactions are active attempts to cope with some aspect of the stress
episode.
Coping attempts might be directed toward dealing directly with the stressor or
reducing the anxiety generated by stress.
Personality and Stress
Personality can affect both the extent to which potential stressors are
perceived as stressful and the types of stress reactions that occur.
Three key personality traits:
Locus of control
 Type A behaviour pattern
Negative affectivity
Locus of Control
Concerns peoples beliefs about the factors that control their behaviour.
Externals are more likely to feel anxious in the face of potential stressors.
Internals are more likely to confront stressors directly.
Externals are more prone to simple anxiety-reduction strategies that only work
in the short run.
Type A Behaviour Pattern
A personality pattern that includes aggressiveness, ambitiousness,
competitiveness, hostility, impatience, and a sense of time urgency.
Type B individuals do not exhibit these extreme characteristics.
Type A people report heavier workloads, longer work hours, and more
conflicting work demands.
Type A people encounter more stressful situations than Type Bs do or they
perceive themselves as doing so.
Type A individuals are likely to exhibit adverse physiological reactions in
response to stress.
Type A individuals have a strong need to control their work environment.
The major component of Type A behaviour that contributes to adverse
physiological reactions is hostility and repressed anger.

Negative Affectivity (NA)

Negative affectivity is the propensity to view the world, including oneself and
other people, in a negative light.
People high in NA report more stressors in the work environment and feel more
subjective stress.
They are particularly likely to feel stressed in response to the demands of a
heavy workload.
People with high NA are more susceptible to stress for a number of reasons:
A predisposition to perceive stressors in the workplace.
Hypersensitivity to existing stressors.
A tendency to gravitate to stressful jobs.
A tendency to provoke stress.
The use of passive, indirect coping styles that avoid the real sources of
stress.

Stressors in Organizational Life

The most common source of stress for people today is workplace stress.
While some stressors are likely to affect almost everyone in any organization,
others are likely to affect people who perform particular roles.
Executive and Managerial Stressors
Role Overload
When one must perform too many tasks in too short a time period.
A heavy and protracted workload.
Heavy Responsibility
 Extremely important consequences for the organization and its
members.
Personal consequences of an incorrect decision can be staggering.

Operative-Level Stressors
Operatives are individuals who occupy non-professional and non-managerial
positions in organizations.
Occupants of operative positions are sometimes exposed to a special set of
stressors.
Poor Physical Working Conditions
More likely to be exposed to physically unpleasant and even dangerous
working conditions (e.g., excessive heat, cold, noise, pollution, and
chance of accidents).
Poor Job Design
Jobs that are too simple or not challenging enough.
Job scope can be a stressor at levels that are either too low or too high.

Boundary Role Stressors

Boundary roles are positions in which organizational members are required to
interact with members of other organizations or with the public.
Occupants of boundary role positions are especially likely to experience stress.
Another example of role conflict.
Ones role as an organizational member might be incompatible with the
demands made by the public or other organizations.
A particular form of stress experienced by some boundary role occupants is
burnout.

Burnout
Burnout is a syndrome made up of emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and low
self-efficacy.
Burnout was originally studied among those working in some capacity with
people.
It has now been established that burnout can occur even among non-boundary
spanners.
Burnout follows a process that begins with emotional exhaustion that leads to
cynicism and depersonalization followed by feelings of low self-efficacy
and low personal accomplishment.
It is most common among people who entered their jobs with especially high
ideals.
What are the consequences of burnout?
Burnout (continued)
Some people pursue a new occupation or job.
Some people stay in their jobs and become part of the legion of deadwood.
Much of the boundary role stress stems from the frequent need to engage in
emotional labour.
The suppression of emotions takes a toll on cognitive and emotional resources
over time.

Work Engagement
Work engagement can be defined as a positive work-related state of mind
that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption.
Vigor involves high levels of energy and mental resilience at work.
Dedication means being strongly involved in your work and experiencing a
sense of significance, enthusiasm, and challenge.
Absorption refers to being fully concentrated on and engrossed in your work.
Some General Stressors
Some stressors that are experienced equally by occupants of all roles include:
Interpersonal conflict
Work-family conflict
Job insecurity and change
Role ambiguity
Sexual harassment
Interpersonal Conflict
This is especially likely to cause stress when it leads to real or perceived
attacks on our self-esteem or integrity.
A particular manifestation of interpersonal conflict which has received
increased attention is workplace bullying.
Bullying refers to repeated negative behaviour directed toward one or more
individuals of lower power or status that creates a hostile work
environment.
It is a potent source of stress and negative well-being.
It is a subtle form of psychological aggression and intimidation.
An essential feature of bullying is its persistence.

Bullying (continued)
Another key feature is some degree of power or status imbalance between the
bully and the victim.
Mobbing occurs when a number of individuals, usually direct co-workers,
gang-up on a particular employee.
Victims of bullying and mobbing experience stress because they feel powerless
to deal with the perpetrator(s).
Some countries and the province of Quebec have enacted laws that pertain to
 bullying in the workplace.

Work-Family Conflict
Work-family conflict occurs when either work duties interfere with family life
or family life interferes with work responsibilities.
There are a number of stressors centered around childcare.
Many people in the prime of their careers have to provide support for elderly
parents.
Women are particularly victimized by stress due to work-family conflict.

Job Insecurity and Change

During the last decade, organizations have undergone substantial changes that
have left many workers unemployed and threatened the security of those
who have been fortunate enough to remain in their jobs.
The fear of job loss has become a way of life for employees at all
organizational levels.

Role Ambiguity
Role ambiguity exists when the goals of ones job or the methods of performing
the job are unclear.
Such a lack of direction can be stressful, especially for people who are low in
their tolerance for such ambiguity.

Sexual Harassment
It is a major workplace stressor, with serious consequences for employees and
organizations.
Widespread in both the public and private sectors.
Negative effects on attitudes, behaviours, and the psychological and physical
well-being of harassment victims.
Most likely to be a problem in organizations that have a climate that is tolerant
of it and where women are working in traditional male-dominated jobs
and in male-dominated workplaces.

Sources of Stress at Various Points in the Organization

Reactions to Organizational Stress
The reactions that people who experience organizational stress might exhibit
can be divided into three categories:
Behavioural reactions
Psychological reactions
Physiological reactions
Behavioural Reactions to Stress
Behavioural reactions to stress are overt activities that the stressed individual
uses in an attempt to cope with the stress.
Behavioural reactions to stress include:
Problem solving
 Seeking social support
Performance changes
Withdrawal
Use of addictive substances
Problem Solving
Problem solving is directed toward terminating the stressor or reducing its
potency.
It is reality-oriented and reveals flexibility and realistic use of feedback.
Problem solving is generally the routine, sensible, obvious approach that an
objective observer might suggest.
Examples of problem solving include:
Delegation
Time management
Talking it out
Asking for help
Searching for alternatives

Seeking Social Support

Social support refers to having close ties with other people.
Close ties can affect stress by bolstering self-esteem, providing useful
information, offering comfort and humour, or even providing material
resources.
People with stronger social networks exhibit better psychological and physical
well-being.
When people encounter stressful events, those with good social networks are
likely to cope more positively.
A social network acts as a buffer against stress.
The buffering aspects of social support are most potent when they are directly
connected to the source of stress.
Co-workers and superiors are the best sources of support for dealing with work-
related stress.

Performance Changes
Stress or stressors frequently cause reduced job performance.
Some stressors, like role ambiguity and interpersonal conflict, are called
hindrance stressors and they damage goal attainment and performance.
Some stressors, like a heavy workload and responsibility, are challenging.
Challenge stressors can damage performance, but they sometimes stimulate it
via added motivation.

Withdrawal
Withdrawal from the stressor is one of the most basic reactions to stress.
In organizations, withdrawal involves absence and turnover.
Absence is a dysfunctional reaction to stress for both the individual and the
organization.
Turnover can be dysfunctional unless it leads to a new job that is less stressful.
Absence, turnover, and turnover intentions have often been linked with stress
and its causes.
Use of Addictive Substances
Smoking, drinking, and drug use represent the least satisfactory behavioural
responses to stress for both the individual and the organization.
They fail to terminate stress episodes.
They leave employees less physically and mentally prepared to perform their
jobs.
Psychological Reactions to Stress
Psychological reactions to stress primarily involve emotions and thought
processes rather than overt behaviour.
The most common psychological reaction to stress is the use of defence
mechanisms.
Defence mechanisms are psychological attempts to reduce the anxiety
associated with stress.
They concentrate on anxiety reduction rather than on actually confronting or
dealing with the stressor.
Defence Mechanisms
Some common defence mechanisms include the following:
Rationalization
Projection
Displacement
Reaction formation
Compensation
They can be useful when used occasionally to temporarily reduce anxiety, but
not as a chronic reaction to stress.
Defence mechanisms do not change the objective character of the stressor.
After some short-term relief from anxiety, the basic problem remains
unresolved.

Physiological Reactions to Stress

Work stress is associated with electrocardiogram irregularities and elevated
levels of blood pressure, cholesterol, and pulse.
Stress has also been associated with the onset of various diseases due to its ill
effects on the immune system.
The accumulation of stress into burnout has been particularly implicated in
cardiovascular problems.
Organizational Strategies for Managing Stress
What can organizations do to help employees manage stress?
Strategies that either reduce demands on employees or enhance their
resources:
Job redesign
 Family-friendly human resource policies
Stress management programs
Work-life balance, fitness, and wellness programs
Job Redesign
Organizations can redesign jobs to reduce their stressful characteristics.
Most formal job redesign efforts involve enriching operative-level jobs to make
them more stimulating and challenging.
There is growing evidence that providing more autonomy in how service is
delivered can alleviate stress and burnout.
Family Friendly HR Policies
Family friendly human resource policies include some combination of
formalized social support, material support, and increased flexibility to
adapt to employee needs.
Some firms distribute newsletters that deal with work-family issues and some
have developed company support groups.
A common form of material support is corporate daycare centres.
Flexibility is also important, and includes flex-time, telecommuting, job
sharing, and family leave policies.
Research shows that perceptions of flexibility, a reasonable workload,
supportive supervision, and a supportive culture are associated with less
work-family conflict and higher job satisfaction and organizational
commitment.

Stress Management Programs

Programs designed to help employees manage work-related stress.
Stress management programs involve techniques such as meditation, training in
muscle-relaxation exercises, biofeedback training, training in time
management, and training to think more positively and realistically about
sources of job stress.
They can be useful in reducing physiological arousal, sleep disturbances, and
self-reported tension and anxiety.

Work-Life Balance, Fitness, and Wellness Programs

Work-life balance programs encourage employees to have a balanced lifestyle
that includes a healthy diet and physical exercise.
Employees are increasingly demanding work-life balance benefits, and
employers are realizing that by providing them they can increase
commitment and reduce turnover.
Work-life programs are believed to lower health-care costs due in part to stress
reduction.