Behaviour of Groups and Teams
Issues discussed in the class:
Concept of Groups
Why people form groups?
How groups are formed?
Stages of Group formation
Types of Groups
Factors affecting group cohesion
Dysfunctions of groups/teams
Teams in modern workplaces
Types of teams
How to make teams more effective?
Concept of Group
Edgar Schein has defined group as a collection of people who interact with each other, are psychologically aware of each other, and who perceive themselves to be in a group. A work group meets these criteria, but in addition, the members have task-centred goals. Interestingly, while the group members support each other, they each have their own area of responsibility for which they are individually accountable. In comparison, a work team is composed of members with complementary skill who are involved in a common set of goals for which they are collectively accountable. On the other hand, Jennifer & Gareth have defined a group as a set of two or more people who interact with each other to achieve certain goals or meet certain needs. Interaction and common purpose are important elements of any group. The group goals bind the members together. Thus a group or a work group has the following features:
It has a common goal;
There is constant interaction among members;
Each member identifies with the group;
Members are interdependent;
Members are emotionally connected.
Why people form groups?
Broadly speaking, people form groups for the following reasons:
Psychological need: People want to align themselves with other individuals having identical interests, attitudes, personality, perception etc.
Socio-cultural need: Individuals join the groups to be identified with their social class, caste, religion, region, ethnicity, culture etc.
Security need: People need a support system to meet the contingencies of life like sickness, disablement, financial crisis, termination etc. Groups serve as an important support system for the people.
Types of Groups
Groups are broadly categorized as Formal and Informal. Some scholars have also categorized the groups as primary group, peer group and reference group.
Formal Work Groups:
Command group: It is an association of employees who report to the same supervisor. Command groups are based on the basic reporting relationship in any organization. The existence of such groups is represented on organizational charts as departments e.g. Finance Department, Personnel Department, etc,
Committees: People with diverse backgrounds are brought together to accomplish a particular goal. They may not report to the same supervisor and may not be at the same level in organizational hierarchy.
Team: (explained later)
Self-managed teams: (explained later)
Informal Work Groups
Friendship/Peer Groups: People who enjoy each other’s company and love to socialize form their own groups in an organization. They join hands to meet their needs of socialization besides developing a strong support system to help each other in times of crisis.
Interest Groups: Employees may form interest groups when they have a common interest or goal to achieve in an organization. Because of the common interests, it helps the members to unite and voice their concerns in a powerful manner.
Theories of Group Formation
Groups are formed due to Propinquity: This is the basic theory of group formation. Propinquity means that people form groups because of spatial or geographical proximity. In an organization, employees who share their workstations are more likely to combine as a group. However, this theory has been criticized in the wake of globalization and internet revolution that facilitate group formation without proximity or face-to-face interactions.
Groups are formed due to activities, interactions and sentiments (Classic Theory of Group Formation): This theory has been propounded by George Homans who suggests that the more activities the persons share, the more numerous will be the interactions and the stronger will be their sentiments. Similarly, the more interactions among the persons, the more will be their shared activities and sentiments; and the more sentiments persons have for one another, the more will be interactions and shared activities.
Groups are formed due to similar attitudes towards commonly relevant objects and goals (Balance Theory of Group Formation): This theory has been proposed by Thoedore Newcomb who suggests that persons are attracted to one another on the basis of similar attitudes and values related to religion, politics, lifestyle, marriage, work, authority etc. Once the relationship is formed, the participants strive to maintain a symmetrical balance between the attraction and the common attitudes and values.
Groups are formed reward-cost-outcomes of interactions ((Exchange Theory of Group Formation): this theory has been propounded by John W Thibaut and Harold H Kelley who suggest that a minimum positive level (rewards greater than costs) of an outcome must exist for the formation of a group. Rewards from interactions gratify needs whereas costs incur anxiety, frustration, embarrassment, or fatigue.
Stages of Group Formation
Forming: This is the first stage in the development of a group. At this stage, the members try to know each other and establish common understanding among them. They struggle to clarify group goals and determine appropriate behaviour. The forming stage is said to be complete when the members are fully integrated to identify themselves with the group.
Storming: This stage is characterized by disagreements and conflicts among group members. This stage ends up with greater mutual understanding and clarity of goals and roles of various members.
Norming: At this stage, the members really start feeling that they belong to the group. They develop very close intimacy and relationship with each other. A well-developed sense of common purpose of the group emerges among the members who also agree on standards/norms to guide the behaviour/interaction amongst themselves.
Performing: The real work of the group gets done at this stage.
Adjourning: Once the group has accomplished its goals, it gets dissolved. However, a number of permanent work groups remain at Performing stage although new members join when old ones leave.
Group Cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness is a condition when the group appears to be very attractive to its members; individuals value their group membership, and have a very strong willingness to retain membership of the group.
Factors increasing group cohesiveness
Agreement on goals
Frequency of interactions
Personal attractiveness
Inter-group competition
Favourable evaluation
Factors decreasing group cohesiveness:
Disagreement
Large size of the group
Unpleasant experiences
Intra-group competition
Domination by any one member
Impact of group cohesiveness on productivity
Stanley Schachter, Norris Ellertson, Dorothy McBride and Doris Gregory have studeied the impact of group cohesiveness on productivity. They have defined cohesiveness as the average resultant force acting on members in a group. They have suggested four possible combinations having a bearing on productivity of the group:
High cohesive, positive induction
Low cohesive, positive induction
High cohesive, negative induction
Low cohesive, negative induction
On the basis of their study, they have developed a pitchfork productivity curve, which suggests that productivity depends more on how the group is induced (positive or negative) rather than cohesiveness itself. A highly cohesive group or a less cohesive group with positive induction provides a higher productivity. Leadership decides how a group can be positively or negatively induced.
Roles assumed by group members:
In the context of groups, role may be defined as a position that evolves from established norms. Leigh L Thompson talks about five roles that a member of a group can assume:
The boundary spanner who acts as a facilitator and bridge between units or groups which would not otherwise interact.
The buffer who protects and filters negative or disappointing news and information that might cause group members to be upset and cause morale to suffer.
The lobbyist who promotes and tells others how successful and important the group is to the outsiders.
The negotiator who is empowered by the group to act on its behalf and to get resources and make deals.
The spokesman who is the voice of the group.
Dysfunctions of the Groups
Dysfunction of the groups implies any aberration in the group processes and functions such as leadership issues, lack of coordination, misunderstanding, disengagement, deliberate withholding of efforts, etc. Dysfunctions of the group are caused due to norms’ violation/role ambiguity, groupthink/conformity problem and social loafing.
Norms’ violation and role ambiguity:
Violation of group norms that are set by the members themselves lead to dysfunction of the group. Moreover, in case the members are not clear about their roles, they may not contribute their mite towards achieving group goals. Role ambiguity occurs due to unclear job descriptions, incomplete orders, and inexperience. Sometimes role conflicts arise especially when a member is asked to perform conflicting tasks or settings or to perform a task that conflicts his personal values.
Groupthink and Conformity problem:
Irving Janis believes that group pressures lead to a deterioration of mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgment. Indeed, groupthink is the tendency of the group members to seek consensus and ignore/suppress alternative ideas or minority viewpoints especially when faced with some crisis situation. The result of groupthink can be poor quality decisions because it discourages full assessment of the problem, thorough information search, and proper evaluation of a wide range of alternatives. According to Janis, following are the symptoms of Groupthink:
Illusion of invulnerability: nothing can happen to the group, none can ever hurt/damage the group.
Unquestioned belief: rationalizing information that contradicts the group’s beliefs/opinion
Self-censorship: self-imposed restrictions of the group members
Illusion of unanimity: belief that there is total unanimity on any issue in the group whereas there might be unvoiced concerns.
Self-appointed mind-guards: protect the group from contradictory information
Intra-group stereotyping: negative stereotypes of group members
Another problem associated with groupthink is that group pressures lead the individuals/minority subgroups within the group into conformity that ultimately results in group dysfunction.
Social Loafing
Social loafing is a unique condition in the entire group process where members reduce their efforts or performance levels. Following factors are attributed to social loafing:
1. Role ambiguity
Task being not intrinsically motivating
Difficulty in identifying individual contribution due to large size of the group
4. Sucker effect: not wanting to do more than perceived efforts of other members.
Teams at modern workplaces
Teams have turned out to be instrumental in providing competitive edge to the corporate houses across the globe. Toyota, Motorola, General Electric, Xerox, Hewlett-Packard etc pioneered the concept of teams at modern workplaces. Interestingly, most of the Fortune 1000 companies use project teams (diverse managerial/professional employees working on projects for a defined, but typically extended period of time. Moreover, a large number of them use parallel teams (employees working on problem-solving or quality teams in parallel to the regular organizational structure). Besides, many of the Fortune 1000 companies have permanent work teams (self-contained work-units responsible for manufacturing products or providing services.
How work groups and teams are different?
The work group has a strong, clearly focused leader; the team has shared leadership roles.
The work group has individual accountability; the team has individual and mutual accountability.
The work group’s purpose is the same as the organization’s; the team has a specific purpose.
The work group has individual work products; the team has collective work products.
The work group runs structured meetings; the team encourages open ended, active, problem solving meetings.
The work group measures effectiveness indirectly (for example, financial performance of the overall business); the team measures performance directly by assessing collective work products.
The work group discusses, decides and delegates; the team discuses, decides and does real work.
Types of Teams
Cross-functional teams
These teams are made up of individuals from various departments or functional specialties. It is possible to reduce the time needed to get things done while simultaneously augmenting productivity and profit margins by combining the abilities and skills of individuals. Success of the cross-functional teams however depends on the following factors:
1. Selection of suitable members
Clarity of purpose of the team
Fair understanding of group functions by each member
Team-building
Achievement of noticeable results
Virtual teams
Virtual teams are groups of people who work interdependently with shared purpose across space, time and organizational boundaries, using Information Technology to operate and collaborate without face-to face interactions with each other. Tools that they use include e-mails, chat-room, virtual community/group etc.
Self-managed teams
A self-managed team is a group of employees who are responsible for managing and performing technical tasks that result in a product or service being delivered to an internal or external customer. Self-managed teams at Hewlett-Packard and Harley-Davidson are empowered to hire, organize and purchase equipments without prior approval of the management. And outcomes at both the companies are indeed very flattering. A number of empirical studies indicate that self-managed teams have led to increased job satisfaction, higher productivity, better customer service, and organizational commitment.
However there are a few issues that lead to failure of self-managed teams:
Reluctance of the team members to give up their past practices and set aside their power and position
Skill disparity among the members.
Sucker effect
Personal belief-system being in conflict with that of the team.
How to make teams more effective
n Team building
n Collaboration
n Group Leadership
n Understanding of cultural issues in global situations
Team building (GE Model)
1. Establish credibility: the trainers must establish their knowledge and credentials
2. Allow ventilation: the trainees should be provided with ample opportunities to clear off their anxieties and unresolved issues before the training begins
3. Provide an orientation: the trainers should give specific verbal directions and provide clear expectations and models of behaviour
4. Invest in the process: help the team in identifying its problems and concerns
5. Set group goals: let the trainees create their own mission statement and then set specific goals and specific activities and behaviour to accomplish these goals
6. Facilitate the group process: let trainees learn how group functions
7. Establish intra-group procedures: help trainees set up a meeting format that might include reporting minutes, making announcements, discussing problems, proposing solutions, taking action and making new assignments
Establish inter-group processes: let the trainees select a leader to interact with other teams
Change the role of the trainers
End the trainer’s involvement
While the GE model of Team-building is quite structured method, the following are equally relevant for augmenting effectiveness of teams as proposed by Fred Luthans:
Establishing a sense of partnership
Attractive work arrangement
Sharing of collective intelligence
Well-defined goals
Creating a learning organization
Developing a bond among the team-members
Collaboration
The process of collaboration involves learning how to improve interpersonal interactions in group settings while committing to a common agenda. Collaboration is a structured, recursive process where two or more people work together toward a common goal—typically an intellectual endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing knowledge, learning and building consensus. Collaboration does not require leadership and can even bring better results through decentralization and egalitarianism. In particular, teams that work collaboratively can obtain greater resources, recognition and reward when facing competition for finite resources.
Essential Competencies for Collaborative Partnerships: Ten Lessons (taken from http://www.medscape.com/medscapetoday)
Lesson #1: Know thyself. Many realities exist simultaneously. Each person's reality is based on self-developed perceptions. Requisite to trusting self and others is in knowing your own mental model (biases, values, and goals).
Lesson #2: Learn to value and manage diversity. Differences are essential assets for effective collaborative processes and outcomes.
Lesson #3: Develop constructive conflict resolution skills. In the collaborative paradigm, conflict is viewed as natural and as an opportunity to deepen understanding and agreement.
Lesson # 4: Use your power to create win-win situations The sharing of power and the recognition of one's own power base is part of effective collaboration.
Lesson #5: Master interpersonal and process skills. Clinical competence, cooperation, and flexibility are the most frequently identified attributes important to effective collaborative practice.
Lesson #6: Recognize that collaboration is a journey. The skill and knowledge needed for effective collaboration take time and practice. Conflict resolution, clinical excellence, appreciative inquiry, and knowledge of group process are all life-long learning skills.
Lesson #7: Leverage all multidisciplinary forums. Being present both physically and mentally in team forums can provide an opportunity to assess how and when to offer collaborative communications for partnership building.
Lesson #8: Appreciate that collaboration can occur spontaneously. Collaboration is a mutually established condition that can happen spontaneously if the right factors are in place.
Lesson #9: Balance autonomy and unity in collaborative relationships. Learn from your collaborative successes and failures. Becoming part of an exclusive team can be as bad as working in isolation. Be willing to seek feedback and admit mistakes. Be reflective, willing to seek feedback, and admit mistakes for dynamic balance.
Lesson #10: Remember that collaboration is not required for all decisions. Collaboration is not a panacea, nor is it needed in all situations.
Group Leadership: Leadership is concerned with control and power in a group. Leadership can be aimed at either maintaining the interpersonal relationships in the group or prodding the group to achieve its task. Groups will sometimes have two leaders: one for the social dimension and one for the task dimension. There are also three main perspectives on leadership. First, some researchers believe some people are born with traits that will make them a good leader. A second perspective is that the group's leader selects an appropriate leadership style for the given task. A third way of understanding leadership says that to some degree, leaders are born with traits that make them good leaders, but that they also learn how to become a leader and use strategies appropriate to a given situation.
Understanding of cultural issues in global situations: Today, most of the teams/groups have to operate in multi-cultural settings. As culture shapes our inter-personal relations to a great extent, it is very important to understand cultural nuances of the team-members for effective collaboration.
An illustration of unique cultural traits:
Why workers in China laugh when you point out mistakes?
(Economic Times, 14 December 2007)
“Can you increase my salary?” This is a question, which is almost a taboo at workplaces in India. However, in China, this is something, which one hears often. And it comes from those employees who want to stick around with a company, make a career with it and contribute to its growth. Another example is at the time of recruitment. Having gone through the entire process, it is quite possible that the candidate will come back and ask for a higher salary, because “the job requires much more work than what I thought before.” Chinese employees have a practical approach towards reciprocity - what they give to the company and what they get in return.
This is usually preceded by a high degree of commitment towards work, done in a manner which is not showy at all. Chinese personnel go about their work in a methodical manner. While it is common to see employees put in long hours in India, the key difference in China is that the long hours are put in with the sole intent of getting the job completed, rather than make a show of work, or staying in the office till the boss is there.
Normally, sub-ordinates do not badger superiors too much and will try and finish the tasks assigned to them clinically. However, once in a while, it is essential to listen to sub-ordinates - and not give them advice, unless asked. When they talk, one must have a willing ear (and open mind) for a whole lot of stuff, which might seem like a confused state of mind. Quite infrequently, they will ask the superior for a solution to a problem. It is essential to give a specific answer rather than present them with options. If they could decide among a given set of alternatives, they would not have approached the superior.
A significant difference between China and India, especially at middle and senior management levels, is to bring the issue to closure. With great language and analytical skills, one often sees an Indian manager spend inordinate time in scoring an “intellectual victory”; the tactic employed in China is to cut to the chase and reach a solution as quickly as possible. Intellectual victories do not count for much in this scheme of things.
Multi-tasking is an alien concept in a typical Chinese workplace, in as much as taking a horse to the water, but being unable to force it to drink (these being two separate tasks). This is something which unnerves most expatriate bosses in China, especially those from India, who are used to intelligent young men and women handling a plethora of tasks deftly and without any qualms.
Chinese employees will not undertake a task unless they are confident of doing it well and without mistakes. They will also spend a fair bit of time in understanding what is required - much more than their Indian counterparts. This philosophy is quite different from what exists in India, where we hardly say “no” to our bosses. However, Multi-tasking can be developed in a Chinese employee by giving them a situation to handle and letting them complete it to fruition. There is a strong need to build upon small successes.
Training takes on a special meaning in the Chinese work environment. It is highly coveted among the work-force, more so at junior and middle levels. Being nominated for training is interpreted as a strong affirmation of the value that the company is placing on the particular employee and hence generates a disproportionately high airtime in conversations around the water coolers. If the training is being conducted overseas, or is being conducted locally but by “foreign” trainers, it makes for excellent bragging rights. That is why it is not uncommon for employees to be constantly discussing “training-needs” with their superiors.
There is an interesting example of some behavioural aspects of Chinese people. In XYZ Limited, a senior manager, Mr Mathur, had come from India on a short assignment in technology. One day, he was quite upset with one of his Chinese sub-ordinates, Wang Ling. On further enquiry, it was revealed that the aforesaid Chinese employee had made a mistake and when Mathur has asked him an explanation, Wang just stood in front of him and kept smiling. Slowly, Mathur’s temperature went up, as the smile turned into laughter (the fact that Mathur did not know any Chinese didn’t help matters much either).
When Mathur could not take it anymore, he took this matter to the CEO, Mr Sharma. The latter, having relatively more experience in China, decided to tread the path carefully and talked to some other senior Chinese employees to find out the reason for this apparently bizarre behaviour of Wang. It so emerged that when Chinese employees makes a mistake, they are so embarrassed that they would like to laugh the matter away and try to lighten up the environment. You can rest assured that they will never commit that mistake again, by being absolutely focused on the job thereafter.
Do not ask them and they will not tell you: this is an almost Universal dictum which is prevalent across all kinds of organizations - more so in state-owned enterprises. Even if there is a serious problem which can bring down a company, the information is given to the superior only at the last minute; at which time, the sinking ship can be saved only at a high cost. No wonder this can leave many a manager pulling his hair in exasperation. The plausible reasons for this lie much deeper.
The Chinese try to solve the problem themselves, even if it means going through endless rounds of re-work and mistakes. They just cannot come up to their superior and admit defeat - it is tantamount to losing face. This is an integral part of the centuries old Chinese culture and is an all-pervading phenomenon of the business environment of China.
Do only your job and turn a blind eye to whatever else is happening around you: this is the result of the strictly hierarchical work system in China, which has got further conditioned by a work-to-instruction culture. Tell them what to do in clear and unambiguous terms, and your Chinese employees can perhaps become the best this world can have. That said, investment in people always pays handsomely in the end - and the same is true for China. One has to travel a long and arduous journey towards developing excellent first-line managers, but there is indeed light at the end of the tunnel.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Thursday, November 29, 2007
OB Handout # 3
Personality and Attitudes
What is personality?
Personal characteristics that lead to consistent patterns of behavior
Observable patterns of behaviour that last over time (Trait theory)
How the unconscious of an individual reacts to stimuli (Psychoanalytic theory)
Self-actualization and the drive to realize one’s potential (Humanistic theory)
According to Fred Luthans, people’s external appearance and traits, their inner awareness of self, and the person-situation interaction make up their personalities. S P Robbins has defined personality as ‘sum total of ways in which an individual reacts to and interacts with others’.
What shapes personality?
Heredity: physical stature, facial attractiveness, gender, temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy levels etc are broadly attributed to biological factors. Parents’ biological, physiological and inherent psychological make-up contribute to an individual’s personality to a great extent. According to ‘Heredity’ approach, the ultimate explanation of an individual’s personality is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.
However, the critics observe that if personality characteristics were completely dictated by heredity, they would be fixed at birth and no amount of experience/learning could alter them. There are evidences to prove that experience and learning can shape one’s personality to a fairly great extent although changing physical features and personal disposition is not possible.
Environment: Environment plays an important role in shaping one’s personality. People are greatly influenced by culture, values, traditions, formal and informal groups etc. More importantly, an individual learns to react to situations in a particular way as a result of socialization process one is exposed to.
Person-situation interaction: An individual’s personality, although generally stable and consistent, does change in different situations. Individuals react to different situations differently. Moreover, individuals may also react differently to an identical situation. Thus, person-situation interactions keep adding to overall development of one’s personality.
Personality Traits
The Big Five Personality Traits:
There are five core personality traits that best predict performance at the workplace. Although, the five traits are largely independent factors of personality, they operate alongside other traits to provide a unique mix of personality.
Following are the five core traits of personality:
Conscientiousness: Dependable, hardworking, organized, self-disciplined, persistent, responsible. A high conscientious person pursues fewer goals in a purposeful way.
Emotional Stability: Calm, secure, happy, enthusiastic. Those with low emotional stability tend to be nervous, depressed and insecure.
Agreeableness: Cooperative, warm, caring, good-natured, courteous, trusting. People with low agreeableness tend to focus more on their personal needs rather than needs of others.
Extraversion: Sociable, outgoing, talkative, assertive, gregarious.
Openness to experience: Curious, intellectual, creative, cultured, artistically sensitive, flexible, imaginative.
Myers Briggs Type Indicators
This is based on the theory proposed by Carl Jung in 1920. Jung observed that people can be classified into Extrovert-Introvert, Sensing-Intuitive, Thinking-Feeling, Judging-Perceiving. In 1940s, Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs-Myers developed a 100-item personality test asking participants how they usually feel or act in particular situations in order to measure the preferences on the four pairs of traits yielding 16 distinct types.
ISTJIntroverted Sensing with Thinking
ISFJIntroverted Sensing with Feeling
INFJIntroverted iNtuition with Feeling
INTJIntroverted iNtuition with Thinking
ISTPIntroverted Thinking with Sensing
ISFPIntroverted Feeling with Sensing
INFPIntroverted Feeling with iNtuition
INTPIntroverted Thinking with iNtuition
ESTPExtraverted Sensing with Thinking
ESFPExtraverted Sensing with Feeling
ENFPExtraverted iNtuition with Feeling
ENTPExtraverted iNtuition with Thinking
ESTJExtraverted Thinking with Sensing
ESFJExtraverted Feeling with Sensing
ENFJExtraverted Feeling with iNtuition
ENTJExtraverted Thinking with iNtuition
A large number of companies are using MBTI in their MDPs and team-building initiatives. Examples: AT & T, Exxxon, Honeywell, Hewlett-Packard etc.
Attitude
Attitude is a persistent tendency to feel and behave in a particular way towards some object. Like personality, attitudes are a complex cognitive process that has three basic features: they persist unless changed in some way, they range along a continuum, and they are directed towards an object about which a person has feelings/beliefs. According to Breckler and Wiggins, attitudes are enduring mental representations of various features the social and physical world.
Functions of Attitude
helps people adjusts to their environment
helps people defend their self-image
provides a basis for people’s value system
supplies standards and frames of references that allow people to organize their worldview
Process of Formation of Attitudes
Social Learning: acquiring attitudes by way of social interactions and value system
Direct Experience
Modeling: acquiring attitudes by observing others.
Mechanism of changing attitudes
Richard M Steers has suggested following methods of engineering attitude change
1. Providing new information
2. Fear arousal or reduction
3. Dissonance arousal (dissonance leads to inconsistencies in attitude and behaviour causing unpleasant feeling which results in change in attitude)
4. Position discrepancy
5. Participation in decision-making
Kelman has suggested the following processes to alter attitude:
· Compliance: applying subtle pressure on the individual to comply with a particular norm either by threat of punishment or by promise of reward
· Identification: Change agent influences the individual with his own attributes that is so powerful that people start identifying with him and following his way of looking at things.
· Internalization: new attitude is integrated with other attitude and becomes a part of individual’s personality.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
OB Handout # 4
Job Satisfaction
What is Job Satisfaction?
--A psychological expression of contentment on the job.
--An emotional response to job situation.
--The extent to which an individual find fulfillment in his/her work.
--Employees’ perception of how well their job provides those things that are viewed as important.
--Individual’s general attitude towards his/her job.
According to Locke, job satisfaction is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience.
Sources of Job Satisfaction
Work itself: The content of the work itself is great source of job satisfaction. The management may augment job satisfaction of the employees by redesigning the work. Some of the important measures may be as under:
Job Engineering: making the job interesting by innovative techniques and improved design of the equipments.
Job Enrichment: vertically loading the job to provide more responsibilities.
Job Rotation: moving employees from one relatively simpler job to another after short periods. (example: an employee at Mc Donald’s may cook French Fires one day, fry hamburgers the other day, wait on the customer the next day and draw soft drinks the following day.)
Job Enlargement: increasing the number of tasks each employee performs (example: A sales clerk who waits on customers, finalizes sales, helps with credit applications, arranges merchandize, and records stock has an enlarged job.)
Job Characteristics:
Skill Variety: the extent to which the job requires the employees to draw from a number of different skills and abilities as well as on a range of knowledge.
Task Identity: job should have an identifiable beginning and end. The employee will be more satisfied if he is involved in a job from beginning to end.
Task Significance: involves the importance of the task. If the task is important both for the company and the society at large, the employees are likely to derive a lot more satisfaction.
Autonomy: job independence. Job satisfaction will depend on how much freedom and control do employees have, for example, to schedule their own work, make decisions, or determine the means to accomplish the objectives.
Feedback: objective information about progress and performance.
Various job characteristics lead to three critical psychological states:
Meaningfulness: comes from task significance.
Responsibility: comes from task identity, autonomy and autonomy.
Knowledge of results: comes from feedback.
Rewards: Employees often see pay as a reflection of how management views their contribution to the organization, which in turn has a bearing on job satisfaction. The companies have therefore come up with various reward programmes linked to employees’ performance such as variable pay, skill-based pay, profit sharing, gain sharing, trust pay, employee stock ownership plan etc.
Promotional avenues: Employees are likely to have low job satisfaction in case there are hardly any promotional avenues within the organization. To augment job satisfaction, a number of companies have elaborate career development programmes, succession plans, assessment centers etc.
Supervision: Supervisory styles have a direct bearing on job satisfaction. In case the supervisor is autocratic, the employees are likely to be dissatisfied. On the other hand, if the supervisor makes way for employees’ participation in decision-making, goal-setting and making action plan to accomplish a job, the employees are likely to experience far more satisfaction at the work place.
Co-workers: Nature of co-workers may also have significant bearing on employee’s job satisfaction. In case the co-workers are hostile, non-cooperative and bad mouthed, the employee might experience dissatisfaction at the workplace. On the other hand, friendly co-workers may provide a lot of job satisfaction despite the job being quite tiring and demanding. Management can take corrective measures by providing more opportunities for socialization.
Working conditions: Working condition has a modest impact on job satisfaction. If the working condition is good ( for example: clean attractive surrounding, controlled temperature, proper illumination) the employees find it easier to work. On the other hand, if the working condition is poor (for example: hot and sultry environment, noisy surrounding, unhygienic workplace, etc.) the employees find it difficult to carry out their job. These days, most of the companies are working on Quality of Work-life programmes so as to make the workplace conducive for better performance and increased job satisfaction.
Personality: Personal disposition of an employee also has a direct bearing on job satisfaction. A cynical employee would never ever experience job satisfaction where as a person with positive outlook and attitude would experience satisfaction at the workplace despite all odds.
Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
Performance: It has been generally viewed that higher job satisfaction leads to higher performance (productivity).
Turnover: Low job satisfaction leads to higher labour turnover, on the contrary, high job satisfaction leads to low labour turnover.
Absenteeism: Low job satisfaction leads to higher absenteeism, on the contrary, high job satisfaction leads to low absenteeism.
How the employees express job dissatisfaction?
Exit: leaving the organization, looking for a new job
Voice: actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions
Loyalty: passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, speaking up for organization in the wake of external criticism and trusting the organization and its management to do the right thing.
Neglect: passively allowing conditions to worsen, chronic absenteeism, reduced efforts, increased error rate.
What is Job Satisfaction?
--A psychological expression of contentment on the job.
--An emotional response to job situation.
--The extent to which an individual find fulfillment in his/her work.
--Employees’ perception of how well their job provides those things that are viewed as important.
--Individual’s general attitude towards his/her job.
According to Locke, job satisfaction is a pleasurable or positive emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experience.
Sources of Job Satisfaction
Work itself: The content of the work itself is great source of job satisfaction. The management may augment job satisfaction of the employees by redesigning the work. Some of the important measures may be as under:
Job Engineering: making the job interesting by innovative techniques and improved design of the equipments.
Job Enrichment: vertically loading the job to provide more responsibilities.
Job Rotation: moving employees from one relatively simpler job to another after short periods. (example: an employee at Mc Donald’s may cook French Fires one day, fry hamburgers the other day, wait on the customer the next day and draw soft drinks the following day.)
Job Enlargement: increasing the number of tasks each employee performs (example: A sales clerk who waits on customers, finalizes sales, helps with credit applications, arranges merchandize, and records stock has an enlarged job.)
Job Characteristics:
Skill Variety: the extent to which the job requires the employees to draw from a number of different skills and abilities as well as on a range of knowledge.
Task Identity: job should have an identifiable beginning and end. The employee will be more satisfied if he is involved in a job from beginning to end.
Task Significance: involves the importance of the task. If the task is important both for the company and the society at large, the employees are likely to derive a lot more satisfaction.
Autonomy: job independence. Job satisfaction will depend on how much freedom and control do employees have, for example, to schedule their own work, make decisions, or determine the means to accomplish the objectives.
Feedback: objective information about progress and performance.
Various job characteristics lead to three critical psychological states:
Meaningfulness: comes from task significance.
Responsibility: comes from task identity, autonomy and autonomy.
Knowledge of results: comes from feedback.
Rewards: Employees often see pay as a reflection of how management views their contribution to the organization, which in turn has a bearing on job satisfaction. The companies have therefore come up with various reward programmes linked to employees’ performance such as variable pay, skill-based pay, profit sharing, gain sharing, trust pay, employee stock ownership plan etc.
Promotional avenues: Employees are likely to have low job satisfaction in case there are hardly any promotional avenues within the organization. To augment job satisfaction, a number of companies have elaborate career development programmes, succession plans, assessment centers etc.
Supervision: Supervisory styles have a direct bearing on job satisfaction. In case the supervisor is autocratic, the employees are likely to be dissatisfied. On the other hand, if the supervisor makes way for employees’ participation in decision-making, goal-setting and making action plan to accomplish a job, the employees are likely to experience far more satisfaction at the work place.
Co-workers: Nature of co-workers may also have significant bearing on employee’s job satisfaction. In case the co-workers are hostile, non-cooperative and bad mouthed, the employee might experience dissatisfaction at the workplace. On the other hand, friendly co-workers may provide a lot of job satisfaction despite the job being quite tiring and demanding. Management can take corrective measures by providing more opportunities for socialization.
Working conditions: Working condition has a modest impact on job satisfaction. If the working condition is good ( for example: clean attractive surrounding, controlled temperature, proper illumination) the employees find it easier to work. On the other hand, if the working condition is poor (for example: hot and sultry environment, noisy surrounding, unhygienic workplace, etc.) the employees find it difficult to carry out their job. These days, most of the companies are working on Quality of Work-life programmes so as to make the workplace conducive for better performance and increased job satisfaction.
Personality: Personal disposition of an employee also has a direct bearing on job satisfaction. A cynical employee would never ever experience job satisfaction where as a person with positive outlook and attitude would experience satisfaction at the workplace despite all odds.
Outcomes of Job Satisfaction
Performance: It has been generally viewed that higher job satisfaction leads to higher performance (productivity).
Turnover: Low job satisfaction leads to higher labour turnover, on the contrary, high job satisfaction leads to low labour turnover.
Absenteeism: Low job satisfaction leads to higher absenteeism, on the contrary, high job satisfaction leads to low absenteeism.
How the employees express job dissatisfaction?
Exit: leaving the organization, looking for a new job
Voice: actively and constructively attempting to improve conditions
Loyalty: passively but optimistically waiting for conditions to improve, speaking up for organization in the wake of external criticism and trusting the organization and its management to do the right thing.
Neglect: passively allowing conditions to worsen, chronic absenteeism, reduced efforts, increased error rate.
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
OB Handout # 5
Motivational Needs and Processes
What is motivation?
‘Motivation’ is derived from the Latin term ‘movere’ that means ‘to move’. Thus, motivation is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activates a behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or incentive (Luthans). Broadly speaking, motivation is willingness to exert high levels of efforts towards organizational goals, conditioned by the efforts’ ability to satisfy some individual needs (Robbins). Need means some internal state that make certain outcomes appear attractive. An unsatisfied need creates tension that stimulates drives within the individual. These drives generate a search behaviour to find particular goals, that if attained, will satisfy the need and lead to the reduction in tension. In other words, needs create motives for a particular action (behaviour).
Primary motives are hunger, thirst, maternal concerns, avoidance of pain, etc. These motives are involuntary. Then there are secondary motives which play an important role in employee motivation. Examples of secondary motives are: need for achievement, need for power, need for affiliation, need for security, and need for status.
Theories of Motivation
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
Abraham Maslow suggested that needs of human being can be arranged in a hierarchical order. He maintained that the moment a particular need is satisfied, it ceases to be a motivator. Given below is the hierarchy of needs (with company strategies to meet those needs in brackets)
Self-Actualization: self-fulfillment
(opportunities for personal growth, realization of potentials)
Esteem Needs: self-respect, autonomy, achievement, recognition
(titles, status, symbols, promotion)
Social Needs: affection, belogingness, acceptance
(formal and informal work groups)
Safety Needs: security and protection from any contingencies
(seniority plans, health insurance, social security measures)
Physiological Needs: Basic Needs
(Salary and Wages)
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene
Fredrick Herzberg proposed Motivation-Hygiene theory of motivation. According to Herzberg, the factors leading to job satisfaction are distinctly different from those that lead to job-dissatisfaction. Therefore, the managers who seek to eliminate factors that create job-dissatisfaction can bring about peace at the workplace but cannot motivate the employees. These factors are termed as hygiene factors comprising administration, supervision, working conditions, salary and wages etc. While absence of hygiene factors will lead to dissatisfaction, mere presence of these factors will not satisfy (i.e. motivate) the employees. In order to motivate the employees, managers must resort to ‘motivators’ (those factors that motivate the employees towards better performance) such as recognition, challenging assignment, responsibility, opportunities for growth and self-fulfillment etc.
ERG Theory
Clayton Alderfer proposed the ERG theory of motivation. According to Alderfer, there are three groups of core needs: Existence (basic material existence, safety needs); Relatedness (social and self-esteem needs); and Growth: an intrinsic desire to grow and self-fulfillment. Contrary to Maslow’s theory, he proposed that more than one need may be operative at the same time and if the gratification of higher level need is stifled, the desire to satisfy lower level need would increase. For example, inability to satisfy the need for socialization may lead an individual to concentrate on making more money.
Mclelland’s Theory of Needs
David Mclelland and his associates developed a theory of needs that provides a practical framework for motivational programmes at workplaces across the globe.
The theory focuses on three needs:
Need for Achievement: Drive to excel and become champions
Need for Power: Urge to control actions/ behaviour of others
Need for Affiliation: Desire for intense socialization
Some reflections on the Theory of Needs
A high achievement need does not necessarily mean that the person would be a good manager, especially in large organizations. People with high achivement needs are interested in how well they do personally and not in influencing others to do well. A salesperson with high achievement need would not necessarily make a good sales manager, and a good general manager in a large organization may have low achievement need.
A person with high affiliation need may be a good team-worker. However, a manager with high affiliation need may face a lot of problems. The best managers have high need of power and low need of affiliation.
Goal-setting Theory
Edwin Lock proposed the Goal Setting theory in 1960s. He observed that intention to work toward a goal is a major source of motivation. A goal tells the employees what is to be done and what should be the intensity of efforts. Specific goals have invariably resulted in higher performance. If factors like ability and acceptance of the goals are held constant, difficult goals are likely to produce better results. Feedback plays an important role in Goal-setting theory. Feedback reinforces high performance behaviour. Lack of feedback may jeopardize goal accomplishment.
Besides feedback, success of Goal-setting theory also depends on goal commitment, self-efficacy and culture.
Goal commitment: employee is committed to goal i.e. he is determined not to lower or abandon the goal.
Self-efficacy: employee’s belief in his/her ability to accomplish the goal
Culture: shared values and meanings are crucial. Due to cultural influence, Japanese tend to have higher goal commitments and self-efficacy.
Expectancy Theory of Motivation
Victor Vroom proposed the Expectancy Theory of Motivation. Vroom observed that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual. For example, an employee will be motivated to exert a high level of effort when he or she believes that efforts will lead to good performance appraisal which in turn will result in salary hike, incentive, bonus, promotion that will satisfy personal goals of the employee.
The theory is based on the following three relationships:
Effort-Performance Relationship: The probability perceived by the individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to performance
Performance-Reward Relationship: The degree to which the individual believes that performing at a particular level will lead to the attainment of a desired outcome.
Reward-Personal Goal Relationship: The degree to which organizational rewards satisfy an individual’s personal goals and attractiveness of those potential rewards for the individual.
Linking Motivational Theories with HR Practices at the Workplace
Management by Objective (MBO)
MBO is linked to goal-setting theory. Peter Drucker proposed this concept. Broadly speaking, MBO is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization. MBO is often accomplished by using set targets. Objectives should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-specific. Reliance Industries Limited in India has successfully implemented MBO programme. Any MBO initiative must be implemented along side suitable adjustment in rewards and feedback system.
Employee Recognition Programmes
Employee recognition programmes cater to the social needs and self-esteem needs of the employees. These include awards, newsletter announcements regarding accomplishments of an individual or a group, appreciation letter, certificate of merit, employee of the month/year programme, annual felicitation programmes to honour outstanding performers etc.
Employee Involvement Programmes
This is aimed at augmenting the commitment of the employees towards organization by providing them a role in decision making, autonomy, empowerment and stock ownership. Thus, employee involvement strategies link the destines of the employees with the of the company/organization. For example, by granting the employees a role in decision-making, Ford Motors has benefited in terms of improved product design, cost reduction, quality improvement and overall productivity.
In number of organizations, workers participation in management is ensured by works council, works committees, quality circles etc. Besides many companies are now offering Employee Stock Ownership Plans in a big way to ensure employee involvement.
Reward System
A number of companies are resorting to performance-linked rewards in order to motivate employees. Examples are Variable Pay, Profit Sharing, Gain Sharing, Skill-based pay, flexible benefits, etc.
What is motivation?
‘Motivation’ is derived from the Latin term ‘movere’ that means ‘to move’. Thus, motivation is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological deficiency or need that activates a behaviour or a drive that is aimed at a goal or incentive (Luthans). Broadly speaking, motivation is willingness to exert high levels of efforts towards organizational goals, conditioned by the efforts’ ability to satisfy some individual needs (Robbins). Need means some internal state that make certain outcomes appear attractive. An unsatisfied need creates tension that stimulates drives within the individual. These drives generate a search behaviour to find particular goals, that if attained, will satisfy the need and lead to the reduction in tension. In other words, needs create motives for a particular action (behaviour).
Primary motives are hunger, thirst, maternal concerns, avoidance of pain, etc. These motives are involuntary. Then there are secondary motives which play an important role in employee motivation. Examples of secondary motives are: need for achievement, need for power, need for affiliation, need for security, and need for status.
Theories of Motivation
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs:
Abraham Maslow suggested that needs of human being can be arranged in a hierarchical order. He maintained that the moment a particular need is satisfied, it ceases to be a motivator. Given below is the hierarchy of needs (with company strategies to meet those needs in brackets)
Self-Actualization: self-fulfillment
(opportunities for personal growth, realization of potentials)
Esteem Needs: self-respect, autonomy, achievement, recognition
(titles, status, symbols, promotion)
Social Needs: affection, belogingness, acceptance
(formal and informal work groups)
Safety Needs: security and protection from any contingencies
(seniority plans, health insurance, social security measures)
Physiological Needs: Basic Needs
(Salary and Wages)
Herzberg’s Motivation-Hygiene
Fredrick Herzberg proposed Motivation-Hygiene theory of motivation. According to Herzberg, the factors leading to job satisfaction are distinctly different from those that lead to job-dissatisfaction. Therefore, the managers who seek to eliminate factors that create job-dissatisfaction can bring about peace at the workplace but cannot motivate the employees. These factors are termed as hygiene factors comprising administration, supervision, working conditions, salary and wages etc. While absence of hygiene factors will lead to dissatisfaction, mere presence of these factors will not satisfy (i.e. motivate) the employees. In order to motivate the employees, managers must resort to ‘motivators’ (those factors that motivate the employees towards better performance) such as recognition, challenging assignment, responsibility, opportunities for growth and self-fulfillment etc.
ERG Theory
Clayton Alderfer proposed the ERG theory of motivation. According to Alderfer, there are three groups of core needs: Existence (basic material existence, safety needs); Relatedness (social and self-esteem needs); and Growth: an intrinsic desire to grow and self-fulfillment. Contrary to Maslow’s theory, he proposed that more than one need may be operative at the same time and if the gratification of higher level need is stifled, the desire to satisfy lower level need would increase. For example, inability to satisfy the need for socialization may lead an individual to concentrate on making more money.
Mclelland’s Theory of Needs
David Mclelland and his associates developed a theory of needs that provides a practical framework for motivational programmes at workplaces across the globe.
The theory focuses on three needs:
Need for Achievement: Drive to excel and become champions
Need for Power: Urge to control actions/ behaviour of others
Need for Affiliation: Desire for intense socialization
Some reflections on the Theory of Needs
A high achievement need does not necessarily mean that the person would be a good manager, especially in large organizations. People with high achivement needs are interested in how well they do personally and not in influencing others to do well. A salesperson with high achievement need would not necessarily make a good sales manager, and a good general manager in a large organization may have low achievement need.
A person with high affiliation need may be a good team-worker. However, a manager with high affiliation need may face a lot of problems. The best managers have high need of power and low need of affiliation.
Goal-setting Theory
Edwin Lock proposed the Goal Setting theory in 1960s. He observed that intention to work toward a goal is a major source of motivation. A goal tells the employees what is to be done and what should be the intensity of efforts. Specific goals have invariably resulted in higher performance. If factors like ability and acceptance of the goals are held constant, difficult goals are likely to produce better results. Feedback plays an important role in Goal-setting theory. Feedback reinforces high performance behaviour. Lack of feedback may jeopardize goal accomplishment.
Besides feedback, success of Goal-setting theory also depends on goal commitment, self-efficacy and culture.
Goal commitment: employee is committed to goal i.e. he is determined not to lower or abandon the goal.
Self-efficacy: employee’s belief in his/her ability to accomplish the goal
Culture: shared values and meanings are crucial. Due to cultural influence, Japanese tend to have higher goal commitments and self-efficacy.
Expectancy Theory of Motivation
Victor Vroom proposed the Expectancy Theory of Motivation. Vroom observed that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that outcome to the individual. For example, an employee will be motivated to exert a high level of effort when he or she believes that efforts will lead to good performance appraisal which in turn will result in salary hike, incentive, bonus, promotion that will satisfy personal goals of the employee.
The theory is based on the following three relationships:
Effort-Performance Relationship: The probability perceived by the individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to performance
Performance-Reward Relationship: The degree to which the individual believes that performing at a particular level will lead to the attainment of a desired outcome.
Reward-Personal Goal Relationship: The degree to which organizational rewards satisfy an individual’s personal goals and attractiveness of those potential rewards for the individual.
Linking Motivational Theories with HR Practices at the Workplace
Management by Objective (MBO)
MBO is linked to goal-setting theory. Peter Drucker proposed this concept. Broadly speaking, MBO is a process of agreeing upon objectives within an organization. MBO is often accomplished by using set targets. Objectives should be SMART i.e. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-specific. Reliance Industries Limited in India has successfully implemented MBO programme. Any MBO initiative must be implemented along side suitable adjustment in rewards and feedback system.
Employee Recognition Programmes
Employee recognition programmes cater to the social needs and self-esteem needs of the employees. These include awards, newsletter announcements regarding accomplishments of an individual or a group, appreciation letter, certificate of merit, employee of the month/year programme, annual felicitation programmes to honour outstanding performers etc.
Employee Involvement Programmes
This is aimed at augmenting the commitment of the employees towards organization by providing them a role in decision making, autonomy, empowerment and stock ownership. Thus, employee involvement strategies link the destines of the employees with the of the company/organization. For example, by granting the employees a role in decision-making, Ford Motors has benefited in terms of improved product design, cost reduction, quality improvement and overall productivity.
In number of organizations, workers participation in management is ensured by works council, works committees, quality circles etc. Besides many companies are now offering Employee Stock Ownership Plans in a big way to ensure employee involvement.
Reward System
A number of companies are resorting to performance-linked rewards in order to motivate employees. Examples are Variable Pay, Profit Sharing, Gain Sharing, Skill-based pay, flexible benefits, etc.
Monday, October 29, 2007
Case Study#1
Dressing down for success
It is so hard to dress for success these days. For Jack Steeg, Vice President for Sales at the Internet-partner division of Dell Computer in Austin, Texas, choosing what to wear to work used to be a no-brainer. He would put on a white shirt, tie, and suite and be done with it. But with the introduction of casual dress rules, picking an office wardrobe has become a major task. That is why Steeg, 51, recently hired image consultant Sherry Maysonave to give him some pointers on choosing casual outfits that befit his station.
It is the ultimate sartorial irony: Less restrictive dress codes were supposed to make life more comfortable for everyone. Instead, with the old rules gone, many people are in a state of dress-down confusion. As a result, companies are refining their dress policies or hiring consultants such as Maysonave to help.
Of course, there are some general guidelines that will keep you from getting too far off the mark. Fashion experts say men usually cannot go wrong with a sports coat in muted colours and flannel or gabardine trousers. Shirts, whether button-down or knit pullover, must have a collar. Women can wear pantsuits or tailored paints with a sweater set.
Beyond that, the rules get fuzzy. For one thing, they vary by region and industry. Not surprisingly, the East Coast and Midwest are more conservative than the West Coast. About 50% of the financial, insurance and real estate companies allow casual dress once a week, but just 34% permit it all the time, according to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). The SHRM says 44% of all businesses have adopted all-casual, all the time policies, up from 36% in 1998.
Companies have also learnt that if they do not lay down specific policies, the word ‘dress casual’ can be subject to wide interpretation. Three years ago, when Development Counselors expanded its Casual Friday dress-code to five days a week, its 25 employees were delighted. But then, they started wearing just anything they wanted –torn jeans, gym clothes, tube tops. Things got so out of hand that management formed a committee to devise an official dress policy. It then attached the new guidelines to employee handbook.
Tow years ago, the Austin office of Kennedy-Wilson International, a Los Angeles commercial real estate firm, adopted a casual Friday policy and sent out a brief statement about appropriate dress, nixing such items as sundresses and jogging suits. More recently, when the introduced a new arrangement –business casual Monday through Thursday and plain casual on Friday, they revised the requirements considerably. Example: Monday through Thursday men have to wear shirts with collars and muted patterns; Friday, Hawaiian shirts are OK.
When companies turn to image consultants, they are usually seeking guidance for more than just deciding whether, say, open toed shoes are acceptable. They also must make sure policies are not potentially discriminating. Ideally, that means that if you indicate specific restrictions t women, you ought to do the same for men, and vice versa. Sometimes, these things are held up legally for weeks. Some consultants conduct seminars for managers in how to enforce the rules. Isbecque, for example, leads role playing exercises, holding up photographs of specific infractions and asking participants to demonstrate how they would confront a guilty employee. The bottom line is that although suits and tie may never regain their once ubiquitous presence in the workplace, companies are stopping well short of anything that goes.
Questions for discussion:
Discuss the issue of dress code in contemporary organizations.
Present arguments in for and against dress code at the workplace.
From perception point of view, why do you think there is such a variation in how employees interpret dress policies? What, if anything, should be done for the differing perceptions?
How the people in India would respond to casual dress policy at the workplace?
(Courtesy: Organizational Behaviour by Fred Luthans, (10th edition) McGrawHill International Edition, 2005)
It is so hard to dress for success these days. For Jack Steeg, Vice President for Sales at the Internet-partner division of Dell Computer in Austin, Texas, choosing what to wear to work used to be a no-brainer. He would put on a white shirt, tie, and suite and be done with it. But with the introduction of casual dress rules, picking an office wardrobe has become a major task. That is why Steeg, 51, recently hired image consultant Sherry Maysonave to give him some pointers on choosing casual outfits that befit his station.
It is the ultimate sartorial irony: Less restrictive dress codes were supposed to make life more comfortable for everyone. Instead, with the old rules gone, many people are in a state of dress-down confusion. As a result, companies are refining their dress policies or hiring consultants such as Maysonave to help.
Of course, there are some general guidelines that will keep you from getting too far off the mark. Fashion experts say men usually cannot go wrong with a sports coat in muted colours and flannel or gabardine trousers. Shirts, whether button-down or knit pullover, must have a collar. Women can wear pantsuits or tailored paints with a sweater set.
Beyond that, the rules get fuzzy. For one thing, they vary by region and industry. Not surprisingly, the East Coast and Midwest are more conservative than the West Coast. About 50% of the financial, insurance and real estate companies allow casual dress once a week, but just 34% permit it all the time, according to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM). The SHRM says 44% of all businesses have adopted all-casual, all the time policies, up from 36% in 1998.
Companies have also learnt that if they do not lay down specific policies, the word ‘dress casual’ can be subject to wide interpretation. Three years ago, when Development Counselors expanded its Casual Friday dress-code to five days a week, its 25 employees were delighted. But then, they started wearing just anything they wanted –torn jeans, gym clothes, tube tops. Things got so out of hand that management formed a committee to devise an official dress policy. It then attached the new guidelines to employee handbook.
Tow years ago, the Austin office of Kennedy-Wilson International, a Los Angeles commercial real estate firm, adopted a casual Friday policy and sent out a brief statement about appropriate dress, nixing such items as sundresses and jogging suits. More recently, when the introduced a new arrangement –business casual Monday through Thursday and plain casual on Friday, they revised the requirements considerably. Example: Monday through Thursday men have to wear shirts with collars and muted patterns; Friday, Hawaiian shirts are OK.
When companies turn to image consultants, they are usually seeking guidance for more than just deciding whether, say, open toed shoes are acceptable. They also must make sure policies are not potentially discriminating. Ideally, that means that if you indicate specific restrictions t women, you ought to do the same for men, and vice versa. Sometimes, these things are held up legally for weeks. Some consultants conduct seminars for managers in how to enforce the rules. Isbecque, for example, leads role playing exercises, holding up photographs of specific infractions and asking participants to demonstrate how they would confront a guilty employee. The bottom line is that although suits and tie may never regain their once ubiquitous presence in the workplace, companies are stopping well short of anything that goes.
Questions for discussion:
Discuss the issue of dress code in contemporary organizations.
Present arguments in for and against dress code at the workplace.
From perception point of view, why do you think there is such a variation in how employees interpret dress policies? What, if anything, should be done for the differing perceptions?
How the people in India would respond to casual dress policy at the workplace?
(Courtesy: Organizational Behaviour by Fred Luthans, (10th edition) McGrawHill International Edition, 2005)
OB Handout # 2
Perceptip and Attribution
What is perception?
According to Stephen P Robbins, Perception is a process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order to give meaning to their environment. The term originated from a Latin word ‘percepio’ meaning receiving, collecting, action of taking possession, apprehension with the mind or senses.
Fred Luthans has defned Perception as a complicated interactions of selection, organization and interpretation of stimuli. According to Luthans, the perceptual process comprises of External environment—Confrontation—Registration—Interpretation—Feedback—Behaviour—Consequence.
Perceptual Process
Objects in the environment—Observation—Perceptual Selection—Perceptual Organization—Interpretation—Response
Perceptual Selectivity
Perceptual selection is the process by which people filter out irrelevant or less significant information so that they can deal with the most important matters.
Perceptual Selection is determined by
External Factors
Internal Factors
External Factors affecting perceptual selection:
Size: The larger the size, the more likely it is to be perceived. The tallest person in the office will invariably be noticed.
Intensity: The more intense an external factor (bright light, loud noise, high pitch sound etc.) the more likely it is to be perceived. One may notice that the TV commercials always have high pitch as compared to normal telecast.
Contrast: External factors that stand out against the background or things that are not which people expect are more likely to be perceived.
Motion: A moving factor is more likely to be perceived than stationary factor. Films (motion pictures) attract people more than a static picture.
Repetition: A repeated factor is more likely to be noticed. Marketing managers use this principle in trying to get attention of the prospective customers.
Novelty and familiarity: Either novelty or familiarity will can attract attention. People would quickly notice a person riding an elephant on a busy street in Delhi. On the other hand, one is likely to spot a familiar face in a crowd or a familiar voice even if there is a lot of noise and confusion.
A combination of these or similar factor may be operating at any time to affect perception. Along with the internal factors, they determine whether any particular stimulus is more or less likely to be noticed.
Internal factors affecting perceptual selection:
Personality: Personality has an interesting influence on what and how people perceive. For example, conscientious people tend to pay more attention to external environmental cues than does a less conscientious person. Less conscientious persons are impulsive, careless, and irresponsible. They see their environment as hectic and unstable which affects the way they make perceptual selections. On the other hand, more conscientious people organize their perceptions into neat categories, allowing themselves to retrieve data quickly and in an organized manner. In other words, they are careful, methodical, and disciplined in making perceptual selections.
Learning: Learning determines the development of perceptual sets. A perceptual set is an expectation of a particular interpretation based on past experiences with the same or an identical object. In organizational settings, past experiences of the managers and employees influence their perceptions to a great extent.
Motivation: A person’s most urgent needs and desires at any particular time can influence perception. People perceive things that promise to help satisfy their needs and that they have found rewarding in the past. Also, according to Pollyanna principle, people process pleasant event more efficiently and accurately than they do unpleasant events. For example, an employee who receives both positive and negative feedback during the appraisal meeting may more easily and clearly remember the positive statements than the negative ones.
Perceptual Organization
Figure-ground: Perceived objects stand out as separable from their general background. In the context of organizations, a company may import a new technology in order to compete in the globalized economy. Here import of a new technology is a figure and global competitive environment is the background. The employees will immediately notice the installation of new technology whereas the global competitive environment is not visible by naked eyes.
Perceptual grouping: There is a general tendency among individuals to group several stimuli together into a recognizable pattern. There are certain underlying uniformities in grouping. When simple constellations of stimuli are presented to people, they tend to group them together by closure, continuity, proximity, and similarity.
Closure: An individual may perceive a whole while one actually does not exists. The person’s perceptual process closes the gaps that are unfilled by from sensory inputs. In a formal organization, employees may either see a ‘whole’ that does not exits or not be able to put the pieces together into a ‘whole’ that does exists. For example, head of a project team may take the view that the entire team agrees to his plan of action whereas there are differing views among the team members, which remains unarticulated in a formal manner. On the other hand, a functional team might view/perceive that their objectives are the objectives of the whole company.
Continuity: An individual tend to perceive continuous lines/patterns. This leads to inflexible thinking on the part of organizational members (both managers and employees). Thus, only the obvious, continuous patterns or relationships are perceived. For example, a new design for some production process or product may be limited to obvious flows or continuous lines/patterns. New innovative ideas or designs may not be perceived.
Proximity: A group of stimuli that are close together will be perceived as a whole pattern of parts belonging together. For example, several employees in an organization may be identified as a single group because of physical proximity. Several workers who work on a particular process may be viewed as a single whole. If the output is low and the supervisor reports a number of grievances from the group, the management may perceive that all the workers working on that particular process are trouble makers whereas in some of them might be loyal and dedicated employees.
Similarity: The greater the similarity of stimuli, the greater is the tendency to perceive them as a common group. Similarity is conceptually related to proximity but in most cases stronger than proximity. In an organization, all employees who wear blue collars may be perceived as a common group, when in reality, each employee is a unique individual. This might also lead to perceptual error termed as stereotyping.
Perceptual Constancy: There are two issues. While objective reality of stimuli remains unchanged, people’s subjective reality also remains constant. That is, the individual is likely to give meaning to stimuli in the same way whenever exposed to them unless and until objective reality has been revealed more broadly by way of undoing the perceptual errors. For example, a manager in the company who believes that female employees are poor performers would continue to have the same perception until and unless the latter prove that they are better than their male colleagues.
Perceptual Context: It gives meaning and value to simple stimuli in the environment. The organizational culture and structure provide the primary context in which workers and managers perceive things. Thus, a verbal order, an e-mail message, a new policy, a suggestion, a raised eyebrow, a pat on the back takes on special meaning and value when placed in the context of work organization.
Perceptual Errors:
Accuracy of judgment:
Similarity error: People are predisposed towards those having similar traits, socio-economic-cultural background.
Contrast error: People tend to compare among the available resources and thus arrive at a conclusion that might be far from the objective reality.
Race/gender/age bias: People’s perception may be tempered by their prejudices vis-à-vis race, gender, and age.
First impression error: People may hold a long-term view about a person or thing based on first impression.
Perceptual defense: People tend to defend the way they perceive things. Once established, a person’s way of viewing the world may become highly resistant to change. Sometimes, perceptual defense may have negative consequences. This perceptual error can result in manager’s inability to perceive the need to be creative in solving problems. As a result, the individual simply proceeds as in the past even in the face of evidence that business as usual is not accomplishing anything worthwhile.
Stereotyping: It is the belief that all members of a specific groups share similar traits and behaviour. Most often, a person is put into a stereotype because the perceiver knows only the overall category to which the person belongs. However, because each individual is unique, the real traits of the person are generally quite different from those that stereotype would suggest.
Halo effect: Under halo effect, a person is perceived on the basis of a single trait. It generally occurs during performance appraisal where the supervisor rates an employee on the basis of only one trait e.g. intelligence, punctuality, cooperativeness appearance etc.
Projection: It is the tendency of seeing one’s own traits in others. Thus, individuals project their own feelings, personality characteristics attitudes, or motives onto others. Projection may be especially strong for undesirable traits that the perceivers possess but fail to recognize in themselves. People whose personality traits include stingyness, obstinacy, and disorderliness tend to rate others higher on these traits than do people who do not have these traits.
(Keep watching for updates)
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
OB Handout # 1
Introduction to Organization
(Students are requested to study the textbooks by Fred Luthans and Stephen P Robbins for a better understanding of the subject)
What is an Organization?
Organization is a consciously coordinated social unit, composed of a group of people, which functions on a relatively continuous basis to achieve common goal or a set of goals.
Organization is a collection of people who work together to achieve individual or organizational goals.
Organization is group of people with specific responsibilities acting together for achieving specific purpose.
Organization is a social arrangement that pursues collective goals.
Organization is a collection of people working together in a division of labour to achieve common purpose.
While Henry Fayol emphasized that the purpose of an organization was to get work done in a specialized, machine-like function, Peter Drucker proposed that ‘the organization is above all, social, it is people’.
According to Herbert Simon, an Organization influences its members by
Division of Labour
Standard Practices
Decision making
Communication
Training
What is behaviour?
Behaviour is the pattern of how a person responds to a stimulus.
Responses can be influenced by
Culture: the shared patterns of behaviors and interactions, cognitive constructs, and affective understanding that are learned through a process of socialization. These shared patterns identify the members of a culture group while also distinguishing those of another group.
Attitude: a hypothetical construct that represents an individual's like or dislike for an item; mental position relative to a way of thinking or being. The current popular usage of attitude implies a negative mindset, a "chip on the shoulder" behavior, and an inner anger toward the prevailing majority of thought.
Emotion: a feeling that is private and subjective; a state of psychological arousal an expression or display of distinctive somatic and autonomic responses.
Values: beliefs of a person or social group in which they have an emotional investment (either for or against something)
Ethics: response based on what is right; the process of determining how one should hold the interests of various stakeholders, taking into account moral values/principles
Authority: the power or right to give orders or make decisions
Coercion: obtaining a response by use force; compelling a person to behave in an involuntary way (whether through action or inaction) by use of threats/intimidation
Persuasion: obtaining a response by convincing a person; the process of guiding people toward the adoption of an idea, attitude, or action by rational and symbolic (though not always logical) means. It is strategy of problem-solving relying on "appeals" rather than force.
Genetics: inherited from parents; pertaining to genes or any of their effects.
What is Organizational Behaviour?
A field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structures have on behaviour within organizations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organization’s effectiveness.
–Stephen P Robbins
Organizational Behaviour is directly concerned with the understanding, prediction and control of human behaviour in organizations.
–Fred Luthans
An academic discipline concerned with understanding and describing human behaviour in an organizational environment. (This definition seeks to shed light on the whole complex human factor in organizations by identifying causes and effects of behaviour)
–Keith Davis
A systematic study of the nature of organizations: how they begin, grow, and develop and their influence on individuals, groups, organizations and institutions.
–Joe Kelly
A field that seeks knowledge of behaviour in organizational settings by systematically studying individual, group and organizational processes.
–Baron & Greenberg
The academic discipline of Organizational Behavior encompasses three broad areas:
Behavior of People in Organizations
OB draws on psychology, anthropology and sociology to gain insight into the behavior of individuals in organizational settings. Topics studied include:
perception, cognition, learning
personality and motivation
leadership, power, conformity, communication
decision making
Organizational Structure
Organizations consist of people organized to achieve organizational goals (like manufacture cars). One of the most important strategic elements of an organization is its structure: how the people are arranged so as to produce what the organization produces. Topics include:
task identification and division of labor
departmentation
coordination and control mechanisms
processes and procedures, such as promotion, hiring policies, compensation
organizational form (e.g., bureaucracy)
size
centralization of decision-making
the relationships among these variables
Behaviour of organizations
Just as we can study the interactions of individuals with the organization and with each other, we can also study the interactions of organizations with their environments, which include individual citizens and other organizations including the government. Some of the behaviors of organizations that we are interested in include:
adoption of new practices such as
downsizing
team-based structure
domestic partner benefits (e.g., partners of gay employees get full medical coverage)
re-engineering
environmental protection ("green" practices)
adaptation to changing conditions
global competition
increasing pace of technological change
changing social structure (e.g., status of women)
Why to study Organizational Behaviour?
Organizational Behaviour facilitates the process of explaining, understanding, predicting, maintaining and changing employee behaviour in an organizational setting.
Organizational Behaviour focuses on five levels of analysis:
Individual
Inter-personal
Group
Organizational
Environmental
Study of Organizational Behaviour becomes important because of broad nature and scope of the subject:
Organizational Behavioour is Inter-disciplinary: It integrates knowledge from various relevant disciplines e.g. Psychology, Sociology, Political Science, Anthropology, Economics, Medical Science, Engineering etc.
Organizational Behaviour is an Applied Science: It is oriented towards understanding the forces that affect behaviour so that their influences can be predicted, monitored and guided towards better and effective functioning of the organization.
Organizational Behaviour uses Scientific Methods: It follwos the scientific methods and uses logical theory in its investigation and answering the research questions. It is empirical, interpretative, critical and creative science.
Behavioural Orientation: It is directly connected with the human side of management. More precisely, it looks at all the management functions from behavioural perspective.
Contingency Approach: There are few absolutes in Organizational Behaviour. The approach is directed towards developing managerial actions that are most appropriate for a specific situation.
Challenges and Opportunities for Organizational Behaviour
Responding to globalization
Shifting Work/Employment Relationships
Work-life balance
Empowering people
Ethical behaviour
Responding to labour shortage
Improving people skill
Managing workforce diversity
Improving Quality and Productivity
Shifting Work-Employment Relationship
Robotized workplaces
Unmanned workstation
Officeless work
Open 24 hours, 24X7
Contract for work –Contract of work
Employed worker—Independent Contractor
Permanent—Temporary
Office—HomeShifting Work-Employment Relationship
Fixed—Flexible working hours
Jobs as property—Jobs as prosperity
Lifetime employment—Lifetime employability
Single task/career—multiple task career
Individual—Team
Functional—Cross-functional
Managers–Facilitators
Autonomous hierarchies—Independent Partnerships
Employee as a servant—Employee as a partner
Loyalty—Competence
Control—Commitment
Direction—Empowerment
Theoretical Framework of Organizational Behaviour
Behavioural Framework:
Behaviour can be best explained in terms of stimulus—Response. That is, a particular stimulus will lead to a particular response. However, responses can be conditioned or trained by presenting conditioned stimulus/consequences.
Classical Conditioning: Ivan Pavlov and John Watson developed this theory. According to this theory, learning/conditioning takes place when Stimulus-Response connection is established. Classical conditioning may be defined as a process in which a neutral stimulus, when repeatedly paired with an unconditioned stimulus, becomes a conditioned stimulus that elicits a conditioned response.
This may be explained as under:
Unconditioned Stimulus—Unconditioned Response
Conditioned stimulus—Conditioned Response.
Ivan Pavlov developed the theory of classical conditioning on the basis of his famous experiment with dog. Whenever he presented meat powder (Unconditioned Stimulus) to the dog, it salivated (Unconditioned Response). The dog did not salivate when a bell rung (Neutral Stimulus/Conditioned Stimulus). Later, Pavlov rang the bell (Conditioned Stimulus) whenever he presented meat powder (Unconditioned Stimulus) to the dog. He repeated the exercise several times. Afterwards, Pavlov rang the bell (Conditioned Stimulus) without presenting the meat powder (Unconditioned Stimulus) and found that the dog actually salivated (Conditioned Response).
Critics of Classical Conditioning theory say that this theory at best explains reflexive (involuntary/automatic/impulsive) behaviour.
Operant Conditioning: B F Skinner developed Operant Conditioning theory in order to overcome the weaknesses of Classical Conditioning. In Operant Conditioning, responses to a particular stimulus occur on the basis on consequences of that response. Thus there is strong association between consequence and response to a particular stimulus.
This may be explained as under:
Stimulus—Response—Consequences—Future Response on the basis of consequence
Consequences can be any of the following:
Something good can begin or be presented
Something good can end or be taken away
Something bad can begin or be presented
Something bad can end or be taken away
Consequences have to be immediate and clearly linked to the responses.
Behavioural framework debunked the Freudian proposition that behaviour came from unconscious.
Cognitive Framework:
Cognition means a mental process involved in knowing, learning and understanding things. Edward Tolman propounded this theory in 1940s. According to cognitive Framework, cognition precedes response/behaviour and constitute inputs into person’s thinking, perception, problem solving and information processing.
The theory may be explained as under:
Stimulus-Cognition-Response
According to Tolman, behaviour of a person is determined by Expectancy, Demand and Intention based on his/her cognition. He developed this theory on the basis of his experiment with white rat. He found that a rat could learn to run through an intricate maze with a purpose and direction towards a goal (food). He observed that at each choice point in the maze, expectations were established. In other words, the rat learned to expect that certain cognitive cues associated with the choice point might eventually lead to food. If the rat actually received the food, the association between the cue and expectancy was established and learning occurred.
In Organizational Behaviour, Cognitive Framework has been applied mainly in motivation. Expectations, attributions, locus of control and goal-setting are all cognitive concepts that represent purposefulness of the subject.
Social Cognitive Framework:
This framework was developed by Albert Bandura who believes that human behaviour can best be explained in terms of a continuous reciprocal interaction among cognitive, behavioural and environmental determinants. Most of our responses are guided by observation and imitation.
According to this theory, human behaviour is determined by five basic capabilities:
Symbolizing: An individual associates a symbol to his future responses.
Forethought: An individual anticipates the consequences and accordingly makes a choice of responses.
Observational: An individual observes others before choosing his/her own responses.
Self-regulatory: an individual controls his/her action by setting internal standards (aspired levels of performance) and by evaluating discrepancy between the standard and the performance
Self-reflective: An individual reflects back on his/her actions and perceptually determine the causes of success or failure and possible measure to improve the quality of responses.
(P.S. feedback invited from the students to improve the content of the website. Send in your e-mails to jha.srirang@gmail.com)
Monday, October 22, 2007
Syllabus for PGDM(CRM)
Apeejay School of Management, New Delhi
PGDM (CRM) 2007-2009
Organizational Behaviour
Faculty: Dr Srirang Jha
Pedagogy:
Lectures
Case Studies
Project Work/Assignments
Evaluation:
Internal: 40%
Assignments/Surprise Tests: 15%
Mid-term exam: 15%
Class Participation: 5%
Attendance: 5%
External: 60%
Course Outline
1. Introduction to Organization Behaviour
2. Perception and Attribution
3. Personality and Attitudes
4. Job Satisfaction
5. Motivational Needs and Processes
6. Behaviour of Groups and Teams
7. Organizational Culture
8. Organziational Restructuring
9. Stress and Conflict
10. Leadership, Delegation and Empowerment
Reading List
Jon L. Pierce, Donald G. Gardner, Management & Organizational Behaviour, Thomson Learning
Luthans, Fred, Organizational Behaviour, McGraw Hill, New Delhi
Robbins, Stephen P., Organizational Behaviour,
Slocum, John W., and Hellriegel, Don, Fundamentals of Organizational Behaviour, Thomson Learning
Relevant Journals, Business Newspapers
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)