Chapter 8 Flashcards
Learning
Reflects relatively permanent changes in an employee’s knowledge or skill that result from from experience
decision making
The process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to solve a problem
It takes most employees anywhere from ___ to ____ to perform their job at a satisfactory level.
Three months to an year
Expertise
The knowledge and skill that distinguish experts from novices and less experienced people
True learning only occurs when…
Changes in behavior become relatively permanent and are repeated over time
Two types of knowledge
Explicit and tacit
Explicit knowledge
Information you’re likely to think about when you picture someone sitting down at a desk to learn; information that is relatively easily communicated and a large part of what companies teach during training sessions
Tactic knowledge
What employees can typically learn only through experience; not easily communicated
How do employees learn these types of knowledge?
Through reinforcement, observation, and experience
Antecedent
Condition that precedes behavior
Behavior
Action performed by employee
Consequence
Result that occurs after behavior
Positive reinforcement
When a post e outcome follows a desired behavior
Negative reinforcement
When an unwanted outcome is removed following a desired behavior
Consequence is added and wanted outcome
Positive reinforcement
Consequence is removed and wanted outcome
Extinction
Consequence is added and unwanted outcome
Punishment
Consequence is removed and unwanted outcome
Negative reinforcement
Punishment
When an unwanted outcome follows and unwanted behavior
Extinction
When there is the removal of a consequence following an unwanted behavior
In general, __ and __ should be the most common forms of reinforcement used by managers to create learning among employees
Positive reinforcement and extinction
Schedules of reinforcement
The timing of when contingencies are applied
Types of Schedules of Reinforcement
- Continuous
- Fixed interval
- Variable interval
- Fixed ratio
- Variable ratio
Continuous reinforcement
The simplest schedule and happens when a specific consequence follows each and every occurrence of a desired behavior
New learning is acquired most rapidly under a ___ schedule.
Continuous
Fixed interval schedule
Workers are rewarded after a certain amount of time,and the length of time between reinforcement periods stays the same
Variable interval schedules
Designed to reinforce behavior at more random points in time
Fixed ratio schedules
Reinforce behaviors after a certain number of them have been exhibited
Variable ratio schedules
Rewarded people after a varying number of exhibited behavior
Social learning theory
Argues that people in organizations have the ability to learn through the observation of others
Behavioral modeling
When employees observe the actions of others, learn from what they observe, and then repeat the observed behavior
Behavioral Modeling Process
Attentional, retention, production, reinforcement
Learning orientation
Building competence is deemed more important than demonstrating competence
Learning-orienteered people
Enjoy working on new kind of tasks, even if they fail during their early experiences
Performance-prove orientation
Focuses on demonstrating their competence so that other think favorably of them
Performance-avoid orientation
Focuses on demonstrating their competence so that others will not think poorly of them
Programmed decisions
Decisions that become somewhat automatic because people’s knowledge allows them to recognize and identify a situation and the course of action that needs to be taken
Intuition can be a very effective way to make decision, but only when those decisions have a….
High level of domaine expertise
Crisis situation
A change-whether shudder or evolving-that results in an urgent problem that must be addressed immediately
Five steps for communicating intent
- Here’s what i think we face
- Here’s what i think we should do
- Here’s why
- Here’s what we should keep our eye on
- Now, talk to me
Non programmed decision
Employees have to make sense of the environment, understand the problem, come with solution, overcome
As employees move up the corporate ladder, decisions become ____ programmed.
Less
Rational section-making model
Offers a step by step approach to making decision that maximize outcomes by examining all available alternatives
Bound rationality
The notion that decision makers simply do not have the ability or resources to process all available information and alternative to make an optimal decision
Satisficing
Results when decision makers selected the first acceptable alternative considered
Perception
The process of selecting, organizing, storing, and retrieving information about the environment
Selective perception
The tendency for people to see their environment only as it affect them and as it is consistent with their expectations
Projection bias
People project their own thoughts, attitudes, and motives onto other people
Social identity theory
People identify themselves by the groups to which they belong and perceive and judge others by their group memberships
Stereotype
Occurs when assumptions are made about others on the basis of their membership in a social group
Heuristics
Simple, efficient rules of thumb that allow us to make decisions more easily
Availability bias
The tendency for people to base their judgments on information that is easier to recall
Fundamental attribution error
Argues that people have the tendency to judge others’ behaviors as due to internal factors
Self-serving bias
Occurs when we attribute our own failures to external factors and our own successes to internal factors
Before judging, think of these three things
- Consensus
- Distinctiveness
- Consistency
Escalation of commitment
The deception to continue to follow a failing course of action
Learning ____ influence job performance
Does
Learning is ____ correlated with task performance.
Moderately
Learning is ____ related to organizational commitment.
Weakly
Training
Represents a systematic effort by organizations to facilitate the learning of job-related knowledge and behavior
Knowledge transfer
Transferring knowledge from older, experienced workers to younger employees
Behavior modeling training
Employees can observe and learn from those in the company with significant amounts of tacit knowledge
Communities of practice
Groups of employees who work together and learn from one another by collaborating over an extended period of time
Transfer of training
Occurs when the knowledge, skills, and behaviors used on the job are maintained. By the learner once training ends and generalized to the workplace once the learner returns to the job
Climate for transfer
An environment that can support the use of new skills
True or false: Learning has a weak positive effect on commitment
True
True or false: Under enormous pressure to make a decision, Emily ends up selecting the first acceptable solution without considering any more possibilities. Emily has engaged in satisficing behavior.
True
____ is when an unwanted outcome follows an unwanted behavior.
Punishment
______ is the process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to solve a problem.
Decision making
As a team leader for C & C Engineering, Colin needs to choose the best possible candidate to head up a sensitive project. The client had worked with another engineering firm whose inexperience resulted in structural defects that need to be corrected, and now they have brought the project to Colin’s firm. They want someone who can get up to speed on the project quickly and make sound decisions on the job. With little room for error, Colin’s best choice for project manager would be
Roland, who experienced a number of failures early in his career two decades ago, but went back to school and set out to learn his trade from the bottom up, taking on new and different projects along the way.
Soon after becoming the new manager of operations at the Cooper Motors, a local car dealership, Finn discovers that employees are coming in late to work, taking long breaks, and behaving unprofessionally while on the job. After considering the situation, he introduces a new set of guidelines, along with contingencies of reinforcement. Those who show up on time, do not exceed their allotted break schedules, and show themselves behaving professionally at all times while on duty during the next month will enjoy a steak dinner, courtesy of management. Those who fail to meet the requirements, on the other hand, will be invited to stay late for three nights in a row and attend an unpaid training session. The contingencies Finn is planning to implement—the steak dinner on the one hand and the unpaid training sessions on the other—are, respectively,
positive reinforcement and punishment.
Wes’s employer has established a course of learning for him. From the standpoint of organizational behavior, this is particularly important because learning will help him to
become a better decision maker.
Jerry and his brother Joe both work in manufacturing plants, but Jerry gets a regular paycheck, whereas Joe is paid according to the number of items he produces. The difference between the way that Jerry gets paid and the way Joe gets paid is the difference between ______ schedules.
fixed interval and fixed ratio
Brad is widely acknowledged as one of the best sales trainers in the real estate business. He has often been described as having an intuitive grasp not only of real estate sales techniques, but also of the methods for teaching them. One day after a seminar, a new trainee named Tiffany approaches him and asks him to teach her how to do what he does. Brad mentions to Tiffany that, though he would love to teach her, he just can’t. Brad was
right, because what he does is based on experience and his personal qualities, and is probably not something he could teach someone else how to do, even if he wanted to.
Denise is a freelance writer who works with a number of clients. She used to charge by the hour, but she has now switched to charging by the page. In other words, she has moved from a ______ schedule.
fixed interval to a fixed ratio
The leadership at Morgan Industrial Chemicals has been confronted with a crisis: someone incorrectly filed a purchase order from a key client, thus resulting in a shipment of the wrong materials. Not knowing this, the client proceeded to make use of the chemicals—with disastrous results. This has never happened to the company before, and although they have procedures for addressing various contingencies, the situation at hand requires quick thinking. The task of addressing the problem has fallen to Beth, who is an experienced manager, and she readily comes up with a solution. However, at first glance her idea sounds counterintuitive, and she needs the immediate support of her entire team to get behind her idea quickly. Therefore she should
explain the situation, present her solution and reasoning, point out what the team should be on the lookout for, and invite feedback from team members.
The senator was having trouble getting support for his pet piece of legislation, called The Omnibus Tax Increase Act. After soliciting input from his staff, he renamed it An Act to Protect the American Way of Life. Suddenly, public opinion was on his side, and he soon had the votes he needed. The reason lies in a decision-making bias known as
framing
One of Val’s biggest challenges as the leader of a sales team is getting team members to fill out and file their paperwork properly at the end of the day. He has tried in a number of ways to get them to comply, but nothing seems to work. He does know that no one likes to lead the daily sales meeting, which is a task that revolves among the team members on a regular basis, and that gives him an idea. The best way to achieve the result he desires is to announce that employees who
file their paperwork correctly and on time five days in a row will be exempted from leading the sales meeting the next time their turn comes around.
When a worker comes late to the work site, others are likely to make an external attribution under conditions of
high consensus, high distinctiveness, and low consistency.
True or False: Tacit knowledge is the kind of information that can be easily communicated during training sessions or using written manuals.
False
Although Hal did not win the drawing for the statewide lottery, which sells thousands of tickets, he is much more confident of winning the drawing for the nationwide lottery, which sells millions of tickets. The reason is that whereas he bought just one ticket for the statewide game, he bought ten tickets for the nationwide one. Hal’s reasoning is an example of
the ratio bias effect.
In her job as a research analyst for a stock brokerage, Caroline spends a lot of time at her computer. Today her boss told her, “Find out everything you can about the textile industry in the Philippines,” and she immediately sat down and typed a few words into a search engine. Soon she had a dossier on the subject, gleaned from her research on the Internet. The information Caroline acquired in this way is an example of ______ knowledge.
Explicit
When behaviors are reinforced at random points in time, ______ is being used.
a variable interval schedule
At Sound & Light, a store that sells computers, stereos, and accessories, the sales team has monthly evaluations, and the top five performers receive bonuses. This is an example of
a fixed interval schedule.
