O Flashcards
describe self-directed teams
- Group of empowered individuals working together to reach a common goal
- May be organized for long-term or short-term objectives
Effective because
- Provide employee empowerment
- Ensure core job characteristics
- Meet individual psychological needs
self directed teams: how to maximize effectiveness
Ensure those who have legitimate contributions are on the team
Provide management support
Ensure the necessary training
Endorse clear objectives and goals
Financial and non-financial rewards
Supervisors must release control
Benefits of teams and expanded job designs
Improved quality of work life Improved job satisfaction Increased motivation Allows employees to accept more responsibility Improved productivity and quality Reduced turnover and absenteeism
discuss construct validity as it relates to an O topic. Discuss implications for measurement and model building.
MTMM is often used to establish construct validity in org research in order to take into account sources of error variance. MTTM helps to validate measures and evaluate how error affects the measurement of a construct. Some error in measurement can be attributed to method variance, and some to random error, which MTMM helps disentangle. However, here is no clear, agreed upon procedure for analyzing and interpreting MTMM matrices. Thus, the same data may produce different conclusions. Each method is built on different assumptions and is appropriate in different situations. This poses a problem in applying this method in organizational research. The magnitudes of the differences between correlations is not addressed in MTMM, and the amount of variance in measurement due to method is considered to be constant across the data; this is an important discrepancy because the magnitude of the differences between correlations provides information about the degree of discriminant validity that is present. Finally, there is no way to partial out the variation in measures due to different sources (traits, methods, random error). Thus, this procedure may be limited in its utility because of Type I and Type II errors that have the potential to result from its application.
Another common method is to use key informants. Key informants provide org researchers with information on organizational structure, environment, social climate. However, this method has been criticized due to the potential for measurement error in key informant reports. The process of serving as a key informant can be complex and relies heavily on individual judgment. Although an informant may attempt to provide objective information, their inferences about the organizational environment will be construed through their personal experiences. Thus, this task is anything but objective; measurement error related to this subjectivity is a major problem. There is little evidence offered on the validity of this method.
What is the answer to this issue, then? CFA is one way to ameliorate the issues associated with various methods of establishing construct validity in organizational research. There are fewer assumptions associated with CFA and there is more information provided about reliability and validity than the other methods. Variance is partitioned out and an overall degree of fit is provided. Inferences made are based on statistical criteria, such as the chi square test, rather than rules of thumb or qualitative inferences.
importance of employee attitudes
employees who are satisfied and committed more likely to attend work, stay with organization, engage in OCBs and ethical behaviors; less likely to engage in CWBs
relationship between job sat and performance
The relationship between job sat (JS) and performance is not consistent across jobs or people
Complex jobs = relationship is stronger between JS and performance
The relationships between JS and comm, attendance, performance, turnover are not as strong as you would expect, but this is probably due to the fact that there are so many other factors that affect work behaviors (e.g., you want to miss work but can’t cause you need money, want to leave the job but can’t cause of the job market)
Thus, job sat and commitment is related more to the desire to turnover or miss work that they are to actual behaviors
What causes employees to be satisfied with and committed to their jobs?
These attitudes are multifaceted;
A person may be satisfied with some aspects of their job but not others
individual differences, core self-evaluations, culture, intelligence, satisfaction with other aspects of life, meeting employees expectations about the job, person-org fit and person job fit, nature of tasks, rewards, chance for growth and challenge
describe the construct of commitment
Three motivational facets to commitment
Affective: extent to which an employee wants to remain with an org
Continuance: extent to which an employee believes she must remain with the org due to time, expense, effort already put in/difficulty in finding another job
Normative: extent to which an employee feels obligated to the org and must remain with them (an org has invested a lot in them so they feel ethically obligated to remain)
individual differences that affect job satisfaction
Individual difference theory:
some variability in job sat is due to an individual’s personal tendency across situations to enjoy what she does
Certain people will be generally satisfied and motivated regardless of the type of job they hold
Research supports the notion that job sat is consistent across time and situations within people
Core self-evaluations & job satisfaction
Four personality variables are especially likely to be related to people’s predisposition for job sat (Judge, Locke, Durham, 1997)
Emotional stability
Self-esteem
Self-efficacy
Internal locus of control
Meta analyses (Judge & Bono, 2001) found these four variables related to job sat and performance
Intelligence relationship to job satisfaction
Research suggests that smarter people have slightly lower job satisfaction levels for non-complex jobs
In complex jobs, the relationship between intelligence and job sat is negligible
Intelligence and turnover not related
How can an org influence job satisfaction?
An employee’s needs can be met in a variety of nonword actives such as hobbies and volunteer work
An org should work toward fulfilling the needs that it can control
Employee expectations about the job & job satisfaction
Discrepancy between employee needs, values, and expectations vs. reality of the job = more dissatisfaction and less motivation
It’s important that applicants have realistic job expectations
When psychological contract is breached, job sat and org commitment go down and intentions to turnover increase
role of tasks and co workers in job satisfaction
Nature of work itself is a very important factor in job sat
People who enjoy who they work with have higher job sat
measuring job sat & commitment
most orgs use their own custom designed inventories, but commonly used ones include Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (MSQ) for JS
and for JC, Allen & Meyer (1990) is most commonly used
consequences of dissatisfaction and other negative work attitudes
absenteeism, turnover, CWBs
how to decrease absenteeism
Well pay (paying employees for unused sick days) is the top way to decrease absenteeism
Financial bonus, games, PTO, recognition programs also effective
Effects of turnover
The effect of turnover on org performance is mediated by the strength of an org’s HR efforts. Turnover will most affect orgs that don’t invest in their employees
Reducing Turnover
Administer attitude surveys or do exit interviews
Understand that turnover is a process of disengagement from the org that takes days, weeks, months
Consider fit during selection process
Prevent unmet expectations: use RJPs, referrals, provide good environment and opportunities for advancement, competitive pay
Focus on improving job embeddedness
Job embeddedness
Job embeddedness is the extent to which an employee has links to their jobs and community, the importance of the these links, and how easy they could be broken and reestablished elsewhere
Higher levels of embeddedness = less turnover
describe leader emergence
People who become leaders possess traits or characteristics different from people who do not become leaders
Research indicates that to some extent, people are born with a desire to lead or not lead
We inherit certain traits and abilities that might influence our decision to seek leadership
individual differences and leadership
High conscientiousness, openness, extraversion, masculinity, creativity and authoritarianism and low in neuroticism are more likely to be leaders
High self monitors are more likely to lead, and More intelligent people are more likely to lead
research on motivation to lead
At first research indicated that traits weren’t strongly associated with leadership but later on we figured out that it’s probably because motivation to lead is very complex
motivation to lead: factors
Three motivational factors of leadership
Affective ID: enjoy being in charge and leading others
Noncalculative: perceive that leadership will result in personal gain
Social-Normative: sense of duty to lead
People high in these motivational factors tend to obtain leadership experience and have confidence in their leadership skills
Things that play a role in leader performance
traits/individual differences, cognitive ability, needs, gender, task vs. person orientation, initiating structure
leader performance: traits
extraversion, openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness were positively related to leader performance
management, decision making, and oral communication skills —-> leadership effectiveness
High self monitors —-> leader performance: Has more to do with what leaders do vs. what traits they possess (e.g., a leader might have the trait of shyness but outwardly be more open because it’s important to their job)
Some research on trait theory suggests that certain traits are necessary requirements for leadership excellence but that they don’t guarantee it
leader performance: cognitive ability
moderate correlation between cognitive ability and leadership performance
Cognitive ability is most important when the leader is not distracted by stressful situations and uses a more directive e leadership style
leader performance: needs
Need for power, achievement, and affiliation
Need for achievement —> leader performance
Leadership motive pattern: High need for power, low need for affiliation —> high performing managers
Effective leaders should be more concerned about results vs. being well liked by others
Leaders shouldn’t place their need to be liked above the needs and goals of the organization
leader performance: task vs. person orientation
Three major schools of that have postulated that differences in leader performance can be attributed to differences in the extent to which leaders are task vs person oriented
Task centered leaders
Leaders who define and structure their roles as well as the roles of their subordinates
Theory X leaders
Believe that employees are extrinsically motivated and thus lead by giving directives and setting goals
leader performance: initiating structure
Extent to which leaders define and structure their roles and the roles of their subordinates
leader performance: unsuccessful leaders
Poor leader behavior has three major causes
Lack of leadership training given to supervisors :
Norm is to promote employees from within or hire new one directly to role
Cognitive Deficiencies :
Poor leaders unable to learn from experience and unable to think strategically; they repeat the same mistakes a lot
Personality
Many unsuccessful leaders are insecure and have one of three personality types
paranoid/passive aggressive, high likability floater, narcissist
describe contingency model of leadership
Leader performance depends on traits x situation; this theory is a situational favorability theory
Any individual’s leadership style is effective only in certain situations
Individual leadership style is not easily changed
Leadership training should concentrate on helping people understand their style of leadership and learn how to manipulate a situation so that the two align
Favorableness of a situation is determined by 3 variables :
More Task structuredness = more favorable
More Leader position power = more favorable
More positive leader-member relations = more favorable
Research has generally supported this theory
leader effectiveness: subordinate ability
Abilities and attitudes of followers influence leader effectiveness by interacting with style and characteristics of the leader
Describe the path-goal theory of leadership
Leader behaviors are accepted to the extent to which it helps subordinates achieve their goals
Supervisors adjust their behaviors to meet the needs of subordinates and this changes via the situation
A leader can adopt one of four behavioral leadership styles to handle each situation; each style will only work in certain situations
followers’ satisfaction and motivation as important theoretical mechanisms involved in the relation between leadership and follower performance, integrates OLS behaviors as a basis
not strongly empirically supported
discuss LMX theory of leadership
Concentrates on interactions between leaders and subordinates vs. in terms of situations and abilities
Leaders develop different roles and relationships with the people under them and thus act differently with different subordinates (in group or out group)
Employees with high quality LMX = high job sat, higher performance, less likely to turn over, more OCB
theory is supported, But the relationship is complicated because of differences in perceptions of the LMX:
Number of employees being supervised and impression management attempts by employees moderate the relationship between LMX and performance
behavioral theories of leadership
it falls under skills theories;
Leaders initiate ideas, informally interact with subordinates, stand up for and support subordinates, take responsibility, etc.
These theories aren’t often described in textbooks but is often the way leadership is practiced in orgs
In an applied sense, this means that we should ID leader behaviors within an org and then develop or train individuals to become effective leaders, either through experience or formal training
Leadership through decision making
Only in certain situations decisions are decisions best mad by the leader; in others, its best to involve subordinates, colleagues, or both
Leadership through Walking Around
Management by Walking Around (MBWA)
Increases communication, helps build relationships, encourages employee participation
Leadership through Power
Able to get more resources and dictate policy
describe transactional leadership theory
Task-focused behaviors like performance monitoring and consequences for performance
Three dimensions
Contigent reward; Leaders reward followers for engaging in desired behaviors
Management by exception-active:
Leaders who actively monitor performance and take corrective action when needed
Management by exception-passive :
Don’t actively monitor performance and only take corrective action when it’s serious
Discuss transformational leadership (TL) theory
Focuses on changing or transforming the goals, values, ethics, and performance of others
Visionary, charismatic, inspirational
They develop a vision and change the org to fit this vision and also motivate followers to reach the vision or long term goal
Have need to influence others, strong attitude that their beliefs and ideas are correct
Most related to the personality dimension of extraversion
Also positively related to agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience
behaviors associated with transformational leadership should serve to (i) indicate to the follower that the leader is trustworthy and (ii) emotionally attach the employee to the organization and, in turn, increase the followers’ desires to exchange the leader’s trustworthiness and good will with improved performance
Yukl (1994) guidelines for transformational leadership
Develop clear and appealing vision
Develop strategy for attaining the vision
Articulate and promote the vision
Act confident and optimistic
Express confidence in followers
Use early success in small steps to build confidence
Celebrate successes
Use dramatic, symbolic actions to emphasize key values
Lead by example
create, modify, or eliminate such cultural forms
research on TL
Yielded positive results
Judge et al 2004 meta
Strong correlations between TL and several aspects of leader effectiveness, such as follower sat, follower motivation, and group performance
But similar results for transactional
Bass 1997: TL is the most liked form of leadership and Is practiced across cultures
Hunt & Laing (1997)
Too much effort has been expended in trying to label leaders as transformational or charismatic
Proposed that excellent leadership should be defined by exemplar; is a leader similar to successful leaders or not
Good leaders possess 5 characteristics
Vision, differentiation from followers, values, communicate vision and values to others, flaws
leadership: where are we today?
Each theory has some truth, and the best theory about leadership is really some combination of the theories
Taken together, research indicates that leadership emerges as a set of interactions between:
A leader’s traits and skills
Individuals likely to be successful leaders if they
Have received leadership training and mastered leadership skills
High self monitors
High in both task and person orientations
Have leadership motive pattern (high need for power, low need for affiliation)
Are intelligent
Are emotionally stable
Possess skills and personality to be a TL
A situation’s demands and characteristics
IF an individual has the above, the their leadership performance will depend on the characteristics of the situation
Certain people will be effective leaders in certain situations when particular types of people are followers
Individuals who have a wide variety of relevant skills will one best able to be effective leaders in a larger variety of situations
Leaders who are able to adapt their interpersonal styles to fit the needs of followers will be better leaders than those who stick to just one behavioral style
It is important that the leader be able to understand the needs of the situation, the follower, or both and then behave accordingly
Follower’s needs and characteristics
Leaders who accurately recognize situational and follower needs will be more effective than those who do not
The importance of leadership :
Leadership affects org performance
Relates to job sat, commitment, intention to turnover, and OCBs
In general, the various theories suggest that employees will be highly motivated if
Predisposed via personality
Expectations have been met
Job and org are consistent with their values
Have been given achievable goals
Receive feedback on their goal attainment
Org rewards them for goal achievement
Employees perceive they’re being treated fairly
Coworkers demonstrate a high level of motivation
individual differences and work motivation
Four individual differences that are most related to work motivation are personality, self esteem, intrinsic motivation tendency, and need for achievement
Personality & work motivation
Conscientiousness best personality predictor of work performance & OCB
Extraversion most highly correlated with number of promotions received
work motivation: self esteem
consistency theory: Self esteem is a motivator to perform well on the job
Positive correlation beween self esteem and performance
High self esteem employees desire to perform at high levels and employees with low self esteem desire to perform at low levels
Chronic self esteem, situational (self-efficacy), and socially influenced
motivation: consistency theory: research & application
Research supports consistency theory
Self esteem —> motivation
Self esteem —> job performance .26 (Judge and Bono, 2001 meta)
On the basis of consistency theory, we should be able to increase performance by increasing employee self esteem and research supports this idea
Interventions designed to increase self esteem or self efficacy greatly increase job performance
Self Esteem Workshops that give insights into employee strengths raise self esteem and self efficacy
Train supervisors to communicate a feeling of confidence in employees
Manager confidence —> self esteem increase—> performance increase
Managers treat employees according to their own expectations of the employee’s performance
intrinsic motivation: work motivation
Enjoy performing the actual tasks or the challenge of successfully completing the task
Don’t need external rewards like pay or praise; in fact pay might actually decrease it
There is a debate among researchers who believe that rewards reduce intrinsic motivation and those who don’t
work motivation: needs for achievement & power
employees differ in the extent wo which the are motivated by thinned for achievement, affiliation, and power
work motivation: self-regulating behavior
The extent to which an employee will be successful depends on the employer’s ability to wisely select and set goals as well as his or her ability to monitor and adjust goals
work motivation: meeting expectations of employees
How well the job aligns with what the employee wants, values, and expects affects how motivated and satisfied an employee will be with their job
Employees come in with certain expectations of what the job should be like based on what recruiters tell them and other factors like experience or what they’ve heard; when this doesn’t align with the actual job motivation decreases
Highlights importance of RJPs
Employees compare what the org promises to do for them vs what they actually do, can retaliate if org doesn’t deliver
work motivation: job characteristics theory
Employees desire jobs that are meaningful, provide them opportunity to be autonomous, and provide them with feedback of results of efforts
Jobs have motivation potential if they allow employees to use a variety of skills and connect their efforts to an outcome (task identification) that has meaning and is useful
work motivation: needs, values, & wants
Misalignment between needs, values, and wants vs. what a job offers leads to low levels of motivation and satisfaction
work motivation: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
Has lost popularity but is still relevant for organizations on a basic level
Basic biological needs
Safety needs
Job security, org financial stability, and feeling safe in the work environment are extremely important
Social Needs
Company get togethers or sporting events
Ego Needs
Praise, awards, promotion, salary, etc.
Self-Actualization Needs
Doing the same job over and over may decrease motivation through job dissatisfaction (e.g., working on an assembly line for 10 years)
Providing employees with recognition, enrichment, and a safe workplace increases motivation and satisfaction. Primary reason why Maslow’s theory is still used in practice even though not favored in academia
work motivation: goal setting
Goal setting increases motivation
Most successful way to set goals is to use the SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time bound) method :
Specific
Properly set goals are concrete and specific (Locke & Latham, 2002)
“I will print 500 pages within the next hour” vs. “I will print as many pages as I can”
Measurable
Difficult but Attainable
Properly set goals are high but attainable
Employees will quit trying if a goal is set too high
People differ in how they set goals
People high in conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness and low in agreeableness and neuroticism set high goals
Relevant
Time Bound
Employee participation in goal setting increases the commitment to reaching the goal, but Simply participating in goal setting does not increase performance
work motivation: goal progress feedback
Feedback increases the effectiveness of goal setting
Must be given for good behaviors along with the bad
work motivation: rewards
Providing incentives can increase motivation
Operant conditioning principles are at the heart of this
Employees will engage in behaviors for which they are rewarded and avoid behaviors for which they are punished; this is a very effective method of increasing motivation
factors to consider in determining effectiveness of an incentive program
timing, contingency of consequences, type of incentive used, individual vs. group incentives
expectancy theory
Expectancy (E): perceived relationship between amount of effort an employee puts in and the resulting outcome
Instrumentality (I): extent to which the outcome of a workers’ performance, if noticed, results in a particular consequence
Valence (V): extent to which an employee values a particular consequence
Motivation = E(I x V)
All possible outcomes of a behavior are determined and then the valence of each is multiplied by the probability that it occurs at a particular performance level, and then the sum of these products is multiplied by the expectancy of an employee putting in the effort to attain the necessary level of performance
The higher the score on each component, the greater the employee’s motivation to perform
The theory is most predictive when people behave rationally and when they have internal locus of control
Can be used to suggest ways to change employee motivation
Criticisms are usually about the formula, that things need to be added to it instead of multiplying
work motivation: rewards vs. punishment
Punishment needs to fit the crime
Both reward and punishment affect employee behavior and attitudes, but the magnitude of the effect is much stronger for rewards
equity theory
Our levels of motivation and job satisfaction are related to how fairly we believe we are treated in comparison with others
If we believe we are being treated unfairly, we attempt to change our beliefs or behaviors until the situation appears to be fair
Three components involved in the perception of fairness
Inputs: personal elements we put into our jobs (e.g., time, effort, education, experience, distance driven to work)
outputs: elements we receive from our job (pay, benefits, challenge, responsibility)
We subconsciously compute an input/output ratio and compare them to those of other employees
Employees can seek greater output by asking for a raise or decreasing their input
Equity theory was springboard for modern research on organizational justice
integration of motivation theories (put it all together)
People come to a job with a predisposition towards motivation (Individual Differences Consistency Theory)
High self esteem, high need for achievement, intrinsic motivation are more motivated in general
We will be motivated if the job itself and the organization meet our expectations and values and satisfy our needs (Discrepancy & Needs theories)
Employees who have, understand, and agree to goals will be more motivated (Goal-Setting theory)
Goals must be challenging and reasonable (Goal Setting & Expectancy theories)
Extrinsically motivated people will be more motivated if behavior results in a reward (Operant Learning & Expectancy theories)
Awards must have value to the employee to be motivating; different people value different rewards, and care must be taken to ensure that a variety of rewards are available (expectancy, discrepancy theories)
Rewards that are valued will be motivating only if they are given in an equitable way; perceptions of equality are as important as the reality of equity (Equity Theory)
If other employees are motivated, there is an increased probability that we will model their behavior and be motivated too (Social Influence Theory)
Stages of Org Change: Lewin 1958
Unfreezing: org must convince employees and stakeholders that current state of affairs is unacceptable and that change is necessary
Moving: org takes steps to move the org to the desired state
Refreezing: org develops ways to keep the new changes in place
Stages of Change: Carnall 2008
Denial: create reasons why the proposed change won’t work
Defense: justify their positions and current ways of doing things; if change is occurring, employees figure they’re doing something wrong
Discarding: realize change is inevitable and old ways must be discarded
Adaptation: employees test new system, learn how it functions, and make adjustments to their performance
Internalization: immersed in new culture and have accepted their new coworkers and work environment
