Week Nine

Question 1

design lens

Answer 1

§ Arrangement and coordination of work tasks and accountability (supervision/reporting).

Question 2

cultural lens

Answer 2

§ Habits, typical practices, norms, identities.

Question 3

political lens

Answer 3

§ Interests, conflicts, competition, coalitions, negotiation.

Question 4

org psych and other disciplines

Answer 4

○ Social psychology (org psych= applied social psych).
○ Anthropology
○ Behavioural economics
○ Sociology

Question 5

organisational psychology

Answer 5

○ The scientific study of psychological processes and behaviours of individuals and groups in the workplace.
§ Typically focuses on large companies
§ Includes interface between work and other areas of life (work life balance).

Question 6

goals of organisational psychology

Answer 6

• Enhance productivity
  ○ Higher quality and quantity of work output.
  ○ Increase the skills and abilities of employees
  
  • Increase employee satisfaction and health
    ○ Positive experiences, happiness and wellbeing.
  • Manage absenteeism and turnover
    ○ Find ways for employees to engage with and remain in work.
    ○ Find effective ways to manage turnover when performance is poor.
  • Address deviant workplace behaviour
    ○ Behaviours that threaten workplace functioning
    ○ Harassment, bullying, sabotage, theft.

Question 7

initiative incentive model

Answer 7

f you want someone to perform better, offer them more money.
Can come in the form of bonuses

Question 8

taylorism

Answer 8

also known as scientific management.
- Principles of scientific management
○ Scientific methods of working
§ Work out the scientifically best way of working
○ Scientific selection and training
§ Work our the ideal characteristics of people to do tasks
§ Recruit them and provide them with the optimal skills/knowledge.
○ Cooperation between management and workers.
§ Management help and support workers to achieve the scientifically optimal behaviours.
○ Equal responsibility
§ Previously, performance was mainly the worker’s responsibility
§ Now, management has more responsibility in developing and maintaining ideal working patterns/conditions.
- This was criticised as it dehumanised workers.

Question 9

hawthorne effect

Answer 9

• A range of experiments conducted from 1924- 1932.
  
  • American National Academy of Science
  • Examined effects on productivity resulting from light intensity.
    ○ Found that there were changes in productivity when the lighting went up or down.
    ○ Productivity increased because attention was paid to the workers.
  • Later studies examined other working conditions
    ○ Rest break
    ○ Working day length
  • Hawthorne effect: the temporary increment in performance that occurs at the onset of an intervention. Performance often returns to pre-intervention levels after some time.
  • Attention of researchers was enough to increase productivity of workers in the Hawthorne studies.

Question 10

hawthorne effect and duration

Answer 10

Marsden (2005) statesd that the ‘trials transformed the participants into advocated for whatever they were trialing’ thus while performance did imporve, this went back to the normal level after some time.

Question 11

org psych definition

Answer 11

• Organisational psychology is a field of study that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have on behaviour within organisations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving effectiveness.

Question 12

IVs

Answer 12

§ Individual level variables- biographical characteristics, ability, values, attitudes, personality and emotions. Four other variables also affect employee behaviour; perception, individual decision making, learning and motivation.
§ Group level variables- study of group behaviour, includes communication patters, leadership, power, politics and levels of conflict.
Organisation systems-level variables- the design of the formal organisation, their internal culture, human resource policies and practices, change and stress all impact the DVs.