Infrastructure University: Organizational Behavior, Culture, Motivation, Individual Behavior, Managing Conflict, Decision Making, Group Dynamics

1. Himalayan College of Management
Infrastructure University
MBA 1st
Semester
Syllabus: Organizational Behavior HRMT 5210
Course Content Outline
Chapter 1: Organizational Behavior (OB):.................................................................................. 2
Chapter 2: Developing People-Centered Organizations and Skills The Manager’s Job.............. 4
Chapter 3: Organizational Culture (OC) and Ethics Organizational values –.............................. 7
Chapter 4: International OB :...................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 5: Individual Behavior in Organizations;.......................................................................13
Chapter 6: Social Perception and Attributions: ..........................................................................27
Chapter 7: Motivation Through Needs, Job Design, and Satisfaction........................................33
Chapter 8: Improving Job Performance with Feedback and Rewards: ......................................52
Chapter 9: Behavior Modification and Self-Management,..........................................................58
Chapter 10: Individual and Group Decision Making,..................................................................60
Chapter 11: Group Dynamics,...................................................................................................66
Chapter 12: Teams and Teamwork for the 21st Century Work Teams : ....................................71
Chapter 13: Managing Conflict and Negotiation: .......................................................................77
Exam Questions and Solutions .................................................................................................94

2. Chapter 1: Organizational Behavior (OB):
Systems Approach to OB,
1. Human Resources Approach:
This approach recognizes that human resources in an organisation are the central force. Their
development will contribute to the success of the organisation. Human resources approach
provides for the changes in the managerial role. It requires that the managers, instead of
controlling the employees, should provide active support to them by treating them as part of the
group.
The superiors and managers should practice a style where workers are given the opportunities
and encouragement to perform under loose supervision. By treating individuals as mature
adults, organisations can increase productivity and at the same time meet the needs of
individuals for independence and growth.
2. Contingency Approach:
The approach stresses that there is no single way to manage effectively under all
circumstances. The methods of behaviours which work effectively in one situation may fail in
another. The organisational structure and the processes of management are governed by the
external environment and several aspects of the internal environment. Effective management
processes will vary in different situations depending on the individuals and groups in the
organisation, the nature of the job and technology, the environment facing the organisation and
its structure.
The manager’s task therefore, is to identify which method will, in a particular situation, under
particular circumstances and at a particular time, best contribute to the attainment of
organization’s goals. Thus, the manager will have to analyze each situation prior to action and
different managerial practices and styles are needed for effective management.
3. Productivity Approach:
Productivity means the numerical value of the ratio of output to input. Higher the value of this
ratio, greater is the efficiency and effectiveness of the management. The traditional concept of
productivity was concerned with economic inputs and output only. But nowadays human and
social inputs and outputs are equally important. Productivity, a significant part of organisational
behaviour decisions, is recognized and discussed extensively. These decisions relate to human,
social and economic issues. For example if better organisational behaviour can reduce worker’s
turnover or the number of absentees, a human output or benefit occurs.

3. 4. System Approach
The systems approach is of the view that an organisation is a powerful system with several
subsystems which are highly and closely interconnected. Any action taken to solve the
problems in one subsystem will have its effect on the other subsystems as well; since all the
parts of the organisation are closely connected. Thus, this approach gives the managers a way
of looking at the organisation as a whole, whole group, and the whole social system. Systems
approach has become an integral part of modern organisational theory. Organisations are
termed as complex systems comprising interrelated and interlocking systems.
According to this approach, an organisation receives several inputs from its environment such
as material, human and financial. These inputs are then processed so as to produce the final
output in terms of products or services.
The following figure shows the relationship clearly:
System Approach to Study of Organizational Behavior
The public and government have been included keeping in view the relationship between
organisation and external environment. The other subsystems are an integral part of overall
organisations.
Rationality in Managing and Historical Evolution

4. Chapter 2: Developing People-Centered
Organizations and Skills The Manager’s Job
The Manager
They get things done through other people.
Survey Finding
50% of Americans have left a job to “get away from their manager at
at some point in their career.”
Learning about OB from Theory, Research, and Practice
Basic Approaches of OB
Organizational behavior approaches are a result of the research done
by experts in this field.
• Human Relation
• Productivity approach
• Contingency Approach
• System Approach
Human Relation or Supportive Approach
• Recognizes human resources as crucial factor in the organization and
suggests in the development of HR towards high level of
competencies, creativity and fulfillment.
• Believes that developed people will contribute in the success of the
organization.
• Role of managers changes from structuring and controlling to
supporting (supportive approach)
Productivity approach
• Productivity describes the output to input ratio of employee’s
performance.
• The ratio is treated as the major of the organization’s effectiveness.
• It also tells about the manager’s efficiency in utilizing organization’s
resources effectively.
• The higher the numeric value of the ratio, the greater is the
efficiency.)

5. System approach
• System approach to OB considers the organization as a whole.
• This means that the organization is a united, purposeful system
composed of interrelated parts
• It tells us that the working of one part of the system affects the
working of other parts in varying degree.
• Hence every person working in an organization should be viewed as a
part of the system.
A Topical Model for Understanding and Managing OB
Types of Study Variables
Independent (X) Dependent (Y)
• The presumed cause of the
change in the dependent
variable (Y).
• This is the variable that OB
researchers manipulate to
observe the changes in Y.
• This is the response to X
(the independent
variable).
• It is what the OB

6. researchers want to
predict or explain.
• The interesting variable!
Interesting OB Dependent Variables
• Productivity
• Transforming inputs to outputs at lowest cost. Includes the concepts of
effectiveness (achievement of goals) and efficiency (meeting goals at a low
cost).
• Absenteeism
• Failure to report to work – a huge cost to employers.
• Turnover
• Voluntary and involuntary permanent withdrawal from an organization.
• Deviant Workplace Behavior
• Voluntary behavior that violates significant organizational norms and
thereby threatens the well-being of the organization and/or any of its
members.
More Interesting OB Dependent Variables
• Organizational Citizenship Behavior (OCB)
• Discretionary behavior that is not part of an employee’s formal job
requirements, but that nevertheless promotes the effective functioning of the
organization.
• Job Satisfaction
• A general attitude (not a behavior) toward one’s job; a positive feeling of
one's job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics.
The Independent Variables
The independent variable (X) can be at any of these three levels in this
model:
• Individual
• Biographical characteristics, personality and emotions, values and attitudes,
ability, perception, motivation, individual learning, and individual decision
making
• Group
• Communication, group decision making, leadership and trust, group
structure, conflict, power and politics, and work teams
• Organization System

7. • Organizational culture, human resource policies and practices, and
organizational structure and design
Chapter 3: Organizational Culture (OC) and Ethics
Organizational values –
Organizational culture refers to a system of shared assumptions, values, and beliefs
that show employees what is appropriate and inappropriate behavior.
Defines the content of what a new employee needs to learn to become an accepted
member of an organization
These values have a strong influence on employee behavior as well as organizational
performance.
Culture is by and large invisible to individuals.
Even though it affects all employee behaviors, thinking, and behavioral patterns,
individuals tend to become more aware of their organization’s culture when they
have the opportunity to compare it to other organizations.
Understanding how culture is created, communicated, and changed will help us be
more effective in your organizational life.
Just like individuals, you can think of
organizations as having their own
personalities, more typically known as
organizational cultures.
You might think of organizational
culture as the company’s DNA—
invisible to the naked eye, yet a powerful
template that shapes what happens in
the workplace.
Organizational culture is both the glue
holding the system together and the
motor moving it toward its goals.
Foundation of OC,

8. Manifestations of OC,
A Model for Interpreting OC,
Types of OC and Developing High-Performance Cultures
Chapter 4: International OB :
Managing Across Cultures;
Culture and Organizational Behavior
● In previous chapter, we discussed organizational culture. Here, the focus is more
broadly on Societal Culture.
● Societal Culture is a set of beliefs and values about what is desirable and
undesirable in a community of people, and a set of formal or informal practices to
support the values.
● So, culture has both prescriptive (what people should do) and descriptive (what
they actually do) elements.
● It’s passed from one generation to next by family, friends, teachers, and relevant
others.
● An Asian executive for a multinational company, transferred from Taiwan to the
Midwest, appears aloof and autocratic to his peers.
● A West Coast bank embarks on a “friendly teller” campaign, but its Filipino
female tellers won’t cooperate.
● A white manager criticizes a black male employee’s work. Instead of getting an
explanation, the manager is met with silence and a firm stare.
● If we attribute the behavior in these situation to personalities, three descriptions
come to mind; 1. Arrogant 2. Unfriendly 3. Hostile. They are probably wrong.
● However, if we attribute the behavior outcomes to cultural differences, we’ll have
better chance to make a valid interpretation.
● One cannot afford to overlook relevant cultural contexts when trying to
understand and manage organizational behavior.
● Societal Culture Is Complex and Multilayered
● Culture Is a Subtle but Pervasive Force
● Culture Overrides National Boundaries
Societal Culture Is Complex and Multilayered

9. ● Culture is difficult to grasp because it is multilayered.
● Culture comes in layers, like an onion. To understand it you have
● to unpeel it layer by layer.
Culture Is a Subtle but Pervasive Force
● Culture generally remains below the threshold of conscious awareness because
it involves taken-for-granted assumption about how one should perceive, think,
act and feel.
● As much of culture operates outside our awareness, frequently we don’t even
know what we know. We pick expectations and assumptions up in the cradle.
● We unconsciously learn what to notice and what not to notice, how to walk and
talk and use our bodies, how to behave as men or women, how to relate to other
people, how to handle responsibility.
● We assume that they’re part of human nature. What we think of as “mind” is
really internalized culture.
● In sum, “You are your culture and, your culture is you”
Culture Overrides National Boundaries
● Societal culture is used instead of national culture because the boundaries of
many nations-states were not drawn along cultural lines. Instead they evolved
through conquest, migration, treaties, and geopolitics.
● If we could redraw the world map along cultural lines instead of along
geographical and political lines, we would end up with something very strange
and different.
● So, the point is when preparing to live and work in a different country, be sure to
consider more than national boundaries – study the culture.

10. A Model of Societal and Organizational Cultures
● Employees bring their societal culture to work with them in
the form of customs and language
● Organizational culture affects an individual’s values, ethics,
attitudes, assumptions, and expectations
● Mixing of societal and organizational cultures can produce
interesting dynamics in multinational companies.
Culture and OB Ethnocentrism
● A belief that one’s native country, culture, language, and behavior are superior to all
others.
● Militant ethnocentrism led to deadly “ethnic cleansing” in Bosnia and Kosovo and
genocide in African nations of Rwanda, Burundi, and Sudan.
● Less dramatic, but troublesome, is ethnocentrism within managerial and organizational
contexts.
● Ethnocentric managers have a preference for putting home-country people in key
positions everywhere in the world and rewarding them more handsomely for work, along
with a tendency to feel that this group is more intelligent, more capable, or more reliable.
● This is not too surprising, since most executives know far more about employees in their
home environment.
● A survey of companies in Europe, Japan and the U.S. found ethnocentric staffing and
human resource policies to be associated with increased personnel problems.
● Those problems included recruiting difficulties, high turnover rates, and lawsuits over
personnel policies.
● Current and future manager can effectively deal with ethnocentrism through education,
greater cross-cultural awareness, international experience, and a conscious effort to
value cultural diversity.
● “A Cultural Roadblock in the Global Economy”
High-Context vs. Low-Context Cultures
High-context cultures
● Rely heavily on situational cues for meaning when perceiving and communicating with
others
● The rule of communication are primarily transmitted through the use of contextual
elements (i.e. Body language, a person’s status, and a tone of voice)
Low-context cultures
● Written and spoken words carry the burden of shared meanings

11. ● Information is communicated primarily through language and rules are explicitly spelled
out.
Individualism vs. Collectivism;
Cultural Perceptions of Time
● Interactions between the two types can be problematic
● Monochronic business people cannot understand why the person they are meeting is
always interrupted by phone calls and people stopping in unannounced. Is it meant to be
insulting? When do they get down to business?
● Polychronic business personnel cannot understand why tasks are isolated from the
organization as a whole and measured by output in time instead of part of the overall
organizational goal. How can you separate work time and personal time? Why would
you let something as silly as a schedule negatively impact the quality of your
relationships?
Monochronic Cultures
● Monochronic Cultures like to do just one thing at a time.
● They value a certain orderliness and sense of there being an appropriate time and place
for everything.
● They do not appreciate interruptions.
● They like to concentrate on the job at hand and take time commitments very seriously.
● A second gone, is a second lost. You are never going to get it back ever again.The
phrase “Time is money” must have originated from a mono-chronic culture.
● If you live in the United States, Canada or Northern Europe, you live in a monochronic
culture.
Polychronic Cultures
● Polychronic cultures like to do multiple things at the same time.
● A manager’s office in a polychronic culture typically has an open door, a ringing phone
and a meeting all going on at the same time.
● Though they can be easily distracted they also tend to manage interruptions well with a
willingness to change plans often and easily.
● People are their primary concern (particularly those closely related to them or their
function), and they have a tendency to build lifetime relationships.
● If you live in Latin America, the Arab part of the Middle East or sub-Shara Africa, you will
be used to this behavior.

12. Language and Cross-Cultural Communications
Cross-Cultural Communications
● Cross-cultural communication has become strategically important to companies due to
the growth of global business, technology, and the Internet.
● Understanding cross-cultural communication is important for any company that has a
diverse workforce or plans on conducting global business.
● This type of communication involves an understanding of how people from different
cultures speak, communicate, and perceive the world around them.
● Language differences, high-context vs. low-context cultures, nonverbal differences, and
power distance are major factors that can affect cross-cultural communication.
Language and Cross-Cultural Communications
● Language is the most obvious cross cultural communication challenge. Words are easily
misunderstood in verbal communication, either because the receiver has a limited
vocabulary or the sender’s accent distorts the usual
● Semantics: some words aren’t translatable
● Word Connotations: some words imply multiple meanings beyond their definitions
● Tone Differences: the acceptable level of formality of language
Context and Cross-Cultural Communications
● The context is also important to understanding what is being communicated.
● Low-context cultures rely more on words for meaning.
● People in low context cultures “get down to business” and tend to negotiate quickly.
Examples of low context cultures include Germany, Scandinavia, and the United States.
● High-context cultures gain meaning from the whole situation.
● People in very high context cultures put a high value on establishing relationships prior
to working with others and tend to take longer to negotiate deals. Examples of high
context cultures include China, Korea, and Japan.
Nonverbal Differences Across Cultures
● Nonverbal communication represents another potential area for misunderstanding
across cultures.
A Cultural Guide
● When communicating with people from a different culture, what can we do to
● reduce misinterpretations?
● The following rules can be helpful;
○ Assuming differences until similarity is proven
○ Emphasizing description rather than interpretation or evaluation
○ Practicing empathy in communication
○ Treating your interpretations as a working hypothesis
Components of Successful Intercultural Communication
● Communicating in a diverse business environment is not always an easy task.
● But you can continue to improve your sensitivity and build your skill as you progress in
your career.

13. Chapter 5: Individual Behavior in Organizations;
Individual Differences: Personality, Attitudes, Abilities, and
Emotions;
Personality
● Personality is the combination of stable physical and mental characteristics that give the
individual his or her identity. Our personality differentiates us from other people.
● Individual have their own way of thinking and acting, their own unique style or
Personality.
● Personality creates people’s social reputations—the way they are perceived by friends,
family, co-workers, and supervisors.
● In this way, personality captures what people are like.
● “Personality means how a person affects others and how he understands and views
himself as well as the pattern of inner and outer measurable traits and the person-
situation interactions .” - Fred Luthans
● “Personality is the sum total ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with
others.” -Stephen P. Robbins
● “The dynamic organization within the individual of those psychophysical systems that
determine his unique adjustments to his environment.” -Gordon Allport
● Helps us understand more about ourselves, about things that come more easily for us,
things that might take little bit more time , that might be little bit more difficult so that we
can forgive ourselves when we are not perfect but that does not excuse ourselves from
trying.
● Understanding someone’s personality gives us clues about how that person is likely to
act and feel in a variety of situations.
● Having the knowledge of employees’ personalities is also useful for placing people in
jobs and organizations.
Determinants
Heredity
● Factors determined at conception: physical stature, facial attractiveness, gender,
temperament, muscle composition and reflexes, energy level, and bio-rhythms
● This “Heredity Approach” argues that genes are the source of personality
● Twin studies: raised apart but very similar personalities
● There is some personality change over long time periods
Environment

14. ● Among the factors that exert pressures on our personality formation are the culture in
which we are raised, our earlier conditioning, the norms among our family, friends and
social groups etc.
● The environment we are exposed to plays a substantial role in shaping our personalities.
Situation
● A third, the situation, influences the effects of heredity and environment on personality.
● An individual’s personality, although generally stable and consistent, does change in
different situation.
Personality Traits
● Although we sometimes describe people as having “a good personality,” personality is
actually a collection of multiple traits.
● Traits are defined as recurring regularities or trends in people’s responses to their
environment.
● Adjectives such as responsible, easygoing, polite, and reserved are examples of traits
that can be used to summarize someone’s personality.
● Two dominant frameworks used to describe personality:
○ Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®)
○ Big Five Model
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
● Most widely used instrument in the world.
● Participants are classified on four axes to determine one of 16 possible personality
types, such as ENTJ.
Big Five Model
● Decades of research produced cumbersome lists of personality traits.
● In fact one study identified 1,710 English-Language adjectives used to describe aspects
of personality.

15. ● When these words were grouped, five dimensions seemed to emerge that explain a lot
of the variation in our personalities.
● Keep in mind that these five are not necessarily the only traits out there.
● There are other, specific traits that represent dimensions not captured by the Big Five.
● Still, understanding the main five traits gives us a good start for describing personality.
Big five model of personality Dimensions
● Openness : Being curious, original, intellectual, creative and open to new ideas
● Conscientiousness : Being organized, systematic, punctual, achievement oriented, and
dependable
● Extraversion : Being outgoing, talkative, sociable, and enjoying social situations
● Agreeableness : Being affable, tolerant, sensitive, trusting, kind, and warm.
● Neuroticism : Being anxious, irritable, temperamental, and moody
How Do the Big Five Traits Predict Behavior?
● Research has shown this to be a better framework.
● Certain traits have been shown to strongly relate to higher job performance:
○ Highly conscientious people develop more ob knowledge, exert greater effort,
and have better performance.
● Other Big Five Traits also have implications for work.
○ Emotional stability is related to job satisfaction
○ Extroverts tend to be happier in their jobs and have good social skills
○ Open people are more creative and can be good leaders
○ Agreeable people are good in social settings

16. Other Personality Traits Relevant to OB
Core Self-Evaluation
● The degree to which people like or dislike themselves. Positive self-evaluation leads to
higher job performance.
● Core self-evaluations represent a broad personality trait comprised of four narrower
individual personality traits
○ Self-esteem
○ Self-efficacy
○ Locus of control
○ Emotional stability
Machiavellianism
● A pragmatic, emotionally distant power-player who believes that ends justify the means
● High Machs are manipulative, win more often, and persuade more than they are
persuaded. Flourished when:
○ Have direct interaction
○ Work with minimal rules and regulations
○ Emotions distract others
Narcissism
● An arrogant, entitled, self-important person who needs excessive admiration
● Less effective in their jobs
● The most selfish one lettered word: ie Self-Monitoring
● The ability to adjust behavior to meet external, situational factors
● High monitors conform more and are more likely to become leaders
Risk taking
● The willingness to take chances
● Risk takers make faster decisions with less information
More Relevant Personality Traits
Types of personality
● Type A
○ They feel impatient with the speed the events take place.
○ Always moving, walking, and eating rapidly.
○ Strive to think or do two or more things at once
○ Cannot cope with leisure time
○ Obsessed with achievement numbers
○ Prized in North America but quality of the work is low
● Type B
○ Never suffer from a sense of time urgency with its accompanying impatience
○ Feel no need to display or discuss either their achievements or accomplishments
○ Play for fun and relaxation, rather than to exhibit their superiority at any cost
○ Can relax without guilt

17. Proactive Personality
● Some people actively take the initiative to improve their current circumstances or create
new ones while others sit by passive reaction to situations? The former individual have
been described as having proactive personalities
● Identifies opportunities, shows initiative, takes action, and perseveres to completion
● Creates positive change in the environment
● If an organization requires people with entrepreneurial initiative, proactives make good
candidates; however, these are people that are also more likely to leave an organization
to start their own business.
Attitudes
● Evaluative statements or judgements concerning objectives, people, or events.
● Three components of an attitude
The Components of Attitude

18. Major Job Attitudes
1. Job satisfaction
a. A positive feeling about one’s job resulting from an evaluation of its
characteristics.
b. Causes
i. Pay influences job satisfaction only to a point.
● After about $40,000 per year (in the U.S.), there is no relationship
between amount of pay and job satisfaction.
● Money may bring happiness, but not necessarily job satisfaction.
ii. Personality can influence job satisfaction.
● Negative people are usually not satisfied with their jobs.
● Those with positive core self-evaluation are more satisfied with
their jobs.
c. Outcomes
i. Job Performance
● Satisfied workers are more productive AND more productive
workers are more satisfied!
● The causality may run both ways
ii. Organizational Citizenship behaviors
● Satisfaction influences OCB through perceptions of fairness
iii. Customer Satisfaction
● Satisfied frontline employees increase customer satisfaction and
loyalty
iv. Absenteeism
● Satisfied employees are moderately less likely to miss work
v. Turnover
● Satisfied employees are less likely to quit
● Many moderating variables in this relationship
● Economic environment and tenure
● Organizational actions taken to retain high performers and to
weed out lower performers
vi. Workplace Deviance
● Dissatisfied workers are more likely to unionize, abuse substance,
steal, be tardy, and withdraw
“Despite the overwhelming evidence of the impact of job satisfaction on
the bottom line, most managers are either unconcerned about or
overestimate worker satisfaction.”
2. Job Involvement
a. Degree to which a person identifies with a job, actively participates in it, and
considers performance important to self-worth.

19. 3. Employee Engagement
a. The degree of involvement with, satisfaction with, and enthusiasm for the job
b. Engaged employees are passionate about their work and company
4. Psychological Empowerment
a. Employees beliefs in the degree to which they influence their work environment,
their competence, the meaningfulness of their job, and their perceived autonomy
b. Leaders empower their employees by involving them in decisions, making them
feel their work is important, and giving them discretion to “do their own thing.”
c. High levels of both job involvement and psychological empowerment are
positively related to organizational citizenship and job performance
5. Organizational Commitment
a. The degree to which an employee identifies with a particular organization and its
goal and wishes to maintain membership in the organization
b. Less important now than in the past - now perhaps more of an occupational
commitment, loyalty to profession rather than a given employer.
6. Perceived Organizational Support (POS)
a. Degree to which employees believe the organization values their contribution and
cares about their well-being
b. Higher when rewards are fair, employees are involved in decision making, and
supervisors are seen as supportive
c. High POS is related to higher OCBs and performance

20. Ability
● An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job.
● When ability is dissected, two key factors are found.
● Intellectual Abilities
○ The abilities needed to perform mental activities
○ No correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction
● Physical Abilities
○ The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar
characteristics.
● Dimensions of Intellectual Ability
○ Number Aptitude: Ability to do speedy and accurate arithmetic
○ Verbal Comprehension: Ability to understand what is read or heard and the
relationship of words to each other
○ Perceptual speed: ability to identify visual similarities and differences quick and
accurately
○ Inductive reasoning: Ability to identify the logical sequence in a problem and then
solve the problem
○ Deductive reasoning: Ability to use logic and access the implication of an
argument
○ Spatial visualization: Ability to imagine how an object would look if its position in
space were changed
○ Memory: Ability to retain and recall past experience
● Nine basic physical abilities
Strength Factor
1. Dynamic Strength: Ability to exert muscular force repeatedly or continuously over
time
2. Trunk Strength: Ability to exert muscular strength using trunk muscle
3. Static Strength: Ability to exert force against external objects
4. Explosive Strength: Ability to expand a maximum of energy in one or a series of
explosive acts
Flexibility Factor
5. Extent Flexibility: Ability to move the trunk and back muscles as far as possible
6. Dynamic flexibility: Ability to make rapid, repeated flexing movements
Other Factors
7. Body Coordination: Ability to move the simultaneous actions of different parts of
the body
8. Balance: Ability to maintain equilibrium despite force pulling off balance
9. Stamina: Ability to continue maximum effort requiring prolonged effort over time
The ability job fit
● A high ability-job fit necessary for improved job performance
● Lack of it leads to performance problems

21. ● If, Ability<Job Requirement
○ Then, Basic cause of poor performance
● Ability>Job Requirement
○ Organizational inefficiency ,Job dissatisfaction
Three Ways to Manage Ability in Organization
1. Selection: Selecting individuals who have the abilities the organization needs
2. Placement: Accurately match each worker to a job that capitalize on his/her abilities
3. Training: Can be effective means of enhancing worker’s abilities
Emotions and Moods
Why Were Emotions Ignored in OB?
The “Myth of Rationality”
● Emotions were seen as irrational
● Managers worked to make emotion-free environments
View of Emotionality
● Emotions were believed to be disruptive
● Emotions interfered with productivity
● Only negative emotions were observed
Now we know emotions can’t be separated from the workplace
What are Emotions and Moods?
Affect
● Defined as a broad range of feelings that people experience.
● Can be experienced in the form of emotions or moods.
Emotions
● Caused by specific event
● Very brief in duration
● Specific and numerous in nature
● Usually accomplished by distinct facial expressions
● Action oriented in nature
Moods
● Cause is often general and unclear
● Last longer than emotions
● More general
● Generally not indicated by distinct expressions
● Cognitive in nature

22. Kinds of Moods
Moods can be categorized in two ways:
1. Pleasantness
○ First, the horizontal axis of the figure reflects whether you feel pleasant (in a
“good mood”) or unpleasant (in a “bad mood”).
○ The figure uses green colors to illustrate pleasant moods and red to illustrate
unpleasant moods.
2. Engagement
○ Second, the vertical axis of the figure reflects whether you feel engaged,
activated, and aroused or disengaged, deactivated, and unaroused. Project.
○ The figure uses darker colors to convey higher levels of engagement and lighter
colors to convey lower levels.
● Note that some moods are neither good nor bad. For example, being surprised or
astonished (high engagement) and quiet or still (low engagement) are neither pleasant
nor unpleasant. Accordingly, those latter moods are left colorless.
● The most intense positive mood is characterized by a person’s feeling enthusiastic,
excited, and elated. When employees feel this way, co-workers are likely to remark
“Wow, you’re sure in a good mood!”
● In contrast, the most intense negative mood is characterized by feeling hostile, nervous,
and annoyed. This kind of mood often triggers the question “Wow, what’s gotten you in
such a bad mood?”
● If we return to our chart of hour-by-hour job satisfaction in previous figure, what kind of
mood do you think the employee was in while answering e-mails? Probably a happy,
cheerful, and pleased mood.

23. ● What kind of mood was the employee in during the informal meeting on the long-running
project? Probably a grouchy, sad, and blue mood.
● Finally, what kind of mood do you think the employee was in during the brainstorming
meeting for the new project? Clearly, an enthusiastic, excited, and elated mood; this
employee would report especially high levels of job satisfaction at this time.
Positive Emotions
Joy A feeling of great pleasure
Pride Enhancement of identity by taking credit for achievement
Relief A distressing condition has changed for the better
Hope Fearing the worst but wanting better
love Desiring or participating in affection
compassion Being moved by another’s situation
Negative Emotions
Anger A demeaning offence against me and mine
Anxiety Facing an uncertain or vague threat
Fear Facing an immediate and concrete danger
Guilt Having broken a moral code
Shame Failing to live up to your ideal self
sadness Having experienced an irreversible loss
Envy Wanting what someone else has
Disgust Revulsion aroused by something offensive
Sources of Emotion and Mood
1. Day and Time of the Week
a. Happier in the midpoint of the daily awake period
b. Happier toward the end of the week
2. Weather
a. Illusory correlation – no effect
3. Stress

24. a. Even low levels of constant stress can worsen moods
4. Social Activities
a. Physical, informal, and dining activities increase positive moods
5. Sleep
a. Poor sleep quality increases negative affect
6. Exercise
a. Does somewhat improve mood, especially for depressed people
7. Age
a. Older folks experience fewer negative emotions
8. Gender
a. Women tend to be more emotionally expressive, feel emotions more intensely,
have longer-lasting moods, and express emotions more frequently than do men
Emotional Labor
● Although employees feel many of the emotions (as in previous slide) during the workday,
it doesn’t mean they’re allowed to display them.
● Some jobs, in particular, service jobs in which employees make direct contact with
customers often require those employees to hide any anger, anxiety, sadness, or disgust
they might feel, suppressing the urge to spontaneously engage in some negative
behavior.
○ Flight attendants are trained to “put on a happy face” in front of passengers, retail
salespeople are trained to suppress any annoyance with customers.
○ like they’re having fun on their job even when they’re not.
● Such jobs are high in what’s called Emotional Labor - the need to manage emotions to
complete job duties successfully.
Is Emotional Labor Required on the Part of Employees?
● Research on emotional contagion shows that one person can “catch” or “be infected by”
the emotions of another person.
○ If a customer service representative is angry or sad, those negative emotions can
be transferred to a customer (like a cold or disease).
○ If that transfer occurs, it becomes less likely that customers will view the
experience favorably and spend money which might affect the bottom line.
○ From this perspective, emotional labor seems like a vital part of good customer
service.
● Unfortunately, other evidence suggests that emotional labor puts great strain on
employees and that their bottled-up emotions may end up bubbling over, sometimes
resulting in angry outbursts against customers or emotional exhaustion and burnout on
the part of employees.
● The true challenge arises when employees have to project one emotion while feeling
another. This disparity is emotional dissonance, and it can take a heavy toll.

25. Emotional Intelligence (EI)
● Traditional model of intelligence (IQ) is being criticized for being too narrow, thus failing
to consider interpersonal competence.
● A broader agenda includes “abilities such as being able to motivate oneself and persist
in the face of frustrations; to control impulse and delay gratification; to regulate one’s
mood and keep distress from swamping the ability to think; to empathize and to hope.”
● The EI is the ability to manage oneself and interact with others in mature and
constructive ways.
● A person’s ability to:
○ Perceive emotions in the self and others
○ Understand the meaning of these emotions
○ Regulate one’s emotion accordingly
● Referred to some as EI and others as EQ, emotional intelligence is said to be composed
of four dimensions,
○ Self-awareness exists when you are able to accurately perceive, evaluate, and
display appropriate emotions.
○ Self-management exists when you are able to direct your emotions in a positive
way when needed.
○ Social awareness exists when you are able to understand how others feel.
○ Relationship management exists when you are able to help others manage
their own emotions and truly establish supportive relationships with others.
Affective Events Theory (AET)
● Affective Events Theory (AET) is a psychological model designed to explain the
connection between emotions and feelings in the workplace and job performance, job
satisfaction and behaviors.
● AET is underlined by a belief that human beings are emotional and that their behavior is
guided by emotion.
● AET demonstrates that employees react emotionally to things that happen to them at
work, and this reaction influences their job performance and satisfaction.

26. OB Applications of Emotions and Moods
1. Selection
○ EI should be a hiring factor, especially for social jobs.
2. Decision Making
○ Positive emotions can lead to better decisions.
3. Creativity
○ Positive mood increases flexibility, openness, and creativity.
4. Motivation
○ Positive mood affects expectations of success; feedback amplifies this effect.
5. Leadership
○ Emotions are important to acceptance of messages from organizational leaders.
6. Negotiation
○ Emotions, skillfully displayed, can affect negotiations
7. Customer Services
○ Emotions affect service quality delivered to customers which, in turn, affects
customer relationships
○ Emotional Contagion: “catching” emotions from others
8. Job Attitudes
○ Can carry over to home, but dissipate overnight
9. Deviant Workplace Behaviors
○ Negative emotions lead to employee deviance
10. Manager’s Influence
○ Leaders who are in a good mood, use humor, and praise employees increase
positive moods in the workplace.

27. Chapter 6: Social Perception and Attributions:
Perception
● Perception means perceiving, i.e., giving meaning to the environment around us.
● Perception is the process of receiving information about and making sense of the world
around us.
● A process by which individuals organize and interpret their sensory impressions in order
to give meaning to their environment.
● It is important to the study of OB because people’s behaviors are based on their
perception of what reality is, not on reality itself.
● Perception is the lens through which we view reality as it relates to things, people,
concepts and ourselves.
○ What one perceives may be different from objective reality.
○ Perception is like beauty that lies in the eyes of the beholder.
● Perception is the combination of the different sensation and utilization of past experience
in recognizing objects.

28. Factors that Influence Perception
1. Factors in the perceiver
○ Attitudes
○ Motives
○ Interests
○ Experience
○ Expectations
2. Factors in the situation
○ Time
○ Work setting
○ Social setting
3. Factors in the target

29. ○ Novelty
○ Motion
○ Sounds
○ Size
○ Background
○ Proximity
○ Similarity
Attribution Theory: Judging Others
● Causal Attribution
○ One of the basics in social thinking involves trying to understand and explain the
“causes” of behavior we observe in others and ourselves.
○ It is an attempt to make sense of the world. Why???
● Attribution theory - A theory that describes how people explain the causes of their own
and other people’s behavior.
● It suggests that when we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine
whether it was internally or externally caused.
○ Internal causes are under that person’s control
○ External causes are not under the person’s control
● That determination, however, depends largely on three factors, (Causation judged
through)
○ Distinctiveness: Shows different behaviors in different situations
○ Consensus: Response is the same as others to same situation
○ Consistency: Responds in the same way over time
Elements of Attribution Theory

30. Errors and Biases in Attributions
1. Fundamental Attribution Error
○ The tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate
the influence of internal factors when making judgments about the behavior of
others
○ We blame people first, not the situation
2. Self-Serving Bias
○ The tendency for individuals to attribute their own successes to internal factors
while putting the blame for failures on external factors
○ It is “our” success but “their” failure
Frequently Used Shortcuts in Judging Others
1. Selective Perception
○ People selectively interpret what they see on the basis of their interests,
background, experience, and attitudes
2. Halo Effect
○ Drawing a general impression about an individual on the basis of a single
characteristic
3. Contrast Effects
○ Evaluation of a person’s characteristics that are affected by comparisons with
other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same
characteristics

31. Another Shortcut: Stereotyping
Judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person
belongs – a prevalent and often useful, if not always accurate, generalization
Profiling
● A form of stereotyping in which members of a group are singled out for intense scrutiny
based on a single, often racial, trait.
Model of Perception Stereotypes:
Perceptions about Groups of People;
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
● Stereotypes often create a situation called a self-fulfilling prophecy
● People attempt to validate their perceptions of reality even when these are faulty.
○ How an individual’s behavior is determined by others’ expectations. If a manager
expects big things from her people, they’re not likely to let her down. Similarly, if
she expects only minimal performance, they’ll likely meet those low expectations.
Expectations become reality
The Pygmalion & Golem Effects
1. The Pygmalion Effect

32. ○ When a teacher, manager, or supervisor has high expectations of someone,
these expectations miraculously improve that person’s performance.
2. The Golem effect
○ When a teacher, manager, or supervisor has low expectations of someone, these
expectations miraculously decrease that person’s performance.
The Pygmalion Effect
● The Pygmalion Effect is a powerful secret weapon. Without even realizing it, we can
nudge others towards success.
● Its name comes from the story of Pygmalion, a mythical Greek sculptor. Pygmalion
carved a statue of a woman and then became enamored with it. Unable to love a
human, Pygmalion appealed to Aphrodite, the goddess of love. She took pity and
brought the statue to life. The couple married and went on to have a daughter, Paphos.
● Examples:
○ An interesting illustration of the self-fulfilling prophecy is a study undertaken with
105 soldiers in the Israeli Defense Forces
○ Experiment conducted by psychologist Robert Rosenthal and school principal
Factors
1. Climate:
○ Teachers are nicer to students of who they have high expectations and create a
warmer climate for them.
2. Input:
○ Teachers teach more material to students of who they have high expectations.
3. Response opportunity:
○ Teachers provide more response opportunities to students of who they have high
expectations and help them shape the answer.
4. Feedback:
○ Teachers praise students of who they have high expectations more and provide
them with more detailed and constructive feedback when they get their answer
wrong.
Specific Shortcut Applications in Organizations
1. Employment Interview
○ Perceptual biases of raters affect the accuracy of interviewers’ judgments of
applicants
○ Formed in a single glance – 1/10 of a second!
2. Performance Expectations
○ Self-fulfilling prophecy (Pygmalion effect): The lower or higher performance of
employees reflects preconceived leader expectations about employee
capabilities
3. Performance Evaluations

33. ○ Appraisals are often the subjective (judgmental) perceptions of appraisers of
another employee’s job performance
○ Critical impact on employees
Chapter 7: Motivation Through Needs, Job Design,
and Satisfaction
Model of Motivation;
Motivation is defined as “inner burning passion caused by need, wants and desire which propels
an individual to exert his physical and mental energy to achieve desired objectives”.
Motivation perhaps is a single most important factor of the study of organizational behavior that
concerns each and every executive today. Job performance is viewed as a function of three
factors and is expressed with the equation below
“The processes that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence of effort
toward attaining a goal – specifically, an organizational goal.”
Three key elements:
1. Intensity – how hard a person tries
2. Direction – effort that is channeled toward, and consistent with, organizational goals
3. Persistence – how long a person can maintain effort
Nature of Motivation
1. • Continuous Process
2. • Psychological Aspect
3. • Whole Person
4. • Positive and Negative
5. • Complex and Unpredictable
6. • Goal-Oriented
Importance of Motivation
1. • Healthy Industrial Relation
2. • High level of performance
3. • Low employee turnover over and absenteeism
4. • Acceptance of organization change
5. • Organizational image

34. Theories of Motivation;
Early Theories of Motivation
These early theories may not be valid, but they do form the basis for
contemporary theories and are still used by practicing managers.

35. 1. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory
There is a hierarchy of five needs. As each need is substantially satisfied, the next need
becomes dominant.Individuals cannot move to the next higher level until all needs at the
current (lower) level are satisfied Must move in hierarchical order.
1. Physiological: Includes hunger, thirst, shelter, sex, and other bodily needs.
2. Safety: Includes security and protection from physical and emotional harm.
3. Social: Includes affection, belongingness, acceptance, and friendship.
4. Esteem: Includes internal esteem factors such as self-respect, autonomy, and
achievement; and external esteem factors such as status, recognition, and
attention.
5. Self-actualization: Includes growth, achieving one’s potential, and self-
fulfillment. This is the drive to become what one is capable of becoming
2. EGR Theory
EGR theory, developed by Clayton Alderfer, is a modification of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.
Instead of the five needs that are hierarchically organized, Alderfer proposed that basic human
needs may be grouped under three categories, namely, existence, relatedness, and growth.
Hence, the name: ERG theory.

36. E-Existence
• These are concerned with our basic material requirements of human beings.
• It corresponds to Maslow’s physiological and safety needs.
R-Relatedness
• This need is concerned with our desire for maintaining important interpersonal relationships.
• It corresponds to social needs, and the external component of Maslow’s esteem need, i.e,
status, recognition and attention.
Growth
• This group is concerned with our intrinsic desire for personal development.
• It includes the intrinsic component of Maslow’s esteem need like advancement, self respect,
autonomy, achievement and the self-actualization need.
3. Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory
Key Point: Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are not opposites but separate constructs.

37. 4. McClelland’s Theory of Needs
Need for Achievement (nAch) The drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, to
strive to succeed Need for Power (nPow) The need to make others behave in a way that they
would not have behaved otherwise Need for Affiliation (nAff) The desire for friendly and close
interpersonal relationships People have varying levels of each of the three needs. • Hard to
measure
Performance Predictions for High nAch
• People with a high need for achievement are likely to:

38. • Prefer to undertake activities with a 50/50 chance of success, avoiding very
low- or high-risk situations
• Be motivated in jobs that offer high degree of personal responsibility,
feedback, and moderate risk
• Not necessarily make good managers – too personal a focus. Most good
general managers do NOT have a high nAch
• Need high level of nPow and low nAff for managerial success
• Good research support, but it is not a very practical theory
Relationship of Various Needs Theories
Contemporary Theories of Motivation
1. Self-Determination Theory
People prefer to feel they have control over their actions, so anything that makes a previously
enjoyed task feel more like an obligation than a freely chosen activity will undermine motivation.
Employees who feel what they do is within their control and a result of free choice are likely to
be more motivated by their work and committed to their employers. For individuals, it means
choosing your job for reasons other than extrinsic rewards. For organizations, it means
managers should provide intrinsic as well as extrinsic incentives. They need to make the work
interesting, provide recognition, and support employee growth and development.
2. Locke’s Goal-Setting Theory
Many of us have learned – from bosses, seminars and business articles – the importance of
setting ourselves SMART goals. "SMART" stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable,

39. Relevant, and Timely. But are these the only factors to consider if we want to achieve our
goals? This acronym doesn’t quite capture all of the key ingredients identified by goal-setting
research. Dr Edwin Locke and Dr Gary Latham spent many years researching the theory of
goal setting, and they identified five elements that need to be in place for us to achieve our
goals
These 5 principles of goal setting theory are;
3. Management by Objectives (MBO)
MBO is a systematic way to utilize goal-setting. Goals direct employee attention toward a
common end. Therefore, it is crucial for individual goals to support team goals and team goals
to support company goals. So, MBO is a systematic approach to ensure that individual and
organizational goals are aligned. This means MBO requires an employees to set measurable
personal goals based upon the organizational goals. Management By Objectives (MBO) is also
known as Management By Results (MBR).
In other words, MBO is a personnel management technique where managers and employees
work together to set, record and monitor goals for a specific period of time. Management by
objectives (MBO) is a strategic management model that aims to improve the performance of an
organization by clearly defining objectives that are agreed to by both management and
employees. According to the theory, having a say in goal setting and action plans encourages
participation and commitment among employees, as well as aligning objectives across the
organization.

40. As in the figure, the organization’s overall objectives are translated into specific objectives for
each level (divisional, departmental, individual).
MBO involves the following process:
1. Setting company wide goals derived from corporate strategy
2. Determining team- and department-level goals
3. Collaboratively setting individual-level goals that are aligned with corporate strategy
4. Developing an action plan
5. Periodically reviewing performance and revising goals
4. Bandura’s Self-Efficacy Theory
Also known as social cognitive or social learning theory An individual’s belief that he or she is
capable of performing a task. Higher efficacy is related to:
● Greater confidence
● Greater persistence in the face of difficulties
● Better response to negative feedback
Increasing Self-Efficacy
● Enactive mastery
○ Most important source of efficacy
○ Gaining relevant experience with task or job
○ “Practice makes perfect”

41. ● Vicarious modeling
○ Increasing confidence by watching others perform the task
○ Most effective when observer sees the model to be similar to him- or herself
● Verbal persuasion
○ Motivation through verbal conviction
○ Pygmalion and Galatea effects - self-fulfilling prophecies
● Arousal
○ Getting “psyched up” – emotionally aroused – to complete task
○ Can hurt performance if emotion is not a component of the task
5. Reinforcement Theory
According to reinforcement theory, behavior is a function of its outcomes
Eg. Late hours work to finish assigned work.
Reinforcement theory is based on a simple idea that may be viewed as common sense.
Beginning at infancy we learn through reinforcement.
Eg. Action of babies
Despite the simplicity of reinforcement, there might be cases when positive behavior ignored, or
worse, negative behavior rewarded?
Reinforcement theory describes four interventions to modify employee behavior. Two of these
are methods of increasing the frequency of desired behaviors. While the remaining two are
methods of reducing the frequency of undesired behaviors

42. 6. Adams’ Equity Theory
Employee behaviors to create equity:
● Change inputs (exert less effort if underpaid or more if overpaid).
● Change outcomes (increase output)
● Distort/change perceptions of self (“I used to think I worked at a moderate pace, but
now I realize I work a lot harder than everyone else.”).
● Distort/change perceptions of others(“Mike’s job isn’t as desirable as I thought.”).
● Choose a different referent person (“I may not make as much as my brother-inlaw, but
I’m doing a lot better than my Dad did when he was my age.”).
● Leave the field (quit the job)
●

44. 7. Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
A theory that says 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. In more practical terms, employees will be
motivated to exert a high level of effort when they believe it will lead to a good performance
appraisal; that a good appraisal will lead to organizational rewards such as bonuses, salary
increases, or promotions; and that the rewards will satisfy the employees’ personal goals.

45. ● The theory, therefore, focuses on three relationships;
○ Effort–performance relationship. `
○ Performance–reward relationship.
○ Rewards–personal goals relationship.
● The theory’s three relationships can be framed as questions employees need to answer
in the affirmative if their motivation is to be maximized.
○ First, if I give a maximum effort, will it be recognized in my performance
appraisal?
○ Second, if I get a good performance appraisal, will it lead to organizational
rewards?
○ Finally, if I’m rewarded, are the rewards attractive to me?
Historical Approach to Job Design Job Characteristics Approach
to Job Design;
Motivating Employees Through Job Design
Many of us assume the most important motivator at work is pay. Yet, studies point to a different
factor as the major influence over worker motivation—job design. Job design is related to
deliberately structuring the technical, social and human aspect of a job.
The objective of a job design is to arrange the work in such a manner so as to reduce the
boredom and dissatisfaction among the employees, arising due to the repetitive nature of the
task.
How a job is designed has a major impact on employee motivation, job satisfaction,
commitment to an organization, absenteeism, and turnover. Hence, a job should be designed
so that it gives satisfaction to the worker and he should be able to experience ‘Worth’ in doing
the same.
Historical Approaches to Job Design Scientific Management and Job
Specialization
Perhaps the earliest attempt to design jobs came during the era of scientific management.
Scientific management is a philosophy based on the ideas of Frederick Taylor as presented in
his 1911 book, Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor was a mechanical engineer in the
manufacturing industry. He saw work being done haphazardly, with only workers in charge. He
saw the inefficiencies inherent in employees’ production methods and argued that a manager’s
job was to carefully plan the work to be performed by employees. He also believed that
scientific methods could be used to increase productivity. Eg. instead of allowing workers to
use their own shovels, as was the custom at the time, providing specially designed shovels
increased productivity.
Scientific management proposed a number of ideas that have been influential in job design in
the following years. To minimize waste by identifying the most efficient method to perform the

46. job. Each job would be carefully planned in advance, and employees would be paid to perform
the tasks in the way specified by management. Job specialization was one of the major
advances of this approach.
Job specialization
Job specialization entails breaking down jobs into their simplest components and assigning
them to employees so that each person would perform a select number of tasks in a repetitive
manner. Advantages; It reduces the skill requirements of the jobs and decreases the effort and
cost of staffing. Training times for simple, repetitive jobs tend to be shorter as well.
Disadvantages This has resulted in jobs becoming monotonous, routine and boring. It also led
to workers becoming unimaginative and lacking challenges and innovation
Motivating by Job Design: The Job Characteristics Model
Developed by J. Richard Hackman and Greg Oldham, the job characteristics model is one of
the most influential attempts to design jobs with increased motivational properties. (JCM) says
we can describe any job in terms of five core job dimensions leading to three critical
psychological states, resulting in work-related outcomes.
The JCM - Core Job Dimensions
The JCM says we can describe any job in terms of five core job dimensions. Under the right
conditions, employees are more motivated and satisfied when jobs have higher levels of these
characteristics. Five core job characteristics:
1. Skill Variety
a. Refers to the use of different skills and talents to complete a variety of work
activities.
b. For example, sales clerks who normally only serve customers might be assigned
the additional duties of stocking inventory and changing storefront displays.
2. Task Identity
a. The degree to which a job requires completion of a whole or identifiable piece of
work, such as assembling an entire broadband modem rather than just soldering
in the circuitry.
3. Task Significance

47. a. Refers to whether a person’s job substantially affects other people’s work, health,
or well-being.
b. The job of a nurse handling the diverse needs of patients in a hospital intensive
care unit scores high on task significance; sweeping floors in a hospital scores
low
4. Autonomy
a. Refers to the degree to which a person has the freedom to decide how to
perform his or her tasks
5. Feedback
a. The degree to which carrying out work activities generates direct and clear
information about your own performance.
b. Airline pilots can tell how well they land their aircraft, and road crews can see
how well they have prepared the roadbed and laid the asphalt.
Are all five job characteristics equally valuable for employees? Hackman and Oldham’s model
proposes that the five characteristics will not have uniform effects. Instead, they proposed the
following formula to calculate the Motivating Potential Score (MPS) This formula is used to
measure the propensity of each job to be motivating. Autonomy and feedback are important in
the above model.
MPS = ((Skill Variety + Task Identity + Task Significance) ÷ 3) × Autonomy ×Feedback
The Job Characteristics Model
According to the job characteristics model, the presence of these five core job dimensions leads
employees to experience three psychological states:
● They view their work as meaningful,
● They feel responsible for the outcomes
● They acquire knowledge of results
These three psychological states in turn are related to positive outcomes such as
1. overall job satisfaction
2. internal motivation
3. higher performance
4. lower absenteeism
5. turnover

48. Job Design Techniques
The following are some of the ways (job design techniques) to put JCM into practice to make
jobs more motivating.
1. Job Rotation
2. Job Enlargement
3. Job Enrichment
Job Rotation
The periodic shifting of an employee from one task to another with similar skill requirements at
the same organizational level (also called cross-training ).
Advantages
1. It removes boredom
2. It broadens employee’s knowledge and skill.
3. Employees become competent in several jobs rather than only one.
Disadvantages
1. Frequent shifting of employees across the jobs causes interruption in the job routine
2. Training costs increase, and moving a worker into a new position reduces productivity
3. Employees may feel alienated when they are rotated from job to job.
Job Enlargement
Job enlargement involves adding more tasks to a job. This is a horizontal expansion in a job. By
adding more tasks to the job, job enlargement expands job scope and gives a variety of tasks to
the job holder.

49. Advantages
Job enlargement reduces boredom and monotony by providing the employee more variety of
tasks in the job.
It helps increase interest in work and efficiency. A recent study found that by expanding the
scope of job, workers found benefits such as more satisfaction, enhanced customer service,
and less errors.
Disadvantages
Even with job enlargement, the job could become boring to employees after a time especially
when the job was already monotonous.
Job Enrichment
The vertical expansion of jobs, which increases the degree to which the worker controls the
planning, execution, and evaluation of the work.
It can be described as that type of improvement in the context of the job which may give a
worker more of a challenge, more of a complete task, more responsibility, more opportunity for
growth, and more chance to contribute his ideas.
The heart of the job enrichment philosophy is to give employees more autonomy over their
work.
Job Satisfaction and Work-Family Relationships
Work and family lives are intertwined in many respects. Experiences at work can influence the
quality of family life, and family experiences can affect the quality of work life.
Why Interest in Work-Family Relationships?

50. With the blurring of traditionally rigid gender roles—women as full-time homemakers and men
as sole providers—both partners in a dual-earner relationship are confronted with the daily
challenge of handling their work and family responsibilities in a way that meets the needs of the
family and the employer alike.
Single parents, most of them women, often struggle to meet extensive work and family
responsibilities, often without a great deal of support from their families or their employers.
Importance of Work-Family Relationships
First, the more we learn about the intricate relationships between work and family commitments,
the more likely employers can provide relevant programs to help their workers manage their
work and family lives.
Second, understanding the interplay between work and family roles can help women and men
learn how to obtain employment that is compatible with their desired lifestyle, how to cope with
the stresses of daily life, and how to gain the support of family, friends, and co-workers in
relieving work-family stress.
Let’s discuss the top under following heads
● Definitions of Work and Family
● Mechanisms Linking Work and Family
● The Effect of Work on Family Life and Vice Versa
● Organizational Actions to Help Individuals Manage Work-Family Relationships
● Individual Actions to Manage Work-Family Relationships
Definitions of Work and Family
Work
An instrumental activity that is intended to provide goods and services to support life or produce
something of value for others.
Family
An emotional unit based on love and affection that provides psychological security and
nurturance to its members.
Mechanisms Linking Work and Family
1. Work-family conflict : Simultaneous pressures from both work and family roles that are
mutually incompatible in some respect such that meeting the demands of one role
makes it difficult to meet the demands of the other role. Work-family conflict may assume
the form of: Time-based conflict: Occurs when devoting substantial time to one role
makes it difficult to meet the demands associated with the other role. Strain-based
conflict: Occurs when stress arising in one role is carried into the other role and affects
individuals’ ability to meet the demands of that role. Behavior-based conflict: Occurs
when behavior that is developed in one role is incompatible with the expectations
regarding behavior in another role

51. 2. Work-family accommodation : The process by which individuals reduce their
involvement in one role to accommodate the demands of the other role. It also refers to
a strategy that can be used in response to actual or anticipated work-family conflict.
3. Work-family enrichment : The process by which one role strengthens or enriches the
quality of the other role.
4. Work-family spillover : The transfer or application of skills, values, emotions, and
behavior from one role to the other role. Spillovers may be either positive (helpful) or
negative (harmful).
5. Work-family balance : The extent to which individuals are equally involved in—and
equally satisfied with—their work role and their family role. Work-life balance consists of
three components: Time balance refers to equal time being given to both work and
family roles Involvement balance refers to equal levels of psychological involvement in
both work and family roles; Satisfaction balance refers to equal levels of satisfaction in
both work and family roles.
6. Work-family compensation : Efforts to offset dissatisfaction in one role by seeking
satisfaction in another role. Compensation may be either reactive or supplemental
7. Work-family segmentation : The intentional separation of work and family roles such
that the thoughts, feelings, and behaviors of one role are actively suppressed from
affecting the individual’s performance in the other role.
The Effect of Work on Family Life and Vice Versa
Work experiences can affect family life in many different ways. Some of these effects are
negative, in which work may be considered an “enemy” of the family. In other respects,
however, work can be an “ally” of the family, enriching the quality of family experiences.
Because work and family roles are mutually interdependent, family life and experiences can
also affect an individual’s workplace behavior, attitudes, performance, and career decisions.
Organizational Actions to Help Individuals Manage Work-Family Relationships
Dependent Care Arrangements
Flexible Work Arrangements
1. Flextime: Flextime allows employees to choose the hours they work within a defined
period of time.
2. Job Sharing: Job Sharing allows two or more individuals to split a traditional 40- hour-a-
week job.
3. Telecommuting: Telecommuting allows workers to work from home at least 2 days a
week on a computer linked to the employer’s office.
Individual Actions to Manage Work-Family Relationships
Individuals with extensive work and family responsibilities need to find ways to manage their
work-family interface effectively. Principles for creating allies of work and family Clarify what is
important in their lives Recognize and support the whole person Continually experiment on
how goals are achieve

52. Chapter 8: Improving Job Performance with
Feedback and Rewards:
Understanding Feedback Process;
Providing Effective Feedback
Performance feedback is a communications process. Feedback is designed to note where
things are going right and where they are going wrong. Performance feedback is useless
unless business leaders have standards for performance, meaning they should have
expectations of reasonable achievement. (goal is required)
Why Is Employee Feedback Important?
OfficeVibe, a software company that specialized in employee engagement tools revealed data
from a recent employee feedback survey:
1. 27 percent of workers say the feedback they receive helps them work better.
2. 42 percent of millennials want feedback every week.
3. 83 percent of feedback millennials say they receive from managers is not meaningful.
4. 30 percent of performance reviews end up decreasing employee performance.
5. Leaders are missing opportunities to better engage and develop their workforce by not
efficiently providing feedback employees can use, or taking the time to listen to their
ideas or concerns.
6. Effective feedback is critical to the success of each employee, team and company.
7. It motivates employees to improve their job performance by enhancing ability,
encouraging effort, and acknowledging results.

53. Feedback Do’s and Don’ts
Do not:
1. Use feedback to punish, embarrass, or put down employees.
2. Provide feedback that is irrelevant to the person’s work.
3. Provide feedback that is too late to do any good.
4. Provide feedback about something that is beyond the individual’s control.
5. Provide feedback that is overly complex or difficult to understand.
6. Publicly Criticize
Do:
1. Keep feedback relevant by relating it to existing goals.
2. Deliver feedback as soon as possible to the time the behavior was displayed.
3. Provide specific and descriptive feedback.
4. Focus the feedback on things employees can control.
5. Be honest, developmental, and constructive.
6. Facilitate two-way communication—give the other person the opportunity to clarify and
respond
Two Functions of Feedback
Feedback is defined as giving information about performance. There are two functions of
feedback in the workplace:
Instructional The instructional function of feedback is to clarify roles and teach new behavior.
This helpful guidance can ensure that employees and managers have a clear understanding of
workplace expectations.
Motivational The motivational function of feedback is to serve as a reward or as a promise of a
reward. This type of feedback can enhance employee engagement and satisfaction with their
work
Sources of Feedback
1. Oneself Self-serving bias and other perceptual problems can contaminate this source
2. Others peers, supervisors, lower-level employees, and outsiders
3. Task
Popularity of Nontraditional Feedback
Traditional performance appraisal systems have created widespread dissatisfaction. Team-
based organization structures are replacing traditional hierarchies. Multiple-rater systems are
said to make feedback more valid than singlesource feedback. Advanced computer network
technology greatly facilitates multiple-rater systems. Bottom-up feedback meshes nicely with
the trend toward participative management and employee empowerment. Co-workers and
lower-level employees are said to know more about a manager’s strengths and limitations

54. Nontraditional Feedback : Upward and 360 Degrees Feedback;
Upward feedback
Employees evaluate their boss Managers resist upward feedbacks programs because they
believe it erodes their authority Anonymous upward feedback can become little more than a
personality contest
360-Degree feedback
Everyone that works around you (hence the name 360 degree) gives you feedback
anonymously on what your strengths and weaknesses are. By combining multiple sources of
feedback, we’ll get a more complete picture of the employee.
PROS
1. More Complete Assessment
2. Create Better Teamwork
3. See How Others See You
4. More Feedback Is Always Better
CONS
1. It Might Not Be Accurate
2. Too Focused On Weaknesses
Organizational Reward Systems;
General model

55. Types of Rewards
1. Intrinsic Rewards
An intrinsic reward is an intangible award of recognition, a sense of achievement, or a
conscious satisfaction.
For example, it is the knowledge that you did something right, or you helped someone and
made their day better. Because intrinsic rewards are intangible, they usually arise from within
the person who is doing the activity or behavior.
So “intrinsic” in this case means the reward is intrinsic to the person doing the activity or
behavior.
2. Extrinsic Rewards
An extrinsic reward is an award that is tangible or physically given to you for accomplishing
something.
For example, it’s a certificate of accomplishment, a trophy or medal for winning the race, a
badge or points for doing something right, or even a monetary reward for doing your job.
Because extrinsic rewards are tangible, they are usually given to the person doing the activity;
as such, they are typically not from within the person. Therefore, extrinsic rewards means the
reward is extrinsic to the performer of the activity or behavior

56. Using Rewards to Motivate Employees
Although pay is not the primary factor driving job satisfaction, it is a motivator. Hence, we will
consider the followings:
What to Pay: Establishing a Pay Structure
How to Pay: Rewarding Individual Employees through Variable-Pay Programs
1. Piece-Rate Pay
2. Merit-Based Pay
3. Bonuses
4. Skill-Based Pay
5. Profit-Sharing Plans
6. Gainsharing
7. Employee Stock Ownership Plans
What benefits and choices to offer (such as flexible benefits)
Flexible benefits give individual rewards by allowing each employee to choose the
compensation package that best satisfies his or her current needs and situations.

57. Nearly all major organizations were offering flexible benefits programs, with options ranging
from private supplemental medical insurance to holiday trading, discounted bus travel, and
childcare vouchers.
How to construct employee recognition programs
The rewards can range from a simple thank-you to more widely publicized formal programs.
Advantages of recognition programs are that they are inexpensive and effective. Some critics
say they can be politically motivated and if they are perceived to be applied unfairly, they can
cause more harm than good.
Pay for Performance and Performance Appraisal
Motivating Employees Through Performance Appraisals
Performance Appraisal is defined as a systematic process, in which the personality and
performance of an employee is assessed by the supervisor or manager, against predefined
standards, such as knowledge of the job, quality and quantity of output, leadership abilities,
attitude towards work, attendance, cooperation, judgment, versatility, health, initiative and so
forth.
It is also known as performance rating, performance evaluation, employee assessment,
performance review, merit rating, etc.
In a way, it's a formal, company wide process of providing feedback to employees.
Objectives of Performance Appraisal
1. To promote the employees, on the basis of performance and competence.
2. To identify the requirement for training and development of employees.
3. To provide confirmation to those employees who are hired as probationary employees,
upon completion of the term.
4. To take a decision regarding the hike in employees pay, incentives etc.
5. To facilitate communication between superior and subordinate.
6. To help employees in understanding where they stand in terms of performance

58. Chapter 9: Behavior Modification and Self-
Management,
Behavior Modification
A systematic way in which reinforcement theory principles are applied is called Organizational
Behavior Modification (or OB Mod). This is a systematic application of reinforcement theory to
modify employee behaviors in the workplace. Behavior modification refers to the techniques
used to try and decrease or increase a particular type of behavior or reaction. Also known as
Behavior Management
Stages of Organizational Behavior Modification
Five Stages of OB Modification
1. The process starts with identifying the behavior that will be modified. Let’s assume that
we are interested in reducing absenteeism among employees.
2. In step 2, we need to measure the baseline level of absenteeism. How many times a
month is a particular employee absent?
3. In step 3, the behavior’s antecedents and consequences are determined. Why is this
employee absent?

59. 4. In step 4, an intervention is implemented. Removing the positive consequences of
negative behavior may be an effective way of dealing with the situation, or, in persistent
situations, punishments may be used.
5. Finally, in step 5 the behavior is measured periodically and maintained
Principles of Behavior Modification,
Model for Modifying Job Behavior,
Behavioral Self-Management
Self-Management Definition
Ability to use introspection, self-evaluation and self-management techniques in order to pro-
actively and continuously improve one's own behavior and performance.
Refers to a combination of behaviors that focus on how people manage themselves in their
work and their life
Daniel Goleman and his coauthors define self-management through these six traits:
1. Self-control
2. Transparency
3. Adaptability
4. Achievement
5. Initiative
6. Optimism
At the core of self-management are three skills everyone must develop: Learning to manage
your commitments and time Cultivating the motivation and capability to learn new things on
your own in support of your work; Building and nurturing your personal network.
Behavioral Indicators
Realistically assesses own strengths and weaknesses and their impact on others relative to the
requirements of the work
Seeks and effectively uses feedback from others to assess and improve own performance
Manages own time effectively.
Seeks to improve its own performance and takes corrective actions to remedy any shortfalls
identified.
Takes full responsibility for own achievements.
Perseveres in the face of performance obstacles for the achievement of work objectives.
Consistently chooses ethical courses of action for workplace behavior.
Is reliable, punctual and conscientious.

60. Chapter 10: Individual and Group Decision Making,
Decision Making is defined as choosing between alternatives. It involves the selection of a
course of action from among two or more possible alternatives in order to arrive at a solution for
a given problem. Further, the decision making process can be regarded as a check and
balance system that keeps the organization growing both in vertical and linear directions. It is
an integral part of modern management and are made at every level of management to ensure
that organizational or business goals are achieved
It is important to remember that decisions have consequences. Decision process that involves
right strategic choices does lead to successful decisions, there are still many problems in
making the wrong decision.
The Decision Making Process
Mintzberg’s Empirically Based (that is, tracing actual decisions in organizations) Phases of
Decision Making in Organization.
Types of decision making
Decision Based on Frequency
Programmed Decision: Decisions that occur frequently enough that we develop an automated
response to them
Non-programmed decision: Unique, non-routine, and important. These decisions require
conscious thinking, information gathering, and careful consideration of alternatives.
Decision Based on the Level at which They Occur
Strategic Decisions: Set the course of an organization
Tactical Decisions: Decisions about how things will get done.
Operational Decisions: Decisions that employees make each day to make the organization
run

61. Models of Decision Making Dynamics of Decision Making,
The following are four decision-making approaches designed to understand and evaluate the
effectiveness of non-programmed decisions.
1. Rational Decision Making Model
2. Bounded Rationality Model
3. Intuitive Decision Making Model
4. Creative Decision Making Model
Rational decision-making model
The rational decision-making model describes a series of steps that decision makers should
consider if their goal is to maximize the quality of their outcomes. If we want to make sure that
we make the best choice, going through the formal steps of the rational decision-making model
may make sense.

62. Bounded Rationality Model
Making “Good Enough” Decisions Recognizes the limitations of our decision-making
processes. According to this model, individuals knowingly limit their options to a manageable
set and choose the first acceptable alternative without conducting an exhaustive search for
alternatives. An important part of the bounded rationality approach is the tendency to satisfy
which refers to accepting the first alternative that meets our minimum criteria.
Intuitive Decision Making Model
Arriving at decisions without conscious reasoning. Research on life-or-death decisions made by
fire chiefs, pilots, and nurses finds that experts do not choose among a list of well thought out
alternatives. They don’t decide between two or three options and choose the best one. Instead,
they consider only one option at a time. The key point is that only one choice is considered at a
time. Novices are not able to make effective decisions this way, because they do not have
enough prior experience to draw upon.

63. Creative Decision Making Model
Creativity is the generation of new, imaginative ideas i.e. the ability to produce novel and useful
ideas With the flattening of organizations and intense competition among companies,
individuals and organizations are driven to be creative in decisions ranging from cutting costs to
generating new ways of doing business.
Dimension of Creativity
How Do You Know If Your Decision-Making Process Is Creative?
1. Fluency Refers to the number of ideas a person is able to generate.

64. 2. Flexibility Refers to how different the ideas are from one another. If you are able to
generate several distinct solutions to a problem, your decision-making process is high on
flexibility.
3. Originality Refers to how unique a person’s ideas are.
Which Decision Making Model Should I use?
Common Biases and Errors in Decision Making
1. Overconfidence Bias Believing too much in our own ability to make good decisions –
especially when outside of own expertise
2. Anchoring Bias Using early, first received information as the basis for making
subsequent judgments Confirmation Bias Selecting and using only facts that support
our decision
3. Availability Bias Emphasizing information that is most readily at hand
4. Escalation of Commitment Increasing commitment to a decision in spite of evidence
that it is wrong - especially if responsible for the decision!
5. Randomness Error Creating meaning out of random events – superstitions
6. Winner’s Curse Highest bidder pays too much due to value overestimation Likelihood
increases with the number of people in auction
7. Hindsight Bias After an outcome is already known, believing it could have been
accurately predicted beforehand
8. Framing bias The tendency of decision makers to be influenced by the way that a
situation or problem is presented

65. Group Decision making;
Group Decision-Making Phenomena
In the Group decision-making process some problems can arise.
Groupthink
A tendency to avoid a critical evaluation of ideas the group favors. Situations where group
pressures for conformity deter the group from critically appraising unusual, minority, or
unpopular views Hinders performance
Groupshift
When discussing a given set of alternatives and arriving at a solution, group members tend to
exaggerate the initial positions that they hold. This causes a shift to more conservative or more
risky behavior

66. Tools and Techniques for Making Better Decisions
Interacting Groups Typical groups, in which the members interact with each other face-to-
face.
Brainstorming An idea-generating process designed to overcome pressure for conformity In a
typical brainstorming session, a half-dozen to a dozen people sit around a table. The group
leader states the problem in a clear manner so all participants understand. Members then
freewheel as many alternatives as they can in a given length of time.
Nominal Group Technique (NGT) A technique designed to help with group decision making
by ensuring that all members participate fully. First, each member of the group begins by
independently and silently writing down ideas. Second, the group goes in order around the
room to gather all the ideas that were generated. Third, a discussion takes place around each
idea, and members ask for and give clarification and make evaluative statements. Finally,
group members vote for their favorite ideas by using ranking or rating techniques.
Delphi Technique A group process that utilizes written responses to a series of questionnaires
instead of physically bringing individuals together to make a decision.
Majority Rule A decision-making rule in which each member of the group is given a single
vote, and the option receiving the greatest number of votes is selected.
Consensus A decision-making rule that groups may use when the goal is to gain support for
an idea or plan of action. This decision making rule is inclusive, participatory, cooperative, and
democratic.
Group Decision Support Systems (GDSS) Interactive computer-based systems that are able
to combine communication and decision technologies to help groups make better decisions.
Decision trees Diagrams where answers to yes or no questions lead decision makers to
address additional questions until they reach the end of the tree
Chapter 11: Group Dynamics,
Defining and Classifying Groups
Group : Two or more individuals interacting and interdependent, who have come together to
achieve particular objectives.
Types of Groups
1. Formal Group Defined by the organization’s structure with designated work
assignments establishing tasks

67. a. Command Group – A group composed of the individuals who report directly to a
given manager
b. Task Group – Those working together to complete a job or task in an
organization but not limited by hierarchical boundaries
2. Informal Group Alliances that are neither formally structured nor organizationally
determined Appear naturally in response to the need for social contact Deeply affect
behavior and performance
a. Interest Group – Members work together to attain a specific objective with which
each is concerned
b. Friendship Group – Those brought together because they share one or more
common characteristics
Why People Join Groups?
There are many reasons that people will join groups.
One reason is that human beings are social animals. Our drive to bond is hardwired through
evolutionary development, creating a need to belong to informal groups. (Proximity, Socio-
Psychological Aspect)
A second explanation is provided by social identity theory
It suggests that people have emotional reactions to the failures or successes of a group
because their self-esteem gets tied into the performance of the group. It states that individuals
define themselves by their group affiliations. Social identity is developed when the
characteristics of similarity, distinctiveness, status, and uncertainty reduction are present.

68. A third reason why people are motivated to form informal groups is that such groups accomplish
goals that cannot be achieved by individuals working alone(Task Accomplishment, Problem
Solving)
The Group Development Process,
1. Forming: It is the initial stage marked by uncertainty and confusion. The structure of the
group is uncertain and unpredictable. Leadership cannot be implemented effectively.
2. Storming: There is a huge rift created because of various disparities and disagreements
between members.
3. Norming: Situation of chaos is finally realized and I is replaced by WE
4. Performing: Teamwork forms the very essence of the group. The assigned task is
completed with devotion and perseverance
5. Adjourning: This represents the end of the group. In this case the mission is
accomplished and it's time to disband the group or have a new composition. All the
stages starts over again/
Roles and Norms Group Structure and Composition,
Roles: Expected behaviors for a given position
Task roles Enable the group to define, clarify, and pursue a common purpose
Maintenance roles Foster supportive and constructive interpersonal relationships Keep the
group together

69. Norms
An attitude, opinion, feeling, or action—shared by two or more people— that guides their
behavior
How Norms are Developed
● Explicit statements by supervisors or co-workers
● Critical events in the group’s history
● Primacy
● Carryover behaviors from past situations
Why Norms are Enforced
● Help the group or organization survive
● Clarify or simplify behavioral expectations
● Help individuals avoid embarrassing situations
● Clarify the group’s or organization’s central values and/or unique identity
Threats to Group Effectiveness
1. Lack of qualified leaders

70. 2. Lack of participation
3. Lack of interest in program
4. Membership
5. Disorderly meetings
6. Poor group relations

71. Chapter 12: Teams and Teamwork for the 21st
Century Work Teams :
Teams
A small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose,
performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves mutually accountable
Why Have Teams Become So Popular?
1. Great way to use employee talents
2. Teams are more flexible and responsive to changes in the environment
3. Can quickly assemble, deploy, refocus, and disband
4. Facilitate employee involvement
5. Increase employee participation in decision making
6. Democratize an organization and increase motivation
Note: teams are not ALWAYS effective
Task groups that have matured to the performing stage. A group becomes a team when:
● Leadership becomes a shared activity
● Accountability shifts from strictly individual to both individual and collective
● The group develops its own purpose or mission
● Problem solving becomes a way of life, not a part-time activity
● Effectiveness is measured by the group’s collective outcomes and products
Work Group
A group that interacts primarily to share information and to make decisions to help each group
member perform within his or her area of responsibility No joint effort required
Work Team
Generates positive synergy through coordinated effort. The individual efforts result in a
performance that is greater than the sum of the individual input

72. Types of Team
1. Problem-Solving Teams : Groups of 5 to 12 employees from the same department who
meet for a few hours each week to discuss ways of improving quality, efficiency, and the
work environment.
2. Cross-Functional Teams: Employees from about the same hierarchical level, but from
different work areas, who come together to accomplish a task
3. Self-Managed Work Teams: Groups of 10 to 15 people who take on the
responsibilities of their former supervisors
4. Virtual Teams Teams that use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed
members in order to achieve a common goal
a. Characteristics
i. Limited socializing
ii. The ability to overcome time and space constraints
b. To be effective, needs:
i. Trust among members
ii. Close monitoring
iii. To be publicized
Effectiveness, and Stumbling Blocks,
Key Components of Effective Teams
1. Context
a. Adequate Resources

73. i. Need the tools to complete the job
b. Effective Leadership and Structure
i. Agreeing to the specifics of work and how the team fits together to
integrate individual skills
ii. Even “self-managed” teams need leaders
iii. Leadership especially important in multi-team systems
c. Climate of Trust
i. Members must trust each other and the leader
d. Performance and Rewards Systems that Reflect Team Contributions
i. Cannot just be based on individual effort
2. Composition
a. Abilities of Members
i. Need technical expertise, problem-solving, decision-making, and good
interpersonal skills
b. Personality of Members
i. Conscientiousness, openness to experience, and agreeableness all relate
to team performance
c. Allocating Roles and Diversity
i. Many necessary roles must be filled
ii. Diversity can often lead to lower performance
d. Size of Team
i. The smaller the better: 5 to 9 is optimal
e. Members’ Preference for Teamwork
i. Do the members want to be on teams?

74. f.
3. Work Design
a. Freedom and Autonomy
i. Ability to work independently
b. Skill Variety
i. Ability to use different skills and talents
c. Task Identity
i. Ability to complete a whole and identifiable task or product
d. Task Significance
i. Working on a task or project that has a substantial impact on others
4. Process
a. Commitment to a Common Purpose
i. Create a common purpose that provides direction
ii. Have reflexivity: willing to adjust plan if necessary
b. Establishment of Specific Team Goals
i. Must be specific, measurable, realistic, and challenging
c. Team Efficacy
i. Team believes in its ability to succeed
d. Mental Models
i. Have an accurate and common mental map of how the work gets done

75. e. A Managed Level of Conflict
i. Task conflicts are helpful; interpersonal conflicts are not
f. Minimized Social Loafing
i. Team holds itself accountable both individually and as a team
5. Variables
Effective Teamwork through Cooperation, Trust, and
Cohesiveness, Teams:
Trust:
A Key Ingredient of Teamwork
Reciprocal faith that the intentions and behaviors of another will consider the implications for
you.
Three Forms of Trust
1. Contractual trust trust of character
2. Communication trust trust of disclosure
3. Competence trust trust of capability
Turning Individuals into Team Players
Selection: Make team skills one of the interpersonal skills in the hiring process.
Training: Individualistic people can learn
Rewards: Rework the reward system to encourage cooperative efforts rather than competitive
(individual) ones Continue to recognize individual contributions while still emphasizing the
importance of teamwork
Threats to Effectiveness
● Social Loafing: Tendency for individual effort to decline as group size increases
● Reasons for Social Loafing:
○ Equity of effort (Everyone else is goofing off, so why shouldn’t I?)
○ Loss of personal accountability (“I’m lost in the crowd, so who cares?”)
○ Motivational loss due to sharing of rewards (“Why should I work harder than the
others when everyone gets the same reward?”)
○ Coordination loss as more people perform the task (“We’re getting in each
other’s way.”)
Beware! Teams Aren’t Always the Answer
Teams take more time and resources than does individual work. Three tests to see if a team
fits the situation:

76. 1. Is the work complex and is there a need for different perspectives – will it be better with
the insights of more than one person?
2. Does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the group that is larger than
the aggregate of the goals for individuals?
3. Are members of the group involved in interdependent tasks?
Quality Circles, Virtual Teams & Self-Managed Teams
Quality Circles
A quality circle is a group of people within an organization who meet on a regular basis to
identify, analyze and solve problems relating to quality, productivity or other aspects of day-to-
day working arrangements using problem-solving techniques. They provide problem-solving at
a more local level and the participation of employees in work-related decisions which concern
them
Features of Quality Circles
The essential features of a quality circle group include the following:
1. membership is voluntary
2. the group usually numbers between five and ten members;