LECTURE 4 001

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LECTURE 4

CHAPTER 6 – PROCESS MOTIVATION THEORIES

Expectancy theory of motivation – people’s actions are driven by expected

consequences. It is based on the principle of hedonism (hedonistic people strive to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain). It can be used to predict behavior in any situation in which a choice between two or more alternatives must be made. Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory – motivation boils down to the decision about how much effort to exert in a specific task situation. This choice is based on a 3-stage sequence of expectations:

1. Motivation is affected by the expectation that a certain level of effort will produce the intended performance goal.

2. Motivation is influenced by a person’s perceived chances of getting various outcomes as a result of performing at a level which would result in the benefits.

3. Individuals are motivated to the extent that they value the outcomes received.

Expectancy = individual’s belief that a particular degree of effort will be followed by a particular level of performance. It is an effort-performance expectation.

An employee’s expectancy perceptions is influenced by:  Self-esteem

 Self-efficacy

 Previous success at the task

 Help received from a supervisor and subordinates  Information necessary to complete the task

 Good materials an equipment to work with

Instrumentality = a person’s belief that a particular outcome depends on

performing at a specific level. It is a performance-outcome perception. Performance is instrumental when it leads to something else.

Valence = positive or negative value people place on outcomes. It mirrors our personal preferences. An outcome’s valence depends on an individual’s needs. The sum of the valences of all relevant outcomes has to be positive. Valence is

representative for the relationship between outcome and personal goals. The expectancy theory has been criticized for the following reasons:

 It is difficult to test

 The measures used to assess expectancy (instrumentality and valence) have questionable validity.

However, it has important practical implications then it can be useful for creating motivating work environments.

Pay-for-performance (PRP) = an employee’s pay varies with the amount and the quality of work he or she carries out.

Equity theory of motivation (Adams) = explains how people strive for fairness and justice in social exchanges or give-and-take relationships. It is based on cognitive

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dissonance theory (people are motivated to maintain consistency between their cognitive beliefs and their behavior).

When making equity comparisons, employees consider the relationship between inputs (time, education, experience, skills, creativity, seniority, loyalty to

organization, age, personality traits, effort expended, personal appearance) and outputs (pay/bonuses, fringe benefits, challenging assignments, job security, career advancement/promotions, status symbols, pleasant/safe working environment, opportunity for personal growth/development, supportive supervision, recognition, participation in important decisions).

Three different equity relationships exist:

 Equity = the ratio of perceived outcomes to inputs is equal to the ratio of outcomes to inputs for a relevant co-worker.

 Negative inequity = the comparison person receives greater outcomes for similar inputs

 Positive inequity = the outcome to input ratio is greater than that of a relevant co-worker.

 Negative inequity is less tolerable and inequity can be reduced in a variety of ways.

(table 6.3-251)

Goal-setting theory (Locke& Latham) -> goal = what an individual is trying to accomplish; it is the object or aim of an action.

Management by objectives (MBO) = incorporates participation in decision-making, goal-setting and objective feedback.

The level of effort expended is proportionate to the difficulty of the goal.

Persistent people tend to see obstacles as challenges to be over-come rather than as reasons to fail.

Goals motivate the individual by:  Directing one’s attention  Regulating one’s effort  Increasing one’s persistence

 Encouraging the development of goal-attainment strategies or action plans. Goal specificity = the extent to which a goal is specifically stated and specified. Goals plus feedback is the recommended approach.

Goal-commitment (the extent to which an individual is personally committed to achieving a goal) affects goal-setting approach. => Difficult goals lead to higher performance only when employees are committed to their goals.

Benchmarking = used when an organization wants to compare its performance or internal work processes with those of other organisations or other internal units, branches, departments or divisions within the organization.

Goals should be SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, results orientated and time bound.

Goal conflict = the degree to which people feel that multiple goals are incompatible. Employees are more motivated to pursue goals they view as reasonable, obtainable and fair.

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Feedback – it serves two functions: instructional (clarifies roles or teaches new behavior) and motivational (serves as a reward or promises a reward)

Those high in self-confidence tend to rely on personal feedback more than those with low self-confidence.

A cognitive processing model of feedback: 1. Sources

 Others  Task  self 2. Recipient

 Characteristics (self-esteem, self-efficacy, needs and goals, desire for performance feedback)

 Perception – people tend to perceive and recall positive feedback more accurately than they do negative feedback.

 Cognitive evaluation (accuracy, source credibility, system fairness, expectancies, behavioural standards)

3. Behavioural outcomes  Direction

 Effort  Persistence  Resistance

Upward feedback – subordinates provide feedback on a superior’s style and performance.

360-degree feedback – letting individuals compare their own perceived performance with that of behaviourally specific performance information supplied by their

superior, subordinates and peers. Research indicates that it is more accurate to describe it as 270-degree feedback, because often customers are not included as a data source.

A general model of organizational reward systems: 1. Types of rewards

 Financial/material  Social

 psychic

2. Organisation’s reward systems  Profit maximization  Equity

 Equality  Need

3. Distribution criteria  Results  Behavior  Other factors 4. Desired outcomes

 Attract  Motivate

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 Develop  Satisfy  Retain

Employees change their time and talent for rewards. The following norms dictate the nature of this exchange:

 Profit maximization

 Equity – rewards should be allocated in proportion to contributions.  Equality – rewarding all parties equally, regardless of their comparative

contributions.  Need

There are three general criteria for the distribution of rewards: 1. Performance in terms of results

2. Performance in terms of actions and behaviours 3. Non-performance considerations

(*) own salary increase, performance of a whole group, organizational change in business strategy

Financial rewards can have an impact on performance in three ways: 1. Motivational

2. They send signals about what is important to the organization

3. Attract people who value such rewards and believe that they have the skills required to earn it.

Things to consider when deciding on the relative balance between monetary and non-monetary rewards:

 Employees value interesting work and recognition more than money  Extrinsic rewards can lose their motivating properties over time and may

undermine intrinsic motivation

 Monetary rewards must be large enough to generate motivation. To build an effective and fair organizational reward system, it is important to:

 Make the organizational reward system an integral part of the organisation’s mission and goals

 Communicate regularly and clearly about the system to all employees  Stimulate a performance culture

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CHAPTER 9 – ORGANISATIONAL CLIMATE: CONFLICT, DIVERSITY AND STRESS

Climate: is about a situation and the feelings, reflections and behavior of people in the organization. It is changing over time, it depends on the observer and can be shaped by individuals, usually those with power. It underlies values and

assumptions.

Culture: is a state or a context, determined by history and held by organizational members collectively. It lies deeper, it is resistant to change and any change happens slowly. It examines surface level manifestations.

 Climate and culture affect each other.

Dimensions of the universe of psychological climate perceptions: 1. Autonomy

2. Cohesion 3. Trust 4. Pressure 5. Support 6. Recognition 7. Fairness 8. Innovation

 A study showed that the eight dimensions could in fact be reduced to just one: tension.

When assessing climate, the following items should be taken into consideration:  Communication

 Values  Expectations  Norms

 Policies and rules  Programs

 Leadership

Conflict = a process in which one party perceives that its interests are being opposed or negatively affected by another party.

Organisations could suffer from too little conflict.

Functional and dysfunctional conflict -> whether the organisation’s interests are served.

Tjosvold’s cooperative conflict model indicates three desired outcomes:  Agreement

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 Learning

Programmed conflict = conflict that raises different opinions regardless of the personal feelings of the managers.

The devil’s advocacy technique: assign someone the role of critic. It alters the usual decision-making process and is intended to generate critical thinking and reality testing.

The dialectic method: calls for professionals to foster a structured debate of opposing viewpoints prior to making a decision. A major drawback is that winning the debate may overshadow the issue at hand and it requires more skill training that does devil’s advocacy.

Afzalur Rahim: 5 different conflict-handling styles exist, taking into consideration the concern for others and the concern for self:

1. Integrating – interested parties confront the issue and cooperatively identify the problem, generate and weigh alternative solutions and select a solution. Appropriate for: complex issues plagues by misunderstanding

Strength: longer-lasting impact Weakness: time-consuming

2. Obliging – playing down differences while emphasizing commonalities. Appropriate: when it is possible to get something in return (NOT!!! – complex/worsening problems)

Strength: encourages co-operation Weakness: temporary fix

3. Dominating – having high concern for self, low concern for others => encourages ‘I win, you lose’ tactics.

Appropriate: an unpopular solution must be implemented, the issue is minor, a deadline is near (NOT!!! – open and participative climate)

Strength: speed

Weakness: it breeds resentment

4. Avoiding – may involve passive withdrawal from the problem or active suppression of the issue

Appropriate – trivial issues, the costs of the confrontation outweigh the benefits of resolving the conflict (NOT!!! – difficult and worsening problems) Strength: buys time in unfolding or ambiguous situations

Weakness: temporary fix

5. Compromising – give and take approach (concern for both self and others) Appropriate: parties have opposite goals, possess equal power (NOT!!! – overuse would lead to inconclusive action)

Strength: it has no losers Weakness: temporary fix.

Negotiation = give-and-take decision making process involving interdependent parties with different preferences. It can be distributive (concern the sharing of a fixed amount; involves traditional win-lose thinking; any change affects everyone; more to one means less to other) and integrative (calls for a progressive win-win strategy).

Third-party intervention – necessary when conflicting parties are unwilling and/or unable to engage in conflict resolution or integrative negotiation.

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Alternative dispute resolution techniques:  Facilitation

 Conciliation  Peer review

 Ombuds(wo)man  Mediation

 Arbitration

Insights about organizational conflict:

 Personality traits affect how people handle conflict

 How you disagree with someone is very important in conflict situations  Aggression breeds aggression

 An integrative style of handling conflict led to higher group satisfaction than an avoidance one.

 Challenging and clear goals can defuse conflict

 Higher levels of conflict tend to erode job satisfaction and internal work motivation

 There is no gender effect

 Conflict needs to be traced back to its source if there is to be lasting improvement.

 Cultural-specific preferences need to be taken into consideration prior to beginning the conflict-resolution process.

Managers can keep from getting too deeply embroiled in conflict by: 1. Establishing challenging and clear goals

2. Disagree in a constructive and reasonable manner 3. Do not get caught up in conflict triangles

4. Refuse to get caught in the aggression-breeds-aggression spiral.

Stereotype = an individual’s set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group. They can lead to poor decisions and can create barriers for women, older individuals, ethnic minorities and people with disabilities.

It is a four-step process: 1. Categorize people

2. We infer that all people within a particular category possess the same traits or characteristics.

3. Form expectations of others

4. Interpret their behavior according to our stereotypes. Effectively managing diversity is a competitive advantage:

 Lower costs and improves employee attitudes  Improved recruiting efforts

 Increased sales, market share and corporate profits  Increased creativity and innovation

 Increased group problem-solving and productivity.

8 generic action options that can be used to address any type of diversity issue:  Include/exclude

 Deny  Assimilate  Suppress

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 Isolate  Tolerate

 Build relationships

 Foster mutual adaptation.

Bad: exclusion, denial, assimilation, suppression, isolation and toleration Good: inclusion, building relationships, mutual adaption.

 Choosing how to best manage diversity is a dynamic process that is determined by the context of the organization.

Ann Morrison: classified the diversity practices into:

1. Accountability – manager’s responsibility to treat diverse employees fairly 2. Development –preparing diverse employees for greater responsibility and

advancement.

3. Recruitment - attract job applicants at all levels that are willing to accept challenging work assignments.

Stress- the biggest contributor arises from fundamental changes that have been made in the organization. Then the technological advancement play an important role and also the dynamics of modern life.

Stress triggers one of two basic reactions: active fighting or passive flight. Stressors = environmental factors that produce stress.

Stress = an adaptive response, mediated by individual characteristics and/or psychological processes, that is a consequence of any external action, situation or event that places special physical and/or psychological demands upon a person. Robert Karasek => job demand-control model. He found that job stress is one cause of smoking.

The model consists of 3 dimensions: 1. Psychological demand of the job 2. The amount of autonomy

3. The social support

Model of occupational stress: stressors lead to perceived stress, which, in turn, produce a variety of outcomes.

1. Stressors

 Individual level  Group level

 Organizational level  Extra-organisational

2. Perceived stress – people do not experience the same level of stress or exhibit similar outcomes for a given type of stressor.

3. Outcomes

 Psychological/attitudinal  Behavioural

 Cognitive  Physical health

Burnout = a stress-induced problem common among members of ‘helping’ professionals. It is a condition that occurs over time.

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 Emotional exhaustion  Depersonalization

 Feeling a lack of personal accomplishment.

Strategies to reduce burnout: sabbaticals and employee retreat Four types of support:

 Esteem support  Informational support  Social companionship  Instrumental support

Global social support = very broad in scope, coming as it does from four sources and is applicable to any situation at any time.

Functional social support = narrower and if relied on the wrong situation can be unhelpful.

Coping = the process of managing demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person.

Situational factors = environmental characteristics that affect how people interpret stressors.

Personal factors = personality traits and personal resources that affect the appraisal of stressors.

Cognitive appraisal = an individual’s overall perception or evaluation of a situation or stressor.

Coping strategies:  Control strategy  Escape strategy