Management
and Motivation
The
following material on being a manager primarily takes the perspective of the
manager in a large bureaucracy. In these the manager has a number of direct
“reports”, people who report to the manager and usually for whom performance
evaluations are done. The concepts apply also to the manager of an organization
in its early life cycle stages where the manager acts as more of an
entrepreneur.
Understanding Others
People,
in the course of living, confront five basic questions about their lives. These
questions are:
1.
How do I see the world?
2.
How do I use time and space?
3.
Who am I?
4.
What do I do?
5.
How do I relate to other people?
Answers
to these questions vary among societies, and in a broad sense determine how
people in a given society experience life.
How Do I See the World? This question deals with the
person’s relationship to the environment. Reflecting even more basic
assumptions about the relationship of humanity to nature, this question
addresses whether people view the relationship as one of dominance, submission,
harmony, or finding an appropriate niche. For example, in Canada and the United
States the dominant culture has seen the natural environment as something to
conquer and exploit. This outlook is beginning to change, however, as
exemplified by the Green movement.
How Do I Use Time and Space?
The focus here is on the nature of reality, time, and space. Questions are what
is real and what is not, what is a fact, how truth is ultimately to be
determined, and whether truth is revealed or discovered. Basic concepts are
those of time as linear or cyclical, space as limited or infinite, and property
as communal or individual.
Time
is typically experienced in Western societies as linear. The past, present, and
future are assumed to be all on one time line. Time is often measured with great
precision. At the Boulder Colorado Labs the atomic clock measures time to
billions of a second.
Other
societies and cultures experience time differently. The present may be thought
of as just the current one of many cycles or loops of time. Time repeats in a
series of endless cycles. Therefore, what one does this minute, today, or
tomorrow is not seen as having great urgency.
Concepts
of space also differ by culture. What a house looks like and how people live in
it is important because house design and living space affect how people see
themselves and think about themselves.
Who Am I? This fundamental question deals with
the nature of human nature. What does it mean to be human, and what attributes
are considered intrinsic or ultimate? Is human nature good, evil, or neutral?
Are human beings perfectible or not? In some cultures life and death are seen as
determined and preordained people are not in control of their own destiny. For
example, the caste system in India, although outlawed, can rank members of
society, fix one’s destiny, and define what occupation one must enter.
What Do I Do? What is the right thing for human
beings to do, on the basis of the above assumptions about reality, the
environment, and human nature? Should one be active, passive, self-developmental
or fatalistic? What is work and what is play? Western culture makes the general
assumptions that people should be active, responsible for their own actions,
that it is right to work, and that work and play are different.
How Do I Relate to Other People?
The key here is the nature of human relationships. What is considered to be the
right way for people to relate to each other, to distribute power and love? Is
life cooperative or competitive; individualistic, collaborative, or communal? Is
it based on traditional lineal authority, law, or charisma? Cultures can give
status for age (respect your elders), skills (a surgeon), actions (scoring goals
in the NHL), or possessions (the car a person drives).
There
are five cultural dimensions that help us understand how societal cultures
differ from one another.
1.
Power Distance
2.
Individualism/Collectivism
3.
Masculinity/Femininity
4.
Uncertainty Avoidance
5.
Long-term Versus Short-term Orientation
Power Distance. Power distance is the extent to which
the less powerful members of society accept that power is distributed unequally
and accept the orders of those in power. The People’s Republic of China (PRC)
would be high in power distance, Canada and the United States, low.
Individualism/Collectivism.
In individualistic cultures people tend to look out for themselves and their
family, they prefer to act as individuals. In collectivistic cultures people
look out for each other; they prefer to act as members of groups. Canada is more
individualistic; the PRC and Japan are more collectivistic. However, Canada may
be seen as more collectivistic than the United States, as evidenced by
Canada’s relatively greater emphasis on commonly available medical care and
the predominance of public institutions of higher learning (rather than a mix of
public and private).
Masculinity/Femininity. Masculine cultures value
success, money and material possessions, assertiveness, and competition.
Feminine cultures value caring for others, warm personal relationships,
solidarity with others and quality of life. The United States and Canada are
high on masculinity, whereas Iceland is more feminine.
Uncertainty Avoidance. This is the extent to which people in
the society want to avoid situations where they are not certain what action is
required. People in high uncertainty avoidance cultures prefer structured over
unstructured situations. Cultures high in uncertainty avoidance tend to have
strict laws and punishments and a feeling of “What is different is
dangerous.” Saudi Arabia and
Singapore have high uncertainty avoidance, Canada and the U.S. are moderate, and
Denmark is low on this variable.
Long-term Versus Short-term Orientation.
Cultures with a long-term orientation value future-oriented behaviours such as
persistence and saving money. Short-term orientation cultures have values
oriented more towards the past and the present such as respect for tradition and
the fulfilling of social obligations.
Organizations
that have members from cultures that are very high or low on these dimensions
have specific advantages.
1.
Those from small power-distance cultures are likely to accept
responsibility, while those from large power-distance cultures are likely to be
more disciplined.
2.
Those from high collectivism cultures tend to show employee commitment,
while members of high individualism cultures can be mobile, allowing the hiring
of experts away from other organizations.
3.
Those from cultures high in femininity are able to provide personal
services and custom-made products, while those in masculine cultures may excel
in mass production and heavy industry.
4.
Those in weak uncertainty-avoidance cultures are good at innovating,
while those in strong uncertainty-avoidance cultures are better at precision
manufacturing.
5.
Those from long-term orientation cultures tend to excel at planning and
activities where returns are high but delayed, while those from short-term
oriented cultures can succeed in quickly changing environments.
One
theory of intelligence states that each person has a unique combination of
amounts of eight different types of intelligence. The eight types are linguistic
(ability with words), logical-mathematical (reasoning and pattern-recognition),
musical (including pitch, tone, melody, and rhythm), bodily kinesthetic (ability
to use one’s body in skilful ways), spatial (perception of a three-dimensional
world), interpersonal (understanding others), intrapersonal (understanding
oneself), and naturalist (understanding the natural world).
The
implication of this theory is that these intelligences should be developed and
that people with different profiles should work in areas suitable to their
strengths.
Analyses
of the answers to intelligence tests have found the factor of general
intelligence, g, and a specific factor s that measures intelligence for a
particular test. While general intelligence cannot be improved in the short
term, specific test intelligence can. There is clear evidence that IQ is
determined genetically, at least in part. A good estimate for the genetic
contribution to intelligence is 50% to 70%. The other influences on intelligence
are the environment and organic factors. The environment might include such
factors as the amount of stimulation received by a child, the toys available for
play, and culture exposed to as a child. An example of an organic factor is any
drugs taken by the mother while the child is developing in the uterus.
Personality
is a stable set of tendencies and characteristics that determine those
commonalities and differences in people’s psychological behaviour (thoughts,
feelings, and actions) that have continuity in time and that may not be easily
understood as the sole result of the social and biological pressures of the
moment.
A
foundation of an individual’s personality is gender. Gender is more than a
person’s biological sex. It is the sex role taught in a particular culture.
One study found that 27 of 33 world cultures sampled attempted to get more
nurturance out of girls than boys and none attempted the reverse. Another
finding was that 70 of 82 cultures gave boys more training in self-reliance than
girls and none attempted the reverse. A study of children in six cultures
(U.S.A., Mexico, Kenya, India, Japan, Philippines) found that boys were more
aggressive than girls within each culture. This is the genetic influence.
However, they also found that the girls of some cultures were more aggressive
than the boys other cultures. This is the cultural/environment influence. Gender
differences in aggression have been found to be stable over time and that men
are more aggressive than women.
Parents
treat boys and girls differently. In North America it has been found that both
parents encouraged sex-typed activities, though these differences decreased as
the child grows up. Boys in Western countries received more physical punishment
than did girls. Significantly, fathers treated boys and girls more differently
than did mothers. Fathers were more involved with sons and provided support with
activities, whereas mothers supported both sons and daughters emotionally.
The
Theory X/Theory Y approach of Douglas McGregor can serve to categorize how
people think about the basic motivations of others. Some managers take the point
of view that others value work for its own sake and do not have to be monitored
closely. This is the humanistic Theory Y view. Other managers might take the
Theory X perspective that people basically don’t want to work, and that
employees have to be watched continually to make sure they keep to their
jobs.
Theory
X/Y has been used as a tool to understand the attitudes and actions of managers.
It can also be used in organizational training to sensitize managers to their
basic theory of personality in the hopes of moving all managers to the more
humanistic Theory Y outlook. This approach, however, may be culturally
constrained. Theory X/Y relies on the cultural value of individualism, which may
hold in North America but is less true for the peoples of East Asia.
This
approach to understanding personality focuses on observable personality
characteristics or traits. After years of research, a model of personality as
composed of five main factors has emerged. The five broad personality traits are
as follows.
1.
Extroversion/Introversion. Extroverts are oriented toward
the outer world of other people and activities. Introverts are oriented toward
the inner world of their own thoughts and feelings.
2.
Friendliness/Hostility. Friendly people are open to
interaction with others and expect positive results. Hostile people look for and
expect confrontation.
3.
Conscientiousness. A conscientious person is responsible,
performing actions that were agreed to.
4.
Neuroticism/Emotional Stability.
An emotionally stable person has a firm grasp on the reality of situations. Such
an individual reacts in a steady way, not riding a roller coaster of emotions.
5.
Intellect. This factor is composed of inquiring
intellect, openness to new feelings and thoughts, cultural and creative
interests. It has also been thought of as creativity.
Four
main influences on an individual’s personality are genetic/biological, social,
cultural, and situational factors.
The
study of genetic effects on
personality is accomplished by assessing identical twins that are brought up by
different families. One such study found that identical twins reared apart are
about as similar as identical twins reared together on multiple measures of
personality and temperament, occupational and leisure-time interests, and social
attitudes. Heredity therefore has an effect on an individual’s personality.
Culture and social class affects personality via group
membership and socialization experiences. The family has an effect on a
person’s personality, but members of one family will often be dissimilar.
Siblings will be unalike because of differences in genetic makeup and birth
order, the age of the child when an event occurs (for example, a death in the
family or divorce), the child’s gender, the child’s physical appearance
(attractive children are often favoured), and experiences that are unique to the
individual.
Situational influences on personality include
temporary body conditions such as fatigue and ingested chemicals. Examples of
chemicals consumed are the caffeine in coffee, nicotine in cigarettes, mood
altering drugs such as stimulants and depressants, and performance-altering
drugs such as steroids.
Both
personality traits and the situation interact to affect behaviour.
1.
In relevant situations traits can influence behaviour. In a threatening
situation a person who is anxious is liable to fidget, break into a cold sweat,
or run from the scene.
2.
A person’s traits can change the situation. An individual who is
aggressive can act in a way that causes conflict with others. The aggressive
employee in a performance review may make statements to the manager that inflame
the situation and cause the manager to react with defensiveness or aggression.
3.
People with different traits will choose different situations. Those who
are introverted, for example, will often choose to be in a quiet place like a
library instead of a noisy place like a party.
4.
Traits can change with persistent exposure to a situation. Going to
college and living in the student environment has been found to change a person
to be less conservative.
5.
Personality traits are more easily expressed in some situations than
others. It is easier to be yourself at a picnic than at a funeral. The picnic
has fewer rules about how to behave than does the funeral. Extroverts and
introverts would act similarly at a funeral but would be expected to act quite
differently at a picnic.
Beliefs
are what an individual accepts to be true without questioning. Beliefs that
endure over time are called values. Feelings are sentiments or the emotional
component of beliefs. Beliefs plus feelings make up an individual’s attitudes.
For example, a belief accepted without questioning can be that managers should
make the decisions. This becomes over time a value, that a good manager is one
who makes the decisions that are required. A related feeling could be that
“this manager makes me uneasy because he keeps asking me what I would do”.
The resulting attitude might then be “I don’t like working for my
manager”.
The
primary purpose of attitudes is knowledge of how to act with respect to another
person or object. Attitudes are important in organizations because they affect
behaviour. Three parts of work attitudes are the affective – what the person
feels about work; the cognitive – what the person thinks about work; and the
intentional – what actions the person is planning to do at work.
Job
satisfaction is affected by both the work environment and by the worker’s
individual characteristics. It has been estimated that the individual’s
personality accounts for between 10% and 30% of his/her job satisfaction, that
40% to 60% of the variance in job satisfaction is caused by situational factors,
and that the interaction between personality and the situation accounts for
between 10% and 20%.
One
situational factor that affects job satisfaction has been found to be wage
inequality and dispersion. The greater the dispersion of wages, in general, the
lower is satisfaction with those wages.
When
an individual is faced with an inconsistency between two thoughts or between a
thought and an action, such dissonance would have to be resolved. A person might
take any of the following actions.
1.
Forget about the inconsistency or ignore it as unimportant. Dissonant
acts are likely to induce cognitive change only when they relate to the
person’s self-concept.
2.
Seek information that makes actions and attitudes seem more consistent.
This information is useful to rationalize away the dissonance. A consumer who
purchases a new and expensive CD player might have conflicting thoughts about
enjoying the player but missing the money. Information about the quality and
features of the CD player might then be scrutinized to reduce the dissonance
about the purchase.
3.
Distort or change the perception of the situation and actions taken.
Memory will be adjusted to reduce the inconsistency between thought and action.
4.
Separate actions and attitudes in the mind. By compartmentalizing them,
inconsistencies can be avoided.
5.
Change the attitude about the event. The worker might come to believe
that the job is more interesting than previously thought. In this case
performing the behaviour has caused a change in attitude.
6.
Leave the situation. This method of reducing cognitive dissonance is
likely when dissonance has built up over time and leaving is relatively easy. It
may also be used when an attitude-behaviour inconsistency is too large to reduce
by the other methods.
Cognitive
dissonance is useful in understanding what a person thinks about work and the
courses of action that a particular person might follow.
Because
job dissatisfaction often leads to thoughts of quitting and the intention to
quit, these feelings about work have important organizational consequences.
The
competing values model of organizational effectiveness has two underlying
dimensions. They are the degree of emphasis the organization places on
flexibility or control and the organization’s internal or external
orientation. Managers in organizations using these four different models of what
it is to be effective will be asked to take on different roles.
Internal Process. There are two managerial roles within
the internal process model. The coordinator
role is most like that of the classical manager. Competencies are planning,
organizing, and controlling. The manager is dependable, reliable, and maintains
structure. In the monitor role the
manager is a technical expert and receives, evaluates, and reacts to information
about internal organizational processes.
Rational Goal Model. The director and producer roles of the
rational goal model focus on the manager’s attempts to maximize organizational
output. These roles are especially important when the manager is dealing with
subordinates and is attempting to motivate their behaviour toward the
accomplishment of organizational goals. The director sets goals and delegates tasks in the attempt to best
organize and guide the work. The producer
manager is more likely to be actively involved in the organization’s work
while attempting to motivate employees to produce more output in less time.
Open Systems Model. Managers operating in organizations
with an open systems model of effectiveness are more used to change and are more
oriented to external relations with the people and organizations that accept the
organization’s product. The broker
builds a base of power inside and outside the organization and engages in a
great deal of discussion and negotiation with others. The innovator is more oriented to being flexible, thinking creatively,
and managing the constant change that is required in this type of organization.
Human Relations Model. Managers in organizations
subscribing to the human relations model are oriented towards the development of
their people, as individuals and in teams. In the mentor
role the manager attempts to help subordinates develop as individuals, to
understand themselves and others, and to learn to communicate well with others.
More highly developed employees will be capable of greater flexibility as the
organization and its environment change. The facilitator role is more group oriented, with the manager acting as
a team builder, helping to manage conflict within and between groups, and
helping the group to make decisions.
These
eight managerial roles are a useful starting point for understanding what
managers do. A particular manager may concentrate activities in only one of the
eight roles. But the other roles will also compete for attention because
effectiveness cannot be fully described by only one orientation. Therefore,
someone who expects to be a manager will need to be competent in all these
roles, but to different degrees and at different times in different
organizations.
What
is it like to be a manager? There are six defining characteristics of managerial
work.
1.
The manager performs a great quantity of work at an unrelenting pace.
Work hours are long and constant. After office hours, managers read material
related to work.
2.
Managerial activity is characterized by variety, fragmentation, and
brevity. Many unscheduled meetings, telephone calls, and reactions to the
day’s crises produced a day broken into a large number of activities of short
duration.
3.
Managers prefer issues that are current and. They prefer to deal with
issues in real time and on the spot. They like to take action at the time they
are confronted with the problem.
4.
The manager sits between the organization and a network of contacts. An
important activity of managers is to communicate with a wide variety of people
outside the organization. Clients, suppliers, peers, outside experts and
officials of other organizations have to be communicated with because they
supply information relevant to the operation of the organization.
5.
The manager has a strong preference for the verbal media of using the
telephone and having meetings over using the mail. Building and maintaining a
personal relationship with others both inside and outside the organization is
crucial, and requires personal contact.
6.
Despite the preponderance of obligations, managers are able to control
their own affairs. The manager has to react to requests and communications and
must attend meetings, but can choose over the longer term how to spend his or
her time.
The
nature of the managerial job differs by culture and country. In Canada and the
United States, the manager is considered more of an equal by those lower in the
organizational hierarchy. The manager is therefore not expected to have all the
knowledge required to make all decisions, or indeed even to make all work
decisions. In Japan the manager is more of a parental figure to the group, is
seen as more knowledgeable and in control, and takes a personal interest in both
the work and personal lives of employees. In Italy the manager is expected to
have the answers to the questions subordinates have about their work.
Motivation
The
motivation of individuals at work is one of the most important jobs of a
manager. What makes someone come to work and apply effort towards getting the
task accomplished? What makes someone decide not to come to work? People work to
better the world, be part of a team, and achieve technical excellence.
Managers
need to understand the different forces that act on an individual. Then the
question of how to exert influence on those forces may be addressed. At that
point the manager can attempt to influence the behaviour of organizational
members so that it is directed towards accomplishing the organization’s tasks.
Motivation
can be defined as the attention paid, effort exerted, and persistence of
behaviour.
A
number of theories of human motivation have been proposed over the years.
Motivation is a useful device to think about why people do what they do.
In
what is probably the most widely described theory of human motivation, Abraham
Maslow proposed that humans have a built-in set of five basic needs, and that
these needs form a hierarchy. He described the five needs (from lowest to
highest) as physiological – the most basic human need for air, food, and
water; safety – the need to be safe from physical and psychological harm;
social – the need to be accepted, loved, and to belong to a social system;
esteem – the need for recognition and prestige given by others; and
self-actualization – the need to become the best that one is capable of
becoming and to be self-fulfilled.
In
this theory each lower need in the hierarchy must be satisfied before the next
higher level need takes effect. To use this model of human needs, a manager
attempting to build a group at work would want the esteem needs of group members
to be dominant. The manager would therefore have to make sure that physiological
and safety needs were met. This would be done by paying a living wage and
providing a safe and secure work environment.
Maslow
also proposed that when a lower-level need was not fulfilled, it would again be
activated. An individual at work who is concerned with the recognition of others
has his or her esteem needs activated. If this job were lost the person would be
expected to revert back to the physiological need to obtain food and would then
be unconcerned with esteem.
This
hierarchy is a useful though very broad way of understanding the behaviour of
people. There are certainly exceptions to the fixed movement up and down the
hierarchy of needs. An example is the starving artist who fulfills the
self-actualization need but not physiological needs. Also, more than one
category of need could affect an individual’s behaviour at a given time.
People at work could, for instance, be concerned with social and esteem needs at
the same time.
In
addition, it is clear that Maslow’s hierarchy relies on the Anglo-American
cultural emphasis on the individual. Other cultures may have different
hierarchies of needs. For example, in the People’s Republic of China the group
is of great importance to the individual. Belonging is therefore the primary
need. It cannot, therefore, be assumed that people from all the cultures of the
world share the same basic built-in needs. Need hierarchies can be expected to
vary by culture depending on each culture’s values. The manager of
organizational members from different cultural backgrounds has to remember that
everyone does not share the same way of looking at and understanding a
situation. Their needs may be different even in the exact same work conditions.
A
second theory of needs is by David McClelland. In this theory, individuals are
thought to vary in their drive to gratify six basic human needs. These are the
needs for achievement, power, affiliation, independence, esteem, and security.
The need for achievement has been extensively studied. The theory is that people
will accomplish the most when they have a high need for achievement. They will
select goals that are medium in difficulty – goals that are challenging but
not impossible. Those low in need for achievement will select goals that are
either low in difficulty and therefore easy to accomplish or very high in
difficulty. Failure to achieve such extremely high goals would therefore be
expected.
An
interesting finding of McClelland’s work is that need for achievement varies
among nations. On a practical level, McClelland has proposed that the populace
of entire nations could be trained to be higher on need for achievement. Then,
over time, these needs would manifest themselves as people chose more difficult
goals and worked to achieve them. The economy of a whole region could be
positively influenced in this way.
One
way that people at work examine their situation is by comparing what they put
into and get out of the job to the inputs and outcomes of another. Inputs could
be hours worked, education, experience, etc. Outcomes could be money, status,
job level, etc. This comparison is shown in the form of a ratio.
Note
that outcomes to inputs for the self is NOT set as equal to outcomes to inputs
of the other. Equity theory is activated when there is a difference in the two
ratios.
Outcomesself/Inputsself
:Outcomesother/Inputsother
If
the ratio of self-inputs to outcomes is similar to the ratio of the comparison
other’s inputs to outcomes, equity (or harmony) is not disturbed. However,
when inequity is perceived to exist the individual perceiving the inequity is
motivated to restore balance. Note that this is an individual’s perception of
inequality. Others could well see the same situation as being equitable.
People
can restore equity in many ways. If the self outcomes-to-inputs ratio is less
than that of the comparison other, the person could seek more outcomes
(typically more pay); reduce inputs into the job (work less hard, take longer
breaks); attempt to reduce the other’s outcomes (“If you can’t pay us the
same, then pay my co-worker less”); decide that the other really has more
inputs that balance the equation (“She really works harder than I do”);
decide that the comparison is being made with the wrong person (change the
comparison other in the equity equation); or quit the job.
Employees
often feel a strong need for equity. Managers seek to create a social situation
where inequity is not felt, at least by those employees the manager wishes to
keep on the job. What is important is the feeling of equity and not the absolute
value of inputs or outcomes. Even professional baseball players earning millions
of dollars a year can genuinely feel mistreated when comparisons with their
peers show their situation to be inequitable.
Salaries
and benefits in North America are often kept secret in order that the
information necessary to determine equity is not available to the individual.
This pay secrecy is often not possible, however, for government or union jobs
where pay rates are known. In Japan and Korea pay increases are not usually
widely different for different members of a work group. Keeping everyone at the
same level earning about the same pay means that equity and harmony are
maintained. Slow promotion in these Far East cultures allows the truly superior
performers to be recognized over the long term. By then all members of the group
have come to the same conclusion that the inputs of these superior performers
are indeed greater than the inputs of others.
If
the ratio of outcomes to inputs for the self turns out to be greater than that
for the other, working harder or changing the perceived level of self-inputs can
resolve this overpayment inequity. In an individualistic work culture, it does
not usually take long for someone in overpayment inequity to decide that the
level of self-inputs is actually higher than previously thought and for internal
balance to be restored
This
motivation theory is one of cognitive choice. It proposes that each individual
at work examines his or her own personal work situation and makes a decision
about how much effort to exert in the pursuit of work success. The formula for
this calculation is
Effort = E å I * V
In
this formula, effort is the motivation of the worker to exert effort on the job.
E is the worker’s expectancy that effort will result in job performance.
Expectancies are probabilities, ranging from 0 to 1, that effort will result in
performance.
The
å
(capital sigma: the summation sign) indicates that effort is affected by a range
of possible work and non-work outcomes that might result from job performance.
The decision of how much effort to exert on a task depends on the consideration
of several outcomes. It is very important to recognize that it is the individual
who decides what outcomes are related to job performance and what valences and
instrumentalities to assign to each of the outcomes. Finally, examining the
expectancy theory equation, it is clear that if expectancy is low, then no
matter what outcomes are considered and how high their valences, effort is
predicted to be low.
The
instrumentality of job performance to a work or non-work outcome is I.
Instrumentalities can range from -1 to +1. They indicate the perceived
connection in the mind of the individual worker that performance will lead to a
given outcome. An instrumentality of +1 would mean that performance is certain
to lead to the outcome. For example, a real estate agent selling a house is
certain to receive a commission. The instrumentality between these two events is
therefore +1. An instrumentality of -1 means that performance ensures another
outcome is certain not to occur. For example, when a contractor completes a
building on time, a late penalty will not be invoked. The instrumentality
between on-time building completion and late penalty is -1. Instrumentalities
equal to or near zero mean that no connection is perceived between job
performance and outcomes. They in effect become zero in the expectancy equation
and do not affect the decision about work effort.
V
is the valence or anticipated satisfaction of an outcome. Valences can be
positive or negative, small or large, and are attached to each outcome
considered by the individual. When expectancy theory is represented in equation
form, valences are often defined to vary between -10 and +10. This choice of
units is arbitrary. Large anticipated satisfactions (high positive valences) and
large anticipated dissatisfactions (high negative valences) when multiplied by
associated instrumentalities and performance expectancy will have a large effect
on the motivation to exert effort on the job.
To
use expectancy theory in an attempt to increase each individual worker’s
motivation to exert effort, a manager can focus on each of the theory’s
components.
1.
The manager can aim to increase the worker’s expectancy that effort
will result in performance. Success on the job will increase E as will
job-related training and the provision of the tools needed to do the job. The
individual at work needs to see that performance is possible. Also, performance
must be accurately perceived and measured for the individual worker to maintain
a high Effort àPerformance
expectancy.
2.
The manager can find out what outcomes people consider important, whether
they are positively or negatively valued, and how they are affected by work
performance. Perhaps these outcomes and values can be re-evaluated based on the
manager’s knowledge of the experiences of other employees. For example, the
chances of a promotion may be higher than an employee thinks and the benefits of
the promotion may be higher than anticipated by the employee. Also, the manager
may know of other outcomes resulting from work performance that would be valued
by the employee. Managers usually have at their disposal a variety of rewards
that go beyond those anticipated by the employee. These can be made available as
outcomes that will follow work performance.
3.
Finally, the manager can attempt to increase the valence of outcomes that
are closely tied to job performance and to increase the instrumentality of
outcomes that have high valence for the individual. Perhaps an employee can be
convinced that the rewards available from work have more value than previously
thought.
The
theory of goal setting is fairly simple, although based on thousands of studies.
The following four “rules” of goal setting can be used to self-set goals or
to help others with their goals. As a manager of others it is important to make
sure the person’s work goals follow these rules and that feedback is given to
the worker.
1.
Difficult goals will produce higher performance than easy goals.
2.
Specific difficult goals will produce higher performance than will no
goals or “I’ll do my best” kinds of goals.
3.
Goal setting with feedback on goal attainment will produce higher
performance than goal setting alone.
4.
Employee participation in goal setting will help to produce higher
performance than no participation when goals that are set participatively are
higher than assigned goals.
Some
organizations have instituted formal goal-setting procedures for use
organization-wide. These plans, called Management By Objectives (MBO), can be
effective if the goals set are specific and difficult, are accepted by
organizational members, and feedback is provided about goal accomplishment.
Individuals
can use goal-setting principles to manage themselves. The interested reader
might like to try setting a specific and difficult goal and then charting
progress toward it. The key is to select a goal that is not too far in the
future and to be very specific about exactly what the goal is.
The
Russian scientist Ivan Pavlov demonstrated that the sound of a bell could make a
dog salivate. First, Pavlov rang the bell while food powder was placed in the
mouth of the dog. Then, after a series of these pairings of food and the bell,
the dog learned to salivate (which, of course, is the dog’s natural response
to food) at the sound of the bell whether or not food was actually present.
There
are also occasions when classical conditioning is found in the workplace. The
lunch bell or factory whistle at quitting time can produce the conditioned
responses of salivating/eating or leaving the factory. The sound of a warning
horn on a forklift truck, if paired with the adrenaline released into the body
to help avoid danger, can later produce the adrenaline push even when danger is
not present. If the air quality in an office building is poor and gives people
headaches, the act of going to the office can trigger the headache even before
the poor air quality has had an actual physical effect.
The
shaping of behaviour requires that target end behaviour is known and that the
person being shaped can exhibit successive approximations to that end behaviour.
For example, a salesperson may be taught how to deal with customers by working
with a trainer. This instructor has a predetermined image of the desired sales
behaviour in mind. The trainer rewards the trainee when a customer is served in
a way that is closer to the ideal than was the service to the previous customer.
For shaping to be successful, the person being shaped must be able to generate
the target behaviour and must value the reward being offered to learn the new
behaviour.
In
reinforcement theory, behaviour (the operant) by the subject is followed by a
reward or a punishment in order to make the behaviour more likely or less
likely. The general and most important principle of reinforcement theory is that
people will do what they are rewarded for doing and will avoid doing what they
are punished for doing. Rewarded behaviour is more likely to occur in the
future.
A
simple example is why a person goes to work. What is the reward for attendance?
One answer is usually the money paid for attendance. But some jobs are not paid
positions. These include volunteer work in a hospital or serving on the board of
directors of a charity. Whether a position is paid or unpaid, it may provide
rewards such as membership in a work group, doing interesting work, or providing
learning and experience that will be valuable in a future job. Without a reward
for being a member of an organization or group, people simply stop attending.
Each
individual person decides on what is rewarding or punishing.
A
great deal of research has been done by psychologists on how best to reinforce
behaviour, in terms of the amount and timing of rewards. A strong finding is
that rewards and punishments have their greatest effect when they closely follow
behaviour. When the separation between behaviour and outcomes is too long, the
connection between behaviour and stimulus can be lost.
Other
work has shown that different schedules of reinforcement affect how quickly a
behaviour is learned and how long it takes before it disappears when it is no
longer rewarded (called extinction). Four reinforcement schedules are fixed
interval, fixed ratio, variable interval, and variable ratio.
An
example of fixed
interval is being paid once a month on the last day of the month. A fixed
interval schedule of reinforcement will reward a person for being present on the
day the reward is due.
An
example of a fixed ratio
reinforcement plan is being paid 50 cents for every unit produced. The ratio in
this case is fixed at 1:1. If a $10 bonus were paid to an employee for every
tenth customer who applies for a company credit card, the ratio would be fixed
at 1:10. It would be paid immediately after the tenth order. A fixed ratio
schedule will motivate a person to work hard when the reward is near (“Only
three more orders to go!”) but not when the reward has just been obtained.
A
variable ratio schedule would allocate a reward on an average of
once for every x times that the behaviour being rewarded were to occur. For
example, a salesperson could be paid a $10 bonus for every 25 customers
contacted, but the bonus could be paid at any time, not just after the 25th
customer. It might be paid after the 10th and 40th customers. The average,
however, would be that for every 25 customers the bonus would be paid once. A
good example of the variable ratio reward schedule is that of a slot machine,
which is programmed to pay jackpots on a determined frequency but could pay a
jackpot twice in succession. Think how effective slot machines would be if they
operated on a fixed ratio schedule!
A
company could be concerned about employees being at work by 8 a.m. It could pay
a $20 bonus to every employee at work by 8 a.m. on a given day. If this bonus
were awarded on average once in every five days it would be a variable interval reinforcement schedule. The employees would, on
average, receive the $20 bonus once for every five days they are at work on
time. But the $20 is paid on a variable schedule so that any employee might
receive the bonus the 7th and 10th time.
Variable
interval and variable ratio reinforcement schedules make the behaviour more
constant because the person does not know which behaviour will be the one to be
rewarded.
Organizations
often provide reinforcements using what is called a token reinforcement plan. In
this plan a token (it could be a poker chip, a point, or any other symbolic
item) is given after the desired behaviour. Tokens are accumulated and then
turned in for a product or service that has value to the person being rewarded.
For example, mental health organizations often put patients on a token plan to
control their behaviour. Patients then buy food, magazines, etc. with the
tokens. Airlines use these principles with their frequent flier plans. Here the
tokens are points, which may be turned in later for air travel. However, like
all token reinforcement plans, when stopped the behaviour being rewarded will
likely stop as well. This is one dilemma faced by airlines over their frequent
flier plans – once started they are hard to stop.
When
behaviour causes a negative stimulus to be removed, that stimulus is a negative
reinforcer. People at work can be motivated to act in a way that gets rid of an
already existing unpleasant condition.
Sometimes
behaviour by an organizational member is not desired, but not rewarding it will
not lead to its extinction. In this case there is some other reward that is
reinforcing the undesired behaviour. Therefore, to stop the behaviour a
punishment is applied. A punishment is an outcome that is negatively valued by
the person. For example, factory time clocks are often programmed to print the
time of worker arrival on the time card. When the employee is late, the time is
printed in red ink and the employee is docked 1/4 hour of pay (for example) as a
punishment. The red ink is the signal of the punishment. Punishment can be a
good way to stop the occurrence of an unwanted behaviour, but has some
undesirable side effects. For this reason punishment should only be used when
the behaviour is one that must be immediately stopped.
One
side effect of punishment is that the person being punished can associate the
negative consequence with the punisher and may later react against the punisher,
someone else, or the company. This side effect is not to be taken lightly.
Persons at work who learn to dislike someone who punishes them may take their
anger out on the supervisor, co-workers, themselves, or even innocent
bystanders.
Another
punishment side effect is that the undesirable behaviour will tend to re-occur
when the punisher is absent or the person punished feels there is little chance
of being caught. To punish effectively, the manager must punish immediately
after the undesired behaviour. The desired behaviour must be made clear so that
the employee knows what to do, not just what not to do. Finally, it is the
action that should be punished and not the person.
People
learn what to do, what works and what doesn’t work by watching others. This is
called modelling. It is a very important form of learning because mistakes do
not have to be made before they are corrected and effective behaviours do not
have to be learned bit by bit over time. People can learn effective behaviours
all at once in great leaps by watching what others do. They can see the whole
behaviour all at once. When they learn vicariously by watching others they do
not receive the rewards or the punishments that the other may obtain.
The
most crucial element in social learning is the role model. Managers can model
effective behaviour themselves. For instance, the manager of a life insurance
agency could take a new recruit on a series of sales calls to show how the
selling is done. A police force could create two-person teams of a junior and a
senior officer so that the junior can learn by watching the other. The rookie
officer learns by doing and by watching. However, if the role model is showing
what the manager would consider to be the wrong way to act, social learning will
not be effective.
Managers
must understand the importance of rewards in the workplace, the many different
types of rewards, and how rewards are made.
There
is a wide variety of possible work rewards. These include pay, promotion, the
chance to do interesting work, time off, learning opportunities, travel to
conferences, etc.
Managers
need to:
1.
Determine what is currently being rewarded
2.
Decide what work performance should be rewarded
3.
Develop a wide variety of rewards that can be awarded at the manager’s
discretion – the manager controls the reward
4.
Reward desired behaviour within the context of the social situation at
work.
Managers
in organizations will often create a reward system, especially for the
allocation of pay and benefits. These systems are a set of rules regarding how
rewards are earned and paid. An important point to remember when considering any
system is that if one person can create it, another can figure out how to beat
it. Managers have to avoid being caught up in a cycle of adding more rules to
the system only to have someone else find the loophole to beat the system, which
necessitates the addition of still more rules and so on.
Some
newer approaches to reward systems are cafeteria-style fringe benefits,
all-salaried teams, skill-based pay, and profit sharing.
The
cafeteria-style fringe benefits approach gives employees a budget and allows
them to select the benefits they most want from a menu of possibilities. A young
single person might select extra vacation days, a parent of young children a
dental plan, and an older worker higher contributions to the company pension
plan. While such choice of benefits might not motivate job effort or
performance, it could make the individual worker more satisfied, less stressed,
and therefore be more likely to attend work and stay in the job.
On
all-salaried teams everyone is paid a salary instead of some members being on
salary and some paid on an hourly basis. The advantage here is that a greater
sense of cohesion is created along with the willingness to share tasks.
Employees
on a skill-based pay plan are paid a base hourly rate and an additional amount
per hour for each job skill they have mastered, whether the skill is currently
used or not. This plan promotes flexibility, job rotation, and the constant
upgrading of skills.
Finally,
there are many different types of profit sharing plans that exist for allocating
a portion of company profits to its members. The purpose of these plans is to
enhance the employee’s identification with the company’s overall objective
by providing the employee a stake in the profits.
Organizations
divide their work to be done into tasks, and then combine tasks together into
jobs that can each be held by an individual. The way jobs are designed affects
the individual jobholder’s internal state and external behaviours of how he or
she feels and acts. Managers in organizations are therefore interested in job
design as a means of increasing worker satisfaction, motivation, and
performance.
There
are four main approaches to the design of jobs. The engineering approach is
based on work in industrial engineering and scientific management. Its aim is to
simplify jobs so that it becomes easy to find and train workers that can do
those jobs. The efficiency of the work is the goal of the engineering approach
to job design. The person-machine fit approach is based on how people process
information and how their basic biology and physiology affect perception and
physical movement. Its aim is to improve the fit between person and task so that
the reliability of performance is enhanced and the person doing the job
experiences less fatigue and stress. The biological approach to job design deals
with how people react to the physical conditions experienced in the workplace.
Its aim is to reduce the physical stress and strain on the worker so that
employee comfort is increased. The psychological approach to job design examines
how people think about their jobs, the meaning of the job, and why the job is
important. Its aims are to improve the worker’s job satisfaction, motivation
to do the job, involvement in the job, and job performance.
Each
of these four approaches to job design focuses on a different outcome of work.
Each has its own costs and benefits. The manager in an organization could not
attempt to use all four approaches at the same time because their
recommendations can conflict. For example, jobs can be simplified and made easy
for a worker to accomplish adequate and reliable performance, but then these
jobs are not likely to offer the depth and challenge that some workers require.
Scientific
management, work simplification, and time and motion study are the sources of
this approach. The engineering method concentrates on the job itself, and not on
the person doing the job. It attempts to make the job easier to perform in order
to obtain greater efficiency and reliability, make it easier to find and train
people to perform the job. Job content is reduced. Any physical and
psychological effects on the people doing the job are of secondary importance.
Workers are seen mechanistically, as interchangeable parts needed to do the
work.
This
is the study of persons in their working environment and is concerned with the
fit between the person and the machine. Here the person is considered in the
performance of the work, but mostly in the sense of reducing errors that humans
are likely to make. The attention and concentration requirements of jobs are
designed so that the job does not demand too much of the worker’s physical and
mental capabilities.
Common
approaches are the design of parts that can be inserted only one way, machines
that can be operated only in the most efficient manner, and dials that can be
easily read. When a job is designed well in this way, the reliability of job
performance should be enhanced. The worker should make fewer mistakes and have
fewer job-related accidents. Also, the individual worker should experience less
fatigue, stress, mental overload, and boredom on the job.
One
important new area of equipment design is that of computer monitors and
keyboards. With many employees now sitting in front of video display terminals
(VDTs) for long periods of time, any radiation they emit is a health concern.
Typing faster and faster on computer keyboards while having few rest breaks is
causing repetitive stress disorders such as carpal tunnel syndrome and arm and
wrist tendonitis. Several low-stress, flexible keyboards have been designed that
require far less finger muscle energy than conventional keyboards and can be
split and rotated so that the user’s hands are not in stressful positions.
This
approach focuses on the physical comfort and well being of the person doing the
job and on the physical characteristics of the workplace. Job conditions concern
where and how the work is done and in what physical environment. Biological job
design is concerned with privacy, lighting, air quality, noise, and space.
Privacy. This characteristic concerns visual and speech
privacy as well as the physical accessibility of the office. Open-plan or
landscaped offices are less private than traditional enclosed offices. Their
walls are usually room dividers that can be moved as necessary. Offices are
areas of the floor enclosed by dividers and usually do not have a door. The
person working in an open office can typically be easily seen and heard, and is
readily accessible. Open-plan workspaces may also be made up of workstations or
carrels.
Lighting. Most people prefer natural light to
artificial light. Natural light contains the full spectrum of colours, and is
perceived as warmer and brighter than artificial lighting. Fluorescent lighting
can flicker, hum, and cause headaches. Incandescent lights produce a more yellow
light than most fluorescents. They are useful for desks because the individual
can flexibly direct the light. This is an advantage because people at work like
to be able to control the amount of light in their workspace.
Artificial
lights can also be concentrated in an array to make a bright panel that mimics
the intensity of natural outdoor light. Such a panel can be useful in
controlling a form of depression, called seasonal affective disorder, caused in
some individuals by a lack of light. Artificial light can also be used to help
people working at night in offices or factories to control their body clocks.
The body can be fooled into switching night for day, which helps the person to
work more effectively at night.
Air Quality. Because many office towers are sealed,
fresh air is supplied only through the heating, ventilating, and air
conditioning (HVAC) system. Air temperatures are often not controllable in
individual offices, so that some employees feel too hot and others too cool to
work effectively.
The
increasing numbers of computers, laser printers, photocopiers, and fax machines
in an office release more chemicals into the air and therefore a greater supply
of fresh air is required. When airflow is restricted, contaminants can build up
in the air causing allergic reactions among employees.
The
sick building syndrome is when more than 20 percent of the people working in the
building complain of headaches, dizzy spells, sore throats, itchy eyes, nausea,
skin irritations or coughs, and when workers get better 12 to 24 hours after
leaving the building.
To
reduce the effects of poor office air quality the following prescriptions apply.
1.
The heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning system needs to be
examined and cleaned, especially to eliminate molds growing in the ventilation
system. Molds and mildews on walls and other surfaces must be cleaned.
2.
More fresh air needs to be drawn into the building. Fresh air intakes
must be located away from exhausted air and outdoor pollutants. Tobacco smoke
needs to be reduced or eliminated inside the building.
3.
Since paint, glue, and new cloth used in office screens and carpets all
give off noxious gases, these need to be cooked off when installed by heating
the building to high levels and venting the gases to the outside.
4.
The use of insecticides and volatile cleaners inside the building must be
reduced.
Noise. Noise is increasing in offices along with higher
numbers of office machines and densities of people working in the office.
Installing ceiling, wall, and floor coverings can reduce noise. Another solution
is to build walls and partitions that will shield workers from ambient noise. An
example of a white noise generator is a machine that projects sounds of waves or
rain. With such a generator operating in the office the conversations of others
will be heard but the words spoken will be harder to make out. Such
conversations will therefore be less distracting.
A
more active and high-tech approach is active noise control. Here a microphone is
placed near the source of a repetitive noise, the sounds picked up are digitally
analyzed and a speaker generates an anti-noise. This anti-noise is made to be
out of phase with the original noise so that the two cancel each other out.
Noise here is not masked or baffled, but eliminated. For high-noise workplaces
where hearing damage is a possibility, special anti-noise headphones can be
worn.
Space. The comfort, efficiency, and health of employees
are key factors that are influenced by the design of the worker’s physical
space and equipment used. Uncomfortable furniture, inappropriately sized work
surfaces, sharp-cornered desks, and bookcases with the top shelves out of reach
are all symptoms of a poor physical support system. People differ widely in
their physical characteristics and equipment designed for the average person
suits very few. The trend towards a more diverse work force also increases the
need for the careful design of office furnishings and work equipment.
In
this approach to job design, the mental state of the worker is considered of
primary importance in the performance of the task.
Job Enlargement.
This
refers to the addition of tasks to a job. When tasks are given that add variety
to the work and help to break up the day, enlargement is a useful approach.
However, if the tasks added are seen by jobholders as more of the same, the
enlarged job will not likely increase the worker’s motivation to perform the
work. An important aspect of job refers to the number of people with whom the
jobholder interacts, who these people are (clients, suppliers, customers, etc.)
and how long these interactions typically last. A worker who is in constant
contact with the general public and has a job high in number of relationships
that last a short time has an enlarged job that is likely to cause stress.
Job Enrichment. This approach builds motivational
factors into a job, making the job more complex and challenging. Enriched jobs
are expected to increase the jobholder’s motivation to perform, especially if
the worker is seeking more of a challenge. Enriched jobs may have increased
authority, supervision, management, and decision-making responsibilities. The
more these elements exist in a job the higher is its vertical loading.
When
a job is enriched to make it complex and enlarged, the job scope is high.
Job Rotation. Job rotation allows the movement of
people between jobs. This can help to reduce the boredom associated with
performing any one job for a long period of time. In a factory with a number of
assembly jobs, personnel can be moved between the jobs on a fixed rotation or on
an as-requested basis. Rotation could occur at the end of a relatively long
period of time performing one job, a month for example, or could occur on a
daily basis. Job rotation is not limited to factory or service jobs.
Professionals can be seconded from their home organization to help another
organization for a fixed amount of time. An executive might, for instance, be
given four months away from the home organization to work with the United Way on
its yearly campaign.
One
benefit of job rotation is that it has a group cooperative emphasis. Personnel
rotated through jobs build personal relationships with others while learning
what the others do in their work. A bank management trainee could expect to
rotate through a number of different functional areas in bank branches and
through branches of different sizes and serving different clienteles before
being assigned to head office.
The Job Characteristics Model.
This model shows how the characteristics of a job are likely to affect the
performance of the jobholder. Jobs can be analyzed for motivating potential and
redesigned to be more motivating for jobholders.
Five
core job dimensions are:
1.
Skill Variety – the number of skills necessary to
do the job
2.
Task Identity – the degree to which the job is
done start to finish by one worker
3.
Task Significance – the importance of the job to other
people’s lives
4.
Autonomy – the freedom to do the job in the way the job
holder wants
5.
Feedback – information about job performance comes from
the job itself or from co-workers.
The
Job Characteristics Model argues that these five core dimensions of a job affect
the psychological state of the individual worker. Psychological state in turn
affects personal and work outcomes. The outcomes considered in the model are
internal work motivation, quality of work performance, satisfaction with the
work, and absenteeism and turnover. The basic prediction of the model is that
jobs that are higher on the five core job dimensions will create positive
psychological states that will then result in beneficial personal and work
outcomes.
Specifically,
the more skills that are required to do the job, the more the whole job is
performed by the same worker, and the more the performance of the job makes a
difference to other people’s lives, the more it is likely to be experienced as
meaningful.
Autonomy
is expected in the job characteristics model to lead to the psychological state
of experienced responsibility for outcomes of the work. The person at work who
is free to make choices regarding what to do and how to do it is also likely to
feel responsible for the decisions made. The emergency room physician decides
how to treat patients and bears the responsibility for what happens to them.
Feedback
on the job performed will lead to knowledge of the actual results of the work
activities. Sometimes doctors prescribe medication to a patient and never find
out what difference the medicine made or even if the patient actually took it.
In the emergency room, medication is likely to be prescribed and administered;
then the patient’s status is monitored. Feedback from blood samples, blood
pressure readings, etc., as well as the patient’s own reports all provide
knowledge of the results of actions taken by the emergency room physician.
The
Job Characteristics Model proposes that an aspect of the employee’s
personality called growth need strength affects the relationship between core
job dimensions and work outcomes. GNS is a person’s basic desire to better him
or herself. An employee might have a low growth need strength and not desire a
motivating job. That employee would be quite content to work in a job low on the
five core job dimensions and to experience low meaningfulness, low
responsibility, and low knowledge of work results. A worker with high GNS would
find such a job non-motivating. Work outcomes are therefore not likely to be
high.
There
are two other variables thought to affect the relationship between job
characteristics and performance. First, if an individual does not have the
knowledge and skills required to do a job then even a job high on the core
dimensions is not likely to result in better work outcomes. The job can be
challenging, but a person who feels unable to effectively perform the job will
not feel challenged. The second factor is context satisfactions. If the context
of work is disagreeable then the individual worker will probably not be
motivated by the job’s characteristics. Motivating potential score (MPS) is
defined as:
(Skill
Variety + Task Identity + Task Significance)/3 * Autonomy * Feedback
Using
seven-point scales where 1 is low and 7 is high; the maximum MPS is 73
or 343. The average MPS for a variety of jobs has been determined to be 128.
If
a job is determined to be low on MPS, an examination of the levels of the five
factors may identify one that is relatively low and therefore a candidate for
change. It is important to remember that MPS is a measure of the characteristics
of the job itself, not of how any particular person might perceive the
dimensions of his or her job. Job redesign, then, is a general concept. A more
specific concept of motivation would be altering a job to better fit a
particular person, or modifying a person’s perceptions of a job so that it is
seen as more motivating.
Combining
tasks to be performed is a way to increase both skill variety and task identity.
Building a bigger job out of smaller ones will require more skills and that the
worker performs a larger piece of the total work. Work units can be formed that
follow natural work clusters, thereby increasing task identity and task
significance. This is because the formation of natural work units allows the
individual to see the whole job being done and the difference it makes. Building
up relationships with clients helps to increase skill variety, autonomy, and
feedback.
Vertical
loading can also enrich a job so that the jobholder has more autonomy and
responsibility for work outcomes. A sales clerk at Mark’s Work Wearhouse, for
instance, could be given responsibility for ordering clothing for several
product categories and tracking sales and customer response to the product.
Opening
feedback channels can increase the amount of feedback generated by a job.
Clients can be asked to report on their experiences. Comment cards are often
used for this purpose. Feedback can come from supervisors or from devices used
to perform the work. For instance, supermarket checkout scanners can be
programmed to report on the number of items scanned in a given period.
After
the job has been designed, a job description is created, which is a summary of
the tasks and role behaviours for the particular job.(alberta school of business)
