OB Chapter 2.. Foundation of Behavior.pptx

organization behavior

1. Foundations of Individual Behavior

2. 1. Ability Ability refers to an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job. It is a current assessment of what one can do. Overall abilities are essentially made up of two sets of factors: intellectual and physical.

3. Intellectual Abilities Intellectual abilities are abilities needed to perform mental activities— thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. Intelligence quotient (IQ) tests, for example, are designed to ascertain a person’s general intellectual abilities. So, too, are popular college admission tests, such as the SAT and ACT and graduate admission tests in business (GMAT), law (LSAT), and medicine (MCAT).

4. Intelligence dimensions are positively related, So if you score high on verbal comprehension, for example, you’re more likely to also score high on spatial visualization. The correlations aren’t perfect, meaning people do have specific abilities that predict important work-related outcomes when considered individually. Jobs differ in the demands for intellectual abilities. The more complex a job in terms of information-processing demands, the more general intelligence. Where employee behavior is highly routine and there are few or no opportunities to exercise discretion, a high IQ is not as important to performing well.

5. While intelligence is a big help in performing a job well, it doesn’t make people happier or more satisfied with their jobs. The correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction is about zero. Why? Research suggests that although intelligent people perform better and tend to have more interesting jobs, they are also more critical when evaluating their job conditions. Thus, smart people have it better, but they also expect more .

6. Physical Abilities The capacity to do tasks that demand stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics. physical abilities have been and will remain important for doing certain jobs successfully. Research on hundreds of jobs has identified nine basic abilities needed in the performance of physical tasks.

7. Individuals differ in the extent to which they have each of these abilities. There is also little relationship among them: A high score on one is no assurance of a high score on others. High employee performance is likely to be achieved when management has ascertained the extent to which a job requires each of the nine abilities and then ensures that employees in that job have those abilities.

8. Biographical Characteristics Biographical characteristics are Personal characteristics—such as age, gender, race, and length of tenure—that are objective and easily obtained from personnel records. These characteristics are representative of surface-level diversity.

9. 1. AGE The relationship between age and job performance is likely to be an issue of increasing importance during the next decade for at least three reasons. First, belief is widespread that job performance declines with increasing age. Second, the workforce is aging. The third reason is the retirement age.

10. Positive qualities older workers bring to their jobs. Experience, Judgment, A strong work ethic, and Commitment to quality. But older workers are also perceived as lacking flexibility and resisting new technology. And when organizations are actively seeking individuals who are adaptable and open to change, the negatives associated with age clearly hinder the initial hiring of older workers and increase the likelihood they will be let go during cutbacks.

11. Effect of age on turnover The older you get, the less likely you are to quit your job. Reasons: As workers get older, they have fewer alternative job opportunities as their skills have become more specialized to certain types of work. Their long tenure also tends to provide them with higher wage rates, longer paid vacations, and more attractive pension benefits.

12. Effect of age on Absenteeism Absenteeism depends on whether the absence is avoidable or unavoidable. Older employees have lower rates of avoidable absence than do younger employees. However, they have higher rate of unavoidable absence, such as sickness absence s due to poorer health and longer recovery period.

13. Effect of age on Productivity Many believe productivity declines with age. It is often assumed that skills like speed, agility, strength, and coordination decay over time and that prolonged job boredom and lack of intellectual stimulation contribute to reduced productivity. Other reviews of the research find that age and job task performance are unrelated and that older workers are more likely to engage in citizenship behavior. Demands of most jobs even those with heavy manual labor requirements, are not extreme enough for any age to have an impact on productivity. If there is some decay due to age, it is offset by gains due to experience.

14. Effect of age on Job satisfaction Satisfaction tends to continually increase among professionals as they age. Whereas it falls among nonprofessionals during middle age and then rises again in the later years.

15. 2. Gender There are few, if any, important differences between men and women that will affect job performance. There are no consistent male–female differences in problem-solving ability, analytical skills, competitive drive, motivation, sociability, or learning ability. Psychological studies have found women are more agreeable and willing to conform to authority, whereas men are more aggressive and more likely to have expectations of success , but those differences are minor. Interestingly, research also suggests that women believe sex-based discrimination is more prevalent than do male employees, and these beliefs are especially pronounced among women who work with a large proportion of men.

16. Effect of gender on Job productivity No significant difference in job productivity between men and women. Effect of gender on Turn Over. Women turn over rates are similar to men, but some evidence from researches suggest that women are more likely to turn over than men. A study of nearly 500,000 professional employees support this claim. P. W. Hom , L. Roberson, and A. D. Ellis, “Challenging Conventional Wisdom About Who Quits: Revelations from Corporate America,” Journal of Applied Psychology 93, no. 1 (2008), pp. 1–34.

17. Effect of gender on Absenteeism. Women also have higher rates of absenteeism than men do. The most logical explanation is that in many cultures the home and family responsibilities are placed on women. When a child is ill or someone needs to stay home to wait for a plumber, the woman has traditionally taken time from work. However, this research is also undoubtedly time-bound. The role of women has definitely changed over the past generation. Men are increasingly sharing responsibility for child care and other family responsibilities.

18. One issue that does seem to differ between men and women, especially when the employee has preschool-age children, is preference for work schedules. Working mothers are more likely to prefer part-time work, flexible work schedules, and telecommuting in order to accommodate their family responsibilities.

19. Race and Ethnicity Race is usually defined as the biological heritage people use to identify themselves. Ethnicity is the additional set of cultural characteristics that often overlaps with race.

20. Effect of Race and Ethnicity on behavior Race and ethnicity does not have any association with job related behavior like job satisfaction, performance, turn over and absenteeism. Race and ethnicity have been studied as they relate to employment outcomes such as hiring decisions, performance evaluations, pay, and workplace discrimination. First, in employment settings, individuals tend to slightly favor colleagues of their own race in performance evaluations, promotion decisions, and pay raises, although such differences are not found consistently, especially when highly structured methods of decision making are employed.

21. Second, some races possess a favorable attitudes toward affirmative action/positive discrimination programs in organizations than other, e.g. African Americans approving of such programs to a greater degree than Whites. (Positive discrimination means favoring those who tend to suffer from discrimination .) Third, some races like African Americans generally fear to be treated worse than Whites in employment decisions. They receive lower ratings in employment interviews, receive lower job performance ratings, are paid less, and are promoted less frequently.

22. Tenure Tenure or seniority is defined as time on a particular job. Evidence demonstrates a positive relationship between seniority and job productivity. Studies consistently show seniority to be negatively related to absenteeism. The longer a person is in a job, the less likely he or she is to quit. Evidence indicates tenure at an employee’s previous job is a powerful predictor of that employee’s future turnover. Evidence indicates tenure and job satisfaction are positively related.

23. Learning Any relative permanent change in behavior that occurs as a result of experience is known as Learning. Learning involves change and changes may be good or bad from an organizational point of view. People can learn favorable as well as unfavorable behaviors. Immediate and reflexive changes in behavior may not represent learning. Changes must become ingrained and must be for a relatively longer period of time. Some sort of experience is necessary for learning. Experience may be acquired directly through observation or practice, or it may be acquired indirectly through reading or being told.

24. Theories of Learning How do we learn?

25. 1. Classical Conditioning theory. Classical conditioning theory of learning emanated from experiments by Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov, conducted to teach dogs to salivate in response to the ringing bell in the early 1900s.

26. Unconditioned Stimulus: A naturally occurring phenomenon. A stimulus that does not need the association of some other stimulus to create a response. Meat was Unconditioned Stimulus, causing dog to react in a specific way i.e. salivate. Unconditioned Response: The naturally occurring response to a natural stimulus. Conditioned Stimulus: A stimulus which is neutral originally i.e. causing no response when presented alone. An artificial stimulus introduced into the situation. Conditioned Response: The response to the artificial stimulus. Response learned when bell was paired with meat & then presented alone.

27. 1. Classical Conditioning theory. Individuals learn to respond to a neutral (conditioned) stimulus the same way they respond to a compelling (unconditioned) stimulus, after it is associated with the compelling one.

28. 2. Operant Conditioning Theory Behavior is a function of its consequences. People learn to behave to get something they want or to avoid something they don’t want. The tendency to repeat such behavior is influenced by the reinforcement or lack of reinforcement brought about by the consequences of the behavior. Reinforcement means to encourage a behavior through repeated stimulus. Harvard psychologist, B.F. Skinner contributed a lot to this theory. According to Skinner, creating pleasing consequences to follow a specific behavior would increase the frequency of that behavior, i.e. the likelihood that it will be repeated. Behavior that is not rewarded or is punished, is less likely to be repeated. Operant behavior means voluntary or learned behavior in contrast to reflexive or unlearned behavior.

29. 3. Social Learning Theory. This theory states that we can learn through both observation and direct experiences. According to theory learning take place by Observing what happens to others. Being told about something. Direct experience. Social learning theory is an extension of operant conditioning theory as it also assumes that behavior is a function of its consequence. Moreover, it also acknowledges the existence of observational learning and the importance of perception in learning. People respond to how they perceive and define the consequences, not to the objective consequences themselves.

30. Social Learning Theory and Models The influence of models is central to the social learning theory. Four processes have been found to determine the influence that a model will have on an individual. 1. Attentional processes: People tend to learn from models that are attractive, repeatedly available, important to them or similar to them. 2. Retention processes: How well the individual remembers the model’s action after the model is no longer readily available.

31. Social Learning Theory and Models (Continued) 3. Motor reproduction processes. After a person has seen a new behavior by observing the model, the watching must be converted to doing. 4. Reinforcement processes: Individuals are motivated to exhibit the modeled behavior if positive incentives or rewards are provided. Behaviors that are positively reinforced are given more attention, learned better and performed more often.

32. Shaping: A Managerial Tool. Shaping behavior is the process of moving individuals closer to the desired response by guiding their learning . This process is concerned with how to teach employees to behave in a way that most benefit the organization. Behaviors are shaped by systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves an individual closer to the desired response. Example: Employee who has chronically been a half-hour late for work comes only 20 minutes late, we can reinforce that improvement. Systematic treatment of drug addicts.

33. Methods of Reshaping Behavior. There are four methods of shaping behavior: Positive Reinforcement: Following a response/behavior by something pleasant. Providing a reward for a desired behavior. Negative Reinforcement: Following a behavior by the termination or withdrawal of something unpleasant. Punishment: Causing an unpleasant condition in an attempt to eliminate an undesirable behavior. Extinction: Eliminating any reinforcement that is maintaining a behavior.