Summary of organizational psychology course (lectures and notes and some articles). This gives you guaranteed the box! Very complete abstract, enough to take the box with a beautiful figure!
Basic concepts in organizational behavior:
Job satisfaction
o It’s about how people feel about their job and the organization.
o It’s the most used in research. It measures how you evaluate your job and
how you feel about it.
o Research has found that how satisfied people are with their job relates to job
performance (r=.30). Can we conclude from this that job satisfaction typically
leads to better job performance? The answer is no, because a correlation does
not determine the direction of the effect. However, research does suggest that
being more satisfied with your job generally leads to better job performance.
o It can be measured via unidimensional questions (All things considered, how
satisfied are you with your job?) or via more complex measures that include
several facets of job satisfaction (e.g. your satisfaction with the work itself,
with coworkers, with your boss, with your pay, etc.). Both are equally good.
o A better concept for measuring job satisfaction is work engagement.
Work engagement
o It links to intrinsic motivation (when you identify with an organization, you
want to improve things because you feel that it’s part of yourself).
o Academics see engagement as a better measure than satisfaction. However,
the measures in general seem to be equally good.
o Why is work engagement such a big trend? Probably because engagement
sounds a lot better, and of course you rather have engaged than satisfied
workers. Engaged workers are more likely to work harder, while satisfied
workers does not necessarily mean they will work harder.
Organizational commitment
o It’s argued to exist if the value of a person overlaps with those of the
organization, and if the organization is part of the identity of the employee.
Job satisfaction (or engagement) is most important for job performance, while
organizational commitment is most important for (low) turnover intentions. It’s
important to know that a sizeable part of job satisfaction lies within the personality of
someone, those who are satisfied in one job, are also more likely to be satisfied in
another job. Thus, a good question when you want to hire someone is how satisfied they
are with their current job.
Intro to motivation:
Motivation is defined as the processes that account for an individual’s intensity,
direction, and persistence or effort toward attaining a goal.
o Intensity = how much does someone try to reach a goal?
o Direction = is the goal the right one?
o Persistence = how long can someone maintain the effort?
Motivation from an organizational viewpoint deals with organizational goals (are
people motivated to do what the organization wants them to do?). But people have
individual needs that likely affect their motivation to reach these organizational
goals.
,Basic ideas on human needs that drive motivation:
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
o Criticism
No evidence for hierarchy
It implies that for example someone who does not strive for status, did
not yet fulfill his or her belongingness needs.
McGregor states that a manager has one of two styles of seeing human motivation
o Theory X assumes that employees dislike work, and that they need to be
directed or forced to do so.
o Theory Y assumes that employees see work as something natural, and that
they can intrinsically accept these goals
o Criticism
In real life, both theories are false
No evidence that moving from X to Y improves performance
Herzberg’s two-factor theory
o The idea is that different things lead to job satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
o Things that lead to dissatisfaction are called hygiene factors. If they are high,
there is no dissatisfaction (but also no satisfaction).
o Things that lead to satisfaction are called motivators. If they are high, there is
satisfaction (but a lack of it does not lead to dissatisfaction).
o The typical things that lead to intrinsic motivation generally make people
more satisfied, what leads to more extrinsic motivation makes them more
dissatisfied (if expected values are not met).
, o But also the other way around, what makes people satisfied likely leads to
intrinsic motivation. What prevents dissatisfaction to extrinsic motivation.
o Criticism
No links has been found between (dis) satisfiers and productivity.
Individual differences exist.
So, if not these older models, then what is supported by research?
Needs
For example the need to be valued
o People have a desire to feel that they are valued and that they achieved
something. They want to be valued both by themselves and by others.
o Why do people have a need to achieve something?
Because they value work ethic
Because they want to do the best they can
Because they want to do better than they previously did
Because they want to do better than others
Because they want to have status
Because they want to get money and wealth
o Those with high need to be valued need more praise, support and trust from
the organization or the manager.
o As a manager, you are not continuously evaluating your employees, but you
unconsciously are. But an employee knows and feels they are being evaluated
all the time. This makes it very important to give praise often (especially
those high in need to be valued). People feel stressed if they feel evaluated but
do not hear the outcome.
Herzberg thought of a method to motivate people based on his theory, called job-
enrichment. This theory is an attempt to motivate employees by giving them the
opportunity to use the range of their abilities. There are several job characteristics that
are related to intrinsic motivation, which can increase job satisfaction and describe job
enrichment abilities:
Skill variety (being able / allowed to do different things)
Task identification (efforts connected to outcomes)
Task significance (task has meaning and status)
Autonomy (let employees make their own decisions)
Feedback (on goal progress)
These factors have a strong effect on job satisfaction, but a lot less strong (but still nice)
effect on job performance.
In general, the job enrichment approach is true, but:
Not everyone has self-growth needs
Some people fulfill those needs outside work (e.g. volunteers, local politics, etc.).
Others fulfill it with the execution of their basic tasks.
Task significance is important (especially when the outcome is important for others).
For example, if people are told that they need to get others to donate money to the
University and that this is important because this will help poor people get scholarships,
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