My English is not perfect (chapter numbers might differ due to different
edition)
Management and organization notes
CH7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 14
Source: Robbins, S. P., Judge, T., & Vohra, N. (2019). Organizational
behavior.
Chapter 7: motivation concepts.
Motivation is the process that account for an individual’s intensity, direction, and persistence
of effort toward attaining a goal.
Intensity: how hard a person tries.
Direction: if it benefits the organization.
Persistence: how long a person can maintain effort
Motivated individuals stay with a task long enough to achieve their goals.
Hierarchy of needs: each need needs to be fulfilled, then the next becomes dominant.
Two factor theory/motivation-hygiene theory: intrinsic rewards such as responsibility and
achievement lead to job-satisfaction, whereas extrinsic factors such as pay and supervision
lead to dissatisfaction.
If we want to motivate people, we should emphasize intrinsic factors.
- Hygiene factors: these are more extrinsic (supervision, pay, job security, company
policies)
o When they are adequate, people will not be satisfied or dissatisfied.
Theory of needs
- Need for achievement: drive to excel.
- Need for power: to make others behave in a way.
- Need for affiliation: desire for close relationships.
Self-determination theory: people prefer to feel they have control over their actions, and
anything that makes a previously enjoyed task feel more like an obligation, undermines
motivation.
Self-concordance: how strongly people’s reasons for pursuing goals are consistent with their
interests and core values.
Goal-setting theory: goals specificity, challenge, and feedback on performance. Those three
leads to increased performance.
- Three factors that influence goals-performance relationship:
,My English is not perfect (chapter numbers might differ due to different
edition)
o 1. Goal commitment: the individual believes he or she can achieve the goal
and wants to achieve it.
o 2. Task characteristics: goals seem to affect performance more strongly when
tasks are simple rather than complex, independent rather than
interdependent. When a task is interdependent, group goals along with
delegation are best.
o 3. National culture: in collectivistic and high power-distance cultures,
achievable moderate goals can be more motivating than difficult ones.
Promotion focus: strive for advancement and accomplishment, and approach conditions that
move them closer toward desired goals.
Prevention focus: strive to fulfill duties and obligations and avoid conditions that pull them
away from desired goals.
A promotion focus is related to higher levels of task performance, citizenship
behavior, and innovation; a prevention focus is related to safety performance.
Management by objectives (MBO): it emphasizes to set goals that are tangible, verifiable,
and measurable.
It works bottom up and top down. The result is a hierarchy that links objectives at one level
to those at the next.
- Four ingredients:
o Goal specificity.
o Participation in decision making.
o Explicit time period.
o Performance feedback.
It is similar to goal setting theory.
Self-efficacy theory: an individual’s belief that he or she is capable of performing a task. The
higher your self-efficacy, the more confidence you have in your ability to succeed.
Individuals high in self-efficacy seem to respond to negative feedback with increased
motivation and effort. Individuals low in self-efficacy seem to respond to negative
feedback with decrease in effort.
Setting difficult goals for people communicates your confidence in them.
Self-efficacy can be increased.
1. Enactive mastery: gaining relevant experience.
2. Vicarious modeling: becoming confident because you see someone else do it (must
be someone similar to you – Tiger Woods playing a whole in one does not increase
self-efficacy).
3. Verbal persuasion: someone convincing us we have the skill.
4. Arousal: energized state.
Verbal persuasion through Pygmalion effect = a form of self-fulfilling prophecy in which
believing something can make it true.
, My English is not perfect (chapter numbers might differ due to different
edition)
Reinforcement theory: behavioristic view arguing that reinforcement conditions behavior if
it is positively reinforced (immediate response is best), if it is not rewarded/punished,
behavior is less likely to be repeated.
Social learning theory: learning through both observation and direct experience.
1. Attentional process: learning from a model only when recognizing critical features
(attractive, repeatedly available, important to us, similar to us).
2. Retention process: a model’s influence depends on how well the individual
remembers the model’s action after the model is no longer readily available.
3. Motor reproduction processes: after a person has seen a new behavior by observing
the model, watching must be converted into doing.
4. Reinforcement processes: behavior is modeled if it is positively rewarded.
Expectancy theory: the strength of our tendency to act a certain way depends on the
strength of our expectation of a given outcome and its attractiveness.
Employees will be motivated to exert a higher level of effort when they believe that it
will lead to a good performance appraisal, that a good appraisal will lead to
organizational rewards (e.g., salary increase), and that the rewards will satisfy their
personal goals.
Three relationships:
1. Expectancy (effort-performance relationship): exerting a given amount of effort will
lead to performance.
2. Instrumentality (performance-reward relationship): performing at a level will lead to
the attainment of a desired outcome.
3. Valence (rewards-personal goals relationship): organizational rewards satisfy an
individual’s personal goals/needs and the attractiveness of those potential rewards
for the individual.
Equity theory: employees compare what they get (output) to what they put into it (input).
They take the ratio of their outcomes to their inputs and compare it to the ratio of others.
Based on this theory, employees who perceive inequity will make one of six choices:
1. Change inputs: exert less effort if underpaid.
2. Change outcomes: individuals paid on piece-rate basis can increase their pay by
producing a higher quantity.
3. Distort perceptions of self: “I used to think I worked moderate, but now I realize I
work harder than everyone else”.
4. Distort perception of others: “His job is not as desirable as I thought”.
5. Choose a different referent: “Not as good as my brother, but better than my
father at my age”.
6. Leave the field: quit the job.
Organizational justice = fairness in the workplace
- Distributive justice: concerned with the fairness of the outcome, such as pay and
recognition, that employees perceive. Employees tend to perceive their outcomes as
fairest when they are distributed equitably.
- Procedural justice: employees care about how outcomes are distributed. Employees
perceive that procedures are fairer when they are given a say in the decision-making
process. Procedures are also fairer when decisions are made in a consistent manner
