Individual Differences
variability among workers is substantial at all levels but increases dramatically with job complexity. In life insurance sales, for example, variability in performance is around six times as great as in routine clerical jobs
bridges between self-concept a
Self-concept
the concept the individual has of himself as a physical, social, and spiritual or moral being."10 In other words, because you have a self-concept, you recognize yourself as a distinct human being. A self-concept would be impossible without the capacity t
Cognitions
represent "any knowledge, opinion, or belief about the environment, about oneself, or about one's behavior."
those involving anticipation, introspection, planning, goal setting, evaluating, and setting personal standards are particularly relevant to OB.
Self-esteem
a belief about one's own self-worth based on an overall self-evaluation.
is measured by having survey respondents indicate their agreement or disagreement with both positive and negative statements.
increasing during young and middle adulthood, reaching a
Braden's Six Pillars of Self-Esteem
Self-Efficacy
a person's belief about his or her chances of successfully accomplishing a specific task.
-arises from the gradual acquisition of complex cognitive, social, linguistic, and/or physical skills through experience."
-role models can inspire us to build self-
Self-efficacy Model
would involve cognitive appraisal of the interaction between your perceived capability and situational opportunities and obstacles
People program themselves for success or failure by enacting their self-efficacy expectations
significant positive correlati
Self-monitoring
the extent to which a person observes his or her own self-expressive behavior and adapts it to the demands of the situation.
- High self-monitors are sometimes called chameleons, who readily adapt their self-presentation to their surroundings. Low self-mo
organizational identification
occurs when one comes to integrate beliefs about one's organization into one's identity
Personality
the combination of stable physical and mental characteristics that give the individual his or her identity.
These characteristics or traits�including how one looks, thinks, acts, and feels�are the product of interacting genetic and environmental influence
Personality Dimensions
Extraversion and conscientiousness were found to be the most stable of the Big Five
conscientiousness had the strongest positive correlation with job performance and training performance. how to help conscientious employees perform well. Specifically, the
Proactive personality
someone who is relatively unconstrained by situational forces and who effects environmental change.
positively associated with individual, team, and organizational success.
Internal Locus of Control
the belief that one controls the events and consequences affecting one's life
Proactive people identify opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs.
an "internal" tends to attribute positive ou
External Locus of Control
tend to attribute key outcomes in their lives to environmental causes, such as luck or fate
Personality Testing
Researchers, test developers, and organizations that administer personality assessments offer the following suggestions for getting started or for evaluating whether tests already in use are appropriate for forecasting job performance:
Determine what you
Ability
represents a broad and stable characteristic responsible for a person's maximum�as opposed to typical�performance on mental and physical tasks
Skill
the specific capacity to physically manipulate objects.
Among the many desirable skills and competencies in organizational life are written and spoken communication, initiative, decisiveness, tolerance, problem solving, adaptability, and resilience. Impor
Performance
Before moving on, we need to say something about a modern-day threat to abilities, skills, and general competence. That threat, according to public health officials, is sleep deprivation. only about four in 10�of the respondents from each ethnic group say
Intelligence
represents an individual's capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving
Charles Spearman proposed in 1927 that all cognitive performance is determined by two types of abilities. The first can be characterized as a general mental abil
emotions
complex, patterned, organismic reactions to how we think we are doing in our lifelong efforts to survive and flourish and to achieve what we wish for ourselves Lazarus's definition of emotions centers on a person's goals.
The word organismic is appropriat
emotional intelligence
the ability to manage oneself and one's relationships in mature and constructive ways. Referred to by some as EI and others as EQ, emotional intelligence is said to have four key components: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relations
Emotional Contagion
We, quite literally, can catch another person's bad mood or displayed negative emotions.
Emotional Labor
Smile, look happy for the customers," employees are told over and over. But what if the employee is having a rotten day
can be particularly detrimental to the employee performing the labor and can take its toll both psychologically and physically. Employe
Psychological Capital
Striving for success by developing one's self-efficacy, optimism, hope, and resiliency.
[PsyCap is] an individual's positive psychological state of development and is characterized by:
(1) having confidence (self-efficacy) to take on and put in the necess
Resiliency
the ability to bounce back from major blows in life, can be developed through deliberate practice,
Deliberate Practice
It is activity designed specifically to improve performance, often with a teacher's help; it can be repeated a lot; feedback on results is continuously available; it's highly demanding mentally, whether the activity is purely intellectual, such as chess o
Wiseman's four guidelines for improving your luck:
Be active and involved. Be open to new experiences and networking with others to encounter more lucky chance opportunities.
Listen to your hunches about luck. Learn when to listen to your intuitive gut feelings. Meditation and mind-clearing activities can
Humility
a realistic assessment of one's own contribution and the recognition of the contribution of others, along with luck and good fortune that made one's own success possible
has been called the silent virtue
Humble individuals have a down-to-earth perspective
Schwartz's Value Theory
Schwartz believes that values are motivational in that they "represent broad goals that apply across contexts and time
Schwartz's Value Theory Continued
The circular pattern reveals which values are most strongly related and which ones are in conflict. In general, adjacent values like self-direction and universalism are positively related, whereas values that are further apart (e.g., self-direction and po
Intrapersonal Value Conflict
people are likely to experience inner conflict and stress when personal values conflict with each other. For employees who want balance in their lives, a stressful conflict can arise when one values
Therapists suggest that this type of value conflict can
Interpersonal Value Conflict
This type of value conflict often is at the core of personality conflicts, and such conflicts can negatively affect one's career
Individual-Organization Value Conflict
Conflict can occur when values espoused and enacted by the organization collide with employees' personal values. We defined this type of conflict as PE fit. PE fit represents the extent to which personal characteristics match those from a work environment
Work-Family Conflict
Family values involve enduring beliefs about the importance of family and who should play key family roles (e.g., child rearing, housekeeping, and income earning). Work values center on the relative importance of work and career goals in one's life.
-Valu
Work-Family Conflict - Practical Research Insights About
Work-family balance begins at home. Case studies of successful executives reveal that family and spousal support is critical for reaching senior level positions.This in turn suggests that both men and women need help with domestic responsibilities if ther
Attitude
defined as "a learned predisposition to respond in a consistently favorable or unfavorable manner with respect to a given object
While values represent global beliefs that influence behavior across all situations, attitudes relate only to behavior directe
Attitude - Affective Component
contains the feelings or emotions one has about a given object or situation.
How do you feel
Attitude - Cognitive Component
reflects the beliefs or ideas one has about an object or situation.
What do you think
Attitude - Behavioral Component
refers to how one intends or expects to act toward someone or something
Cognitive dissonance
psychological discomfort a person experiences when his or her attitudes or beliefs are incompatible with his or her behavior
people will seek to reduce the "dissonance," or psychological tension, through one of three main methods:
Change your attitude or
Intention Determinants of
Attitude toward the behavior
the degree to which a person has a favorable or unfavorable evaluation or appraisal of the behavior in question.
Subjective norm
refers to the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior
the degree of p
Ajzen's Theory of Planned Behavior
Ajzen ultimately developed and refined a model focusing on intentions as the key link between attitudes and planned behavior
Importantly, this model only predicts behavior under an individual's control, not behavior due to circumstances beyond one's contr
Organizational commitment
reflects the extent to which an individual identifies with an organization and is committed to its goals.
-Affective commitment refers to the employee's emotional attachment to, identification with, and involvement in the organization. Employees with a st
Employee Engagement
the harnessing of organization members' selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performance."
The essence of this definition is the idea that engaged employees
Psychological contracts
represent an individual's perception about the terms and conditions of a reciprocal exchange between him- or herself and another party.
In a work environment, the psychological contract represents an employee's beliefs about what he or she is entitled to
Job Satisfaction
an affective or emotional response toward various facets of one's job. This definition implies job satisfaction is not a unitary concept. Rather, a person can be relatively satisfied with one aspect of his or her job and dissatisfied with one or more othe
Job Satisfaction Causes of
Need fulfillment - extent to which the characteristics of a job allow an individual to fulfill his or her needs
Discrepancies - satisfaction is a result of met expectations. Met expectations represent the difference between what an individual expects to r
Job Satisfaction - Correlates of
The relationship between job satisfaction and these other variables is either positive or negative. The strength of the relationship ranges from weak (very little relationship) to strong. Strong relationships imply that managers can significantly influenc
Organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs)
consist of employee behaviors that are beyond the call of duty.
Examples include "such gestures as constructive statements about the department, expression of personal interest in the work of others, suggestions for improvement, training new people, respe
Withdrawal Cognitions
encapsulate this thought process by representing an individual's overall thoughts and feelings about quitting
counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs)
types of behavior that harm employees, the organization as a whole, or organizational stakeholders such as customers and shareholder. Examples of CWBs include theft, gossiping, backstabbing, drug and alcohol abuse, destroying organizational property, viol
Vulnerability
discussing one's weaknesses or limitations
When teammates feel free to admit mistakes, ask for help, and acknowledge their own weaknesses, they reduce divisive politics and build a bond of trust more valuable than almost any strategic advantage
Perception
cognitive process that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings
Recognition of objects is one of this process's major functions
The study of how people perceive one another has been labeled social cognition and social information processing
Interpretation
The reciprocal process of perception
social cognition/social information processing
is the study of how people make sense of other people and themselves. It focuses on how ordinary people think about people and how they think they think about people.
Three of the stages in this model�selective attention/comprehension, encoding and simpli
Implicit cognition
Implicit cognition represents any thoughts or beliefs that are automatically activated from memory without our conscious awareness. The existence of implicit cognition leads people to make biased decisions without an understanding that it is occurring
Good leaders were perceived as exhibiting the following behaviors:
(1) assigning specific tasks to group members, (2) telling others that they had done well, (3) setting specific goals for the group, (4) letting other group members make decisions, (5) trying to get the group to work as a team, and (6) maintaining definit
Stereotype
An individual's set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group
Not always negative
May or may not be accurate
Stereotyping is a four-step process.
1 - categorizing people into groups according to various criteria, such as gender, age, r
sex-role stereotype
is the belief that differing traits and abilities make men and women particularly well suited to different roles. These stereotypes have been found to influence our perceptions of women as leaders.
(1) people often prefer male bosses
(2) women have a hard
Age sterotypes
reinforce age discrimination because of their negative orientation.
Long-standing age stereotypes depict older workers as less satisfied, not as involved with their work, less motivated, not as committed
Micro aggressions
biased thoughts, attitudes, and feelings" that exist at an unconscious level
Stereotype threat
refers to the 'predicament' in which members of a social group (e.g., African Americans, women) 'must deal with the possibility of being judged or treated stereotypically, or of doing something that would confirm the stereotype
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Pygmalion Effect
that someone's high expectations for another person result in high performance for that person
The key process underlying both the Pygmalion and Galatea effects is the idea that people's expectations or beliefs determine their behavior and performance, th
Galatea effect
occurs when an individual's high self-expectations for him- or herself lead to high performance.
Golem Effect
a loss in performance resulting from low leader expectations
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: The Pygmalion Effect - managers can create positive performance expectations.
Recognize that everyone has the potential to increase his or her performance.
Set high performance goals.
Positively reinforce employees for a job well done.
Provide frequent feedback that conveys a belief in employees' ability to complete their tasks.
Gi
causal attributions
are suspected or inferred causes of behavior.
Generally speaking, people formulate causal attributions by considering the events preceding an observed behavior.
Kelley's Model of Attribution
Behavior can be attributed either to:
Internal factors within a person (such as ability) or:
External behavior within the environment (such as a difficult task)
*It is important to remember that consensus relates to other people, distinctiveness relates t
Fundamental Attribution Bias
reflects one's tendency to attribute another person's behavior to his or her personal characteristics, as opposed to situational factors. This bias causes perceivers to ignore important environmental forces that often significantly affect behavior.
Self-Serving Bias
represents one's tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure. The self-serving bias suggests employees will attribute their success to internal factors (high ability or hard work) and their failures to uncontrollable externa
Motivation
psychological processes that cause the arousal, direction, and persistence of voluntary actions that are goal directed
Content theories of motivation focus on identifying internal factors such as instincts, needs, satisfaction, and job characteristics tha
Needs
Needs are physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse behavior. They can be strong or weak and are influenced by environmental factors. Thus, human needs vary over time and place. The general idea behind need theories of motivation is that unm
Maslow's Need Hierarchy Theory
These needs are
Physiological. Most basic need. Entails having enough food, air, and water to survive.
Safety. Consists of the need to be safe from physical and psychological harm.
Love. The desire to be loved and to love. Contains the needs for affection
Alderfer's ERG Theory
*existence needs (E)�the desire for physiological and materialistic well-being;
*relatedness needs (R)�the desire to have meaningful relationships with significant others;
*growth needs (G)�the desire to grow as a human being and to use one's abilities to
McClelland's Need Theory
*Need for achievement
Desire to accomplish something difficult.
Achievement-motivated people share three common characteristics: (1) they prefer working on tasks of moderate difficulty; (2) they prefer situations in which performance is due to their effor
Herzberg's Motivator-Hygiene Model
Herzberg found separate and distinct clusters of factors associated with job satisfaction and dissatisfaction.
Job satisfaction was more frequently associated with achievement, recognition, characteristics of the work, responsibility, and advancement. The
Adams's Equity Theory of Motivation
a model of motivation that explains how people strive for fairness and justice in social exchanges or give-and-take relationships. As a process theory of motivation, equity theory explains how an individual's motivation to behave in a certain way is fuele
Distributive justice
reflects the perceived fairness of how resources and rewards are distributed or allocated
Procedural justice
defined as the perceived fairness of the process and procedures used to make allocation decisions
interactional justice
relates to the "quality of the interpersonal treatment people receive when procedures are implemented." This form of justice does not pertain to the outcomes or procedures associated with decision making, but rather it focuses on whether or not people fee
Vroom's Expectancy Theory
Motivation boils down to the decision of how much effort to exert in a specific task situation. Generally, expectancy theory can be used to predict motivation and behavior in any situation in which a choice between two or more alternatives must be made. F
Goal
what an individual is trying to accomplish; it is the object or aim of an action
-direct attention
-regulate effort
-increase persistence
-foster the development and application of task strategies and action plans
Goal Setting Practical Insights
Specific high goals lead to greater performance. Goal specificity pertains to the quantifiability of a goal. people demonstrated that performance was greater when people had specific high goals.50
Feedback enhances the effect of specific, difficult goals.
Job Design
also referred to as job redesign, "refers to any set of activities that involve the alteration of specific jobs or interdependent systems of jobs with the intent of improving the quality of employee job experience and their on the-job productivity
Job Design Top Down Approaches
management is responsible for creating efficient and meaningful combinations of work tasks for employees. If done correctly, the theory is that employees will display higher performance, job satisfaction, and employee engagement, and lower absenteeism and
Scientific Management
that kind of management which conducts a business or affairs by standards established by facts or truths gained through systematic observation, experiment, or reasoning. The application of scientific management involves the following five steps: (1) devel
Job enlargement
Involves putting more variety into a worker's job by combining specialized tasks of comparable difficulty.
Some call this horizontally loading the job
Job rotation
moving employees from one specialized job to another
Job Enrichment
Job enrichment is the practical application of Frederick Herzberg's motivator-hygiene theory of job satisfaction
entails modifying a job such that an employee has the opportunity to experience achievement, recognition, stimulating work, responsibility, an
Job Characteristics Model
In general terms, core job dimensions are common characteristics found to a varying degree in all jobs. Three of the job characteristics shown combine to determine experienced meaningfulness of work:
Skill variety. The extent to which the job requires an
Intrinsic motivation
occurs when an individual is "turned on to one's work because of the positive internal feelings that are generated by doing well, rather than being dependent on external factors (such as incentive pay or compliments from the boss) for the motivation to wo
Bottom-Up Approaches
this approach to job design is driven by employees rather than managers and is referred to as job crafting.
job crafting
the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work
job crafting is limited by the amount of latitude people have in changing their own jobs.
Idiosyncratic Deals (I-Deals)
a middle ground between top-down and bottom-up methods and attempts to overcome their limitations
Idiosyncratic deals (i-deals) represent "employment terms individuals negotiate for themselves, taking myriad forms from flexible schedules to career develop
Under Management"
Only 1 out of 100 managers provides every direct report with these five basics every day:
Performance requirements and standard operating procedures related to tasks and responsibilities.
Defined parameters, measurable goals, and concrete deadlines for all work assignments for which the direct report will be held accountable.
Accurate monitori
Performance management
an organization-wide system whereby managers integrate the activities of goal setting, monitoring and evaluating, providing feedback and coaching, and rewarding employees on a continuous basis
Organizational behavior (OB) can shed valuable light on key as
Employees with a clear line of sight
understand the organization's strategic goals and know what actions they need to take, both individually and as team members.
Performance Outcome Goal
targets a specific end result
But for employees who lack the necessary skills, performance outcome goals are more frustrating than motivating. When skills are lacking, a developmental process is needed wherein learning goals precede performance outcome go
Learning Goal
strives to improve creativity and develop skills
When skills are lacking, a developmental process is needed wherein learning goals precede performance outcome goals.
Management by Objectives
a management system that incorporates participation into decision making, goal setting, and objective feedback. The central idea of MBO, getting individual employees to "own" a piece of a collective effort
Managing the Goal-Setting Process - Step 1: Set Goals
SMART is an acronym for specific, measurable, attainable, results oriented, and time bound.
There are two additional recommendations for Step 1. First, for complex tasks, employees need to be trained in problem-solving techniques and developing performanc
Managing the Goal-Setting Process - Step 2: Promote Goal Commitment
Goal commitment can be enhanced by following these guidelines:
Explain why the organization is committed to a comprehensive goal-setting program.
Create clear lines of sight by clarifying the corporate goals and linking the individual's goals to them. "Th
Managing the Goal-Setting Process - Step 3: Provide Support and Feedback
Practical guidelines include the following:
Make sure each employee has the necessary skills and information to reach his or her goals. As a pair of goal-setting experts succinctly stated, "Motivation without knowledge is useless."26 Training often is req
Feedback
objective information about individual or collective performance.
Subjective assessments such as "You're doing a poor job," "You're lazy," or "We really appreciate everyone's hard work" do not qualify as objective feedback. But hard data such as units sol
Feedback Practical Lessons
The acceptance of feedback should not be treated as a given; it is often misperceived or rejected. This is especially true in intercultural situations.
Managers can enhance their credibility as sources of feedback by developing their expertise and creatin
Feedback Trouble Signs
360-degree feedback
involves letting individuals compare their own perceived performance with behaviorally specific (and usually anonymous) performance information from their manager, subordinates, and peers. Even outsiders may be involved in what is sometimes called full-ci
Feedback for Coaching Purposes and Organizational Effectiveness
Focus on performance, not personalities.
Give specific feedback linked to learning goals and performance outcome goals.
Channel feedback toward key result areas for the organization.
Give feedback as soon as possible.
Give feedback to coach improvement, n
Organizational Reward Systems
Extrinsic Rewards
Financial, material, and social rewards qualify as extrinsic rewards because they come from the environment.
An employee who works to obtain extrinsic rewards, such as money or praise, is said to be extrinsically motivated.
Intrinsic Rewards
Psychic rewards, however, are intrinsic rewards because they are self-granted.
One who derives pleasure from the task itself or experiences a sense of competence or self-determination is said to be intrinsically motivated
Reward Distribution Criteria
three general criteria for the distribution of rewards are as follows:
Performance: results. Tangible outcomes such as individual, group, or organization performance; quantity and quality of performance.
Performance: actions and behaviors. Such as teamwor
Thomas's Building Blocks for Intrinsic Rewards and Motivation