MBA 530 Test 2

What is performance at work? How to measure it?

Not really a good answer to either, but we can think about how to do a better job at measuring it.

Criterion

(Y) Dependent variable, what we are trying to measure. Can have multiple predictors.

Criterion Problem

If we are thinking about performance what criteria should we be measuring?

It depends: What job is it, what is the organization, what are the values, etc.?

Classic Model Problems

If we just look at objective measures (sales, attendance, GPA), there are gaps:

Did employees have different opportunities (lottery winner buys 20 cars so sales were a matter of luck), different hours worked (10am-3pm vs 9-5)?

Objective measure are also not available for many jobs:

What if you are a leader or manager? Could look at subordinates but not all employees are created equal.

Some jobs have multiple objective measures of performance that are unrelated:

Professors are measured based on teaching, performance, attitude, and committees. Baseball players are rates based on batting average, field percentage, home runs, leadership.

Job Performance

Behaviors of an employee (+/-) that contribute to organizational performance. It is in the employee’s control.

Pro: Should measure how good employee behaviors try to help the organization because this is in their control. (Not number of sales, but does the behavior contribute to converting more sales?)

Con: However, it is difficult to get a reasonable sample of employee behavior.

Job Performance is Distinct From

Performance of company (economy can impact sales)

Effectiveness of performance (meeting company goals)

Productivity (resource:outcome, salary:sales)

Utility (how important is your work to the organization?)

Task Performance

Transforming resources into goods or services the org sells. This is what is in the job description.

How to identify relevant behaviors?

Via job analysis: What the people who are good at their job are doing to be good, and what are the people doing who are bad?

Past behaviors are out best predictor of future behavior. (Important for job interviews)

Influence on Task Performance

Declarative knowledge (DK)

  – what you know

Procedural knowledge & skill (PKS)

  -- knowing how to do things

Motivation (M)

  -- individual drive

In an equation, multiple these because if motivation is 0.

Behaviorally-Anchored Rating Scale (BARS)

Ranked Unacceptable to Excellent. Can be easily biased because they are non exclusive. Better to have a checklist of behaviors to give a score.

Job Performance

These vary across jobs, but include counterproductive behavior & citizenship behavior.

Citizenship Behavior

Improve quality or setting where work occurs.

Motivated by emotional state (good mood), reciprocity (treat me well), impression (helping makes me look good), role expectation

Say nice things, Do extra work, Voice recommendations

Task vs Contextual Performance

Contextual goes beyond the assigned work and include supporting the org, social, and psych context of work.

Why would OCB be associated with overall performance ratings?

Reciprocity: High ratings are a form of “repayment”

Schema-Triggered Affect: Stimulates positive feelings about subordinate

Attribution Theory: Distinctive and therefore more likely to be attributed as stable characteristics of employees, which are easy to recall

Does OCB increase organizational effectiveness?

•Enhance coworker productivity by helping workers learn faster

•Enhance managerial productivity:

–More helpful suggestions, less petty conflict, etc.

–Reducing time needed for supervision

Cost of Citizenship

If always helpful, can be taken advantage of. Additionally, when helping you work less on the work you need to do.

Counterproductive Behavior

Wasting resources, substance abuse, gossiping, harassment

Interpersonal Deviance

Bullying, and the target of the bullying experiences more negative consequences than the bully.

Property Deviance

Stealing!! 60-75% of employees steal

Production Deviance

Purposely failing to perform tasks (like using social media)

Why do people engage in counterproductive behavior at work?

Boredom

Feeling powerless & unappreciated & frustrated

Reciprocating because of poor leadership

Instrumental aggression: Orchestrated aggression to achieve a goal

Self regulation: If you cant reg emotions, lash out sooner in counterproductive behavior

Displaced aggression: Your boss is being mistreated so they mistreat you

Individual Differences

People who are less conscientiousness, agreeable, and neurotic are less likely to be integrity

Traits: Low self esteem, narcissistic, impulsive, Machiavellian people are more likely to misbehavior

Behavior: Alcohol abuse, history, hostility attribution bias (believe everyone out to get you), externalizing responses to threat. Circular (Drink, drink makes you bad at work, you get bad feedback, drink more)

How do managers contribute to deviance?

Individual incentives

Social norms

Managers negative attitude

Ambiguity in job performance: If you don’t know what you are supposed to be doing, do whatever you want

Unfairness

Violation of employee trust

Causes of incivility

No time to be nice

Norms: Causal work place because dressing up makes people behave

Workplace change: Demographic change can lead to innocuous comments that are evil (race, gender, nationality, etc.) to try and make them leave, change in psychological contracts.

How to counteract: Santa Clause. Need to find an appropriate opportunity to show to show people someone’s value. No one messes with Santa.

Performance Management

Forced ranking (Top 20 gets a great reward, top 90 is okay, bottom 10 is scared). Helps with task performance, but increases competitiveness and counterproductive behavior.

Internal Recruiting

Motivates employees to stay within the company, makes employees more committed because can be rewarded with promotions. However, can reduce diversity.

External Recruiting

College, placement offices, labor unions, etc. Can reduce costs by outsourcing hr, but they are unfamiliar with the company culture and can more expensive by paying per hire.

Selection

Good training does not make up for bad selection. Need good attributes, traits - skills can be trained.

Selection Testing

Ability test: Case test where response is evaluated and compared to other candidates, but can be used to get free consulting

Personality test: Predicts citizenship and counterproductive behavior

Work sample test: Provide samples of job work (baked items, coding projects, art samples). Can also introduce a lot of pressure, impacting performance.

Honesty test: Predicted by high consciousness, highly agreeable, and low neuroticism

Selection tools

Sell company to the candidate, personality assessment about company and job fit, KSAs (knowledge, skills, abilities)

Interview Issues

low inter rater reliability: The people interviewing the candidate come to different conclusions

low predictive validity: Assessment’s ability to predict who is good at the job.

Halo effect

There is something about a candidate that is positive so only search for other good things to support consistent impression

Non directive interview

Randomly picks questions and evals candidate on responses and likeability

Structured interview

Situational: Described situation and ask what they would do

Behavior description: How have they behaved in the past that are likely to happen on the job (higher levels of validity)

Sequential, panel, stress interviews

Sequential: Person to person to person interviews. Be consistent. Always ask everyone questions, even if its the same ones to compare answers

Panel interviews: Hard to build connections and monitor nonverbal behavior when everyone is asking the questions

Stress: Someone is negative and sees how you respond

Phone/virtual/person-less interview

Phones are easier because can have references in front of you. Virtual can also, but there is a camera

Effective interviewing

List of 10 things you want to share in interview to distinguish self

Know your resume

Answer questions in sentences

Understand biases

Social Network

Specific set of relations among a set of people,

Creates an important sense of belonging, perceive control in organizations, enforces conformity bc of consequences

Informal social network

There are different types of ties within a network, like friendship, advice, negative.

Many friends = popular and influential

Give lots of advice = valuable knowledge and influential

Receive advice from many people = acquiring knowledge to become point of advice and influence in the future

Strength of Weak Ties

Asked how they found their last job and found that weak ties gave better access to new information and opportunities.

If you spend 30% of time with close ties, so everyone knows what everyone knows. Weak ties are able to give better access to new information and opportunities via them having new ties they could share with them.

Network Structure

Closed networks create norms which makes behavior predictable so people feel more trust

Strong ties provide support to help with problems, so while weak ties may provide information, they may not explain things well enough since they aren’t invested in you

Cohesion

Creates similar perceptions, beliefs, and behaviors

Structural equivalence

Social actors are connected to the same type of others in a similar way

There may people who interact with the same group of people, with people unconnected to one another possibility due to competition 0-0-0

Diffusion of innovation can happen through equivalent and unconnected individuals. For instance, Minty quits his job so Steve, someone who is structurally equivalent and unconnected, also quits because it indicates poor treatment and better options.

Company Behind the Chart

Informal structure can be more important than formal

Managers think they know social networks better than they do

Burnout Contagion

Who we interact with can lead to negative feelings, like burnout

Trade-off of social capital

Maintaining social relationships vs task performance

Social Identity Theory

Categorization: Place things and people into groups to understand social environment

Identification: We identify with a group we think we belong to

Social + personal identity = self concept

Groups work because of this theory. When groups our successful, our self concept gets better and our self esteem

Which groups do we identify with (Social Identity Theory)

Prestigious, distinctive, similar to ourselves, and enduring

Steelers have bar everywhere because they were successful in the 70s, which is the prime time of the rust belt (worked in the Steel industry). They played hard nose football to match with the non-fancy steel workers. Fans moved overtime, and the parents indoctrinated them so now fans are spread out.

Social Identity Impact on Group Attributes

Attribute in-group members’ success to internal factors  (our team has heart)

Attribute in-group members’ failure to external factors  (the refs were terrible!)

Attribute out-group members’ success to external factors  (what a lucky bounce!)

Attribute out-group members’ failures to internal factors  (they just don’t have the skills!)

Tuckman’s Five-Stage Stage Model of Group Development

Prestage

1st Stage - Farming: Going to become a group, learn about people

2nd Stage - Storming: People argue and learn about each other

3rd Stage - Norming: Accepted ways of behaving

4th Stage - Performing: Do well as a team

5th Stage - Adjourning: Group falls apart some

Prusak Network Roles

Central Connectors: These individuals link most people in an informal network together. While often not formal leaders, they possess the information or expertise others rely on to get work done.

Boundary Spanners: These "roving ambassadors" connect the informal network to other departments, satellite offices, or external organizations. They are vital for sharing diverse expertise, such as in R&D or strategic alliances.

Information Brokers: These players keep different subgroups within a network together. Without them, the larger network would splinter into smaller, less-effective segments.

Peripheral Specialists: These are experts on the edge of the network whom others turn to for specialized technical knowledge or data.

Prusak Management

Bring Networks into the Open: Mapping helps identify where information is being hoarded or where units are too isolated.

Support Overburdened Connectors: Central connectors often face "logjams" because they are too busy to respond quickly. Executives can help by reallocating their routine tasks or making information more widely available through intranets.

Reward "Good Citizenship": Because informal work is rarely recognized by formal systems, companies should explicitly reward connectors and spanners through bonuses, promotions, or public acknowledgment to prevent burnout.

Respect the Periphery: Executives often mistakenly try to force peripheral specialists into more social roles. This can be an "expensive mistake," as it distracts them from staying at the cutting edge of their fields.

Hog

Core Concepts of Social Identity Theory

Social Identity: This is the part of an individual’s self-concept derived from perceived membership in relevant social groups

Social Categorization: People categorize themselves and others into groups (ingroups and outgroups) to reduce uncertainty and make sense of the social world.

Prototypes: Groups are represented by "prototypes"—fuzzy sets of attributes that capture similarities within the group and differences from other groups.

Depersonalization: When a social identity is salient, individuals see themselves and others through the lens of group prototypes rather than as unique individuals.

Lovallo and Kahneman

Many business failures stem from flawed decision-making rooted in excessive optimism rather than rational analysis.

The authors identify two primary causes for these inaccurate forecasts: cognitive biases and organizational pressures. Rather than being intentional deceptions, these are natural human tendencies that cloud judgment:

Punctuated Equilibrium Model (Temp groups with deadlines)

First meeting, then do nothing, then do a lot to feel better about doing nothing, then nothing, then do enough to finish

As a manager, create more deadlines to mitigate this

Hastie

Why Groups Fail: Two Main Reasons

The authors identify two primary causes for group failure, which they call "the two horsemen" of bad decision-making:

1. Informational Signals: Group members often stop trusting their own private information when they see others (especially those who speak first) take a different view. They assume others know something they don't.

2. Reputational Pressures: People silence themselves to avoid the disapproval of their colleagues or leaders. They "go along to get along," even if they believe the group is making a mistake

These two forces lead to four common disastrous patterns in group settings:

• Amplifying Errors: Groups don't just repeat individual biases (like the planning fallacy or framing effects); they often make them worse.

• Cascades: This occurs when people follow the leads of those who spoke first. Once a "momentum" is established, it becomes nearly impossible for later speakers to change the group's direction.

• Polarization: Groups tend to move toward more extreme points of view than the ones they held before they started talking.

• The Common Knowledge Effect: Groups spend most of their time discussing information that everyone already knows, while failing to uncover the "hidden profiles"—critical information held by only one or two members

• Silence the Leader: Leaders should express their opinions last so they don't bias the room or trigger reputational pressures.

Solutions

• Prime Critical Thinking: Simply telling a group that their goal is to uncover facts, rather than just "reach a consensus," can improve accuracy.

• Reward Group Success: People are more likely to share "hidden" information if they are incentivized for the group's ultimate accuracy rather than their own individual standing.

• Assign Roles: Give specific members the responsibility for specific types of information (e.g., "the medical expert," "the financial expert"). People are more confident sharing unique info when it is seen as their "job."

• Appoint a Red Team / Devil's Advocate: Formally tasking someone to find flaws in the majority's plan can help break up harmful cascades.

• The Delphi Method: Collect individual estimates or votes anonymously before the group discussion begins to ensure private knowledge isn't lost.

Team Diversity: Demographic & Psychological Diversity

Demographic diversity

Differences in observable attributes

E.g., age, gender, & race

•Con: Individuals who are demographically different from the team are less committed to their organization & more likely to quit

•Pro: Homogeneous groups are initially more effective, but over time, demographically diverse groups begin to outperform homogenous groups

Psychological diversity

Differences in underlying attributes

e.g., skills, beliefs, attitudes, educational

   background, etc

•Con: More diverse teams tend to have more communication & coordination problems

•Pro: Variety of knowledge & skills leads to increased innovation & creativity

Decision Making

Advantages of Group Decision-Making

-Generate more complete information

-Increased diversity of views – increased alternatives

-Group outperforms best individual, usually

-Increased acceptance of a solution

Weaknesses of Group Decision-Making

-Time-consuming

-Conformity pressure in groups

-May be dominated by one or a few members

-Suffer from ambiguous responsibilities

Group vs. Individual: Which is more effective?

-Depends on criteria – groups are less efficient, more creative, higher-quality

Groupthink

When people are in a group, they start valuing agreement (consensus) so much that it becomes more important than making the best decision.

Leads to deterioration in individual’s mental efficiency & moral judgment as a result of group pressures

Challenger disaster: Had to reschedule launches due to weather, which lead to pressure bc of race with Russia and communism. People seemed to agree for another launch even when it wasn’t optimal, so people died.

When are team ineffective

–Inappropriate use of teams

–Lack of support from organizational leaders

–Lack of good information

–Lack of team member skills

Diversity & Projects

Diverse groups is not good for getting things done quickly because there is a longer storming period.

If there is a longer period of time, then diversity tends to pay off

Group vs. Individual: Which is more effective?

-Depends on criteria – groups are less efficient, more creative, higher-quality