Week 2 - Job Performance & Organizational Commitment

Lecture 2

Integrative model of OB

In individual outcomes (job performance + organizational commitment)

Job performance

• Employee behaviour that contribute either positively or negatively to the accomplishment of organizational goals

• Assessment in behaviours over results.

• Using results as the primary indicator of job performance can create problems

Flaws of result-based measurement

• Employees may do activities that cannot be captured in results-based measure.

• Results can lead to a competitive environment and sabotaging other people’s reputations.

• Results are impacted by a lot of outside factors beyond our control, such as economy.

• Does not tell us ways to improve

3 job performance segments

• Task performance: routine, adaptive, creative

• Citizenship behaviour: interpersonal, organizational

• Counterproductive behaviour: property deviance, production deviance, political deviance, personal aggression

Task performance

• Employee behaviours involved in converting organizational resources into goods/services

• e.g. a restaurant server providing menus and bringing food.

• Within the job description, required to keep job.

3 categories of task performance

• Routine task performance

• Adaptive task performance

• Creative task performance

Routine task performance

• well-known habitual responses by employees.

• Things done repetitively, such as flight attendant explaining flight safety.

Adaptive task performance

• thoughtful responses by an employee to unique or unusual task demands.

• Things still trained for but are unique experiences, such as flight attendant dealing with a medical problem on flight.

Creative task performance

• Degree to which individuals develop ideas or outcomes that are both novel and useful.

• Sometimes no training with overlap between adaptive and creative. Following 9/11, many feared flying and flight attendants handed out crayons to draw on placemats and stick them around the plane.

Citizenship behaviour

• Voluntary employee behaviours that contribute to organizational goals by improving the context in which work takes place.

• e.g. a restaurant server might assist other servers with their tables and offer constructive suggestions for improving the restaurant.

• Keyword, voluntary. Not part of the job description to help other coworkers or finding ways to increase efficiency.

• Although voluntary, may not be considered so in nature when overlooking performance by some supervisors.

Interpersonal citizenship behaviour (3-kinds)

Going beyond expectations to assist, support, and develop colleagues

• Helping: assisting coworkers with heavy workloads, aiding coworkers with personal matters, showing new employees the ropes. (assistance)

• Courtesy: keeping coworkers informed about matters that are relevant to them. (informing)

• Sportsmanship: maintaining a positive attitude with coworkers, even in tough times. (attitude)

Organizational citizenship behaviour (3-kinds)

Going beyond expectations to improve the organization, defend it, and be loyal to it.

• Voice: offering constructive suggestions for change. (feedback)

• Civic virtue: participating in company operations at a deeper-than-normal level (e.g. voluntary meetings) (participation)

• Boosterism: positively representing the organization in public (representation)

Counterproductive behaviour

• Employee behaviours that intentionally hinder organizational goal accomplishment

• e.g. a restaurant server might gossip about coworkers

• Must have three of the following:

  • Relevant to every job.

  • Contagious

  • Employee engaging in one sector of behaviour are likely to engage in others.

  • Counterproductive behaviour have a weak negative correlation to task performance. Every now and then there will be high performers engaging in counterproductive behaviour.

4 categories of counterproductive behaviour

• Property deviance

• Production deviance

• Political deviance

• Personal aggression

Property deviance

• Behaviours that harm the organization’s assets and possessions

• Stealing equipment, damaging equipment, etc.

Production deviance

• Intentionally reducing organizational efficiency of work output

• Wasting resources such as time, material, substance abuse.

Political deviance

• Behaviours that intentionally disadvantage other individuals

• Gossiping

Personal aggression

• Hostile verbal and physical actions directed toward other employees

• Harassing, hurting coworkers

Prosocial counterproductive behaviour

Workplace behaviours that are intended to benefit others but are counterproductive because they violate norms, rules, policies, or laws.

• e.g. hiding negative information about a coworker’s performance

4 kings of Performance management

• Management by objectives (MBO)

• Behaviourally-anchored rating scales (BARS)

• 360-degree feedback

• Forced ranking

Management by objectives (MBO)

• Management philosophy based on employee evaluations whether specific performance goals have been met.

• e.g. improving efficiency by 25% within 6 months.

• Specific measurable goals attached with a timeline.

• Have a results component alongside the behaviour component. However results may be out of employee control.

Behaviourally-anchored rating scales (BARS)

• Examples of critical incidents to evaluate an employee’s job performance behaviours directly.

• Critical incidents: short descriptions of effective and ineffective behaviours

360-degree feedback

• Performance evaluation system that uses ratings provided by supervisors, coworkers, subordinates, customers, and employee themselves.

• Best use for developmental purposes than administrating bonuses.

• Log-rolling issue.

Forced ranking

• Performance management system that forces managers to rank each employee into one of multiple categories

• Can be stressful way of assessing performances.

• Focus in routine performances which hinders creative performances.

• Creates competition.

3 kinds of organizational commitment

• Employee’s desire to remain in an organization

• Affective commitment

• Continuance commitment

• Normative commitment

Affective commitment

• Desire: emotional attachment to and involvement in the organization.

• Employee wants to remain in the organization

• Comes from good work atmosphere, enjoying the work, connections with coworkers.

Erosion model

• Employees with fewer bonds with coworkers are more likely to quit. The person with the fewest connections are most likely to leave.

Social influence model

• Employees with direct linkages to coworkers who leave the organization will themselves be more likely to leave.

Continuance commitment

• Desire: awareness of costs associated with leaving the organization

• Employee has to remain with the organization.

• Having no available alternatives, bills, major investment in company, sense of embeddedness in local community.

• Will not go out and beyond to do tasks.

Embeddedness

• Sense of fit to the organization or community.

• A feeling of having to stay due to non-work related factors.

• Connections to whom is important to understand if its continuance or affective.

• Positively associated with continuance commitment.

Normative commitment

• Desire: feeling of obligation to the organization.

• Employees feels they ought to remain with the organization.

• ex. an organization expecting you to stay at least a minimum of 6 months.

• Arises when sense of indebtedness to organization’s debt such as tuition reimbursements.

Four primary responses to negative events

Destructive + Passive [Neglect]: declined interest and effort

Destructive + Active [Exit]: end/restrict involvement

Constructive + Passive [Loyalty]: maintain public support while private hope for improvement

Constructive + Active [Voice]: attempt to improve the situation

Withdrawal behaviour: 5 Psychological withdrawal

• Daydreaming

• Socializing

• Looking busy

• Moonlighting: misuse of company resources

• Cyberloafing: using organization’s email/internet for personal use.

Withdrawal behaviours: 5 physical withdrawl

• Tardiness: arriving late for work

• Long breaks

• Missing meetings

• Absenteeism

• Quitting

3 models of withdrawal behaviours: Independent forms model

• Withdrawal behaviours are uncorrelated with one another.

• Occurs for different reasons and fulfill different needs.

• ex. a tardy employee does not correlate to their absence.

3 models of withdrawal behaviours: compensatory forms model

• Withdrawal behaviours are negatively correlated with one another.

• Any form of withdrawal compensates for a sense of dissatisfaction, making other forms unnecessary.

• e.g. knowing an employee is tardy informs that they will not be absent.

3 models of withdrawal behaviours: progression model

• Withdrawal behaviours are positively correlated with one another.

• The model with the most scientific support.

• e.g. knowing that an employee is tardy tells you that same employee is probably going to be absent.

Trends that affect commitment

• Diversity of the workforce

• Changing employee-employer relationship

Commitment initiatives

• Creates a sense of perceived organizational support

• Increase employee bonds

• Provide good salary and benefits

• Offer training and development opportunities.