Organizational Behavior Midterm (Chapters 5-7) (Mix 1)

Organizational Behavior

Job Design

How organizations define and structure jobs to enhance employee performance.

Job Specialization

Breaking jobs into small, standardized tasks across workers; can lead to boredom and job dissatisfaction.

Job Rotation

Systematically moving workers from one job to another to reduce monotony, but doesn't fully address boredom.

Job Enlargement

Giving workers more tasks to perform.

Job Enrichment

Giving workers more tasks and control over how to perform them.

Participation

Giving employees a voice in decisions about their work, administrative matters, and product quality.

Empowerment

Enabling workers to set goals, make decisions, and solve problems within their responsibility.

Compressed Work Schedule

Employees work full-time hours in fewer days.

Job Sharing

Two or more part-time employees share one full-time job.

Extended Work Schedule

Work schedule with long work periods followed by extended paid time off.

Flexible Work Schedule (Flextime)

Gives employees control over their daily work hours.

Telecommuting

Employees work off-site for part of their time.

Goal

A desirable objective used to manage motivation and enhance employee performance.

Goal Difficulty

Extent to which a goal is challenging and requires effort.

Goal Specificity

Clarity and precision of a goal.

Goal Acceptance

The degree to which a person accepts a goal as their own.

Goal Commitment

The degree to which a person is personally invested in reaching a goal

Management by Objectives (MBO)

Collaborative goal-setting where organizational goals cascade down.

Performance Appraisal

Process of measuring, evaluating, documenting, and communicating an employee's work behaviors.

Performance Management

Ongoing process that includes performance appraisal, recognizing, coaching, and training employees.

360-Degree Feedback

Performance feedback from all sides of the organization

Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

Structured performance management identifying financial/nonfinancial measures.

Reward System

All components involved in allocating compensation and benefits to employees.

Surface Value

Objective worth of a reward.

Symbolic Value

Subjective and personal worth of a reward.

Compensation Package

Money, incentives, benefits, privileges, and awards provided to employees.

Incentive Systems

Plans where employees earn extra compensation for certain performance.

Indirect Compensation

Employee benefits as a form of compensation.

Perquisites

Special privileges for select organizational members, usually top managers.

Employee Recognition

Explicit acknowledgment and praise for desired behaviors/outcomes

Flexible Reward Systems

Systems allowing employees to choose benefits that best suit their needs

Pay Transparency

Policy where exact amounts of employee compensation are public knowledge.

Motivation

A set of forces that leads people to behave in particular ways

Need

Anything an individual requires or wants, triggering attempts to satisfy the need.

Scientific Management

Approach to motivation that assumes employees are motivated by money.

Human Relations Approach

Fostering a false sense of employees’ inclusion in decision making will result in positive employee attitudes and motivation to work hard.

Human Resource Approach

Assumes that people want to contribute and are able to make genuine contributions.

Task-Specific Self-Efficacy

A person’s beliefs in their capabilities to do what is required to accomplish a specific task

Magnitude (of Self-Efficacy)

Beliefs about how difficult a task can be to accomplish

Strength (of Self-Efficacy)

Beliefs about how confident the person is that the specific task can be accomplished

Generality (of Self-Efficacy)

Beliefs about the degree to which similar tasks can be accomplished

Need-Based Theory

Assumes that need deficiencies cause behavior.

Hierarchy of Needs

Assumes that human needs are arranged in a hierarchy of importance including physiological, security, belongingness, esteem, and self-actualization needs.

Deficiency Needs

Physiological, security, and belongingness needs; must be satisfied for the individual to survive and be fundamentally comfortable.

Growth Needs

Esteem and self-actualization needs; focus on personal growth and development

ERG Theory

Describes existence, relatedness, and growth needs, where more than one need may motivate a person at the same time.

Two-Factor Theory

Identifies motivation factors (intrinsic to the work itself) and hygiene factors (extrinsic to the work itself).

Motivation Factors

Are intrinsic to the work itself and include factors such as achievement and recognition

Hygiene Factors

Are extrinsic to the work itself and include factors such as pay and job security

Acquired Needs Framework

Centers on the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power.

Need for Achievement

The desire to accomplish a task or goal more effectively than was done in the past.

Need for Affiliation

The need for human companionship.

Need for Power

The desire to control the resources in one’s environment.

Process-Based Perspective

Focuses on how people behave in their efforts to satisfy their needs.

Equity Theory

Focuses on people’s desire to be treated with what they perceive as equity and to avoid perceived inequity.

Equity

The belief that we are being treated fairly in relation to others; inequity is the belief that we are being treated unfairly in relation to others.

Expectancy Theory

Suggests that people are motivated by how much they want something and the likelihood they perceive of getting it.

Effort-to-Performance Expectancy

The perceived probability that effort will lead to performance

Performance-to-Outcome Expectancy

The perceived probability that performance will lead to certain outcomes

Outcome

Anything that results from performing a behavior

Valence

The degree of attractiveness or unattractiveness (value) that a particular outcome has for a person.

Learning

A relatively permanent change in behavior or behavioral potential resulting from direct or indirect experience.

Classical Conditioning

A simple form of learning that links a conditioned response with an unconditioned stimulus.

Reinforcement Theory

Based on the idea that behavior is a function of its consequences; also called operant conditioning.

Social Learning

When people observe the behaviors of others, recognize the consequences, and alter their own behavior as a result.

Behavior Modification

The application of reinforcement theory to influence the behaviors of people in organizational settings

Positive Reinforcement

Uses rewards or other desirable consequences that a person receives after exhibiting behavior.

Negative Reinforcement (Avoidance)

Involves opportunity to avoid or escape from an unpleasant circumstance after exhibiting behavior.

Punishment

Is the application of unpleasant or aversive consequences to decrease the likelihood of a behavior.

Extinction

Decreases the frequency of behavior by eliminating a reward or desirable consequence that follows a behavior.

Group

Two or more people who interact with one another such that each person influences and is influenced by each other person.

Team

An interdependent collection of at least two individuals who share a common goal and share accountability for the team’s as well as their own outcomes.

Workgroups

Formal groups formed by the organization to do its work.

Command group

A relatively permanent, formal group with functional reporting relationships, usually included in the organization chart.

Affinity group

A collection of employees from the same level in the organization who meet on a regular basis to share information, capture emerging opportunities, and solve problems.

Functional teams

Members come from the same department or functional area

Cross-functional teams

Members come from different departments or functional areas

Problem-solving teams

Solve problems and make improvements

Self-directed teams

Set their own goals and pursue them in ways defined by the team

Venture teams

Operate semi-autonomously to create and develop new products, processes, or businesses

Virtual teams

Made up of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers who communicate using telecommunications and information technologies

Global teams

Face-to-face or virtual teams whose members are from different countries

Friendship group

Relatively permanent and informal and draws its benefits from the social relationships among its members

Interest group

Relatively temporary and informal and is organized around a common activity or interest of its members

Group composition

The degree of similarity or difference among group members on factors important to the group’s work

Homogeneity

The degree to which members are similar in one or several ways that are critical to the group’s work.

Heterogeneity

The degree to which members differ in one or more ways that are critical to the group’s work.

Social loafing

The tendency of some members of groups to put forth less effort than they would when working alone

Norm

A standard against which the appropriateness of a behavior is judged

Informal leader

A person who engages in leadership activities but whose right to do so has not been formally recognized by the organization or group

Mutual acceptance stage

Characterized by members’ sharing information about themselves and getting to know each other

Communication and decision-making stage

Members discuss their feelings more openly and agree on group goals and individual roles in the group

Motivation and productivity stage

Members cooperate, help each other, and work toward accomplishing tasks

Control and organization stage

The group is mature; members work together and are flexible, adaptive, and self-correcting

Process gain

Performance improvements that occur because people work together rather than independently

Process loss

Performance decrements that occur when a team performs worse than the individual members would have if they had worked alone

Team efficacy

A team’s shared belief that it can organize and execute the behaviors necessary to reach its goals

Trust

Confidence that other people will honor their commitments, especially when it is difficult to monitor or observe the other people’s behavior

Social facilitation

Happens when people are motivated to look good to others and want to maintain a positive self-image

Role

Defines the behaviors and tasks each team member is expected to perform because of the position they hold