BU288 - Midterm #2

Motivation

The extent to which persistent effort is directed toward a goal.

Intrinsic motivation

Motivation that stems from the direct relationship between the worker and the task; usually self-applied.

Extrinsic motivation

Motivation that stems from the work environment external to the task; it is usually applied by others.

Self determination theory

A theory of motivation that considers whether people's motivation is autonomous or controlled.

Autonomous motivation

When people are self-motivated by intrinsic factors.

Controlled motivation

When people are motivated to obtain a desired consequence or extrinsic reward.

Performance

The extent to which an organizational member contributes to achieving the objectives of the organization.

General cognitive ability

A person's basic information-processing capacities and cognitive resources.

Emotional intelligence

The ability to understand and manage one's own and other's feelings and emotions.

Need theories

Motivation theories that specify the kinds of needs people have and the conditions under which they will be motivated to satisfy these needs in a way that contributes to performance.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs

A five-level hierarchical need theory of motivation that specifies that the lowest-level unsatisfied need has the greatest motivating potential.

ERG theory

A three-level hierarchical need theory of motivation (existence, relatedness, growth) that allows for movement up and down the hierarchy.

Mcclelland's theory of needs

A nonhierarchical need theory of motivation that outlines the conditions under which certain needs result in particular patterns of motivation.

Need for achievement

A strong desire to perform challenging tasks well.

Need for affiliation

A strong desire to establish and maintain friendly, compatible interpersonal relationships.

Need for power

A strong desire to influence others, making a significant impact or impression.

Process theories

Motivation theories that specify the details of how motivation occurs.

Expectancy theory

A process theory that states that motivation is determined by the outcomes that people expect to occur as a result of their actions on the job.

Instrumentality

The probability that a particular first-level outcome will be followed by a particular second-level outcome.

Equity theory

A process theory that states that motivation stems from a comparison of the inputs one invests in a job and the outcomes one receives in comparison with the inputs and outcomes of another person or group.

Goal setting theory

A process theory that states that goals are motivational when they are specific, challenging, when organizational members are committed to them, and when feedback about progress toward goal attainment is provided.

Goal orientation

An individual's goal preferences in achievement situations.

Learning goal orientation

A preference to learn new things and develop competence in an activity by acquiring new skills and mastering new situations.

Performance-prove goal orientation

A preference to obtain favourable judgments about the outcome of one's performance.

Performance-avoid goal orientation

A preference to avoid negative judgements about the outcome of one's performance.

Distal goal

Long-term or end goal.

Proximal goal

Short-term goal or sub goal.

Group

Two or more people interacting interdependently to achieve a common goal.

Formal work groups

Groups that are established by organizations to facilitate the achievement of organizational goals.

Informal groups

Groups that emerge naturally in response to the common interests of organizational members.

Punctuated equilibrium model

A model of group development that describes how groups with deadlines are affected by their first meetings and crucial midpoint transitions.

Additive tasks

Tasks in which group performance is dependent on the sum of the performance of individual group members.

Disjunctive tasks

Tasks in which group performance is dependent on the performance of the best group member.

Conjunctive tasks

Tasks in which group performance is limited by the performance of the poorest group member.

Process losses

Group performance difficulties stemming from the problems of motivating and coordinating larger groups.

Norms

Collective expectations that members of social units have regarding the behaviour of each other.

Roles

Positions in a group that have a set of expected behaviours attached to them.

Role ambiguity

Lack of clarity of job goals or methods.

Role conflict

A condition of being faced with incompatible role expectations.

Intrasender role conflict

A single role sender provides incompatible role expectations to a role occupant.

Intersender role conflict

Two or more role senders provide a role occupant with incompatible expectations.

Interrole conflict

Several roles held by a role occupant involve incompatible expectations.

Person-role conflict

Role demands call for behaviour that is incompatible with the personality or skills of a role occupant.

Status

The rank, social position, or prestige accorded to group members.

Group Cohesiveness

The degree to which a group is attractive to its members.

Social loafing

The tendency to withhold physical or intellectual effort when performing a group task.

Collective efficacy

Shared beliefs that a team can successfully perform a given task.

Self-managed work teams

Work groups that have the opportunity to do challenging work under reduced supervision.

Cross functional teams

Work groups that bring people with different functional specialties together to better invent, design or deliver a product or service.

Superordinate goals

Attractive outcomes that can only be achieved by collaboration.

shared mental models

Team members share identical information about how they should interact and what their task is.

Virtual teams

Work groups that use technology to communicate and collaborate across time, space and organizational boundaries.

Decision making

The process of developing a commitment to some course of action.

Problem

A perceived gap between an existing state and a desired state.

Well-structured problem

A problem for which the existing state is clear, the desired state is clear, and how to get from one state to the other is fairly obvious.

Program

A standardized way of solving a problem.

Ill structured problem

A problem for which the existing and desired states are unclear and the method of getting to the desired state is unknown.

Perfect rationality

A decision strategy that is completely informed, perfectly logical, and oriented toward economic gain.

Bounded rationality

A decision strategy that relies on limited information and that reflects time constraints and political considerations.

Framing

Aspects of the presentation of information about a problem that are assumed by decision makers.

Cognitive bias

Tendencies to acquire and process information in an error-prone way.

Conformation bias

The tendency to seek out information that conforms to one's own definition of or solution to a problem.

Information overload

The reception of more information than is necessary to make effective decisions.

Anchoring effect

The inadequate adjustment of subsequent estimates form an initial estimate and serves as an anchor.

Satisficing

Establishing an adequate level of acceptability for a solution to a problem and then screening solutions until on that exceeds this level is found.

Sunk costs

Permanent losses of resources incurred as the result of a decision.

Escalation of commitment

The tendency to invest additional resources in an apparently failing course of action.

Hindsight

The tendency to review the decision-making process to find what was done right or wrong.

Diffusion of responsibility

The ability of group members to share the burden of the negative consequences of a poor decision.

Groupthink

The capacity for group pressure to damage the mental efficiency, reality testing, and moral judgement of decision-making groups.

Risky shift

The tendency for groups to make riskier decisions than the average risk initially advocated by their individual members.

Conservative shift

The tendency for groups to make less risky decisions than the average risk initially advocated by their individual members.

Nominal group technique

A structured group decision-making technique in which ideas are generated without group interaction and then systematically evaluated by the group.

Delphi technique

A method of pooling a large number of expert judgements by using a series of increasingly refined questionnaires.

Job design

Structure, content and configuration of a person's work tasks and roles.

Job scope

The breadth and depth of a job.

Job rotation

Rotating employees to different tasks and jobs in an organization.

Skill variety

The opportunity to do a variety of job activities using various skills and talents.

Autonomy

The freedom to schedule one's own work activities and decide work procedures.

Task significance

The impact that a job has on other people.

Task identity

The extent to which a job involves doing a complete piece of work, form the beginning to the end.

Feedback

Information about the effectiveness of one's work performance.

Growth need strength

The extent to which people desire to achieve higher-order need satisfaction by performing their jobs.

Job enrichment

The design of jobs to enhance intrinsic motivation, quality of working life, and job involvement.

Job involvement

A cognitive state of psychological identification with one's job and the importance of work to one's total self-image.

Job enlargement

Increasing job breadth by giving employees more tasks at the same level to perform but leaving other core characteristics unchanged.

prosocial motivation

The desire to expend effort to benefit other people.

Management by objectives

An elaborate, systematic, ongoing program designed to facilitate goal establishment, goal accomplishment, and employee development.

flex time

An alternative work schedule in which arrival and departure times are flexible.

Compressed workweek

An alternative work schedule in which employees work fewer than the normal five days a week but still put in a normal number of hours per week.

Job sharing

An alternative work schedule in which two part-time employees divide the work of a full-time job.

Work sharing

Reducing the number of hours employees work to avoid layoffs when there is a reduction in normal business activity.

Negotiation

A decision making process among interdependent parties who do not share identical preferences.

distributive negotiation

Win-lose negotiation in which a fixed amount of assets is divided between parities.

Integrative negotiation

Win-win negotiation that assumes that mutual problem solving can enlarge the assets to be divided between parties.

Free rider

Form of social loafing - people lower their effort to get free outcomes.

Sucker effect

Form of social loafing - people lower their effort because of the feeling that others are free riding.

Abilene Paradox

when a group collectively decide on a course of action that is counter to the preferences of any of the individuals in the group.

Group polarization

The tendency of group members to shift toward more extreme positions than those they initially held as a result of group discussion.

Heurisitcs

Judgmental shortcuts to simplify the decision making process.