IO Psych Midterm 2: Short Responses

How do organizations conduct organizational staffing?

Organizations conduct organizational staffing, or the process of finding people to fill roles within an organization by:

• Planning: Anticipating needs for human resources

• Recruitment: Attracting applicants and giving them a Realistic Job Preview (RJP)

• Realistic Job Preview= what they can expect if they become an employee in the company (clarifying expectations) and reduces turnover

• Selecting: Choosing which employees to hire

• Hiring: Persuading selected applicants to accept offers and onboarding

Planning, acquiring applicants, selecting applicants, and hiring

What are the concepts of validity and utility?

Validity is the establishment of a clear relationship between a selection procedure (predictor) and job performance (criterion)

• Multiple types of validity including content validity, construct validity, and criterion-related validity

Utility: The value of using a selection system in an organization

• Is the selection system adding value above randomly selecting employees?

What are two ways in which unlawful discrimination in employment is determined?

Unlawful discrimination in employment is determined through:

• Adverse Impact: No intent to discriminate

• Disparate Treatment: Intentional discrimination

Adverse Impact: uses the 4/5ths rule of thumb, if the minority hiring rate is less than 4/5ths of the majority hiring rate, there is unintentional discrimination

• Calculate minority hiring rate ÷ majority hiring rate.

• If the ratio is less than 0.80 (80%), there is potential adverse impact.

• If the ratio is ≥ 0.80, the rule is not violated.

What is the shifting burden of proof approach to evaluating claims of unlawful discrimination?

Shifting burden of proof approach for claims of unlawful discrimination consists of:

1. Plantiff having to present evidence that the hiring practice has harmed or adversely impacted members of a protected group

2. If the burden of proof is met, the defendant or orgnaization has to show that the selection procedure has business necessity and is valid

3. If the organization shows that the test is valid, the plantiff has to rebut evidence for business necessity or show how another technique can be used without discrimination

If a test has validity, can discriminate

What are the key factors that differentiate HR from talent management in organizations?

The difference between HR and talent management is that:

• HR: Mainly used for compliance and protecting against legislation

• Foundational practices, such as employee selection, compensation, and safety

• Generic and generally accepted practices, replicated across businesses

• Stable and repeated practices

Talent Management:

• Leverages practices (gets the most out of employees and improves organizational performance)

• Unique to an organization’s objectives and culture, less agreement as to the best practice

• Fluid (changes in response to the environment or strategy of the organization)

What are the steps involved in developing and implementing a training program?

The steps involved in developing and implementing a training program are:

1. Conducting a needs analysis (figure out who and what training is needed)

• Includes person analysis (which employees lack skills to perform welll)

• task analysis (the specific skills needed for the job)

• organizational analysis (where is training needed in relation to the organization’s goals)

2. Set Training objectives (what the trainees will be able to do post training)

3. Design and develop, as well as test training materials

4. Deliver and implement the training program

5. Evaluate training (step that is typically ommitted, because of time restraints and not being able to guarantee results)

How is a needs assessment conducted?

Needs assessment is the process of determining what employees need training and what the training should address

• Organizational analysis: What training is needed in the organization and what type of training aligns with organizational goals

• Person analysis: Who needs training and what training could address

• Task analysis: What KSAOs employees need to perform their job successfully

What are the factors that affect learning and transfer of learning?

The factors that affecting learning are:

• Trainee Characteristics: Individual differences in ability and motivation

• Design Factors of the training: Feedback, identifical elements to the job, overlearning, sequencing, and delivery

• Work Environment, opportunities to apply training and supervisior support

These factors affect learning, which is a mediator between these factors and transfer of training on the job (extent to which people take what they learn and transfer it to the job)

Discuss how training is evaluated

Training is evaluated through:

1. Reactions (trainee’s impressions of the training)

2. Learning (the degree of learning and knowledge acquistion)

• How well an assessment’s content represents the knowledge and skills required for a job

3. Behavior (how individual behavior changes as a result of the assessment and whether they apply what they have learned on the job)

4. Results (effects of training organizational outcomes)

How are training and development different?

Leadership Training

• Provides proven solutions to known problems

• Is highly structured, with a start and end point

• Participants are assumed to start in the same place and change in the same way

Leadership Development

• Creates the capacity for people to solve problems that they have never encountered before

• Is individualized, continuous and ongoing

• Participants are assumed to start in different places and change in different ways

Define motivation

Motivation is a force that

• Energizes or causes people to act (intensity)

• Directs behavior towards specific goals (direction)

• Sustains effort in reaching goals (persistence)

Motivation= intensity, direction, and persistence

• It varies between people and across situations for the same person

• It is a combination of individual and environmental characteristics

• Allocation of resources to different actions

• Not observable

• To change behavior, one has to change motivation

What is the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation?

Intrinsic motivation: motivation that comes from within and is the internal enjoyment of doing a task or an activity

• Ex. Motivated to do your job because you enjoy learning from it

Extrinsic motivation: motivation that is external and comes from a reward or wanting to avoid punishment

• Ex. Motivated to do your job to avoid punishment

What is the major limitation with using incentives to enhance employee motivation?

Incentives can undermine intrinsic motivation by shifting employee’s focus from enjoying the task itself to obtaining external rewards

• Incentives will only enhance employee motivation and performance when the task is automatic and doesn’t require much thinking

• Challenge of task affects the strength (moderates) of the relationship between extrinsic rewards like incentives and performance

What are the need theories (work motivation theories)?

The need theories explain motivation by describing the needs that people try to satisfy

• Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: A 5 level theory of motivation that stating that the lowest unmet need has the strongest influence on motivation. The 5 levels from lowest to highest are physiological, safety, belongingness, esteem, and self actualization

• Self Determination Theory: Theory of motivation that states that people are more motivated when 3 basic physiological needs are satisfied, autonomy (feel like they have a sense of choice), relatedness (feel connected to the people around them and a sense of purpose) and competence (have the abillity to do something well and gain skills)

What are the behavioral theories?

The behavioral theories explain motivation through the factors that influence and direct behavior

• Reinforcement Theory: Behavior is shaped by it’s consequences, which influence motivation

• Consequences → Behavior → Motivation

• Many types of reinforcement schedules, ex. fixed vs variable interval or ratio

• Goal- Setting Theory: Motivation is influenced by setting specific, challenging goals, that direct attention, effort, and persistence into achieving those goals

• Use SMART (Specific, measurable, achievable, results- focused, and time-based)

• Goals should be specific, challenging, and self-set for best motivation

What are the work design theories?

The work design theories explain how the characteristics and structure of a job influence motivation

Herzberg 2- Factor Theory

• Theory that states that workplace motivation and satisfaction are influenced by two factors. Hygiene factors (ex. pay, good relationships) prevent disatisfaction and motivation factors increase satisfaction and motivation (including achievement and recognition)

Job Characteristics Model:

• Theory that states that work motivation is influenced by the characteristics of the work or the job (skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback)

• Growth need strength moderates the relationship between the 5 core characteristics and job performance

• Job Diagnotistic Survey (JDS): Measures employees’ perception of how much their job has each of the five characteristics

• Motivating Potential Score: Combines these factors for a combined score on how motivating the job is

What are the cognitive theories?

The cognitive theories explain motivation through people’s throughts and beliefs

• Equity Theory: Theory that states that equitable and fair treatment motivates workers, who compare themselves and their actions to others. They compare their inputs (or effforts) to others. When faced with inequity, may change outcomes, inputs, who they compare themselves to, or change the way they view the situation

• Expectancy (VIE) Theory: Theory that states that motivation depends on expectancy (can the person perform well if they put in effort), instrumentality (if they perform well can they receive the reward), and valence (do they value the reward)

• Motivation= V times I times E

What are the major components of the Job Characteristics Model of employee motivation?

The five core characteristics that make up the Job Characteristics Model and employee’s motivation includes:

• Skill variety: being able to use many KSAOs

• Task identity: being able to complete the entire job from beginning to end

• Task signifiance: how much the job impacts others

• Autonomy: how much the job gives the worker freedom and independence in scheduling and performing it

• Feedback: how much direct and clear information the worker receives about their performance

Define job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and employee engagement

Job satisfaction: The degree to which an employee feels positively or negatively about their job (How much does a worker like their job?)

Organizational commitment: How committed and invested an employee is to the organization. There are three types of organizational commitment

• Affective commitment: An employee stays with the organization because they want to (Job expectations have been met and emotional attachment)

• Continuance commitment: An employee stays with the organization because of the costs of leaving and lack of alternatives (staying because they have to)

• Normative committment: An employee stays with the organization because of a sense of obligation and loyalty to the organization. (staying because they ought to)

Employee Engagement: The degree to which an employee is involved, invested, and enthusiastic about their work and job

Describe the differences between

• Job satisfaction

• Organizational commitment

• Employee engagement

Job satisfaction has to do with how much the employee likes the job itself

• Satisfaction: Like

Organizational commitment has to do with the employee’s attachment to the organization

• Committment: Belong

Employee engagement has to do with how invested the employee is in the work involved with the job

• Engagement: Invest

Explain how these work attitudes are measured and provide at least one example for each

Job satisfaction:

• Measured through the global vs facet approach with many or few criterion for job satisfaction

• Job Descriptive index (JDI): survey measure of job satisfaction, including the job, supervision, pay, promotions, and coworkers

• Minnesota Satisfaction Questionaire (MSQ): survey measure of extrinsic vs intrinsic satisfaction of an employee in a job

Organizational Commitment:

• Measured through affective commitment, continuance commitment, and normative commitment

Employee Engagement:

• Measured through surveys like the Gallup engagement measure of how involved and invested they are in their work

Overview of the Porter- Lawler model of the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance

The Porter Lawler model states that effort → performance → rewards → satisfaction

• Performance leads to satisfaction and the relationship is mediated by rewards

• Abilites and traits moderate the relationship between effort and performance

• Valence and expectancy affect effort

• Perceived equity is also a moderator between rewards and satisfaction

How are emotions experienced by employees at work and what is emotional labor?

At work, employees often need to express positive emotions and supress negative emotions

• There is a requirement for emotion expression

• Two forms of emotional expression, deep acting (feeling the emotions expressed) and surface acting (faking the emotions expressed, which leads to emotional dissonance)

• Surface acting has negative effects including negative response from the customer and burnout and disatisfaction from the employee