Motivation and Group Dynamics

Motivating by Job Design: The Job Characteristics Model (JCM)

  • The JCM proposes that job design greatly affects motivation.
  • Five core job characteristics:
    1. Skill Variety: Using different skills and talents.
    2. Task Identity: Completing a whole task from start to finish.
    3. Task Significance: Job's direct impact on others.
    4. Autonomy: Control over how work is done.
    5. Feedback: Information about work performance.
  • Motivating Potential Score (MPS) measures a job's motivating potential.
    • Requires high scores in at least one of skill variety, task identity, task significance, and also high autonomy and feedback.
  • Cultural Generalizability of the JCM
    • JCM is based on an individualistic view.
    • May not apply the same way in collectivistic cultures.

Using Job Redesign to Motivate Employees

  • Job redesign involves changing job structure to increase motivation.
  • Job Rotation: Moving employees between tasks to reduce boredom.

Relational Job Design

  • Focuses on how work positively affects others.
  • Connects employees with beneficiaries of their work.

Using Alternative Work Arrangements to Motivate Employees

  • Flextime: Employees choose their start and end times.
    • Examples: Flexible start/end times, compressed workweek, shorter workweek.
    • Benefits: Better work-life balance, increased motivation, reduced absenteeism.
    • Limitations: Not suitable for all jobs, may not reduce stress for everyone.
  • Job Sharing: Two or more employees share one full-time job.
  • Telecommuting: Working from home (or other locations) using a computer linked to the office.

Using Employee Involvement and Participation (EIP) to Motivate Employees

  • EIP involves including workers in decision-making.
  • Forms of Employee Involvement Programs:
    • Participative Management: Joint decision-making between leaders and workers.
    • Representative Participation: Employee representation on work councils or boards.

Using Extrinsic Rewards to Motivate Employees

  • Pay is a powerful motivator.
  • Pay Structure: Balancing internal equity (job value) and external equity (competitive pay).
  • Variable-Pay Programs: Linking pay to performance.
    • Piece-Rate Pay: Paid per unit produced.
    • Merit-Based Pay: Rewards individual performance based on reviews.
    • Bonuses: Reward recent performance.
    • Profit-Sharing Plan: Employees get a share of company profits.
    • Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP): Employees get company stock.

Using Benefits to Motivate Employees

  • Flexible benefits allow employees to choose benefits that fit their needs.

Using Intrinsic Rewards to Motivate Employees

  • Intrinsic rewards come from within, such as recognition.
  • Employee Recognition Programs: Appreciating employee contributions.

Types of Groups

  • Formal Groups: Created by the organization with assigned roles and tasks.
  • Informal Groups: Naturally formed to meet social needs.

Social Identity

  • Part of self-concept from group membership.
  • Social Identity Theory: Internalizing group achievements or failures.
  • Ingroups and Outgroups
    • Ingroup Favoritism: Viewing one's own group as superior.
    • Outgroups: Defined as "others" by ingroup members.

Punctuated-Equilibrium Model of Group Development

  • First Meeting: Sets direction.
  • Phase 1 (Inertia): Little progress.
  • Midpoint Transition: Group becomes aware of time constraints and changes begin.
  • Phase 2 (Inertia): Executes new plans.
  • Final Meeting: High activity.

Group Properties

  • Roles: Expected behavior patterns.
    • Role Perception: How one believes they should behave.
    • Role Expectations: How others believe one should behave.
  • Norms: Rules or expectations for behavior.
    • Positive Norms: Lead to cooperation and success.
    • Negative Norms: Damage trust and performance.
  • Status
    • Determined by power, ability to contribute, and personal characteristics.
    • Status Inequity: Perceived inequity can cause disequilibrium and corrective behaviors.
  • Size
    • Social Loafing: Reduced effort when working collectively.
    • Prevention: Set goals, increase competition, peer evaluations, select motivated members, base rewards on contributions.
  • Cohesiveness: Attraction and motivation to stay in the group.
    • Encouragement: Smaller groups, agreement on goals, more time together, increased group status, competition, and group rewards.
  • Diversity
    • Surface-level diversity alerts to possible deep-level diversity.
    • Faultlines: Divisions that split groups into subgroups.

Group Decision Making

  • Strengths: Diverse input, acceptance, constructive conflict.
  • Weaknesses: Time-consuming, conformity pressure, dominance by a few.
  • Effectiveness vs. Efficiency
    • Groups are generally more accurate but slower than individuals.
  • Groupthink: Conformity pressure leading to poor decisions.
    • Minimize: Monitor group size, impartial leadership, devil's advocate role, encourage critical discussion.
  • Groupshift (Group Polarization): Group discussions leading to more extreme views.

Group Decision-Making Techniques

  1. Interacting Groups: Face-to-face discussion.
  2. Brainstorming: Free thinking and idea generation.
  3. Nominal Group Technique: Structured, silent idea generation and ranking.