Five Types of Work-Related Behavior
1. Joining the organization
• Need qualified people to perform tasks
• “war for Talent” -- organizations acquire knowledge by hiring the
best employees
• Successful firms attract talent by applying many OB topics
2. Remaining with the organization
• Hold onto valuable knowledge by keeping
knowledgeable employees
• Job dissatisfaction leads to motivation
to quit
3. Maintaining work attendance
• Caused by:
- situational factors -- weather, traffic
- motivation -- job dissatisfaction, sick
leave
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4. Performing required tasks
• Task performance -- goal-directed
activities under person’s control
• Jobs have several performance
dimensions, each requiring specific skills and knowledge
5. Exhibiting organizational citizenship
• Performance beyond the required job
duties -- e.g., Avoiding unnecessary conflicts, helping others, tolerating
impositions, being involved, performing beyond normal role requirements
• Improving org citizenship through:
-- Rewarding extra-role behavior and performance
-- perceived fairness – minimizing perceptions of injustice in org.
decisions
- hire employees with a social responsibility norm
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Learning in Organizations
Learning -- relatively permanent change in
behavior (or behavior tendency) that occurs as a result of a person’s
interaction with the environment
• Behavior change is evidence of learning
• Due to interaction with environment --
study, practice, experience (not instinct)
• Influences ability, role perceptions and
motivation
• Relatively permanent change -- not due to situation
Learning affects behavior/performance
through:
• Ability -- developing competencies
• Role perceptions -- clarifying duties, priorities
• Motivation -- linking behavior to rewards, feedback, feelings of
accomplishment
• Learning also important for knowledge management
Learning explicit and tacit knowledge
• Explicit Knowledge -- can be organized and communicated from one
person to another
• Tacit Knowledge -- subtle info acquired through observation and
experience -- can’t be explicitly communicated -- only through observation
and experience
• Challenge of knowledge management is to make more tacit knowledge
explicit
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Behavior Modification: Learning Through Reinforcement
We learn how to “operate” on the environment -- alter our behavior to
maximize positive consequences and minimize adverse consequences.
• Operant behaviors -- make the environment respond in ways that we
want
• Respondent behaviors -- uncontrollable responses to the environment
-- taking hand away from hot stove
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A-B-Cs of Behavior
Modification
Central objective of behavior modification is to change behavior (B) by
managing its antecedents (A) and consequences (C).
1. Antecedents
• Events preceding the behavior
• Provide cues that certain behaviors will
have particular consequences -- e.g. supervisor instructions, alarm signals
2. Behavior
• What people say or do ---e.g. improving
attendance
3. Consequences
• Events following behavior that influence
its future occurrence
• Law of effect -- likelihood that an
operant behavior will be repeated depends on its consequences
• Includes contingencies and schedules of reinforcement
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Contingencies of Reinforcement
1. Positive reinforcement
• Introducing a desirable consequence --
increases or maintains future behavior
- e.g. receiving a bonus after
successfully completing an important project
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2. Negative reinforcement
• Removing or avoiding a consequence
increases or maintains future behavior (avoidance learning)
-- e.g. manager stops criticizing employee when performance improves
3. Punishment
• A consequence decreases chance of future
behavior
a. introducing an unpleasant consequence - e.g. threat
b. removing a pleasant consequence - e.g. losing bonus
• Punishment differs from negative
reinforcement
4. Extinction
• No consequence follows the target
behavior
- e.g. employee receives no praise for good performance
Comparing reinforcement contingencies
• Fewest adverse consequences when
positive reinforcement follows desired behaviors; extinction follows
undesirable behaviors
• Risks involved with using punishment and
negative reinforcement, but may be necessary to maintain equity and justice
in the workplace
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Schedules of Reinforcement
Reinforcement schedule may have a greater
effect than the size of the reinforcer on learning and behavior management
1. Continuous reinforcement
• Reinforce every occurrence of the
desired behavior
- more rapid learning than intermittent
schedules
- faster extinction when reinforcer
removed
2. Fixed interval
• Behavior is reinforced after a fixed
time
- e.g. employees paid every two weeks
3. Variable interval
• Reinforcer administered after a varying
length of time
- e.g. receiving promotions after an
average of 18 months of good performance
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4. Fixed ratio
• Reinforce behavior after it has occurred
a fixed number of times
- e.g. piece rate -- paid after produce a
fixed number of units completed
5. Variable ratio
• Reinforce desired behavior after it
occurs a varying number of times
- e.g. making one successful sales call after an average of five
calls
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Behavior Modification in Practice
• Everyone practices behavior modification
• Electric Boat uses behavior modification principles to minimize sick
time among salaried employees at the Groton, Rhode Island, shipyard
• Dana Corp. -- safety bingo reinforces safe work behaviors
Behavior Modification at Nova Chemicals
• Introduced a million dollar “Recruitment
and Retention Program” to reinforce good attendance and continued
employment at its Canadian construction site -- cut absenteeism rates by 25
percent
Behavior Modification Limitations
• Can’t reinforce nonobservable behavior
• Reward inflation -- reinforcer tends to wear off
• Ethical concerns
-- Variable ratio schedule viewed as a form of gambling
-- Perceived manipulation -- sounds as if employees have no control
Learning through Feedback
Information received about the consequences of our behavior - can be an
antecedent or a consequence
• Improves role perceptions, ability and motivation
• Corrective Feedback -- identifies performance errors and helps to
correct them
• Positive feedback motivates future behavior
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Social feedback sources
• Supervisors, clients, co-workers etc.
• multi-source (360-degree) feedback
- received from a full circle of people around the employee
- provides more complete and accurate information than from a
supervisor alone
-- lower level employees feel a greater sense of fairness and open
communication
• 360-degree feedback challenges
-- expensive and time consuming
-- potentially ambiguous and conflicting feedback
-- may be inflated feedback from peers
-- emotional consequences of giving and receiving critical feedback
involving people who work with you
Non-social feedback sources - the job itself or results
- corrective feedback better through non-social sources
- considered more accurate, protects self-esteem
- positive feedback better through social sources
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Giving feedback effectively
• Specific
-- redirects effort/behavior more precisely
• Frequent
-- optimal frequency depends on job cycle
-- continuously available from non-social sources
• Timely
-- available as soon as possible
-- clearer association between behavior and consequences
• Credible
-- more accepted from trustworthy sources
• Relevant
-- relate to individual’s behavior and goals
Seeking feedback
• Monitoring - looking for information cues
- more efficient; avoids ‘face saving’ problems
• Direct inquiry - asking others for feedback
- problems: awkward and often inaccurate with negative feedback from
social sources
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Ethics of employee monitoring
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Many employers monitor employee performance
- critics says it is an invasion of privacy and symbolizes a lack of
trust
- advocates say it protects company assets, provides a safer work
environment, gives employees more accurate feedback about their performance
others argue it gives employees more accurate feedback
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Social Learning Theory
Learning by observing others, then modeling the behaviors that lead to
favorable outcomes and avoiding behaviors that lead to punishing
consequences
1) Behavioral modeling
a. observe model’s behavior
b. remember important actions
c. try to reproduce actions through
practice
• Model should be respected and reinforced
• Good for learning tacit knowledge and skills
• Enhances self-efficacy
-- - belief that you have the ability, motivation, and resources to
complete a task successfully
-- behavioral modeling makes environment predictable, thereby
increasing self-efficacy
2) Learning behavior consequences
• We learn to anticipate the consequences
of future actions through logic and by observing the experiences of others
3) Self-reinforcement
• Employee controls a reinforcer (e.g.
having a break), but doesn’t “take” the reinforcer until a self-set goal is
done
• Increasingly important as employees
manage themselves
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Learning Through Experience
Kolb’s Experiential learning model
• Concrete experience -- sensory and
emotional engagement in some activity
• Reflective observation -- listening, watching, recording, and
elaborating on the experience
• Abstract conceptualization -- developing concepts and integrating
observations into logically sound theories
• Active experimentation – testing previous experience, reflection,
and conceptualization in a particular context
Experiential Learning at Michigan’s CREST
• Combined Regional Emergency Services Training (CREST) center in
Michigan transfers tacit knowledge to police, fire, and emergency medical
personnel through experiential learning at a mock city designed to provide
real-life instruction
Developing a learning orientation – critical for experiential learning
• Value the generation of new knowledge
• Reward experimentation
• Recognize mistakes as part of learning process
• Encourage employees to take reasonable risks
Action learning
• Experiential learning -- employees involved in a “real, complex, and
stressful problem,” usually in teams, with immediate relevance to the
company
• concrete experience with a real organizational problem
• “learning meetings” -- participants reflect on their observations
regarding the problem or opportunity
• Team conceptualizes and applies a solution to a problem
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