Organizational Behavior - MHR, UniMi, Appunti di Comportamento Organizzativo

Scarica Organizational Behavior - MHR, UniMi e più Appunti in PDF di Comportamento Organizzativo solo su Docsity! Organizational Behavior Professor Silvia Gilardi A.Y. 2023/2024 Lisa Valeri Lisa Valeri CHARACTERISTICS OF THE FIELD OF STUDY CALLED ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR What is Organizational Behavior? - Organizational behavior is a field of study devoted to understanding, explaining, predicting and changing behaviors of individuals and groups in organizations. Organization behavior offers theoretical frameworks and tools to explain and manage issues like diversity, equity and inclusion, employee health and well-being, alternative work arrangements and digital transformation, human resource planning (attraction and retention effort) and corporate sustainability (ecological, economic and social concerns). - Organization behavior studies focus on: Þ What human beings do (actions) → What a person or a team does. Þ What takes place within human beings → How people feel and think about their job and their organization are internal states that accompany visible actions. These shape the employees’ experience, whose indicator is job satisfaction – that is, a positive feeling about a job resulting from an evaluation of its characteristics. Examples of observable behaviors are planning and organizing to meet deadlines, coordinating efforts within a team, helping others when their workload increases and coming to work late without permission. - The field of organizational behavior has three commonly agreed-upon goals: 1. Explaining organizational behavior and events in organizations. 2. Predicting organizational behavior and events. 3. Managing organizational behavior. Levels of Analysis and the IPO Model - Organizational behavior must be considered at three levels of analysis: 1. Individual level of analysis (micro organizational behavior) → It refers to individuals within an organizational setting, to subjective experiences at work (job attitudes such as job satisfaction; burnout; distress symptoms) and to individual job performance. 2. Group level of analysis (meso organizational behavior) → It refers to understanding the behaviors of people working together and in teams, to group attitudes and to group performance. Therefore, it includes leadership and group dynamics. 3. Organizational level of analysis (macro organizational behavior) → It refers to the behaviors of the entire organization, and therefore to power relations, conflict, competition, and cultural influence. It includes measures of productivity (increase in profits; cost reduction), financial outcomes (increase in stock value), survival. Lisa Valeri INDIVIDUAL LEVEL OUTCOME VARIABLES IN ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR Individual Job Performance - HR managers have two main goals at the individual and group level: employee well-being and performance. Job performance is a concept that refers to how well someone performs at his job, and is formally defined as the set of employee behaviors that contribute positively or negatively to organizational goal accomplishment. Because job performance is a complex, multidimensional concept that includes many aspects and can be assessed in varying ways, there are different approaches to studying individual job performance. In general, two are the main views: Þ Result-based view of job performance → Performance is defined in terms of the result of individual behavior. It is measured through the quality and quantity of work outputs. Example: For a seller, the amount of sales revenue generated over some time span. Þ Behavior-based view of job performance → Performance is defined in terms of behaviors. The behavioral aspect of job performance refers to what the individual does in the work situation that contributes to organizational goal accomplishment. Example: He communicates the preferences of a product excellently. The behavioral and outcome aspects are related. However, there is no complete overlap, as the result aspect is affected by other determinants than the behavioral aspects – for instance, low sales may be caused by a low demand for a specific type of car. - The behavioral aspect refers to what people do while at work, including the activities that support the technical core of the organization and are formal part of the job description, and the activities that support the social and psychological environment of the organization. These behaviors refer to accomplishing all required assignments of the given job position, and generally fit into three broad categories: Þ Task performance (in-role performance) → Specific role-prescribed behaviors that contribute to the technical core of an organization. It refers to the specific tasks, duties, and responsibilities that are a core part of a job position. They can be further distinguished in: o Routine task performance → Doing things specifically related to one’s job description. o Adaptive task performance → Employee responses to task demands that are novel, unusual, or unpredictable. Example: Quickly analyze options for handling crisis. o Innovative task performance → The degree to which individuals develop ideas that are both novel and useful. Lisa Valeri Example: Coming up with new ideas, working to implement new ideas, finding improved ways to do things, creating better processes and routines. Þ Contextual performance (extra-role performance) → Behaviors that are not within the job description but still contribute to the organization by improving the overall quality of the setting in which work takes place. An indicator of contextual performance is organizational citizenship behavior, which is the sum of all discretionary behaviors that are not part of an employee’s formal job requirements and contribute to the workplace’s psychological and social environment. At the interpersonal level, organizational citizenship behavior refers to: o Helping → Assisting coworkers who have heavy workloads. o Courtesy → Keeping coworkers informed about matters that are relevant to them. o Sportsmanship → Maintaining a good attitude with coworkers, even when they have done something annoying or when the unit is going through tough times. At the organizational level, organizational citizenship behavior refers to: o Voice → Offering constructive suggestions for change at the organizational level. Example: Facilitating peers. Þ Counterproductive behaviors → Behaviors that intentionally hinder organizational goal accomplishment and intentionally harm the organization or the individuals in it. There are three types of counterproductive behaviors, in an organizational to interpersonal scale: o Property deviance → Behaviors that harm the organization’s assets and possessions, such as theft and sabotage, the purposeful destruction of physical equipment, organizational processes, or company products. o Production deviance → Behaviors that harm the organization by reducing the efficiency of work output such as using too many materials or withdrawal (restricting the amount of time working to less than is required by the organization, including absence, arriving late or leaving early, and taking longer breaks than authorized). o Social/political deviance → Incivility and personal aggression: § Incivility → Rude, impolite, discourteous communication and lack of good manners. § Personal aggression → Harassment (unwanted physical contact or verbal remarks), bullying (humiliation, social isolation, systematic maltreatment). - As organizational behavior aims to understand, predict, and improve behavior, OB scholars tend to refer to job performance as a behavior (in-role and extra role behaviors) and use the term job performance results to describe the outcomes associated with those behaviors. The behaviorally anchored rating scale (BARS) is a tool for evaluating employees in a defined set of performance Lisa Valeri dimensions by comparing their behaviors with specific behavior examples that anchor each performance level, usually on a five-, seven- or nine-point scale. The behaviors can be defined using the critical incident technique (CIT) or other job analysis methods. Because the critical incidents convey the precise kinds of behaviors that are effective and ineffective, feedback from BARS can help an employee develop and improve over time. According to the behavior-based based approach, a good performer is an employee who is good at the particular job task that falls within his job task, whether those tasks are routine or require adaptability or creativity; engages in citizenship behaviors directed at both coworkers and the larger organization; refrains from engaging in the counterproductive behaviors that can badly damage the climate of an organization. - A performance appraisal system is composed of the activities through which organizations seek to assess employees’ performance and analyze performance trends to develop their competence, enhance performance and distribute rewards. Some of the dark sides of exclusively focusing on results to evaluate and manage job performance are: Þ Performance feedback based on results does not provide people with information they need to improve their behavior. Þ There is evidence that managers’ who focus on final results can create a mentality among employees focused only on profits and losses, which in turn results in social undermining (sabotaging co-workers’ reputations or trying to make them look bad). Þ There are risks of unethical behavior – if employees are only rewarded for reaching measurable results, some employees could cheat. Þ Evaluating an employee’s performance based on results alone might give an inaccurate picture of which employees contribute more to the organization (invisible employee). Þ When individuals focus their attention on goals that are only set to produce higher quantity, quality suffers. Lisa Valeri As opposed to these, work engagement is negatively associated with frequency of sickness absenteeism, self-reported medical errors, turnover, burnout and depression. Job Involvement - Job involvement refers to the cognitive belief that a job satisfies one’s needs and is central to one’s identity. This concept has to do with psychological identification with one’s job – that is, the degree to which an individual identifies strongly with her job and considers performance relevant to self-worth. People with higher job involvement show a willingness to work beyond expectations to complete a special project. - A high level of job involvement is generally linked with lower tendencies to withdraw from work. Job involvement is also weakly related to job performance results. Perceived Organizational Support - Perceived organizational support refers to the degree to which employees believe the organization to value their contributions and care about their well-being. The focus is on the belief that people can have regarding the organization’s commitment to them. - There is evidence of a strong relationship between perceived organizational support and organizational citizenship behavior and better customer service. Organizational Commitment - Organizational commitment is the degree to which an employee wishes to remain a member of the organization. It reflect an individual’s psychological bond with the organization. - Meyer and Allen, in the three components model of commitment, distinguished among: Þ Normative commitment (obligation-based) → The employee feels a sense of obligation to stay, a sense of duty, a sense of loyalty, and a sense of guilt if he decides to quit. There is a conviction that staying is the right thing to do morally. Example: “My boss has invested so much time in me… How could I leave now?” Þ Continuance commitment (cost-based) → The employee evaluates that there is a profit associated with staying and a cost associated with leaving. Example: “It would be too costly for me to leave my company right now, even if I wanted it. I might lose salary and benefits; I might lose seniority that I’ve spent years acquiring.” Þ Affective commitment (emotion-based) → The employee feels emotionally attached and identifies with the organization’s goals and values. There is a feeling of sadness in case of quitting. Affective organizational commitment is positively associated with organizational citizenship behaviors and negatively associated with turnover. Affective commitment is fostered through role clarity, role conflict, trust and group cohesiveness. Socially-responsible HRM is another way to reach this objective. Lisa Valeri Example: “This company has a great deal of personal meaning for me.” Þ Emotion-based → I want to stay. Þ Cost-based → I need to stay. Þ Obligation-based → I ought to stay. The three types of organizational commitment combine to create an overall sense of psychological attachment to the company. Still, different people may weigh the three types differently: some employees may be very rational and cautious by nature, focusing primarily on continuance commitment when evaluating their overall desire to stay, while others may be more emotional and intuitive by nature, going more on feel than a calculated assessment of costs and benefits. The importance of the three commitment types also may change over the course of a career. There are many foci of commitment, meaning that organizational commitment depends on more than just the whole organization. Employees can experience each of the above-mentioned psychological states to varying degrees with respect to every different focus of commitment. - Job satisfaction has a strong positive effect on organizational commitment – people who experience higher levels of job satisfaction tend to have higher levels of affective commitment and higher levels of normative commitment. Effects on continuance commitment are weaker. Perceived organizational support has a strong positive effect on organizational commitment – people who experience higher levels of perceived organizational support tend to have higher levels of organizational commitment. The relationship between organizational commitment and task performance is very weak. Lisa Valeri Organizational Identification - Organizational identification refers to a psychological state that has to do with the congruence between the values of an individual and their organization. It represents the extent to which an individual has linked their self-concept to that of their organization. Measures of organizational identification include items such as referring to the organization by saying ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. - A recent data analysis shows that organizational identification has strong explanatory power of task and contextual job performance behaviors. In fact, it explains a significant amount of variance in general behavior above and beyond what is explained by other job attitudes, but it also explains more variance than general attitude does. The identity-relevant psychological state explains performance outcomes (in-role and extra-role performance) more than other attitudes do. For example, strong identifiers are more likely to share information and communicate with coworkers; make choices that serve the organization’s strategic interests; engage in customer-oriented activities that critically contribute to organizational effectiveness; helping others. What Happens When Employees Dislike Their Jobs? - The exit-voice-loyalty-neglect theoretical model helps to examine the way in which employees respond to dissatisfaction and problematic events. This theory predicts that employees tend to react to negative events in one of four general ways: On the one hand, low organizational commitment and low job satisfaction are more likely to manifest themselves in destructive behaviors. On the other hand, high organizational commitment and high job satisfaction are more likely to lead to constructive reactions. - Employee attitudes give warnings of potential problems and influence behavior. Satisfied and committed employees exhibit performance behaviors that increase individual and organizational performance. Managers must understand job attitudes in order to improve them. High pay satisfaction is not enough to create overall satisfaction. Work-Related Well-Being - Well-being reflects the extent to which individuals view themselves as functioning well in life. At work, this translates into the overall quality of an employee’s experience and functioning. Well-being at work includes three core dimensions: Þ Social → Perceived organizational support and affective organizational commitment. Constructive Destructive VOICE EXIT LOYALTY NEGLECT  (attempt to change the situation) (voluntary leaving the organization) (maintain effort level despite unhappiness) (attempt to remove from the situation) Active Passive Lisa Valeri Work-related values can be: Þ Intrinsic, or self-actualization values → The fulfilment of these values derives directly from the nature of the work itself. Example: Preferences for high utilization of one’s ability; interesting and varied work; autonomy/responsibility; self-development; intellectual stimulation. Þ Extrinsic, or security or material values → Preferences for extrinsic rewards. Example: Be rewarded monetarily; have a secure job. Þ Social, or relational values → Working with people; contributing to people and society; positive social contact with co-workers. Þ Status, or power values → Prestige; authority to make decisions over people; advancement. Every individual has a specific pattern of work values – in fact, everybody develop his own value system that may as well change during the course of the working life (there is plasticity, or within- person modifiability, in individual development at any age). Individuals values’ development is embedded within the broader sociocultural and historical context (social experiences with parents, teachers, friends and national culture). In this system, values are given different degrees of importance in a hierarchical way. - Value-percept theory states that job satisfaction depends on the interaction between what an individual considers important and what the context offers. This theory predicts that employees are more likely to be satisfied when their organization and their jobs provide the things that are most important to them. On the other hand, job dissatisfaction is the result of the perception that their organizations do not provide most of the things they value. When the employee perceives an unbalance between his values at the individual level and what the organization offers at the organizational level, negative feelings arise and turn into job dissatisfaction. Job dissatisfaction, in turn, can lead to reduced task performance. Work values are motivators that stimulate one’s intention to put effort into actions. When one puts effort into actions, he also evaluates his work environment and if he perceives that there is a match between his values and what the organization offers, he perceives positive emotions. These are positively associated with job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment, which in turn result into lower risk of quitting the organization. Example: Paul wants to earn around €70,000 a year, but he is currently earning €50,000 a year, so there is a €20,000 discrepancy. Can we predict that Paul feels a great pay dissatisfaction? Only if pay is one of the most important values to Paul. If pay is not that important, Paul will not feel much dissatisfaction. This theory predicts that the degree of dissatisfaction depends on how important the unfulfilled values are. Lisa Valeri INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERISTICS IN JOB ATTITUDES AND PERFORMANCE - The study of individual differences, also known as differential psychology considers: Þ What individual differences affect the way someone works. Þ How individual differences affect the way people think, problem solve, and feel about judgement. Þ Why individual differences affect performance and well-being. Research on individual differences helps to predict how someone might behave in the future. - A general overview of individual characteristics include: Þ Socio-demographic characteristics → Age, sex, level of study, country of origin, occupation. Þ Abilities → Knowledge, technical skills, physical/cognitive/socio-emotional abilities. Þ Personality aspects → Interests, preferences, values, needs, self-related mindsets, personality. The KSAOs Model - The acronym “KSAOs” is defined as a very broad umbrella term that covers the variety of individual characteristics and competencies needed to succeed in a job. The KSAOs model allows to classify individual characteristics that enable to perform a task or a role in the context of a professional setting. Competencies refer to all the qualities that a person has to complete his own work in a specific job and organizational environment. In fact, the competency profile includes Knowledge, Skills, Abilities, and Other personal attributes. These qualities can enable him to show excellent performance that is different from that of other people. Þ Knowledge → Knowledge of concepts, theories, and how to do something necessary for performing specific tasks. Example: “I know how to design diversity management interventions.” Þ Skills → The individual’s level of technical capabilities to perform specific tasks. Example: The level of proficiency in using analytics. Þ Ability (soft skills) → More enduring physical, cognitive and social capabilities that enable an individual to perform a particular task successfully. Example: Cognitive ability, emotional intelligence. Þ Other attributes → Personality traits and related dispositional attributes that affect individual performance and well-being across a broad range of tasks. Example: Big 5; perceived self-efficacy; growth mindset; work-related values. Example: The HR manager of the Eagle Company wants to understand what is happening to Philip. Philip is a newcomer. He has been a brilliant student. The results of the tests for intelligence during the hiring process were excellent. When he entered the organization, he was very excited. After eight Lisa Valeri months, he has started to be often absent. He often seems sad and sometimes irritable. During team meetings, he is often silent. Talking with his colleagues, he said he would like to quit the organization. The KSAOs model provides a guide to formulating hypotheses about the types of individual characteristics to be considered when trying to understand the determinants of employees’ work attitudes or behaviors. In this case, hypotheses could be “Does the behavior depend on a lack of knowledge or technical skills required by the job description?”, “Does the behavior depend on weak cognitive abilities?”, “Does it depend on difficulties in managing emotions?”, “Does it depend on other personality aspects?”. On the basis of these hypothesis, the manager should search for data that can explain the behavior. For instance, based on the data, the hypothesis of weak cognitive abilities is rejected. Cognitive Ability and Intelligence - An ability is an acquired or natural capacity that enables an individual to perform the various tasks of a job successfully. Cognitive ability or intellectual ability refer to all those abilities related to the use of information needed to perform mental activities such as thinking, making decisions, reasoning, problem-solving. It can be: Þ General → A very general mental capability that involves the ability to reason, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas. IQ tests, such as the Ravens Progressive Matrices test (RPM) evaluate this. The RPM is a completely non-linguistic and non-mathematical test. There are no letters and no numbers, but only patterns of geometric shapes. Þ Aggregate → Intelligence is a mixture of: o Numerical aptitude → The ability to understand the information provided in a numerical format and use it to reason an argument. o Verbal comprehension → The ability to understand what is read or heard. o Perceptual speed → The ability to identify visual similarities and differences. o Inductive reasoning → Making generalized decisions after observing repeated specific instances. o Deductive reasoning → Drawing logical conclusions based on statements or arguments and identifying the strengths and weaknesses of those arguments. The point of acknowledging the existence of different kinds of intelligence from an HR point of view is to understand that not all of them are needed for a single job description. On the one hand, general cognitive ability has a strong positive effect on task performance. This correlation is higher for more complex jobs and lower for less complex jobs. On the other hand, cognitive ability has a weak effect on affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative Lisa Valeri emotional intelligence are able to understand client needs better. Socio-emotional abilities and personality are more likely to affect contextual performance. Emotional Labor (Emotional Regulation) - When one works, he feels many emotions, but often he may not be able to express what he truly feels. At the workplace, employees may need to change the way they feel and express their emotions in order to interact effectively with customers or colleagues and to comply with organizational display rules. This effort to regulate emotions and to be compliant with emotional display norms is knows as emotional labor. From a psychological point of view, emotional labor is also known as emotional regulation, and is defined as a psychological process, activated during social interaction in workplace settings, aimed to regulate both feelings and their expressions for the organizational goals. Note that organizational display rules are norms about what emotions are appropriate to display and how to express them, including de-intensification, intensification, neutralization, and masking. Emotions are a natural part of the workplace and good management does not mean creating an emotion-free environment. Emotions can affect performance and well-being, but a manger cannot control the employees’ emotion. However, managers who understand the role of emotions will significantly improve their ability to explain and predict their coworkers’ behavior. - The focus on emotions in organizations is recent, both by professionals and scholars. For a long time, the myth of rationality dominated management studies and organizational cultures, associating emotions to irrationality. The dominant paradigm was characterized by two assumptions: 1. Emotions are disorganized interruptions of mental activity, which are potentially disruptive and harmful. 2. Organizations must be emotion free. Original organizational behavior focus was solely on the effects of strong negative emotions that interfered with individual and organizational efficiency. Some organizational cultures have been built on believing that it is unacceptable to experience and express emotions, especially negative ones, as they are perceived as a sign of weakness. In these cultures, emotions must be avoided and controlled. Since the 1990s, a new paradigm on emotions has emerged – that is, emotions can be constructive and contribute to human survival. Brain injury studies highlighted that patients with damages to a part of their brain (the amygdala, the brain section that regulates emotions) had lost their ability to feel emotions and make basic decisions. From this, one can derive that decisions are not determined simply by logic or emotions alone – one must have the ability to experience emotions to be rational because emotions help understand the world and decide how to react to the events. It can be concluded that emotion is a helpful source of information. Lisa Valeri - The seminal work on emotional labor in the sociological tradition comes from Hochschild, who defined emotional labor as the employee’s expression of organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions at work. Hochschild studied that the effort to be compliant with the organizational display norms can elicit a sense of alienation that leads to burnout. Complying with organizational display norms is achieved through: Þ Surface acting → Displaying physical signs, such as smiling at a customer even when the employee does not feel like it, that reflect emotions without actually feeling those emotions. What happens if the employee often hides or suppresses his inner feelings and displays fake emotions? He will start perceiving incompatibility between felt emotions and displayed emotions – that is, emotional dissonance. These strategies that regulate emotions require high effort because the worker has to manage emotional dissonance. Then, emotional dissonance leads to tension and discomfort, which ultimately turns into emotional exhaustion due to the effort to reduce tension. Þ Deep acting → This strategy consists of modifying one’s true inner feelings according to the organizational rules of how to present them. The employee changes the interpretation of the external situation and, as a result, his internal emotions change. In this way, the emotions that he displays are consistent with what he feels. For example, Hochschild (1983) described flight attendants who were trained to cognitively reappraise passengers as children so that they would not become angry with passengers’ potentially infantile behaviors. By using this strategy, the employee changes his interpretation of the event that requires his effort. With deep acting, there is no sense of alienation, but instead a sense of efficacy. The ability to regulate emotions is a personal resource that protects our well-being: Emotional intelligence is a personal resource that helps people cope with the psychological costs of emotional labor due to emotional job demands. Lisa Valeri - Certain individuals with higher levels of emotional intelligence may tend to engage in more counterproductive behaviors, such as gossiping and harassment. This is because the ability to understand and influence other’s emotions can be used to achieve personal goals that are not necessarily compatible with the goals and values of the organization or society. - Emotions are considered as relevance detectors: they are produced by a sequence of stimulus evaluation (a person evaluates if the stimulus is able to satisfy salient needs) and they help to prepare appropriate behavioral reactions to events with potentially important consequences. The conclusion is that emotions prepare adaptive action tendencies, and therefore an individual’s inability to manage emotions can lead to bad decisions. Example: Cristina is 27 years old, with a high school diploma. One year ago, she started to work in a supermarket as a cashier. Despite her many passions, such as the world of art, she did not hesitate from the start to get her hands dirty in order to work. But last December 2023, she decided to quit her job at a well-known, solid supermarket chain. During an interview she said: “I am not afraid of fatigue, but I don’t want to return to work in a company that hurts my dignity. There are many reasons for my resignation, but one is the following. They always left us alone to cope with customers. So it happens that the arrogant customers get the better of you. You find yourself alone; you have to decide how to behave in every situation, and you are always at your own risk. For example, I explained to one customer that the bag had to be paid. He made a terrible scene because he didn’t want to spend for it. He insulted me with bad words. I remained calm, but the customer continued, so I asked the manager to intervene. The manager arrived and gave the customer the bag for free. Imagine how the customer looked at me and how I felt at that moment. I understand that the manager wanted to end the matter, but the organization should have instructed us to do the same. Instead, managers tell you to do the opposite. We have to take bad words from customers to obey the organization’s prescription, and when you ask the manager for help, they do something different with the clients”. Lisa Valeri Example: A person who needs to surround himself with conspicuous material goods to feel important and successful has unstable and fragile self-esteem. People who feel to be worthy only when they get an A have unstable and fragile self-esteems. Þ General self-efficacy → It is defined as a generalized trait of personality consisting of one’s overall estimate of one’s ability to perform and cope successfully within an extensive range of situations. It is not tied to a specific situation or behavior. The concept of self-efficacy comes from Professor Albert Bandura (1925-2021), who distinguished between general self-efficacy and specific self-efficacy, which refers to the belief in one’s ability to perform a specific task. Work self-efficacy beliefs are context specific since they are related to the activities that the individual is required to perform. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave. They can be considered an important antecedent of job performance. Þ Neuroticism (emotional instability) → It is a tendency to often be in a negative emotional state. Neurotic people are nervous, moody and insecure. Conversely, emotional stability reflects a propensity to feel calm and secure and show less reactivity to everyday occurrences. Þ Locus of control → The extent to which people believe they have power over events in their lives. It reflects the belief in one’s capacity to impact the environment and produce the desired effects. There are two types of locus of control: o Internal → A person with an internal locus of control believes that he can influence events and their outcomes. Example: “I believe that my own actions determine my life.” o External → A person with an external locus of control blames forces for everything. Example: “Success is a direct result of my family.” People with an internal locus of control tend to take more responsibility for their actions and results. - People with a positive Core Self-Evaluation have positive feelings about themselves and see themselves as capable, in control of their environment, and in control of their feeling. Positive CSE individuals are more likely to set ambitious goals, be more committed to their goals, persist longer and repress disappointments, and see more challenge in their job. People with negative Core Self-Evaluation tend to dislike themselves, question their capabilities, view themselves as powerless over their environment (external locus of control), and view themselves as emotionally unstable. They are more likely to give up when confronting difficulties. Lisa Valeri A Focus on Self-Efficacy Beliefs - When faced with obstacles, setback and failures, those who doubt their capabilities slacken their efforts, give up prematurely, or settle for poorer solutions. Those who have strong belief in their capabilities redouble their effort to master the challenges. People with high self-efficacy are more likely to approach difficult tasks as challenges to be mastered rather than as threats to be avoided; set themselves challenging goals and maintain a strong commitment to them; sustain their efforts in the face of failure; quickly recover after failures or setbacks; attribute failure to insufficient effort or deficient knowledge and skills which are acquirable; approach threatening situations with assurance that they can exercise control over them; persevere when facing difficulties and obstacles. In other words, people with high self-efficacy have high tolerance of stressful situations and lower vulnerability to depression symptoms. People with low self-efficacy are more likely to shy away from difficult tasks which they view as personal threats; dwell on their personal deficiencies, on the obstacles they will encounter, and all kinds of adverse outcomes rather than concentrate on how to perform successfully, when faced with difficult tasks; give up quickly in the face of difficulties; let themselves be discouraged when they make mistakes or fail; search for justifications when they make mistakes or feel shame and blame themselves (and not focus on strategies to improve). In other words, people with low self-efficacy have lower tolerance of stressful situations and higher vulnerability to depression symptoms. Moreover, they may also risk developing feelings of inferiority and inadequacy. Lisa Valeri Example: The impact of a specific set of self-efficacy beliefs on academic outcome. In academic terms, self-efficacy beliefs have to do with the perceived ability to successfully master specific academic subjects and curricula areas and to self-regulate one’s own studying and learning activities. These include the perceived ability to plan and organize studying times and activities, the perceived ability to motivate themselves to fulfil their school assignments, and the perceived ability to pursue academic activities when there are other interesting things to do. The outcomes of a positive self-efficacy in this sense are higher grades and clearer career choices. - Self-esteem can be an asset, but it can also be problematic, even when high. An extremely positive sense of self can be translated into overconfidence and perceived infallibility. This often leads to bad decision making due to the fact that people who have too much self-esteem do not listen to others’ opinion, do not collect new information, ignore negative information, and do not evaluate other options. The outcome of these is a lower performance. Core Self-Evaluation in Organizational Behavior - When given a promotion, someone with a low core self-evaluation may feel that their accomplishment was not deserved. On the other hand, a person with a high core self-evaluation would feel that the reward was warranted, leading to higher job satisfaction. - The article Relationship of Core Self-Evaluation Traits – Self-Esteem, Generalized Self- Efficacy, Locus of Control, and Emotional Stability – With Job Satisfaction and Job Performance: A Meta-Analysis presents meta-analytic results of the relationship of the four CSE traits with job satisfaction and job performance. All correlations between the four traits and job satisfaction were moderate and positive, but in the case of job performance the results for self-esteem were less clear. - The core self-evaluation model helps managers to explain why some employees could have low performance even if they have high KSA. Moreover, it can help to explain the mechanisms that lead people with a low self-evaluation of their capability and competence to reduce their performance. Finally, it may help explaining the mechanisms that lead people with a high self-evaluation of their capability and competence to have higher performance. Lisa Valeri - In the workplace, the translation of the employees’ personality profiles in behavior depends on the specific organizational environment where they work. For instance, employees with a high level of openness to experience but who work in a context where managers or job characteristics do not value individual creativity do not express this personality trait. On the other hand, job characteristics or managers that allow individual creativity tend to activate the trait of openness to experience. Therefore, in this second context, individual differences in openness can better predict creativity behavior than differences in other traits. With respect to the employees with high conscientiousness levels, who are motivated by status, acceptance, and predictability, they show their most potent effects in orderly and well-structured occupational settings that have clear social expectations. To maximize their occupational potential, then, the organizational framework should feature clear career plans, clear goals, well-structured tasks, and low- to moderate-complexity tasks. - The one best personality profile able to predict organizational behaviors independently from the organization characteristics and job contents does not exist. When selecting candidates, a company needs to identify the personal qualities that better fit the organizational context’s characteristics. Lower job performance could depend on a mismatch between personal qualities and what the organization values and rewards. The Person-Organization Fit Approach - The person-organization fit approach explains the links between personal characteristics, job attitudes, and job performance. In particular, job attitudes and performance depend on the fit between a person’s and environment’s characteristics (P-O fit). To be more precise, the P-O fit is defined as the compatibility between people and organizations that occurs when at least one entity provides what the other needs, or they share similar fundamental characteristics, or both. The P-O fit is multidimensional: Þ Person-job fit (PJF) → Matching between person’s competence profile (KSAOs) and job demands (tasks, responsibilities). Þ Person-organization fit (POF) (also known as needs-supplies fit) → Matching between a person’s characteristics (values, needs, traits of personality) and organizational supplies (opportunities for advancement, benefits, training, pay policy, organization’s values). Þ Person-group fit → Matching between a person’s KSAOs and the group’s values, supplies, and demands. Þ Person-supervisor fit → Matching between person’s KSAOs and the supervisor’s values, supplies, demands. Lisa Valeri - In their meta-analysis Kristof-Brown et al. find that P-O fit has strong correlations with job satisfaction and organizational commitment and a more moderate correlation with intention to quit. The relationship between P-O fit and attitudinal dimensions including satisfaction with coworkers, satisfaction with supervisors and trust in management is moderate, while the correlation with organizational satisfaction is substantially higher. On the other hand, P-O fit has low correlations with overall job performance and task performance and moderate correlations with contextual performance. Þ Person-job fit (PJF) → Higher job satisfaction, lower intention to leave, higher task performance. Þ Person-organization fit (POF) → Higher organizational satisfaction, higher commitment, higher contextual performance (organizational citizenship behavior), lower intention to leave. Weak correlation with task performance. Þ Person-group fit → Higher social satisfaction (perceived quality of relationship with colleagues), higher contextual performance. Þ Person-supervisor fit → Higher satisfaction towards the supervisor, higher contextual performance. Therefore, to recap, the sum of: Þ KSA congruence → The congruence of knowledge, technical skills, and soft skills with the job demands at different organizational levels (job, group, supervisor, organizational processes). Þ Personality congruence. Þ Values and needs congruence → The congruence between people’s values (what they want), and what the organization values and offers (organizational supplies Translates into job attitudes such as job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment that, in turn, become intention to remain within the organization. In fact, people are more likely to leave companies that are not compatible with their competence profile, values, needs and personalities. It follows that P-O fit measures provide robust information on turnover risk before the individual is hired. Therefore, during the hiring process, it is relevant to assess all different types of P-O fit. However, it is not enough to do so only during the hiring process – this is because the interactions between a person and the organization are not stable, as both people and the organization can change. Moreover, as shown by the trait activation theory, people will express their traits when presented with trait-relevant situational cues, meaning that it is crucial to explore how people perceive the quality of their organization and their jobs once that they are on board. Lisa Valeri Decreases in P-O fit, which lead to decreases in job satisfaction, are more likely to result in increases in intent to turnover if the individual also perceives alternative job opportunities. To increase the P-O fit: Þ Provide employees with knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) needed to excel on the job through training programs. Þ Regularly monitor if people perceive their personal values and needs to match their organization’s culture and supplies at different levels (groups, supervisor, organization as a whole). Þ Activate interventions that improve the P-O match at group, supervisors, and organizational levels. Can an Individual’s Personality Change? - The current literature suggests that personalities can change through processes and events that include self-development efforts supported through coaching interventions, experiences within organizations including organizational pressures and interpersonal relationships with coworkers and supervisors, processes outside of the workplace including unemployment and family issues. For instance, starting from their first job, individuals tend to increase strongly in conscientiousness. Moreover, people who become unemployed tend to experience decreases in agreeableness, conscientiousness, openness to experience, and internal locus of control. People with stressful work roles may experience unwelcome increases in neuroticism and decreases in extraversion. The extent to which individuals experience relationships with coworkers as satisfactory relates to increased extraversion and decreased neuroticism. Organizations (such as asylums, prisons, and the military) that impose total control on individual expression and freedom can strip away the sense of self, resulting in changes to personality traits and functions. - Unlike other personality traits, self-efficacy is generally recognized to be a personality trait that can be developed and trained. The key inputs into the development of self-efficacy are: Þ Personal mastery experiences → One’s previous experiences in accomplishing tasks. Success builds a robust belief in one’s personal self-efficacy. Organizational and managerial practices to support this are providing challenging assignments, training and coaching, goal setting, and supportive leadership. Þ Vicarious experiences → Observing other’s experiences. Seeing a coworker succeed at a particular task may boost one’s self-efficacy because people judge their abilities by comparing themselves to other individuals that they believe to be similar to them. An organizational and managerial practice to boost this is to provide social modeling (buddy systems, tutoring, mentoring). Lisa Valeri much effort a person invests in a task, and how a person learns. It is crucial to keep in mind that neither mindset is predicted by a person’s ability level. Sources of Fixed and Growth Mindset - According to Carol Dweck, people develop their mindset from the kind of praise they receive. Þ Social experience that tends to enhance a fixed mindset → “When I tried a new, challenging task and failed, I looked at my mother; she was displeased and disappointed, and I felt frustrated and scared. The next time I failed, I tried it again, and the same thing happened. However, she praised me when I achieved a good result and said: “Well done! You are really smart.” I concluded that people do not love me and think that I am not intelligent if I do not achieve good results and that my intelligence is something that I have or don’t have”. Þ Social experience that tends to enhance a growth mindset → “When I tried a new, challenging task and failed, I looked at my mother; she said: “Hey, I noticed that you didn’t do well in the game today. What do you think you need to work on to get better?” The next time I failed, I tried it again, and the same thing happened. And when I achieved a good result, she said: “What helped you to do so well?” I concluded that mistakes are part of life. Mistakes do not define my ability, and I can learn from my mistakes and successes”. Clearly, experience and socialization play a key role in shaping mindset about the plasticity of human attributes. There are two different types of praise that people can receive, which lead to different mindsets: Þ Talent-based praise → When people are praised for their intelligence, they move toward a fixed mindset. Praising ability sends the message that natural talent is what leads to success, but when this individual encounters an obstacle, he is more likely to give up because he may come to believe that this obstacle is a sign of low ability. Þ Process-based praise → When someone is praised for his effort or strategy, he moves towards a growth mindset, as he becomes confident that he can learn and develop his potential. It follows that to develop a growth mindset, the most important thing to praise is how one approached the challenge. An organizational culture that glorifies innate genius in the election and promotion criteria or in award ceremonies can elicit a fixed mindset. Moreover, managerial actions such as telling people that they did a good performance because they are smart rather than because they worked hard can create a fixed mindset. It is better to avoid emphasizing the traits of an employee, but rather to focus on what he has done to perform well. - People can simultaneously hold a fixed mindset about an ability (for instance, math) and a growth mindset about another ability (for instance, singing). Although mindset is a continuum, most Lisa Valeri individuals tend to gravitate toward holding either a fixed or a growth mindset. However, because mindset is a malleable personal quality (and not a fixed disposition), one can move from a fixed mindset to a growth one. To move toward a primarily growth mindset, the Brainology training program draws upon Kurt Lewin’s and Edgar Schein’s theoretical models of change management, and follows three steps: Þ Unfreezing → Disconfirmation. Brainology provides the participants with scientific evidence about the malleability of the human brain and why it is true that everybody can grow his abilities. Usually, they convey information about neuroplasticity underlining that the brain is like a muscle – it gets stronger when it gets exercised. Moreover, they help them reflect on the consequences of a fixed mindset and then to legitimize it by stating that everybody has a mixture of fixed and growth mindset and that to move to a growth mindset it is important to stay in touch with each own’s fixed mindset thoughts and actions. Þ Change → Cognitive restructuring. Brainology helps participants to understand what it means to use a growth mindset when they have to manage difficult tasks, failures, and problem solve. This teaches the idea that people’s intellectual abilities and other attributes can be developed through actions that are suggested during the training program. Þ Refreezing → Creating a social environment where individuals feel safe enough to cope with failures and problem solve differently through the application of a growth mindset. Studies on Fixed and Growth Mindset - In an experiment to understand how mindsets and beliefs about intelligence influence learning success, college students had to complete a challenging general knowledge task. As they completed the task, they were given two successive pieces of feedback, during which brain activity was recorded by means of electroencephalography. The two types of feedback were: Þ Performance-relevant → Students were informed whether each answer was right or wrong. Þ Learning-relevant → Researchers explained the correct answer. Participants with a growth mindset had considerably more neural activity in the brain region that processed corrective feedback relative to those with a fixed mindset, meaning that they paid more attention and concentration on how to improve. After retesting performance, better performance results for those with a growth mindset than those with a fixed mindset. Therefore, a growth mindset facilitates attentiveness to corrective feedback that enhances learning and skill development and, then, leads to better performance results. - The growth and fixed mindset matter also at the group and organization level. Canning et al. (2020) researched whether a fixed mindset at the organizational level could affect employees’ affective commitment, trust towards the company and intention to leave the organization. Taking a Lisa Valeri random sample of employees and their supervisors from seven Fortune 500 companies, they administered a questionnaire where they asked employees about their perceptions of the company’s organizational mindset, of the company’s values (the extent to which certain behaviors were valued within the company, including collaboration, innovation and integrity/ethical behavior), and how much they trusted and were committed to the company. The measure to understand whether a company has an organizational-level fixed mindset is to ask whether it seems to believe that employees have a certain amount of talent and they cannot do much to change it, and whether it seems to believe that its success has resulted directly from the talent of its people. Researchers found that employees exposed to a fixed mindset organization, compared with employees who believed they worked for an organization that endorsed a growth mindset expect their company to be less supportive of collaboration, of intellectual risk-taking, to be less innovative due to the low psychological safety, and less likely to endorse norms of integrity and ethical behavior. It follows that they have less commitment, less trust in their company to treat them fairly, and higher intention to leave. Employees who perceived their organization to endorse a fixed mindset reported that their company’s cultural norms were characterized by less collaboration, innovation and integrity and they reported less organizational trust and commitment. - Other-focused mindset refers to the beliefs about the malleability of attributes of others. Solberg et al. have studied managers having a fixed mindset about technological ability. Through a two-wave field study they analyzed a sample of 88 managers and 185 employees at the Norwegian Banking Institute, which is transitioning to become a digital bank. They found that employees working with managers having a fixed mindset about technological ability experienced less developmental support, which reduced their technology approach, but did not promote their technological avoidance. Lisa Valeri Þ We are cognitively limited agents with limited information-processing ability → We are not able to obtain nor process all the data needed to make a completely rational decision. Therefore, our minds unconsciously select information and actively organize it. Þ People make decisions based on incomplete data → When people have to decide and solve a problem, they select information and create simplified models that extract the essential features from problems (called heuristics, cognitive shortcuts). According to Daniel Kahneman, a heuristic is a cognitive procedure for decision-making under uncertainty. In other words, it is a mental shortcut that helps people to reduce time and effort to judge and decide by ignoring information to make decisions more quickly, frugally, and/or accurately than by using complex procedures. Daniel Kahneman also developed a model also known as the dual process theory of thought: o System 1 → To manage lots of information and make judgements quickly and easily, we create heuristics. These cognitive shortcuts can activate a bias – a systematic error in thinking that influences the decisions and judgements that people make. For instance, the confirmation bias is the tendency to selectively search for information that confirms our beliefs and hypotheses. System 1 has no self-awareness or control, is unconscious and effortless and is employed to quickly assess a situation. o System 2 → It is the system employed to seek for new and missing information to make accurate decisions. It is a deliberate and conscious, effortful, controlled mental process. Þ People do not assess every feasible option before setting on a decision → People search options on the basis of their simplified models. They use the limited data they possess to choose the first acceptable or satisfactory option they find (“good enough”). Social Heuristics and Biases in Person Perception - In order to manage lots of information and make judgements quickly and easily, people create heuristics that can activate biases. Examples of heuristics and biases are stereotyping, the halo effect, the perceived similarity effect, and attribution biases. Stereotypes - Based on our experience and background, we have beliefs about the characteristics of social groups so that when we interact with someone, we tend to judge such a person based on our beliefs about the group to which that person belongs. Stereotyping is a process that depends on a natural tendency of people to classify themselves and others into social groups based on attributes like race, gender, nationality, or religion. It involves uncritically applying our beliefs about social groups to Lisa Valeri their individual members. A stereotype (people’s belief about groups) can turn into a prejudice (a negative opinion or feeling), which may then translate into discrimination (behavior): 1. Stereotype → Generalized belief or idea about the characteristics of a group. Stereotyping involves uncritically applying one’s belief about social groups to their individual members, regardless their differences. It is about the standardization of all members of a group. 2. Prejudice (affective component) → Having a hostile or negative attitude towards people in a distinguishable group solely based on their membership in that group. Prejudices are the principal motivating force behind discrimination. 3. Discrimination (behavior component) → Performing unjustly negative or damaging actions against members of a group simply because they are members of that group. People can have cultural stereotypes, even if they are not prejudiced. Therefore, stereotypes do not always cause negative attitudes and behaviors. If a stereotype is accompanied by a feeling of dislike or hatred related to the group, that prejudice comes out as an attitude in shaping one’s behavior. Stereotypes are not the product of individual cognitive activity alone, but are also social and collective products which function ideologically by justifying and legitimizing existing social and power relations within a society. - The advantage of stereotyping is that it helps people make decisions quickly by simplifying the world. However, there are far more disadvantageous when we generalize inaccurately: a stereotype can bias how we process information about people and produce social judgements. Another issue is that if these pieces of information become salient to somebody (the only ones selected and cognitively processed), a consequence could be that he does not search for deep-level personal information. Þ Surface-level diversity → Observable characteristics such as age, gender, ethnicity. Þ Deep-level diversity → Knowledge, skills, abilities, mindset, values, personality, needs. By only considering surface-level diversity, the risk of making discriminative decisions increases. In the workplace, stereotypes can either reduce (negative stereotypes) or enhance (positive stereotypes) task performance. This is because beyond a competency profile, an individual’s behavior Lisa Valeri can be determined by other’s stereotypes. In fact, stereotypes can trigger the self-fulfilling prophecy, stereotype threats, and prejudices and discriminations. - Under stereotype people tend to perform worse because they spend mental resources to suppress thoughts about the stereotype – resources that could otherwise help their performance. Michelle Obama’s speech on her experience entering college is an example of this: “When I first arrived at school as a first-generation college student, I didn’t know anyone on campus except my brother. I didn’t know how to choose my classes, or find the right classrooms. I didn’t know how to furnish my own dorm room. In fact, when I moved in, I realized that I hadn't even packed the right size sheets for my bed, mine were way too short, so that first night, I slept with my legs sticking out past the end of the sheets, rubbing up against one of those old plastic mattresses, and I ended up sleeping that way for my entire freshman year. But soon enough, I realized that was all in my head. I was just as smart as everyone else and had just as much to contribute. I just had to have the confidence to believe in myself, and the determination to work hard, and ask for help when I needed it.”. When people enter settings that feel foreign, places where they might be judged or treated negatively or where they might not belong, they can be highly attentive to even subtle cues relevant to these concerns. When people feel threatened in a setting, they may conclude that they do not belong or fit there or feel less trust and motivation and greater anxiety. Therefore, their functioning can be impaired. Over time, repeated exposure to stereotype threat can lead to disengagement, absenteeism and turnover. Based on this kind of situation, Steele and Aronson (1995) elaborated the stereotype threat. The negative stereotype about a group one is part of can foster anxiety and the fear of confirming what the stereotype assumes. One can start internalizing the negative characteristics associated with the stereotypes and allow them to become self-fulfilling prophecies. The managerial implication of this study is that because people become their own worst enemies when they feel a stereotype threat, managers should fight this feeling by treating employees as individuals and not highlighting group differences, and by adopting transparent practices that signal the value of employees. Lisa Valeri to this concept is the horns effect – that is, the tendency to draw a negative impression about an individual on the basis of a single surface characteristic. These effects have managerial implications in a series of contexts: for instance during the performance appraisal process an employee seen as ineffective in one aspect of his job can be given the general label of incompetent; during the selection procedure, attractive individuals can be perceived as more competent, honest and friendly than less attractive people. The Perceived Similarity Effect - According to the perceived similarity effect, one groups together and favors those that he perceives like himself because he assumes that because they are similar in terms of surface characteristics, they share the same values, thoughts and behaviors. On the other hand, those people who are different from him are labeled negatively. These, respectively, generate higher trust or distrust. The Role Played by Social Influence in Perceiving Events and Behaving - The psychologist Salomon Asch (1951) provided one of the earliest demonstration of how our perception can be influenced by social pressure for conformity. Asch investigated whether people would conform to the majority in situations where an answer was obvious. His experiment was conducted with 123 white male college students who were told to be part of a study on visual judgement. Each student was introduced to a group of 8 other students who were actors and already knew what the experiment was about, so that the group had 8 actors and 1 real subject. The group entered a classroom and scientists asked them which of the following three lines was identical to the standard line. Naïve participants conformed to the incorrect consensus about one third of the time. When questioned later, some participants told Asch that they were concerned about looking ridiculous, while others said that they quite literally could not believe their eyes and assumed that the group was correct. Those who remained independent reported discomfort and were still looking for ways to reconcile their judgments with those of the majority when the experiment ended. - This psychological mechanism, which is also known as bandwagon effect or herd effect, is related to human needs. Indeed, conforming to how others define a situation satisfies two innate human needs: Þ Need for mastery (desire to be right) → We desire to form accurate perceptions of reality, avoiding the sense of powerlessness. Therefore, we conform because we are unsure of the Lisa Valeri situation, and we look to others who we believe may have more information. Conforming to the majority helps to re-establish our confidence that we view reality correctly. Þ Need for belonging (desire to be liked) → We desire to be a valued member of a group. We conform because we want to avoid rejection and gain social acceptance, as conforming to the majority helps to reconfirm our self-esteem and sense of identity. There are two forms of conformity causing behavioral change coming from social pressure: Þ Internalization (private conformity) → People are truly persuaded that the majority is right. They change their perception, personal beliefs, opinions, behaviors to match with the majority even if the others are no longer physically present. In doing so, they fulfill the innate need for mastery and belonging. Þ Compliance (public conformity) → People behave consistently with the majority that they do not privately accept as correct. Individuals change their behavior (but not their perception and way of thinking). This is a temporary change, as it does not persist if the others are no longer physically present or if there are no risks to be punished. Attribution Theories - Studied by Heider (1958), Kelley (1967, 1973) and Weiner et al. (1971), attribution theories are psychological theories that provide the framework necessary to understand how people explain why events in their environment happened and the impact of such attribution to their future behavior. These theories assume that humans are meaning-making individuals who in a social environment need to explain why one does what he does and why other people do what they do. This mental process is called attribution. Human beings are always looking for a cause of the events we observe. Understanding the causes of behaviors and events is a way to fulfil an innate and universal need – that is, the need for control (need for mastery), which allows people to feel sure that they can understand and control the Lisa Valeri environment. Therefore, when we observe people, we always attempt to explain the reasons for their behavior. The theoretical lenses to explain how we interpret behavior are attributions theories. - There are two kinds of attributions: Þ Dispositional attribution (internal attribution) → Internal causality: the cause is seen to be inside the person (abilities, personal traits). Þ Situational attribution (external attribution) → External causality: the cause is located outside the person (the circumstances). When we observe an individual’s behavior, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused. Imagine for instance that Paul was successful in his interview and got the sales job. According to a dispositional attribution, he was successful because he is smart and able to manage stress; according to a situational attribution, he was successful because he knew the boss. - Because attributions are inferences we make, researchers have found numerous biases in the process of causal attribution: Þ Self-serving bias → The tendency for individuals to automatically attribute their own successes to internal factors and deny responsibility for failures. Individuals, teams, and organizations tend to put the blame for their own failures on external factors (bad luck, other co-workers). In other words, a person would be prone to overestimate the importance of internal causes in the case of success and external causes in the case of failure. This bias is linked to specific motivations that lead people to attribute causes to events, one of which is the protection of one’s own self-esteem. Therefore, the self-serving bias is employed to protect one’s ego, to build pride and a sense of confidence, and to positively present oneself to others. Þ Fundamental attribution error → The tendency to overestimate dispositional and underestimate situational causes for others’ behavior. When observing an actor in an event, our automatic judgment attributes cause and responsibility to aspects of the actor’s personality (while omitting situational factors). Example: A manager attributes poor performance of workers to laziness, avoiding to consider situational factors such as the characteristics of the products or a competitor’s innovative product. This type of bias arises because people usually do not have all the information about the environment, so it would be too effortful to acquire them. Therefore, the fault of something is attributed to internal factors to save effort. Þ Ultimate attribution bias → The tendency to attribute the negative behaviors performed by outgroup members to dispositional factors (internal and stable), especially if the behaviors are Lisa Valeri MOTIVATION - Individuals with equal ability show performance differences in response to challenges due to different levels of motivation, which is given by the willingness to act. According to Campbell (1990), motivation is the combined effect of three choices: Þ Direction → The choice to expend effort in a task to achieve a goal. Þ Intensity of effort → The choice of the level of effort to expend. Þ Persistence → The choice to persist at that level of effort. Motivators are antecedents, causal factors that stimulate the individual to invest effort, which in turn leads to a behavior. Remember that behavior is not the same as job performance results. - Motivation theories aim to explain why people behave as they do on the job. All these theories can be summarized through the research question ‘what are the forces that motivate people to work well, to do the best job they are capable of doing?’. In other words, what are the forces that initiate, guide and maintain goal-oriented behaviors? Each theory identifies: Þ The motivating factors → Motivators; drivers. Þ Why these motivating factors work → The mediating variables; the moderating variables. Þ What are their consequences v Outcomes; work engagement; organizational commitment; job performance indicators. Þ When these motivating factors work → In which conditions they work; which variables moderate the relationship between motivators and outcomes. These theories have stimulated a great deal of research to modify work behavior and they may provide options for making work life more satisfying and fulfilling. - Consider a boy who does not feel confident with the exercises the coach asks him to do. He feels disconnected from the tasks he has to do, so his competence remains unsatisfied and undermines his autonomy. He does not feel in control of the situation. As a result, he begins to feel that whatever is related to this thing is a waste of time and pointless. The boy is experiencing amotivation. A Classification of Motivation Theories - Motivation theories aim to explain what motivates people to do the best job they are capable of doing. Þ Content-oriented theories → They focus on the role of needs, values, and trait-based preferences. These answer to the question ‘What features of the individual elicit actions?’. Example: Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; McClelland’s needs; Decy and Ryan’s self- determination theory; Core self-evaluation theory; Bandura’s self-efficacy beliefs; Dweck’s growth mindset. Lisa Valeri Þ Context-oriented theories → They focus on the role of contextual variables, such as job characteristics, physical conditions, work events, occupation, culture, and economic conditions. These answer to the question ‘What role do environmental factors play in motivation?’. Example: Job characteristics/relational work design; Herzberg’s motivator-hygiene (two- factor) theory; Skinner’s reinforcement theory. Þ Process-oriented theories → They focus on the how of motivation. These answer to the question ‘Through what psychological processes and mechanisms do person and environment factors affect the direction, intensity and persistence of action?’. Example: Vroom’s expectancy theory; Locke’s and Latham’s goal setting theory; Adams’s equity theory; organizational justice theory; Denise Rousseau’s psychological contract theory. Content-Oriented Theories - Content-oriented theories specify the psychological traits, motives, tendencies and orientations that instigate motivational and volitional processes. These determinants reside within people (being either innate or learned) and give rise to enduring preferences for particular goals, strategies, and behaviors. Some of these theories state that these person-based determinants are universal sources of motivation for most people (universal motives, such as physiological and psychological needs), while other theories state that whether or not people work hard is a function of their personality (individual difference approaches such as McClelland). - Content-oriented theories focus on the internal needs that push an individual to act. They generally assume that needs are internal forces that are essential for supporting life and growth in the sense that organisms are built for the satisfaction of needs. There are psychological substances that provide nourishment essential for growth and the maintenance of life as well as psychological nutrients. Human beings strive for these nutrients and search for situations that provide them. Unmet needs create states of physical and psychological tension to energize action. Motivation, then, is derived from a tension that arises when one or more of the essential needs are unsatisfied. By the end of this process, one decides to expend effort to fulfill his needs. - One of the most popular motivational theories is Abraham Maslow’s needs hierarchy theory. This theory, developed in the USA during the Great Depression, is based on Maslow’s observations of individuals who came to him for assistance in coping with difficulties in their personal lives. Lisa Valeri According to it, within every human being there are five needs that motivate people to achieve them. Moreover, being arranged in a hierarchy of importance, some needs take precedence over others, so that only when people have satisfied their lower-level needs they will attempt to satisfy their higher-level needs. Þ Physiological needs → Biological requirements for human survival. Example: Air; food; drink; shelter; clothing; warmth; sex; sleep. Example of satisfaction: Salary. Þ Safety-security needs → Security and protection from physical and emotional harm. Example: A place where one can feel safe from physical harm; an ethical legal system or a trustworthy government; financial protection from destitution (job security); legal protection from attacks on one’s rights to a peaceful existence. Example of satisfaction: Providing health insurance; retirement plan; job security. Þ Belongingness and love needs → The need for interpersonal relationships motivates behavior. Example: Friendship; intimacy; trust; acceptance; receiving and giving affection; love; affiliation to a group (family, friends, work). Example of satisfaction: Providing a friendly environment; developing social support networks; collaboration and communication at work; after-work events. Þ Esteem needs → There are two categories of esteem needs: o Esteem for oneself → Dignity, achievement, mastery, autonomy, independence. o External esteem → The desire for reputation or respect from others (status, prestige). Example of satisfaction: Providing promotion opportunities; recognition praise from the boss; incentives and benefits; job titles. Þ Self-actualization needs → The desire to become everything one is capable of becoming. These are about realizing personal potential, seeking personal growth and peak experience. Example: Growth (skill development, knowledge gain); personal expression of one’s potential; self-accomplishment. Example of satisfaction: Providing opportunities for growth and responsibility so that people can exercise their abilities and develop their potential; providing interesting and meaningful tasks. Lisa Valeri decisions, giving responsibility, and cultivating opportunities where they can solve problems creatively. In turn, this will allow employees to understand their contribution to the company. When managers have a Y mindset, they tend to adopt a style of management that encourages participation, values, and individuals’ thoughts and goals. Organization and job design are focused on how to motivate people (no routine; more variety; autonomy; feedback). However, the limitations of this approach are that individual differences are not considered, but some people may need guidance. Moreover, some situations can require managers to take more control, such as a crises. McGregor’s conceptualization about how different managers’ mentalities on people’s motivation influences managerial choices can be helpful to stimulate reflection about assumptions on how to motivate people at work. Companies with an organizational culture based on theory X of human nature risk triggering self-fulfilling prophecy: by receiving monetary rewards, employees will use work to satisfy their lower needs and seek to satisfy their higher needs during their leisure time. Therefore, they adopt a passive way of working because of the managerial style. Then, employees avoid to take responsibility and initiative because failures could be punished, and in this way the company’s belief about the human nature are confirmed. - McClelland’s Theory of Needs states that achievement, power and affiliation are three crucial needs that help explain employee motivation. Every individual has a specific combination of the three needs: Þ Need for achievement → The need for achievement refers to the drive to excel. People with a high achievement need want to be successful and focus on the results: they tend to avoid both low-risk and high-risk situations. Indeed, they feel an internal push to succeed and avoid failure. They feel a push to be on top, as they are interested in how well they do personally. Achievers get satisfaction from challenging projects with reachable goals, high degree of personal responsibility, feedback (including money), tasks with an intermediate degree of risk, career opportunities. It follows that due to it being characterized by explicit goals and immediate tangible feedback, they are good in the sales sector. Disadvantages of people with a high achievement need are that they might not be good leaders – coaching, communicating and meeting with subordinates may not be seen by people with a high need for achievement as leading to success. Therefore, they tend not to invest effort in these tasks. They might also want to do the work themselves. Þ Need for power → It is the need to make others behave in a way they would not have otherwise. People with a high need for power want to influence others and control the environment. There are two types of need for power: Lisa Valeri o Need for social power (institutional power) → They want to organize the efforts of others to further the common goals. o Need for personal power → They want to influence others to achieve their personal goals. Individuals with a high need for power are highly motivated when the job provides opportunities to be involved in the decision process. It is a good quality for managerial positions and when used to negotiate better working conditions and resources for a department. Disadvantages of people with a high personal power need are that they tend to have destructive relationships and use power for their own good and prestige. Þ Need for affiliation → The need for affiliation refers to the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships, meaning that people with a high need for affiliation want to be liked and accepted by others. Individuals with a high need for affiliation are highly motivated when the job provides significant personal interactions and the environment is cooperative. Therefore, they are best suited for jobs that require a high level of social interactions. Disadvantages of people with a high affiliation need is that they might not be good leaders, as they might have difficulty in giving critical feedback or disciplining poor performers. When a need is strong in a person, its effect is to push him to use behavior that leads to the satisfaction of the need. These needs are internal motivators, they are acquired over time and they are shaped by one’s life experience and can be fostered in training. The managerial implication of McClelland’s theory is that employees have different needs and therefore must be motivated differently. The antecedent of satisfaction and task performance is the fit between the personal set of needs and job/organizational offers. - According to the Basic Psychological Need Theory (BPNT), there are three drivers of work motivation which are related to crucial psychological needs: Þ Need for competence → Need to feel effective in dealing with the environment and in accomplishing one’s task. Example: Mastery experience. Þ Need for autonomy → Need to control the course of one’s life to feel free to make one’s own choices and to feel self-determined, not coerced or other-directed. Example: Personal causation. Þ Need for relatedness (belonging/social connections) → Need to have a close, affectionate relationship with others. Example: Genuine interpersonal connections. Lisa Valeri - Like physiological needs such as hunger and thirst must be fulfilled to grow and thrive physically, the satisfaction of the psychological needs is seen as essential to fostering psychological growth, integrity, and wellness. Deprivation or frustration of these needs diminishes flourishing and increases the risk for ill-being and psychopathology. There are two types of motivation: Þ Intrinsic motivation → People do an activity because they find it interesting and derive spontaneous satisfaction from the activity itself. Tasks that are interesting and enjoyable are believed to satisfy one or more of the universal needs. An intrinsically motivated person is moved to act for the fun or challenge entailed rather than because of external prods, pressures, or rewards. Þ Extrinsic motivation → People do an activity because of instrumental reasons. In this case, satisfaction comes not from the activity itself but rather from the extrinsic consequences to which the activity leads (tangible and intangible rewards). The satisfaction of the needs mentioned in the Basic Psychological Need Theory increases intrinsic motivation – the satisfaction of basic psychological needs promotes the acquisition of meaning in life over time. When any of these basic psychological needs are frustrated or thwarted, the individual is likely to exhibit diminished motivation and well-being. It follows that organizational offers achieve the expected results when they fulfill the basic human needs. Context-Oriented Theories - At this point, the managerial question becomes ‘how can we design the jobs to foster internal work motivation?’ Remember that the job design is the way in which elements in a job are organized – that is, outlining the tasks, duties, responsibilities, methods, relationships, and timing required to perform the given job. - According to the Job Characteristics Model by Hackman and Oldham (1980), individuals are available to make an effort when they experience the work to be meaningful, they feel personally responsible for outcomes, and they have knowledge of the results of their work to improve and develop themselves. The five core characteristics of the job design that can influence employee motivation and effort are: Þ Skill variety → The degree to which a job requires a variety of different activities. Þ Task identity → The degree to which a job requires completion of a whole and identifiable piece of work. Þ Task significance → The degree to which a job has a substantial impact on the lives or work of other people. Lisa Valeri Process-Oriented Theories - Process-oriented theories identify the processes by which cognitions influence motivation, which in turn leads to behavior. These theories provide predictions about the aspects of the organization that are relevant for employees – the idea is that people have some personal attitudes, but their behavior is also influenced by the perception that they have of the environment. - Locke and Latham’s goal-setting theory tries to identify the motivating factor, how it works, when it is stronger (moderating variables) and its consequences (outcomes) by focusing on the effects of conscious goals as motivators of task performance. To achieve higher performance, goal attributes are: Þ Specificity → Perceived as clear. Goal specificity helps to reduce the ambiguity about what is to be attained. Þ Difficulty → Perceived as challenging but achievable. Whether a person appraises a goal as a challenge versus a threat makes a difference in that person’s performance. When people are asked to do their best, they do not do so – this is because do-your-best goals have no external referent, allowing for a wide range of acceptable performance levels, which is not the case when a goal level is specified. Goal specificity in itself does not necessarily lead to high performance, but insofar as performance is fully controllable, goal specificity does reduce variation in performance by reducing the ambiguity about what is to be attained. From this derives that goals should be smart: Þ S → Specific. Þ M → Measurable or meaningful. Þ A → Achievable/attainable or acceptable/agreed-upon. Þ R → Relevant or realistic/rewarding/reasonable/result-oriented. Þ T → Time-based. Setting a specific, challenging but achievable goal has an energizing function that leads to increased task performance because it stimulates the following cognitive processes: Þ A directive function → A clear goal directs attention, effort, and action toward goal-relevant actions and helps prioritize tasks. Þ Persistence → Challenge increases effort, persistence and commitment to task. Lisa Valeri Þ Strategy → Make people use their skills/abilities/knowledge or acquire them; think out of the box/rethink what one is doing. Situational factors include: Þ Feedback needed in order to track progress → Errors provide people with information on the extent to which their picture of reality is congruent with goal attainment and facilitate the discovery of the strategies needed to accomplish the task. Þ Leadership style → How managers communicate the value of the goal and how they involve employees. An empirical study showed that when employees participated in formulating task strategies, they performed significantly better than those who did not participate. Þ Task characteristics → If tasks are novel, set learning goals; if work is in a group, set group goals. Þ Situational constraints → Role overload (excess work without the necessary resources to accomplish a task) might interfere with goal achievement. Goals affecte performance only when overload is low. Personal factors include: Þ Specific → Self-efficacy beliefs; conscientiousness; emotional stability. Þ Ability → Goal effects depend upon having the requisite task knowledge and skills. Þ Goal commitment → Commitment to the goal is higher when the employee believes he can achieve the goal (efficacy beliefs) and wants to achieve the goal (personal relevance of goal). The degree of self-efficacy plays a crucial role in maintaining motivation during goal pursuit. Remember that people with higher perceived self-efficacy invest more effort and persist longer than those with low self-efficacy. When setbacks, obstacles, errors and failures occur, they recover more Lisa Valeri quickly and maintain the commitment to their goals because they have confidence in having the capabilities for attaining specific goals and therefore have positive expectations of success. When a manager sets challenging goals and communicates high confidence in his employees, he triggers a positive spiral identified in the Pygmalion effect as the employee’s self-efficacy beliefs increase. Following this theory, a manager to be effective in motivating people has to: Þ Set clear, challenging goals and verify that employees perceive the assigned goals as clear, challenging (meaningful), but achievable. Þ Involve employees in formulating strategies and methods to achieve the assigned goals. Þ Check if the employees have the knowledge, technical skills, abilities, and personal attributes that fit the tasks required to achieve the assigned goals. Þ Establish deadlines. Þ Provide constructive feedback in order to track progress (during the work process, not only at the end). Goal-setting theory also has some downfalls. For instance, when performance goals are only set for producing higher quantities, quality often suffers. Moreover, an aggressive pursuit of performance goals can lead to unethical behaviors – in fact, if employees are only rewarded for reaching measurable performance goals but not when coming close to them, they could start cheating. A solution to this could be setting learning goals, which reward the number of ideas or strategies one acquires or develops to accomplish a task effectively. Finally, when focused on a performance goal, individuals may not respond to new challenges that arise – that is, the tunnel effect: a focus on reaching the goal rather than on acquiring the skills required to reach it. - Adams’ Equity theory, Greenberg’s Organizational Justice theory and Denise Rousseau’s Psychological Contract theory are motivation theories based on social exchange. An assumption about the human nature is that human beings are motivated tacticians who base their decisions on an appraisal of the rewards and costs associated with any behavioral strategy. The norm of reciprocity guides people’s appraisals: there is an innate shared expectations that people will respond to each other in similar ways (for instance, consider the exchange of gifts: we expect someone to respond to a gift, and if he does not do it, one suffers). At work, people expect reciprocity between what they give to the organization and what they receive because people value and seek reciprocity. Therefore, employees constantly evaluate whether this expected reciprocity is fulfilled. The result of this cognitive evaluation influences an individual’s motivation in persisting in investing energy and effort into their tasks. Þ Stacey Adams’ Equity Theory → Individuals are motivated by a sense of fairness, which is achieved when a person perceives that their inputs match their outcomes. Lisa Valeri stability and regular pay in return for loyalty and respect of procedures. These beliefs forming the psychological contract develop form the interactions with the employers and co-workers in occasions where promises are exchanged (recruitment, socialization, performance review). People are motivated when they perceive that the company honors the psychological contract. Employees are strongly interested in assessing if the organization fulfills its promises and commitments because when the organization fails to deliver on its obligations and the employees believes that the company has done it purposefully, employees reciprocate accordingly by reducing their effort and commitment. The perception of breach is followed by anxiety, anger, or fear, which in turn lead to lower job satisfaction, lower organizational commitment, lower trust, reduced sense of belonging, higher intention to leave, depression and psychological distress. Lisa Valeri THE STRESS PROCESS - Stress is a natural reaction of our body and mind to threatening, challenging, or disturbing events. It is the body’s response (called fight or flight response) to any real or imagined event (stressors) perceived as requiring some adaptive response and producing strain (physiological and psychological reactions) that can influence the individuals’ health. The European Commission defined work-related stress as the pattern of emotional, cognitive, behavioral and physiological reactions to adverse and noxious aspects of work content, work organization and work environment. - The World Health Organization defined work-related stress as the response people may have when presented with work demands and pressures that are not matched to their knowledge and abilities and which change their ability to cope. Work demands can be of three kinds: Þ Mental demands → The level and duration of cognitive exertion required by a job. Example: Focused attention, reasoning, problem solving, decision making. Þ Emotional demands → The level and duration of emotional labor required by a job. Þ Physical demands → The level and duration of physical exertion generally required to perform critical tasks in support of critical job functions. Example: Sitting, standing, walking, lifting, carrying, reaching, pushing, pulling. Not all job demands lead to adverse effect on people’s health: Þ Challenge stressors → Stressful demands that people perceive as opportunities for learning, growth and achievement. Þ Hindrance stressors → Stressful demands that people perceive as hindering their progress toward personal accomplishments or goal attainment. A conclusion from most studies is that adverse symptoms of work-related stress are the result of a perceived mismatch between job demands and resources. Based on motivational theories, evidence has shown many types of job and personal resources that can help employees cope with job demands. Resources are the personal, physical, social or organizational aspect of the work context that are functional to achieve work goals and stimulate personal growth, development and learning. Þ Job content resources → Autonomy (discretion in scheduling work and determining procedures, involvement in decision making); feedback; skill variety; task identity; task significance; relational job design. Þ Interpersonal resources → Social support (colleagues, supervisors). Lisa Valeri Þ Organizational resources → Current versions of MBO (management by objectives); welfare policies; fair rewards and benefit plans; transparent communication; organizational justice and support initiatives; opportunities for development. Þ Personal resources → High perceived self-efficacy; growth mindset; knowledge, skills and abilities; positive core self-evaluations that are linked to resiliency; optimism. Phases in the Stress Process - Stress is an arousal response – arousal is a state of psychological alertness for readiness and for action involving the activation of the autonomic nervous system and the endocrine system, leading to increased heart rate, blood pressure, sweat and a condition of sensory alertness – to stressors in three phases of a process: 1. Alarm reaction → In the initial phase of stress process, humans exhibit a fight or flight response to stressors which prepares the body for physical activity. 2. Resistance → If the stressor continues, the body adapts to the stressors it is exposed to. Changes at many levels take place in order to reduce the effect of the stressor. For example, if the stressor is starvation, the person might experience a reduced desire for physical activity to conserve energy, and the absorption of nutrients from food might be maximized. 3. Exhaustion → At this stage, the stressor has continued for some time. The body’s resistance to the stressor may gradually be reduced or may collapse quickly. People who experience long-term stressors may succumb to heart attacks or severe infections due to their reduced immunity. The result of the stress process can be either positive or negative: eustress can be helpful and good when it motivates people to accomplish more, but distress refers to a negative state accompanied by physical, psychological or social dysfunctions. Distress results from individuals feeling unable to bridge a gap with the requirements or expectations placed on them. Pressure at the workplace is unavoidable due to the demands of the contemporary work environment. Pressure perceived as acceptable by an individual may even keep workers alert, motivated, able to work and learn, depending on the available resources and personal characteristics. However, when that pressure becomes excessive or otherwise unmanageable because the employee perceives a lack of adequate resources, it leads to distress. In this case, stress can damage employees’ health and the business performance. - Lazarus defines psychological stress as a particular relationship between the person and environment that is appraised by the person as taxing or exceeding his resources and endangering his wellbeing. Lisa Valeri how they manage and cope with work demands and resources) associated with a higher risk of burnout are external locus of control, poor self-esteem, and high emotional instability (neuroticism). With respect to demographic variables, there is a higher risk of work-related burnout for single people, while gender is not a strong predictor. Finally, with respect to the level of education, some studies have found that employees with a higher level of education report higher levels of burnout than less educated employees. It is not clear how to interpret this finding, given that education is confounded with other variables, such as occupation and status. It is possible that people with higher education have jobs with greater responsibilities and higher stressors, or it may be that more highly educated people have higher expectations for their jobs, and are thus more distressed if these expectations are not realized. Building a People Well-Being Strategy: The Job Demands-Resources Theory (JD-R) - The job demands-resources theory offers suggestions to create a sustainable balance between job demands and resources in an organizational context by optimizing job demands, increasing job resources, and fostering personal resources. - The first step is to listen to the organizational community’s experience. Every occupation can have its own unique job demands and job resources that may influence well-being. To design a work- related well-being monitor, a two-stage inquiry is required: the qualitative phase of research (explorative interview) and the quantitative phase of analysis. The aim of the inquiry is twofold: Þ Identify job demands → The data collected should inform human resource managers about the aspects of work design, organization and management and context that exceed the adaptive capacity of employees and can turn into psychosocial risks. Þ Identify job resources → The data collected should inform HR managers whether resources exist and which resources need to be developed or improved. Examples of questions asked during a work analysis interview include “what is your job title?”, “what are your general duties (describe a typical day)?”, “what are the main problems faced by your and your colleagues at work?”, “how do these the problems effect the health of you and your colleagues?”, “are there any health problems in your work group?”, “what are the good things about your work?”. These questions can be supplemented with open probe questions such as “can you tell me more about that?”. Psychosocial risks are those aspects of the design and management of work and its social and organizational contexts that have the potential for causing psychological, physical and social harm. These include job content, workload and workplace, work schedule, control, environment and equipment, organizational culture and function, interpersonal relationships at work, role in the organization, career development and home-work interface. Lisa Valeri - The second step is the intervention plan: based on the data analysis, design, implement and evaluate interventions. Þ Organizational level intervention → Optimizing job demand by reducing role conflict and role ambiguity; increasing job resources by redesigning the work environment, redesigning jobs, change work evaluation, supervision to reduce job demand and enhance job control and increase the level of participation in decision making; fostering personal resources through training. Þ Social/group level intervention → Increasing social support; coaching; leadership training interventions; fostering the ability of managers and employees to cultivate a supportive climate within teams. Þ Individual level intervention → Helping employees to take personal responsibility for their physical and mental health; recovery training; wellness programs. - Demerouti et al. (2017) tried to stimulate individual changes at two different levels: cognitions and behavior. To achieve the first goal (cognition-level changes), employees are encouraged to reflect on their work situation and to recognize their work tasks and aspects of their job that they would like to change. The second goal (behavior-level changes) is achieved through role-modelling, as well as goal-setting, sharing of past experiences, and positive feedback to enforce new behavior. The participants of the study were a small group of Greek employees affected by austerity-led organizational changes. The intervention process consisted of a one-day training during which they familiarized with the theory and mechanisms of job crafting. Employees were encouraged to reflect on their work situation and to recognize their work tasks and aspects of their job that they would like to change. Firstly individually, they analyzed their job. Then, they shared their job analysis and reflected on specific job crafting actions, the potential obstacles and how to manage them. At the end of the training, employees drew up a personal crafting plan for three weeks. After the training session, each participant wrote in a booklet the crafting goals and what he wanted to achieve. Moreover, they were invited to reflect on what went well and what they learned that week. During the first week, they defined SMART goals focused on increasing job resources; during the second week, they defined SMART goals focused on reducing job demands; during the third week the goals were again discussed to increase resources. After one month, there was a follow-up session where participants shared their experiences, giving each other tips and discussing which elements of crafting they would continue to apply. Lisa Valeri STAGES OF GROUP DEVELOPMENT - Work teams are two or more individuals who: Þ Are brought together to perform organizationally relevant tasks. Þ Exhibit interdependencies with respect to goals and results. Þ Socially interact. Þ Possess one or more common goals. Þ Have different roles and responsibilities. Þ Are embedded in an organizational system with its strategies, goals and resources. Whereas groups are composed of two or more individuals that interact primarily to share information and make decisions to help each member perform within his area of responsibility and do not engage in collective work that requires joint effort, a team consists of two or more people who work interdependently over some time period to accomplish common goals related to some task-oriented purpose. Tuckman’s Model of Team Development - According to Tuckman’s model of team development, it is possible to identify a pattern of change in a small group’s structure and interactions that occur over the course of the group life. In this model, a group becomes more and more effective as it progresses through four stages: the forming stage (orientation), the storming stage (conflict), the norming stage (assimilation of common sense of expectations and rules), and the performing stage (during which the group becomes a team and members focus on goals and tasks). Groups can even regress to previous stages, so it is important to continue monitoring how the team works. The adjournment is the end of the team. Each phase, with its own characteristics and dynamics, needs to be successfully navigated to achieve effective group outcomes. Some indicators of groups’ outcomes are: Þ Team productivity → Quantity and quality of products or services produced. Þ Creativity → The generation of new and original ideas or concepts. Þ Innovation → The implementation of new and original ideas into practical and valuable products or services. Þ Accuracy of decision-making and problem-solving. Þ Customer satisfaction. - In the forming stage, the team members are testing each other. They attempt to discover what interpersonal behaviors are acceptable in the group based on the reactions of others (formalities are preserved, members are treated as strangers) and have to identify the goal and tasks of the group. Lisa Valeri Þ Information seeker → Requests clarification; asks for suggestions and ideas from others. Þ Opinion seeker → Encourages members to express their viewpoints. Þ Information giver → Provides information as a result of experience and expertise. Þ Harmonizer → Reduces tensions through humor and maintains peace. The stage is complete when members have assimilated a common set of expectations of what defines correct member behavior. Members have similar interpretations of the team’s goals, tasks, roles, norms, and capabilities. - The fourth stage of group development is performing. At this point, team members have a shared understanding of the team’s task requirements, procedures, and role responsibilities. This means that they have shared mental models (similar cognitive representations of their goals, procedures, and role responsibilities). Members perceive the group structure (roles, norms, leadership) as meaningful and functional for achieving goals. The group works in an open and trusting atmosphere where psychological safety is fostered – arguments and conflicts are expected, so team members feel confident in addressing and managing conflicts. In the performing stage, managers can take a less active role and allow the group considerable autonomy, thinking about delegation as a team development tool. In this phase, their crucial task is to act as consultants when needed, continuing to participate with the other members to achieve team success. It is also important for them to continue monitoring team processes, especially for signs of regression. The key challenge in this is to keep employees motivated and engaged, while also continuing to build relationships with stakeholders outside of the immediate group, getting the resources the team needs. Leadership and Management - Team effectiveness depends on its member’s ability to both manage their relations appropriately and to direct their actions to carry out the tasks assigned by the organization. - Managers are roles formally assigned by the organization who have some functions: Þ Planning → Defining goals; establishing strategy; developing plans to coordinate activities. Þ Organizing → Creating structures and procedures that promote stability and enhance efficiency (determining what tasks are to be done, who is to do these tasks, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom, where decisions are to be made). Þ Leading → Motivating people; directing people; selecting the communication channels; managing conflicts. Þ Controlling → Monitoring activities to make sure they stick to plans and procedures. Lisa Valeri On the other hand, leaders are people within a group who perform the function of guiding, influencing the activities of the group, and motivating the group members toward the achievement of the goal regardless of any formal recognition. Like the manager, the leader exercises power (influences) the other group members. The word leader includes the exercise of a power of influence that is not based on a formal hierarchy but on the ability to stimulate in the group members a subjective and motivated adherence to the group’s goals. Leadership is a set of functions related to influencing and leading the group, characterized by the ability to promote a voluntary consensus among people regarding the objectives of the group and the organization. These functions can be performed by a single person or distributed among several members of the group – for instance, there could be a leader focused on goals and another one focused on managing relations. Managing and leading are two different and equally important activities that require a distinct set of abilities and mindsets but are not mutually exclusive, meaning that managers can be leaders (leader-managers are made, not born). - The focus of leadership theories is to understand if there are personal qualities and characteristics that differentiate leaders from non-leaders. Whereas some traits of personality seem to predict the emergence of a leader, after 70 years of studies results are still mixed: there is no unique list of specific personality traits that can predict who will be a leader in a specific context. Therefore, traits of personality are not able to predict whether a leader will be an effective one. The person who emerges as the leader is the one who is perceived by the group members to be best equipped to enable the group to achieve goals that are perceived to be most important at the time. It follows that when members change their needs or perceive a different goal, a new leader tends to emerge. - A leadership style refers to the patterns of behaviors and methods used by a leader to guide and motivate team members. This pattern is shaped by personal, professional and cultural values, experiences, skills, social abilities and personality. The traditional classification of leadership styles sees: Þ Task-oriented style → Pattern of behaviors and methods geared towards achieving production goals as efficiently and effectively as possible, without considering people other than as mere tools. Example: Organizing task; assigning tasks; defining procedures; time keeping. Þ Relationship-oriented style → Pattern of behaviors and methods aimed above all at maintaining good relations between group members. Example: Offers emotional support; is available and attentive to everyone’s needs. According to some scholars, an effective style balances the two orientations: it pays attention to the team’s purpose and tasks as well as to the quality of the relationship between members. Lisa Valeri - According to contingency theories, there is no single best way to be a leader, but a leader’s style must be selected according to the situation. A leader must give the flexibility to adapt his leadership style to the characteristics of the members and of the task. A group is successful when there is an appropriate match between the leader’s style and the circumstances in which a task is to be performed. - According to some contemporary theoretical models of leadership: Þ Transactional leadership theory → The behaviors and methods used to lead followers should focus on clarifying roles and task requirements and offering contingent rewards. Þ Transformational leadership theory → According to Bass, the transformational leader offers followers something more than just working for self-gain – he provides followers with an inspiring mission and vision and gives them an identity. Transforming leadership is a process in which leaders and followers help each other to advance a higher level of morale and motivation. A transformational leader has the 4Is: o Idealized influence → Provides vision and sense of mission; emphasizes group goal, shared values and beliefs. o Inspirational motivation → Communicates high expectations; uses symbols to focus efforts; expresses important purposes. o Intellectual stimulation → Promotes careful problem solving; learning is a value and unexpected situations are seen as opportunities to learn. o Individualized consideration → Pays attention to the concerns and the needs of individual followers; cultivates opportunities; helps followers look at hold problems in new ways; increases follower self-efficacy and abilities; encourages followers to be creative; asks questions; thinks deeply about things. The soft, interpersonal skills of this kind of leader are communication, listening, learning, reflexivity and empowering. The transforming approach creates significant changes in the life of people and organization, it redesigns perceptions and values, and changes expectations and aspirations of employees. Þ Charismatic leadership theory → Followers attribute heroic leadership qualities and tend to give power to a leader when they perceive that the leader has a vision, a sense of mission, passion, a set of values, and is willing to make sacrifices for the team. Group Diversity - Team diversity is the degree to which members of the group are similar to, or different from, one another. Lisa Valeri to understand the world through their eyes. To achieve this it is crucial to focus on aspects of cultural diversity in the forming phase and as a human resource development program for employees. Þ Team training → The learning aim is to develop a shared mental map of the team mission and goal, of task-specific role responsibilities and how to distribute and coordinate the work, and of the norms that regulate the members’ behaviors. This is because shared mental maps about team goals, tasks, roles, norms help members reduce anxiety and uncertainty. In order to achieve this, focus on reciprocal knowledge and points of connection during both the forming phase and during the whole journey. To do this is necessary to have time and to constantly offer and monitor opportunities to exchange information and experiences and to reflect and evaluate work practices. - Diversity can increase group conflict and interfere with team processes in the short term. However, when positive conditions are present, these difficulties can disappear after about 3 months. Positive conditions that promote the benefits of diversity are: Þ Managers who are able to show how members have a common interest in the group’s success help members to focus on higher-order goals and common task-related values. They can do so by emphasizing the common goal. Þ Trainings that reinforce the idea that teams may benefit from their diversity and from the variety of viewpoints. Þ A context that provides many opportunities for group members to interact socially. Þ A reward system that reinforces the value of sharing information. Þ Reflective meetings where teams are instructed to take the time to reflect on their progress toward goals and their strategies. Þ Team goals and task characteristics that require a variety of viewpoints to be well executed and achieved. If members can see their differences as an opportunity for learning, diversity can help them to be more open-minded and creative and to do better. Group Size - Smaller groups of 8-12 members are faster at completing tasks and a higher percentage of individuals can contribute to the group discussion. - Larger groups are featured by a wider range of skills, but a smaller percentage of individuals contribute to the group discussion. Lisa Valeri Social Loafing - Social loafing is the tendency, especially in larger groups, for individuals to expend less effort when working collectively than when working individually. The seminal study on this social phenomenon was carried out by Maximilien Ringelmann (1861-1931), a French agricultural engineer who asked workers to pull as hard as they could on a rope, alone or with one, two, or seven other people. He found that the collective group performance was inferior to the sum of their abilities when pulling individually. Latanè et al. (1979) carried out another experiment in which they recruited subjects and put them in a semi-circle. Individually and in various group numbers, they asked people to either clap or shout as loud as they could. As might be expected, the more people clapping or cheering together, the more intense the noise and the more the sound pressure produced. However, the noise did not grow in proportion to the number of people: the average sound pressure generated per person decreased as the size of the group increased. - The cause of social loafing is perceived task invisibility (dispersion of responsibility) – that is, the degree to which one’s contribution to the group is not clear to the superior as well as to the other co-workers. Some individuals may be tempted to free-ride and benefit from the task efforts of other group members when they think their individual performance cannot be identified and rewarded. For example, the motivation to perform decreases because there is no potential for external evaluation of their individual contributions, thus there are no risks of losses. Moreover, social loafing can occur when there is a low expectation that individual efforts will lead to the attainment of personal attractive rewards because of their invisibility (expectancy theory). Another cause of social loafing is perceived dispensability of effort – that is, self-marginalized loafing by individuals who reduce their effort when they perceive it unnecessary. When working in a group, individuals are sensitive to the relative impact of their contribution to the group outcome. If one thinks that his group is performing at high level, he may conclude that his effort can be dispensable to the group’s task accomplishment. This perception can be influenced by low perceived task ability and one’s belief that the group does not require one’s efforts and the group will complete its tasks even without one’s personal contributions. A final cause of social loafing is perceived loafing by other group members, as social loafing is a strategy to reduce perceived inequality. It is clear that perceptions play a key role in the social loafing effect. The social loafer reduces his effort because of his feelings of inadequacy. These feelings could lead a person to believe that his lack of contribution to the project would go unnoticed. The group members may interpret the lack of Lisa Valeri effort to be a voluntary, opportunistic behavior to profit from other group members’ work and, therefore, isolate and ostracize the social loafer. In turn, the social loafer persists in reducing his effort because the group members’ behaviors, due to their biased causal attribution, confirm his beliefs of inadequacy. Moreover, a study showed that when the team project assessment is only in the form of a group mark, social loafing can be encouraged by other group members if a particular member is believed not to hold skills relevant to the project. In virtual teams, this mechanism is more likely to emerge because monitoring one’s teammates is more difficult in virtual environments due to technological constraints, as so suspicions that peers are making less effort can arise more easily. Team members may suspect or assume that peers are loafing, even without less effort taking place on a team, because they cannot directly perceive their peers’ actual behaviors. - Both social loafing and free-riding describe a person who constantly reduces effort by missing group participation and not providing his due contribution. Þ Free-riding → In economic theory, a free-rider is someone who derives benefits from membership in a large group. The concept refers to voluntary, opportunistic behaviors to gain a profit from the work of other group members without working out to his potential. Þ Social loafing → In management studies, social loafing can be involuntary as a result of feeling inadequate or not competent to complete a task. - Social loafing is less likely to occur when: Þ The group is small and meets face-to-face. Þ Tasks are attractive and involving. Þ Group members know that their individual contributions can be monitored. Þ Individual effort is identifiable, so that others can praise or condemn individual effort (feedback, peer evaluation, team reflexivity). Þ The group sets clear performance goals and there are clear standard against which the group’s performance can be measured. Þ There is a strong identification with the group. Þ Members have high interpersonal skills and prefer to work in groups. Þ Although this is a dangerous option, when there is inter-group competition. On one side, it can increase the cohesion within a group, but, on the other side, it can reduce organizational productivity because the fight against other corporate teams minimizes the exchange of information. Helping Teams to be Effective