Chapter 2 - Foundations of Individual Behaviour

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Chapter 2 Foundations of

Individual Behavior

Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 9/e

Stephen P. Robbins/Timothy A. Judge

Essentials of Organizational Behavior, 9/e

Stephen P. Robbins/Timothy A. Judge

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After studying this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Explain the relationship between ability and job performance.

2. Contrast the three components of an attitude.3. Discuss similarities and differences between job

satisfaction and the other job attitudes discussed.4. Discuss the causes and consequences of job

satisfaction.5. Understand how to shape the behavior of others.6. Distinguish among the four schedules of

reinforcement.

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Ability

• Refers to an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job

• Is a current assessment of what one can do• Intellectual ability is one of the best predictors of

performance• The correlation between intelligence and job

satisfaction is about zero• Employee performance is enhanced when there

is a high ability-job fit

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Attitudes

• Evaluative statements – either favorable or unfavorable – concerning objects, people or events

• Attitudes reflect how one feels about something

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Major Components of Attitude

• Cognition – an opinion or belief

• Affect – the emotional or feeling segment

• Behavior – the intention to behave in a certain way

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Consistency of Attitudes

• People seek consistency among their attitudes and between their attitudes and their behavior

• When there is an inconsistency, the individual may alter either the attitudes or behavior, or develop a rationalization for the discrepancy

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Cognitive Dissonance

• Any inconsistency between two or more attitudes, or between behavior and attitudes

• Individuals seek to minimize dissonance• The desire to reduce dissonance is determined

by: The importance of the elements creating the

dissonance The degree of influence the individual believes he or

she has over the elements The rewards that may be involved in dissonance

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Moderators of the attitudes-behavior relationship

• Importance of the attitude

• Specificity of the attitude or behavior

• Accessibility of the attitude

• The existence of social pressures

• A person’s direct experiencewith the attitude

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Self-Perception Theory

• The view that behavior influences attitudes• Argues that attitudes are used after the fact to

make sense out of an action that has already occurred rather than as devices that precede and guide action

• Tend to infer attitude from behavior when you have had few experiences regarding an issue

• Attitudes likely to guide behavior when your attitudes have been established for a while

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Major Job Attitudes

• Job satisfaction• Job involvement• Psychological empowerment• Organizational commitment

Affective commitment Continuance commitment Normative commitment

• Perceived organizational support• Employee engagement

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What causes job satisfaction?

• Work itself – the strongest correlation with overall satisfaction

• Pay – not correlated after individual reaches a level of comfortable living

• Advancement opportunities• Supervision• Coworkers• A person’s personality

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Effects of Satisfied and Dissatisfied Employees

• Job performance – strong correlation• OCB – modest relationship but more related to

conceptions of fair outcomes, treatment and procedures

• Customer Satisfaction – strong correlation• Absenteeism – moderate to weak negative

correlation• Turnover – moderate negative correlation• Workplace deviance – strong correlation

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Learning

• Learning involves change

• The change must become ingrained

• Some form of experience is necessary for learning

Any relatively permanent change in behavior that occurs

as a result of experience.

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Theories of Learning

• Operant Conditioning Argues that people learn to behave to get

something they want or avoid something they don’t want

• Social Learning Individuals can learn by observing what

happens to other people and just being told about something, as well as by direct experiences

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Methods of Shaping Behavior

1. Positive reinforcement

2. Negative reinforcement

3. Punishment

4. Extinction

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Schedules of reinforcement

• Continuous – reinforces behavior each and every time it is demonstrated

• Intermittent Fixed or variable ratio Fixed or variable interval

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Schedules of Reinforcement

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Implications for Managers

• Ability Effective selection process improves fit Promotion and transfer based on abilities Fine-tune job to better match abilities

• Attitudes – raise satisfaction by focusing on making work challenging and interesting

• Learning – Use reinforcement instead of punishment

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Summary

1. Explained the relationship between ability and job performance.

2. Contrasted the three components of an attitude.3. Discussed similarities and differences between job

satisfaction and the other job attitudes.4. Discussed the causes and consequences of job

satisfaction.5. Understand how to shape the behavior of others.6. Distinguished among the four schedules of

reinforcement.