Ebook Fundamentals of management (8th edition): Part 2

www.downloadslide.com CHAPTER 9 Basic Elements ofIndividual BehaviorinOrganizations Sergii Tsololo/Photos.com Learning Outcomes After studying this chapter, you should be able to: 1 Explain the nature of the individual–organization relationship. 2 Define personality and describe personality attributes that affect behavior in organizations. 3 Discuss individual attitudes in organizations and how they affect behavior. 4 Describe basic perceptual processes and the role of attributions in organizations. 5 Discuss the causes and consequences of stress, and describe how it can be managed. 6 Describe creativity and its role in organizations. 7 Explain how workplace behaviors can directly or indirectly influence organizational effectiveness. Management in Action Putting In the Hours “They told me I was a manager, but I spent a lot of time sweeping and emptying the trash.” —Omar Belazi, former RadioShack Manager People who work for organizations all have certain understandings about what they are supposed to do for their employer and what they can expect in return. When these factors seem fair and reasonable, people tend to be happy and productive. But when the balance gets out of line, problems can start to set in. This is especially true whenpeoplethinktheyarenotgettingfairly paidfortheircontributions. For instance, Heather Jennings worked as a customer service representative for Verizon and was paid on an hourly basis. However, she was told that she needed to be at her workstation 10 to 15 minutes before her shift officially started in order to log into her computer, open databases, and get her equipment adjusted so she could start work precisely on time. All of the other employees in her department were given the same instructions. Similarly, Jeffrey Allen was a sergeant in the Chicago police department. He left work each day at 5:00 p.m. but continued to receive dozens of text messages, e-mails, and calls on his department-issued Blackberry until 10:00 p.m. or so each day. Allen felt compelled to respond to each contact, sometimes taking a matter of a few minutes but other times needing an hour or more. No one at his precinct told him he had to do this, but he felt subtle pressure to do so. 260 Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. www.downloadslide.com Chapter 9: Basic Elements of Individual Behavior in Organizations 261 RadioShack was recently sued by a large group of current and former store managers in California. The retailer was charged with requiring store managers to perform nonmanagerial work after regular hours for no additional pay. For years, Omar Belazi, a former RadioShack store manager, logged 65-hour workweeks and stayed late to clean the store’s restrooms and vacuum the floor. He also felt pressured to work all weekend each week just to help meet the store’s sales goals. Regardless of the hours he worked, however, he received the same monthly salary. Belazi gradually tired of the long hours, extra work, and stress, and he left RadioShack. Each of these cases has something in common: what an employer can expect of its employees in relation to what it pays them. They have also each been the subject of a lawsuit. At the heart of the argument is a decades-old law that mandates overtime payments for hourly operating workers who work more than 40 hours a week but allows firms to pay salaries to professionals regardless of how many hours they work. The Fair Labor Standards Act specifically exempts those in executive, administrative, or professional jobs from overtime payments. But because so many jobs have shifted from the manufacturing setting to service settings, and because the nature of so many jobs has changed, the lines between different kinds of work have blurred. That is, when someone works on an assembly line, it’s pretty simple to step up to the line and start work, and the tasks themselves are clearly defined. Service jobs, though, often have more subjective “boundaries” and may require more start-up time. Heather Jennings acknowledges that she is an hourly worker, but lodged complaints in order to get paid for the extra 10 to 15 minutes she spends each day getting ready to work. Jeffrey Allen, meanwhile, has filed grievances and wants overtime for the extra hours he works each evening. RadioShack eventually settled a lawsuit filed by 1,300 current and former California store managers for $29 9 million. In similar fashion, Oracle recently paid $35 million to 1,666 workers who claimed they were misclassified. And Walmart was recently fined $4 8 million for denying overtime pay to employees working in store vision Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. www.downloadslide.com 262 Part 4: Leading centers who were classified as managers but who were expected to work extra hours performing nonmanagerial jobs.1 The relationships between people and their employers are growing increasingly complex. Although most employees have relatively healthy and constructive relationships with their organization and other employees in that organization, some employees, however, reflect different profiles. Indeed, myriad different and unique characteristics reside in each and every employee (and employer). These affect how they feel about the organization, how they will alter their future attitudes about the firm, and how they perform their jobs. These characteristics reflect the basic elements of individual behavior in organizations. This chapter describes several of these basic elements and is the first of several chapters designed to develop a more complete perspective on the leading function of management. In the next section, we investigate the psychological nature of individuals in organizations. The following section introduces the concept of personality and discusses several impor-tant personality attributes that can influence behavior in organizations. We then examine individual attitudes and their role in organizations. The role of stress in the workplace is then discussed, followed by a discussion of individual creativity. Finally, we describe a number of basic individual behaviors that are important to organizations. psychological contract The overall set of expectations held by an individual with respect to what he or she will contribute to the organization and whattheorganization will provide in return contributions What the individual provides to the organization inducements What the organization provides to the individual UNDERSTANDING INDIVIDUALS IN ORGANIZATIONS As a starting point in understanding human behavior in the workplace, we must consider the basic nature of the relationship between individuals and organizations. We must also gain an appreciation of the nature of individual differences. The Psychological Contract Most people have a basic understanding of a contract. Whenever we buy a house or sell a car, for example, both buyer and seller sign a contract that specifies the terms of the agreement. A psychological contract is similar in some ways to a standard legal contract but is less formal and well defined. In particular, a psychological contract is the overall set of expectations held by an individual with respect to what he or she will contribute to the organization and what the organization will provide in return.2 Thus, a psychological contract is not written on paper, nor are all its terms explicitly negotiated. The essential nature of a psychological contract is illustrated in Figure 9.1. The indi-vidual makes a variety of contributions to the organization—effort, skills, ability, time, loyalty, and so forth. These contributions presumably satisfy various needs and require-ments of the organization. In other words, because the organization may have hired the person because of her skills, it is reasonable for the organization to expect that she will subsequently display those skills in the performance of her job. In return for these contributions, the organization provides inducements to the indi-vidual. Some inducements, like pay and benefits, are tangible rewards. Others, like job security and recognition, are more intangible. Just as the contributions available from the individual must satisfy the needs of the organization, the inducements offered by the organization must serve the needs of the individual. Thus, if a person accepts employment with an organization because she thinks she will earn an attractive salary and have an opportunity to advance, she will subsequently expect that those rewards will actually be forthcoming. Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. www.downloadslide.com Chapter 9: Basic Elements of Individual Behavior in Organizations 263 Contributions from the Individual • Effort • Ability • Loyalty • Skills • Time • Competencies Inducements from the Organization • Pay • Job security • Benefits • Career opportunities • Status • Promotion opportunities FIGURE 9.1 The Psychological Contract Psychological contracts are the basic assumptions that individuals have about their relationships with their organization. Such contracts are defined in terms of contributions by the individual relative to inducements from the organization. If both the individual and the organization perceive that the psychological contract is fair and equitable, they will be satisfied with the relationship and will likely continue it. On the other hand, if either party sees an imbalance or inequity in the contract, it may initiate a change. For example, the individual may request a pay raise or promotion, decrease her contributed effort, or look for a better job elsewhere. The organization can also initiate change by requesting that the individual improve her skills through training, transfer the person to another job, or terminate the person’s employment altogether.3 A basic challenge faced by the organization, then, is to manage psychological contracts. The organization must ensure that it is getting value from its employees. At the same time, it must be sure that it is providing employees with appropriate inducements. If the organi-zation is underpaying its employees for their contributions, for example, they may perform poorly or leave for better jobs elsewhere. On the other hand, if they are being overpaid relative to their contributions, the organization is incurring unnecessary costs.4 person–job fit The extent to which the contributions made by the individual match the inducements offered by the organization The Person–Job Fit One specific aspect of managing psychological contracts is managing the person–job fit—the extent to which the contributions made by the individual match the induce-ments offered by the organization. In theory, each employee has a specific set of needs that he wants to be fulfilled and a set of job-related behaviors and abilities to contribute. Thus, if the organization can take perfect advantage of those behaviors and abilities and exactly fulfill his needs, it will have achieved a perfect person–job fit. Of course, such a precise level of person–job fit is seldom achieved. There are several reasons for this. For one thing, organizational selection procedures are imperfect. Organiza-tions can make approximations of employee skill levels when making hiring decisions and can improve them through training. But even simple performance dimensions are often hard to measure in objective and valid ways. Another reason for imprecise person–job fits is that both people and organizations change. An individual who finds a new job stimulating and exciting may find the same job boring and monotonous after a few years of performing it. And, when the organiza-tion adopts new technology, it has changed the skills it needs from its employees. Still another reason for imprecision in the person–job fit is that each individual is unique. Measuring skills and performance is difficult enough. Assessing needs, attitudes, and per- sonality is far more complex. Each of these individual differences serves to make match-ing individuals with jobs a difficult and complex process.5 Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it. www.downloadslide.com 264 Part 4: Leading Person–job fit may change for a variety of reasons. For example, people change over time, as do jobs. New technology can also affect person–job fit. This manager, for example, is trying to master a new operating system his firm hasadoptedandishavingtroubleunderstandingit.Whilehis confusion may be short-lived, more significant technological changes can lead to major problems with person–job fit. The Nature of Individual Differences Individual differences are personal attributes that vary from one person to another. Individual differ-ences may be physical, psychological, or emotional. Taken together, all the individual differences that characterize any specific person serve to make that individual unique from everyone else. Much of the remainder of this chapter is devoted to individual differences. Before proceeding, however, we must also note the importance of the situation in assessing the behavior of individuals. Are specific differences that characterize a given individual good or bad? Do they contribute to or detract from performance? The answer, of course, is that it depends on the circumstances. One person may be very dissatisfied, withdrawn, and negative in one job setting, but very satisfied, outgoing, and positive in another. Working con-ditions, coworkers, and leadership are all impor-tant ingredients. Thus, whenever an organization attempts to assess or account for individual differences among its employees, it must also be sure to consider the situation in which behavior occurs. Individuals who are satisfied or productive workers in one context may prove to be dissatisfied or unproductive workers in another context. Attempting to consider both individual differences and contributions in relation to inducements and contexts, then, is a major chal-lenge for organizations as they attempt to establish effective psychological contracts with their employ-ees and achieve optimal fits between people and jobs. individual differences Personal attributes that vary from one person to another personality The relatively stable set of psychological and behavioral attributes that distinguish one person from another PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR Personality traits represent some of the most fundamental sets of individual differences in organizations. Personality is the relatively stable set of psychological and behavioral attributes that distinguish one person from another.6 Managers should strive to under-stand basic personality attributes and the ways they can affect people’s behavior in orga-nizational situations, not to mention their perceptions of and attitudes toward the organization. The “Big Five” Personality Traits Psychologists have identified literally thousands of personality traits and dimensions that differentiate one person from another. But, in recent years, researchers have identified five fundamental personality traits that are especially relevant to organizations. Because Copyright 2016 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s). Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. 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