Topic 3 Motivation

Summary
Motivation is, according to the Real Academia de la Lengua Española, the “mental preparation of an action to cheer or animate to do it with interest and conscientiousness” . It’s how the people feels cheered about doing something in order to awake and sustain certain behaviors, especially when it is goal oriented.
Image taken from http://pollitoworld.blogspot.com/2009_07_01_archive.html, accessed on August 30th 2010.

In order to understand the human motivation, there have been created some theories that explain why the motivation exists. The main theories say that the motivation explains the behavior of a person (why a person behaves of some way), also that motivation predicts behavior (how a person will behave with certain motivations) and that influences behavior.

The reason for the human need of motivation is explained by two different types of needs:
• Internal needs: in which there are two main thinkers: Max Weber, who said that (as of the Protestantism) the work was necessary to achieve satisfaction, as the Protestants believe that salvation comes from the hard work instead of the sacrifice; and Sigmund Freud, who said that the motivation was part of the unconscious nature of the humans.
Image taken from http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/tag/no-motivation/, accessed on August 30th 2010.
• External incentives: those incentives come from external factors, such as interests and economic gaining, timing and controlling as proposed by Frederick Taylor and the self interest against the collective interests.
Image taken from http://myownhometown.blogspot.com/2008/05/motivation.html, accessed on August 30th 2010.

Some of the main motivational theories are:
1. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: He divided the needs into five main needs:

Image taken from http://mktg343.pbworks.com/Maslow%27s-Hierarchy, accessed on August 30th 2010.

From this theory raises the Theory X and Theory Y of Douglas McGregor, in which the theory X explains the lower needs (in which the people dislike working and the motivation is centered on payments and security) and the theory Y explains the higher needs (in which the people like working and the main motivations are the job satisfaction and achievement of commitments).

2. McClelland’s need theory: This theory says that there are three main needs for a worker, the achievement, in which the motivation is the challenge and feedback; the affiliation, in which the motivation is the cooperative and harmonious environment; and the power, in which the main motivation is the chance to manage others.

Image taken from http://faculty.css.edu/dswenson/web/LEAD/McClelland.html, accessed on August 30th 2010.

3. Herzberg’s two-factor theory: the satisfaction or dissatisfaction at work depends on two main factors: Motivation factors, such as the recognition and challenge; and the Hygiene factors, such as job security and salaries.

Image taken from http://www.examstutor.com/business/resources/studyroom/people_and_organisations/motivation_theory/7-makingconnections.php, accessed on August 30th 2010.

4. Expectancy theory: explained by Vroom (1932) in which he said that the motivation is the result of the effort, performance and reward.

Source: Class presentation Motivation from Cristina Robledo.

1. What are the Hawthorne Studies? Explain its importance for studying motivation at the workplace and its influence over diverse motivation theories. (Include key findings and limitations) (max. 500 words)

The Hawthorne studies are researches that were held on the Western Electric’s Hawthorne (Chicago, Illinois) from 1927 to 1932 in which some investigators from the company and the Harvard University examined how the changes in the work environment (such as the lighting, music and other variables) and the economical incentives affected the performance of the workers on the production area. The results that the studies showed were that slight changes of the environmental conditions didn’t affect considerably the performance of the workers, unless the changes were so drastic that they couldn’t do their jobs normally. However, the economical incentives stimulated the performance of the whole group instead of the individual one. [1]

Image taken from http://leadinganswers.typepad.com/leading_answers/2010/02/smart-metrics-slides.html, accessed on August 30th 2010.

Its importance for studying motivation at the workplace is that these studies show which the real motivations for the employees are, in order to perform in the best way possible, instead of just taking into account the different motivation theories and don’t apply anything on the real world. Also it´s important because this study reveals the specific motivations of certain group instead of taking general conclusions, therefore the managers will know how to motivate that specific group and to improve their performance.

Image taken from http://ahp.apps01.yorku.ca/?p=710, accessed on August 30th 2010.

The influence that these studies have over the different motivation theories is that they put into practice the different concepts of each theory and also complements with practical facts from each group of work inside a company or a factory. These studies are important because they help to bring the theoretical factors into a more realistic and practical point of view and to make the managers to consider which are the most favorable motivational factors that will help the company as a whole to increase the performance.

2. Based on the class activity about "Flight 001: Motivating Employees", please answer the following question:

¿Which motivation theory do you think has the most relevance for understanding the behavior of Amanda Shank and fostering her motivation at work? (Max. 500 words)

According to the reviews in class and the readings, the theory that has the most relevance for understanding the behavior of Amanda Shank in Flight 001 is the Theory Y from Douglas McGregor, because her main motivation at work had more challenges than in her previous job, also she was considered a valuable member of the organization and those facts made her to appreciate and enjoy her work. Additionally, she was proactive in her job, such as giving full reports about the performance of the customers after the addition of some fees, which made her boss to consider her a worker with great potential and capabilities of rise in position. According to the theory Y, the main motivations come from assuming responsibility and contributing to the organization’s goals, through achievement of the commitments and the creativity, which Amanda had in the job at Flight 001.

However, there are some other motivation theories that are relevant in order to recognize the behavior of Amanda Shank on work. The McClelland’s need theory also explains this situation, as the Achievement need is shown in this case. The Acquired needs for Achievement are excellence, challenging goals and persistence and is obtained by having challenging projects (but with reachable goals) and having the respective feedback from the boss, which Amanda had in this job. It is constantly said in the case that Amanda was not pursuing a fortune by working and that the money was not her main goal when working, but to have recognition and feedback from her boss.

Another theory that applies for this situation is the Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, since her three basic level needs were achieved; her main objective was to achieve the esteem needs (which are the achievement, job status, work responsibilities and to improve her reputation).

The reading is available at: Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Pp. 1178-179.

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[1] General idea taken from http://www.beechmontcrest.com/hawthorne_studies.htm. Accessed on August 23^rd 2010.

Topic 2 - Personality, Perception and Attribution + Attitudes and Values

Summary

Personality is the individual’s characteristics that influence the behavior depending on the situations on which the person is involved. It’s determined mainly by heredity (family) and the environment (society). There are some theories about the personality; one is the Trait theory from Gordon Allport which says that there are five main traits: extraversion (sociability vs. reservation), agreeableness (warm vs. antagonistic), conscientiousness (assiduous vs. untrustworthy), emotional stability (tranquil vs. anxious) and openness to experience; the Psychodynamic theory from Sigmund Freud which says that the unconsciousness is the one who determines the behavior of a person; and the Humanistic theory from Carl Rogers, which says that the basic human needs which are the self-actualization and the positive regard are achieved by growth as a response and improvement as a result.

The most influential personality characteristics of the Core Self-Evaluation are:

· Locus of control, which is the ability to manage to the events of a person, whether internally or externally.

· Self-esteem, which is how a person feels about him/herself.

· Self-efficacy, which is the personal conviction about one’s capabilities.

· Self-monitoring, which is how a person behaves when guided.

Perception is how a person perceives the environment in order to understand the world and the self. The perception is influenced by three main things: the perceiver (with its familiarity, attitudes and mood), the target (perceiving the appearance and the verbal and non verbal communication) and the barriers (such as stereotypes and judgments).

The perception has some principles which are: the selective perception (which maintains the perceiver’s point of view), the stereotypes (which are the prejudices), the first-impression error, the projection (how estimated the person is according to ones beliefs), self-fulfilling prophecy and the impression management. The attributions are originated mainly by external (outside the person, the situation) and internal factors (inside the person, the personality).

The attitudes are the feelings about certain situations or people and it’s highly related to one’s behavior. The ABC model explains the three main components of the attitudes, such as the affect (the feelings and verbal statements), the behavioral intentions (how the person behaves and the verbal statements about the intentions) and the cognition (attitudes and beliefs). The attitudes are created mainly by two reasons: direct experience and social learning (by family, organizations and groups).

The behavior is highly influenced by certain attitudes, such as the specificity (positions with only two points of view (yes or no)), relevance (issues that affect one’s interests), timing of measurement, personality factors (or self-monitoring) and social constraints (which actions are accepted).

Values are those beliefs about some conducts that are accepted and are divided in two main categories: instrumental (how to achieve goals) and terminal (the goals achieved). In the organization there are some values generally accepted, such as the achievement, concern for others, honesty and fairness.

Source: Class presentations Personality, Perception and Attribution and Attitudes and Values

Please explain, using your own words, the concept of Pygmalion Effect.

What are the potential implications, uses, or challenges that this effect may pose for organizations engaging into international operations that require the understanding of diverse cultural contexts? Can you use this concept to explain the relationship between national and organizational cultures? (500-1000 words).

Image taken from http://www.artchive.com/artchive/B/burne-jones/burne-jones_pygmalion.jpg.html. Accessed on August 17th 2010.

The Pygmalion Effect is how one’s perception about the performance of other person affects the other one’s behavior and performance. The potential challenges that this effect may pose for organizations engaging into international operations at a diverse cultural context are that in an environment where are people from different nationalities or cultures (because there are some cases where people being from the same country, have very different culture) may behave in a different way, and affect the performance of the organization.

Image taken from http://thingaboutskins.wordpress.com/2010/02/03/my-friend-chad-victims-and-victory-and-those-visitors-who-want-indians-to-stay-virtually-the-same-part-1/. Accessed on August 17th 2010.

The fact that a leader puts the same trust to all of his/her employees doesn’t mean that they will perform or behave the same way, and a true leader must know how his subordinates will achieve the goals proposed. Furthermore, the implications that this effect may have on a “cross-cultural context”(Term taken from the reading "Beyond Pygmalion effect: the rome of managerial perception", p. 306) influences the perception of the people from the different cultures and difficult the possibility of working harmoniously. However, it’s not always negative to work in a multicultural environment, since the weaknesses that may appear in one culture may be strength to another one, which means that sometimes different cultures will complement each other instead of generating conflict.

The Pygmalion Effect is also highly related to some of the Cultural Dimensions of Hofstede, since it reveals how the power distance affects the performance of a worker regarding the perception of his/her superiors and also how the uncertainty avoidance is applied to a culture, since some cultures won’t do anything risky if they don’t receive an approval or expectations from their superiors, or if they are proactive enough to perform in a good way without the need of an expectation from a boss.

Additionally, this effect helps to understand the relationship between the national and organizational culture because it shows how different cultures perform in a similar environment, trying to achieve the same goal (in an organizational case, to generate income, to expand the company or generate value to the stakeholders, for example). Also, when dealing with a cross-cultural context, it is important to know how the different cultures will behave and how are they going to interact among each other when the leader has a perception and some expectancies with their performance, because by knowing that it will be more possible to anticipate the behavior and performance of everybody dealing with the organizational culture and realize how will be their future performance.

Finally, it’s important to notice that even though a leader might influence someone’s performance by having some expectations on that person, it doesn’t mean that the target will perform of that way, or that will improve his/her performance, it only means that there is a previous knowledge about that person. That’s why it’s so important to try avoiding prejudices in order to have an objective perspective of someone’s behavior, and don’t let be guided by stereotypes (such as the laziness of some people, or overestimate someone’s skills, or think that the people from certain countries are not capable of managing certain works or positions).

Taken from http://www.toonpool.com/cartoons/High%20Expectations%20Disclaimer_27807 on August 17th 2010

Topic 1 - Organizational behavior + national and organizational culture

Summary

Culture can be defined as all the shared values, understandings and goals that the previous generations teaches to the current ones. Those teachings becomes into common attitudes, codes of conduct and expectations that guide the behavior of the society.

The organizational cultures are all the expectations, norms and goals which are common to a group inside an organization, company or institutions, which might vary from one organization to another.

There are two main types of cultural variables in a national culture, the observable ones which are the symbols, ceremonies, religion, stories, slogans behaviors, physical settings and all those things that are easily visible; and the underlying variables, such as assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, feelings, among others.

There are several cultural dimensions, such as the Project Globe, Cultural Clusters by Gupta, Trompenaar’s cultural dimensions and the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions which try to analyze the different cultural aspects and variables and try to understand how those variables affect the life of the different countries and regions.

According to Edgar Schein, and the review on class, “Organizational culture in a business is like an apple in an orchard. Both have layers serving distinct purposes. For example, to get to the core of the apple, you must first eat the outside, and likewise, to get the core of a culture, you must recognize the artifacts and symbols, which make up the outermost layer.” (Taken from notes class, Cristina Robledo, The role of culture – national and organizational culture. Slide 25).

It is important to understand the organizational culture, since it can provide a competitive advantage to know a company behaves, also how to influence the decision making and to gain the respect of the employees of the organization.

The two main functions of the organizational culture are to create an internal integration in order to know how to relate with the members inside the organization, and the external adaptation in order to help the organization to adapt to the environment.

The main advantages of a strong organizational culture are that they are liked with the performance and the motivation and commitment of the employees to the company, the core values are shared and internalized and cultivate learning environment. However, there are some disadvantages as well, such as an inflexible cultural barrier and protection against the changes. That’s why it is suggested that a good organizational culture is the one which is flexible and takes the strengths of a strong and weak organizational culture, but to reach that point is difficult and requires commitment from the company.

Source: Class presentations from Cristina Robledo.

1. Find and explain in your blog two real life examples about the business implications of national and organizational culture. You may not use examples or situations already discussed in class or in the recommended readings.

Example 1: Google in China.

Taken from http://www.fakesteve.net/tag/google-be-less-evil on Autust 16th 2010.

Google is an American based Company, which allows the people in general to search almost all type of information. In their expansion process, they decided to arrive to China since it’s the most populated country in the world (1.324’655.000 inhabitants. Data source: World Bank, World Development Indicators http://data.worldbank.org/data-catalog/world-development-indicators?cid=GPD_WDI - Last updated July 26, 2010) and also one of the countries with the highest growing economic rate in recent history (10.3% on 2009, http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/GDP-Growth.aspx?Symbol=CNY accessed on August 15^th 2010).

Since the strategic mission of Google is “to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful” (taken from the Google Corporate web page http://www.google.com/corporate/, accessed on August 15^th 2010), they tend to avoid as much as possible the censorship in order to provide the information services that the public requires. However, the Chinese government is very jealous with the information that is available to the public and that leaves the country.

That’s why the Chinese government decided to put some restrictions on the search engine web page in order to avoid that some compromising information would be known by the general public, and a censorship was applied. That news was not taken so lightly by Google since the press censorship is not so common in the USA, so Google decided to sue the Chinese government.

However, the Chinese government won the trial and Google had to put some restrictions on their search engine in order to block some content on their web page and also, they had to make some negotiations with Hong Kong (since they have a different legislation) to don’t leave the country. Additionally, the Chinese government created a new search engine in order to make some competition to Google.

Example 2: HSBC in Colombia.

Taken from http://colombia.indymedia.org/news/2007/10/73717_comment.php on August 16th 2010.

HSBC is a bank from Hong Kong and Shanghai, where the labor unions are not strong and are sometimes even abolished by the State; however in Colombia they are quite powerful in order to guarantee the social fairness, especially on labor conditions. When they decided to enter in Colombia, they put a condition to the people who was going to work for them: to abolish the labor union in which they were members (the UNEB and the Asociación Colombiana de Empleados Bancarions (ACEB)) and, therefore, to relinquish to the rights that these unions provide.

Trying to reach an agreement, the bank negotiated with the labor union leaders in order to change the initial conditions; however, the negotiations were difficult and they decided to go to the Colombian Social Protection Ministry in order to solve this situation. HSBC had to change that corporate policy in order to start their operations in the country.

2. Write a short essay considering the following questions: (500 words)

- Do you think there is a corporate culture in every organization?

- If we assume there is: Can it be modified?

I do believe that there is a corporate culture in every organization, since all of them behave in a different way in the society and the way they do everything is different from them. The corporate values also vary from every organization and their internal policies may also differ and, considering the fact that there are companies which arrive from every country in the world, they also bring part of their national culture to their corporate culture (even though they might not bring totally their national culture to the host country).

It might be possible that the corporate culture of an organization can be modified, as stated by Adler and Jelinek (1986): “Fundamental to the organization culture concept is the belief that top management can create, maintain and change the culture of an organization… Management’s influence is seen as capable of changing or erasing other influences on employees’ behavior… work environment influences are seen to dominate private life conditioning… moreover, employees are seen as capable of changing; and change, in and of itself, is basically good”. It can be possible that if certain values and culture characteristics are quite obsolete for a national culture, it can be adapted to the society in order to continue operating there.

However, it rises the question of how ethical is to chance or modify the corporate culture of an organization. Peters and Waterman (1982) say: “Culture Excellence is a struggle for identities, an attempt to enable all sorts of people, from highest executive to lowliest shop-floor employee, to see themselves reflected in the emerging conception of the enterprising organization and thus to come increasingly to identify with it”. A strong corporate culture is what makes the employees (and in some cases even the customers) to follow the organization, and if it’s made only to be shaped, then it will be assumed that there will be lost a sense of identity to the corporation, the value of belonging will diminish and the people within the organization won’t feel identified with their work. As stated by Payne (1991): “The objective of firms when they seek employee commitment is to gain it willingly. A strong culture is effective in controlling people precisely because it is willingly shared by members themselves”; then, one of the main purposes of corporate culture is to make the employees to commit to the organization’s values and to feel identified with them.

But, sometimes the people inside a corporation might feel that the corporate culture doesn’t support the progress within the company. That’s why an organization should have a culture which allows the people to make constructive ideas. As it is said on the book Human Resources Management (page 134): “A ‘culture’ is double-edged if it totally absorbs people and produces a high degree of conformity, because in the end it is self-defeating”. That means that there must be a point of adaptation but without losing the sense of identity, because the extreme points are the ones who harm a company’s organizational culture.