1. Individual Behavior Karine Barzilai-Nahon
Day MSIM – Management of Information Organizations

2. What Managers Should Know About Individual Behavior
Motivation
The intensity of a person’s desire to engage in an activity.
The Law of Individual Differences
A psychological term representing the fact that people differ in their personalities, abilities, self-concept, values, and needs.

3. Approaches to Motivation
Need-based approach – motivating focus on the role of needs in driving people to do what they do (e.g. – Maslow, ERG theory, Herzberg model)
Process-based approach – motivation is explained in terms of decision-making process through which motivation take place (e.g – Adam’s equity theory, Locke’s Goal theory)
Learning/reinforcement-based approach – people’s behavior as molded by the consequences or results of their actions

4. Abilities and Behavior
Performance = Ability x Motivation
Types of abilities
Mental, cognitive, or thinking abilities
Mechanical ability
Psychomotor abilities
Visual skills
Specific learned abilities (training, experience, or education)

5. Self-Concept and Behavior
The perceptions people have of themselves and their relationships to people and other aspects of life.
Self-Efficacy
Being able to influence important aspects of one’s world; the belief that one can accomplish what one sets out to do.

6. Perception and Behavior
Perceptions
How our personalities and experiences cause us to interpret stimuli.
Perceptions are influenced by:
Personality and needs (self-efficacy)
Values (strong personal code of ethics)
Stress (health and environment)
Position in society or an organization
Stereotyping

7. Attitudes and Behavior
A predisposition to respond to objects, people, or events in either a positive or negative way.
Attitudes are important because they can influence how people behave on the job.
Good (or bad) performance is not necessarily associated with good (or bad) attitudes.
Job Satisfaction
The measure of an employee’s attitude about his or her job.

8. Attitudes and Behavior (cont’d)
The Job Descriptive Index measures five aspects of job satisfaction:
Pay. How much pay is received, and is it perceived as equitable?
Job. Are tasks interesting? Are opportunities provided for learning and for accepting responsibility?
Promotional opportunities. Are promotions and opportunities to advance available and fair?
Supervisor. Does the supervisor demonstrate interest in and concern about employees?
Co-workers. Are coworkers friendly, competent, and supportive?

9. Need-based Approaches To Motivation
Maslow’s Needs-Hierarchy Theory
Prepotency Process Principle
People are motivated first to satisfy the lower-order needs and then, in sequence, each of the higher-order needs.

10. Need-based Approaches To Motivation (cont’d)
Existence Relatedness Growth (ERG) Theory
Alderfer’s theory of human needs focuses on three needs: existence, relatedness, and growth.
Existence needs are similar to Maslow’s physiological and security needs.
Relatedness needs are those that require interpersonal interaction to satisfy (prestige and esteem from others).
Growth needs are similar to Maslow’s needs for self-esteem and self-actualization.

11. Need-based Approaches To Motivation (cont’d)
Herzberg’s Hygiene-Motivator (Two-Factor) Approach
Reduces Maslow’s hierarchy to:
Hygienes: lower-level (physiological, safety, social)
Motivators: higher-level (ego, self-actualization) needs.
Posits that the best way to motivate is to arrange the job (job enrichment) so that it provides intrinsic satisfaction of higher-level needs, since these needs are constantly recurring and relatively insatiable.

12. Summary of Herzberg’s Motivator–Hygiene Findings
FIGURE 11–6
Source: Adapted from Frederick Herzberg, “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees,” Harvard Business Review, January–February 1968.

13. Need-based Approaches To Motivation (cont’d)
McClelland and Atkinson three important needs:
The Need for Achievement
A predisposition to strive for success and the satisfaction of accomplishing a challenging task or goal.
The Need for Power
A desire to influence others directly by making suggestions, giving opinions and evaluations, and trying to talk others into things.
The Need for Affiliation
The motivation to maintain strong, warm relationships with friends and relatives.

14. Process Approaches To Motivation
Adams’s Equity Theory
People have a need for, and therefore value and seek, fairness in employer–employee relationships.
If a person perceives an inequity, a tension or drive will develop in the person’s mind, and the person will be motivated to reduce or eliminate the tension and the perceived inequity.
Employees can do this by reducing what they put into the job, or by boosting the magnitude of the rewards they take out (or both).
It matters less what the reality is than how the person perceives his or her inputs and outputs as compared with the other (referent) person’s.

15. Process Approaches To Motivation (cont’d)
Locke’s Goal Theory of Motivation
People regulate their behavior in such a way as achieve their goals.
A person’s goals provide the mechanism through which unsatisfied needs are translated into actions.
Specific, challenging goals lead to higher task performance than specific, unchallenging goals, or vague goals or no goals, when:
Feedback showing progress towards the goals is provided.
Appropriate task strategies are used when tasks are complex.
Individuals have adequate abilities.
There is a commitment to accomplishing the goals.

16. Process Approaches To Motivation (cont’d)
Vroom’s Expectancy Theory
People are conscious agents who are continually sizing up situations in terms of their perceived needs and then acting in accordance with these perceptions.
Motivation = E x I x V
E represents expectancy (probability of success)
I is instrumentality (correlation)
V is valence (value of a particular reward)

17. Learning/Reinforcement Approaches To Motivation (cont’d)
B. F. Skinner and Operant Behavior
Operant behavior
Behavior that appears to operate on or have an influence on the subject’s environment.
Contingent reward
A reward that is contingent or dependent on performance of a particular behavior.

18. Learning/Reinforcement Approaches To Motivation (cont’d)
Behavior Modification
The technique of changing or modifying behavior through the use of contingent rewards or punishments.
Behavior modification has two basic principles:
Behavior that leads to a reward tends to be repeated, whereas behavior that leads to punishment tends not to be repeated.
It is possible to get a person to learn to change his or her behavior by providing the properly scheduled rewards.

19. Use Pay for Performance
Compensation methods based on merit/performance rather than across-the-board nonoutput-based pay.
Variable Pay Plan
A compensation plan that reduces or increases a portion of an employee’s pay, depending on whether the company meets its financial goals.
Gainsharing Plan
An incentive plan that engages employees in a common effort to achieve a company’s productivity objectives and in which they share in the gains.

20. Improving Merit Pay Merit Raise
A salary increase—usually permanent—based on individual performance.
Applying merit raises more intelligently
Clarify performance standards before the measurement period begins.
Institute a performance appraisal system to systematically and accurately evaluate performance.
Award merit pay based on merit rather than as an across-the-board increase in compensation.
Tie award allocations to limited specific timeframes.

21. Positive Reinforcement Rewards
MONETARY
Salary increases or bonuses
Company-paid vacation trip Discount coupons
Company stock
Extra paid vacation days
Profit sharing
Paid personal holiday
Movie/athletic event passes
Free/discount airline tickets
Discounts on company products or services
Gift selection from catalog
STATUS SYMBOLS
Bigger desk
Bigger office or cubicle
Exclusive use of fax machine
Freedom to personalize work area
Private office
Cellular phone privileges
On-line service privileges
FIGURE 11–9
Source: Several items under the job- and career-related category are from Dean R. Spitzer, “Power Rewards: Rewards That Really Motivate,” Management Review, May 1996, p. 48.

22. Options for Modifying Behavior with Reinforcement
FIGURE 11–10

23. Enrich the Jobs Job Enrichment Job Enrichment Techniques
The inclusion of opportunities for achievement and other motivators in a job by making the job itself more challenging.
Job Enrichment Techniques
Form natural work groups.
Combine tasks.
Establish client relationships
Vertically load the job.
Open feedback channels.

24. Enrich the Jobs Job Design Job Enlargement Job Rotation
The number and nature of specific tasks or activities in a job.
Job Enlargement
An increase in the number of similar tasks assigned to a job.
Job Rotation
The systematic movement of a worker from job to job to improve job satisfaction and reduce boredom.

25. How to Analyze Performance-Motivation Problems
FIGURE 11–14
Source: Copyright Gary Dessler, Ph.D. Suggested in part by “Performance Diagnosis Model,” David Whetton and Kim Cameron, Developing Management Skills (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001), p. 339.