MtE-155:Organizational

Behavior
Instructor: Engr. Sadaf Sardar

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Lecture#8

Motivational Concepts

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Self-Efficacy Theory
• Self-efficacy (also known as social cognitive theory or social learning
theory) refers to an individual’s belief that he or she is capable of
performing a task
• The higher your self-efficacy, the more confidence you have in your
ability to succeed.
• So, in difficult situations, people with low self-efficacy are more likely
to lessen their effort or give up altogether, while those with high self-
efficacy will try harder to master the challenge
Self-Efficacy Theory
• Individuals high in self-efficacy also seem to respond to negative
feedback with increased effort and motivation, while those low in
self-efficacy are likely to lessen their effort after negative feedback
• How can managers help their employees achieve high levels of self-
efficacy?
• By bringing goal-setting theory and self-efficacy theory together.
• Goal-setting theory and self-efficacy theory don’t compete; they
complement each other
Self-Efficacy Theory
• As Exhibit 7-5 shows, employees whose manager sets difficult goals
for them will have a higher level of self-efficacy and set higher goals
for their own performance.
• Why?
• Setting difficult goals for people communicates your confidence in
them.
• Imagine you learn your boss sets a higher goal for you than for your
co-workers.
• How would you interpret this?
Self-Efficacy Theory
• As long as you didn’t feel you were being picked on, you would
probably think,
• “Well, I guess my boss thinks I’m capable of performing better than
others.”
• This sets in motion a psychological process in which you’re more
confident in yourself (higher self efficacy) and you set higher personal
goals, performing better both inside and outside the workplace.
Self-Efficacy Theory
Self-Efficacy Theory
• The researcher who developed self-efficacy theory, Albert Bandura, proposes
four ways self-efficacy can be increased:
• 1. Enactive mastery.
• Gaining relevant experience with the task or job
• 2. Vicarious modeling.
• Becoming more confident because you see someone else doing the task
• 3. Verbal persuasion.
• Becoming more confident because someone convinces you that you have the
skills necessary to be successful
• 4. Arousal.
• An energized state, so the person gets “psyched up” and performs better
Self-Efficacy Theory
• What are the OB implications of self-efficacy theory?
• Well, it’s a matter of applying Bandura’s sources of self-efficacy to the
work setting.
• Training programs often make use of enactive mastery by having
people practice and build their skills.
• In fact, one reason training works is that it increases self-efficacy.
• Individuals with higher levels of self-efficacy also appear to reap more
benefits from training programs and are more likely to use their
training on the job.
Reinforcement Theory
• Goal-setting is a cognitive approach, proposing that an individual’s
purposes direct his action.
• Reinforcement theory, in contrast, takes a behavioristic view, arguing
that reinforcement conditions behavior.
• The two theories are clearly at odds philosophically
• Reinforcement theorists see behavior as environmentally caused.
• You need not be concerned, they would argue, with internal cognitive
events; what controls behavior is reinforcers—any consequences that,
when immediately following responses, increase the probability that
the behavior will be repeated
Reinforcement Theory
• Reinforcement theory ignores the inner state of the individual and
concentrates solely on what happens when he or she takes some
action.
• Because it does not concern itself with what initiates behavior, it is
not, strictly speaking, a theory of motivation.
• But it does provide a powerful means of analyzing what controls
behavior, and this is why we typically consider it in discussions of
motivation
Reinforcement Theory
• Operant conditioning theory, (reward or punishment for a behavior)
• Probably the most relevant component of reinforcement theory for
management, argues that people learn to behave to get something they
want or to avoid something they don’t want.
• B. F. Skinner, one of the most prominent advocates of operant conditioning,
argued that creating pleasing consequences to follow specific forms of
behavior would increase the frequency of that behavior.
• He demonstrated that people will most likely engage in desired behaviors if
they are positively reinforced for doing so; that rewards are most effective if
they immediately follow the desired response; and that behavior that is not
rewarded, or is punished, is less likely to be repeated
Reinforcement Theory
• We know a professor who places a mark by a student’s name each
time the student makes a contribution to class discussions.
• Operant conditioning would argue this practice is motivating because
it conditions a student to expect a reward (earning class credit) each
time she demonstrates a specific behavior (speaking up in class).
• The concept of operant conditioning was part of Skinner’s broader
concept of behaviorism, which argues that behavior follows stimuli
in a relatively unthinking manner.
Reinforcement Theory
• Skinner’s form of radical behaviorism rejects feelings, thoughts, and
other states of mind as causes of behavior.
• In short, people learn to associate stimulus and response, but their
conscious awareness of this association is irrelevant
• Of course, the linkage can also teach individuals to engage in
behaviors that work against the best interests of the organization.
Reinforcement Theory
• Assume your boss says if you work overtime during the next 3-week
busy season you’ll be compensated for it at your next performance
appraisal.
• However, when performance-appraisal time comes, you are given no
positive reinforcement for your overtime work
• The next time your boss asks you to work overtime, what will you do?
• You’ll probably decline!
• Your behavior can be explained by operant conditioning: if a behavior
fails to be positively reinforced, the probability it will be repeated
declines
Reinforcement Theory
• Reinforcers such as pay can motivate people, the process is much
more complicated than stimulus–response.
• In its pure form, reinforcement theory ignores feelings, attitudes,
expectations, and other cognitive variables known to affect behavior
• Individuals can learn by being told or by observing what happens to
other people, as well as through direct experiences.
Reinforcement Theory
• Much of what we have learned comes from watching models—
parents, teachers, peers, film and television performers, bosses, and
so forth.
• This view that we can learn through both observation and direct
experience is called social-learning theory
• Although social-learning theory is an extension of operant
conditioning— that is, it assumes behavior is a function of
consequences
• People respond to the way they perceive and define consequences,
not to the objective consequences themselves.
Reinforcement Theory
• Models are central to the social-learning viewpoint. Four processes
determine their influence on an individual:
1. Attentional processes: People learn from a model only when they
recognize and pay attention to its critical features. We tend to be most
influenced by models that are attractive, repeatedly available,
important to us, or similar to us in our estimation.
2. Retention processes: A model’s influence depends on how well the
individual remembers the model’s action after the model is no longer
readily available.
Reinforcement Theory
3. Motor reproduction processes: After a person has seen a new
behavior by observing the model, watching must be converted to
doing. This process demonstrates that the individual can perform the
modeled activities.
4. Reinforcement processes: Individuals are motivated to exhibit the
modeled behavior if positive incentives or rewards are provided.
Positively reinforced behaviors are given more attention, learned better,
and performed more often.
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• A theory that says that individuals compare their job inputs and
outcomes with those of others and then respond to eliminate any
inequities.
• Jane Pearson graduated from State University
• She accepted a position with a top public accounting firm and was
assigned to its Boston office. Jane was very pleased with the offer she
received: challenging work with a prestigious firm
• Excellent opportunity to gain valuable experience
• The highest salary any accounting major at State was offered last year
—$4,550 per month
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• Twelve months have passed.
• The work has proved to be as challenging and satisfying as Jane had
hoped.
• Her employer is extremely pleased with her performance; in fact,
Jane recently received a $200-per-month raise.
• However, her motivational level has dropped dramatically in the past
few weeks.
• Why?
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• Jane’s employer has just hired a fresh graduate out of State University
who lacks the year of experience Jane has gained, for $4,600 per
month—$50 more than Jane now makes! Jane is irate.
• She is even talking about looking for another job.
• Jane’s situation illustrates the role that equity plays in motivation.
• Employees perceive what they get from a job situation (salary levels,
raises, recognition) in relationship to what they put into it (effort,
experience, education, competence), and then they compare their
outcome–input ratio with that of relevant others
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• If we perceive our ratio to be equal to that of the relevant others with
whom we compare ourselves, a state of equity exists; we perceive
that our situation is fair and justice prevails.
• When we see the ratio as unequal and we feel underrewarded, we
experience equity tension that creates anger.
• When we see ourselves as overrewarded, tension creates guilt.
• J. Stacy Adams proposed that this negative state of tension provides
the motivation to do something to correct it
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• The referent an employee selects adds to the complexity of equity theory.
• There are four referent comparisons:
1. Self–inside: An employee’s experiences in a different position inside the
employee’s current organization.
2. Self–outside: An employee’s experiences in a situation or position
outside the employee’s current organization.
3. Other–inside: Another individual or group of individuals inside the
employee’s organization.
4. Other–outside: Another individual or group of individuals outside the
employee’s organization.
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• Employees might compare themselves to friends, neighbors, co-
workers, or colleagues in other organizations or compare their present
job with past jobs.
• Which referent an employee chooses will be influenced by the
information the employee holds about referents as well as by the
attractiveness of the referent.
• Four moderating variables are:
• gender,
• length of tenure,
• level in the organization,
• and amount of education or professionalism
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• Women are typically paid less than men in comparable jobs and have lower
pay expectations than men for the same work.
• So a woman who uses another woman as a referent tends to calculate a lower
comparative standard
• Employees with short tenure in their current organizations tend to have little
information about others inside the organization, so they rely on their personal
experiences.
• Employees with long tenure rely more heavily on co-workers for comparison.
• Upper-level employees, those in the professional ranks, and those with higher
amounts of education tend to have better information about people in other
organizations and will make more other– outside comparisons.
Equity Theory/Organizational Justice
• Based on equity theory, employees who perceive inequity will make one of
six choices:
1. Change inputs (exert less effort if underpaid or more if overpaid).
2. Change outcomes (individuals paid on a piece-rate basis can increase their
pay by producing a higher quantity of units of lower quality).
3. Distort perceptions of self (“I used to think I worked at a moderate pace,
but now I realize I work a lot harder than everyone else.”).
4. Distort perceptions of others (“Mike’s job isn’t as desirable as I thought.”).
5. Choose a different referent (“I may not make as much as my brother-in-
law, but I’m doing a lot better than my Dad did when he was my age.”).
6. Leave the field (quit the job).
Expectancy Theory
• One of the most widely accepted explanations of motivation is Victor
Vroom’s expectancy theory
• A theory that says that the strength of a tendency to act in a certain
way depends on the strength of an expectation that the act will be
followed by a given outcome and on the attractiveness of that
outcome to the individual.
Expectancy Theory
• The theory, therefore, focuses on three relationships
1. Effort–performance relationship: The probability perceived by the
individual that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to
performance.
2. Performance–reward relationship: The degree to which the individual
believes performing at a particular level will lead to the attainment of
a desired outcome.
3. Rewards–personal goals relationship: The degree to which
organizational rewards satisfy an individual’s personal goals or needs
and the attractiveness of those potential rewards for the individual.
Expectancy Theory
• First, if I give a maximum effort, will it be recognized in my
performance appraisal?
• Second, if I get a good performance appraisal, will it lead to
organizational rewards?
• Finally, if I’m rewarded, are the rewards attractive to me?
Integrating Contemporary Theories of
Motivation
Assignment#1
Thank You