Organizational Behavior And Management 11th Edition By Konopaske - Test Bank

TRUE

FALSE

Persistence refers to the staying power of behavior or how long a person will continue to devote effort. Intensity refers to the strength of the response, once the choice of a direction is made.

FALSE

The content theories of motivation focus on the factors within the person that energize, direct, sustain, and stop behavior.

TRUE

FALSE

The opposite is true; autonomy means being able to make independent decisions, set goals, and work without supervision.

TRUE

Managers at lower organizational levels in small firms (less than 500 employees) are more satisfied than their counterpart managers in large firms (more than 5,000 employees); however, managers at upper levels in large companies are more satisfied than their counterparts in small companies.

FALSE

As managers advance in an organization, their need for security decreases.

TRUE

FALSE

McClelland is associated with the Learned Needs Theory and Alford with ERG.

FALSE

McClelland contends that when a need is strong, it motivates a person to use behavior that leads to its satisfaction.

FALSE

A major difference between the four content theories is McClelland’s emphasis on socially acquired needs.

FALSE

Each individual manager also has this responsibility.

TRUE

FALSE

The notion of inputs and outcomes within equity theory is very similar to the notion of giving and receiving in the psychological contract.

FALSE

The valence may be negatively valent to those employees who do not desire the outcome.

TRUE

FALSE

This is the definition of distributive justice.

TRUE

TRUE

FALSE

Locke proposed that goal setting is a cognitive process of some practical utility. His view is that an individual’s conscious goals and intentions are the primary determinants of behavior.

FALSE

It is important for any goal to be clear, meaningful, and challenging.

FALSE

Field experiments have proven that specific goals lead to better performance than do vague goals.

TRUE

TRUE

FALSE

When need deficiencies are present, individuals are more susceptible to a manager’s motivational efforts.

The four components of this research domain are: distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice.

The deficiencies may be physiological (e.g., a need for food), psychological (e.g., a need for self-esteem), or sociological (e.g., a need for social interaction).

Psychological deficiencies (e.g., a need for self-esteem) address physical needs, sociological deficiencies (e.g., a need for social interaction) address social needs.

Four important content approaches to motivation are: (1) Maslow’s need hierarchy, (2) Alderfer’s ERG theory, (3) Herzberg’s two-factor theory, and (4) McClelland’s learned needs theory.

Unsatisfied needs can cause frustration, conflict, and stress. From a managerial perspective, unsatisfied needs are dangerous because they may lead to undesirable performance outcomes.

(1) Physiological, (2) Safety and security, (3) Belongingness, social, and love, (4) Esteem, and (5) Self-actualization.

Maslow’s theory assumes that a person attempts to satisfy more basic needs (physiological) before directing behavior toward satisfying upper-level needs.

Alderfer’s three needs are: existence (E), relatedness (R), and growth (G), or ERG.

Examples include salary, job security, working conditions, status, company procedures, quality of technical supervision.

Herzberg’s model basically assumes that job satisfaction is not a unidimensional concept.

Any four of the following: (1) Change your inputs. (2) Change your outcomes. (3) Change your attitude. (4) Change the reference person(s). (5) Change the inputs or outputs of the reference person(s). (6) Leave the job or the field.

The four components of this research domain are: distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational justice.

Student answers will vary, but textbook examples include verbal abuse, threatening gestures, persistent criticism, yelling, spreading gossip or lies, reminding employees of their mistakes, excluding or ignoring workers, and/or insulting workers’ habits, attitudes, or personal lives. Other answers may also be correct, such as slamming doors, pounding on tables, throwing things, making fun of one’s clothing or physical attributes, or standing aggressively close while having discussions.

The general concept behind exchange theory is that members of an organization should engage in reasonably predictable give-and-take relationships with each other.

It is an unwritten agreement between an employee and the organization that specifies that each expects to give and to receive from the other.

Any three of the following: (a) satisfaction, (b) challenging work, (c) fair treatment, (d) loyalty, (e) opportunities to be creative. Other answers may also be correct.

No one questions that motivation plays a central role in shaping behavior influencing work performance. However, other variables are thought to play a role in performance as well. These variables include ability, instinct, and aspiration level, as well as personal factors such as age, education, and family background. As shown in Exhibit 5.1, job performance is a function of the capacity to perform, the opportunity to perform, and the willingness to perform.

Motivation, even when coupled with a capacity and opportunity to perform, does not ensure high performance. What the manager really wants is motivation that results in more or different behaviors. Direction must be considered, so the employee has the opportunity to choose a path that leads to the behavior management desires. If direction is unclear, the employee may choose a direction that is opposite management’s intentions. Intensity deserves consideration, because while two employees may engage in the same behavior, one may do it much better, or with greater commitment than the other. Management must try to motivate performance that achieves an acceptable and sustainable level of effort. Finally, management generally hopes to motivate performance that will last for a certain period—whether permanent or short term. The challenge becomes finding a way to keep people behaving as desired and for as long as necessary. The three components are interwoven, and each is necessary to prompt predictable performance outcomes. None is more important than the others because of this interaction.

Student answers will vary. Some will gravitate toward the needs hierarchies, despite their shortcomings, because they fit “intuitively.” Students will likely see themselves progressing toward self-actualization and focusing less on surviving. Among the process theories, goal setting will probably get votes because it is a specific technique that managers can implement with employees. Expectancy theory is also an applied theory; students will like its ability to sort out desire, performance, and expected outcomes. Some students may indicate, accurately, that the concept of the psychological contract is equally applicable to both content and process approaches to motivation.

Alderfer’s three needs—existence (E), relatedness (R), and growth (G), or ERG—correspond to Maslow’s in that the existence needs are similar to Maslow’s physiological and safety categories; the relatedness needs are similar to the belongingness, social, and love category; and the growth needs are similar to the esteem and self-actualization categories. In addition to a difference in the number of categories, Alderfer’s ERG theory and Maslow’s need hierarchy differ on how people move through the sets of needs. Maslow proposed that unfulfilled needs are predominant and that the next-higher level of needs isn’t activated or triggered until the predominant need is adequately satisfied. Thus, a person only progresses up the need hierarchy once a lower-level need is adequately satisfied. In contrast, Alderfer’s ERG theory suggests that, in addition to the satisfaction-progression process that Maslow proposed, a frustration-regression process is also at work. That is, if a person is continually frustrated in attempts to satisfy growth needs, relatedness needs reemerge as a major motivating force, causing the individual to redirect efforts toward satisfying a lower-order need category.

Some students will prefer intrinsically motivated subordinates because of their belief that such motivation produces greater job performance (some research supports this belief). Understanding the intrinsic motivations of individual employees requires listening and understanding, and responding in a meaningful way requires flexibility on the part of the manager and the organization. Intrinsic rewards include such things as recognition, responsibility, advancement, and the work itself. Other students may prefer extrinsically motivated workers because managers more easily control extrinsic rewards, such as work surroundings, salary, status, and quality of interpersonal relations.

Salancik and Pfeffer proposed that need theories have become popular because they are consistent with other theories of rational choice, and because they attribute freedom to individuals. The idea that individuals shape their actions to satisfy unfulfilled needs gives purpose and direction to individual activity. Furthermore, they are simple and easily expressed views of human behavior.

Herzberg’s two-factor theory implies that organizations must create interesting, intrinsically rewarding jobs, if they want to motivate people. Manipulating compensation systems alone will not motivate workers. On the other hand, adequate rewards must be offered, or employees will be dissatisfied. Pay might be more than adequate, but if job design does not provide intrinsic rewards, employees may perform less intensely and less persistently, or even direct their efforts to finding intrinsic rewards, whether or not that meets management’s needs. In similar ways, incongruence between reward systems and the job itself may cause undesirable behaviors due to inadequate attention to direction, intensity, or persistence.

Perception plays a critical role determining equity or inequity, and it varies substantially between individuals. It is difficult to accurately measure the person’s perception of a Comparison Other’s inputs and outputs, his/her own inputs and outputs, and the strength of perceived equity or inequity. A manager may perceive that the subordinate is receiving very fair treatment while the subordinate strongly perceives otherwise. In such a case, the manager can assist by helping the employee identify the source of the misperception (e.g. a new employee using a long tenured employee as the Comparison Other) and then encouraging the employee to engage in a more appropriate evaluation of equity (e.g. using another new hired as the Comparison Other).

Students will probably suggest that there is a psychological contract between the students and the instructor and that the contract involves features such as the following: (1) Instructor’s obligations include organizing and teaching the course, being available to assist students in the learning process, making assignments, giving exams and objectively compiling grades on the student’s performance; and (2) Student’s obligations involve coming to class, taking notes, participating in discussion, exercises and case analysis, doing assigned readings and projects, and taking tests The contract is a function of the class syllabus, opening day statements by the instructor, and by the guidelines each institution sets up for student and instructor conduct. Some students might suggest that the instructor has an obligation to be interesting, entertaining, funny, inspirational, and understanding of student excuses for incomplete or unacceptable work.

Managing the psychological contract successfully is one of the more important and challenging aspects of most managers’ jobs. The more attuned the manager is to the needs and expectations of subordinates, the greater the number of matches that are likely to exist and be maintained in the psychological contract. This, in turn, can positively impact the direction, intensity, and persistence of motivation in the organization.