Organizational Behavior, 9/E

Schermerhorn, Hunt, and Osborn

Prepared by Michael K. McCuddy Valparaiso University John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Chapter 7 Study Questions

How are motivation, job satisfaction, and

performance related? What are job-design approaches? How are technology and job design related? What alternative work arrangements are used today?
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Study Question 1: How are motivation, job satisfaction, and performance related?
Job satisfaction.
The degree to which individuals feel positively

or negatively about their jobs.

Job satisfaction can be assessed:
By managerial observation and interpretation.

Through use of job satisfaction questionnaires.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 7

Study Question 1: How are motivation, job satisfaction, and performance related?
Implications of key work decisions for job

satisfaction.
Joining and remaining a member of an organization.
Satisfied workers have better attendance and less turnover.

Working hard in pursuit of high levels of task

performance.
Three alternative relationships between performance and

satisfaction.
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Study Question 1: How are motivation, job satisfaction, and performance related?
Argument: satisfaction causes

performance.
Managerial implication to increase

employees work performance, make them happy. Job satisfaction alone is not a consistent predictor of work performance.

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 7

Study Question 1: How are motivation, job satisfaction, and performance related?
Argument: performance causes

satisfaction.
Managerial implication help people achieve

high performance, then satisfaction will follow. Performance in a given time period is related to satisfaction in a later time period. Rewards link performance with later satisfaction.
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Study Question 1: How are motivation, job satisfaction, and performance related?
Argument: rewards cause both satisfaction

and performance.
Managerial implications. Proper allocation of rewards can positively influence both satisfaction and performance. High job satisfaction and performance-contingent rewards influence a persons work performance. Size and value of the reward should vary in proportion to the level of ones performance.
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Study Question 1: How are motivation, job satisfaction, and performance related?

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 7

Study question 2: What are jobdesign approaches?

Organizational Behavior: Chapter 7

Study question 2: What are jobdesign approaches?

Scientific management. Sought to improve work efficiency by creating small, repetitive tasks and training workers to do these tasks well. Job simplification.
Standardizes work procedures and employs people

in clearly defined and highly specialized tasks. Intent is to increase efficiency, but it may be decreased due to the motivational impact of unappealing jobs.
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Study question 2: What are jobdesign approaches?

Job enlargement and job rotation. Job enlargement.
Increases task variety by combining into one job

two or more tasks that were previously assigned to separate workers.

Job rotation. Increases task variety by periodically shifting workers among jobs involving different tasks. Enlargement and rotation use horizontal

loading to increase job breadth.

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Study question 2: What are jobdesign approaches?

Job enrichment. The practice of enhancing job content by building motivating factors such as responsibility, achievement, recognition, and personal growth into the job. Adds planning and evaluating duties to the job content. Uses vertical loading to increase job depth.
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Study question 2: What are jobdesign approaches?

Ways to increase job depth. Allow workers to plan. Allow workers to control. Maximize job freedom. Increase task difficulty. Help workers become task experts. Provide performance feedback. Increase performance accountability. Provide complete units of work.
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Study question 2: What are jobdesign approaches?

Concerns about job enrichment.
Job enrichment can be very costly. Controversy concerning whether pay

must be increased when jobs are enriched.

Herzbergs argument regarding the impact

of competitive pay and enriched jobs.

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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Core job characteristics.
Skill variety.
Degree to which a job requires a variety of different activities

and involves the use of a number of different skills and talents of the individual.

Task identity.
Degree to which the job requires the completion of a whole

and identifiable piece of work; one that involves doing a job from beginning to end with a visible outcome.

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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Core job characteristics (cont.).
Task significance.
Degree to which the job is important and involves a

meaningful contribution to the organization or society in general.

Autonomy.
Degree to which the job gives the employee substantial

freedom, independence, and discretion in scheduling the work and in determining the procedures used in carrying it out.
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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Core job characteristics (cont.).
Job feedback.
Degree to which carrying out the work activities provides

direct and clear information to the employee regarding how

well the job has been done. .

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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Motivating potential score. Combined together, the core job characteristics create a motivating potential score (MPS). MPS indicates the degree to which the job is capable of motivating people. A jobs MPS can be raised by enriching the core characteristics.
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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Critical psychological states. When the core characteristics are highly enriched, three critical psychological states are positively influenced.
Experienced meaningfulness of work. Experienced responsibility for work outcomes. Knowledge of actual results of work activities.

Positive psychological states create positive

work outcomes.
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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Enriched core job characteristics will

create positive psychological states, which in turn will create positive work outcomes only when:
Employee growth-need strength is high. The employee has the requisite knowledge and

skill. Employee context satisfaction exists.

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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Social information processing theory. Social information in organizations influences the way people perceive their jobs and respond to them. Research evidence shows that both social information and the core characteristics are important determinants of how people perceive their jobs.
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Study question 3: What are the keys to designing motivating jobs?

Managerial and global implications of

enriching jobs.
Not everyones job should be enriched.
Job enrichment can apply to groups.

Culture has a substantial impact on job

enrichment.
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Study Question 4: How are technology and job design related?

Sociotechnical systems.
Reflects the importance of integrating people

and technology to create high-performance work systems.

Essential for new developments in job design,

given the impact of computers and information technology in the modern workplace.
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Study Question 4: How are technology and job design related?

Flexible manufacturing systems. Adaptive computer-based technologies and integrated job designs that are used to shift work easily and quickly among alternative products. Workers develop expertise across a wide range of functions. Jobs offer a wealth of potential for enriched core job characteristics.
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Study Question 4: How are technology and job design related?

Workflow and process reengineering.
Process reengineering is the analysis,

streamlining, and reconfiguration of actions and tasks required to reach a work goal.
This approach for improving workflows and

job designs is driven by one question:

What is necessary and what else can be eliminated?
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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Compressed work weeks.
Any scheduling of work that allows a full-time

job to be completed in fewer than the standard

five days.
4/40 is most common form.

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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Compressed work weeks (cont.). Advantages. For workers: added time off. For organizations: lower absenteeism and improved recruiting of new employees. Disadvantages. For workers: increased fatigue and family adjustment problems. For organizations: work scheduling problems, customer complaints, and possible union opposition.
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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Flexible working hours.
Gives individuals a daily choice in the timing of

their work commitments.

Advantages:

For workers: shorter commuting time, more leisure time, more job satisfaction, and greater sense of responsibility.
For organizations: less absenteeism, tardiness, and

turnover; more commitment; and higher performance.

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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Job sharing. One full-time job is assigned to two or more persons who divide the work according to agreed-upon hours.
Advantages.
For workers: less burnout and higher energy level. For organizations; attracting talented people who

who would otherwise be unable to work.

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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Work at home and the virtual office. Telecommuting.
Work done at home or in a remote location via use

of computers and advanced communication linkages with a central office or other employment locations.

Variants of telecommuting. Flexiplace. Hoteling. Virtual office.

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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Advantages of telecommuting.
For workers: flexibility, comforts of home, and choice

of work locations consistent with ones lifestyle.

For organizations: costs savings, efficiency, and

improved employee satisfaction.

Disadvantages of telecommuting.
For workers: isolation from co-workers, decreased

identification with work team, and technical difficulties with computer linkages.
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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Part-time work.
Temporary part-time work.
An employee is classified as temporary and works less than the standard 40-hour work week.

Permanent part-time work.

An employee is classified as a permanent member of the workforce and works less than the standard 40-hour work week.
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Study Question 5: What alternative work arrangements are used today?

Advantages of part-time work. For workers: appeals to people who want to supplement other jobs or do not want full-time work. For organizations: lower labor costs, ability to better accommodate peaks and valleys of business cycle, and better management of retention quality.

Disadvantages of part-time work.

For workers: added stress and potentially diminished

performance if holding two jobs, failure to qualify for benefits, and lower pay rates than full-time counterparts.
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