Chapter 2

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Influences on Employee

Behavior
Chapter 2

Werner & DeSimone (2006) 1


Learning Objectives
 Identify the major external and internal factors that influence
employee behavior
 Describe two primary types of outcomes that result from
behavior and tell how they may influence future behavior.
 State how a supervisor’s leadership and expectations can
affect employee behavior
 Recognize that impact of co-workers and organizations have
on employee behavior.
 Define motivation and describe the main approaches/theory
to understanding motivation at work.
 Discuss how knowledge, skill, ability, and attitude
influences employee behavior

Werner & DeSimone (2006) 2


A Major Purpose of Human
Resource Development
The goal of Human Resource Development interventions
is to assist employees and organizations in attaining their
goals.
By changing employee behavior through training and other
incentives
However, to change any behavior, we must first
understand the factors that cause employees to behave the
way they do. Armed with this knowledge, we can more
accurately diagnose performance problems, understand
what makes effective performance possible, and design
HRD programs to foster the behavior we want.

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Model of Employee
Behavior/factors/environment
Forces that influence behavior:
 External to the employee:
 External environment (economic conditions, laws
and regulations, etc.)
 Work environment (supervision, organization,
coworkers, outcomes of performance)
 Within the employee:
 Motivation, attitudes, knowledge/skills/abilities
(KSAs)

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The External Environment

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Major Categories of Employee
Behavior
Behaviors central to performing one’s job (often
called task performance)

Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) is


a person's voluntary commitment within an
organization or company that is not part of his or
her contractual tasks.

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Economic conditions: refer to the state of the economy in a
country or region. They change over time in line with
the economic and business cycles, as an economy goes through
expansion and contraction
Technological change: is the invention of technologies.
Labor market: is the place where workers and employees interact
with each other. In the labor market, employers compete to hire the
best, and the workers compete for the best satisfying job. A labor
market in an economy functions with demand and supply of labor.
Laws & Regulations: A principle, rule, or law designed to
control or govern conduct. A governmental order having the force of
law.
Labor union: is an organization intended to represent the collective
interests of workers in negotiations with employers over wages, hours,
benefits and working conditions.

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Outcomes: Outcomes occur as a result of a given employee behavior.
Outcomes can be personal or organizational in nature. Personal
outcomes are those that have value to the individual, such as pay,
recognition, and emotions. Organizational outcomes are things valued
by an organization, such as teamwork, productivity, and product
quality.
Supervision: An immediate supervisor plays an important role in the
employee’s work life, delegating tasks and responsibilities, setting
expectations, evaluating performance, and providing (or failing to
provide) feedback, rewards, and discipline.
Performance expectations:
 If supervisors (or trainers) expect good performance, their behavior may aid
and encourage their subordinates (or trainees) to raise their own self-
expectations, increase their efforts, and ultimately perform well. The opposite
can happen if supervisors or trainers expect poor performance.
Leadership is the use of non-coercive influence to direct and
coordinate the activities of a group toward accomplishing a goal.
8
The Organization: The organization itself can influence
employee behavior through its reward structure, culture, and
job design. Reward structure focuses on
• the types of rewards an organization uses (material,
social);
• how rewards are distributed (e.g., equally to all, relative to
each individual’s contribution, or on the basis of need); and
• the criteria for reward distribution (results, behavior, or
nonperformance issues, such as seniority or tenure).

Further, rewards include not only tangible things, such as


financial bonuses and plaques, but also intangible things, such
as recognition and acceptance. Reward systems should ideally
provide the outcomes desired by members of the organization.

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An organization’s culture can also have a strong effect on
individual behavior. Organizational culture is a set of values,
beliefs, norms, and patterns of behavior that are shared by
organization members and that guide their behavior.
Individuals who understand an organization’s culture are
better able to accurately interpret organizational events, know
what is expected of them, and behave in appropriate ways in
new or unfamiliar situations.
Job design is the development and alteration of the
components of a job (such as the tasks on performs, and the
scope of one’s responsibilities) to improve productivity and
the quality of employee work life.
Coworkers and Teams: Coworkers, and especially team
members, can exert a strong influence on an employee’s
behavior.
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For example, if an employee behaves in a way that
coworkers value, they may reward or reinforce that behavior
by offering friendship and recognition. Similarly, coworkers
may choose to react to behavior they disapprove of by
withholding desired outcomes or punishing the employee
through insults, ostracism, or threats.
Norms are informal rules for appropriate behavior
established within work groups, can serve as guidelines for
appropriate behavior, if the employee chooses to comply.
Group dynamics influence the way an employee may
behave when interacting in a group.
Teamwork both amplifies the importance of coworkers’
influences on individual behavior and brings other dynamics
to the forefront. Two teamwork issues are trust and
cohesiveness.
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Motivation
Motivation is one of the most basic elements of
human behavior. Motivational theories attempt to
explain how effort is generated and channeled.
“Psychological processes that cause the arousal,
direction, and persistence of voluntary actions
that are goal-directed”.

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Motivation Characteristics
Pertains to voluntary behavior
Focuses on processes affecting behavior
such as:
 Energizing—the generation or mobilization of effort
 Direction—applying effort to one behavior over
another
 Persistence—continuing (or ceasing) to perform a
behavior
An individual phenomenon- People have
unique needs, desires, attitudes, and goals.

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Motivation Theories
Understanding motivation is critical to HRD.
The success of many HRD programs and
processes depends in part on whether the
individual is motivated to participate, learn, and
use what is learned to improve performance.
Motivation theories are useful in diagnosing the
cause of performance problems and often serve
as the basis for designing or choosing HRD
programs to remedy those problems.

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Motivation Theories
Need-based
Cognitive-based
Non-cognitive-based

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Need-Based Theories
Underlying needs, Theories:
such as needs for Maslow’s hierarchy of
survival, safety, needs theory
power, etc., are what Alderfer’s existence,
drives motivation
relatedness, and
growth (ERG) theory
Herzberg’s two-factor
theory

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Need Activation-Need Satisfaction
Process

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Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Self-Actualization
Needs
Esteem Needs
Belonging & Love Needs

Safety Needs
Survival Needs

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Physiological. Includes hunger, thirst, shelter and
other bodily needs.
Safety. Security and protection from physical and
emotional harm.
Social. Affection, belongingness, acceptance, and
friendship.
Esteem. Internal factors such as self-respect,
autonomy, and achievement and external factors
such as status, recognition, and attention.
Self-actualization. Drive to become what we are
capable of becoming; includes growth, achieving
our potential, and self-fulfillment.
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Objection

Research does not validate it.


Maslow provided no empirical substantiation

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Cognitive Theories
Expectancy theory
Goal-setting theory
Social learning theory
Equity theory

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Expectancy Theory
A theory that says that the strength of 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.
Given by Victor Vroom.

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Expectancy Theory
In more practical terms, employees will be
motivated to exert a high level of effort when
they believe it will lead to a good performance
appraisal; that a good appraisal will lead to
organizational rewards such as bonuses, salary
increases, or promotions; and that the rewards
will satisfy the employees’ personal goals.

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This theory focuses on three
relationships

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Effort–performance relationship. The probability
perceived by the individual
that exerting a given amount of effort will lead to
performance.
Performance–reward relationship. The degree to which
the individual
believes performing at a particular level will lead to the
attainment of a desired outcome.
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.

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Criticism
Some critics suggest it has only limited use and is
more valid where individuals clearly perceive
effort– performance and performance–reward
linkages. Because few individuals do, the theory
tends to be idealistic. If organizations actually
rewarded individuals for performance rather than
seniority, effort, skill level, and job difficulty,
expectancy theory might be much more valid.
However, rather than invalidating it, this criticism
can explain why a significant segment of the
workforce exerts low effort on the job.
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Goal Setting Theory
A theory that says that specific and difficult goals, with
feedback, lead to higher performance.
Research on goal-setting theory in fact reveals impressive
effects of goal specificity, challenge, and feedback on
performance.
 Feedback guides behavior
 Self-generated feedback
Three factors influence the goals– performance
relationship: goal commitment, task characteristics,
and national culture.

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Criticism
Goals related to performance undermine adaptation
and creativity because people become too focused
on outcomes and ignore changing conditions.
Some authors argue that goals can lead employees
to focus on a single standard and exclude all others.
Consider the narrow focus on boosting short-term
stock prices in many businesses—it may have led
organizations to ignore long-term success and even
to engage in such unethical behavior as accounting
fraud or excessively risky investments.

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Social Learning Theory
Bandura proposes that outcome and self-efficacy expectations
affect individual performance

Outcome expectation (similar to the concept of


“instrumentality” in expectancy theory) is a person’s belief that
performing a given behavior will lead to a given outcome.

Self-efficacy can be defined as “people’s judgments of their


capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required
to attain designated types of performances. It is concerned not
with the skills one has but with judgments of what one can do
with whatever skills one possesses.”

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Equity Theory
A theory that says that individuals compare their
job inputs and outcomes with those of others
and then respond to eliminate any inequities.

(salary levels, raises, recognition)


(effort, experience, education,
competence)

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Equity Theory

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Criticism
Some of these propositions have been supported,
but others haven’t. First, inequities created by
overpayment do not seem to significantly affect
behavior in most work situations. Apparently,
people have more tolerance of overpayment
inequities than of underpayment inequities or are
better able to rationalize them. It’s pretty
damaging to a theory when half the equation falls
apart
Second, not all people are equity sensitive.
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A Non-cognitive Theory
Reinforcement theory
 e.g., behavior modification
Positive reinforcement refers to increasing the frequency of a
behavior by following the behavior with a pleasurable consequence
Negative reinforcement increases the frequency of a behavior by
removing something un-pleasurable after the behavior is performed
Extinction seeks to decrease the frequency of a behavior by
removing the consequence that is reinforcing it
Punishment seeks to decrease the frequency of a behavior by
introducing an adverse consequence immediately after the behavior

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Behavior Modification
Principles for controlling employee behavior:
Positive Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement
Extinction – decrease occurrences by eliminating
reinforcement that causes the behavior
Punishment – introduce an adverse consequence
immediately after behavior

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A Specific Example
Sleeping in Class:
1. Warning
2. Leave class and explain to the Assistant Dean
why you were asked to leave
Too often – you are dropped from the class
Question: Is this positive or negative
reinforcement, and why?

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Internal Factors That Influence
Employee Behavior
Motivation
Attitudes
Knowledge, Skills and Abilities (KSAs)

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Attitudes
A person’s general feelings of favor or disfavor
towards something
Feelings towards a person, place, thing, event, or
idea
Tend to be VERY stable and hard to change
Attitudes are important in training – e.g., does the
trainee intend to use the training or ignore it?

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Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
(KSAs)
Abilities – general capacities related to the
performance of specific tasks
Skills – combines abilities and capacities,
generally the result of training
Knowledge – understanding of the factors or
principles related to a specific subject
HRD programs mostly focus on changing skills
and knowledge

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