Organization Behavior

Organisational Behaviour

Chapter 1

What is Organisational behaviour ?

Aims of the Subject Is the provide you with an understanding of the

behaviour of people in relation to their work and organisations.

Emphasis is given to the management function because of the important role that management and leadership plays in every organisation.

Chapter 1 – Organisational Behaviour

Definition Organisational behaviour or OB is a field of study

that investigates the impact that individuals, groups and structure have in behaviour within organisations, for the purpose of applying such knowledge towards improving an organisation’s effectiveness. (Robbins et.al,2001 p.10)


What Managers do? Managers are individuals who achieve things

through people. They make decisions, allocate resources and direct

the activities of others to attain goals. Managers do their work in organisation.


Management funtions Planning – It encompasses defining an organisation’s goals, establishing

an overall strategy for achieving those goals and developing a comprehensive hierarchy of plans to integrate and coordinate activities.

Organising – Managers determine what tasks are to be done, who is to do them, how the tasks are to be grouped, who reports to whom and where decisions are to be made.

Leading – every organisation contains people, and its management’s job to direct and coordinate these people.When managers motivate employees, direct the activities of others, select the most active communication channel or resolve conflicts among employees, there are engaging in leading.

Controlling – monitoring activities to ensure they are being accomplished as planned and correcting any significant deviations.


Management roles

All managers are required to perform duties that are ceremonial and symbolic in nature.

For example, when a chancellor of a university hands out degree testamurs at a graduation ceremony he or she is acting a figure head role.

All managers have a leadership role. This includes hiring, training, motivating and disciplining

employees. The third roles within the interpersonal grouping is liaision role. Mintzberg describe this activity as contacting outsiders who

provide the manager with information.

Interpersonal roles


All managers will do some degree, receive and collect information from organisations and institutions outside their own.

Typically, this is done through reading magazine and talking with others to learn of changes in the public taste, what might competitors might be planning an so on.

Mintzberg called this mentors role. Managers also act as conduit to transmit information to

organisational members. This is disseminator role. Managers additionally perform a spokesperson role when they

represent the organisation to outsiders.

Informational roles


Management skills

These skills encompasses the ability to apply specialised knowledge or expertise.

For example, professionals such as civil engineers, tax accountant or surgeons.

Through extensive formal education, they have learned the special knowledge and practice of their field.

All jobs require some specialised expertise and many people develop their technical skills on the job

Technical Skills


The ability to work with understand and motivate other people, both individually and in groups.

Many people are technically proficient but interpersonally incompetent.

They might, for example, be poor listeners, unable to understand the needs of others or have difficulty managing conflicts.

Human Skills


Managers must have the mental ability to analyse and diagnose complex situations.

Decision making, for instant, requires managers to spot problems, identify options that correct them, evaluate these options and select the best one.

Managers can technically and interpersonally competent yet still fail because of an inability to rationally process and interpret information.

Conceptual skills


Challenge and opportunities for OB

Relevant concepts and theories that can help you to explain and predict behaviour of people at work.

Gain insights into specific people skills that you can use on the jobs.

For e.g. Learning to be effective listener. The proper way to give perfomance feedback, how to delegate

authority and how to create effective team. Oppotunities to complete exercises that will give insights into

your own behaviour and the behaviour of others. Practice of improving your own interpersonal skills.

Improving Skills


What is Total quality management (TQM)? A philosophy of management that is driven by the constant

attainment of customer satisfaction through the continous improvement of all organisational process.

TQM has implication on OB because it requires employees to rethink what they do and became more involve in work decisions.

What is Reengineering? Reconsider how work would be done and organisation

structured if they were being created from scratch. For instance, the manufacturer might consider adding hooks to

the upper part of the boot for speed lacing. Managers today understand that any efforts to improve quality

and productivity must include their employees.

Improving quality and productivity


Work diversity means that organisation are becoming obviously more heterogeneous in term of gender, race and ethnicity.

Has important implications for management practice. Managers will need to shift their philosophy from treating

everyone alike to recognising differences and responding to those differences in a way that will ensures employees retention and greater productivity while, at the same time, not discriminating.

Diversity, if positively managed, can increase creativity and innovation in organisations as well as improve decision making by providing different perspective on problems.

Managing workforce diversity


Decision making is being pushed down to the operating level, where workers are being given freedom to make choice about schedules, procedures and how to solve work related problems.

Managers are going considerably further by allowing employees full control of their work.

An increasing number of organisations are using self-managed teams, where workers operate largely without bosses.

Managers are having to learn how to take responsibility for their work and make appropriate decision.

Empowering people


Successful business must foster innovation and be proficient in the art of change.

Victory will go to those organisations that maintain flexibility, continually improve their quality and beat the competition to the market place with a constant stream of innovative products and services.

An organisation’s employees can be the impetus for innovation and change, or they can be major hindrance.

The challenge for managers is to stimulate employees creativity and tolerance for change.

Stimulating innovation and change


Members of organisations are increasingly finding themselves facting ethical dilemmas situation where there are required to define right and wrong conduct.

For example, should they blow the whistle if they uncover illegal activities taking place in their company?

Do they give inflated performance evaluation to an employee they like, knowing that such an evaluation could save the employees job?

Managers are writing and distributing codes of ethics to guide employees through ethical dilemmas.

Managers are offering seminars, workshop and similar training programs to try to improve ethical behaviours.

Improving ethical behaviour


Contributing disciplines to the OB field

Is the science that seek to measure, explain and sometimes change the behaviour of human and other animals.

Psychologists concern themselves with studying and attempting to understand individual behaviour.

Industrial psychologist concern themselves with problems of fatique, boredom and any other factor relevant to working conditions that could impede efficient work performance.

Their contributions have been expanded to include learning, perception, personality, training, leadership effectiveness, needs and motivational forces, job satisfaction, decision making process, performance appraisals, attitude measurement, employees selection technique, job design and work stress.

Psychology


Sociology studies people in relation to their fellow human beings.

Sociologist have made their great contribution to OB through their study of group behaviour in organisations, particularly formal complex organisations.

Some of the areas within OB that have received valuable input from sociologist include group dynamics, organisational culture, formal organisation theory and structure, organisational technology, bureaucracy, communications, power, confilict and inter-group behaviour.

Sociology


An area within psychology, but blends concepts from both psychology and sociology.

It focus on the influence of people on one another. One of the main areas receiving considerable investigation

from social psychologist has been change – how to implement it and how to reduce barriers to its acceptance.

Social psychologist making significant contribution in measuring, understanding and changing attitudes, communication patterns, the ways in which group activities can satisfy individual needs, and group decision-making processes.

Social psychology


Studysocieties to learn about human beings and their activities.

Their work on cultures and enviroments, for instance, has helped us to understand difference in fundamentals values, attitudes and behaviour among people in different countries and within different organisations.

Much of our current understanding of organisational structure, organisation enviroments and differences between national cultures is the result of the work of anthropologist or those using their methologies.

Anthropology


Political scientist study behaviour of individuals and groups within a political environment.

Specific topics of concern here include structuring of conflict, allocation of power, and how people manipulate power for individual self-interest.

Political science


Foundations of Individual Behaviour

Chapter 2

What is Perception and Why is it important ?

Perception Can be defined as a process by which individuals organise and

interpret their sensory impression in order to give meaning to their environment.

What one perceive can be substantially different from objective reality.

For example, it is possible that all employees in an organisation may view it as a great place to work – favourable working conditions, interesting job assignment – but as most of us know, it’s very unusual to find such circumstances.

Why is perception important in the study of OB? Simply, because people’s behaviour is based on their

perception of what reality is, not reality itself.

Chapter 2 – Foundations of Individual Behaviour

Factors influencing Perception

When an individual looks at an object and attemps to interpret what she or he sees, that interpretation is heavily influenced by personal characteristics of the individual perceiver.

Among the more relevant personal characteristics affecting perceptions are attitudes, motives, interests, past experiences and expectations.

Attitudes evaluate statements or judgement concerning objects, people or events.

Unsatisfied needs or motives stimulates individuals and may exert a strong influences their perception.

Focus of our attention appears to be influence by our interest. Because our individual interest differ considerably, what a person

notices in a situation can differ from what other perceive.

The Perceiver


Just as interests narrow one’s focus, so do one’s past experience.

You perceive those things nullify an object’s interest. Objects or events that have been experienced before are less

likely to grab our attention than are new experience. Finally, expectations can distort your perceptions in that you will

see what you expect to see. For example, if you expect police officers to be authoritative,

young people to be unambitious or individuals in public office to be power hungry, you may perceive them this way regardless of their actual traits.


Characteristics in the target that is being observe can affect what is perceived.

Loud people are more likely to be noticed in a group than are quiet ones.

Because targets aren’t looked at in isolations, the relationship of a target to its background influences perception, as does our tendency to group close things and similar things together.

The target


The context in which we see objects or events is important. Elements in the surrounding environment influence our

perceptions. For instance, you are likely to notice your employees

daydreaming if your boss from the head office happens to be visitting.

The situation affects your perception. The time at which an object or event is seen can influence

attention, as can location, light, heat or any number of situation factors.

The situation


Person Perception: Making Judgment about others

Has been proposed to develop explanations of the ways in which we judge people differently depending on what meaning we attribute to a given behaviour.

Basically, the theory suggests that when we observe an individual’s behaviour, we attempt to determine whether it was internally or externally caused.

That determination depend largely on three factors: distinctiveness, consensus and consistencies.

Internally caused behaviour are those that are believed to be under the personal control of individual.

Externally caused behaviour is seen as resulting from outside causes; that is, the person is seen as forced into the behaviour by the situation.

If one of your employees was late for work, you might attribute their lateness to their partying into the early hours of the morning and then oversleeping

Attribution theory


FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE PERCEPTION

PERCEPTION

FACTOR AFFECTING THE PERCEIVEDAttitudesMotivesInterest

ExperienceExpectation

FACTORS IN THE SITUATIONTime

Work settingSocial setting

FACTOR IN THE TARGETNoveltyMotionSounds

SizeBackground

Proximity


This would be internal interpretation. But you attribute their late arrival to a major car accident that

tied up traffic on the road that your employee regularly uses, then you are making an external attribution.

Distinctiveness refers to whether an individual displays different behaviours in different situations.

Is the employees who arrive late today also the source of complaints by fellow employees for being lazy?

What we want to know is whether this behaviour is unusual or not.

If everyone who faced with a similar situation responds in the same way, we can say the behaviour shows consensus.


An observers look for consistencies in a person’s actions Does a person respond the same way over time? Coming ten minutes late for work isn’t perceived in the same

way if for one employees it represents an unusual case. One of the more interesting findings from attribution theory is

that there are errors or biases that distort attribution. For example, there is substantial evidence that when we make

judgements about the behaviour of other people, we have a tendency to underestimate the influence of external factors and overestimate the influence of internal or personal factors.


Frequent used shorcut in judging others

Any characteristics that makes a person, an object or an event stand out increase the probability that will be perceived.

For example, why some employees may be reprimanded by their boss for doing something that goes unnoticed when done by another employee.

Selective perception is when people interpret what they see, based on their interests, background, experience and attitudes.

Another example, if there is a rumour going around the office that your organisation’s sales are down and that big retrenchments may be coming.

A routine visit by a senior executive from headquaters might be interpreted as the first step in management’s identification of people to be retrenched, when in reality such action may be the further thing freom the mind of the senior executive.

Selective perception


It is easy to judge others of we assume that there are similar to us.

For example, if you want challenge and responsibility in your job, you assume that others want it too.

Projection is attributing one’s own characteristics to other people.

People who engage in projection tend to perceive others according to what they themselves are like, rather than according to what the person being observed is really like.

Projection


Is judging someone on the basis of one’s perception of the group to which that person belongs.

For example, ‘the very rich are different from you and me’, yes, they have more money, indicated that other than the required difference (you need money to be rich) do generalise charactistics about people based on their wealth.

Successful managers whether female or male tend to be perceive as having personality traits and skills associated with men.

Stereotyping


Drawing a general impression about an individual, based on a single characteristics.

This phenomenon frequently occurs when students appraise their university lecturer.

Student nay isolate a single trait such as enthusiasm and allow their entire evaluation to be tained by how they judge the lecturer on this one trait.

Thus, the lecturer may be quite, assured, knowledgeable and highly qualified but if their style lack zeal, they wil be rated lower on a number of other characteristics.

Halo effect


Is an evaluations of a person’s characteristics that are affected by comparisons with other people recently encountered who rank higher or lower on the same characteristics.

For example, you may have had an experience of having to give an oral presentation, if you are the first person to speak, a good presentation by another student before you will probably make you feel that you won’t be as good probably are.

Conversely, if the presentation before yours isn’t very well delivered by your fellow student, you’ll gained in confidence because you’ll feel you can do better than previous presenter.

We don’t evaluate a person in isolation; our reaction to one person is often influenced by other people or events we have recently encountered.

Contrast effect


Specific applications in organisation

In work place negative consequences can occur when stress becomes too high.

It can lead to absenteeism, illness, low job satisfaction, poor morale and interpersonal conflict.

A great deal of stress can be due to the perceptions, judgments, and expectations that workers and managers have about the work place, about their own managers and about the people they work with.

If we feel that the values of the company are contrary to ours, this can affect our commitment to and performance in the organisation.

Stress


Evidence indicates that interviewers make perceptual judgments that are often inaccurate.

Interviewers see different things in the same candidate and thus arrive at different conclusions about the applicant.

Discrimination in recruitment interviews can often be reflected in the propensity of some interviewers to form opinions based on racial, gender, or stereotyped.

A malay interviewer may for instance, reject a chinese applicant for no other reason than race.

A male interview may reject ah female applicant.

Employment interview


An impressive amount of evidence demonstrates that people will attempt to validate their perception of reality, even when these perceptions are faulty.

The terms self-fulfilling prophecy and pygmlion effect have evolved to characterise the fact that people’s expectation determine their behaviour.

Or, in other word, if a manager expects big things from his people to perform minimally, they will tend to behave so as to meet these low expectation.

Thus expectations become reality.

Performance expectations


An employee’s performance evaluation is closely tied to their performance evaluation – promotion, pay rise and continuation of employment are among the most obvious outcome.

To the degree that managers use subjective measures in evaluating employees.

What the evaluator perceives to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ employee characteristics / behaviours will significantly influence the evaluation outcome.

Performance evaluation


An individual’s future in an organisation is usually not dependent on performance alone.

In many organisation, the level of employees effort is given high importance.

And assessment of an individual’s effort is a subjective judgment susceptible to perceptual distortions and bias.

For example, some claim that more workers are fired for poor attitude and lack of discipline than lack of ability.

Employees effort


What is perceived as loyalty by one decision maker may be seen as excessive conformity by another.

An employee who questions a top management may be seen as disloyal by some, yet caring and concern by others.

A particular case in point, whistleblowers – individuals who report unethical practices by their employer ti authorities inside and/or ourside the organisation – typically act out of loyalty to their organisation but are perceived by management as troublemakers.

Employees loyalty


Are evaluated statements either favourable or unfavourable concerning objects, people or events.

They reflect how one feels about something. When I say ‘I like my job’. I’m expressing my attitude about work. Attitudes aren’t be same as value, but interrelated. Can see this by looking at three components. Cignitive component – the opinion or belief segment of an attitude. For example, the belief that ‘discrimination is wrong’ is a value

statement. Affective component – the emotional or feeling segment of an attitude. For example, ‘I don’t like John because he discriminate against the

aborigines and maoris. Behaviourial component – an intention to behave in a certain way

toward someone or something. For example, ‘I’ll avoid John because of my feeling about him’.

Attitudes


Types of attitude

Refers to an individual’s general attitude towards their job. A person with a high level of job satisfaction holds positive

attitudes the job, while a person who is dissatisfied with their job holds negative attitudes about the job.

When people speak of employee attitudes, more often than not they mean ‘job satisfaction’ – the two terms are frequently used interchangeably.

Job satisfaction


Job involvement measures the degree to which a person identifies psychologically with her or his job and considers her or his perceived performance level important to her or self worth.

Employees with high level of job involvement strongly identify with and really care about the kind of work they do in their job.

High levels of job involvement have been found to be ralated to fewer absences lower resignation rates.

Job involvement


Organisational commitment. It is defined as ‘a state in which an employee identifies with

particular organisation and its goals, and wishes to maintain membership in the organisation.

High job involvement means identifying with one specific job (which could be transferred to a similar job in a different organisation), while organisational commitment means employees identifies with the present organisation.


EmotionsChapter 3

Emotions To clarify three term that are closely intertwined. These are affect, emotions and moods. Affect is a general term that covers a broad range that people

experience. Emotions are intense feelings that are directed at someone or

something. Moods are feelings that tend to be less than emotions and that

lack a contextual stimulus.

Chapter 3 – Emotions

A relative term is gaining increasingly importance in organisational behaviour is emotional labour.

Every employee expends physical and mental labour when they put their bodies and cognitive capabilities, respectively, into their job.

Most jobs require emotional labour. The concept of emotional labour originally in relation to service

job. For example, Airline flight attendence, are expected to be

cheerful, funeral counsellors are sad, and doctor are emotionally neutral.


Emotions dimensions

Research has identified six universal emotions: anger, fear, sadness, happiness, disgust and surprise.

Do these six basic emotions surface in the work place? Get angry after receiving a poor performance appraisal.

Variety


People give different responses to identify emotion – provoking stimuli.

In this case, this can be attributed to the individual personality. People vary in their inherent ability to express intensity. They are individuals who almost never show their feelings. They rarely get angry. In contrast, they are some people who seems to be emotional

roller-coaster. When they are happy, they are ecstatic. When they are sad, they’re deeply depressed.

Intensity


Values Defined as basic conviction that a specific mode of conduct or

end-state of existence is personally or socially preferable to an opposite or converse mode of conduct or end state of existence.

Values are closely link to self concept, who we think we are and how we think we world should be.

They contain a judgmental element in that thay carry an individual ideas about what is right, good and desirable.

All of us have a hierarchy of values that forms our value system. This is identify by the relative importance we assign to objects

of value such as freedom, pleasure, self-respect, honesty, obedience, equality, ethics and so forth.


Importance of values They are the foundation of our attitudes and motivation, and

influence our perceptions. Values can directly influence attitudes and behaviour. Supposed that you enter an organisation with the view that

allocating pay based performance and merit is right, whereas allocating pay based on seniority is wrong or inferior.

How are you going to react if you find that the organisation you have just joined reward seniority and not performance?

You are likely to be disappointed – and this can lead to job dissatisfaction and the decision not to exert a high level of effort since its probably not to lead to more money anyway.


Basic Motivation Concepts

Chapter 4

What is Motivation? Is the process that account for an individual’s intensity, direction and

persistence of effort towards attaining a goal. The three key elements in our definition are intensity, direction and

persistence. Intensity is how hard a person tries. High intensity is unlikely to lead to favourable job-performance

outcomes unless the effort is channelled in a direction that benefits the organisation.

Effort that is directed towards, and is consistant with, the organisaiton’s goal is the kind of effort that we should be seeking.

Finall, motivation has persistent dimension. This is a measure of how long a person can maintain his or her effort. Motivated individuals stays with a task long enough to achieve their

goal.

Chapter 4 – Basic Motivation Concepts

Hierarchy of needs theory Most well known theory of motivation is Abraham Maslow’s

hierarchy of needs. Maslow hypothesised that within every human being there exists a

hierarchy of five needs. These needs are:(1) Physiological – includes hunger, thirst, sex and other bodily needs.(2) Safety – includes security and protection from physical and emotional harm.(3) Social – includes affection, belongingness, acceptance and friendship.(4) Esteem – includes internal esteem factors such as self – respect, autonomy and achievement; and external esteem factors such as status, recognition and attention.(5) Self-actualisation – the drive to become one is capable of becoming: includes growth, achieving one’s potential and self-fulfilment.


According to Maslow, if you want to motivate someone, you need to understand what level of hierarchy that person is currently on focus on satisfying the need at the level or above.

Maslow separated the five needs into higher and lower orders. Physiological and safety needs were discribed as lower-order

needs. Social, esteem and self – actualisation needs are higher-order

needs. The differentiation between the two needs was made on the

premise that the higher-order needs are made in internally (within the person).

Whereas, lower order needs are prodominently satisfied externally (by such things as pay, union contracts and tenure).


Theory X and Y Douglas McGregor proposed two distinct views of human

beings: one basically negative labelled Theory X, and the other basically positive, labelled Theory Y.

McGregor concluded that manager’s view of the nature of human beings is based on a certain grouping of assumptions and that he or she tends to mould his or her behaviour towards employees according to these assumptions.


Under Theory X, the four assumptions held by managers are:

(1) Employees inherently dislike work and, whenever possible, will attempt to avoid it.(2) Since employees dislike work, they must be coerced, controlled or threatened with punishment in order to achieve goals.(3) Employees will avoid responsibilities and seek formal directions whenever possible.(4) Most workers place security above all other factors associated with work and will display little ambition.


Incontrast to this negative views about the nature of human beings, McGregor listed the four positive assumptions that he called Theory Y:

(1) Employees can view work as being as natural as rest or play.(2) People will exercise self-direction and self-control if they are commited to the objectives.(3) The average person can learnt to accept, even seek, responsibility.(4) The ability to make innovative decisions is widely dispersed through out the population and is not necessarily then sole province of those in management positions.


Two – factor theory The two factor theory (sometimes also called-hygiene theory)

was propose by psychologist Frederick Herzberg. The belief that an individual’s relation to work is basic and that

one’s attitude towards work can very well determine success or failure.

According to Herzberg, the factors leading to job satisfaction are separate and distinct fro those that lead to job dissatisfaction.

There, managers who seek to eliminate factors that can create jobs dissatisfaction may bring about peace but not necessarily motivation.


The criticism of the theory include the following is:(1). The procedure that Herzberg used is limited by its methodology. When things are going well, people tend to take credit themselves. Contrarlly, they blame failure on the intrinsic environment.(2). The reliability of Herzberg’s methodology is questioned. Raters have to make interpretations, so they may contaminate the findings by interpreting one response in one manner while treating a similar response differently.(3). No overall measure of satisfaction was utilized. A person may dislike part of his or her job yet still think the job is acceptable.(4). The theory is inconsistent with previous research. The two-factor theory ignores situational variables.(5). Herzberg assumed relationship between satisfaction and productivity, but the research methodology he used looked only on satisfaction, not at productivity. To make such research relevant, one must assume a strong relationship

between satisfaction and productivityChapter 4 – Basic Motivation Concepts

ERG theory Clayton Alderfer of Yale University in the United States reworked

Maslow’s needs hierarchy to aligned it more closely with empirical research.

His revised needs hierarchy is labelled ERG theory. Alderfer argues that there are three groups of core needs –

existence, relatedness and growth. The existence group is concerned with providing our basic

material requirements. This include items that Maslow considered to be physiological

and safety needs. The second group needs are those of relatedness – the desire

we have for maintaining important interpersonal relationships.


In contrast to the hierarchy of needs theory, the ERG theory demonstrate that:

(1) More than one need may be opearative at the same time, and(2) If the gratification of a higher level need is stifled, the desire to satisfy a lower level need increases.


A person for example, be working on growth even though existence or relatedness needs are unsatisfied; or

All three needs categories could be operating at the same time.

For example, a student pursuing a post graduate course may be doing so for growth needs.

The course may permit only limited time to spend with family or friends and may meant reduced income for the student.

Therefore, existence and relatedness needs may be dissatisfied


McClelland’s theory of needs Was developed by David McClelland and his associates. The theory focus on three needs: achievement, power and

affiliation. They are defined as follows:(1) Need for achievement – the drive to excel, to achieve in relation to a set of standards, to strive to succeed.(2) Need for power – the need to make others behave in a way that they wouldn’t have behaved otherwise.(3) Need for affiliation – the desire for friendly and close interpersonal relationships. Some people have a compelling drive to succeed. They are striving for personal achievement rather than the

rewards of success perse


They have desire to do something better or more efficiently than it’s been done before.

They seek situation in which they can attain personal responsibility for finding solutions to problems.

In which they can receive rapid feed back on their performance so that they can tell easily whether they can improve or not, in which they set moderately challenging goals.

High achievers aren’t gamblers; they dislike succeeding by chance.

They prefer the challenge of working a problem at a problem and accepting the personal responsibility for success or failure rather than leaving the outcome to chance or action of others.


The need of power is the desire to have impact, to be influential and to control others.

Individuals high in need of power enjoy being in charge, strive for influence over others.

Prefer to be placed in competitive and status orientated situations, and tend to be more concerned with prestige and gaining influence over others than effective performance.

Individuals with a high affiliation motive strives for friendship. Prefer cooperative situations rather than competitive ones. The desire relationships involving a high degree of mutual

understanding.



Achievers prefer jobs that offer

Personal responsibility

Feedback

Moderate risks

Individuals with a high need to achieve prefer job situation with personal reponsibility; feedback and intermediate degree of risk.

When these characteristics are prevalent, high achievers will be strongly motivated.

High need for achievement salesperson don’t need to be a good sales managers, and the good general manager in a large organization doesn’t typically have a high need to achieve.


Cognitive evaluation theory Defined as allocating extrinsic rewards for behaviour that had

been previously intrinsically rewarding tends to decrease the overall level of motivation.

Motivation theorist have generally assumed that intrinsic motivations such as achievement, responsibility and competence are independent of intrinsic motivators.

Such as high pay, promotions, good supervisor relations, and pleasant working conditions.

Cognitive evaluation theory argues that when intrinsic rewards are used by organization as payoff for supervisors performance, the intrinsic rewards, which are derive from individuals doing what they like are reduced.


In other word, when extrinsic rewards are given to someone for performing an interesting task, it causes intrinsic interest to decline.

Elimination of extrinsic rewards can produce a shift – from external to internal explanation in an individual’s perceptions of causation of why he or she works on a task.

If you are reading a novel a week because your English literature tutors requires you to, you can attribute your reading behaviour to an external source.

However, after the course is over, if you find yourself continuing to read a novel a week, your natural inclination to say ‘I must enjoy reading novels, because I’m still reading one a week’.


At the other extreme, on a dull task extrinsic rewards appear to increase intrinsic motivation.

Therefore, the theory may have limited applicability to work organization, because most low – level jobs aren’t inherently satisfying enough to foster high intrinsic interest and many managerial and professional positions offer intrinsic rewards.


Goal – setting theory Defined as theory that specific and difficult goals, with goad

feedbacks, lead to higher performance. Presupposes that an individuals is commited to the goal that is, is

determined not to lower or abandon the goal. This is likely to occur when goals are made public, when the

individual has an internal locus control, and when goals are self-set rather than assigned.

Self – efficacy refers to an individual’s belief that he or she is capable of performing a task.

The higher the self – efficacy, the more confidence you have in you ability to succeed in a task.


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 with try harder to master the challenge.

In addition, individuals high in self – efficacy seems to respond to negative feedback with increase effort and motivation.

Whereas, those low in self – efficacy are likely to lessen their effort when given negative feedbacks.

Research indicates that individual goal setting doesn’t work equally well on all task.

Evidence suggests that goals seem to have a more substantial effect on performance when tasks are simple rather than complex, well learnt rather than novel and independent rather than interdependent.


Reinforcement theory A centre point to goal – setting theory is reinforcement theory. Reinforcement theorist are behaviour as being environmentally

caused. Reinforcement theory ignores the inner state of the individual

and concentrates solely on what happens to a person when he or she takes action.

The behaviours you engage in at work and the amount of effort you allocate to each task are effected by the consequences that follow the behaviour.

For example, if you are consistenly reprimanded for outproducing your colleagues, you would probably reduce your productivity.


Equity theory The referent that an employee selects for comparison purposes adds to

the complexities of equity theory. There are four referent comparisons that an employee can use:(1) Self – inside: An employee’s experiences in a situation or position inside

his or her current organization.(2) Self – outside: An employee’s experiences in a situation or position

outside his or her current organization.(3) Other – inside: Another individual or group of individuals inside the

employee’s organization.(4) Other – outside: Another individual or group of outside the employee’s

organization. Research shows that both men and women prefer same – sex

comparisons. The research also demonstrates that women are typically paid less than

men in comparable jobs and have lower pay expectations than men for the same work.


Based on equity theory, when employees perceive an inequity, they can be predicted to make one of six choices:

(1) Change their inputs (e.g., don’t exert as much efforts)(2) Change their outcomes (e.g., individuals paid on a piece of –

rate basis can increase their pay by producing a higher quality of units of lower quality)

(3) Distort perceptions of self (e.g., “I used to think I worked at a moderate pace but now I realize that I work a lot harder than everyone else”)

(4) Distort perception of others (e.g., “Mike’s jobs isn’t as desirable as I previously thought it was”)

(5) Choose a different referent (e.g., ‘I may not make as much as my brother – in law, but I’m doing a lot better than my Dad when he was my age’)

(6) Leave the field (e.g., quit the job)


The theory establishes the following prepositions relating to inequitable pay:

(1) Given payment by time, over rewarded employees will produce more than will equitably paid employees. Hourly and salaried employees will generate higher quality or quality of production in order to increase the input side of the ratio and bring about equity.

(2) Given payment by quantity of production over-rewarded employees will produce fewer, but higher quality units than will equitably paid employess.

(3) Given payment by time, under-rewarded employees will produce less or poorer – quality output. Efforts will be decreased, which will bring about lower productivity or poorer quality output than equitably paid subjects.

(4) Given payment quality of production, under-rewarded employees will produce a large number of low quality units in comparison with equitably paid employees.


Expectancy theory Defined as 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 attractivesness of that outcome to the individual.

Expectancy theory says that employees will be motivated to exert high level of efforts when they believe that the effort will lead to good performance appraisal.

That appraisal will lead to organizational rewards such as bonus, a salary increase or promotion, and that the rewards will satisfy the employees’ personal goals.


The theory, therefore, focuses on three relationship:(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 believers that 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.


1. Effort performance relationship2. Performance – reward relationship3. Reward – personal goals relationship


Individual effort

Individual performance

Organisational rewards Personal goals

Firstly, if you give a maximum effort, will it be recognized in performance appraisal? The answer is ‘no’ why?

Their skill level may be deficient which means that no matter how hard they try, they’re not likely to be high performers.

Secondly, if you get a goal performance appraisal, will it lead to organizational rewards?

Many employees see performance rewards relationship in their jobs as weak.

For example, when pay is allocated to employees based on factors such as seniority being cooporative or ‘sucking up’ the boss emloyees sees performance reward relationship as weak and demotivating.


Finally, if you are rewarded, are the rewards ones that you find personally attractive?

The employees work hard in the hope of getting a promotion get a pay rise instead;

Or employees wants a more interesting and challenging job instead receive a word of praise.


Effective Leadership

Chapter 5

What is Leadership?

Leadership is ‘the ability to influence and develop individuals and teams to achieve goals that contribute to worthwhile purpose’ (Robbins et.al, 2001 p.)

Leadership can occur on one-to-one basic, can influence an entire team, or can be involved in affecting an entire business, government or community organization.

Some people can get people to do something only with force, whereas a leader uses influences.

Chapter 5 – Effective Leadership

Just because an organization provides its managers with certain rights is no assurance that they will lead effectively.

We may find that leadership that emerges informally from within the group has more influence than the formally appointed leader.

An effective leader therefore contributes to the good of the staff, the organization and the larger community in which the organization participates.



Leadership and management

Managers who are not Leaders

Leaders who are not Managers

Managers who also Leaders

Over 70 years of research of leaders seems to point to eight consistent traits on which leaders differ from non-leaders:(a) Honesty and integrity(b) Intelligence(c) Self-confidence(d) Emotional maturity(e) Stress tolerance(f) Task – relevant knowledge(g) Ambition and high energy(h) The desire to lead

Personality and traits of leaders


The possession of five components of emotional intelligence (EI) – self awareness, self management, self motivation, empathy and social skills – help an individual to become a successful leader.

The evidence indicates that the higher the rank of a person to be an exceptional performer, the more the EI skills surfacea as a reason for his or her effectiveness.

EI has been shown to be positively related to job performance at all levels.

This especially relevant in jobs that demand a high degree of social interaction.

Emotional intelligence


Conger and kanungo propose that the key characteristics of charismatic leaders compared with non-charismatic leaders can be summarized as follows:

(1) Self-confidence: They have complete confidence in their judgment and ability.

(2) A vision: This is an idealised goal that proposes a future better than the status quo. The greater the disparity between this idealises goals and the status quo, the more likely that the followers will attribute extraordinary vision to the leader.

Charismatic leadership


(3) Ability to articulate the vision: They are able to clarify and state the vision in term that are understand to others. This articulation demonstrates an understanding of the followers’ needs and hence, acts as motivating vision.

(4) Strong conviction about the vision: Charismatic leaders are perceived as being strongly committed and willing to take on high personal risk, to incur high costs, and to engage in self-sacrifice in order to achieved their vision.


(5) Behaviour that is our of the ordinary: Those with charisma engage in behavior that is perceived as being novel, unconventional and counter to norm. When successful, these behaviours evoke surprise and admiration in followers.

(6) Perceived as a change agent: Charismatic leaders are perceived as agent of radical change, rather than as caretakers of the status quo.

(7) Environment sensitivity: These leaders are able to make realistic assessments of the environment constraints resources needed to bring about change.


It is defined as a contingency theory that focus on followers’ maturity.

One of the widely used model. Successful leadership is achieved by selecting the right

leadership style, which is contingent on the level of followers’ development level.

It is the followers who accept or reject the leaders, so they are important factors in a leader’s success.

Situational leadership


The term developmental level, as defined by Blanchard, is the skill and willingness of people to take responsibility for directing their own behaviour.

Is has two components: competence and motivation. Competence encompasses knowledge and skills. Individuals who are high in competence have the

knowledge, ability and experience to perform their job tasks without direction from others.

Motivation relates to the willingness or enthusiasm to do something.

Individuals high in motivation don’t nees much external encouragement; they are already keen to perform well.


Situational leadership combines four leadership styles: directing, coaching, supporting and delegating:

(1) Directing (high directive – low supportive): The leader defines roles and tells people what task to do, and how, when and where to do them. It emphasizes directive behaviour.

(2) Coaching (high directive supportive): The leader provides both directive behaviour and supportive behaviour.

(3) Supporting (low directive – low supportive): The leader and follower share in decision making, with the main role of the leader being facilitating and communicating.

(4) Delegating (low directive supportive): The leader provides little direction or support.


Is a motivational to the degree that(i) It makes subordinate need satisfaction contingent on

effective performance, and(ii) It provides the coaching, guidance, support and

rewards that are necessary for effective performance. A leader will be effective if the follower participates in

goals setting and get regular feed back on how he or she is doing in reaching these goals and obtaining the desired rewards. If the subordinate sees the process as fair and consistent.

Path – goal theory


House identified four leadership behaviours. The directive leader lets subordinates know what is

expected of them, schedules work to be done, and give specific guidance as how to accomplished task.

The supportive leader is friendly and shows concern for needs of surbodinates.

The participative leader consults with subordinates and uses their suggestions before making a decision.

The achievement – oriented leader sets challenging goals and expects subordinates to perform at the highest level.


(i) Transactional leaders – leaders who guide or motivate their followers in the direction of established goals by clarifying role and task requirement.

Example, Fiedler’s model, situational leadership, path-goal theory and leader – participation model

(ii) Transformational leaders – leaders who provide individualized consideration and intellectual stimulation, and who possess charisma.

Example, Jack Welsch at General Electric, Bob Ansett at Budget, Richard Branson of the Virgin Group

Transformational leadership


This type of leader also pays attention to the concerns and developmental needs of individual followers; they change followers awareness of issues by helping them to look at old problems in a new way.

They are able to excite, arouse and inspire followers to put extra effort in order to achieve group goals.

Transformational leaders are built on top of transactional leaders.


Researchers have shown that a leader’s ability to follow through on promised reward transactions is an indicator that the leader is honest, consistent with word or actions and can be trusted.

All of which are part of transformational leaders. Transformational leadership produces levels of

employee effort and performance that go beyond what would occur with a transactional approach alone.


The ability to create and articulate a real, credible, attractive vision of the future for an organization or team.

A vision is a clear and compelling imagery offers an innovative way to improve, which recognizes and draws on tradition and connects to actions that people can take to realize change.

Vision tape people emotion and energy. Properly articulated, a vision creates the enthusiasm

that people have on sporting events and other leisure-time activities, bringing this energy and commitment ti the workplace.

Visionary leadership


Vision should be inspirational, unique and offer a new order that produce organizational distinction.

A vision is likely to fall if it doesn’t offwer a view of the future that is clearly and demonstrably better for the organisation and its members.

People in the organisation must also believe that the vision is attainable.

Visions that have clear articulation and power imagery are more easily grasped and accepted.

An example of this type of vision is Michael Dell’s creation of business that sell and delivers Dell computer directly to a consumer in less than eight days.


Another example is Rupert Murdoch’s vision of the future of the communication industry by combining entertainment and media.

Visionary leaders appear to have three qualities needed to be effective leaders.

First, is the ability to explain the vision to others. The leader needs to make the vision clear in term of

required actions and aim through clear oral and written communication.

Ronald Reagan, the so-called great communicator, had a simple vision he was able to communicate clearly to the American people: reduce the size of government and taxes in order to unleash private enterprise and built a strong military.


Understanding and Building Teams

Chapter 6

Group and team are not the same. A group is defined as two or more individuals, interacting

and interdependent, who have come together to achieve particular objectives.

A work group is a group that interacts primarily to share information and to make decisions to help each member perform within his or her area of responsibility.

Work groups have no need or opportunity to engage in collective work that requires joint effort.

So their performance is merely the summation of each group member’s individual contribution.

Chapter 6 – Understanding and Building Teams

How is a team different from a group?

A work team generates positive synergy through coordinated effort.

Individual effort results in a level performance that is greater than the sum of those individual inputs.

A team gets a greater degree of individual commitment the common shared goal.

The welfare of the team is placed ahead of the welfare of the individuals in the team, which not be the case in a group.

Individuals want to belong to and identify with a team.


The team also has a unique indentity (the ‘Eagles’, the ‘Corporate Cup Team’) or special purpose that members place above their own self-interest.

There is a greater degree of cohesion among team members and commitment toward achievement of goals.

The efforts of the team members result in more synergy and may achieve a better performance.

Managers need positive synergy so that their organization can increase performance.

The extensive use of teams creates the potential for an organization to generate greater outputs with no increase in input.


Work teams are the types of team most people think of when discussing teams.

Work teams are continuing work units responsible for producing goods and services.

Their membership is usually stable, usually full time, and well defined.

Work team are usually found in manufacturing and service settings: examples include mining crews, clothing manufacturing team, audit team and nursing teams.

Traditionally, work teams are directed by supervisors who make most of the decision about what is done, how it is done and who does it.


Types of teams

The four most common form of work teams you’re likely to find in an organization are: Problem-solving teams Self-managed work teams Cross-functional teams Virtual teams.


In problem-solving teams, members share ideas or offer suggestions about how work processes and methods can be improved.

One of the most widely practiced applications of problem-solving teams during the 1980’s were quality circles.

Quality circles are employee groups that meet regularly to discuss and solved problems related to productions, service and quality.


Problem solving teams

They use tools and techniques to examine these problems and to present to management solutions and the costs and benefits of solving a problem.

Studies of quality circles have shown thay they lowered absenteeism rates and improved employee productivity in some organisations but have no effect on employees’ perception of the necessary core job characteristics.

Although quality circles have been a popular form of groups in organisations, evident suggests that they have had relatively little enduring impact on organizational effectiveness.


Self-managed work-teams are groups of employees (typically between 10 and 15 in number) who performed highly related or interdependent jobs and take on many of the responsibilities of their former supervisors.

Typically, this includes planning and scheduling of work, assigning tasks to members, collective control over the pace of work, making operating decisions and taking action on problems.

Self-managed teams set the overall objectives. Fully self-managed work team even select their own

members and have the members evaluate each other’s performance.


Self-managed work teams

As result, supervisory position decreased in importance and may even be eliminated.

Some organisations have been disappointed with the results from self-managed teams.

For example, they don’t seem to work well during organizational downsizing.

Employees often view corporating with the team concept as an exercise in assisting on’s executioner.


Cross-functional teams are teams made up of employees from about the sane hierarchical level, but from different work areas, who come together to accomplished a task.

Air asia used staff from flight crews, ramp personnel, mechanics, dispatchers and reservation agent to form a cross-functional team to develop a low-fare airline.

For example, Chrysler’s Neon was developed completely by a cross-functional team.

The model was delivered in a speedy 42 months and for a fraction of what any other manufacturer’s small cars had cost.


Cross-functional team

Cross-functional team are an effective means for allowing people from diverse areas within an organisaition (for even organisations) to exchange information, develop new ideas and solved problems, and coordinate complex projects.

Their early stages of development are often time-consuming as members learn to work with diversity and complexity.

It takes time to build trust and team work, especially among people from different backgrounds and with different experiences and perspectives.


Virtual teams use computer technology to tie together physically dispersed members in order to achieve a common goal.

They allow people to collaborate on line – using communication links such as wide area networks, video conferencing or e-mail – whether they’re only a room away or continents apart.

Virtual teams can do all things that other teams do – share information, make decisions and complete taks.


Virtual teams

The three primary factors that differentiate virtual teams from face-to-face teams are:

(1) The absent of paraverbal and non-verbal cues;(2) Limited social context; and(3) The ability to overcome time and space constraints. In face-to-face conversation, people use paraverbal

(tone of one voice, inflection, voice tone) and non-verbal (eye movement, facial expression, hand gestures and other body language) cues.


These help to clarify communication by providing increased meaning, but they aren’t available in on-line interactions.

Virtual teams suffers from less social rapport and less direct interaction among members.

They aren’t able to duplicate the normal give and take of face-to-face discussion.

Virtual teams are able to do their work even if members are thousand kilometers apart and separated by a dozen or more zones.

They allow people to work together who might otherwise never be able to collaborate.


Building Better Teams

Chapter 7

There are eight common approaches to building a high performing team:

(1) Establish directions and urgency.(2) Set clear, challenging goals and define immediate tasks

with the times by which they need to be completed.(3) Establish clear rules of behavior and expectations of team

members.(4) Select team members based on skills and potential, not

on qualifications or previous status.(5) Ensure that meetings are efficient and useful outcomes.(6) Challenging the group regularly with new facts and

information.(7) Spend time together removing interpersonal barriers.(8) Use positive feedback, recognition and reward.

Chapter 7 – Building Better Teams

Effectiveness in teams can be defined by:(1) The team-produced outputs (quantity or quality, speed,

customer and satisfaction, and so on;(2) The consequences a team has for its members (for

example, satisfaction, commitment, trust); or(3) The enhancement of a team’s ability to perform

effectively in the future. Others have added behavior measures such as

absenteeism, turnover and safety. The way a team functions can vary depending upon a

large number of variable, such as the task, the skills its members possess, the resources it has and the leadership style.


Models of team effectiveness

The way a team functions can vary depending upon a large number of variable, such as the task, the skills its members possess, the resources it has and the leadership style.

Different models of teamwork organize and present different team variables in different ways.

The developmental model is based on the following key elements: purpose and goals; team roles and leadership:

procedures/resources/technology; team processes; relationships and values; development and learning; and environmental/organizational


If a team doesn’t clarify its primary purpose or vision, there can be a considerable misuse of time and energy.

Identifying and reaching consensus on the central mission of a team and its key objectives is vital to the success if the team.

For example, the development team at Apple Computers that designed.

The Macintosh was fanatically committed to creating a user-friendly machine that would revolutionise the way people used computers.

The manager and team need to determine the appropriate measures of success and ways to keep the team pursuing important goals.


Purpose and goals

Meredith Belbin has developed a model (measured by a questionnaire called the Self Perception Index) which establishes eight team roles.

(1) Chairperson/coordinator: The chairperson is a coordinator of the activities and skills of the team. The chairperson encourages contributions from each

team member and keeps the team directed to achieve the objectives.

People in this role can be so busy coordinating other people’s inputs that they are unable to use their creativity or intellectual ability.


Team roles and leadership

(2) Company worker: This team member has strong drive to achieve organization or team goals. Company workers focus more on the team goals than on relationshipps within the team. They can be great contributors to team performance, but can sometimes lack concern for the welfare of the other team members.

(3) Shaper: The shaper likes to contribute ideas and direction to the team, but doesn’t necessarily like to lead. Shapers often challenge inertia or complacency in the

team. They are often intelligent, have a high drive to achieve,

and may be assertive and highly strung. They can become frustrated and impatient if their ideas aren’t accepted.


(4) Resource investigator: Resource investigators bring information and new ideas, and explore interests, or resources that might be of use to the group. They are usually extroverted, sociable and fairly stable. They can sometimes lose interest in ideas or new

programs once they are started, and want to move on the other things without completing the details.

(5) Monitor evaluator: The role examines and tests the validity of the team’s plans and thoughts. The monitor evaluator evaluates and criticizes the

methods and concepts of the group and forces the group to make the best decision possible.

The monitor evaluator can sometimes be overly critical and lack inspiration or innovativeness.


(6) Team worker: This person maintains harmony and team spirit between the team members. The welfare of each team member and the sense of

camaraderie is more important than the organization’s objectives at times.

The team worker is often extroverted, sociable and gregarious.

A team can have a number of team workers because they are the ‘lubricators’ of team spirit.

Sometimes the team worker can be indecisive and unable to make a tough decision when needed.


(7) Plant/originator: Plants are often intelligent, independent an introverted. They are contributors of unique ideas and innovative

approaches to solving problems facing the team. If they ideas are not practical and relevant to the

team, they can be considered ‘up in the cloud’ or vague.


(8) Finisher: The finisher is a detail person and is ideal to check and ensure that the team has completed the task correctly and not left out any necessary aspects of the work. The finisher can sometimes pay too much attention to

detail and can be too much of a perfectionist, worrying over small details and being unable to let things go.

Belbin studied various groups and compared how they performed with different mixtures of roles.

He used various personally questionnaires such as the Myers-Briggs Type indicator and the 16 PF to analyse these group roles.


Belbin’s approach the effective teamwork suggests that all of these roles need to be covered by a team.

In some cases, a person may have to play two or more roles, and different types of teams may require more emphasis on certain roles.

A community group may need more team workers, while a firm on the stock market may need more company workers.

One study has shown that managers in the public sector prefer to adopt different roles from those in the private sector.

Local government managers had a strong preference for the teamwork role.


The procedures that organize and control a team’s work can strongly influence its performance.

Approval and use of resources, working conditions, technical expertise and decision-making procedures shape the way a team functions.

In addition, the evaluation and reward systems are major motivating factors for a team.

The right mixture of individual and group evaluation and rewards must be carefully looked at.

The volume of resources available, and the way allocated, can affect internal relationships as well as outcomes had less conflict than those teams with an abundance of resources or those that were extremely lacking in resources.


Procedures/resources/technology

While many teams are not virtual teams, they are using computers a great deal to assist in their communication and decision-making processes.

Computers are increasingly used to help conduct meeting, generate ideas and make decisions.

Computer-mediated groups appear to be superior at generating ideas, but face-to-face groups are better at problem-solving tasks and in situations requiring resolution of conflict.

Teams that used computers to assist in decision making had increased decision quality, increased level of task focus, equalify of participation and took longer to make decisions.


Use of computers to support decision making, however, led to decreases in overall consensus and in satisfaction with the process and the decision.

Computer-mediated groups tend to have less interaction and exchange than do face-to-face groups and tend to take longer in their work, according to some studies.

Computer-aided teams make more risky or extreme decisions, and hostile or extreme communications (such as ‘flaming’) than in face-to-face groups.

Members of the team are also more critical of ideas proposed, more probing in their questioning, and likely to generate questions and ideas.


Team processes also consist of the way a team communicates and informs each other about important issues on a regular basis.

Some groups have morning coffee together; others have notice.

Boards that inform team members of where other members are or what projects they are working on.

These processes also cover how they make decisions (for example, by consensus or by a few of the senior members). Members of the team need to be skilled in conducting team processes.

This involves skills in listening and communicating, partipating in meetings and problem solving.


Team leaders need to have facilitation skills and the ability to lead and control meetings.

Extensive research on teams that review and improve their team processes achieve high team performance.

This includes reviewing what actions were helpful and unhelpful in achieving the group’s goal and maintaining working relationships, how they made decisions, and how that could have been done better.

Sufficient time has to be allowed for this review to take place, and the review needs to be specific rather than vague.


Poor interpersonal relationships between team members is often at the centre of many team problems.

Lack of trust, conflict between specific team members, dislike of the leader’s style and other factor contribute to problems in this area.

No matter how much is done to correct the procedures, resources, team roles or goals, some cannot function because of personal feuds, among team members.

In high-performing teams, individuals go beyond just having good interpersonal relations; they also promote, encourage and facilitate one another’s efforts and well-being in order to achieve success.


Relationship and values

They have a similar set of values and beliefs about what they want the team to be and their contribution to customers. They are active in providing each other with useful information and feedback.

They also challenge one another’s views in order to provide deeper insight into problems.

Several studies have shown that the greater the openness and communication between team members, the more effective the team is.

Increasing automation of aero-planes, for example, was shown to reduce interpersonal communication between crew members and resulted in poorer decision during emergencies.


However, spending more time together and learning to operate as team has been shown to help both airline and military flight crews make fewer mistakes and the individual members to perform better.


This is considered the foundation level of a team’s activity, because it refers to the level of openness between team members, how the team learns and corrects its mistakes, and the wisdom of the leader in assessing the best way to handle the team in different situation.


Development and learning

Teams are almost always embedded in larger organizational systems.

The factors that bring about team effectiveness are therefore tied to the nature and effectiveness of the entire organization.

Changes in team effectiveness or organizational system can have consequences for the team and the organization.

The relationship and fit between the team and the larger organization can therefore play a major role in determining the team’s performance and the satisfaction of the team.


Environment/organizational fit

Education

Organization Behavior