Organisational Behavior - Take Home Test

Well, since I have done it to my best abilities with soo many hours spent, I think I'll post my test answer rather than it stays languishing in my PC..

TEST
MGT 700 – Organizational Behavior
Answer ALL

1. Senior officers in a national military organization decided that operations in supplies requisition were inefficient and costly. They brought in consultants who recommended that the entire requisition process be ‘reengineered’. This involved throwing out the old practices and developing an entirely new set of work activities around workflow. However, contrary to expectations, this intervention resulted in lower productivity, higher employee turnover and other adverse outcomes. Discuss likely problems with the intervention in terms of systems theory.

The systems theory can be divided into open system and close system.

Open systems refers to organizations that take their sustenance from the environment and, in turn, affect that environment through their output.

Organizations are complex, open, social system that adapt and cope to survive and prosper. Successful adaptation requires an effective change with the environment. By complex means that an organization has a variety of facets in which its design, people, culture, leadership behavior, human resources etc as well as its sub-units, divisions, groups and interdependent and continuously engaged to achieve fit or congruence.

It takes sustenance from the environment and by their outputs, which also effect the environment. An organization survival and success therefore depends on how its employees received the environmental changes and adjust their pattern of behavior accordingly to fit the changes. For an organization continual survival and success, the cyclical continues process such be self sustaining.

For the military organization, the system theory can be summarized as such:
• External environment or inputs are the consultant’s recommendation for the entire requisition process to be reengineered
• The output is the lower productivity, higher employee turnover and other adverse outcomes; all of which can be valued such as the external environment such as the military system suppliers

Changes mail fail due to these causes;

• The organization as a whole fails to adapt to the changing environment i.e. even though the change only effect the supply requisition, the other units that are affected by it, may not be able to cope with the changed system.
• The management therefore should take note of the system needs e.g. separate units that are related to the supplies requisitions. All adverse considerations and comments should be taken into accounts first before adapting the change.
• The staff’s need and concern need to be address. Briefings may also be conducted prior to the reengineering exercise so that they feel included and their concerns are addressed so that they are able to accept the massive change.
• Outside factors such as the stakeholders should also be informed and taken notice of the change as they are able to influence the organization’s input and ability to produce the output i.e. the efficient and more economical supply requisition
• Leaders in the military should also have the ability to confront resistance to change and developed required commitments and skills from subordinates in accepting the revised changes.

To ensure the new requisition system is successful, some of the steps that can be taken that it can be integrated into the system are:
• Ensuring that the staffs affected are aware and able to give inputs and suggestions, not just directly accepting the consultant’s suggestions only, which may result in resistance thus the in lower productivity, higher employee turnover and other adverse outcomes
• Ensuring that the staffs are aware of the changes taking place and all their concern and confusions are addressed so that they are more positive in accepting the changes

Closed system in contrast, has all the resources needed to survive without dependence on the external environment.

In this regard, the adverse result due to the reengineering exercise will only be due to the internal systems i.e. the employees, units and divisions in the military organization.

Although no outside factors intervenes e.g. shareholders or suppliers, maybe the staffs need and concerns are not addressed. This in turn may affect the personnel in the supplier requisition that may feel threaten or inadequate by the new system. They may therefore quit as they are not able to cope. Those who remain may also resist changes by not performing or refused to adapt to the change and therefore lowering their productivity.

As the internal systems are interrelated, the adverse effect the supplier requisition may indirectly affect the other unit, therefore further increasing employee’s turnovers, lower productivity and other adverse effects.
2a. The sales office of a large industrial products wholesale company has an increasing problem that salespeople are arriving late at the office each morning. Some sales reps go directly to visit clients rather than showing up at the office as required by company policy. Others arrive several minutes after their appointed start time. The vice-president of sales doesn’t want to introduce time clocks, but this may be necessary if the lateness problem isn’t corrected. Using the MARS model of individual behaviour diagnose the possible reasons why salespeople may be engaging in this ‘lateness’ behaviour.

MARS Model highlights the factors that directly influence an employee’s voluntary behaviour and resulting performance – Motivation, Ability, Role perceptions and Situational factors.

The possible reasons for the tardiness and disregard of the company’s policy are:

1) Motivation represents the forces within a person that affect his or her direction, intensity and persistence of voluntary behaviour. In this regard:-
i) The salespersons are not motivated to adhere to the company’s policy of arriving on time or to report at the office before meeting up clients (Direction i.e. choices on where to put their effort)
ii) As some sales persons are arriving late, some of the other salespersons are influenced to join in (Intensity i.e. amount of effort allocated to the goal)
iii) The existing scenario may influence the policy abiding salesperson’s persistence to crumble and to also join in the late comers (Persistence – continuing the effort for a certain amount of time).

2) Ability is the natural aptitudes and learned capabilities required to successfully complete a job.
i) It seems that the employees are not aware of the seriousness of the start-on-time policy. Maybe they are not briefed that there are no tolerance for latecomers or that everybody have to come clocked-in first before they meet clients.
ii) In this regard, they learned in the sense that the behaviour is tolerable as the management did not take any disciplinary action. They may think that lateness is ok especially when other senior people may also be showing the bad example of clocking on late.

3) Role Perception is which employees understand their functions, the relative importance / priority of their task and thirdly they understand the preferred behaviour on how to achieve the tasks.
i) In this case, the company had never put in time clocks to check the employees’ attendances. The employees may therefore have the wrong conception that coming to the office on time or reporting duty first to the office before meeting clients is not a company requirement. They may only think that the company practises open policy in which only sales figure or tasks completion matters.

4) Situational factors include conditions beyond employee’s immediate control that constraint of facilitate their performances and behaviour
i) In this regard, certain employee may have the discipline to arrive on time. However, due to the situational factor i.e. as some of the salesperson is tardy, the other employee may be influence to follow. This is showed by the increasing problem of lateness.
ii) The team norm of lateness also means that the other members tolerate and expect the tardiness.
iii) As the company had tolerated this form of behaviour so far especially with no reprimand or punch clock, the employees may think that the company has no problem with its workers coming later that the actual time.


b. Store #34 of CDA Hardware Associates has had below average sales over the past few years. As head of franchise operations, you are concerned with the continued low sales volume. The store manager wants you to diagnose the problem and recommend possible causes. Use the MARS model of individual behaviour and performance to provide four different types of reasons why employees at Store #34 might be performing below average. Provide one example for each type of explanation.

According to MARS Model of Individual Behaviour and Performances, the four reasons for the below average sales are:

1) Motivation

In this regard, Store #34 employees are not motivated enough to push up sales figure. They may think that the current level is already satisfactory therefore they are not motivated enough to approach and persuade customers to buy the hardware products.

Motivation has three components which are direction (targeted sales volume), intensity (no extra effort to push towards that figure) and persistence (no drive to continue the effort for certain amount of time).

To boost motivation, maybe the management could tie up store’s remuneration or bonuses based on their individual sales volume. By establishing a target sale for the store and the rewards in achieving it, employees will then become motivated in pushing themselves to achieve the directed target.

The management may also announce a monetary bonus or a family day vacation for the whole employees should the store target achieved certain preset target. This will encourage all employees to become motivated in helping each other in achieving the target.

2) Ability

Store #34 employees may not have the necessary ability to increase sales figure. Maybe they are not taught the skills needed to push sales to customers such as effective sales techniques. In this regard, the employees may be given classes or seminar on how to boost sales, customer relationship and satisfaction etc.

Employees may also be ignorant of the company’s rules and procedures. In this regard, they can be given a set of rules / guidebook to ensure they know the role of a good salesperson. This will in turn boost the store’s sales.

Ignorance of the company’s products: Uninformed employees may therefore be required to be briefed about the store and the products sold when they first started to work there. From time to time, briefings can be made to update them on the current developments of the existing range of products or introductions to new products.

Mismatch of workers’ capacity and capability with the work given to them may also be a factor. The management should evaluate their staff’s personalities for example those who are energetic, talkative and friendly can be positioned in the frontline or sales units. Those who are moody, grumpy or introvert can be tasked to do inventory etc.

3) Role Perceptions

The employees may not be aware of the tasks specifically assigned to them; the relative importance of the tasks in achieving the company’s objective i.e. to get the pre determined sales values and preferred behaviour in achieving those tasks.

In this case, maybe the company can conduct briefings or pep talk from time to time to remind the employees what is required of them which are to boost sales and achieved target.

The company may also nominate awards such as “Outstanding Employee of The Month” so that other employees can emulate their peer who has outstanding and exemplary performance. This will ensure the other employee can better understand the example they are supposed to follow.

4) Situational Factors

Sometime, some factors are beyond the employees or management control such as economic condition or consumer preference for example:

i) The country is experiencing slow economic condition due to the current high oil prices. In this case, the customers will prefer buying important things such as food etc to hardware.
ii) Store #34 may also have not-updated inventory of hardware products or carry unpopular brands therefore consumer are not interested to make purchases unless urgently needed, this may also make consumers to prefer shopping elsewhere for their hardware
iii) The situational factors may also be internal such as there are no budgets for the sales department to spruce up display that may attract customers. Others are factors of people, budget and physical facilities.


3. Friendly Cafe is a chain of coffee shops located throughout Canada. The company president wants your management-consulting firm to use behavioural modelling to improve customer service skills among servers. Give two explanations why behavioural modelling may be an effective learning strategy in this situation and identify two important characteristics of the behaviour model.

Behavioural Modelling is lesson learned by observing behaviour of a role models’ on a critical tasks, remembering the important element of the observed behaviour, and then practising those behaviour. It works best when the model is respected and its action is followed by favourable consequences.

In this regard, Behavioural Modelling is an effective learning strategy for customer service skills improvement because:

1) Observation plays main part in tacit knowledge and skills acquisitions

In this case, it maybe difficult to emulate good customer services by reading a manual book or verbally explaining the tasks of good customer servicing, In this regard, it can be suggested that the company trains its staffs by attaching them with an exemplary staff with good customer skills for them to observe his action (the way he/she served a customer) and the consequence (the customer is satisfied with the service and will return back to Friendly café for their next coffee break).

2) By seeing somebody perform the work, the employees will have stronger belief that they can perform work after seeing somebody perform the tasks with the effect stronger when somebody whom the observed is similar to them in respect, experience and gender

It can be suggested that an exemplary front liner staff from the other Friendly Café’s coffee chain (maybe Friendly Café has somebody it awarded as “Best Customer Services Skill” among all of it cafes. This person can be asked to come to individual servers to demonstrate how he/she handles customer servicing. This will affect the other server’s staffs’ confidence that they can do the same exemplary customer services especially he/she is similar to them as Friendly Café’s employee and have same experience and working in the same chain of cafes and serving the same brand of coffee.

To better understand Behaviour Modelling, the A-B-C’s of Behaviour Modification can be used. The behaviour modification’s central objective is to change behaviour (B) by managing its antecedents (A) and consequences (C);

• Event preceding behavior is called antecedents (A) and it lets an employee know that a particular action will lead to a specific consequence.
• Behavior (B) is what a person does or says in a certain situation.
• Consequences (c) are events that follow a particular behaviour which in turn influence future occurrences. The usual behavioural consequences are people will repeat behaviour that resulted in pleasant or positive consequences and will avoid or less likely to repeat a behaviour that resulted in unpleasant consequences or no consequences at all.

Two important characteristics of this behaviour are:

1) Contingencies of Reinforcements

Behavior can be strengthen, maintained or weakened by four types of consequences:

o Positive reinforcement – happens when a consequence increases or maintains the frequency or future of the behavior’s probability to repeat
o Punishment – is when a consequence decrease the frequency and probability of the behavior to occur in the future
o Negative reinforcement – happens when by removing or avoiding a consequence increase or maintain the frequency or future probability of the behavior
o Extinction – occurs when the targeted behavior decrease as no consequence will follow it

2) Schedules of Reinforcements

Employee behavior or action are also influenced by the timing and frequency of the above reinforcement contingencies and can be divided into:
o Continuous improvements – by giving positive reinforcement after every occurrence of the desired behavior
o Fixed ratio schedule – in which reinforcement is given after a fixed number of approved behaviors or accomplishments
o Fixed interval schedule – reinforcement will be given after a certain fixed period
o Variable interval ratio – reinforcement is given after a variable amount of time


4. Several junior investment analysts recently hired by a major firm have been placed under the guidance of senior investment analyst Roger Yu. One of the new recruits, Daphne Silberg, is the daughter of a well-known mutual fund executive who retired from the industry a few years ago. Yu has a lot of respect for Silberg’s father and has quickly developed the belief that Daphne could be as successful as her father. Based on your knowledge of self-fulfilling prophecy, explain how Yu’s expectations of Daphne might unknowingly turn into a reality.

Self Fulfilling Prophecy occurs when our expectation of another person affects that person to act in a way that is consistent with those expectations.

In this regard, Roger’s expectation of Daphne being as successful as her father may in reality affected her to become another well-known mutual fund executive.

The four steps of Self Fulfilling Prophecy are:

1) Expectations formed.
o Roger has formed expectation that Daphne will possess the same characteristic and performance as her father and ultimately become as successful as her father as a mutual fund executive.

2) Behaviour towards the employee.
o Roger’s expectation will affect him in term of giving more positive feedback to Daphne. This includes giving her more emotional support through non verbal cue (more smiling and eye contact), more frequent and valuable feedback and reinforcements, more challenging goals, better training and more opportunities to demonstrate their performance.

3) Effects on the employee.
o Roger’s behaviour will have two effects on Daphne:-
 High expectancy employee such as Daphne will learn more skills and knowledge due to better training and more practice opportunities;
 Daphne will also have more self confidence and therefore more highly motivated and more willing to set more challenging goals

4) Employee behaviour and performance.
o With higher motivation and better skills, high expectancy employee such as Daphne will more likely to demonstrate desired behaviour and better performance i.e. she will show traits of a successful mutual fund executive.
o Roger will notice this, and therefore his perception of Daphne is supported.

As Daphne is a new recruit of the firm, the self fulfilling properties are more powerful as the situation happened in the beginning of a relationship and Daphne will therefore be more susceptible to the encouraging and nurturing behaviour of Roger towards her.


5. A supervisor receives regular information about a sales employee’s performance (e.g. sales volume, incomplete paperwork, etc.) and must complete a performance appraisal of the person’s work. The supervisor has a complete description of the employee’s job but has never worked in the field as a sales representative. Moreover, the supervisor is relatively new to this job and therefore has little experience observing or appraising the performance of salespeople.

a. Explain the attribution error that is likely to occur under these conditions and what effect would it have on the performance appraisal results?

Attribution Error refers to our tendency to see the person rather than the situation as the main cause of that person behaviour.

As the supervisor is new and only have little experience on a salesperson’s performance, he cannot easily see the external factors that may constraint the salespeople’s performance. Another reason is that he may believe in the power of the salespeople i.e. assuming that they are able to overcome shortcomings more than what they really can.

In this regard, the supervisor may blame the salespeople directly based on unfavourable information e.g. low sales volume and no of incomplete paperwork and therefore may give unfavourable result to the salespeople without looking at situational factors that may affect the salespeople’s behaviour such as economic downturn, sickness in the family or weather condition affecting sales (e.g. air conditioner sales will go down during winter) etc.

On the other hand, the supervisor will give favourable result to salespeople with high sales volume and pristine paperwork without considering situational factors.

b. Justify to what extent is halo effect a problem here?

Halo effect occurs when our general impression of a person, usually based in one prominent characteristic, color our perception of other characteristic of that person.

Halo effect will most likely occur when concrete information of the perceived target is missing or we are not sufficiently motivated to search for it.

In this regard, halo effect is likely to occur as even though the supervisor has regular information and complete description, he do not have the experience of working as a salespeople or observing / appraising a salespeople performance.

The supervisor may use his general impression of the salespeople to fill the missing information. For example, he may be very up-to-date in his paper works; therefore he might view salespeople with incomplete paperwork with negative image and evaluate the people’s other traits negatively as well. He will therefore give low marks for the person’s performance appraisal.

On the other hand, if some salespeople have low sales volume, but better updated paperwork, the supervisor will tend to still give favorable performance appraisal than salespeople with both low sales volume and incomplete paperwork.


6a. Four-drive theory is one of the few theories of motivation that recognizes the central role of human emotions in the motivation process. Explain how four-drive theory applies emotions to employee motivation.

Four drive theory is a motivation theory based on the innate drive to acquire, bond, learn and defend that incorporates both emotions and rationality.

1) Drive to Acquire
- Is the drive to seek, take, control and retain objects and personal experiences
- It relates to the motivation process by:
o People becomes more motivated when they want something and therefore need to strive to achieve it (Foundation of Motivation)
o This drive also fulfil our need for esteem and therefore we are motivate to acquire something so we can prove our self worth above other
o As the drive is insatiable, it therefore boost motivation so that people are better to improve themselves over time in order to achieve higher position than others

2) Drive to Bond
- Is the drive to form social relationships and develop mutual caring commitment with others
o It effects employee’s motivation to cooperate with each other in the organization and therefore boosting teamwork. Good teamwork in turn ensures the success of organization and the society developments.

3) Drive to Learn
- Is the drive to satisfy our curiosity, to know and understand ourselves and the environment around us. The drive is related to the higher needs of growth and self actualization described earlier.
o It motivate the employee by satisfying their curiosity of the unknown
o Staffs will motivated for example to learn new techniques for example a sales person or marketeer may want to learn better selling techniques to better equip them in their job i.e. selling products to the customers

4) Drive to Defend
- Is the drive to protect ourselves physically and emotionally.
- Extending beyond protecting our physical self, it also includes defending our relationships, our acquisitions and our belief system.
o Employees in this instant may be motivated to defend their job, maybe from another colleague who is seen as s treat or a promotion, in this case he will become motivated to fight back by showing he is more capable for the promotion.
b. Your organization wants to hire and develop a group of people for executive positions in a fast-growing high-technology firm. The company’s selection tests are able to identify each applicant’s current level of need for achievement, power (both types) and affiliation. Moreover, the company has special training programs to further develop these fast-track executives on these learned needs. Identify which learned needs the company should use to select these applicants and should further develop in the training programs.

Learned need can be divided into three elements: achievements, power and affiliation.

1) Need for Achievement (nAch)

i) nAch is a learned need in which people want to accomplish reasonably challenging goals, and desire unambiguous feedback and recognition for their success
ii) The fast track executive would then amongst people with strong nACh. In this regard, the organization would nurture these executives by:
• Giving them personalized tasks as they rather work alone than with groups;
• Tasks with moderate risks that can give them challenges but neither too easy or too difficult to be completed
• Give direct feedback for failures and recognition for success
iii) For employees with low nAch, the following can be implemented:
• Money is used as incentives in which company can offer monetary bonuses when they reach certain targets

2) Need for Affiliation (nAff)

i) nAff is a learned need in which people seek approval from others, conform to their wishes and expectations, and avoid conflict and confrontation
ii) High nAff employees like to project favorable image of them, actively support others and strive to smooth offices conflict. Therefore, the organization can fully utilize their ability by:
• Put them in coordinating role to mediate conflicts such as in Human Resources departments; and
• Sales position in which their ability can be used to cultivate long term relationships
iii) Staff with low nAff can be put in position that can arise conflict as they do not feel the need for approval such as:
• Allocating scare resources may be in the production area where scare resources are needed to be carried out indiscriminately
• Other decision that generally generate conflict for example Disciplinary Work Committee monitoring staffs discipline e.g. lateness, absenteeism etc.

iv) Need for Power (nPow)

• nPow is a learned need in which people want to control their environment including people and material resources, to benefit either themselves (personalized power) or others (socialize powers)
• High nPow will want to exercise control over others and maintain their leadership position.
o In this case, they can be utilized as Team Project Leader as they will be able to lead people through persuasive communication, able to voice out suggestion during meetings and evaluate situation more frequently.
o It is better to select staffs that have socialized power as leader as they are more effective and have high degree of altruism and social responsibility.


7a. Your organization wants to improve employee motivation. Employees already have strong P-to-O expectancies and the outcome valences are quite favorable for strong performance, but they seem to have a low E-to-P expectancy. Identify three distinct types of strategies that would potentially increase employee motivation by improving the E-to-P expectancy.

Effort to Performance (E to P) expectancy is the individual perception that his or her effort will result in a particular performance level. E to P expectancies is influenced by the individual’s belief that he or she can successfully complete a task.

The three distinct types of strategies are:

i) Increase can-do attitude by assuring employee that’s they have the necessary competencies, clear role perceptions, and necessary resources to reach the desired levels of performance.

ii) Management should also match jobs based on their abilities and clearly communication the tasks required for the jobs

iii) As E to P expectancies are learned, staffs can be subjected to behavioral modeling and supportive feedbacks (positive reinforcement) so that the employees believe that he / she can do the job. In turn, this will increase their work motivation.


b. You want production employees at your company to be more motivated to complete their assignments more efficiently. They are confident that they can perform their jobs more efficiently and the rewards you give employees (pay checks, paid time off, etc.) are valued by these people. Identify the one element of expectancy theory that requires improvement and identify three possible actions that would increase employee motivation through this element.

Expectancy theory is the motivation theory that is based on the idea that works effort is directed towards behaviors that people believe will lead to desired outcomes.

Key variable interest in the expectancy theory is effort which is the individual’s actual exertion of energy. Individual effort level in turn depends on three factors:

• Effort to performance (E-to-P) expectancy
• Performance to outcome (P-to-O) expectancy
• Outcome valences (V)

In order to ensure increased employee motivation, all the three components of the theory need to be strengthened.

As the employees are confident that they can perform their job efficiently, the best suited elements for improving their motivation is by increasing their P-to-O expectations. Three possible actions that can be taken are:

• Measure employee performance accurately and distribute valued rewards to those with higher job performance
o The management may tie up remunerations in regards to each employee’s number of work assignments completed in certain amount of time without compromising the work quality.
o The motivation can be further increased if apart from the usual remuneration, a performance bonus is given should all the employees helped achieved overall production target

• Clearly describe the outcome that will result from the successful performance
o Management may want to clarify that efficiently finished assignments will result in the increased production of the company which will in turn increase the company’s sales and profit. This will in turn lead to the company’s survival and demise. Ultimately this will tie up to their remuneration and tenure in the company.
o The effect can further be seen if the company gives share options to its employee. This will increase the workers’ motivation to increase their individual performance in order to ensure that the company is successful in its business which in turn will increase the value of shares of the company which will make the employees’ own share value higher.

• Describe how the employee’s reward were based on past performances
o Here, the management may highlight that favorable past performance will lead to the employee having bonuses at the end of the year. Some companies will use performance measure such as yearly assessment at the end of each year to measure each employee’s past performance.
o This measurement result may assist the management in ensuring a worker get better salary increase percentage, bonus earned, share options allocation etc.