Organizational Behaviour Chapter 6

Job rotation refers to the practice of moving employees from one job to another. This approach has several benefits, including minimizing health risks associated with repetitive strain and heavy lifting. It also supports multiskilling, allowing employees to gain experience in different roles and develop a broader skill set. Additionally, job rotation helps reduce the boredom often associated with highly repetitive jobs, as employees have the opportunity to engage in different tasks and responsibilities. Overall, job rotation can enhance employee satisfaction, motivation, and overall job performance.

a position = job

Skill variety refers to the extent to which employees must use different skills and talents to perform tasks within their job. This means that employees with high skill variety are required to utilize a wide range of abilities and competencies in their work. This can be beneficial as it allows employees to engage in diverse tasks, which can enhance job satisfaction and motivation. It also provides opportunities for employees to develop and expand their skill set. Therefore, skill variety is the most appropriate answer in this context.

Autonomy refers to the degree of freedom and independence employees have in scheduling their work and determining the procedures used to complete it. It allows employees to have control over their own work and make decisions without constant supervision or micromanagement. Autonomy can lead to increased job satisfaction, motivation, and creativity, as employees feel empowered and trusted to take ownership of their work.

Job specialization refers to the division of labor where each job includes a subset of the tasks required to complete a product or service. This means that the work is divided into separate jobs that are assigned to different individuals, with each job focusing on a narrow subset of tasks. This allows individuals to specialize in a specific area of work, leading to increased efficiency and productivity.

The given correct answer, "improving reward effectiveness," aligns with the high performance work practices perspective of organizational effectiveness. This perspective suggests that top performing companies are more likely to have performance-based rewards. By improving reward effectiveness, companies can link rewards to performance, ensure that rewards are relevant, use team rewards for interdependent jobs, ensure that rewards are valued, and watch out for unintended consequences. This approach can help enhance employee motivation, engagement, and overall organizational performance.

Mental imagery refers to the practice of creating vivid mental images or visualizations of successfully completing a task. By mentally rehearsing the activities required to accomplish the task and visualizing its successful completion, individuals can enhance their performance and increase their motivation. This technique is often used in self-leadership to improve self-monitoring and self-reinforcement. It helps individuals stay focused, confident, and motivated, leading to better outcomes.

Profit-sharing plans refer to a reward system in which employees receive bonuses based on the previous year's level of corporate profits. This means that if the company performs well and generates higher profits, employees are rewarded with larger bonuses. Profit-sharing plans are a way to align employee incentives with the financial success of the company, as employees are directly rewarded for contributing to the company's profitability. By linking bonuses to corporate profits, profit-sharing plans can motivate employees to work towards increasing the company's financial performance.

Self-monitoring is the process of keeping track of one's progress towards a goal using naturally occurring feedback. This involves observing and recording one's own behaviors, thoughts, and emotions in order to gain insight into their progress and make necessary adjustments. Self-monitoring allows individuals to assess their performance, identify areas of improvement, and stay motivated by seeing their progress over time. It is an important aspect of self-leadership and self-reinforcement, as it enables individuals to take control of their own behavior and make changes to achieve their goals. Mental imagery and designing natural rewards may also be helpful in the self-monitoring process, but they are not the primary focus of this concept.

Task significance refers to the degree to which a job has a substantial impact on the organization and/or larger society. In other words, it measures the importance and meaningfulness of the tasks performed in a job. If a job has high task significance, it means that the work being done is seen as valuable and has a significant impact on the organization or society as a whole. This can be a motivating factor for individuals as they feel their work is meaningful and contributes to a greater purpose.

Membership and seniority based rewards remain the same for everyone, regardless of job performance or seniority. These rewards are not directly linked to individual performance and may discourage poor performers from seeking more suitable work. They potentially attract job applicants and reduce turnover, but they may also create a sense of "continuance commitment" or "golden handcuffs" that weaken job performance.

Job enrichment occurs when employees are given more responsibility for scheduling, coordinating, and planning their own work. This can include combining highly interdependent tasks into one job, such as video journalists, where tasks are naturally grouped together to complete an entire product. Another strategy is establishing client relationships, which involves putting employees in direct contact with their clients. Job enrichment aims to enhance job satisfaction and motivation by providing employees with more challenging and meaningful tasks, allowing them to have more control and autonomy in their work.

Performance-based rewards are mentioned in the explanation as individual rewards, where employees can earn bonuses, commissions, and piece rate systems based on their individual performance. This aligns rewards directly with the performance and output of the employees, providing motivation for them to perform better.

communicating with = talking to

Financial reward practices refer to the methods and strategies used by organizations to provide monetary incentives and rewards to employees based on their performance and achievements. These practices are considered fundamental in organizational settings as they serve as a symbol of success, motivate and reinforce employees, reflect their performance, and help reduce anxiety. The value and meaning of money can vary from person to person, and cultural values also play a role in determining the significance and worth of financial rewards. Therefore, financial reward practices are an important aspect of performance management and motivation in organizations.

Job enlargement refers to increasing the number of tasks employees perform within their job. This means adding more tasks or responsibilities to an existing job. Video journalists serve as a clear example of job enlargement as they often have to perform various tasks such as shooting videos, editing, and reporting. Job enlargement aims to provide employees with more variety and challenge in their work, potentially increasing job satisfaction and motivation.

Gainsharing plans are team-based rewards that calculate bonuses based on the cost savings and productivity improvement achieved by a work unit. These plans aim to promote teamwork and collaboration among employees by incentivizing them to work together towards achieving common goals. By linking rewards to the performance of the entire team, gainsharing plans encourage employees to share knowledge, ideas, and best practices, leading to increased efficiency and effectiveness in the workplace. This type of reward system can help foster a culture of continuous improvement and drive organizational success.

The correct answer is motivator-hygiene theory. This theory, proposed by Frederick Herzberg, suggests that employees are primarily motivated by growth and esteem needs, rather than lower-level needs. According to Herzberg, factors such as recognition, achievement, and personal growth act as motivators, while factors such as salary, job security, and working conditions act as hygiene factors that can prevent dissatisfaction but do not necessarily lead to motivation. This theory emphasizes the importance of providing opportunities for personal and professional development to motivate employees.

Task identity refers to the degree to which a job requires the completion of a whole or an identifiable piece of work. This means that individuals with high task identity are able to see the end result of their work and understand how it contributes to the overall task or project. In other words, they have a clear understanding of the specific tasks they need to complete and how those tasks fit into the larger picture. This can provide a sense of satisfaction and motivation as individuals are able to see the impact of their work.

Self-leadership refers to the process of influencing oneself to establish self-direction and self-motivation needed to perform a task. It involves utilizing a toolkit of behavioral activities borrowed from social learning theory and goal setting. Self-leadership is studied in sports psychology and is an important skill for individuals to effectively manage and motivate themselves.

Empowered employees believe that their decisions and actions can make a significant impact on the success of the company. They understand that their contributions are valuable and have the potential to influence the overall outcomes and achievements of the organization. This suggests that they have a sense of ownership and responsibility towards their work, and they are motivated to make a positive difference. By recognizing the impact they can have, empowered employees are more likely to take initiative, make informed decisions, and contribute to the overall growth and success of the company.

Employee share ownership plans are a type of reward system that encourages employees to buy shares of the company. This can be done through offering discounted prices or providing no-interest loans to employees. By allowing employees to become shareholders, it aligns their interests with the success of the company and can motivate them to work harder and contribute to its growth. It also provides employees with a sense of ownership and can promote loyalty and long-term commitment to the organization.

this = competencies

Empowerment Practices

Job status-based rewards give higher value to jobs that require more skill and effort, which motivates employees to compete for promotions and higher status jobs. This system also encourages employees to raise the value of their own jobs by exaggerating job duties and hoarding resources.

Share options, also known as stock options or equity options, are a type of reward system that allows employees to purchase company shares at a predetermined price in the future. This incentivizes employees to work towards the company's success, as they have the opportunity to benefit from the increase in share value. By offering share options, companies can attract and retain talented employees and align their interests with the long-term growth and profitability of the organization.

Empowerment is the correct answer because it aligns with the description given in the question. The concept of empowerment refers to individuals experiencing more self-determination, meaning, competence, and impact in their role within an organization. It also mentions that employees are more determined when they have autonomy in their jobs and experience meaningfulness when their work has a high level of identity and task significance. Empowerment is influenced by organizational and work context factors, which are mentioned in the question as well.

The job characteristics model relates the motivational properties of jobs to specific personal and organizational consequences. It suggests that certain job characteristics, such as skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback, can lead to increased motivation, satisfaction, and performance. The model emphasizes the importance of designing jobs that provide employees with meaningful and challenging tasks, autonomy, and opportunities for growth and development. By focusing on these job characteristics, organizations can create a motivating work environment that leads to positive outcomes for both individuals and the organization as a whole.

Empowerment Practices

Designing natural rewards involves altering tasks and work relationships to make work more motivating and altering the way a task is accomplished. This means creating a work environment that provides intrinsic rewards and satisfies employees' psychological needs. By designing natural rewards, organizations can create a positive and engaging work environment that promotes motivation and satisfaction among employees. This can lead to increased productivity and overall success for the organization.

Self-reinforcement occurs when an employee has the ability to reward themselves but chooses to delay that reward until they have achieved a self-set goal. This means that they are motivated by the satisfaction of completing a task or meeting a goal before allowing themselves to enjoy a reward. Self-reinforcement is a form of self-leadership, where individuals take responsibility for motivating and rewarding themselves in order to achieve their goals.

Job design refers to the process of assigning tasks to a job, taking into consideration the interdependency of those tasks with other jobs. It aims to ensure that work is performed efficiently while also keeping employees motivated and engaged. Job design involves determining the content, methods, and relationships of jobs in order to create a work environment that is satisfying for employees and helps them achieve their full potential. It focuses on optimizing the design of jobs to enhance productivity, job satisfaction, and overall organizational performance.

Scientific management is the correct answer because it involves systematically partitioning work into its smallest elements and standardizing tasks to achieve maximum efficiency. It includes training, goal setting, and work incentives. This approach improves work efficiency but often reduces work quality and ignores the motivational potential of jobs. It also states that the ability to master the job decreases, but most people can eventually perform the job tasks efficiently.

Empowerment Practices

The correct answer is balanced scorecards. A balanced scorecard is a goal-oriented performance measurement system that rewards people, typically executives, for improving performance on a composite of financial, customer, and internal processes. It involves measuring and tracking various key performance indicators across different areas of a business to ensure a balanced approach to performance evaluation and improvement. This system helps align individual and organizational goals and encourages a holistic view of performance.