What is Two Factor Theory?

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Frederick Herzberg approached the question of motivation in a different way. By asking individuals what satisfies them on the job and what dissatisfies them, Herzberg came to the conclusion that aspects of the work environment that satisfy employees are very different from aspects that dissatisfy them. Herzberg labeled factors causing dissatisfaction of workers as “hygiene” factors because these factors were part of the context in which the job was performed, as opposed to the job itself. Hygiene factorsincluded company policies, supervision, working conditions, salary, safety, and security on the job. To illustrate, imagine that you are working in an unpleasant work environment. Your office is too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter. You are being harassed and mistreated. You would certainly be miserable in such a work environment. However, if these problems were solved (your office temperature is just right and you are not harassed at all), would you be motivated? Most likely, you would take the situation for granted. In fact, many factors in our work environment are things that we miss when they are absent but take for granted if they are present.

Herzberg’s research is far from being universally accepted. One criticism relates to the primary research methodology employed when arriving at hygiene versus motivators. When people are asked why they are satisfied, they may attribute the causes of satisfaction to themselves, whereas when explaining what dissatisfies them, they may blame the situation. The classification of the factors as hygiene or motivator is not that simple either. For example, the theory views pay as a hygiene factor. However, pay may have symbolic value by showing employees that they are being recognized for their contributions as well as communicating that they are advancing within the company. Similarly, the quality of supervision or the types of relationships employees form with their supervisors may determine whether they are assigned interesting work, whether they are recognized for their potential, and whether they take on more responsibilities.

Despite its limitations, the theory can be a valuable aid to managers because it points out that improving the environment in which the job is performed goes only so far in motivating employees. Undoubtedly, contextual factors matter because their absence causes dissatisfaction. However, solely focusing on hygiene factors will not be enough, and managers should also enrich jobs by giving employees opportunities for challenging work, greater responsibilities, advancement opportunities, and a job in which their subordinates can feel successful.

What is the ERG theory?

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ERG theory, developed by Clayton Alderfer, is a modification of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Instead of the five needs that are hierarchically organized, Alderfer proposed that basic human needs may be grouped under three categories, namely, existence, relatedness, and growth. Existencecorresponds to Maslow’s physiological and safety needs, relatedness corresponds to social needs, and growth refers to Maslow’s esteem and self-actualization.

ERG theory’s main contribution to the literature is its relaxation of Maslow’s assumptions. For example, ERG theory does not rank needs in any particular order and explicitly recognizes that more than one need may operate at a given time. Moreover, the theory has a “frustration-regression” hypothesis suggesting that individuals who are frustrated in their attempts to satisfy one need may regress to another. For example, someone who is frustrated by the growth opportunities in his job and progress toward career goals may regress to relatedness need and start spending more time socializing with coworkers. The implication of this theory is that we need to recognize the multiple needs that may be driving individuals at a given point to understand their behavior and properly motivate them.

Group Behaviour

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Group behavior is the behavior of human groups, from formation to dissolution. Along with many other organisms, human beings tend to group up and engage in cooperative activities. The behaviors of a group can be highly variable, as can the factors that put pressure on the group. Social psychologists study group behavior. Their work contributes to everything from the development of advertising aimed at specific groups to the understanding of how crowds react to dangerous situations.

Groups can vary widely in size and composition. Individuals tend to drift to people with like characteristics, and the composition of a group that arises organically may be more homogeneous. In contrast, a group with enforced membership, like an assigned group of people in a class who must complete a project together, will be more variable. Various activities may facilitate bonding within the group, one reason many organizations use retreats and ice-breaking exercises to get their members to work together.

Within a group, a number of interesting phenomena can occur and these are topics of study in the field of group behavior. Some personalities may be more dominant than others, and some members may emerge as natural leaders and trendsetters within the groups. Groups can create a situation where individual members will be influenced by each other. Members of the group may act as a herd or mob to make decisions, rather than considering issues as individuals. Groups can also become narrow minded, as seen in group think, where pressures within the group lead to a bad decision.

Humans can be members of more than one group at the same time, and group membership may only be temporary. At a concert, for example, attendees form a group and may behave in unison for a few hours before separating at the end of the event to return to their own lives. While functioning as a group, they can be prone to situations like mass panic that may endanger the group as a whole. Stampedes and tramplings usually involve a series of events that trigger the development of thoughtless and dangerous group behavior.

Understanding the way that groups work is important in a number of settings. For teachers and work supervisors, it is important to know how groups operate and how to improve their functionality. Law enforcement officers, on the other hand, need to know how to control and work with crowds for safety. Marketing professionals also observe group behavior and use their findings to tailor advertisements and public outreach.

Source: http://www.wisegeek.com

Types of Organizational Behavior in the Workplace

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Organizational behavior models help you craft strategies to get employees to perform a certain way in certain situations. As the company leader, providing employees with an environment to succeed helps the business succeed. There are five main management models of organizational behavior in the workplace.

Autocratic Model of Organizational Behavior

The autocratic model of organizational behavior puts the boss in charge and the subordinates in a position to obey commands or be fired. It’s black and white, regarding who is in charge and quickly establishes consequence for insubordination or lack of performance. This environment uses a paycheck as the reward system rarely implementing any other incentive programs.

Loyalty, if it exists, is generally to the boss and not the company. This model can create a fearful workforce, unsure if any mistake could lead to disciplinary action.

Custodial Model of Organizational Behavior

Custodial models seek to make employees feel as if the boss is caring for their personal needs. This is often done through benefits packages such as healthcare, retirement plans and other incentives. An executive visiting various territory offices could get a company car as an incentive.

The custodial model looks to retain quality people by providing incentives that are meaningful to the employee. Loyalty is to the company and not individual company leaders.

Collegial Model of Organizational Behavior

The collegial model works to develop a structure in which managers are more like coaches and employees are team members. Power is shared to some degree. The coach leads through inspiration. In this model, the loyalty is to the bigger goal, and team responsibility rather than to an individual. Employees feel invested in the success of the company and take pride in the successful execution of goals.

Supportive Model of Organizational Behavior

The supportive model seeks to understand what motivates employees and focuses on those things to motivate and inspire. When employees are given opportunities to improve themselves, they often take personal initiative to perform better at their job. Managers support employees as they work toward established personal goals such as promotion or acquisition of new skills. In this model, a manager would ask employees for professional goals and would work with them to establish an action plan to succeed with them.

System Model of Organizational Behavior

The system model is really the foundation of positive corporate cultures. When people think about why LinkedIn is a great place to work, for example, it is because of the incentives, work schedule flexibility and creative encouragement that leadership provides. It is nurturing yet challenging, and so efficiency and productivity increase in a happier work environment that’s loyal to the company and excited to share its vision.

Small business owners don’t need to try to compete with what LinkedIn does, but should develop strategies within their resources to build a positive corporate culture.

Real World Examples of Organizational Behavior

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Findings from organizational behavior research are used by executives and human relations professionals to better understand a business’s culture, how that culture helps or hinders productivity and employee retention, and how to evaluate candidates’ skills and personality during the hiring process.

Organizational behavior theories inform real-world evaluation and management of groups of people. There are a number of components:

  • Personality plays a large role in the way a person interacts with groups and produces work. Understanding a candidate’s personality, either through tests or through conversation, helps determine whether they are a good fit for an organization.
  • Leadership, what it looks like and where it comes from, is a rich topic of debate and study within the field of organizational behavior. Leadership can be broad, focused, centralized or de-centralized, decision-oriented, intrinsic in a person’s personality, or simply a result of a position of authority.
  • Power, authority, and politics all operate inter-dependently in a workplace. Understanding the appropriate ways these elements are exhibited and used, as agreed upon by workplace rules and ethical guidelines, are key components to running a cohesive business.

Goals of Organizational Behavior Study

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The leaders of the Hawthorne study had a couple of radical notions. They thought they could use the techniques of scientific observation to increase an employee’s amount and quality of work. And, they did not look at workers as interchangeable resources. Workers, they thought, were unique in terms of their psychology and potential fit within a company.

Over the following years, the concept of organizational behavior widened. Beginning with World War II, researchers began focusing on logistics and management science. Studies by the Carnegie School of Home Economics in the 1950s and 1960s solidified these rationalist approaches to decision-making.

Today, those and other studies have evolved into modern theories of business structure and decision-making. 

The new frontiers of organizational behavior are the cultural components of organizations, such as how race, class, and gender roles affect group building and productivity. These studies take into account the ways in which identity and background inform decision-making.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

  • Organizational behavior is the study of how people behave within groups.
  • Early studies determined the importance of group dynamics in business productivity.
  • The study of organizational behavior is a foundation of corporate human resources.

Where Organizational Behavior Is Studied 

Academic programs focusing on organizational behavior are found in business schools as well as at schools of social work and psychology. These programs draw from the fields of anthropology, ethnography, and leadership studies, and use quantitative, qualitative, and computer models as methods to explore and test ideas.

Depending on the program, one can study specific topics within organizational behavior or broader fields within it. Specific topics covered include cognition, decision-making, learning, motivation, negotiation, impressions, group process, stereotyping, and power and influence. The broader study areas include social systems, the dynamics of change, markets, relationships between organizations and their environments, how social movements influence markets, and the power of social networks.

Source: http://www.investopedia.com

Three Levels of Influence

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If you have ever held a job, taken a class, or participated in an organized activity, you have seen levels of influence. The three levels of influence are the individual, the group, and the organization. The three levels are interconnected so it is critical to understand each one.

The Individual

The individual level includes each individual person within an organization. Each individual acts differently which affects group dynamics and the organization as a whole. If there are a lot of happy and efficient individuals, the work environment will be an efficient and productive one. However, if there are a lot of negative and disgruntled individuals, it can create a toxic environment.

It is impossible for a company to study each individual employee’s behavior, however, it is important for a company to create guidelines and expectations that will attract employees with desirable behaviors. For example, a company may hire employees based on their personality or how they answer behavioral based interview questions. At the same time, companies can help influence individual behavior. They do this by creating a code of conduct, establishing policy and procedure guidelines, and by developing incentives and consequences.

The Group

The group level includes any groups within an organization. Groups can range in size from a couple people working together, to a large group with dozens or hundreds of members. As we just discussed, individuals can affect a group and a group can affect an organization. And at the same time, a group can affect individuals and an organization can affect a group. Imagine organizational behavior as a large spider web over each organization. The spider web connects each level of influence with the two others, creating a pathway between each one.

The Organization

Finally, the organization level incorporates the organization as a whole. In case you haven’t picked up on the trend, it’s important to point out that the organization impacts the individual and group behavior and that individual and group behavior impacts an organization.

Source: http://www.courses.lumenlearning.com

What is Organizational Behavior?

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In a nutshell, organizational behavior is the study of how human behavior affects an organization. Organizational behavior aims to learn how an organization operates through the behaviors of its members. Instead of taking a strictly numerical approach to determine an organization’s operations, it takes a more psychological approach. By understanding people, you can better understand an organization.

Organizational behavior is intended to explain behavior and make behavioral predictions based on observations. If you can understand behaviors, you can better understand how an organization works. In addition, organizational behavior studies how an organization can affect behavior. So, if you think about it, behavior affects an organization and an organization affects behavior. Let that sink in for a second—it’s all connected! They each affect the other, creating a never ending loop between the two. Therefore, in order to have a healthy and successful organization, it is extremely important to understand the ins and outs of organizational behavior!

Evolution of Organizational Behavior

The academic study of organizational behavior can be dated back to Taylor’s scientific theory as we discussed earlier in this module. However, certain components of organizational behavior can date back even further. In this section we will discuss how organizational behavior developed into a field of its own.

Looking back thousands of years we can find components of organizational behavior. Famous philosophers like Plato and Aristotle discussed key components of today’s organizations including the importance of leadership and clear communication. While these seem like very basic and broad concepts today, at the time they were innovative ideas and helped to lay the foundation for organizational behavior.

If organizational behavior were a simple topic, this course would be short and sweet. We could simply say that organizational behavior is how people and groups act within an organization. But it’s not so simple!

A group of five people gathered around a laptop on a table. They have put their hands together in the center of the table.

When organizational behavior grew into an academic study with the rise of the Industrial Revolution, it began to complicate what could appear to be simple topics. People began asking a lot of questions and started critiquing how organizations operated. Like many academic ventures, people began to deep dive into how behavior plays a role in organizations and why changes in behavior alter the way organizations operate. Along the way, organizational behavior has grown to incorporate components of management, psychology, leadership, personality traits, motivation, etc.

Organizational behavior has grown into its own niche within a wide variety of other genres. This is exciting because it allows us to really investigate each and every aspect of behavior within an organization! Today, organizational behavior is recognized as an essential component of an organization. Scholars and businesses alike recognize its importance and continue to help it adapt to current issues and new findings.

One of the great things about organizational behavior is that it is constantly changing. The rest of this module will discuss contemporary issues in organizational behavior and how organizations are adapting to and learning from these challenges.

Source: http://www.courses.lumenlearning.com