525 Cases YY

1 Major Topics I’ll Learn and Questions I Should Be Able to Answer

1.1 The Value of OB to My Job and Career MAJOR QUESTION: How can I use knowledge of OB to enhance my job performance and career?

1.2 Right vs. Wrong—Ethics and My Performance MAJOR QUESTION: Why do people engage in unethical behavior, even unwittingly, and what lessons can I learn from that?

1.3 Applying OB to Solving Problems MAJOR QUESTION: How can I apply OB in practical ways to increase my effectiveness?

1.4 Structure and Rigor in Solving Problems MAJOR QUESTION: How could I explain to a fellow student the practical relevance and power of OB to help solve problems?

1.5 The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB MAJOR QUESTION: How can the Organizing Framework help me understand and apply OB knowledge to solve problems?

1.6 Preview and Application of What I Will Learn MAJOR QUESTION: How can I use my knowledge about OB to help me achieve professional and personal effectiveness?

What Is OB and Why Is It Important?

MAKING OB WORK FOR ME

In this chapter you’ll learn that the study and practice of OB often organizes the work- place into three levels—the individual, the group or team, and the organization. Thus we’ve structured this book the same way—Part One is devoted to individual-level phe- nomena ( job satisfaction), Part Two to groups and teams (team cohesiveness), and Part Three to the organizational level (innovation). Make sure you read the final sec- tion of Chapter 1 for a preview of the many concepts you’ll learn in the book. You’ll also find a summary and application of the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB and the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach. These are fundamental tools we created not only to help you learn more effectively, but also to help you apply and realize the true value of OB for you personally.

3

Winning at Work Your Future

What’s Ahead in This Chapter You’ll learn how OB can drive your job and career suc- cess. You’ll grasp the difference between hard and soft skills and the value of developing both, as well as the importance of self-awareness. We’ll show that ethics are integral to long-term individual and organizational suc- cess, and we’ll introduce a problem-solving approach you can use in a wide variety of situations at school, at work, and in life. But what really powers this book is our Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB, which we introduce mid-chapter. This framework will help you organize and apply OB concepts and tools as you learn them. To show you the power of the Orga- nizing Framework, we conclude the chapter with a pre- view of the many concepts, theories, and tools you will learn. We then show you how to apply this knowledge using our 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach. We think you’ll be intrigued by this glimpse into all that you will learn in this book and course. Let’s get started!

critical thinking, ethical decision making, and problem solving. However, no more than 37 percent of employers thought students were well prepared in any of these skills, though many students believe they are (especially in criti- cal thinking and oral communication).2 This skill gap has motivated companies such as Mindtree, a digital solutions firm, to build its own $20 million learning center. Krishnan KS, head of culture and competence, said the center is in- tended to teach its engineers “21st century skills: commu- nication, collaboration, cooperation, management, decision making, and problem solving.”3

Employers Want Problem Solving and Critical Thinking Regardless of your area of study, arguably the greatest benefit of your education is developing problem-solving and critical-thinking skills. A recent National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) survey revealed the three skills most valued by employers: critical thinking, problem solving, and teamwork.4 Building your skills in these areas and others is the overarching goal of this book.

Imagine you are about to walk in the door and start your first full-time job. It’s the job you’ve always wanted. Or, if you are currently employed, imagine you’ve finally won the promotion you’ve worked so hard for, and you’re about to enter your new office, new department, or new work area. Either case is full of excitement—your professional life has so much promise!

Now take stock of your existing knowledge, skills, expe- riences, and other qualities. Even if these are well devel- oped at this point in your career, wouldn’t you want to give yourself an even greater advantage and translate your tal- ent into better performance and opportunities? Of course you would, and this is why we study OB.

Knowledge Is Not Enough Knowledge alone does not solve business problems. For de- cades, managers believed that if workers had the necessary knowledge and technical training, results would automati- cally follow. But organizations have realized that knowledge and training alone do not guarantee success—what people know and what they do often don’t align. Experts label this disparity the knowing-doing gap.1 The  knowing-doing gap  is the difference between what people know and what they actually do. For instance, everybody knows that treat- ing people with respect is a good idea, but some managers don’t always do this. Closing such gaps is an important ele- ment of your own success at school, work, and home. It also is a major focus of OB and this book.

The Limits of Common Sense You may feel that common sense will go a long way toward solving most business and career challenges. But if com- mon sense were all that mattered, managers would always treat employees fairly, businesses would never make “stu- pid” decisions, and you and other (new) employees would make very few mistakes. Everybody would perform better and be happier. However, this certainly isn’t true of all employers and managers. And for their part, entry-level employees are often ill-prepared and thus underperform.

Where Employers Say New Hires Fall Short Results published by the Association of American Colleges and Universities showed that employers and students largely agree on the most important skills, such as teamwork,

4 PART 1 Individual Behavior

1.1 THE VALUE OF OB TO MY JOB AND CAREER

The term  organizational behavior (OB)  describes an interdisciplinary field dedicated to understanding and managing people at work. To achieve this goal, OB draws on research and practice from many disciplines, including:

• Anthropology • Political science • Economics • Psychology • Ethics • Sociology • Management • Statistics • Organizational theory • Vocational counseling

From this list you can see that OB is very much an applied discipline that draws from many sources. This book will make it as relevant and useful for you as possible.

Let’s look at how OB compares to your other courses, explain the contingency per- spective (the premise of contemporary OB), and explore the importance of both hard and soft skills.

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How can I use knowledge of OB to enhance my job performance and career?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Are you uncertain about the value of organizational behavior (OB) and how it fits into your

school curriculum or your professional life? This section will explain how OB can be valuable

to you. You’ll see how OB knowledge and tools go far beyond common sense and can en-

hance your personal job performance and career success. For instance, you will learn about

what it takes to get hired versus what it takes to get promoted, the importance of both hard

and soft skills, and the role of self-awareness in your success.

Our professional lives are extremely busy and challenging. Effectiveness requires a host of both hard and soft skills. Your understanding and application of OB concepts and tools will help you meet the many challenges, perform better, and create more attractive opportunities throughout your career. © Stuart McCall/Photographer’s Choice/Getty Images

5Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

How OB Fits into My Curriculum and Influences My Success Organizational behavior is an academic discipline focused on understanding and managing people at work. This includes managing yourself, as well as others up, down, and sideways in the organization. But unlike jobs associated with functional disciplines such as account- ing, marketing, and finance, you will not get a job in OB.

What, then, is the benefit to learning about OB? The answer is that the effective ap- plication of OB is critical to your success in all disciplines of work and all job levels. As you’ll learn, technical knowledge associated with any given job is important, but your ability to influence, get along with, manage, and get things done through others is what makes the difference. People skills!

Applying OB knowledge and tools gives you opportunities, sets you apart from your peers and competition, and contributes to your success. An important part of your success is your ability to know which tools to use and under what circumstances. This is de- scribed as a contingency approach to managing people and is the foundation of contem- porary OB.

A Contingency Perspective—The Contemporary Foundation of OB A  contingency approach  calls for using the OB concepts and tools that best suit the situation, instead of trying to rely on “one best way.” This means there is no single best way to manage people, teams, or organizations. A particular management practice that worked today may not work tomorrow. What worked with one employee may not work with another. The best or most effective course of action instead depends on the situation.

Harvard’s Clayton Christensen puts it like this: “Many of the widely accepted prin- ciples of good management are only situationally appropriate.”5 In other words, don’t use a hammer unless the job involves nails. You’ll learn in Chapter 13, for instance, that there is no single best style of leadership. In this way, OB differs from many of your other courses in that answers here are rarely black and white, right or wrong, but instead the best answer—the most appropriate behavior—depends on the situation. The explicit con- sideration of situational factors is fundamental to OB and is emphasized throughout this book.

Thus, to be effective you need to do what is appropriate given the situation, rather than adhering to hard-and-fast rules or defaulting to personal preferences or organizational norms. Organizational behavior specialists, and many effective managers, embrace the contingency approach because it helps them consider the many factors that influence the behavior and performance of individuals, groups, and organizations. Taking a broader, contingent perspective like this is a fundamental key to your success in the short and the long term.

The following OB in Action box illustrates how Google has applied the contingency approach and changed some of its benefits to more precisely meet employees’ preferences for work–life balance and parenthood.

Effectively applying the contingency approach requires knowing yourself—your own skills, abilities, weaknesses, strengths, and preferences. Such knowledge is called self- awareness, and it is key to your success in both the short and long term.

How Self-Awareness Can Help You Build a Fulfilling Career The Stanford Graduate School of Business asked the members of its Advisory Council which skills are most important for their MBA students to learn. The most frequent answer was self- awareness.6 The implication is that to have a successful career you need to know who you are, what you want, and how others perceive you. Larry Bossidy (former CEO of Honeywell) and Ram Charan (world-renowned management expert) said it best in their book Execution: “When you know yourself, you are comfortable with your strengths and not crippled by your shortcomings. . . . Self-awareness gives you the capacity to learn

6 PART 1 Individual Behavior

from your mistakes as well as your successes. It enables you to keep growing.”9 They also argue that you need to know yourself in order to be authentic—real and not fake, the same on the outside as the inside. Authenticity is essential to influencing others, which we discuss in detail in Chapter 12. People don’t trust fakes, and it is difficult to influence or manage others if they don’t trust you.

As professors, consultants, and authors, we couldn’t agree more! To help you in- crease your self-awareness we include multiple Self-Assessments in every chapter. These are an excellent way to learn about yourself and see how OB can be applied at school, at work, and in your personal life. Go to Connect, complete the assessments, and then an- swer the questions included in each of the Self-Assessment boxes.

Let’s start with your motivation to manage others. Many employees never manage others. Some don’t choose to, and some don’t get the chance. But what about you? How motivated are you to manage others? Go to connect.mheducation.com and Self- Assessment 1.1 to learn about your motivation for managing others. What you learn might surprise you. Whether it does or not, more precisely understanding your motivation to manage others can guide your course selection in college and your job choices in the marketplace.

While Google’s talent is constantly being poached by its competitors, some em- ployees simply quit, especially women. The company noticed that many women were leaving, or more precisely, not returning after maternity leave. Some chose to stay home with their children. But they were leaving at twice the average rate of all employees. So Google explored the possibility that its policies might be playing a role.

The Industry Standard Generally, the tech industry, Silicon Valley firms in par- ticular, offers 12 weeks of paid time off for maternity leave and seven weeks for employees outside California.

New Plan Google’s response was to begin offering five months of full pay and full benefits, exceeding the industry standard. Better still, new mothers can split the time, taking some before the birth, some after, and some later still when the child is older.

New Plan Plus Improved benefits were extended to all Google employees, even those outside of Silicon valley, including fathers. All new fathers, and new mothers outside of Silicon valley, now enjoy seven weeks of new-parent leave. This en- ables new mothers and fathers the opportunity to manage their time and focus on the new baby.7 Many companies now have similar practices. For example, Alston & Bird, an Atlanta-based law firm, provides employees $10,000 and 90 days of paid leave for adoptive parents and covers infertility treatment in its health plan.8

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. If you alone could make policies at Google (or your workplace), what would you do to keep valuable employees?

2. How could you apply the contingency approach to make these and other policies more effective?

3. What else would you do? Why?

Google Search: How Can We Keep Talented Employees?

OB in Action

7Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

A central feature of most any successful development program is self- awareness. Knowing who you are and your preferences are important considerations in personal development. © Lana Isabella/Getty Images RF

How Strong Is My Motivation to Manage? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self-Assessment 1.1 in Connect.

1. Does this instrument accurately assess your potential as a manager? Explain.

2. Which of the seven dimensions do you think is likely the best predictor of managerial success? Which is the least? Explain.

3. The instrument emphasizes competition with others in a win-lose mentality. Describe the pros and cons of this approach to management.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.1

Uncommon Sense Let’s return to common sense. At first glance the contingency perspective may look like simple common sense. But it’s different. Common sense is of- ten based on experience or logic, both of which have limits, and it suffers three major weaknesses you need to be aware of and avoid:

• Overreliance on hindsight. Common sense works best in well-known or stable situations with predictable outcomes—what worked before should work again. But modern business situations are complex and uncertain and require adapting to change. Common sense is especially weak in responding to the unknown or unex- pected. And because it focuses on the past, common sense lacks vision for the future.

• Lack of rigor. People comfortable with common-sense responses may not apply the effort required to appropriately analyze and solve problems. If you lack rigor, then you are unlikely to define the problem accurately, identify the true causes, or recommend the right courses of action.

• Lack of objectivity. Common sense can be overly subjective and lack a basis in science. In such cases we are not always able to explain or justify our reasoning to others, which is a sign that common sense lacks objectivity.

In BusinessNewsDaily, Microsoft researcher Duncan Watts says we love common sense because we prefer narrative: “You have a story that sounds right and there’s nothing to

8 PART 1 Individual Behavior

contradict it.” Watts contrasts a more effective, scientific approach in his book Everything Is Obvious Once You Know the Answer: How Common Sense Fails Us. “The difference [in a scientific approach] is we test the stories and modify them when they don’t work,” he says. “Storytelling is a useful starting point. The real question is what we do next.”10

OB is a scientific means for overcoming the limits and weaknesses of common sense. The contingency approach in OB means you don’t settle for options based simply on ex- perience or common practice if another solution may be more effective. Thus the goal of OB is to give you more than common sense and thus enhance your understanding of situ- ations at work and guide your behaviors. This in turn will make you more attractive to potential employers and more effective once hired. Let’s explore this idea in more detail, beginning with the importance of possessing and developing both hard and soft skills.

Employers Want Both Hard and Soft Skills Most of us know the difference between hard and soft skills.

•  Hard skills  are the technical expertise and knowledge required to do a par- ticular task or job function, such as financial analysis, accounting, or operations.

•  Soft skills  relate to human interactions and include both interpersonal skills and personal attributes.

“People rise in organizations because of their hard skills and fall due to a dearth of soft skills.”11 Maybe that’s why firms tend to weigh soft skills so heavily when hiring for top positions. The most sought-after skills for MBA graduates are problem solving, lead- ership, and communication.12 These skills also are the most difficult to find.

And results from a recent CareerBuilder survey tell a similar story for undergraduates and entry-level positions:

The problem isn’t that new grads don’t have the right degrees or technical know-how. Only 10% of employers said there weren’t enough graduates with the appropriate degrees and just 13% said students lacked computer or technical skills. But employers are troubled by graduates’ lack of soft skills. Many report that college grads are lacking in people skills and have trouble solving problems and thinking creatively. . . . Having a college degree and technical skills isn’t enough to land their first job.13

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Learning about My Soft and Hard Skills

You just learned that soft and hard skills both affect your success. Take a moment to apply this new knowledge and make it personal and relevant for you.

1. List what you think are your two strongest soft skills. Also briefly, and specifically, explain how they can or do benefit you at school and work.

2. List what you think are your two strongest hard skills. Explain specifically how they can or do benefit you at work and school.

Table 1.1 shows four sought-after skills, along with a brief explanation of how we directly address them in this book.

What do you notice about these four items? Which are hard skills? None! Instead, all are soft skills, the skills you need to interact with, influence, and perform effectively when working with others. Debra Eckersley, a managing partner of human capital at PricewaterhouseCoopers, says the rise of soft skills is a consequence of managers “listen- ing to clients and what they value.”14

One other key aspect of soft skills is that they are not job specific. They are instead  portable skills,  more or less relevant in every job, at every level, and throughout

9Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

TABLE 1.1 FOUR SKILLS MOST DESIRED BY EMPLOYERS

Skill Description This Book

1. Critical thinking Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternate solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.

Fundamental to this book and woven throughout. We designed features and exercises to help you think critically and apply your OB knowledge and tools.

2. Problem solving Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.

Our problem-solving approach is used throughout the book. We repeatedly ask you to apply your knowledge to solve problems at school, at work, and in life.

3. Judgment and decision making

Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate ones.

Integral to problem solving and success. We integrate judgment and decision making in all problem-solving content and devote an entire chapter to these soft skills.

4. Active listening Giving full attention to what other people are saying; taking time to understand the points being made; asking questions as appropriate and not interrupting.

Key success factor at work. We address this directly in the chapters on influencing others and leadership.

Adapted from M. Elliott, “5 Skills College Grads Need to Get a Job,” May 1, 2015, CheatSheet.com, http://www.cheatsheet.com/personal-finance/5-skills-todays- college-grads-need-to-get-a-job.html/?a=viewall.

your career.15 All these and many more soft skills are represented by OB topics covered in this book, whether as personal or interpersonal attributes:

Personal attributes Interpersonal skills (with which we build goodwill and (with which we foster respectful trust and demonstrate integrity) interactions) • Attitudes (Chapter 2) • Active listening (Chapters 12 and 13) • Personality (Chapter 3) • Positive attitudes (Chapters 2 and 7) • Teamwork (Chapter 8) • Effective communication (Chapter 9) • Leadership (Chapter 13)

The take-away for you? Good interpersonal skills can make even a candidate with a less- marketable degree an appealing hire, while a lack of people skills may doom a college grad to unemployment.16

How OB Fits into My Career Hard skills are of course important. For instance, accountants need to understand debits and credits, financial analysts need to derive net present value, and both need to under- stand cash flows. However, to be competitive and give employers what they want, you need to develop your soft skills as well. In fact, some soft skills will increase in impor- tance over your career and help set you apart from your competition.17 To highlight this point, think about the criteria used for hiring workers versus promoting them.

What It Takes to Get Hired Regardless of where you are in your career today, ask yourself: What criteria were used to hire you for your first job? What factors did your hir- ing manager consider? (If your first job is still ahead of you, what factors do you think will be most important?) You and most of your peers will identify things like education, grades, interpersonal skills, and internship or other experience. In short, for most jobs you are selected for your technical skills, your ability to do the given job.

10 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Applying OB

Everybody knows that jobs are won or lost during interviews. Here are a few simple tips to help you finish on top.

1. Create an elevator pitch. Imagine you’re in the elevator with the interviewer and have only 60 seconds to sell yourself. Select your three best selling points (strengths) and concisely explain how each would benefit the company. Stay focused—keep your pitch short and meaningful.

2. Finish strong. At the end of the interview state and show your enthusiasm for the opportunity. Also restate your one or two best selling points and how they will benefit the company.

3. Prepare for situational questions. Anticipate questions such as, “Why do you want this job?” and, “Tell me about a time when you had a conflict at work and what you did about it.” Be prepared to answer them by describing the situation, your behavior, and the resulting impact. Also consider describing what you learned in that situation.

4. Make your research social. Reach out to your network, privately (you don’t want everybody to know you’re looking), and learn whether anybody has worked for or interviewed with your target company. Learn about the person you’re interviewing with on LinkedIn—education, past jobs, positions within the target company. Glassdoor.com and other sites can be a wealth of information on employee expe- riences and compensation.

5. Don’t trip up on the money. It’s generally best to wait until you have a formal offer in hand before discussing pay. If asked about your salary requirement during the interview, respond by saying, “Are you making me an offer?” The answer will likely be, “No, not yet.” But if the interviewer persists, say, “I would prefer to have all the details in hand in order to determine what would be most appropriate and fair. Once I have those, I will happily discuss compensation.”18

How to Ace Your Next Interview

An understanding of OB can give you extremely valuable knowledge and tools to help “sell” yourself during job interviews. Applying OB knowledge can also enhance your chances for promotions. © Chris Ryan/agefotostock RF

What It Takes to Get Promoted Now ask yourself, what criteria are being used for promotions? Of course, performance in your current job is often a primary consid- eration. However, you and many other em- ployees may fail to realize that your perceived ability to get things done through others and to manage people will be an- other important deciding factor. If you and three of your coworkers are all vying for an open job in management, then it’s likely all four of you perform at a high level. Therefore, performance isn’t the only de- ciding factor. Instead, it may be your per- ceived ability to directly or indirectly manage others!

Roxanne Hori, an associate dean at New York University’s Stern School of Business, echoes this argument: “Yes, your knowledge of the functional area you’re

11Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

pursuing is important. But to succeed longer term . . . having strong team skills and knowing how to build and manage relationships were seen as just as important.” One executive she interviewed suggested that students should “take as much organizational behavior coursework as possible . . . because as you move into leadership roles, the key skills that will determine your success will be around your ability to interact with others in a highly effective fashion.”19

Some career experts, such as Chrissy Scivicque, the CEO of a career develop- ment and training firm and writer for Forbes and The Wall Street Journal, go so far as to say that most people have the technical skills to succeed at higher-level jobs. And even if some new technical knowledge is needed, it generally is easy to learn. However, as you rise through the hierarchy, your job generally will require a more developed set of soft skills. Skills like communication, emotional intelligence, eth- ics, and stress management.20 And mentions of critical thinking in job postings have doubled since 2009.21

We make this point visually in Figure 1.1. It illustrates how technical or job-specific skills decline in importance as you move to levels of higher responsibility, while personal skills increase.

Performance Gives Me Credibility Performance matters because it gives you cred- ibility with your peers and those you may manage. Just be aware that early in your career your bosses will be looking for more. They will evaluate your management potential, and their opinion will affect your opportunities. So even in a line (nonmanagement) position, you need to know how to:

• Apply different motivational tools (Chapter 5). • Provide constructive feedback (Chapter 6). • Develop and lead productive teams (Chapters 8 and 13). • Understand and manage organizational culture and change (Chapters 14 and 16).

Knowledge of OB, therefore, is critical to your individual performance, your ability to work with and manage others, and your career success (promotions, pay raises, in- creased opportunities). And because ethics can similarly make or break you at every step of your career, we cover it next.

FIGURE 1.1 RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF DIFFERENT SKILLS BASED ON JOB LEVEL

High

Low Job Level

Importance Personal Skills

Technical Skills

ExecutiveManagementFront-line

SOURCE: Adapted from M. Lombardo and R. Eichinger, Preventing Derailment: What to Do Before It’s Too Late (Greensboro, NC: Center for Creative Leadership, 1989).

12 PART 1 Individual Behavior

 Ethics  guides behavior by identifying right, wrong, and the many shades of gray in between. We will weave discussions of ethics throughout the book for three key reasons.

1. Employees are confronted with ethical challenges at all levels of organizations and throughout their careers.

2. Unethical behavior damages relationships, erodes trust, and thus makes it difficult to influence others and conduct business.

3. Unethical behavior also reduces cooperation, loyalty, and contribution, which hurts the performance of individuals, teams, and organizations.

Ethics also gets priority because many OB topics have a direct and substantial influence on the conduct of individuals and organizations. Notably, reward systems (Chapter 6), decision making (Chapter 11), leader behavior (Chapter 13), and organi- zational culture (Chapter 14) all can powerfully call upon our ethical standards at work. Let’s begin by describing cheating and other forms of unethical conduct at school and work.

Cheating The news now routinely reports about cheating in sports, such as alleged match-fixing by a number of professional tennis players and scores of instances of the use of performance- enhancing drugs: the Russian Olympic team’s systematic use and cover-up, cyclist Lance Armstrong’s public confession of drug use during each of his Tour de France victories (legal charges were ultimately filed), and Major League Baseball’s lifetime ban of pitcher Jenrry Mejia for three separate steroid violations. But cheating occurs in every other area of our lives too.

What about cheating at school? Anonymous surveys by the Josephson Institute of more than 23,000 students at private and public high schools across the United States found 59 percent admitted cheating on a test in the past academic year, and 32 percent reported plagiarizing material found on the Internet.22 Fifty-seven percent of participating high school students agreed with the statement “In the real world, successful people do what they have to do to win, even if others consider it cheating.”23

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

Why do people engage in unethical behavior, even unwittingly, and what lessons can I learn from that?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

If you were asked, “Do you know right from wrong? Are you secure in your ethics?” you would

likely answer yes to both questions. What’s interesting is that most people who suffer ethical

lapses also answer yes. OB can teach you about the drivers of unethical behavior and, in the

process, improve your awareness and enable you to reduce your risk. You’ll learn that even

though most unethical behavior is not illegal, it still causes tremendous damage to people,

their jobs and careers, and their employers. Fortunately, the OB concepts and tools you pick

up through this course will help you recognize and navigate ethical challenges.

1.2 RIGHT VS. WRONG—ETHICS AND MY PERFORMANCE

13Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

The story doesn’t get any better in college. Turnitin.com, the plagiarism-checking service, reported finding 156 million matches between college student papers and previ- ously published Internet material. The two top sources? Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers. As an example, 125 of 279 members of a particular government class at Harvard Univer- sity were suspected of cheating on a take-home final.24 These are just a few examples and statistics of a very long list. What percentage of students at your school do you think cheat on homework assignments? Exams? Take-home finals?

Cheating isn’t limited to students. Nearly three dozen Atlanta-area school administra- tors and teachers were indicted for changing, fabricating, or otherwise falsifying student scores on statewide aptitude tests from at least 2001 to 2009. Some took plea deals and others are serving prison time.25 Goldman Sachs fired 20 analysts in 2015 for cheating on internal training exams, and JPMorgan Chase reported that it terminated 10 employees for similar offenses.26

Now let’s explore other forms of unethical conduct and their legality, frequency, causes, and solutions.

Ethical Lapses—Legality, Frequency, Causes, and Solutions The vast majority of managers mean to run ethical organizations, yet corporate corrup- tion is widespread.27 Some of the executives whose unethical behavior bankrupted the organizations they led, destroyed the lives of many employees, and caused enormous losses for employees, investors, and customers in the last few decades are Michael Milken (Drexel Burnham Lambert, 1990), Kenneth Lay and Jeff Skilling (Enron, 2001), Bernie Ebbers (WorldCom, 2002), Bernie Madoff (Madoff Investment Securities LLC, 2009), Hisao Tanaka (Toshiba, 2015), and Sepp Blatter (FIFA, 2015). None of these leaders acted alone.

Indictments and verdicts are a matter for the courts. Our point, rather, is that each of these disgraced executives led companies or organizations that in most cases employed thousands of other people. Surely these organizations did not advertise for and hire the criminally minded to help the leaders in their unethical endeavors. Most employees prob- ably knew little or nothing about any unethical or illegal activities, while others were deeply involved. How does the work environment produce unethical conduct, sometimes

In early 2016, tennis star Maria Sharapova (left photo) tested positive for a performance- enhancing drug. She quickly admitted to the finding and apologized. Sepp Blatter (right photo), former president of soccer’s international governing body FIFA, was at the heart of a scandal that rocked the organization, cost Blatter and others their jobs, and led to formal investigations across the globe. Investigators uncovered a well-entrenched and long-lasting pattern of bribes and other financial misconduct. (Left) © Damian Dovarganes/AP Photo; (right) © Valeriano Di Domenico/AFP/Getty Images

14 PART 1 Individual Behavior

One. That is the number of Wall Street executives who actually went to jail for actions leading up to the financial crisis of 2008–2009, and that one conviction didn’t happen until 2014.30 Of the more than 14,000 financial fraud cases brought during the period of the crisis, only 17 named CEOs and other respon- sible executives.

Two central figures during that time had telling and damning comments. Eric Holder, the former US attorney general, said the conduct that led to the crisis was “unethical and irresponsible.” And “some of this behavior—while morally reprehensible—may not necessarily have been criminal.”31 Ben Bernanke, former chair of the Federal Reserve Bank, said, “. . . more corporate executives should have gone to jail for their misdeeds . . . since everything that went wrong or was illegal was done by some individual, not by an abstract firm.”32

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. If you think executives (and perhaps other employees) of financial institutions should be punished for their roles in the crisis, describe what you think is appropriate.

2. If you think they should not be punished, explain why. 3. Is it appropriate for the firms to pay fines, but for the executives to avoid

consequences? Justify your answer.

Wrong? Absolutely! Illegal? Seemingly Not. OB in Action

on an extreme scale, from people who are otherwise good, well intentioned, and on the right side of the law? Knowledge of OB helps you answer this question.

Unethical Does Not Mean Illegal While extreme examples of unethical and il- legal conduct make headlines, they are the exception. The truth is that very few un- ethical acts are also illegal, most are not punished in any way, and even if illegal, few are prosecuted.

This means you should not rely on the legal system to manage or assure ethical conduct at work. For instance, FoxConn, Apple Computer’s top supplier in China, was in the spotlight for its highly publicized ill-treatment of 1.2 million Chinese employ- ees, who suffered 14-hour workdays, six- to seven-day workweeks, low wages, and retaliation for protesting.28

American Airlines pilots provided another example in 2012 when they created wide- spread slowdowns in flights to pressure the company in negotiations with their union. American’s on-time performance dropped from 80 percent to 48 percent, versus 77 per- cent for Southwest and 69 percent for Delta. The slowdowns resulted in enormous costs and inconveniences for thousands of customers.29

None of the conduct in these examples was illegal. The following OB in Action box provides another notable instance of how widespread unethical behavior has resulted in virtually no legal consequences.

Why Ethics Matters to Me and My Employer Criminal or not, unethical behavior negatively affects not only the offending employee but also his or her coworkers and em- ployer. Unethical behavior by your coworkers, including company executives, can make you look bad and tarnish your career.

15Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

SAC Capital Advisors, for example, is one of the most suc- cessful hedge funds in recent years. But the fund and its founder, Steven Cohen, were dogged throughout 2012–2016 by suspicions of insider trading, and many traders with ties to SAC were convicted. Before any formal charges were made against the firm itself or its founder, clients withdrew nearly $2 billion in assets.33 SAC investors ultimately withdrew even more money, nearly $2 billion in fines were levied, and the fund was ordered to close. Cohen reopened the company as a “family office” that trades only his personal fortune. He ultimately set- tled charges brought against him personally, without admitting guilt, which resulted in his paying no personal fines and being banned only from trading other people’s money for two years.34

To make this more real for you, imagine you are inter- viewing for a job. How would you explain your past employment history if it included jobs at SAC, Enron, Countrywide, MF Global, or Madoff Investment Securities? It certainly is possible and even likely that you did nothing wrong. However, it is likely that you would always be concerned about what others thought or suspected about

your involvement. Would suspicions always be in the back of your future colleagues’ minds? Would that cost you opportunities? Cause you stress?

Thankfully, research provides us with clear ways to avoid such problems:

. . . sustainable businesses are led by CEOs who take a people-centered, inclusive approach rather than a controlling, target-driven one. They are people who listen, who foster cultures in which employees are not scared to point out problems and in which staff feel they have a personal responsibility to enact corporate values, be they health and safety concerns or putting the client’s interests first.35

Ethical Dilemmas  Ethical dilemmas  are situations with two choices, neither of which resolves the situation in an ethically acceptable manner. Such situations surround us at work and school. They highlight the fact that choosing among available options is not always a choice between right and wrong. Because such dilemmas are so frequent and potentially con- sequential, we include an Ethical/Legal Challenge feature at the end of each chapter that asks you to consider what you might do if confronted with difficult ethical choices at work.

An excellent example is provided by managers responsible for determining which employees are downsized. When Audi of North America decided to relocate a large percentage of its operations from one part of the United States to another, one of the finance managers was responsible for “working the numbers” on how many people would be invited to relocate, how many would be terminated, and what types of severance pack- ages would be offered and to whom.

All this was necessary and needed to be done by somebody in the company. The problem, however, was that many of these people were friends and colleagues of the per- son doing the analyses. She had the “hit list” (as it was called) for weeks and was unable to share the information with the others, even as they worked side by side, had lunch, and interacted socially in the meantime.

Stephen A Cohen and many of his hedge fund’s employees were the focus of multiple investigations and lawsuits by regulators for several years. © Ronda Churchill/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Whistle-blowing often creates a particularly challenging type of ethical dilemma. Peo- ple do wrong, unethical, and even illegal things at work, and you and other employees may know that they did. The dilemma is what to do about it. Many times you’re

The Whistle-Blower’s Dilemma OB in Action

16 PART 1 Individual Behavior

tempted to reveal the behavior to management or to the authorities— blow the whistle. This seems like the “right thing to do.” Depending on the situation, you may even profit, but you might also pay.

Whistle-Blowing for Profit The Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 and some regulatory agencies provide incen- tives for whistle-blowers. Some can receive up to 30 percent of any settlement if regulators collect more than $1 million due to the in- fraction.36 Bradley Birkenfeld, an ex-banker for UBS, was awarded $104 million for exposing the way his bank helped US clients hide money in Swiss accounts. Cheryl Eckard was awarded $96 million for revealing manufacturing flaws in the production of some of Glaxo- SmithKline’s pharmaceuticals.37

Dr. William LaCorte of Louisiana seems to be a serial whistle-blower. He has filed multiple lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies (Pfizer and Merck) and received awards totaling nearly $100 million.38 Olympus Corp., a global medical device company, was ordered to pay $646 million in civil and criminal penalties for providing kickbacks, bribes, and other inappropriate forms of influence to win business. The whistle-blower and former chief compliance officer, John Slowik, reported the violations internally. But nothing was done, so he escalated the matter to federal officials. His reward: $51 million.39

The Costs As a vice president at Chase Bank, Linda Almonte was asked to review more than 20,000 past-due credit card accounts before they were sold to another company. Almonte’s team reported back to her that nearly 60 percent contained some sort of major error, including discrepancies about the amount or whether the court had indeed ruled for the bank. Concerned, Almonte went up the chain of com- mand, flagging the errors and encouraging management to halt the sale. Instead, the bank fired Almonte and completed the deal.40 Nobody would hire her, which ruined her professionally and financially. She and her family ultimately moved to another state, where they lived in a hotel while she continued to look for work.

Ultimately, Chase was ordered to pay $200 million in fines and restitution. The company also settled a suit for an undisclosed amount with Almonte.41

What’s the Lesson? Don’t underestimate the likelihood and costs of retaliation. Codes of ethics that forbid retaliation are just empty words if unethical people aren’t held accountable. And a lack of accountability is the hallmark of corrupt organizations. Doing the right thing can be very costly.

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What can employers do to encourage whistle-blowers? 2. How can organizations ensure that whistle-blowers are protected, other than

simply making it a policy ( just words)? 3. What can you do as an individual employee when you witness or become

aware of unethical conduct?

Sherron Watkins became one of the most famous whistle-blowers in history when she helped undo Enron. Enron was an energy and trading company that soared in the 1990s and failed in one of the most calamitous ethical scandals in modern business. Watkins now earns a living speaking about her experience and ethics more generally, which likely pays far less than jobs in the energy sector. © Scott J Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Alamy

17Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

TABLE 1.2 CAUSES OF UNETHICAL BEHAVIOR AT WORK AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT

Ill-Conceived Goals

Motivated Blindness

Indirect Blindness

The Slippery Slope

Overvaluing Outcomes

Description: We set goals and incentives to promote a desired behavior, but they encourage a negative one.

We overlook the unethical behavior of another when it’s in our interest to remain ignorant.

We hold others less accountable for unethical behavior when it’s carried out through third parties.

We are less able to see others’ unethical behavior when it develops gradually.

We give a pass to unethical behavior if the outcome is good.

Example: The pressure to maximize billable hours in accounting, consulting, and law firms leads to unconscious padding.

Baseball officials failed to notice they’d created conditions that encouraged steroid use.

A drug company deflects attention from a price increase by selling rights to another company, which imposes the increases.

Auditors may be more likely to accept a client firm’s questionable financial statements if infractions have accrued over time.

A researcher whose fraudulent clinical trial saves lives is considered more ethical than one whose fraudulent trial leads to deaths.

Remedy: Brainstorm unintended consequences when devising goals and incentives. Consider alternative goals that may be more important to reward.

Root out conflicts of interest. Simply being aware of them doesn’t necessarily reduce their negative effect on decision making.

When handing off or outsourcing work, ask whether the assignment might invite unethical behavior and take ownership of the implications.

Be alert for even trivial ethical infractions and address them immediately. Investigate whether a change in behavior has occurred.

Examine both “good” and “bad” decisions for their ethical implications. Reward solid decision processes, not just good outcomes.

SOURCE: Harvard Business Review. “Ethical Breakdowns: Good People Often Let Bad Things Happen” by M. Bazerman and A. Tenbrunsel, April 2011. Copyright © 2011 by the Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation; all rights reserved.

What Causes Unethical Behavior? Harvard professor Max Bazerman and Ann Tenbrunsel of the University of Notre Dame have studied ethical and unethical conduct extensively. They concluded that while criminally minded people exist in the workplace, most employees are in fact good people with good intentions. Bazerman and Tenbrunsel contend that instead of ill intent, cognitive biases and organizational practices “blind managers to unethical behavior, whether it is their own or that of others.”42 Table 1.2, which summarizes their findings, outlines causes of unethical behavior and what we can do to address that behavior as employees and managers.

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Identifying Unethical Behavior at School and Work

1. Identify the three most common forms of unethical behavior at school or where you work. Be specific.

2. Using Table 1.2, identify the likely causes for each.

3. Describe one thing that can be done to prevent or remedy each of the behaviors you noted in question 1. Use Table 1.2 for ideas/suggestions.

18 PART 1 Individual Behavior

What about Unethical Behavior in College and When Applying for Jobs? A study of graduate students in the United States and Canada, including MBAs, found that peer behavior was by far the strongest predictor of student cheating, followed by se- verity of penalties and certainty of being reported.43 Students are more likely to cheat if their classmates cheat, and/or they think the probability of being caught is small, and if caught that the penalties will not be severe.

However, don’t be too quick to blame this bad behavior on your lying, cheating classmates. The same researchers acknowledge that there are many other potential rea- sons for cheating, such as perceived unfairness in grading. It also is possible that stu- dents see different degrees of cheating—for instance, in homework assignments versus on exams.

As for job hunting, an analysis of 2.6 million job applicant background checks by ADP Screening and Selection Services revealed that “44 percent of applicants lied about their work histories, 41 percent lied about their education, and 23 percent falsified cre- dentials or licenses.”44 Figure 1.2 highlights some of the most common and most outra- geous lies told on résumés. Can you imagine being a recruiter? If you believe these numbers, half the people you interview could be lying to you about something! Many

Most Creative Liars The best lies came from those who claimed to …

Liar, Liar, Résumé on Fire

More than half of hiring and HR managers have caught a lie on a résumé. Here are some results from a survey of more than 2,500 hiring professionals.

28%

31%

62%

54%

39%

Most Common Lies

200

Academic degrees

Job titles

Employment dates

Responsibilities

Skill sets

10060 8040

Be a Nobel Prize winner.

Be a former CEO of the company to which the person was applying.

Have worked in a jail (when the person really was serving time there).

Have attended a college that didn’t exist.

Be employed at three di�erent companies in three di�erent cities simultaneously.

Be HVAC-certified and later asked the hiring manager what “HVAC” meant.

AC

FIGURE 1.2 EXAMPLES AND PREVALENCE OF LIES ON RÉSUMÉS

SOURCE: K Gurchiek, “Liar, Liar, Resume on Fire,” SHRM, September 2, 2015, https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/ talent-acquisition/pages/lying-exaggerating-padding-resume.aspx.

19Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

potential reasons for unethical behavior at work exist, beyond those listed in Table 1.2, such as:

1. Personal motivation to perform (“I must be No. 1”). 2. Pressure from a supervisor to reach unrealistic performance goals along with threats

for underperforming. 3. Reward systems that honor unethical behavior. 4. Employees’ perception of little or no consequences for crossing the line.45

Some people don’t see their actions as unethical. Despite both Enron executives be- ing convicted, Jeff Skilling proclaims his innocence to this day, as did Ken Lay until he died. Nevertheless, it will be helpful for you to learn more specifically about your own ethical tendencies. Some people view ethics in ideal terms, which means that ethical prin- ciples or standards apply universally across situations and time. Others, however, take a relativistic view and believe that what is ethical depends on the situation. Take Self- Assessment 1.2 to learn about your own views.

Assessing My Perspective on Ethics Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 1.2 in Connect.

1. Are your views more idealistic or more relativistic?

2. What do you think about students cheating on homework assignments in school? What about cheating on exams?

3. Are your answers consistent with your score? Explain.

4. Suppose you’re a manager. What does your score imply about the way you would handle the unethical behavior of someone you manage? What about your boss’s unethical behavior?

SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.2

What Can I Do about It? Like most others, you have or likely will witness question- able or even blatantly unethical conduct at work. You might be tempted to think, This is common practice, the incident is minor, it’s not my responsibility to confront such issues, and loyal workers don’t confront each other. While such rationalizations for not confront- ing unethical conduct are common, they have consequences for individuals, groups, and organizations. What can you do instead? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Recognize that it’s business and treat it that way. Ethical issues are business is- sues, just like costs, revenues, and employee development. Collect data and present a convincing case against the unethical conduct just as you would to develop a new product or strategy.

2. Accept that confronting ethical concerns is part of your job. Whether it is explicit in your job description or not, ethics is everybody’s job. If you think something is questionable, take action.

3. Challenge the rationale. Many lapses occur despite policies against them. If this is the case, ask, “If what you did is common practice or OK, then why do we have a policy forbidding it?” Alternatively, and no matter the rationale, you can ask, “Would you be willing to explain what you did and why in a meeting with our superiors or customers, or during an interview on the evening news?”

20 PART 1 Individual Behavior

4. Use your lack of seniority or status as an asset. While many employees rely on their junior status to avoid confronting ethical issues, being junior can instead be an advantage. It enables you to raise issues by saying, “Because I’m new, I may have misunderstood something, but it seems to me that what you’ve done is out of bounds or could cause problems.”

5. Consider and explain long-term consequences. Many ethical issues are driven by temptations and benefits that play out in the short term. Frame and explain your views in terms of long-term consequences.

6. Suggest solutions—not just complaints. When confronting an issue, you will likely be perceived as more helpful and be taken more seriously if you provide an alternate course or solution. Doing so will also make it more difficult for the offender to disre- gard your complaint.46

What Role Do Business Schools Play? Each of us is first and foremost responsi- ble for our own ethical conduct. However, we also know that our conduct is shaped by the environment and people around us. Leaders have particular influence on the ethical policies, practices, and conduct of organizations. For instance, a recent study reported that 35 percent of all undergraduate degrees are awarded in business fields, yet 75 per- cent of business schools do not require ethics courses.47 If ethics are so important, why the gap?

The researchers asked this question and found that the gender and academic back- ground of deans, along with whether the school was public or private, predicted the likeli- hood that ethics courses were required. Female deans with a background in management were most likely to require ethics courses, while men with economics and finance back- grounds were least likely. Private and religiously affiliated schools were more likely than public schools to require classes in ethics.48 What is the case at your school? Does it align with these findings?

Now that you have a good understanding of the importance of ethics at school and work, we’ll turn our attention to using OB to solve problems. Applying OB to solve problems is a major part of what makes this knowledge so valuable.

Edward Snowden blew the whistle on the National Security Agency’s monitoring of US citizens’ phone and Internet communications. His actions had enormous impact on his own life, as well as on policies and practices within and between companies, industries, and even countries. © AP Photo

21Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How can I apply OB in practical ways to increase my effectiveness?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Now that you know that OB is not just common sense, the challenge is to find a way to

organize and apply its many concepts and theories. In this section, we explain how you can

apply OB to effectively solve problems at work, at school, and in your life. We use a 3-Step

Problem-Solving Approach.

We all encounter problems in our lives. A  problem  is a difference or gap between an actual and a desired state or outcome. Problems arise when our goals (desired out- comes) are not being met (actual situation). So it is important to carefully consider what your goal or desired outcome is in order to define the problem appropriately. In turn,  problem solving  is a systematic process for closing these gaps.

For example, Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon, downplays the importance of meeting quarterly numbers to please Wall Street. Instead, he defines his problem as delivering superior service to customers, today, tomorrow, and forever. His problem-solving efforts are thus more likely to focus on innovative products and delivery times than on profit margins and earnings per share.

Problem-solving skills are increasingly needed in today’s complex world. Loren Gary, former asso- ciate director at Harvard’s Center for Public Leader- ship, supports this assertion: “The ability to identify the most important problems and devising imagina- tive responses to them is crucial to superior perfor- mance in the modern workplace, where workers at all levels of the organization are called upon to think critically, take ownership of problems, and make real-time decisions.”49

To help you increase your personal performance and well-being at school, work, and home, we cre- ated an informal approach you can use to apply OB tools and concepts to solving problems. It’s simple, practical, and ready for you to use now!

A 3-Step Approach There are many approaches to problem solving, and these approaches vary greatly in their practicality and effectiveness. We discuss a number of these in Chap- ter 11 when learning about decision making. Knowing

1.3 APPLYING OB TO SOLVING PROBLEMS

Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, has faced a number of problems in the past few years. The company implemented a very unpopular pricing change for its DVD and streaming services that it eventually abandoned. More recently, one of the most persistent problems is to get approval to operate in and manage the expansion into more than 130 countries. © Francois Guillot/AFP/Getty Images

22 PART 1 Individual Behavior

this, it was important for us as professors and authors to provide you with an approach that is both practical and effective across a variety of situations you encounter. The 3-Step Approach presented in this book is the result of our combined consulting experience of applying our knowledge of OB to help real-world employees and organizations solve problems. Our intent is to help you apply your knowledge to boost your own effectiveness at school, at work, and in life.

Basics of the 3-Step Approach Here are the three steps in our applied approach to problem solving.

Step 1: Define the problem. Most people identify problems reactively—after they happen—which causes them to make snap judgments or assumptions, often plagued by common sense, that incorrectly define the problem and its causes and solutions. All of us would likely benefit from Albert Einstein’s comment, “If I were given one hour to save the planet, I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute resolving it.” Let’s take Professor Einstein’s advice. The following tip will serve you well when defining problems throughout this course and your professional life. • Define problems in terms of desired outcomes. Then test each one by asking,

“Why is this a problem?” Define problems in terms of desired outcomes or end states—compare what you want to what you have. Resist the urge to assume or infer you “know” what the problem and underlying causes are. Instead, start with available facts or details. Then ask yourself, “Why is this gap a problem?” For example, suppose you are disengaged from your work. How do you know this? What is the evidence? Perhaps you no longer go out of your way to help your coworkers and you stop responding to e-mails after work hours. You’ve defined your problem using evidence (or data). Now ask, “Why is this a problem?” Be- cause when you are engaged, your coworkers benefit from you sharing your knowledge and experience. Coworkers and customers benefit from your respon- siveness and willingness to respond to e-mails on their time line, even when it isn’t necessarily convenient for you (after hours).

Step 2: Identify potential causes using OB concepts and theories. Essential to ef- fective problem solving, regardless of your approach, is identifying the appropriate causes. So far you have OB concepts like the contingency perspective and ethics— and many more are coming—to use as potential causes. The more options you have to choose from, the more likely you will identify the appropriate cause(s) and recommendation(s). To improve your ability to accurately identify potential causes, we provide the following tip for Step 2. • Test your causes by asking, “Why or how does this cause the problem?” Once you have confidently defined the problem in Step 1—disengagement—you need to identify potential causes (Step 2). Ask, “Why am I disengaged?” One common reason, backed by science, is that you perceive you were evaluated un- fairly in your recent performance review. “Why or how did this cause disengage- ment?” Because if you feel unappreciated for what you’ve done, you are not motivated to go the extra mile to help your coworkers or customers. Asking “why” multiple times and following the line of reasoning will lead you to define and identify problems and causes more accurately.

Step 3: Make recommendations and (if appropriate) take action. In some work- place situations you will make recommendations, and in others you will also im- plement the recommendations. Here is a simple suggestion to improve the quality of your recommendations and overall problem solving. • Map recommendations onto causes. Be certain your recommendations address the causes you identified in Step 2. The rationale is when you remedy the causes, then you solve or at least ease the underlying problem. Returning to our engage- ment example, the perceived fairness of performance reviews can be improved if

23Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

managers use multiple raters, such as peers and the employee him- or herself (you’ll learn about multiple raters in Chapter 6). Now, map this recommendation onto the cause (unfair performance review) to ensure it is appropriate and will effectively address the cause and resulting problem. Fixing the cause eliminates the problem.

How This Problem-Solving Approach Develops Throughout the Book As we introduce more OB concepts and tools, the 3-Step Approach will become richer and more useful. For instance, you’ll see in Chapter 11 that this approach to problem solving is an abbreviated version of the rational approach to decision making.

Tools to Reinforce My Problem-Solving Skills Because of the value of problem solving at school, work, and home, we created numerous opportunities for you to master this skill while applying OB. Each chapter, for instance, includes the following features:

• Problem-Solving Application Mini-Cases—These mini-cases present a prob- lem or challenge for you to solve. You are asked to apply the 3-Step Approach to each.

• Self-Assessments—Validated instruments allow you to immediately assess your personal characteristics related to OB concepts, frequently with a personal problem- solving focus, and often followed by a Take-Away Application (see below).

• Take-Away Applications—You are asked to apply what you just learned to your own life at school, at work, or socially.

• End-of-Chapter Problem-Solving Application Cases—The full-length cases re- quire you to apply the OB knowledge gained in that particular chapter to define the problem, determine the causes, and make recommendations.

• Ethical/Legal Challenge—Mini-cases present provocative ethical dilemmas in to- day’s workplace. You are asked to consider, choose, and justify different courses of action.

How good are your problem-solving skills? To get you started, take Self-Assessment 1.3 to measure your problem-solving skills. It will help you understand:

• What types of things you consider when solving problems. • How you think about alternate solutions to problems. • Which approach you prefer when solving problems.

This assessment will help you learn about OB and apply it to improve your own per- formance. (Tip: Take this assessment again at the end of the course to see whether your skills have increased.)

Assessing Your Problem-Solving Potential Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 1.3 in Connect.

1. What do items 1–3 tell you about your ability to define problems?

2. Do your scores on items 4–6 match your perceptions of your ability to generate effective solutions?

3. Using the individual items, describe the pros and cons of your tendencies toward implementing solutions.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 1.3

24 PART 1 Individual Behavior

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How could I explain to a fellow student the practical relevance and power of OB to help solve problems?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

When struggling to solve a problem, have you ever felt the solution was beyond your reach?

Sometimes the solution is a matter of organizing or structuring the problem and its elements.

OB can help. We show you useful tools to assist you in organizing and applying your OB

knowledge as it grows. You can use these same tools to solve problems more rigorously and

more effectively.

1.4 STRUCTURE AND RIGOR IN SOLVING PROBLEMS

It’s easier to understand and apply OB if you categorize or organize your knowledge as you learn it. The first and most fundamental distinction is between elements that are re- lated to you and those related to the situation.

The Person–Situation Distinction OB concepts and theories can be classified into two broad categories: person factors and situation factors. The person–situation distinction is foundational to OB knowledge and application.50

•  Person factors  are the infinite characteristics that give individuals their unique identities. These characteristics combine to influence every aspect of your life. In your job and career, they affect your goals and aspirations, the plans you make to achieve them, the way you execute such plans, and your ultimate level of achievement. Part One of this book is devoted to person factors.

This is simple and makes perfect sense, but as we all know reality is seldom simple. Things get in the way, and these “things” often are situation factors.

•  Situation factors  are all the elements outside ourselves that influence what we do, the way we do it, and the ultimate results of our actions. A potentially infinite number of situation factors can either help or hinder you when you are try- ing to accomplish something (see the following Problem-Solving Application box). This is why situation factors are critically important to OB and your performance. Parts Two and Three of this book are devoted to situation factors.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have shown that many person–situation factors influence a host of important outcomes, such as job satisfaction, performance, and turn- over. But which is more powerful—the person or the situation?

Which Influences Behavior and Performance More—Person or Situation Factors? Researchers and managers have debated for decades whether person or situ- ation factors are more influential. They ask, for instance, about the relative impacts of “nature versus nurture” and whether leaders are “born or made.” We address these de- bates in Chapter 3 and Chapter 13, respectively, but the relative impacts of person and situation factors on behavior and performance are fundamental to OB.

25Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

Many observers believe some people are by their nature better suited than others to perform well at work (“born winners”). In contrast, others believe some people are clearly better in a given job or situation. No particular person could outperform every other per- son in every possible job! Nobody is the best at everything.

This second view is supported by research in psychology and OB. The interactional perspective states that behavior is a function of interdependent person and situa- tion factors.51 The following quotation captures this reality: “Different people may per- ceive similar situations in different ways and similar people may perceive different situations in the same way.”52

People and Situations Are Dynamic People change, situations change, and the two change each other. To illustrate:

• People bring their abilities, goals, and experiences to each and every situation, which often changes the situation.

• Conversely, because situations have unique characteristics, such as opportunities and rewards, they change people. What you value in a job will likely differ between now and the time you are trying to make a move to senior management.

• It also is true that the current job market and employer expectations differ from those at the height of the technology bubble in the late 1990s or in the depths of the Great Recession in 2007–2009. In the first scenario employees changed, and in the second the situation or environment changed.

• Finally, your manager—a situation factor—can change what you do, the way you do it, and your effectiveness. You can exert the same influence on your manager.

The bottom-line implication for OB and your work life is that knowledge of one type of factor without the other is insufficient. You need to understand the interplay between both person and situation factors to be an effective employee and manager.

How Does the Person–Situation Distinc- tion Help Me Apply OB Knowledge? Categorizing your knowledge in terms of per- son and situation factors will be immensely helpful when applying your OB knowledge to solve problems. Consider downsizing.

Many companies restructure indiscrimi- nately and cut large percentages from their employee ranks. Assume you and five co- workers, who all do the same job, are down- sized. You all experience the same event, but your reactions will vary. For instance, you might not feel too bad if you didn’t like the job and were considering going to graduate school anyway. Two of your coworkers, however, may be devastated and depressed.

Nevertheless, because the downsizing event was the same for all of you (the situation factors were identical), we can assume that the differences in everyone’s reactions were due to things about you as individuals (person factors), such as other job opportunities, how much each of you likes the job you just lost, your ratio of savings to debt, and whether you have kids, mortgages, or a working spouse. The person–situation distinction, therefore, provides a means for classifying OB concepts and theories into causes of behavior and problems.

The energy industry is cyclical, and the most recent downturn has been prolonged and especially tough for the hundreds of thousands of workers who have lost their jobs. Such industry and economic characteristics are important situation factors for these employees. © iStock/Getty Images RF

Technology: A Situation Factor that Affects My Performance

Technology is both helpful and detrimental to employee performance and well-being. To set the stage, consider that roughly two-thirds of all full-time workers own smartphones,53 and some reports show that nearly 50 percent of Internet users regularly perform job tasks outside work.54

What are the benefits of technology? More companies are using smartphones to save time and money. For example, at Rudolph & Sletten, a contractor located in Redwood City, California, workers use blue- print software on their iPads. “The digitized documents partly replace hundreds of pages of construction blueprints that need to be updated so often that student interns handle the monotonous work.” The company estimates that using digitized blueprints can save from $15,000 to $20,000 on a large build- ing contract. This also leads to fewer construction errors because workers are using up-to-date informa- tion. Coca-Cola Enterprises similarly uses mobile-centric devices to streamline the workday of its restaurant service technicians. The company estimates that the technology saves about 30 minutes a day per employee.55

So what’s the downside of technology? More employees are work- ing more hours because they use their smartphones and e-mail after hours. This helps explain a Glassdoor report that 61 percent of em- ployees reported working while on vacation.56 If you’re wondering why so many do this, the same report offered some insights:

1. 40 percent are concerned about the pile of work that will accu- mulate in their absence.

2. 35 percent feel only they can do their jobs. 3. 25 percent are concerned about being replaced while away

and thus losing their jobs.57

Do you get paid for this “overtime”? Another part of this problem created by technology is the payment of overtime. According to the Fair Labor Standards Act, employees should be compensated for work wherever it happens and when it exceeds their defined work- week (40 hours). This can create a problem if employees respond to or send e-mails after hours. For example, T-Mobile settled a law- suit  brought against them because salespeople in its stores were expected to work 10 to 15 hours “off the clock” responding to e-mails and texts from customers (they were required to give out their phone numbers and e-mail addresses). Many similar suits have been filed, such as by Chicago police officers and satellite dish installers, both of whom were expected if not required to do uncompensated work remotely.58

Problem-Solving Application

© David Jones/Getty Images RF

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach

Step 1: Define the problem described in this example.

Step 2: Identify two potential causes (be sure to link the causes to the problem you identified).

Step 3: Make a recommendation aimed at each cause that you feel will improve or remove the prob- lem. (Be sure your recommendations link to the causes.)

26 PART 1 Individual Behavior

27Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

Levels—Individual, Group/Team, and Organization We saw above that OB distinguishes among three levels at work: individual, group/team, and organizational. To illustrate how considering levels helps in solving real-world prob- lems, think about the many reasons people quit their jobs.

• Some people quit because their job doesn’t fulfill what they value, such as chal- lenging and stimulating work (an individual-level input).

• Others quit because of conflicts with their boss or because they have nothing in common with their coworkers (a group/team-level process).

• A common reason people quit is a faulty reward system that unfairly distributes raises, bonuses, and recognition (an organizational-level process).

Understanding and considering levels increases your problem-solving effectiveness and performance. This is highlighted in the problem-solving example in Section 1.6.

Applying OB Concepts to Identify the Right Problem Nothing causes more harm than solving the wrong problem. To illustrate, assume that many people in your department at work are quitting. What could be the reason? The person–situation distinction allows you to consider unique individual factors as well as situation factors that might be the source of the problem. And considering the levels of individual, group, and organization will allow you to look at each for possible causes.

For example: • Person factors. Do your departing coworkers have something in common? Is there

anything about their personalities that makes work difficult for them, such as a preference to work collaboratively rather than independently? What about their ages? Gender? Skills?

• Situation factors. Have there been changes in the job market, such as a sudden increase in employment opportunities at better wages? Have working conditions such as promotion opportunities become less attractive in your organization?

• Individual level. Has the job itself become boring and less meaningful or reward- ing to the employees who quit?

• Group/team level. Have there been any changes to the work group, including the manager, that might make work less satisfying? How does turnover in your depart- ment compare to that in other departments in the organization? Why?

• Organizational level. Has the organization changed ownership, or rewritten com- pany policies, or restructured such that the most desirable positions are now at the headquarters in another state?

By following this approach and asking these questions, you widen your focus and review a larger number of possible causes, increasing the likelihood you will identify the right problem. If you don’t quite follow this example, then have no fear. We analyze a turnover scenario in the last section of this chapter and provide a more detailed application. Stay tuned!

We now move on to the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. This tool is not only helpful for learning OB, but it also serves as an essential tool for using OB to solve problems.

28 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Using your knowledge of the person–situation distinction and levels (individual, group/ team, and organizational), you are now ready to learn about the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. We created this framework (see Figure 1.3) for two reasons. The first is to help you organize OB concepts and theories into three causally related buckets called Inputs, Processes, and Outcomes. This in turn leads to the second reason for creating the Organizing Framework. It helps you solve problems, thereby enhanc- ing your problem-solving skills and marketability to employers. We explain this application later in this section.

A Basic Version of the Organizing Framework The foundation of the Organizing Framework is a systems model wherein inputs influ- ence outcomes through processes. The person and situation factors are inputs. We’ve or- ganized processes and outcomes into the three levels of OB—individual, group/team, and organizational.

This framework implies that person and situation factors are the initial drivers of all outcomes that managers want to achieve. This is the case because inputs affect processes, and processes affect outcomes. And because events are dynamic and ongoing, many outcomes will in turn affect inputs and processes. See Figure 1.3. The relationships

1.5 THE ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How can the Organizing Framework help me understand and apply OB knowledge to solve problems?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

You’re about to learn about the single best tool for understanding and applying OB’s many

concepts and tools—the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. The

framework also helps tremendously in improving your problem-solving abilities at school,

work, and home. In the final section, we give you practical and effective guidance on how to

choose among alternate solutions to problems.

FIGURE 1.3 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

© 2014 by Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without express permission of the authors.

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Personal Factors Situation Factors

Individual Level Group/Team Level Organizational Level

Individual Level Group/Team Level Organizational Level

29Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

between outcomes at one point in time and inputs and processes at another are shown as feedback loops in the Organizing Framework (the black arrows at the bottom of the figure).

EXAMPLE A study of 111 people over one week showed that taking time away from work led employees to feel rested (an outcome) and to experience higher lev- els of work engagement (a process). Such breaks also enabled them to recover better during the workday, and this reenergized them for their remaining work (an input).59

As you work through this book you will notice that each chapter begins with a ver- sion of the Organizing Framework that helps introduce the concepts discussed in that particular chapter. Each chapter repeats the same version of the framework at the end as part of the chapter review. If you add up the content of all the chapters, you’ll end up with something that looks like the fully populated or complete Organizing Framework. We provide the complete version in the next section of this chapter. Not only is this framework a useful preview of all you will learn, but it also is an effective review tool for preparing for a comprehensive final exam.

By definition, frameworks (and models) are simplifications of reality; they neces- sarily exclude information. This means the complete Organizing Framework will not show every OB concept that might affect employee behavior and performance. But the basic elements of the framework will help you understand and apply any OB topic you encounter. The following OB in Action box illustrates the value of the Organizing Framework and its components—inputs, processes, and outcomes. Be sure to answer the “Your Thoughts?” questions; they will show you how to apply your new OB knowledge and tools.

Let’s now consider the details of the Organizing Framework and apply it to the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.

Using the Organizing Framework for Problem Solving You can use the Organizing Framework at all three steps of the problem-solving process to add rigor, intelligently apply your OB knowledge, and in turn improve your performance.

Step 1: Define the problem. Problems can be defined in terms of outcomes in the Organizing Framework, and these outcomes occur at three levels.

Step 2: Identify causes. Causes are often best thought of in terms of inputs (person or situation) or processes at various levels (individual, group/team, organizational).

Step 3: Make recommendations. Consider the most appropriate solutions using your OB knowledge and tools. Then map these onto the causes (inputs or processes).

Your ultimate problem-solving success will be determined by the effectiveness of your recommendation and resulting solution. So let’s discuss this next.

Selecting a Solution and Taking Action (if appropriate) Selecting solutions is both art and science. Some managers like to rely largely on intuition (discussed in Chap- ter 11) and experience. While these approaches can work, others use more analytical or systematic methods to select a solution.

EXAMPLE Intel has long been famous for its data-driven decision-making practices. When employees encounter and notify their managers of problems, it is common if not expected that managers automatically reply: “Call me when you’ve worked through your seven-step,” referring to a companywide problem-solving process.

30 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Whether it is the well-known candy they make (M&M’s, Snick- ers, Life Savers) or the cat and dog foods (Whiskas and Pedi- gree), life is indeed sweet for the employees of Mars. The Organiz- ing Framework can help us ex- plain and understand why the 75,000 employees feel they have it so good, and why the company again made the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2015.

Inputs The environment at Mars lacks the perks touted by many tech companies— no Foosball tables, no free gourmet lunches, and no premier health clubs. More than this, some work practices are downright old school. For instance, all employ- ees, including the president, have to punch a time clock each day and are docked 10 percent of their pay for the day if late.

But what Mars may seem to lack in style it makes up for with its culture. For- mer President Paul S. Michaels explains how the company aligns its values and practices by asking: “Does it add value for the consumer to pay for marble floors and Picassos?” If it doesn’t, then the company doesn’t provide it. Employees seem to love the place and have very positive relationships at work; many families have three generations working at Mars. The culture seems to be one big family inter- ested in cats, dogs, and candy. At one facility more than 200 employees bring their dogs to work each day. (Leash rules apply.)

This family-type environment flows from the founding Mars family, which still tightly controls the company according to the “Five Principles of Mars”: quality, responsibility, mutuality, efficiency, and freedom. Employees can recite these prin- ciples and live them.

Processes While some practices seem frugal, the company reportedly awards bonuses of 10 to 100 percent of employees’ salaries. The company also invests heavily in the community via its Mars Volunteers and Mars Ambassadors pro- grams. In 2014, about 21,500 employees volunteered over 85,000 hours at local organizations!60

Outcomes Mars posts a very low turnover rate (5 percent), a sign that employ- ees are highly satisfied with their jobs. And the fact that the company has man- aged to grow consistently for decades and remain private is compelling evidence of its strong financial performance.61 For instance, it recently built its first new US chocolate factory in 35 years. It employs 200 people and produces 39 million M&Ms per day.62

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What positive outcomes does Mars produce at the individual level? 2. What positive outcomes does Mars produce at the organizational level? 3. What inputs and processes help produce each of these outcomes?

Life Is Sweeter on Mars OB in Action

© Press Association/AP Photo

31Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

Intel’s problem-solving process is so entrenched that employees use a common PowerPoint template to fill in and ultimately present the relevant details of their proposed solutions. (Intel illustrates an organizational-level process approach that is similar to the rational approach to decision making we’ll discuss in Chapter 11.)

Don’t Forget to Consider Constraints As a matter of practicality, most people lack the time, knowledge, or access to data to routinely follow such a rigorous procedure. Therefore, your selection most often requires you to consider various constraints—on time, money, your own authority, and information—that can occur at different levels. We close this chapter with practical pointers on how to select the best solution.

Applied Approaches to Selecting a Solution You can save time and hassle with the following practical advice from renowned problem- solving expert and professor Russell Ackoff. Ackoff recommends first deciding how complete a response you are looking for. Do you want the problem to be resolved, solved, or dissolved?

• Resolving problems is arguably the most common action managers take and sim- ply means choosing a satisfactory solution, one that works but is less than ideal. Putting on a “doughnut” or temporary spare tire fixes a flat, but it certainly is not ideal and is unlikely to last.

© Scott Carson/ZUMA Press, Inc/Alamy

32 PART 1 Individual Behavior

• Solving problems is the optimal or ideal response. For instance, you could buy a new, high-quality, full-size spare to keep in your trunk (not the typical doughnut or the “run-flats” that manufacturers frequently provide).

• Dissolving problems requires changing or eliminating the situation in which the problem occurs. Keeping with our example, the city you live in could build and utilize effective public transportation and thus remove the necessity of having cars (and tires) altogether.63

Making this decision first helps guide your choice among alternatives. It helps you decide what you need, whether it is realistic, and what level of effort and resources to use.

Basic Elements for Selecting an Effective Solution After deciding whether to resolve, solve, or dissolve your identified problem, you need to select the most effective solution. A problem-solving expert says: “The essence of suc- cessful problem solving is to be willing to consider real alternatives.”64 To help you choose among alternatives identified in Step 2, we distilled three common elements that will help you qualify the best solution:

1. Selection criteria. Identify the criteria for the decision you must make, such as its effect on: • Bottom-line profits. • You and classmates or coworkers. • Your organization’s reputation with customers or the community. • Your own values. • The ethical implications.

2. Consequences. Consider the consequences of each alternative, especially trade-offs between the pros and the cons, such as: • Who wins and who loses. • Ideal vs. practical options. • Perfection vs. excellence. • Superior vs. satisfactory results.

3. Choice process. Decide who will participate in choosing the solution. (If more than one person, agree on the method. Will you vote? Will the vote be public or secret? Unanimous or simple majority?): • You • Third party • Team

In every case, consider the necessary resources, including which people will be key sources of support for (and resistance to) your ultimate selection. Consider who can help and who can hurt your efforts—what’s in it for them?

Putting it all together, the OB knowledge and tools you’ll learn in this book will help tremendously in selecting and implementing your best solution given the situation you face. The final section of this chapter provides a preview of what you will learn in this book, along with an example application of the Organizing Framework and the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach.

33Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

We wrote this preview to serve three primary functions: (1) It is a sneak peek and fore- shadows all that you will learn in this book; (2) it illustrates how to use the Organizing Framework when solving problems with the 3-Step Problem Solving Approach; and (3) it serves as a review for a comprehensive final exam for this course.

We begin this section by briefly reviewing the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach and the components of the Organizing Framework. We then apply these tools to an example problem-solving scenario. The purpose is to be a tutorial of how you are expected to apply your knowledge and these particular tools throughout the rest of the book.

The 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach This chapter began by showing you that common sense often is not common practice. We instead showed you how to think critically and add rigor and structure to your problem solving by using three steps, recapped as follows:

Step 1: Define the problem. To be an effective problem solver, you must define the problem accurately. It all starts here.

Step 2: Identify potential causes using OB concepts and theories. The many OB theories and concepts you will learn are extremely useful in helping identify the underlying causes of the problem you defined in Step 1.

Step 3: Make recommendations and (if appropriate) take action. Once you have identified the problem and its causes, you can plan and implement recommenda- tions, applying your OB knowledge and tools.

Improving your problem-solving abilities will lead to better performance for you, your team, and your organization. This is important given that problem solving is one of the most sought after skills of employers across jobs and industries.

The Organizing Framework Figure 1.4 illustrates a summary version of the Organizing Framework. It shows the OB concepts and theories you will learn and includes chapter references for finding details

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How can I use my knowledge about OB to help me achieve professional and personal effectiveness?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

This final section of Chapter 1 provides a high-level overview of what you will learn in this

book, and it shows a summary Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.

A thorough application of the 3-Step Problem Solving Approach is also provided to illus-

trate its power and applicability.

1.6 PREVIEW AND APPLICATION OF WHAT I WILL LEARN

34 PART 1 Individual Behavior

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Personal Factors (associated chapters) Hard and soft skills: 1 • Ethical behavior: 1 • Values: 2 • Attitudes: 2 • Intelligence: 3 • Cognitive abilities: 3 • Personality: 3 • Core self-evaluations: 3 • Emotional intelligence: 3 • Stereotypes: 4 • Diversity: 4 • Motivation: 5, 6, 7 • Positive OB: 7 • Emotions: 3, 7 • Mindfulness: 7 • Psychological capital: 7 • Communication: 9 • Social media: 9 • Decision making: 11 • Creativity: 11 • Resistance to change: 16 Situation Factors • Ethical behavior of others:

1, 10, 12 • Leadership: 1, 8, 13 • Job design: 5 • Human resource policies,

practices, and procedures: 6, 9, 14

• Relationship quality: 8 • Decision making: 11 • Organization culture and

climate: 7, 10, 13, 14, 15 • Mentoring: 14 • Organizational design: 15 • Forces for change: 16 • Resistance to change

(coworker and organizational): 16

• Organizational mission and vision: 16

Individual Level (associated chapters) • Emotions: 3, 7 • Perceptions: 4, 6 • Attributions: 4 • Motivation: 5, 6, 7 • Job design: 5 • Performance management

practices: 6 • Communication: 7, 8, 9 • Trust: 8 • Decision making: 11, 15 • Creativity: 11 • Leadership: 1, 8, 13 • Mentoring: 14 Group/Team Level • Group/team dynamics:

3, 4, 8, 11, 14, 16 • Communication: 7, 8, 9 • Group roles and norms: 8 • Group development: 8 • Trust: 8 • Team effectiveness: 8 • Conflict and negotiation: 10 • Decision making: 11 • Creativity: 11 • Power, influence, and

politics: 12 • Structural and psychological

empowerment: 12 • Impression management: 12 • Organizational culture and

climate: 7, 10, 13, 14, 15 • Organizational socialization: 14 • Mentoring: 14 • Organizational design: 15 Organizational Level • Managing diversity: 4 • Human resource policies,

practices, and procedures: 6, 8, 14

• Communication: 7, 8, 9 • Organizational culture and

climate: 7, 10, 13, 14, 15 • Decision making: 11 • Creativity: 11 • Leadership: 1, 8, 13 • Organizational socialization: 14 • Organizational design: 15 • Leading and managing

change and stress: 16

Individual Level (associated chapters) • Task performance: all but 15 • Work attitudes: all but 11, 15 • Turnover: all but 11, 15 • Career outcomes:

1, 3, 4, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16 • Well-being/flourishing:

2, 3, 4, 7, 13, 16 • Citizenship behavior/

counterproductive behavior: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 16

• Intrinsic and extrinsic motivation: 5

• Creativity: 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 15 • Physical health: 7 • Stress (physical and

emotional): 12, 15, 16 • Resistance to change: 15, 16 • Accidents: 16 • (Un)Ethical behavior: all but

3, 7, 15 Group/Team Level • Group/team performance: all

but 1, 2 • Group satisfaction:

3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 16 • Group/team cohesion and

conflict: 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 14, 16 • Group/team collaboration:

13, 15 • Innovation: 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16 • Resistance to change: 16 • (Un)Ethical behavior: all but

3, 7, 15 Organizational Level • Accounting/financial

performance: 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16

• Customer service/satisfaction: 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16

• Survival: 3, 6, 16 • Reputation: 3, 4, 6, 9, 10, 12, 16 • Employer of choice: 4, 6 • Innovation: 6, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 16 • Organizational effectiveness:

7, 15, 16 • Legal liability: 9, 11 • Product/service quality: 14 • Operational efficiency: 14, 15 • (Un)Ethical behavior: all but

3, 7, 15

© 2014 by Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without express permission of the authors.

FIGURE 1.4 SUMMARY OF ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

35Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

about them. The framework further illustrates how the various concepts are related to each other: Inputs affect processes, which in turn influence outcomes. Remember, prob- lems are generally identified by looking for gaps in desired versus actual outcomes, and causes can be found in inputs and processes.

Here are a few important insights from Figure 1.4. • There are more person factors that affect processes than situation factors. Pay par-

ticular attention to person factors when looking for causes of problems. • Solving problems requires you to think across levels. Notice the many different

concepts listed under individual-, group/team-, and organizational-level processes and outcomes.

• OB concepts are both inputs and processes. Leadership is a good example. This reinforces the dynamic nature of organizational behavior and underscores the  consideration of connections between inputs and processes when solving problems.

• Knowledge about OB is important. Simply look at the outcomes box! It shows over two dozen different outcomes are affected by OB-related inputs and pro- cesses. The framework further shows the frequency with which various out- comes are important to managers. Notice the number of chapters in which individual task performance, work attitudes, turnover, group/team perfor- mance, innovation, accounting/financial performance, and customer service/ satisfaction are discussed. And more personally, observe that career outcomes (an individual-level outcome) are related to concepts included in nearly every chapter.

Using the Framework for Learning When you first read or learn about a new concept we recommend you attempt to categorize it in terms of whether it is a person factor, such as values and work attitudes (Chapter 2), personality and emotions (Chapter 3), and perceptions and diversity (Chapter 4); or a situation factor like human resource policies, practices, and procedures (Chapter 6), leader behavior (Chapter 13), and organizational culture (Chapter 14). Doing this will improve your learning by organizing concepts and helping you understand how they are related to each other.

We also encourage you to consider the issue of levels as you progress in learning about OB. Not only do many OB concepts exist at particular levels, such as personality at the individual level, but some concepts like performance management and conflict are processes that can affect outcomes across all levels.

Breadth and Power of OB You should conclude from this that OB matters in busi- ness. More importantly it matters to you—your job and your career. And anybody (other textbooks, classmates, coworkers, bosses) who says OB is simply common sense, or that it only affects employee commitment, satisfaction, and performance, clearly does not un- derstand the full and true power and value of OB. After taking this course you’ll know better and won’t make such mistakes!

Hypothetical Problem-Solving Scenario Observation and practice are two excellent ways to learn. Let’s do both. We will work through a problem-solving scenario and show you how to use the Organizing Framework and the 3-Step Approach.

The scenario involves the problem of employee turnover, an individual-level out- come we used earlier in the chapter. For this application assume you are a valued junior

36 PART 1 Individual Behavior

employee who is thinking of quitting, and that many other talented junior employees have quit your department in the past couple of years.

Step 1: Define the Problem To reiterate, a problem is a gap between a current situ- ation and a desired situation or outcome. First review the outcomes box in the Organiz- ing Framework, because many problems are gaps between one or more current and desired outcomes. For instance, in this hypothetical scenario your organization has a turnover problem. Why is this a problem? Because it wants to have the appropriate num- ber of talented people in its most crucial jobs. Note that defining the problem this way is different from saying more people quit your company this year than last year, or that your employer has higher turnover than its competitors. (Note: If your worst performers quit instead of your best, then you could argue that your organization is better off due to the reduction in “dead wood” rather than having a problem.) It also isn’t necessarily a prob- lem to lose people, especially underperformers or those with obsolete skills. But if your organization’s most valuable and high-performing people (like you) quit, then a problem likely exists. This sort of reasoning highlights the importance of defining the problem accurately.

Now that we’ve confidently completed the first step and defined the problem accurately—turnover of talented, high-performing, junior employees—let’s continue the process and identify the potential causes of this turnover problem.

Step 2: Use OB to Highlight the Causes While people quit for a variety of rea- sons, a good place to start is to consider both person and situation inputs and then vari- ous processes as potential causes of your organization’s turnover problem. Look at the summary Organizing Framework for guidance (see Figure 1.4).

• Potential Cause 1—Person factors often represent key causes of turnover. Possi- bly the junior employees are quitting because their jobs don’t fulfill their personal values (see Chapter 2). Low job satisfaction (Chapter 2) and demotivating job char- acteristics (see Chapter 5) also might cause turnover.

• Potential Cause 2—Situation factors frequently are causes of turnover. For ex- ample, people may be quitting because they have poor relationships with their bosses (see Chapter 13) or are working in a culture (see Chapter 14) characterized by damaging political behavior (see Chapter 12).

• Potential Cause 3—Individual, group/team, and organizational processes can also cause turnover. Conflict (with your boss), a team-level process (see Chapter 10), may constitute a cause of turnover. Another is a faulty performance management system (an organizational-level process—Chapter 6), one that unfairly distributes raises, bonuses, and recognition. As you will learn in Chapter 5, perceived injustice is often a powerful driver of employee turnover.

Notice that the potential causes are located in different components (inputs and processes) and different levels within the Organizing Framework. Using the Organiz- ing Framework to identify potential causes increases the likelihood that you’ll iden- tify the appropriate ones, essential to creating and implementing the best solution in Step 3.

Step 3: Generate Effective Recommendations Using OB Now it’s time to re- view the potential causes and identify the most likely and significant ones for the problem you defined in Step 1. Returning to our scenario, we list brief recommendations for each of the potential causes outlined above. We’ll address all three to highlight how much you will learn and the practical value of that knowledge.

37Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

• Response to Cause 1: Recommendations for Improving Person Factors. OB provides a host of ideas for solving problems. The needs of your most valuable employees could be better satisfied if they were allowed to work on projects that satisfy their values of self-direction or achievement (Chapters 2 and 5). Job satis- faction might be increased through rewards that equitably meet employees’ needs. Finally, motivation can be enhanced if people are allowed to assume more respon- sibility for projects (job enrichment) and decide how and when to do their work (autonomy).

• Response to Cause 2: Recommendations for Improving Situation Factors. Manager–employee relationships can suffer for many reasons, but let’s assume some key and more junior employees in your department feel they are in the “out group,” instead of the “in group,” which consists mostly of older and more  senior employees who have known and worked with your manager for many years. This cause sounds like poor leader–member exchange (LMX in Chapter 13), which can be remedied if managers are trained to be more inclu- sive and implement formal mentoring and development programs. Managers can improve the political behavior driving a negative culture by acknowledging its existence and discontinuing the practice of rewarding people who are too political. Finally, team building (see Chapter 8) can reduce conflict among employees.

• Response to Cause 3: Recommendations for Improving Processes. Along with the knowledge you will gain related to justice and goal setting, Chapter 6 provides a host of ideas for improving performance management practices. A good place to start is to use Table 6.1 and clearly define and communicate performance goals and expectations. If these goals are SMART, then they are more likely to be achieved. Finally, rewards are more effective if the links between particular levels of performance and rewards are made clear. Rewards and their consequences should be fair and based on accurate performance evaluations.

Are you surprised by the many causes and potential solutions for this problem? As we just illustrated, the 3-Step Approach, combined with the Organizing Framework, can help you to more effectively solve problems. This in turn will contribute to your profes- sional (and personal) effectiveness and opportunities.

Our Wishes for You Knowledge by itself is not an advantage. To get ahead, you must apply your knowledge. We encourage you to continually apply your new OB knowledge as you learn it. This book provides many, many opportunities. Applying your knowledge is key to achieving a more successful and fulfilling career. This is our ultimate wish for you and our goal for writing this book. Enjoy the rest of your journey!

38 PART 1 Individual Behavior

You learned that OB is an interdisciplinary field that focuses on understanding and managing people at work. The same rich collection of OB tools and insights that can help you succeed at work can also help at school and at home. Your understanding of the practical value of OB knowl- edge was increased further with the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB and the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach. Reinforce your learning with the chapter’s Key Points listed below. Next, consolidate your learn- ing using the Organizing Framework, shown in Figure 1.5. Then, challenge your mastery of the material by answering the chapter’s Major Ques- tions in your own words.

Key Points for Understanding Chapter 1 You learned the following key points.

1.1 THE VALUE OF OB TO MY JOB AND CAREER

• OB is an interdisciplinary and applied field that involves managing the behaviors of indi- viduals, groups/teams, and organizations.

• The practical benefits of OB are based on the contingency approach, which says that the best or most effective approach requires us to apply the knowledge and tools appropriate to a given situation, rather than relying on one best way across all situations.

• Self-awareness is critically important to both applying the contingency approach and achieving short- and long-term success at work and school.

• OB helps you enhance your attractiveness to employers, who want employees with both hard and soft skills.

• OB is far more than common sense. Common sense has limits and inherent pitfalls that OB knowledge and tools help you avoid and overcome.

1.2 RIGHT VS. WRONG–ETHICS AND MY PERFORMANCE

• Ethics is concerned with behavior—right, wrong, and the many shades of gray in be- tween. Unethical behavior thus has many forms and causes.

• The vast majority of unethical conduct at work is not illegal.

• Unethical conduct negatively affects the indi- vidual targets, the perpetrators, coworkers, and entire organizations.

• Employees often encounter ethical dilemmas, or situations in which none of the potential so- lutions are ethically acceptable.

• Whistle-blowers are rarely protected and of- ten suffer substantial emotional and profes- sional costs.

1.3 APPLYING OB TO SOLVING PROBLEMS

• A problem is a difference or gap between a current and a desired outcome or state.

• Problem solving is a systematic means for closing such differences or gaps.

• The 3-Step Problem Solving Approach defines the problem, uses OB concepts and theories to understand the causes of the problem, and makes recommendations and action plans to solve the problem.

1.4 STRUCTURE AND RIGOR IN SOLVING PROBLEMS

• The person–situation distinction is a funda- mental way to organize, understand, and ap- ply OB concepts.

• Person factors are the many characteristics that give individuals their unique identities.

• Situation factors consist of all the elements outside ourselves that influence what we do, the way we do it, and the ultimate results of our actions.

• Workplace behavior occurs at three levels— individual, group or team, and organizational.

What Did I Learn?

39Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

1.5 THE ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

• The Organizing Framework is a tool that helps you to organize, understand, and apply your knowledge to solve problems.

• The systems approach—inputs, processes, outcomes—is the basis of the Organizing Framework. Person and environment factors are inputs, and the processes and outcomes are organized into individual, group/team, and organizational levels.

• The Organizing Framework is extremely valuable when applied to the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach. It helps you define problems, identify their causes, and generate recommendations.

1.6 PREVIEW AND APPLICATION OF WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

• The 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach is a simple and effective way to apply your grow- ing knowledge of OB concepts and tools.

• The fully populated Organizing Framework is an excellent preview of the breadth, depth, and practical knowledge you will gain during this course.

• A hypothetical scenario illustrates how rigor- ous and structured problem solving gener- ates greater accuracy and success.

The Organizing Framework for Chapter 1 In this chapter we introduced our first applica- tion of the Organizing Framework, showing the

basic structure of inputs, processes, and out- comes (see Figure 1.5). The basic framework shown here will help you organize new con- cepts, theories, and tools as they are intro- duced, as well as help you retain and apply them. We’ll use the Organizing Framework at the end of each chapter as an aid to review and apply what you’ve just learned. We hope you are impressed by all that you will learn, as illustrated in the Summary Organizing Framework (Figure 1.4). The same framework can help you understand and manage behavior and solve problems in many different organizational contexts (clubs, sports teams, and other social groups).

Challenge: Major Questions for Chapter 1 You now should be able to answer the following major questions. Unless you can, have you really processed and internalized the lessons in the chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 1.5, the chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and an- swer the following major questions:

1. How can I use knowledge of OB to enhance my job performance and career?

2. Why do people engage in unethical behavior, even unwittingly, and what lessons can I learn from that?

3. How can I apply OB in practical ways to in- crease my effectiveness?

4. How could I explain to a fellow student the practical relevance and power of OB to help solve problems?

FIGURE 1.5 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Personal Factors Situation Factors

Individual Level Group/Team Level Organizational Level

Individual Level Group/Team Level Organizational Level

© 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.

40 PART 1 Individual Behavior

5. How can the Organizing Framework help me understand and apply OB knowledge to solve problems?

6. How can I use my knowledge about OB to help me achieve professional and personal effectiveness?

IMPLICATIONS FOR ME First, consider the skills most sought by employers (like critical thinking, problem solving, decision making, active listening) and decide which are strengths and weaknesses of yours. Second, be sure you also develop and apply both hard and soft skills. Effective em- ployees can no longer rely on just technical expertise. Third, use the self-assessments in this book to identify the skills you have and decide which need development. Give your employers what they want! Be sure to highlight those valued skills you possess during interviews, and then explore and seize opportunities to develop the others. Fourth, because unethical conduct can be so damaging to you and your career, identify the most common forms of unethical conduct in your job, determine their possible causes using Table 1.2, and be sure to confront and/or avoid these as we suggested. Most unethi- cal conduct is not illegal, which means that legal action is rarely a viable solution. Also, be aware of the possible consequences of whistle-blowing. Finally, applying rigor and struc- ture to problem solving can help you avoid the pitfalls of common sense and make you more successful at work, at school, and in life.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS Chapter 1 contains several practical implications for managers. First, identify the key skills needed to be top performers in the jobs you manage. You might consider an existing or past top performer. But we also suggest determining to what extent your current employ- ees possess soft skills and the other skills noted as important in the most current research. Select and develop employees focusing on these skills. Second, determine the most com- mon forms of unethical conduct for managers like you, as well as for those you manage. Identify the likely causes (see Table 1.2) and clearly explain what you expect from your employees when they are confronted with such situations. Third, realize that performance and all other employee behavior is a function of both the person and the situation. Don’t be too quick to simply attribute bad (or good) behavior to the employee. Situation factors may also be at play. Finally, improve your own effectiveness and that of those you manage by applying the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach. Be sure you define problems accurately and look for causes at multiple levels—individual, group/team, and organizational. Organi- zations and people are complex, and managing them requires you to consider this com- plexity and deal with it effectively. Models like the Organizing Framework can help.

41Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

How do we get there from here? That’s the question three successive United Airlines CEOs, thousands of employees, tens of thousands of customers, and a sim- ilarly large number of investors have been asking themselves for several years. All travelers have stories to tell, and those told by some of United’s passengers sound like clips from a horror movie. Some passengers were held over for 20 hours in a military barracks in Canada, at one point all flights across the globe were canceled due to a computer glitch, and champion golfer Rory McIlroy’s clubs were lost on the way to a tournament.

These stories are reflections of deeper, more perva- sive problems at the airline. United has been at or near the bottom in industry performance since its merger with Continental in 2010. This is true despite its com- petitors also executing large mergers (American with U.S. Air, Delta with Northwest) and confronting the same economic pressures. Besides suffering generally declining revenues and profits over many years, United was the target of 43 percent of all traveler com- plaints filed against US-based airlines in 2015 and ranked last in customer satisfaction among its peers. The company also paid $2.8 million in fines for leaving passengers stranded on the tarmac and mistreating those with handicaps. One passenger with cerebral palsy had to crawl off the plane because a wheelchair was unavailable.65

CUTTING TO GET AHEAD Management’s intense focus on cutting costs—through layoffs, furloughs, and the outsourcing of baggage handling—has demoralized employees, the same em- ployees who have to deal with unhappy travelers whose flights have been delayed or canceled, or who have horrible coffee or lost luggage. Employees also complained that their new uniforms are cheap and of poor quality.

The airline has long struggled to sign contracts with flight attendants, mechanics, pilots, and gate agents. An airline analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence described the situation this way: “Unhappy mechanics do not tend to go the extra mile—or the extra foot—to get the airplane ready to go.” The seriousness and pervasive- ness of employee problems are captured by the fol- lowing passenger quote about United’s employees: “As individuals they are really nice people . . . but they

are in such a horrible situation, constantly trying to deal with customers that are not happy, and they’re completely powerless.”66

WHO’S TO BLAME? Who is responsible for sustained poor performance? Many point to the CEO. United has had three since 2010. Jeff Smisek, who led Continental, orchestrated the merger with United at that time and was responsi- ble for implementing (or not) many of the changes since. The merger of the two airlines’ many operating systems was done all at once and not effectively. For instance, the program used to schedule pilots actually lost track of pilots and led to widespread flight cancel- lations. The same faulty system even assigned flights to pilots who were retired or dead.67

Smisek was ousted from the top spot, along with two other executives, due to allegations of unethical conduct. The three were accused of trading favors with David Samson, chair of the Port Authority and in charge of Newark Liberty International Airport (a major hub for United). Samson was to allocate millions of dol- lars to upgrade gates and terminals used by United in exchange for the airline reinstating a flight from Newark to Columbia, South Carolina, where Samson had a summer home. The unprofitable flight, later known as the “chairman flight,” was not only reinstated, but it also was scheduled to take off and land at times con- venient for weekend travel. (The flight was immedi- ately canceled after Smisek’s dismissal.)

Oscar Munoz was then appointed CEO, but he suf- fered a heart attack weeks later. In his absence, Brett Hart, United’s general counsel, served as the interim CEO. Munoz eventually returned, but the dismissals and the generally difficult situation have caused many other executives to leave, including some who were poached by competitors. The result is a “management suite rife with openings, and three key executives have ‘acting’ before their titles.”68 All told, it may be difficult for United to attract top talent in the near future.

It may be no surprise that in the midst of manage- ment turmoil the airline lost sight of its customers. Most notably United failed to make a priority of ensuring that flights departed and arrived on time. The airline has historically relied on linear routing, which entails send- ing one plane from New York to Chicago, then to Denver, and ultimately to Seattle. While this practice

PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE

United Airlines: How Do We Get There from Here?

42 PART 1 Individual Behavior

C. Use details in the case to determine the key problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that are not included in the case.

D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a problem? Explaining why a particular outcome is a problem helps refine and focus your thinking. It is useful if you focus on topics in the current chapter, as we generally select cases that illustrate concepts in the current chapter.

Step 2: Identify causes of the problem by using material from this chapter, which has been summarized in the Organizing Framework for Chapter 1. Causes will tend to show up in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.

A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework and determine which person factors, if any, are most likely causes to the defined problem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause of the problem. Asking the “why” question multiple times is more likely to lead you to root causes of the problem. For example, are characteristics related to the CEO(s), employees, or customers causes of the problem you defined in Step 1? This might lead to the conclusion that Smisek’s unethical behavior is a root cause of the problem.

B. Follow the same process for the situation factors. In the context of this case, situation factors can be external to the organization, such as competitors and the economic environment. They also can be internal to the company but outside the employee, such as leadership and organizational culture. For each factor, ask yourself, Why is this a cause? For example, United’s competitors improved their processes and customer service, which likely led passengers to choose to fly their airlines instead. Why did this happen? United’s leadership made cost-cutting a priority above all else, including customer and employee satisfaction. This eroded employee morale and further diminished customer satisfaction. By following the process of asking why multiple times you are likely to arrive at a more complete and accurate list of causes. Again, look to the Organizing Framework for this chapter for guidance.

C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organizing Framework. Are any processes at the individual, group/team, or organizational level potential causes of your defined problem? It certainly seems that poor leadership and/or ineffective change management are potential causes. For any process you consider, ask yourself, Why is this a cause? Again, do this for several iterations to arrive at the root causes.

maximizes profits by keeping the plane in the air all day, loaded with revenue-generating travelers, it also means that if something goes wrong at one airport, such as bad weather or equipment failure, many other flights and their passengers are affected. In contrast, Delta Air Lines, the industry leader, made on-time per- formance a priority and has effectively eliminated flight cancellations unrelated to storms.

Some attempts at United to improve the efficiency and speed of boarding also went astray and actually resulted in passengers spending more time in line and boarding. Finally, United is widely known to have one of the oldest fleets in the sky.69 This fact has implica- tions for everybody—pilots, flight attendants, mechan- ics, baggage handlers, and, of course, customers.

POSSIBLE SIGNS OF RECOVERY There is some light on the horizon. In early 2016, Munoz returned to work as CEO, bringing knowledge and credibility to the job. He worked outside the airline industry before becoming United’s chief operating officer, plus he had been on the board of Continental Airlines. In his short time at the helm, he has visited employees on the job, crashed employee parties at bars, and reached out to employees in other ways. Coffee suppliers have been changed, and the airline began providing free snacks in economy class. Prog- ress has been reported in some contract negotiations. Profits are up, as they are at all airlines since oil prices have dropped, reducing the cost of fuel. One person described the current situation this way: “The airline was just incredibly sick and Oscar Munoz is like a shot of penicillin. It’s going to get better, but it has to have some time to actually settle in and work.”70

APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM- SOLVING APPROACH TO OB

Step 1: Define the problem.

A. Look first to the Outcome box of the Organizing Framework to help identify the important problem(s) in this case. Remember that a problem is a gap between a desired and current state. State your problem as a gap, and be sure to consider problems at all three levels. If there is more than one desired outcome that is not being accomplished, decide which one is most important and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.

B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and problems are generally viewed from a particular protagonist’s perspective. Therefore, you need to determine from whose perspective— employee, manager, team, or the organization— you’re defining the problem.

43Making OB Work for Me CHAPTER 1

Remember to consider the OB in Action boxes, as these contain insights into what others have done. Details of this case, for instance, describe how the board replaced the first CEO due to the alleged ethics violations. This might be part of the solution, but is this sufficient?

B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework— both person and situation factors, as well as processes at different levels.

C. Create an action plan for implementing your recommendations.

D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the causes, be sure to map them onto the defined problem.

Step 3: Make recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is desirable and feasible?

A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are your best recommendations? Use the material in the current chapter that best suits the cause.

LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE

To Tell or Not to Tell?

Assume you are a nursing director for a nursing home. You’ve been working at your facility for a few short months when you learn the company that owns the home has been improperly overbilling Medicare for the care and services provided to your residents. You bring this to the attention of the company’s managers, but they do nothing. You then notify the appropriate authorities (becoming a whistle-blower) and, dismayed by the fraud and other problems, you quit.

Several months later you interview for a new posi- tion as nursing director at another company. The inter- view is with a panel of 10 decision makers, including the CEO, medical director, and other administrators, who will decide whether you get the job.

One other important detail: This facility is just two miles from the one you reported to the authorities before quitting. Nursing, like other industries, tends to be a very close circle of people who often cross paths repeatedly in different jobs over time.

Your Response What would you do about divulging information re- garding your allegations against your previous em- ployer? Choose your answer from the options below. Be sure to explain and justify your choice.

1. Do not divulge the whistle-blowing.

2. Wait until you learn the outcome of the interview; if you don’t get the offer, don’t share the information.

3. Wait until you learn the outcome of the panel interview; if you get a job offer, then tell the person who makes you the offer about the allegations.

4. Tell all members of the panel during your interview.

5. Create and explain another course of action.

2 Major Topics I’ll Learn and Questions I Should Be Able to Answer

2.1 Personal Values MAJOR QUESTION: What role do values play in influencing my behavior?

2.2 Personal Attitudes and Their Impact on Behavior and Outcomes MAJOR QUESTION: How do personal attitudes affect workplace behavior and work-related outcomes?

2.3 Key Workplace Attitudes MAJOR QUESTION: Why should management pay attention to workplace attitudes?

2.4 The Causes of Job Satisfaction MAJOR QUESTION: How can changes in the workplace improve job satisfaction?

2.5 Major Correlates and Consequences of Job Satisfaction MAJOR QUESTION: What work-related outcomes are associated with job satisfaction?

How Do They Affect Work-Related Outcomes?

VALUES AND ATTITUDES

The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB shown in Figure 2.1 summa- rizes what you will learn in this chapter. Chapter 2 begins your study of the way values, personal attitudes, and intentions serve as inputs to a host of individual- and organizational-level out- comes. Remember, we generally define problems as gaps between the current and the desired state of one or more outcomes. In this chapter, pay attention to the way values and personal attitudes might become causes of problematic outcomes, such as low task performance, poor workplace attitudes, low well-being/flourishing, low citizenship behavior/counterproductive be- havior, and high turnover. These inputs also might contribute to explaining the organizational- level outcomes of poor firm performance and low customer service or satisfaction.

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Person Factors • Values • Personal Attitudes • Intentions Situation Factors

Individual Level Group/Team Level Organizational Level

Individual Level • Task performance • Workplace attitudes • Well-being/flourishing • Citizenship behavior/counter-

productive behavior • Turnover Group/Team Level Organizational Level • Accounting/financial performance • Customer service/satisfaction

FIGURE 2.1 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

© 2014 by Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without express permission of the authors.

45

Winning at Work Learning to Combat Bullying

What’s Ahead in This Chapter Now that you have new tools to make OB work for you— tools like the Organizing Framework and the 3-Step Problem Solving Approach—you’re ready to put them to work. With this chapter we begin exploring how individual- level factors influence a host of important outcomes. Specifically, we look at the way individual-level factors such as values affect workplace attitudes and behavior. We help you explore how your personal values affect your own workplace attitudes and behavior. We’ll outfit you with OB concepts to understand key work-related attitudes—organizational commitment, employee engage- ment, and perceived organizational support—which lead to important outcomes at the individual and organiza- tional levels. Before you’re done, you will understand the causes and consequences of job satisfaction, an important outcome for both employees and managers.

date, and place and details of what happened and what was said. Be specific and truthful and stick to the facts. If the bullying occurs electronically, all you need do is keep a copy of the messages.

• Plan Your Interactions. Bullies are more active when they are alone with their victims. If you must continue working with the bully, avoid being alone with him or her. Make sure someone is within ear- shot of any interactions, and consider using a smart- phone to record aggressive behavior.

• Confront the Bully. Tell the bully how you feel about his or her behavior. Use an I message, such as, “I felt humiliated when you called me stupid in the meeting yesterday.” You might consider confronting the bully with others who have been victimized. Presenting a united front is more effective in certain cases.

• Escalate the Situation. If the bully is your boss, speak with your boss’s boss, a member of human resources, or your state’s employee assistance program. You may want to request a transfer if you are afraid of re- taliation. If the bully is a peer or someone else in the organization, arrange a one-on-one with your boss.

• Stay Calm, but Take Care of Yourself. Resist the temptation to strike back. This can cost you your job or reputation. Finally, seek social support from fam- ily and friends with whom you can discuss the issue and let off some steam. They also may provide use- ful tips.7

Most folks think they left bullying back in the school yard. Sometimes they are wrong. Consider Carl Dessureault, a bus driver repeatedly harassed by coworkers because his appearance was similar to that of a rape suspect sought by police. He was asked questions like, “What’s it like to rape women?” and “Who’s your next victim?” Dessureault sought counseling, was put on antidepressants, and ultimately committed suicide.1

 Bullying  “occurs when an individual experiences a number of negative behaviors repeatedly over a period of time.”2 One occurrence is not considered bullying unless the behavior has the potential to become threatening in the future. We discuss bullying here as an example of a behavior that is partly driven by an individual’s values. For example, people are more likely to be a bully if they possess “power- oriented” values. Values associated with benevolence and tradition would be less likely to promote bullying.

Frequency and Source of Bullying Research conducted by the Workplace Bullying Institute estimates that 27 percent of the US workforce has been bullied. Another 21 percent of workers have witnessed bul- lying. All told, then, nearly half the US workforce has been exposed to bullying. Interestingly, most bullies are bosses, and the majority are men (about 60 percent). Women tend to be bullied more than men.3

Types of Bullying Behavior Bullying includes various behaviors. It can be acts of physi- cal aggression, such as pushing, pinching, or cornering. It can be verbal taunts and threats, such as name calling, jokes at someone’s expense, and humiliation. It can be re- lational aggression, such as gossip, rumors, and social iso- lation. It can be cyber-aggression, such as posting negative or derogatory images, text messages, or e-mail. Bullying also is more likely to occur in small than large firms.4

Consequences of Bullying Short-term effects of being bullied include increased anxi- ety, panic attacks, health-related symptoms, and counter- productive behavior along with decreased job satisfaction, self-esteem, attendance at work, and job performance. Long term, bullying can lead to employee turnover, depres- sion, symptoms akin to post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide.5 Experts estimate it can cost a firm up to $100,000 per year in health-related claims and lost productivity for each bullied employee.6

Combating Bullying What can you do to combat bullying if you are the target?

• Keep a Record. The bully is going to deny your ac- cusations, so include information about the time,

46 PART 1 Individual Behavior

2.1 PERSONAL VALUES

 Values  are abstract ideals that guide our thinking and behavior across all situations. They stem from our parents’ values, our experiences in childhood and throughout life, and our religious or spiritual beliefs. Values are relatively stable and can influence our behavior without our being aware of it.

Understanding the way values affect our behavior matters for two reasons. First, val- ues guide our actions across all situations. Knowing this helps you to self-manage, such as by choosing a major or career for which you are well suited. Second, you will be more effective at influencing others’ attitudes and behaviors when you are armed with an un- derstanding of values and their effects.

Renowned researcher Shalom Schwartz created a theory of personal values that many managers and OB professionals find useful for understanding the motivational impact of our values. Let’s look at this theory.

Schwartz’s Value Theory Schwartz proposed that broad values motivate our behavior across any context. He cate- gorized these values into two opposing or bipolar dimensions, as outlined in Table 2.1. The first dimension ranges from concern for the welfare of others (which Schwartz calls self-transcendence) to pursuit of one’s own interests (self-enhancement). The second

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

What role do values play in influencing my behavior?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

You may already have a good understanding of your personal values and the role they play in

your life. In an organization, personal values contribute to workplace attitudes and behavior.

So it’s important to understand how the full range of potential human values affects our atti-

tudes and behavior at work. Then you can use this knowledge to influence outcomes in the

Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.

TABLE 2.1 BIPOLAR DIMENSIONS IN SCHWARTZ’S MODEL

FIRST BIPOLAR DIMENSION

Self-Transcendence Self-Enhancement

Concern for the welfare and interests of others (universalism, benevolence).

Pursuit of one’s own interests and relative success and dominance over others (power, achievement).

SECOND BIPOLAR DIMENSION

Openness to Change Conservation

Independence of thought, action, and feelings and readiness for change (stimulation, self-direction).

Order, self-restriction, preservation of the past, and resistance to change (conformity, tradition, security).

47Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

dimension ranges from self-directed independence (which Schwartz calls openness to change) to conformity (conservation). Schwartz stressed that it is the relative importance we give to these two dimensions of opposing values that drives our behavior.8 For exam- ple, if you value achievement (self-enhancement) over universalism (self-transcendence), you will spend your evening studying hard to get an A in this class rather than attending a meeting about fighting climate change. Our values help us to make these types of choices.

Schwartz categorized 10 broad values within these two bipolar dimensions. Figure 2.2 shows those 10 values as the slices of a pie, with the underlying bipolar dimension shown outside the circle. Schwartz located the 10 values in a circular-motivation structure to illustrate their compatibility. In general, adjacent values (like self-direction and univer- salism) are more compatible. That is, these values share a common focus that promotes their acceptance within an individual. Values that are farther apart (like self-direction and power) are less compatible or in conflict. Opposing values are less likely to be held by an individual.

In Figure 2.2, Schwartz noted that one set of values is in opposition to the other set, as suggested by the use of color. Notice the unique treatment of several values: Tradition and conformity share a single wedge, supporting the same broad motivational goal. Conformity is toward the center because it does not conflict with the opposing value quite as much as does tradition, which is toward the outside. See also that hedonism shares elements of both openness to change and self-enhancement.

Protesting is often driven by values-based issues such as global warming. These protesters might be expressing the self-transcendence value of universalism and the self-direction value associated with openness to change. In contrast, completing a college degree might reflect values associated with achievement, power, and stimulation. The point to remember is that values affect our interests, behavior, attitudes, and performance. (left): © McGraw-Hill Education/John Flournoy, photographer; (right): © moodboard/SuperStock RF

48 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Workplace Application of Schwartz’s Theory You can feel comfortable applying this theory because research supports its basic structure and its prediction of behavior. Research also confirms the theory’s relevance cross-culturally for both children and adults. As you might expect, the priorities given to Schwartz’s values do vary across countries.9

Managers can better supervise workers by using Schwartz’s model to understand their values and motivation. For example, if a manager knows that an employee values universalism and benevolence, then it would be wise to assign this employee to projects or tasks that have social value. Managers can also use Figure 2.2 to reduce the chances of employees’ experiencing conflict between their values and their work assignments, when options are available. An employee who values tradition and conformity over achieve- ment, for example, will not be happy about being asked to work on a holiday or to miss a child’s school play for work.

Managers can also reduce employee turnover by trying to reduce the gap between an employee’s values and the values that support the organization’s culture. (We discuss or- ganizational culture in Chapter 14.) For example, an employee who wants security and tradition (two values that are part of the conservation motive) will likely be dissatisfied with a job that provides little direction and changing job requirements (two values that are part of the openness to change motive).

Excitement, novelty, and challenge in life (daring, a varied life, an exciting life)

Pleasure and sensuous gratification for oneself (pleasure, enjoying life)

Independent thought and action, choosing, creating, exploring (creativity, freedom, independent, curious, choosing own goals)

Understanding, appreciation, tolerance and protection of the welfare of all people and of nature (broad-minded, wisdom, social justice, equality, a world at peace, a world of beauty, unity with nature, protecting the environment)

Preservation and enhancement of the welfare of people with whom one is in frequent personal contact (helpful, honest, forgiving, loyal, responsible)

Restraint of actions, inclinations, and impulses likely to upset or harm others and violate social expectations or norms (politeness, obedient, self- discipline, honoring parents and elders)

Personal success through demonstrating competence according to social standards (successful, capable, ambitious, influential)

Social status and prestige, control or dominance over people and resources (social power, authority, wealth)

Safety, harmony, and stability of society, of relationships, and of self (family security, national security, social order, cleanliness, reciprocation of favors)

Self-Direction Universalism

Benevolence

Conformity

Security Power

Achievement

Stimulation

Hedonism Tradition

Respect, commitment, and acceptance of the customs and ideas that traditional culture or religion provides the self (humble, accepting my portion in life, devout, respect for tradition, moderate)

O pe

nn es

s t o C

ha nge

S elf-Enhancement

Co

ns er

va ti

on

Self-Transcendence

FIGURE 2.2 VALUES AND MOTIVES IN SCHWARTZ’S THEORY

SOURCE: Graphic from S. H. Schwartz, “An Overview of the Schwartz Theory of Basic Values,” Online Readings in Psychology and Culture 2(1), December 1, 2012, http://dx.doi.org/10.9707/2307-0919.1116. Definitions from A. Bardi and S. H. Schwartz, “Values and Behavior: Strength and Structure of Relations,” Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin, October 2003, 1208.

49Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

Personal Application of Schwartz’s Theory Schwartz’s model can help you de- termine whether your values are consistent with your goals and whether you are spending your time in a meaningful way. Complete a Self-Assessment that measures the worth to you of Schwartz’s 10 values, and then incorporate the results into a Take-Away Application.

What Are My Core Values? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 2.1 in Connect.

1. Rank your scores for the values from high to low. Do you agree with this rank order?

2. What are your top five values? Which do you think has the greatest impact on your personal goals?

3. Do you think you may want to focus more on any of the five lowest-rated values as you graduate from school and pursue a career? Explain.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.1

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Aligning My Values and Goals

1. Identify the three most important goals in your life.

2. Now consider the extent to which your personal goals are aligned with the top five values identified in the Self-Assessment. Are your goals and values aligned?

3. If any values are inconsistent with your goals, theory suggests you should either change your values or change your goals. Because values don’t easily change, it is usually wiser to change your goals. Identify what you might do to align your goals more closely with your values.

The Dynamics of Values In general, our values are relatively stable across time and situations. This means that positive employee attitudes and motivation are greatest when the work environment is consistent with employee values. For example, outdoor gear retailer Recreational Equip- ment, Inc. (REI), attempts to attract and motivate employees by letting them “use kayaks, skis, and other equipment for free [which they can buy new at a deep discount].”10 The company does this because it believes that its employees are motivated to participate in outdoor activities.

Values tend to vary across generations because they are influenced by events in child- hood and youth. For example, our parents lived through the Depression, which lasted through the 1930s and part of the 1940s. This experience led them to value security and to be conservative with their money. They did not like debt, and they opposed the use of credit cards. Do you know anyone with values like these? In contrast, the values held by baby boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, are influenced by events like the as- sassination of President John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, and the shooting deaths of student protesters at Kent State University: One of the authors of this text (Angelo) at- tended Kent State two years after the tragic event. In contrast, Millennials, people born between 1980 and 2001, have been influenced by events like September 11, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the financial crisis of 2008. Their values are different too. We discuss generational differences thoroughly in Chapter 4.

50 PART 1 Individual Behavior

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How do personal attitudes affect workplace behavior and work-related outcomes?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Closely related to values are personal attitudes, which also operate as an input in the Orga-

nizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. (In contrast, workplace attitudes are

defined as outcomes in the framework.) Personal attitudes have three components—affective,

cognitive, and behavioral. Knowing these components helps us understand how and when

personal attitudes affect behavior. Have you ever been stopped short by something that

didn’t seem to make sense? When personal attitudes collide with reality, the result is cogni-

tive dissonance. From an OB perspective, your personal attitudes affect your behavior via

your intentions.

2.2 PERSONAL ATTITUDES AND THEIR IMPACT ON BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES

In this section, we discuss the components of personal attitudes and examine the connec- tion between personal attitudes and behavior.

Personal attitudes affect behavior at a different level than do values. While values represent global beliefs that influence behavior across all situations, personal attitudes relate only to behavior directed toward specific objects, persons, or situations. We sum- marize the differences between the two in Table 2.2.

 Attitudes  represent our feelings or opinions about people, places, and objects and range from positive to negative. They are important because they influence our behavior. For example, you are more likely to select chocolate ice cream over vanilla if you are more positively disposed toward chocolate. In contrast,  workplace attitudes  are an outcome of various OB-related processes, including leadership. In this chap- ter we reserve the term workplace attitudes for attitudes that have resulted from the inter- action of various individual, group, and organizational processes. We examine the effects of workplace attitudes later in Section 2.3.

As predictors of likely behavior, attitudes attract serious attention. Hardly a day goes by without the popular media reporting the results of another effort to take the pulse of public opinion (attitudes). Political consultants use poll results, for instance, to draft mes- sages meant to nudge the public’s attitudes toward desired results. In the workplace, man- agers conduct attitude surveys to monitor workplace attitudes like job satisfaction and employee engagement, and to identify the causes of employee turnover.

Concept Scope Influence Affects Behavior

Personal Values Global Broad: All situations Variously

Personal Attitudes Specific Targeted: Specifically Via intentions

TABLE 2.2 DIFFERENCES BETWEEN VALUES AND PERSONAL ATTITUDES

51Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

Personal Attitudes: They Represent Your Consistent Beliefs and Feelings about Specific Things Consider a work example. If you have a positive attitude about your job (specifically, you like what you are doing), you should be more willing to extend yourself by working lon- ger and harder. This example illustrates that attitudes propel us to act in a specific way in a specific context.

The hospitality industry is using attitude surveys to identify the causes of employee dissatisfaction and turnover and perhaps discover why there is a shortage of good cooks. A recent survey conducted by Culinary Agents revealed that career devel- opment opportunities were very important to kitchen and dining room employees. Managers use results from surveys like this to make organizational changes. One restaurant, for instance, implemented a Sous Chef Supper Series, in which under- chefs can introduce original dishes to the public. Others are making it easier for their cooks to stay healthy. Chef Tony Maws of Craigie on Main in Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers company-sponsored yoga classes for employees. At SPQR in San Francisco, executive chef Matthew Accarrino has led his kitchen staff on bike rides to the Napa Valley to visit the restaurant’s partnering farm.11

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What are the pros and cons of using results from attitude surveys to create organizational changes?

2. Do you think the changes described above will reduce employee turnover for cooks? Explain.

Hospitality Industry Uses Attitude Surveys to Target Causes of Turnover

OB in Action

The chef in the foreground appears to be enjoying her job. Not only does this attitude positively impact her performance, but it is contagious to others in the kitchen. Do you think we have a choice in our work attitudes? In other words, do people choose to be positive at work? © Image Source RF

52 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Values and attitudes are generally in harmony, but not always. A manager who strongly values helpful behavior may have a negative attitude toward helping an unethical coworker.

The Three Components of Attitudes: Affective, Cognitive, and Behavioral Our overall attitudes toward someone or something are a function of the combined influ- ence of three components of attitudes:

1. The affective component—“I feel.” The  affective component  of an attitude con- tains our feelings or emotions about a given object or situation. For example, how do you feel about people who talk on their cell phones in restaurants? If you feel annoyed with such people, you are experiencing a negative affect toward them.

2. The cognitive component—“I believe.” The  cognitive component  of an attitude reflects our beliefs or ideas about an object or situation. What do you think about people who talk on cell phones in restaurants? Your idea that such behavior is rude (or not) represents the cognitive component of your attitude.

3. The behavioral component—“I intend.” The  behavioral component  refers to the way we intend or expect to act toward someone or something. For example, how would you intend to respond to someone talking on a cell phone during dinner at a restaurant if this individual were sitting near you and your guest?

All three components influence behavior. You are unlikely to say anything to some- one using a cell phone in a restaurant if you are not irritated by this behavior (affective), if you believe cell phone use helps people manage their lives (cognitive), and if you have no intention of confronting the individual (behavioral).

When Attitudes and Reality Collide: Consis- tency and Cognitive Dissonance Have you ever been accused of being a hypocrite—saying one thing and then behaving differently? Like most peo- ple, you probably want to maintain consistency be- tween your attitudes and your behavior.

But sometimes attitudes conflict with reality. Suppose that Samantha has a positive attitude about helping others. One day her boss asks her to work on a special project for an important new client—and it must get done in two months. The project represents significant revenue, and her boss even promises a  bonus for successfully completing it on time. Samantha would like to use the bonus to purchase a new car. The rub is that two of her peers have also come to her seeking help on their project. Samantha believes she is well suited to help them given her past experience, but she feels it would take time away from completing her special project. Should she make time to help her peers or focus solely on the special project? According to social psychologist Leon Festinger, Samantha’s situation is creating cognitive dissonance.

 Cognitive dissonance  represents the psy- chological discomfort a person experiences when simultaneously holding two or more conflicting cognitions (ideas, beliefs, values, or emotions).12 Festinger was fascinated by the way people are moti- vated to maintain consistency (and avoid dissonance) among their attitudes and beliefs, and the way they

We are more likely to purchase a car when we have positive attitudes toward it. These attitudes might pertain to make, model, color, price, and quality. What are your attitudes toward purchasing a white used car? Which component of attitudes is most strongly affecting your overall attitude toward white used cars? © Paul Bradbury/agefotostock RF

53Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

resolve inconsistencies that drive cognitive dissonance. From observation, he theorized that we can reduce cognitive dissonance in three ways:

1. Change your attitude or behavior or both. Samantha could either (a) tell herself that she can’t help her peers because the special project is too important for the company or (b) schedule extra time each day or week to help her peers.

2. Belittle the importance of the inconsistent behavior. Samantha could belittle (in the sense of “make small”) the belief that she needs to help peers every time they ask for assistance.

3. Find consonant elements that outweigh dissonant ones. Samantha could tell herself that she can’t help because the company needs the revenue and she needs the bonus.

Attitudes Affect Behavior via Intentions Psychologists I. Ajzen and M. Fishbein further explored the reasons our attitudes and be- havior can be misaligned. Based on this work, Ajzen developed and refined a model focus- ing on intentions as the key link between attitudes and planned behavior. See Figure 2.3.

Determinants of Intention Figure 2.3 suggests that three key general motives (in the three gold circles) predict or at least influence intention and behavior.

1. Attitude toward the behavior: the degree to which a person has a favorable or unfa- vorable evaluation of the behavior in question.

2. Subjective norm: a social factor representing the perceived social pressure for or against the behavior.

3. Perceived behavioral control: the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the be- havior, assumed to reflect past experience and anticipated obstacles.13

Consider the intention of donating blood. You would have a positive intention if you thought donating was valuable for society (attitude toward the behavior), if your friends were going to join you (subjective norm), and if you had the time to participate (per- ceived control).

Subjective norm

Intention Behavior

Attitude toward the behavior

Perceived behavioral

control

FIGURE 2.3 AJZEN’S THEORY OF PLANNED BEHAVIOR

SOURCE: I. Ajzen, “The Theory of Planned Behavior,” Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 50, No. 2, Copyright © 1991.

Southwest Pilots Stage an Informational Picket. What Should Management Do?

Southwest Airlines pilots conducted their first-ever informational picket at Dallas Love Field in 2016. This action was long coming. Let’s consider some background.

In 2015, the president and negotiating committee of the Southwest Airlines Pilots’ Association (SWAPA) all resigned. They did this because 62 percent of the company’s pilots rejected a proposed la- bor contract that included pay raises and increased company retirement contributions but also would have affected work rules and flying schedules. Captain Mike Panebianco, the union’s vice president, said the president resigned because he supported heavily the deal he presented to members, which they rejected.14

The new union president, Captain Jon Weaks, expressed his frustration with the current state of affairs. He said, “Shared sacrifice and shared success have been historical tenets of Southwest. We are approaching four years of negotiations and we have sacrificed much during this period to contribute to the company’s record-breaking financial success. We are long past overdue for our company to share that success with hardworking professional pilots of SWAPA. After nearly four years of protracted negotiations, SWAPA has decided that it is time to publicly demonstrate our collective dissatisfaction and unified resolve to management, the flying public, and Southwest shareholders.”15

Pilots at the picket line commented on the erosion of Southwest’s company culture of shared sacri- fice and shared success. Weaks commented that “culture prioritizes employees.” He and other pilots feel that the company does not value employees as much as it did in the past.16

Southwest’s record profits and the rejected contract might have influenced the pilots’ attitudes and behavior when they decided to picket. In 2015 Southwest earned a fourth-quarter profit of $536 million, almost three times what it was a year earlier. As a whole, 2015 was a record year for profits. The company planned to use some of this money to purchase more planes and reward its shareholders.17

Captain Paul Jackson, former president of SWAPA, responded to Southwest’s financial success by saying, “The airline has grown significantly in profitability, market share, and share- holder value. Everybody has double-digit and triple-digit growth, but the pilots haven’t had a raise since 2012.”18

To make matters worse for Southwest, SWAPA believes Southwest’s pilots are currently 12 percent underpaid relative to Delta and American Airlines contracts. The union further contends that Southwest pilots would be 20 percent underpaid relative to a contract that was being negotiated with Delta pilots: It was not ratified.19 SWAPA would like to see a 15 percent increase in base wages with a “modestly higher profit-sharing as a minimum to get a deal done.”

Problem-Solving Application

PART 1 Individual Behavior54

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach

Action 1: What is the problem in this case.

Action 2: Identify the causes of the problem.

Action 3: Make a recommendation to correct the situation.

55Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

Putting the Theory into Practice We provide a case regarding Southwest Airlines as a context for applying this theory. Once you identify the problem in the case, Ajzen’s theory can be used to explain why the pilots are picketing. You do this by considering whether or not the three determinants of intentions are influencing the pilots’ behavior of picketing. If you conclude that one or more of these determinants is a cause for the picket- ing, then propose what management can do to change the situation. For example, if you believe that pilots have a positive attitude about picketing, then what should management do to change these attitudes?

Research and Practical Applications According to the Ajzen model, someone’s intention to engage in a given behavior is a strong predictor of that behavior. For example, if you want a quick way to determine whether a worker will quit his or her job, have an objective third party ask the worker what he or she intends. The answer is likely to be ac- curate. Research supports this conclusion20 and the prediction that intentions are influ- enced by the three general motives in Ajzen’s model.21

So if we want to change behavior, we should look at intentions and ways we might modify them by working on the three general motives shown in Figure 2.3. Managers may be able to influence behavioral change by doing or saying things that affect the three determinants of employees’ intentions to exhibit a specific behavior: attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control. In your own life, if you want to exercise more, you should start by changing your intentions about exercising and your associated beliefs about it.

Let’s consider another practical illustration. Have you ever wanted a classmate to in- crease the quality of his or her work on a team project? If so, Ajzen’s model can help you. Start by trying to create a positive attitude toward contributing high-quality work. You might do this by telling the person that getting a good grade on the project will increase everyone’s chances of getting higher grades for the course and ultimately a better job upon graduation. Next, model the desired behavior by producing good work yourself and recognizing others who do the same. This should strengthen the subjective norm about doing high-quality work. Finally, talk to the individual about any obstacles getting in the way of high-quality work and discuss solutions for overcoming them. This should in- crease the person’s perceived behavioral control.

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Applying the Theory of Planned Behavior

1. Based on the theory of planned behavior, how might you improve your attitude about studying for this course?

2. How can you influence the social norms about studying for classes?

3. Assume you want to get a good job upon graduation. What does the theory of planned behavior suggest that you should do or continue doing?

56 PART 1 Individual Behavior

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

Why should management pay attention to workplace attitudes?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Of the many workplace attitudes we might see as outcomes in the Organizing Framework

for Understanding and Applying OB, researchers have identified a small number that

are  especially potent. These key attitudes allow you to track a limited number of work-

place attitudes to gauge how the organization is doing. When you try to make sense of

the workplace on either side of a manager’s desk, these are the important attitudes to

follow.

Savvy managers will track four key workplace attitudes:

1. Organizational commitment 2. Employee engagement 3. Perceived organizational support 4. Job satisfaction

These attitudinal measures serve a dual purpose. First, they represent important out- comes that managers may be working to enhance directly. Second, they link to other sig- nificant outcomes that managers will want to improve where possible. For example, low job satisfaction and low employee engagement imply lower task performance and higher employee turnover.22 This is why managers should track key workplace attitudes and un- derstand their causes and consequences.

EXAMPLE Earls, a Canadian chain of 65 restaurants with as many as 8,000 employ- ees, has truly adopted the recommendation to survey employees’ work attitudes. The company sends short surveys measuring workplace attitudes to employees’ mobile devices every three months. According to The Wall Street Journal, Earls does this because management has concluded “the components of engagement— employee happiness and commitment to the business—are exactly what drives sales, and therefore the bottom line.”23

This section specifically examines the first three of the four attitudes: organizational commitment, employee engagement, and perceived organizational support. Job satisfac- tion, the most studied workplace attitude, will be covered in a later section.

Organizational Commitment OB researchers define commitment as “a force that binds an individual to a course of action of relevance to one or more targets.”24 This definition highlights the way OB researchers link commitment to behavior and the way workers can commit to multiple targets or entities. For example, an individual can be committed to his or her job, family, girl- or boyfriend, faith, friends, career, organization, and/or a variety of profes- sional associations. Let us now consider the application of commitment to a work organization.

2.3 KEY WORKPLACE ATTITUDES

57Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

 Organizational commitment  reflects the extent to which an individual identi- fies with an organization and commits to its goals. Committed individuals tend to display two outcomes:

• Likely continuation of their employment with the organization. • Greater motivation toward pursuing organizational goals and decisions.

What Drives Organizational Commitment? Many factors inspire organizational commitment, but let’s start with a basic one. Organizational commitment exists to the degree that your personal values match the values that pervade your company’s organiza- tional culture. For example, if you value achievement and your employer rewards peo- ple for accomplishing goals, you are more likely to be committed to the company. This consistency between personal and company values is called person–culture fit and is discussed in Chapter 14.

Throughout this book we will cover other drivers of organizational commitment, including:25

• Personality. • Meaningfulness of the work being performed. • Organizational climate. • Leader behavior. • Organizational culture.

Finally, commitment depends on the quality of an employee’s psychological con- tracts.  Psychological contracts  represent an individual’s perception about the reciprocal exchange between him- or herself and another party. In a work environ- ment, the psychological contract represents an employee’s beliefs about what he or she is entitled to receive in return for what he or she provides to the organization. Research shows that an employer breach of the psychological contract is associated with lower organiza- tional commitment, job satisfaction, and performance and with greater intentions to quit.26

How Can Managers Increase Employees’ Commitment? To highlight how managers can increase employees’ commitment, we review three general best practices and then discuss approaches used by Edward Jones, Cisco, and Google.

General Best Practices

• Hire people whose personal values align with the organization’s. • Make sure that management does not breach its psychological contracts. • Treat employees fairly and foster trust between managers and employees.

Example Company: Edward Jones

• Fortune listed it as the sixth best company to work for in 2015. • Close-knit culture is promoted across 12,000 offices. • Partnership/ownership structure allows for profit sharing. • Mentoring is a valued tradition. Advisers mentor others rather than competing with

each other. • Paid time off is granted to volunteer. • About 75 percent of new hires come from employee referrals.27

Example Company: Cisco

• Fortune listed it as the 70th best company to work for in 2015. • Great pay and recognition are hallmarks; 57,000 employees were recognized in

2015 for displaying Cisco’s corporate values.

58 PART 1 Individual Behavior

• Flextime helps employees achieve work–life balance. Flextime  is a policy of giving employees flexible work hours so they can come and go at different times, as long as they work a set number of hours.

• Five of Cisco’s largest campuses offer fitness and health centers. • Employees are given time off to volunteer, and the company matches this time with

financial contributions to the volunteers’ programs. • Employees get 30 days of holiday and vacation time following one year of

employment.28

Example Company: Google

• Google was Fortune’s No. 1 best company to work for from 2013 to 2015. • Volunteerism is encouraged and supported both globally and locally. • To expand employees’ perspectives, the company sponsors visits from authors,

performers, politicians, and celebrities. • Staff attend weekly group sit-downs with Google founders Larry Page and

Sergey Brin. • Benefits include up to 12 weeks of paid parental leave, 28 days of holiday and va-

cation time after one year of employment, unpaid sabbaticals, on-site child care, and flexible scheduling.

• The company maintains three wellness centers.29

Employee Engagement Observing workers at a summer camp and an architecture firm in 1990, William Kahn defined  employee engagement  as “the harnessing of organization members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves

This employee looks highly engaged with his work. Note the attention and focus he uses to measure aspects of this skull. Would you find this type of work meaningful? © Adam Gault/agefotostock RF

59Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

physically, cognitively, and emotionally during role performance.”30 The essence of this definition is the idea that engaged employees “give their all” at work. Further study identified its components as four feelings:

• Urgency • Intensity • Focus • Enthusiasm31

Have you ever felt at work or school that time seems to fly by? If yes, then you under- stand why academics, consultants, and managers want to understand how they can har- ness the power of employee engagement.

How Much of the US Workforce Is Actively Engaged? The US workforce ap- pears to be achieving at above the global average. Consulting firm Aon Hewitt has tracked data on employee engagement around the globe for over 15 years, studying millions of employees. Recent figures for North America (of which the United States is the largest component) are shown in Table 2.3.32 The US workforce leads several regions but is out- paced by Latin America and Africa-Middle East.

What Contributes to Employee Engagement? Let’s use the Organizing Frame- work for Understanding and Applying OB to identify key drivers of employee engagement.

Person Factors

• Personality. • Positive psychological capital. • Human and social capital.33

Situation Factors

• Job characteristics. People are engaged when their work contains variety and when they receive timely feedback about performance.

• Leadership. People are more engaged when their manager is supportive and main- tains a positive, trusting relationship with them.34

• Organizational climate can range from positive and inspiring to negative and de- pleting. Positive climates obviously foster engagement.

• Stressors.  Stressors  are environmental characteristics that cause stress. Engagement is higher when employees are not confronted with a lot of stressors.35

What Outcomes Are Associated with Employee Engagement? Consulting firms such as Gallup, Hewitt Associates, and Blessing White have been in the forefront of collecting proprietary data supporting the practical value of employee engagement. For example, Gallup estimates that an organization whose employees are highly engaged can

Location of Employees

Percent of Highly or Moderately Engaged Employees

1. The World 62%

2. North America 66

3. Europe 57

4. Asia Pacific 64

5. Latin America 71

6. Africa-Middle East 67

TABLE 2.3 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT AROUND THE WORLD

60 PART 1 Individual Behavior

achieve 12 percent higher customer satisfaction/loyalty, 18 percent more productivity, and 12 percent greater profitability.36 Other recent academic studies similarly showed a posi- tive relationship between employee engagement, performance, and physical and psycho- logical well-being and corporate-level financial performance and customer satisfaction.37

Now that you know engagement is correlated with performance at work, try the fol- lowing Self-Assessment to measure your level of engagement with your studies. Can you improve your performance in the classroom?

How Can Managers Increase Engagement? As a manager you will have many opportunities to improve employee engagement, even if you can’t offer the lavish perks of the richest corporations. One way is to make sure inputs in the Organizing Framework are positively oriented. Organizations do this by measuring, tracking, and responding to sur- veys of employee engagement.

EXAMPLE The Ritz-Carlton was able to significantly lower employee turnover (to 18 percent vs. an industry average of 158 percent) and increase both customer satisfaction and customer spending by making changes based on results from engagement surveys.38

Other ideas include creating career and developmental opportunities for employees, recognizing people for good work, effectively communicating and listening, allowing people to exercise during the workday, creating a physically attractive and stimulating work environment, giving employees meaningful work to do, and empowering them.

To What Extent Are You Engaged in Your Studies? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 2.2 in Connect.

1. Is your level of engagement what you expected?

2. How might you increase it?

3. To what extent do your professors influence your level of engagement? How might they foster more engagement from you?

SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.2

• Red Bull. Red Bull created a stimulating work environment in its Amsterdam office to engage its employees, according to a dispatch in Bloomberg Busi- nessweek. “Employees who chug too much of the merchandise, from seven Red Bull-stocked fridges, can burn off excess energy in ‘The Beast,’ the half of the office dedicated to play. It includes an Xbox connected to a giant screen made up of four LG Flatron TVs.” At 5:30 p.m. on Fridays employees “stop answering their phones, and take turns DJ-ing as beer and wine are served.”39

• Booz Allen Hamilton. Management and technology consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton supports employee engagement through its Total Rewards

Companies Foster Employee Engagement in Different Ways

OB in Action

61Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

program. The “program is designed to provide not only competitive compensation, retirement benefits, health benefits, and work-life and wellness programs, but also flexible work arrangements, leave programs, career growth opportunities, and much more.” Additional pro- grams include a year-long onboarding process, training and development courses, tuition assistance, mentor- ing, and career planning resources. All told, these rewards and programs en- hance engagement because they allow employees to learn new skills, prepare for new roles, and experiment with skills needed for their next promotion.40

• Duke Energy. James Rogers, president and CEO of Duke Energy, uses “listen- ing sessions” to enhance engagement. He regularly meets with groups of 90 to 100 managers and encourages them to raise any issues on their minds. He also asks these employees to anonymously grade his performance.41

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What do you think about these approaches to engagement? 2. Which company approach would be most effective for you as an employee?

Explain.

Red Bull employees having fun at work. © Stuart C Wilson/ Red Bull/Getty Images

Perceived Organizational Support  Perceived organizational support  (POS) reflects the extent to which employees believe their organization values their contributions and genuinely cares about their well-being. Your POS would be negative if you worked for a bad boss or a company that did not provide good health benefits or career opportunities. It would more likely be positive if you worked for The Everett Clinic in Washington. The Everett Clinic pays employees a $10,000 bonus for referring physicians, covers 100 percent of health ex- penses, and offers profit sharing up to 5 percent of pay.42

How Does POS Affect Employees? People are willing to work hard and commit to their organizations when they believe the company truly cares about their best interests. Quite simply, we are motivated by the norm of reciprocity to return the favor when some- one treats us well. This is why we are more likely to reciprocate with hard work and dedication when our employer treats us favorably. But the favorable treatment must be voluntary, not imposed by external constraints such as government or union rules. Voluntary actions demonstrate that the giver genuinely values and respects us.

Benefits of POS Managers cannot go wrong in providing organizational support. Re- search shows that it is positively associated with employee engagement, organizational commitment, job satisfaction, organizational citizenship behavior, greater trust, innovation, and lower tendency to quit.43

How can managers foster positive POS? They can treat employees fairly, avoid political behavior, provide job security, em-

power employees, reduce stressors in the work environment, eliminate abusive supervi- sion, and fulfill the psychological contract.44

62 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Job satisfaction essentially reflects the extent to which an individual likes his or her job. Formally defined, job satisfaction  is an affective or emotional response toward var- ious facets of your job. Notice that job satisfaction is not a monolithic concept. Rather, a person can be relatively satisfied with one aspect of her or his job and dissatisfied with one or more others.

Managers and organizations measure job satisfaction in one of two ways. The sim- plest is to use a single overall rating, such as, “How satisfied are you with your job?” People respond on a rating scale that might run from (1) very dissatisfied to (5) very sat- isfied. Have you ever completed a survey like this? The second method assess satisfaction along a series of facets. For example, researchers at Cornell University developed the Job Descriptive Index (JDI) to assess satisfaction with the following: work, pay, promotions, coworkers, and supervision.45 This type of assessment provides more detailed and action- able information about job satisfaction. If desired, managers or researchers can add the ratings across facets to arrive at a total score.

We use a facet measure of job satisfaction in the following Self-Assessment. Complet- ing it will inform you about your level of satisfaction for a current or past job and make the rest of the chapter more practical for you. Are you curious about where you stand?

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How can changes in the workplace improve job satisfaction?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Job satisfaction is the most frequently studied outcome in the Organizing Framework. To help

you understand it better, this section provides you with the five major models of job satisfac-

tion. These models can help you manage others and yourself, leading to an increased sense

of satisfaction at work or school for you and others.

2.4 THE CAUSES OF JOB SATISFACTION

Do you think job satisfaction across the United States has been going up or down over the past few years? A national survey conducted by the Society for Human Resource Management attempted to answer this question by assessing 43 facets of job satisfaction for 600 US employees. Results revealed that 86 percent were satisfied with their jobs in

How Satisfied Are You with Your Present Job? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 2.3 in Connect.

1. What are your relative levels of satisfaction with recognition, compensation, and supervision?

2. Which of these three aspects of satisfaction is most important to you? Explain.

3. What can you do to increase your level of job satisfaction?

Source: Adapted from D.J. Weiss, R.V. Dawis, G.W. England and L.H. Lofquist, Manual for the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire (Minneapolis: Industrial Relations Center, University of Minnesota, 1967). Used with permission.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 2.3

63Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

2014, the highest level since 2004. The top three facets of satisfaction were feeling safe at work, having good relationships with coworkers, and having a good relationship with an immediate supervisor.46 US workers are highly satisfied overall; the significance of this will become more apparent after you read the final section of this chapter.

At a Glance: Five Predominant Models of Job Satisfaction If you want insight into the drivers of your own job satisfaction or that of others, consider five models of these causes, summarized as follows. We look at each in more detail in Table 2.4.

TABLE 2.4 FIVE MODELS OF JOB SATISFACTION

Model How Management Can Boost Job Satisfaction

Need fulfillment Understand and meet employees’ needs.

Met expectations Meet employees’ expectations about what they will receive from the job.

Value attainment Structure the job and its rewards to match employee values.

Equity Monitor employees’ perceptions of fairness and interact with them so they feel fairly treated.

Dispositional/genetic components

Hire employees with an appropriate disposition. (See qualifications below.)

Brief Review: Five Predominant Models of Job Satisfaction Let’s take a closer look at these models. It will increase your understanding if you person- alize each model to your own past experiences.

Need Fulfillment Need fulfillment models propose that satisfaction is determined by the extent to which the characteristics of a job allow an individual to fulfill her or his needs. Needs  are physiological or psychological deficiencies that arouse behavior. All of us have different needs, which means that managers need to learn about employ- ees’ needs if they want to increase employees’ job satisfaction.

EXAMPLE A 2014 national survey of 600 individuals by the Society for Human Re- source Management asked employees to choose the aspects of their job that were very important to their job satisfaction. Their top five choices were respectful treat- ment of all employees, trust between employees and senior management, benefits, compensation, and job security.47 Are any of these aspects important to you?

Research generally supports the conclusion that need fulfillment is correlated with job satisfaction.48

Met Expectations Met expectations  represent the difference between what an individual expects to receive from a job, such as good pay and promotional oppor- tunities, and what she or he actually receives. When expectations are greater than what is received, a person will be dissatisfied. On the other hand, he or she will be satis- fied when outcomes are above and beyond expectations. Research strongly supports the conclusion that met expectations are significantly related to job satisfaction.49

64 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Value Attainment The idea underlying value attainment  is that satisfaction re- sults from the perception that a job allows for fulfillment of an individual’s important values. Research consistently supports this perspective. Managers can enhance employee satisfaction by providing work assignments and rewards that reinforce employees’ values.

Equity Equity theory builds on the notion that satisfaction rests on how “fairly” an in- dividual is treated at work. If we perceive that our work outcomes, relative to our inputs, compare favorably with someone else’s outcomes and inputs, we will be satisfied. Re- search has strongly supported the theory behind this model.50 Managers thus are encour- aged to monitor employees’ fairness perceptions and to interact with employees in such a way that they feel equitably treated. Chapter 5 explores how this can be accomplished.

Dispositional/Genetic Components Ever notice that some coworkers or friends remain satisfied in situations where others always seem dissatisfied? The dispositional/ genetic model posits that job satisfaction is a function of both personal traits and genetic factors. Indeed, the model implies that stable individual differences are at least as power- ful as characteristics of the work environment in their impact on satisfaction.

Few studies have tested these propositions in depth, but they do show that disposi- tional factors are significantly associated with only selected aspects of job satisfaction. Dispositions had stronger relationships with intrinsic aspects of a job (such as having autonomy) than with extrinsic aspects (such as the receipt of rewards).51 Genetic factors also were found to significantly predict life satisfaction, well-being, and general job satis- faction.52 Overall, researchers estimate that 30 percent of an individual’s job satisfaction is associated with dispositional and genetic components.53

EXAMPLE Consider Pete and Laura Wakeman, founders of Great Harvest Bread Company. They have used the dispositional/genetic model of job sat- isfaction while running their company for more than 25 years. Pete Wakeman sees it this way: “Our hiring ads say clearly that we need people with ‘strong personal loves as important as their work.’ This is not a little thing. You can’t have a great life unless you have a buffer of like-minded people all around you. . . . If you want a happy company, you can do it only by hiring naturally happy people . . . you can’t really ‘make’ peo- ple any way that they aren’t already.”54

Caveat: Although the Wakemans’ hiring approach is consistent with the dispositional/ genetic model of job satisfaction, it raises legal and ethical concerns. Hiring “like- minded” people could lead to discriminatory decisions. Managers must not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, religion, color, national origin, and age.

A Shorter Walk to Work Now that we have looked at the predominant models of job satisfaction, let’s highlight one element that allows people to balance their work and family lives: the opportunity to telecommute. Telecommuting  allows employees to do all or some of their work from home, using advanced telecommunications technology and Internet tools to send work electronically from home to the office, and vice versa.

This diverse group of employees from Great Harvest Bread Company displays the company’s products. © Damien Dawson/ The Daily Progress/AP Photo

65Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

• About 30 to 40 percent of the US workforce telecommutes for at least part of the time spent working.

• The number of people telecommuting has grown 103 percent between 2005 and 2015. Experts estimate that 50 percent of the US workforce has a job compatible with teleworking.

• The need for flexibility is a key reason people like telecommuting.55

• Studies confirm telecommuting enhances productivity and retention and decreases absenteeism.56

These positive statistics imply that the opportunity to telecommute could improve job satisfaction. To make such programs successful, consider the recommendations in the Applying OB box below.

Applying OB

1. Employees must have the proper t e c h n o l o g y a n d t e c h n o l o g i c a l support.

2. Not all people or all jobs are ready for telecommunting. Managers should assess the readiness of both people and jobs for telecommuting.

3. Establish clear expectations with em- ployees about the goals of the pro- gram and details about how the program works. This requires organi- zations to create a telecommuting policy.

4. Evaluate the program’s effectiveness, which includes an assessment of em- ployee performance.

5. Pay attention to the availability and security of the communications net- work. Telecommuting won’t work if the system frequently crashes or the information being transmitted isn’t secure.57

This telecommuter appears to have a well organized office, including the dog at this feet. Telecommuters can obviously dress more casually and arrange their offices in ways that fit their style and needs. © Kidstock/Blend Images/ Getty Images RF

Best Practices for Implementing Telecommuting

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Increasing My Job Satisfaction?

Complete this activity by reviewing the results of Self-Assessment 2.3.

1. Which causes of job satisfaction are affecting your level of satisfaction?

2. Describe two things you might do to improve your job satisfaction.

3. If you could ask your boss or employer to change one thing to improve your job satisfaction, what would you suggest?

66 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Thousands of studies have examined the relationship between job satisfaction and other organizational variables. We consider a subset of the most important variables from the standpoint of managerial relevance. Ten key outcomes correlate to job satisfaction—four attitudinal and four behavioral, and two organizational-level outcomes. Job satisfaction has significant correlations with:

Attitudes

• Motivation • Job involvement • Withdrawal cognitions • Perceived stress

Behavior

• Job performance • Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) • Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) • Turnover

Organizational Level

• Accounting/financial performance • Customer service/satisfaction

Attitudinal Outcomes of Job Satisfaction We examine four attitudinal outcomes of job satisfaction that are important to OB re- searchers and managers: motivation, job involvement, withdrawal cognitions, and per- ceived stress.

Motivation Employee motivation represents a psychological process that arouses our in- terest in doing something, and it directs and guides our behavior. As you might expect, em- ployee motivation positively correlates to job satisfaction. Managers can enhance employees’ motivation with a host of techniques and recommendations discussed throughout this book.

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

What work-related outcomes are associated with job satisfaction?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

The documented relationship between job satisfaction and other positive organizational out-

comes is good news. It means that employers have economic reasons for fostering job satis-

faction to improve results. You’re about to learn four key attitudinal and behavioral outcomes

and two organizational-level outcomes associated with this relationship.

2.5 MAJOR CORRELATES AND CONSEQUENCES OF JOB SATISFACTION

Job Involvement  Job involvement  represents the extent to which an indi- vidual is personally engaged in his or her work role. Many years of research have demonstrated that job involvement is moderately related to job satisfac- tion.58 Managers can foster satisfying work environments to fuel employees’ job involvement.

Withdrawal Cognitions Although some people quit their jobs impulsively or in a fit of anger, most first go through a process of thinking about whether they should quit.  Withdrawal cognitions  capture this thought process by repre- senting an individual’s overall thoughts and feelings about quitting. Low job satisfaction is believed to be one of the most significant contributors to thoughts of quitting.

EXAMPLE A study of managers, salespersons, and auto mechanics from a national automotive retail store chain demonstrated that job dissatisfaction caused employ- ees to begin the process of thinking about quitting.59 Results from this study imply that managers can indirectly help to reduce employee turnover by enhancing em- ployee job satisfaction.

Perceived Stress Stress has negative effects on many different OB-related outcomes. For instance, it is positively related to absenteeism, turnover, coronary heart disease, and viral infections. As you would expect, it also has a strong negative relationship to job sat- isfaction and employee engagement. Managers should attempt to reduce the negative ef- fects of stress by improving job satisfaction and by encouraging employees to detach from work during off-job time (stop thinking about work and don’t “take it home with you”).60

Have you ever felt like this when studying for exams? Unfortunately, too much stress impairs our ability to perform at school and at work. Extended feelings of stress can also lead to thoughts of quitting and ultimately turnover. © Radius Images/Alamy RF

What to Do about Bullying

Let’s return to the issue of bullying with which we started this chapter. Consider how you might have resolved the situation faced by Stuart McGregor. McGregor’s goal was to be a chef, and he received a highly prestigious apprenticeship just before turning 17. Soon after starting his apprenticeship, he expe- rienced verbal abuse at work, and colleagues began making innuendos about his sexuality. He was once given a large bag of peas by the kitchen managers and asked to count them.

McGregor was told by his colleagues that he was going to receive an award. Excitedly, he called his family and could not wait to receive the award later in the day. Unknown to him, however, his peers had broken into his car and stolen the knob of his gear stick. They then wrapped it up and gave it to him as his “award” in front of the entire staff.

McGregor was regularly asked to perform tasks he did not know how to do and then was ridiculed when he did them incorrectly. Shortly before the conclusion of the apprenticeship period, he was invited to go on a camping trip with his workmates. Sadly, the kitchen managers threatened him with bodily harm if he went. McGregor was afraid for his safety and made excuses to avoid the trip.

Problem-Solving Application

67Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

68 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Behavioral Outcomes of Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction has a positive association with two constructive individual-level behav- ioral outcomes—job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). It also has a negative relationship with two potentially negative behaviors—counterproductive work behavior (CWB) and turnover. The following discussion is more practical when you consider that these individual-level outcomes in the Organizing Framework are driven by processes at the group and organizational level, which, further upstream, are influenced by environmental characteristics.

Job Performance One of the biggest controversies within OB research centers on the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. This is more complicated than it might first appear; OB experts have identified at least eight ways in which these vari- ables are related. Here is what we know from research.62

A team of researchers analyzed data from 312 samples involving more than 54,000 individuals.63 They made two key findings:

• Job satisfaction and performance are moderately related. This supports the be- lief that employee job satisfaction is a key workplace attitude managers should consider when attempting to increase employees’ job performance.

• The relationship between them is complex. Researchers now believe both variables indirectly influence each other through a host of person factors and environmental characteristics contained in the Organizing Framework.

Organizational Citizenship Behavior Organizational citizenship behavior (OCB)  is defined as “individual behavior that is discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system, and that in the aggregate promotes the  effective functioning of the organization.”64 This definition highlights two key points:

• OCBs are voluntary. • OCBs help work groups and the organization to effectively achieve goals.

Examples of organizational citizenship behavior include such gestures as: • Constructive statements about the department. • Expression of personal interest in the work of others. • Suggestions for improvement. • The training of new people. • Respect for the spirit as well as the letter of housekeeping rules.

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach

Step 1: Define the problem in this case.

Step 2: Identify what OB concepts or theories help explain McGregor’s situation and reaction.

Step 3: Recommend what you would do if you were McGregor and also if you were the manager of the restaurant.

Another employee ultimately complained about being bullied, and investiga- tors questioned McGregor about his experience. He denied being bullied, proba- bly out of fear for his safety, fear of losing his job, or because he thought he could handle the situation.61

69Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

• Care for organizational property. • Punctuality and attendance well beyond standard or enforceable levels.65

Managers certainly would like employees to exhibit these behaviors, and research clearly supports their value. OCBs have a moderately positive correlation with job satis- faction.66 Moreover, they are significantly related to both individual-level consequences (performance appraisal ratings, intentions to quit, absenteeism, and turnover) and organi- zational-level outcomes (productivity, efficiency, lower costs, customer satisfaction, and unit-level satisfaction and turnover).67

These results are important for two reasons. First, exhibiting OCBs is likely to create positive impressions about you among your colleagues and manager. In turn, these im- pressions affect your ability to work with others, your manager’s evaluation of your per- formance, and ultimately your promotability. Second, the aggregate amount of employees’ OCBs affects important organizational outcomes. It is thus important for managers to foster an environment that promotes organizational citizenship behaviors.

Counterproductive Work Behavior You already know from personal experience and OB research that the absence of satisfaction may be associated with some types of undesirable behavior, such as low employee engagement and performance. In contrast to the helping nature of OCBs,  counterproductive work behavior (CWB)  harms other employees, the organization as a whole, and/or organizational stakeholders such as customers and shareholders. CWBs represent a particularly negative work-related outcome. Examples include bullying, theft, gossiping, backstabbing, drug and alcohol abuse, destruction of organizational property, violence, deliberately poor or incorrect work, Internet surfing for personal reasons, excessive socializing, tardiness, sabotage, and sexual harassment.68

EXAMPLE A Maryland man swiped 32 laptops from his nonprofit health-care employer and put them on eBay.

EXAMPLE A chief financial officer changed the color of the type on some spread- sheet data from black to white so as to render fake numbers invisible while boosting the totals—and his bonus.

Volunteerism is a form of citizenship behavior as it is discretionary and it promotes a positive organizational image. This group of volunteers is helping to build a home for someone in need. What personal values lead someone to volunteer for such a task? © Ariel Skelley/Blend Images LLC RF

70 PART 1 Individual Behavior

EXAMPLE One regional vice president for sales billed his corporate card $4,000 for Victoria’s Secret lingerie—and not for his wife.69

CWB has a strong negative relationship with job satisfaction, so managers should find ways to reduce it. Here are three key ways.

1. Hire individuals who are less prone to engage in counterproductive behavior. Cogni- tive ability is associated with many measures of success, so it is a logical quality to screen for in hiring decisions. Personality tests also may be relevant.

2. Design jobs that promote satisfaction, and root out and eliminate managers who treat others in an abusive manner.70

3. Respond quickly and appropriately if an employee does engage in CWBs, defining the specific behaviors that are unacceptable and the requirements for acceptable behavior.

Turnover Turnover can be a good thing when a low-performing person like George Costanza from Seinfeld quits or is fired. This result enables managers to replace the Georges of the world with better or more diverse individuals or to realign the budget. In losing a good employee, however, the organization loses valuable knowledge and experi- ence and it can be costly. Experts estimate that the cost of turnover for an hourly em- ployee is roughly 20 percent of his or her annual salary, higher for professional employees with specialized skills.71

Job satisfaction has a moderately strong negative relationship with turnover. Manag- ers are well served by enhancing employees’ job satisfaction, especially for high perform- ers.72 For example, a survey of 20,000 high-potential employees indicated that 27 percent planned to find another job within a year.73

All these considerations suggest several practical steps employers can take to tackle a turnover problem. See the Applying OB box.

Applying OB

1. Hire people who fit the organization’s culture. Person-culture fit is discussed in Chapter 14.

2. Spend time fostering employee engagement. Engaged employees are less likely to quit.

3. Hire selectively. Human resource data analytics uses large data sets to answer questions like “Why are people quitting?” and “What skills are needed to do the job?” Google, for example, has developed an algorithm to predict employee turn- over. It also uses an algorithm to hire people based on a set of individual charac- teristics. A consultant told HR Magazine that his company saved a global transportation company $27 million over three years by using human resource data analytics.74

4. Provide effective onboarding.75  Onboarding programs  help employees to inte- grate, assimilate, and transition to new jobs by making them familiar with cor- porate policies, procedures, culture, and politics and clarifying work-role expectations and responsibilities.76

5. Recognize and reward high performers because they are more likely to quit than average performers.77

Suggestions for Reducing Employee Turnover

71Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

Organizational-Level Outcomes of Job Satisfaction Job satisfaction is positively associated with the organizational-level outcomes of accounting/financial performance and customer service/satisfaction.

Accounting/Financial Performance Earlier we noted that job satisfaction was moderately associated with an individual’s performance. It thus makes sense to hypoth- esize that the aggregate level of employee job satisfaction should be positively associ- ated with a company’s accounting/financial performance. Two large studies of more than 2,000 business units supported this prediction. However, the association between job satisfaction and this outcome is lower than that between job satisfaction and customer-oriented outcomes, productivity, turnover, and safety.78 This makes sense be- cause many other factors besides job satisfaction impact accounting/financial perfor- mance.

Customer Service/Satisfaction Why do we expect satisfied employees to pro- vide higher-quality service to customers? The answer is the spillover effect. Spillover occurs when attitudes in one part of our lives spill over to another. Employees’ positive work attitudes might spill over to improve their behaviors toward customers. In support of this idea, research supports a positive association between job satisfaction and cus- tomer satisfaction.79

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Improving My Workplace Attitudes

1. What are the three most important things you want from a job and its working conditions?

2. How can you determine whether a future job opportunity offers these things?

3. Assume you are in a job that is not meeting your needs and that you cannot quit. How would you improve your workplace attitudes in this situation?

72 PART 1 Individual Behavior

You learned that bullying is a harmful behavior that can and should be stopped at work. Values and at- titudes directly affect a variety of organizational outcomes, and companies pay attention to them to achieve improved performance. You learned how companies track the work attitude of job satisfac- tion because it positively correlates with other pos- itive workplace attitudes (such as motivation, job involvement, and reduced stress) and behavior (like job performance, OCB, customer satisfaction, and reduced CWB and turnover). Reinforce your learning with the chapter’s Key Points listed below. Next, consolidate your learning using the Organiz- ing Framework, shown in Figure 2.4. Then, chal- lenge your mastery of the material by answering the chapter’s Major Questions in your own words.

Key Points for Understanding Chapter 2 You learned the following key points.

2.1 PERSONAL VALUES • Values are abstract ideals that guide your

thinking and behavior across all situations. • Schwartz proposed that 10 core values

guide behavior across contexts and time (see Figure 2.2).

• The 10 core values each relate to one of four themes: self-transcendence, conservation, self-enhancement, and openness to change (see Figure 2.2).

• Managers can use the Schwartz model to mo- tivate employees and to reduce the chances of employees’ experiencing conflict between their values and their work assignments.

2.2 PERSONAL ATTITUDES AND THEIR IMPACT ON BEHAVIOR AND OUTCOMES

• Attitudes represent your feelings or opinions about people, places, and objects and range from positive to negative. Workplace attitudes

are outcomes in the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.

• The three components of attitudes are affec- tive, cognitive, and behavioral.

• Cognitive dissonance represents the psycho- logical discomfort an individual experiences when his or her attitudes or beliefs are incom- patible with his or her behavior.

• Intentions are the key link between attitudes and behavior in Ajzen’s model. Three deter- minants of the strength of an intention are our attitude toward the behavior, subjective norms, and perceived behavioral control (see Figure 2.3).

2.3 KEY WORKPLACE ATTITUDES • Organizational commitment reflects how

strongly a person identifies with an organization and is committed to its goals. It is influenced by a host of factors in the Organizing Framework, including personality, leader behavior, organiza- tional culture, meaningfulness, organizational climate, and psychological contracts.

• Employee engagement occurs when employ- ees give it their all at work. It includes feelings of urgency, focus, intensity, and enthusiasm.

• Employee engagement is influenced by a host of personal factors and environmental characteristics contained in the Organizing Framework.

• Perceived organizational support reflects the extent to which employees believe their orga- nization values their contributions and genu- inely cares about their well-being. Employees are happier and work harder when they feel supported.

2.4 THE CAUSES OF JOB SATISFACTION

• Job satisfaction is an affective or emotional response toward various facets of the job. It is a key OB outcome.

What Did I Learn?

73Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

• The five major causes of job satisfaction are need fulfillment, met expectations, value at- tainment, equity, and dispositional/genetic components.

• Telecommuting allows people to balance their work and family lives. It uses telecommunica- tion technology and Internet tools to send and receive work between home and office.

2.5 MAJOR CORRELATES AND CONSEQUENCES OF JOB SATISFACTION

• Job satisfaction is significantly associated with the following attitudinal variables: moti- vation, job involvement, withdrawal cogni- tions, and perceived stress.

• Job satisfaction is significantly related to five key behavioral outcomes: job performance, organizational citizenship behavior, counter- productive work behavior, turnover, and customer satisfaction.

The Organizing Framework for Chapter 2 As shown in Figure 2.4, values, personal atti- tudes, and intentions serve as inputs that lead

to a host of outcomes. Although this chapter fo- cused on workplace attitudes as an outcome, future chapters will look at other outcomes in more detail.

Challenge: Major Questions for Chapter 2 You should now be able to answer the following major questions. If you can’t, have you really processed and internalized the lessons in the chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 2.4, the chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and answer the following major questions:

1. What role do values play in influencing my behavior?

2. How do personal attitudes affect workplace behavior and work-related outcomes?

3. Why should management pay attention to workplace attitudes?

4. How can changes in the workplace improve job satisfaction?

5. What work-related outcomes are associated with job satisfaction?

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Person Factors • Values • Personal Attitudes • Intentions Situation Factors

Individual Level Group/Team Level Organizational Level

Individual Level • Task performance • Workplace attitudes • Well-being/flourishing • Citizenship behavior/counter-

productive behavior • Turnover Group/Team Level Organizational Level • Accounting/financial performance • Customer service/satisfaction

FIGURE 2.4 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

© 2014 by Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without express permission of the authors.

74 PART 1 Individual Behavior

IMPLICATIONS FOR ME We see five additional things you can do to turn this chapter’s lessons into positive change in your life. First, identify your core values. This can help you make decisions about careers, companies to work for, relationships, and ways to manage others. Second, realize the power of your beliefs and intentions. Your intentions will drive your behavior, but it is beliefs that create your intentions. If you want to change a behavior, such as losing weight or studying more, the first step is to analyze and change your be- liefs about the behavior. Third, engagement is partly a choice on your part, and it all starts with doing meaningful work. Identify what types of work you find meaningful. Fourth, if your manager or organization is not providing support, consider moving on. There are many great companies that understand the value of organizational support. Finally, before quitting a job, consider doing a cost-benefit analysis. Write down the costs of staying and compare them to the perceived benefits of leaving. Making an emo- tional decision might feel good in the short run, but it is less likely to lead to positive results.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS There are five key implications for managers. First, hire people whose values match the values that underlie the organization’s culture. Such employees are more likely to be productive and to stay. Second, influence employees’ behavior by reinforcing appropri- ate beliefs. For example, if you want to improve employee retention, underscore the value of staying at the company. Third, employee commitment is strongly associated with emotional connections at work.80 Create positive team spirit and engage in social activi- ties that promote friendships among employees. Fourth, employees won’t be engaged if you display negative emotions. Stay positive and model engagement. Finally, there is a trend for employees to quit just after one year on the job. Discuss their expectations when you hire, and socialize new employees effectively. Socialization is discussed in Chapter 14.

75Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

Marissa Mayer, former vice president of Google Prod- uct Search, left the company to become CEO of Yahoo! in October 2012. At that time, Yahoo’s stock was sell- ing for $15.74. In January 2016, it was selling for $29.77, after reaching a high of $52.28 in 2014. In- vestors were not happy with the drop in revenue—and market share—from 2014 to 2016. Some felt the com- pany’s strategies were lacking and that new leadership was needed. Hedge fund investor Starboard Value LP demanded that the board fire Mayer.81

Let’s take a more detailed look at what happened at Yahoo!

According to a Dow Jones reporter, “Yahoo’s ex- penses have risen while revenue has declined in the three-and-a-half years since Mayer took the reins. In the first nine months of 2015, operating expenses to- taled $3.9 billion, up 20 percent from the same period in 2014. During that same time, revenue excluding commissions paid to search partners dropped 4 percent to $3.09 billion.” Yahoo! also has been cutting costs via layoffs. The head count in 2016 was 10,700, down from a peak of 14,000 before Mayer arrived.82

It is estimated that 33 percent of the workforce left the company in 2015. A CNBC reporter noted that Mayer’s concern about brain drain led her to approve “hefty retention packages—in some cases, millions of dollars—to persuade people to reject job offers from other companies. But those bonuses have had the side effects of creating resentment among other Yahoo! employees who have stayed loyal and not sought jobs elsewhere.”83

Even more troubling is the manner in which some of these layoffs were executed. In 2014, “managers called in a handful of employees each week and fired them,” recalled one reporter. “No one knew who would be next, and the constant fear paralyzed the company, according to people who watched the process.” In March 2015, the situation got worse. “Mayer told the staff at an all-hands meeting that the bloodletting was finally over. Shortly thereafter, she changed her mind and demanded more cuts.”84

In January 2016, Mayer jokingly told employees at a company meeting that “there are going to be no lay- offs ‘this week.’” Insiders say these types of comments are eroding employee morale and leading to the exo- dus of key employees.85

Key human resource decisions and policies likely contributed to poor employee work attitudes and

turnover. The first was the company’s decision that em- ployees could no longer telecommute. The head of human resources at the time, Jackie Reses, said, “We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.” She defended the decision by stating, “Some of the best decisions and insights come from hallway and cafeteria discussion, meeting new people, and impromptu team meetings.” Reses believed that telecommuting hurt the company. “Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” she said.86 But the decision also created bad press for the company.

A reporter noted, “The new rule didn’t just frustrate Yahoo employees who were directly affected, it also set off a fair amount of debate and criticism on Twitter from entrepreneurs, tech company employees and journalists who cover the industry.”87 This in turn likely created a negative impact on Yahoo!’s ability to recruit highly talented employees.

The second human resource decision was Mayer’s implementation of the quarterly performance review (QPR) system. This process allegedly led to the firings of more than 600 people in 2013. The system works by first having managers rank their employees into five categories, each with a quota: greatly exceeds expec- tations (10 percent of employees), exceeds (25 percent), achieves (50 percent), occasionally misses (10 per- cent), and misses (5 percent). Two “misses” ratings in recent quarters can result in termination. Many manag- ers see this system as a forced curve, though Mayer contends the rankings instead serve as guidelines.

Anonymous postings on an internal message board suggested that managers did not agree with Mayer. Here is what one manager had to say:

“I was forced to give an employee an occasionally misses, [and] was very uncomfortable with it. Now I have to have a discussion about it when I have my QPR meet- ings. I feel so uncomfortable because in order to meet the bell curve, I have to tell the employee that they missed when I truly don’t believe it to be the case. I un- derstand we want to weed out mis-hires/people not meeting their goals, but this practice is concerning. I don’t want to lose the person mentally. How do we justify?”88

Other employees felt the system was vulnerable to human bias and was not fairly applied across levels of management. One commented:

“Will the ‘occasionally misses’ classification apply to L2 and L3 execs also? At every goals meeting, we find

PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE

Employee Attitudes and Turnover Are Issues at Yahoo!

76 PART 1 Individual Behavior

protagonist’s perspective. You need to determine from whose perspective—employee, manager, team, or the organization—you’re defining the problem.

C. Use details in the case to identify the key problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that are not included in the case.

D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a problem? Answering this question helps refine and focus your thinking. Focus on topics in the current chapter, because we generally select cases that illustrate concepts in the current chapter.

Step 2: Identify causes of the problem by using material from this chapter, which has been summarized in the Organizing Framework shown in Figure 2.4. Causes will tend to appear in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.

A. Start by looking at Figure 2.4 to decide which person factors, if any, are most likely causes of the defined problem. For each cause, ask yourself, Why is this a cause of the problem? For example, if you think personal attitudes—an input in the Organizing Framework—are a cause, ask yourself why. This might lead you to the conclusion that Mayer’s attitudes about telecommuting are related to her prior work experience. This may have led her to make decisions that are adversely affecting employees. Asking why several times will lead you to a more complete list of causes.

B. Follow the same process for the situation factors.

C. Because no processes were specifically discussed in this chapter, you can skip an analysis of this component of the Organizing Framework.

D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the causes, be sure to map them onto the defined problem.

Step 3: Make recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recommendation is desirable and feasible?

• Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are your best recommendations? Use the material in Chapter 2 (or in Chapter 1) to propose a solution.

• Find potential solutions in the OB in Action and Applying OB boxes within the chapter. These fea- tures provide insights into what other individuals or companies are doing regarding the topic at hand.

• Create an action plan for implementing your recommendations.

senior staff who missed even the 70 percent goals. Thus, by definition, they should be classified as ‘occa- sionally misses.’ Two such classifications, and that per- son should be let go, amiright? How about we set an example for the rest of the company and can a few of the top execs who miss (or who sandbag their goals to make sure they ‘meet’)?”89

Employees have become even more fearful of the process given the number of layoffs.

Sadly, employee morale does not appear to be im- proving. Surveys conducted by Glassdoor revealed that “only 34 percent of Yahoo!’s current employees foresee the company’s fortunes improving. That com- pares to 61 percent at tanking, scandal-struck Twitter and 77 percent at Google.”90

Another issue that may be causing feelings of ineq- uity involves Mayer’s compensation package. “Execu- tive pay at Yahoo! is essentially based on Alibaba’s stock price,” which is outside her control: Yahoo! has a 15 percent stake in Chinese web giant Alibaba, valued at $25.7 billion. “Of Mayer’s $365 million pay over five years, only 3.3 percent will actually be affected by her performance.”91 This policy goes against the com- mon managerial practice of paying people for their performance.

So where does this leave Mayer and Yahoo! as a whole? Broadly speaking, threats of layoffs continue. The company, which lost $4.4 billion in the last quarter of 2015, announced it would lay off 15 percent of its workforce in 2016.92 Under pressure from investors such as Starboard Value LP, Yahoo sold its core busi- ness to Verizon Communications Inc. for $4.83 billion in 2016. The sale included Yahoo’s e-mail business, websites dedicated to news, finance, and sports; ad- vertising tools; real estate; and some patents. It does not include “Yahoo’s cash or its shares in Alibaba Group and Yahoo Japan. After the deal closes, these assets will become a publicly traded investment com- pany with a new name.”93

APPY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM- SOLVING APPROACH TO OB

Step 1: Define the problem.

A. Look first at the Outcome box of the Organizing Framework in Figure 2.4 to identify the important problem(s) in this case. Remember that a problem is a gap between a desired and a current state. State your problem as a gap, and be sure to consider problems at all three levels. If more than one desired outcome is not being accomplished, decide which one is most important and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.

B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and problems are generally viewed from a particular

77Values and Attitudes CHAPTER 2

LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE

What Should Management Do About an Abusive Supervisor?

This challenge involves the behavior of Bernadine Pearce. Pearce was the supervisor of Michelle Ruppert, a clerk in the Office of the Tax Collector in the Borough of Point Pleasant, New Jersey. Pearce worked at the local government for about 40 years.

Ruppert filed a lawsuit claiming that her boss and the office allowed a hostile work environment to exist. She had worked at the office for about three years at the time of the suit.

The hostility allegedly began on Ruppert’s first day at work. Upon arriving, Pearce showed her the “Wall of Shame.” Placed conspicuously in the main office, it contained a funeral urn with the “ashes of problem em- ployees.” Ruppert noted that it resembled “the way Adolf Hitler treated the disabled and the Jews during the Holocaust,” with “various nameplates of the em- ployees who were ‘exterminated’” or fired by Pearce.

The lawsuit alleges that Pearce stated “that all per- sonnel of her office should be ‘perfect humans,’ as she believed she was.”94

Media reports about the situation allege that “Pearce threw papers at Ruppert and called her a ‘waste of a human being,’ encouraged Pearce’s daugh- ter and coworker to give Ruppert the middle finger, and referred to Ruppert as a ‘mess up’ who should just ‘quit her job.’”95

Ruppert ultimately experienced stress and anxiety and took sick leave for medical and psychiatric treat- ment. When she returned to work, Ruppert alleges that Pearce relocated her desk so that she had to look at the Wall of Shame, which now contained her name along with the others.96

Addressing the Challenge What would you do if you were the manager responsi- ble for the entire office?

1. Settle the lawsuit and allow Bernadine Pearce to retire. While Pearce’s behavior is bad, she did give the city 40 years of her life.

2. According to what we learned about counterproductive behavior, you would settle the lawsuit and fire Pearce. Assuming the allegations are accurate, Pearce’s behavior deserves to be punished.

3. Settle the lawsuit and then retire because you allowed this abusive situation to exist.

4. Fight the lawsuit. If nothing else, this may help you reduce the payment that will be awarded to Ruppert.

5. Invent other options.

3 Major Topics I’ll Learn and Questions I Should Be Able to Answer

3.1 The Differences Matter MAJOR QUESTION: How does understanding the relative stability of individual differences benefit me?

3.2 Intelligences: There Is More to the Story Than IQ MAJOR QUESTION: How do multiple intelligences affect my performance?

3.3 Personality, OB, and My Effectiveness MAJOR QUESTION: How does my personality affect my performance at school and work?

3.4 Core Self-Evaluations: How My Efficacy, Esteem, Locus, and Stability Affect My Performance MAJOR QUESTION: How do self-evaluations affect my performance at work?

3.5 The Value of Being Emotionally Intelligent MAJOR QUESTION: What is emotional intelligence and how does it help me?

3.6 Understand Emotions to Influence Performance MAJOR QUESTION: How can understanding emotions make me more effective at work?

How Does Who I Am Affect My Performance?

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND EMOTIONS

The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB shown in Figure 3.1 summarizes the key concepts in Chapter 3. This chapter builds on Chapters 1 and 2 and explores a number of additional person factors, such as intelligence, personality, proactive personality, self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional intelli- gence. We add to this an important individual-level process—emotions. Personality and the other person factors are related not only to emotions, but also to a host of other processes and outcomes across levels in the Organizing Framework. While reading this chapter, pay attention to the way these person-factor inputs influence in- dividual-level outcomes, such as task performance, workplace attitudes ( job satisfac- tion), well-being/flourishing, citizenship behaviors/counterproductive behaviors, turnover, and career outcomes. These inputs also might contribute to explaining group/team conflict and performance, as well as organizational-level outcomes such as poor firm performance and low customer satisfaction.

79

FIGURE 3.1 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

© 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Person Factors • Intelligences • Personality • Proactive personality • Core self-evaluations • Self-efficacy • Locus of control • Self-esteem • Emotional intelligence Situation Factors

Individual Level • Emotions Group/Team Level • Group/team dynamics Organizational Level

Individual Level • Task performance • Work attitudes • Well-being/flourishing • Turnover • Career outcomes Group/Team Level • Group/team performance • Group satisfaction Organizational Level • Financial performance • Survival • Reputation

A seemingly infinite number of characteristics make us who we are as individuals. It therefore is helpful to organize these individual differences so we can better understand and use them to manage people at work. One method is to categorize characteristics in terms of their malleability. These photos illustrate this method. For instance, just by looking we can determine the gender of these two people. We also can approximate their ages. Your gender and age are fixed traits, characteristics we cannot change. These photos also show very different emotions. The woman appears to be surprised and the man angry. Unlike gender and age, our emotions can and do change easily and often. Organizations and managers can use such knowledge, such as selecting and hiring people on relatively fixed traits (intelligence), but training them on the appropriate or most effective emotions to display with customers. (left): © Ingram Publishing RF; (right): © gulfimages/Alamy Stock Photo RF

80

Winning at Work Does Your Potential Boss Get the Job?

What’s Ahead in This Chapter In this chapter you’ll explore individual differences (IDs), which are the many attributes that distinguish all of us from one another. Recognizing and understanding IDs is critical to effectively applying OB knowledge and tools. For managers, it is fundamental to attracting, motivating, retaining, and improving the performance of others. Your exploration of IDs begins with an explanation of the relative stability of these differences. Next, you’ll delve into a subset of individual differences researchers have found to be particularly important in the work con- text: (1) intelligence, (2) cognitive abilities, (3) personality, (4) core self-evaluations, (5) attitudes (also covered in  Chapter 2), and (6) emotions (including emotional intelligence).

4. Know what is expected of you. Learning what the job entails seems obvious enough but is often overlooked. Ask, “What are your key expectations of me?” And, “If I’m a top performer, which I expect to be, what should my track record look like in 30, 60, or 90 days?” Ask, “How do people get ahead here? How do they fall behind?”

5. Ask where others have gone. Assuming your man- ager has been in the position for a while, he or she has likely managed a number of other employees in the position for which you are interviewing. Ask: “Where have others you’ve managed gone?” You want to know whether they have been promoted or quit the organi- zation. The first is encouraging, the second a potential red flag. It may be a sign of a miserable boss, or at least one who is not especially developmental.

6. Meet people like you. Do what you can to meet and learn from other employees—those doing the same job today or in the past. Sometimes you can find infor- mation online, and other times the company’s inter- view process may bring you into interactions with these employees. Learn what was good, bad, ugly. Ask, “If you were me, what would you want to know?” And, “If I’m going to be successful, then what do I need to do and not do with this person as my manager?” You may not get much detail, but it is worth trying to learn this information. Your own future may depend on it.

You may have heard that “People quit managers, not their jobs or companies.”1 This saying highlights the impact your direct supervisor can have on your life at work—particularly on Organizing Framework individual-level outcomes such as task performance, work attitudes, well-being/flourishing, turnover, and career outcomes. Your manager can make life either wonderful or awful. Therefore, when you’re searching for a job, it is critically important for you to interview your prospective manager, just as she or he is interviewing you.

We offer the following tips and questions to help you learn whether the interviewer is worthy of being your manager.

1. Know what you want. If you simply want a job, or aren’t sure what you want in a job and where you want it to lead, then you are obviously more likely to accept a po- sition with a bad boss. To gain more clarity about your boss, ask yourself what kind of relationship you want with him or her. Do you want one that is hands-on, nur- turing, and developmental? Or do you want a boss who is hands-off and will let you do your own thing? Do you desire a true mentor and champion, or simply adequate support and a bit of direction? Asking these questions is a critical first step in evaluating your potential new boss.

2. Look for good and bad. While signing on with a bad boss can make you miserable, missing the opportunity to work with a good boss is costly too. Don’t wear rose-colored glasses and overlook red flags, but don’t be overly harsh either. Finding a boss willing to be a real advocate and champion for you and your career is invaluable. Make a list of your prospective boss’s pros and cons and review it honestly.

3. Think of the job and the manager separately. The job and the manager often go hand in hand, but your de- termination to get an offer may blur your views of one or the other. For instance, the job may sound like it has great potential and is a good fit for you. However, you may lose sight of the possibility that your manager could be a nightmare to work for, or vice versa (great manager but boring job). To make your decision, con- sider how comfortable you will be going to this person for guidance. Do you feel he or she will be honest in communicating and dealing with you? Do you think you’ll be treated fairly? You can draw cues from the way you are treated, the tone of communications (both face-to-face and e-mail), and the boss’s degree of can- dor in sharing information.

81Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

3.1 THE DIFFERENCES MATTER

 Individual differences (IDs)  are the many attributes, such as traits and behaviors, that describe each of us as a person. IDs are a big part of what gives each of us our unique identities, and they are fundamental to the understanding and application of OB. So, what is it that makes us different? Is it our genetics or our environment? The answer is both.2 And while the way you are raised, along with your experiences and opportuni- ties, indeed helps shape who you are, a large volume of research on twins suggests that genetics matters more. But what is more important at work is recognizing the many at- tributes that make us unique individuals, regardless of whether they are due to nature or nurture.

To help you understand and apply the knowledge you will gain about IDs, we organize and discuss them according to Figure 3.2.

On the left-hand side of Figure 3.2 we arrange individual differences on a continuum. At the top of the continuum are intelligence and cognitive abilities, which are relatively fixed. This means they are stable over time and across situations and are difficult to change. At the bottom are attitudes (which we discussed in Chapter 2) and emotions, which are relatively flexible. Emotions change over time and from situation to situation, and they can be altered more easily. To elaborate, you aren’t more or less intelligent at school than you are at work or home, although your emotions commonly change within and between all of these places. Of course both your intelligence and emotions, as well as many other individual characteristics in- fluence the many outcomes included in the right side of Figure 3.2.

The distinction between relatively fixed and flexible individual differences has great practical value. Wise managers know they have little or no impact on fixed IDs. You can’t change an employee’s level of intelligence or remake an employee’s personality.3 But you can help employees manage their attitudes and emotions. For instance, many effective managers (and their employers) select employees based on positive, job-relevant, but

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How does understanding the relative stability of individual differences benefit me?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

You undoubtedly notice that your friends behave differently in different situations, such

as in class, watching a sporting event, cramming for an exam, or coping with a new

job. However, what you probably don’t pay much attention to are the characteristics and

behaviors that don’t change. To help you understand and use this knowledge, we’ll

arrange all of the individual attributes on a continuum based on their relative stability.

At  one end are relatively fixed or stable traits (like intelligence), and at the other end

are more flexible states (like emotions), with various trait-like and state-like characteris-

tics in between.

82 PART 1 Individual Behavior

relatively stable IDs. This hiring strategy enables managers to capitalize on the personal strengths that someone brings to a job because these stable strengths affect behavior and performance in most every work situation.4 Intelligence and analytical abilities, for ex- ample, are beneficial in front of customers, in teams with coworkers, and when working alone on a project.

In contrast, managers can have more influence on relatively flexible IDs that influ- ence individual-level work outcomes, like performance and job satisfaction. They can do this by implementing policies that raise employees’ core self-evaluations, attitudes, and emotions. For example, as a manager you’ll likely see better results from assigning work with new products and new markets to employees who are open to experience than to employees with low levels of this attribute. Similarly, you could help build new employ- ees’ confidence about selling to tough customers if you role-model how to do this effec- tively, give them experience presenting to easy customers first, and provide verbal encouragement before and constructive feedback after.

Managers also are wise to pay attention to the effect of employee attitudes and emo- tions on turnover. Low job satisfaction and high negative emotions can predict which employees are likely to quit. Thankfully, however, attitudes and emotions can be changed more easily than other IDs.

Next, let’s discuss an individual difference that has historically received considerable attention at school and less at work—intelligence.

Environment/External Context

Organizational/Internal Context

Important Individual Di�erences at Work • Intelligence • Cognitive abilities • Personality • Core self-evaluations > Self-efficacy > Self-esteem > Locus of control > Emotional stability • Attitudes • Emotions

Individual-Level Work Outcomes • Job performance • Job satisfaction • Turnover • Organizational citizenship behaviors • Counterproductive work behaviors

Relatively Fixed

Relatively Flexible

FIGURE 3.2 RELATIVE STABILITY OF INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES

83Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Although experts do not agree on a specific definition, many say  intelligence  repre- sents an individual’s capacity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. Most people think of intelligence in terms of intelligence quotient or IQ, the fa- mous score on tests we often take as children. Thus many people typically view intelli- gence and IQ as one big attribute of brainpower. However, intelligence, intelligence testing (for IQ), and related research are more complex.

The concept of intelligence has expanded over the years and today is thought of and discussed in terms of general mental abilities. Of course, people are different in terms of such abilities, but this isn’t what is important at work. What is important is to understand intelligence or mental abilities so you can manage people more effectively. Put another way, the reason we highlight intelligence and mental abilities is that they are related to performance at work.5 This section provides a brief overview of intelligence and mental abilities and then highlights practical implications.

Intelligence Matters . . . and We Have More Than We Think Historically, intelligence was believed to be purely genetic—passed from one generation to another—so you were either born “smart” or not. Do you agree with this belief? What are the implications of believing that intelligence is a gift of birth? Regardless of your personal views, research has shown that intelligence, like personality, can be altered or modified in a number of ways.6 Think about it. No matter who you are or where your starting point in education or experience is, if you engage in more constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving, you will get better at these skills. You’ll be more intelli- gent. If you buy this argument, then after reading this book and studying OB you’ll be more intelligent due to the practice in critical thinking and problem solving you’ll gain. Your intellectual development can also be damaged or diminished by environmental fac- tors such as drugs, alcohol, and poor nutrition.7

Am I More Intelligent than My Parents? If you answer yes to this question, re- search might just support your claim. A steady and significant rise in average intelligence among those in developed countries has been observed over the last 70 years. Why? Ex- perts at an American Psychological Association conference concluded, “Some combina- tion of better schooling, improved socioeconomic status, healthier nutrition, and a more technologically complex society might account for the gains in IQ scores.”8 So, if you think you’re smarter than your parents and your teachers, despite their saying you don’t know important facts they do, you’re probably right!

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How do multiple intelligences affect my performance?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

You may be smarter than you think. You may already know your IQ, and your grades may also

reflect intellectual intelligence. But you can be intelligent in other ways too. We explain vari-

ous forms of intelligence because all are inputs to the Organizing Framework and all affect

your performance.

3.2 INTELLIGENCES: THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY THAN IQ

84 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Dr. Evangelo Katsioulis reportedly has an IQ of 198—the highest in the world. He is a Greek psychiatrist and has degrees in philosophy, psychopharmacology, and research technology. Hall of Fame baseball player Reggie Jackson’s IQ is 160, the same as that of physicist Stephen Hawking (left) and movie director Quentin Tarantino (right). People who score less than 70 are identified as intellectually disabled; over 130, gifted; and over 165, genius. Two-thirds of people score in the normal range of 85–115. (left) © Jason Bye/Alamy; (right) © London Entertainment/Alamy

Multiple Intelligences (MI) While many people think of intelligence in general terms, such as IQ, it is more common and more practical to think in terms of multiple intelligences, or an intelligence for something specific. Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, investigated the nature of intelligence for years and summarized his findings in his 1983 book Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.9 The eight different intelligences he identified, listed in Table 3.1, include not only mental abilities but social and physical abilities and skills as well.

EXAMPLE Attorney Elizabeth Cabraser has led some of the largest class-action lawsuits of our time, such as against big tobacco, makers of silicon breast implants, BP (for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill), and Toyota, GM, Takata, and VW for safety violations. Cabraser is an introvert and soft-spoken in court and out. Her acclaim and success undoubtedly reflect considerable practical intelligence. And being so successful in class-action suits highlights her linguistic as well as intra- and interper- sonal intelligences. These would help immensely both in and out of court with clients and other attorneys. She also appears to have considerable musical intelligence; in college she played drums and toured with bands. But now she plays and collects drums only in her spare time.10

Class action attorney Elizabeth Cabraser epitomizes the concept of multiple intelligences. © Jeff Chiu/AP Photo

85Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

TABLE 3.1 GARDNER’S EIGHT INTELLIGENCES

Type of Intelligence Example

Linguistic intelligence: potential to learn and use spoken and written languages.

Madeline Johnson, CEO of marketing and PR firm Market Council, speaks Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, along with her native English. She consults for multinational companies, and linguistic intelligence enables her to develop richer and more productive relationships quicker.11

Logical-mathematical intelligence: potential for deductive reasoning, problem analysis, and mathematical calculation.

Did this intelligence help or hurt you on your college entrance exam?

Musical intelligence: potential to appreciate, compose, and perform music.

Do you play the drums? Have you heard Marco Minnemann? He is widely considered a virtuoso drummer, one of the best on the planet. If you were to measure this form of intelligence, Minneman’s musical intelligence score would likely be very high.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence: potential to use mind and body to coordinate physical movement.

Serena Williams, tennis player extraordinaire, says her mind helps her realize her tremendous physical talent.

Spatial intelligence: potential to recognize and use patterns.

Fighter pilots are excellent examples of people gifted with spatial intelligence.

Interpersonal intelligence: potential to understand, connect with, and effectively work with others.

Compare Warren Buffett (CEO of Berkshire Hathaway) to Larry Ellison (former CEO of Oracle). Critics see the first as approachable and friendly, the second as arrogant.

Intrapersonal intelligence: potential to understand and regulate yourself.

Any secretary of state for the United States, such as John Kerry and Condoleezza Rice, must have enormous self-awareness and control to endure the constant criticism and conflict in the job.

Naturalist intelligence: potential to live in harmony with your environment.

Rose Marcario, the CEO of clothing and outdoor sports retailer Patagonia, supports the company’s famous ad— “don’t buy this jacket.” The company has a long tradition of environmental responsibility in which it encourages customers not to buy more than they need to limit the strain on Earth’s resources.12

Many believe the concept of multiple intelligences has important implications for employee selection, training, and performance. For example, one-size-fits-all training programs often fall short when diversity of intelligences is taken into consideration. When clinical training for undergraduate nursing students was designed to draw on and apply their eight intelligences, for example, they acquired greater proficiency in clinical skills. This type of training also enabled them to utilize and develop their interpersonal intelligence, extremely important for effective patient care.13

Near the end of this chapter, you will encounter the concept of emotional intelli- gence, which managers can apply for employee selection and other purposes. Future breakthroughs in the area of multiple intelligences will attract more OB researchers and practicing managers.

86 PART 1 Individual Behavior

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Learning about My Intelligences

Using the list of intelligences in Table 3.1 and discussed above, consider the following:

1. Which do you think are your strongest intelligences? Your weakest?

2. Which do you think are most important for this course? For your current and/or most desired jobs?

3. Which do you think are least important?

4. Describe how you could use this knowledge to improve your performance in this class (and your job if you’re working).

Practical Implications Many educators and parents have embraced the idea of multiple intelligences because it helps explain how a child could score poorly on a standard IQ test yet be obviously gifted in other ways such as music, sports, or relationship building. It then follows that we need to help each child develop in his or her own unique way and at his or her own pace. Many people make the same arguments about college students and employees. Of course, everybody has strengths and weaknesses. But what is important as a matter of practice is to identify intelligences relevant to the job, and then to select, place, and de- velop individuals accordingly. What is your view? Do you see any value in testing for various forms of intelligence at work? Why or why not?

Not Just Kid Stuff The interest in improving intelligence now goes far beyond children and school. A number of companies, including Lumosity, Cogmed, and even Nintendo, have recently entered the business of brain training, claiming that adult intel- ligence can be increased. Through games or training, subjects and customers have been shown to improve scores on IQ and other related tests.

One piece of evidence to support this case is a study that showed a six-point boost on an IQ test. Researchers, however, recommend caution. They note that intelligence is still largely a fixed trait, and that improvements are modest and typically the result of intensive, long-term interventions. The Federal Trade Commission recently fined Lumosity $2 million for falsely claiming that its training could prevent memory loss, dementia, and Alzheimer’s disease.15 And more recent reviews and research call into question the suggested links between IQ and performance in school and on the job. Part of the criticism is based on the fact that IQ tests measure things taught in school, such as linguistics (language) and analytics (math). This means that if you do well in school you’re likely to do well on the test and vice versa (we’re testing what is taught and teach- ing what is tested).16

Practical Intelligence We can draw practical benefits from Gardner’s notion of mul- tiple intelligences. For instance, Yale’s Robert J. Sternberg applied Gardner’s “naturalist intelligence” to the domain of leadership under the heading practical intelligence. He explains: “ Practical intelligence  is the ability to solve everyday problems by utilizing knowledge gained from experience in order to purposefully adapt to, shape, and select environments. It thus involves changing oneself to suit the environment (adaptation), changing the environment to suit oneself (shaping), or finding a new environment within which to work (selection). One uses these skills to (a) manage oneself, (b) manage others, and (c) manage tasks.”14

87Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Intelligence in its various forms is important because of its link to performance. For example, a study of stock traders in Finland revealed that those with high IQs were more likely to: (1) sell losing stocks, (2) engage in tax-loss selling, and (3) hold stocks at 30-day highs—all profitable strategies. Their performance was also bet- ter than that of their lower-IQ counterparts, by as much as 2.2 percent per year.19

NFL—Intelligence Testing? Yes. Not only does the National Football League have an intelligence test for players, but also it has been using it since the 1970s! The Dallas Cowboys began the practice with the popular Wonderlic test (50 ques- tions with a 12-minute time limit). Only one player has had a perfect score so far (wide receiver Pat McInally of the Cincinnati Bengals from 1976 to 1985). Pro quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick seemingly has smarts no matter how you measure it. He scored 48 on the Wonderlic (the third-best score of all time), completed the test in the shortest time ever, and also scored 1580 out of 1600 on his SAT.20

Today, many NFL teams have developed their own tests. The theory is that the scores can help identify players who will get along with teammates and make it to meetings on time and also indicate how best to teach them the playbook (in writ- ten form, with visual aids, or on the field).21

Be Smart and Protect Your Investments Both financial advisers and profes- sional football teams make multimillion-dollar investments—the former in stocks and the latter in their players. It seems that influential people in both industries believe intelligence matters.

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. When interviewing financial advisers, would you compare their IQs? Why or why not?

2. If you were the coach, general manager, or owner of a professional sports team, would you use intelligence testing? Why or why not?

3. If you were a hiring manager for your company, how much weight would you give intellectual intelligence?

4. Would you require an IQ test? Explain your answer.

Smarts and Money OB in Action

Some Proof? Several leading researchers in the area argue that there is no convincing evidence that intelligence training works, while others are more measured. One put it this way: “Demonstrating that subjects are better on one reasoning test after cognitive training doesn’t establish that they are smarter. It merely establishes that they’re better on one reasoning test.”17 This seems to suggest that someone with “pure intellectual heft is like someone who can bench-press a thousand pounds. But so what, if you don’t know what to do with it?”18

Regardless of your personal view on the practical value of intelligence at school or work, the following OB in Action box offers compelling endorsements of the value of mental abilities and IQ.

88 PART 1 Individual Behavior

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How does my personality affect my performance at school and work?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

You probably feel you know yourself better than anyone else, but you’re about to learn some

tools that will help you see how others see you. One such tool is the Big Five personality

profile, which summarizes hundreds of personality traits into five categories. Another useful

approach centers on proactivity. These tools will help you understand the managerial implica-

tions of other people’s views of you. We explore these topics because personality is a funda-

mental driver of your behavior and performance at work, and an important input in the

Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB.

3.3 PERSONALITY, OB, AND MY EFFECTIVENESS

 Personality  is the combination of stable physical, behavioral, and mental charac- teristics that gives individuals their unique identities. These characteristics or traits— including the way we look, think, act, and feel—are the product of interacting genetic and environmental influences and are stable over time and across situations and cultures.22 Personality is a person input in the Organizing Framework.

There Is More to Personality Than Liking and Fit Like most people, you may often think of personality in terms of whether you like or dis- like someone. For instance, if you’re asked to describe your professor for this class you might say: “She’s great. I love her personality.” Or if asked to describe your boss you might say: “He’s a difficult individual, he’s unethical, many of his colleagues won’t as- sociate with him, and he is widely disrespected and should be fired.” If you are recruiting somebody for a job (or your fraternity or sorority) you might say: “I really like his/her personality . . . I think he/she will fit in great with the rest of us.”

What Can I Do with “Like”? While “liking” and “fit” matter (recall our discussion of fit from Chapter 2), these general and evaluative types of descriptions aren’t very use- ful from a management standpoint. If you think of personality only in these terms, then what type of guidance would you give your recruiters for hiring new employees? “Go find people you like and be sure they fit” won’t take you very far. And just because you like somebody doesn’t mean that you should hire that person, that he or she will perform well, or that he or she will be a good addition to your organization.

Be Precise to Be Effective To be effective at managing people you need to be more precise (and scientific) about personality. This challenge has motivated a tremen- dous amount of research about personality in psychology and in OB. What we need are more specific definitions of what personality is, tools to measure it, and data about the effect it has on important processes and outcomes across all levels of the Organizing Framework.

89Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Lars Sorensen (left), CEO of pharmaceutical giant Novo Nordisk, was recently ranked the world’s No. 1 CEO by Harvard Business Review. Sorensen earned his ranking in part because of his belief that “In the long term, social and environmental issues become financial issues.” He leads by consensus, and if one isn’t reached, he sends the issue to the company’s board.23 Steve Jobs (right), the late Apple Inc. CEO, couldn’t have been more different. It was “his way or the highway,” and consensus was achieved when everybody agreed with him. Yet Apple enjoyed unparalleled success under his leadership. The lesson: Don’t look too hard for “likable” personalities. If you started a company you’d be delighted to have either Sorensen or Jobs work for you! (left) © John Mcconnico/Bloomberg/Getty Images; (right) © ZUMA Press, Inc/Alamy

The Big Five Personality Dimensions Defining something as complex as personality is quite a challenge. Fortunately, psychol- ogists and researchers have distilled long lists of qualities and characteristics into the  Big Five Personality Dimensions  that simplify more complex models of personality. The dimensions are extroversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.24 Table 3.2 details the five personality dimen- sions. For example, someone scoring high on extroversion will be an extrovert—outgoing, talkative, sociable, and assertive. Someone scoring low on emotional stability will likely be nervous, tense, angry, and worried.

A person’s scores on the Big Five reveal a personality profile as unique as his or her fingerprints. To discover your own Big Five profile, complete Self-Assessment 3.1. In the process you’ll learn there is more to personality than just being likable or fitting in. This Self-Assessment will increase your self-awareness and illustrate some of the concepts just described. Many companies use personality profiles for hiring and promotions, so your profile should provide practical insights.

TABLE 3.2 CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONS SCORING HIGH ON THE FIVE DIMENSIONS

The Big Five Personality Dimensions

Personality Characteristic

1. Extroversion Outgoing, talkative, sociable, assertive

2. Agreeableness Trusting, good-natured, cooperative, softhearted

3. Conscientiousness Dependable, responsible, achievement-oriented, persistent

4. Emotional stability Relaxed, secure, unworried

5. Openness to experience Intellectual, imaginative, curious, broad-minded

SOURCE: Adapted from M. R. Barrick and M. K. Mount, “Autonomy as a Moderator of the Relationships between the Big Five Personality Dimensions and Job Performance,” Journal of Applied Psychology, February 1993, 111–118.

90 PART 1 Individual Behavior

But one important question lingers: Are personality models unique to the culture in which they were developed? Cross-cultural research on the Big Five suggests the answer is no. Specifically, the Big Five personality structure held up very well in a study of women and men from Russia, Canada, Hong Kong, Poland, Germany, and Finland.25 As a comprehensive analysis of Big Five studies revealed, “To date, there is no compelling evidence that culture affects personality structure.”26

Hail the Introverts Personality is not monolithic. Every person is a combination of the various dimensions— not 100 percent of one dimension with zero of the others. This means, for instance, that you and everybody else has some amount of introversion. That said, introverts often are stereotyped and seen as less effective than extroverts or those who are conscientious. (You’ll learn much more about stereotyping and perceptions more generally in Chapter 4.) If this is your own view, then you have more to learn. Bill Gates, Larry Page, and Mark Zuckerberg are all perceived as introverts, and their accomplishments are legendary. Regardless of your own level of introversion, the following OB in Action box provides guidance on how to thrive as an introvert.

Proactive Personality A  proactive personality  is an attribute of someone “relatively unconstrained by situational forces and who effects environmental change. Proactive people identify opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take action, and persevere until meaningful change occurs.”27 In short, people with proactive personalities are hard- wired to change the status quo. It therefore is no surprise that this particular individual difference has received growing attention from both researchers and managers. Think about it. Companies, and their managers, routinely say they want employees who take initiative and are adaptable. Many argue that today’s hypercompetitive and fast-changing workplace requires such characteristics.

In support of these desired traits, research shows that those with proactive personali- ties positively influence many of the work outcomes shown in Figure 3.2 (and later in Figure 3.5). For example, proactivity is related to increased performance, satisfaction, affective organizational commitment (genuine desire to remain a member of an organiza- tion), and social networking.28 Particularly interesting is the finding that those with proac- tive personalities tend to increase the supportiveness of their supervisors (a true benefit), and they also modify their work situations so they have more control.

What Is My Big Five Personality Profile? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 3.1 in Connect.

1. What are your reactions? Do you agree with the scores on your Big Five profile?

2. Which dimension(s) is (are) your highest? In which situations would they be most beneficial?

3. Which one or two dimensions do you think are likely the best predictors of managerial success? Which is the least? Explain.

4. What are the implications of your Big Five profile for working in teams at school or work?

SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.1

91Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Having an introverted personality is an individual difference that you, Larry Page, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and many successful people you know personally may share. But regardless of your own level of success, you can benefit from the advice of Russ Fujioka, president of the Americas for cloud accounting company Xero. Fujioka is a self-proclaimed and successful introvert. 1. Be self-aware. Be aware that introverts can be perceived as disinterested or

aloof when they seem less engaged in conversations and social interactions. They may or may not be disinterested, of course, but they are more likely to show it if they are. And in business situations, they must make the effort nec- essary to appear interested and force themselves to be engaged.

2. Calibrate your intensity. When engaging others, especially groups of people or teams at work, try to push your personal intensity level to 10 on a 10-point scale. If you feel your volume, body language, and interactions are maxed out, realize that if you were an extrovert you’d probably be playing at only 7 in- stead of 10. Your perception of intense and loud is lower than what others will perceive. (Soliciting feedback, which is discussed in Chapter 6, is a good way of calibrating your intensity.)

3. Play to your strengths. Because engaging others is typically quite draining for introverts, it is a good idea to talk about and stick to topics you person- ally know and care about. This will make you naturally more energized and comfortable.

4. Get team practice. Join a team. Whether you join a recreational sports team or a club of some sort, being a member will help you practice and get comfort- able with interacting with others. If it is a non-work team, the pressure and stress of work won’t be part of the experience, making it easier to engage. This will help build your skills for when it really counts, at work!29

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. Overall, do you think you are more of an introvert or extrovert? 2. Describe a situation at work (or school if you’re currently not working) in which

the attributes of introversion can benefit you. 3. Describe in detail how you can apply any two of the four recommendations

outlined above. Be sure to include the situation, what specifically you can do, and how or why this would be a benefit.

How to Thrive as an Introvert OB in Action

Proactive Managers What about your manager? Interesting recent work showed that the ideal scenario is for both you and your manager to be proactive. This results in a better fit and better relationship between the two of you, and it also increases your level of job performance, job satisfaction, and affective commitment.30 The same study also showed that the worst scenario in terms of performance was low proactivity for both you and your manager, followed by a highly proactive manager and a low proactivity follower. Thus proactivity is a highly valued characteristic in the eyes of employers. And being proactive has direct and indirect benefits for your performance. Given these facts, how proactive do you believe you are? How might you increase your proactivity? To help answer these questions, learn about your own proactivity, and explore the potential benefits for you, complete Self-Assessment 3.2.

92 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Proactivity and Entrepreneurs Besides leading to increases in job performance, job satisfaction, and affective commitment (as discussed in Chapter 2), proactive person- ality is also linked to intentions to be entrepreneurial. This really should not be surpris- ing, but it is helpful to know that scientific OB research substantiates this belief. Building on this, we can say that employees with proactive personalities are more likely to be en- gaged (again, see Chapter 2) and creative at work.31

Successful entrepreneurs often exemplify the proactive personality. Consider Dan Goldie, former professional tennis player and successful financial adviser. Goldie’s youthful passion was tennis, and his talent led him to junior championship titles, a scholarship at Stanford, and a ranking of 27th on the pro tour. Now he considers himself more successful at managing money than he ever was at tennis. Impressive to be sure.

But perhaps more interesting about Goldie’s story is that proactivity has been a hall- mark of his entire journey. He knew he wanted to go to college, and the only way to pay for it was with a scholarship. He trained, competed, and earned it. He dreamed of play- ing professionally, so he aimed for colleges with top tennis programs (like Stanford). He valued money, so he turned professional as soon as possible. And, realizing he would not be a top player and that tennis would not last forever, he completed an MBA while on tour. He also utilized his standing to associate with and learn about finance from top professionals in that industry. Later, and finally, he leveraged his tennis relationships to land some of his first and most significant clients as a money manager.32

Another entrepreneurial example is Sal Khan’s Khan Academy. Now world famous, this organization provides Internet-based learn- ing for nearly every scholastic subject under the sun. Here’s how it started. Khan, who has three graduate degrees, offered to help his cousin with one of her classes via the Internet. She learned, the word spread, and a company was born. Khan Academy has now delivered over 580 million lessons, and users have completed more than 3.8 billion educational exercises.33

Fascinating statistics, shown in Table 3.3, highlight other notable individual differences of entrepreneurs. How do you match up?

Table 3.3 contains only averages. Even if you don’t possess these qualities, you still can succeed as an entrepreneur. To help make this point, let’s explore the link between personality and performance.

How Proactive Am I? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 3.2 in Connect.

1. Do you see a pattern among the questions on which you scored the highest? The lowest?

2. What are the implications of your highest-scoring answers for your success in school? In other words, how can these aspects of your proactivity help you?

3. How can knowledge of your proactive personality score help you when you look for a job? Be specific.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.2

Sal Khan’s influence in online learning is epic. It is likely that a number of his individual differences (e.g., intelligence and proactivity) contribute to his entrepreneurial success. © Larry Busacca/Getty Images

93Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Personality and Performance Instead of simply assuming personality affects performance, let’s see what research has to say and how this knowledge can make you more effective. First, and most generally, your personality characteristics are likely to have the greatest influence and effect on perfor- mance when you are working in situations that are unstructured and with few rules.34 This makes sense. You’re more likely to show your true colors (your personality) when the situation is open and lacks constraints.

As for the Big Five, knowledge of these stable personality dimensions can assist in selecting the right people and assigning them responsibilities that will set them up to win.

• Conscientiousness has the strongest (most positive) effects on job performance and training performance. Individuals who exhibit traits associated with a strong sense of purpose, obligation, and persistence generally perform better than those who do not. They also tend to have higher job satisfaction.35 This trait has consistently been shown to be the most influential when it comes to performance at work.

• Extroversion is associated with success for managers and salespeople, and more generally for jobs that require social skills. It is also a stronger predictor of job performance than agreeableness, across all professions.

• Introverts have been shown to score their extroverted and disagreeable coworkers more harshly than their similarly introverted coworkers. The implication is that intro- verts focus on interpersonal skills more than extroverts when evaluating coworkers’ performance.36 How might this affect you in peer evaluations at school and/or work?

• Agreeable employees are more likely to stay with their jobs (not quit). They tend to be kind and get along with others, and thus they often have positive relationships and experiences at work.37

• Openness seems to lead to higher turnover. Open employees are curious and likely to seek out new opportunities, even when they are satisfied with their current jobs.38 This characteristic seems like a double-edged sword for employers. On the one hand they want open and flexible employees, but these are also the same em- ployees who are likely to quit. How might you deal with this as a manager or the owner of a business?

TABLE 3.3 TAKING THE MEASURE OF ENTREPRENEURS

40 Average and median age

95.1% Have bachelor’s degrees

47% Have advanced degrees

71.5% Come from middle-class backgrounds

< 1% Come from extremely rich or extremely poor backgrounds

70% Used own savings as major source of funding

42.5% Were firstborn

3.1 Average number of siblings

51.9% First in family to start a business

69.9% Married when they launched first business

59.7% Had at least one child

73% Think luck is an important factor in the success of their venture

SOURCE: “By the Numbers: Taking the Measure of Entrepreneurs,” The Wall Street Journal, November 12, 2012.

94 PART 1 Individual Behavior

• Emotional stability, along with conscientiousness and agreeableness, is associated with a greater focus on and practice of workplace safety. Imagine you are a man- ager in a chemical plant. How might you use this knowledge in selecting new em- ployees? In assigning and training existing employees?

Personality Testing at Work Personality testing is a commonly used tool for making decisions about hiring, training, and promotion. Current estimates are that approximately 76 percent of organizations with more than 100 employees now use some sort of pre- or post-hiring assessment, including personality tests,39 spending more than $500 million annually on such services.40 A few of the major reasons organizations use such tests are that they:

1. Reduce time and cost of recruiting and hiring. 2. Reduce biases in the interview process. 3. Increase the pool of candidates (because such tests can be administered electronically

and remotely). 4. Complement candidate information found in résumés and interviews.41

Personality tests, in particular, are more widely used at the management level than at the entry level (80 percent and 59 percent of the time, respectively).42 However, despite this widespread use, many experts argue that the typical personality test is not a valid predictor of job performance.43 One reason might be that many test takers don’t describe themselves accurately but instead try to guess what answers the employer is looking for.44

Applying OB As in every other test situation, on an employment test you want to perform well. Get- ting hired or promoted may depend on it, tempting you to provide the answers you think the employer wants to hear. Faking is ill-advised, though. Many tests are in- tended to assess fit, and if you don’t answer honestly, you might get a job you hate! Instead consider the following tips:

1. Practice. Yes, like other tests (GMAT, SAT, MCAT, LSAT) you can practice for em- ployment tests. In fact, practice can help increase scores by 20 percent, according to research. Practicing works because you become more comfortable taking such tests, you develop effective test-taking strategies, and you actually learn what you’re being tested on. Taking GRE practice exams is a good way to sharpen rea- soning, numerical, and verbal skills.

2. Play to your own rhythms. If you are sharpest in the afternoon, try to avoid taking employment tests in the morning. Also beware of what you eat and drink. Don’t overdo the caffeine, unless that is what you’ve done for every test you’ve ever taken.

3. Be yourself . . . sort of. Don’t lie. Well-designed tests can often detect inaccuracies, and most skilled interviewers unveil inconsistencies with ease. But also beware of being too extreme. Ambition is generally good, but extreme ambition can be dysfunctional. A strong work ethic is preferred, but too high a level is a red flag. In a word—moderation. Don’t be too much of even good things. And when interviewing, take the lead from what others have said about you. If somebody has recommended or endorsed you, learn what they said and then emphasize these same attributes. Sell yourself the way your endorsers are selling you. You want the interviewer’s data points to align.

D. Meinert, “Heads Up: Personality Assessments Are Being Used More Often in the Hiring Process. But What Do They Really Tell You?,” HR Magazine, June 2015, 88–98.

Acing Employment Tests

95Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

TABLE 3.4 ADVICE AND WORDS OF CAUTION ABOUT PERSONALITY TESTING IN THE WORKPLACE

Researchers, test developers, and organizations that administer personality assessments offer the following suggestions for getting started with testing or for evaluating whether tests already in use are appropriate for forecasting job performance:

• Determine what you hope to accomplish. If you are looking to find the best fit between job and applicant, analyze the aspects of the position that are most critical for it.

• Look for outside help to determine if a test exists or can be developed to screen applicants for the traits that best fit the position. Industrial psychologists, professional organizations, and a number of Internet sites provide resources.

• Insist that any test recommended by a consultant or vendor be validated scientifically for the specific purpose that you have defined. Vendors should be able to cite some independent, credible research supporting a test’s correlation with job performance.

• Ask the test provider to document the legal basis for any assessment: Is it fair? Is it job-related? Is it biased against any racial or ethnic group? Does it violate an applicant’s right to privacy under state or federal laws? Get legal advice to assure that a test does not adversely affect any protected class.

• Make sure that every staff member who will be administering tests or analyzing results is educated about how to do so properly and keeps results confidential. Use the scores on personality tests with other factors you believe are important to the job—such as skills and experience—to create a comprehensive evaluation of the merits of each candidate, and apply those criteria identically to each applicant.

SOURCE: S. Bates, “Personality Counts,” HR Magazine, February 2002, 34. Reprinted with permission of the Society for Human Resource Management (www.shrm.org), Alexandria, VA, publisher of HR Magazine.

Another reason for inaccurate results is that personality tests are typically bought off the shelf and often given indiscriminately by people who aren’t trained or qualified. And while rigorous research shows that personality actually is related to performance, the effects are small. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, personality tests are designed to measure personality, not to identify the individual differences needed to perform at a high level in a particular job. This means that managers need different and better ways to measure personal- ity if they want to select employees based on performance-conducive personality traits.

To help overcome these shortcomings, researchers have used technology and ad- vances in brain science to create a new breed of tests. Companies such as Pymetrics and Knack use games that help assess cognitive abilities, thought processes, and other charac- teristics. The intended advantage is that prospective employees will be assessed on how they play or what they actually do, rather than on their answers to multiple-choice ques- tions or a self-report instrument.

Genetic testing is also on the rise. It hasn’t been used for hiring yet, but scientists, em- ployers, and regulators are considering the potential pros and cons of such applications.45

Wise managers learn about personality and the tools used to measure it before invest- ing in and/or utilizing the data they yield. Table 3.4 provides some insights.

There Is No “Ideal Employee” Personality Given the complexity of today’s work environments, the diversity of today’s workforce, and recent research evidence, the quest for an ideal employee personality profile is sheer folly. Just as one shoe does not fit all people, one personality profile does not fit all job situations. Good managers take the time to get to know each employee’s unique combina- tion of personality traits, abilities, and potential and then create a productive and satisfy- ing person–job fit. In other words, a contingency approach to managing people is best (recall the discussion of contingency in Chapter 1).

96 PART 1 Individual Behavior

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How do self-evaluations affect my performance at work?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

You can significantly improve your self-awareness by understanding your core self-evaluations

(CSEs). Such self-evaluations provide broad and useful ways to describe personality in terms

of our individual differences in self-efficacy, self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional sta-

bility. CSEs and their component dimensions are more flexible than IQ but more stable than

emotions. Your knowledge of CSEs can improve your performance at work, in your career,

and in your life.

3.4 CORE SELF-EVALUATIONS: HOW MY EFFICACY, ESTEEM, LOCUS, AND STABILITY AFFECT MY PERFORMANCE

So far we’ve discussed both general and spe- cific, or narrow, individual differences. A nar- row perspective on personality enables us to describe individuals more precisely than gen- eral personality traits do. For example, it is more insightful to say that Steve Vai, a phenom- enal progressive rock guitarist and a favorite of one of your authors, has incredible musical in- telligence than to say that he is intelligent.

A broader perspective, in contrast, allows us to more effectively predict behavior. The rea- son is that broader concepts provide a more comprehensive and practical account of an indi- vidual’s behavior.46 This view suggests that part of Vai’s guitar-playing prowess likely is due to other factors beyond his musical intelligence.

There is no clear answer as to which of these approaches is more accurate. However, research- ers have identified a broad or general personality trait with significant relationships to a host of in- dividual-level work outcomes included in Figure 3.2 and the Organizing Framework. This trait is called core self- evaluations (CSEs). Core self- evaluations (CSEs)  represent a broad per- sonality trait made up of four narrow and positive individual traits: (1) generalized self- efficacy, (2) self-esteem, (3) locus of control, and (4) emotional stability. (See Figure 3.3.) People with high core self-evaluations see them- selves as capable and effective. This section dis- cusses the component traits and highlights research and managerial implications for each.

Steve Vai studied with rock guitarist and teacher Joe Satriani and attended the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston. Early in his career Vai transcribed music and played for the legendary musician Frank Zappa. He is widely considered a virtuoso and would be expected to score very highly on musical intelligence. What other intelligences might influence his guitar playing, composing, and song writing? © epa european pressphoto agency bv/Alamy

97Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Why should you care about CSEs? CSEs have desirable effects on many outcomes in the Organizing Framework, such as increased job performance, job and life satisfaction, motivation, organizational citizenship behaviors, and better adjustment to international assignments. Better still, CSEs can be developed and improved.47 They also have been studied in the executive suite. A study showed that CEOs with high core self-evaluations had a positive influence on their organization’s drive to take risks, innovate, and seek new opportunities. This effect was especially strong in dynamic business environments.48

Now let’s explore the component dimensions.

Self-Efficacy—“I Can Do That” Have you noticed that those who are confident about their ability tend to succeed, while those who are pre- occupied with failing tend to fail? At the heart of such performance differences is self-efficacy.  Self-efficacy  is a person’s belief about his or her chances of suc- cessfully accomplishing a specific task.

Self-efficacy can be developed. Helpful nudges in the right direction from parents, role models, and men- tors are central to the development of high self-efficacy. For example, a study of medical residents showed that guidance and social support from their mentors im- proved the residents’ clinical self-efficacy.49

Mechanisms of Self-Efficacy A detailed model of self-efficacy is shown in Figure 3.4. To apply this model, imagine you have been told to prepare and deliver a 10-minute talk to an OB class of 50 stu- dents on how to build self-efficacy. How confident are you that you can complete this task? Part of your self-efficacy calculation is to evaluate the interaction between person and situation factors described in the Organizing Framework.

On the left-hand side of Figure 3.4, among the sources of self-efficacy beliefs, prior experience takes first position as the most potent of the four sources. This is why it connects to self-efficacy beliefs with a solid line. Past success in public speaking would boost your self-efficacy, and poor experiences would diminish it. Other sources of your beliefs about your- self—behavior models, persuasion from others, and physical and emotional factors—might also affect your self-confidence. As weaker sources, they con- nect to beliefs with dashed lines in the figure.

FIGURE 3.3 THE CORE SELF-EVALUATION AND ITS COMPONENTS

1. Generalized Self-E�cacy

2. Self-Esteem

Core Self-Evaluation

3. Locus of Control

4. Emotional Stability

Sara Blakely, the founder of Spanx, epitomizes self-efficacy. Not only is she the youngest self-made female billionaire, but also her path to the top contained more failures than successes. She failed to get into law school, worked at Disney World, did stand-up comedy, and sold fax machines all before designing and making her modern and fashionable girdles and selling them from her apartment and car. Think of some of your own “failures” and the way you responded. How did these experiences affect your self-efficacy? © ZUMA Press, Inc/Alamy

98 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Your evaluation of the situation yields your self-efficacy level—ranging from high to low expectations for success. High expectations are not mere bravado; they are deep convictions supported by experience. Your self-efficacy beliefs in turn affect your be- havioral patterns (right-hand portion of Figure 3.4). If you have high self-efficacy about giving your 10-minute speech, you will work harder, longer, and more creatively when preparing for your talk than would a low-self-efficacy classmate. Better perfor- mance will follow.

People program themselves for success or failure by enacting their self-efficacy be- liefs. Positive or negative results subsequently act as feedback and become the basis of personal experience and future levels of self-efficacy.

Managerial Implications Self-efficacy has been extensively studied in the work- place. The data support a number of recommendations. As a general rule, managers are encouraged to nurture self-efficacy in themselves and others because it is related to im- proved job performance and job satisfaction (both are important individual-level out- comes). Table 3.5 provides a number of specific means for building self-efficacy. Nearly all are explained in detail in other chapters of this book.

SOURCE: Adapted from discussion in A. Bandura, “Regulation of Cognitive Processes through Perceived Self-Efficacy,” Developmental Psychology, September 1989, 729–735, and R. Wood and A. Bandura, “Social Cognitive Theory of Organizational Management,” Academy of Management Review, July 1989, 361–84

FIGURE 3.4 SELF-EFFICACY PAVES THE WAY FOR SUCCESS OR FAILURE

Prior Experience

Sources of self-e�cacy beliefs

Feedback

Behavioral patterns Results

Behavior Models

Persuasion from Others

Assessment of Physical/ Emotional

State

High “I know I can do this job.”

Success

Self-E�cacy Beliefs

Low “I don’t think I can get the job done.”

Failure

• Be active—select best opportunities. • Manage the situation— avoid or neutralize obstacles. • Set goals—establish standards. • Plan, prepare, practice. • Try hard; persevere. • Creatively solve problems. • Learn from setbacks. • Visualize success. • Limit stress.

• Be passive. • Avoid di cult tasks. • Develop weak aspirations and low commitment. • Focus on personal deficiencies. • Don’t even try—make a weak e�ort. • Quit or become discouraged because of setbacks. • Blame setbacks on lack of ability or bad luck. • Worry, experience stress, become depressed. • Think of excuses for failing.

99Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Self-Esteem—“Look in the Mirror”  Self-esteem  is your general belief about your own self-worth. Personal achievements and praise tend to bolster self-esteem, while prolonged unemployment and destructive feedback tend to erode it. Researchers measure self-esteem by having people indicate their agreement with positive and negative statements about themselves. An example of a positive statement is, “I feel I am a person of worth, the equal of other people.” An ex- ample of a negative statement is, “I feel I do not have much to be proud of.” Those who agree with the positive statements and disagree with the negative statements have high self-esteem. They see themselves as worthwhile, capable, and accepted. People with low self-esteem view themselves in negative terms. They do not feel good about themselves and are hampered by self-doubts.53

Nationality, Life Span, and Gender Some have argued that self-esteem is largely a Western or even an American concept. To address this allegation, researchers surveyed more than 13,000 students from 31 countries. They found that self-esteem and life satis- faction were moderately related on a global basis. However, the relationship was stronger in individualistic cultures (United States, Canada, New Zealand, and the Netherlands) than in collectivist cultures (Korea, Kenya, and Japan). The likely reason is that individu- alistic cultures socialize people to focus more on themselves and value their own attri- butes and contributions, compared to people in collectivist cultures who “are socialized to fit into the community and to do their duty” (value the group more than oneself).54

Some notable practical recommendations: • Nationality—Global managers should de-emphasize self-esteem when doing busi-

ness in collectivist (“we”) cultures, as opposed to emphasizing it in individualistic (“me”) cultures.

TABLE 3.5 WAYS TO APPLY KNOWLEDGE OF SELF-EFFICACY AT WORK

Application Explanation

1. Job Design Complex, challenging, and autonomous jobs tend to enhance perceived high self-efficacy. Boring, tedious jobs generally do the opposite.

2. Training and Development

Managers can improve employees’ self-efficacy expectations for key tasks through guided experiences, mentoring, and role modeling.

3. Self-Management Training related to goal setting, action planning, and self-motivation all enhance self-efficacy expectations.

4. Goal Setting and Quality Improvement

Goal difficulty needs to match the individual’s perceived self-efficacy.50 As self-efficacy and performance improve, goals and quality standards can be made more challenging.

5. Creativity Supportive managerial actions—encouraging risk taking and providing “blue sky time”—can enhance the strong link between self-efficacy beliefs and workplace creativity.51

6. Coaching Those with low self-efficacy and employees hampered by learned helplessness need lots of constructive pointers and positive feedback.52

7. Leadership Leadership talent surfaces when top management gives high self-efficacy managers a chance to prove themselves under pressure.

100 PART 1 Individual Behavior

• Life span—You can expect your self-esteem to remain fairly stable over the course of your life, especially after age 30.

• Gender—Self-esteem differences between men and women are small at best.

While research suggests that self-esteem is relatively consistent within cultures, over time, and among men and women, we can still ask: Can it be improved?

Can Self-Esteem Be Improved? The short answer is yes. So if your self-esteem is lower than you’d like now, don’t despair. It has been shown, for example, that supportive clinical mentors improved medical residents’ self-esteem.55 But not everyone is convinced.

Case for: Researchers have found one method especially effective for improving self-esteem. Low self- esteem can be raised more by having the person think of desirable characteristics possessed rather than of undesirable characteristics from which he or she is free.56

Case against: Some researchers believe performing at a high level boosts your self- esteem, not the other way round. Therefore, they reason it’s a mistake to focus on self-esteem. We all know people who “talk big” but “deliver small” and thus seem to suffer from delusions of competency.

Our recommendation: Apply yourself to things that are important to you. If getting an A in your OB course affects your sense of self-worth, then you will be moti- vated to work harder and presumably perform better.

Locus of Control: Who’s Responsible— Me or External Factors?  Locus of control  is a relatively stable personality characteristic that describes how much personal responsibility we take for our behavior and its consequences. We tend to attribute the causes of our behavior primarily to either ourselves or environmental

Many individual differences influence performance. Of those discussed so far in this chapter, which do you think are most important for surgeons? Would you rather have a surgeon with high self-efficacy or high self-esteem? © Pixtal/agefotostock RF

101Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

factors. (Recall our discussion of the person– situation distinction in Chapter 1.) Locus of control thus has two fundamental forms—internal and external.57

Internal Locus of Control People who believe they control the events and con- sequences that affect their lives are said to possess an  internal locus of control.  Such people, called internals, tend to attribute positive outcomes to their own abilities and negative outcomes to their personal shortcomings. Many entrepreneurs eventually succeed because their internal locus of control helps them overcome setbacks and disap- pointments.58 They see themselves as masters of their own fate and not as simply lucky. Those who willingly take high-stakes jobs in the face of adversity (such as pulling a company back from scandal or bankruptcy) likely also have a high internal locus of con- trol. Although Yahoo! continued to struggle in 2016 and will likely be sold, CEO Marissa Mayer undoubtedly has a high internal locus. This partly explains her willingness to take on the challenge of turning the company around in the face of great difficulties and criticism.59

External Locus of Control In contrast, those who believe their performance is the product of circumstances beyond their immediate control possess an  external locus of control  and tend to attribute outcomes to environmental causes, such as luck or fate. An “external” would attribute a passing grade on an exam to something external like an easy test and attribute a failing grade to an unfair test or distractions at work.

Locus in the Workplace The outcomes of internals and externals differ widely at work.

Internals

• Display greater work motivation. • Have stronger expectations that effort leads to performance. • Exhibit higher performance on tasks that require learning or problem solving,

when performance leads to valued rewards. • Derive more job satisfaction from performance.

Externals

• Demonstrate less motivation for performance when offered valued rewards. • Earn lower salaries and smaller salary increases. • Tend to be more anxious.60

Don’t mistakenly assume, however, that internal locus is always good and external is always bad. High internals can implode, burn out, or otherwise underperform in situ- ations that offer them little or no control, such as during organizational changes in which they have no input or influence. An external locus would be more helpful here. Encour- agingly, research shows managers can increase the degree of one’s internal locus of control over time by providing more job autonomy (something you’ll learn about in Chapter 5).61

Emotional Stability As described in our discussion of the Big Five and in Table 3.2, individuals with high levels of  emotional stability  tend to be relaxed, secure, unworried, and less likely to experience negative emotions under pressure. In contrast, if you have low levels of emotional stability, you are prone to anxiety and tend to view the world negatively. How is this knowledge useful at work? Employees with high levels of emotional stability have been found to have higher job performance and to perform more organizational citizen- ship behaviors. Recall that organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs) are actions that go above and beyond your job responsibilities to benefit the organization. Emotionally

102 PART 1 Individual Behavior

stable employees also exhibit fewer counterproductive work behaviors (CWBs), actions that undermine their own or others’ work. Both OCBs and CWBs were discussed in Chapter 2 and are individual-level outcomes illustrated in Figure 3.2 and the Organizing Framework. For an illustration of the way emotional stability affects an individual’s pro- fessional and personal life, see the OB in Action box about Alphabet (Google) Chief Financial Officer Ruth Porat.

Ruth Porat is the chief financial officer of Alphabet (now the parent company of Google). Before taking the job in 2015 she was the CFO of Morgan Stanley and considered one of the most powerful women on Wall Street. Despite her impres- sive résumé and reputation, she is not an accountant and had never worked in a finance department. She has, however, effectively leveraged her Stanford eco- nomics degree and Wharton MBA. More impressive, she has overcome many ad- versities during her rise to the corporate suite.

Not a Crash Porat started in finance in 1987 at Morgan Stanley, just before the stock market crashed. She survived the resulting business downturn, and a few years later she moved to Smith Barney. In 1996 she made her way back to Morgan Stanley and eventually became a technology banker during the tech boom, and bust, of the late 1990s.

Not a Bubble Porat then transformed herself into a financial services banker and rode out the financial crisis of 2008–2010, becoming CFO of Morgan Stanley. Many of her colleagues on the Street cautioned her about her new role. They noted that the last two female CFOs for Wall Street firms—Erin Callan of Lehman Brothers and Sally Krawcheck of Citigroup—had become casualties of the crisis, as did Zoe Cruz, formerly a co-president at Morgan Stanley.

Not Even Cancer and Childbirth But once again Porat was undaunted. Despite also weathering two bouts of breast cancer in the 2000s, she stayed the career course. Her colleagues recognize her as one of the smartest, hardest-working, and most unshakable people with whom they have worked. She even made client calls in the delivery room during the birth of her first child. She also insisted on finishing a business presentation while lying on a conference room table after throwing her back out!

While these are not necessarily admirable stories, they do suggest that Porat has a positive self-view and is relaxed, secure, and unworried in the face of adver- sity (emotionally stable).

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What are the advantages and disadvantages of displaying such high levels of emotional stability at school and work?

2. Do you think such high emotional stability is necessary to be a successful ex- ecutive on Wall Street? How do your answers change (if they do) for a female executive?

3. How would you evaluate Porat on the other three CSE traits of self-efficacy, self-esteem, and locus of control?

Alphabet’s Financial Chief Avoided Pitfalls that Stymied Others62

OB in Action

103Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Three Practical Considerations for Core Self-Evaluations Before we leave core self-evaluations, we’ll briefly touch on three areas of interest:

• Is having more of a CSE component always better? • Is the whole of the CSE components greater than its parts? • How can managers use CSEs?

Is More Always Better? Like having more self-esteem, having greater emotional stabil- ity is not always better. Researchers found curvilinear, or inverted-U, relationships between emotional stability and outcomes. This suggests that as your emotional stability increases, so too will your job performance and organizational citizenship behaviors, but only to a point.

Effect on organizational citizenship behaviors. As emotional stability continues to increase, OCBs decline, likely because you focus your attention on the task at hand and not on your coworkers. Typically, that’s a good thing. However, at a certain level emo- tional stability becomes problematic if you begin obsessing over details and lose sight of the larger objectives and those with whom you work.

Effect on counterproductive work behaviors. Research found that emotional sta- bility buffered or protected participants against stressors at work (trouble with their su- pervisors, unfair policies, and too much work). Thus they were less bothered and less likely to act out by committing CWBs. But there was a tipping point when the stress be- came too much and emotional stability could not prevent counterproductive behaviors.63

What is the lesson for you? Emotional stability is an asset for many types of jobs, but it will take you only so far.

Is the Whole of CSE Greater than Its Parts? As shown in Figure 3.3, core self- evaluations are composed of self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional

The Cleveland Cavaliers won the 2016 NBA Championship. Although many consider LeBron James, the team’s marquee player, as the best player in all of basketball, he certainly could not have won the game or series alone. Can you think of non-sports examples where the whole is greater than the sum of the parts? © Beck Diefenback/AFP/Getty Images

104 PART 1 Individual Behavior

stability. To clarify the value of a CSE as a whole versus that of its component traits, think of basketball as a metaphor.

Clearly a team outperforms any individual playing alone. Even the greatest player ever would have no chance against an entire team. The five greatest players ever, playing individually, still have no chance against an entire team. Individually they would never score! Thus the sum of their solo efforts would be zero.

However, if you assembled a team of the five greatest players, they would likely perform very well. We don’t want to overemphasize the team concept (addressed in detail in Chap- ter 8), but the combination of (talented) players in a team does enable individual players to do things they couldn’t otherwise do on their own. Moreover, history tells us that teams with the best individual players (“all-star teams”) don’t win every game. The fact that they can lose shows that indeed the whole is greater than the sum of the parts—sometimes for their com- petitors! CSEs and its component traits are much the same. Core self-evaluation is the team and the traits are the individual players—the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.

How Can I Use CSEs? Especially in a managerial role, you can use your knowledge of CSEs in many practical ways, such as:

• Employee selection. It is more efficient to select employees using CSEs as one broad personality characteristic rather than using its four component traits. Em- ployers can determine the link between one characteristic (CSE) and performance in a particular job, rather than having to determine the relationships between each of the four components parts and performance. This is one relationship versus four. Doing so also enables managers and employers to take advantage of the many ben- eficial outcomes described above.

• Training. The training potential of CSEs is limited because most of its components are trait-like or relatively fixed (self-esteem, locus of control, and emotional stabil- ity). That said, self-efficacy is more flexible than the other three components and can be enhanced as explained above. (Figure 3.4 is an excellent “how to” guide.)

Before moving on, we encourage you to assess your own core self-evaluations in Self-Assessment 3.3. Knowledge of your CSEs helps you understand other components of your personality beyond the Big Five discussed and assessed earlier. Awareness of your self-esteem, self-efficacy, locus, and emotional stability can help guide many as- pects of your work life, such as what types of jobs to look for and what types of develop- ment opportunities may be most useful for you.

How Positively Do I See Myself? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 3.3 in Connect.

1. What is your CSE score? A score greater than 48 is high, between 36 and 48 moderate, and less than 36 low.

2. What are the implications for your performance in school? Work?

3. Now consider a scenario: You’re on a three-member team for a project in this class that requires research, a paper, and a presentation. Your CSE score is high, one team member’s is moderate, and the other’s is low. Describe the potential implications for the three of you working together and your ultimate perfor- mance on the paper and presentation.

SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.3

Let’s continue our discussion of individual differences and learn about emotional intelligence (EI) next. EI is an increasingly popular OB concept, one that is relatively more flexible than CSEs and the others discussed thus far.

105Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

3.5 THE VALUE OF BEING EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT

As we know, people deal with their emotions in many different ways, which is one rea- son we are discussing emotions in the chapter on individual differences. For a long time many people considered skill in managing emotions as simply a matter of maturity. However, since the mid-1990s researchers, consultants, and managers have increas- ingly described emotional maturity by using the phrase emotional intelligence (EI). Today, EI is big business. Hundreds of consulting companies provide EI products and services, and estimates suggest that approximately 75 percent of Fortune 500 compa- nies use them.64

What Is Emotional Intelligence?  Emotional intelligence  is the ability to monitor your own emotions and those of others, to discriminate among them, and to use this information to guide your thinking and actions. Referred to by some as EI (used in this book) and by others as EQ, emotional intelligence is a mixture of personality and emotions and has four key compo- nents (see also Table 3.6):

1. Self-awareness 2. Self-management 3. Social awareness 4. Relationship management65

The first two dimensions constitute personal competence and the second two feed into social competence. Recall the discussion earlier in the chapter of inter- and intra-personal intelligences described by Gardner. EI builds on this work.

Before learning more about emotional intelligence, complete Self-Assessment 3.4. Self-awareness is fundamental to EI, and having this knowledge in hand is helpful in exploring the benefits of EI and learning how to develop it.

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

What is emotional intelligence and how does it help me?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

You likely already know that intelligence doesn’t tell us everything we need to know about

performance. The smartest student doesn’t always get the best grades, and the smartest can-

didate for a job is not necessarily the best choice. While you almost certainly agree with both

these statements, what is even more certain is that people perform better if they have emo-

tional intelligence—smart or not. When you understand the concept of emotional intelligence

from an OB perspective, you’ll understand why it is an important person-factor input in the

Organizing Framework.

106 PART 1 Individual Behavior

TABLE 3.6 DEVELOPING EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Personal Competence

HOW WE MANAGE OURSELVES

Capability Description

Self-Awareness Emotional self-awareness

Reading one’s own emotions and recognizing their impact; using “gut sense” to guide decisions

Accurate self-assessment Knowing one’s strengths and limits

Self-confidence A sound sense of one’s self-worth and capabilities

Self-Management Emotional self-control Keeping disruptive emotions and impulses under control

Transparency Displaying honesty and integrity; trustworthiness

Adaptability Flexibility in adapting to changing situations or overcoming obstacles

Achievement The drive to improve performance to meet inner standards of excellence

Initiative Readiness to act and seize opportunities

Optimism Seeing the upside in events

Social Competence

HOW WE MANAGE RELATIONSHIPS

Capability Description

Social Awareness Empathy Sensing others’ emotions, understanding their perspective, and taking active interest in their concerns

Organizational awareness Reading the currents, decision networks, and politics at the organizational level

Service Recognizing and meeting follower, client, or customer needs

Relationship Management

Inspirational leadership Guiding and motivating with a compelling vision

Influence Wielding a range of tactics for persuasion

Developing others Bolstering others’ abilities through feedback and guidance

Change catalyst Initiating, managing, and leading in a new direction

Conflict management Resolving disagreements

Building bonds Cultivating and maintaining a web of relationships

Teamwork and collaboration Cooperation and team building

SOURCE: D. Goleman, R. Bovatzis, and A. McKee, Primal Leadership: Realizing the Power of Emotional Intelligence (Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation, 2002), p. 39.

What Is Your Level of Emotional Intelligence? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 3.4 in Connect.

1. Which of the four dimensions is highest for you? What are the implications for you at school and/or work?

2. Which dimension is the lowest? What are the implications for you at school and/ or work?

3. Do you have greater personal or social competence? What are the implications for you at school and/or work?

SELF-ASSESSMENT 3.4

107Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

“Some days you’re the fire hydrant and some days you’re the dog.”

This quote is by Parker Conrad, from an interview he gave after he was forced to resign as CEO of Zenefits, a company he founded. Zenefits’ software serves as both insurance broker and benefits ad- ministrator for companies, essentially eliminating the need for intermediaries like conventional insur- ance brokers. While the idea and its growth are impressive, the company has many problems, and these have been attributed to Conrad’s personality and behavior.66

It seems that Conrad was especially determined to pursue hyper-growth at any cost. As the founder and chief, he ran the company his way and according to the mantra, “Ready, fire, aim!”67 His aggressive, confrontational, and emotional nature pervaded his adult life. When asked in an interview about the fu- ture for insurance brokers, he answered, “They are (expletive).” In response to a lawsuit from ADP (a competitor and major player in the payroll processing, tax, and HR business), Conrad launched a Twitter hashtag—#ADPeeved.68

Conrad also resisted adding members to the company’s board to provide more oversight and guid- ance, as well as attempts to slow its growth and hiring.69 Employees described him as “demanding, undisciplined, and unable to build a sustainable company . . . there were celebrations and tears of relief” when he resigned.

His experiences at Zenefits seem to fit a pattern. He was forced to leave his previous start-up (SigFig) because of a falling out with the cofounder. He also had to take a leave of absence from Harvard (although he eventually graduated), when he neglected his classes while working at the school newspaper.70

Although Parker Conrad has already stepped down as CEO, assume he hasn’t, and apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach below.

Problem-Solving Application

Now that you have some knowledge of your EI you might wonder, Why another type of intelligence, and how is EI different from IQ? Those who developed the concept of EI argue that traditional models of IQ are too narrow, failing to consider interpersonal com- petence. They also argue from a practical perspective that EI is more flexible than IQ and can be developed throughout your working life. This is consistent with Figure 3.2 and the practical benefits of relatively flexible IDs. Let’s explore the benefits of EI and how to develop yours.

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach

Step 1: Define the problem in the example.

Step 2: Identify the OB concepts and theories that may point to the cause of the problem. For example, what role has Parker Conrad’s emotional intelligence played in the problem you defined? Which personality attributes are evident, and how might they have contributed?

Step 3: Assuming Conrad were still CEO, make a recommendation to correct the situation. Think both short-term and long-term.

108 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Benefits of EI What Research Tells Us EI has been linked to better social relationships, well- being, and satisfaction across all ages and contexts, including work.71 For instance, store managers’ EI was shown to foster greater team cohesiveness (covered in Chap- ter 8) among sales associates, and this in turn boosted sales.72 EI has also been linked with creativity, helping employees manage their emotions amid the challenges of the creative process in order to stay on task and remain in the creative space. EI further enables individuals to apply positive emotions to their work, improving their creative outcomes.73

Meg Whitman, No. 7 on Fortune’s Most Influential Women list, holds the three top executive titles at Hewlett-Packard—CEO, chairperson, and president. She also is orchestrating the splitting of the company into two divisions. HP has been losing market share, competitive position, and market capitalization for years, and Whitman is determined to fix it. She has implemented more than 80,000 job cuts and endured a 30 percent decline in stock price in 2015 alone. To deal with stakeholders, including employees, shareholders, customers, and board members, many of them angry, she must possess and utilize a tremendous amount of emotional intelligence.74

© Visual China Group/Getty Images

Figure 3.5 summarizes the relationships between EI and a number of individual differences we’ve covered as well as several outcomes. EI does not contain any strong relationships with other inputs or outcomes contained in the Organizing Framework. In fact, there are an equal number of weak and moderate relationships. Most importantly, EI was not found to be the big driver of performance as suggested by some consultants and academics.

Practical Take-Aways EI certainly makes common sense and is appealing on the surface. However, despite its popularity and the millions of dollars spent on EI programs every year, the research results are mixed. Proceed with caution.75 Beware of individuals and companies claiming EI is the silver bullet of performance. It is but another individual difference, and no single such attribute explains all behavior. Nevertheless you should identify and develop your own EI to realize the clear interpersonal benefits. Table 3.6 can serve as a guide.

109Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Understanding My Own Emotional Intelligence

1. Using Table 3.6, evaluate and develop a plan to enhance your EI. What are your personal strengths and weaknesses in terms of both personal and social compe- tence? Be honest.

2. Think of an example where your EI has helped you and an example where you would have benefited from having greater EI.

3. Identify one aspect of personal competence from Table 3.6 and describe how you can improve it. Be specific.

4. Identify one aspect of social competence from Table 3.6 and describe how you can improve it. Be specific.

Now that you’ve learned about emotional intelligence, let’s explore emotions themselves.

FIGURE 3.5 RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES AND OUTCOMES

V ar

ia b

le s

Extroversion

Conscientiousness

Emotional Stability

Cognitive Ability

Self-efficacy

Supervisor-rated Job Performance

Self-rated Job Performance

Subjective Well-being

Mental Health

Physical Health

Strength of Relationship Not significant Weak Moderate Strong

SOURCE: N. Sánchez-Álvarez, N. Extremera, and P. Fernández-Berrocal, “The Relation between Emotional Intelligence and Subjective Well-Being: A Meta-Analytic Investigation,” Journal of Positive Psychology, May 2016, 276–285; D. Joseph, J. Jin, D. A. Newman, and E. H. O’Boyle, “Why Does Self-Reported Emotional Intelligence Predict Job Performance? A Meta-Analytic Investigation of Mixed EI,” Journal of Applied Psychology, March 2015, 298–342; A. Martins, N. Ramalho, and E. Morin, “A Comprehensive Meta-Analysis of the Relationship between Emotional Intelligence and Health,” Personality and Individual Differences, October 2010, 554–564.

110 PART 1 Individual Behavior

3.6 UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS TO INFLUENCE PERFORMANCE

Many people believe employees should check their emotions at the door when they come to work. The reality is that this is impossible. Like personality and the other IDs discussed thus far, emotions are an integral part of who we are as people, a fun- damental part of the human experience, and they greatly influence our performance. Given this reality, you will want to understand emotions so you can manage them as a process to benefit you, your team, and your employer. This will help make emotions a practical tool for you to use, rather than something to avoid, ignore, or suppress.

Emotions—We All Have Them, but What Are They?  Emotions  are complex, relatively brief responses aimed at a particular target, such as a person, information, experience, or event. They also change psycho- logical and/or physiological states.76 Researchers distinguish between felt and dis- played emotions.77 For example, if your boss informs you that you’ve been passed over for a promotion, you might feel disappointed and/or angry (felt emotion). You might keep your feelings to yourself or you might begin to cry. Both reactions are instances of displayed emotions. It’s just that in the first case you are choosing not to show emotion, which means your display is “no emotion.” Your display can affect the outcomes, in this case your manager’s reactions. Taxi drivers, waiters, and hairdressers all received higher tips when they were trained to manage what they felt and the way they displayed these feelings.78

Emotions also motivate your behavior and are an important means for commu- nicating with others.79 A smile on your face signals that you’re happy or pleased, while a scowl and a loud, forceful tone of voice may reflect anger. We also know that our emotions can and often do change moment to moment and thus are more flexible than the other IDs discussed thus far. For these reasons, emotions have im- portant implications for you at school, at work, and in every other social arena of your life.

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How can understanding emotions make me more effective at work?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

The human experience is awash in emotions. You won’t be surprised then to learn that emo-

tions are important both at work and as an individual-level process in the Organizing Frame-

work. You’re about to learn the difference between felt versus displayed emotions and how

emotions serve as an important means of communication with both ourselves and others.

Most of your experiences elicit a mix of positive and negative emotions, and these emotions

also are tightly related to your goals.

111Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Emotions as Positive or Negative Reactions to Goal Achievement You’ll notice from the definition that you can think of emotions, whether positive, nega- tive, or mixed, in terms of your goals.80

• Positive. If your goal is to do well in school and you graduate on time and with honors, you are likely to experience positive emotions such as joy, gratitude, pride, satisfaction, contentment, and relief. These emotions are positive because they are congruent (or consistent) with your goal.

• Negative. Negative emotions are triggered by frustration and failure to meet goals. They are said to be goal incongruent. Common negative emotions are anger, fright, anxiety, guilt, shame, sadness, envy, jealousy, and disgust. Which of these are you

Applying OB

Most people procrastinate at least occasionally. Some seem to procrastinate all the time. We often attribute this to poor time management or even laziness. But it seems that research has revealed a true cause—emotions. Researchers say procrastination is way to deal with stress. That’s right. Putting off studying for your next exam, for ex- ample, is a way of dealing with the stress of actually preparing for it. The rationale is that many things you do while procrastinating are often things that make you feel good or that you enjoy, such as shopping, going out with friends, watching TV, or playing video games. They help ease the anxiety associated with the task you need to do (study for an exam). Compounding this further, it seems that people who are more impulsive tend to be more anxious, and the more anxiety they experience, the more likely they are to procrastinate to make themselves feel better. With this in mind, what can occasional and chronic procrastinators do to help themselves?

1. Set subgoals. Whatever the needed or dreaded task is, break it into smaller parts or subgoals and specify a particular start and end time for each. Doing this will help the task seem less daunting, which will reduce your associated anxiety and the temptation to do something else more enjoyable (procrastinate).

2. Just do it. We’re not talking about going for a run or playing sports, which while healthy may be another form of procrastination. Instead, we’re saying just get started and do part of the task. Once you’ve begun, completing it will seem less difficult.

3. Envision the benefits and feelings. How will you feel when you’re finished? What will you be able to do? This seems obvious enough, but research has shown that people rarely think of such benefits when they are procrastinating.

4. Reward yourself. Building on No. 3, reward yourself for achieving the subgoals, as well as the overall goal or task.

Blaming your emotions won’t get your term paper done or help you prepare suffi- ciently for the upcoming client presentation. Understanding the role emotions play, however, may indeed help you recognize and overcome your tendencies. With this advice in mind, get to work!

Adapted from S. Wang, “To Stop Procrastinating, Start by Understanding the Emotions Involved,” The Wall Street Journal, August 31, 2015, http://www.wsj.com/articles/to-stop-procrastinating-start-by-understanding-whats-really-going-on-1441043167.

Do You Procrastinate? Blame Your Emotions!

112 PART 1 Individual Behavior

likely to experience if you fail the final exam in a required course? Failing would be incongruent with your goal of graduating on time with a good GPA. Typically, the more important the goal, the more intense the emotion.

• Mixed. Meeting or failing to meet our goals can also generate mixed emotions. Say you receive a well-earned promotion that brings positives like more responsi- bility and higher pay—but only if you relocate to another state, which you don’t want to do.

Besides Positive and Negative, There’s Past vs. Future The negative–positive distinction matters—you’re happy, you’re sad. However, an- other characteristic of emotions can be especially useful for managers. Assume you’re a manager in a company that just downsized 15 percent of its employees. This is stressful for all those who lost their jobs, but let’s focus on two fictitious employees who survived the cuts—Shelby and Jennifer. Both feel negatively about the job cuts, but in different ways.

Shelby: Her dominant emotion is anger. People are typically angry about things that happened (or didn’t happen) in the past. This means that anger is a backward- looking or retrospective emotion.

Jennifer: Her dominant emotion is fear. People are typically fearful of things that might happen in the future. Fear is thus a forward-looking or prospective emotion.

Practical implications for managers. Knowing these emotions tells you that Shelby is likely most concerned with something that happened in the past, such as the way deci- sions were made about whom to terminate. She may think the process was unfair and caused a number of her favorite colleagues to be let go. As for Jennifer, knowing she is dominated by fear tells you that it is uncertainty about the future—perhaps her job might be cut next—that concerns her most. As their manager, you can use this more specific knowledge of Shelby’s and Jennifer’s emotions to guide your own actions. The following Take-Away Application builds on this scenario.

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Managing Others’ Emotions

Assume you are their manager and you know Shelby’s dominant emotion related to the downsizing is anger and Jennifer’s is fear.

1. What are two specific things you could do to alleviate Shelby’s anger?

2. What are two specific things you could do to reduce Jennifer’s fear?

3. What other things could you do to increase their positive emotions related to the changes?

How Can I Manage My Negative Emotions at Work? Theoretically, to manage your emotions at work you could simply translate your felt emo- tions into displayed emotions—unfiltered. Besides being unrealistic, however, this would be disastrous. Organizations have  emotion display norms,  or rules that dictate which types of emotions are expected and appropriate for their members to show.81

113Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Andrew Cornell, CEO of Cornell Iron Works, understands the days of the scream- ing boss are numbered. He deals with anger toward his employees by holding frequent and brief meetings, “rather than ‘waiting until the end, throwing a nuclear bomb and leaving blood all over the wall.’”82

Screaming takes other forms too. At work you might receive a hostile e-mail berating you, and copied to your coworkers, in ALL CAPS. Science supports the many people who believe yelling, whether by e-mail or face to face, is inappro- priate and counterproductive. You may have been in a group meeting when someone was so angry he or she began to scream and bully another person. Both are unprofessional and uncalled for, and they damage the reputation of the perpetrator.

Costs of Negative Emotions Growing research evidence confirms the sus- pected undesirable outcomes of negative emotions. For instance, managers need to be careful about generating feelings of shame and/or anger when giving feedback to employees, because these particular emotions have been linked to counterproductive work behaviors such as abuse of others and theft.83

Unhappy Customers May Suffer Twice Customers’ negative emotional dis- plays, such as verbal aggression, have been shown to negatively affect employee job performance. Specifically, receivers of the aggression made more mistakes recalling and processing the customers’ complaints.84 You may want to think twice before venting on a customer service representative.

What About the Benefits of Anger? Expressing your anger sometimes can actu- ally solve the problem. Your message is communicated, though forcefully, which can lead to better understanding. Displays of anger also are more likely to be beneficial if they are directed at organizational issues and problems instead of at individuals. Being angry at the problem rather than the person is likely to be perceived more constructively and less defensively.85

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. What advice would you give to managers on how to handle their own anger and other negative emotions at work?

2. What advice would you give to managers on how to handle the anger and negative emotions felt (and expressed) by their direct reports?

3. What has been the most productive way for you to deal with your negative emotions?

The Good and Bad of Anger at Work OB in Action

But  what can you do when, as is inevitable, sometimes you feel negative emotions at work? The OB in Action box describes the costs and benefits of displaying anger at work.

Anger isn’t the only negative emotion. Table 3.7 provides guidance on a variety of negative emotions and how to deal with them. As you study the table, think of your own experiences and reactions and how the recommendations could have helped you handle them.

114 PART 1 Individual Behavior

When executives get angry, they can get rude. In 2001, unhappy with an investor in a conference call who noted Enron seemed unable to produce its balance sheet, CEO Jeff Skilling said, “Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that, A–hole.” Enron later declared bankruptcy in one of the biggest financial scandals at the start of the century. Skilling was convicted on 19 counts of securities and wire fraud in 2006. © Jessica Kourkounis/AP Photo

Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo! from 2009 to 2011, told staff that if anyone leaked company secrets, she would “drop-kick” them “to f—ing Mars.” Like Skilling’s comment, Bartz’s statement was widely reported. Bartz was fired, though most likely for business reasons and not for tough talk. © Manu Fernandez/AP Photo

TABLE 3.7 COMMON NEGATIVE EMOTIONS AND HOW TO HANDLE THEM

If You’re Feeling . . .

Then You Might Want To . . .

Fearful Step back and try to see the situation objectively. Ask yourself: “Is my business or career truly at risk?” If not, then you may just be feeling nervous and excited rather than fearful.

Rejected Do you respect the opinion of the person rejecting you? If the comment came from someone you don’t respect, rejection may actually be a backhanded compliment. If you do respect the person, you may want to clarify by asking: “The other day you said ________ and I felt hurt. Can you clarify what happened?”

Angry Get some distance from the situation to avoid blowing your top in the heat of the moment. Once you calm down, pinpoint the reason you are angry. Most often the reason is that somebody violated a rule or standard that is deeply important to you. Find a way to communicate the importance of the rule or standard to the person so it doesn’t happen again.

Frustrated We can all get frustrated at work when results don’t meet our expectations, given the amount of time and energy we’ve applied. The goal often is achievable, but progress is slow. First, reassess your plan and behavior. Do they need modification? If not, then perhaps you simply need to be patient.

Inadequate Even those with the highest self-esteem feel they don’t measure up at times. Our discussion of self-efficacy and how to build it in Table 3.5 can guide your solution to this emotion.

Stressed Time constraints are a major source of stress. Too many commitments, too little time. You need to prioritize! Do what is important rather than what is urgent. For example, most e-mail is urgent but not important.

SOURCE: Adapted from G. James, “Feeling Negative? How to Overcome It,” Inc. November 26, 2012.

115Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

You learned that who you are affects performance because individual differences (IDs) play an im- portant and often fundamental role in the way you perform at school, at work, and in other contexts. Many practical applications of this learning will al- low you to improve your own performance and work more effectively in any organizational set- ting, including one where you manage others. Re- inforce your learning with the Key Points below. Consolidate your learning using the Organizing Framework. Then challenge your mastery of the material by answering the Major Questions in your own words.

Key Points for Understanding Chapter 3 You learned the following key points.

3.1 THE DIFFERENCES MATTER • Individual differences (IDs) is a broad cate-

gory used to describe the vast number of at- tributes (traits and behaviors) that describe a person.

• It is helpful to think of IDs in terms of their rel- ative stability. Intelligence is relatively fixed, while attitudes and emotions are more flexi- ble and under a person’s control.

3.2 INTELLIGENCES: THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY THAN IQ

• Intelligence represents an individual’s capac- ity for constructive thinking, reasoning, and problem solving. It is more than IQ.

• Howard Gardner, in his theory of multiple intelligences, describes eight different intelligences—linguistic, logical, musical, kinesthetic, spatial, interpersonal, intraper- sonal, and naturalist.

• Practical intelligence is the ability to solve everyday problems by utilizing knowledge

gained from experience in order to purpose- fully adapt to, shape, and select environments.

• Knowledge of various forms of intelligence is useful for identifying intelligences relevant to particular jobs, which we can use to select, place, and develop individuals accordingly.

3.3 PERSONALITY, OB, AND MY EFFECTIVENESS

• Personality is the combination of stable physi- cal, behavioral, and mental characteristics that give individuals their unique identities.

• A useful way to describe personality is using the Big Five personality profiles. Its dimen- sions are extroversion, agreeableness, con- scientiousness, emotional stability, and openness to experience.

• People with proactive personalities are rela- tively unconstrained by situational forces and often affect environmental change. Proactive people identify opportunities and act on them, show initiative, take action, and perse- vere until meaningful change occurs.

• Employers use personality tests to select and place employees. There is no ideal personal- ity, however, and personality testing often has flaws.

3.4 CORE SELF-EVALUATIONS: HOW MY EFFICACY, ESTEEM, LOCUS, AND STABILITY AFFECT MY PERFORMANCE

• Core self-evaluations (CSEs) represent a broad personality trait consisting of four nar- row and positive individual traits: (1) self- efficacy, (2) self-esteem, (3) locus of control, and (4) emotional stability.

• Self-efficacy is a person’s belief about his or her chances of successfully accomplishing a specific task.

• Self-efficacy beliefs can be improved via ex- perience, behavior models, persuasion from others, and emotional state.

What Did I Learn?

116 PART 1 Individual Behavior

• Most experiences at and outside work are a mixture of positive and negative emotions, rather than purely one or the other.

• Besides positive and negative, we distinguish emotions in terms of whether they have a future orientation (anxiety) or a past orientation (anger).

• Organizations have emotion display norms, or rules, that dictate which types of emotions are expected and appropriate for their members to show. It therefore is important to learn how to recognize and manage emotions.

The Organizing Framework for Chapter 3 As shown in Figure 3.6, you learned how individ- ual differences can present themselves through the process of emotions (both felt and expressed) at the individual level, affecting many workplace outcomes at both the individual and group/team levels.

Challenge: Major Questions for Chapter 3 You should now be able to answer the following questions. Unless you can, have you really

• Managers can realize the practical value of CSEs by selecting employees based on them and then training them to enhance elements of their CSEs.

3.5 THE VALUE OF BEING EMOTIONALLY INTELLIGENT

• Emotional intelligence (EI) is the ability to monitor our own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate between them, and to use this information to guide our thinking and actions.

• EI is associated with higher sales and im- proved retention, as well as leadership emer- gence, behavior, and effectiveness.

• An individual can develop EI by building per- sonal competence (self-awareness and self- management) and social competence (social awareness and relationship management).

3.6 UNDERSTAND EMOTIONS TO INFLUENCE PERFORMANCE

• Emotions are complex, relatively brief re- sponses aimed at a particular target, such as a person, information, experience, or event.

FIGURE 3.6 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

© 2014 Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without permission of the authors.

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Person Factors • Intelligences • Personality • Proactive personality • Core self-evaluations • Self-efficacy • Locus of control • Self-esteem • Emotional intelligence Situation Factors

Individual Level • Emotions Group/Team Level • Group/team dynamics Organizational Level

Individual Level • Task performance • Work attitudes • Well-being/flourishing • Turnover • Career outcomes Group/Team Level • Group/team performance • Group satisfaction Organizational Level • Financial performance • Survival • Reputation

117Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

3. How does my personality affect my perfor- mance at school and work?

4. How do self-evaluations affect my perfor- mance at work?

5. What is emotional intelligence and how does it help me?

6. How can understanding emotions make me more effective at work?

processed and internalized the lessons in the chapter? Refer to the Key Points, Figure 3.6, the chapter itself, and your notes to revisit and an- swer the following major questions:

1. How does understanding the relative stability of individual differences benefit me?

2. How do multiple intelligences affect my performance?

IMPLICATIONS FOR ME From a practical standpoint, increasing your knowledge of the many individual differences, such as personality, intelligences, CSEs, and EI—what they are, how they operate, and why they matter—will increase your own performance. Use your new knowledge, along with the self-assessments and concepts learned in Chapter 2, to enhance your self-awareness. Then use this knowledge to identify the pros and cons of particular IDs for you at school and work. We also recommend applying your knowledge of the many IDs to create profiles of the managers and leaders where you work (or where you want to work if you’re not cur- rently employed). Profiling the “important people” in this way will not only illustrate the concepts you’ve learned, but it also will serve as a template or prototype of what is valued at a particular employer. In other words, create a profile of what successful people look like. Use this knowledge to highlight those same qualities you possess during job interviews and also to guide your own development. Be sure to include emotional intelligence, be- cause despite mixed research results, we have shown that it can make or break individuals.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS IDs have great practical significance for managers. First, it is useful to explicitly include the individual differences that matter most in job descriptions. This means you are well served to list job responsibilities and the employee characteristics you think are most important to be successful in a particular job. Second, use your knowledge of the continuum when se- lecting and training employees. Realize that you often will want to hire and test for rela- tively fixed traits (intelligence and personality), because these are not easy to change, and consider training or coaching the others. You should also assess your own emotional intel- ligence, paying explicit attention to both personal and social competence. Don’t simply make a summary judgment—“I have high EI,” or “My EI is pretty good.” Given the potential consequences of low EI, you are wise to put in the effort to learn about and improve both aspects of yours (if needed). After doing this, you will be better prepared to assess the emotional intelligence of those you manage and those you consider hiring. These actions will benefit you, them, other coworkers, and the larger organization.

118 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Amazon is not just a surviving company of the 1990s tech boom; it is now one of the largest and most suc- cessful companies in the world in any industry. It has leveraged its game-changing approach to selling books to sell almost everything to almost everybody almost anywhere. Today Amazon is a leader in all things customer service, and it has achieved this lead- ing position through groundbreaking technological in- novation. Technological innovation also has made Amazon one of the largest web services companies in the world and much more than an formidable retailer. All these legendary accomplishments are the result of the commitment and contributions of thousands of ex- tremely talented Amazonians. As you would certainly expect, the standards for hiring are exceptionally high. But what it takes to thrive and survive at the company is even more challenging.

IT’S NOT ALL SUNSHINE AND ROSES While Amazon’s accomplishments and future endeav- ors are widely reported, until recently relatively little was known about its approach to managing employ- ees. But recent reports describe a “punishing corpo- rate environment: long hours, disparaging bosses, high stress, no time or space to recover, all resulting in uncommonly high employee turnover.”86 Just how bad is it? PayScale ranked Amazon 464th among the For- tune 500, with median employee tenure of approxi- mately one year! (A competing estimate puts average tenure at 18 months.)87

What pressures drive such high turnover? In a letter to shareholders in 1997, founder and CEO Jeff Bezos wrote: “You can work long, hard, or smart, but at Amazon you can’t choose two out of three.”88 This sug- gests that employees must always be on, be in the game, and play it well. Amazonians experience many of the common pressures of today’s workplace— 80-plus-hour workweeks, 24/7 connectivity, no real vacations or holidays (no surprise given that Amazon is the largest retailer on the planet).

Amazon’s “always on” culture is manifest in a num- ber of chilling stories, such as that of an employee who negotiated a 7 to 4:30 schedule with her boss after having her first child. The problem was that her co- workers didn’t see her arrive early and crushed her in

anonymous peer feedback (which employees are en- couraged to use). Her boss said he couldn’t defend her in her performance review if her own coworkers were critical of her. Can it get worse? Yes. Amazon also uses a “rank and yank” performance management sys- tem. Employees are ranked by their managers, and those near the bottom are terminated every year. This leaves little room for taking a breath or backing off, even if you have a miscarriage, take care of an ailing parent, or receive treatment for cancer. There are sto- ries of employees in all these predicaments who were essentially told that their lives were incompatible with working at Amazon. It is no wonder one former em- ployee said, “Nearly every person I worked with, I saw cry at their desk.”89 Amazon disputes some of these claims as simply those of disgruntled former employ- ees. And because it has so many, even a small per- centage is a big number.

WE CAN MEASURE “THAT” . . . AND “THAT” MATTERS Another key contributor to the pressure cooker envi- ronment is that everything is measured. For instance, warehouse employees are monitored using sophisti- cated systems to track how many boxes they pack per hour. White-collar employees participate in routine “business review” meetings, for which they need to prepare, read, and absorb 50 to 60 pages of reports amounting to thousands of data points. During these review meetings employees are often quizzed on par- ticular numbers by their managers, and it is not uncom- mon to hear managers say that responses are “stupid” or tell workers to “just stop it.”90

To be sure, the company succeeds in large part be- cause of the immense customer data it collects and uses to select and sell its products. The plan is to use data the same way to make performance management an efficient and effective everyday process, rather than a once-a-year event. However, many employees describe the result as “purposeful-Darwinism”91 in which every employee constantly competes with other employees. Such relentless and pervasive competi- tion, while well intended, has many undesirable conse- quences. For instance, it is common for employees to hoard ideas and talent, because sharing becomes a

PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE

Amazon to Competition: We Will Crush You! Amazon to Employees: We Will Churn You!

119Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

most valuable asset is ground up and discarded in such a way and at such a high rate.96

To be fair, surely some percentage of the company’s more than 150,000 employees are quite satisfied and successful. The system works for some, and for many it works for some period of time. And the incredibly high bar, marquee name, and extreme work ethic required to get hired at Amazon make former Amazonians very valuable to the company’s competitors and many other companies both inside and outside the technology industry.

APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM- SOLVING APPROACH TO OB

Step 1: Define the problem.

A. Look first at the Outcome box of the Organizing Framework in Figure 3.6 to help identify the important problem(s) in this case. Remember that a problem is a gap between a desired and current state. State your problem as a gap, and be sure to consider problems at all three levels. If more than one desired outcome is not being accomplished, decide which one is most important and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.

B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and problems are generally viewed from a particular protagonist’s perspective. You need to determine from whose perspective—employee, manager, team, or the organization—you’re defining the problem. As in other cases, whether you choose the individual or organizational level in this case can make a difference.

C. Use details in the case to determine the key problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that are not included in the case.

D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a problem? Focus on topics in the current chapter, because we generally select cases that illustrate concepts in the current chapter.

Step 2: Identify causes of the problem by using ma- terial from this chapter, which has been summarized in the Organizing Framework and is shown in Figure 3.1. Causes will tend to appear in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.

A. Start by looking at the Organizing Framework (Figure 3.1) and determine which person factors, if any, are most likely causes of the defined problem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause of the problem. Asking why multiple times is more likely to lead you to root causes of the problem. For example, do particular individual differences employees possess help explain the

personal loss for the sharer and a gain for somebody else. Moreover, other’s ideas are not just scrutinized; they are undermined. Groups of employees often con- spire against others on the peer feedback system to get ahead (or to put somebody else behind). As for managers, they must both defend the direct reports they deem most valuable to their own performance, and at the same time determine whom they can sacri- fice—not everybody can pass the performance test.92

AMAZON = BEZOS Much of the praise and many of the complaints are di- rected to Jeff Bezos. Not only is he the founder and CEO, but he also is the chief architect of all things Amazon. His personality is embodied in the company values and the way it operates. Like Bezos himself, employees are expected to use data, confront, perse- vere, and win. This approach appeals to and is sustain- able for only a very specific type of employee. One former employee described Amazon’s hiring process as “panning for gold.”93 The company is looking for the rare stars who can thrive in its demanding environ- ment, and it must sift through many, many people to find them.

This strategy is a real challenge for Amazon. Its size, growth rate, and turnover require the company to hire thousands and thousands of employees every year, and this doesn’t include the thousands of temporary workers it hires to meet the holiday rush. Interviews with male employees in their 40s revealed that many are convinced Amazon will replace them with employ- ees in their 30s, who worry in turn that the company prefers employees in their 20s. The implication? Younger employees have fewer commitments and more energy.94

WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO ABOUT IT? To combat the churn, Amazon has structured its stock options to vest (transfer to the employee as owner) on an unusual schedule. Instead of vesting evenly over a period of years, Amazon employee options vest at 5 percent in year one, 15 percent in year two, 40 per- cent in year three, and 40 percent in year four. Employ- ees who leave within one year of hire must repay part of their signing bonus, and if within two years they must repay their relocation package if any. Many ex- perts question the effectiveness of such policies, how- ever. Lindsey Thorne, manager at a Seattle recruiting firm that places many former Amazon employees, says, “The potential payout of waiting for stock to vest won’t tie down unhappy employees who are ready to jump ship.”95 Still others question whether Amazon can continue to innovate and lead in the marketplace if its

120 PART 1 Individual Behavior

cause? Again, do this for several iterations to arrive at the root causes.

D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the causes, be sure to map them onto the defined problem.

Step 3: Make recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5)? Which recommendation is desirable and feasible?

A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are your best recommendations? Use the material in the current chapter that best suits the cause. Remember to consider the OB in Action and Applying OB boxes, because these contain insights into what others have done. Details of this case, for instance, describe how Amazon has particular stock vesting practices to help ensure retention. This might be part of the solution, but is it sufficient?

B. Be sure to consider the Organizing Framework— both person and situation factors, as well as processes at different levels.

C. Create an action plan for implementing your recommendations.

problem you defined in Step 1? This might lead to the conclusion that the characteristics Amazon uses to select and hire employees contribute to the problem.

B. Follow the same process for the situation factors. For each ask yourself, Why is this a cause? For example, Amazon’s HR practices likely have some effect on the problem you defined. If you agree, which specific practices and why? Leaders (managers and Bezos) greatly influence employees’ experiences at Amazon. Do they cause the problem you defined in Step 1? If yes, then why? By following the process of asking why multiple times you are likely to arrive at a more complete and accurate list of causes. Again, look to the Organizing Framework for guidance.

C. Now consider the Processes box in the Organizing Framework. Are any processes at the individual, group/team, or organizational level potential causes of your defined problem? It certainly seems that their emotions are notable aspects of Amazon employee experiences. Do they help explain the problem defined in Step 1? What about performance management? For any process you consider, ask yourself, Why is this a

LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE

Companies Shift Smoking Bans to Smoker Ban

An increasing number of companies are using smok- ing as a reason to turn away job applicants. Employers argue that such policies increase worker productivity, reduce health care costs, and encourage healthier life- styles. They raise the ante on earlier and less effective efforts, such as no-smoking work environments, cessa- tion programs, and higher health care premiums for smokers.

“Tobacco-free hiring” often requires applicants to submit to a urine test for nicotine, and violations by new hires are cause for termination. The shift from “smoke-free” to “smoker-free” workplaces has prompted sharp debate about employers intruding into employees’ private lives and regulating legal behaviors.

Some state courts have upheld the legality of re- fusing to employ smokers. For example, hospitals in  Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas, among others,

stopped hiring smokers. Some justified the new poli- cies as ways to reduce health care costs and to ad- vance their institutional missions of promoting personal well-being.

Supporters of these policies note that smoking con- tinues to be the leading cause of preventable death. About 17 percent of U.S. adults still smoke,97 and smokers cost approximately $5,800 per person per year in lost productivity and additional health care ex- penses.98 Moreover, smokers are not recognized as a protected class, which means they typically are not covered by anti-discrimination laws. Opponents argue that such policies are a slippery slope. Some say that, legality aside, implementing anti-smoker policies is in principle the same as discriminating on the basis of gender, race, or disease (alcoholism). Furthermore, successful nonsmoker policies may lead to limits on other legal employee behaviors, like drinking alcohol, eating fast food, and participating in dangerous sports.

121Individual Differences and Emotions CHAPTER 3

Many companies add their own wrinkle to the smok- ing ban and even forbid nicotine patches and other forms of tobacco consumption. And while most com- panies apply the rules only to new employees, grand- fathering existing employees, a few have eventually mandated that existing employees must quit smoking or lose their jobs.

Managing Emotions While Managing a Smoking Problem 1. Legality aside, do you agree in principle that

forbidding smokers is discriminatory? Explain.

2. Assume you are the employee representative on the executive board at your company. You know the vice president of human resources plans to propose a smoker ban to begin June 1 for all new hires and the following January for all

existing employees. However, you’ve been asked to keep the plans quiet. What would you do and why?

3. Now assume you have permission to share the information. You know employees’ responses are likely to be emotional (some positive and some negative). How would you present the information to them?

4. More generally, under what circumstances do companies have the right to consider and ban legal employee behaviors during the hiring process, as many are doing now with tobacco consumption? Explain.

5. What is your position regarding policy changes (like a smoker ban) and applying them to existing employees who were hired under different guidelines? Explain your position.

4 Major Topics I’ll Learn and Questions I Should Be Able to Answer

4.1 Person Perception MAJOR QUESTION: How do I form perceptions of others?

4.2 Stereotypes MAJOR QUESTION: How can I use awareness of stereotypes to make better decisions and manage more effectively?

4.3 Causal Attributions MAJOR QUESTION: How do I tend to interpret employee performance?

4.4 Defining and Managing Diversity MAJOR QUESTION: How does awareness about the layers of diversity help organizations effectively manage diversity?

4.5 Building the Business Case for Managing Diversity MAJOR QUESTION: What is the business rationale for managing diversity?

4.6 Barriers and Challenges to Managing Diversity MAJOR QUESTION: What are the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs?

4.7 Organizational Practices Used to Effectively Manage Diversity MAJOR QUESTION: What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity, and what works best?

Why Are These Topics Essential for Success?

SOCIAL PERCEPTION AND MANAGING DIVERSITY

The Organizing Framework shown in Figure 4.1 summarizes the key concepts dis- cussed in Chapter 4. We discuss the impact of three important person factors—diversity, demographics, and stereotypes, and the situation factor of diversity climate on a host of processes at the individual, group/team, and organizational levels. These person and situation factors affect the individual level processes pertaining to perception, attribu- tions, and psychological safety. They also influence processes at the group/team and organizational levels. One of the biggest takeaways from this chapter is the fact that the combination of inputs and processes shown in Figure 4.1 have a broad effect on indi- vidual, group/team, and organizational level outcomes. Try to observe how the inputs and processes affect individual level outcomes such as task performance, work atti- tudes, well-being flourishing, turnover, and career outcomes such as promotions. At the same time, you should learn that concepts discussed in this chapter also effect group/ team level outcomes of performance and satisfaction as well as organizational out- comes like being an employer of choice, customer satisfaction, and reputation.

123

FIGURE 4.1 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

© 2014 by Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without express permission of the authors.

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Person Factors • Diversity • Demographics • Stereotypes Situation Factors • Diversity climate

Individual Level • Perceptions • Attributions • Psychological safety Group/Team Level • Group/team dynamics Organizational Level • Options to manage

diversity

Individual Level • Task performance • Work attitudes • Well-being/flourishing • Turnover • Career outcomes Group/Team Level • Group/team performance • Group satisfaction Organizational Level • Employer of choice • Customer satisfaction • Reputation

This team of medical professionals is totally focused on saving the patient’s life. Success in this effort requires coordination among a diverse set of people, and this is not always an easy task. Research and anecdotal evidence reveals that diversity can promote greater performance once people learn how to effectively work with people different from themselves. This takes acceptance, appreciation, and positive attitudes towards diverse people. This chapter helps you understand how companies are attempting to manage diversity and identifies obstacles that must be overcome. © monkeybusinessimages/Getty Images RF

Winning at Work Perception Plays a Key Role in Getting a Job

What’s Ahead in This Chapter We want to help you enhance your understanding of the perceptual process so you won’t fall victim to common perceptual errors—yours or other people’s. This chapter will show you, for instance, how perception influences the way managers manage diversity. Diversity should matter to you because the way a business deals with diversity affects the way you are perceived as an indi- vidual. Diversity matters to your organization too, be- cause it allows you to take advantage of the fullest range of human skill and talent. We also discuss barriers and challenges to managing diversity, and the practices organizations use to overcome them.

Do’s • Be aware of each platform’s pol-

icies and procedures because they tend to vary.

• Focus on the quality of your posts rather than the quantity.

• Use Twitter and LinkedIn to play up your professional interests (like sharing relevant news articles).

• Cross-check your résumé and LinkedIn profile to make sure there are no discrepancies.

• Share information about your volunteer activities and work with professional associations.

• Make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors in your materials.

• Remember to continuously update your profiles.

Don’ts • Don’t bad-mouth a current or former employer, col-

league, or company. • Avoid foul language and negative remarks. • Don’t post when you are impaired, or even when

you are overly tired or emotional. • Don’t post anything that might be perceived as rac-

ist, biased, sexually oriented, or illegal.5

More recruiters than ever are using social media to find good employ- ees. A recent US survey of 1,400 recruiters by Jobvite revealed that 96 percent planned to use social media as part of the recruiting pro- cess. Results also showed that 58 percent viewed social and pro- fessional networks as great sources for finding the “best” candidates.1 This belief is driven partly by the expectation that competi- tion will increase for high-quality employees like yourself.

The experience of Jeff Winter, Thumbtack Inc. director of technical recruiting, is a good example. He told The Wall Street Journal that it has been getting harder “to close the deal. Offer acceptance rates have fallen about 5 percentage points from last year [2015], and more candidates tell him they’re talking with behemoths like Google Inc., attracted to the security that established companies can offer.”2

Perceptions Start with Social Media Posts Although the Internet is a gold mine of information for re- cruiters, a poorly managed online image can hurt your chances of finding a job. Photos of drunken behavior, rants with foul language, and posts critical of your current em- ployer will damage any recruiter’s perception of you. You need to be careful about your online presence because 87 percent, 55 percent, and 47 percent of Jobvite’s re- cruiter sample used LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, re- spectively, to help screen employees.3

Consider the experience of Pete Maulik, chief strategy of- ficer at Fahrenheit 212. Maulik was ready to make an offer to an applicant, but after checking out the man’s LinkedIn profile he decided the applicant was not a team player. “He took credit for everything short of splitting the atom,” Maulik said. “Everything was ‘I did this.’ He seemed like a lone wolf. He did everything himself.”

Maulik recalls another seemingly good applicant who used his Twitter account “to disparage just about every new innovation in the marketplace.” Maulik concluded the ap- plicant “was much more comfortable as the critic than the collaborative creator.”4 This candidate was not hired either.

Recommended Tips The following suggestions can help you manage the im- pression you are projecting based on the information you post on social media.

124

125Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

4.1 PERSON PERCEPTION

Imagine you are driving on a winding mountain road at dusk and suddenly see something in the road. Is it an animal, a rock, or a person? Should you stop or just maneuver around it? Suppose you’re in a team meeting and one of your teammates makes a negative state- ment about your work. Is the person being political or just having a bad day? Your mind is trying to quickly answer these questions before you respond.

Perception is key to resolving the above ques- tions.  Perception  is a cognitive process that en- ables us to interpret and understand our surroundings. Recognition of objects is one of this process’s major functions. But because organizational behavior’s (OB’s) principal focus is on people, our discussion will emphasize person perception rather than object perception.

Perception is important to OB because behavior is based on our perception of reality, not on reality it- self. Our exploration of this important process begins by considering a model of person perception. The model provides a practical framework for under- standing how we form perceptions of others. We then consider the managerial implications of person perception.

A Model of Person Perception Figure 4.1 showed that perception is an important process in the Organizing Framework for Understand- ing and Applying OB because it affects our actions and decisions. Consider dieting. Weight Watchers In- ternational Inc. has stopped using the word diet in its advertising because of the word’s negative perception. Company CEO James Chambers noted that people “aren’t thinking of diet and deprivation as the path they want to take; they’re thinking much more holisti- cally.”6 The 52-year-old company re-branded its weight-loss program around the slogan “Beyond the Scale.” Weight Watchers clearly is trying to use the perception process to increase sales.

Perception is influenced by three key compo- nents: the characteristics of the perceiver, of the

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How do I form perceptions of others?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Understanding person perception will help you see how perception affects a variety of

important processes and outcomes within the Organizing Framework for Understanding and

Applying OB. It can also assist in managing the perceptions people form about you.

Oprah Winfrey is not only following the Weight Watchers’ Plan, but she also purchased a 10 percent stake in the company and joined its board. She has filmed a company commercial and is actively involved with marketing and program issues. The company hopes that her star power can help reverse the company’s financial decline. Do you think more people will join Weight Watchers because of Winfrey’s involvement? © Helga Esteb/Shutterstock RF

126 PART 1 Individual Behavior

target—the person or group being observed—and of the situation (see Figure 4.2).7 Let’s take a closer look at how these components work.

Characteristics of the Perceiver Figure 4.2 shows six key perceiver characteristics that affect our perceptions of others.8 As you read, consider how they might have influ- enced your perceptions in the past.

• Direction of gaze. Gaze is the first step in the perception process because it focuses your attention and tells the brain what you think is important in the immediate envi- ronment. When scanning people, we also tend to pay attention to others who are gaz- ing at us. We usually remember people when we make direct eye contact with them.

• Needs and goals. We are more likely to perceive whatever is related to our goals and needs. For example, we perceive examples of food if we are hungry. If we are looking for a friend at a party, we scan the room for familiar faces and fail to per- ceive strangers.

• Experience with target. Our perception of a target is influenced by our past experience with him or her. You might perceive someone’s firm handshake negatively, for instance, if you know this person has attempted to exert power and control over you in the past. The same handshake is positive if you remember the target as a friendly, caring person.

• Category-based knowledge. Category-based knowledge consists of perceptions, including stereotypes, that we have stored in memory about various categories of people (professors, singers, artists, police, politicians, and so on). We use this in- formation to interpret what we see and hear. For instance, if you believe professors in general are intelligent, you are more likely to perceive that those teaching your current courses are intelligent. If your memory tells you that people who lie cannot

Characteristics of the perceiver • Direction of gaze • Needs and goals • Experience with target • Category based knowledge • Gender and emotional status • Cognitive load

Characteristics of the target • Direction of gaze • Facial and body shape characteristics • Nonverbal cues • Appearance or dress • Physical attractiveness

Characteristics of the situation • Context of interaction • Culture and race consistency between perceiver and target

Interactions between perceivers

and targets.

Person Perception

FIGURE 4.2 A MODEL OF PERSON PERCEPTION

127Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

be trusted, you are likely to perceive a politician as untrustworthy who is caught in a lie. We discuss stereotypes in the next section.

• Gender and emotional status. Women recognize emotions more accurately than men, and both men and women are more likely to recognize a target’s emotions when they are consistent with their own. Experiencing negative emotions such as anger and frustration is likely to make your perceptions more negative. The oppo- site is true for positive emotions such as optimism and love.

• Cognitive load. Cognitive load represents the amount of activity going on in your brain. If you are tired and distracted after working a long day, your perceptions are more likely to be distorted and susceptible to stereotypical judgments.

Characteristics of the Target Figure 4.2 identifies five important characteristics of the target that affect our person perception.9 The characteristics are:

• Direction of gaze. We form different perceptions of people based on whether they are looking at us while conversing. Direct eye contact suggests interest, whereas eyes darting across a room suggests the opposite.

• Facial features and body shape. We often use faces as markers for gender, race, and age, but face and body characteristics can lead us to fall back on cultural stereotypes. For example, height has been associated with perceptions of prosperity—high income—and occupational success. Excess weight can be stereotypically associated with negative traits such as laziness, incompetence, and lack of discipline.

• Nonverbal cues. Communication experts tell us that nonverbal actions are highly influential in perception. Gestures, touching, facial expressions, eye contact, and body movements like slouching all convey messages. You might perceive that someone is defensive if you observe folded arms, a facial scowl, or crossed legs. In many cultures appropriate touching conveys an impression of warmth and caring.

• Appearance or dress. We all are susceptible to being influenced by appearance. We may conclude someone who shows up for work in dirty, tattered clothes is lazy or uncaring. A recent experimental study showed that people performed better in mock negotiations when they wore business suits and dress shoes.10

• Physical attractiveness. While attractiveness is culturally determined, the beauty-is- good stereotype leads us to perceive attractive people positively. High attractiveness has been associated with better job opportunities, higher performance ratings, and the potential for increased earnings. One team of researchers concluded, “The effects of facial attractiveness are robust and . . . attractiveness is a significant advantage for both children and adults in almost every domain of judgment, treatment, and behavior.”11

Characteristics of the Situation Figure 4.2 shows two key situational characteris- tics that affect perception: the context of the interaction, and the culture and race consis- tency between perceivers and targets.

• Context of interaction. Perceptions are affected by the social context in which the interaction occurs. For example, your parent will likely perceive your eating food from the kitchen when you visit home differently than will a coworker whose food you take from the office refrigerator. Texting someone while eating dinner with friends is per- ceived differently than texting during a business meeting. Context matters!

• Culture and race consistency. We more accurately recognize emotions displayed by people from our own culture or from other familiar cultures. We also better un- derstand and remember facial expressions displayed by people from our own race. For instance, both authors do consulting around the world, and we find it harder to accurately perceive group dynamics in foreign than in US companies. Angelo re- calls telling a joke to a group of Finnish managers. No one laughed or made any facial expressions, and he thought the joke had bombed until someone told him at a break that he was really funny. What a perceptual surprise! The OB in Action box highlights how differently apologies are viewed in the United States and Japan.

128 PART 1 Individual Behavior

The frequency and meaning of apologies like “I’m sorry” vary around the world. For example, a study revealed that US students apologized 4.51 times a week, while Japanese students used some type of apology 11.05 times a week. The findings highlight the importance of social perception.12

What Does an Apology Mean? A team of researchers concluded “Americans see an apology as an admission of wrongdoing, whereas Japanese see it as an expression of eagerness to repair a damaged relationship, with no culpability nec- essarily implied.” US students’ response is also consistent with the “psychological tendency among Westerners to attribute events to individuals’ actions.”13 In con- trast, Japanese students apologized even when they were not responsible. This response is partly due to the fact that Asian countries hold more collective or group-oriented values that focus on doing things for the greater good over self- interests.

Never Apologize, Never Explain An old John Ford film, She Wore a Yellow Rib- bon, followed a cavalry brigade posted in the US West in the 1800s; it popularized a strand of US individualism in a phrase you may still hear today. John Wayne’s character says, “Never apologize and never explain. It’s a sign of weakness.” But apologies do have a role in US business.

The Business Impact of Apologies Apologizing can acknowledge wrongs, and it can save money. A study of medical malpractice suits revealed that 16 percent of plaintiffs would not have sued had the hospital offered an apology. The Univer- sity of Michigan Medical Center put these results into practice and “adopted a policy of ‘full disclosure for medical errors,’ including an apology; its rate of law- suits has since dropped 65 percent.”14

“Apologizing by admitting a mistake—to coworkers, employees, customers, clients, the public at large—tends to gain credibility and generate confidence in one’s leadership,” says Linda Stamato of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution.15

It’s important when apologizing to convey remorse and to choose the right words. Consider the apology made by Mary Barra, CEO of General Motors, to the US Congress while it was investigating the company’s ignition-switch recall. “Today’s GM will do the right thing,” Barra said. “That begins with my sincere apologies to . . . the families and friends [of those] who lost their lives or were in- jured. I am deeply sorry.”16 GM ultimately agreed to pay a $900 million settlement to end criminal investigations.17

When a company such as GM has committed a wrong, a simple apology is not enough. The apology should be followed by tangible actions aimed at correcting the situation. GM did this by conducting an internal review, restructuring the engi- neering and quality departments, and placing two engineers on leave.18

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. Do you think it pays to apologize in a business setting even if you did not do something wrong? Explain.

2. What is your opinion about hospitals apologizing for medical errors? 3. What are some right ways and wrong ways to apologize in business settings?

How Perception of Apologies Differs in the United States and Japan

OB in Action

129Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

Managerial Implications of Person Perception Person perception is the window through which we all observe, interpret, and prepare our responses to people and events. It affects a wide variety of mana- gerial activities, organizational processes, and quality-of-life issues. We’ll touch on hiring, perfor- mance appraisal, and leadership.

Hiring Interviewers make hiring decisions based on their impression of how an applicant fits the perceived requirements of a job. Unfortunately, many of these decisions are made on the basis of implicit cognition. Implicit cognition  represents any thoughts or beliefs that are automatically acti- vated from memory without our conscious aware- ness. The existence of implicit cognition leads people to make biased decisions without realizing they are doing so.19 A recent study of job applicants’ résumés, for instance, demonstrated that recruiters evaluated women more favorably than men for cus- tomer service jobs, probably based on gender-role stereotypes.20

Experts recommend three solutions for reducing the biasing effect of implicit cognition. First, manag- ers can be trained to understand and recognize this type of hidden bias. Second, they can use structured rather than unstructured interviews. Interviewers ask the same sequence of questions to all applicants in a structured interview, which leads to more reliable evaluations. Finally, managers can rely on evaluations from multiple interviewers rather than just one or two people. More com- panies now are using virtual interviews as a tool for reducing problems associated with implicit cognition (see the OB in Action box).

Performance Appraisal Faulty perceptions about performance can lead to inaccu- rate performance appraisals, which erode morale. Consider the results of a recent study of commanding officers in the US military.

The research looked at 193 commanding officers who were assigned legal advisers. The advisers were all professionals with a law degree, and the commanding officers were responsible for conducting their performance evaluations. On average, female advisers received lower performance ratings than males as their pay grade approached that of the boss. Male advisers did not have this experience.21 The only good news from the study is that this form of bias occurred only when evaluators had high social dominance orienta- tion, a personal characteristic in which someone prefers to dominate other groups of peo- ple, in this case women.22

Perceptual biases in performance appraisals can be reduced by the use of more objec- tive measures of performance. While this is a good idea, it is hard to implement for jobs that require interdependent work, mental work, or work that does not produce objective outcomes.

Companies can also reduce bias by providing managers a mechanism for accurately recalling employee behavior, such as a performance diary. Finally, it would be useful to train managers about perceptual biases and about how they can avoid them in perfor- mance evaluations.23

Do you think that this woman may have any implicit cognitions that are affecting her dinner selection? Because she is drinking white wine, maybe this choice already activated a preference for fish or chicken. Do implicit cognitions affect your choices when dining out? © Dave Mason/Blend Images RF

130 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Recruiters are increasingly using one of three types of virtual interviews as part of the hiring process.24 The first type relies on video software to make a one-way recording of an applicant answering questions. Ocean Spray, a cranberry-growing cooperative in Massachusetts, sends applicants an e-mail link that contains preset interview questions. The answers are recorded via webcam.

The second type is a two-way, real-time virtual interview, often using Skype. The last type is an audio-only virtual interview, often used for evaluating candi- dates for customer-service jobs performed over the phone.

Benefits of Virtual Interviews Standardization drives several benefits of virtual interviews.

Consistency. Video-enabled interviews standardize the process, which leads to more reliable evaluations. For example, Walmart uses video interviews to obtain a better idea of how candidate pharmacists will interact with customers. T.G.I. Friday’s restaurant selects restaurant managers through video interviews for the same reason.

Collaboration. Whether they are recorded or live, video interviews can encourage collaboration among those making hiring decisions. And experts suggest more input leads to better candidate selection.

Saving Time and Money. Ocean Spray was spending an average of $1,000 per candidate for in-person interviews. Martin Mitchell, the company’s manager of tal- ent and diversity, said, “Video interviews eliminated these costs” and allowed the company to interview applicants more quickly, and without forcing them to take time off work to travel for an interview.25

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. The above discussion focuses on the positive aspects of video interviews; are there negative aspects of this strategy? If so, what are they?

2. How would you prepare for a video interview? 3. If you were relying on videos to select candidates for a job, what would you

look for?

Virtual Interviews Can Improve the Accuracy of Job Interviews and Reduce Costs

OB in Action

Leadership Research demonstrates that employees’ evaluations of leader effective- ness are influenced strongly by their categorical knowledge of what constitutes good and poor leaders. For example, a team of researchers found that the following behaviors are representative of effective leadership:

1. Assigning specific tasks to group members. 2. Telling others they have done well. 3. Setting specific goals for the group. 4. Letting other group members make decisions. 5. Trying to get the group to work as a team. 6. Maintaining definite standards of performance.26

131Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How can I use awareness of stereotypes to make better decisions and manage more effectively?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Don’t say you don’t use stereotypes; they help us process information faster and thus are part

of the way we humans think. But stereotypes can also lead to bad decisions and undermine

personal relationships. Being aware of them can save you from such pitfalls.

4.2 STEREOTYPES

“A stereotype  is an individual’s set of beliefs about the characteristics or attributes of a group.”27 We need to recognize how stereotypes affect our perception because we use them without intending to or even being consciously aware that we are.28

Stereotypes are not always negative. For example, the belief that engineers are good at math is certainly part of a stereotype and is positive. Stereotypes also may or may not be accurate. Engineers may in fact be better at math than the general population.

Unfortunately, stereotypes can lead to poor decisions. Consider people diagnosed with cancer, about 40 percent of men and women living in the United States.29 A recent study of the retail industry showed that managers made discriminatory decisions about individuals whose job applications indicated they were cancer survivors.30 All told, stereotypes can create barriers for women, older individuals, people of color, and people with disabilities, all while undermining loyalty and job satisfaction. Let’s look at examples. Gender. A summary of research revealed that:

• Men were preferred for male-dominated jobs (e.g., firefighters), but there was no preference for either gender in female-dominated jobs (e.g., nurse).

• Women have a harder time than men in being perceived as effective leaders. (The exception: Women were seen as more effective when the organization faced a crisis and needed a turnaround.)

• Women of color are more negatively affected by sex-role stereotypes than are white women or men in general.31

Race. Studies of race-based stereotypes demonstrated that people of color experienced more perceived discrimination and less psychological support than whites.32 Perceived racial discrimination was also associated with more negative work attitudes, physical health, psychological health, and organizational citizenship behavior.33 Age. Another example of an inaccurate stereotype is the belief that older workers are less motivated, more resistant to change, less trusting, less healthy, and more likely to have prob- lems with work–life balance. A recent study refuted all these negative beliefs about age.34

Stereotype Formation and Maintenance We build stereotypes through a four-step process:

1. Categorization. We categorize people into groups according to criteria (such as gen- der, age, race, and occupation).

2. Inferences. Next, we infer that all people within a particular category possess the same traits or characteristics: women are nurturing, older people have more job- related accidents, African Americans are good athletes.

132 PART 1 Individual Behavior

3. Expectations. We form expectations of others and interpret their behavior according to our stereotypes.

4. Maintenance. We maintain stereotypes by: • Overestimating the frequency of stereotypic behaviors exhibited by others. • Incorrectly explaining expected and unexpected behaviors. • Differentiating minority individuals from ourselves.

Research shows that it takes accurate information and motivation to reduce the use of stereotypes.35

Managerial Challenges and Recommendations The key managerial challenge is to reduce the extent to which stereotypes influence deci- sion making and interpersonal processes throughout the organization. We suggest three ways that this can be achieved.

1. Managers should educate people about stereotypes and how they can influence our behavior and decision making. Many people may not understand how stereo- types unconsciously affect their perception. For example, people evaluating sym- phony orchestra musicians for jobs were found to be biased toward men. This unconscious tendency was reduced by using a curtain to block the evaluation com- mittee from seeing applicants. Significantly more females were hired under this un- biased approach.36

2. Managers should create opportunities for diverse employees to meet and work together in cooperative groups of equal status. Social scientists believe positive interpersonal contact among mixed groups is the best way to reduce stereotypes be- cause it provides people with more accurate data about the characteristics of others.

3. Managers should encourage all employees to increase their awareness of stereo- types. Awareness helps reduce the application of stereotypes when making decisions and interacting with others.

What stands out in this photo? Did you notice the man working from a wheelchair? Do you think some people have negative stereotypes about those with disabilities? Research shows many people do. © Pixtal/agefotostock RF

133Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How do I tend to interpret employee performance?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Consciously or unconsciously, you use causal attributions when you seek to explain the

causes of behavior. So do most managers. You can avoid the fundamental attribution bias

and self-serving bias if you learn how they distort our interpretation of observed behavior.

4.3 CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS

Attribution theory is based on a simple premise: Rightly or wrongly, people infer causes for their own and others’ behavior. Formally defined, causal attributions  are sus- pected or inferred causes of behavior. Managers need to understand how people for- mulate these attributions because they profoundly affect organizational behavior. Consider Table 4.1, in which the manager’s understanding of observed behavior leads to very different actions.

Kelley’s Model of Attribution Current models of attribution build on the pioneering work of the late Fritz Heider. Heider, the founder of attribution theory, proposed that behavior can be attributed either to internal factors  within a person  (such as ability) or to external factors within the environment (such as a difficult task). Following Heider’s work, Harold Kelley attempted to pinpoint some specific antecedents of internal and external attri- butions. Kelley hypothesized that people make causal attributions by observing three dimensions of behavior: consensus, distinctiveness, and consistency.37 These dimen- sions vary independently, forming various combinations and leading to differing attributions.

• Consensus  compares an individual’s behavior with that of his or her peers. There is high consensus when someone acts like the rest of the group and low con- sensus when he or she acts differently.

• Distinctiveness  compares a person’s behavior on one task with his or her behavior on other tasks. High distinctiveness means the individual has performed the task in a significantly different manner than he or she has performed other tasks.

• Consistency  judges whether the individual’s performance on a given task is consistent over time. Low consistency is undesirable for obvious reasons and implies that a person is unable to perform a certain task at some standard level. High consistency implies that a person performs a certain task the same way, with little or no variation over time.

TABLE 4.1 THE LINK BETWEEN ATTRIBUTIONS AND MANAGERIAL ACTIONS

Observed Behavior

Manager’s Attribution

Managerial Action

Employee fails to meet minimum standards Lack of effort Reprimand

Employee fails to meet minimum standards Lack of ability Training

134 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Figure 4.3 provides sample charts of these dimensions in both low and high incidence.

How do these three dimensions of behavior lead to specific attributions? Kelley theo- rized that people attribute behavior to either internal causes (personal factors) or external causes (environmental factors) depending on the way they rank consensus, distinctive- ness, and consistency as shown in Table 4.2:

EXAMPLE You would make an internal attribution to Mary if she displayed extraor- dinary performance relative to her peers and this level of performance was typical for Mary over the past year. In contrast, you would arrive at an external attribution if Mary’s performance was similar to her peers, but the performance on the task you observed was lower than usual for Mary over the past year.

While other combinations are possible, the two options shown below have been most frequently studied. Note: For another view of Kelley’s theory, return to Figure 4.3. In the figure, we provided charts that, taken together, indicate internal attributions on the left- hand side and external attributions on the right-hand side.

FIGURE 4.3 SAMPLE CHARTS OF CONSENSUS, DISTINCTIVENESS, AND CONSISTENCY IN PERFORMANCE

SOURCE: K. A. Brown, “Explaining Group Poor Performance: An Attributional Analysis,” Academy of Management Review, January 1984, p. 56.

In the Low Consensus chart, Person C is not in consensus. In the High Consensus chart, all persons are in consensus.

In the Low Distinctiveness chart, all tasks are similar. In the High Distinctiveness chart, Task 4 is especially distinct.

For reasons we’ll share soon, we switched order of high and low. The High Consistency chart shows no change over time. The Low Consistency chart shows lack of consistency.

Cons ensu

s

(amo ng pe

ople)

Distin ctive

ness

(acro ss tas

ks)

Cons isten

cy

(over time

)

Low

A EB C D A EB C D

1 52 3 4 1 52 3 4

High

Low High

High Low

TABLE 4.2 FORMATION OF INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL ATTRIBUTIONS

Attribution

Consensus (People)

Distinctiveness (Tasks)

Consistency (Time)

Internal Low Low High

External High High Low

135Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

Attributional Tendencies Researchers have uncovered two attributional tendencies that distort our interpretation of observed behavior—fundamental attribution bias and self-serving bias.

Fundamental Attribution Bias The fundamental attribution bias  reflects our tendency to attribute another person’s behavior to his or her personal characteris- tics, rather than to situation factors. This bias causes perceivers to ignore important environmental factors (again refer to the Organizing Framework), which often signifi- cantly affect behavior. Such bias leads to inaccurate assessments of performance, which in turn fosters inappropriate responses to poor performance.

Self-Serving Bias The self-serving bias  represents our tendency to take more personal responsibility for success than for failure. The self-serving bias suggests em- ployees will attribute their success to internal factors (high ability or hard work) and their failures to uncontrollable external factors (tough job, bad luck, uncooperative coworkers or boss). This tendency plays out in all aspects of life.

Managerial Applications and Implications Attribution models can explain how managers handle poorly performing employees. One study revealed that managers gave employees more immediate, frequent, and negative feedback when they attributed their performance to low effort. Another indicates that managers tended to transfer employees whose poor performance they attributed to a lack of ability. These same managers also decided to take no immediate action when poor performance was attributed to external factors beyond an individual’s control.38

These observations offer useful lessons for all of us: • We tend to disproportionately attribute behavior to internal causes. This bias

can result in inaccurate evaluations of performance, leading to reduced employee motivation. The Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB of- fers a simple solution for overcoming this tendency. You must remind yourself that behavior and performance are functions of both person and situation factors.

• Other attributional biases may lead managers to take inappropriate actions. Such actions could include promotions, transfers, layoffs, and so forth. Inappropri- ate responses can dampen motivation and performance.

• An employee’s attributions for his or her own performance have dramatic ef- fects on motivation, performance, and personal attitudes such as self-esteem. For instance, people tend to give up, lower their expectations of future success, and experience decreased self-esteem when they attribute failure to lack of ability. Em- ployees are more likely to display high performance and job satisfaction when they attribute success to internal factors such as ability and effort.39

TAKE-AWAY APPLICATION

Applying Kelley’s Model

1. Think of someone who recently disappointed you. It could be work-related (a peer did not complete part of a group assignment) or personal (a friend failed to remember your birthday).

2. Use Kelley’s model to identify whether the unexpected behavior was due to in- ternal or external causes.

3. Based on this attribution, what should you say or do to ensure that this type of behavior does not happen again?

136 PART 1 Individual Behavior

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

How does awareness about the layers of diversity help organizations effectively manage diversity?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Like seashells on a beach, people come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. All of us need

to be aware of the different layers of diversity and to know the difference between affirmative

action and diversity management.

4.4 DEFINING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY

Do you have any preconceived notions about diversity that are worth considering? Let’s take a reality check:

• Assumption: Gender diversity on boards of directors does not affect firm per- formance. Wrong, says a team of researchers who aggregated results from 140 research studies. Findings showed that firms were more profitable when women were members of the board of directors.40

• Assumption: Organizations had a hard time finding qualified employees during the 2014–2015 slow-growth economy. Yes, according to 2015 data from Indeed.com, the top employment-related website in the world. It seems that 56 percent of all job openings remained open after one month, and 33 percent were still active after three months. All told, Indeed.com estimated in 2015 that “over 330 million working hours are lost every month in the United States from unfilled job openings.” The most difficult jobs to fill across all industries were managerial and supervisory.41

• Assumption: Whites will constitute the majority among US racial groups through 2050. No, according to the US Census Bureau. Today whites represent 63 percent of the population, but that will drop below 50 percent in 2043.42

The United States is becoming more diverse in its gender, racial, educational, and age makeup. For example, there are now more working parents, more nonwhites, and more older people, and the consequences are not always what you might expect. Demographics  are the statistical measurements of populations and their quali- ties (such as age, race, gender, or income) over time. The study of demographics helps us better appreciate diversity and helps managers develop human resource policies and practices that attract, retain, and develop qualified employees. In the remainder of this chapter we will further your understanding of diversity and its man- agerial challenges.

Layers of Diversity Diversity  represents the multitude of individual differences and similarities that ex- ist among people, making it an input in the Organizing Framework for Understanding and Applying OB. As you will learn, however, managing diversity also affects a variety of processes and outcomes within the Organizing Framework.

Moreover, diversity pertains to everybody. It is not just an issue of age, race, or gen- der; of being heterosexual, gay, or lesbian; or of being Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, or

137Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

FIGURE 4.4 THE FOUR LAYERS OF DIVERSITY

Muslim. Diversity pertains to the host of individual differences that make each of us unique and different from all others.

Lee Gardenswartz and Anita Rowe, a team of diversity experts, identified four layers of diversity to help distinguish the important ways in which people differ (see Figure 4.4). Taken together, these layers define our personal identities and influence the way each of us sees the world.

Figure 4.4 shows that personality is at the center of the diversity wheel because it represents a stable set of characteristics responsible for a person’s identity. These are the dimensions of personality discussed in Chapter 3. The next layer of diversity is composed of internal dimensions, also referred to as surface-level dimensions of diversity. “Surface-level characteristics  are those that are quickly apparent to interactants, such as race, gender, and age.”43 Because we view these characteristics of others as unchangeable, they strongly influence our attitudes, expectations, and assumptions about them, which, in turn, influence our behavior. Take the experience of an African American middle manager sitting by the pool while vacationing at a resort. As she recalls, “A large 50-ish white male approached me and demanded that I get him extra towels. I said, ‘Excuse me?’ He then said, ‘Oh, you don’t work here,’ with no shred of embarrassment

*Internal dimensions and external dimensions are adapted from M. Locken and J. B. Rosener, Workforce America! (Homewood, IL: Business One Irwin, 1991).

SOURCE: L. Gardenswartz and A. Rowe, Diverse Teams at Work: Capitalizing on the Power of Diversity (Alexandria, VA: Society for Human Resource Management, 2008.

Inte rnal dimensions*

Exter nal dimensions*

Functional level/ classification

Org anizati

onal dimensions

Geographic location

Personality

Race

Marital status

Manage- ment status

Union a�liation

Work location

Seniority

Division/ department/

unit/ group

Work content/

field

Parental status

Appear- ance

Work experience

Gender

Income

Personal habits

Sexual orientation

Religion

Recreation- al habits

Ethnicity

Physical ability

Educational background

Age

138 PART 1 Individual Behavior

or apology in his voice.”44 Stereotypes regarding one or more of the internal dimensions of diversity most likely influenced this man’s behavior.

Figure 4.4 shows that the next layer of diversity consists of external influences. These are individual differences over which we have more control, such as where we live, our religious affiliation, our marital and parental status, and our work experience. These dimensions also exert a significant influence on our perceptions, behavior, and attitudes.

The final layer of diversity is organizational dimensions such as seniority, job title and function, and work location. Integrating these last two layers yields deep-level char- acteristics of diversity. “Deep-level characteristics  are those that take time to emerge in interactions, such as attitudes, opinions, and values.”45 These characteris- tics are definitely under our control.

Affirmative Action vs. Diversity Management Affirmative action and diversity management are driven by very different values and goals. This section highlights these differences.

Affirmative Action Affirmative action is not a law in and of itself. It is an out- growth of equal employment opportunity (EEO) legislation. The goal of this legisla- tion is to outlaw discrimination and to encourage organizations to proactively prevent discrimination. Discrimination  occurs when employment decisions about an in- dividual are based on reasons not associated with performance or related to the job. For example, organizations cannot legally discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, age, physical and mental disabilities, and preg- nancy. Affirmative action  is an intervention aimed at giving management a chance to correct an imbalance, injustice, mistake, or outright discrimination that occurred in the past.

Does the number of white males stand out in this picture of the US Congress? Congress is 80 percent white and 80 percent male and is sometimes criticized for its lack of diversity. © Susan Walsh/AP Photo

139Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

Affirmative action • Can refer to both voluntary and mandatory programs. • Does not legitimize quotas. Quotas are illegal and can be imposed only by judges

who conclude that a company has engaged in discriminatory practices. • Does not require companies to hire unqualified people. • Has created tremendous opportunities for women and minorities. • Does not foster the type of thinking needed to manage diversity effectively.

Is the last point surprising? Research uncovered the following tendencies of affir- mative action plans. They are

1. Perceived more negatively by white males than by women and minorities, because white males see the plans as working against their interests.

2. Viewed more positively by people who are liberals and Democrats than by con- servatives and Republicans.

3. Not supported by people who hold rac- ist or sexist attitudes.46

4. Found to negatively affect the women and minorities expected to benefit from them. Supposedly hired on the basis of affirmative action, these groups feel negatively stigmatized as unqualified or incompetent.47

Helena Morrissey, CEO of Newton Investment Management, was asked by a re- porter to comment on women being selected to the company board to fill a quota. Morrissey replied, “I find quotas condescending. I wouldn’t want to be part of a board because I’m filling a quota.”48

Managing Diversity Managing diversity  enables people to perform to their maximum potential. Diversity management focuses on changing an organization’s cul- ture and infrastructure such that people work to the highest productivity possible. Ann Morrison, a diversity expert, attempted to identify the types of initiatives 16 companies used to successfully manage diversity. Her results found three key strategies at work: edu- cation, enforcement, and exposure. She describes them as follows:

• The educational component. Education “has two thrusts: one is to prepare non- traditional managers for increasingly responsible posts, and the other is to help traditional managers overcome their prejudice in thinking about and interacting with people who are of a different sex or ethnicity.”49

• The enforcement component. Enforcement “puts teeth in diversity goals and en- courages behavior change.”50

• The exposure component. Exposing people to others with different backgrounds and characteristics “adds a more personal approach to diversity by helping manag- ers get to know and respect others who are different.”51

In summary, both consultants and academics believe organizations should strive to manage diversity rather than being forced to use affirmative action.

Helena Morrissey, former CEO of Newton Investment Management, is an advocate for increasing the diversity of corporate boards of directors in the United Kingdom: Assets at the firm doubled during her 15 years at the helm. Newton also serves as the CEO of 30 Percent Club, which was founded in 2010. The group strives to increase the number of women appointed to public corporate boards. From 2010 to 2016 the number of women on public boards in the U.K. grew from 12.5 percent to 26 percent. © Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg/Getty Images

140 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Historically, women did the majority of household chores. But the trend may slowly be changing, particularly when it comes to laundry.52 A 2015 study by consumer research firm Mintel revealed that 67 percent of men between the ages 18 and 34 were mainly responsible for doing laundry, up from 44 percent in 2013. Fur- ther, about 60 percent of men between 35 and 54 were doing some laundry.53

Procter & Gamble Co., the largest US detergent maker, has responded by refer- ring to “him and her” in its laundry product ads. P&G adds also depict males as com- petent launderers, using NFL athletes as examples in an online video campaign.

According to The Wall Street Journal, “To target men, P&G has considered a Tide for Men variety, but ultimately decided to make detergents like Tide Plus Febreze Sport in fragrances including ‘Victory Fresh.’ Bounce for Men was intro- duced in 2014.”54

Sun Products Corp., maker of All detergent and Snuggle fabric softener, has also been studying male behavior and discovered that men don’t like to sort clothes. They tend to do fewer loads, putting too many items in the same load and risking the loss of crisp colors in fabrics.

Because men also tend to use the “normal” wash cycle for everything, Whirlpool Corp. developed a ColorLast washing machine cycle, which it says uses a combina- tion of water temperature, time, and movement to keep colors from fading.

Companies Develop Products to Fit the Laundry Habits of Men

OB in Action

The growing diversity in the United States is not a business initiative; it is a reality. Businesses can consciously choose to manage diversity or get caught short by the demo- graphic changes facing the country.

Business Rationale The rationale for managing diversity is more than the fact that it’s legally, socially, or morally desirable. Quite simply, it’s good business. The OB in Action box illustrates how companies can gain competitive advantage by producing products targeted at specific demographic groups—in this case, men who do laundry.

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

What is the business rationale for managing diversity?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

After reviewing the business case for managing diversity, we also look at demographic

changes in the US workforce that make the need to manage diversity all the more urgent.

These demographic changes have major implications for OB.

4.5 BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY

141Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

Managing diversity also gives an organization the ability to grow and maintain its business in an increasingly competitive marketplace. Here’s what William Weldon, for- mer chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson, said:

Diversity and inclusion are part of the fabric of our businesses and are vital to our future success worldwide. The principles of diversity and inclusion are rooted in Our Credo [the company’s values] and enhance our ability to deliver products and services to advance the health and well-being of people throughout the world. We cannot afford to reduce our focus on these critical areas in any business climate.57

Research supports the logic of this strategy. For example, a recent study of 739 retail stores found reinforcement for the access-and-legitimacy perspective, defined in the fol- lowing manner:

An access-and-legitimacy perspective  on diversity is based in recognition that the organization’s markets and constituencies are culturally diverse. It therefore behooves the organization to match the diversity in parts of its own workforce as a way of gaining access to and legitimacy with those markets and constituent groups.58

This particular study discovered that customer satis- faction and employee productivity were higher when the racial-ethnic composition of store employees matched that of customers.59

These favorable results were taken one step fur- ther by another team of researchers, who wanted to know whether customers would spend more money in stores when they perceived themselves as similar to the sales representatives. Results from 212 stores supported the idea that customer–employee similar- ity leads to more spending.60 Clearly it pays to man- age diversity, but organizations cannot use diversity as a strategic advantage if employees fail to contrib- ute their full talents, abilities, motivation, and com- mitment. Thus organizations must create an environment or culture that allows all employees to feel included and valuable. Managing diversity is a critical component of creating this environment.

Hero Clean, a company that sells cleaning products and laundry detergent, created a special detergent to fight tough stains that have been sitting in fabric for a long time. Mike Eaton, the company’s founder, wanted a product that would “accommodate men’s routine of clean, delay, delay, delay, then clean again.” The detergent’s formula is aimed at stains more commonly found on male clothing, including sweat, mustard, beer, grass, wine, and axle grease.55

Men are expected to continue doing more household chores like laundry. For one thing, more men are single today, about 47 percent of the US adult male popu- lation. Men are also increasingly working part time, which should give them more time for household chores. About 6.7 million males worked part time in 2014.56

YOUR THOUGHTS?

1. Are you surprised that companies are designing products to fit the laundry habits of men? Explain.

2. Do you see any drawbacks to using demographics in the product design process? Discuss.

Companies increasingly recognize the value of having a workforce that matches the race of their customers. Here we see African American customers being helped by an employee of similar race. Why would customers prefer to be helped by someone like them? © Blend Images/Alamy RF

142 PART 1 Individual Behavior

A female’s career is thought to resemble a labyrinth like this. Note the twists and turns that are needed to get through this maze. Have you experienced twists and turns in your career? © Baur/Alamy RF

Trends in Workforce Diversity For managers, the study of demographics suggests unique ways of managing diverse em- ployees. For organizations, it helps signal whether human resource policies and proce- dures are appropriate to the characteristics of a diverse employee population. Let’s examine five categories on the internal dimension of the diversity wheel in Figure 4.4— gender, race, sexual orientation, physical/mental abilities, and age—and one category on the external dimension, educational level.

Women Break the Glass Ceiling—but Navigate a Labyrinth Coined in 1986, the term glass ceiling  identifies an invisible but absolute barrier that prevents women from advancing to higher-level positions. Various statistics support the exis- tence of the glass ceiling. Take the pay gap between men and women, for example. In 2014, the median weekly income in full-time management, professional, and related oc- cupations was $1,346 for men but $981 for women. Even among female and male MBA graduates who made about the same upon graduation in 2007–2009, by 2014 a gap had opened—women earned $140,000 and men $175,000.61

Some people think these pay differences come about because women leave the work- force to raise children, or because men perform better on the job. Although women are more likely than men to take time off to raise children, research spanning 30 years dem- onstrated that pay differences were not due to differences in performance evaluations.62 Other unknown causes are behind the gender pay gap.

Alice Eagly and Linda Carli conducted a thorough investigation into the organiza- tional life of women and in 2007 published their conclusions that women had finally broken through the glass ceiling.63 We’ve updated the data reported in Eagly and Carli’s book that led them to their conclusion. In 2016 there were many more female CEOs (21 within the Fortune 500 and two more expected by late 2016) and more women in managerial, professional, and related occupations than in the 1980s and 1990s.64 Statis- tics further showed that women had made strides along several measures.

1. Educational attainment: Women earned the majority of bachelor’s and master’s degrees in 2014.

2. Seats on boards of directors of Fortune 500 firms: Women held 9.6 percent of seats in 1995 and 19.7 percent in 2015.

3. Leadership positions in educational institutions and Congress: In 2016 women represented 23 percent of college presidents, and in 2014, 100 women served in Congress—the largest number ever.

4. Federal court appointments: In 2016, 35 percent of federal courts of appeals judges were female.65

You can interpret the above statistics in one of two ways.

• No Change. On the one hand, you might see proof that women remain underpaid and under- represented in leadership positions, victims of discriminatory organizational practices.

• Positive Change. Or you can agree with Eagly and Carli’s conclusion that “men still have more authority and higher wages, but women have been catching up. Because some women have moved into the most elite leadership roles, ab- solute barriers are a thing of the past.”66

Eagly and Carli propose that a woman’s career follows a pattern more characteristic of a path through a labyrinth. They believe a woman’s path to

143Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

success is neither direct nor simple but rather contains twists, turns, and obstructions, particularly for married women with children.

Racial Groups Face Their Own Glass Ceiling and Perceived Discrimination The US workforce is becoming increasingly diverse. Between 2012 and 2060, the Census Bureau predicts the following changes in ethnic representation:

• Growth: The Asian population will grow from 5.1 percent to 8.2 percent of the total. • Growth: The Hispanic population will grow from 17 percent to 31 percent. • Mild growth: The African American population will rise from 13.1 percent to

14.7 percent. • Decline: Non-Hispanic whites will drop from 63 percent to 43 percent.67

In 2060 so-called minority groups will constitute approximately 57 percent of the work- force, according to the Census Bureau.68 And yet three additional trends suggest that current-day minority groups are stalled at their own glass ceilings:

Smaller percentage in the professional class. Hispanics, or Latinas/os, and African Americans have a smaller relative hold on managerial and professional jobs compared with whites. Women of color generally do better than men of color.

More discrimination cases. The number of race-based charges of discrimination that were deemed to show reasonable cause by the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission increased from 294 in 1995 to 678 in 2015. Companies paid a total of $88.4 million to resolve these claims without litigation in 2015.69

Lower earnings. Minorities also tend to earn less personal income than whites. In 2015 median weekly earnings for workers 16 years and older were $847, $643, $1,091, and $624 for whites, blacks, Asians, and Hispanics, respectively. Asians had the highest median income.70

Sexual Orientation: LGBTQ People Become More Visible The term LGBT  is a widely recognized acronym to represent lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. However a fifth letter has been gaining acceptance—Q—which according to the Human Rights Campaign can mean either “questioning” or “queer.”

Q for “questioning” refers to someone in the process of exploring his or her sexual iden- tity. “People use the term queer because it’s not specific to sexual orientation or to gender identify but is more of an umbrella term that can encompass a lot of people.” You may want to avoid using the term queer because it is offensive to some in the LGBT community.71

We are discussing sexual orientation because organizations cannot afford to allow between 1.2 and 6.8 percent of the workforce to feel disenfranchised. This represents the estimated number of people who identify as LGBT.72

Because LGBTQ employees often experience a lack of inclusion, their engagement, performance, and retention can be affected. A study by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, for instance, revealed that unwelcoming environments can lead to a 30 per- cent decrease in employee engagement and an increase in turnover. Nine percent of LGBT employees reported leaving a job because of unwelcoming work environments.73

The good news is that a majority of Fortune 500 companies offer workplace protec- tions on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identify. In contrast, 29 states do not offer such protections.74

Physical and Mental Abilities: People with Disabilities Face Challenges Approximately 20 percent of Americans have a physical or cognitive disability, according to the US Census Bureau. The Americans with Disabilities Act  prohibits discrimina- tion against those with disabilities and requires organizations to reasonably accom- modate an individual’s disabilities.75

Not surprisingly, some people with disabilities have difficulty finding work. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics found that 10.4 percent were unemployed in July 2015, much higher than the 5.4 percent rate for those without disabilities. Contrary to negative

144 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Traditionalists

Baby Boomers

Gen Xers

Millennials (Gen Y)

Gen 2020

Birth Time Span

1925–1945 1946–1964 1965–1979 1980–2001 2002–

Current Population

38.6 million 78.3 million 62 million 92 million 23 million

Key Historical Events

Great Depression, World War II, Korean War, Cold War era, rise of suburbs

Vietnam War; Watergate; assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr.; women’s movement; Kent State killings; first man on the moon

MTV, AIDS epidemic, Gulf War, fall of Berlin Wall, Oklahoma City bombing, 1987 stock market crash, Bill Clinton–Monica Lewinsky scandal

September 11 terrorist attack, Google, Columbine High School shootings, Enron and other corporate scandals, wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Hurricane Katrina, financial crisis of 2008 and high unemployment

Social media, election of Barack Obama, financial crisis of 2008 and high unemployment

Broad Traits

Patriotic, loyal, disciplined, conformist, possessed of a high work ethic and respect for authority

Workaholic, idealistic, competitive, materialistic, possessed of a high work ethic, in search of personal fulfillment

Self-reliant, adaptable, cynical, independent, technologically savvy, distrustful of authority, in search of work–life balance

Entitled, civic minded, close parental involvement, cyberliteracy, appreciate diversity, multitasking, in search of work–life balance, technologically savvy

Multitasking, online life, cyberliteracy, communicate fast and online

Defining Invention

Fax machine Personal computer

Mobile phone Google and Facebook

Social media and iPhone apps

SOURCE: Adapted from J. C. Meister and K. Willyerd, The 2020 Workplace (New York: Harper Collins, 2010), 54–55; and R. Alsop, The Trophy Kids Grow Up (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 5.

TABLE 4.3 GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES

stereotypes about hiring the disabled, such as that making reasonable accommodation is expensive, many organizations are finding this group of people to be a valuable source of talent. Walgreens, for example, is dedicated to hiring people with disabilities. Forty percent of the workforce at two of its distribution centers have disabilities.76

Generational Differences in an Aging Workforce The US population and work- force are getting older, and the workforce includes greater generational differences than ever before. We already see four generations of employees working together, soon to be joined by a fifth (see Table 4.3). Managers need to deal effectively with generational dif- ferences in values, attitudes, and behaviors. Many companies, including IBM, Lockheed Martin, Ernst & Young LLP, and Aetna, address this issue by providing training work- shops on generational diversity.

Table 4.3 summarizes generational differences using common labels: traditionalists, baby boomers, Gen Xers, Millennials/Gen Ys, and the incoming Gen 2020s. We use such

145Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

What Are Your Attitudes Toward Working with Older Employees? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 4.1 in Connect.

1. What is your attitude about working with older employees? Are you surprised by the results?

2. What is your level of satisfaction when working with older employees?

3. Based on your results, what can you do to improve your satisfaction when work- ing with older employees?

SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.1

labels (and resulting generalizations) for sake of discussion. There are always exceptions to the characterizations shown in Table 4.3.77

Millennials account for the largest block of employees in the workforce, followed by baby boomers. Thus Millennials are often managed by boomers, who possess very different values and personal traits. Conflicting values and traits are likely to create friction between people. Millennials also tend to change jobs more frequently than other categories of workers. For example, the median job tenure of people between 20 and 24 is less than 16 months. This puts pressure on companies to find ways to retain this talented segment of the workforce.78

Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is addressing the issue head on. According to The Wall Street Journal the firm is “rethinking the way it structures bankers’ early years at the firm. The bank is dangling carrots, including promises to speed the path to promotions and eliminating some of the grunt work that often falls to younger employees.” In addition to lightening workloads, the company started having “town-hall-style meetings to address grievances to keep young people on board.”79 Will other groups of employees view these changes as unfair? Time will tell.

Have age-related differences at school or work caused any conflicts for you? The fol- lowing Self-Assessment was created to assess your attitudes toward older employees. Because the term older is relative, define older employees in your own terms when com- pleting the assessment.

Educational Levels: Mismatch between Education and Organizational Needs There are three potential education–work mismatches:

• College graduates may be in jobs for which they are overqualified. The US Census Bureau estimates that 26.8 percent of the US workforce has at least a col- lege degree.80 Unfortunately, about a half a million college graduates are working minimum-wage jobs—260,000 with bachelor’s degrees and 200,000 with associ- ate’s degrees.81 These graduates are underemployed, working at jobs that re- quire less education than they have such as waiting tables, tending bar, painting, and other work that someone with less education could perform. Underemploy- ment is associated with poorer work attitudes, job performance, job satisfaction, motivation, and psychological well-being.82

• College graduates may not have the skills desired by employers. Recent studies show that college graduates, while technically and functionally competent, lack teamwork skills, critical-thinking ability, oral communication skills, and analytic reasoning.83 There is also a shortage of college graduates in technical fields related to science, math, and engineering.

• High-school dropouts and others may not have the literacy skills needed for many jobs. A recent study revealed that 7 percent of all US students between 16 and 24 dropped out of high school in 2013.84 The dropout rate is higher for males. This statistic, along with the fact that 14 percent of US adults read below a basic level, is a real problem for employers, because about 70 percent of on-the-job read- ing materials are written at or above a ninth-grade level.85

146 PART 1 Individual Behavior

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

What are the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Wouldn’t you rather know what obstacles lay ahead, instead of discovering them too late? We

share 11 common challenges to effectively managing diversity.

4.6 BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES TO MANAGING DIVERSITY

The following is a list of the most common barriers to implementing successful diversity programs:86

1. Inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice. Mistaken perceptions manifest themselves in the belief that differences are weaknesses and that diversity hiring means sacrificing competence and quality. As a reporter for The Wall Street Journal noted, “Studies show that negative stereotypes about aging—for example, that older people inevitably grow less productive and more depressed—are as pervasive as they are inaccurate.”87 Inac- curate stereotypes like this limit the promotability and job satisfaction of older workers.

2. Ethnocentrism. The ethnocentrism barrier is based on the feeling that our cultural rules and norms are superior to or more appropriate than the rules and norms of an- other culture.

3. Poor career planning. Lack of opportunities for diverse employees to get work assignments that qualify them for senior management positions can stunt careers.

4. A negative diversity climate. We define organizational climate in Chapter 7 as em- ployee perceptions about an organization’s formal and informal policies, practices, and procedures. Diversity climate  is a subcomponent of an organization’s overall climate and is defined as the employees’ aggregate “perceptions about the organization’s diversity- related formal structure characteristics and informal values.”88 Diversity climate is positive when employees view the orga- nization as being fair to all types of em- ployees, which promotes employee loyalty and overall firm performance.89 It also en- hances psychological safety. Psychologi- cal safety  reflects the extent to which people feel free to express their ideas and beliefs without fear of negative consequences. As you might expect, psychological safety is positively associ- ated with outcomes in the Organizing Framework like innovation.90

There are over 11 different types of lightning. This is an anvil crawler. It travels horizontally and generally at high altitudes. A lightning storm like this can be dangerous and we must be careful to avoid being struck. The same is true for an organization’s diversity climate. It signals the extent to which an organization’s “internal climate” supports diversity initiatives. Bad climates, like bad lightning storms, result in people taking cover by withholding effort and talent. Have you ever worked in a company with a negative diversity climate? © Jason Weingart Photography RF

147Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

5. A hostile working environment for diverse employees. Hostile work environments are characterized by sexual, racial, and age harassment and can be in violation of Equal Employment Opportunity law, such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.91 Whether perpetrated against women, men, older individuals, or LGBTQ people, hos- tile environments are demeaning, unethical, and appropriately called “work environ- ment pollution.” You certainly won’t get employees’ best work if they believe the work environment is hostile toward them. The Applying OB box illustrates how Chicago-based online lender Enova International Inc. is trying to create a work environment supportive of Millennials.

Applying OB

Enova was founded by two brothers in 2004 and grew rapidly. Soon it experienced challenges in retaining its technologically savvy employees because they were in high demand in the job market. The company then developed a three-part retention strat- egy targeted at Millennials:

1. Development. Millennials like to know their career game plan. According to a free- lance writer for HR Magazine, “Enova offers employees workshops on technology and soft skills, such as how to develop a professional presence and how to in- crease their emotional intelligence.” The company displays charts on its website that show career paths for employees.

2. Recognition. Millennials are known to like frequent and clear feedback. Enova ad- dresses this desire by using a “game-like recognition system in which employees can award points to their colleagues, whether peers or subordinates, for a job well done,” according to HR Magazine. Employees then cash the points in for prizes that include iPods and designer purses.

3. Perks. Millennials seem to prefer collaboration and the opportunity to stay con- nected with friends. Enova tried to accommodate these needs by building the “chill hub,” a room that contains a waterfall wall, board games, massage chairs, and exercise balls. Once a month employees are allowed to volunteer during the workday for a nonprofit of their choice. The company also offers a host of per- sonal perks that include onsite dry cleaning services, yoga classes, snacks and beverages, and Weight Watchers classes.92

Enova International Provides a Millennial Supportive Environment

6. Diverse employees’ lack of political savvy. Diverse employees may not get pro- moted because they do not know how to “play the game” of getting along and getting ahead in an organization. Research reveals that women and people of color are ex- cluded from organizational networks that could help them rise.93 Some organizations attempt to overcome this barrier by creating employee-resource groups that encour- age individuals with similar backgrounds to share common experiences and success strategies. American Express has 16 network groups and Cisco has 11.94

7. Difficulty balancing career and family issues. Women still assume most of the re- sponsibilities associated with raising children. This makes it harder for them to work evenings and weekends or to travel. Even without children in the picture, household chores take more of a woman’s time than a man’s.

148 PART 1 Individual Behavior

8. Fear of reverse discrimination. Some employees believe diversity management is a smoke screen for reverse discrimination. This belief leads to very strong resistance because it makes people feel one person’s gain is another’s loss.

9. Lack of organizational priority for diversity. Low priority for diversity leads to subtle resistance in the form of complaints and negative attitudes. Employees may complain about the time, energy, and resources devoted to diversity that could have been spent doing “real work.”

10. A poor performance appraisal and reward system. Performance appraisals and reward systems must reinforce the need to effectively manage diversity. Success must thus be based on a new set of criteria. For example, General Electric evaluates the extent to which its managers are inclusive of employees with different backgrounds. These evaluations are used in salary and promotion decisions.95

11. Resistance to change. Effectively managing diversity entails significant organi- zational and personal change. Sometimes this resistance is a function of cross- cultural values. In Japan, for example, women have a difficult time being promoted to senior management positions because of the practice of lifetime em- ployment and age-based promotions. This tradition still holds at both large and small companies.96

Are you curious about the diversity climate in a current or former employer? If yes, take the Self-Assessment below. It measures the components of an organization’s diver- sity climate and will enable you to determine whether your employer has or had a favor- able one.

Assessing an Organization’s Diversity Climate Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 4.2 in Connect.

1. What were the three highest- and lowest-rated survey items? What does this tell you about your employer?

2. Based on these scores, what advice would you give the human resources officer at the company you evaluated?

SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.2

In summary, managing diversity is a critical component of organizational success. It is a challenge, but it is necessary if you want to create an environment that engages em- ployees and motivates them to do their best.

149Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity? We can answer this ques- tion by first providing a framework for categorizing organizational initiatives.

Framework of Options One especially relevant framework was developed by R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr., a diversity expert. Thomas identified eight generic action options that organizations can use to ad- dress any type of diversity issue. After describing each option, we discuss relationships among them.97

Option 1: Include/Exclude Include/exclude is an outgrowth of affirmative action programs. Its primary goal is to either increase or decrease the number of diverse people at all levels of the organization. Shoney’s restaurant chain attempted to include diverse employees after settling a discrimination lawsuit. The company subsequently hired African Americans into positions of dining-room supervisors and vice presidents, added more franchises owned by African Americans, and purchased more goods and services from minority-owned companies.98

Option 2: Deny People may deny differences exist, saying that all decisions are color-, gender-, and age-blind and that success is determined solely by merit and per- formance. Novartis Pharmaceuticals agreed to a $152 million settlement in a gender discrimination lawsuit. Holly Waters, one of the plaintiffs, charged that “she was not only paid less than her male equivalents at Novartis, but was fired when she was seven months pregnant after taking a few weeks off on advice of her doctors.” Waters was the highest performer in her district.99 Novartis denied that gender discrimination was a companywide issue despite the fact that 5,600 women received compensation in the settlement.100

Option 3: Assimilate The idea behind assimilation is that, given time and reinforce- ment, all diverse people will learn to fit in or become like the dominant group. Organiza- tions initially assimilate employees through their recruitment practices and through orientation programs that describe their preferred values and standard operating proce- dures. Employees then are encouraged to refer to policies and procedures when confused about what to do in a specific situation. These practices create behavioral homogeneity among employees.

M A J O R Q U E S T I O N

What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity, and what works best?

T H E B I G G E R P I C T U R E

Whether you manage a diverse work group or find yourself managed within a diverse work

group, you’ll do better by understanding the various ways in which organizations attempt to

manage diversity. You’ll be able to review eight options in the following section. Hint: We rec-

ommend mutual adaptation.

4.7 ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES USED TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE DIVERSITY

150 PART 1 Individual Behavior

Option 4: Suppress Differences are squelched or discouraged when suppres- sion is the diversity strategy. Managers and peers tell employees to quit whining and complaining about issues. Saying, “You’ve got to pay your dues” is another way to suppress differences and promote the sta- tus quo.

Option 5: Isolate Isolation maintains the status quo by setting the diverse person off to the side. Then he or she is unable to influence organizational change. Managers can isolate people and entire teams and departments by putting them on special projects, creating functionally independent entities often referred to as silos.

Option 6: Tolerate Toleration entails acknowledging differences but not valuing or accepting them. This live-and-let-live approach allows organizations to give lip service to the issue of managing diversity. It differs from isolation in that it allows for the inclusion of diverse people, but differences are still not truly valued or accepted.

Option 7: Build Relationships Relationship building is based on the premise that good relationships can overcome differences. It addresses diversity by fostering high- quality relationships—characterized by acceptance and understanding—among diverse groups. Marriott, for example, has paired younger and older employees in teams so they can more effectively capitalize on their strengths and weaknesses.101

Option 8: Foster Mutual Adaptation Mutual adaptation allows people to change their views for the sake of creating positive relationships with others. Employees and managers alike must be willing to accept differences and, most important, agree that everyone and everything is open for change. Diversity training is one way to kick-start mutual adaptation. Research shows that such training can positively enhance people’s attitudes and feelings about working with diverse employees.102

Conclusions about Action Options Although the action options can be used alone or in combination, some are clearly more effective than others. Exclusion, denial, assimi- lation, suppression, isolation, and toleration are the least preferred options. Inclusion, building relationships, and mutual adaptation are preferred. That said, Thomas reminds us that mutual adaptation is the only approach that unquestionably endorses the philoso- phy behind managing diversity.

Choosing how to best manage diversity is a dynamic process and is influenced by the context. For instance, some organizations are not ready for mutual adaptation. The best they might be able to achieve is the inclusion of diverse people.

How Companies Are Responding to the Challenges of Diversity We close this chapter by sharing some examples and models that demonstrate how com- panies are responding to the emerging challenges of managing diversity. Compare these to Thomas’s framework and you’ll find the greatest activity around Options 7 and 8, building relationships and fostering mutual adaptation.

These U.S. soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division are a great illustration of assimilation. Note the uniform dress and structured approach toward marching. Assimilation techniques used by the military create homogeneity in dress, behavioral expectations, and many other aspects of military life. Do you think non military organizations desire the same type of homogeneity? © Zoom Dosso/AFP/Getty Images

151Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

Response: Paying Attention to Sexual Orientation The Transgender Law Cen- ter estimates that about 2 percent of the population is transgender. The term transgender  applies to anyone whose gender identity or gender expression is different from sex at birth. Although 61 percent of Fortune 500 firms forbid discrimination based on gender identity, transgender people are protected against discrimination in only 17 states and the District of Columbia.103 More companies recognize that they don’t want to alienate this segment of the population, however, and are implementing programs to help them transi- tion. Aetna, for example, has developed a policy that covers issues involving leave bene- fits, restroom use, and the transitioning employee’s preferred pronouns and names. It also includes medical coverage for therapy and surgery. Companies including Alcatel-Lucent and Glassdoor have addressed the needs of transgender employees by trying to create an inclusive culture. Mariah DeLeon, Glassdoor’s vice president of people, noted, “The phrase we have here is ‘Bring your whole self to work.’”104

Response: Addressing Changing Customer Demographics A Citizens Union Bank branch in Louisville, Kentucky, was designed and staffed with the goal of attracting more Latina/o customers. The interior contains “bright, colorful walls of yellows and blues, large-scale photos of Latin American countries, comfortable couches, sit-down desks, a children’s play area, a television tuned to Hispanic programming, and even a vending area stocked with popular Latin American-brand soft drinks and snacks.” The branch also took on a new name: Nuestro Banco, Spanish for “Our Bank.” Branch depos- its are setting records, and the CEO is planning to repeat the model in other locations.105

Response: Helping Women Navigate the Career Labyrinth Organizations can make career navigation easier by providing flexible work schedules and the developmen- tal assignments that prepare women for promotional opportunities. According to a busi- ness writer, the Boston Consulting Group “focuses heavily on recruiting and retaining women, offering part-time options, mentoring and professional-development programs.” On-ramping  programs encourage people to reenter the workforce after a tempo- rary career break. Companies such as McKinsey & Co. and Goldman Sachs Group offer these to women in particular. Goldman, for example, instituted “returnship” programs that offer short-term job assignments to former employees.106

Response: Helping Hispanics Succeed Miami Children’s Hospital and Shaw Industries Inc. in Dalton, Georgia, hope to raise employee productivity, satisfaction, and motivation by developing customized training programs to improve the communication skills of their Spanish-speaking employees.107 Research reveals that retention and career progression of minorities can be significantly enhanced through effective mentoring.

Response: Providing Community and Corporate Training to Reduce the Mismatch between Education and Job Requirements To combat education gaps on a more global level, JPMorgan started The Fellowship Initiative (TFI) in New York in 2010 and expanded it to Chicago and Los Angeles in 2014. The goal is to provide intensive academic and leadership training to young men of color. Jamie Dimon, chair and CEO of JPMorgan, is committed to the program. “These young men need access to high quality education and positive role models in and outside the classroom,” he said. Michael Bloomberg, then New York City’s mayor, applauded JPMorgan’s effort by con- cluding, “We need more civic-minded companies and organizations to step up and join this work, and I congratulate JPMorgan Chase for being a leader in this effort and for making a real difference in the lives of young men of color in our city.”108

At the individual corporate level, companies, including Wheeler Machinery Co. in Salt Lake City, have instituted specialized training programs that enable less-qualified people to perform more technically oriented jobs. Lockheed Martin and Agilent Tech- nologies also offer paid apprenticeships or internships to attract high-school students in- terested in the sciences.109

PART 1 Individual Behavior152

64-Year-Old Male Sues Staples for Wrongful Termination and Age Discrimination

Bobby Nickel, a 66-year-old facilities manager for Staples Contract and Commercial, Inc., and Staples, Inc., was fired. He claims the company discriminated against and harassed him and ultimately termi- nated him due to his age.

From 2002 to 2008 Nickel worked for Corporate Express, which Staples then acquired. He re- ceived positive performance evaluations for nine years before his termination.

“Because Corporate Express’ pay scale had been higher than the pay scale for employees hired by Staples, Nickel alleged in his complaint that his managers noted that they needed to ‘get rid of ’ older, higher paid employees. Nickel’s complaint also explained how he became the regular butt of jokes at staff meetings and was referred to as ‘old coot’ and ‘old goat,” according to blogger Larry Bodine.112

Further, Nickel claimed that Lionel Marrero, his fulfillment center manager, regularly made harassing statements like, “Take a closer look at the older people. They are starting to drag and are slowing down. If they are not top performers, write them up and get rid of them.” It was also alleged that Marrero said, “We need young, energetic people. Walk around the facility with the older workers and if they cannot keep up, then get rid of them. . . . We need to get rid of old people because they are slow. And we can get younger people to work cheaper.”113

Nickel was ultimately pressed by a manager to resign. When he didn’t, he experienced increased incidents of harassment from coworkers and a manager. “This included being written up and suspended for ‘stealing,’ after taking a bell pepper valued at 68 cents from the company cafeteria.” A receptionist

Problem-Solving Application

Response: Retaining and Valuing Skills and Expertise in an Aging Workforce Here are seven initiatives that can help organizations to motivate and retain an aging workforce:

1. Provide challenging work assignments that make a difference to the firm. 2. Give employees considerable autonomy and latitude in completing a task. 3. Provide equal access to training and learning opportunities when it comes to new

technology. 4. Provide frequent recognition for skills, experience, and wisdom gained over the

years. 5. Provide mentoring opportunities whereby older workers can pass on accumulated

knowledge to younger employees. 6. Ensure that older workers receive sensitive, high-quality supervision. 7. Design a work environment that is both stimulating and fun.110

You’ll see a number of these tactics being used by BAE, a multinational defense and aerospace company, according to a writer for Bloomberg Businessweek. “When BAE learns that an employee with deep institutional knowledge plans to retire, whether in a few months or a couple of years, a knowledge-transfer group of about a half-dozen people of varying ages working in the same area is formed. The teams meet regularly over months to talk and exchange advice. Younger workers elicit tips, and in some cases older ones gradually hand off tasks to junior employees.”111

Some companies, such as Staples, have encountered problems managing older em- ployees; see the Problem-Solving Application box.

153Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

told Nickel she had been instructed by management “to provide a false statement about Nickel’s con- duct but she refused to do so, said blogger Larry Bodine.114

Counsel for Staples contended that the company had cause to suspend Nickel because he violated “the company’s zero-tolerance policy when it came to ‘dishonesty of any kind, including theft or misap- propriation of company property.’”115

Apply the 3-Step Problem-Solving Approach

Step 1: Define the problem in this case.

Step 2: Identify the OB concepts or theories that may be causing the problem. For example, are stereotypes, diversity climate, or frameworks for managing diversity causes of the problem?

Step 3: Recommend what you would do to correct the situation. Think both short term and long term.

Response: Resolving Generational Differences Traditional and boomer manag- ers are encouraged to consider their approach toward managing the technologically savvy Gen Xers and Gen Ys. Gen Xers and Ys, for instance, are more likely to visit social net- working sites during the workday, often perceiving this activity as a “virtual coffee break.” In contrast, traditional and boomer managers are more likely to view this activity as wasted time, leading them to adopt policies that attempt to prevent it. Experts suggest that restricting access to social media will not work in the long run if an employer wants to motivate younger employees.

Would you like to improve your working relationships with diverse people? If yes, Self-Assessment 4.3 can help. It asks you to compare yourself with a group of other people you interact with and then to examine the quality of the relationships between yourself and these individuals. This enables you to gain a better under- standing of how similarities and differences among people influence your attitudes and behavior.

How Does My Diversity Profile Affect My Relationships with Other People? Please be prepared to answer these questions if your instructor has assigned Self- Assessment 4.3 in Connect.

1. Which diversity dimensions have the greatest influence on the quality of your in- terpersonal relationships?

2. Consider the person with whom you have the most difficulty working. Which dimensions of diversity may contribute to this relationship? What can you do to improve it?

SELF-ASSESSMENT 4.3

154 PART 1 Individual Behavior

You learned that person perception and manag- ing diversity are essential for success. Why? Person perception helps you better understand the perception process, improve the way you are perceived, and adjust your own perception to avoid common perceptual errors. Managing diversity (represented by both diversity and de- mographics in our Organizing Framework) lets you better optimize diversity’s effect on individ- ual and group/team outcomes. Reinforce your learning with the Key Points below. Then con- solidate your learning using the Organizing Framework. Finally, challenge your mastery of the material by answering the Major Questions in your own words.

Key Points for Understanding Chapter 4 You learned the following key points.

4.1 PERSON PERCEPTION • Perception is a mental and cognitive process

that enables us to interpret and understand our surroundings.

• Person perception is influenced by three components: characteristics of the perceiver, characteristics of the target, and characteris- tics of the situation.

• Person perception affects a wide variety of organizational activities including hiring decisions, performance appraisals, and leadership.

4.2 STEREOTYPES • Stereotypes represent generalized beliefs

about the characteristics of a group. • Stereotypes are not always negative, and

they are not always inaccurate. • Common stereotypes exist about gender,

race, and age.

• Stereotyping is a four-step process that con- sists of categorization, inference, expectation formation, and maintenance.

• We maintain stereotypes by (a) overestimat- ing the frequency of stereotypic behaviors ex- hibited by others, (b) incorrectly explaining expected and unexpected behaviors, and (c) differentiating minority individuals from ourselves.

4.3 CAUSAL ATTRIBUTIONS • Causal attributions are suspected or inferred

causes of behavior. • According to Kelley’s model of causal attribu-

tion, we make external attributions when con- sensus and distinctiveness are high and consistency is low. We make internal (personal responsibility) attributions when consensus and distinctiveness are low and consistency is high.

• The fundamental attribution bias emphasizes personal factors more than situation factors while we are formulating attributions. In the self-serving bias we personalize the causes of our success and externalize the causes of our failures.

4.4 DEFINING AND MANAGING DIVERSITY

• Diversity represents the individual differences that make people unique from and similar to each other.

• Diversity varies along surface-level character- istics like race, gender, and age and along deep-level characteristics such as attitudes, opinions, and values.

• Affirmative action is an outgrowth of equal employment opportunity legislation and is an intervention aimed at giving management a chance to correct past discrimination.

• Managing diversity entails enacting a host of organizational changes that enable all people to perform to their maximum potential.

What Did I Learn?

155Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

discrimination, (i) lack of organizational prior- ity, ( j) the need to revamp the organization’s performance appraisal and reward systems, and (k) resistance to change.

4.7 ORGANIZATIONAL PRACTICES USED TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE DIVERSITY

• Organizations have eight options for address- ing diversity issues: (a) include/exclude the number of diverse people at all levels of the organization, (b) deny that differences exist, (c) assimilate diverse people into the domi- nant group, (d) suppress differences, (e) iso- late diverse members from the larger group, (f ) tolerate differences among employees, (g) build relationships among diverse employ- ees, and (h) foster mutual adaptation to create positive relationships.

The Organizing Framework for Chapter 4 As shown in Figure 4.5, you learned that diversity, demographics, and stereotypes serve as key per- son factors, while diversity climate is an important situation factor. You also know there are relevant processes across the individual level (perception,

4.5 BUILDING THE BUSINESS CASE FOR MANAGING DIVERSITY

• Managing diversity is predicted to be good business because it aims to engage employ- ees and satisfy customers’ unique needs.

• There are six key demographic trends: (a) women are navigating a labyrinth after break- ing the glass ceiling, (b) racial groups are en- countering a glass ceiling and perceived discrimination, (c) recognition of sexual orien- tation is growing in importance, (d) people with disabilities face challenges, (e) genera- tional differences are growing in an aging workforce, and (f) a mismatch exists between workers’ educational attainment and organi- zational needs.

4.6 BARRIERS AND CHALLENGES TO MANAGING DIVERSITY

• There are 11 barriers to successfully imple- menting diversity initiatives: (a) inaccurate stereotypes and prejudice, (b) ethnocentrism, (c) poor career planning, (d) a negative diver- sity climate, (e) a hostile working environment for diverse employees, (f) diverse employees’ lack of political savvy, (g) difficulty balancing career and family issues, (h) fears of reverse

FIGURE 4.5 ORGANIZING FRAMEWORK FOR UNDERSTANDING AND APPLYING OB

© 2014 by Angelo Kinicki and Mel Fugate. All rights reserved. Reproduction prohibited without express permission of the authors.

INPUTS PROCESSES OUTCOMES

Person Factors • Diversity • Demographics • Stereotypes Situation Factors • Diversity climate

Individual Level • Perceptions • Attributions • Psychological safety Group/Team Level • Group/team dynamics Organizational Level • Options to manage

diversity

Individual Level • Task performance • Work attitudes • Well-being/flourishing • Turnover • Career outcomes Group/Team Level • Group/team performance • Group satisfaction Organizational Level • Employer of choice • Customer satisfaction • Reputation

156 PART 1 Individual Behavior

3. How do I tend to interpret employee performance?

4. How does awareness about the layers of di- versity help organizations effectively manage diversity?

5. What is the business rationale for managing diversity?

6. What are the most common barriers to imple- menting successful diversity programs?

7. What are organizations doing to effectively manage diversity, and what works best?

attributions, and psychological safety), the group/ team level (group/team dynamics), and the organi- zational level (options to manage diversity). These inputs and processes have critical outcomes.

Challenge: Major Questions for Chapter 4 1. How do I form perceptions of others? 2. How can I use awareness of stereotypes to

make better decisions and manage more effectively?

IMPLICATIONS FOR ME We see four additional things you can do to apply this chapter’s lessons. First, remember that your personal and professional success depends upon others’ perceptions of you. Because perceptions can override your good work, it is important to gain feedback on what others’ think about you. Second, it is normal to be affected by stereotypes. It would be helpful to reflect on your stereotypes and to try to avoid letting them bias your decisions and perceptions of others. Third, consider how you will respond when you hear negative or disparaging things about diverse people. It’s going to happen, and your response can make the difference in stopping such statements. Finally, celebrate your uniqueness, but remember that some people are uncomfortable with individual differences among people. We encourage you to just be yourself.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MANAGERS There are three key implications for managers. First, because managers make many types of judgments about people, it is important to try to make these judgments without being biased or using stereotypes. This can be difficult because such cognitive errors are a natu- ral and normal part of how we process information. Second, the fundamental attribution bias can lead to inaccurate interpretations of someone’s suitability for a job or a perfor- mance evaluation. Be aware of this attributional error, and try to consider both personal and situation factors when evaluating others. Third, managing diversity is good for individ- ual employees, managers, and organizations as a whole. Organizations, whether local or global, will compete more effectively when all employees feel included, supported, and valued. We all should try our best to be understanding and supportive of people who are different from the majority.

157Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

Managing diversity is a hot topic among technology companies, some of which have started to display transparency by publishing their diversity profiles.

Google’s diversity report showed its workforce is 70 percent male and 30 percent female. Ethnicity data for its US workforce indicated 61 percent white, 30 percent Asian, 4 percent of two or more races, 3 percent Hispanic, 2 percent black, and 1 percent other. This pattern is similar to those of Apple (30 per- cent female and 55 percent white, and US ethnicity data showing 15 percent Asian, 11 percent Hispanic, 7 percent black, 2 percent of two or more races, 1 per- cent other, and 9 percent undeclared) and Facebook (31 percent female, and US ethnicity data of more than half white, 41 percent Asian, 3 percent Hispanic, and 1 percent black).116

Executives within the technology industry have started to implement a variety of programs and poli- cies to change the demographic profiles of their com- panies. For example, Intel established a 2015 hiring goal of 40 percent new hires from diverse back- grounds and 22.7 percent of technical employees who are female. Pinterest established a 2016 goal to have 30 percent of new engineering hires in engineering roles be female and 8 percent from underrepresented ethnic minorities.117

Is setting diversity hiring goals fair? While com- panies that set them note they are not meant to be quotas, some managers may perceive them that way. This would likely create feelings of reverse discrimination, fueling resistance to hiring diverse employees.

What has led to the skewed demographics at technology companies? Some experts believe the root cause goes back to patterns and norms in ele- mentary and high school, where girls are not encour- aged to focus on the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and math). If this is true, fe- male high-school students are not developing the proficiency that would help them major in STEM sub- jects in college. Further, a writer for Forbes con- cluded that an unconscious bias exists “that science and math are typically ‘male’ fields while humanities are primarily ‘female’ fields, and these stereotypes further inhibit girls’ likelihood of cultivating an inter- est in math and science.”118

A related issue is the “information gap.” High-school students simply do not know which jobs are in high demand. For example, research shows that 24 percent of high-school seniors “have no idea of what career they want to pursue. Of high school seniors who have pinpointed a desired profession, 23 percent said they made their career choice based on something they saw on TV or in a movie.”119 This is a problem because TV shows often depict technology-oriented people as geeky males. Who wants to be a geek?

Others claim the industry has a pipeline problem. In other words, not enough females and minorities are majoring in STEM subjects in college. Statistics conflict on this subject. Some data indicate that fe- males earn fewer than 20 percent of college degrees in computer science, even though they achieve the majority of bachelor’s degrees in the United States.120 In contrast, other studies show that there is not a pipeline issue. According to Forbes writer Bonnie Marcus, there is “an equal number of high- school girls and boys participating in STEM elec- tives.” Marcus also notes that 50 percent of the introductory computer science students at Stanford and Berkeley are women.121 A USA study further showed that “top universities graduate black and Hispanic computer science and computer engineer- ing students at twice the rate that leading technology companies hire them.”122 There must be some rea- son these students are not being hired.

If the above data are accurate, then it is possible that companies have a systemic problem based on hiring managers’ beliefs, stereotypes, or unconscious biases. This occurred at Pinterest, for example, when it tried to increase the number of women and minorities being hired. Although recruiters found qualified applicants “from nontraditional backgrounds, managers often con- tinued to prioritize people from places like Stanford and MIT, which have less broad student bodies. And while Adam Ward, Pinterest’s head of recruiting, and Abby Maldonado, its diversity-programs specialist, had en- couraged colleagues to pass along résumés form a range of candidates, most of the referrals were still white or Asian,” according to FastCompany.123 Pinterest founder Evan Sharp believes technology companies may not be giving diversity the same type of attention given to product development initiatives.

PROBLEM-SOLVING APPLICATION CASE

White, Male, and Asian: The Diversity Profile of Technology Companies

158 PART 1 Individual Behavior

your thinking. Focus on topics in the current chapter, because we generally select cases that illustrate concepts in the current chapter.

Step 2: Identify causes of the problem by using ma- terial from this chapter, which has been summarized in the Organizing Framework shown in Figure 4.5. Causes will appear in either the Inputs box or the Processes box.

A. Start by looking at Figure 4.5 to identify which person factors, if any, are most likely causes of the defined problem. For each cause, explain why this is a cause of the problem. Asking why multiple times is more likely to lead you to root causes of the problem. For example, if you think demographics—an input in the Organizing Framework—is a cause, ask yourself why. This might lead to the conclusion that there are not enough females and minorities who are taking STEM majors in college. In turn, this might lead to the conclusion that a poor pipeline is a root cause of demographics at technology companies. Then ask yourself why this is happening. The cause might go all the way back to elementary and high school. By following this process of asking why multiple times, you will be more likely to arrive at a more complete list of causes.

B. Now consider the Processes box shown in Figure 4.5. Consider whether perception, attributions, psychological safety, group/team dynamics, or options to manage diversity are causes of the problem. For any concept that might be a cause, ask yourself, Why is this a cause? Again, do this for several iterations to arrive at root causes.

C. Follow the same process for the situation factors.

D. To check the accuracy or appropriateness of the causes, be sure to map them onto the defined problem.

Step 3: Make recommendations for solving the problem. Consider whether you want to resolve it, solve it, or dissolve it (see Section 1.5). Which recom- mendation is desirable and feasible?

A. Given the causes identified in Step 2, what are your best recommendations? Use the content in Chapter 4 or one of the earlier chapters to propose a solution.

B. Potential solutions may be found in the OB in Action and Applying OB boxes within the chapter. These features provide insights about how other individuals or companies are handling the topic at hand.

C. Create an action plan for implementing your recommendations.

There may also be more overt causes of the un- derrepresentation of female and minority tech em- ployees. Consider results from an interview study of 716 women who had held technology positions. These women left the industry after seven years, and 27 percent cited “discomfort working in these companies.” Other top reasons were perceived dis- crimination in regard to gender, race, or sexual ori- entation, lack of flexible hours, and unsupportive work environments.124

Could something as subtle as gender-based com- munication contribute to the problem? The answer is yes according to a recent report presented in Fortune. A study of 1,100 technology résumés from 512 men and 588 women uncovered gender-related differ- ences that may affect a recruiter’s perceptions. For ex- ample, “women’s résumés are longer, but shorter on details. . . . Yet when it comes to providing details about previous jobs, the men present far more specific content than the women do,” according to the Fortune report. Women were also found to “lead with their cre- dentials and include more personal background. On average, the women’s résumés cite seven personal distinctions apiece, while the men’s cite four.” Overall, women tend to use more narrative while men are more precise about their experiences.125

Assume you are a senior leader at a technology company. What does the information in this case tell you about managing diversity?

APPLY THE 3-STEP PROBLEM- SOLVING APPROACH TO OB

Step 1: Define the problem.

A. Look first at the Outcome box of the Organizing Framework in Figure 4.5 to help identify the important problem(s) in this case. Remember that a problem is a gap between a desired and current state. State your problem as a gap, and be sure to consider problems at all three levels. If more than one desired outcome is not being accomplished, decide which one is most important and focus on it for steps 2 and 3.

B. Cases have protagonists (key players), and problems are generally viewed from a particular protagonist’s perspective. You need to identify the perspective—employee, manager, team, or the organization—from which you’re defining the problem.

C. Use details in the case to identify the key problem. Don’t assume, infer, or create problems that are not included in the case.

D. To refine your choice, ask yourself, Why is this a problem? Explaining why helps refine and focus

159Social Perception and Managing Diversity CHAPTER 4

LEGAL/ETHICAL CHALLENGE

Swastikas and Neonatal Care

This case describes an incident that occurred at Hurley Medical Center in Michigan and resulted in a lawsuit.

Tonya Battle, a veteran black nurse in Hurley’s neo- natal intensive care unit, was taking care of a baby when a man with a swastika tattoo walked into the unit and reached for the baby. Battle stopped him and asked to see the hospital wristband that identified him as the baby’s parent. “He abruptly told her he wanted to see her supervisor, who then advised Battle she should no longer care for the child,” according to USA Today.126 The man had requested that no African American nurses should take care of his child.

A note was subsequently put on the assignment clipboard saying, “No African American nurse to take care of baby.” Battle was “shocked, offended, and in disbelief that she was so egregiously discriminated against based on her race and reassigned, according to the lawsuit, which asks for punitive damages for emotional stress, mental anguish, humiliation, and damages to her reputation,” according to a reporter from the Arizona Republic.127 Battle could not under- stand why the hospital would accommodate the man’s request. Although the note was later removed, black nurses were not allowed to care for the child for about a month.

The Arizona Republic newspaper reported that the “American Medical Association’s ethics code bars doc- tors from refusing to treat people based on race, gen- der, and other criteria, but there are no specific policies for handling race-based requests from patients.”

Further, a survey of “emergency physicians found pa- tients often make such requests, and they are routinely accommodated. A third of doctors who responded said they felt patients perceive better care from provid- ers of shared demographics, with racial matches con- sidered more important than gender or religion.”128

Your Views What would you have done if you were a medical administrator at the time the request was made?

1. I would not have honored the man’s request. I would have explained why Tonya Battle and other African American nurses are best suited to take care of his child.

2. I would have done exactly what the hospital did. The man has a right to have his child taken care of by someone of a race or gender of his choosing.

What would you do about the lawsuit?

1. Fight it. It’s ridiculous that someone would feel emotional stress and humiliation from simply being reassigned.

2. Settle it and create a policy that prohibits honoring future requests like this.

3. Settle it but hold a hospitalwide meeting explaining the rationale for continuing to accommodate such requests.