Employee Relations and Motivation

Chapter Overview

This chapter broadly addresses the topic of employee relations and work motivation. It examined theories and models of motivation that strive to answer the question of what motivates and how is motivation harnessed. At the individual level of analysis, there is a plethora of different approaches, most of which have some conceptual viability, empirical support and practical use. A critical task for future thinking and research is to integrate findings from diverse sources in order to be able to produce a more coherent view of motivation, its content and mechanisms. Contemporary research aspires to a more integrated perspective, but progress is slow due to difficulties forming conceptual links and a difficulty comparing studies (due to non-comparability of constructs and measurement). Some argue that motivation denotes, and is, perhaps, best treated as an umbrella term pertaining to a set of motivational issues rather than striving to pin it down as a precisely defined and measurable construct. 

The psychology of group, team and leadership processes is also examined. It is frustrating to find yet more theories and models within distinctive domains of investigation and a general lack of cross-fertilization. Thus, whilst leadership processes are without doubt, inextricably linked with group and team processes, there is little communication across these domains of research. The ‘leader’ is extracted from the group or team context in which they do their leading, and thus is thus effectively investigated in a vacuum. Yet leadership is a two-way process, influenced as much by followers as leaders. The psychological contract literature holds some promise for integrating considerations of leadership with those of the motivated employee more generally. The leader may ‘represent’ the organization in the process of exchanging reward for effort and as such, may hold the key to understanding motivational processes. The literature on group processes is also distinct from the literature on teams and even the team building literature stands alone, as an isolated consideration. Yet, there is an enormous social psychological literature on group processes potentially relevant to our understanding of what constitutes an effective team. This chapter has sought in some small way to bridge each domain of investigation by forging potential links and avenues for fruitful

Chapter Thought Bytes and Examples

Some contemporary performance problems

Absenteeism Absenteeism costs employees billions of pounds per year. Absenteeism is indicated by either frequency of absence (for example, 10 times a year for a day at a time) or time lost from work (for example, 10 days over the course of the year). Steer and Rhodes (1990) conceptualized absenteeism as the combination of ‘attendance motivation’ (product of satisfaction plus pressures to attend like economic conditions and personal standards) and ‘the ability to attend’ (see Johns, 1997 for a comprehensive review of absenteeism its correlates, causes and consequences). Turnover Turnover costs are extremely high, and often highly underestimated. Nevertheless, much effort has been devoted to understanding why people leave their jobs. One of the many different models available for conceptualizing turnover sees job satisfaction as the precursor to ‘withdrawal cognition’ (that is, thoughts of leaving, search decisions and intentions to quit). This in turn is influenced by perceptions of employment alternatives and opportunities, as well as the turnover norm within a company. A recent overview relevant research yielded the following conclusions (Smither, 1994: 254– 258): there is a negative relationship between age, tenure, job satisfaction and turnover, a positive relationship between availability of jobs and turnover, intention to quit is a strong predictor of actual turnover and both individual and group variables affect turnover.

The cooperative systems view of organizations

Barnard (1938: 139) argues that the individual is always the basic strategic factor in organizations. Based on a conceptualization of the organization as ‘a system of cooperation’ (p. 3), the survival of this organization will depend on individual ‘cooperative’ contributions. These contributions are not automatically afforded; the organization has to actively ‘elicit’ them. Inadequate incentives mean organizational decline. Organizational efficiency then depends on the ability to ‘elicit sufficient individual wills to cooperate’ (p. 60). It can do this by either providing objective inducements (financial compensation, status, power, social support, fulfilment of need to belong and/or personal ideals, desirable physical conditions), and/or ‘changing states of mind’ (by propaganda, rhetoric/argument, and/or the inculcation of motives, and sometimes also coercion). Barnard (p.153) argues that every type of organization, for whatever purpose will need to provide several incentives and some degree of persuasion … in order to maintain the contributions required. The critical role of the executive, then, is one of ‘eliciting ... the quantity and quality of efforts’ required of organizational contributors by managing the ‘exchange of utilities’ (p.240), an exchange requiring continual adjustment and modification due to changing individual requirements.

Measuring performance in the context of organizational behaviour

It is generally agreed that the term ‘performance’ in a work context pertains to in-role (task) behaviour, extra-role (contextual) behaviour and counterproductive behaviour (Rotundo & Sackett, 2002). In practice, however, performance it is operationalized and measured in many ways and forms, depending on the theoretical stance of the researcher (see Chapter 3, Part 1). Common measures include absenteeism, turnover, extra hours worked, production/sales levels and so on, as well as qualitative measures such as supervisor/manager ratings on appropriate performance dimensions. Often, the measures used will in part depend on what work outcomes are regarded as beneficial by the organization. The multiplicity of performance indicators used undermines comparability across studies. Situational contingencies also restrict the range of potential variance captured on the performance measure (for example, the design of tasks in organizations reflects the objective of constraining the variability of task performance among individuals). Moreover, real-life performance may be clouded with compliance issues (for example, rule-following, not ‘making waves’). These factors together will reduce the power of the causal equation involving ‘performance’ measures.

The Job Diagnostic Survey

The Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS) was developed specifically to test the viability of the Job Characteristics Model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976). In the original study, the JDS was issued to 658 employees across 62 different kinds of jobs in 7 industrial and service organizations. Data was also collected from supervisors of the focal job of each employee using the Job Rating Form. The results generally supported the relationships specified in the model, but with some exceptions. Most seriously for the model was the result that the predicted relationship between autonomy and experienced responsibility was not strong, with the latter associated with some of the other job characteristics. The JDS has since been the focus of considerable criticism. Some studies have replicated the five-factor model produced by Hackman and Oldham in the original study, but other studies have not. Other measurement problems are attributed to the unnecessarily complex way in which the ‘motivating potential’ score is derived. Many have pointed out the reliance of the JDS on the same source of data (that is, self-report) making tests of the JCM subject to the problems of common method variance. Researchers are now more concerned with refining the JCM on methodological and theoretical

The person–job fit framework

The person-job fit concept implies that the person and the job operate as joint determinants of individual and organizational outcomes (Lewin, 1951). The literature uses a plethora of different ‘fit’ terms such as ‘matching’, ‘congruence’, and ‘contingency’. Most research has focused on the ‘fit between employee desires and job supplies’ (Edwards, 1991: 309). Early studies documented more need deficiency than satisfaction, with respect to job level, job type, and other factors. Other studies have looked at preferences (for example, ‘would like’). The better the ‘fit’ between job and person, the higher the job satisfaction, commitment, trust and well-being, and the lower the absenteeism and turnover. Edwards (199: 328) is nonetheless cautious about making too much of this apparent consensus in findings, because of what he calls ‘serious methodological problems’ associated with sampling (that is, one-shot samples), design (that is, cross-sectional), measurement issues and analysis (that is, reliance on single ‘fit’ index). He makes recommendations for future research using longitudinal designs and multi-dimensional fit indices.

Organizational justice

Greenberg (1987) links cognitive and motivational processes specifically to organizational procedures. He proposed that perceptions of organizational injustice prompt cognitive or behavioural change if procedures are seen as terminal or an ‘end in themselves’. If procedures are construed as ‘means to an end’, perceptions of procedural fairness per se are less influential than perceptions of distributive fairness. In other words, the motivational power of injustice perceptions may be tied to personal goals. It has also been suggested that interpersonal aspects of procedures influence perceptions of procedural fairness. For example, Tyler and Bies (1999) proposed five norms that contribute to perceptions of procedural fairness: adequate consideration of an employee’s viewpoint; suppression of personal bias; consistent application of criteria across employees; provision of timely feedback after a decision; and providing employees with an adequate explanation for the decision.

Can creativity be extrinsically motivated?

Across five studies, Eisenberger and Rhoades (2001) found that repeated reward for creative behaviour consistently yielded an increase in creative behaviour across three different samples (pre-adolescent, college students and employees). They also found that intrinsic job interests mediated employees’ expectations of reward for creative performance at work. Eisenberger and Rhoades (2001) say that these results are consistent with other views and findings that reward for high performance increase intrinsic task interest (rather than undermining it). They found that intrinsic task motivation was increased by reward via a process of increased self-determination, leading to enhanced creative behaviour. On the other hand, findings suggest that intrinsic interest can be undermined if expectations of reward are not seen as contingent on performance, which ties in with the instrumentality element of Valence-Instrumentality-Expectancy (VIE) theory (Eisenberger, Pearce, & Cameron, 1999). Other findings have confirmed the importance of self-determination (autonomy, control) in the workplace as a source of satisfaction and motivation (Parker et al., 2001).

Engagement at work

The following ‘engagement’ items are examples taken from May, Gilson, & Harter (2004): Cognitive Performing my job is so absorbing that I forget about everything else. I often think about other things when performing my role. Emotional I really put my heart into my job. I get excited when I perform well in my job. Physical I exert a lot of energy performing my role. I stay until the job is done.

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Artikel keren lainnya:

• How to Gain Motivation
• Motivation and Productivity
• Summary and Conclusions
• The social action perspective on negotiation
• Disputes over Limited Resources: The Psychology of Negotiation

Ditulis oleh Unknown pada tanggal Jumat, 21 Juni 2013