Professional Documents
Culture Documents
MGMT1002 Study Notes
MGMT1002 Study Notes
Demographic Diversity
o Gender: 40% employees women, <25% women in full time, 21%-part time
o Demographic composition changing
o Female tertiary students now outnumber their male counterparts in 2/3 of
countries
o Few differences between men and women, no clear consistent findings. Yet
women represent only a very small percentage of managers and particularly
top management
o There are barriers to the top: gender stereotypes, negative attitudes, altered
perceptions of male and female behaviour, gender segregated cultures, male
dominated cultures
o Gender inequality is a major managerial challenge
o Age
o Generations
o Baby Boomers(1946-1962) start job, stay job
o Generation X (1963-1978) change job
o Generation Y (1979-1988) work life balance is more important
o Aging population
o Mixed findings need to learn how to utilize people of all ages
o Managing age diversity appropriately
o There are four generations of values belief systems, work norms, work
attitudes,
Abilities
o Ability is a persons capacity to do or learn to do a particular task
o An individuals overall abilities area determined by their intellectual and
physical abilities
o Cognitive ability: those needed to perform mental activities for thinking
reasoning and problem solving
o Dimensions of intellectual ability
o Number aptitude: speedy and accurate arithmetic
o Verbal comprehension: understand what is read/heard and the
relationship of words to one another
o Perceptual speed: ability to visualize and analyse visual differences
quickly and accurately
o Inductive reasoning: identify a logical reasoning in a problem and then
solve the problem
o Deductive reasoning: logic to assess the implications of an argument
o Spatial visualization: ability to imagine how an object will look if its in
a different position
o Memory: ability to recall and retain past experiences
o Intelligence beyond mental abilities
o Social intelligence: getting along well with others
o Emotional intelligence: able to relate others emotions and express
your own emotions easily
o Cultural intelligence: ability for a person to act well in situations of
cultural diversity
o Most employers predict based on cognitive abilities because cognitive is a
strong predictor of workplace performance
o Physical Ability: capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength,
and similar characteristics
o Strength factors: dynamic strength, trunk strength, static strength,
explosive strength
o Flexibility factors: extent flexibility, dynamic flexibility
o Other factors: body coordination, balance, stamina
o Galton: started the attempt to assess sensory skills (intellectual abilities)
o Binet: introduced mental age developed the first ways of measuring IQ,
using abstract reasoning. Mental age: how the intelligence of a person
compares to those of the same age group
o Terman: IQ = (mental age/chron age) X 100
o Higher cognitive ability = less training = save money
o Intelligence tests measure general or broad mental ability
o Ravens matrices: uses non verbal testing
o Aptitude tests: measures potential but they look at more specific abilities e.g.
perceptual speed and psychomotor
o Ability test: achievement tests e.g. university exam
o The ability-job fit: requires knowledge of what is required of the job to find
someone who will fit into the job well. Employees abilities and Job ability
requirements
Personality
o Definition
o Refers to an individuals unique constellation of consistent behavioural
traits
o A personality trait is a predisposition or tendency to behave in a
particular way
o Personality tests can measure aspects of personality other than traits,
such as motives, interests, values and attitudes
o Personality tests have lower validities than cognitive tests
o Personality Theories
o Trait theories: most commonly used, e.g. big 5. Break down
behavioral patterns into observable traits
o Affective theories: used often, personality rather than referring to a
predisposition to experience certain moods and emotions on an
ongoing basis
o Biological theories: rarely used, people differ in terms of their brain
structures and it influences their behaviours
o Psychodynamic theories: not used very much, super ego and ego,
focuses on the unconscious determinants of behaviour
o Humanistic theories: used in career psychology, people seek to self
actualize, and be the best they can be
o Trait relevance: broad factors vs specific traits, non work-related traits
o History of personality testing
o Personality is an invalid predictor because
Personality measures were designed for clinical settings
Were too broad
No taxonomy of personality
o Relevant traits showed higher validities
o matching traits to job requirements
o Costa & McCrae: The big Five
o Openness to experience/Intellect: imaginative, open, extent to a
person is open to new experiences
o Conscientiousness: extent to which person is organized and
concerned about achieving goals and deadlines
o Extraversion: sociable, outgoing, enjoy excitement, can be aggressive
and impulsive
o Agreeableness: good natured, warm, compassionate with others
o Neuroticism/Emotional stability: tense, anxious, tendency to worry
o 16PF is also another test
o Integrity
o Predict whether or not an employee will engage in
counterproductive/dishonest behaviour
o Two tests:
Overt Integrity test e.g. reid report
Looks at attitudes and prior behaviour
E.g. it is alright to lie if you know you wont get caught
Personality Integrity test e.g. employee reliability scale
Personality characteristics: counterproductive behaviour
Hidden
Predict theft and other counterproductive behaviour
Employees can still lie in these tests
o Workplace psychopaths
Lack of empathy due to deficiency limbic system
genetic/childhood rearing
Manipulate people to hide who they really are
They need to isolate that person away so they cant do damage
They are very manipulative, superficial, look good on the
outside, egotistical, narcissistic, devious, superficial
Would do anything to meet deadlines, get anything done and
rise to the top
Other Individual Differences
o Machiavellianism
o Highly related to psychopaths
o Degree of pragmatism, emotional distance, believes ends justifies
means
o Greater influence over others, manipulate more, win more, less
persuaded by others
o Self interest, personal gain, related to negative workplace behaviours
o Harsh management techniques
o Theft, sabotage, etc.
o Locus of Control
o Internals: you believe what happens to you
o External: what happens to them is decided upon external forces
o Externals (compared to internals) tend to be less satisfied are involved
with their job and have higher absenteeism rates, because they dont
feel like they have control over themselves. They are more vulnerable
by external circumstances in the workplace that disrupt the
organization.
o Self-Efficacy
o A believe in your own capability to perform a specific task
o Global vs task specific beliefs
o High self efficacy (approach difficult problems, more intrinsic
interested in their job, have higher goals) > low self efficacy (lower
goal aspiration and less committed to it, face with difficulties and give
up easily, low motivation)
o Giving a go, improves self efficacy, seeing others doing well make you
want to do well, verbal persuasion, also your mood influences it
Practical Interventions
Maximize fit between the people you bring in and the job demands:
personnel selection
Personnel training: matching the kind of training in the right areas depending
on the characteristics of people your organisation
Performance management: understanding people employed will enable
matching people to training and jobs to maximize benefits for individuals and
organisations as a role
o Definition of stress
o Job related factors interact with a worker to change their
physical/psychological condition so that the person deviates from
normal functioning
o Stress as the physiological and/or psychological reactions to an event
that is perceived as threatening or taxing
o Stress involves an interaction between an individual and an
environmental event
o Stress is a process it occurs over time
o There are physical and psychological reactions (strains) to external
environmental events (stressors) that are appraised as taxing or
threatening
o Positive stress: eustress e.g. promoted at work
o Negative stress: distress e.g. made redundant
o Stress/performance curve: meeting the optimal stress/stimulation
point it always changed, but when there is too much stress you go
into distress and performance drops
o Approaches
o French, rogers, & cobb stress occurs due to a lack of fit
o Lazarus and Folkman produced the transactional model of stress and
coping: looking at the transaction between a person and their external
environment
Stress results from an individuals cognitive appraisal that a
certain environmental event is threatening, harmful or
challenging
Primary appraisal: make an evaluation of whether an
event is going to be threatening/harmful/challenging?
Emotions are generated by the appraisal
Secondary appraisal: Can I cope with the stress? What
are the alternatives?
Two options
o Yes, I can cope: minimum stress
o Sorry, I cant cope: I experience a lot of stress
o Job demands job decision latitude model
Karasek two constructs vary independently in the work
environment
Job decision latitude buffers the negative effects of job
demands on levels of strain
Job demands
Job decision latitude
Active jobs: focus of the model is the active jobs, the key
hypothesis 1 is that job decision latitude buffers
(moderates) the negative effects of job demands on
levels of strain
Second key prediction focuses on employee adjustment
(satisfaction, morale, well-being). Job demands when
accompanied by high levels of job decision latitude, act
as a source of challenge, rather than as a source of strain
Stress can result in illness
Hypertension
Coronary heart disease
Migraines
Asthma attacks
Stress been associated with increased absence and turnover
o Objective and subjective stress
o Fundamental distinction between objective and subjective stress
Objective stress: can be measured e.g. how much work the
employee has done
Subjective stress: asking the employee how stressed they are
o Perceptions of stressors are generally more powerful predictors of
human functioning than objective stressors
o Sources of stress
o Authors have broadly distinguished between situational/environmental
stress and dispositional areas
o Situational stressors arise from all aspects of our lives
Stressful work conditions/environment
o Work: Situational sources of stress
Belief that certain occupations are more stressful than others
Some evidence suggesting that people in these occupations do
experience greater work-related stress
Identified a range of stressors that occur more commonly in
these occupations
Difficult patients
Heavy workloads
Poor working conditions high/unpredictable workloads
Majority of researchers emphasize the importance of examining
those sources that are common to all jobs
Work environment
Individual characteristics
Work overload: important workplace stressor: excessive
workload and concentration, negative health and psychological
distress
Underutilization of skills: too little to do can be problematic
Role ambiguity: not sure what their job entails
Role conflict: e.g. work-family conflict
Lack of control
Physical work conditions: too hot/noisy stressful workplace
Interpersonal conflict
Harassment
Organisational change
o Individual sources: Disposition
Two individual characteristics
Type A personality
Susceptibility to stress
Type A characterized by excessive drive and competitiveness,
sense of urgency and impatience, and an underlying hostility
Type A personality slightly more likely to develop stress related
coronary heart disease than people with a type B personality
Type A hostility and lack of appropriate expression of that
hostility is partly responsible for physiological/psychological
stress
Some individuals are more resilient to stress or more hardy
hardiness because of their style of dealing with stressful
situations
Lack of hardiness associated with higher levels of self-
perceived stress and lower self efficacy (belief in his/her activity
and can deal with whatever faces them)
Self-efficacy an individuals belief in his or her ability to
engage in a course of action that will lead to desired outcomes
These people may be prone to stress related illnesses
o Measuring stress
o Physiological measures: blood pressure, ECG, etc.
o Self-report surveys e.g. stressful events scale: measures person-
environment fit
o Limitations of physiological measures
Expensive and time consuming
Variations can occur from day to day for individuals naturally
Highly trained to administer these measures
Self report instruments
o Most surveys assesss
Organisational conditions/stressors e.g. role ambiguity, role
conflict, work overload, individual physical and psychological
states e.g. sleeplessness, depression etc.
Common standardized survey tools: stress diagnostic survey,
occupational stress indicator, job stress survey
o Social readjustment scale
Stressful life events approach: assumes stressful life events act
as stressors and can bring on stress related illnesses and may
negatively impact on job performance
Acknowledges both pleasant (eustress) and unpleasant
(distress) stressors
Physical symptoms are likely to develop in direct proportion to
ones life event score
Criticism:
Approach is general: e.g. every reacts to certain stressful
events in the same way
Simple additive weighting: doesnt take on time periods
where it happened
Ignores the impact of hassles: things that hassle on a day
to day basis e.g. overcrowding and missing the bus and
traffic
o Measurement of person-environment fit
PE fit refers to the match between a workers abilities, needs
and values and an organisations demands, rewards and values
As PE fit increases, organisational commitment increases,
turnover decreases
Mismatch between a person and their environment is seen as
the primary cause of stress
Measurement of PE fit involves measuring a workers
characteristics and measuring the characteristics of the
environment
Preferable to focus on specific types of PE fit: person-supervisor
value congruence and person-job fit
o How to manage stress
o Individual approaches
Individual: employee assistance progress help programs
Individual level interventions are limited
Implicitly attribute primary responsibility for the
management of work stress to employees
The extent to which employees will continue to
experience work stress is not likely to be diminished
o Organisational approaches
Recruitment and selection: Recruit people with high internal
locus of control and high efficacy
Job redesign
Training
Week 5 Leadership
o
o Evaluation:
Criticism has been directed towards the
LPC measure
Criticism favorableness of the situation:
cant tell if the situation is favourable or not
in the real world
Path goal theory
o A leaders role is to help work groups attain their
goals
o A leader is said to adopt:
Directive: task-oriented provided
instructions to get the job done
Achievement-oriented: setting challenging
goals and encouraging and measuring
improvements in performance
Supportive: interpersonal relationships
Participative: encouraging group members
to take a more active role in decision
making
o The choice of leader behaviour is contingent on
the type of work task and characteristics of
followers
o Situational characteristics
Work-group characteristics
Task structure
Formal authority system
o Worker characteristics
Locus of control
Perceived ability
Experience
o
o Evaluation
Very general approach but can be applied
in any industry
Specific leadership training or interventions
Model has recently been expanded
Vrooms decision making model
o Leaders are decision makers
o Prescriptive advice provides a decision tree
o Identifies 5 decision-making styles
Autocratic decision making 1: making
decision by themselves by information only
available as leader
Autocratic decision making 2: gathers
information and makes decision alone
Consultative decision making 1: seeking
information from those around you but
make decision alone
Consultative decision making 2: get feed
back from the group and make decision
alone
Group decision making: group members
get to vote on the decision
o Evaluation:
Research supportive of this model
Complex
Leader-member exchange model
o Leaders develop a unique relationship with each
follower
o The follower is the key situational (contingency)
factor
o High quality LMX (higher commitment) vs low
quality LMX (doing only whats required of their
employment contract)
o Hard to change from low to high quality LMX
o The quality of the LMX relationship influences
important outcomes
o Factors that influence the LMX relationship
Similarity in values
Demography characteristics
Follower competence and job interest
o Evaluation
Unique perspective
Evidence supports core propositions
Benefits of approach
Acknowledges situation
Has led to the development of leadership programs
Emphasizes that it is more effective to change the
situation
New leadership theories e.g. transformational and charismatic
leadership. Effective leadership assumption differs from past
approaches
Charismatic leadership theory
Karl Weber: 5 components
o Extraordinarily gifted person
o Social crisis
o A vision
o A set of followers
o The validation of the leaders extraordinary gifts
through repeated success
Conger and Kanungo stage model of charismatic
leadership
o Stage 1: evaluation of existing situation
o Stage 2: formation and communication of a vision
o Stage 3: build trust
Transformational Leadership Theory
Burns: transactional leadership with transforming
leadership
Bass: built on this model contrast transactional with
transformational
Transformational leaders motivate followers to achieve
performance beyond expectations by transforming
followers attitudes, beliefs and values as opposed to
simply gaining compliance
Transformational leadership is defined primarily in terms
of the influence that leaders have on followers
o Transformational leadership displays significantly
stronger relationships with measures of
effectiveness than transactional leadership
Evaluation of new leadership theories
Confusion between charismatic and transformational
leadership
Definition of the transformational behaviours what they
are
Insufficient attention paid to the role of the situation
Destructive leadership
Individuals who repeatedly violate the legitimate interest
of an organisation by undermining or sabotaging the
company goals, tasks, resources, and the motivation,
well being or effectiveness of followers
Abusive supervision: subordinates perceptions of the
extent to which supervisors engage in the sustained
display of hostile verbal and non-verbal behaviours,
excluding physical contact
Negative relationship with outcomes
Laissez-faire leadership
The absence of leadership and a failure to intervene
Negative relationship with outcomes
o Consider leader traits and behaviours and situational characteristics when
thinking about effective leadership in organisations
o Definition
o Concerned with choices made about the nature and content of
peoples jobs and how these choices affect individual and
organisational outcomes such as employee well-being and
productivity
o Historical context
o The Craft Approach single workers complete whole jobs
o The Industrial Revolution e.g. Babbage
o Scientific management (Taylor)
o Industrial Fatigue Board:
Boredom has become increasingly prominent as a factor in the
industrial life of the worker and its effects are no less important
than those of fatigue
o Taylors Philosophy
It is only through enforced standardisation of methods,
enforced adoption of the best implements and working
conditions and enforced cooperation that this faster work can
be ensured. And the duty of enforcing this cooperation rests
with management alone
o Theories
o Job characteristics model
Skill Variety: degree to which a job involves a variety to duties
and tasks that allow employees to utilize a variety of
knowledge, skills and abilities
Task Identity: degree to which a job allows employees to be
involved in a work activity from beginning to end, facilitating a
sense of task accomplishment
Task Significance: the jobs impact on the lives or work of other
people, whether within or outside the organisation
Autonomy: degree of freedom, independence and discretion in
scheduling work and work procedures
Job Feedback: degree to which carrying out the tasks required
results in direct and clear information about the effectiveness of
performance
Motivating potential score:
Results
o Employees in the self-managing work teams
reported higher levels of job satisfaction and
organisational commitment (but not managerial
trust)
o Contrary to initial expectation, however, rates of
absenteeism and turnover were higher in the
greenfield site than in the established plant
Job Redesign
o Emerging trends in job design
o Work life balance
Major issue for todays workforce
Increase in two-career families
Organisations expecting more work from fewer people
Ways to become unbalanced
Work at home
Home at work
Redesigning the workplace
Child care at work
Integrating family into work
Clarifying work/home boundaries
Making boundaries flexible
o Flexitime: workers choose when they work e.g.
public service, university
o Compressed work weeks 4*10hr days
o Job sharing
o Telecommuting
Telecommuting
Organisational vs individual outcomes
Organisational advantages
Lower accommodation costs
Recruitment & retention
Productivity
Resilience to extreme conditions
Organisational disadvantages
Individual advantages
Individual disadvantages
Golden, Veiga & Simsek
Examined whether telecommuting had a differential
impact on work-to-family vs family-to-work conflict
Examined the moderating roles of scheduling flexibility &
household size
Results
o Extent of telecommuting was negatively related to
work-to-family conflict
o Extent of telecommuting was positively related to
family-to-work conflict
o Affect measurement
The PANAS
o OB applications of emotions and moods
o Emotions and selection (emotions affect employee effectiveness)
o Decision making (emotions are an important part of the decision
making process in organisations)
o Creativity (positive mood increases creativity)
o Motivation (emotional commitment to work and high motivation are
strongly linked)
o Leadership (emotions are important to acceptance of messages from
organisational leaders)
o Interpersonal conflict (conflict in the workplace and individual
emotions are strongly intertwined)
o Negotiation (emotions can impair negotiations)
o Customer services (emotions affect service quality delivered to
customers which, in turn, affects customer relationships)
o Job attitudes (can carry over to home)
o Deviant workplace behaviours (negative emotions lead to employee
deviance, actions that violate norms and threaten the organisation)
Week 8 Turnover
o Withdrawal
o Withdrawal: the physical and/or psychological avoidance by
employees or their workplace
o Psychological withdrawal: a mental state in which an employee is
disengaged from the work environment
o Physical withdrawal: the act of physically removing oneself from the
work environment through such behaviours as tardiness, absence, and
turnover
o Turnover
o Involuntary vs voluntary turnover
Involuntary: turnover initiated by the organisation
Voluntary: turnover initiated by employees
o Models of voluntary turnover
Micro research: Mobley intermediate linkages in the
relationship between job satisfaction and job turnover
job dissatisfaction thoughts of quitting intention to
search for another job turnover intentions voluntary
turnover
Empirical evidence on the antecedents and outcomes of
voluntary turnover
Kwon et al. (2012)
o Voluntary turnover-performance relationship can
be influenced by an organisations context
o Voluntary turnover can potentially have either
positive or negative effects on performance
depending on the context
o Moderating role of:
HR system: use of EI practices
Investment in training and development
Availability of potential workers
o EI practices strengthen the negative relationship
between voluntary turnover and organisational
performance
o Marginal support for the availability of potential
workers
o No support for the investment in training and
development
The unfolding model of turnover
Focused on shocks to the system a distinguishable
event that jars employees towards deliberate
judgements about their jobs and perhaps to voluntarily
quit their organisation
Not all events are shocks
Individuals make a judgement about whether an events
can be dealt with easily and determine what if an actions
will occur
4 decision paths
o Shock to system draw on previous experience
decide whether to stay or not with no
consideration of alternative jobs or current job
satisfaction
o Shock to system no previous experience
deliberate thinking about circumstances around
the shock if it leads to no positive
consequences, quit
o Shock to system no previous experience
specific job alternatives available think about
staying or not
o No shock change in job-person it or growing
dissatisfaction with job over time
Job embeddedness theory
LINKS
FIT
SACRIFICE
People who are more embedded in their jobs have less
intent to leave the organisation
Job embeddedness adds to the prediction of turnover
over and above:
o Job satisfaction and commitment
o Job alternatives and job search behaviours
o Interventions
o Absence
o Absenteeism: occurs when an employee does not report to work when
scheduled
o Excused absences/involuntary: absences in which employees notify
their employer in advance that they will not be in on a given day and
the employer approves of the absence
o Unexcused absences/voluntary: absences in which an employee with
no advance approval simply fails to show up to work when scheduled
o Causes:
Long term
Depression
Smoking
Alcohol or drug abuse
Lack of exercise
Short term
Lack of attendance incentives
Unhealthy employees
Lack of work group pressure to attend
Intermediate
Job satisfaction
Job job involvement
Low organisational commitment
Monotonous work
Work group norms that encourage absenteeism
Inflexible work outs
o Empirical data on the antecedents of absenteeism
Harrison & Martocchio
Personality
Demographics
Attitudes
Social context
Decision making processes
The antecedents differ depending on the time scale adopted
In the long term
In the mid term
In the short term
o Costs associated with absence
Pay for time not worked
Benefits payments
Premium pay for temporary workers
Salaries and benefits for supervisors
Underutilized facilities
Substandard quantity and quality of production
Increased inspection and supervision costs
o Strategies for preventing absenteeism and turnover
Employee surveys
Incentives and special compensation programs
Wellness programs
Accurate record keeping
Job enrichment
Safe and clean work environment
Exit interviews
Career planning
Open communication
Work and non-work balance options
Flexible work schedules
Compelling organisational culture
High-involvement work processes
Week 9 Teams
o What is a team
o
o What are the benefits of working in teams?
o What are the downsides of working in teams?
o Types of teams
o Problem solving
o Self managed
o Cross-functional
o Virtual
o Value of work teams?
o Increased employee motivation
o Higher levels of productivity
o Increased employee satisfaction
o Common commitment to goals
o Improved communication
o Why are teams important? managements perspective
o Mixture of people results in cross-fertilizing ideas innovation
o Teams integrate and link across a number of information processing
units
o Saving time by performing tasks concurrently rather than sequentially
o Stages of team development
o Forming
o Storming
o Norming
o Performing
o Key roles of teams
o Linker: coordinates and integrates
o Creator: initiates creative ideas
o Promoter: champions ideas after theyre initiated
o Assessor: offers insightful analysis of opinions
o Organiser: provides structure
o Producer: provides direction and follow through
o Controller: examines details and enforces rules
o Maintainer: fights external battles
o Adviser: encourages the search for more information
o What is a successful team?
o A 3D conception of work team effectiveness
Team performance: quality, quantity, and timeliness indicators
are important
Team viability: the ability to work together again
Personal growth and well-being
o Attributes of a successful team
Clear goals for both team and members
Built in performance feedback
Diversity in membership (cross-functional): professional back
ground, organisational tenure
Cohesiveness
Skills for managing external boundaries
Reflection on team processes, objectives and performance
(team self-evaluation)
o Team effectiveness model what factors influence team effectiveness?
Context
Adequate members
Leadership and structure
Climate of trust
Composition
Abilities of members
Personality
Allocating jokes
Diversity
Size of teams
Member flexibility
Member preferences
Work design
Autonomy
Skill variety
Task identity
Task significance
Process
Common purpose
Specific goals
Team efficacy
Conflict levels
Social loafing
o Effects of group processes
Potential group effectiveness + process gains process losses
= actual group effectiveness
o Team composition
Teams with higher levels of technical knowledge and skill
perform better
Knowledge skills and abilities that lead to effective functioning
Conflict resolution, collaborative problem solving,
communication, goal setting, planning
Personality attributes:
Positively: agreeableness, conscientiousness, self-
reliance
Negative: authoritarianism, dominance
For many traits, balance is good e.g. extraversion
o Organisational context
Support for teams
Reward systems: team bonus
Communication systems: shared computer network
Physical space: open plan office
Organisational environment: feedback at team level
Empowerment & authority structures i.e. team provided
autonomy
External context: high turbulence or complexity teams
maximally effective
o The task
Job design
Job autonomy, variety, significance, identify, feedback
as these increase so does team effectiveness
You dont require a team to do a very simple task
o Cohesion driving team success
o Team processes actions that the team engages in while working
together
o Team cohesion: the degree to which team members are attracted to
each other and are motivated to stay in the group
o How does cohesion develop?
Time spent together
Severity of initiation
Group size
Previous successes
External threats
Similarity e.g. gender
o
o Why do teams fail
o Inappropriate use of teams
o Lack of support from organisational leaders
o Lack of good information
o Lack of team member skills
o Lack of good processes
o Need to attend to internal (team development, conflict management)
and external factors (support from leaders)
o Team conflict
Task conflict positive for team performance relationship conflict
negative for team performance
A meta-analysis found task conflict also negative for team
performance
Determine how to have positives without negatives
o Group think: desire for conformity overrides good decision-making
Bay of Pigs invasion
Devils advocate
o Psychological safety
Psychological safety leads to better team learning
Interpersonal risk-taking
Using wrong dosage in medical terms
o Faultlines
Subgroups within teams
Identify with subgroup rather than team
Structured unstructured time to build we rather than us and
them
o Interventions
o Team building data-based interventions where a team examines
issues such as:
Goals
Structure/roles
Procedures
Culture
Norms
Interpersonal relationships
o Used for increasing the communication, cooperation, and
cohesiveness of units to make them more productive and effective
o Role analysis technique
o The focal role member considers his/her place in the team, the
purpose of the role, the contribution of the role to the team and
organisation
o Other team members write up their expectations of the focal role
member
o Focal role member list & agree on expectations of other members
o Responsibility charting
o Team building process facilitation
o Often groups have process difficulties, which require some team
building in the form of process facilitation
Define team outcomes
Define the decisions that need to be made to achieve
outcomes
Define the information required to make these decisions
Exchange and analyse information
Make decisions based on information
Implement decisions to achieve outcomes
o Teams arent always the answer
o Three tests to see if a team fits the situation
Is the work complex and is there a need for different
perspectives?
Does the work create a common purpose or set of goals for the
group that is larger than the aggregate of the goals for
individuals?
Are members of the group involved in interdependent tasks?
o Considerations
o Romance of teams
Socio-emotional and competence-related benefits rather than
high performance
o Mavericks take more risks: some people more suited to teams than
others
o Conclusion
o Teams are increasingly important in organisations
o Different types of teams
o Team development model
o Factors influencing team effectiveness
o Interventions
Week 10 Organisational Culture
o Introduction
o Organisational-level constructs
o Debate regarding the definition and measurement of culture
o Multiple perspectives
o Organisation systems levels, group levels, individual levels
o Defining organisational culture
o Unwritten rules or the taken for granted assumptions about the way
we do things around here
o Personality of an organisation
o Cultural strength
o Influenced by
Agreement with the cultural values as a whole (intensity)
Number of members sharing the central values (breadth)
o Do organisations have uniform cultures?
o Dominant culture
Expresses the core values that are shared by a majority of the
organisations members
o Subcultures
minicultures within an organisation, typically defined by
department designations and geographical separation
o Iceberg model of organisational culture
o Physical artifacts can be seen: clearly observable, includes language,
behaviours, and other symbols
o Intangible activities and routines
o Underlying values (shared beliefs about what is good or right),
assumptions (taken for granted solutions to problems), beliefs and
expectations
o Functions of organisational culture
o Decrease anxiety
o Defines boundaries of an organisation
o Conveys a sense of identity
o Generates commitment to higher-order goals
o Enhances stability of the social system
o Serves as a regulatory mechanism for attitudes and behaviours
o Dimensions of organisational culture
o Process-oriented vs results-oriented
o Employee-oriented vs job oriented
o Parochial vs professional
o Open vs closed
o Loose vs tight
o Normative vs pragmatic
o Cultural frameworks
o Competing values framework
o Organisations are classified according to whether they value flexibility
or control in their structures
o Organisations differ in terms of whether they adopt an inward focus
towards their internal dynamics or an external focus towards the
environment
o
o Measurement
Competing values framework initially assessed using a
scenario approach
Cameron and Ettington argued that the culture of an
organisation could be reflected in 4 organisational attributes
Strategic emphasis
Organisational bonding
Leader style
Dominant affective characteristic
For each of these attributes four scenarios were
developed to describe each of the four types of
organisational cultures
o Empirical findings of the CV model
o Studies have looked at the link between the CV model and
organisational effectiveness
o Results suggest
HR better morale and reduced turnover
OS more new ideas, products, and services
IP accurate records and on-time delivery
RG higher quality and bigger profits
o People oriented supportive and personal cultures are associated with
Positive affect (job satisfaction, commitment)
Reduced turnover
o Some cultures associated with reduced turnover regardless of
performance levels or fit of staff with values
o How cultures develop and change over time
o What leaders pay attention to
o How leaders react to critical incidents
o Role modelling leaders behaviours and coaching from leaders
o Rules that establish criteria for allocation of rewards/status
o The criteria for selection, recruitment, promotion
o Less important factors
Organisational design and structure formal allocation of roles
and authority
Organisational systems and procedures
Design of the physical space
Stories, myths, symbols
Formal statements of organisational philosophy
o Changing culture
Not a simple or easy issue, maybe 10+ years
Researchers suggest that we promote that aspects of a culture
that are critical or adaptive and those that are dysfunctional
o Interventions
o Future search conferences to generate awareness, concern,
understanding, and support
Focus on the past. Ask participants to recall significant events
and milestones that are relevant to the last 3 decades from the
perspective of self, company society
Focus on present issues that shape the future of the
organisation
Focus on the future, new groups are formed and are asked to
develop a draft of a preferred future scenario
Groups reflect on issues that have surfaced and make
suggestions for themselves, their function and the total
organisation
o Beckhards confrontation meeting one day of meetings involving
management
Climate setting open discussion of issues and problems
Info collection identify factors that make the organisation less
effective and factors that make the organisation more effective
Info sharing, groups report on their discussions
Priority setting and action planning
Immediate follow up by top team, top team meets after the
other participants have left to plan follow up and determine
what actions to be taken
Progress review
o Conclusions
o Organisational culture is a key influence on employee behaviour
o It is critical that we understand organisational culture in order to work
effectively in organisational settings