CHAPTER 5 SUMMARY

5-1 Define employee engagement.

Employee engagement is defined as an individual’s emotional and cognitive (rational)

motivation, particularly a focused, intense, persistent, and purposive effort toward
work-related goals. It is emotional involvement in, commitment to, and satisfaction
with the work, as well as a high level of absorption in the work and sense of self-
efficacy about performing the work.

5-2 Explain how drives and emotions influence employee motivation.

Motivation consists of the forces within a person that affect his or her direction,
intensity, and persistence of voluntary behavior in the workplace. Drives (also called
primary needs) are neural states that energize individuals to correct deficiencies or
maintain an internal equilibrium. They generate emotions, which put us in a state of
readiness to act. Needs— goal-directed forces that people experience—are shaped by
the individual’s self-concept (including personality and values), social norms, and past
experience.

5-3 Summarize Maslow’s needs hierarchy, and discuss the employee motivation
implications of intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation, learned needs theory, and
four-drive theory.

Maslow’s needs hierarchy groups needs into a hierarchy of five levels and states that
the lowest needs are initially most chapter summary 145 important but higher needs
become more important as the lower ones are satisfied. Although very popular, the
theory lacks research support, mainly because it wrongly assumes that everyone has the
same hierarchy. The emerging evidence suggests that needs hierarchies vary from one
person to the next, according to their personal values. Intrinsic motivation refers to
motivation controlled by the individual and experienced from the activity itself,
whereas extrinsic motivation occurs when people are motivated to receive something
that is beyond their personal control for instrumental reasons. 
Intrinsic motivation is anchored in the innate drives for competence and
autonomy. Some research suggests that extrinsic motivators may reduce existing
intrinsic motivation to some extent and under some conditions, but the effect is often
minimal.

McClelland’s learned needs theory argues that needs can be strengthened through
learning. The three needs studied in this respect have been need for achievement, need
for power, and need for affiliation. Four-drive theory states that everyone has four
innate drives—acquire, bond, comprehend, and defend. These drives activate emotions
that people regulate through social norms, past experience, and personal values. The
main recommendation from four-drive theory is to ensure that individual jobs and
workplaces provide a balanced opportunity to fulfill the four drives.

5-4 Discuss the expectancy theory model, including its practical implications.

Expectancy theory states that work effort is determined by the perception that effort
will result in a particular level of performance (E-to-P expectancy), the perception that
a specific behavior or performance level will lead to specific outcomes (P-to-O
expectancy), and the valences that the person feels for those outcomes. The E-to-P
expectancy increases by improving the employee’s ability and confidence to perform
the job. The P-to-O expectancy increases by measuring performance accurately,
distributing higher rewards to better performers, and showing employees that rewards
are performance-based. Outcome valences increase by finding out what employees
want and using these resources as rewards.

5-5 Outline organizational behavior modification (OB Mod) and social cognitive
theory, and explain their relevance to employee motivation.

Organizational behavior modification takes the behaviorist view that the environment
teaches people to alter their behavior so that they maximize positive consequences and
minimize adverse consequences. Antecedents are environmental stimuli that provoke
(not necessarily cause) behavior. Consequences are events following behavior that
influence its future occurrence. Consequences include positive reinforcement,
punishment, negative reinforcement, and extinction. The schedules of reinforcement
also influence behavior.

Social cognitive theory states that much learning and motivation occurs by observing
and modeling others, as well as by anticipating the consequences of our behavior. It
suggests that people typically infer (rather than only directly experience) cause-and-
effect relationships, anticipate the consequences of their actions, develop self-efficacy
in performing behavior, exercise personal control over their behavior, and reflect on
their direct experiences. The theory emphasizes self-regulation of individual behavior,
including self-reinforcement, which is the tendency of people to reward and punish
themselves as a consequence of their actions.

5-6 Describe the characteristics of effective goal setting and feedback.

Goal setting is the process of motivating employees and clarifying their role perceptions
by establishing performance objectives. Goals are more effective when they are
SMARTER (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, time-framed, exciting, and
reviewed). Effective feedback is specific, relevant, timely, credible, and sufficiently
frequent. Strengths-based coaching (also known as appreciative coaching) maximizes
employee potential by focusing on their strengths rather than weaknesses. Employees
usually prefer nonsocial feedback sources to learn about their progress toward goal
accomplishment.

5-7 Summarize equity theory and describe ways to improve procedural justice.

Organizational justice consists of distributive justice (perceived fairness in the

outcomes we receive relative to our contributions and the outcomes and contributions
of others) and procedural justice (fairness of the procedures used to decide the
distribution of resources). Equity theory has four elements: outcome–input ratio,
comparison other, equity evaluation, and consequences of inequity. The theory also
explains what people are motivated to do when they feel inequitably treated.
Companies need to consider not only equity in the distribution of resources but also
fairness in the process of making resource allocation decisions.
CHAPTER 6 SUMMARY

6-1 Discuss the meaning of money and identify several individual-, team-, and
organizational-level performance-based rewards.

Money (and other financial rewards) is a fundamental part of the employment

relationship, but it also relates to our needs, our emotions, and our self-concept. It is
viewed as a symbol of status and prestige, as a source of security, as a source of evil, or
as a source of anxiety or feelings of inadequacy.

Organizations reward employees for their membership and seniority, job status,
competencies, and performance. Membership-based rewards may attract job applicants
and seniority-based rewards reduce turnover, but these reward objectives tend to
discourage turnover among those with the lowest performance. Rewards based on job
status try to maintain internal equity and motivate employees to compete for
promotions. However, they tend to encourage a bureaucratic hierarchy, support status
differences, and motivate employees to compete and hoard resources. Competency-
based rewards are becoming increasingly popular because they encourage skill
development. However, they tend to be subjectively measured and can result in higher
costs as employees spend more time learning new skills.

Awards and bonuses, commissions, and other individual performance-based rewards

have existed for centuries and are widely used. Many companies are shifting to team-
based rewards such as gainsharing plans and to organizational rewards such as
employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), stock options, and profit sharing. Although
ESOPs and stock options create an ownership culture, employees often perceive a weak
connection between individual performance and the organizational reward.

6-2 Describe five ways to improve reward effectiveness.

Financial rewards have a number of limitations, but reward effectiveness can be

improved in several ways. Organizational leaders should ensure that rewards are linked
to work performance, rewards are aligned with performance within the employee’s
control, team rewards are used where jobs are interdependent, rewards are valued by
employees, and rewards have no unintended consequences.

6-3 List the advantages and disadvantages of job specialization.

Job design is the process of assigning tasks to a job, including the interdependency of
those tasks with other jobs. Job specialization subdivides work into separate jobs for
different people. This increases work efficiency because employees master the tasks
quickly, spend less time changing tasks, require less training, and can be matched more
closely with the jobs best suited to their skills. However, job specialization may reduce
work motivation, create mental health problems, lower product or service quality, and
increase costs through discontentment, absenteeism, and turnover.

6-4 Diagram the job characteristics model and describe three ways to improve
employee motivation through job design.

The job characteristics model is a template for job redesign that specifies core job
dimensions, psychological states, and individual differences. The five core job
dimensions are skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job
feedback. Jobs also vary in their required social interaction (task interdependence),
predictability of work activities (task variability), and procedural clarity (task
analyzability). Contemporary job design strategies try to motivate employees through
job rotation, job enlargement, and job enrichment. Organizations introduce job rotation
to reduce job boredom, develop a more flexible workforce, and reduce the incidence of
repetitive strain injuries. Job enlargement involves increasing the number of tasks
within the job. Two ways to enrich jobs are clustering tasks into natural groups and
establishing client relationships.

6-5 Define empowerment and identify strategies that support empowerment.

Empowerment is a psychological concept represented by four dimensions: self-

determination, meaning, competence, and impact, related to the individual’s role in the
organization. Individual characteristics seem to have a minor influence on
empowerment. Job design is a major influence, particularly autonomy, task identity,
task significance, and job feedback. Empowerment is also supported at the
organizational level through a learning orientation culture, sufficient information and
resources, and corporate leaders who trust employees.

6-6 Describe the five elements of self-leadership and identify specific personal and
work environment influences on self-leadership.

Self-leadership refers to specific cognitive and behavioral strategies to achieve personal

goals and standards through self-direction and self-motivation. These strategies include
personal goal setting, constructive thought patterns, designing natural rewards, self-
monitoring, and self-reinforcement. Constructive thought patterns include self-talk and
mental imagery. Self-talk occurs in any situation in which a person talks to himself or
herself about his or her own thoughts or actions. Mental imagery involves mentally
practicing a task and imagining successfully performing it beforehand. People with
higher levels of conscientiousness, extroversion, and a positive self-concept engage in
more self-leadership. Selfleadership also occurs more readily in workplaces that
support empowerment and have high trust between employees and management.
CHAPTER 7 SUMMARY

7-1 Describe the elements of rational choice decision making.

Decision making is a conscious process of making choices among one or more

alternatives with the intention of moving toward some desired state of affairs. Rational
choice decision making identifies the best choice by calculating the expected valence of
numerous outcomes and the probability of those outcomes. It also follows the logical
process of identifying problems and opportunities, choosing the best decision style,
developing alternative solutions, choosing the best solution, implementing the selected
alternative, and evaluating decision outcomes.

7-2 Explain why people differ from rational choice decision making when
identifying problems/ opportunities, evaluating/choosing alternatives, and
evaluating decision outcomes.

Solution-focused problem identification, decisive leadership, stakeholder framing,

perceptual defense, and mental models affect our ability to objectively identify
problems and opportunities. We can minimize these challenges by being aware of the
human limitations and discussing the situation with colleagues.

Evaluating and choosing alternatives is often challenging because organizational goals

are ambiguous or in conflict, human information processing is incomplete and
subjective, and people tend to satisfice rather than maximize. Decision makers also
short-circuit the evaluation process when faced with an opportunity rather than a
problem. People generally make better choices by systematically evaluating
alternatives. Scenario planning can help make future decisions without the pressure and
emotions that occur during real emergencies.

Confirmation bias and escalation of commitment make it difficult to evaluate decision

outcomes accurately. Escalation is mainly caused by the self-justification effect,
selfenhancement effect, the prospect theory effect, and sunk costs effect. These
problems are minimized by separating decision choosers from decision evaluators,
establishing a preset level at which the decision is abandoned or reevaluated, relying on
more systematic and clear feedback about the project’s success, and involving several
people in decision making.

7-3 Discuss the roles of emotions and intuition in decision making.

Emotions shape our preferences for alternatives and the process we follow to evaluate
alternatives. We also listen in on our emotions for guidance when making decisions.
This latter activity relates to intuition—the ability to know when a problem or
opportunity exists and to select the best course of action without conscious reasoning.
Intuition is both an emotional experience and a rapid, nonconscious, analytic process
that involves pattern matching and action scripts.

7-4 Describe employee characteristics, workplace conditions, and specific activities

that support creativity.

Creativity is the development of original ideas that make a socially recognized

contribution. The four creativity stages are preparation, incubation, illumination, and
verification. Incubation assists divergent thinking, which involves reframing the
problem in a unique way and generating different approaches to the issue.

Four of the main features of creative people are intelligence, persistence, expertise, and
independent imagination. Creativity is also strengthened for everyone when the work
environment supports a learning orientation, the job has high intrinsic motivation, the
organization provides a reasonable level of job security, and project leaders provide
appropriate goals, time pressure, and resources. Four types of activities that encourage
creativity are redefining the problem, associative play, cross-pollination, and design
thinking. Design thinking is a human-centered, solution-focused creative process that
applies both intuition and analytical thinking to clarify problems and generate
innovative solutions. Four rules guide this process: human rule, ambiguity rule, re-
design rule, and tangible rule.

7-5 Describe the benefits of employee involvement and identify four contingencies
that affect the optimal level of employee involvement.
Employee involvement refers to the degree that employees influence how their work is
organized and carried out. The level of participation may range from an employee
providing specific information to management without knowing the problem or issue,
to complete involvement in all phases of the decision process. Employee involvement
may lead to higher decision quality and commitment, but several contingencies need to
be considered, including the decision structure, source of decision knowledge, decision
commitment, and risk of conflict.