BUSINESS SCHOOL

Organisational Behaviour: LEARNING

Class: 2P3BBM

Lecturer:
 Objectives
• Define learning
• Characteristics and features and learning
• Learning vs Training- students to look and
discuss on their own as agreed.
• Theories of Learning
• Strategies of reinforcement
 LEARNING

• Learning is any permanent change in

behaviour of a person that occurs as result of
experience. It is accompanied by acquisition of
knowledge, skills & expertise which are
relatively permanent
 FEATURES OF LEARNING
1) Learning involves change in behaviour of a person :
The change may be good or bad from organisation’s
point of view. For example : bad habits, prejudice,
etc may be learnt by an individual.
2) Change in behaviour must be relatively permanent :
To constitute learning, change should be relatively
permanent. Temporary changes may be only
reflective and fail to represent any learning . This
rules out behavioural changes caused by fatigue or
drugs.
 Features of Learning Cont’d...
3) The change in behaviour should occur as a result of
experience, practice or training: It implies that
behaviour caused from maturity, disease, or physical
damages does not constitute learning.
4) The practice or experience must be reinforced in
order for learning to occur: If reinforcement does not
accompany the practice or experience, the behaviour
will eventually disappear.
5) Learning is reflected in behaviour : A change in an
individual’s thought process or attitudes, not
accompanied by behaviour, is no learning.
 Features of Learning Cont’d
• Learning must be reinforced : In organisations,
both positive & negative reinforcements should be
used.If behaviour is undesirable, the negative
reinforcement such as denial of a pay raise,
promotion or transfer can be effective. However,
during the orientation & training period, positive
reinforcement is more effective than negative
reinforcement
 THEORIES OF LEARNING
• There are 4 theories which explain how
individuals learn new patterns of behaviour :
• Behaviourist- classical & operant Conditioning
• Cognitive
• Social learning
• Constuctivism- we will talk of these two in detail later
• Experiential Learning
Theories of learning Cont’d...
 CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• Classical Conditioning deals with the association of one event with another
desired event resulting in a desired behaviour or learning.
• Classical conditioning was given by Ivan Pavlov, a famed Nobel prize winning
physiologist.
• Pavlov conducted an experiment on a dog to study the relation between the
dog’s salivation & ringing of a bell. When he presented a piece of meat to the
dog, he noticed a great deal of salivation. He called the food as unconditioned
response. During the second stage, he merely rang the bell, but the dog did not
salivate in response to ringing of the bell. He subsequently introduced the
sound of the bell each time the meat was given to the dog. Thus, eventually the
dog learnt to salivate in response to the ringing of the bell even when there was
no meat. This is how Pavlov conditioned the dog to respond to a learned
stimulus.
 OPERANT CONDITIONING
• Operant conditioning is based on the work of B.F. Skinner. It is based on the
premise that behaviour is a function of its consequences.
• Individuals emit responses that are rewarded & will not emit responses that are
either not rewarded or are punished. Behaviour is likely to be repeated if the
responses are favourable & it is not likely to be repeated if the consequeces are
unfavourable.
• Operant conditioning is a powerful tool for people in the organisations. Most
behaviours in organisations are learned, controlled & altered by consequences.
• Management can use this process to control & influence the behaviour of
employees by manipulating the reward system. Thus, behavioural consequences
that are rewarding increase the rate of response , while the aversive
consequences decrease the rate of response.
 COGNITIVE LEARNING
• Cognition refers to an individual’s ideas,
thoughts, knowledge, interpretations,
understandings, etc about himself & his
environment.
• The theory states that when people observe a
model performing a behavior and the
consequences of that behavior, they remember
the sequence of events and use this
information to guide subsequent behaviors.
 SOCIAL LEARNING
• Social learning theory is extension of operant
conditioning
• The view that we can learn through both
observation and direct experience is called
social learning
 SHAPING BEHAVIOUR
• In any organisation, managers are concerned with making their subordinates
learn those behaviours that are most beneficial to the organisation. When a
manager moulds individuals by guiding their learning, he is shaping behaviour.

• THE LAW OF EFFECT : The operant conditioning is based on the law of effect
propounded by Thorndike. The law states that the behaviour that has rewarding
consequence is likely to be repeated, whereas the behaviour that leads to
negative consequences tends not to be repeated.

• Example : If Employees work hard to achieve organisational objectives & are

directly rewarded with bonus , they will tend to repeat their efforts when new
objectives are set.
 SRATEGIES OF
REINFORCEMENT
• Reinforcement may be defined as anything
that both increases the strength of response
and tends to induce repetitions of the
behaviour that preceded the reinforcement.
 Positive reinforcement
• Positive reinforcement is a reward or other
desirable consequence that follows a particular
behaviour or activity. Its used to increase the
frequency of action or behaviour.
 Negative reinforcement
• Negative reinforcement takes place when
individuals learn to escape or avoid from
unpleasant consequences. For example :
people learn to drive carefully to avoid
accidents.
 PUNISHMENT
• Punishment is a means of reducing a desired
behavior by introducing a potentially
undesirable consequence.
• For e.g. salary cuts, termination, loss of
privileges and layoffs.
 EXTINCTION
• Extinction is an effective method of controlling
undesirable behaviour. It is based on the
principle that if a response is not reinforced, it
will eventually disappear.
• For example : A disruptive employee who
fights & is punished by the supervisor for doing
so may continue the disruptions because of
the attention they bring. By ignoring the
employee, attention is withheld & also the
motivation for fighting.
Questions
 Assignment
• Behaviour is a function of its consequences.
Discuss. (20 marks.