FOUNDATIONS OF INDIVIDUALS

BEHAVIOR
FOUNDATIONS OF INDIVIDUAL
BEHAVIOR

ABILITY
 An Individual’s Capacity to Perform the Tasks
 What one can do at this point of time (Relates to situation)

Types of Ability
1. Physical Ability
2. Intellectual Ability
 INTELLECTUAL ABILITY

 The capacity/talent to do mental activities. Thinking,

reasoning, and problem solving.
 PHYSICAL ABILITIES

The ability to perform some physical act; contrasting with mental

ability.

The capacity to do task that demand stamina, strength and similar

characteristics.

 People’s capacities to engaged in the physical tasks required to

perform a job
EXAMPLES:

Strength:
Architect engineer require more strength to ensure physical visits on construction sites and to deal
with labor regarding quality of material and work status.

Flexibility:
Restaurant Manager needs to be flexible to deal with the customers beside dealing with kitchen staff
to keep eyes on food quality and other janitorial staff for maintenance.

Stamina:
Sales Person/manager must posses stamina as they might have to travel outside for sales campaign
purposes continuous for long period of time or full day on daily basis.

Speed:
Customer services representatives / Call centre representative job required speed with knowledge to
deal with customer grievances in shorter time frame to cater more customers.
EXAMPLES

Classical Conditioning:
The previous manager of your auto shop made a habit of shout at employees in his office, and
you’ve noticed that calling employees to the office makes them upset or harder to deal with. One
way of handling this would be to avoid the stimulus, in this case the room they associate with
feeling bad. Hold meetings or evaluations elsewhere.

Operant Conditioning:
Organizations are concerned with increasing sales. Positive reinforcement such as a bonus
system are frequently implemented to encourage employees to be more efficient in sales.
Employee would behave ethically towards work and company objectives.
Punishing employees can be problematic since it could lead to even more undesirable
behaviour, for example boycotting the workplace, etc.

Cognitive Learning:
Learners can acquire new behaviours and knowledge by simply observing a model. A model
is a person who demonstrates behaviour for someone else. An employee observes the attitude
and management techniques from his/her manager instead of studying or experience.
 ATTITUDE

 Evaluative statements or judgments – either favorable or unfavorable –

concerning objects, people or events

 Attitudes reflect how one feels about something

 THE ICEBERG

HOW MUCH DO YOU SEE OF AN ICEBERG?

THE ICEBERG

ONLY 10% OF
ANY ICEBERG
IS VISIBLE.
THE
REMAINING
90% IS BELOW
SEA LEVEL.
 THE ICEBERG

VISIBLE
ABOVE SEA LEVEL
10 %
SEA LEVEL

INVISIBLE
BELOW SEA LEVEL

90 %
 THE ICEBERG

 The Iceberg phenomena is also applicable on human beings

…
 THE ICEBERG

KNOWLEDGE
KNOWN &
TO OTHERS
SKILLS SEA LEVEL

UNKNOWN
TO OTHERS

ATTITUDE
 THE ICEBERG

KNOWN
TO OTHERS
BEHAVIOR
SEA LEVEL

UNKNOWN
TO OTHERS

VALUES – STANDARDS – JUDGMENTS

ATTITUDE
MOTIVES – ETHICS - BELIEFS
 BEHAVIOR

Any observable, recordable, and measurable movement, response,

or verbal or nonverbal act demonstrated by an individual
 Components of Attitudes
Attitudes are composed of thinking, feeling, and behaving:

The emotional or
feeling segment
The opinion or of an attitude
belief segment of
an attitude
An intention to behave
in a certain way toward
someone or something
 MARS MODEL

 MARS model of individual behavior is a model that seeks

to elaborate individual behavior as a result of internal and
external factors or influences combined together.

 Motivation: Internal psychological forces that drives an individual to

complete tasks and thus to achieve the goals
 Ability: The power or competence inside an individual to perform the tasks
 Role Perception: Perceiving/belief of an individual about his responsibility
and how he/she accomplish the tasks with producing proper behavior
 Situational Factors: Any factor which contribute to the set of conditions to which a
person acts/reacts.

 MARS MODEL OF BEHAVIOUR AND
PERFORMANCE
Role
perceptions

Motivation
Individual
behaviour and
performance

Situational
factors
EMPLOYEE MOTIVATION

Internal forces that affect a person’s voluntary choice

of behaviour
Direction
Intensity
Persistence

R
M
BAR
A
S
EMPLOYEE ABILITY
Natural aptitudes and learned capabilities required to successfully
complete a task
competencies  personal characteristics that lead to superior
performance
person  job matching
 select qualified people

 develop employee

abilities through training

 redesign job to fit
R
person's existing abilities M
BAR
A
S
EMPLOYEE ROLE PERCEPTIONS
Beliefs about what behaviour is required to achieve the desired
results:
 Understanding what tasks to perform
 Understanding relative importance of tasks
 Understanding preferred behaviours to accomplish tasks

R
M
BAR
A
S
SITUATIONAL FACTORS
Environmental conditions beyond the individual’s short-term control
that constrain or facilitate behaviour
 Time
 People
 Budget
 Work Facilities

R
M
BAR
A
S
JOB SATISFACTION
 It refers to the general attitude of the employees towards their
jobs & the organization.

 How Satisfied Are People in Their Jobs?

 Job satisfaction declined
 Decline attributed to:
 Pressures to increase productivity

 Less control over work

 A Model of Job Satisfaction
Low
Turnover

Organizational Job Low

Factors Satisfaction Absenteeism
Outcomes
Expected/valued

Group Factors

Outcomes High
Turnover
Received Job
Individual
Dissatisfaction
Factors

High
Absenteeism
 THE EFFECT OF JOB SATISFACTION
ON EMPLOYEE PERFORMANCE
 Satisfaction and Productivity
 Satisfied workers aren’t necessarily more productive.
 Worker productivity is higher in organizations with more satisfied workers.

 Satisfaction and Absenteeism

 Satisfied employees have fewer avoidable absences.

 Satisfaction and Turnover

 Satisfied employees are less likely to quit.
 Organizations take actions to cultivate high performers and to weed out
lower performers.
CAUSES OF JOB SATISFACTION

Organizational factors:
 Wages
 Promotions
 Nature of Work (work content, challenges, skill variety, task
identity etc)
 Organizational policies & procedures
 Working Conditions
CAUSES OF JOB SATISFACTION
Group factors:

 Size
 Supervision

Individual factors:

 Personality variables
 Expectations
 Interests
 General life satisfaction