Motivation and Job Design

MGMT 550, Spring 2000Maggie Kolkena

Check-In

Learning Application: apply the reading to your worldRate your job: on a scale from 1-10 how well is your job designed?

Objectives

Review theories of motivationExamine elements of job designIntroduce Socio-Tech designAnalyze real jobs Communication in Virtual Teams

How do I motivate my employees?

Attribution Theory and Motivation

Perception is realityManagers perceive that one thing or another motivates an employee Attribution Theory: one’s beliefs influence our actions

Theories of Motivation

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Physiological Needs

Security Needs

Ego/Self-esteem Needs

Social Needs

Self-Actualization Needs

Basic Needs

Higher Order Needs

Herzberg’s Motivator-Hygiene Theory

Hygiene

Motivators

Factors that contribute to job DISSATISFACTION

Factors that contribute to job

SATISFACTION

Higher Order Needs

Basic Needs

Goal Setting Theory

Locke and Latham’s High Performance CycleMBO

Rewards and Motivation

Extrinsic and intrinsic rewards: GainsharingKerr: The Folly of Rewarding A While Hoping for BAlfie Kohn: Punished by Rewards

Job Design

Cummings and Worley

Org Design

Group Design

Personal Characteristics

Inputs

Individual Effectiveness

e.g. performance, absenteeism, job satisfaction, personal development

Outputs

Task Significanc

e

Task Identity

Skill Variety

Autonomy

Feedback: Results

Design Components

Org Design and Job DesignEnvironment:

Customer (needs) –

Technology (assets required to compete) –

Task Design:

Structure (roles, integrating mechanisms) -

Systems (methods, computer systems etc) -

Staff (experts) -

Social Design:

Style (work habits) –

Shared values (beliefs) –

Organization Requirements:

Strategy (value proposition, goals) – Skills (individual, team and institutional) -

Background of Socio-Tech

Tavistock and the Redfield experiments Trist:Organization ChoiceDavis: job centered approachEmerged when traditional job design focused more on the task requirements

Socio-Tech

Social Requirements

Technological Requirements

Goal: JOINT OPTIMIZATION

Social/Psychological Requirements

Growth Needs High

Growth Needs Low

Social Needs High

Social Needs Low

Technological Requirements

High Task Uncertaint

y

Low Task Uncertaint

y

High Technical Interdependen

ce

Low Technical Interdependen

ce

Socio-Tech RequirementsHigh Growth

Needs & Task

Uncertainty

Low Growth Needs &

Task Uncertainty

High Technical Interdependenc

e & Social Needs

Low Technical Interdependence & Social Needs

Traditional Job Design:

•Low variety

•Low discretion

•Routinized

Traditional Group Design:

•Specified roles

•External supervision

•Planned interaction

Job Enrichment:

•Variety & discretion

•Feedback

•Challenge

Self-Regulating Groups:

•Task differentiation

•Task control

•Boundary control

Application

From equal size teams around the “worst” jobsAnalyze the job using models from Chapter 4, Cummings & Worley and/or Socio-TechDevelop recommendations to improve the jobPresent your work

Communications &

Virtual Teams

Research on Virtual TeamsWorking face-to-face is necessary to form relationships and to become familiar with one another’s work style and temperament. Valuable and informal team-building sessions occur outside business hours. Informal meetings help team members’ size up each other. "It’s important to develop some level of trust and relationship before you can move into electronic communication," says a Lotus representative. Some companies regularly have a face-to-face "bonding fest" to kickoff a new project that will be completed by virtual team members.

Geber, B. (1995, April). Virtual Teams

Trust on Virtual Teams

A "new sociology of organizations “Swift trust"

De-emphasizes the interpersonal dimensions

Based initially on broad categorical social structures and later on action“

Professional reputation and integrity of the team members that warrants trusting each other right from the outset.

(Jarvenpaa & Leidner, 1998)

Knowledge Management

Data

Information

(organized data)

Knowledge

(interpreted information)

Knowledge Management & Virtual Teams

Needs Sharing information to build trust Making tacit knowledge explicit

How to Operationalize? Organization priority (Chevron: "the

single most important employee activity“) Incent Others?