Download - Radu Baltasiu Organizational Behavior 2006
UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
Faculty of Sociology and Social Work
Master of Business Administration
Conf.univ.dr. Radu BALTASIU
Organizational Behavior
semester
2006/2007
Organizational Behavior Conf.univ.dr. Radu Baltasiu – autumn-winter 2006-2007
University of Bucharest
1. Introduction. Organizational Behavior and Global processes
What is Organizational Behavior?
―[T]he study and understanding of individual and group behaviour, and patterns of
structure in order to help improve organisational performance and effectiveness.‖
(Mullins: 14)
―Behavioural science attempts to structure organisations in order to secure the
optimum working environment. It is concerned with reconciling the needs of the
organisation for the contribution of maximum productivity, with the needs of
individuals and the realisation of their potential. Emphasis is on the application of
relevant aspects of psychological and sociological theory and practice, and cultural
influences, to problems of organisations and management in the work situation.‖
(Mullins: 19)
Analyzing the definition. The keywords
In order to better understand the definition of organizational behavior let‘s split it
in keywords. These are the following:
The individual – humans are the starting point of every organization
The group – the company is group structured
Understanding both
Identifying the
Structural patterns of organizations
To improve
Organizational effectiveness – this is the ultimate goal of organizational
behavior;
Reconciling
The needs of individuals and organizations – in order to have organizational
effectiveness.
Further on, ―Organizational Behavior is the study and application of knowledge about
how people, individuals, and groups act in organizations. It does this by taking a
system approach. That is, it interprets people organization relationships in terms of
the whole person, whole group, whole organization, and whole social system. Its
purpose is to build better relationships by achieving human objectives, organizational
objectives, and social objectives.‖ (Donald Clark: 1)
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A multidisciplinary approach
Organizational behavior deals with people‘s attitudes and needs (psychology),
with organization‘s structure (sociology) and cultural patterns of organizing work
(anthropology). That is, organizational behavior is a multidisciplinary approach,
using theories, methods and perspectives from all these scientific fields.
Understanding the context of Organizational Behavior - Globalization
Globalizarea este procesul prin care spaţiile social-culturale ale lumii se unifică
sub o coordonare politico-economică. Această coordonare nu este neapărat una
directă, prin decizii luate de un centru instituţional vizibil. Coordonarea are loc
prin mecanisme „obiective‖, de sistem. Culturile locale se integrează într-un
sistem mondial, sub umbrela unei culturi dominante.
―Markets which were previously separated and localized have become merged,
and have been superseded by world-wide patterns of production and consumption
coordinated by global institution and organizations. Social patterns and
relationships which were only local in scale have become global in content.‖
(―Pieţele care iniţial erau separate unele de altele s-au unificat şi au devenit
încorporate într-un mecanism global de producţie şi consum, mecanism coordonat
de instituţii şi organizaţii globale. Tipurile sociale generale şi relaţiile care aveau
iniţial o dimensionare locală au căpătat conţinuturi globale.‖ (David Clark, Urban
World / Global City, Routledge, London and New York, 1996, p. XI)
Understanding the context of Organizational Behavior - The Cyberspace
We will briefly state some characteristics of the new context in which the modern
enterprise operates.
One of the most interesting reality is that of the cyberspace:
―A term coined by William Gibson, a science fiction writer, to refer to a near-
future computer network where users mentally travel through matrices of data.
The term is now usually used to describe the Internet and other computer
networks.‖
―.... some commentators have suggested that ICTs are facilitating the emergence
of new forms of human interaction in what is becoming known as cyberspace: a
computer-generated public domain which has no territorial boundaries or physical
attributes and is in perpetual use.‖ (Loader, Cyberspace, p.229, respective p.1)
Principalele caracteristici ale ciberspaţiului sunt:
- Lumea gândită ca reţea informatică
- Realitatea este generată informatic
- Reţelele informatice în care se poate călători mental
În consecinţă realitatea fizică are o importanţă redusă (nu există graniţe fizice iar
atributele fizice sunt minimale ca importanţă)
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Implications of globalization upon people and organizations 1
―The effective management of people takes place in the context of the wider
environmental setting, including the changing patterns of organisations and attitudes
to work. It is frequently documented that a global economy, increased business
competitiveness, the move towards more customer-driven markets, advances in
scientific knowledge, especially telecommunications and office automation, and
downsizing of organisations have led to a period of constant change and the need for
greater organisational flexibility.
Jobs are becoming a series of short-term contracts and a large majority of workers
believe a job for life no longer exists and are concerned about job security.‖ (Mullins:
8, emphassis added)
Implications of globalization upon people and organizations 2: Weakening loyalties
―… [A]lthough responsibility is accepted, it is often seen as an unwanted imposition
and there is a feeling of helplessness among many people in their work environment.‖
―Organisations are making increasing use of group or team approaches to work with
an emphasis on co-operation, participation and empowerment.‖
―The power and influence of private and public organisations, the rapid spread of new
technology, and the impact of various socio-economic and political factors have given
rise to the concept of corporate social responsibilities and business ethics. Increasing
attention is being focused on the ethical behaviour which underlie the decisions and
actions of managers and staff …‖ (Mullins: 8, emphasis added)
Implications of globalization upon people and organizations 3: Privatization of the social environment
Autonomizarea individului, care din punct de vedere al aplicabilităţii tehnologice este
un succes, din punct de vedere social, a capabilităţilor de socializare poate fi o
exagerare. Omul se înstrăinează de sine şi toate tipurile de vecinătăţi prin intermediul
tehnologiilor comunicării la distanţă şi de creare a produselor prin intermediul
computerului (care poate fi un PC sau orice alt mijloc de relaţionare electronic-
virtuală inteligentă, care conţine micropocesoare, mijloace de comunicare la distanţă
etc.).
Această fragmentare a spaţiului social prin recluziunea accentuată a individului în
spaţiul său de lucru este componentă a privatizării spaţiului social.
O altă componentă importantă a privatizării spaţiului social este creşterea puterii
administraţiei computerizate dincolo de posibilităţile uzuale de control public
(Loader: 123). Una dintre cauze este reconfigurarea spaţiului administrativ dintr-unul
ierarhizat într-o reţea de structuri de tip fagure, în care fiecare componentă posedă
autonomie organizatorică şi de conducere. Structurile administrative, private sau
publice se privatizează, în sensul că ies de sub tutela unui for central, căpătând un
spaţiu autonom al intereselor şi autonomie decizională. Ele însele pot forma reţele cu
interese autonome sau de sine stătătoare. Principala capabilitate a acestor structuri
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este autoconconducerea (self-steering) care, la rândul ei implică capacitatea de auto-
organizare (self-organizing capacity).
Implications of globalization upon people and organizations 4: Democracy or the Network of Interests Groups?
Democraţia clasică este înlocuită de reţele
Globalizarea antrenează o reaşezare masivă a centrelor de coordonare socială.
Administraţiile şi capacitatea administrativă se fragmentează, se autonomizează,
se „privatizează‖. Actul de administrare este condiţionat de capacitatea de a
dispune de resursele necesare integrării în circuitul ciberspaţiului. Aşezarea
actului decizional pe reţeaua informatică permite, pentru prima oară în
istorie, micşorarea până la eliminare a distanţei dintre decizia politico-
administrativă şi acţiune. Acţiunea politică şi chiar efectele sale sociale sunt la
distanţă de un „enter‖ în raport cu decizia. Contextul acesta, care favorizează
autonomiile locale, şi deci o mai bună guvernare a comunităţilor, suferă însă de pe
urma unuia dintre cele mai interesante paradoxuri ale globalizării: unificarea
spaţiului de comunicare în cadrul unui uriaş ciberspaţiu antrenează
fragmentarea semnificaţiilor comunicării. Ne amintim că fenomenul devine
posibil datorită erodării drastice a valorilor dominante unificatoare, prin
„privatizarea‖ spaţiilor şi a simbolisticii colective, prin diminuarea puterii
suveranităţilor naţionale etc.
Guvernarea în spaţiul dominat de fluxul informatic devine mai mult decât oricând
spaţiul de acţiune al grupurilor de interese. Sunt autori (Stoker, Molenkpf etc.)
care sunt de acord cu faptul că era participării democratice a maselor a trecut,
guvernarea reducându-se doar la jocul puterii, în acord cu logica unor
interese dominante (în raport cu spaţiul cibernetic).
2. Fundamentele Paradigmatice (I - capitalismul)
Tipologia capitalismului (Weber)
Civilizaţia centrată pe capital cunoaşte două tipuri majore de raportare la profit:
capitalismul modern (sau raţional) şi capitalismul politic (sau de pradă).
Aspectul diferenţiator dintre cele două tipuri de capital este raţionalitatea.
Ce este raţionalitatea?
Raţionalitatea este capacitatea de a face distincţia dintre scopuri şi mijloace. În
cazul capitalismului modern, ocupaţiile care prin excelenţă monitorizează aceste
―diferenţieri‖ sunt contabilitatea şi managementul întreprinderii.
Capitalismul este centrat în diferite proporţii pe muncă, eficienţa capitalului, profit,
resursa umană şi progres tehnologic.
Capitalism modern
Capitalism politic (de pradă)
Raţionalizarea muncii
Dezvoltarea resursei umane
Dezvoltarea tehnologică
Diviziunea muncii între patronat,
management, muncitori. De mersul
întreprinderii se ocupă
managementul în mod autonom
(autonomia – condiţia
profesionalismului)
Profitul se obţine prin intermediul
întreprinderii, prin mai buna situare a
întreprinderii la bursă.
Este centrat pe câştigul personal direct şi
imediat, prin orice mijloace.
Întreprinderea este un mijloc ca oricare
altul pentru atingerea acestui scop.
Nu se respectivă diviziunea muncii, în
întreprindere şi în mecanismul economic se
poate interveni politic şi prin alte mijloace
(corupţie).
Întreprinderea poate fi lichidată uşor în
raport cu interesele imediate de consum ale
poprietarului.
Remuneraţia este în acord cu poziţia
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Întreprinderea este organizată raţional, pe
baza ierarhiei competenţelor. Remuneraţia
este în acord cu funcţia şi competenţa.
Premisele dezvoltării capitalismului
modern sunt:
Mental special al elitelor (credinţa
centrată pe muncă, valori necentrate
pe consum individual)
Piaţa internă dezvoltată
Ocupaţiile capitaliste
dezvoltă putere de
cumpărare
Puterea de cumpărare
impune o creştere constantă
a concurenţei
În absenţa concurenţei de pe
piaţa internă nu există
stimulent pentru dezvoltare
tehnologică şi respectul faţă
de om, ca muncitor
(managementul resurselor
umane)
deţinută, nu în raport cu funcţionalitatea
acesteia, cu competenţele asociate.
Comportamentul elitelor este unul
speculativ.
Bursa are un rol marginal iar forţa de
muncă este dispensabilă (ca şi
întreprinderea)
În consecinţă, întreprinderea nu dezvoltă şi
nu implementează noi tehnologii decât ca
excepţie.
Piaţa internă este foarte slabă. Economia
este subdezvoltată şi, de regulă orientată
către export.
Tipologia capitalismului - Sistemul mondial modern (Wallerstein)
Sistemul mondial modern, sistem capitalist, a luat naştere în secolului al XVI-lea
(I. Wallerstein).
Sistemul mondial este format din centru şi, în raport cu acesta, , din semiperiferii
şi periferii care interacţionează pe o scală a subordonării, într-un sistem de
organizare raţională a muncii la scară globală.
Raţionalitatea sistemului poate deveni iraţionalitate în special în periferia
sistemului, ea este utilă în special în raport cu logica centrului sistemului.
Sistemul mondial este acel mod de ordonare a lumii prin integrarea spaţiilor într-
un singur mecanism de piaţă.
Piaţa mondială funcţionează după principiul eficienţei capitalului în raport cu
interesele centrului. Sistemul mondial modern este o consecinţă a unificării
pieţelor şi a centralizării diviziunii muncii.
Comunităţile şi societăţile naţionale orbitează unele în jurul altora în funcţie de
locul pe care îl ocupă în ierarhia diviziunii internaţionale a muncii.
Sistemul mondial modern, cristalizat odată cu marile modificări culturale din
secolul al XVI-lea şi cu începutul industrialismului din secolul următor, este
caracterizat printr-o diviziune unică a muncii şi o pluralitate de actori politici
(statele naţionale).
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Centrul sistemului posedă cele mai înalte tehnologii şi salarii, are forţa
bancară dominantă,
semiperiferia constă din societăţi decăzute din condiţia de centru sau
candidate la poziţia dominantă, având o putere tehnologică şi o piaţă
internă semnificativă, însă insuficient de dezvoltată pentru a hotărî asupra
principalelor tendinţe politice şi economice, iar
periferiile compun societăţile salahorizate, unde munca este constant
subremunerată şi supraexploatată, unde activităţile de export, oricât de
dezvoltate, nu produc dezvoltare şi unde activităţile sociale sunt puternic
dependente de un sector exportator monocolor, dimpreună cu o viaţă
politică agitată şi controlată de diverse grupuscule şi clici.
3. Fundamentele Paradigmatice (II – paradigmele comportamentului social)
Omul fiinţă socială – premisa altruistă: paradigma altruismului reciproc (Trivers)
Enunţul paradigmei:
„Dacă A îl salvează pe B de la înec, iar probabilitatea ca B, care nu-i este rudă lui
A, de a se îneca este de cel puţin 0,50 în timp ce probabilitatea ca A însuşi să se
înece, încercând să-l salveze pe B, este de maximum 0,05, riscul salvatorului se
înjumătăţeşte deoarece B va fi stimulat să-l salveze pe A într-o situaţie mai mult
sau mai puţin similară.‖ (Trivers, apud Ungureanu, p.27)
Omul este fiinţă socială.
Ce înseamnă acest lucru?
Ce relevanţă are în raport cu ―Comportamentul în Organizaţii‖?
Altruismul este parte componentă primară-primordială a omului ca fiinţă
socială. Este una dintre premisele de la care trebuie să pornească construcţia
oricărei organizaţii.
Ce este o organizaţie?
Este un complex de relaţii dintre oameni, întemeiat pe baza diferitelor
lor aptitudini. Deci, organizaţia este un proces, un schimb social
permanent. Premisa schimbului social este altruismul
De altfel, profesia are ca şi componentă altruismul.
Pe marginea componentei altruiste din profesie
Definiţia profesiei: „Profesia este o formă de ocupaţie cu un statut ridicat,
întemeiată pe cunoaştere, caracterizată de (1) cunoaştere specializată şi abstractă,
(2) autonomie [socială], (3) autoritate faţă de beneficiar şi grupările ocupaţionale
subordonate, (4) un anumit grad de altruism.‖ (Hodson, Sullivan, The Social
Organization of Work, second edition, Wadsworth, 1995, p.288)
Aici ne interesează componenta altruismului – profesia este expresia modernă a
vocaţiei – ocupaţia socială ca şi chemare interioară, care, la rândul ei, este
expresia credinţei. Doza de altruism din profesie este legătura modernităţii cu
credinţa în valorile majore ale umanităţii.
Aparenţă şi fundal; planurile de realitate în organizaţii: paradigma reziduurilor sociabilităţii (Pareto)
Enunţul paradigmei:
―«Clasa reziduurilor în raport cu sociabilitatea este constituită din reziduurile care
se referă la viaţa socială şi cele care se referă la disciplină, fiindcă sentimentele
corespunzătoare sunt întărite de viaţa în societate ... Societatea – p.33 este
imposibilă fără oarecare disciplină şi, în consecinţă, între necesitatea sociabilităţii
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şi cea a disciplinei există o strânsă legătură.» (Vilfredo Pareto) [V. Pareto, Traite
de sociologie generale, vol. 1, Paris-Lausanne, Payot, 1917, p.589]
Definind omul ca fiinţă socială, sociologul italian Vilfredo Pareto consideră că
activitatea umană este motivată de instincte, sentimente, stări afective etc., dar
toate aceste motive sunt «ascunse» de «actorii» umani cu scopul de a obţine
sprijinul sau cooperarea celorlalţi.
Cu alte cuvinte, «actorul» îşi prezintă adesea scopurile şi motivele acţiunii sale în
aşa fel încât ceilalţi să le accepte şi să le sprijine. [a.n.]
Pentru a le face «acceptate» socialmente el dă instinctelor, sentimentelor etc. o
«formă pseudologică»», în sensul că nu poate fi verificată experimental, forma
denumită de Pareto «derivaţie».
Derivaţiile sunt extrem de diferite de la un individ la altul, de la o colectivitate sau
societate la alta, ceea ce ar duce la un «haos» în relaţiile interumane dacă în
varietatea extremă a derivaţiilor nu ar putea fi identificată o parte constantă,
denumită reziduu.
Trebuie, deci, să distingem între formele exterioare în care apare sociabilitatea, şi
care sunt diferite de la un individ sau grup la altul, şi formele ei constante, care
sunt concretizate în reziduurile sociabilităţii.‖ (Ungureanu: 31, 32)
Câteva implicaţii majore:
Realitatea nu este neapărat fenomenul vizibil.
Adevărul nu este neapărat logic. Logica matematică, acurateţea argumentului nu
sunt neapărat mai apropiate de adevăr decât alte tipuri de comportament.
Realitatea aparentă, arată Pareto, este alogică (nu ilogică, adică lipsită de
logică).
Logica realităţii este logica socială, adică sociologie.
Fenomenul social este compus din strat şi substrat.
Partea de substrat, constantă şi sursa ―aparenţei‖ se numeşte reziduu.
Partea de aparenţă, care poate avea coerenţă comportamentală fără a fi însă logică,
se numeşte stratul derivaţiilor.
Reziduurile sociabilităţii şi implicaţii asupra organizaţiilor
Un nivel rezidual fundamental, pe care se bazează organizaţia umană
(organizaţiile), este sentimentul de noi. Individul este ceea ce este în raport cu un
sentiment de apartenenţă faţă de un grup, cu care individul se identifică. Este
grupul numit noi.
În măsura în care organizaţia reuşeşte să se constituie în acel noi din cadrul
fiecărui membru, atunci ea va fi un tot social eficient.
Două tipuri majore de comportament rezidual
Pareto a aplicat studiul reziduurilor şi derivaţiilor în special la studiul elitelor.
Managementul şi patronatul constituie tocmai elitele din cadrul unei organizaţii.
Există două mari categorii reziduale (alături de altele) de comportament care pot
explica evoluţia unei organizaţii:
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Comportamentele axate pe persistenţa agregatelor (sentimentul de
comuniune, de conservare a comunităţii primare)
Comportamentele axate pe instinctul combinărilor sunt tentate să fie
mai puţin loiale grupului din care fac parte şi, la o adică, chiar
organizaţiei, fiind tentate să intre în jocuri de interese diverse.
Elitele centrate pe persistenţa agregatelor tind să fie conservatoare (nu neapărat
antiprogresiste), foarte atente la rolul tradiţiilor şi normelor consacrate. Acestea
sunt adeptele respectului ca sursă a progresului.
Elitele centrate pe instinctul combinărilor tind să acorde o importanţă mai mică
protecţiei mediului lor de apartenenţă, implicit organizaţiei din care fac parte,
considerând adesea că orice este tranzacţionabil.
Schimbul social şi eficienţa organizaţiilor: paradigma schimbului social (Blau)
Enunţul paradigmei:
„«Principiile schimbului social pot fi rezumate astfel: un individ oferă altuia
anumite servicii ca recompensă pentru activitatea acestuia; în acest fel, al doilea
individ se simte obligat faţă de primul; pentru a se achita de această obligaţie, el
trebuie să-i facă, la rândul său, primului individ anumite servicii care pot avea
valoare de recompensă; dacă serviciile pe care şi le fac reciproc cei doi indivizi au
o anumită valoare pentru fiecare dintre ei, fiecare va încerca să-i facă celuilalt cât
mai multe servicii pentru a-l obliga să-şi mărească oferta de răspuns cu scopul de
a se achita de obligaţii; pe măsură ce se primesc cât mai multe bunuri în cadrul
acestui schimb nevoia celor doi indivizi de a schimba servicii începe să scadă»
[Peter M. Blau, Exchange and power in social life, New York, Willey, 1964,
p.89]‖ - Ungureanu – p.37
Schimbul social şi personalitatea
Schimbul social este unul dintre mijloacele prin care personalitatea umană se
dezvoltă. Ne dezvoltăm personalitatea prin interacţiune cu celălalt printr-un
proces de valorizare reciprocă constantă.
În momentul în care am atins un prag valoric, şi aspirăm la mai mult, căutam alt
punct de referinţă pentru a iniţia schimbul social. Acest fapt are o mare importanţă
în ceea ce priveşte logica instituţională a organizaţiei, în sensul că o persoană care
„aspiră la mai mult‖ îşi va modifica periodic pretenţiile faţă de sine şi faţă de
locul de muncă (ce îi oferă organizaţia). Când aceste pretenţii nu vor găsi răspuns,
salariatul fie va părăsi compania, fie va munci cu mai puţină eficienţă („fără
interes‖). Sinele este sine oglindă prin faptul că se realizează prin reflectarea sa în
conştiinţa celorlalţi.
Schimbul social şi eficienţa organizaţiilor
Aşa cum reiese din enunţul paradigmei schimbului social, relaţia socială este
ciclică, iar inserarea în organizaţii are o evoluţie spiralată – omul tinde să-şi
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schimbe punctele de referinţă şi deci aşteptările.. Un bun management ar trebui să
se aştepte la asemenea situaţii.
Pentru a limita ―daunele‖ produse eficienţei relaţiilor sociale care menţin în
funcţiune organizaţia, managementul trebuie să se gândească la timp la soluţii.
Cele mai simple soluţii la ciclicitatea relaţiei sociale din organizaţii se referă la
multiplicarea canalelor schimburilor sociale din interiorul organizaţiei, la
multiplicarea oportunităţilor de autorealizare umană. Aceasta înseamnă:
- creşterea în carieră
- perfecţionare profesională
- rotirea sarcinilor
- creşterea – schimbarea responsabilităţilor şi recunoaşterea de acestor
schimbări de către management şi colegi.
Alte componente ale schimbului social
Blau arată, mai departe, că omul are cel mai adesea o conduită cu raţionalitate
imprecisă, dincolo de aparenţe (ceea ce Boudon numeşte raţionalitate limitată):
―oamenii nu urmăresc decât rareori un scop specific...
preferinţele umane sunt, de regulă, inconsistente;
informaţiile privind alternativele acţiunii nu au fost vreodată complete;
alegerea alternativelor nu este liberă, ci este supusă presiunilor mediului
social (vezi efectul normei sociale).‖ [Peter M. Blau, Exchange and
power in social life, New York, Willey, 1964, p.95, apud Ungureanu,
op.cit, p.39]
Startul relaţiei sociale (Homans)
Startul în orice relaţie socială este dat de încredere şi reciprocitate.
Schimbul social este un proces în cursul căruia se schimbă valori, semnificaţii –
acţiuni cu încărcătură materială şi afectivă pentru parteneri. Creşterea relaţiei este
posibilă numai în condiţiile încrederii reciproce. Dacă creşterea relaţiei nu este
posibilă, indivizii nu se vor separa pur şi simplu, ei intrând într-o ―orbită‖ socială de
sancţionare. Astfel, cel puţin unul dintre actorii schimbului ar putea fi:
- marginalizat
- ―transferat‖ într-o condiţie de inferioritate în ierarhia grupului
- schimbat cu alt partener de către iniţiatorul schimbului.
Homans completează paradigma lui Blau arătând că, pe lângă activităţile obişnuite,
schimbul social se compune din interacţiune şi afect.
Prin interacţiune oamenii se stimulează reciproc, iar componenta afectivă se referă
la vectorul emoţional cu care este investită orice activitate-interacţiune.
O companie centrată pe eficienţa resursei umane va şti să combine interacţiunile
specifice activităţilor uzuale cu substratul lor afectiv. Ceea ce determină adesea
conduita este substratul ei emoţional.
4. Fundamentele Paradigmatice (III – paradigmele comportamentului social)
Diviziunea socială (funcţională) a muncii (Durkheim)
Enunţul paradigmei:
„«Există o lege generală care arată că agregatele parţiale care fac parte dintr-unul
mai vast pot să-şi distingă din ce în ce mai slab propria lor individualitate. Cu cât
este mai extinsă diviziunea muncii, cu atât părţile societăţii sunt mai distincte.
Diviziunea muncii este, deci, cu atât mai mare cu cât este mai mare numărul
indivizilor care se află în contact suficient de puternic încât să reacţioneze unii
faţă de ceilalţi. Dacă vom numi densitate dinamică sau morală apropierea sau
contactul activ al indivizilor, putem spune că diviziunea muncii se extinde direct
proporţional cu densitatea morală sau dinamică a societăţii.»‖ [E. Durkheim, De
la division du travail social, Paris, PUF, 1967, p.163, 202, 238, apud. Ungureanu,
p.42]
Organizaţiile moderne sunt caracterizate de diviziunea funcţională a muncii.
Aceasta caracterizează tipul de solidaritate numită organică, în opoziţie cu
solidaritatea de tip tradiţional, numită şi mecanică.
Solidaritatea organică se referă la faptul că intrăm în relaţii unii cu alţii prin
intermediul profesiei, al competenţelor personale, şi mai puţin datorită afinităţilor
personale.
Desigur, elementele solidarităţii mecanice, cunoscute şi sub denumirea de
relaţionări informale sunt importante, dar nu acestea dau prima
caracteristică organizaţiilor moderne. Logica marilor companii nu este
dată de elemente informale, întrucât organizaţia ar mai înceta să fie
predictibilă (ar fi pe deplin subiectivă). Predictibilitatea este una dintre
caracteristicile fundamentale ale capitalismului modern.
Implicaţii ale paradigmei durkheimiene
Calitatea relaţiilor din cadrul organizaţiei sunt dependente de nivelul de
profesionalism din cadrul acesteia şi nu de loialităţile personale.
Loialităţile personale pot introduce situaţii anomice, adică conduc la
erodarea culturii generale a companiei.
Baza schimbului social este transparentă astfel pentru fiecare, şi face posibilă
cariera (cariera este obiect al schimbului social în cadrul organizaţiei), element
important pentru creşterea organizaţiilor prin încurajarea profesionalizării
continue.
Norma socială şi efectele ei (Muzafer Sherif)
Enunţul paradigmei:
„«Baza psihologică a normelor sociale (stereotip, modă, convenţii, obiceiuri şi
valori) constă în formarea unui cadru de referinţă comună ca produs al contactului
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dintre indivizi. Din momentul în care s-a cristalizat şi a fost însuşit de indivizi,
acest cadru devine factorul ce determină sau modifică reacţiile individului la
situaţiile cu care el se va confrunta mai târziu, fie ele sociale sau nesociale.»‖
[Muzafer Sherif, The Psychology of Social Norms, New York, Harper &
Brothers, 1936, p.97, apud Ungureanu, p.46]
Conformitatea faţă de grup
1. Atunci când indivizii se află într-o situaţie instabilă şi nestructurată în sine, ei
manifestă tendinţa de a stabili o normă sau un punct de referinţă în funcţie de
care apreciază situaţia, iar aceasta este norma individuală a subiectului, cu
funcţia de a-i servi acestuia ca punct de reper pentru toate experienţele lui
ulterioare;
2. dacă un asemenea subiect este pus însă să acţioneze în cadrul unui grup, el va
avea tendinţa de a-şi modifica norma individuală în aşa fel încât aceasta să fie
convergentă normelor individuale ale celorlalţi, rezultând, astfel, norma de
grup sau norma socială, care poate fi stabilită mult mai uşor dacă individul nu
a avut posibilitatea să-şi verifice norma sa individuală;
3. dacă individul care şi-a modificat norma sa individuală, ca urmare a
experienţei lui de/în grup, este pus în situaţia de a acţiona din nou în afara
grupului, el nu va se va mai orienta după norma sa individuală, ci după norma
socială a grupului din care a făcut parte.‖
Implicaţii ale efectului normei sociale Grupul de referinţă. Grupul de apartenenţă
Cunoaşterea ―efectelor‖ normei sociale are implicaţii majore în înţelegerea
comportamentului individual.
Comportamentul individual se modifică în cadrul grupurilor.
Dacă grupul în care se află individul are funcţia de grup de apartenenţă sau de
referinţă, atunci acţiunile individului vor fi determinate de norma grupului.
Grupul de apartenenţă „desemnează reuniunile de indivizi care satisfac
următoarele trei condiţii: 1. indivizii respectivi se află într-o interacţiune
continuă; 2. ei înşişi se definesc ca membri ai grupului; 3. cei care nu
participă la interacţiune îl definesc de asemenea ca membri ai grupului.
«Grupul de referinţă reprezintă «punctele de comparaţie la care se referă
– p.65 o proporţie suficient de importantă de indivizi care aparţin unei
categorii sociale, cu scopul de a defini situaţia care caracterizează
respectiva categorie socială.»‖ [R.K. Merton, Elements de théorie et de
méthode sociologique, Paris, Plon, 1965, p.240, apud Ungureanu, p.64]
Grupul şi conformitatea faţă de grup
Determinarea comportamentului individual de norma de grup se numeşte
conformitate.
Conformitatea socială se referă la desfăşurarea acţiunii sociale în funcţie de norma
socială, adică în raport cu grupul în care este integrat individul.
14
Conformitatea este diferită de complianţă, adică de îndeplinirea unor activităţi
doar ca urmare a supunerii.
Legea conformităţii sociale (Gouldner)
„Supunerea faţă de majoritate este cu atât mai rapidă cu cât diferenţele dintre
obiectele apreciate sunt mai puţin evidente şi este cu atât mai lentă cu cât
individul «deviant» reuşeşte să-şi atragă de partea lui mai mulţi membri ai
grupului‖. (Gouldner apud Ungureanu, op.cit, p.49)
Efectul normei sociale şi organizaţiile
Organizaţiile pot fi cu atât mai eficiente cu cât vor şti să impună membrilor lor
starea de conformitate.
Aceasta presupune ca organizaţia să aibă o normă socială (cultura
organizaţională) percepută ca fiind legitimă.
Adică corectă,
Superioară în identificarea soluţiilor faţă de experienţele
individuale anterioare.
Conformitatea este diferită de atitudinile de forţă care generează, adesea,
complianţă.
Conformitatea nu exclude iniţiativa individuală, dar nu încurajează
neapărat ―revoluţionarea‖ organizaţiei şi, nota bene, pentru a supravieţui,
o organizaţie poate avea nevoie de mişcări ―revoluţionare‖.
Conformitatea şi eficienţa organizaţiilor
Eficienţa organizaţiilor nu este neapărat identică cu beneficiul pe termen mediu şi
lung al organizaţiilor. Critica conformităţii de grup scoate în evidenţă că
beneficiile pe termen scurt (adoptarea rapidă a deciziilor) pot intra în contradicţie
cu obiectivele reale ale organizaţiei şi chiar cu normalitatea spaţiului social
înconjurător.
Conformitatea şi schimbul social în organizaţii
Baza conformităţii viitoare faţă de norma de grup – cultura organizaţiei este
disponibilitatea către schimbul social (Blau).
Aceasta presupune o bună selecţie a resursei umane – pentru a avea un set de
valori pe baza cărora se poate iniţia schimbul social.
De asemenea, individul furnizează experienţă şi doreşte să înveţe, iar compania
furnizează un cadru de afirmare individuală prin oportunităţile şi cerinţele pe care
le are.
Gândirea de grup – o analiză pesimistă
Există o serie de teorii care privesc comportamentul grupal dintr-o perspectivă mai puţin
„optimistă‖. Aşa de pildă, Janis consideră „gândirea în grup‖ sau „group think‖ drept o
componentă negativă tipică a conformităţii sociale. În acest caz, principalele componente
negative ar fi legate de:
15
1. gregarism (groupy) – anihilarea opiniei în momentul în care aceasta nu este „pe
linie‖.
2. absurdul 1984 – reacţiile membrilor devin nerealiste, ca urmare a presiunilor
exercitate de conformitatea de grup. Mai mult, capacitatea de gândire raţională
(critică) se atenuează.
3. lichidarea „oponentului‖ (kill). În mod paradoxal, arată Janis, grupurile care
gândesc „uşor‖ (soft), prin anihilarea capacităţii critice, sunt foarte agresive în
apărarea punctului de vedere dominant.
4. supraefectul normei de grup – (norms). Fiecare persoană va căuta să nu „supere‖,
să nu „deranjeze‖ ceea ce crede că este norma dominantă.
5. stres, în general – „avantajele luării deciziei de către grup sunt adesea pierdute
datorită puternicelor presiuni psihologice care apar atunci când membrii
conlucrează strâns, împart aceleaşi valori şi, mai presus de toate, au de gestionat o
criză care este de natură să supună pe fiecare membru unui stres intens.‖
Aspectele prin care se manifestă vizibil „efectul gândirii de grup‖ (centrat pe anihilarea
gândirii critice) sunt următoarele (Janis):
1. sentimentul invulnerabilităţii
2. ignorarea avertismentelor din realitate
3. sentimentul dreptăţii infailibile – nimeni nu are mai multă dreptate decât grupul
respectiv
4. dominanţa stereotipurilor (prejudecăţilor) în gândirea „comună‖
5. presiunea asupra celor care au dubii asupra grupului
6. autocenzura în sensul reţinerii indivizilor de a spune şi gândi altceva decât ceea ce
se aşteaptă de la ei (în raport cu norma de grup)
7. iluzia unanimităţii – toţi au iluzia că toată lumea gândeşte la fel în grup
8. unii membrii devin „păzitori ai adevărurilor grupului‖, sancţionând primii pe
„devianţi‖.
16
Teorii adiacente. Pragul de loialitate în organizaţii (Hirschman)
Viaţa organizaţiei se desfăşoară în raport de protest-părăsire-loialitate. Funcţie de
succesiunea sau combinarea acestora este şi succesul întreprinderii.
―Există două tipuri principale de reacţii de nemulţumire faţă de organizaţiile de
care aparţinem sau cu care facem afaceri: fie de PROTEST în faţa insatisfacţiei,
continuând să rămânem membrii sau respectiv clienţii organizaţiei nutrind
speranţa îmbunătăţirii situaţiei, fie de PARASIRE a organizaţiei sau a relaţiei
economice.‖ (idem, p.246)
Declinul organizaţiilor depinde de cei mai loiali angajaţi
Loialitatea este ingredientul psihologic care creşte costurile părăsirii şi induce,
până la o anumită limită, canalizarea nemulţumirilor sub forma protestelor.
Loialitatea produce calitate. Adesea producerea calităţii este mediată de ―proteste‖
– discuţii pe marginea proiectelor companiei.
Părăsirea şi protestul marchează deficienţele şi posibilităţile de redresare ale
organizaţiilor. In general, nemulţumirea exprimată ca protest este un mijloc mai
bun de identificare a deficienţelor decât părăsirea organizaţiei de către membrii şi
clienţi. Pe de altă parte, protestul presupune costuri suplimentare pentru cei
nemulţumiţi, prin resursele consumate de fiecare dată în exprimarea
nemulţumirilor.
Tipologia salariaţilor. “Producătorul” şi “Consumatorul”
În cazul părăsirii, individul nemulţumit refuză să-şi mai asume ceva, el pur şi
simplu pleacă. Mai mult, în cazul membrilor/clienţilor loiali, aceştia vor continua
Intensitatea
protestului
Acord maxim Dezacord
deplin
ICL IIS AI IFL
IFL - Ieşire din organizaţie fără loialitate AI - Ameninţarea cu ieşirea IIS - Ieşirea în condiţiile intrării în condiţii severe ICL - Ieşirea în condiţii normale de loialitate
Momentul părăsirii organizaţiei şi intensitatea protestului în funcţie de
loialitate şi de gradul de dificultate în intrarea în organizaţie – cf. Hirschman,
Exit, Voice and Loyalty. Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations
and States, Harvard University Press, 1970, p.87
17
să protesteze faţă de situaţia respectivă chiar şi după ce au fost nevoiţi să
părăsească organizaţia. Apare astfel noţiunea de ―individ - producător al calităţii‖,
pe care Hirschman o opune „individului – consumator‖ cu care operează
economia politică uzuală.
Din această perspectivă avem două categorii de salariaţi:
- Salariaţi producători de structură organizaţională (prin loialitate şi calitatea
relaţionării sociale favorizează creşterea organizaţiei)
- Salariaţi ―consumatori‖ – care vin la serviciu pentru a avea o slujbă, placizii.
Additional texts on conformity: Groupthink
Excerpts form Irving L. Janis, ―Groupthink‖, Psychology Today, November 1971, pp.271-79
Groupthink:
The Problems of Conformity
Many organizations know that they face problems in managing conf But agreement consensus, and conformity can create problems too. In the following pages, Irv Janis identifies the phenomenon of ‘groupthink’ and points to some of the factors that sustain it in practice.
―How could we have been o stupid‖ President John K Kennedy asked after he and a close group of advisors had blundered into the Bay of Pigs invasion. For the last two years I have been studying that question. as It applies not only to the Bay of Pigs decision-makers but also to those who led the United States Into auth other major fiascos as the failure to be pre pared for the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Korean War stalemate and the escalation of the Vietnam War.
Stupidity certainly is not the explanation. The men who participated in making the Bay of Pigs decision, for instance, comprised one of the greatest arrays of intellectual talent in the history of American Government—Dean Rusk, Robert McNamara, Douglas Dillon Robert Kennedy, McGeorge Bundy, Arthur Schlesinger Jr., Allen Dulles and others.
It also seemed to me that explanations were incomplete if they concentrated only on disturbances in the behavior of each individual within a decision-making body temporary, emotional state of elation, fear, or anger that reduce a man‘s mental efficiency, for example or chronic blind spots arising from a man social prejudices or idiosyncratic biases.
I preferred to broaden the picture by looking at the fiascos from the standpoint of group dynamics as It has been explored over the put three decades, first by the great social psychologist Kurt Lewin and later In many experimental situations by myself and other behavioral scientists. My conclusion after pair‘ big over hundreds of relevant documents— historical reports about formal group meetings and informal conversations among the members—is that the groups that committed the fiascos were victims of what I call ‗groupthink.‘
―Groupy.‖ In each case study, I was surprised to discover the extent to which each group displayed the typical phenomena of social conformity that are regularly encountered in studies of
18
group dynamics among ordinary citizens. For example, some of the phenomena appear to be completely in line with findings from social-psychological experiments showing that powerful social pressures are brought to bear by the members of a cohesive group whenever a dissident begins to voice his objections to a group consensus. Other phenomena are reminiscent of the shared illusions observed in encounter groups and friendship cliques when the members simultaneously reach a peak of ‗groupy‖ feelings.
Above all, there are numerous indications pointing to the development of group norms that bolster morale at the expense of critical thinking. One of the most common norms appears to be that of remaining loyal to the group by sticking with the policies to which the group has already committed itself, even when those policies are obviously working out badly and have unintended consequences that disturb the conscience of each member. This is one of the key characteristics of groupthink.
1984. I use the term groupthink as a quick and easy way to refer to the mode of thinking that persons engage in when concurrence-seeking becomes so dominant in a cohesive in- group that it tends to override realistic appraisal of alternative courses of action. Group- think is a term of the same order as the words in the newspeak vocabulary George Orwell used in his dismaying world of 1984. In that context, groupthink takes on an invidious connotation. Exactly such a connotation is intended, since the term refers to a deterioration in mental efficiency, reality testing and moral judgments as a result of group pressures.
The symptoms of groupthink arise when the members of decision-making groups become motivated to avoid being too harsh in their judgments of their leaders‘ or their colleagues‘ ideas. They adopt a soft line of criticism, even in their own thinking. At their meetings, all the members are amiable and seek complete concurrence on every important issue, with no bickering or conflict to spoil the cozy, ―we feeling‖ atmosphere.
Kill. Paradoxically, soft-headed groups are often hard-hearted when it comes to dealing with outgroups or enemies. They find it relatively easy to resort to dehumanizing solutions—they will readily authorize bombing attacks that kill large numbers of civilians in the name of the noble cause of persuading an unfriendly government to negotiate at the peace table. They are unlikely to pursue the more difficult and controversial issues that arise when alternatives to a harsh military solution come up for discussion. Nor are they inclined to raise ethical issues that carry the implication that this fine group of ours, with its humanitarianism and its high-minded principles, might be capable of adopting a course of action that is inhumane and immoral.
Norms. There is evidence from a number of social-psychological studies that as the members of a group feel more accepted by the others, which is a central feature of increased group cohesiveness, they display less overt conformity to group norms. Thus we would expect that the more cohesive a group becomes, the less the members will feel constrained to censor what they say out of fear of being socially punished for antagonizing the leader or any of their fellow members.
In contrast, the groupthink type of conformity tends to increase as group cohesiveness increases. Groupthink involves nondeliberate suppression of critical thoughts as a result of internalization of the group‘s norms, which is quite different from deliberate suppression on the basis of external threats of social punishment The more cohesive the group, the greater the inner compulsion on the part of each member to avoid creating disunity, which inclines him to believe in the soundness of whatever proposals are promoted by the leader or by a majority of the group‘s members.
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In a cohesive group, the danger is not so much that each individual will fail to reveal his objections to what the others propose but that he will think the proposal is a good one, without attempting to carry out a careful, critical scrutiny of the pros and cons of the alternatives. When groupthink becomes dominant there also is considerable suppression of deviant thoughts, but it takes the form of each person‘s deciding that his misgivings are not relevant and should be set aside, that the benefit of the doubt regarding any lingering uncertainties should be given to the group consensus.
Stress. I do not mean to imply that all cohesive groups necessarily suffer from groupthink. All ingroups may have a mild tendency toward groupthink, displaying one or another of the symptoms from time to time, but it need not be so dominant as to influence the quality of the group‘s final decision. Neither do I mean to imply that there is anything necessarily inefficient or harmful about group decisions in general. On the contrary, a group whose members have properly defined roles, with traditions concerning the procedures to follow in pursuing a critical inquiry, probably is capable of making better decisions than any individual group member working alone.
The problem is that the advantages of having decisions made by groups are often lost because of powerful psychological pressures that arise when the members work closely together, share the same set of values and, above all, face a crisis situation that puts every one under intense stress. [Emphasis added]
The main principle of groupthink, which I offer In the spirit of Parkinson‘s Law, is this: The more amiability and esprit de corps there is among the members of a policy-making ingroup, the greater the danger that independent critical thinking will be replaced by groupthink, which is likely to result in irrational and dehumanizing actions directed against outgroups.
Symptoms. In my studies of high-level governmental decision-makers, both civilian and military, I have found eight main symptoms of group think.
1. Invulnerability. Most or all of the members of the ingroup share an illusion of invulnerability that provides for them some degree of reassurance about obvious dangers and leads them to become over-optimistic and willing to take extraordinary risks. It also causes them to fail to respond to clear warnings of danger. The Kennedy ingroup, which uncritically accepted the Central Intelligence Agency‘s disastrous Bay of Pigs plan, operated on the false assumption that they could keep secret the fact that the United States was responsible for the invasion of Cuba. Even after news of the plan began to leak out, their belief remained unshaken. They failed even to consider the danger that awaited them: a worldwide revulsion against the U.S.
A similar attitude appeared among the members of President Lyndon B. Johnson‘s ingroup, the ‗Tuesday Cabinet.‖ which kept escalating the Vietnam War despite repeated setbacks and failures. ―There was a belief?‘ Bill Moyers commented after he resigned, ―that if we indicated a willingness to use our power, they [the North Vietnamese] would get the message and back away from an all-out confrontation . . . There was a confidence—it was never bragged about, it was just there—that when the chips were really down, the other people would fold‖...
2. Rationale. As we see, victims of groupthink ignore warnings; they also collectively construct rationalizations in order to discount warnings and other forms of negative feedback that, taken seriously, might lead the group members to reconsider their assumptions each time they recommit themselves to past decisions. Why did the Johnson ingroup avoid reconsidering its escalation policy when time and again the expectations on which they based their decisions turned out to be wrong? James C Thomson, Jr., a Harvard historian who spent five years as an observing
20
participant in both the State Department and the White House, tells us that the policymakers avoided critical discussion of their prior decisions and continually invented new rationalizations so that they could sincerely recommit themselves to defeating the North Vietnamese…
3. Morality. Victims of groupthink believe unquestioningly in the inherent morality of their ingroup: this belief inclines the members to ignore the ethical or moral consequences of their decisions. …
4. Stereotypes. Victims of groupthink hold stereotyped views of the leaders of enemy groups: they are so evil that genuine attempts at negotiating differences with them are unwarranted, or they are too weak or too stupid to deal effectively with whatever attempts the ingroup makes to defeat their purposes, no matter how risky the attempts are.
5. Pressure. Victims of groupthink apply direct pressure to any individual who momentarily expresses doubts about any of the group‘s shared illusions or who questions the validity of the arguments supporting a policy alter native favored by the majority This gambit reinforces the concurrence-seeking norm that loyal members are expected to maintain. ….
6. Self-censorship. Victims of groupthink avoid deviating from what appears to be group consensus; they keep silent about their misgivings and even minimize to themselves the importance of their doubts. …
7. Unanimity. Victims of groupthink share an illusion of unanimity within the group concerning almost all judgments expressed by members who speak in favor of the majority view. This symptom results partly from the preceding one, whose effects are augmented by the false assumption that any individual who remains silent during any part of the discussion is in full accord with what the others are saying. …
8. Mindguards. Victims of groupthink some times appoint themselves as mindguards to protect the leader and fellow members from adverse information that might break the complacency they shared about the effectiveness and morality of past decisions. At a large birthday party for his wife, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who had been constantly informed about the Cuban invasion plan, took Schlesinger aside and asked him why he was opposed. Kennedy listened coldly and said, ―You may be right or you may be wrong, but the President has made his mind up. Don‘t push it any further. Now is the time for everyone to help him all they can.‖ …
Products. When a group of executives frequently displays most or all of these interrelated symptoms, a detailed study of their de liberations is likely to reveal a number of immediate consequences. These consequences are, in effect, products of poor decision-making practices because they lead to inadequate solutions to the problems under discussion.
First, the group limits its discussions to a few alternative courses of action (often only two) without an initial survey of all the alternatives that might be worthy of consideration.
Second, the group fails to reexamine the course of action initially preferred by the majority after they learn of risks and drawbacks they had not considered originally.
Third, the members spend little or no time discussing whether there are nonobvious gains they may have overlooked or ways of reducing the seemingly prohibitive costs that made rejected alternatives appear undesirable to them.
Fourth, members make little or no attempt to obtain information from experts within their own organizations who might be able to supply more precise estimates of potential losses and gains.
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Fifth, members show positive interest in facts and opinions that support their preferred policy; they tend to ignore facts and opinions that do not.
Sixth, members spend little time deliberating about how the chosen policy might be hindered by bureaucratic inertia, sabotaged by political opponents, or temporarily derailed by common accidents. Consequently, they fail to work out contingency plans to cope with foreseeable set backs that could endanger the overall success of their chosen course.
Support. The search for an explanation of why groupthink occurs has led me through a quagmire of complicated theoretical issues in the murky area of human motivation. My belief, based on recent social psychological research, is that we can best understand the various symptoms of groupthink as a mutual effort among the group members to maintain self-esteem and emotional equanimity by providing social support to each other, especially at times when they share responsibility for making vital decisions …
Pride. Shared illusions of invulnerability, for example, can reduce anxiety about taking risks. Rationalizations help members believe that the risks are really not so bad after all. The assumption of inherent morality helps the members to avoid feelings of shame or guilt. Negative stereotypes function as stress-reducing devices to enhance a sense of moral righteousness as well as pride in a lofty mission.
The mutual enhancement of self-esteem and morale may have functional value in enabling the members to maintain their capacity to take action, but it has maladaptive consequences insofar as concurrence-seeking tendencies interfere with critical, rational capacities and lead to serious errors of judgment.
5. Raţionalitatea în organizaţii
Organizaţia modernă. O primă definiţie
Organizaţia ca întreprindere este structura socială în care indivizii produc şi
gestionează, într-o activitate continuă, utilităţi.
Ca structură socială, organizaţia este un complex de relaţii care acoperă
următoarea gamă de relaţii:
- social-politice – raporturile dintre întreprindere şi contextul general sunt
definitorii pentru direcţia generală de evoluţie economică (politici
economice, cultură politică şi economică la nivelul clasei politice, al
antreprenorilor şi al populaţiei);
- macroeconomice – privind relaţiile ce se stabilesc între diferite
întreprinderi în cadrul economiei naţionale, chestiune exprimată sintetic
prin noţiunea de competitivitate naţională;
- microeconomice – la nivelul întreprinderii ca actor individual, în ceea ce
priveşte optimizarea relaţiilor dintre diferitele compartimente de producţie
şi în raport cu cererea, chestiuni dezbătute prin triada părăsire-protest-
loialitate;
- psihosociologice – privind fundamentul motivaţional al relaţiilor de
muncă, problematică acoperită de psihosociologia organizaţiilor
- morale – nu în ultimul rând întreprinderea este locul unde individul se
relaţionează cu aproapele său, constituind infrastructurii solidarităţii
sociale pentru restul societăţii.
Organizaţia este o grupare cu scopuri formale. Organizaţia este un sistem structurat de acţiune economică continuă, în raport cu
scopuri stabilite formal (scris şi impersonal).
Dincolo de aceste aspecte generale, întreprinderea „este o categorie
tehnică ce se referă la continuitatea interdependenţelor dintre anumite
tipuri de servicii, între ele însele şi cu mijloacele de producţie. Opusul
conceptului [de întreprindere] îl reprezintă fie acţiunea intermitentă, fie
acţiunea care este în sine discontinuă (cum este cazul unei gospodării
domestice)”» (Weber, vol.I, p.116).
Acţiunea economică este autonomă şi este orientată spre raţionalizarea capitalului.
(Weber, Weber, vol.I, p. 63). În cadrul acesteia indivizii sunt structuraţi într-o
ordine formală (birocratică), în jurul unei culturi corporative specifice organizaţiei
în cauză (care se constituie în maxime – cod comportamental).
Organizaţia ca interacţiune socială
Organizaţia este un proces constant de interacţiune socială într-un cadru formal (şi
el definit ca urmare a unor prime interacţiuni sociale şi care poate fi modificat ca
urmare a interacţiunilor sociale).
Acţiunea socială se află la ―originea‖ organizaţiei sociale.
23
Acţiunea socială se referă la actul social conştientizat de fiecare dintre partenerii
sociali. Fiecare organizaţie este, din acest punct de vedere, o reţea mai mult sau
mai puţin ordonată (stratificată/ierarhizată) de înţelesuri subiective.
Acţiunea socială poate fi orientată:
1. raţional instrumental, pe calcul
2. raţional după valoare
3. raţional după tradiţie
la limită raţional atunci când este afectiv-emoţional. Vom observa însă că
afectivitatea dublează mai întotdeauna decizia raţională, adesea o
anticipează şi este prima componentă în reacţia umană.
Raţionalitatea în organizaţii
Raţionalitatea este capacitatea de a distinge dintre scopuri şi mijloace şi
capacitatea de a scala scopurile şi mijloacele unele în raport faţă de altele.
Raţionalitatea care pune accent pe calculabilitate, adică pe cântărirea constantă a
scopurilor în raport cu mijloacele se numeşte raţionalitate instrumentală şi stă la
baza oricărei organizaţii de tip capitalist modern.
Raţionalitate formală şi raţionalitate substanţială
- ―Substantive rationality involves the choice of means to ends guided by some
broader set of human values.‖ (Ritzer, 179)
- ―In formal rationality, the best means to an end is chosen on the basis of
universally agreed-upon rules, regulations, and laws.‖ (Ritzer, 181)
The ‗substantive rationality‘ … is the degree to which the provisioning of given
groups of persons … with goods is shaped by economically oriented social action
under some criterion (past, present, or potential) of ultimate values …, regardless
of the nature of these ends.‖
―A system of economic activity will be called ‗formally‘ rational according to the
degree in which the provision of needs, which is essential to every rational
economy, is capable of being expressed in numerical, calculable terms, and is so
expressed.‖ (Weber, I, 85)
Din studiile recente reiese că profesia este erodată de creşterea dincolo de un
anumit prag al rolului raţionalităţii formale în detrimentul raţionalităţii
substanţiale.
―Sediul‖ raţionalităţii substanţiale este corpul profesional.
―Sediul‖ raţionalităţii formale este marea corporaţie.
Raţionalitatea substanţială defineşte acţiunea socială în termenii eticii
(competenţei) profesionale.
Raţionalitatea formală defineşte acţiunea în termenii eficienţei capitalului.
24
Trăsăturile birocraţiei moderne (Max Weber)
Trăsăturile birocraţiei constituie aspectul formal al organizaţiilor, faţă de cel
informal – al inter-subiectivităţilor dinăuntrul structurii acestora.
Iată mai jos caracteristicile formale clasice ale organizaţiilor, aşa cum au fost ele
postulate de Max Weber (cf. Weber, vol.I, p. 220):
1. Angajaţii sunt liberi ca persoane şi se supun autorităţii numai în legătură cu
obligaţiile lor de serviciu, care au un caracter impersonal.
2. Funcţiile sunt foarte clar ierarhizate.
3. Fiecare funcţie are o sferă de competenţă precis şi legal delimitată.
4. Selecţia angajaţilor se face conform cu abilităţile acestora; aceştia sunt numiţi
în funcţii, şi nu aleşi.
5. Remuneraţia muncii prestate se face prin salariu, conform cu poziţia în
ierarhie şi cu responsabilităţile aferente.
6. Slujba în cadrul organizaţiei este unica sursă de venit sau, cel puţin, deţine cea
mai importantă pondere în veniturile personale.
7. Angajaţii au deschisă posibilitatea unei cariere în cadrul organizaţiei.
Promovarea în ierarhia acesteia depinde de aprecierea superiorilor.
8. Membrii organizaţiei sunt supuşi unei discipline şi unui control stricte cu
privire la conduita lor în raport cu poziţia (funcţia) ce o deţin.
Administraţia birocratică modernă, caracterizată mai sus, posedă elemente
deosebit de utile necesităţilor de raţionalizare ale capitalismului modern: precizie
în execuţie, disciplină, rezistenţă, stabilitate – toate decurgând în special din
caracterul formal, riguros structurat, loialitatea cultivată şi recompensată prin
salariu etc.; aceste calităţi sunt extrem de importante în special în raport cu nevoia
de predicţie şi planificare a acţiunilor de către agentul capitalului modern.
6. Raţionalitatea şi Organizaţiile moderne (I). Eficienţa socială şi Eficienţa capitalului
Raţionalitatea formală şi Raţionalitatea substanţială
Comportamentul în organizaţii şi structura organizaţiilor ―stau‖ pe două tipuri
mari de raţionalitate: raţionalitatea formală şi raţionalitatea substanţială, adică pe
sisteme de organizare universaliste şi, respectiv, pe raţionalitatea culturilor locale.
Logica capitalului se întâlneşte în orice organizaţie cu sociologica popoarelor,
grupurilor locale, adică cu raţionalitatea substanţială.
Raţionalitatea formală (Ritzer). Definiţie
Raţionalitatea formală se referă la logica sistemelor capitaliste raţionale.
Raţionalitatea formală este prin excelenţă birocratică.
―In formal rationality, the best means to an end is chosen on the basis of
universally agreed-upon rules, regulations, and laws.‖ (Ritzer: 2001, 181)
Mecanismul prin care se produc aceste alegeri constante se numeşte birocraţie.
―The term ‗formal rationality of economic action‘ will be used to designate the
extent of quantitative calculation or accounting which is technically possible and
which is actually applied.‖ (Weber: 1978, I, 85)
―A system of economic activity will be called ‗formally‘ rational according to the
degree in which the provision of needs, which is essential to every rational
economy, is capable of being expressed in numerical, calculable terms, and is so
expressed.‖ (ibidem).
Raţionalitatea formală este caracterizată prin:
Alegerea celor mai bune mijloace în raport cu scopurile organizaţiei. Este
orientată către un scop.
Se întemeiază pe reguli universaliste (considerate universale de către capitalul
raţional şi impuse ca normă de organizare peste tot unde capitalul are interese).
Aceste reguli cuprind atât norme interne de structurare a organizaţiei cât şi
aparatul legislativ al statelor unde activează.
Centrul structural al organizaţiei este aparatul birocratic, centrat pe salariu,
ierarhie, carieră, competenţă, loialitate.
Mecanismul birocratic este ―sediul‖ raţionalităţii formale, aici se produc calculele
cantitative şi tot de aici porneşte aplicarea lor pentru eficienţa capitalului.
Limbajul raţionalităţii formale este numeric.
Rezultă că realitatea astfel raţionalizată este inevitabil limitată şi că logica
capitalismului nu coincide întotdeauna cu logica societăţii (care este mai mult
decât numerică).
Raţionalitatea substanţială
Raţionalitatea substanţială este componenta subiectivă a organizaţiei. Ea se
asociază cu raţionalitatea formală sau poate intra în coliziune cu aceasta.
Raţionalitatea substanţială este determinată cultural.
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Organizaţia de succes este aceea în care raţionalitatea formală este potenţată de
raţionalitatea substanţială.
―Substantive rationality involves the choice of means to ends guided by some
broader set of human values.‖ (Ritzer: 2001, 178)
―The ‗substantive rationality‘ … is the degree to which the provisioning of given
groups of persons … with goods is shaped by economically oriented social action
under some criterion (past, present, or potential) of ultimate values …, regardless
of the nature of these ends.‖
―It conveys only one element common to all ‗substantive‘ analysis: namely that
they do not restrict themselves to note the purely formal and (relatively)
unambiguous fact that action is based on «goal oriented» rational calculation with
the technically most adequate available methods, but apply certain criteria of
ultimate ends, whether they be ethical, political, utilitarian, hedonistic …‖
(Weber: 1978, I, 85, emphasis added.)
Oamenii aleg între mijloace în raport cu un scop şi pe alte criterii decât cele ale
raţionalităţii formale, universale, orientată către scop prin calcul.
Aceste criterii se numesc valori şi direcţionează viaţa dincolo de interesele
capitalului. Adesea aceste valori sunt ultime, adică au valoare religioasă.
Problemele raţionalizării formale. McDonaldizarea societăţii
George Ritzer şi alţi autori consideră că extinderea raţionalităţii formale dincolo
de cadrele organizaţiei conduc la alienarea societăţii şi a organizaţiei însăşi.
Andy Warhol Campbel’s soup
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În acelaşi timp, această deraţionalizare este un proces natural ce ţine de
expansiunea organizaţiei aflată în dezvoltare.
Procesul are loc începând cu anii 60 ai secolului XX si continuă şi astăzi.
Definiţia McDonaldizării
―… [The] process I call McDonaldization, that is, the process by which the
principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more and more
sectors of American society as well as of the rest of the world.‖ (Ritzer: 2001,
198)
(MacDonaldizarea este procesul prin care principiile restaurantului de tip fast-
food ajung să domine sectoarele societăţii americane ca şi lumea în ansamblu.)
Principalele trăsături ale hiperraţionalizării de tip McDonald’s sunt următoarele:
Centrarea obsesivă a organizaţiei pe eficienţă.
Calculabilitatea dusă la extrem, până acolo unde calitatea este înlocuită
de cantitate după principiul ―low time, low cost‖.
Predictibilitate ca uniformizare – prin anularea caracteristicilor locale.
Instituirea controlului cvasitotal asupra omului – client sau forţă de muncă
de către procesele tehnologice.
Hiperraţionalizarea – Eficienţa
Eficienţa se referă la cea mai bună metodă de a ajunge de la un punct la altul.
Exagerarea criteriului eficienţă în raport cu capitalul – prin hiperraţionalizare
conduce la reducerea motivaţiilor şi aptitudinilor muncitorilor şi a consumatorilor
la o paletă restrânsă de scopuri organizaţionale. Aşa de pildă, criteriul de eficienţă
de tip McDonalds se referă la identificarea ―celor mai bune mijloace de a
transforma un client din starea de flămând în starea de sătul‖ (Ritzer, 198)
Hiperraţionalizarea – Calculabilitatea
Calculabilitatea este centrată în sistemele hiperraţionale pe: ―Quantity has become
equivalent to quality; a lot of something, or the quick delivery of it, means it must
be good.‖ (Ritzer, 199)
La nivelul clientului cantitatea ca şi calitate înseamnă ―alinierea‖ şi construirea
ambientului încât acesta ―să facă cât mai repede loc altui client‖, chiar dacă
această încurajare este subtilă, desfăşurându-se într-un cadru plăcut şi strălucitor.
La nivelul forţei de muncă, cantitatea ca şi calitate conduce la politici salariale
joase, la subremunerare şi la angajarea unor persoane cu abilităţi minimale.
Hiperraţionalizarea – Predictibilitatea
Predictibilitatea comportamentului organizaţiei indiferent de localizarea
serviciilor sale asigură clientela de servicii similare.
În ceea ce priveşte forţa de muncă, aceasta funcţionează după criterii foarte clare,
comportamentul acesteia fiind adesea restrâns la manifestări prescriptive.
Muncitorul este redus la o serie de acte pe care trebuie să le realizeze. Scopul este
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eficienţa: ―This scripted behavior helps create highly predictable interactions
between workers and customers.‖ (Ritzer: 200)
Comportamentul lucrătorului este prin excelenţă rutinizat, inclusiv la nivelul
inovaţiei: ―«McDonald‘s pioneered the routinization of interactive service work
and remains an exemplar of extreme standardization. Innovation is not
discouraged … at least among managers and franchisees. Ironically, though, ‗the
object is to look for new, innovative ways to create and experience that is exactly
the same no matter what McDonald‘s you walk into, no matter where it is in the
world‘.»‖ [Robin Leidner, Fast food, fast talk: service work and the routinization
of everyday life. Berkeley, University of California Press, 1993, p.82] – apud
Ritzer: 200.
Hiperraţionalizarea – Controlul
Hiperraţionalizarea este răspunzătoare de introducerea tehnologiilor care
controlează omul. Motivul pentru care s-au introdus astfel de tehnologii este
eficienţa în condiţiile unei producţii orientate către cantitate. Omul face greşeli. În
condiţiile unei producţii masive nu este loc pentru greşeală, care ar da peste cap
lanţul productiv într-un punct sau altul şi deci timing-ul producţiei:
―The people who eat in fast-food restaurants are controlled, albeit (usually)
subtly. Lines, limited menus, few options, and uncomfortable seats all lead diners
to do what management wishes them to do: eat quickly and leave. Further, the
drive-through … window leads diners to leave before they eat. The people who
work in McDonaldized organizations are also controlled to a high degree, usually
more blatantly and directly than customers. They are trained to do a limited
number of things in precisely the way they are told to do them. The technologies
used and the way the organization is set up reinforce this control. McDonald‘s
also controls employees by threatening to use, and ultimately using, nonhuman
technology to replace human workers.‖ (Ritzer: 200-201)
Implicaţiile sociale ale hiperraţionalizării (ale McDonaldizării organizaţiilor şi
societăţilor: Jameson)
Exagerarea aspectului material al vieţii sociale.
Superficializarea relaţiei sociale. Relaţia socială pierde componentele
înţelesurilor reale datorită eficientizării exagerate (exagerării raţionalităţii
formale). Lucrurile devin kitch. Inclusiv produsele. Lumea nu mai
mănâncă pui la McDonalds, ci McNugget (calitatea se transformă în
cantitate).
Atrofierea componentei afectiv-emoţionale din relaţia socială. Aceasta se
produce prin fragmentarea relaţionărilor în aşa fel încât omul nu mai vede
sensul lucrurilor şi devine detaşat de ele.
Datorită detaşării apare un straniu sentiment de mulţumire. Deşi grăbită şi
îngrămădită la coadă, lumea e mulţumită la McDonalds. Fenomenul este
numit ―free floating effect‖- o stranie satisfacţie în nemulţumire privind
propria lor condiţie, pe care unii clienţi o resimt.
29
Sistemele hiperraţionalizate sunt sisteme ascunse şi sentimentul de
frustrare nu poate fi direcţionat către o ţintă anume.
Pierderea înţelesurilor şi sensurilor generale asupra lucrurilor este o altă
consecinţă a hiperraţionalizării. Atât la nivelul lucrătorilor cât şi la nivelul
clienţilor, realitatea se transformă în pastişe. „Not being able to know the
past has led to the «random cannibalization of all styles of the past» and
the creation of what postmodernists call pastiches. ... [People] must be
satisfied with creating pastiches, or hodgepodges of ideas, sometimes
contradictory and confused, about the past. Further, there is no clear sense
of historical development, of time passing, in the postmodern world. …
This inability to distinguish between past, present, and future shows up at
the individual level in a kind of schizophrenia. For the postmodern
individual, events are fragmented and discontinuous.‖ (apud Ritzer: 212)
Sistemele hiperraţionale tind să fie mai puţin productive cât mai ales
reproductive, centrate pe reproducerea unor obiecte de succes (după ce au
avut grijă să creeze nişa acelui succes). Ceea ce antrenează uniformizarea
gusturilor şi a aspiraţiilor – în esenţă despiritualizează. (Jameson apud
Ritzer: 212).
7. Raţionalitatea şi Organizaţiile moderne (II) Profesionalizare şi Deprofesionalizare
Profesia şi Raţionalitatea
Ne amintim că :
„Profesia este o formă de ocupaţie cu un statut ridicat, întemeiată pe cunoaştere,
caracterizată de (1) cunoaştere specializată şi abstractă, (2) autonomie [socială],
(3) autoritate faţă de beneficiar şi grupările ocupaţionale subordonate, (4) un
anumit grad de altruism.‖ (Randy Hodson, Teresa Sullivan, The Social
Organization of Work, Wadsworth, 1995, p.288)
Introducem acum o nouă definiţie a profesiei, din perspectiva puterii sociale
ataşate acesteia:
“[Profession is] an occupation that has had the power to have undergone a
developmental process enabling it to acquire, or convince significant others (for
example, clients, the law) that it has acquired a constellation of characteristics we
have come to accept as denoting a profession.” (Ritzer: 2001, 185)
Profesia ca putere socială constă în:
- puterea organizaţiei ca organizaţie profesională;
- din punct de vedere strict profesional în abilităţile ocupaţionale specifice
şi în percepţia acestor abilităţi la nivelul public (influenţa lor socială).
În acest context, întreprinderea economică are două componente:
- aspectul profesional
- aspectul preocupării pentru eficienţa capitalului,
şi două tipuri de raţionalităţi concomitente:
raţionalitatea substanţială – al cărei vector este organizaţia profesională,
care are ca preocupare valoarea profesională
raţionalitatea formală – al cărei vector este structura birocratică preocupată
(care monitorizează) realizarea ţintei de eficienţă (profit).
Lipsa de suprapunere între cele două componente generează deprofesionalizare.
Cu alte cuvinte, în întreprinderea poate acţiona eficient în condiţiile pieţei
deprofesionalizându-şi personalul.
Acest proces nu se va putea opri, teoretic, decât atunci când întreprinderea va
întâlni pe piaţă un competitor care pune accent pe eficienţa capitalului mizând pe
profesionalismul angajaţilor şi pe rolul social al profesiei.
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Întrepătrunderea dintre raţionalitatea formală (imperativul de eficienţă al capitalului) şi
raţionalitatea profesională (imperativele profesionale) în cadrul întreprinderii moderne.
Rolul social al întreprinderii
Sunt aici două aspecte, şi anume:
1. Maniera în care întreprinderea interacţionează cu mediul din care extrage
resurse (naturale sau de altă natură);
2. Modul în care întreprinderea se integrează în reţeaua socială.
Conduita specializată prin care întreprinderea se relaţionează cu spaţiul social,
este profesia.
Deprofesionalizarea
În esenţă, prin deprofesionalizare înţelegem pierderea recunoaşterii şi influenţei
sociale, în planul întreprinderii şi mai apoi în planul social, urmată de pierderea
abilităţilor asociate cu ocupaţia respectivă.
Deprofesionalizarea se produce prin:
- scăderea autonomiei profesionale
- mutarea autorităţii dinspre profesie înspre aparatul birocratic
- raţionalizarea birocratică
- creşterea dependenţei profesiei de tehnologii tot mai scumpe şi mai
sofisticate
Factorul cost în cadrul noilor tehnologii este unul dintre cei mai
importanţi. Cu costul tehnologiilor este mai mare cu atât se restrânge
puterea de a le cumpăra la marile organizaţii care acţionează după logica
formală a birocraţiilor.
Componenta de eficienţă
a capitalului
Componenta profesională
Raţionalitatea
substanţială: valorile
profesiei
Raţionalitatea
formală: ţintele
de profit
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Câteva exemplificări din domeniul medical
Accentul pus de marile structuri organizaţionale pe eficienţa financiară au
antrenat un proces de scădere a „puterii sociale‖ a corpului medical, şi deci de
deprofesionalizare a acestuia:
―The third-party payer‘s formally rational emphasis on money comes into conflict
with the physician‘s substantive rational altruistic interest (at least, ideal typically)
in the patient.‖ (Ritzer: 188)
―In addition to being a threat to professionalization in itself, advancing technology
is linked to many of the other forces serving to deprofessionalize medicine. The
paradigmatic physician on his/her own in private practice is not able to afford to
own most of the advanced technologies that are sweeping the filed. It is the
capitalist enterprises and the large bureaucracies that are able to afford these
technologies. In this way, the dependence on technology is linked to the
bureaucratization and capitalization of medicine.‖ (idem)
8. Fundamental concepts (I): Personality, Motivation, Attitudes.
Personality
Personality represents a stable set of characteristics and tendencies that
determine commonalities and differences in the behavior of people. (Gibson
et all, p.492)
The main psychological components of personality are motivation and attitude.
We will discuss this topic right away.
Personality is at the core of the individual and the social life itself.
A more subtle and complex definition of personality involves the ―I‖ [eul] and the
―me‖ [minele]. In this respect, personality is the whole reaction of the Self
towards the reflection of the others in the individual‘s conscience:
―The «me» represents a definite organization of the community there in our own
attitudes, and calling for a response, but the response that takes place is something
that just happens [the «I» - nota Radu B.]. … The «I» both calls out the «me» and
responds to it. Taken together they constitute a personality as it appears in social
experience. The self is essentially a social process going on with these two
distinguishable phases. If it did not have these two phases there could not be
conscious responsibility, and there would be nothing novel in experience.‖
(George Herbert Mead, 178)
The I is the reaction as self-perceived experience of the individual towards an act
against another person. That is, the I is an accomplished social action towards
another in two stages: reflecting the other inside the consciousness and acting
toward the other.
The me is that part of the others, the individual is aware of and willing to assume.
The self is the organization of individual‘s attitudes toward the social context. (cf.
G. Mead: 91, 175)
From this point of view, personality is the product of a continuous social
interaction. Organizations and work are the major players in which personality is
continuously forged. That is, people and organizations share together the
responsibility towards the very identity of the individual.
Personality is integrated within social life in two ways: in the framework of the
traditional ties with the surrounding social life, i.e. inside primary groups (family,
friends etc.), and secondly, in the framework of the professional ties, including
the years of apprentice and mastering of the personal skills at school and with
training facilities (including work). We may say that personality belongs to a
34
social context with two components: the community of in-group (i.e. the group
which defines ―we‖ or ―us‖) and the working community.
We must emphasize that the working community can fulfill, at least partially, and
the organizational techniques are aiming to achieve this as a goal, the need of the
individual to define himself inside an in-group.
Personality and the direction of our lives. Three axioms of our behavior
―All human behaviour has a cause, which itself is the consequence of the
combined effects of heredity and environment.
At the root of human behaviour are needs, or wants or motives. Need is the term
usually employed …
Human behaviour is goal-seeking; people try to achieve objectives or goals
which, when reached, will satisfy their needs. For example, food will satisfy the
hunger need.‖ (Graham, p.62)
Motivation
Motivation is also at the core of the human component of the Organizational
behavior. It triggers, initiates and directs our behavior.
We know that people are making products. In order to making products, people
get organized. Organizing means leading, and leading means motivating people.
Making a product requires a functional division of labor, that is, followers of at
least a job description if not an idea. Both the simpler job description and the
more complicated designing of ideas requires motivation to follow rules, old or
new ones.
Motivation and Meaning
Motivation is not possible without meaning. Meaning is the framework of
motivation. Humans do not congregate and do not make things together without a
meaning. Meaning has two main functions: it integrates people one another in the
broader network of social exchange, i.e. communication, emotional and symbolic
and material exchanges – keeping together means social exchange; secondly it
assures the logical appearance of the human behavior toward our own
consciousness – humans are logical beings, even if that logic is not consistent
with the Aristotelian logic or the math logic – people are always trying to explain
for themselves and for the others the reason of their acts.
Motivation makes sense of our lives.
Definitions of Motivation
―Motivation is the concept we use when we describe the forces acting on or
within an individual to initiate and direct behavior‖. (Gibson et all., p.126)
―An employee‘s motivation to work consists of all the drives, forces and
influences – conscious or unconscious – that cause the employee to want to
achieve certain aims.‖ (Graham, p.60)
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Motivating People. Job satisfaction
In order to be productive, the organization must motivate people.
Motivation is directly related to job satisfaction. If there is job satisfaction, the
individual will be motivated to work further.
Job satisfaction is a mental state in which the individual perceives himself as
being represented by the work he is doing. At its finest level, job satisfaction
provides a spiritual pleasure even during moments of physical and psychological
hardship. Job satisfaction depends on the individual‘s needs and expectations –
the level of expectations: material, spiritual etc., on the nature of the job – if there
is room for a particular need to be fulfilled doing that particular set of tasks, and
job satisfaction depends on the broader social context of the organization – if
organization emphasize or not people‘s development, the pattern and level of the
social exchange within the team work and other compartments of the
organization.
Further on, job satisfaction is need conditioned. People will seek satisfaction
according to their needs:
―From the employee‘s point of view, work brings many kinds of rewards: money,
friendship, status and achievement among others. In some circumstances working
harder may increase these rewards, in others it may reduce them. Status and
achievement, which might be expected to favour higher productivity, are needs
which have little appeal to some employees, or are needs which they do not
expect to satisfy at work. It is quite possible for employees to work hard in jobs
they dislike because they fear dismissal, are attracted by a high level of pay, or
simply find hard work the best way of making the time go quickly.‖ (Graham: 74)
Despite this fragility of predicting the proper needs of the labour force inside the
organization without a proper entrance questionnaire and other human resources
techniques, the easiest part to motivate people is to keep the door open towards
career fulfilment – remember the Weber‘s principles of modern bureaucratic
organizations. Career means not only more money, but a new level of knowledge
and the social recognition of this knowledge, general needs for most of the
people.
Besides these general, yet very important aspects of motivating people, there are
also specific needs the management should be aware of. What psychological type
is our worker? How he responds to stress? How he or she relates to others? What
is his general social condition – what about his family? Etc. These and other
questions addresses more direct to the short and medium term needs of the
employees.
Job satisfaction, moral involvement and productivity
Job satisfaction is a consistent predictor of productivity. In order to achieve a
proper relationship between job satisfaction and productivity, especially for highly
crafted jobs, the worker must feel himself morally involved in the task. Work
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action must be related somehow to an ideal of life. A third ingredient for job
satisfaction of higher skilled workers is loyalty towards their profession and,
secondly, toward work (Graham: 74). Job satisfaction is a prescription of the
substantive rationality. Substantive rationality is at the core of the people with
professional awareness.
Broad classification for motivation to work
Mullins distinguish three basic motivational categories: ―economic rewards‖,
―intrinsic satisfaction‖, and ―social relationships‖ related to work. These
motivational categories are also job satisfaction determinants.
Economic rewards are related to material recognition for work, i.e. salary,
pension rights and other financial and material rewards.
Intrinsic satisfaction is a key component against alienation of people towards
work. People are to be satisfied with the work in itself in order to be motivated.
Intrinsic satisfaction is related to the self.
Social relationships are the relational component of motivation. The workplace
must be at least a liveable place if not a loveable one in order to make work
possible. Besides, work provides visibility for those outside the workplace, that is,
social status. We know that work is a complex scheme of producing utilities via
social exchange, i.e. social relationships. (Mullins, p.407)
Alienation
Alienation is a basic sociological concept developed by Karl Marx, in the XIXth
century in his major work Capital, vol I, first published in 1887. Alienation
means estrangement and separation from work, including the worker himself and
the society at large – in the worst cases. The phenomenon is the result of work
becoming a commodity with the further consequence that the human worker is
becoming a simple commodity, too.
―One consequence of the peculiar nature of labour-power as a commodity is, that
its use-value does not, on the conclusion of the contract between the buyer and
seller, immediately pass into the hands of the former. Its value, like that of every
other commodity, is already fixed before it goes into circulation, since a definite
quantity of social labour has been spent upon it; but its use-value consists in the
subsequent exercise of its force. The alienation of labour-power and its actual
appropriation by the buyer, its employment as a use-value, are separated by an
interval of time.‖ (Marx, Capital, vol I, Par II, Chapter Six)
Alienation has associated the psychological state of unhappiness.
Alienation is the worker‘s sentiment of the loss of control over/from:
a) the product of its own work – the individual lost the signification of its own
work since this is easily appropriated by ―the capital‖;
b) the production process – the worker has no control over production including
their own working operations;
c) other people and society at large – all the people are now marketable goods
not humans, each of them becoming simple economic values;
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d) himself, from worker‘s human nature – ―The worker‘s labor has become a
commodity, and the worker has no opportunity to develop personal potential
as a human being; the worker cannot self-actualize‖. (Ramona Ford: 84)
Alienation can have serious implications over the economic organization and
society. Until now, the modern enterprise kept under control the phenomena using
modern management techniques. The modern worker has access to his own
production because his or her work is largely recognized by a good salary,
relatively high social esteem and other benefits.
Frustration
Frustration is the psychological state of a person if his or her motivational driving
force ―is blocked before reaching a desired goal‖ (Mullins, p.408).
Frustration can be economic, intrinsic satisfaction or social relationships related.
Frustration is the feeling of injustice. The three general categories of motivation
described above are also the three layers of work dignity and social justice.
The economic reward assures the material background for further development of
the individual and for the society. Intrinsic satisfaction assures the link between
work and personal values and social relationship is the moral component of work
(the work place as a community).
Frustration has a positive side when the individual try to solve the problem,
working around the obstacle, even finding an alternate goal. The alternative is not
always a solution since it may triggers an altered psychological state called
deprivation – the individual is deprived of the satisfaction he or she would have
gained if attained the original goal.
Frustration has a clear negative side when triggers strong emotional states such as
aggression, regression, resignation or fixation. Regression is the reversing of the
original behaviour in childish behaviour. Resignation means giving up the
original goal, even values, which may lead to an important depletion of
personality. Fixation is useless persistence to pursue towards a dead end, it
involves some blockage of behaviour, a serious impasse of personality with
further bad developments, including aggression etc.
Frustration at Work
Frustration may occur if:
1. people has no right to choose the pace and methods of work;
2. the work is perceived as being meaningless;
3. inattentive or perception of lack of interest for the individual‘s problem at the
level of the management;
4. bad communication, lack of understanding regarding some management
decisions which affect the individual worker. (cf. Graham: 66).
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―When employees are frustrated at work they may react negatively, their behaviour
taking the following forms:
Lateness, absence or eventually leaving the company
Poor-quality work
Unwillingness to take responsibility
Quarrels with colleagues, disputes with management
Accidents, damage to equipment and products.‖
Reducing frustration
― … the possibility of frustration at work can be reduce in the following ways:
(a) Designing jobs to give them greater meaning.
(b) Improving selection and training; a person will be more satisfied in jobs for
which they are suitable and for which they have been trained.
(c) Recognising effort and merit, thus providing satisfaction of higher needs.
(d) Improving communications, consultation and disputes procedures so that
potential causes of frustration may be identified and removed as far as
possible.‖ (Graham: 66-67)
Attitudes and Skills
Definition and components.
Attitudes are mental states of readiness for need arousal.
That is, attitudes relates to needs, fulfillment of needs, representing needs.
Attitudes are also learned predispositions to respond to the variations of the social
context. These responses are object oriented. Objects of individual‘s attention are
defined through culture, that is, they are also learned. (cf. Feldman: 120)
Attitudes are ―silos‖ of launching our behavior. They are predispositions, that is,
already oriented sensibilities to catch significations and to respond to those
perceived as significant actions.
Attitudes are made of values, beliefs, psychological state of acting. Attitude is not
merely a psychological state, since values and beliefs are derived from the large
culture surpassing the individual, even its present time. More than that, values can
be of a special sort, i.e. religious.
Values are mental orienting points for behavior. They are defining the desirable
for the individual and for the society.
Beliefs are the most appreciated values and they are also the acting values. They
are close related to ideals, the highest of the values.
Attitudes and Motivation
Motivation sparks within the special context of readiness. This readiness is called
attitude. Most of us have two or three major readiness, for instance some of us are
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more leading oriented, others are more supportive or problem solving oriented.
Attitude is the ―way we take the thing‖ at first glance, is ―our way‖.
In order to have people motivated to do something, you need to encourage them
toward the right attitude. The organization cannot spark the motivation (the drive)
towards innovation if it has, for instance, a dictatorial management, or a bad
salary scheme. In order to assume a certain problem, people must be ready to do
that.
Functions of Attitudes
As we already know, the main function of attitude is to be ready of acting. This
readiness is culturally determined.
Our readiness to act can direct towards four areas:
a. knowledge – (some) people are eager to find out new things. More
generally, this level of attitude provides us the drive to understand and
interpret the world.
b. social expressivity. Attitudes ―enable individuals to indicate to others the
values that they hold‖.
c. instrumental social exchange
d. defense of the ego (Katz apud Mullins: 325).
Attitudes and Ethics
The right attitude means the right people and the right management.
That is, in order that an organization to be innervated by the right attitudes, it
must have the right context – that is the right management and good rules and the
proper workforce.
You can never build an BMW with the textile overexploited work force from an
underdeveloped Asian country. Not only people there are undereducated, but
misery brings the bad attitudes defined in the culture of poverty complex: material
misery brings psychological misery. You have to imagine of BMW not only in
terms of having it, but mostly in terms of building it, that is in terms of ethics of
work. Ethics means attitude and motivation able to sustain an organized system of
higher values towards work, which relate work, the self with social life, even with
human destiny.
Attitudes are the visible part of an organization, alongside with the material part
of it (how imposing is the building, how the nice is the interior, its cleanliness, the
technological level etc.).
People relate one another, and relate with work via attitudes.
Attitudes and Skill
There are entry attitudes which are to be detected by the human resources
management department to be in line with the formal rationality of the company,
and there are post-entry attitudes, that is, secondary attitudes, which show up after
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the enrolment with the company. Depending on the skills of the human resources
department, the entry attitudes can be the same with the main and most powerful
attitude of the people, or just a ―showtime‖ elicited during the employment
interview. A well established organization will elicit post-entry attitudes as
developments of the already existing ones (better leading skills, better care for
others, etc.).
The main outcome of attitude is skill. A skillful employee has the right
attitude toward its workplace, perhaps even towards its social context and
has a good motivation.
Skills are abilities to do certain things. Regarding the modern organization, skill
means the ability to achieve the task the organization has assigned to the
individual.
Individuals have already certain level of skill at the entry of the organization, but
maintaining and developing it is a matter of motivation and attitude on both sides:
the worker and the organization (leadership, mostly the direct supervisors, and the
co-workers).
Additional Texts on Personality, Attitudes and Motivation
Culture of Poverty
The text below is from Oscar Lewis, The Culture of Poverty, ―Scientific American‖
(1986), in Richard T. LeGates, Frederic Stout (eds.), The City Reader, Routledge, New
York, 1997, p.219-220.
Oscar Lewis is a well known urban anthropologist, with very serious field studies in
Central America.
Reading Lewis‘ text we may realize the main human traits which are not suitable for a
modern organization. The drama of people entangled within the net of poverty is that it
modifies almost irreparably their minds and souls. In Romania we have some important
areas covered by this culture of poverty. There arise serious problems for the business
which are willing to establish in those areas. Culture of poverty means, first of all, low
attitude towards organized work, because people do not trust any organizational structure
outside their slums. And low attitude is intricately related with low hope of a better life.
―The culture of poverty is not just a matter of deprivation or disorganization, a term signifying the absence of something. It is a culture in the traditional anthropological sense in that it provides human beings with a design for living, with a ready-made set of solutions for human problems, and so serves a significant adaptive functions. … It is both an adaptation and reaction of the poor to their marginal position in a class-stratified, highly individuated, capitalistic society.
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It represents an effort to cope with feelings of hopelessness and despair that arise from the realization by the members of the marginal communities in these societies of the improbability of their achieving success in terms of the prevailing values and goals. Many of the traits of the culture of poverty can be viewed as local, spontaneous attempts to meet needs not served in the case of the poor by the institutions and agencies of the larger society because the poor are not eligible for such service, cannot afford it or are ignorant and suspicious. Once the culture of poverty has come into existence it tends to perpetuate itself. By the time slum children are 6 or 7 they have usually absorbed the basic attitudes and values of their subculture.
1. The disengagement, 2. the [arrangement and emphasis added] nonintegration of the poor with respect to the major
institutions of society is a crucial element in the culture of poverty. It reflects the combined effect of a variety of factors including
3. poverty, to begin with, but also 4. segregation and 5. discrimination, 6. fear, 7. suspicion and 8. apathy and 9. development of alternative institutions and procedures in the slum community. The people do not
belong to labor unions or political parties and make little use of banks, hospitals, department stores or museums.
10. Such involvement as there is in the institutions of the larger society – in the jails, the army and the public welfare system / does little to suppress the traits of the culture of poverty.
11. A relief system that barely keeps people alive perpetuates rather than eliminates poverty and the pervading sense of hopelessness.
12. People in a culture of poverty produce little wealth and receive little in return 13. Chronic unemployment and underemployment, 14. low wagers, 15. lack of property, 16. lack of savings, 17. absence of food reserves in the home and 18. chronic shortage of cash imprison the family and the individual in a vicious circle. Thus for lack of
cash the slum householder makes frequent purchase of small quantities of food at higher prices. 19. The slum economy turns inward; it shows a high incidence of CpawningC of personal goods,
borrowing at usurious rates of interest, 20. informal credit arrangements among neighbors, 21. use of second hand clothing and furniture. 22. There is awareness of middle-class values. People talk about them and even claim some of them
as their own. 23. On the whole, however, they do not live by them. [emphasis added] They will declare that marriage
by law, by the church or by both is the ideal form of marriage, but few will marry. For men who have no steady jobs, no property and no prospect of wealth to pass on to their children,
24. who live in the present without expectations of the future, who want to avoid the expense and legal difficulties involved in marriage and divorce, a free union or consensual marriage and divorce,
25. a free union or consensual marriage makes good sense. 26. The women, for their part, will turn down offers of marriage from men who are likely to be 27. immature, punishing and generally unreliable. [emphasis added] …
Comment [R1]: Credit uzurar, camătă, amanet etc.
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28. By not giving the fathers of their children legal status as husbands, the women have a stronger claim on the children.
29. They also maintain exclusive rights to their property. 30. Along with disengagement from the larger society, there is a hostility to the basic institutions of
what are regarded as the dominant classes. There is hatred of the police, mistrust of government and of those in high positions and a cynicism that extends to the church.
31. The culture of poverty thus holds a certain potential for protest and for entrainment in political movements aimed against the existing order.
32. With its poor housing and overcrowding, the community of the culture of poverty is high in gregariousness,
33. but it has a minimum of organization beyond the nuclear and extended family. … Most primitive peoples have achieved a higher degree of socio-cultural organization than contemporary urban slum dwellers. …
34. The family in the culture of poverty does not cherish childhood as a specially prolonged and protected stage in the life cycle.
35. Initiation into sex come early. 36. With the instability of consensual marriage the family tends to be mother-centered and tied more
closely to the mother‘s extended family. 37. The female head of the house is given to authoritarian rule. 38. In spite of much verbal emphasis on family solidarity, sibling rivalry for the limited supply of goods
and maternal affection is intense. 39. There is little privacy. 40. The individual who grows up in this culture has a strong feeling of fatalism, 41. helplessness, 42. dependence and inferiority. … Other traits include 43. a high incidence of weak ego structure, 44. orality and confusion of sexual identification, all reflecting 45. maternal deprivation; 46. a strong present-time orientation 47. with relatively little disposition to defer gratification and plan for the future, 48. and a high tolerance of psychological pathology of all kinds. 49. There is widespread belief in male superiority 50. and among the men a strong preoccupation with machismo, their masculinity. 51. Provincial and local in outlook, 52. with little sense of history, 53. these people know only their own neighborhood and their own way of life. 54. Usually they do not have the knowledge, the vision or the ideology to see the similarities between
their troubles and those of their counterparts elsewhere in the world. 55. They are not class-conscious, although 56. they are sensitive indeed to symbols of status.‖
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9. Fundamental concepts (II): Morale
Introduction to the theoretical background
Organizations are social units. At the core of social bond is morale. Some
organizations are even considering that ―morale is one of the most precious
elements in a business‖ (RBC: 1).
Morale is a rare ingredient in the contemporary scientific discourse. It is taken for
granted by most of the psycho-sociological approaches, or ignored altogether,
including organizational behavior. Sociology too, does not bother too much with
it.
Morale is at the core of society says Emile Durkheim, one of the founders of
sociology as modern science. ―Morale is whatever provides solidarity‖, says
Durkheim. Weber, another giant of classical sociology places religious ethics and
exemplarity as sources of morality. Religion and tradition are the main sources of
solidarity and the main carriers of solidarity are the elites, shows Weber. Vilfredo
Pareto, the great classic of Italian sociology, distinguishes between utility as
individual pleasure and utility for the community. The point of maximum utility
or happiness an individual can achieve for him is when his happiness starts
harming another‘s happiness. The consequence is that, at the general level of
society, morality is happiness inside the community, that is, utilities achieved for
that community (Pareto: II, 1332, 1334, 1339, 1341).
A contemporary sociologist and economist, Albert Hirschman (in Essays in
Trespassing, 1984) points out that morality is a very important ingredient of
social, economic and political life. Leadership behaves morally when encourages
the development of forward and backward economic linkages, i.e. the
development of civilization for most of the people. Further on, Hirschman says
that moral behaviour is conditioned by the presence or absence of the complex of
superiority against their people, coupled with a complex of inferiority towards the
West.
What is morale?
Morale is, briefly stated, ―prosocial behaviour‖ (Feldman: 252)
From an organizational point of view, morale is two sided: the first side relates to
achieving the goals and the way the job is done; the other side refers to job
satisfaction.
Morale means ―getting together harmoniously in solving problems‖ and ―the
degree to which employee ‗wants‘ are satisfied.‖ (RBC: 3)
Levels of morale behaviour
Morale is organized on multiple layers of social involvement. According to
Lawrence Kohlberg, there are three levels of morale.
Level 1 – “Preconventional morality”
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At this level, people are driven by day-to-day interests. Rules are followed
only for one‘s own benefit. The main characteristics of behavior are
obedience and fear of punishment, together with naïve and hedonistic
values.
Level 2 – “Conventional morality”
Here people perceive themselves as members of society. There is interest
on respecting and being respected. People are recognizing authority social
good. Good is defined by the social interest not only by the personal
interest.
Level 3 – “Postconventional morality”
Morale means more than integrating in society and pursuing harmoniously
various interests. Morale means progress of human race. People at this
level are following rules for they are agreed upon and if not good they can
be changed. More than that, some people are considering that law must
respect some ethical principles in order to be legitimate. (Apud Feldman:
251)
Morale and Organizations. Responsibility
It is very easy to see the link between the levels of morale and behaviour in
organizations. One cannot attribute certain jobs to people on level 1 morale or
on level 3 either. The key term of this equation is responsibility. At the lowest
level the individual barely assumes himself and at the last people have too many
expectations (the so-called overqualified worker). On the other hand,
responsibility means also professionalism.
At a first glance, we would say that most of the personnel must follow the rules
and improve them if necessary. It is the task of leadership to harmonize business
with the general human goals. On the other hand, more people become thinking
of life, of their jobs, of themselves in terms of ethics and harmony.
New technologies involve new responsibilities, broader knowledge horizons and
new skills. That is, the development of technology is based on morale, on
people’s skills and aspirations, expectations and capacity to assume new
responsibilities. The development of the modern capitalist enterprise is intricately related to this
process. As long as the efficiency of capital is related to the development of
new and sophisticated technologies the modern enterprise will be somehow
intimately related to the need of self development of people, that is, with
morale.
There are side effects of this kind of development, based on the increased role of
technology. The more the need to increase the organization’s competitiveness
on a technological basis, the lesser will be the number of people to be involved
in this process. This is one of the reasons of increasing the poverty gap even in
powerful societies like the United States, and one of the reasons of increasing
tensions across the Globe.
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Figure 2. The spiraling relationship between the working people, organization and contextual
components of morale - technology, salaries, self-respect, access to market, professionalization
Building the morale
The organizational levels for building the morale inside the organization are the
management, the supervising level and the workers. Building the morale is one
of the first tasks of the top management. (RBC: 1)
The bricks for building the morale are:
1. goals to be shared
i. organizational goals: the business firm is not a democratic or
debating society, it is a structure designed to bring out profit using
human capital.
ii. worker‘s needs: it is imperative to deploy a good research on
worker‘s needs prior to assign specific tasks
2. common emotionality
3. all people to be seen as developing beings not as inanimate things
4. bidirectional communication: up-down and down-up on the hierarchy
information must flow in a functional way. People to be kept informed on
all matters concerning them: ―It is a childish, but often damaging,
characteristic of people in every supervisory rank to hold back information
so as to feed their ego with the thought «I know something you don‘t
know» … Once upon a time management‘ maxim was: «Don‘t tell
employees anything unless you have to.» Enlightened management of
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today says: «Don‘t hold anything back unless there‘s a good
reason.»‖(RBC: 4)
5. co-operation to be practiced at every level
i. the organization is a team, a network of teams
6. free thinking to be encouraged on:
i. getting things done
ii. job satisfaction
iii. personal security
7. perhaps the first is the personality of the management.
8. top management to deal with people taking care of:
i. fairness,
ii. listen to people
iii. foreseeing the interests of the workers
9. team spirit. Work must be arranged around the concept of team spirit
(working together for a common goal)
10. top management to take care of the spirit of the rules besides the letter of
the rules
11. supervisors to arrange working conditions in order that
i. people use at the highest levels their abilities
ii. people to perceive themselves as efficient workers
12. supervisors should not limit their abilities to administer rules
13. supervisors should communicate with the lower levels using
i. fairness
ii. consistent messages
iii. personal involvement
We must emphasize that in modern capitalist organizations, in the most
industrialized countries, the money are not among the first elements of building
the morale. Salary is important mostly as a social reward, a social recognition of
the personal involvement and skills. J.A.C. Brown is considering the idea of
money as the cornerstone of morale ―so foolish that anyone who seriously holds
this opinion is thereby rendered incapable of understanding either industry or the
industrial worker.‖ (apud. RBC: 3)
The benefits of morale
Initiative, enterprise and efficiency, are among the most important benefits of the
organisational morale. Higher morale makes worker more self confident and
better able to assume responsibilities. A worker with high morale will be loyal to
the company, and dedicated to its job.
An organization with high morale will have a lower turnover rate of employees,
less absenteeism, good observation of internal rules, no or little abuse of
privileges, less conflicts and strong concern for quality. (cf. RBC: 1)
An organization with low morale will ―enjoy‖ lot of breaking points in the pace of
production due to internal frictions or bad communication between different
47
compartments. Low quality and disobedience are common indexes for low
morale. Management does not have an open communication with the workers and
often uses propaganda and half-truths in dealing with the lower levels.
10. Unsuitable attitudes toward work There are several situations where people can collide with formal rationality of
organizations, with the capital efficiency and rationalizing of work.
The social context and the people: Merton’s adaptation theory
One of the notorious theories of bad work integration is Merton‘s theory on social
adaptation.
Merton states in his book on Social Theory and Social Structure that people are
getting involved in the social world in five possible ways (apud Freda Adler: 112-
113).
The way people understand to adapt to social demands is crucial for the
enterprise which is part of the social world.
These five ways are:
1. conformity
2. innovation
3. ritualism
4. retreatism
5. rebellion
On the overall, the Merton‘s theory is a kind of ―negative‖ theory. Its starting
point is that society is put at strain because of the endless tension between social
and material expectations of people and the ever reduced means to achieve
personal goals as personal fulfillment, material stability etc. People have those
five ways in dealing with the social strain or social pressure, between their own
aspirations and needs and the availability of social means to achieve them:
1. Conformity. People accept the large social goals and perceive employment in
a good company as the way to get to the generally appreciated goals. The
higher the status of the job, the higher the payment, the better the situation
will be.
2. Innovation. Innovation is not necessarily a ―good case‖ here. Innovative
individuals are trying to ―sneak‖ between rules in order to achieve the general
goals of welfare and status. ―Sneakers‖ do not have the legitimate means to
achieve the desired goals, that is, they do not have the required education,
motivation or skill, the only thing they share with common people are the
goals to achieve a better social position.
3. Ritualism. Ritualism means ―spiritually dead people‖. Workers and managers
embroiled in a ritualistic life have no goals to achieve other than fulfilling as
such their daily duties. ―Many workers have been catching a bus every day for
20 years or more. They have long forgotten why, except that their jobs are
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where their paychecks come from. Their great relief is 2 – week vacation in
the summer.‖ (Freda Adler: 113). Ritualistic people are following the rules
without thinking of them.
4. Retreatism. Unlike ritualistic people, retreated people are not able to use
institutionalized means, that is, they are not able live in organizations. They
knew about the legitimate goals the society has but they have given up
pursuing them. They are retreating into alcoholism, drugs and other unreal
worlds. It is easy to see that an individual suffering of retreatism is of little use
for the modern enterprise, no matter how skilled she or he is or was before his
retreat.
5. Rebellion. These people are potential offenders of the law. They are rejecting
both the goals and the means to achieve socially accepted goals.
Countercultures such as punk or hippy and any other ―cultures‖ against the
establishment are characterized by this type of individual. This social type is
completely opposed to the goals of a modern enterprise, since the capitalist
organization is at the core of the civilized establishment.
The social context and the people: Veblen’s pecuniary emulation
Thorstein Veblen explains social order in more advanced societies as not based on
higher ideals and goals but on displaying of wealth. People are never satisfied,
they are almost all the time frustrated. The main goal of the individual is to have.
Sociality becomes negative (cf. I. Ungureanu: 60). It is not a bonding drive but a
force to put people under constant pressure. Possessing distorts the personality
which becomes centered on exterior things.
At the core of social relationship is the money. Money is honor. Money means
possession. The person which has more possessions will be honored. Being based
on marketable goods, honor is a very fluid state. The social drive is then reduced
to envy. Everybody is envious on anybody. The level were this envy manifests in
full power is between neighbors. Neighborhood degrades itself from a
congregating force into a boiling social recipient.
Everybody is keeping an eye on everybody – mostly on neighbors.
Inside the enterprise, teamwork becomes a false stage for hidden goals. And we
know that ―hidden‖ inside an organization is the first step towards a weak morale.
Competition becomes a personal and constant showdown of acquired status
things.
In the end, the formal rationality of the modern enterprise is brought to pieces.
There is no drive towards work efficiency and personality development. This
conclusion can be absurd. Certainly, Veblen‘s theory is not enough to explain the
civilized society. The theory has a certain value for explaining those social areas
with diminished sociality. Organizations should avoid placing themselves on such
grounds.
50
―The possession of goods, whether acquired aggressively by one's own exertion
or passively by transmission through inheritance from others, becomes a
conventional basis of reputability. The possession of wealth, which was at the
outset valued simply as an evidence of efficiency, becomes, in popular
apprehension, itself a meritorious act. Wealth is now itself intrinsically
honourable and confers honour on its possessor. …
So soon as the possession of property becomes the basis of popular esteem,
therefore, it becomes also a requisite to the complacency which we call self-
respect. In any community where goods are held in severalty it is necessary, in
order to his own peace of mind, that an individual should possess as large a
portion of goods as others with whom he is accustomed to class himself; and it is
extremely gratifying to possess something more than others. But as fast as a
person makes new acquisitions, and becomes accustomed to the resulting new
standard of wealth, the new standard forthwith ceases to afford appreciably
greater satisfaction than the earlier standard did. The tendency in any case is
constantly to make the present pecuniary standard the point of departure for a
fresh increase of wealth; and this in turn gives rise to a new standard of
sufficiency and a new pecuniary classification of one's self as compared with
one's neighbours. So far as concerns the present question, the end sought by
accumulation is to rank high in comparison with the rest of the community in
point of pecuniary strength. So long as the comparison is distinctly unfavourable
to himself, the normal, average individual will live in chronic dissatisfaction with
his present lot; and when he has reached what may be called the normal pecuniary
standard of the community, or of his class in the community, this chronic
dissatisfaction will give place to a restless straining to place a wider and ever-
widening pecuniary interval between himself and this average standard. The
invidious comparison can never become so favourable to the individual making it
that he would not gladly rate himself still higher relatively to his competitors in
the struggle for pecuniary reputability.‖ (Thorstein Veblen, The Theory Of The
Leisure Class, 1899, Globus Publishing, New York, Berlin 2005, chapter 2,
―Pecuniary Emulation‖)
The theories of Merton and Veblen show us that modern society has constant
challengers in itself regarding work efficiency. Work must rely on conformity and
inventiveness but these two can be misbehaviors an enterprise should know how
to handle and sometimes avoid. On the other hand, Veblen‘s theory assures us
that something happened with motivation for work: it is not being better but
having more and displaying better that motivates most of today‘s people, shows
Veblen. We know that implementing new technologies and some hard tasks
requires superior motivation, other than displaying. Of course not all enterprises
are facing the challenging of being the forerunners of technology and
rationalization of work. But what manager will be satisfied with workers
motivated mostly by showing up their belongings and acquisitions?
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Human Management considerations on the “unfitted” worker
There are theories which state that humans are mostly limited beings which are
acting to precise stimuli.
―The structural contingency theories … find human resources theorists are relying
too heavily on one best way of organizing and are unrealistic in their assumption
of the ability of most people to rise to a content theory of motivation, that is, to
the need for self-actualization.‖ (Ramona Ford: 91).
For instance, according to the operant conditioning theory of Skinner, people are
only a kind ―reacting beings‖, that is passive and ―waiting for instructions‖, even
if this being likes fair play and equity.
In order to have a good organized work, Skinner shows that ―managers must first
know what rewards their workers seek and how intensely they desire the rewards.
Second, managers must clearly spell out what constitutes good performance in
each case and what reward must be expected for this achievement. Third, workers
must be encouraged to believe that they can actually achieve high performance
(the criteria for performance must be realistic). Fourth, the actual reward must be
high enough to be worth the effort and must be delivered promptly if high
performances is to be reinforced. … [And] above all, employees must have the
perception of fairness, or equity, in their situation.‖ (apud Ramona Ford: 97)
Another well known theoretician of the diminished sociality within modern
organizations is J.C. Brown. His hypothesis on the bad nature of humans is made
on the following assumptions:
1. the individual is not able to follow other goals but personal interests;
2. in order that an enterprise to put at work the individual it must assign him
tasks closer to his personal interests;
3. the only means an organization has to increase the labor efficiency is to
intensify the personal competition among individuals;
4. in the organization each individual is replaceable.
Personal interests bring to bear the informal structures in organizations, i.e.
structures with certain goals and leaders others than those officially recognized.
One of the major implications of these assumptions is that organizations must be
flexible enough to tolerate and put at work the informal structures which always
arise behind the formal rational structures. (Ungureanu: 97)
Ramona Ford, citing from Douglas McGregor‘s theory, considers that structural
contingencies theories and others belong to the so-called task centered X-
Theories. There are also the Y Theories, which assume ―that people are not
naturally passive or inherently opposed to the goals of organizations, but that their
work experiences may have made them that way.‖ (Ramona Ford: 89). Most of
the human resources management and behavior in organizations theories are
belonging to the Y theories.
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The classification of human management approaches in X and Y theories belongs
to Douglas McGregor, in his book, "The Human Side of Enterprise" published in
1960. ―There are similarities between theory X and task-centered on the one
hand, and theory Y and people-centered management on the other …. Most
employees would no doubt welcome the opportunity to have more control over
their work and to put into practice their own ideas. There is undoubtedly a large
fund of valuable expertise, experience and originality among employees that is
often untapped by management.
Unfortunately some jobs are so closely limited, defined and integrated into a
complex production process that opportunities to satisfy the higher needs at work
are completely absent. … Moreover, there are many employees who do not expect
to take responsibility at work and avoid it if they can.‖ (Graham: 34)
The Organisational context and the disadvantages of bureaucracies
Modern enterprise is a well developed bureaucratic structure. The disadvantages
of bureaucracy have major impacts over the workers‘ attitudes towards work.
These side effects are related to:
1. overcentralizing decision
2. rigidities of communications and decisions
3. ―goals displacement‖
4. direct side effects on personality of workers
The first three adverse effects have indirect implications upon workers‘ attitudes
towards work. Overcentralizing and rigid structures are blocking vital
communication between management, supervisors and lower-level workers.
Goal displacement
An interesting side-effect is ―goal displacement‖, when the organization behaves
with no precise goal. The management loses the sight of the original goals and
workers are acting on prezenteist goals. As a direct outcome, the organization
loses efficiency. Leadership is reduced to ―filling up forms‖, that is, to
bureaucratic duties. Following the rules becomes a conventional task, the spirit of
the rules is dead.
Goal displacement is the result of some ―natural‖ process of decaying or misfit of
the organization to its context but can also be induced by some pressure groups
who want to take over the control of the company.
We think this is the case with some important organizations privatized in
Romania in the last 15 years. The company starts to lose control over its
objectives, behaves inadequately regarding the business environment, starts
making debts and when a certain critical point is attained, it is privatized for a
dime.
Bureaucratization and its effects on the personality of workers
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Among dominant effects of bureaucratization, especially of large organizations on
working morale are diminished commitment and lack of individual responsibility.
Employees, managers and workers are developing a kind of ―exploitative
orientation‖ towards the large company – which sometimes means also stealing
everything at hand from the company (Ramona Ford: 329).
Another major implication is called ritualism. Ritualism refers to both well
positioned people and lower positioned workers in the organization. It affects
personal implication, morale; it falsifies goals and put extra emphasis on
conformity.
Ritualism related to people with little perceived career opportunities: individuals
will be discouraged to assume tasks, they are becoming fatalists and ready to
value only extrinsic rewards (something related to the culture of poverty).
Ritualism and low personal power generates paradoxical behaviors like
authoritarian attitudes, envy, even sabotage of the other‘s career opportunities.
Upwardly mobile workers tend to reduce their behavior to what is expected to be
seen in order to achieve their next gradation. These individuals are developing
chameleonic behaviors; they are behaving according to the ever changing context
in order to please the superiors and other perceived important people and to get
by. ―By this self-preservation mechanism some people are lose the inner-
directedness of a basic set of ideas and values socialized into us at an early age,
which would make us try to shape our roles to us, rather than vice versa.‖
(Ramona Ford: 332)
11. Job and Career
Definitions and general considerations
Generally, a job is a set of task oriented activities and practices attached to a
formal position inside an organization, whose main goal is to provide specific
utilities for the organization and life support for the worker. The social action
attached to a job is work, that is, the activity of providing utilities peacefully
through the functional division of tasks.
Career represents a succession of jobs in an ascending order of status and
responsibilities. Career is the formal acknowledgement of an individual‘s skills
and personality developments. Career has a material, a socio-psychological and
thirdly, a moral part. The material component is the salary and the other material
benefits to the worker. The socio-psychological component represents the higher
status and social appraisal and is closely related with the moral aspect of the job.
The moral component is the public acknowledgement of the individual‘s efforts
and personal qualities. All of these traits are very important to job satisfaction.
Advantages of career tracks
There are several advantages for organizations and for individuals of following a
career. We already know that career is a crucial part of bureaucracy which, in its
turn, is at the core of the modern organization.
Career is salary based and it follows the skill and personality development of the
worker. Career is also the basis for organizational hierarchy which, in turn, is the
key point in getting things done.
Graham pointed out several advantages for both the individual and the firm:
Advantages to the company:
(a) ―Individuals might be motivated to work hard in order to further their careers.
(b) Employees have definite career targets at which to aim.
(c) Workers‘ loyalties to their occupations and / or employing organisations
might be enhanced.
(d) Employees‘ competence will increase systematically over time.
(e) Management succession schemes can be drafted more easily.
(f) Career planning can be directly related to the firm‘s performance appraisal
and management and management by objectives systems.‖
Advantages to individuals:
(a) ―Feelings of security resulting from the likelihood that his or her job
opportunities will increase as the person‘s career progresses.
(b) Enhanced self-awareness resulting from being forced to analyse personal
strengths and weaknesses and the career options available.
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(c) Acquisitions of useful experience as the employee selects jobs in
organisations, departments, divisions, etc., that will best promote his or her
career.
(d) Having a tangible long-term objective.‖ (Graham: 58).
Typology of jobs
In the European Union are five main categories of workers.
1. Professional workers: they have undergone a relatively long and hard
curriculum in order to become professionals including special training
at the workplace. They are the most significant proponents of the
subjective rationality since they are subjects of their professional code
of ethics. Their loyalties are therefore sometimes divided between their
profession and their employer or company. Professional workers are
likely to have a good level of job satisfaction and the entrance to
profession is limited. Examples of professional workers include
doctors, engineers, teachers, lawyers etc.
2. Craftspeople: they are skilled manual workers in practical activities
such as building, printing, machinery engineering, who have served an
apprenticeship. They share some similarities with the professional
workers: they are enjoying a relatively high social prestige since their
skills are highly valued and necessary for maintaining almost every
piece of machinery and practical activity. Craftspeople are enjoying a
good level of job independence for they can easily find a job with
another employer.
3. Machine minders and assembly workers: these workers are more
manipulative and handling oriented. Their training and skills are
limited to a certain number and types of operations. They are less
valuable since they tend to loose their skills and abilities over time
(with age). It is common that when they change the employer to
change their occupation too. Their attitude towards the company and
work is more detached.
4. Process workers: their primary task is to monitor automatic processes,
such as chemical processes. Process workers are better trained than
previous categories (except professionals) since they have to
understand the science and technology behind the processes they are
monitoring. Their higher qualification and job autonomy is often
related to a good level of job satisfaction.
5. White collar workers are closely related to the formerly labeled clerks.
They usually have a very good experience with a particular set of
tasks with a particular company. Therefore, their skills are not easily
transferable to another organization. White collar workers have a good
level of job satisfaction when they are able to control their own work
and the respective results. They are getting frustrated when their job is
reduced to routine and simple clerical duties. Management tends to
treat them individually.
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Another important typology classifies workers in fully employed, part-time and
temporary employed. Part-time and temporary employees are more cost effective
for flexible business but on the long run they may have hidden and important
costs such as: difficulty in controlling tasks and communication, low morale and
weak interpersonal relations.
Improving job performance. Training
Improving job performance can be done on several dimensions as follows:
- enrichment,
- enlargement,
- rotation of jobs.
Job enlargement is assigning more tasks to the worker or enlarging the range of
the tasks.
Job enrichment refers to the expansion of the job‘s content, requiring more skills
and responsibilities, in order to allow more autonomy to the worker.
Job rotation refers to shifting workers from one task to another. It implies a larger
skill basis (even it is not significant) and willingness to change tasks. Job rotation
may have a good impact on workers‘ morale especially when highly repetitive
tasks are to be changed for other kind of duties. Job rotation is important also
because it gives to the worker a better understanding of the context of production.
Enhancing the scope of the tasks requires proper training.
Training is a widespread method in improving job performance. Training has a
double function: to increase the utilization of labor force and to motivate the
workers. It is clear that a better trained person, under normal conditions, will use
in more efficient ways his or her own skills. It is evident also that a well trained
person has a better perception of himself or herself and that this can be related to a
better motivation.
―In detail, the gains which it is hoped training will bring are:
Greater productivity and quality
Less scrap or spoiled work
Greater versatility and adaptability to new methods
Less need for close supervision
Fewer accidents
Greater job satisfaction showing itself in lower labour turnover and less
absence.‖ (Graham: 283)
The side-effects of training refers to the cost effectiveness of it related to time
waste during training sessions; another side-effect refers to the potential
frustration of the trained people against the unsatisfactory opportunities matching
their new expectations. The negative aspect may appear also when the trainee sees
no use of the process or perceives it as a punishment or displeasure.
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The grid of training is centered on attitudes, skills and knowledge. That is, training
can be in attitudes, in skills or in knowledge.
Training in attitudes
Training in attitudes is trying to accommodate employee‘s attitudes with the
purposes of the job. Without proper attitudes the job cannot be carried out.
Attitude training can be on or off job. It consists on simulations or actual role
playing (T Groups1). The basics in training attitudes is transferring the desired
attitude from a model to the trainee, often using emotional carriers such as role
playing, obvious/real good examples etc.
Training in skill
We remember that skills are abilities to do certain things. Regarding the modern
organization, skill means the ability to achieve the task the organization has
assigned to the individual. Training in skills takes care of several levels of
abilities such as: technical, interpersonal, decision-making and information-
processing. Technical skills are related to the ability of handling physical objects;
interpersonal skills relate to the capacity to work within a group; decision-making
or decision-taking training takes care of the rapidity and the degree of relevance
of decisions and training in information processing refers to ―the discovery and
dissemination of information‖ (Graham: 296).
Training in knowledge
Knowledge is another important component of job. Job means also applying
certain knowledge to obtain a certain product. Training in knowledge is almost
compulsory in order to properly integrate the worker with the organization.
School provides general knowledge, that is, education; training in knowledge at
the workplace provides the very knowledge necessary to properly operate specific
duties. Coaching, mentoring and formal lectures are basic methods for training in
knowledge. Coaching means ―the power of example‖, that is the trainee is put
next to a very skilled colleague; coaching is also regular sessions with an
experienced manager which is to explain the job and test the knowledge acquired.
Mentoring is a more informal approach, where the apprentice is advised and
counseled by an older and more experienced fellow worker.
There are several layers of knowledge to focus upon such as:
1 ―T-groups are an off-job method (the T stands for training) which has been in vogue in recent decades.
The group of trainees (not more than twelve in number) is told that its sole task is to examine and discuss
its own behaviour. After a slow and awkward beginning, the group‘s discussion generally becomes
somewhat emotional, even heated, with members criticising each other‘s attitudes or indulging in frank
self-criticism. Group sessions often continue for several days, and are regarded by some as enjoyable and
by others as unpleasant. The purpose of T-group training is partly to bring about a change in attitudes by
showing individuals what others think of them, partly to demonstrate the importance of personal behaviour
in group processes and partly to improve the social skills of the trainees. This form of training has never
been clearly validated; its effects on some individuals have been quite harmful psychologically and many
others have found it useless because they have been unable to practise their newly found social skills in an
unsympathetic working environment.‖ (Graham: 295-296)
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- job purpose and procedures
- background information
- legal
- standards
- equipment
- interpersonal relations etc.
Total quality management and Jobs
Total quality management is a global system of economic, human resources, sales
and technologic policies aimed at constantly improving the quality of the output.
―A firms‘ total quality management (TQM) system comprises all its policies,
operational methods and organizational structures concerned with quality
management and the continuous improvement of the quality of its output.‖
(Graham: 107)
Total Quality Management requires a different design of the job. Workers must
better relate each other and to assume responsibilities beyond their immediate
tasks. In its turn, management should be prepared to assume a more cooperative
attitude, qualities such are cooperation, fairness, facilitation, becoming critical
within TQM.
Strictly related to working conditions, total quality management is based on job
enrichment, teamworking and other job improving techniques. In order to be
functional, the TQM requires some basics such as:
a) properly trained employees to deal with complex tasks;
b) adequate work culture – people must take responsibility, be flexible
and have the will to contribute to problem solving
c) trust in individual workers to assume responsibilities and take
decisions, especially on matters related to quality;
d) direct and daily communication; workers should know how their
actions are related to quality;
e) managers ―should become mentors and facilitators rather than
authority figures‖ (ibidem);
f) properly appraisal of everyone‘s contributions to quality.
Job description, evaluation and payment
Job description is a general statement regarding the purpose, duties and
responsibilities of a specific job. Job description comprises the job title, scope of the
job and its place in the hierarchy.
Performance assessments are carried out on the basis of job description. Job
performance analysis is intended to compare the formal objectives of the company
related to that particular job with the actual performance of the job. It has a twofold
target: to certify the salary or career trajectory and to assess the overall work
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performance and work efficiency in the company. ―Job evaluation is the process of
placing jobs in order of their relative worth so that employees may be paid fairly. It is
concerned with the demands and conditions of the job and not with the personal
qualities of the individual who is occupying the job.‖ (Graham: 185)
There are three layers of assessing performance:
a) standards of competence – general benchmarks indicating ―what people should be
capable of doing in specific workplace situations.‖
b) personal competencies – are the actual individual characteristics involved in the
duty;
c) occupational competencies – are the outputs levels the individuals are expected to
attain. (Graham: 181-182)
Job evaluation or performance assessment is strongly related to payment.
Payment is the value of work. Its functions are related to daily life support – food
and shelter, and more important to status and personal self-fulfillment needs.
Perception of payment is strongly related to the sentiments of fairness and justice, and
therefore, is at the center of the company‘s morale.
The rationale of job evaluation is:
(a) ―to make pay administration easier …
(b) to harmonise internal rates of pay with those found in other companies
(c) to provide a means by which a reasonable rate of pay can be fixed for new
or changed jobs within the company
(d) to protect the employee from arbitrary decisions by management
(e) to justify wage differentials and hence avoid frequent invocations of
grievance procedures
(f) to facilitate fair promotion systems based on rationally determined job
grading structures (each grade should specify all the qualifications and
personal attributes needed to occupy a job within that grade).‖ (idem: 185)
Stress at the workplace
Stress is unfortunately a well established companion of the working-place. It is
part of a larger set of psychological problems associated to work. Stress is defined
by the Health and Safety Commission in Great Britain as "the adverse reaction
people have to excessive pressure or other types of demand placed on them"2.
The U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare identified six factors
associated to stress:
1. job dissatisfaction
2. low self-esteem
3. occupational pressures
4. continuous and excessive changes in employment
2 http://www.hse.gov.uk/stress
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5. conflict or incongruity between job and other aspects of life, mostly
between educational status and job status
6. ―jobs that require the worker not to express personal feelings but to hold
them within while maintaining a clam, cheerful, controlled exterior.‖
(apud Feldman: 286-287).
One particularly causes of stress is bullying. Bullying at work consists of mostly
verbal and psychological aggression towards another person but also of physical
intimidation. Other behaviors associated to bullying are sexual and age-related
harassment, persistent criticism and public ridicule. Bullying is related to poor
communication, hiding important information to the bullied person, bad or
unfitted assignments and responsibilities, excessively supervision etc. (Graham:
131-132)
On the overall, stress is associated to reducing in quality, quantity of the output,
bad or low morale and serious illnesses. Stress has spillover effects over families
and easily distorts the social relations in general. Stress is seriously damaging
the social capital3 which is one of most valuable components of the working
organization.
Additional text on Job Evaluation
Some Do's and Don'ts when Interviewing / Evaluating Employees
Do
Have as much privacy as possible Call applicant by name when calling him into the office Ensure the applicant knows your name Greet applicant courteously and sincerely Make the applicant feel that you are pleased with his interest in the position Establish an informal but business like atmosphere Make the applicant feel important Talk to the applicant as though you were the only contact he would ever have with the
company Compliment a good employment record Interrupt the conversation to keep interview on track Use active listening Relax and the applicant will relax Keep information given, confidential
3 The social capital refers to ―those tangible substances that count for most in the daily lives of
people: namely good will, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and
families who make up a social unit.‖ (L.J. Hanifan in Robert Putnam, Bowling Alone. The
Collapse and Revival of American Community, Simon & Schuster, 2000, p.19)
Social capital is also the social network and the ―associated norms of reciprocity‖ (idem: 21)
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Remember the applicant's time is valuable Investigate applicant's work record / performance thoroughly Watch for gaps in work record Check job records and references Use application blanks and other data in planning the interview Make an outline in advance, of the main items of information you want to obtain during the
interview Plan the time required for the interview
Don't
Interview when worried, upset, ill or under stress Hold an interview in a noisy place Keep applicants waiting unnecessarily Give the impression of being abrupt or harsh Allow outside interruptions Seek information you already have Antagonize the applicant Show emotion at any physical handicap Hurt the applicant's feelings or destroy his faith in himself Forget applicant is sensitive to every word the interviewer speaks Appear to lose interest in the interview Dominate the interview Pry into personal lives Break or delay an appointment Fall into a set pattern of interviewing Waste time on a long interview if the applicant is clearly not suitable Conduct the interview in a haphazard manner
(source: Accel Team, http://www.accel-team.com )
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12. Organizations and Work Organisations and groups are representing a huge and challenging research area.
An entire science is studying them: social psychology. Since we are dealing with
just an interdisciplinary branch of social theory – behavior in organizations relates
with sociology, anthropology, economics, social psychology, we cannot discuss
this matter exhaustively. Only some aspects will be treated: from the broader
theory – in order to understand the fundamentals, to the closer aspects strictly
dealing with behavior in organizations.
Organizations – definitions
―Organizations … are social entities formed for particular purposes. …
An organization usually has several goals, some of which may
conflict.
Second, it is a social entity –
o it is composed of people working together in some
relatively patterned way to further the organization‘s goals.
Third, it has an organizational structure carrying out its activities.
o This means that the technology (knowledge, skills, and
equipment used to produce the goods or services) has been
subdivided into separate tasks that have been coordinated.
Fourth, an organization is a distinct entity with an identifiable
membership – even if it is a corporation with branches in 120
countries or an association with affiliate chapters in thousands of
towns across the country.‖ (Ramona Ford: 321, arrangements and
emphasis added).
This is a general definition. A closer definition of organizations as capitalist
structures is the following:
Capitalist enterprises are organized structures oriented towards making profit
using rationalized labor or rationalization techniques of labor. These
rationalization techniques of labor are technology, proper management of human
resources and bureaucratization. Bureaucracy assures the calculability of the
capital efficiency. Technology and human resources are subordinated to the
formal rationality of bureaucracy. Technology is the tool for enhancing the
manpower and, in the same time, is a space of competition, a niche of
organizational development. Some companies are making drugs, others aircrafts,
others bricks – different products, different markets, different technologies.
Economic organizations are living in a broader context, social, cultural and
geopolitical. We have already learnt about the globalization, bureaucratization,
rationality and hyperrationality, about the human motivational and attitudinal pot
(Chapter 1 - Organizational Behavior and Global processes).
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Organisational structure refers to the general linkages and relationships that
functionally unify technology, people and specific tasks, people to achieve the
desired goals of the organization (cf. Ramona Ford: 333).
The role of bureaucracy in organizations. Bureaucracy and Authority
We may remember the basic traits of bureaucracy in Chapter 5 – Rationality
within organizations. Researchers have stressed the role of bureaucracy in
developing the capitalist enterprise, comparing it with the introduction at scale the
steam engines: ―The decisive reason for the advance of bureaucratic organization
has always been its purely technical superiority over any other form of
organization. The fully developed bureaucratic apparatus compares with other
organizations exactly as does the machine with the non-mechanical modes of
production. Precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge of the files, continuity,
discretion, unity, strict subordination, reduction of friction and of material and
personal costs – these are raised to the optimum point in the strictly bureaucratic
administration …
And as far as complicated tasks are concerned, paid bureaucratic work is not only
more precise but, in the last analysis, it is often cheaper than even formally
unremunerated honorific service.‖ (Weber: II, 973).
Bureaucracy is important because it assures the proper context for capital flowing
based on rationalization of work. This is modern capitalism, opposed to political
capitalism where capital flowing does not need the support of rationalized work.
The basic traits of the modern bureaucracy are the same with those of the market
mechanism: precision, speed, unambiguity, knowledge, continuity, discretion …
all of these are the characteristics of a highly developed monetary economy based
on property and knowledge.
The basic structure of organizations. Social layers and Authority
There are three important social layers regarding organizations: workers,
management, owners. The task of workers is to achieve the working goals
assigned by management. Some of the workers are bureaucrats. The main task of
the bureaucrats is to monitor, to account (including forecasting), using figures and
numerical calculations, the concordance between capital efficiency goals and
daily working tasks.
The task of management is to provide strategic and tactical goals for work in
order to achieve capital efficiency. Management is also in charge with
rationalizing work.
A very important social layer is the lower management strata of supervisors. They
are directly related to work and, in the same time, aware of the higher goals of the
company.
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Another layer is the layer of authority. The main depositors of authority are
managers, given their position within the enterprise as general or specific
coordinators. Modern workers have authority, too. It is the authority of profession
and this authority they share with the management.
Authority is transmitted through bureaucratic channels. There are, of course,
informal structures, but the entire organizational network, formal and informal is
related to bureaucracy. The major difference between formal and informal
structures of authority is that formal authority has written rules and must be
obeyed, at least by letter if not in spirit.
Since Max Weber we know that behavior in organizations is under three types of
authority:
Traditional
Charismatic
Legal or rational
Traditional authority is based ―on the sanctity of the well established rules‖;
charismatic authority is based on ―personality appeals‖ of the leader; legal or
rational type of authority is based on formal rationality of the legal perceived
rules and on ―the right to issue commands under such legal enacted rules‖
(Weber).
In the real world, the structure of authority is a mixture of all these three ―ideal
types‖. The organizational structure and the power of managers, even the rights a
worker enjoys are based on legal and rational considerations (written rules and
codes of behavior, job descriptions, regular assessments, professional background
etc.). Tradition has a good record with modern authority and in the market
economy: the older the rule and the product, the more prestigious and less
questionable they are. Of course, the basic condition for the traditional ingredient
to work is its quality and proven efficiency. Charisma is a very important
component of the informal side of power and leadership. Without personal
charisma social bonding cannot establish. It is a key element to lead an
organization and for teamwork.
Organisational culture and Management Style
In general terms, organizational culture ―is the organization personality and way
of life‖ (Ramona Ford: 345)
More specifically, organizational culture refers to the rationality of achieving
organizational goals and to a certain degree the personal goals of those
individuals inside the organization. Organisational culture contains formal
rationality goals and subjective rationality goals. We remember that formal
rationality goals are bureaucratic defined and subjective rationality goals are
representing more localized expectations and values (professional, personal, local
culture etc.).
65
Organisational culture overlaps with the dominant management styles.
Recall Likert stated the typology of management styles as follows:
1. authoritative
2. human relations
3. participative. (cf. Likert‘s classical book, New Patterns of Management,
1961 apud Ramona Ford: 343)
The authoritative managing culture is based on material rewards and on coercive
means, only the top management being empowered. There are two subtypes of
authoritarian cultures: exploitative and benevolent. The exploitative style is
imposing tasks, rules etc. while the benevolent is dominated by the trust of ruler
by the ruled – a kind of master-servant relationship. Fear is the commonplace for
both subtypes and the means to motivate people are very restricted. The
benevolent management style was labeled by Likert paternalistic – ―velvet glove
on the iron fist‖.
The participative style is based on personal responsibility and teamwork. The
organizational structure is flexible and based on cooperation. In order to shape a
participative culture and management style, some human resources specialists are
considering that four conditions must be met:
―The motivation to work must be fostered by modern principles and
techniques, and not by the old system of rewards and threats.
Employees must be seen as people who have their own needs, desires and
values and their self-worth must be maintained or enhanced.
An organization of tightly knit and highly effective work groups must be built
up which are committed to achieving the objectives of the organization.
Supportive relationships must exist within each work group. These are
characterized not by actual support, but by mutual respect.‖ (Accel Team,
online paper on Advancing Employee Productivity).
Groups. Working Groups
Groups are assemblies of people which constantly act and interact on the basis of
shared values. Common goals, shared values, constant and common action are
key elements of groups, in general. Groups are the backbone of substantial
rationality in the company.
A working group is a relatively tight knit of people based on constant, mutual and
functional interaction in reference to specific values and tasks. Constant
functional interaction – prescribed or not by formal norms, brings forth
psychological reciprocity and value sharing. This is the working group – a task
oriented group. The task component relates to producing new outputs from rare
resources (that is, economic action). We must note that not always the goals of
groups inside a company are the same with the company‘s goals. The
66
differentiating factor is the norm of the group. Groups are developing their own
norms and are defining their own interests.
Group emergence
Groups are of critical importance for a company. As we will see later in this
chapter, groups can boost or deadly hinder organizational efficiency. Therefore it
is good to know when a group is about to emerge, in what conditions, on what
value basis, with what type of informal leadership etc.
―According to B.W. Tuckman, groups develop through four stages as follows:
1. Members learn about each other, about the nature and purpose of the
group and the constraints that limit its activities. Group structures, status
hierarchies and patterns of interactions are determined. Rules of behaviour
are established and individuals tell each other about their perceptions of
the group‘s structure and objectives. This stage is sometimes referred to as
the «orientation» or «forming» phase.
2. Disputes and power struggles arise. There is internal group conflict,
criticism and open questioning of the group‘s goals. This is the
«confrontation» or «storming» phase.
3. Conflicts are resolved and a division of work and responsibilities among
group members is tentatively implemented. Specializations develop;
individual differences are recognized and «who does what» disputes
disappear. Group norms emerge. This is the «differentiation» or
«norming» phase.
4. Eventually, group productivity increases, there is much collaboration
among members and commitment to the group. Individuals value the
contributions of their colleagues and accept their idiosyncrasies. A
decision-making system acceptable to all the group‘s members is
established. People get on with their work. This is the «collaboration» or
«performing» phase of the process.‖ (cf. Tuckman apud Graham: 48, 49,
original emphasis).
Groups always arise inside an organization. Their emergence can be more or less
peaceful and in harmony with the formal goals of the company. In order to
achieve the proper type of group behavior a proper selection of the personnel is
needed. Taking care of the potential informal leaders is another important task for
the human management team. The informal leaders can be promoted in formally
recognized positions in order to mix the formal objectives with the informal
objectives of his group. Then, individual job satisfaction is the next task the
management should ensure: achieving the formal goals must be rewarding. Every
worker should feel personally responsible even if he or she is part of a recognized
work group/team or not.
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A brief classification of groups. Vocation
The most common classification of groups is formal/informal and
primary/secondary groups.
The formal/informal distinction refers to the straightness and openness of the
relationships inside. A formal relationship is distant and openly governed by
written rules, it is impersonal; an informal group is face to face, with a personal
touch, pursued in familiar terms etc.
The primary/secondary typology refers to the degree of belonging an individual
feels toward his or her group. Primary groups are the social nests each of us has.
They are critical for the development of the individual‘s identity. The most
important traits of primary groups are mutual support, face-to-face interaction and
intimacy. Secondary groups are similar to the formal groups, with little mutual
understanding and support, and impersonal interactions.
Some theorists are merging the characteristics of the informal groups with those
of primary groups especially the sense of belonging, identity and self esteem,
personal security, stress reduction.
R. Sayles in his Behavior of Industrial Work Groups (Wiley, 1958) established
four major types of working groups: apathetic, erratic, strategic and conservative
(apud. Mullins: 469). The criteria of his classification were based on members‘
cohesiveness/interdependence, group status, level of payment and skills.
Figure 3: Typology of working groups (after Sayles‘ theory on industrial work groups)
The professional or working group has an important role in modern day personal
lives. The sense of modern identity is vocational, that is, professionally centered.
Strategic - good production - important to the management - unionized, active, pressure on management
- good negation techniques
Conservative - mainly individual operations - lower group interaction - strong group identity - professional bodies
- ambivalent towards unions
Erratic - unpredictable - authoritarian leadership
- freq. interaction
Ap
ath
etic
- lo
w m
oral
e -
no c
lear
lead
ersh
ip
- m
embe
rs fe
els
supp
ress
ed
- ea
sily
man
aged
Sta
tus
& g
rou
p in
tern
al d
ensi
ty
Skills & payment HIGH
HIGH
LOW
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Vocation is the link between work and the most intimate needs of the individual,
such as personal development. This is why the stronger the primary character of
the professional/working group, the better the quality of life of the individual will
be.
Role and status
Group life is structured according to various roles and statuses of different
individuals. Social life is defined by role and status and these, in their turn, are
group defined. Each group ―assigns‖ specific roles to the individuals.
Role is about the expectations others are having towards us.
Status is about the position we are occupying inside de group or society at large.
Each status has a set of roles attached to it. For instance, being a mother has lot
duties (roles) which everybody, including the child, expects to be met. If the
mother fails to fulfill the role, the child becomes stressed and gets crying or
something worse can happen. Depending on the gravity of the failure to fulfill the
duty of motherhood, the group, the society, will say ―that person is a bad mother‖.
Let‘s consider now being a bank top executive. Leading the bank is the status of
the individual inside the group called ―Bank of …‖. If that bank has a good
profile, being director there has also a high social status profile for the society at
large. There are lots of roles – expectations attached with that high profile status.
Being director of such a bank has attached expectations coming from the society
in general, even from the political parties, expectations from inside the bank itself,
notably from the board of directors, regular workers and clerks etc. That
chairperson has expectations to fulfill regarding national level of investment,
mortgages, interest rates even inflation and fuel costs. Besides, he or she is
expected to have a good involvement in charity actions and sustaining national
culture etc.
When there too many roles, there arises the so called role conflict or role strain –
when contradictory expectations are meeting in the same place and in the same
time, for the same individual. An individual within a role conflict situation gets
stressed and nervous, incapable to ―please everybody‖ and even himself.
―Individuals who cannot live up to role expectations may experience feelings of
inadequacy, embarrassment and guilt. Interactions with others become difficult,
and could eventually collapse. …
Role ambiguity can cause stress, insecurity and loss of self-confidence. …
Serious problems occur when role occupants and others disagree fundamentally
about the contents of a role, i.e. the duties it covers, ranges of acceptable
behaviour, whether certain actions are voluntary or mandatory and (importantly)
which of the role occupant‘s obligations should assume priority.‖ (Graham: 57)
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Norms
―Defining‖ roles and statuses means building and/or observing norms. Norms are
standards of behavior of what is acceptable and it is not acceptable for society
and/or a particular group. Every group has a particular norm. That particular norm
is almost the same with the concept of substantive rationality. And we remember
that in order to achieve efficiency, the management of the organization has to
assure the compatibility between these particular norms and the general tasks and
objectives of the company (the formal rationale of the organization).
―A group norm is a shared perception of how things should be done, or a common
attitude, feeling or belief.‖ (Graham: 45) The group norm is the invisible link that
keeps people together. Norms are created through continuous interaction and
norms are unified responses towards the modifications of the environment. Norms
are shortcuts, already made solutions to somewhat precise categories of
environmental challenges.
Norms and Working Groups
―Norms … facilitate the integration of an individual into a group, and thus
will be eagerly accepted by new members.‖
―Norms may relate to working methods, to how much work should be done
and how enthusiastically it should be done; quality of output, relations with
management …; how various people should be addressed and treated …
Group norms are particularly important in determining workers attitudes
towards change, since norms can create or overcome resistance to new
methods and ideas.‖ (Graham: 45).
Norms are the starting point of conformity. Conformity means behaving
according to norms. Without norms there is discomfort and social disorientation.
The importance of understanding norms is more than understanding the subtler
mechanisms of conformity. It is about enhancing productivity. Norms are not
emerging from anywhere. They are mostly generated by the so called informal
leaders, more exactly by opinion-leaders. Opinion leaders are those persons who
take a primary role in explaining/filtrating existing norms for the rest of the group,
who have the power to emulate collective action by verbalizing goals and tasks
according to their own values. If their values are not as high as the organizational
values, the consequences may be disruptions in the chain of production, in the
general cohesion of the company and the mess of the whole chain of command.
The final output will be poor quality and lower in quantity.
Group Cohesiveness
Group cohesiveness refers to the attractiveness of the group and defines its
consistency, stability and unity over time and under different conditions. The
effects of cohesiveness are maintenance of membership, influence over members,
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and self-esteem – the greater the cohesiveness, the stronger the feeling of
membership, influence over its members and self esteem.
Group cohesiveness also relates to productivity and organizational efficiency.
Group cohesiveness is norm related. If the norm on which the cohesiveness is
built fosters productivity and work efficiency, the organizational goals will be
better achieved. If, on the contrary, the norm on which the cohesiveness is built
opposes the company‘s formal culture, the overall productivity and quality will be
much lower. Group cohesiveness acts as a manpower multiplier. Depending on
the group norms, this multiplier can boost the company‘s efficiency or
dramatically hinder it.
Factors determining group cohesiveness are the following:
- satisfaction of personal needs by group‘s means and action;
- group goals: the closer objectives of the group to the individual‘s
goals, the more cohesive the group;
- attractiveness: personal, company‘s goals and even group‘s aims may
be outweighed in importance by some very appealing group
individuals;
- individual success within the group: it seems that the higher the
individual‘s success at the tasks done with the group the stronger the
group cohesiveness will be. (cf. Feldman: 375-381)
Group Behavior related to Work Efficiency
After taking into account some basic considerations on working groups‘
efficiency, we will discuss some phenomena specifically related to group
behavior: social facilitation, social loafing and group think.
General considerations
Certainly individuals are not just enrolling with the company. They are enrolling
also in the more or less transparent structure of groups, more exactly within a
certain group. That group would be their working group. There are some general
implications of groups within the company. Here they are:
(a) ―The group will produce a settled system of personal relationships and
customs.
(b) These customs sometimes include restrictions on output.
(c) Individuals will often behave more in the way the group expects than as
they would if left to themselves.
(d) The group exerts great pressure on all its members to conform to its own
standards of behaviour.
(e) Newcomers to the group are often made to feel unwelcome. …
(f) The group tends to resist change imposed on it, and will react to it slowly
because of the threat to its existence, its security, its customs and its
pattern of relationships.
(g) Unofficial leaders emerge in the group, changing according to the needs of
the situation at the time. When the group is in open conflict with the
management, … it may choose as its leader a person whom normally its
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members would describe as an agitator. When conditions settle down, a
new leader might emerge who would be a more diplomatic person.
(h) A group often seems to follow the same motivation process as an
individual – searching for and eventually perceiving satisfying goals. It
can be frustrated and show the negative reactions of aggression,
regression, resignation and fixation.
(i) The character of a group will not change because one person leaves it or
joins it, unless that person is extremely influential.
(j) An external threat or the competition of another group will increase the
cohesiveness of a group.‖ (Graham: 49, 50)
Social Facilitation
The effect the group has on its members to improve their performance is called
social facilitation (Feldman: 382).
The social facilitation is two sided. When people are performing well learned
behavior their performance will be significantly improved by the presence of the
other members, while the same people, in the same context (watched by group
mates), will perform worse poorly learned procedures (Zajonc: 1965 apud
Feldman: 382-383). According to other researchers (Contrell: 1972, ibidem), this
effect happens mostly when the performer knows that he or she is evaluated by
others.
The social facilitation theory was later developed with the conclusion that
performance is increased regarding simple tasks only. In the case of more
complicated tasks, the action of the individual will be distracted by the presence
of the others and the performance declines.
Social Loafing
Social loafing is the loose of personal responsibility within the context of the
group. It is the reverse of social facilitation. ―Social loafing occurs during a
shared group activity when there is a decrease in individual effort due to the social
presence of other persons … Hence, people are apt to work less hard in groups
due to the perception of reduced social pressure to produce.‖ (Feldman: 384)
Some researchers are considering social loafing an inevitable effect of the groups:
the larger the number of group members working the same task, the smaller the
contribution of each individual (the so-called Ringelmann Effect apud Wilf
Ratzburg)
The reasons for social loafing effect are still unclear. Some researchers are
considering a weak motivation. Some are considering it as an adverse effect
related to social facilitation.
A general rule to avoid social loafing is that people must feel direct responsible of
their task and their job satisfaction; assessment of the job performance must take
care of these general lines.
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Groupthink
Group think is a concept labeled by Irving Janis and refers to the ―deterioration in
mental efficiency reality testing, and moral judgments as a result of group
pressures‖. (Janis: 1971). The most obvious factor here is pressure towards
conformity which escalates into pressure towards unanimity. There is the context
of group attraction and leaders‘ strong positions which hinder any critical
analysis. ―One of the most common [trait of groupthink] … appears to be that or
remaining loyal to the group by sticking with the policies to which the group has
already committed itself, even when those policies are obviously working out
badly and have unintended consequences that disturb the conscience of each
member. This is one of the key characteristics of groupthink.‖
Group think has the following characteristics: the illusion of group invulnerability
and that group cannot make errors; the effort to discard any contradictory
information; stereotypical judgments against other social groups; pressure to
adopt the dominant perspective; the self reinforcing illusion of unanimity which
in turns reinforce the dominant perspective; the so called mind guards –
individuals which take care to protect the group from contradictory or divergent
information. (Janis, idem; Feldman: 391-393).
13. Managing organizations (I): Leadership
General considerations and definition
Leadership, together with grouping and communicating, is a social necessity.
Leadership is the ability of a person to influence another.
The aim of leadership is to facilitate the procurement of rare resources for
each member of the group. In the modern organization, leadership is designing
tasks and directing towards those tasks the rest of the people. In modern
organizations leadership means also personal responsibility using the
technique of empowerment. Each member of the organization is at first
responsible to himself or herself of what is doing and secondly to the superior
level: ―An employee‘s feeling of being in control and of significantly contributing
to an organisation‘s development can be greatly enhanced by «empowering» that
person to complete tasks and attain targets independently, without constantly
having to refer back to management for permission to take certain actions. The
employee is trusted to take sensible decisions.‖ (Graham: 36).
Managing is more than authority. Managing is influencing people to properly
complete a certain task. (McClelland & Burnham: 1995)
Authority and Power
There is a useful distinction between authority and power. Informal leaders may
have more power than an appointed, formal leader. Authority is a special social
position by appointment. It can have power or not. Power is about influencing
people. The gap between authority and power is filled by legitimacy – the degree
the appointment is recognized by the ruled. Functional leadership comes from
both elements: authority and power, and is based on competence, legitimacy and
appointment. The way a leader molds its position and aptitudes in handling people
to get the job done is called management style - see Chapter 12 – Organisations
and Work – Organisational culture and Management Style and
The basic structure of organizations. Social layers and Authority.
There are several approaches towards management styles. W. Ratzburg briefly
describes two behavioristic approaches:
―The University of Michigan studies (Rensis Likert) identified two styles of
leader behavior:
a) Production centered behavior: when a leader pays close attention to
the work of sub- ordinates, explains work procedures, and is keenly
interested in performance.
b) Employee centered behavior: when the leader is interested in
developing a cohesive work group and in ensuring employees are
satisfied with their jobs.
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These two styles of leader behavior were believed to lie at the ends of a single
continuum. Likert found that employee- centered leader behavior generally tended
to be more effective.
Researchers at Ohio State leadership found results which suggested two basic
leader behaviors or styles.
a) Initiating structure behavior: when the leader clearly defines the
leader-subordinate, establishes formal lines of communication, and
determines how tasks are to be performed.
b) Consideration behavior: the leader shows concern for sub-ordinates
and attempts to establish a warm, friendly, and supportive climate.
Unlike the Michigan Studies, these two behaviors were not viewed as
opposite ends of a continuum, but as independent variables. Thus the
leader can exhibit varying degrees of both initiating structure and
consideration at the same time.
Rather than concentrating on what leaders are, as the trait approach did, the
behavioral approach forced looking at what leaders do. The main shortcomings of
the behavioral approach was its focus on finding a dependable prescription for
effective leadership.‖ (Wilf Ratzburg, A behavioral approach to leadership in
op.cit.)
Graham pointed out that higher productivity is more related to the employee
centered management than to production centered management. (Graham: 27)
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid
In their book, The Managerial Grid (1964), Robert Black and Jane Mouton
devised a grid relating human relations concerns to the efficiency of work. The
grid classifies the managerial concern for human relations on a scale ranging from
1 to 9, where 1 means low concern and 9 the highest concern. The same applies to
the concern for production. For instance, a 1,9 manager has a very low concern on
production and the highest concern for human relations. Reversely, the 9,1
manager ―arranges work as efficiently as possible, with scant regard for
subordinates‘ feelings. Other potential combinations are 1,1 managers, who make
little effort to get work done or develop close personal relationships, and 5,5
managers who balance task performance with human relations considerations.
Best of all is the 9,9 manager who achieves high production from committed,
satisfied subordinates.‖ (apud. Graham: 29)
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Blake and Mouton's managerial grid
1, 1
1, 9
5, 5
9, 1
9, 9
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Concern for production
Co
nc
ern
fo
r p
eo
ple
Leadership typology
As we already know, leadership can be formal or informal; it can be task oriented
or human needs oriented etc.
An interesting typology was stated by McClelland and David H. Burnham. Their
article Power is the Great Motivator (Harvard Business School, March 1976,
reprinted in January 1995) is already a classical approach.
McClelland and Burnham revived the concept of power, mistakenly confused by
many scholars with authoritarianism. They demonstrated that the main drive for
a leader is power. Power for leadership is the self-achievement target for almost
every person in a leading position. The explanation is ―because they focus on
personal improvement and doing things better by themselves, achievement-
motivated people [good managers] want to do things themselves. …
Yet managers, particularly in large, complex organizations, cannot perform by
themselves all the tasks necessary for success. They must manage others to
perform for the organization‖. (McClelland and Burnham: 1995)
Basically, McClelland and Burnham stated that there are three types of leaders
and leadership:
1. affiliative oriented – that is, close to human needs leadership; their
leadership it facilitate uncertainty and low morale being too much
dependent on workers‘ moods;
2. personal power oriented – they are fulfilling the personal need for power
closely to the task oriented managerial style; they have great incentives for
organizing and leading but this drive is not well self-controlled;
3. institutional oriented – an interesting and very productive concept –
institutional managers are organization minded.
The affiliative managers are ―concerned about being liked tend to have
subordinates who feel that they have little personal responsibility, that
organizational procedures are not clear, and that they have little pride in their
work group.
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In short, as we expected, affiliative managers make so many ad hominem and ad
hoc decisions that they almost totally abandon orderly procedures. Their disregard
for procedure leaves employees feeling weak, irresponsible, and without a sense
of what might happen next, of where they stand in relation to their manager, or
even of what they ought to be doing.‖
―The managers who are motivated by a need for personal power [emphasis
added] are somewhat more effective. They are able to create a greater sense of
responsibility in their divisions and, above all, a greater team spirit. They can be
thought of as managerial equivalents of successful tank commanders such as
General George Patton, whose own daring inspired admiration in his troops. …
Managers motivated by personal power are not disciplined enough to be good
institution builders, and often their subordinates are loyal to them as individuals
rather than to the institution they serve. When a personal power managers leaves,
disorganization often follows.
The strong group spirit that the manager has personally inspired deflates. The
subordinates do not know what to do for themselves.‖
The institutional manager is the best profile of the manager. Its main traits are the
following:
1. ―Institution managers are more organization minded, that is, they tend to
join more organizations and to feel responsible for building up those
organizations. Furthermore, they believe strongly in the importance of
centralized authority.
2. They report that they like to work. … People who have a high need to
achieve like to reduce their work by becoming more efficient. … But
managers who have a need for institutional power actually seem to like the
discipline of work. It satisfies their need for getting things done in an
orderly way.
3. They seem quite willing to sacrifice some of their own self-interest for the
welfare of the organization they serve.
4. They have a keen sense of justice. It is almost as if they feel that people
who work hard and sacrifice for the good of the organization should and
will get a just reward for their effort.‖
―Of the managerial types, the institutional manager is the most successful in
creating an effective work climate. Subordinates feel that they have more
responsibility. Also, those kinds of managers create high morale because they
produce the greatest sense of organizational clarity and team spirit. If such a
manager leaves, he or she can be more readily replaced by another because the
employees have been encouraged to be loyal to the institution rather than to a
particular person.‖
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Emergence of leadership. Situational and contingency theories
Leadership can emerge on formal and informal basis, that is, appointed or
spontaneously propelled by the internal logic of the group.
The situational theories (Godwin & Hazelwood, Rabbie & Bekkers, Crocket,
Hemphill etc.) state that individuals are somehow thrust into leadership positions.
Of course, personal traits are also important but the leadership is a specific
situational opportunity, ―because it is the characteristics of the situation and not
the person that lead to leadership attainment‖ (Feldman: 359). The following are
the situational opportunities when a person, with the necessary personality traits,
can become a leader:
1. the group is attaining a critical size, and in order to be managed it needs a
leader;
2. the nature of group‘s composition. A homogeneous group is likely to easier
produce and accept a leader than a heterogeneous one;
3. the need for communication is a good leadership predictor: the higher the need
to communicate the greater the likelihood to emerge a leader;
4. the importance of the group goal: ―the greater the degree of importance in
achieving a group goal, the more likely a leader will emerge‖;
5. the changing needs of group‘s members will favor the appearance of a flexible
leader able to handle and even manipulate these particular needs. (cf. ibidem)
Contingency theories (Fred Fiedler) suggests that there a number of three
situations when and where leadership arises. These three conditioning factors are:
1. affectivity – the quality of the emotional context inside the group; this
dimension is the most important;
2. task complexity and structure – that is, the level of clarity and size of the task
to be solved;
3. the strength of the leader‘s power position – that is, the degree of power a
leader can claim over the members of the group;
―The contingency model holds that the three factors relating to the situation
determine the degree of favorability of the group to the leader [and to the
leadership behavior]. The most favorable situation is one in which the affective
relations between the leader and the followers are positive, the task is highly
structured, and the power position of the leader is strong, while the least favorable
situation is one in which leader-member affective relations are poor, the task is
unstructured, and the power position is weak.‖ (Feldman: 361).
For instance, when the quality of the emotional environment of the group is poor,
the leader favorability is also low and the task will be poorly structured and
poorly done, the power position of the leader will also be weak. To work around
this problem the management should appoint a task-oriented leader, the directive-
behavior being a good solution to that group. A group will be ready to be led
when it is already task oriented, and its members have good emotional ties.
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Power
Power is the ability of an actor to exert his or her willingness over another actor
(an institution or another person). The result of the power is a desired behavior
change at the level of those ruled.
There are several work-related types of power according to French and Raven
(apud Feldman: 353-356).
1. Reward power. When influencing others is reward centered. Reward power is
contingency dependent, that is, the rewarding message or event is carrier
dependent. A good remark done by our boss may have a reward effect on us
but the same remark done by whatever person doesn‘t.
2. Coercive power. Coercive power refers to the ability to deliver punishment. It
may have serious adverse effects and it is not a good motivator.
3. Referent power. It is closely to the Weberian charismatic aspect of authority.
Referent power is based on the attractiveness of the person in power.
4. Legitimate power. In this context legitimate power is the power of the office.
It is not the person who has the authority, but the office he or she occupies. An
interesting aspect of this kind of power is that ―its holder dos not have to rely
on rational arguments in order to convince other of his or her right to
influence‖.
Empowerment
A quite important part of leadership is self-management, called empowerment. It
solves the very serious problem of alienation since it gives to the worker the sense
of being in charge of himself and for a part of the production process at least;
empowerment also relates the worker to the meaning of his or her own product.
―The employee is trusted to take sensible decisions.‖ (Graham: 36)
Empowerment means that the individual worker is actively involved in
improving and deciding his or her own tasks.
The direct target of empowerment is not alienation but, of course, the efficiency
of capital. Using empowerment organization can quickly solve problems without
recourse to unnecessary higher levels of management. ―Hence, for example,
salespeople might be empowered to offer special discounts to prospective
customers, production operatives can be empowered to decide the speed of an
assembly line …‖ (ibidem)
In order to enable empowerment, the organization must:
Have a good entry selection of the workers. The new employees must be
culturally end psychologically ready to accept greater responsibilities.
Once decided to implement empowerment, the management is to provide
the necessary access to information. Workers have to understand in order
to contribute to the overall performance of the organization.
Provide workers with real power to influence their duties and other
problems of the organization.
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Place the rewarding system under the general system of empowerment.
The individual worker is to be rewarded according to the general
organization‘s performance.
The main benefits of empowerment are:
―The encouragement of individual creativity and initiative, commitment to
the enterprise and team spirit
Decision-taking at the most suitable levels
Facilitation of performance management
Faster and more flexible responses to customer requirements
Higher levels of self-confidence and motivation among employees
Better relations between management and front-line (customer contact)
employees
A «meetings of minds» vis-à-vis customers and the firm‘s staff regarding
what constitutes product quality
Receipt of valuable ideas for new products from front-line employees
Provision of an early warning system regarding customer dissatisfaction
Immediate correction of mistakes.‖ (Graham: 36)
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14. Managing organizations (II): Teamworking and Communication
Teamworking is a special way of organizing humans and technology within the
larger organization of the company. It represents the empowerment of the
individual by his or her expression of personal freedom within the collective
action.
Communication is the expression of all the internal linkages of the organization, it
is about transmitting information and power. Communication is the social
exchange – the core of any social organization.
Teamworking
Teams are special working groups. Members of the teamwork are voluntarily
coordinating themselves to achieve the desired results, each of them being in the
same time highly independent. The leader authority is fully accepted. We may say
that working teams are special groups based on highly individual social esteem,
which are freely choosing to join the team. High social esteem is based on high
skilled labor and clear designed targets. The team is also based on unconditioned
mutual support, great cohesion, shared perceptions, high mutual respect and much
satisfaction for being a member of it.
According to Meredith Belbin (www.belbin.com/belbin-team-roles.htm), the differences
between ordinary groups and teams are based on size, selection, leadership,
perception, style and spirit. Against groups, the team size is limited, selection is
tighter, leadership is shared and rotational, the management style is based on role
share and coordination and the spirit is highly dynamic. The team is a strong
working unit and this quality is dependent on all these described above.
Reasons for teamworking
Teamworking is a highly developed component for companies which are
operating on a certain level of complexity – due to technology, market pressures
etc. Teamworking is one of the finest means of employing people at their highest
personal capabilities and empowering them by the context text of collective
action. Teamworking is the technique to unleash the individual aspirations and to
multiply it within the force of the group. Not all companies are required to work
at this level of complexity which means that teamworking is still a desiderate for
some low developed companies and countries.
More specifically, teamworking is related to cell-based manufacturing, just-in-
time production4, total quality management
5. Team working can also be part or a
4 ―Another distinctively Japanese formally rational development is the «just-in-time» (JIT) system. The JIT
system involves producing and delivering finished goods just in time to be sold, subassemblies just in time
to be assembled into finished products, fabricated parts just in time to go into subassemblies, and purchased
materials just in time to be transformed into fabricated parts. One could say that the Japanese produced
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consequence of broader management techniques like empowering, enterprise
downsizing etc. (cf. Graham: 53)
Keeping the teamwork functional
Teamworking is a fragile mechanism. It depends both on internal conditions of
the working group and also on the general framework of the company. Critical to
teamworking is the link between personal reward and the efficiency of the group.
There should be an established balance between personal incentives and the
necessities of the group. When the individual has an unclear responsibility or his
or her reward is not clear related to the group performance the overall team
behavior will suffer. Another approach is to keep conflicts in cognitive terms
rather than affective terms (Ratzburg). If cognitive conflicts are problem solving
oriented, affective conflicts are easily becoming personally fights with deep
negative impact on the internal cohesion of the team.
According to Victoria Griffith (apud Mullins: 456), what makes teamwork
dysfunctional are factors such as:
―too much emphasis on harmony‖ – if there is too much agreement the
teamwork will suffer from the groupthink syndrome;
―too much discord‖ – it is obvious that internal tensions will destroy the
logic of the team, based on cooperation and sharing;
―emphasis in individualism‖ – ―even companies that value collective
efforts may undermine teams by basing salaries and promotion more on
individual than on collective accomplishments.‖
―a feeling of powerlessness‖ – empowerment, as we will se, is a crucial
factor in enhancing job satisfaction a key point for teams. Team members
must feel that they influence decision as a team in order to be effective.
―the failure of senior management to work well together‖ – when top
management have contradictory views, the team working is brought to a
hold for team members are loyal to their bosses.
―meeting-its‖ – ―teams should not try to do everything together. Excessive
time spent in meetings not only means wasted hours, it also means the
group will be exposed to less diversity of thought.‖
―seeing teams as the solution for all problems‖ – transforms theory and
management techniques in demagogy. Teamworking is not suited for
everything, for instance when the potential members are far away of each
other.
small quantities just in time, while, in contrast, industries in the Untied States produced large quantities
«just in case» …‖ (Ritzer: 223)
5 ―A firms‘ total quality management (TQM) system comprises all its policies, operational methods and
organizational structures concerned with quality management and the continuous improvement of the
quality of its output. TQM focuses on the totality of the system rather than its individual parts, seeking to
identify the causes of failure rather than the simple fact that failures have occurred. TQM has implications
for human management resource management because it demands a management style that evokes full and
committed co-operation from employees‖ (Graham: 107)
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Teamworking roles
There are several theories regarding the typical roles various individuals are
assuming inside the team. It is for sure that individuals assume different roles, the
differentiation between them depending on each member‘s personality and team
opportunities.
Meredith Belbin has an interesting and popular description of team roles. Team
roles are seen as ―patterns of behavior that characterises one person‘s behaviour in
relationship to another in facilitating the progress of a team.”
Figure 4. Team roles after Meredith Belbin. The coordinator, the teamworker, the specialist, the
plant, the shaper, the completer-finisher, the implementer, the monitor-evaluator and the resource
investigator. (www.belbin.com/belbin-team-roles.htm)
BELBIN Team-Role Type (www.belbin.com/belbin-team-roles.htm)
PLANT
CO-ORDINATOR
―Creative, imaginative, unorthodox.
Solves difficult problems. Ignores incidentals. Too pre-occupied to communicate effectively.
Mature, confident, a good chairperson. Clarifies goals, promotes decision-making, delegates well. Can often be seen as manipulative. Off loads personal work.
MONITOR-EVALUATOR
Sober, strategic and discerning. Sees all options. Judges accurately. Lacks drive and ability to inspire others
IMPLEMENTER
Disciplined, reliable, conservative and efficient. Turns ideas into practical actions. Somewhat inflexible. Slow to respond to new possibilities
COMPLETER-FINISHER
Painstaking, conscientious, anxious. Searches out errors and omissions. Delivers on time. Inclined to worry unduly. Reluctant to delegate
RESOURCE INVESTIGATOR
Extrovert, enthusiastic, communicative. Explores opportunities. Develops contacts. Over - optimistic. Loses interest once initial enthusiasm has passed.
. SHAPER
Challenging, dynamic, thrives on pressure. The drive and courage to overcome obstacles. Prone to provocation. Offends people's feelings.
TEAMWORKER
Co-operative, mild, perceptive and diplomatic. Listens, builds, averts friction. Indecisive in crunch situations.
SPECIALIST
Single-minded, self-starting, dedicated. Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply. Contributes only on a narrow front. Dwells on
technicalities.‖
Belbin‘s typology is considered ―subjective‖ by other researchers. ―There is little
empirical evidence concerning the personal characteristics of members of highly
successful teams … and [there is also] the difficulty of appraising team as
opposed to individual performance.‖ (Graham: 54)
Communication
As we stated earlier, communication means social exchange. Communicating is
beyond spoken words. Communication is interpersonal behavior. It channels
leadership and skill, and is at the core of working groups including teamworking.
Bad communication means lower job satisfaction, lower motivation and bad
attitudes, aggression, regression, fixation etc. Improper communication leads to
the groupthink and other unwanted phenomena. Communication is also
participation, that is workers‘ empowerment to decide for themselves.
―From the psychological point of view, communications have an importance
which goes beyond the transmission and reception of information. The form
which a communication takes … can profoundly affect the attitudes of the
employees and the degree to which they understand and support management.
Many industrial disputes originate in a failure of communications - a
misunderstanding by the employees of the intentions of management (or vice
versa) or a misinterpretation of company policy.‖ (Graham: 94)
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Types of communication
Communicating can be:
- from the point of view of formality:
- formal or,
- informal communication
- related to workers‘ participation we may have:
- one-way or,
- two-way communication
- according to the direction and levels involved there is
- downwards,
- upwards,
- lateral or sideways communication. (cf. Graham: 94)
Formal communication is limited to the job description and other formal duties.
Informal communication is more flexible and when combined with formal
channels it fuels communication efficiency. When formal communication is
weak, the informal communication channels are becoming more active.
One-way communication is much more effective in giving orders but can be
costly on the long run regarding the human motivation. One-way communication
is task-centered and better for preserving managing authority, while two-way
communication is people-centered. On the other hand, two-way communication
may produce better results with complex tasks.
The one-way communicating pattern is similar to the hierarchical group, where
the two-way communicating pattern is typical for the egalitarian group, based on
―focused unanimity on action and decision making‖. Interesting findings on this
typology were developed by Robert Escarpit. He found that the maximum number
of people to communicate in an egalitarian group is maximum 16. Above that
number, due to communicating problems the group will split up.
A similar rational refers to the size of the hierarchical group, whose maximum
size is 64. 64 is the maximum number of people a leader can satisfactorily and
personally direct towards legitimate ends, using his voice and gesture for all
members of the group. (cf. Robert Escarpit: 424-427)
Downwards communication is specific for formal communication. Upwards is
more present during informal communication, while sideways communication is
horizontal communication between the same levels of the organization.
Barriers to communication
In order to avoid distortion communications must be standardized, at least
partially. Even if informal communication is encouraged the overall structure of
communication has to be cell divided, with formal or standardized checks in the
middle in order to avoid distortions. The communicating structure must follow the
general patterns of working and team structures. Long communicational chains
are always transforming in informal communication which, in its turn, is
downgraded at its lower end in gossip. High technology and complex duties are
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not gossip compatible. That is, communication patterns must be functional,
straightforward and task-related.
Information overloads, unclear and vague words, inability to listen (especially
when communication is not well related to task) are main barriers for
communicating.
A very interesting communication barrier or distortion is the Parkinson’s law (C.
Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson's Law: The Pursuit of Progress, John Murray,
London 1958). Parkinson‘s law has also implications in understanding groups
both formal and informal. Briefly stated, the Parkinson‘s Law says that in terms
of groups 1=2 and 2=7. That is, whenever a single person (leader or not) is to do a
certain task, will ask sooner or later for others 2 to join him. These two persons
will have to be subordinates for sharing the task will otherwise bring a lower
status for the first person. In their turn, the two newcomers will try to preserve
and develop their influence bringing other people to work for them. Parkinson‘s
law originally pointed out to public offices: 1) 'An official wants to multiply
subordinates, not rivals' and (2) 'Officials make work for each other.' (Cyril
Northcote Parkinson at www.heretical.com/miscella/parkinsl.html ). The
distortion comes from the fact that the main goal of the group formed is personal
prestige and status, not necessarily the specific task. Communication will be
subordinated to false needs and form filling. More than that, Parkinson‘s Law
states that such a behavior will develop its own needs: «work expands so as to fill
the time available for its completion» which is similar to the popular saying 'it is
the busiest man who has time to spare.' (ibidem).
Additional texts on Teamworking and Communication
The effectiveness of teamworking can be assessed on the following indicators: - the level of mutual trust - the quality of communication
o expressivity and diversity of opinions o general level/intensity of communication o listening capacity of its members o the general easiness or flowing of communication o creativity
- management efficiency o ability to establish and pursue goals and objectives o leadership efficiency o control and procedures o efficiency in using resources o problem solving
- self-awareness and capacity of evaluation General questionnaire to evaluate teamworking effectiveness
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I. Goals and Objectives There is confusion about the purpose and the desired outcomes
Team members understand and agree on goals and objectives
3----------2-----------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 II. Trust and Conflict There is little trust, conflict is evident There is a high degree of trust and conflict is
dealt with openly 3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3
III. Expression of Differences Disagreements produced defensive Reactions.
Disagreements do not produce defensive reactions.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 IV. Leadership efficiency Leadership based on domination. Leadership lacks legitimacy.
Leadership is legitimate. People are fully participate in leadership.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 V. Control and Procedures There is little control and there is a lack of procedures to guide team functioning.
Team has good and effective guiding procedures. Procedures are supported by the team members.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 VI. Efficiency of Resources The team is not recognizing and/or is not using all members‘ resources.
Member resources are fully recognized and fully utilized.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 VII. Level of Communication Channels of communication inside the team are closed or ill.
Communication is open and participative.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 VII. Listening Component of Communication The team members do not listen to each other.
Team members are actively listen to each other.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 VIII. Flow of Communication The discussion required a great deal of backtracking and reorienting.
The discussion moved forward with succeeding points building on previous ones.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3
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IX. Common approaches / Problem Solving The team has not standard / agreed procedures for problem solving and decision making.
The team has well based standard procedures or easily agree on problem solving procedures and decisions.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 X. Creativity The team does not encourage creativity and does not experiment new procedures.
The team does encourage creativity and experiments new techniques.
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 XI. Self Awareness/Evaluation The team never evaluates its functioning or processes.
The group often evaluates its functioning and processes
3----------2-- --------1----------0-----------1-----------2---------- 3 (after Wilf Ratzburg, op.cit, Team Effectiveness: Meeting Evaluation Form)
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15. Conflict Solving and Organizational Behavior
Conflict. Definition and General considerations
Conflict is the process ranging from disagreement, opposition, confrontation and
ultimately to aggression between individuals and groups, when one actor
obstructs the reach to scarce resources of another.
The keywords of conflict are opposition, blocking, resources.
Tension is the preconflictual state in which the conditions of disagreement are
accumulating. Tension may start when an actor start obstructing even
unconsciously the other‘s goals.
Aggression refers to the act of harming another. Aggression seems to be seriously
limited by controlling those situations that trigger it. A strong context for
aggression is frustration. There is a hypothesis which states that frustration will
always discharge into an aggressive behavior and that aggression is always the
result of frustration. ―By frustration, the hypothesis refers to the thwarting or
blocking some ongoing behavior directed toward a desired goal. Moreover …
rather than frustration leading directly to aggression, the process is one in which
frustration leads to a propensity to be aggressive and the arousal of aggressive
drive. This aggressive drive then leads to the actual aggression.‖ (Feldman: 299)
―Conflict, per se, is not necessarily good or bad but an inevitable feature of
organisational life and should be judged in terms of its effects on performance.
Even if organisations have taken great care to try and avoid conflict it will still
occur. Conflict will continue to emerge despite attempts by management to
suppress it.‖ (Mullins: 818)
Constructive and destructive conflicts
As we already mentioned, conflict can be constructive or destructive. There is a
brief description of both.
Constructive conflict bring into open potentially serious problems in order to be
solved.
Destructive conflict diverts important energies of the organization into
unproductive questions leading to individual demoralizing, group disbandment
and even to organizational turmoil.
One of the factors that keep the border between constructive and destructive
conflicts is the character of dispute: is it personal (affective conflict) or problem
oriented (cognitive conflict)? A dispute transforms easier into a destructive
conflict if it is perceived as an assault to personal identity or qualities.
―Affective conflict lowers team effectiveness by provoking hostility, distrust,
cynicism, and apathy among team members. Most affective conflict is
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personalized anger or resentment, usually directed at specific individuals rather
than specific ideas. Affective conflict undermines team effectiveness by
preventing teams from engaging in the kinds of activities that are critical to team
effectiveness.‖
On the other side, ―cognitive conflict is beneficial because it requires teams to
engage in activities that are essential to a team's effectiveness. Cognitive conflict
focuses attention on assumptions that may underlie a particular issue and
which are often ignored. Cognitive conflict improves the quality of team
decisions.‖ (Ratzburg, ibidem).
Here is the Ratzburg‘s classification (ibidem) of conflicts:
Sources of Conflict
The general causes of conflict in organizations are the following:
1. incompatibilities between tasks, between actual and desired outcomes etc.
2. constant perceived disagreement
3. incompatible attitudes, motives etc. (Ratzburg)
A more complex schema refers to the overall dimensions of an organization such
as:
1. the hidden network of perceptions
2. the scarcity of resources
3. complex specializations
4. functionality of the division of labor and nature or work activities
5. role conflict
Destructive conflict Constructive conflict
- diverts energy from real
task
- destroys morale
- polarizes individuals and
groups
- deepens differences
- obstructs cooperative
action
- produces irresponsible
behavior
- creates suspicion and
distrust
- decreases productivity
- threatens the group
existence
- it lasts too long
- opens up an issue in a
confronting manner
- develops clarification of an
issue
- improves problem-solving
quality
- provides spontaneity in
communication
- initiates growth
- strengthens relationships when
creatively resolved
- helps increasing productivity
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6. justice and fairness
7. ―territorial‖ behavior
8. changes in environment. (cf. Mullins: 818-819)
The hidden network of perceptions can easily turns into a network of acute
differences. Different perceptions means different meanings and common
meaning is at the basis of social exchange. The social exchange makes possible
attaining personal and organizational goals. Acute differences in people‘s
perceptions can trigger conflict.
The scarcity of resources can bring about conflict as each department fights for its
share. This fighting can take different aspects from lobbying at higher levels to
straightforwardly blocking access to resources.
Complex specializations lead sometimes to an unnecessary division of labor.
―Because of familiarity with the manner in which they undertake their activities,
departments tend to turn inwards and to concentrate on the achievement of their
own goals. When departments need to co-operate with each other this is a
frequent source of conflict.‖ (Mullins: 819). Too many departments and
specializations lead to organizational ignorance of others‘ needs which may
trigger conflictual situations.
The nature of work activities (functionality of the division of labor and nature or
work) activities is closely related to the aforementioned source of conflict.
Conflict will arise when division of labor becomes dysfunctional. ―Where the task
of one person is dependent upon the work of others there is potential for conflict;
for example, if a worker is expected to complete the assembly of a given number
of components in a week but the person forwarding the part-assembled
components does not supply a sufficient number on time. If reward and
punishment systems are perceived to be based on keeping up with performance
levels, then the potential for a conflict is even greater.‖ (Mullins: ibidem)
Role conflict refers to the misfit between roles, between roles and actual behavior
of a person. For instance, the role of chairman may contradict the role of being the
uncle of an employee in the same company. Another issue is role ambiguity,
when job descriptions are not clear enough to define the expected behavior and
targets associated.
Justice and fairness are essential to the organization. Injustice and unfairness can
even blow up when some conditions for collective action are met; ―… according
to the equity theory of motivation the perception of inequity will motivate a
person to take action to restore equity, including changes to inputs or outputs, or
through acting on others.‖ (ibid.)
Territorial behavior. Humans are territorial, that is, emotionally attached to their
own place. Since they spend more and more of their time at work, the sense of
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territoriality at job can be fairly high. Dedicated people but also ordinary workers
do not like their workplace to be organized by others. Besides, ―a stranger walk
into a place of work can create an immediate feeling of suspicion or even
resentment because people do not usually like «their» territory entered by
someone they do not know, and whose motives are probably unclear to them.‖
(ibidem).
A particular source of intergroup conflict is political indetermination (Ratzburg),
especially when groups are highly interdependent one upon another. Risk of
conflict is high when the division of tasks is very developed and reciprocal
dependence is also strict under a weak strategic management.
Conflict and organizational change
Conflict may happen at different organizational levels. There are individual,
group, or organizational levels where the conflict may arise or develop. All the
above eight causes of conflict may be ―hosted‖ by any of these three layers,
separately or in the same time. For instance, a particular situation which can
trigger conflict is organizational changing.
As long as organizational change may imply behavioral modifications, there are
good chances that stress, role conflict, miscommunications, bad perceptions to
arise. Both the individual and the organizational structure (in terms of pressure
groups and cliques) may resist change.
Individual factors resistant to change which are conflict related are:
- inability to change habits
- stereotypes and prejudices
- the sentiment of loss of freedom
- the sentiment of loss of security
- fear of the unknown.
Elements of organizational resistance to change which may lead to conflictual
situations are:
- organisational culture – generalized habits of doing things are hard to change
if they have strong informal structures attached
- lack of resources – budgeting large scale changes can lead to major debates
inside the company
- past contracts – may block certain goals related to change
- fear of established influential groups for losing power and influence. (Mullins:
823, 824).
Managing conflict
There is several conflict handling styles. Starting from the psychological
background of conflict and based on the rational judgment of ―his/her own needs‖
and ―concern for others‘ needs‖, handling conflict can be based on:
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- confrontation – when people are straightforwardly demanding
apologies
- avoidance – ignoring the issue or reducing interaction
- accommodation – conceding the issue to the other party
- compromise – bargaining until a reciprocal solution is agreed upon
- collaboration – when both parties accept they are involved in and want
to save or maintain their relationship. (Ratzburg, ibidem).
At the level of management, specific issues should be addressed in order to avoid
conflict:
- clarification of goals and objectives
- proper distribution of resources
- careful personnel procedures
- non-monetary rewards
- development of interpersonal and group skills
- participative and supportive management etc. (cf. Mullins: 821)
Additional text on Conflict
An interesting list of conflict generating items is proposed by Wilff Ratzburg:
communication failure
personality conflict
value differences
goal differences
methodological differences
substandard performance
lack of cooperation
differences regarding authority
differences regarding responsibility
competition over resources
non-compliance with rules For purposes of analysis of the causes of conflict, it may be useful to identify three general categories: COMMUNICATION semantic difficulties Words do not mean the same things to everyone who hears or uses them. If one person were to ask another to "level out the gravel" on a construction site, the words "level out" could mean different things to both party's. The differences in perceived meaning are due to semantics. If the communication is related to an activity that is critical to the organization, a semantic misunderstanding can easily lead to conflict. misunderstandings
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"noise" "Noise" in the communications process can take a number of forms. Most obviously, noise is physical – the parties in the organization cannot "hear" one another because too many people are talking at once, there is a radio blaring in the background, or the construction workers on the street are using a jackhammer. Noise also comes in the form of distorted signals -- the fax message is misunderstood because poor quality fax paper makes it difficult to read the letters on the page. ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE group interdependence The greater the degree of interdependence, the greater is the likelihood of communication difficulties (see above). Greater interdependence also increases the possibility that the parties need to share resources. If these resources are scarce, the probability of conflict is increased. At a college, the lives of students and instructors are impacted by the Timetabling Department. The academic departments must submit their timetabling requests to the Timetabling Department. In turn, the Timetabling Department completes timetables which govern the lives of instructors and students. Neither the Timetabling Department nor the academic departments can do their jobs effectively without the highest degree of cooperation. This interdependence can become the cause of interdepartmental conflict. If either end of this interdependent relationship does not provide the other with adequate information, poor performance results. In this case, the department initiating the poor performance becomes the recipient of the other's poor performance --conflict escalates. task specialization reward systems authority relationships group or organizational size PERSONAL VARIABLES personality types value systems (source: Wilf Ratzburg, Causes of Conflict, in Organizational Behavior, 2005)
16. Appendix. Classical theories on organizational behavior
Historical Background of Organizational Behavior (Edward G. Wertheim, College of Business Administration, Northeastern
University, Boston)
Scientific Management
The Industrial Revolution that started with the development of steam power and the
creation of large factories in the late Eighteenth Century lead to great changes in the
production of textiles and other products. The factories that evolved, created tremendous
challenges to organization and management that had not been confronted before.
Managing these new factories and later new entities like railroads with the requirement of
managing large flows of material, people, and information over large distances created
the need for some methods for dealing with the new management issues.
The most important of those who began to create a science of management was Frederic
Winslow Taylor, (1856-1915).
Taylor was one of the first to attempt to systematically analyze human behavior at work.
His model was the machine with its cheap, interchangeable parts, each of which does one
specific function. Taylor attempted to do to complex organizations what engineers had
done to machines and this involved making individuals into the equivalent of machine
parts. Just as machine parts were easily interchangeable, cheap, and passive, so too
should the human parts be the same in the Machine model of organizations. This
involved breaking down each task to its smallest unit and to figure out the one best way
to do each job. Then the engineer, after analyzing the job should teach it to the worker
and make sure the worker does only those motions essential to the task.. Taylor attempted
to make a science for each element of work and restrict behavioral alternatives facing
worker. Taylor looked at interaction of human characteristics, social environment, task,
and physical environment, capacity, speed, durability, and cost. The overall goal was to
remove human variability.
The results were profound. Productivity under Taylorism went up dramatically. New
departments arose such as industrial engineering, personnel, and quality control. There
was also growth in middle management as there evolved a separation of planning from
operations. Rational rules replaced trial and error; management became formalized and
efficiency increased. Of course, this did not come about without resistance. First the old
line managers resisted the notion that management was a science to be studied not
something one was born with (or inherited). Then of course, many workers resisted what
some considered the "dehumanization of work." To be fair, Taylor also studied issues
such as fatigue and safety and urged management to study the relationship between work
breaks, and the length of the work day and productivity and convinced many companies
that the careful introduction of breaks and a shorter day could increase productivity.
Nevertheless, the industrial engineer with his stop watch and clip-board, standing over
you measuring each little part of the job and one's movements became a hated figure and
lead to much sabotage and group resistance.
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The core elements of scientific management remain popular today. While a picture of a
factory around 1900 might look like something out of Dickens, one should not think the
core concepts of scientific management have been abandoned. They haven't. They have
merely been modified and updated. While many people think of bureaucracy in negative
terms, this model in its pure form was a dramatic improvement over the previous model
of organization which was a feudal model based on fixed status and position by birth, not
merit and unquestioned authority.
The Human Relations Movement
Despite the economic progress brought about in part by Scientific Management, critics
were calling attention to the "seamy side of progress," which included severe
labor/management conflict, apathy, boredom, and wasted human resources. These
concerns lead a number of researchers to examine the discrepancy between how an
organization was supposed to work versus how the workers actually behaved. In addition,
factors like World War I, developments in psychology (eg. Freud) and later the
depression, all brought into question some of the basic assumptions of the Scientific
Management School. One of the primary critics of the time, Elton Mayo, claimed that
this "alienation" stemmed from the breakdown of the social structures caused by
industrialization, the factory system, and its related outcomes like growing urbanization.
The Western Electric (Hawthorne Works) Studies (1923-1933)
The most famous of these studies was the Hawthorne Studies which showed how work
groups provide mutual support and effective resistance to management schemes to
increase output. This study found that workers didn't respond to classical motivational
approaches as suggested in the Scientific Management and Taylor approaches, but rather
workers were also interested in the rewards and punishments of their own work group.
These studies, conducted in the 1920's started as a straightforward attempt to determine
the relationship between work environment and productivity.
The results of the research led researchers to feel that they were dealing with socio-
psychological
factors that were not explained by classic theory which stressed the formal organization
and formal leadership. The Hawthorne Studies helped us to see that an organization is
more than a formal arrangement of functions but is also a social system. In the following
chart, we can see a comparison of traditional assumptions vs. a newer "human relations"
view.
96
Results of the Hawthorne Studies and the related research
These studies added much to our knowledge of human behavior in organizations and
created pressure for management to change the traditional ways of managing human
resources. The Human Relations Movement pushed managers toward gaining
participative support of lower levels of the organization in solving organization problems.
The Movement also fostered a more open and trusting environment and a greater
emphasis on groups rather than just individuals.
Frederick Herzberg
(reproduced after Wilf H. Ratzburg, Organizational behavior. Motivation and
Herzberg's two factor theory)
Motivation-Hygiene Theory
Traditional Assumptions - people try to satisfy one class of need at
work: economic need
- no conflict exists betwene individual and
organizational objectives
- people act rationally to maximize rewards
- we act individually to satisfy individual
needs
Human relations Assumptions - organizations are social systems, not just
technical economic systems
- we are motivated by many needs
- we are not always logical
- we are interdependent; our behavior is
often shaped by the social context
- informal work group is a major factor in
determining attitudes and performance of
individual workers
- management is only one factor affecting
behavior; the informal group often has a
stronger impact
- job roles are more complex than job
descriptions would suggest; people act in
many ways not covered by job
descriptions
- there is no automatic correlation between
individual and organizational needs
- communication channels cover both
logical/economic aspects of an
organization and feelings of people
- teamwork is essential for cooperation and
sound technical decisions
- leadership should be modified to include
concepts of human relations
- job satisfaction will lead to higher job
productivity
- management requires effective social
skills, not just technical skills
97
.
The motivation of employees is important to organizations since it is one of several
factors that significantly affects the productivity of employees.
Raising the level of motivation increases profitability through greater
creativity and commitment in employees.
Herzberg's Two Factor Theory, also known as the Motivation-Hygiene
Theory, was derived from a study designed to test the concept that people
have two sets of needs:
1. their needs as animals to avoid pain
2. their needs as humans to grow psychologically
Herzberg's Study
Two hundred engineers and accountants in Pittsburgh were interviewed To test the
hypothesis, engineers and accountants were interviewed to assess events that led to
significant changes in their job attitudes and to determine the factors that caused
those changes
Herzberg's study consisted of a series of interviews that sought to elicit responses to the
questions:
(1) Recall a time when you felt exceptionally good about your job. Why did you feel
that way about the job? Did this feeling affect your job performance in any way?
Did this feeling have an impact on your personal relationships or your well- being?
(2) Recall a time on the job that resulted in negative feelings? Describe the sequence
of events that resulted in these negative feelings.
RESEARCH RESULTS
It appeared, from the research, that the things making people happy on the job and those
making them unhappy had two separate themes.
SATISFACTION (MOTIVATION) WHAT PEOPLE WANT FROM THEIR
JOBS:
"...the things people said positively about their job experiences were not the opposite of
what they said negatively about their experiences...."
(Frederick Herzberg from a 1971 interview in Management Review)
Motivation-Hygiene Theory:
Five factors stood out as strong determiners of job satisfaction:
1. achievement
2. recognition
3. work itself
4. responsibility
5. advancement
The last three factors were found to be most important for bringing about lasting changes
of attitude. It should be noted, that recognition refers to recognition for achievement as
opposed to recognition in the human relations sense.
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DISSATISFACTION (HYGIENE)
"...the factors which make people happy all are related to what people did: the job
content... what made people unhappy was related to... job environment, job context...
the way they're treated." (Frederick Herzberg from a 1971 interview in Management
Review)
The determinants of job dissatisfaction were found to be:
1. company policy
2. administrative policies
3. supervision
4. salary
5. interpersonal relations
6. working conditions
It appears that the central theme of the satisfiers (also called motivators) is one having to
do with the relationship the employee has with his or her job; job content.
The theme of the dissatisfiers appears to be related to the environment or context of the
job. These dissatisfiers seem to have little effect on positive job attitudes (in some of the
literature, these dissatisfiers were called hygiene or maintenance factors).
Two Dimensions
JOB SATISFACTION:
"...job satisfaction... and job dissatisfaction are not opposites; they are completely
separate continua, like hearing and vision." (Frederick Herzberg from a 1971 interview
in Management Review)
At the psychological level, the two dimensions of job attitudes appear to reflect
a two-dimensional need structure:
1. one need structure for the avoidance of unpleasantness, and
2. a parallel need system for personal growth
For Herzberg, motivation results from personal growth and is based on an innate need to
grow. In other words, people find satisfaction in work that is interesting and challenging.
A desire to fulfill our potential drives us to seek growth and provides the incentive to
achieve.
According to Herzberg, the idea that the work one does is significant leads, ultimately, to
satisfaction with the the work itself. Employees will be motivated to do work that they
percieve to be significant.
From a philosophical perspective, it is Herzberg's position that it is the responsibility of
society's dominant institutions to provide for the growth and well being of people. In our
society, one such dominant organization is the business institution. Therefore it is the
responsibility of business and industry to provide the means for growth and self
actualization
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Herzberg's theory thus posits that there are two classes of factors that influence employee
motivation; intrinsic factors and the extrinsic factors.
The intrinsic factors were also called the motivator factors and were related to job
satisfaction. The extrinsic factors were called hygiene factors and were related to job
dissatisfaction.
Motivators (intrinsic factors) led to job satisfaction because of a need for growth and self
actualization, and hygiene (extrinsic) factors led to job dissatisfaction because of a need
to avoid unpleasantness.
The negative or positive KITA or "kick in the a**" approach to employee motivation
yields short- range results, but rarely generates any actual motivation.
In fact, to call it an "approach to motivation" is to clearly misunderstand motivation as
Herzberg understood it. KITA yields movement -- the avoidance of pain -- not
motivation.
Positive KITA, in the form of raises and incentives reduces time spent at work, inflates
wages and benefits, and overemphasizes human relations.
K-I-T-A techniques fail to instill self-generating motivation in workers. Job content
factors, such as achievement and responsibility, are motivators, while job environment
factors are hygiene or KITA factors. Motivators are the key to
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HERZBERG APPLIED:
The desire to fulfill our potential drives us to seek growth and provides the
incentive to achieve --MOTIVATION
In an era of increasing competition, it is important for organizations to effectively utilize
all available resources; including human resources.
In the workplace, the motivation of employees is important to the organization as it is one
of the variables that affects the employee productivity.
Fundamental to Herzberg's position is the notion that motivation is a result of personal
growth and is based on an innate need to grow. What this means is that people find
satisfaction in work that is interesting and challenging.
JOB ENRICHMENT
Workers with greater ability have an opportunity to demonstrate their potential
and are better utilized by allowing them to use more of their talents If you cannot
challenge workers, motivational problems will result If you want people to do a good
job for you, give them a good job to do.
JOB ENRICHMENT: The idea of job enrichment is probably the most significant
contribution of Herzberg's theory.
Meaningful tasks allow for growth, and job enrichment is a relatively simple method for
100
facilitating this growth:
adding different tasks to a job to provide greater involvement and interaction with
the task.
Adding tasks can raise the level of challenge in any particular job to a level
commensurate with the abilities of an employee. It might be argued that, if a job can not
be enriched and it is not challenging to the person in that position, then that person ought
to be replaced by someone who will find the job challenging.
JOB LOADING
Examples of vertical job loading:
1. increasing accountability
2. removing controls
3. making periodic reports
4. available to workers
5. granting job freedom
6. granting job authority
7. introducing new and
8. challenging tasks
9. assigning specific or
10. specialized tasks
JOB LOADING: There are two forms of job loading.
Horizontal job loading: adding tasks to a job but not adding any responsibility or
challenge -- the meaningless of the job is simply increased. Horizontal loading
ought to be avoided!
Vertical job loading: adding meaningful tasks that will lead to growth --
additional tasks that permit growth and provide motivating factors.
.
It is the responsibility of management to create an environment that encourages
employee growth and self actualization...
By providing motivators and removing hygienes, management can facilitate the growth
of employees. This is essential to both the individual and the organization.
Growth makes the employee more valuable to the organization because of his/her ability
to perform higher order duties.
...management cannot really motivate employees, it can only create the environment in
which the employees motivate themselves
David C. McClelland
(reproduced after Accel Team: Advancing Employee Productivity)
Achievement Motivation
101
Over the years behavioral scientists have observed that some people have an intense need
to achieve; others, perhaps the majority, do not seem to be as concerned about
achievement. This phenomenon has fascinated David C. McClelland. For over twenty
years he and his associates at Harvard University studied this urge to achieve.
McClelland's research led him to believe that the need for achievement is a distinct
human motive that can be distinguished from other needs. More important, the
achievement motive can be isolated and assessed in any group.
Characteristics of people with a high need for achievement
McClelland illustrates some of these characteristics in describing a laboratory
experiment.
Participants were asked to throw rings over a peg from any distance they chose. Most
people tended to throw at random-now close, now far away; but individuals with a high
need for achievement seemed carefully to measure where they were most likely to get a
sense of mastery—not too close to make the task ridiculously easy or too far away to
make it impossible.
They set moderately difficult but potentially achievable goals. In biology, this is known
as the overload principle.
In weight lifting, for example, strength cannot be in creased by tasks that can be
performed easily or that cannot be performed without injury to the organism. Strength
can be increased by lifting weights that are difficult but realistic enough to stretch the
muscles.
Do people with a high need for achievement behave like this all the time?
McClelland maintains, only if they can influence the outcome.
Achievement-motivated people are not gamblers. They prefer to work on a problem
rather than leave the outcome to chance.
With managers, setting moderately difficult but potentially achievable goals may be
translated into an attitude toward risks. Many people tend to be extreme in their attitude
toward risks, either favoring wild speculative gambling or minimizing their exposure to
losses.
Gamblers seem to choose the big risk because the outcome is beyond their power
and, therefore, they can easily rationalize away their personal responsibility if
they lose.
The conservative individual chooses tiny risks where the gain is small but secure,
perhaps because there is little danger of anything going wrong for which that
person might be blamed.
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Achievement-motivated people take the middle ground, preferring a moderate
degree of risk because they feel their efforts and abilities will probably influence
the outcome. In business, this aggressive realism is the mark of the successful
entrepreneur.
Rewards and achievement-motivated people
Another characteristic of achievement-motivated people is that they seem to be more
concerned with personal achievement than with the rewards of success. They do not
reject rewards, but the rewards are not as essential as the accomplishment itself.
They get a bigger "kick" out of winning or solving a difficult problem than they get from
any money or praise they receive.
Money, to achievement-motivated people, is valuable primarily as a measurement of their
performance. It provides them with a means of assessing their progress and comparing
their achievements with those of other people.
They normally do not seek money for status or economic security.
Feedback
A desire by people with a high need for achievement to seek situations in which they get
concrete feedback on how well they are doing is closely related to this concern for
personal accomplishment. Consequently, achievement-motivated people are often found
in sales jobs or as owners and managers of their own businesses.
In addition to concrete feedback, the nature of the feedback is important to achievement-
motivated people. They respond favorably to information about their work.
They are not interested in comments about their personal characteristics, such as how
cooperative or helpful they are.
Affiliation-motivated people might want social or attitudinal feedback.
Achievement-motivated people might want job-relevant feedback. They want to
know the score.
Why do achievement-motivated people behave as they do?
McClelland claims it is because they habitually spend time thinking about doing things
better.
In fact, he has found that wherever people start to think in achievement terms, things start
to happen.
103
Examples
College students with a high need for achievement will generally get better grades than
equally bright students with weaker achievement needs.
Achievement-motivated people tend to get more raises and are promoted faster
because they are constantly trying to think of better ways of doing things.
Companies with many such people grow faster and are more profitable.
McClelland has even extended his analysis to countries where he related the presence of a
large percentage of achievement-motivated individuals to the national economic growth.
A taught skill?
Can this motive, the need for achievement, be taught to people?
McClelland was convinced that this can be done. In fact, he also developed training
programs for business people that where designed to increase their achievement
motivation.
He also developed similar programs for other segments of the population.
Achievement-motivated people as managers
Achievement-motivated people can be the backbone of most organizations, but what can
be said about their potential as managers? As we know, people with a high need for
achievement get ahead because as individuals they are producers they get things done.
However, when they are promoted, when their success depends not only on their own
work but on the activities of others, they may be less effective. Since they are highly job-
oriented and work to their capacity, they tend to expect others to do the same. As a result,
they sometimes lack the human skills and patience necessary for being effective
managers of people who are competent but have a higher need for affiliation than they
do. In this situation, their overemphasis on producing frustrates these people and prevents
them from maximizing their own potential.
Thus, while achievement-motivated people are needed in organizations, they do not
always make the best managers unless they develop their human skills. Being a good
producer is not sufficient to make an effective manager.
McClelland has found that achievement-motivated people are more likely to be
developed in families in which parents hold different expectations for their children than
do other parents.
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More importantly, these parents expect their children to start showing some independence
between the ages of six and eight, making choices and doing things without help, such as
knowing the way around the neighborhood and taking care of themselves around the
house. Other parents tend either to expect this too early, before children are ready, or to
smother the development of the personality of these children.
One extreme seems to foster passive, defeated attitudes as children feel unwanted at
home and incompetent away from home. They are just not ready for that kind of
independence so early. The other extreme yields either overprotected or over-disciplined
children. These children become very dependent on their parents and find it difficult to
break away and make their own decisions.
The Herzberg link?
McClelland's concept of achievement motivation is also related to Herzberg's motivation-
hygiene theory. People with high achievement motivation tend to be interested in the
motivators (the job itself).
Achievement-motivated people want feedback. They want to know how well they are
doing on their job.
On the other hand, people with low achievement motivation are more concerned about
the environment. They want to know how people feel about them rather than how well
they are doing.
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References David Clark, Urban World / Global City, Routledge, London and New York, 1996
David C. McClelland and David H. Burnham, Power is the great motivator, in
Harvard Business Review, January-February 1995
Donald R. Clark, Big Dog's Leadership Page – Organizational Behavior, 2000
(http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/leader/leadob.html)
H.T. Graham, Roger Bennett, Human Resources Management, ninth edition,
Pitman Publishing, 1998
James Gibson et all, Organizations. Behavior, Structure, Processes, McGraw Hill,
1997
Ritzer, George, Explorations in Social Theory. From Metatheorizing to
Rationalization, Sage Publications, 2001.
Ramona L. Ford, Work, Organization and Power. Introduction to Industrial
Sociology, Allyn and Bacon, 1988.
Hodson Sullivan, The Social Organization of Work, second edition, Wadsworth,
1995
Irving L. Janis, Groupthink, in Psychology Today, November 1971, pp. 271-279.
Laurie J. Mullins, Management and Organisational Behavior, Prentice Hall, 1999
George Herbert Mead, Mind Self and Society from the Standpoint of a Social
Behaviorist, Edited by Charles W. Morris, Chicago: University of Chicago, 1932
Robert S. Feldman, Social Psychology. Theories, Research and Applications,
McGraw-Hill, 1985
Richard T. LeGates, Frederic Stout (eds.), The City Reader, Routledge, New York,
1997
Ion Ungureanu, Paradigme ale cunoaşterii societăţii, 1990, şpalt.
Vilfredo Pareto, Traité de Sociologie Générale, vol I, II, Paris, Payot, 1933.
RBC – The Royal Bank of Canada, About Building Morale in Monthly Letter
vol.58, no.7, published in July 1977 (also on www.rbc.com ). The article was first
published in August, 1957 and was written by John Heron; any modifications to the
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second publication of the article in July, 1977 would have been made by Robert
Stewart.
Wallerstein, I., The capitalist world-economy, Cambridge University Press &
Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l‘Homme…, 1986
Weber, Max, Economy and Society. An Outline of Interpretative Sociology,
University of California Press, vol. I şi II, 1978
Wilf Ratzburg, Organizational Behavior, 2005
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/1650/htmlobtoc02.html
Robert Escarpit, De la sociologia literaturii la teoria comunicării. Studii şi eseuri,
Editura Ştiinţifică şi Enciclopedică, Bucureşti, 1980.
Table of contents 1. Introduction. Organizational Behavior and Global processes ........................................ 1
What is Organizational Behavior? .................................................................................. 1
Understanding the context of Organizational Behavior - Globalization ........................ 2
2. Fundamentele Paradigmatice (I - capitalismul) .............................................................. 5
Tipologia capitalismului (Weber) ................................................................................... 5
Tipologia capitalismului - Sistemul mondial modern (Wallerstein) ............................... 6
3. Fundamentele Paradigmatice (II – paradigmele comportamentului social) ................... 8
Omul fiinţă socială – premisa altruistă: paradigma altruismului reciproc (Trivers) ....... 8
Aparenţă şi fundal; planurile de realitate în organizaţii: paradigma reziduurilor
sociabilităţii (Pareto) ....................................................................................................... 8
Schimbul social şi eficienţa organizaţiilor: paradigma schimbului social (Blau) ......... 10
4. Fundamentele Paradigmatice (III – paradigmele comportamentului social) ................ 12
Diviziunea socială (funcţională) a muncii (Durkheim) ................................................ 12
Norma socială şi efectele ei (Muzafer Sherif) .............................................................. 12
Teorii adiacente. Pragul de loialitate în organizaţii (Hirschman) ................................. 16
Additional texts on conformity: Groupthink................................................................. 17
5. Raţionalitatea în organizaţii .......................................................................................... 22
Organizaţia modernă. O primă definiţie ....................................................................... 22
Raţionalitatea în organizaţii .......................................................................................... 23
Trăsăturile birocraţiei moderne (Max Weber) .............................................................. 24
6. Raţionalitatea şi Organizaţiile moderne (I). Eficienţa socială şi Eficienţa capitalului . 25
Raţionalitatea formală şi Raţionalitatea substanţială .................................................... 25
Problemele raţionalizării formale. McDonaldizarea societăţii ..................................... 26
7. Raţionalitatea şi Organizaţiile moderne (II) Profesionalizare şi Deprofesionalizare ... 30
Profesia şi Raţionalitatea............................................................................................... 30
Deprofesionalizarea ...................................................................................................... 31
8. Fundamental concepts (I): Personality, Motivation, Attitudes. .................................... 33
Personality..................................................................................................................... 33
Motivation ..................................................................................................................... 34
Alienation ...................................................................................................................... 36
Frustration ..................................................................................................................... 37
Attitudes and Skills ....................................................................................................... 38
Additional Texts on Personality, Attitudes and Motivation ......................................... 40
9. Fundamental concepts (II): Morale ............................................................................... 43
Introduction to the theoretical background ................................................................... 43
Levels of morale behaviour .......................................................................................... 43
Morale and Organizations. Responsibility .................................................................... 44
Building the morale....................................................................................................... 45
The benefits of morale .................................................................................................. 46
10. Unsuitable attitudes toward work ............................................................................... 48
The social context and the people: Merton‘s adaptation theory ................................... 48
The social context and the people: Veblen‘s pecuniary emulation ............................... 49
Human Management considerations on the ―unfitted‖ worker..................................... 51
The Organisational context and the disadvantages of bureaucracies ............................ 52
108
11. Job and Career............................................................................................................. 54
Definitions and general considerations ......................................................................... 54
Advantages of career tracks .......................................................................................... 54
Typology of jobs ........................................................................................................... 55
Improving job performance. Training ........................................................................... 56
Total quality management and Jobs .............................................................................. 58
Job description, evaluation and payment ...................................................................... 58
Stress at the workplace.................................................................................................. 59
Additional text on Job Evaluation................................................................................. 60
12. Organizations and Work ............................................................................................. 62
Organizations – definitions ........................................................................................... 62
The basic structure of organizations. Social layers and Authority ............................... 63
Organisational culture and Management Style ............................................................. 64
Groups. Working Groups .............................................................................................. 65
Group emergence .......................................................................................................... 66
A brief classification of groups. Vocation .................................................................... 67
Role and status .............................................................................................................. 68
Norms ............................................................................................................................ 69
Group Cohesiveness...................................................................................................... 69
Group Behavior related to Work Efficiency ................................................................. 70
13. Managing organizations (I): Leadership ..................................................................... 73
General considerations and definition .......................................................................... 73
Authority and Power ..................................................................................................... 73
Blake and Mouton Managerial Grid ............................................................................. 74
Leadership typology...................................................................................................... 75
Emergence of leadership. Situational and contingency theories .................................. 77
Power ............................................................................................................................ 78
Empowerment ............................................................................................................... 78
14. Managing organizations (II): Teamworking and Communication ............................. 80
Teamworking ................................................................................................................ 80
Communication ............................................................................................................. 83
Additional texts on Teamworking and Communication ............................................... 85
15. Conflict Solving and Organizational Behavior ........................................................... 88
Conflict. Definition and General considerations .......................................................... 88
Constructive and destructive conflicts .......................................................................... 88
Sources of Conflict ....................................................................................................... 89
Conflict and organizational change .............................................................................. 91
Managing conflict ......................................................................................................... 91
Additional text on Conflict ........................................................................................... 92
16. Appendix. Classical theories on organizational behavior ........................................... 94
Historical Background of Organizational Behavior ..................................................... 94
Scientific Management ................................................................................................. 94
The Human Relations Movement ................................................................................. 95
Frederick Herzberg ....................................................................................................... 96
David C. McClelland .................................................................................................. 100
References ....................................................................................................................... 105
109
Table of contents ............................................................................................................. 107