Organizational Behavior & Culture Complete summary of chapter 4

The chapter illustrates that the perception process is based on stages such as stimulation, organization, registration, and interpretation. The individual's acceptance and awareness levels for ascertained stimuli play critical roles in the perception process. The authors add that receptiveness towards certain stimuli remains highly selective in limiting a person's existing personality, motivation, attitude, and beliefs. People select various stimuli that satisfy certain needs (perceptual vigilance) while disregarding stimuli causing perceptual defense (psychological anxiety).

The chapter insists that guidelines facilitate companies in improving their workplaces through the surveying content. The employees can ask questions regarding observable behavior above thoughts and motives. The concept also includes items that are verified independently. The measures also attract behavioral consideration in the recognition of the company's performance. Attitude transformation requires time, determination, and effort to achieve. It is critical to relax expectations of changing an individual's attitudes quickly. The management need an understanding that such attitude change will take time will substantiate setting out unrealistic expectations and rapid changes. The attitudes can be formed in a lifetime based on the socialization process of an individual. Individual's approach to the socialization process involves his values and beliefs formation from childhood years. The aspects are influenced by family, culture, and religion and in socioeconomic factors. The scope of the socialization process influences person's attitude while working and relating with others.

Halo effects occur while individuals draw general impression on other persons based on single characteristics. Some of the features include intelligence, appearance, or sociability. Perceivers evaluate other people based on many traits due to their belief that such persons are high within a given trait. For instance, if employees perform difficult accounting tasks well through management's belief of high intelligence among the employees, the manager may erroneously make a perception of the employee to having competencies in subsequent management or technology. Halo effect applies to perceptions of others within the organizations. For instance, hospitals that are popular for opening cardiac programs are perceived as excellent in the community even as other obstetrics or orthopedics departments may not ride in the same category.

Perception determines how people understand, interpret, and organize the issues of the environment in which they live. The aspects are essential because businesses must make decisions: human senses play crucial roles in defining the courses of action. There are beliefs that the ingredients of perception alter or distort vision of the overall reality and mask the truth. For people who encounter situations of preconceived notions of the occurrences, there is need to see the expectations in line with overall goals. People tend to collect certain situations through inherent bias of perceived reality. Points worth noting include the view of business situations as important components of expected experiences, training, and expectations that otherwise be difficult to address.

Perception presents complex phenomenon that is influenced by personal values and experience, beliefs, attitude, training and education. The chapter illustrates that the level of perception of an individual has a hereditary basis. The scope of perception operates based on different aspects of life. Perception plays a critical role in organizing business. In the case, an individual understands and accepts that the development of a vision and prediction of where markets will emerge permits the identification of major trends affecting basic fabric within the society. The focus also determines how to take advantage of opportunities with essential elements of running businesses. The organizations flow with the accepted perception for basic ingredients within the processes. The hunch that people get forms part of perception. Perception is grounded in the manner in which people see things as well as how such aspects are arranged and interpreted to develop a conclusion or undertake a decision. Perception advances principal ingredient within the business management, and it has powerful tools in business through proper recognition and application.

Leaders can use the content that is known through sandwiching techniques to change behavior based on criticism. Some of the approaches include praising employees and sharing something nice in their achievements. It is important to mention the bad things that occurred. The conversation must end with positive things and other prospects of work. Leaders discover that such individual do not alter their expectations for purposes of dealing with criticism. In fact, such criticism is ultimately ignored due to the expectations of better discussions. Leaders are in a position of protecting themselves from wrongful perception in case there is work of the sensitive nature of the employees and consideration of different viewpoints. This is achieved by encouraging people around to make offering of independent observations, suggestions, and ideas despite the challenges stating...

There is needed to identify obstacles that team members do not see. Leaders can step from the action while taking other views of ensuring that they see the entire picture and not simply the parts found to be most interesting. Finally, it is important to have increased awareness of the people's expectations against what they see. People can shun away from big changes that do not match their expected reality.
Complete summary of chapter 5

The chapter discusses the motivational theories. The author opens by noting that need theories are based on the fulfillment of internal states that make various outcomes integrate as attractive. The theories narrow down to basic instruments of straightforward motivation theories. The Pyramid Hierarchy of Needs under Maslow's theory illustrates that individuals have pyramid-like hierarchies of needs that are satisfied from bottom towards the top.

The Alderfer's ERG Model condenses the five human needs from Maslow's theory to three distinct categories. The groupings include existence (physiological and material), Growth (self-actualization and internal esteem) and Relatedness (external esteem and social). McClelland's Achievement Motivation Theory involves an acquired needs theory where individual's particular needs are cumulated over time based on a person's life experiences. The theory describes three distinct forms of motivational needs such as affiliation motivation (n-affine), authority or power motivation (n-pow) and achievement motivation (n-ach). Managers have opportunities for designing reward systems for purposes of diminishing absenteeism through linking bonuses to attendance levels.

Adams' Equity Theory illustrates those individuals seeking to uphold balances between inputs and outcomes received should relate to outputs of other people. Fair forms of treatment involve creation of motivation that adds to the crucial additional motivation theory perspective for comparative 'reference' with others. People are considered to be in such situations. Herzberg's Job Design Model is widely used and replicated in the world of business. The theory splits the hygiene factors into motivation factors. The hygiene factors have a relationship to pain-avoidance as well as leading aspects of dissatisfaction without extensive satisfaction. Motivation factors have a relationship to ability to attain and experience all forms of psychological growth.

Models of this kind introduce 'job enrichment' towards achieving true motivation unlike elements of 'job loading'. The strategy has positive implications for the compensation among little job content as well as poor working conditions that are not otherwise improved. Further, various jobs within facility management firms have simple and routine approaches to managing insufficient motivational properties. The management of cultural diversity in workplaces does not directly establish tasks of administrative managers without persons of the company contributing towards the success of diversity management in a workplace. Managers are in a position of dealing with different individuals with proper orientation of cultural diversity. Effective managers contribute towards successful organizational efforts in the management of diversity through striving to achieve an empathy, understanding, communication, and tolerance. Other managerial concepts take basic concepts for equal employment opportunities within unnecessary extremes.

Vroom's Expectancy Theory separates efforts from outcomes and performance. The focus works towards perceptions as well as assumptions that such behavior results in conscious choices of alternatives geared towards maximized pleasure and avoidance of pain. The theory introduces the Expectancy concepts through increased efforts leading to an element of increased results. Instrumentality involves performance along the received valued outcomes. Valence is value attached to expected outcomes. Job characteristics model by Hackman and Oldham focuses on tasks. The theorists identify five distinct job characteristics such as skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and feedback influencing critical psychological states (such as responsibility, meaningfulness, and knowledge of outcomes).

The approach influences work and motivation outcomes (job satisfaction and absenteeism. The theory suggests people can redesign key components for jobs based on maximum motivation. People have different characteristics in different ways needing equitable and fair treatment. Therefore, managers should understand the differences between people and the need to maintain the sanctity. All efforts towards treating people in similar ways in the firm despite the fundamental human differences lead to extensive problems.

Read and complete the following case studies

Case study 4: MAGREC

Any manager must outline the quality standards upheld by an organization. The employees require continuous awareness of the consequences of delivering substandard good to clients. Further, management should develop a code of ethics that will guide the employees' interactions with customers. A clear chain of decision taking will inform the character and variation of organizational structures in the absence of supervision. Public relations efforts will also play an important role…