¶ … Improving Human Resource Management at Great Northern America
Because all organizations are comprised of people, there will always be human resource issues involved and the manner in which these issues are resolved can spell the difference between organizational success and failure. This was the situation facing Joe Salatino, president of Great Northern America as he sought to formulate timely and responsive solutions to his company's human resource problems in order to save his company and achieve a competitive advantage in the future. To gain some fresh insights concerning how the president of this company could approach these problems, this paper provides a review of the relevant literature to explain why employees need to understand the importance of how people form perceptions and make attributions, an evaluation of the applicability of social learning theory to the circumstances, followed by an examination of ways that the president could use social learning theory to improve employee performance. Finally, a discussion concerning ways that the president of this company could leverage the value of self-efficacy to ensure the most successful salespeople are hired is followed by a summary of the research and important findings in the conclusion.
Review and Discussion
Importance of Understanding How People Form Perceptions and Make Attributions
Successful business managers intuitively recognize that people develop powerful perceptions about their workplace based on what they actually see and hear (Maher & Maher, 1999). As a result, people tend to form their perceptions of others based on their day-to-day behaviors and how these behaviors translate into different types of outcomes, especially if these outcomes affect them personally (Maher & Maher, 1999). To the extent that behaviors are associated with successful outcomes is likely the extent to which people will form perceptions that people behaving in this fashion will also be successful. In this regard, Maher and Maher (1999) report that, "As traditional attribution theory implies, if people are seen as being more causal in determining favorable outcomes, then the perception that they are leaders is enhanced; if they are seen as being less causal for good performance, their leadership ratings are not as high" (p. 56). In addition, people also tend to form positive perceptions of themselves when they receive positive feedback from their peers and superiors, as well as positive perceptions of those who provide this feedback (Luo, Bippus & Dunbar, 2005). When workers receive negative feedback, though, they are less likely to assign a negative connotation to themselves compared to the negative perception they develop concerning the provider of the feedback (Luo et al., 2005). Notwithstanding these tendencies, though, most people build up such perceptions over time rather than based on isolated observations and experiences (Luo et al., 2005).
Evaluation of Social Learning Theory
Although rewards and punishments in the workplace are frequently founded on operant conditioning theory, social learning theory can help explain the effects of positive and negative sanctions on individuals as well as other group members (O'Reilly & Puffer, 1999). Social learning theory as articulated by Bandura (1986) maintains that "individuals do not need to learn everything directly because they are able to learn lots of things by observing others' experiences" (Demibras & Yagbasan, 2006). The three main components of social learning theory that are believed to facilitate learning in the workplace are: (a) vicarious learning, (b) an individual's ability to utilize symbols (verbal and imaginal), and (c) an individual's self-regulatory capability (Doo, 2005). Just as a company's corporate culture helps new hires "learn the ropes" concerning how things are actually done, vicarious learning can help people learn in the workplace as well. For instance, according to Doo, "Vicarious learning, also referred to as observational learning, indicates that people can learn by observing others' behaviors without direct experience" (p. 19). From Bandura's perspective, people possess the innate ability to process observed behaviors and their outcomes and extrapolate these eventualities to their own situations, and, as a result, "A set of observed behaviors and subsequent results are expected to play the role of references for the individual's actions in the future" (Doo, 2005, p. 19).
Ways that Joe Could Apply Social Learning Theory to Improve Employee Performance
The ability of social learning methods to improve employee performance is well documented, but the efficacy of the theory depends on a number of factors, including the type of leadership that is used to promote it (Mintzberg, 2011). Social learning theory indicates that people learn best in the workplace when they are able to engage in real-world problem-solving...
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now