¶ … 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...
North American Literature of the 20th Century: A Literature of Alienation North American literature of the twentieth century began as a predominantly white male-dominated literature, on the heels of 19th century romantic literary expression, such as within the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells, Stephen Crane, and others. Similarly, in the early decades of the 20th century, American literature was dominated by the likes of William
Psychology and Literature Both psychology and literature explore how people interact with each other. Both psychology and literature explore how prior events affect what follows. Both psychology and literature look at how a person grows, develops and changes over time. However, psychology looks at how events affect what people do and how they act in very precise ways, while literature fictionalizes and supposes what an imaginary person might do. Psychology looks
classroom, regardless of the age of the learner, we realize that there are multiple learning styles and responses to divergent stimuli. The modern pedagogical environment is faced with a number of challenges that are directly related to learning. In fact, as an educational pendulum swings, we find any number of methods that are thought to be new and innovative; yet it is sometimes the tried and true methods that
OCTAVIO PAZ "TRANSPLANTED LANGUAGES" Octavio Paz's 1990 Nobel Lecture accentuated the issue of transplanted languages and the literature that emerged in a transplanted culture. Latin-American and Caribbean literature is good example of the use of transplanted languages since the influence of European and American cultures is quite pronounced. When people migrate from one place to another or are forced to endure foreign rule, the impact on the language is usually the
Courtly love your purchase. COURTLY LOVE AND MIDDLE AGES LITERATURE In this paper, we shall study the tradition of Courtly love in the Middle Ages as reflected by literary works produced in that period. The paper will first focus on what the exact nature of Courtly Love, then proceed to briefly discuss its development and finally take into account the literary works of Middle Ages that contained elements of this tradition. Courtly love
Abbe Prevost's tale of Manon Lescaut performs several different functions at once. It is in part a cautionary story. It is in part a push to create a fully modern sensibility in French literature. It is in part an exploration of the trope of Romanticism. And in all of these things it is partly a story about the New World, for to Prevost, as to other Europeans of his time,
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