Business Psychology and Organizational Behavior - Research Paper Example

Organizational Behavior (research analysis) of the of the Number Research Question According to the case study, the organization is suffering from blazing emails among employees, casual behavior many other similar incidents. This indicates that the organization incorporates an informal organizational structure. The main characteristics of informal structure include existence of grapevines and informal groups are very prominent in this organization (Robbins 175). Such grapevines and informal groups leads to create ambiguity regarding organizational decision making, initiate baseless rumors. The present structure of the organization can be exemplified through the following diagram. Figure 1: Informal Organizational Structure Being a consultant, it has been identified that in order to control such factors that lead to hinder organizational effectively, the organization must bring changes in their structure and introduce a formal organizational structure in order to eliminate the possibilities of rumors and threats. Figure 2: Formal Organizational Structure According to Attorney (Attorney 248), in the formal structure of organization, management should take initiative to establish a two way hassle free communication between the employees and the management so that the employees feel free to communicate their problems arising out of workplace. Management should also be patient enough to listen to their problems and provide relevant solutions. Kortmann (754) explained in this regard that any decision regarding organizational changes related to production process or business operations should clearly be communicated to the employees so that the scope for groundless grapevines can be eliminated. From the case study, it is evident that the employees of the organization are enthusiastic enough to run unproductive activities. Therefore, relevant training programs should also be scheduled in order to channelize such enthusiasm into productive work for enhancing organizational productivity (Kortmann 465). Research Question 2 a) Fair Evaluation of Performance of Employees Fair Performance Evaluation may be defined as an evaluation of performances on the basis of well- documented job performance and productivity of the employees, and by appointing a strategic or scientific performance evaluation technique in order to establish equity and acceptability of the evaluation method among employees. b) Desirability of Fair Evaluation of Performance Fair evaluation of performance is desirable for a multiple reasons, from both management and employees’ perspective. According to Attorney (2007), fair evaluation helps the management level of the corporate to measure and identify the performance level of the employees and evaluate whether the employees are working in the direction to satisfy the organizational objectives. It also ensures that all the subsystems of the organization, comprising of various departments, teams and processes, are working according to the standards adopted by the organization. Fair evaluation assists the management to identify the department, team or individual employee whose performance has not been up to the mark and accordingly schedule training and development programs so that performances of those identified workers can be improved before the next evaluation. On the basis of such evaluation, top performers, employees and teams are rewarded by the management, as per the reward management procedure adopted by the management level of the organization (Varma, Budhwar & DeNisi 459). Organizational behavioral scientist Clardy (446) had shown in his research that employees are also motivated to a great extend as their efforts and contribution towards organizational effectiveness are recognized through fair evaluation of performance. On achieving a successful performance appraisal rating, the employees are expected to be benefitted through monetary and non-monetary rewards. In companies where the provision for “hiring from within” exists, most promising employees are identified on the basis of their performances and existing skill-set and they are promoted to the next level of hierarchy in the organization. Hence, financial incentives, scope for promotion and other benefits derived from fair and equitable measures of performance evaluation. c) Psychological Variables that leads to Interfere Fair Evaluation Process A number of psychological variables tend to interfere in the process of fair value evaluation. These can be attributed as: Halo effect in which the perspective of an individual regarding a person or an employee influences the individual to create an overall impression regarding the person. It becomes difficult for the individual to change his perception over a period of time as well. Leniency error is another psychological variable that influences management to provide a favorable performance evaluation result to all employees in order to eliminate negative consequences at workplace. Similar-to-me is an error posed by employers when they tend to provide a better rating to the employees who possess some characteristic traits, similar to the employer. Finally, stereotyping error influences the management to rate the employees on the basis of their pre-determined perception. d) Organizational/ practical consideration affecting the performance evaluation The lists are as follows: Motivation, Team Work and Contribution towards organization’s goal (Attorney 123). Research Question 3 a) Expected Advantages from a Narcissists in Workplace According to Maccoby (45) Narcissism is one kind of personality disorder which is evident among individuals who are exceptionally preoccupied with power, prestige and pride. Such individuals are subjected to treat with empathy and compassion. Though it is comparatively risky to include such personalities into the human resource team of an organization because of their oversensitive personality traits, there exist some inherent advantages that an organization may experience by engaging Narcissists into the workplace. Great Vision Narcissists are generally characterized with great vision. As narcissists have a vision to assume things in a big picture, productive narcissists possess a great vision that enables them to predict the future occurrences and accordingly plan their present activities. Excellent Communication Skills Maccoby (497) had also shown that narcissists are very good orators and they believe that they can change the world through words. This personality trait makes the narcissists most acceptable in the workplace as they possess an inherent attribute to motivate other employees through their words. b) Disadvantages of involving Narcissists in Workplace Though the advantages are few, disadvantages are many for an employer to involve narcissists into the workforce. These are: Sensitive to Criticism Narcissists are very sensitive to criticisms and they are likely to show over-temperaments as they feel very uncomfortable while they encounter that others are expressing their characteristics, especially the negative ones. Criticism threatens their self-image and the feeling of insecurity leads them to react awkwardly in public. Poor Listeners Narcissists, especially those who are self conscious, tends to avoid serious communications with a fear that such communication may lead to instigate criticism for themselves and such criticism will drive them for overreaction in the workplace. This is a defensive strategy often used by the narcissists that restricts them to participate in any effective communication process or listen to the problems shared by other colleagues. Lack of empathy While working in an organizational framework, it is very important for workers to have an empathetic outlook towards the co-workers. However, narcissists seldom hold such empathies to others; rather they always expect empathy from their co-workers. In other words, knowing that, they are having certain personality disorder; narcissists always try to capitalize the factor and try to escape from the assigned responsibilities on the ground of empathy. c) And d) Cost and Benefits of including Narcissists in Workforce Narcissists are an important part of the human being and society, hence if managed properly; they can prove to be an important part of the human resource of an organization as well. Long enduring vision, superior communication skills and ability to motivate employees often creates great leaders for future. Great leaders such as Bill Gates, Churchill, Mao Tse-Tung and Andy Grove were narcissists by their characters (DuBrin 235). All such leader had sufficiently contributed to the progress of their organizations and respective field of work. However, they were exceptional and exemplary. General trends of Narcissists indicate that they are interested in building up connections with those who are empathetic towards them and willing to lessen their work burden. Most of the time, narcissists are found away from their workplace. They are very much resistant to changes as well. Any kind of changes that may challenge their capabilities or question their contribution towards a particular project makes then vulnerable and they are prone to react ineptly in such circumstances. Therefore, in practical it may become cost ineffective for the organization to include narcissists as a part of human resource of the organization. e) Viability of associating narcissists in the long run In the long run, narcissists may appear to be an important resource for the organization through utilizing their skills to communicate their long term vision effectively and motivating co-workers to work accordingly to the pathway shown by them. However, in practical, it is difficult to manage all the tantrums of narcissists as their unrealistic demands and seldom distracted attention slowdown the speed of operations of the organization. Though they are sometimes competitive in nature, they can also be ruthless and aggressive as possible in order to succeed over their competitors. Such aggression may create violence in the workplace which in turn leads to affect the organization’s productivity (Maccoby 251). Moreover, narcissists are temperamental. They work according to their own wish. If any person tries to convince them to work harder, they will take it as a criticism and such perception of narcissists will lead to create organizational conflict. Another important aspect in this regard is resistance to change. In the global ever changing business environment, every organization must comply with the changes according to the business need. As most of the narcissists are resistant to any kind of changes in the workplace, inclusion of narcissists may create difficulties for the organization in the long run to cope up with the process changes required for smooth running of business. Hence, it is established that in the long run organizational framework, involvement of more narcissists is not justified for the benefit and development of the organization (Maio & Geoffrey 545). Research Question 6 a) Attitude In social science, attitude is the most distinctive and elementary concept that indicates an individuals’ perception towards a person, event, place or objects (McKenna 159). The tri-part equation of attitude as suggested by Rosenberg and Hovland indicates that attitude of an individual consists of three distinct parts, such as: affective, behavioral as well as cognitive approaches. Figure 3: Tri-part Equation of Attitude b) Ambivalence is the key word that indicates the situation when one attitude does not match with others. In psychological terminology, it is also known as implicit attitude. Implicit attitude leads to evaluate an object, person or place in absence of conscious awareness (Maio and Haddock 142). According to McKenna (111), such evaluation leads to generate either of the two distinct results: favorable or unfavorable i.e. either positive or negative attitude. These attitudes are derived on the basis of a number of factors such as past experiences and various other external influences. c) According to McKenna & Eugene (159), the perception of good and bad attitude varies as per the personal traits and characteristics of the evaluator. The following story will illustrate the reasoning behind evaluator’s attitude of analyzing a behavior as good or bad. Mr. X is an employee of ABC Group Plc. He is very sincere towards his works and strives to maximize his performance in order to enhance his contribution towards the organization’s objective. Hence, Mr. X’s attitude towards work is evaluated as “good” by the management whereas the workforce considers his attitude to be “bad”. The main reason behind such dissimilar attitude is that the management is happy with his approach in the workplace but other employees envy him and assume that in spite of being a team player and maintaining the ongoing work culture and standards of other employees, Mr. X is working for satisfying the management and for creating negative impact for all other employees. d) When a person evaluates the attitude of any other person, he/she tends to discuss less about the focal person but focuses more on their implicit preferences towards the subjects. If the individual has an implicit disapproval towards the subject, he/she tend to associate all the negative and bad key responses during describing the attitude. Research Question 7 Perfect Employee Though there are no predetermine parameters for an employee said to be perfect, certain attributes have been identified by researchers than an individual must possess to become a perfect employee (Maio and Haddock 152). First and foremost, an employee will have to be action oriented in order to become perfect employee. In other words, the employee should not fear of the consequences while taking actions. However, he should be able to take calculative risk in an organizational context for his personal betterment and sustainability of the organization as well. The person has to possess certain level of intelligence, has to be ambitious towards organizational objective. Perfect employees should be autonomous in nature so that they do not require excessive support in trivial decision making. In the organization, a perfect employee will incline to show his leadership skills whenever he will get an opportunity. He should be detailed oriented and should be able to prioritize the most important factor of an assignment, among all other alternatives available. In aggregate, an employee should be accountable, flexible, communicative, passionate towards work and smart working in order to evolve as a perfect employee. Research Question 10 a) Stereotyping According to the explanation provided by Schneider (294), Stereotyping is a thought process that can be experienced to be adopted by definite types of individuals on certain behaviors in the organization. b) The cartoon portrays two characters: two antelopes and a lioness. From the antelope’s perspective, the stereotype attitude of this animal obliges it to predict that the lioness is posing to attack and harm them. The characteristics of the lioness, its past behavior and the antelope’s past experience regarding lioness compelled it to envisage so. c) The inherent relationship between lioness and antelopes indicates the connection between a hunter and prey. Lionesses target many timid animals in the forests for fulfilling their hunger. Hence, antelopes try to escape in order to save their lives from the reach of lioness. d) 1. It is justified to state that stereotyping may not prove to be instrumental to the person involved in it. For instance, stereotyping a person on the basis of his/her gender, race and religion leads a management to ignore the skills and competencies they possess and such attitude in turn leads to affect the overall performance of the organization (Varma, Budhwar, DeNisi 241). 2. Stereotyping leads to create discrimination in the workplace on the basis of which the confidence level of the targeted employee decreases, he starts losing his self-esteem which in turn affects his level of productivity. 3. Stereotyping is beneficial for an individual that leads to take instant decisions without considering the present status of a person. 4. The name of the article which specifically states the people self stereotype is: Cognitive Representation of Self Stereotyping. Works Cited Attorney, Amy DelPo. Performance Appraisal Handbook. California: Nolo, 2007. Print. Clardy, Alan B. Managing Human Resources: Exercises, Experiments, and Applications. London: Psychology Press, 2014. Print. DuBrin, Andrew. Leadership: Research Findings, Practice, and Skills. Boston: Cengage Learning, 2015. Print. Kortmann, Sebastian. The Relationship between Organizational Structure and Organizational Ambidexterity: A Comparison between Manufacturing and Service Firms. Berlin: Springer Science & Business Media, 2012. Print. Maccoby, Michael. Narcissistic Leaders: Who Succeeds and Who Fails. Boston: Crown Religion/Business/Forum, 2012. Print. Maio, Greg. & Geoffrey Haddock. The Psychology of Attitudes and Attitude Change. Washington DC: SAGE, 2009. Print. McKenna, Eugene F. Business Psychology and Organizational Behavior: A Students Handbook. London: Psychology Press, 2000. Print. Robbins, Stephen P. Organizational Behavior. New Delhi: Pearson Education India, 2009. Print. Schneider, David J. The Psychology of Stereotyping. New York: Guilford Press, 2005. Print. Varma, Arup., Pawan S. Budhwar, Angelo DeNisi. Performance Management Systems: A Global Perspective. London: Routledge, 2008. Print. Read More