Informativo Laboral: Hojas de Vida Californianos y Otros
La compañia Logan Drilling Colombia, próxima a iniciar labores de perforación en el municipio de California necesita Auxiliares de Perforación que estén disponibles a laborar lo mas pronto posible. Favor enviar hojas de vida para dicho cargo al correo aquerubin@logandrillinggroup.com ó comunicarse al teléfono celular 310 452 0835 con Alejandra Querubin o al 314 4914559 con German Lizcano para proceder con el proceso de selección. Agradecemos de antemano su participación en dicha convocatoria
viernes, 11 de enero de 2013
miércoles, 20 de octubre de 2010
Topic 9 - The role of workers + Migrant workers + expatriate assignments
SUMMARY:
The role of workers:
Human potential has been considered as one of the most important asset for any company in the world. Sometimes it has been exploited and underpaid because the need of the companies of cost reductions. However, the labor force is taking more power although the technological advances are the new trend nowadays.
Workers have benefits that they did not have before: health and safety for them and their families, education, and other privileges than motivate them to do better things for the companies. This strategy has been implemented since the organizations realized that human resources are a key factor of success or default in the performance of outcomes for a company.
That is why today there are a lot of labor unions, trade unions and many other organizations giving even more participation to the employees because it means that they are more prepared for participate in the decision making processes.
In the recommended reading for this topic (UNDERSTANDING MANAGEMENT GERMAN-STYLE) we can see clearly how the European companies have involved their employees in decision making process and specially in German style, how those employees make part of a “consensus” and how the trade unions lead by workers might influence in management decisions: “When an agreement is reached, everyone works together to help the company move forward... in Germany, a whole chain is involved but the difference is that once the decision has been taken there, it will be rigorously implemented”
Migrant Workers:
Migrant workers could be defined as the people who voluntarily or involuntarily have moved from one specific place to another in order to work or look for a job.
Those people are having a strong importance nowadays because this situation are changing the policies applied by the countries due to the labor force supply and demand according the population and organizations are managing this situation due to the diversity of people that they hire and policies of requirements for those kind of people within the organizations.
How can we differentiate the types of migrant workers? They can be divided in two categories: 1) voluntary or involuntary and 2) skilled and non-skilled workers. In the first category we find the workers that want to leave their home countries because they believe they will have better opportunities abroad, these are the voluntary migrant workers. At the same time we may find others that had to leave their countries because of social or economic problems that forces that worker to leave, these are the involuntary migration workers.
In this chart we can see clearly the push factors that influence people and workers to go to another place and look for new opportunities. The worldwide statistics show that unemployment and poverty are the principal factors because people are motivated to look for a better job and they see those pull factors in countries that are more developed because the find more opportunities there.
Many worldwide institutions as the United Nations have been working in order to control and protect migrant workers because they are victims of exploitation and unfair situations due to the lack of the education that most of them present.
“Over the past decade and a half, however, migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong — mostly Filipinas and Indonesian women — have become highly active, organizing and participating in political protests. Hong Kong's migrant domestic workers protest in a place where they are guest workers and temporary migrants, denied the opportunity of becoming legal citizens or permanent residents”.
Expatriate assignments and Overseas Experience:
Nowadays, the tendency of international trade is to be more internationalized and the creation of new strategies in order to compete in local-regional markets and international markets. For this reason, companies are looking for people who have international experience, people who have visited and taken experiences from different places in order to construct or adapt those ideas in the host country or in the host company. We can see this experience in two types of international experiences that bring to the company new perspectives from their employees and then making them in strategies and products that help to the growth of employees and organizations at the same time. I will resort to the document written by Inkson et al (Inkson et al. 1999) titled "Expatriate assignments and overseas experience – contrasting models of international human resource development" in order to explain those two concepts and clarify the differences among them:
* In Expatriate Assignment (EA), the initiative for the international experience comes primarily from a company which operates internationally. In this process the company assigns a task for its employees in another country. This task might be since international recognition of markets or tendencies to international negotiations with customers in a foreign country.
* In Overseas Experience (OE), the initiative for the international experience comes from the individual. This process begins when a person decide to save money or get money from somewhere else with the main objective of go to another country and learn from this country (language, specific subject, or just experiences), then after a considerable time, this person returns to the home country and restart his career or decide to study another one.
Chart taken from: Inkson et al (Inkson et al. 1999):"Expatriate assignments and overseas experience – contrasting models of international human resource development"
Co-determination principles over the organization’s decision making process:
The co-determination principles is a organizational practice intruduced firstly by German companies, and it consists in the participation of employees in managerial practices and decisions. “the German model has a strong institutional framework but one which is flexible enough to adapt to change. Lane (1989) argues that the institutionalized system of worker representation in Germany results in a highly constrained industrial relations system which provides German labour with higher levels of power resources than employees in other countries.” (Avoidance strategies and the German system of co-determination, by Tony Royle).
This practice has had a strong impacts in many other countries as a model of “consensus” or learnig organizations where the decision making process is not centrized but it includes all the possible perspectives from employees who are sometimes customers and bring good ideas for the organization development.
From the managerial perspective we could find some advantages and disadvantages for this kind of flexible structures:
- To reduce management-labour conflict by means of improving and systematizing communication channels
- Small but important effect in the final performance of the company
- The opportunity to correct the existent failures in the company that the management board could not perceive before
- However, if the company does not apply restrictions an laws for this practice, it might become as a flexible and weak organization where the decision making process become more complex because the number of actors that have to reach an agreement and a point of accordance
Employee’s perspective:
- Employees could have more loyalty for the company if they feel that they are making good things for the company that they work to.
- In systems with co-determination the employees are given seats in a board of directors in one-tier management systems or seats in a supervisory board
“In general, the principle of ‘codetermination’ (loosely translated in French by ‘joint management’ but not in the literal sense) implies that one appoints people who are competent and capable of having discussions with the employers in a skilled supervisory board. Yet, the trade unions have their own academics” (Taken from: UNDERSTANDING MANAGEMENT GERMAN-STYLE)
Recommended readings:
- Piette, Jean-Jacques. 2004. “Understanding Management German style”. Les Amis de L’ecole de Paris.
- Inkson et al (Inkson et al. 1999): "Expatriate assignments and overseas experience – contrasting models of international human resource development"
- UNDERSTANDING MANAGEMENT GERMAN-STYLE
Topic 8 - Merging OC
SUMMARY:
Integration processes and strategies have been growth the last decades due to the implication of a globalized world where companies need to expand themselves in order to compete with bigger competitors and gain expertise for customer satisfaction and recognition.
Nowadays, not only big firms around the world are making business: big companies need small and more specialized companies and by contrary. However, the success or failure of this kind of business depends on the strategy implemented by the actors since the planning process, until the post-business stage.
The most common integration strategies used are the Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A), which principal objective is the fusion or the acquisition of two companies of the same sector, in order to increase the market presence in other countries and to expand its operations with certain cost (time, money, resources, independence, participation, etc). This is an important decision that companies have to take with a structured plan, analyzing all the variables involved before and after the integration process, because the company have to decide if it would grow more with a partner or through a merger, than it would by own. Sometimes the organizations take this decision because they have internal conflicts that they would not resolve by themselves and they need capital injection to survive in the market or because the company wants to expand to other markets and create future value.
In this process of integration the companies need to take into account the importance of transference of technology and knowledge because both companies are using learning process in order to achieve common goals: this is a necessary condition to the merger process. However those transferences are not always enough and sufficient to the merger success because the companies have to face with another dangerous barrier with this kind of business are made in different countries: The acculturation process. This concept become a real problem for the outcomes and performance of the companies involved when they cannot manage the cultural differences
In this process of integration the companies need to take into account the importance of transference of technology and knowledge because both companies are using learning process in order to achieve common goals: this is a necessary condition to the merger process. However those transferences are not always enough and sufficient to the merger success because the companies have to face with another dangerous barrier with this kind of business are made in different countries: The acculturation process. This concept become a real problem for the outcomes and performance of the companies involved when they cannot manage the cultural differences and try to make a kind of “ideal cultural fit”, or even worst if their cultures do not fit at all.
“Nahavandi and Malekzadeh (1988, p.82) adopted the anthropological term acculturation to describe the cultural changes resulting from the interaction of one organizational culture with another, or: … the ways in which two groups adapt to each other and resolve emergent conflict.” (Taken from: “Challenges and opportunities in mergers and acquisitions: three international case studies”)
Challenges:
- The market situation: This is a significant variable that firms have to take into account before to think in investment or purchasing of any other firm. Sometimes every step is followed correctly by the actors of the merger, but if the market conditions such as economical variables, political stability are in troubles, one acquisition may fail immediately. In the first case of DB and BT, we can see clearly how the market situation was an important advantage for the development of this successful integration process, but this is not the same all the times.
- Cultural Convergence: This is the key factor that we are dealing with in this topic, because sometimes is more effective if one company makes all the efforts in order to manage and address the cultural differences and not to try to achieve in ideal cultural fit that sometimes is impossible to reach. This process take many steps an planning, however those conflicts can be observed in the post-merger stage and this is even more complex because the firms have already invested much money and resources and they cannot lose them. In the case of the banks, the German and American banks made all the possible efforts in order to reduce the cultural clashes to the minimum level.
Recommended reading:
Alzira Salama, Wayne Holland, Gerald Vinten, (2003) "Challenges and Opportunities in Mergers and Acquisitions: Three International Case Studies – Deutsche Bank-Bankers Trust; British Petroleum-Amoco; Ford-Volvo", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 27 Iss: 6, pp.313 – 321.
Topic 7 - Organizational learning + managing change and conflict
Sub-topic 1: Organizational learning
SUMMARY:
Organizational Learning is not a new concept implemented in the globalization era, but it has earlier origins in 1920. However, is has been really considered since 80’s decade with the constant growth of organizations that had been increasing with the concept of free trade and commercialization between different regions and countries. This concept brings more requirements for the organizations and their members because the need for survive in a changing world. For this reason, Kavita Singh says in their document, that “Organizations are operating in an environment of complexity and uncertainty where the only constant is change” (An analysis of Relationship between the learning organization and organization culture in Indian business organization).
Nowadays the organizations make part of “The knowledge Society”, where the person or organization that has knowledge and knows how to apply it, has the power to compete with other direct and indirect actors: this is one of the reasons because people, workers and organizations in general have more challenges in order to compete in a globalized world where the expectations are increasing: people need to be more prepared to change and to learn even more and this process requires certain level of commitment and desire to change.
However, not all the people within an organization are trained for change and innovate in the processes and that’s why this desire of change and the creation of strategies to motivate the employees has to start by the management innovation, using technological techniques, innovating processes, etc.
Saljo (1979) after a deep research of organizational learning proposes five steps to achieve a structured learning and change in organizations:
- Acquiring information
- Memorizing
- Acquiring facts, skills and methods to be used later in the process of implementation
- Making sense and building connections
- Interpreting and understanding reality (comprehension)
“Lievers and Lubberding (1996) discuss the problems of organizational change in depth. They state that organizational change might require not just a change in structures, procedures, or systems, but also a change in behavior or even a change in the norms and values that guide organizational behavior—norms and values represented by cognitions” (EBSCO Database: “Learning barriers: a framework For the examination of Structural impediments to Organizational change, Remco schimmel and dennis r. Muntslag”).
Many countries and their organizations have been applying organizational learning in order to compete with others: India and China for example, had economies damaged by political or social conflicts in the past, however, they are implementing this kind of processes in the organizations and nowadays they are becoming powerful countries with strategies according their competitive advantages.
1. Learning organization and its key characteristics:
Learning organizations are defined by Pedler et al. (1991) “as an organization which is in a continuous process of transformation through the learning of all members within and outside the organization”. This concept has a strong tie with the concept of change and its implications: We have to take into account that learning organization needs the proper climate and environment in order to obtain good outcomes. This climate involves some aspects such as new ideas from employees within the company, research of social framework, proper training of employees to be pro-actives, taking a deep feedback of the company and the sector.
But this is not a concept that can be applied for one or several persons, even all the persons by their own because it would not work and would not bring the expected outcomes from change and learning. For this reason, we saw the need of interaction, communication and sharing of information within the organization and outside the organizations in order to fit the strategies to the context.
The following chart will show the key factor of learning organizations and their linkage in the process:
Learning organization is well interrelated with the concept of organizational culture: as we already know in earlier topics, the culture of the organizations influences many common behaviors and lifestyle of workers specially in the workplace. For this reason, the degree of acceptance to change of one organization is going to depend of the strength of weakness of organizational culture and Pareek (2004) proposes some dimensions of the organizational culture that are related with learning organization directly:
- Openess
- Confrontation
- Trust
- Authenticity
- Proactivity
- Autonomy
- Collaboration
- Experimentation
The learning barriers have their roots in the following causes:
- Organizational structure (division of labor)
- Information systems (communication processes)
- Strategy (scope)
- Information systems (limited cognitive capabilities of human decision makers),
- Information systems (communication processes)
- Information systems (media)
- Organizational culture (emergence of subcultures)
- Organizational structure (standard operating rules).
2. Informal Learning chart by Jay Cross:
Available at: http://elearningargentina.wordpress.com/page/2
“A company has a great influence on planning, structuring and controlling the learning activities of their employees with that way of learning. But it shows that formal learning alone is not flexible enough to react on fast changes taking place in today’s companies’ surroundings. Learning at the workplace needs both formal and informal learning approaches.” (EBSCO database: Supporting Informal Learning at the Workplace, Pieter De Vries, Heide Lukosch: Delft University of Technology, Delft, Netherlands)
I agree with this affirmation made by the author, because nowadays we have to understand that we are living in a constant changing world that cannot wait for our reaction to changes until we are prepared or until we are trained enough. This concept of training are well formed in the formal learning as the principal key of success with this formal structure, and we can see how the companies spend much money in order to give key concepts or show right ways for conflict resolutions or change reactions. However, sometimes they do not realize that what their employees need is a complete training, mixing both kind of learning structures: formal and informal learning.
As we can see in the chart, an organization needs both sides: they need old people who train and guide new people in the company that come with new ideas but need to be oriented. Also, the company needs some structured patterns that orient the organization to the accomplishment of the company’s vision and proposed goals, however, the company needs a degree of flexibility and openness to new changes and proposals from the changing world through a learning process.
There are other topics from the structures that have to be taken into account in order to address a company for a good way with strong goals, but adapting and fitting the organization according the changing requirements in order to compete and survive.
Informal learning is a cooperative action while formal learning often takes place as an individually (or lonely) activity. Many activities at work require collaboration with other people, so employees are used to this way of working and learning
lunes, 6 de septiembre de 2010
Topic 6: East Asia: Japanese and Korean management styles
Key words: East Asia; management style; religion; Buddhism; Confucianism, Management style, Japanese style, Korean style
SUMMARY:
The asian business and country members of this region, are becoming part of actual studies, due to the concept of globalization, the fast economic growth and their succesful model adopted by companies of this region that share some characteristics of their culture and are transfered to their management styles.
For this reason, nowadays we are facing with a controversy: Globalization vs. Convergence.
Convergence may be defined as the acceptance of different cultures around the world, and the creation of awareness allowing and adopting some concepts from successful models (specially of developed countries), according the text What Makes Management Style Similar and Distinct Across Borders? Growth, Experience and Culture in Korean and Japanese Firms, written by Lee, Thomas & Choe.
We can see the prevalence of Japanese model in Asia, and the American model in Western.
Now, we are going to explain the Japanese management style and why it is considered as a pattern in korean styles and other asian countries: It is very important to clarify to the lectors that not all the japanese companies are alike. Japanese market is growing and the maket share must be consistent with log-term and maximization of value. Relationship biuldings are very important for almost every east asian coultures, and they are the basis for Japanese behavior with their custommers and suppliers, and this variable, makes this management style more alike with group loyalty. They take into account both custommers and competitors as important factors for decision-making process.
In the other side, lets explain the Korean management style: Korean style has many congruent factors with Japanese one, due to the historical background of both countries. Korea was a japanese colony and then, they adopted the japanese style. Korea has been growing more tha Japan and other similar countries, and this is because the leadership tasks and the economic planning have been very well oriented by the government.This kind of government have supported the companies members of the "Chaebol", similar with the "Zaibatsu" of Japan.
Korean management culture adopt some principles from confusianism and budism.
Differences of Japanese and Korean management styles:
SUMMARY:
The asian business and country members of this region, are becoming part of actual studies, due to the concept of globalization, the fast economic growth and their succesful model adopted by companies of this region that share some characteristics of their culture and are transfered to their management styles.
For this reason, nowadays we are facing with a controversy: Globalization vs. Convergence.
Convergence may be defined as the acceptance of different cultures around the world, and the creation of awareness allowing and adopting some concepts from successful models (specially of developed countries), according the text What Makes Management Style Similar and Distinct Across Borders? Growth, Experience and Culture in Korean and Japanese Firms, written by Lee, Thomas & Choe.
We can see the prevalence of Japanese model in Asia, and the American model in Western.
Now, we are going to explain the Japanese management style and why it is considered as a pattern in korean styles and other asian countries: It is very important to clarify to the lectors that not all the japanese companies are alike. Japanese market is growing and the maket share must be consistent with log-term and maximization of value. Relationship biuldings are very important for almost every east asian coultures, and they are the basis for Japanese behavior with their custommers and suppliers, and this variable, makes this management style more alike with group loyalty. They take into account both custommers and competitors as important factors for decision-making process.
In the other side, lets explain the Korean management style: Korean style has many congruent factors with Japanese one, due to the historical background of both countries. Korea was a japanese colony and then, they adopted the japanese style. Korea has been growing more tha Japan and other similar countries, and this is because the leadership tasks and the economic planning have been very well oriented by the government.This kind of government have supported the companies members of the "Chaebol", similar with the "Zaibatsu" of Japan.
Korean management culture adopt some principles from confusianism and budism.
Differences of Japanese and Korean management styles:
The national management system is influenced by
* National culture (laws, legal, economic and political variables)
* Development, evolution and sophisticaion of procesess (degree of internationalization)
Internationalization means for the companies, that they have to be stronger in terms of competition, improving their managerial operations, increasing efficiency and opportunities, and common managerial problems (independent of nationality) are:
-Intensification of competition
-Directing activities of subordinates
-Difficulty of coordination (sub-units)
Topic 4: Communication + Virtual Teams
SUMMARY:
COMMUNICATION is an inherent and necessary process of individuals in order to transfer messages and social interaction. This process requires the development of specific skills to communicate with others: They need to have a common language and an implicit code of symbols and interpretations. Despite the technological advantages today, communication still being the basis for the accomplishment of every goals in organizational approaches because it is the base for relationships building and to maintain them.
This process involves 4 principal actors: The communicator, The receiver, Perceptual screens (many variables may change the meaning of the message), the message.
COMMUNICATION is an inherent and necessary process of individuals in order to transfer messages and social interaction. This process requires the development of specific skills to communicate with others: They need to have a common language and an implicit code of symbols and interpretations. Despite the technological advantages today, communication still being the basis for the accomplishment of every goals in organizational approaches because it is the base for relationships building and to maintain them.
This process involves 4 principal actors: The communicator, The receiver, Perceptual screens (many variables may change the meaning of the message), the message.
Taken from: http://www.owatonna.k12.mn.us/Classroom/OJHS/Outback/ezeman/communication_skills_graded.jpg
Feedback is the most important and delicate step within the communicatiuon process because the person who communicates something, needs to be sure that the message sent was the message received.
Reflective Listening:
1. Listening
2. Repeating back the hard messages
3. Correct innacuracies
We must be interacting all the time in order to be sure that we are talking about the same theme, and reduce the risk of perceptual distorsions.
Verbal response to reflective listening:
- Affirming
- Paraphrasing
- Clarify
- Silence
- Eye contact
- Reflecting core feelings
COMMUNICATION AND EFFECTIVE MANAGERS:
Within the organizations we can find different kind of actors that influence the information spreaded and the quality of this information. The challenges that managers encounter often are caused by a breakdown in the communication process. For example, managers may struggle with communicating expectations, dealing with difficult people and situations, delegating work,and a wide variety of other common worksite challenges.
"For example, the author explains how a company in California fosters a humorous and positive environment that motivates clients to achieve their objectives. By using laughing moments, this company creates a relaxed, educational, and pleasurable work environment. When people laugh together, they create shared moments and a strong, trusting, team-focused environment." ( ProQuest database:"The communication problem solver",Nannette Rundle Carroll).
Types of communication actors:
* Expressive speakers
* Emphatetic listeners
* Persuasive leaders
* Sensitivity to feelings
* Informative managers
To reach an effetive communication process, we ha to take into account those principles: clarity, objectives, understanding, consistency, completeness.
However, we have to deal with some barries and obstacles, daily:
Language barriers: Common language?
Semantic barriers: Different meanings
Poor Vocabulary: For detailed communication
Phsysical barriers: Noise, time, distance, age and gender
Social.Psychologicals barriers: Status, attitudes and values, different perceptions, inference,abstracting, close-mindness, ditorsion, bad listening.
Despair Inc.™: Why Workplace "Communication" Is Overrated
Communication is a process that allows organisations to send/receive messages within their own boundaries but also to interact with outside entities (customers, suppliers, the media, etc.). Messages are send/received not only through oral and written statements, there are many channels and ways that need to be considered when discussing effective organisational communication. In that sense, the use of sounds has become increasingly important.
Topic 3 - Motivation
SUMMARY:
We can define MOTIVATION as the activation that a person has in order to achieve a goal oriented behavior. What moves to one person to do something or act in a specific way. We are going to focus our research in the factors that direct the human behavior (internal and external).
We have to take into account that motivations are different of stimulus. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Alderfer's ERG theory, Herzeberg's motivator-hygiene theory (Herzeberg's dual factors theory), and McClelland's learned needs or three-needs theory are some of the major content theories.
Max Weber
Sigmund Freud
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: This author assumes 5 levels of needs of individuals, and proposes a hierarchy between them, starting with the most basic needs that people need in order to survive, and ending with the highest level of needs that cannot be reached even. “man is a perpetually wanting animal” (MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS: “Employees motivation theories developed at an international level”).
• Two factors Theory (Frederick Hezberg): Explains the sources of professional satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and it is related with the context, company policy, salary. Etc.
• Theory X and Y (Douglas Mc Gregor): Proposes two groups of persons within a group or organization:
-X: Negligence, avoiding work, controlled, need punishments
-Y: Intellectual efforts, voluntary responsibilities, not forced
• ERG Theory: It applies the “Regression hypothesis”, and he accepts that different levels of needs of the Marlow’s hierarchy may take place at the same time, and if one need is not covered properly, individual could move down within the pyramid.
• Mc Clelland’s need Theory: Manage people and building relationships. This theory assumes that working place is not only for work.
• Equity Theory: It is very useful in organizational analysis, because it gets some basis for management because it accepts the people perceptions and gets some real motivations to work (the way that they are threatened in comparison with others).
QUESTIONS:
Hawthorne Studies and its importance for studying motivation at the workplace, its influence over diverse motivation theories.
"The ”Hawthorne effect” is defined as the phenomenon in which subjects in behavioral studies change their performance in response to being observed." (Counseling in an Organization(1966) :Roethlisberger and William Dickson. Harvard business School webpage).
The Hawthorne studies proposed the basis for human relations management because he recognizes that the employees are motivated by salary and economical retributions, but he adopt a new concept where the workers are motivated by social needs, further than economical ones (developing work relations and facing pressures put forth by coworkers). Despite the salary is an important variable for the successful work, it is even more important in a combination of responsibility, Recognition and respect, because When employees believe that their efforts are serving a deeper purpose, they are more motivated to produce.
Bringing Maslow and Herzberg's theories into the workplace, strategies for motivation can be implemented in order to meet people basic needs. When they met, difficult and challenging times can actually motivate workers to contribute at a higher level. Fundamentals like salary, breaks and favorable work conditions must be in place. In order to gain organizational loyalty, bonuses and healthcare plans can be motivating. Other factors include giving employees the opportunity to grow. This can occur through training and coaching, and relates to findings in the Hawthorne studies for driving efforts as well.
Organizations have to keep in mind that individuals (workers) behavior responses to s set of motivations that will influence in job performance, and this is the most complex task imposed to managers: How to motivate their workers?. And Hawthorne give them new variables and options to accomplish with this hard job, understanding that a person is not only an economic individual, but he has to cover more human needs related with job performance and job satisfaction.
“Elton Mayo examined the impact of work conditions in employee productivity. Elton Mayo started these experiments by examining the physical and environmental influences of the workplace (e.g. brightness of lights, humidity) and later, moved into the psychological aspects (e.g. breaks, group pressure, working hours, managerial leadership) and their impact on employee motivation as it applies to productivity.” (http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Hawthorne_Effect.html).
Based on the class activity about "Flight 001: Motivating Employees"
¿Which motivation theory has the most relevance for understanding the behavior of Griffin and fostering her motivation at work?
This case is a proper example of the importance of motivation in the workplace. Griffin is an employee of the company and her job covered her basic needs (salary) and there were convergence with the economical retributions with her job; however, she felt that she was treated as a “number” and as a common employee for the company that has to accomplish some tasks and that’s it. This is the reason because she became to feel some dissatisfaction with her workplace and her boss.
This boss, failed in his managerial task, because they did not take into account the other levels of the human needs, such as self-esteem needs (brings to the workers status, responsibility and reputation), and self-actualization needs (brings to the workers personal growth).
In this case, the theory X and Y is presented the mostly, because we can see that this particular employee is characterized by belongs to the group of Y people: People at the company care about their position as important assets to get better results. The payment does not have a really influences under the worker’s motivations: They are looking for delegation and more participation within the company.
The reading is available at: Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Pp. 1178-179.
We can define MOTIVATION as the activation that a person has in order to achieve a goal oriented behavior. What moves to one person to do something or act in a specific way. We are going to focus our research in the factors that direct the human behavior (internal and external).
We have to take into account that motivations are different of stimulus. Maslow's hierarchy of needs, Alderfer's ERG theory, Herzeberg's motivator-hygiene theory (Herzeberg's dual factors theory), and McClelland's learned needs or three-needs theory are some of the major content theories.
Max Weber
Sigmund Freud
• Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs: This author assumes 5 levels of needs of individuals, and proposes a hierarchy between them, starting with the most basic needs that people need in order to survive, and ending with the highest level of needs that cannot be reached even. “man is a perpetually wanting animal” (MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS: “Employees motivation theories developed at an international level”).
When one need is accomplished, people look for a higher level of the hierarchy (strict order of needs).
• Two factors Theory (Frederick Hezberg): Explains the sources of professional satisfaction or dissatisfaction, and it is related with the context, company policy, salary. Etc.
• Theory X and Y (Douglas Mc Gregor): Proposes two groups of persons within a group or organization:
-X: Negligence, avoiding work, controlled, need punishments
-Y: Intellectual efforts, voluntary responsibilities, not forced
• ERG Theory: It applies the “Regression hypothesis”, and he accepts that different levels of needs of the Marlow’s hierarchy may take place at the same time, and if one need is not covered properly, individual could move down within the pyramid.
• Mc Clelland’s need Theory: Manage people and building relationships. This theory assumes that working place is not only for work.
• Equity Theory: It is very useful in organizational analysis, because it gets some basis for management because it accepts the people perceptions and gets some real motivations to work (the way that they are threatened in comparison with others).
QUESTIONS:
Hawthorne Studies and its importance for studying motivation at the workplace, its influence over diverse motivation theories.
"The ”Hawthorne effect” is defined as the phenomenon in which subjects in behavioral studies change their performance in response to being observed." (Counseling in an Organization(1966) :Roethlisberger and William Dickson. Harvard business School webpage).
The Hawthorne studies proposed the basis for human relations management because he recognizes that the employees are motivated by salary and economical retributions, but he adopt a new concept where the workers are motivated by social needs, further than economical ones (developing work relations and facing pressures put forth by coworkers). Despite the salary is an important variable for the successful work, it is even more important in a combination of responsibility, Recognition and respect, because When employees believe that their efforts are serving a deeper purpose, they are more motivated to produce.
Bringing Maslow and Herzberg's theories into the workplace, strategies for motivation can be implemented in order to meet people basic needs. When they met, difficult and challenging times can actually motivate workers to contribute at a higher level. Fundamentals like salary, breaks and favorable work conditions must be in place. In order to gain organizational loyalty, bonuses and healthcare plans can be motivating. Other factors include giving employees the opportunity to grow. This can occur through training and coaching, and relates to findings in the Hawthorne studies for driving efforts as well.
Organizations have to keep in mind that individuals (workers) behavior responses to s set of motivations that will influence in job performance, and this is the most complex task imposed to managers: How to motivate their workers?. And Hawthorne give them new variables and options to accomplish with this hard job, understanding that a person is not only an economic individual, but he has to cover more human needs related with job performance and job satisfaction.
“Elton Mayo examined the impact of work conditions in employee productivity. Elton Mayo started these experiments by examining the physical and environmental influences of the workplace (e.g. brightness of lights, humidity) and later, moved into the psychological aspects (e.g. breaks, group pressure, working hours, managerial leadership) and their impact on employee motivation as it applies to productivity.” (http://www.envisionsoftware.com/articles/Hawthorne_Effect.html).
Based on the class activity about "Flight 001: Motivating Employees"
¿Which motivation theory has the most relevance for understanding the behavior of Griffin and fostering her motivation at work?
This case is a proper example of the importance of motivation in the workplace. Griffin is an employee of the company and her job covered her basic needs (salary) and there were convergence with the economical retributions with her job; however, she felt that she was treated as a “number” and as a common employee for the company that has to accomplish some tasks and that’s it. This is the reason because she became to feel some dissatisfaction with her workplace and her boss.
This boss, failed in his managerial task, because they did not take into account the other levels of the human needs, such as self-esteem needs (brings to the workers status, responsibility and reputation), and self-actualization needs (brings to the workers personal growth).
In this case, the theory X and Y is presented the mostly, because we can see that this particular employee is characterized by belongs to the group of Y people: People at the company care about their position as important assets to get better results. The payment does not have a really influences under the worker’s motivations: They are looking for delegation and more participation within the company.
The reading is available at: Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. 2010. Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Pp. 1178-179.
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