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ITE 3652 Organizational Behavior
Lesson 4 – Individual Behavior of Employees
1.0 What is individual behavior? Individual behavior can be defined as a mix of responses to external and internal stimuli. It also can be elaborated as how an individual behaves at work. It is the way a person reacts in different situations and the way someone expresses different emotions like anger, happiness, love, etc. Human behavior is a complex process and every individual is different from the other. A person’s behavior is influenced by the following factors: Attitude Perception Personality Stress Belief Norms or other psychological matters Three main variable that influence on the human behavior are as given below Figure 1 : Key features of individual behavior Key features of any organization are Ability of a person. Biographical characteristics and learning. Each topic has a direct impact on the development of organization towards achieving common goals.
1.1 Ability. What is ability? Ability is the physical or mental power or skill needed to do something. In other words, an individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a job. From a management standpoint, the issue is not whether people differ in terms of their abilities. There are two types of abilities: Intellectual Abilities: The abilities needed to perform mental activities. General Mental Ability (GMA) is a measure of overall intelligence. It has identified that there is no correlation between intelligence and job satisfaction. Different Types of Intellectual Abilities: Number Aptitude: Ability to do speedy and accurate arithmetic Verbal Comprehension: Ability to understand what is read or heard and the relationship of words to each other. Perceptual Speed: Ability to identify visual similarities and differences quickly and accurately. Inductive Reasoning: Ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem and then solve the problem. Deductive Reasoning: Ability to use logic and assess the implications of an argument. Spatial Visualization: Ability to imagine how an object would look if its position in space were changed. Memory: Ability to retain and recall past experiences. Physical Abilities: The capacity to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity, strength, and similar characteristics. In consideration of Physical ability of a person, it can be divided in to three sub factors such as strength factors, flexibility factors and coordination factors. Following shows the characteristics of each different ability factor. Strength Factors
- Dynamic strength
- Trunk strength
- Static strength
- Explosive strength Flexibility Factors 5. Extent flexibility 6. Dynamic flexibility Coordination Factors 7. Body coordination 8. Balance 9. Stamina
Learning helps to develop the emotional and psychological behavior of a person which makes a healthy life-style and practices Develop knowledge base and improve personal growth Get new and different opportunities in life Develop skills and make the work life easier It is essential for staying up to date un an very changing world Develop self esteem of a person Enhance social life by sharing knowledge and skills with others in the society Get a recognition from the society as a knowledgeable human being 2.0 Learning Process – Kolb’s Cycle (1984) David Kolb’s Experiential Learning Style Theory is a one of the theory which even applys today due to its importance. This theory explains in four stages of learning cycle in which any learner goes through. Four stages describes in this theory are
- Learning from concrete experiences (feeling)
- Learning from reflective observation (watching)
- Learning from abstract conceptualization (thinking)
- Learning from active experimentation (doing) Figure 2 – Kolb’s Learning Cycle (Kolb, 1984)
- Concrete Experience - a new experience or situation is encountered, or a reinterpretation of existing experience.
- Reflective Observation of the New Experience - of particular importance are any inconsistencies between experience and understanding.
- Abstract Conceptualization reflection gives rise to a new idea, or a modification of an existing abstract concept (the person has learned from their experience).
- Active Experimentation - the learner applies their idea(s) to the world around them to see what happens. This process can be simply presented as doing something (Concrete Experimentation). Thinking about it as reflection. Talking with others and applying what we already know to the situation (Abstract Conceptualization). Finally doing something new or doing the same thing in a more sophisticated way based on our learning (Active Experimentation). 3.0 Shaping: A Managerial Tool The process of establishing a behavior that is not learned or performed by an individual at present is referred to as Shaping. Shaping can also be defined as the procedure that involves reinforcing behaviors that are closer to the target behavior, also known as successive approximations. The concept was first developed and used by B.F Skinner, who is known for his theories that involve learning behaviors through reinforcement. Managers are concern on how they can behave the employees in a way most beneficial for the organization. Shaping behavior is the attempt of molding individuals by guiding their learning step by step. Systematically reinforcing each successive step that moves an individual closer to the desired response. We have five ways of shaping individual behavior with respect to their original conduct. Positive reinforcement Negative reinforcement Punishment Extinction Schedules of reinforcement Let us try to understand all these unique methods one at a time.
organizing skills, leading skills, problem solving skill, decision making skills etc. These skills can be enhanced by organizing a series of training and development programmes, career development programmes, induction and socialization etc. Biographical Characteristics: This refers to employing different categories of employees who are heterogeneous in terms of gender, race, ethnicity, relation, community, physically disadvantaged, homosexuals, elderly people etc. The primary reason to employ heterogeneous category of employees is to tap the talents and potentialities, harnessing the innovativeness, obtaining synergetic effect among the divorce workforce. In general, employees wanted to retain their individual and cultural identity, values and life styles even though they are working in the same organization with common rules and regulations. Learning: Learning has become a key challenge for every organization since typically people are reluctant to change. Learning requires lot of changes in the mindset of the employees. Employees in most of the times want take risks and challenges due to the nature of their jobs are reluctant to go for bigger changes in work life. Learning has become challenging due this nature of people. Managers need to get innovative initiatives to make the employees aware and involve in the learning process. This requires lot of time, money and effort but on the other hand skilled and knowledgable employees are the key assets of any organization. 5.0 Summary of Lesson This lesson has discussed about the individual behavior or a person. It has become integral to address the individual requirements of the employees in every organization and managers are required to understand the true nature of employees as human beings. The lesson discusses three main characteristics which define the persons individual behavior; and they are ability, biographical features and learning. The ability of a person is the key reason for him or her to work in a job post. The lesson discussed the different types of abilities. At the same time addressing the biographical characteristic of people has become an integral part of every manager since diverse employees are working in a shared goal. At the same time the lesson discussed the key features of learning. Kolb’s learning cycle has discussed to get the awareness on how every learner absorbs the knowledge. Finally the lesson discussed the key challenges faces by the OB in terms of global implications in individual behavior.
