Midterm 1 Learning Objectives

Question 1

6.1 - what is stress, and how is it different from stressors and strains?

Answer 1

• stress refers to the psychological response to demands when there’s something at stake for the individual and coping with these demand would tax or exceed the individual’s capacity or resources.
• stressors are the demands that cause the stress response
• strains are the negative consequences of the stress response.

Question 2

6.2 - what are the four main types of stressors?

Answer 2

stressors come in two general forms:
- challenge stressors, which are perceived as opportunities for growth and achievement, and
- hindrance stressors, which are perceived as hurdles to goal achievement.
these two stressors can be found in both work and nonwork domains.
(work hindrance, work challenge, nonwork hindrance, nonwork challenge)

Question 3

6.3 - how do individuals cope with stress?

Answer 3

coping with stress involves thoughts and behaviours that address one of two goals: addressing the stressful demand or decreasing the emotional discomfort associated with the demand.

Question 4

6.4 - how does the ‘type A behaviour pattern’ influence the stress process?

Answer 4

individual differences in the Type A Behaviour Pattern affect how people experience stress in three ways. Type A people tend to experience more stressors, appraise more demands as stressful, and are prone to experiencing more strains.

Question 5

6.5 - how does stress affect job performance and organizational commitment?

Answer 5

the effects of stress depend on the type of stressor.
-hindrance stressors have a weak negative relationship with job performance and a strong negative relationship with organizational commitment.
- in contrast, challenge stressors have a weak positive relationship with job performance and a moderate positive relationship with organizational commitment.

Question 6

6.6 - what steps can organizations take to manage employee stress?

Answer 6

because of the high costs associated with employee stress, organizations assess and manage stress using a number of different practices. in general, these practices focus on reducing or eliminating stressors, providing resources that employees can use to cope with stressors, or trying to reduce the strains.

Question 7

5.1 - what is job satisfaction?

Answer 7

job satisfaction is a pleasurable emotional state resulting from the appraisal of one’s job or job experiences. it represents how you feel about your job and what you think about your job.

Question 8

5.2 - what are values, and how do they affect job satisfaction?

Answer 8

values are things that people consciously or subconsciously want to seek or attain. according to value-percept theory, job satisfaction depends on whether you perceive that your job supplies those things that you value.

Question 9

5.3 - what specific facets do employees consider when evaluating their job satisfaction?

Answer 9

employees consider a number of specific facets when evaluating their job satisfaction. these facets include pay satisfaction, promotion satisfaction, supervision satisfaction, co-worker satisfaction, and satisfaction with the work itself.

Question 10

5.4 - which job characteristics can create a sense of satisfaction with the work itself?

Answer 10

job characteristics theory suggests that five “core characteristics” - variety, identity, significance, autonomy, and feedback - combine to result in particularly high levels of satisfaction with the work itself.

Question 11

5.5 - how is job satisfaction affected by day-to-day events?

Answer 11

apart from influence of supervision, co-workers, pay, and the work itself, job satisfaction levels fluctuate during the course of the day. rises and falls in job satisfaction are triggered by positive and negative events that are experienced. those events trigger changes in emotion that eventually give way to changes in mood.

Question 12

5.6 - what are moods and emotions, and what specific forms do they take?

Answer 12

• moods are states of feeling that are often mild in intensity, last for an extended period of time, and are not explicitly direct at anything. intense positive moods include being enthusiastic, excited, and elated. intense negative moods include being hostile, nervous, and annoyed.
• emotions are states of feeling that are often intense, last only for a few minutes, and are clearly directed at someone or some circumstance.
• positive emotions include joy, pride, relief, hope, love, compassion.
• negative emotions include anger, anxiety, fear, guilt, shame, sadness, envy, and disgust.

Question 13

5.7 - how does job satisfaction affect job performance and organizational commitment? how does it affect life satisfaction?

Answer 13

job satisfaction has a moderately positive relationship with job performance and a strong positive relationship with organizational commitment. it also has a strong positive relationship with life satisfaction.

Question 14

5.8 - what steps can organizations take to assess and manage job satisfaction?

Question 15

4.1 - what is personality? what are cultural values? what is ability?

Answer 15

personality refers to the structures and propensities inside a person that explain their characteristic patterns of thought, emotion, and behaviour. it also refers to a person’s social reputation - how they are perceived by others.
- cultural values are shared beliefs about desirable end states or modes of conduct in a given culture that influence the expression of traits.
- ability refers to the relatively stable capabilities of people to perform a particular range of different but related activities.
- personality and values capture what people are like (unlike ability, which reflect what people can do.)

Question 16

4.2 - what are the “big five” factors of personality?

Answer 16

the “big five” factors of personality include:
- conscientiousness (e.g., dependable, organized, reliable)
- agreeableness (warm, kind, cooperative)
- neuroticism (nervous, moody, emotional)
- openness to experience (curious, imaginative, creative)
- extraversion (talkative, sociable, passionate)

Question 17

4.3 - what taxonomies can be used to describe cultural values?

Answer 17

Hofstede’s taxonomy of cultural values includes:
- individualism vs collectivism
- masculinity vs femininity
- short-term vs long-term orientation
- uncertainty avoidance
- power distance
more recent research by project GLOBE has replicated many of those dimensions and added five other means to distinguish among cultures: gender egalitarianism, assertiveness, future orientation, performance orientation, and humane orientation.

Question 18

4.4 - what are the various types of cognitive ability?

Answer 18

cognitive abilities include:
- verbal ability
- quantitative ability
- reasoning ability
- spatial ability
- perceptual ability
general cognitive ability, or “g,” underlies all of those specific cognitive abilities.

Question 19

4.5 - what are the various types of emotional ability?

Answer 19

emotional intelligence includes four specific kinds of emotional skills:
- self-awareness
- other awareness
- emotion regulation
- use of emotions

Question 20

4.6 - what are the various types of physical ability?

Answer 20

physical abilities include:
- strength
- stamina
- flexibility and coordination
- psychomotor abilities
- sensory abilities

Question 21

4.7 - how do individual differences affect job performance and organizational commitment?

Question 22

3.1 - what is organizational commitment? what is withdrawal behaviour? how are the two connected?

Answer 22

• organizational commitment is the desire on the part of an employee to remain a member of the organization.
• withdrawal behaviour is a set of actions that employees perform to avoid the work situation.
• commitment and withdrawal are negatively related to each other - the more committed employees are, the less likely they are to engage in withdrawal.

Question 23

3.2 - what are the three forms of organizational commitment, and how do they differ?

Answer 23

there are three forms of organizational commitment:
- affective commitment occurs when employees want to stay and is influenced by the emotional bonds between employees.
- continuance commitment occurs when employees need to stay and is influenced by salary and benefits and the degree to which they are embedded in the community.
- normative commitment occurs when employees feel that they ought to stay and is influenced by an organization investing in its employees or engaging in charitable efforts.
research is starting to show the importance of looking at these three forms in combination, and what these different profiles mean for individuals and the organization.

Question 24

3.3 - what are the four primary responses to negative events at work?

Answer 24

employees can respond to negative work events in four ways:
- exit: is a form of physical withdrawal in which the employee either ends or restricts organizational membership.
- voice: is an active and constructive response by which employees attempt to improve the situation.
- loyalty: is passive and constructive; employees remain supportive while hoping the situation improves on its own.
- neglect: is a form of psychological withdrawal in which interest and effort in the job decrease.

Question 25

3.4 - what are some examples of psychological withdrawal? of physical withdrawal? how do the different forms of withdrawal relate to each other?

Answer 25

examples of psychological withdrawal include: - daydreaming, socializing, looking busy, moonlighting, and cyberloafing. examples of physical withdrawal include: - tardiness, long breaks, missing meetings, absenteeism, and quitting. consistent with the progression model, withdrawal behaviours tend to start with minor psychological forms before escalating to more major physical varieties.

Question 26

3.5 - what workplace trends are affecting organizational commitment in today's organizations?

Answer 26

the increased diversity of the workforce can reduce commitment if employees feel lower levels of affective commitment or become less embedded in their current jobs. the employee-employer relationship, which has changed due to decades of downsizing, can reduce affective and normative commitment, making it more of a challenge to retain talented employees.

Question 27

3.6 - how can organizations foster a sense of commitment among employees?

Answer 27

organizations can foster commitment among employees by fostering perceived organizational support, which reflects the degree to which the organization cares about employees' well-being. commitment can also be fostered by specific initiatives directed at the three commitment types.

Question 28

7.1 - what is motivation?

Answer 28

motivation is defined as a set of energetic forces that originates both within and outside an employee, initiates work-related effort, and determines its direction, intensity, and persistence.

Question 29

7.2 - what three beliefs help determine work effort, according to expectancy theory?

Answer 29

according to expectancy theory, effort is directed toward behaviours when effort is believed to result in performance (expectancy), performance is believed to result in outcomes (instrumentality), and those outcomes are anticipated to be valuable (valence). differences in need states help to explain why some outcomes are more attractive ("positively valenced") than others.

Question 30

7.3 - what two qualities make goals strong predictors of task performance, according to goal setting theory?

Answer 30

according to goal setting theory, goals become strong drivers of motivation and performance when they are difficult and specific. specific and difficult goals affect performance by increasing self-set goals and task strategies. those effects occur more frequently when employees are given feedback, tasks are not too complex, and goal commitment is high.

Question 31

7.4 - what does it mean to be equitably treated, according to equity theory, and how do employees respond to inequity?

Answer 31

according to equity theory, rewards are equitable when a person's ratio of outcomes to inputs matches those of some relevant comparison other. a sense of inequity triggers equity distress. underreward inequity typically results in lower levels of motivation or higher levels of counterproductive behaviour. overreward inequity typically results in cognitive distortion, in which inputs are re-evaluated in a more positive light.

Question 32

7.5 - what is psychological empowerment and what four beliefs determine empowerment levels?

Answer 32

psychological empowerment reflects an energy rooted in the belief that tasks are contributing to some larger purpose. psychological empowerment is fostered when: - work goals appeal to employees' passions (meaningfulness), - employees have a sense of choice regarding work tasks (self-determination), - employees feel capable of performing successfully (competence), - and employees feel they are making progress toward fulfilling their purpose (impact).

Question 33

7.6 - how does motivation affect job performance and organizational commitment

Answer 33

motivation has a strong positive relationship with job performance and a moderate positive relationship with organizational commitment. of all the energetic forces subsumed by motivation, self-efficacy/competence has the strongest relationship with performance.

Question 34

7.7 - what steps can organizations take to increase employee motivation?

Answer 34

organizations use compensation practices to increase motivation. those practices may include individual-focused elements (piece-rate, merit pay, lump-sum bonuses, recognition awards), unit-focused elements (gain sharing), or organization-focused elements (profit sharing).

Question 35

2.1 - what is job performance?

Answer 35

job performance is the set of employee behaviours that contribute to organizational goal accomplishment. it has three dimensions: - task performance - citizenship behaviour - counterproductive behaviour

Question 36

2.2 - what is task performance?

Answer 36

task performance includes employee behaviours that are directly involved in the transformation of organizational resources into the goods or services that the organization produces. examples are: - routine task performance, adaptive task performance, creative task performance.

Question 37

2.3 - how do organizations identify the behaviours that underlie task performance?

Answer 37

organizations gather information about relevant task behaviours using job analysis.

Question 38

2.4 - what is citizenship behaviour?

Answer 38

citizenship behaviours are voluntary employee activities that may or may not be rewarded but that contribute to the organization by improving the overall quality of the setting in which work takes place. examples are: - helping, courtesy, sportsmanship, voice, civic virtue, boosterism

Question 39

2.5 - what is counterproductive behaviour?

Answer 39

counterproductive behaviours are employee behaviours that intentionally hinder organizational goal accomplishment. examples are: - sabotage, theft, wasting resources, substance abuse, gossiping, incivility, harassment, and abuse.

Question 40

2.6 - what workplace trends are affecting job performance in today's organizations?

Answer 40

a number of trends have affected job performance in today's organizations. these trends include the rise of knowledge work and the increase in service jobs.

Question 41

2.7 - how can organizations use job performance information to manage employee performance?

Answer 41

MBO (management by objectives), BARS (behav. anchored rating scales 1-7), 360-degree feedback (feedback from anyone) and forced ranking practices are four ways that organizations can use job performance information to manage employee performance.