BUSI 240 Week 4 Discussion Board Forum 2 Replies Example

Discussion Board Forum 2 Replies: Responding to Classmates' Motivation Key Terms

BUSI 240 Organizational Behavior and Management, Discussion Board Forum 2 Replies

Thread by [Student Name]

The classmates and their threads are composites; the textbook and studies cited are real, and textbook locations are given by chapter.

Reply to Tanya

Tanya, your thread explained expectancy theory clearly, especially the chain from effort to performance to outcomes described in the textbook (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, ch. 5). Your example of a salesperson who stops trying because the quota feels impossible showed exactly how a weak effort-to-performance link drains motivation.

I would add what research says about the theory's predictive power. Van Eerde and Thierry (1996) combined dozens of studies and found that the theory's components were related to effort, performance and choices, but the relationships were stronger for intentions and choices, such as which job offer to accept, than for actual job performance. They also found that multiplying the components together, as the theory proposes, did not predict better than looking at them separately. So the theory seems most useful as a guide for diagnosing where motivation breaks down rather than as a precise formula.

That reading matches your salesperson: the problem is a specific broken link that a manager could repair, perhaps by resetting the quota, adding training or making the commission more certain. In your salesperson example, which link would you strengthen first, and how? I ask because the textbook's suggestions for each link are quite different, from training and resources for the first link to clearer reward rules for the second and better-valued rewards for the third.

Reply to Andre

Andre, your thread on job enrichment made a strong case for giving employees more variety and responsibility. Chapter 6 of the textbook (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015) roots enrichment in a model of five job features, which in everyday terms means using several skills, finishing a whole piece of work, knowing it matters to someone, choosing how to do it and learning how it turned out.

Humphrey et al. (2007) reviewed a large body of research on work design and found that these motivational characteristics were related to job satisfaction, internal motivation and performance, with autonomy and feedback standing out. Their review added something the classic model leaves out: the social side of work, such as colleagues' support and the need to rely on one another, explained further differences in how people felt about their jobs. That suggests enrichment works best when it gives people both more control and more connection. A job redesign that adds autonomy but isolates the worker may raise motivation on paper while leaving the person lonelier and less satisfied, which is a tradeoff a manager should weigh before reorganizing work.

Thinking of your own job, which single change would most enrich it: more autonomy, more feedback or more contact with the people your work affects? My own answer, from a part-time job processing orders, would be feedback, since I rarely learned whether my work had reached customers correctly.

Reply to Sofia

Sofia, I appreciated your thread on equity theory and your point that employees compare their outcome-to-input ratio with that of coworkers (McShane & Von Glinow, 2015, ch. 5). I would add that fairness at work involves more than outcomes.

Reviewing a quarter century of fairness studies, Colquitt et al. (2001) separated three questions employees ask: was my outcome fair (distributive justice), was the way it was decided fair (procedural justice), and was I treated with honesty and respect along the way (interactional justice)? How decisions were reached turned out to shape trust and loyalty at least as much as what people actually received. An employee who loses a promotion through a transparent, consistent process may accept it far better than one who wins a raise through a process that seems arbitrary.

The textbook makes a similar point when it suggests giving employees voice in decisions that affect them. How do you think a manager should explain a pay decision so that employees see the process as fair even when they dislike the result?

References

Colquitt, J. A., Conlon, D. E., Wesson, M. J., Porter, C. O. L. H., & Ng, K. Y. (2001). Justice at the millennium: A meta-analytic review of 25 years of organizational justice research. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(3), 425-445. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.86.3.425

Humphrey, S. E., Nahrgang, J. D., & Morgeson, F. P. (2007). Integrating motivational, social, and contextual work design features: A meta-analytic summary and theoretical extension of the work design literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 92(5), 1332-1356. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.92.5.1332

McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2015). Organizational behavior: Emerging knowledge, global reality (7th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education.

Van Eerde, W., & Thierry, H. (1996). Vroom's expectancy models and work-related criteria: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(5), 575-586. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.81.5.575