Foundations of Individual
Behavior
Chapter 2
Presented
By
Sarah Anant
Velynda Fultz
Nok Meksay
Andy Stadtlander
Overview

Identify how biographical
characteristics and ability
affect employee performance
and satisfaction

Discover how people learn
behaviors and what
management can do to shape
those behaviors
Biographical Characteristics
 Age
 Why important now?
 Belief
that job performance declines
with age increase
 Workforce is aging
 Outlaw of mandatory retirement
Older Workers


Positives:
 Experience, judgment, a strong work ethic, and
commitment to quality
 Less turnover
 Lower avoidable absence rate than younger
employees
Negatives:
 Lack flexibility
 Resistant to new technology
 Higher rates of unavoidable absence
 Job
performance and age unrelated
 Mixed association between age and job satisfaction
Biographical Characteristics

Gender
 Differences:
 Preference
for work schedules
 Mixed evidence on turnover
 Rates of absenteeism
No
significant difference in job productivity
between men and women
No evidence indicating that an employee’s
gender affects job satisfaction
Biographical Characteristics

Other characteristics
 Marital Status
 Fewer
absences
 Less turnover
 More job satisfaction
 Tenure
 More
productivity with higher job seniority
 Job satisfaction associated positively with tenure
 Negative relation between seniority and
absenteeism
 Past tenure predicts employee’s future turnover
Ability

An individual’s capacity to perform the various tasks in a
job
 Overall abilities of an individual:
 Intellectual ability
 Physical ability
 Each person has his/her strengths and weaknesses that
make him/her relatively superior or inferior to others in
performing certain tasks
 Management’s job is recognizing their employee’s
various abilities and using that knowledge to increase
the likelihood that an employee will perform his/her job
well
Intellectual Ability

Abilities needed to perform mental activities
 Number aptitude

Able to do speedy and accurate arithmetic
 Verbal comprehension

Ability to understand what is read or heard and the
relationship of words to each other
 Inductive reasoning

Ability to identify a logical sequence in a problem and then
solve the problem
 Spatial visualization

Ability to imagine how an object would look if its position
in space were changed
Intellectual Ability
 Memory
 Ability
to retain and recall past experiences

Perceptual speed
 Ability to identify visual similarities and
differences quickly and accurately

Deductive reasoning
 Ability to use logic and assess the
implications of an argument
Physical Ability

Ability required to do tasks demanding stamina, dexterity,
strength, and similar characteristics









Dynamic strength
Trunk strength
Static strength
Explosive strength
Extent flexibility
Dynamic flexibility
Body coordination
Balance
Stamina
LEARNING
Definition: Any relatively permanent
change in behavior that occurs as a result of
experience.
 Theories of Learning:
 Classical Conditioning
 Operant Conditioning
 Social Learning

Learning



Involve change
(good/bad)
Change must be
relatively permanent
Experience is
necessary
Classical Conditioning

A type of conditioning
in which an individual
responds to some
stimulus that would
not ordinarily produce
such a response
Operant Conditioning

A type of conditioning
which desired
voluntary behavior
leads to a reward or
prevents a punishment
Social-learning Theory



People can learn
through observation
and direct experience.
Behavior is a function
of consequences
individual influence
determined by 4
models
Social Learning Model Processes

Attentional

Retention

Motor reproduction

Reinforcement
O.B. Mod: What is it?
 It
is the application of
reinforcement theory to people in
organizational settings
Problem-solving, Analytical,
and Action-oriented Approach
(The 5 Steps of O.B. Mod):
 Identify
 Measure
 Analyze
 Intervene
 Evaluate
The First Step of the O.B.
Mod Application Model:
 Identify
critical observable
performance-related behaviors
The behaviors must be critical to
the task in question
The Second Step of the
O.B. Mod Model:
 Measure
the baseline frequencies
of the critical behaviors identified
in Step 1
The key is to reliably record
frequencies of occurrence
The Next Step of the
O.B. Mod Model:

Analyze the behavioral qualifications and reliant
consequences in the performance-related context.
This should answer two questions:
 What are the qualifications of the critical
performance-related behavior identified and
measured in the first two steps?
 What are the reliant consequences for desired
behavioral responses?
The Fourth Step of the
O.B. Mod Model:
 After
a functional analysis, an
Intervention is applied to increase
the frequency of performance
behaviors.
The Final Step of the O.B.
Mod Model:

Test the effectiveness of this behavioral
approach to performance improvement.
 An empirical Evaluation of
performance outcomes is conducted to
determine whether the intervention did
lead to behavior change, performance
improvement, and a positive affective
reaction.
The Effectiveness of
O.B. Mod
 This
relatively simple and straight
forward approach has been used in a
variety of organizations with varying
rates of success.

For example, B.F. Goodrich has used O.B. Mod
to increase productivity by more than 300%,
and Weyerhauser increased productivity in
three different groups by 8%.
Productivity Changes In A Large Hospital After The O.B. Mod Training Program
Unit
Measure
*Pre-Intervention Post-Intervention Percent Change
Emergency room clerks
Hardware engineer group
Medical records file clerks
Medical records
Transcriptionists
Heart station
Eye clinic
Pharmacy technicians
Radiology technicians
Patient accounting
Admitting office
Data center operations
* Estimate
Registration errors (per day)
Average time to repair (minutes)
Errors in filing (per person per audit)
Complaints
Average errors
Average output
EKG procedures accomplished (average)
Overdue procedures
Daily patient throughput
Daily patient teaching documentation
Protocols produced
Drug output (doses)
Posting errors
Product waste (percent)
Average patient throughput (procedural)
Retake rate (percent)
Average monthly billings
Time to admit (minutes)
Average cost
Systems log-on (time)
All averages are arithmetic means
19.16
92.53
2.87
8.00
2.07
2,258.00
1,263.00
*7.00
19.00
1.00
0.00
348.80
3.67
5.80
3,849.50
11.20
2,561.00
43.73
$15.05
1:54
4.580
33.250
0.078
1.000
1.400
2,303.330
1,398.970
4.000
23.000
2.800
2.000
422.100
1.480
4.350
4,049.000
9.950
3,424.500
13.570
$11.73
1:43
76.10%
61.40%
97.30%
875.00%
33.00%
2.00%
11.00%
42.80%
21.00%
180.00%
200.00%
21.00%
59.70%
25.00%
5.00%
11.20%
33.70%
68.97%
22.00%
13.40%