MODULE 3. MANAGING PEOPLE
Topic 5. Managing Individuals in Organizations
Assigned Readings


Harrison, A. W., & Rainer. R. K., Jr. (1992). The influence of individual differences
on skill in end-user computing, Journal of MIS, 9: 93-111.
Zuboff, S. (1985). Automate/infomate: The two faces of intelligent technologies,
Organizational Dynamics, 14 (2): 5-18.
Learning Objectives: At the end of this topic, you will be able to
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
explain an integrated model of individual performance and its components
evaluate yourself in terms of personal value and motivation
compare/contrast three theories of motivation
describe how reinforcement is related to reward
explain the concept of employee resistance, what causes it, and how to deal with it
realize the importance of employee recruiting and retaining
compare/contrast the concepts of automate and informate
discuss how individual differences affect computer skill
Lecture Outline
NEW COMPANIES, SAME PEOPLE
INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES
Demographic Characteristics
Competency Characteristics
Personality Characteristics
WORK EFFORT
ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT
MOTIVATION
Content Theories
Process Theories
Reinforcement Theories
REINFORCEMENT AND REWARD
Employees Resistance
Dealing with Employee Resistance
Management Challenges: Recruiting and Retaining Employees
Readings
References
Vignette
Why Levi Strauss? For years, Levi's was touted in all learned IT quarters as the paragon of what
computer technology, intelligently deployed, could do to foster and lead the success charge, even
in a relatively unglamorous business like making pants. Mustering all of its IT intelligence and
decentralized energies, Levi's attacked a supply-chain problem that sought to slash 80% of the
time it took to get a new jean style from the designer's head to the store rack. The pundits roared
their approval.
However, IT at Levi's seemed to forget something very important along the way to corporate
immortality. That "something" is at the heart of the IT role today just as it was 20 years ago and
will be tomorrow, too — no matter what you want to think: You are only as good as the quality of
usable information you provide to others, those who really run the company.
Sure, IT helped build a supply-chain management structure that cut deeply into time-to-market.
But at what expense? Turns out, a very high expense. Ditto for the companywide re-engineering,
which flushed hundreds of millions of dollars down the consulting sewer with no perceptible
return. Where was IT to warn senior managers of the sharply escalating costs, which needed to
be judiciously balanced against the real benefits of time-to-market gains and the fuzzier benefit of
re-engineering all business processes?
More to the point, why didn't IT seek to deploy the right business-intelligence tools that would
have alerted senior management to some startling facts about the jeans market? Facts like, kids
and teens don't wear the same styles of jeans as their parents. Duh!
Here's the killer: It turns out that IT actually did deploy many of those business-intelligence tools
and did gather vital information on the market and on internal operations. But IT lacked the
persuasiveness, the power, dare I say the credibility — even at that enlightened and progressive
company — for its voice to have much impact. There are very real limits to IT in the company.
Don't get caught up with all the theater and lights when some of you are turned into superstars on
magazine covers. Make the trains run on time — and then just hope the engineer knows where
the hell he's going.
Source: Laberis, B. 1999. Levi's shows that IT may not be driver it pretends to be. Computerworld, Apr.
12, http://www.computerworld.com/cwi/story/0,1199,NAV47_STO35270,00.html
Management of technology is a very difficult and complicate process that involves both
the technical and social systems of an organization. Much of the theory and practice of
IT management assumes that organizational decisions -- whether technical or social -- are
consequences of rational decision making. We assume that managers are rational and
collect, evaluate, and apply information in their decision making process. The limitation
of traditional ways of thinking is that they fail to account for the human factors that
impact technology management (Levine and Rossmoore 1993).
NEW COMPANIES, SAME PEOPLE
Organizations today are confronting with changes driven by technology, government,
customers, suppliers, and global competition. Many companies buy out or merge with
others and change their name. For example, in April 2000, Vodafone (NYSE: VOD) is
formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic Mobile, AirTouch Cellular, GTE Wireless,
PrimeCo Personal Communications and AirTouch Paging; and in July, Verizon
Communication (NYSE: VZ) is formed by the merger of Bell Atlantic Corp. and GTE
Corp. (McGinity 2001). This name change not only confuses customers but also
employees who work in those organizations.
Although names may change, managers and employees within the organizations are still
the same people. They may not be able to foresee or adapt to change. In fact, there could
be a deadly commitment to an obsolete policy or process, or a marginal product or
service. The difficulty of adapting to change can lead to resistance and eventually failure
of the entire organization.
As the human factor continues to be a dominating factor when implementing an
information system, Module 3 will focus on managing people including individuals and
group. In a typical organizational behavior textbook, a topic of managing individuals
spans over many chapters. Although we may not have time to discuss this topic in details
since there are other topics need to be covered, we will see issues related to the human
factor raised throughout the course. This is because managing people is an critical issue
for every manager’s responsibility. People are the heart of an organization, and without
people, the organization will not be able to function.
We will begin the topic with an integrated model of individual performance summarized
from Schermerhorn et al. (1994)
INDIVIDUAL PERFORMANCE
Individuals are made up an organization. Performance of each individual is a result of
his/her personal attributes, work effort spent on a job, and support from the organization.
In order to achieve high performance, each of these factors must be present. Performance
is maximized when all factors are maximized. Information systems (IS) managers need
to understand that individual performance depends on these factors and how they are
interact so that they can assign the right task to the right individual.
Attributes
Capacity to perform
Motivation
Performance
Effort
Willingness to perform
Support
Opportunity to perform
Figure 1. An integrated model of individual performance (Schermerhorn et al., 1994).
From figure 1, three factors that impacts individual performance are personal attributes,
effort, and organizational support. An individual alone controls his/her work effort,
while a manager attempts to influence effort through motivation.
PERSONAL ATTRIBUTES
Personal attributes relate to a capacity to perform. Three major categories lead to
individual differences are demographic, competency, and personality. How well
individuals perform depends on how well task requirements match their attributes.
Therefore, the formula here is
Individual
attributes
Must
match
Task
requirements
Job Performance
To facilitate
Demographic Characteristics
Demographic characteristics include ages, gender, disability, marital status, number of
children, and experience, which help shape what a person has become. They are easily to
identify by simply looking at a person’s appearance or personnel file. These
characteristics are important because of three reasons. First, workplace legislation has
outlawed against discrimination on basis of personal appearance. Second, performance
tends to relate to where and how the person grew up. Third, demographics serve as a
basis of stereotypes, which are created when a person is assigned to a group of category
(e.g., a blond). This could obscure individual differences. For example, managers may
not assign a challenging task to a female with blond hair because most people assume
that blond women are not very intelligent. Failure to recognize diversity among
workforce could lead to an unfair treat to a certain group of people or placement of wrong
people to a wrong task.
Competency Characteristics
The level of an individual’s competency depends on aptitude and ability of that person.
Aptitude is the capability to learn something; ability is the capacity to perform the various
tasks needed for a given job. Simply speaking, aptitude refers to an individual’s potential
ability, and ability represents skills and expertise that the individual already has. For
recruiting and training, aptitude and ability are critical factors. For example, many
aptitude and ability tests are designed to test both mental competency (e.g., IQ tests) and
physical competency (e.g., ACT, GMAT, and GRE). Individual competency also
influences a job assignment and promotion. For example, an employee who passes an
Oracle certificate is likely to be assigned to a high-paid job.
Personality Characteristics
Personality captures the overall profile or combination of characteristics that represent
the unique nature of a person and the way he/she interacts with others. Personality is
influenced by many factors such as social traits, values and motives, personal conception
(i.e., the way a person thinks about his/her social and physical environment), emotional
adjustment (i.e., emotional distress), and personality dynamics (i.e., the integration and
dynamic organization of the other factors influencing personality). Personality is critical
because it tends to relate to the way people behave or act. Managers, for example, need
to know how to deal with their subordinates who have different personalities. Read how
to deal with difficult people at http://www.civic-strategies.com/library/difficult.pdf
WORK EFFORT
Assigning a right person to the right task doesn’t guarantee that he/she will perform the
task as expected. Willingness to perform is also an important factor that contributes to
individual performance. For example, before beginning this class, everyone was asked to
take the UCLA online self evaluation quiz to see whether their characters match with an
online learner or not. Students who have a high score on the quiz will not necessarily
receive a high score at the end of this class. Those who are willing to study and work
hard will succeed, while those who are unwilling to participate or don’t turn in
assignments will be unlikely to complete the course.
ORGANIZATIONAL SUPPORT
Without an adequate support from the organization, an employee though is qualified for
his/her position and willing to work may not perform well. Researchers refer to such
inadequacies as situational constraints that include lack of time; inadequate budgets;
inadequate tools, equipment or supplies; unclear instructions or information; unrealistic
due date; unfair levels of expected performance; lack of job-related authority; lack of
support from coworkers; and inflexibility of procedures (Peters et al. 1985).
Many of us may experience some of these situational constraints at work. That’s normal.
These constraints are commonly found in every organization. It is important that IS
managers must realize that these constraints exist, identify them, and support their
subordinates in their areas of responsibility. A sign of failure occurs when the managers
know constraints and where they are but still ignore them. Some managers even treat
their own employees worse than outsiders. For example, an IS manager of one
organization approves a training budget for a new consultant but denies a request from
his IS staff to attend the same training class. A second example is when a manager
assigns more work to a person who is perceived to be more competence than his/her coworker who has the same title and receive the same pay.
MOTIVATION
Previous research on motivation can be divided into three schools of thought: content,
process, and reinforce theories.
 Content approaches: What motivates people
 Process approaches: How they are motivated and
 Reinforcement approaches: Why they stay that way.
Learn more about motivation theories at
http://www.oup.co.uk/pdf/bt/fincham/Chapter5.pdf and
http://faculty.ssu.edu/~whdecker/buad320/chapter13.ppt
Content Theories
Content theories (e.g., Maslow, Aldefer, McClellan, and Herzberg) have a lot in common
(see figure 2).
Individual
Needs
Attitudes and
behavior
Tensions
activate
influence
Figure 2. Common concept proposed by content theorists.
In general, they suggest that the manager’s job is to create a work environment that
responds positively to individuals needs. Poor performance, undesirable behaviors, and
unhappiness can be partially explained in terms of “blocked” needs or needs that are
unmet on the job. Rewards can be used to activate needs. Content researchers suggest
that
 Understand how individuals differ in what they need from their work
 Know what can be offered to these individuals in response to their needs
 Know how to create work settings that give people the opportunity to satisfy their
needs by contributing to the task performance of the work unit and the
organization
Process Theories
Unlike content theories that emphasize “what” aspect of motivation, process theories
focus on the processes of “why” and “how” people choose one action versus another.
Two well-known theories are equity theory and expectancy theory.
Equity theory indicates that people compare their rewards (and inputs) with those of
others and then become motivated to engage in behavior to enable them to achieve the
equity. Feeling inequity may lead to decreased performance or job turnover.
Expectancy theory argues that work motivation is determined by an individual’s beliefs
concerning effort-performance relationships (expectancy), work-outcome relationship
(instrumentality), and the desirability of various work outcomes (valence). Vroom
(1964) proposes that Motivation = Expectancy x Instrumentality x Valence. This implies
that to maximize motivation, managers must maximize all three aspects of individual
concerns.
Reinforcement Theories
Reinforcements are used to motivate desirable behavior and discourage undesirable
behavior. Reinforcement plays a key role in learning process. Learning refers to the
process through which an individual acquires new behavior. Understand reinforcement
and learning is important for managers who manage a reward system.
The Law of Effect states that people learn (or unlearn) behavior based on the
consequences that result from that behavior (see Figure 3).
http://instruction.bus.wisc.edu/lkuzuhara/mhr300/documents/MHR%20300%20%20Work%20Motivation%20Lecture%20Outline%20(Fall%202001).doc
STIMULUS
(S)
RESPONSE
(R)
CONSEQUENCE
(C)
Figure 3. The Operant Conditioning Process 1
1
Note that this is also referred to as the Antecedents (A) - Behavior (B) - Consequences (C) Model.
1.
Stimulus - A signal, cue or specific context.
2.
Response - The behavior that you want to change.
3.
Consequence - Outcomes that occur based on the behavior.
For example, when a project deadline is becoming close (stimulus), IS staff stay late at
work (response). Thus, they are awarded time off when the project is completed
(consequence used to reinforce desirable behavior). Another example is when a client
reports a problem to Joey, a technician at a help desk (stimulus), Joey could not solve the
problem but didn’t report it to his supervisor (response). A few days later, the customer
complained to Joey’s supervisor who later took care of the problem and also had a private
meeting with Joey to make sure that he understood his responsibility (consequence used
to discourage undesirable behavior).
Four types of reinforcement are positive, negative, punishment, and extinction. The
above two examples illustrate positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement,
respectively. Positive reinforcement should be contingent (administered only if the
desired behavior is present) and immediate (awarded right after the desired behavior took
place). Negative reinforcement, or avoidance, intends for the person to avoid the
negative consequence by performing the desirable behavior. Nagging is a good example
of negative reinforcement. However, when nagging doesn’t impact the person, a
punishment may be necessary. Unlike positive and negative reinforcement that intends to
encourage desirable behavior, punishment and extinction intend to discourage
undesirable behavior. Punishment needs to be administered carefully and is likely to be
more effective if combined with positive reinforcement. Extinction, the withdrawal of
the reinforcing consequences for a given behavior, is needed when someone else tries to
cover the other person’s undesirable behavior. For example, Jane hardly participates in a
group discussion, but Mary a group leader always complete a task that is assigned to Jane
and submit a group paper to an instructor with everyone’s names on the paper. The
instructor observes Jane’s behavior and tells Mary to stop covering for Jane. The
instructor uses extinction to eliminate undesirable behavior. Once Jane realizes that no
one would do a work for her, she begins to participate and contribute to the group
REINFORCEMENT AND REWARD
Reinforcement based the aforementioned law of effect indicates that behavior will be
repeated or eliminated, depending on whether the consequences are positive or negative.
Vroom (1964) distinguishes two types of rewards: intrinsic and extrinsic. Extrinsic
rewards are positively valued work outcomes that are given to the individual by some
other person in the work setting. For example, pay is administered by the upper
management in an organization. Intrinsic rewards are positive value work outcomes that
are received by the individual directly as a result of task performance. Intrinsic rewards
do not require the participation of another person, for example, a feeling of
accomplishment. Reinforcement is related to extrinsic rewards because these rewards
serve as environmental consequences that an influence people’s work behavior through
the law of effect.
As mentioned earlier in the integrated model of individual performance, managers
attempt to promote individual satisfaction (or job satisfaction) through motivation (either
intrinsic or extrinsic reward). Schermerhorn et al. (1994) point out, "when rewards are
allocated on the basis of past performance (i.e., when rewards are performancecontingent), they can cause both future performance and satisfaction. For managers, this
means that they need to create a work setting that positively responds to individual needs
and goals. Employees will be motivated or not depending on the availability and equity
of rewards, both intrinsic and extrinsic. Therefore, an extended model of individual
performance and satisfaction can be seen in figure 4. Notice the feedback lines from
rewards and satisfaction to motivation (green arrows). That means that rewards and
satisfaction also drive motivation.
Attributes
Motivation
Effort
Performance
Support
Extrinsic Rewards
Satisfaction
Intrinsic Rewards
Equity compensation
Figure 4. Relationship among Motivation, Performance, Rewards, and Satisfaction
EMPLOYEES RESISTANCE
More often, change is almost always perceived by employees as a threat,
even if the existing situation is considered unsatisfactory. Pendlebury et al.
(1998) say, " The transformation from seeing change as a threatening
phenomenon to seeing it as one offering opportunities is an essential
element in making a success of change, because without this transformation employees
will resist change, through fear of suffering its negative consequences, and will disguise
its positive aspects." They further suggest that a positive mentality needs to be developed
at the beginning of the change process and reinforced constantly throughout the process.
To begin with, we need to understand 7 common causes of resistance (Pendlebury et al.
1998).
Lack of Awareness: Employees are not aware of existing problems and satisfied with the
current situation. They do not understand why things need to be change. Similar to the
old cliché "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Relegation: Employees refuse to delegate themselves to the change process that they
think does not solve (what they think to be) a real problem. This type of thinking,
perhaps, is caused by a poor understanding of the priorities of the business.
Lack of Familiarity: Employees are not familiar with or do not understand the solution,
and that is why they resist. An unclear definition of the vision or poor communication
from top management is usually the reason for this resistance.
Rejection of the Solution: The problem is recognized and the solution is known, but
employees reject the solution because they don't think it is appropriate. This resistance
could cause by two reasons. If it were due to lack of knowledge of the process, it would
not be difficult to overcome by explaining to them the solution. On the contrary, if the
resistance occurs because the solution is contradicted to the staff's experience,
management needs to reconsider the issue. Although it is a good choice, the staff may
not cooperate to implement it.
Fear of the Consequences: The staff are afraid of not being able to adapt to the new
conditions or of losing advantages or power. Handling emotional and power issues is one
of the most difficult tasks in change management.
The Means: The means to conduct the change is not considered appropriate in terms of
its timetable or cost. This leads to resistance to change because people think that the
means made available are not conductive to its success, or because they do not feel that
management really considers it a priority.
Lack of Interest: Some people are concerned with neither a problem, solution, nor
means. The term 'change' is equal to 'work' and requires energy. This attitude is
stemmed from lack of interest in their job, skepticism, or frustration with the decision to
implement change.
DEALING WITH EMPLOYEE RESISTANCE
Moorhead and Griffin (1995) recommend five techniques to dealing with
employee resistance. According to the view of considering an
organization as a social system, these techniques intend to influence the
elements of the social system to help reduce resistance from employees.
These five techniques are as follow.
Take a Holistic View: A holistic view of the organization encompasses the culture and
dominant coalition as well as the people, structure, tasks, and information subsystems.
Since each of these subsystems are interdependent, addressing one while ignoring the
other can cause a chaos during transforming the organization. Taking a holistic view
allows managers to anticipate effects the social system and culture in their organization.
Top Management Support: Top management plays a critical role in successful change
management. Gaining commitment from senior executives is significant because
resource allocation to pursue change efforts must be approved by them. They can also
help persuade everyone in the organization to participate in the process of change.
Encourage Participation: Allowing employees to participate in planning the change is
one way to reduce resistance. Creating a sense of ownership and giving the decision
power may help win their support during implementation.
Forster Open Communication: During transition, open communication plays a role of
managing resistance to change and overcoming information and control problems.
Without information flowing top-down and bottom-up, employees may have to guess or
listen to rumors, which may endanger the change process. Managers must be open their
communication with their subordinates no matter what a news is good or bad.
Reward Contributors: Employees who contribute to the change in any way need to be
rewarded financially and non-financially (i.e., a mention in a news release or an internal
memo). From a behavioral standpoint, individuals expect benefits in return if they help
the company change the way it does the business. Their efforts must be recognized;
otherwise they may not appreciate and decide to leave the company. Rewarding needs to
be done appropriately so it does not create enemies among co-workers.
The aforementioned five keys to managing employee resistance can be used as guidelines
to manage organizational behavior. Operating under a turbulent and dynamic
environment, today managers must anticipate the need for change and satisfy it with
responsive and competitive organization systems. As they need commitment from their
employees, they are facing a difficult task of recruiting and retaining them, especially IT
staff due to a popular IT job market.
MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES: RECRUITING AND RETAINING
EMPLOYEES
According to the Dotcom advisor, today corporations may want to hire back their
employees who went into a dotcom business when it was boom. Read the story below.
"Boomerang" Employees
Many dot com companies have laid off employees or closed down entirely
because of the stock market's fall. This is a great opportunity for traditional
companies to find scarce IT staff by re-hiring employees they lost to dot
com startups. Use this unique opportunity to greatly enhance your IT
department's capabilities by re-hiring "boomerang" employees.
How This Saves Money

Hire technology workers already familiar with your company who
can now bring valuable e-commerce experience to your projects.
Action Plan
To re-hire former IT staff who worked at a failed dot com company, get
your IT manager to do the following:
1. Conduct exit interviews when employees leave to learn why they
are leaving and whether they would be good boomerang employee
candidates.
2. Make a list of employees you have recently lost to dot com
startups or other companies.
3. Find out where they are working by asking their friends still
working at your company.
4. Use their employment history records and their new dot com
responsibilities to decide which former employees are good
candidates for being re-hired and which are not. Make sure you
check your employment records for problems like insubordination,
poor communication skills, or other issues that would make them
bad candidates for re-hiring.
5. Contact the candidates you are interested in directly or indirectly
through friends. See if their long term career plans fit with your
company's.
6. Try to give these people new responsibilities instead of their
old jobs. This is less likely to be seen by other employees as
rewarding disloyal behavior.
7. Consider creating an employee alumni program with newsletters
and social events. This is a great way to increase loyalty to the
company and encourage informal communication that will ease
hiring later.
READINGS
There are two assigned readings for this topic.
Zuboff's article (1985) is a classical one. Zuboff coins a term "informate", which is well
known among IS researchers. She argues that technology is often used to automate a
process and help reduce skill and labor requirements. However, technology has more
potential to provide information for an organization to gain a competitive advantage.
Zuboff mentions, "An information strategy requires a comprehensive vision that
appreciates the unique capacities of intelligent technology and recognizes the need to use
the organization to liberate those capabilities." Moreover, an "informated" organization
will have to rely on the human capacities for teaching and learning, criticism, and insight.
Harrison and Rainer (1992) conducted a survey collecting data from knowledge workers
to identify the influence of individual differences on computer skills. Several individual
differences variable include gender, age, experience with computers, attitude of
confidence regarding computers, math anxiety, and a creative cognitive learning style.
They found that creative young males who have more experience and confidence with
computers and lower math anxiety have higher computer skills. They suggest that
organizations should manage end user computing using two complementary processes: a
global and individual process.
REFERENCES
Janis, I.L. 1982. Groupthink, 2nd ed. Houghton Mifflin: Boston, p. 9.
Levine, H.G. and Rossmoore, D. 1993. Diagnosing the Human Threats to Information
Technology Implementation: A Missing Factor in Systems Analysis Illustrated in a Case
Study, Journal of MIS, 10(2), Fall, p. 55-73.
McGinity, M. 2001. Name is the Game. Communication of the ACM, 44(2), February, p.
21-23.
Moorhead, G. and Griffin, R.W. 1995. Organizational Behavior, Houghton Mifflin Co.:
Boston.
Pendlebury, J; Grouard, B.; and Meston, F. 1998. The Ten Keys to Successful Change
Management. John Wiley & Sons, New York, NY.
Peters, L.H., O’Connor, E.J., Eulberg, J.R. (1985). Situational constraints: Sources,
consequences, and future considerations. In Kendreth M. Rowland and Gerald R. Ferris,
eds. Research in Personnel and Human Resource Management, Vol. 3, Greenwich, CT:
JAI Press.
Schermerhorn, J.R. Jr., Hunt, J.G., and Osborn, R.N. (1994). Managing Organizational
Behavior, 5th ed, New York, NY: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Vroom, V.H. (1964). Work and Motivation. New York: John Wiley & sons.