Organizational Behavior Literature Review

This literature review explores various articles on organizational behavior, including topics such as executive compensation, employee motivation, and job security. The first article discusses how shareholder interests align with executive performance, challenging traditional models of motivation. The second article emphasizes the importance of psychological rewards in improving employee motivation and performance. The third article highlights the relationship between job security and job seeker performance. The review provides unique insights and recommendations for organizations.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOUR LITERATURE REVIEW
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
Article 1
Title and reference of
article
Pepper, A. and Gore, J., 2015. Behavioral agency theory: New
foundations for theorizing about executive compensation. Journal
of management, 41(4), pp.1045-1068.
Aim/purpose of article To demonstrate that shareholder interests usually align if
executives are motivated to work at their best.
Sample, location,
method of data
collection and analysis
Sample- 46 academic journal articles taken for literature review,
to analyse the outcomes and the processes for the same. Analysis –
Analysis of literature reviews (qualitative).
Findings/Interpretations
reported in the article
The report argues that shareholder interests align if the executives
perform at the very best. In other words, it states that agency
theory provides the best framework for agent behaviour and
incentives or compensation, arguing against the traditional model
of motivation theories. The article finds that behaviour should be
kept at the centre of the model of motivation.
Significance/
contribution of the
article in relation to your
other articles and your
topic
The findings differ from the common view that incentives and
compensation should be kept at the centre of a motivation model.
It is significant in a way that proposes that employee motivation
does not depend on incentives and compensation and rather
shareholder interests align if the executives work at their best.

2ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
Strengths of article Gives an entirely unique view about employee motivation and
incentives, providing unique recommendations to organizations on
the same.
Weaknesses of article Poorly evidenced, with few samples, biased towards the main
arguments of the article.
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“In contrast to the standard agency framework, which focuses on
monitoring costs and incentive alignment, behavioral agency
theory places agent performance at the center of the agency model,
arguing that the interests of shareholders and their agents are most
likely to be aligned if executives are motivated to perform to the
best of their abilities” (Pepper and Gore 2015, p.3).
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“A model of economic man predicated on bounded rationality is
proposed, adopting Wiseman and Gomez-Mejia’s assumptions
about risk preferences, but incorporating new assumptions about
time discounting, inequity aversion, and the trade-off between
intrinsic and extrinsic motivation” (Pepper and Gore 2015, p.4)
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“We argue that behavioral agency theory provides a better
framework for theorizing about executive compensation, an
enhanced theory of agent behavior, and an improved platform for
making recommendations about the design of executive
compensation plans” (Pepper anf Gore 2015, p.6).

3ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
Article 2
Title and reference of
article
Persaud, R. (2018). How to improve your motivation at work. BMJ,
329(7472), pp.s172-s173.
Aim/purpose of article To show that employee performance is best achieved by
management with the help of psychological rewards, and not
punishment.
Sample, location,
method of data
collection and analysis
Sample- Takes references from a set of four academic research
articles to review them in support for the main argument of the
paper. Analysis- Literature reviews (qualitative)
Findings/Interpretations
reported in the article
The report argues that punishment at work does not yield the best
results as far as performance is concerned in the workforce. This is
because the research finds through relevant literature that
psychological rewards result in job enrichment and job satisfaction
in way that is more effective than offering monetary incentives. It
states that offering appreciation provides job satisfaction which
works as the motivating factor for employees at work.

4ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
Significance/
contribution of the
article in relation to your
other articles and your
topic
The article particularly points out the relevance of incentives and
rewards for the purpose of boosting the morale of employees and
motivating them to work harder for better organizational results. It
also particularly points out that the value for money may differ
from person to person, but the value for psychological rewards are
mostly constant, thereby reinstating expectancy theory.
Strengths of article Gives a realistic view, taking references from relevant articles, and
applying theories to them to arrive at realistic conclusions.
Weaknesses of article Inadequate sampling which makes the article biased and
unrepresentative.
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“A key theory is known technically as the KITA method—or “kick
in the ass” approach—which basically means that you get
punished, humiliated, sacked, docked wages, and so on if you are
not cooperating with your management. This approach merely
leads to chronically demotivated employees dreaming up complex
schemes where they can pretend that they are working hard,
usually at just the level required to avoid a KITA. They usually
invest a huge amount of time and effort into avoiding getting
caught” (Persaud 2018, p.1).
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“The latest thinking in the psychology of motivation (which is the
very opposite of what is usually happening at work) needs to be
implemented in order to improve drive. The key to motivating all
of us at work comes from research that asked a very basic
question: “What do people find most rewarding about work?””

5ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
(Persaud 2018, p.1)
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“Strategies focusing on improving the psychological rewards of
going to work, are globally termed “job enrichment.”2 At its heart
is the understanding that the most motivated people in the world
tend to work extremely hard for non-financial reasons: they often
are relentless, even in the face of poor rewards (after all, that's how
we recognise them as being motivated)” (Persaud 2018, p.1)

6ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
Article 3
Title and reference of
article
Godlonton, S., 2019. Employment risk and job-seeker
performance. Journal of Human Resources, pp.0317-8662r2.
Aim/purpose of article To prove that job seeker performance is directly related to job
security and guarantee.
Sample, location,
method of data
collection and analysis
Sample- Use of labour recruitment data across six different
industries. Analysis- Analyzing quantitative data to arrive at a
qualitative conclusion.
Findings/Interpretations
reported in the article
The report interprets the sample to conclude that job seekers’
performance is highest with the lowest amount of effort, when
outside job is guaranteed to the labours. The report on the
contrary, also finds that seekers’ performance is at the lowest
when the job security and guarantee is not provided by the
employers.
Significance/
contribution of the
article in relation to your
other articles and your
topic
The significance of this report is that it perfectly outlines the
importance for organizations to guarantee outside jobs for labours
for the purpose of attaining the maximum efficiency out of their
work. This report is perfectly relevant to the rest of the literature
review since it talks about psychological factors like job guarantee
as the motivating factor for the purpose of attaining the maximum

7ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
productivity with maximum efficiency from employees.
Strengths of article The article talks about the importance of job guarantee as a
motivating factor for employee performance. This is a
psychological factor which is not referred to in many scholarly
articles.
Weaknesses of article Rules out the major competing theories to support the thesis
statement of the report.
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“Providing job certainty during recruitment leads to substantial
job-seeker performance gains” (Godlonton 2019, p.318).
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“Performance among those assigned uncertain outside job offers
consistently lies between the two extremes. We conjecture that the
pattern of results is most consistent with stress-induced
performance reductions attributable to job uncertainty” (Godlonton
2019, p.321).
Quotes from the article
that you plan to use in
your assignment
“Job-seeker performance is highest and effort is lowest among
those assigned to receive a guaranteed outside job offer (where
employment risk is eliminated), while performance is lowest and
effort highest among those receiving no chance of an outside job
offer” (Godlonton 2019, p.320)

8ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR LITERATURE REVIEW
References
Godlonton, S., 2019. Employment risk and job-seeker
performance. Journal of Human Resources, pp.0317-8662r2.
Persaud, R. (2018). How to improve your motivation at work. BMJ,
329(7472), pp.s172-s173.
Pepper, A. and Gore, J., 2015. Behavioral agency theory: New foundations for theorizing
about executive compensation. Journal of management, 41(4), pp.1045-1068.