University OB and Management Essay: Performance and Motivation

This essay delves into organizational behavior and management, focusing on how job design, working conditions, goal setting, motivation, and rewards impact employee performance. It begins by exploring key theories like McGregor's Theory X and Y, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, Vroom's Expectancy Theory, and Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory, which are applicable in organizational settings. The essay then identifies organizational issues related to culture, ethics, and social concerns, providing managerial interventions to address these challenges. It emphasizes the importance of a positive ethical climate, fair treatment, and inclusive practices. Furthermore, the essay examines the impact of job design and working conditions on employee engagement and productivity, highlighting the role of goal setting and empowerment. The research also discusses the role of work engagement and its positive impact on employee performance. The essay concludes by summarizing the key findings and emphasizing the importance of considering various factors to enhance employee productivity in the workplace.

Running head: ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
In order to encourage productive performance from employees, care needs to be taken with
the design of jobs, working conditions, setting of goals, motivation and rewards.
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
The aim of this research essay is to gain a thorough understanding of Organization
behavior (OB) in the workplaces. However, this essay will mainly argue on the fact that for
enhancing the productive performance of the employees whether care needs to be taken with
the job design, working environment, goal setting, motivation and rewards. Thus, keeping in
mind the topic this essay will start will the theories of OB, which are suitable for
organizational setting followed by identifying the organizational issues related to culture,
ethics and social concerns along with their managerial interventions and finally comparing
and contrasting on the present developments in OB.
OB is an important concept to study because it teaches why employees behave like
the way they do in an organization. Thus, it guides to understand the complicated nature of
employee’s behavior by identifying their causes and effects of those behaviors. OB further
helps in encouraging employees, improvising relations as well as guiding in effective
exertion of human resources in the organization (Kinicki and Kreitner 2012).
Douglas McGregor was the original proposer of the fact that an employee’s
motivation gets an impact from the attitude of the manager. Thus, he came up with two
motivational methods known as Theory X and Theory Y management, which seems to have
opposing each other (Kopelman, Prottas and Falk 2012). The theory of X management states
that for any individual work is inborn distasteful and so they tries to avoid it as much as
possible. Therefore, most of the employees are not ambitious and needs to be directed, as
they have no desire to take responsibility. However, as per this theory the main source of
employee’s motivation is monetary then security. On a total contrary comes the theory Y of
management, which states that work can become easier if the working conditions are
comfortable. Employees are bound to self-directed if they are committed to the organizational
objectives. Therefore, through this theory there are chances that an employee can align his or
her personal goals with that of the organization by utilizing their own needs for fulfillment as
their motivator. Another theory of organizational behavior is Hierarchy of needs theory by
Abraham Maslow. This theory is also among those effective theories, which can be applied in
the organizational setting (Deci and Ryan 2014).
According to Maslow, every employee in the workplace has to cross through a series
of needs in association with their employment in which they mainly move from the
fulfillment of their very basic needs to survive until the final need of self-actualization. Under
this theory, the employees are said to have utilized their time in enhancing their job roles and

2
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
advance their careers. Victor Vroom’s expectancy theory is also applicable for
organizational settings for enhancing the productive performance because not like other
theories but it focuses mainly on the results. As per this theory, Vroom has proposed that
whether the employee will enhance his or her productivity will depend on three variables,
which are expectancy, instrumentality and valence (HemaMalini and Washington 2014).
Therefore, the interaction in between these three variables in an employee’s unconscious
mind will create a motivating force that will in turn determine how much effort the
employees will exert on their jobs. Lastly, Frederick Herzberg’s Two-factor theory is there
which is also very much applicable for organizational settings. This theory states that an
employee’s motivation will come from his or her job design whereas their job satisfaction
will come from the work environment like illumination, companionship and so on (Ozguner
and Ozguner 2014).
The cultural concerns can have an impact on the employee’s productive
performance, which can raise problematic situations in the organizations. Employees needs to
feel that they are an essential part of their organizational culture otherwise their performance
will be hampered and they will fail to deliver productive results to achieve the organizational
goals. For instance if organizational culture is like the employee’s can only raise their voice
when it is necessary or if one department is more outspoken as well as socially active, then in
such cases there can be conflict in the organization among the departments (Hogan and Coote
2014). Thus, here in one organization, each department will develop their own culture, which
will affect the performance of the employees, as they will not feel that each one of them
belongs to one particular culture and all are equal for the organization. Therefore, managerial
intervention is an important part, which can solve these cultural issues in the organization.
Managers should structure their recruitment process at the very beginning and thus, should
hire those officers who have almost similar beliefs and values, which comprises the
organizational culture (McFarlin and Sweeney 2014). Managers should act in a fair and
uniform manner to all their employees to deal with workplace diversity successfully.
Moreover, managers should also encourage interaction between the employees of various
cultures backgrounds.
The next crucial issue is related to the ethical concerns in a workplace. Good ethical
culture can direct an employee towards productive performance as well as to built love and
belonging among employees. Code of ethics is always a good indicator of employee’s
commitment, which in turn will increase their productive performance. An employee who has

3
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
good work ethics will always deliver good work through his or her physical, emotional and
mental effort to their job. Thus, they will also look forward to deliver the best work to the
organization (Simha and Cullen 2012). Therefore, managers should intervene and take charge
of this as well as encourage employee’s work ethics so that they can deliver productive
performance. Managers should act as the role model because if they r into unethical activities
then other employees will also follow him because maximum employees have a tendency to
mimic their higher authority. Managers should appreciate as well as recognize good ethics of
the employees, which can act as strong motivators for the employees to continue their good
work. Lastly, another organizational issue comes from their social concerns, which also is
directly affecting the performance of the employees. Lack of ethnicity, racism as well as
gender biasness is among those crucial issues, which can have a major impact on the
employee’s performance. Managers should be alert enough to avoid all these by equally
treating and maintaining peace in the organization (Heilman 2012).
According to Wood et al. (2012), job design has been said to be having a strong
impact on work satisfaction, engagement and performance. Authors like Truxillo et al.
(2012), have further supported this viewpoint and through his research have concluded that
productive performance is related with two dimensions and they are design of the job and
high involvement management. Job design highly motivates employees and enhances their
performance through increasing the efficiency of work and job specialization. On a contrary
to this Bakker, Tims and Derks (2012), have stated that why only job design, there is a major
role of working conditions as well which help the employees to proactively balance their
work and environment so that they can stay focused and their productive performance
increases. Working condition is among the essential determinant for employees to deliver
quality performance. If the working condition is, such where employees are able to
concentrate totally that will automatically decrease their rate of error, absenteeism and
increase the rate of output, their level of motivation and their length of services. Another
factor that has been highlighted in the literature is the setting of goals, which is also
associated with productive performance.
Leblebici (2012) has stated that having a set goal by the employees help them to
enhance their performance because they can set their focus and priorities their work based on
their goals and to attain that they will at any cost give their best quality work. Employees will
become highly productive in order to reach their goal, which will make them perform well in
the organization. Arguing with this statement Wong and Laschinger (2013), has said that

4
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
primary factor for extracting productive performance is through empowerment of the
employees. He has further stated that motivation, goals, rewards, job design or work settings
are all secondary when it comes to employee’s actual performance. As per the findings of the
research, it is said that empowering employees will make them more responsible regarding
their work. Therefore, they will be more frank and less hesitant to share their suggestions or
feedback related to their work or the organization. Being empowered the employees will be
confident enough to find innovative ways for their tasks which will make their performance
more productive and fruitful because they will have that liberty to innovatively handle their
errors. Dane and Brummel (2014), has also stated another factor, which also has a major role
to play to enhance employee performance, and it is the work engagement. He has stated that
work engagement is positively related to that of work performance and active learning with
the highly conscious employees.
Thus, to conclude this research essay it can be said that as per the aim of this essay a
detail understanding has been obtained regarding Observational behavior in the workplaces.
The theories of OB, which are much suitable for organizational settings, are found to be the X
and Y theory followed by hierarchy of needs theory, expectancy theory and the two-factor
theory because these are highly relatable for productive performance of the employees.
Moreover, the organizational issues are mainly observed to be related to cultural, ethical and
social concerns in the workplaces. Lastly, there have been contradictory states as well from
the researchers who have stated that job empowerment and engagement also increases
productive performance of employees in the workplace.

5
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
References
Bakker, A.B., Tims, M. and Derks, D., 2012. Proactive personality and job performance: The
role of job crafting and work engagement. Human relations, 65(10), pp.1359-1378.
Dane, E. and Brummel, B.J., 2014. Examining workplace mindfulness and its relations to job
performance and turnover intention. Human Relations, 67(1), pp.105-128.
Deci, E.L. and Ryan, R.M., 2014. The importance of universal psychological needs for
understanding motivation in the workplace. The Oxford handbook of work engagement,
motivation, and self-determination theory, pp.13-32.
Heilman, M.E., 2012. Gender stereotypes and workplace bias. Research in organizational
Behavior, 32, pp.113-135.
HemaMalini, P.H. and Washington, A., 2014. Employees' motivation and valued rewards as a
key to effective QWL-from the perspective of expectancy theory. TSM Business
Review, 2(2), p.45.
Hogan, S.J. and Coote, L.V., 2014. Organizational culture, innovation, and performance: A
test of Schein's model. Journal of Business Research, 67(8), pp.1609-1621.
Kinicki, A. and Kreitner, R., 2012. Organizational behavior: Key concepts, skills & best
practices. McGraw-Hill Irwin.
Kopelman, R.E., Prottas, D.J. and Falk, D.W., 2012. Further development of a measure of
Theory X and Y managerial assumptions. Journal of Managerial Issues, pp.450-470.
Leblebici, D., 2012. Impact of workplace quality on employee’s productivity: case study of a
bank in Turkey. Journal of Business Economics and Finance, 1(1), pp.38-49.
McFarlin, D. and Sweeney, P.D., 2014. International management: strategic opportunities &
cultural challenges. Routledge.
Ozguner, Z. and Ozguner, M., 2014. A managerial point of view on the relationship between
of Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Herzberg's dual factor theory. International Journal of
Business and Social Science, 5(7).

6
ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR AND MANAGEMENT
Simha, A. and Cullen, J.B., 2012. Ethical climates and their effects on organizational
outcomes: Implications from the past and prophecies for the future. The Academy of
Management Perspectives, 26(4), pp.20-34.
Truxillo, D.M., Cadiz, D.M., Rineer, J.R., Zaniboni, S. and Fraccaroli, F., 2012. A lifespan
perspective on job design: Fitting the job and the worker to promote job satisfaction,
engagement, and performance. Organizational Psychology Review, 2(4), pp.340-360.
Wong, C.A. and Laschinger, H.K., 2013. Authentic leadership, performance, and job
satisfaction: the mediating role of empowerment. Journal of advanced nursing, 69(4),
pp.947-959.
Wood, S., Van Veldhoven, M., Croon, M. and de Menezes, L.M., 2012. Enriched job design,
high involvement management and organizational performance: The mediating roles of job
satisfaction and well-being. Human relations, 65(4), pp.419-445.