UGC NET/JRF EXAM, June-2020 Labour and Social Welfare

The following diagram explains the Vroom model. As shown in the figure, this model is built around the concepts of Valence, Instrumentality and Expectancy and is commonly called the VIE theory.

Fig. The Vroom Expectancy, or VIE theory of work motivation

By Valence, Vroom means the strength of an individual's preference for a particular outcome. In order for the valence to be positive, the person must prefer attaining the outcome. A valence of zero occurs when the individual is indifferent towards the outcome; the valence is negative when the individual prefers not attaining.

According to Vroom, there are two levels of outcome namely first level outcome and second level outcome. The first-level outcome is instrumental in obtaining the second-level outcome. Therefore, the first-level outcome is called instrumentality input in valence. For example, assume that past performance is the first-level outcome and promotion is the second-level outcome.

Past performance is instrumental in obtaining promotion. Therefore, past performance (first-level outcome) is known as instrumentality input in our example. Another major variable in the Vroom motivational process is expectancy.

Expectancy is the probability that a particular action or effort will lead to a particular firstlevel outcome. Expectancy is different from instrumentality input in valence. Expectancy relates efforts to first level outcome whereas instrumentality relates first-level outcome to second-level outcome.

Chester Barnard (1886-1961): Barnard is widely credited with having originated the 'systems' approach to the study of organisation. Although Chester Barnard was not an 'academician' in conventional sense, yet he has made a significant contribution to the discipline of management.

After his retirement as president of New Jersey Bell Telephone and the Rockefeller Foundation, he recorded his insights about management and leadership in the book on corporate leadership, The Functions of the Executive, which was published in 1938.

This work is regarded as one of the most influential books on management during the pre-modern management era. In many ways, Barnard's book laid the foundation for the management and organisation theory as it exists today.

Kurt Lewin has postulated that human behaviour is a function of the person and the environment: B = f(P, E). The SOBC model amplifies this simple idea and provides us with a mechanism for systematically considering human behaviour in organizations.

SOBC is an acronym where S represents the stimulus situation which includes such things as light, sounds, job demands, supervisors, coworkers' characteristics and equipment. O (organism) refers to the characteristics of the person including personality, needs, attitudes, vlaues and intentions.

B refers to the person's behavioural responses or actions in the situation under consideration. Finally, C represetns the consequences or outcomes associated with the behavioural responses. All sensations from the environment trigger human perception.

In organizational behaviour, these include all features of the work environment which activate employeeе behaviour. The finite capacities of the individual are governed by heredity, maturity and biological needs.

These capacities also include knowledge, skills, attitudes, intentions, sentiments and values. Overt behaviours and actions such as performance or emotional responses and conceptual activities are apparent only to the individual.

The outcomes of behaviour and performance give rise to outcomes such as recognition and need satisfaction. The outcomes represent the activity triggered in the environment by the behaviours under study. The SOBC model is a 'micro' model in that it specifies a sequence for understanding the behaviour of individuals.

It does suggest that differences in performance are a function of numerous factors. Managers are concerned with an employee's performance (behaviour). They try to influence performance through direction and guidance. Managers frequently ask an employee to attempt a trial run before the actual task is attempted.

Additionally, after a task is completed, the manager will review the employee's performance to provide constructive feedback. The act of reviewing performance is the C in the SOBC model. For every employee action there are reactions at the managerial and environmental levels.

To understand the interplay between managers and their organizations and employees, it is necessary to characterize the difference between employee needs and organizational productivity.

Re-invention and transformational change have become pervasive themes in the strategic management literature of recent years. Gary Hamel and C.K. Prahlad have coined the term strategic intent to refer to the determination of an organisation to achieve goals that are out of all proportion to their resources and capabilities.

Strategic intent involves revitalising the competitive position of a company through innovativeness, learning and strong organisational commitment. Hamel and Prahlad maintain that conventional strategic planning approaches fail to transform organisations because they only lead to marginal or incremental improvements over current performance.

Japanese companies like Komatsu, Canon and Honda that have become global leaders have done so by adopting a different approach to strategy. Instead of tailoring strategy to fit their resources, they ambitiously sought to achieve targets that were way beyond their capаbilities.

They combined the determination to become global winners with persistence, hard work, learning and innovation. Hamel and Prahlad seem to suggest that achieving dominance in a dynamic, competitive environment is impossible without transformational change.

In attempting to organize an overview of the adult learning literature, a good place to begin is the source that proclaims itself as the definitive classic in adult education and human resource development. Given that this description is actually in the title of the book, the authors must be pretty confident of their claim.

The lead author-Malcolm Knowleswidely considered one of the foremost figures in adult learning, is often acknowledged as the "Father of Andragogy." The term andragogy was first introduced into American culture by Knowles around 1967 (the concept had been evolving in Europe for some time before this).

Andragogy is proposed as an integrative framework of adult learning, and can be differentiated from pedagogy, which is the art and science of teaching children (based on the Greek words paid, meaning "child" and agogus, meaning "leader of").

Similar to what has been argued in developmental psychology that both children and adults develop but in very different ways, Knowles championed the idea that adults learn in ways very different from those of children or adolescents.

The fundamental principle of andragogy is to (a) place the Iearner at the focus of the learning process, (b) who learns to satisfy internal motives, and thereby (c) shift the responsibility for learning to the individual and away from formal instructional curricula. Thus, individual needs and "real-life" experiences are the platform for adult learning in a social environment.

Adler (1983) tried to identify the major differences between domestic and multinational firms by asking a selected group of experts in this field. Two factors were considered to be of primary importance in differentiating between domestic and multinational firms: multiculturalism and geographic dispersion.

Multiculturalism is defined as 'the presence of people from two or more cultural backgrounds within an organization'. Geographic dispersion is defined as 'the location of various subunits of the parent firm in different countries'.

According to Adler the combination of both multiculturalism and geographic dispersion is of fundamental importance. So far, most international business studies have focused on the consequences of geographic dispersion and tended to give little attention to the consequences of multiculturalism.

Most comparative management studies reversed the emphasis. They tended to focus on cultural differences, while more or less neglecting the geographic dispersion aspect of multinational firms. To get a complete picture of multinational firms, both perspectives are equally important.

Robert F. Hoxie has presented a sociopsychological approach to trade unionism in his book Trade Unionism in the United States (1920). According to him, trade unions grew out of the 'social psychological' environment of the workers.

He has said that 'workers who are similarly situated economically and socially, closely associated and not too divergent in temperament and training, will tend to develop a common interpretation of the social situation and a common solution of the problem of living.

This may come about gradually and spontaneously, or it may be apparently sudden outcome of some crisis in the lives of the men concerned. Hoxie has adopted a pluralistic approach to trade unionism.

According to him, trade unionism is the outcome of a group psychology that emerges out of social and environmental conditions and the temperamental characteristics of the members. Hoxie has classified trade unions on the basis of the functions perfonned by them. According to him, there are four types of trade unionism:

(i) business unionism.
(ii) friendly or uplift unionism.
(iii) revolutionary unionism and
(iv) predatory unionism. His followers added a fifth, dependent unionism, to the list-dependent unionism.

(i) Business Unionism: They are also known as Bread and Butter unions. These unions are trade conscious rather than class conscious. They accept the existing economic system and aim at bringing about improvement in the wages and working conditions of their membérs. Collective bargaining is the usual method of achieving their goal.

(ii) Friendly or Uplift Unionism: Such unions are idealistic in nature and elevate the moral, social and intellectual life of the workers. To achieve their aim these unions advocate use of political methods such as setting of cooperative enterprises, profit sharing and mutual insurance.

(iii) Revolutionary Unionism: Such unions are extremely radical both from a view point and in action. They are distinctly class conscious rather than trade consciousness. They aim at replacing the capitalistic system by socialistic system. They believe in political action or direct action in the form of strikes, boycotts, sabotage and violence.

(iv) Predatory Unionism: Unions of these types does not subscribe to any ideology. Such unions are characterized by their ruthless pursuit of immediate ends. They use collective bargaining, secret bribery and violence to settle their dispute. Gangsters dominate it.

(v) Dependent Unionism: Such types of unions are dependent on the support of workers or other labour groups. This type of unions appears in two forms - Company Union and Label Union. The former depend entirely on employer whereas the second type depends upon the label imprinted on the products made by the union members.

Chris Argyris identified seven specific dimensions of the human personality as it develops. According to him, human personality, rather than going through precise stages, progresses along a continuum from immaturity as an infant to maturity, as an adult. However, at any age, people can have their degree of development plotted according to the seven dimensions as given in Table:

Table: The Immaturity-Maturity Continuum

According to Argyris, an individual will be regarded as immature, irrespective of his chronological age, when he will be basically dependent and submissive with a few shallow interests and having only a short time perspective.

In contrast, a mature personality will be endowed with relative independence, autonomy, self-control, many abilities and deep-rooted not superficial interests in life. He will also have long time orientation unlike the immature personality.