Major Essay:

1.) Discuss the Equity Theory (Including the three types of Justice) and the expectancy motivation
theory ( Three Aspects). (Pages 156, 161)
Equity Theory: a model of motivation that explains how people strive for fairness and justice in social
exchanges or give-and-take relationships. People are motivated to maintain consistency between their
beliefs and their behavior because perceived inconsistencies create cognitive dissonance.
The key elements of equity theory include:
1. Outputs: What am I getting out of my job?
2. Inputs: what am I putting into my job?
3. Comparison: you compare your inputs and outputs vs. those of relevant others.
Equity will exist if you see yourself fairing comparably to others, while a belief of faring worse than
others will result on negative inequity, and a belief of faring better than others will result in positive
inequity.
There are also 3 types of organizational Justice:
1. Distributive Justice: reflects the perceived fairness of how resources and rewards are
distributed or allocated.
2. Procedural Justice: perceived fairness of the process and procedures used to make
allocation decisions.
3. Interactional Justice: related to the quality of the interpersonal treatment people receive
when procedures are implemented.
Expectancy Motivation Theory: people are motivated to behave in ways that produce desired
combinations of expected outcomes. Can be used to predict behavior in any situation in which a choice
between 2 or more alternatives must be made.
There are 3 Aspects of Expectancy motivation Theory:
1. Expectancy: represents an individual's belief that a particular degree of effort will be
followed by a particular level of performance.
2. Instrumentality: It represents a persons belief that a particular outcome is contingent
on accomplishing a specific level of performance.
3. Valence: refers to the positive or negative value people place on outcomes. Valence
mirrors our personal preferences.
According to the expectancy theory, your motivation will be high when all three elements in the model
are high, and low when any one element reaches zero.

2.) Discuss the Job Characteristics Model. (page 171) Easy way to remember that Madison
said: 5,3,4

Job Characteristics Model goal is to promote high intrinsic motivation by designing jobs that possesses
the five core job characteristics.
5 Core Job Characteristics are as follows:
1. Skill variety: Extent to which the job requires an individual to perform a variety of tasks that
require him or her to use different skills and abilities.
2. Task Identity: Extent to which the job requires an individual to perform a while or completely
identifiable piece of work.
3. Task significance: Extent to which a job affects the lives of other people within or outside the
organization.
4. Autonomy: Extent to which the job enables an individual to experience freedom, independence,
and discretion in both scheduling and determining the procedures used in completing a job.
5. Feedback from job: Extent to which an individual receives direct and clear information about
how effectively he or she is performing the job.
These job characteristics lead to 3 Critical Psychological States:
1. Experienced meaningfulness of the work: This is caused by first 3 core job characteristics.
2. Experienced responsibility for outcomes of the work: Cause by the 4th core characteristic.
3. Knowledge of the actual results of the work activities: Cause by the 5th core characteristic.
The model suggest that 4 outcomes are possible:
1.
2.
3.
4.

High intrinsic work motivation

High growth satisfaction
High work effectiveness
High general job satisfaction

3.) Discuss the Path-Goal Theory of Leadership. (Pages 458-460)

Path-Goal theory: holds that leader behaviors are effective when employees view them as a source of
satisfaction or as paving the way to future satisfaction. Leadership effectiveness is influenced by the
interaction of 8 leadership behaviors and a variety of employee characteristics and environmental factors.
The 8 leadership behaviors are:

Path-goal clarifying: clarification of employee performance goals, and providing guidance on

how to achieve them. Also using positive and negative rewards contingent on performance.

Achievement oriented: setting challenging goals that emphasize excellence, and demonstrate
confidence in employees abilities.

Work facilitation: Creating an organized and structured work environment that provides
resources such as mentoring, coaching, counseling and feedback in order to develop the
employees skills, and eliminate potential roadblocks.

Supportive behaviors: showing concern for the well-being and needs of employees by being
friendly, approachable and treating them as equals.

Interaction facilitation: emphasizing collaboration and teamwork by facilitating

communication, resolving disputes, and encouraging the sharing of ideas amongst the team.

Group oriented decision making: encouraging group members to participate in decision

making by posing problems instead of solution, and by providing necessary information for group
analysis

Representation and networking: Maintaining positive relationships with influential people by

presenting the work group in a positive light, and participating in organizational social functions
and ceremonies.

Value based: Establishing a vision, displaying passion for it, and supporting its accomplishment.

Effective leaders modify their leader behaviors based on the situation at hand in order to help their
employees achieve their personal, and organizational goals.

Minor or Short Essay:

1. Discuss the five types of reinforcement, using intermittent as a type of reinforcement not
just a schedule. (Pages 206-210)

Contingent consequences control behavior by responding to a target behavior in one of five

ways: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, intermittent reinforcement, punishment or
extinction. The term contingent means there is a purposeful if-then linkage between the target behavior
and the consequence, therefore, it is helpful to first think if you want to increase or decrease the target
behavior, and then choose the consequence you will provide.
Increase Desired Behaviors:
Positive reinforcement: is the process of strengthening a behavior by contingently presenting
something pleasing,
Negative reinforce: also strengthens a desired behavior by contingently withdrawing something
displeasing
Intermittent reinforcement: involves reinforcement of some, but not all instances of a target
behavior. Intermittent reinforcement can be in the form of fixed ratios, variable ratios, fixed
interval, and variable interval.
Decrease Undesired Behaviors
Punishment: the process of weakening behavior through either the contingent presentations of
something displeasing or the contingent withdrawal of something positive.
Extinction: the process of weakening a behavior by ignoring it or making sure it is not
reinforced

2. Discuss the four reasons people are motivated by goals. (Page 166)

Goals:
There are four motivational mechanisms that fuel the power of goal setting:
1.

Goals Direct Attention: Goals direct ones attention and effort toward goal-relevant activities
and away from goal-irrelevant activities. In reality we work on multiple goals at once. This shows the
importance of prioritizing your goals.

2.

Goals Regulate Effort: Goals have an energizing function in that they motivate us to act. Harder
goals foster greater effort than easier goals. Time deadlines also factor into the motivational equation.

3.

Goals Increase Persistence: Persistence represents the effort expended on a task over an
extended period of time. Persistent people tend to see obstacles as challenges to be overcome rather
than as reasons to fail.

4.

Goals Foster long term planning: Goals prompt us to figure out how they can be accomplished.
This is a cognitive process of creatively developing a plan that outlines the steps, tasks, or activities
that must take place to accomplish a goal.

In summary, setting goals directly affect our performance, by setting goals we will focus our attention,
direct more effort, increase our persistence for accomplishment, and spark our creativity in an effort to
accomplish the goal.

3. Discuss the four functions of organizational culture. (page 484-486)

Organizational culture: is the set of shared, taken for granted implicit assumptions that a group holds,
and that determines how it perceives, thinks about, and reacts to its various environments.
An organizations culture fulfills four important functions:
1. Organizational Identity: demonstrates what is central, distinctive and enduring about an
organization in the eyes of their employees.
2. Collective Commitment: represents the willingness for the employees to commit and execute
the mission statement and vision of the organization.
3. Social System Stability: reflects the extent to which the work environment is perceived as
positive and reinforcing, and the extent to which conflict and change are effectively managed.
4. Sense making device: helps employees understand why the organization does what it does, and
how it intends to achieve its long term goals
Organizational culture can influence how employees interact with each other and the organization's
customers and stakeholders, which can affect productivity and performance. It is very important to
maintain a positive organizational culture.

4. Discuss Mindlessness, Mindfulness and the benefits of Mindfulness. (Pages 229-232)

Mindlessness: is a state of reduced attention. Mindlessness requires minimal information processing, and
we often do it rather automatically.
Mindfulness: is defined as the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the
present moment, and nonjudgmental to the unfolding of experience moment by moment. In essence,
mindfulness represents the extent to which we are aware and attentive to what is happening around us at a
given moment
Benefits of Mindfulness:
1. Increased physical, mental, and interpersonal effectiveness: This occurs because people are
more aware of physical sensations, personal feelings, personal emotions, and the feelings and
emotions of others
2. More effective communications: Mindfulness fosters more effective listening, greater use of
empathy, and more attention to nonverbal cues during conversations.
3. More Balanced emotions: Paying attention to internal emotions and the emotions of others leads
us to be more balanced and less reactive. This in turn helps reduce conflict with others.
4. Personal effectiveness: Mindfulness enhances your ability to contribute during class sessions or
meetings at work, to provide social support to others, to ask for help when needed, and to develop
and sustain loving relationships.
Mindfulness was positively associated with task performance, job satisfaction, and decreased emotional
exhaustion.