Yan Yue

EAP 507

Feb 7th, 2018

A brief summary of the article #2

The authors pointed out that despite remarkable investment had been involved in a

copper rod manufacturing company, this company still faced with chronically low

productivity (Appelbaum et al., 2005, p. 2). Specifically, the productivity of this rod

manufacturing company had not improved and was below the industry’s average level

(Appelbaum et al., 2005). According to Appelbaum et al (2005), they investigate and then

analyze a real case study, which is a copper rod manufacturing company suffered from low

productivity, to further explore the effect of satisfaction and organizational citizenship on

productivity. The purpose of this study is to examine the causes of low productivity from an

organizational behavior perspective and determine the relationship among employee

satisfaction, productivity and necessary communication through a case study (Appelbaum et

al., 2005, p. 5). The method used in the field study consisted of a survey and interviews

conducted within the company. Appelbaum et al (2005) found that the article describes a

“correlation between average job satisfaction, low motivation and the resulting low

productivity” (p. 16). Appelbaum et al (2005) also found a director relation “between low

productivity and poor communication between management, supervisors and employees” (p.

16). Moreover, Appelbaum et al (2005) also found that “the existing secretive, reactionary

corporate culture” does affect negatively productivity at the plant (p. 16). The authors

suggested that these finding could be used for improving companies’ higher levels of
productivity, which is the important goals for most companies (Appelbaum et al., 2005).

Hence, companies can increase the profits. The authors think this research is also essential to

employee, supervisors as well as the organizational level because the authors present four

alternatives for them that would address the problem and potentially resolve it (Appelbaum et

al., 2005).

One of the key concepts is employee satisfaction, the meaning of employee

satisfaction is the terminology used to describe whether employees are happy and contented

and fulfilling their desires and needs at work. Appelbaum et al (2005) showed that employee

satisfaction is “a factor in employee motivation, company goal achievement, and improving

productivity” (p. 18). Initially, authors write about the previous studies about productivity is

very significant since it is correlated with revenues and impacts the company’s bottom line

(Appelbaum et al., 2005). The authors want to figure out the reason of low productivity form

an organizational behavior perspective (Appelbaum et al., 2005). Based on all this

information, productivity means it is an assessment of the efficiency of a worker or group of

workers. Additionally, the authors analyzed the problem and process of the investment of

company adjustment. After the authors explored the work environment specifically, they

provide four hypotheses as the research’s variables (Appelbaum et al., 2005). These critical

variables can influence employee job satisfaction and productivity (Appelbaum et al., 2005).

Finally, based the authors’ analysis, recommendations and alternatives, we can know that the

involvement of employees creates an environment of shared responsibility for workplace

culture and improvements (Appelbaum et al., 2005). Factors contributing to employee

satisfaction include “treating employees with respect, providing regular employee

recognition, and positive management within a success framework of goals, measurements,

and expectations” (Appelbaum et al., 2005, p. 18). The critical factor with employee
satisfaction is that satisfied employees must do the job and make the contributions that the

employer needs (Appelbaum et al., 2005).

According to Luthans & Yousseff (2008), the authors reviewed the literature review,

which is research on positive organizational behavior, an emerging field within

organizational behavior, and tell readers how positive organizational behavior (POB)

contributes to enhance working efficiency at the workplace. (Luthans & Carolyn, 2007). The

authors believe this review will begin to fill a gap in terms of "theory building, research, and

effective application of positive traits" (Luthans & Carolyn, 2007, p.45). Workplaces need to

focus on balancing the positive and negative (Luthans & Carolyn, 2007). The concerns of

what Luthans & Yousseff (2008) care is very overall, extensive, and is a very board research,

they paid attention to the detailed concepts of POB. But Liden et al (2014) used the concept

of what Luthans & Yousseff (2008) explained and discussed, further gave more practice

significance. According to Liden et al (2014), they study the relationships between servant

leadership and outcomes at the individual levels as well as work unit levels, which

contributed to the field's understanding of "positive organizational behavior", giving POB a

more sufficient understanding (Liden, Wayne, Liao, & Meuser, 2014). The authors draw lots

of conclusions from their results, offer several applications both in academia and application,

and suggest several ways to future research. Moreover, this article contributes to the

leadership literature, this is also what the authors anticipate they will contribute to the field

(Liden, Wayne, Liao, & Meuser, 2014). Liden et al (2014) tried to figure out the servant

relationship which is one of the application and aspect of the POB. Based on Luthans &

Yousseff (2008), these two authors have already explained the definition of the terminology

of POB in their article. Hence, there are some connection between these two articles. What’s

more, Liden et al (2014), they collected the dates and survey to connect the theory into

practice. Based on Appelbaum et al (2005), the authors analyzed a real case to further explore
the effect of satisfaction and organizational citizenship on productivity, which contributed to

the business management field's understanding of "positive organizational behavior”. The

authors concluded the relationship within the company organizational level and employee

involvement level. Since this article belongs to case study rather than academic study, this

article is different with the other two. This type of project is needed for the MCP research.

The authors used four hypotheses which can direct the study in different aspects to verify the

of the study and the theory that put up with at Luthans & Yousseff (2008)’s article.

Appelbaum et al (2005) also used survey and then analyzed it which I have already

summarized above.

Bibliography

Appelbaum, S. H., Jacques, A., Nadeem, J., Michel, L., Jean‐Pascal, L., Michel, S., &

Silvana, S. (2005). A case study analysis of the impact of satisfaction and

organizational citizenship on productivity. Management Research News, 28(5), 1-26.

Liden, R. C., Wayne, S. J., Liao, C., & Meuser, J. D. (2014, October). Servant ladership and

serving culture: Influence on individual and unit proformance . Academy of

Management Journal, 57(5), 1434-1452.

Luthans, F., & Carolyn, M. Y. (2007). Emerging positive organizational behavior. Journal of

Management, 33(3), 321-347.