Chapter 5: Learning and Creativity

1. Understanding and Managing Organizational Behavior 4th Edition Chapter 5:Learning and Creativity JENNIFER GEORGE & GARETH JONES

2. Chapter Objectives • Describe what learning is and why it is so important for all kinds of jobs and organizations • Understand how to effectively use reinforcement, extinction, and punishment to promote the learning of desired behaviors and curtail ineffective behaviors • Describe the conditions necessary to determine if vicarious learning has taken place

3. Chapter Objectives • Appreciate the importance of self control and self efficacy for learning on your own • Describe how learning takes place continuously through creativity, the nature of the creative process, and the determinants of creativity • Understand what it means to be a learning organization

4. Opening Case: Continuous Learning at Seagate Technologies • Why is continuous learning a necessity in today’s business environment? • Seagate Technologies has shown how continuous learning can put organizations and their members in charge of their own fate • Seagate decided to learn from multiple sources including its customers’ customers.

5. Learning in Organizations • A relatively permanent change in knowledge or behavior that results from practice or experience • With learning comes change • Change must be relatively permanent • Learning takes place as a result of practice or through experience

6. Operant Conditioning • Learning that takes place when the learner recognizes the connection between a behavior and its consequences • Individuals learn to operate on their environment, to behave in certain ways to achieve desirable consequences or avoid undesirable consequences

7. Reinforcement in Operant Conditioning • The process by which the probably that a desired behavior will occur is increased by applying consequences that depend on the behavior in question • Step 1: identify desired behaviors to be encouraged • Step 2: decide how to reinforce the behavior

8. Positive Reinforcement • Increases the probability that a behavior will occur by administering positive consequences to employees who perform the behavior • Potential positive reinforcers • Pay • Bonuses • Promotions • Job titles • Verbal praise • Awards

9. Negative Reinforcement • Increases the probability that a desired behavior will occur by removing a negative consequence when an employee performs the behavior • Subordinates experiencing negative reinforcement learn the connection between a desired organizational behavior and a consequence

10. Reinforcement Schedules • Continuous Reinforcement: Occurs after every occurrence of a behavior • Partial Reinforcement: Occurs only a portion of the time that behavior occurs • Differences: • Continuous reinforcement can result in faster learning of desired behaviors • Behaviors learned using partial reinforcement are likely to last longer

11. Reinforcement Schedules • Fixed-Interval Schedule • Variable-Interval Schedule • Fixed-Ratio Schedule • Variable-Ratio Schedule

12. Extinction and Punishment • Extinction: Removing a consequence that is currently reinforcing an undesirable behavior in an effort to decrease the probability that the behavior will occur again in the future • Punishment: Administering negative consequences to workers who perform undesirable behaviors in an effort to decrease the probability that the behavior will occur again in the future

13. Negative Reinforcement vs. Punishment • Punishment reduces the probability of an undesired behavior • Negative reinforcement increases the probability of a desired behavior • Punishment involves administering a negativeconsequence when an undesired behavior occurs • Negative reinforcement entails removing a negativeconsequence when a desired behavior occurs

14. Organizational Behavior Modification • The systematic application of the principles of operant conditioning for teaching and managing organizational behaviors • OB Mod

15. The Basic Steps of OB Mod • Identify the behavior to be learned • Measure the frequency of the behavior • Perform a functional analysis • Develop and apply a strategy • Measure the frequency of the behavior

16. Social Cognitive Theory • A learning theory that takes into account the fact that thoughts and feelings influence learning. • Necessary components include • Vicarious learning • Self-control • Self-efficacy

17. Vicarious Learning • Learning that occurs when one person (the learner) learns a behavior by watching another person (the model) perform the behavior • Learners can also learn from situations in which models get punished • Role models can be positive or negative

18. Conditions Required for Vicarious Learning • Learner observes the model when the model is performing the behavior • Learner accurately perceives model’s behavior • Learner must remember the behavior • Learner must have the skills and abilities to perform the behavior • Learner must see that the model receives reinforcement for the behavior in question

19. Conditions Indicating Use of Self-Control • Individual must engage in a low-probability behavior • Self-reinforcers must be available • Learner must set goals that determine when self-reinforcement takes place • Learner must administer the reinforcer when the goal is achieved

20. Self-Efficacy • A person’s belief about his or her ability to perform a particular behavior successfully • Not the same as self-esteem • Self-efficacy affects learning via • Activities • Effort • Persistence

21. Sources of Self-Efficacy • Past performance • Vicarious experience or observation of others • Verbal persuasion • Individuals’ readings of their internal physiological states

22. The Learning Organization • Organizational learning: the process through which managers instill a desire to find new ways to improve organizational effectiveness • Knowledge management: the ability to capitalize on the knowledge possessed by organizational members which is not necessarily written down anywhere or codified in formal documents

23. Central Activities in a Learning Organization • Encouragement of personal mastery or high self-efficacy • Development of complex schemas to understand work activities • Encouragement of learning in groups and teams • Communicating a shared vision for the organization as a whole • Encouraging systematic thinking