8: CHAPTER LEARNING AND DECISION MAKING
Learning a relatively permanent change in an employees knowledge or skill that
results from experience.
Decision Making the process of generating and choosing from a set of alternatives to
solve a problem.
WHY DO SOME EMPLOYEES LEARN TO MAKE DECISIONS BETTER THAN
OTHERS?
Expertise the knowledge and skills that distinguish experts from novices.
Explicit Knowledge knowledge that is easily communicated and available to everyone.
Tacit Knowledge knowledge that employees can only learn through experience.
METHODS OF LEARNING
1. Reinforcement: People have tendency to repeat behaviours that result in
consequences that we like and to not exhibit behaviours that result in consequences
we dont like.
There are 5 contingencies of reinforcement that organizations use to modify employee
behaviour:
Positive Reinforcement when a positive outcome follows a desired behaviour.
E.g. Reward, Increased pay, or praise. For positive reinforcement to be effective,
an employee must see a clear link between the reward and behaviour.
Negative Reinforcement - an unwanted outcome is removed following a desired
behaviour.
Punishment when an unwanted outcome follows an unwanted behaviour.
Extinction the removal of a positive outcome following an unwanted behaviour.
In general, positive reinforcement and extinction should be the most common forms of
reinforcement used by managers to create learning in the organization.
Timing of Reinforcement is Also Important:
Continuous a specific consequence follows each and every occurrence of
certain behaviour.
Fixed Interval reinforcement occurs at fixed time periods.
Variable Interval reinforcement occurs at random periods.
Fixed Ratio Schedule reinforcement occurs following a fixed number of
desired behaviours.
Variable Ratio Schedule behaviours are reinforced after a varying number of
them have been exhibited.
On the whole, variable schedules lead to higher level of performance than fixed schedule.
However, continuous or fixed schedules can be better for reinforcing new behaviours that
dont occur on a frequent basis.
2. Observation people in organizations have the ability to learn through the
observation of others. (Social learning theory)
Behavioral Modeling:
Learner focuses attention on the critical behaviours exhibited by the model learner
must remember the behaviours of the model once the model is no longer present
learner must have the appropriate skill set and the be able to reproduce the behavior
the learner must view the model receiving reinforcement for the behaviour and then
receive it themselves.
3. Goal Orientation:
Learning Orientation a predisposition or attitude according to which learning process
is deemed important by an employee
Performance-Prove Orientation a predisposition or attitude by which employees
focus on demonstrating their competence so that others think favorably of them.
Performance-Avoid Orientation a predisposition or attitude by which employees
focus on demonstrating their competence so that others will not think poorly of them.
Learning Orientation improves self-confidence, feedback-seeking behaviour, learning
strategy development, and learning performance.
METHODS OF DECISION MAKING
1. Programmed Decision decisions that is somewhat automatic because the decision
makers knowledge allows him or her to recognize the situation the and course of
action to be taken.
2. Non-Programmed Decision decision made by employees when a problem is new,
complex, or not recognized.
Rational Decision-Making Model a step-by-step approach to making decisions that is
designed to maximize outcomes by examining all available alternatives
DECISION MAKING PROBLEMS
Limited Information:
Bounded Rationality the notion that people do not have the ability or resources to
process all available information and alternatives when making a decision.
First, people have to filter and simplify information to make sense of their complex
environment. This leads to a miss of information when perceiving problems, generating
and evaluating alternatives, or judging the results.
Faulty Perceptions:
1. Selective Perception the tendency for people to see their environment only as it
affects them and as it is consistent with their expectations.
2. Projection Bias the faulty perception by decision makers that others think, feel,
and act the same as they do.
3. Social Identity Theory a theory that people identify themselves based on the
various groups to which they belong and judge others based on the groups they
associate with.
4. Stereotype assumptions made about others based on their social group
membership.
5. Heuristics simple and efficient rules of thumb that allow one to make decision
more easily. In general, heuristics are not bad, however they can also bias us
toward inaccurate decision at times.
6. Availability Bias the tendency for people to base their judgments on
information that is easier to recall.
Faulty Attributions:
Fundamental Attribution the tendency for people to judge others behaviours as being
due to internal factors such as ability.
Self-serving Bias when one attributes ones own failures to external factors and
successes to internal factors.
When we know the person, we follow a rational process:
1. Consensus used by decision makers to attribute cause; whether other individuals
behave the same way under similar circumstances.
2. Distinctiveness whether the person being judged acts in a similar fashion under
different circumstances.
3. Consistency whether this individual has behaved this way before under similar
circumstances.
Escalation of Commitment:
A common decision-making error in which the decision maker continues to
follow a failing course of action. Why? They may feel an obligation to stick to
their decision to avoid looking incompetent or to avoid admitting they made a
mistake.
HOW IMPORTANT IS LEARNING?
Learning Moderately Correlated Job Performance
Learning Weakly Correlated Organizational Commitment
Employees who gain more knowledge and skill tend to have higher levels of Task
Performance. Employees who gain more knowledge and skill tend to have slightly higher
levels of Affective Commitment.
APPLICATION: TRAINING
Training a systematic effort by organizations to facilitate the learning of job-related
knowledge and behaviour.
Knowledge Transfer the exchange of knowledge between employees.
Communities of Practice groups of employees who learn from one another through
collaboration over an extended period of time.
Transfer of Training occurs when employees retain and demonstrate the knowledge,
skills, and behaviours required for their job after training ends.
Climate for Transfer an organizational environment that supports the use of new
skills.