Intrinsic Motivation in Human Behavior - Case Study Example

This is an analysis of the Alcan case study using relevant theories related to the organisation and management. A research was carried outat Lynemouth Smelter plant in 1995 and 1997. The first study covered interviews with all levels of employees and questionnaire survey of shop-door workers. The plant was revisited in 1997 and many of the key informants were interviewed again. The Lynemouth Smelter was long-term, capital-intensive business smelted aluminium. It began its production in 1972. Smelting was a continuous process, operated 24 hours per day all year around. From its conception, the plan ran on a system of 12 hours shifts. Lynemouth employed a number of employees, but due to increasing competition in aluminium industry, the world price of aluminium began to fall. They had to come up with a number of options for change in order to survive the competition. Managers must be contending with changing demands, changing competition, changing political forces and changing social structure. Change is inherent in organisational development and seems to be occurring at an increasing rate. The individual and organisational conflict that can sometimes accompany it cannot always be avoided, but if ignored can cause lost time, resources, and efficiency. When managed well conflict can result in new ideas, more informed decision-making and better performance. However, managing conflict effectively requires skill, knowledge and experience. Critically Analysing the Main Issues in the Alcan Case Study In Alcan case study in the Lynemouth smelters shows us how the organisation adopted various management changes to increase their productivity and efficiency. They had to weigh a number a number of options before implementing any change. There was a criticism among the middle level and the technical staff that the team working did not a improve the production. They differed with the senior managers and workers who said that team working improved the performance of the organisation. After all, the organisation achieved its organisational goal despite staff resistance to change at some stages. At some stage there was a decline in aluminium price leading to Lynemouth laying a number of worker and coming up with a number of options for change. There had come up with three options but adopted two of them. The middle level and technical felt dissatisfied with the organisation and many of them, it was reported that they were seeking and would readily accept employment with other companies. Imposing Change by the Management The management of Lynemouth Smelters wanted to impose change by insisting on the application of parts of the existing agreement, rather than involving the union. It was reported that the management did not consult the workers and this resulted to a growing sense of worker dissatisfaction, which adversely affected the quality of production. One of the major research efforts has been to measure the relationship between group participation and productivity and other valuables. The Hawthorne studies showed that technical innovation forced workers to accommodate to changes they did not initiate and that this had a disruptive effect upon the workers' sentiments and the social structure of the factory. (Roethlisberger and Dickson (1939). It would seem to follow that participative management, by providing opportunities for employees to express their fears about changes and by giving them a part in designing changes to have a less disruptive impact. This would have a positive effect on workers' satisfaction and on productivity. Satisfaction and improved performance on workers can be achieved if frustrations of needs are removed. The lower the individual's satisfaction the greater the search for alternative ways of doing the job. The management must be deeply immersed in the behavioural sciences if they are to work on the problem of motivation in a effective way. Motivation is a temporal and dynamic state that should not be confused with personality or emotion. Motivation is having the encouragement to do something. A motivated person can be reaching for a long-term goal such as becoming a professional writer or a more short-term goal like learning how to spell a particular word. Personality invariably refers to more or less permanent characteristics of an individual's state of being (e.g., shy, extrovert, conscientious). As opposed to motivation, emotion refers to temporal states that do not immediately link to behaviour e.g., anger. Abraham Maslow's hierarchy of human needs theory is the most widely discussed theories of motivation. The theory states that human beings have wants and desires which influence their behaviour, only unsatisfied needs can influence behaviour, satisfied needs cannot. Since needs are many, they are arranged in order of importance, from the basic to the complex. The person advances to the next level of needs after only when the lower level need is at least minimally satisfied. Further by the hierarchy, the more individuality, humanness and psychological health a person will show. (Ormond, J. E. 2003) Frederick Herzberg's two factor theory, states that certain factors in the workplace result in job satisfaction, while others lead to dissatisfaction. He distinguished between motivation and hygiene. He said that motivators are challenging work, recognition, responsibility which give positive satisfaction, and Hygiene factors are status, job security, salary and fringe benefits which do not give positive satisfaction. (Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M.1985) The management of Lynemouth smelter should have involved the workers by discussing with them on any change they wanted to implement. This would had satisfied them and they would have felt that they were not being undermined. Option for Change There was increased competition in the aluminium industry and the management of Lynemouth felt that they had to come up with an alternative to rescue their firm. In option one, they had thought of reducing the role the trade union or even to remove their bargaining rights altogether. They felt that the trade union was a key barrier to improvement. They thought by undermining the trade union would strengthen the position of the supervisors by enabling them to apply punitive measures against the uncooperative workers. This was a good approach and in fact would have worsened the situation. You cannot punish a worker because of not performing with the expectation that he or she will perform well next time. According to Peter Drucker (1954), he insisted that responsibility rather than work satisfaction is the primary incentive. Whether workers want responsibility or not, Drucker argued that management must demand it. Rather than setting minimum standards, management should encourage workers to develop their norms and to measure their own performance. Drucker was also opposed to the traditional view in management that planning should be separate from doing and he urged for workers participation in planning as well as evaluating results. For this case, the management of Lynemouth Smelters would have thought of encouraging workers to develop their own norms and to measure their own performance in the minimum standards they have set for themselves rather than punishing them. The idea that responsibility is a major incentive, like many useful ideas in management, is rather vague and abstract notion that often does produce desired results, but not universally so. If you look around at occupations near at hand, you are likely to find some persons who obviously are not flourishing because they are not given the challenged of responsibility. (Haynes and Massie (1969). The second option of change was to establish a more cooperative relations with trade unions, based on existing pattern of negotiation was a good option. Trade union represents the workers and by involving them in firm's decision making shows that all the worker have been involved and fully represented. This approach has an advantage of minimising any possibility of disruption but might have also delayed the implementation of reforms. The third option was to win employee consent by reforming the communication system and by promoting employee involvement. This was a good approach, which was later implemented together with the second option. If there are clear lines of communication, employees are able to raise their grievance without difficulties and they also able to relate well with the management. Restrictions or breakdowns of communication can have strong effects on group and individual behaviour. Without communication, people develop a distorted view of what others are doing and these views are likely to result in hostility. When people are organised in groups, the tendency toward hostility may be reinforced. (Haynes and Massie (1969). The management of Lynemouth thought of measures to improve job satisfaction including terms. For a job to be satisfying then the condition of work environment must be conducive and the job must be fair in remuneration. Team Working Team working was introduced which compassed team briefing, job rotation and degree of multiskilling. Teamwork is the concept of people working together as a team. The notion of working together cooperatively as a team is well known and accepted. Critics argue that teamwork has become an empty buzzword, or a form of corporate-speak. However, as people move between roles more frequently or personnel take leave for vacation, medical, maternity or even sick days and organizations become more sophisticated, there have been increasing efforts through training and cross-training to help people to work together more effectively and to accomplish shared goals. People working individually cannot accomplish some things. Larger, ambitious goals usually require that people work together with other people. Because of this, teamwork is a desired goal of many organizations today. Team Leaders The role of team leader appeared to have increased uncertain since it entailed neither supervision of a particular part of the plant nor any specific functional responsibility. The findings on group leadership are multi-dimensional. It appears that leaders have only a limited capacity to change group goals. They have more influence over means than over goals. In fact, the style of a leader is likely to be determined more by the group norms than by the personal traits of the leader. The group leader of Lynemouth Smelter felt that they had no power and authority and due this they felt dissatisfied in their work. Senior managers and workers felt that significant change had been made due to team working. However, for the middle and technical staff the view was different. They expressed reservation about teams. This caused a lot dissatisfaction among them and it was reported, they were seeking and would readily accept employment with other companies. Others even said that they would eagerly take early retirement. This was a clear sign of dissatisfaction among the middle level and technical staff. This was due to the fact that their positions was supposed to having power and authority and since they had none they felt dissatisfied in the position they held. Management responsibility is to detect trends in the microenvironment so as to be able to identify changes and initiate programs. It is also important to estimate what impact a change will likely have on employee behaviour patterns, work processes, technological requirements, and motivation. Management must assess what employee reactions will be and craft a change program that will provide support as workers go through the process of accepting change. The program must then be implemented, disseminated throughout the organization, monitored for effectiveness, and adjusted where necessary. (1848 Words) References Appalbaum, E & Batt A, (1994); The New American Work Place, New York, IRL Press Buchman, D & McCaiman, J, (1989); High Perfomance Work System: The Digital Approach Experience, London, Routledge Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M.(1985) "Intrinsic motivation and self-determination in human behavior". New York: Plenum . Drucker, P (1954); The Practice of Management, New York. 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