Great North America Company: Globalization and Businesses - Research Paper Example

The Great North American- Joe Salatino Great North American Company is thirty-five year old telemarketing company based in Dallas. The company makes remarkable sales of packaging tape, paper clips, pens, pencils, and computers to its 60,000 clients around the country. Statistics shows that Joe’s sales employees earn as high as $60,000 a year with some getting as high as $100,000 per year. Sales persons receive commissions on sales between 5% and 12% depending on the product sold. This paper examines the importance of perceptions and attributions when adopted by employees of Great North American, and the importance of the theory of operant conditioning and its use in increasing employee’s performance. Additionally, the paper explains the role of self-efficacy in enhancing performance and hence productivity of a company. Perceptions and Attributions Any effective leader must pay attention to perception and attribution because they are important aspects of leadership. Perception is the process by which the mind organizes, identifies, and interprets sensory information to form a mental representation. All perceptions start as signals in the nervous system initiated by stimulation of sense organs. It is possible to shape perceptions through learning, memory, and expectation. To perceive something in certain way depends on the complex function of the nervous system. Employees of a company constantly receive huge sets of information that they need to disseminate and process. According to Hellriegel and Slocum, “perception is the process by which people select, organize, interpret, and respond to information around them,” (Hellriegel, Slocum, 2011, P. 71). It represents the psychological process by which people use their five senses to take information from the environment and make a meaning to their world. Different people will interpret and organize things differently in similar situations. It is important for a leader to watch the difference in perceptions keenly since some differences may arise because of perceptual errors. Such errors include stereotyping, projection, halo effect, impression management, and perceptual defense. Attributions theory explains how an average person constructs meaning of an event based on their knowledge of the environment. Attributions enable an individual to acquire a cognitive mind that can understand the causes behind different happening in life and around them. Additionally, attributions help in understanding the behavior of others finding explanations to their behavior. Attributions support perceptions. A person makes attributions in understanding why others or environment behave as they do and in this achieves a higher meaning. Attribution theory assumes that an individual behavior can have two influences namely external and internal that can lead to attribution errors in making judgments. Persons have no control over external causes of behavior. Joe employees need to understand the importance of perceptions. It is hard to achieve without perceiving. An employee will derive motivation in the belief in the values of the human resource in the organization. Great North Company needs a motivated team to remain at a competitive edge in the market. On the other hand, it is important for Joe and other leaders of this company to acquire the right perception of their employees to influence their good behavior. Statistics shows that people base their behavior of what they perceive and not necessarily on the reality. For instance, Joe and other leaders can choose not to concentrate on their employees mistakes but instead on their strengths, which can sow great seeds of innovation in the company. In addition, in understanding perception and attribution theories, Joe will sharpen his emotional intelligence (EI) with diverse approaches of handling employee’s problems. He will understand how his employees perceive things, and the differences between his employee’s perceptions and similarities. Employee’s characters will come out and Joe will know his sincere and dependable staff members. He will encourage high levels of EI that will lead to attributions and perceptions that add value to the company. Harvey, Dasborough, (2006). Operant Conditioning Theory Operant conditioning theory is most appropriate if applied to Joe’s company. The theory focuses on the process of individuals learning new behavior called operant because it has some influence on the environment. It is claimed, “Operant conditioning focuses on environment factors that influence the types of behaviors people exhibit and likelihood of exhibiting the same in future” (Snowman, McCown, and Biehler, 2011, P. 225). The theory suggests that learning occurs from consequences of behaviors and many employees work related behavior are operant behavior. Such behavior or responses respond well if followed and can weaken if ignored. Certain behavior can weaken or reinforce consequences. A change in behavior occurs as a result of consequences of a previous behavior. Operant conditioning focuses on reinforcement to yield desired results. For instance, an operant achieves the desired results of reinforcement if the consequence strengthens a preceding behavior. Therefore, when behavior is reinforced it is repeated because the individual is provided with a favorable environment to flourish it. This is opposite when behavior is punished and discouraged. Both reinforcing and punishing a behavior work towards a better workforce with desirable behavior. However, to achieve desired results in instilling new behavior, frequent follow up is needed to note any desired outcome, reinforce it and the undesired outcome, and ignore it. Joe needs to apply the theory of operant conditioning in regulating work behavior of the sales employees. Each employee in this company has special tasks to perform and this will be determined by consequences. It is possible for Joe to influence the consequences of employee’s behavior using operant conditioning theory, by encouraging what is good or ignoring the bad. This way, employees will get used to doing the right things and prioritizing their tasks. Encouraging various, values in employees make them to feel an important part of the organization influencing heavily on the daily operations of the company. Such a company will not struggle in motivating their employees. Joe will notice a remarkable increase on company’s productivity through such a motivated team. Additionally, reinforcing employee’s behavior or outcomes can take the form of rewards and incentives given to them. It is already one policy of the company to pay its sales persons commission between 5% and 12% depending on the sales item. It is possible to use operant conditioning to encourage employees to sell higher commission items that will in return generate higher income to the company. A follow up on the side of employees will go a long way in encouraging them to do better because at times, an employee may perform poorly or lack the motivation because they lack the knowledge of existence of some incentives. Monetary rewards make a motivated workforce with improved performance. It is important to create winning visual images in the mind of sales persons as the current managers of Great North American Company does. He picks a snowball at the end of each sale to ensure that sales persons see it and perceive closing a sale deal too. Self-Efficacy Self-efficacy refers to the belief in ones abilities to perform a certain task. It is similar to self-esteem but differs in that it is specific to task performance. Self-efficacy influences thoughts, feelings, and behavior of individuals and cause them to have a higher belief of self-other that what they truly are. The higher an employee’s belief in his ability to perform tasks, the higher the self-efficacy of such an employee. Such individuals will set high challenging goals and engross their mind towards achieving them. They perceive challenging tasks with great expectation to perform them other than avoiding them. Understanding workplace self-efficacy will boost performance of employees and productivity of the company. Joe needs to take caution in hiring sales persons to work in his company since employees with a low level of self-efficacy has a worse performance than persons with a low self-esteem do. A person with a low self-efficacy can perform a task below their actual ability because of the belief that they can only perform up to certain levels. They strive to avoid challenging tasks, attaining their goals with minimum effort. On the other hand, employees can rate themselves too high and give an unrealistic picture of their potentials thorough high levels of esteem. Joe may rely on such persons as potential persons who can carry special tasks in the organization only to be let down later. Joe needs to isolate such persons full of pride with less performance capabilities. The good news is that on learning the importance of self-efficacy, it is possible for Joe to encourage and instill it on the employees he employs. Joe can create an environment that can promote a healthy self-efficacy among workers and increase their involvement at work. Employees achieve this by first building their overall confidence and their ability to perform better in the tasks they excel in. Secondly, allowing employees to try new challenges by giving them an opportunity to perform tasks they have not previously tried and rewarding them after good performances. This promotes personal and professional growth. Thirdly, employees can acquire self-efficacy through mentorship. Mentorship is a form of learning where an individual takes time to watch an experienced personnel perform certain tasks and gain the expertise to perform the same. Additionally, people get to learn from others as they interact and improve on belief in self. Joe can give employees a chance to do trial and errors, which is a process of learning that will add to the confidence of the employees. Self-efficacy has some form of correlation to performance. Sales positions at Great North American Company are very vital and thus only persons with past records of performance need be selected. By Joe understanding the theory behind self-efficacy, he will focus on employees’ past performance records and test their ability to perform tasks. In the Conclusion Globalization has brought corners of the world closer, making businesses incorporate a diverse client base from all over the world. Great North America Company is no different from other companies, which attracts customers from all over the world. To step up its competitive edge, Joe has to ensure that his employees receive the right follow up to reinforce their capabilities. By incorporating operant conditioning theory, Joe will have a motivated workforce and with proper professional behavior. The company will in return experience an overall improved productivity. By leveraging his self-efficacy skills, Joe will get the right workforce who can undertake challenging assignments to completion. Additionally, it is hard to achieve without perceiving first. This call for providing a workplace environment that can brood high levels of EI that will use perceptions and attributions in making decisions. EI will guide a leader to know the type of employees he is working with and to what extent he should trust them. It is important to note that salespersons play an important role in the introduction of new products in the market and thus require support and motivation to perform their tasks well. References Harvey, P. & Dasborough, M. (2006). Consequences of employee attributions in the workplace: The role of emotional intelligence. Journal of Psichothema, 18, 145-151 Hellriegel, D. & Slocum, J. (2007). Organizational Behavior. New York: Cengage Learning Snowman, J., McCown, R., & Biehler, R. (2010). Psychology Applied to Teaching. New York: Cengage Learning. Read More