8 Performance of Individuals and Groups (6/42) -- Principles of Management

8 Performance of Individuals and Groups Learning Objectives - Understand the key dimensions of individual-level performance. - Understand the key dimensions of group-level performance. - Know why individual- and group-level performance goals need to be compatible. Principles of management are concerned with organization-level outcomes such as economic, social, or environmental performance, innovation, or ability to change and adapt. However, for something to happen at the level of an organization, something must typically also be happening within the organization at the individual or team level. Obviously, if you are an entrepreneur and the only person employed by your company, the organization will accomplish what you do and reap the benefits of what you create. Normally though, organizations have more than one person, which is why we introduce to you concepts of individual and group performance. Individual-Level Performance Individual-level performance draws upon those things you have to do in your job, or in-role performance, and those things that add value but which aren’t part of your formal job description. These “extras” are called extra-role performance or organizational citizenship behaviors (OCBs). At this point, it is probably simplest to consider an in-role performance as having productivity and quality dimensions associated with certain standards that you must meet to do your job. In contrast, OCBs can be understood as individual behaviors that are beneficial to the organization and are discretionary, not directly or explicitly recognized by the formal reward system. In comparison to in-role performance, the spectrum of what constitutes extra-role performance, or OCBs, seems be great and growing. In a recent review, for example, management researchers identified 30 potentially different forms of OCB, which they conveniently collapsed into seven common themes: (1) Helping Behavior, (2) Sportsmanship, (3) Organizational Loyalty, (4) Organizational Compliance, (5) Individual Initiative, (6) Civic Virtue, and (7) Self-Development. Definitions and examples for these seven themes are summarized in Table 1.2 “A current survey of organization citizenship behaviors”. Table 1.2 A current survey of organization citizenship behaviors (Taking on the forms of altruism, interpersonal helping, courtesy, peacemaking, and cheerleading.) Altruism - Voluntary actions that help another person with a work problem. - Instructing a new hire on how to use equipment, helping a coworker catch up with a backlog of work, fetching materials that a colleague needs and cannot procure on their own. Interpersonal helping - Focuses on helping coworkers in their jobs when such help was needed. Courtesy - Subsumes all of those foresightful gestures that help someone else prevent a problem. - Touching base with people before committing to actions that will affect them, providing advance notice to someone who needs to know to schedule work. Peacemaking - Actions that help