The Outstanding Faculty Award Committee for the college of business is a committee established to reward exemplary or outstanding faculty performance. The committee needed to award exceptional performance as a means of employee motivation in the college. The committee knows drives and motivations influence employee behavior. This leads to theories that emerge due to the committee’s situation and the need to motivate employees.
Performance-Based Reward Theory
This theory rewards outstanding performances among individual employees, teams, or organizations (McShane & Glinow, 2015). The committee was aware of the need to reward exemplary performance among the nominated staff. Rewards can be given in many forms, and in the committee’s case, the reward was an award.
Learned Needs Theory
The exceptional personnel award council understood that representatives have various necessities, which can be fortified through support and social molding. A requirement for achievement was fulfilled through awarding exceptional service. The committee realized that they reinforced the idea and socially conditioned employees to expect rewards for their accomplishments by doing this.
Equity Theory
This is another theory that can explain the committee’s situation. According to this theory, the committee knew that employees needed to be rewarded according to their contribution, with the highest merit going to the most deserving candidate. This led to the ranking system establishing who the most suitable candidate was. According to this theory, the output ratio had to be equivalent to the input ratio (McShane & Glinow, 2015).
Procedural Justice Theory
This is another theory that can diagnose the committee’s situation. The theory dictates that the procedure used in picking out the most deserving candidate for the award be conducted fairly (Hanaysha & Majid, 2018). According to this theory, the awarding of the prize and the procedure for determining the winner had to be fair.
Groupthink Theory and an Analysis the Committee’s Decision-Making Process
Groupthink theory is a theory in which individual members in a given setting come to a consensus as a group (Henriques, 2020). A reason for this sort of decision-making practice is to keep harmony within the group. In the case of the award committee, the decision-making process took place using the groupthink practice. There are some advantages and disadvantages that can be seen in this sort of decision-making practice, and the advantage is that the resolutions are arrived at faster than if individual opinions were consulted before decision-making took place (Henriques, 2020).
Some disadvantages can be seen in this form of decision-making. One drawback is that it may hamper decision-making processes, with rationality being overtaken by the need for cohesion. In this form of decision-making, coercion may occur, and the need to fit in leads to poor decision-making (Henriques, 2020). This disadvantageous aspect of groupthink practices can be seen in the situation where the committee chose a winner as a result of the associate dean’s influence within the group but not through independent decision-making practices. The author talks about how almost everyone on the committee, including those who approved the decision, felt that it was a wrong choice. This example reveals the disadvantageous aspect in which groupthink can result in poor decision-making.
Motivation Theories to Analyze the Committee’s Decision
Motivational forces within an individual or organization affect the intensity or persistence in the work environment. The decision to award an outstanding staff member by the institution as a means of motivating them in the workplace.
Maslow’s Needs Hierarchy Theory
This is one of the motivational theories through which the award committee’s decision can be analyzed. According to this theory, employees’ needs and drives are categorized in a hierarchy ranging from the lowest to the highest (McShane & Glinow, 2015). Various needs such as safety and psychological needs had been fulfilled through salaries and other provisions. The award committee’s decision to bestow an award on a deserving staff member was to fulfill self-actualization needs.
Four-Drive Theory
This is another theory that explains the committee’s decision to award an outstanding employee. The four-drive approach recognizes the role of human emotions and rationality in the motivation process behind acquiring, bonding, learning, and defending within an organization (Paais & Pattiruhu, 2020). Employees have the drive to acquire, and the award would motivate them to achieve it. Employees also have a drive to bond, and winners of the prize would form a defined relationship among themselves in the workplace. The drive to comprehend would motivate them to work hard and experience the honor of having the award. The drive to defend the prize would also encourage hard work within the college. These are all factors that the committee was aware of when it decided to have an award event for outstanding staff.
Expectancy Theory
This theory states employees are more inclined to pursue goals or the objectives with the highest payoff (McShane & Glinow, 2015). This is another theory that can be used to analyze the committee’s decision. With the awareness that employees are likely to be motivated and pursue incentives, the awarding of outstanding staff meant that staff would be inclined to work harder in an effort to achieve the payoff of the award. This is a factor influencing the committee’s decision to award outstanding staff based on accomplishments.
Key Issues That Could be Changed for a Better Outcome
The committee finally appointed a winner, but changing key issues could have led to a better outcome. One of the critical issues that needed to be changed was the groupthink practice. The groupthink practice ensured no raising of conflicting opinions to ensure harmony in decision-making. This led to the decision-making process lacking independence and resulted in choosing a candidate who did not deserve the merit awarded (Abatecola, Caputo, & Christofaro, 2018). The committee should also have incorporated the use of the rational choice paradigm. This would involve using logic to identify and appoint the best candidate. Evidence-based material such as performance reports should have been integrated into the decision-making process in this identification process. This would have led to a better outcome, with the most deserving candidate winning the award (Abatecola et al., 2018). Another critical issue that the award committee should have changed to ensure a better outcome is the biased decision heuristics.
This aspect of decision-making anchored DR. H’s Impending retirement to the committee, and other information did not sway that view leading to a poor outcome in the final decision. The emotional aspect of the decision-making process should also have been changed to ensure a better result. Independent thinking based on logic would have been encouraged, and this would have led to a better final outcome of the award going to a deserving and most qualified candidate. With all things considered, the decision-making process in the case study could have been improved for a better outcome.
References
Abatecola, G., Caputo, A., & Cristofaro, M. (2018). Reviewing cognitive distortions in managerial decision making. Journal of Management Development, 37(5).
Hanaysha, J. R., & Majid, M. (2018). Employee Motivation and its Role in Improving the Productivity and Organizational Commitment at Higher Education Institutions. Journal of Entrepreneurship and Business, 6(1). Web.
Henriques, G. (2020). Groupthink and the Evolution of Reason Giving. Groupthink in Science. Springer, cham.
McShane, S. L., & Von Glinow, M. A. (2015). Organizational Behavior 7/e. (pp. 122-208) McGraw-Hill Education.
Paais, M., & Pattiruhu, J. R. (2020). Effect of Motivation, Leadership, and Organizational Culture on Satisfaction and Employee Performance. The Journal of Asian Finance, Economics, and Business, 7(8), 577–588.